Surfing Through Life's Endings: 'Hacks,' '100 Foot Wave,' and 'The Last of Us' Finales

Oh, hey, buddy.

Do you know what we're up to at the Alabama Take?

No, what?

Is it exciting?

Well, yeah.

We have one spot for people to find out everything they want from us.

Do you know what that is?

Oh, subscribe to the newsletter.

That's it.

And we're working on a really big goal at the Alabama Take.

Well, what's that?

We're trying to get to 500 subscribers to our YouTube channel in the next two weeks.

Do you think we can do it?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

All people have to is go to your YouTube channel and subscribe.

That's all.

It's free.

It's absolutely free and painless.

Thanks, bud.

You're welcome.

You know, since I have you here today, which is rare, do you know what we're covering in this week's episode?

Yep.

You will do non spoilers on.

On Duster Hack's 100 foot wave.

And the last of us.

Whoa.

That's right.

Plus we get off on a tangent to begin on Chrisley.

Yeah, Chrisley.

Oops.

It will be fine.

Alabama tape projection.

As promised.

Here they are.

Welcome to Adam.

Welcome to Donovan.

And with the three of us combined, it's difficult to contain the kind of excitement that we have for Chris Lee being out of jail.

The world's healing.

I don't know what that means.

It's okay.

You don't have.

I'm not trying to be like Mr.

Cool.

Like, I'm not informed about pop culture.

I genuinely had no idea what people were talking about.

I had to.

So there's this guy named Todd Chrisley who very, very much acts like a gay man, but is married with many children and is obsessed with women, he claims.

Anyway, that's probably nothing says straight like that.

Yeah, it's probably neither here nor there.

But he lived in Atlanta and Nashville.

One of the two.

I think he Both, actually.

I think he.

He lived in Atlanta once and then they moved to Nashville.

And he's got wild kids and they just basically treat him like shit.

And he gives them the what for.

He doesn't let them get away with it.

He gives them the what for.

But anyway, he got.

What?

Tax.

Tax evasion, maybe something.

That's the way we got Capone.

Yeah, he went to jail and then Trump let him free.

Now you're asking Blaine, how do you know this?

When my wife was home with our baby daughter years ago, she got really roped into his reality TV show and watched like binge watched it while holding the baby.

And I would come in every afternoon and that's what would be on?

It's funny because he's such an idiot.

So anyway, if you're like massively sleep deprived and gone through a life changing event.

Yes, how.

And that he's not gay, but he also.

That he's not gay, but he also gives the funniest gay man responses to everything.

I don't know.

It's just amusing.

You know how we have completely ruined.

Say, like this podcast just now today.

Yeah.

The actual names of SEC football coaches saying Stan Mullins or whatever.

So when this happened, I was like, wait, did the governor of New Jersey go to jail?

And I didn't know because I know him to be Chris Christie.

Oh, Chris Christie.

Not Chris Lee.

But yes, my brain is a jumbled mess.

But, Adam, you don't remember me constantly tweeting about Chrisley in the heyday of Twitter?

If it was the heyday of Twitter, then Carl Welzine was probably taking up most of my bandwidth.

But into real things that we do care about.

That was TV related, granted.

So we're going to talk about how excited we are for the new Wes Anderson movie.

They're 30 minutes talking about real things we're excited about.

Shoot, shoot.

From the hip on this one.

I've got no notes.

Oh, I just like to laugh.

What's.

It's Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks in the what?

And this one's called the Poltergeist Experience.

Poltergeist.

But it's symmetrical.

You know, I'm curious to see how it goes.

The last one, I think was somewhat divisive for people.

I loved it.

I thought it was really cool and ambitious and I love to see someone.

Yeah, that one.

I really do know the title.

I love to see someone who made that many movies and has that style and could basically just churn out the same thing time after time.

Some people argue.

He does.

Yeah.

But I think if you do look at his movies, there's a progression instead of he's not.

Not that I don't love this man, but he's not Adam Sandler.

But what if they work together?

The Sandman.

I would watch that.

I'd watch the hell out of that.

Happy New guys this summer on Netflix.

Refreshing my local theater in the AMC app more than I should to see when it's going to be here.

Oh, Happy Gilmore Too is on Netflix.

Oh, okay.

Just straight to Netflix.

It's actually, since we said it just now, it's already been filmed and delivered.

No, I'm not.

That's not a joke.

Happy Gilmore too.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's happening.

Oh, my God.

Incredible.

Yeah, I'll watch it.

The headline I saw was that.

Or maybe it's not a headline, but bit I saw is that Adam Sandler has done surprisingly few sequels, though he's done a lot of movies.

He classically did the grownups duology.

Right?

That one is about it, right?

Yeah.

There's no click too, huh?

No Mr.

Deeds too.

No Punch Drunk Love, too.

He gets it all, really.

His movie.

Hey, hey.

I love him.

All those pudding cups added up to a trip to Hawaii, my friend.

I love it in Hawaii.

I love Punch Drunk Love.

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman in it.

He's amazing.

But I would put.

That's a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

Can I get the way that tangential on this podcast?

Do I.

Can I just get super tangential on this podcast?

What?

As if we're not.

What's ever stopped us before?

I took a date.

I took a date to see Punch Drunk Love.

She was expecting an Adam Sandler movie, and I knew what we were getting into.

Needless to say, I'm so glad we do not date anymore.

I had a similar experience with other theater goers when I went to see Uncut Gems.

And there were very clearly, a lot of people wanted the Sandman.

They wanted the Sandman and they got the Sandman, but not in the way they wanted.

And it was hilarious.

Like, it was just like trickling out 20 minutes in.

It's like the exodus begins.

I'm the only one laughing.

I thought the movie was hilarious.

Nobody dead.

Dead silent.

I know that I've told you all this before, but when I went the funniest this has happened to me on not.

Not an Adam Sandler Story, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I'm sitting there.

We've made it to the point where Manson walks across the driveway in that scene.

This.

Yes.

See, Donovan has never seen this movie.

It's true.

But I know what it's about.

So this is not even like when things are getting tense.

So nothing's really happened yet in the movie as far as gore or whatever.

And these people get up to leave and say as Manson strolls by.

I didn't know this was about that.

As if there was going to be a bloodless end to a Tarantino film.

Hilarious.

Yeah.

Right.

Who do you think you're.

Yeah.

95, 96.

My friends and I were watching Pulp Fiction in the theater, whatever year it came out.

And when Travolta pulls the gun over the car seat to talk to the guy in the back Seat accidentally blows his brains out and we all, the four of us are just bold over laughing and everyone in the theater is appalled at us, wanted to kick us out.

That's a funny scene.

It's hilarious.

So it's.

I love these stories of not knowing what you're getting into.

It's like the Drive by Trucker song.

The Gigi Allen came to town with the old man.

He had no idea.

I told our listeners and both the youth I'd at least watch one episode of the Max series, Duster.

My prediction is this Latoya Morgan and J.J.

abrams created series will not be an Emmy winning show.

It's trying its best.

It's not merely with just cars.

It's edit feels like a beard.

Its edit feels like it's attempting to cover up some plot issues.

Honestly, I think the biggest issue is that it's the characters are caricatures, but there's not enough fun going on.

The characters are caricatures, but there's not any goofiness to go along with it.

The rest of the series is taking itself seriously.

There's no wink.

There's no wink.

Yeah, it sounds like.

Yeah, it almost feels like kitsch, but it doesn't know that it's kitsch.

So it's the worst kind.

Yeah, it kind of is simplistic, very well shot.

There's an occasional good acting moment or two.

It's really funny that it's reminiscent of Starsky and Hutch or the Dukes of Hazzard or BJ and the Bear, those early 80s shows that were in that sort of design.

But it's just not finding its balance on how serious it should be.

Or maybe not serious it should be, how funny it could be or interesting in that way.

But it's weird.

It's a weird one.

I don't know that I'll watch all of it.

I might watch one more or something.

But Holloway swagger is interesting.

And then also by overblown.

I don't know.

It's not great.

This is what I feel like when I hear Mr.

Abrams, if you're still listening to this, after, after left you the abuse.

The abuse of last week.

But jj, you're just going to get something that like at its best, best is fine.

Like he's fine.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like it's fine.

Really good.

It looked really good.

That's about all I can really say.

The set pieces, the car looked good, the costume designs were really cool.

Just it felt like cartoon characters put in a Martin Scorsese film.

Or something.

There's not a balance here, but something that is good.

From what you guys have told me, you've seen the fourth and most recent season of the Emmy award winning Max series Hacks, which stars Gene Smart as a comedian.

And then what comes after success?

What happens when you get the success?

I think is what the fourth season's about.

From my summation.

You guys know more.

Of course.

We're.

We are in a non spoiler section.

But how do you feel about the season, especially in comparison to the previous three?

Do you like to laugh?

Donovan always comes up with the.

Do you like to vomit?

I've got one for you.

Is it about how do you find balance after you get what you want?

How do you.

What happens to you when you do find your success?

Is it a little bit about that?

I would not say that they are seeking balance necessarily.

Okay, thank you.

But it is about.

Yeah.

What.

What happens when you get the.

In some ways when you get the thing you want and you realize that you have just unlocked a whole new level of work and expectations and pressure that you thought that you were aware of.

It's the dog catching the car.

I was going to say that you stole my analogy.

Look at us.

The three of us hang out too much.

We need some original voices in here.

Anything else you want to add in the non spoiler section on full season of Hacks?

I'd agree that it's very much of a piece with the previous three seasons, which is a compliment because I feel like they've all been going at a really high level of excellence.

It manages to be consistently funny about people that are sometimes awful, like sometimes sympathetic, sometimes awful.

And sometimes you gotta go guerrilla mode.

Give me a comparison.

That's unwarranted.

But the studio versus Hacks, which.

Who has the most undeserving characters or the most.

I was gonna actually compare it to Hacks, Especially since Gene Smart pops up in that episode.

And I don't think that was the.

What's his face?

Jimmy.

I can't remember.

The guy who plays him.

Yeah.

Each other.

That makes sense.

And it's even the fact that they just wrapped season four and it didn't.

It debuted in 2021.

Is that.

Does that sound right?

2020 sounds right now.

I think it might be a Covid era release.

I think.

Yeah.

The production would have been.

But maybe HBO and Max are like dipping a toe into just making a lot of or more shows where they just rapidly produce stuff.

The days of like, how long is it before Game of Thrones comes back seems.

I mean obviously we're living that right now with a Game of Thrones related thing.

But they churn them out and they're hitting some familiar beats but doing it in an interesting way, I think.

Whereas the studio feels this is not a dig on hacks with the studios a bit more arty, like they wanted to do ambitious episodes, one shot kind of stuff, whatever.

And the people are way more extreme, I would say.

On the studio.

On the studio, yeah.

Does that check out?

Yeah, I think so.

The studio is interested in being a show about movies in the ways that Adam mentioned.

Right.

Where it's like the characters who are sometimes so extreme that they're almost like an allegory.

Not really an allegory, but Sal is not a realistic character necessarily, but a fun one.

And thank you.

That's the word.

Yes.

And in a way that like Hacks is not interested in being it like it is about comedy in many ways, but it's not interested in being a show about comedy in the same way that the studio is interested being a show about movies and the media more broadly anyway.

It does touch on a lot of generational things and was a clever show coming out of COVID era politics in a lot of ways.

And maybe even navigating like in this most recent season.

The.

I mean we're in a minefield here talking about like where does society stand in like a.

In some ways like a post woke world and like how to that pendulum just constantly swinging and them trying to make sense of that if that checks out.

So even though it is hitting some familiar.

Not sitcom Y but more sitcom Y than the studio beats, it's still ambitious, I would say.

Yeah, I think it's ambitious in almost a traditional way where it's like it wants to be ambitious in the like in a very character driven way.

And it's not formally or anything like that.

What Donovan said at the top.

Do you like to laugh?

This is like this and it's just occurring to me that we do this.

There are shows that we will watch while eating dinner some nights and shows that you have to watch after eating dinner.

They are more of your attention reason and you can't do that while chewing.

I don't know.

But your food you can miss Hacks.

Is on while we're eating.

It's just a.

It's just a good show, good program.

It's fun.

Yeah.

All right, next in our non spoiler section, Donovan, do you like to surf?

I've been told by my doctor never.

To attempt it again.

Yeah.

He showed me a picture of a whale washed up on the shores of Long island and that scared me straight.

Yeah, that's enough ocean for Donovan.

That put a nail in that coffin.

I'm done.

Now we are going to talk about a 100 foot wave, the HBO docu series about big wave surfing and several of the extreme sports participants, particularly in Nazare, Portugal, home to the biggest, maybe the deadliest waves that crash a rocky shoreline.

This series is directed by Chris Smith, who is doing some really elegant work to create stories from this group of surfers and their families.

No spoilers here, of course, but third season just ended.

I loved it.

And the question with something like this and a question from hacks to me is like, how much more can we get out of this as far as storytelling goes?

And they have answered the call every time.

To my mind.

I don't know that I ever.

I don't know that I've enjoyed anything quite as much as I enjoyed season one.

That initial let's get to know these people.

Here's them discovering this place, like a Wild west feel or astronauts, whatever.

They're the first people really trying this and figuring it out.

I love that so much.

And then when it turned more into let's look at this whole community.

And then it really zoomed out quite a bit this last season.

It's still really good.

It was never as strong as season one to me, but it's still by the wrap of season three, I thought, man, this is just a great show.

It's so much better than it has any right to be in a lot of ways.

Like in a.

I think of how many pieces of media were made in the post X Games culture or extreme sports, whatever.

And this is so the opposite of that.

It's so artfully done and human and just fantastic.

Yeah.

Smith, the director and his team have hit a stride here, I think with their filmmaking.

It's a shame it might be the final season.

It could be.

It's just rumors.

I don't want to say anything in the spoilers.

Save it.

I just know that I thought it was the best of the three and I'll tell.

Oh wow.

Yeah, I'll tell more why I think.

That I could agree with you once we get into the spoilers.

I just thought the first season was so good and so strong and holds up to a good rewatch and we'll see with the other ones.

But yeah, I'm interested to hear why you think that about season three.

I'll allude to it here.

I just admire and love how they used what they documented to shift into maybe a deeper theme.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And finally, in our non spoilers, Donovan and I have reached the end of the second season of the HBO series the Last of Us.

We've got the whole package now.

Donovan, did you like what you saw?

Yeah, I think once it hit its stride, I did.

I do think that the season is suffering a little, honestly, from being so short.

Only seven episodes, which is pretty short.

And to be that short with a couple episodes that were like, this is working out fine, but.

And then to have some.

There was some that were better than others.

And I think having seen the whole thing, this is gonna sound like I hated it, but I think having seen the whole thing too, this season feels more like a part one than season one did.

Oh, yeah.

On the other hand, it's well done.

I'm on record as liking the acting.

It looks great.

It's still in interest.

I still enjoyed watching it.

Yeah.

I don't think a television shows look this good this year, and I thought it had a misstep or two.

Yeah, definitely.

And it was because of the brevity, I think, is I'm with you on a lot of this, and we'll get into some of the specifics on why the brevity.

Heard it.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I.

I get that it's got.

It's a tough dance.

Right.

Like you're dealing with actors, schedules, you're dealing with how much money you have, you're dealing with.

And then you let it go on an episode too long.

And we're on here complaining about the exact opposite thing.

So I get it.

I think it was the writer strike too affected.

This one wasn't.

I didn't remember that being a part of it.

Maybe.

It's possible.

Okay, now let's take a break here, and then we'll get into the spoilers that we were trying to dance around.

So we'll be back in 30 seconds.

Tell us more about hacks.

All right, number one, there's nudity.

Gratuitous.

That's important.

Is that true?

Yeah, there's some.

Yeah.

See?

Plane's gonna watch it now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Donovan, I.

I wrote out some questions I thought one of us had to.

Right.

That was wise.

And I didn't do it.

There's almost no chance that we both do it.

So what did you.

We'll just.

We'll set it up.

When do you think this show is at its most successful?

Ooh, great question.

And here's why.

Really good question.

Because it's based on the conceit of the show is that there's these two women who love and respect and work in the same medium and are separated.

She could be her grandmother, really many decades in between.

And how do they both.

How are they coming together?

How are they not compatible?

How mean can Jean Smart be to her?

Yeah.

So like, when is this?

Because to me, the show has definite beats that it hits over and over again.

When is it really thriving, do you think?

Yeah, I do think that it does thrive in the space where like both, like you're.

Both of them are awful in a certain way.

Like, Jean Smart is just being mean.

Ava's being perhaps like to quote something from this last season.

Right.

I felt that way until it personally affected me.

So like you have that kind of like rough edges.

But then it does hit.

It will also hit the beat of.

There's a little bit of.

A little bit of heartwarming moment too.

Right.

With Jean Smart.

Deborah Vance acknowledges Ava in some way.

Ava pulls it out to help her.

There is a foundation.

It's a good show.

Or one of the things I like about the show is that there is a foundation of mutual respect.

Although both of these characters are also profoundly selfish people and ping pong in between that.

Is Ava as selfish?

She can be pretty selfish.

I don't think that she's as selfish as Deborah.

I could be pretty selfish.

This season seems like an exploration of that to some degree.

And I think maybe what I was getting at with the question is I tend to think of them as either being adversaries or together or Ava has her feelings hurt by like, those are like the three modes.

And to me, when they.

All they're doing is like ramming them together and then they bounce apart, that gets a little tired.

And it really works to me when even if they're being awful to each other, if they're still working together.

I feel like the season as a whole did actually a pretty good job with that by getting to the point where you don't want to see them fight anymore.

I was just over at this and then.

And then.

And then clicking to them working together again.

I thought they got some good comedy out of them not being able to work together very well.

And then we're able to actually smoothly transition them being on the same page too.

Are you on board for the arc that's happened?

Yeah, it makes sense.

Do you think it can sustain?

Because the.

Unfortunately I saw the news that it's been renewed Before I saw the final episode.

So her.

The TMZ reported death was.

Didn't really hit.

What do they do in another season?

I was wondering that too, because this is like you said earlier, this is like the dog catches the car.

Right.

It's season.

It seems like we're going back to season two.

I don't know.

Yeah.

That's what I wonder about is I don't know.

But I'm also not writing for this show and the folks that have done that seem to.

Like you said, it's not like the most groundbreaking show of all time.

And I think you can predict the arc of this season.

Right.

Cause it is expected.

But with working within a somewhat conventional framework, they've so far done a good job.

So I'll at least watch.

Maybe I won't like it as much, but I'll watch it.

I think that I could have watched more episodes, maybe even another half season of them just like negotiating the challenges of running the show.

I was surprised that they cut that off when they did.

Obviously you have to show Deborah's.

I think she had the most substantial personal growth this season that she's had in the show so far.

Right.

Both to like, Absolutely.

Professionally take a stand and to tell Ava, oh, this show wouldn't be the show without you.

Yes.

And that was a very earned, heartwarming moment.

I thought within the.

Again, you're tempering this with.

Yeah, it's a silly show, but it can also tuck at the heartstrings a little bit.

Yeah, no, it's good.

I think it does a good job too, of navigate or hand juggling a not large cast, but large.

Ish cast.

Kind of checking in on them and I'm like, oh, yeah, he's got an ulcer.

That's funny.

That's.

I was about to ask what happened this season to keep it fresh beyond giving them a late night environment.

I do.

It's so conventional, but I do the Kayla and Jimmy dynamic.

Yeah.

Which of course is he's the straight man, she's the.

But that.

That moving forward, that actually worked for me like as like tugging at the heartstrings, but more like just straight comedy.

When Kayla realizes how she likes Jim like that she likes working with Jimmy, but being the person she is, she's like, we bad bitches need to all start treating him bad.

Nobody else really changed or grew that much.

But that part, that that dynamic still makes me laugh.

The actor.

Actors playing both of them are very good together.

She's just completely unhinged.

Yes.

And he's not.

He's just constantly trying to deal with it.

It was using her dad to show his what could be called weakness.

It was good that it took all season to really enough things draw together that he really did seem pathetic at that moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As he's.

He's been bitten by a dog.

He's got a staph infection that smells like kimchi.

Blaine's face reacting to this is great.

He has no context for this whatsoever.

I gotta say another.

This just popped in my head.

Another MVP is.

I can't remember her name.

I'm sorry.

But the actor playing the assistant that she.

I was really trying to tee you up to talk about the assistant.

Like, there was.

This is.

There's a bunch of funny bits, but there was a.

She had a line where she didn't know something about astrology and she's.

Because I might be gay, but I'm no lesbian.

And just the combination of, like, funny, like, New York accent with no.

Like, what is her backstory?

She came from, like a closed Hasidic Jewish.

Saw one movie and turned her back on it all.

Yeah.

To go work in Hollywood and just attack.

Consistently funny.

Yeah.

Attacks Los Angeles with the ferocity of the east coast generally and just is get shit done left and right.

The scene where she is on the bus when she takes the call and.

It'S just map in the city.

That was good.

That was good writing.

Did you enjoy the way that the supporting cast moved through the season?

So there's been people who were maybe more present who had to take a backseat this time?

Yeah, I was fine with it, honestly.

The.

The episode with the christening was funny, but almost was like, okay, this is the check in episode on.

On dj and because they just weren't in the season very much.

And it does tee up like Deborah actually being a grandmother, but so far not a bunch has been done with that.

I was surprised at how little they used that storyline.

Yeah, me too.

She was so present in previous seasons and that tension was there.

And you kept expecting that to be part of the struggle.

How am I gonna balance this?

Whatever.

Personal.

Yeah.

Would come up with the.

But no.

They just kept it in the office.

Yeah.

But yeah.

I didn't feel like.

Like the B plots were, like, overly distracting or anything.

I think they do rely pretty heavily on Kayla and Jimmy for the B plots and.

Which is fair.

I like dancing, like, trying to get.

Trying to.

This is the second.

I guess just like the studio.

This is the second show we've watched where someone needs to do cocaine so they can go out and perform.

It was eerie how similar I watched those within a week of each other.

Because medical science needs to catch up with the realities of the world here.

Yeah.

But they're so good, right?

But it does keep making me laugh.

Like when the dance mom's, you need to boof me.

And like Jimmy's Kayla, you do it.

She's.

No, it has to be Jimmy.

I'm just like the face he makes.

That's great.

With cocaine.

With cocaine, yeah.

Yeah.

I got pretty wild.

She has to go out and perform.

Did you.

What did you think of the final episode?

Good.

Although in a way, I had just talked about this with my Blaine last week in a way that HBO shows sometimes seem to have.

The penultimate episode is the big one.

Totally.

And then the last one is.

Okay, we're setting it up.

And it doesn't really.

Because they're not ending.

Obviously.

We know it was renewed.

They're not winding things down.

So it is.

It was good.

But it also.

Just watching it.

Okay, this is setting up for now.

They're teeing up.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Right.

And even before the death air quotes around the death moment, you know that because it's renewed that they have to pull out of this tailspin.

They're not going to have adventures in Singapore for another year.

But I thought it was okay.

We don't really see her.

Deborah's never vulnerable like that doesn't spiral.

Really always bounces back.

But man, they left when they turned that episode in.

It was with the full confidence that they were getting renewed.

You don't film that ending if you.

You're calling your shots.

This is like absolutely.

Mad Men would film the award show episodes while award shows were happening in real life.

Just because I think they're arrogant pricks and I love them so much.

But yeah, when it ended, it was almost like.

Almost set up.

Like the Marvel post credits thing.

Really good way to put it.

Yeah, exactly.

It has to happen now.

Which.

That felt a little clunky.

But yeah, it definitely.

I think you've alluded to this before where it was definitely more in the service tickle your beats than it was necessarily in where it really shines.

Yeah.

And it was fine.

Right.

There were no episode of this so far has been like terrible.

But the season really.

It could have ended with nine and I would have felt fine.

That could have been the season finale.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

It is funny to think about the earlier seasons dealt with more.

There is like a life and death episode right.

Where the Guy.

Do you remember that episode that almost seems like a fever dream to say now where she, like, gets with the guy and he ends up killing himself?

He, like, jumps out a window or something.

Like, right after that, you hook up.

Yeah.

It's.

Has the show changed since then?

Could the show still do that?

Good question.

I don't know.

I would almost want.

I almost hope they, like, test something like that again.

Yeah, it just.

It's gotten so much more.

And I guess Ava is dealing with fairly serious loneliness at times.

And I don't know, it just seemed more.

A little glossier this season.

I am interested if they're gonna steer into that because we do have a good moment.

It is just setting it up.

But where Deborah is being mean to Ava, but she's also not necessarily wrong.

She's not wrong.

And so if we're.

I think what I think would be interesting.

Right.

Is okay if we're going back to some of the setup for season two or three.

If we.

If they continue to explore Ava realizing that, like, I like and respect this person, but in some ways I'm.

This isn't good for me.

I'm being restricted.

Yeah.

And she's just let herself.

She had way more agency this time.

But it's a great exploration of mentor mentee dynamics of at what point are you being taken advantage of?

And then when is it a good balance?

And then when are you taking advantage of them?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So if they.

If.

We'll see if.

But if they go into that, I think that could be a really interesting direction.

And I think that the reason I'm not.

I would rate the finale a little higher if I felt like they had foregrounded that a little better instead of just, okay, we got to go through the beats so that we get you.

Basically, if it wasn't.

That felt like it was more of a servant to plot than the plot.

Being a servant to the relationship between the two in that last episode, not in the series as a whole.

Yeah, we'll see.

Season 5.

I assume it'll be in about a year.

As long as Los Angeles doesn't catch on fire again.

Because they did have to delay a little for this season with the fires.

I think it was the second or third episode they dedicate to the first responders.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

They had to stop shooting.

I remember that from the.

Yeah.

Use fire safety.

Los Angeles.

I'd like to watch this season.

And I don't want your city to.

Burn down, because if they would rake their leaves.

Problem solving.

How many times in the south, have you, like, been driving by in the autumn, fall or whatever, like latest fall, when the leaves finally find out, fall down and see someone, like, flick like a match or something in a leaf pile and then walk inside?

Because I've seen it at least once as I'm like, driving by.

Holy shit.

He's gonna burn down the trailer park.

Wasn't that what you said caused the fires?

Yeah, you just gotta rake the leaves.

Yeah.

We're Gonna continue with HBO related things.

Not Max per se, but HBO 100 foot wave with some spoilers this go around.

Adam, do you have favorite surfers for the show?

The participants, favorite, like, characters?

Yeah.

It's kind of weird to say characters, but yeah.

I didn't know if you were talking specifically about their surface performance or their on screen performance, either one.

I don't know enough about surfing to really have an opinion about the first one.

It's just amazing.

It's all amazing.

Although you do glean a little bit from watching the show.

Who's flashy and who's more workman.

Like, about all of it.

We both said Cotty, right, that it's so hard not to like him.

Cotty's attitude is usually a little bit more aspirational, whereas Garrett says, oh, that's an extreme version of something I might do in my more selfish moments.

They really let him be a dick this season.

I don't know.

I like them all.

There's no.

Nobody on screen is somebody that I'm like, let's move along.

There aren't any.

You wish they'd dedicate less screen time.

I think they struck a really good balance with all of it.

I could tell, like, some of them seem more polished than others.

Like, I feel like Kai, Lenny is a very polished interview compared to the others.

And you can tell because they give him more sound bites.

And I.

Even though I have never physically even touched a surfboard when he's out there, like, doing his spins and stuff, I'm gonna keep it old school, but I have no right to have that opinion.

He's an incredibly impressive athlete.

What about Tony?

Tony.

He had a tough arc this season too, didn't he?

He got a lot of screen time last season and I thought it hindered the season.

You thought it hindered season two that he got so much?

Yeah, it was almost like a.

They're looking for a continued storyline setting.

Even if you don't follow him into his career, you're giving him a launch pad that just didn't really pan out, at least in in the world of the story.

No, he didn't.

What sort of story do you take from CJ and his gravitation to.

And yet utter fear of the big waves.

He's a tough guy, too, because at times he seems like the most grounded.

Yeah.

The one willing to go.

That was horrifying.

I don't want to go out there again and, like, willing to admit that someone like Justine seems very grounded in her approach, even though she's.

They're all like the governor on their sanity, if not completely blown, at least a little off to be able to do this in the first place.

But C.J.

kind of.

He's frustrating in.

Again, you hate to talk about human beings because this is a documentary, but in what is on screen, he retreats into talking his way out of performing that.

It's okay to just say, I don't want to do that anymore.

You don't necessarily have to justify it this way and that.

And I think that I maybe can be more sympathetic to someone like Garrett being like, let's just go do it.

Let's do it.

I usually have more of that attitude.

Than, yeah, it's interesting.

They let him end the season.

End, end.

He gets final say.

He does.

We were talking earlier.

Did you know something more definite about this being a final season?

No, it just.

It seemed like the way that they were telling the story, that they felt like the tale of Nazare or this generation of it had run its course.

Yeah.

That they told the rise and all of that.

Maybe I'm partial to season one because beginnings are fun.

And when things have hit critical mass and then stay there for long enough that they either establish into old hat or peter out.

That's a bummer, right?

It's fun when things are on the way up.

As they zipped around the world this time, which was awesome and cool to see.

And I.

I mean, that Cortez bank stuff was stunning.

But as they moved to Italy in the last episode and it just seemed like a lot of things were closing rather than starting.

They were starting in other ways, other chapters of life, whatever.

But this one was coming to a close.

And as the.

It almost had a bit of a panic as the episode played out.

And it felt more and more like a series end because I didn't even know it was the last episode of the season.

And then for.

To get the hint that, oh, this may be it, and to.

You're happy for these people who are starting families and having positive life changes, but at the same time, it's the documentary would change substantially in a way that, like, is true to life.

Right?

Like, they're getting older and.

No, that's.

It's just a little too real.

Each time a pair tows out into the water, there's this sense that something transcendent or horrible is going to happen.

And then you get the episode which gives you this true and sad dichotomy of life where Marcio dies in Nazare in a surfer.

And in the very same episode, the guy who was towing him, Lucas Chumbo, is holding his own baby, his small child.

Think I assumed that what you were getting at and saying that season three was your favorite because of the themes that it hit.

It really did such a beautiful job of showing that circle, the endings and beginnings of things and the importance of family and in real life stuff.

And it was really beautiful.

I think it's C.J.

who says the waves come in and they come out and they're always there.

And ghouls.

And the show didn't.

And it shouldn't have.

After someone dies at the place you've been making a documentary about, do they surf Nazare again after that on screen?

Yeah, they do.

Asking, do they.

Did they show them surfing again?

Yeah, they do.

But it never.

There's no Big Wave invitational that comes or like an epic day or any.

The big.

The shift.

The focus shifts to Cortez and to into Hawaii.

And yeah, it almost.

I know that they are there and they're surfing, but it.

Yeah, it was just such a subtle but powerful way to mark like the bubble burst in some way.

I'm impressed by how clear of a story they got out of the first and third season.

It.

I hear there's.

They capture the community that centers around surfing, but yeah, there is a little competition, but it's grounded in real love and respect and appreciation for one another.

It's really a testament against the ME culture.

We're used to this culture of stepping on others to get ahead.

This subcultures mirrors an ideal, kind of even an ideal working class where they're each eager to help one another.

You have to have someone as skilled as you to go do the thing because you have to have somebody to drive and you really have to have a safety guy out there.

And it's.

It is a team sport in a very odd way.

Yeah.

That takes me to something that the show never does present.

Not once do they explain how these men and women are funded.

They're oft covered in sponsorship gear and they're flying, but yet they're Flying from Ireland to Portugal to Maui to Cortez bank off the coast, California, I would assume.

I wondered about this too, specifically in season three.

Less about the travel and more because I assume they're like, if you're a big wave surfer and every big wave surfer is going to this spot, then Red Bull is going to foot the bill for you to travel there.

Yeah.

Because it's worth it to them to have your photo made and video.

Whatever.

Did you notice when they're going to Morocco and they get stuck on the McDonald's drive thru thing and the people come out and help them?

Yeah.

Do you see what they did?

They gave them all Red Bulls.

Like all the workers who would come to help them were walking away with armfuls of Red Bull.

Oh, I noticed they were getting something.

Yeah.

And they probably got some T shirts or something.

So in some ways they are definitely brand peddlers.

But you do wonder, I guess now they've been part of a very successful or a fairly successful HBO program.

There's got to be some money in that.

But I would enjoy thinking, oh, I really need to.

Recenter I'm going to go to Italy and probably keep my property.

Beachfront property in Hawaii.

No, hate.

I'm not.

There's no judgment here at all.

It looks amazing.

But you do.

As someone who doesn't know about the financials of.

Like you said.

Yeah.

And this is the first season.

I think they called it a job about three or four times.

Chumbo did that a lot, didn't he?

Yeah.

He said a tearful goodbye to his family.

It's work and that to me.

Talking about beginnings and endings, he's in the dead center of the moments where Garrett may have left his family behind.

The son that comes back, the older son in Italy.

But you're also seeing Garrett slow down.

And so when Trumbo says, I'm going to work, it's we know.

And he knows that this is not reality forever.

You know that you do age out of the job that he has.

And so much like smart professional athletes in the NFL or wherever, get as much money as you can while you can.

Another clear split the series did with the season is the central motif you mentioned of Garrett's drive.

Is it going to push him to be the greatest ever without any argument, or is it just going to injure him beyond repair?

You wondered that until you get into that fifth episode where he's in Italy and it seems as though he's found a happy medium.

It seemed that, but it's still Game to go with the crew when the call comes.

Yeah.

And he's.

Morocco.

Yeah, to Morocco.

And when he says, I'm happy just to drive, I love driving.

If he had said that in previous seasons, I wouldn't have believed him.

But now I feel like he even says, I just like being part of the crew.

Yeah.

It seemed to be that's like a thing that you say when you're injured and you really want to be out there.

But it seemed more genuine from him this time.

And I.

Again, Donovan sitting here listening to us.

And Donovan, you've never seen the show at all.

No, I have not.

You just do not expect when you start a program about surfing massive waves, that you're gonna get this exploration of mortality and fatherhood and life.

All of this stuff.

It's so good.

That's good documentaries.

Right?

They're about one thing and everything at the same time.

A lot of good documentaries.

I think I like that.

Yeah.

This one maybe does the best of any.

There.

The episode the Eddie was back in Hawaii where they were doing the competition called the Eddie.

You just had to swell with pride for Luke Shepperson, who.

Who won.

But this guy won the surfing competition while doing double duty as a lifeguard that day of just a lot of courage and unimaginable energy.

He was basically running concessions and then checking into the game to score some threes.

Yeah.

And winning the mvp.

Just true working class behavior.

Because why did he do it that way?

He couldn't take off work despite being in.

In the tournament itself that he was safeguarding.

By far the busiest day.

Right.

Of the decade on that beach.

Right.

Like there was all hands on deck, you can surf in your break kind of thing.

He really is what we sometimes try to stand for.

To top it off, he had this strong humility the entire time.

He almost was interviewed more as a worker than the actual winner of the tournament.

A little ways into that, my sniffer went off.

I'm like, I think this guy stands a pretty good shot.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, it was uncertain because we just never heard of him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's an interesting perspective.

Even if he hadn't been competing, it's an interesting perspective to have the local who really knows the scene and can explain the nuance of what's going on.

Yeah.

And then not to disregard.

What was it, 1978.

Eddie himself, his stolen disappearance.

He just disappears.

It was such a spiritual tale.

Yeah.

The stories about the turtle showing up several times.

He is those turtles.

Yeah.

And then again, they.

Smith and his crew Cultivate such good story.

They double down on Garrett's frustration two episodes in a row.

And it sets up a finale.

Garrett's drive kind of turned him cruel.

And that's a question that's addressed.

And he mentions himself.

Yeah.

That was because he's the hero.

Right.

Like, we're rooting for him all along.

And there are things, moments where he's not great.

Or if you read between the lines, he's not great.

How he meets his wife, not great.

They're pretty upfront about it, but they also glaze over it pretty quickly.

But then to see him be cruel to Cotty, of all people.

And that.

That scene where Kati's.

I guess we're gonna go.

It has to kind of.

I felt like I was there experiencing the awkwardness of when they come back to land and it's just uncomfortable.

And this guy is at your house, and he's flown halfway across the world to be here, and you're being a dick.

I think anybody with ambition, like the Sabin quote of high achievers, don't like lazy people or underachievers or whatever.

That was the.

Even though Cotti is none of those things, he's excellent and dedicated.

That was like the rub right there.

Right.

That and that he felt like he was on the clock.

Like you.

How many more great waves are you gonna get?

Yeah.

And this guy ruined it for me.

That's a very human question of what do you do as you age?

But you still are very much alive with desires and drive, and you haven't given up on personal goals.

And this show doesn't have answers to these questions, but it.

Maybe it's a non sequitur here, but is Michelle McNamara a saint or what?

Their whole life is so hard for me to comprehend.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the.

It reminds me a bit of musician families.

One partner is left to hold down the fort while the other is able to pursue their dream.

And even if it's putting food on the table and allowing for a certain lifestyle, that doesn't really make up for the lack of time.

And you have to zoom out and say this whole thing is.

You would hope people could say they zoom out and say this whole pursuit is worth it because this is a great life.

But there are some very hard moments.

I do love Garrett's relationship with Earth or nature.

Feel like it's worth watching and worth doing and learning from.

And it was such a diametrical shot to see him carrying one of his small children in the autumn mountains of Italy.

You can see his Breath.

Yeah.

You'd never seen that from him.

Landlocked.

Yeah.

Usually he's in Hawaii with no shirt and a pair of shorts or even in Nazare and in water with a surf suit on.

And then to have it end with CJ's speech I thought was good.

Where he says we get to choose which wave we ride and where we put our attention.

I thought that was a profound piece of television to do that with.

Justine warrants a mention here.

Her becoming a mother and the way that they doled out.

You knew all season that they.

This was something that she wanted to do.

Would there be time?

How does a woman who's been shown to get after it just as hard and as well as the men.

But she even says in the episode it's there's some unfairness to the guys having families, but they get to still ride the whole time and pursue their career.

And she has to pause for what she says in very athlete terms.

Oh, I have to pause the whole season.

She's exchanging this time.

But when you're thinking about the limited time that Garrett has, you're like, yeah, this is one year away for her.

But then to be holding the child at the end as all of these things are happening in CJ's giving his monologue I thought was great.

And she.

Her and her partner are so likable.

Yeah.

See my quality humans and their.

The early season relationship with Tony was.

That's so tough.

I know that's zooming back, but.

And it never really got any resolution.

Much like life.

Yeah, that's it.

All right.

We will say goodbye to another HBO hit show, the Last of Us.

We should be getting money from HBO for this.

We should be paid.

Sponsored.

Sponsored by hbo.

We're not.

I should at least get my subscription for free.

Yeah, exactly.

All this free advertising I'm giving them.

Because we are going to talk about the Last of us with some in depth thoughts.

Bound to spoil.

I think my issue with the was that the finale didn't give us a period at the end of the sentence.

I think it didn't land with the.

With a period.

It was a lingering.

It was an ellipses.

I think that's what I meant probably when I said this felt very much like a part one.

Yeah, it did.

Not that like I expect you to not have a cliffhanger.

But it felt like if I had one more episode maybe, I don't know, maybe if I had one more episode differently, I don't know.

The show looked stunning.

The tension was high.

Every Episode was great, I thought, but dragging the ending across multiple seasons feels like a disservice.

And I think maybe this track had something to do with it, but it needed more of a resolution.

I thought that contrasting it to season one.

Right.

Where obviously it ends with Joel and Ellie in the car.

I think it's in the car.

He's lied.

He's lied to her, and the next thing is open.

That was good.

Right.

Because it's both.

Or they were on horse.

Right.

It puts.

I don't know.

I'm feeling whatever it was.

I'm thinking Carr for some reason, but I couldn't swear to that.

But he had rescued her.

You're talking about.

He'd rescued her.

And to their next thing, wherever they're gonna go.

And it.

Like you said, it's a period, but at the same time, it is open to questions that you can't help but think of.

And I think that.

I think it's possible to do that.

And they chose not to do it.

And like you said, maybe there are external factors.

I do hate a cliffhanger ending like that, where I'm like, I'm not gonna get to see this for two years.

So if it's this big, does that make sense?

No, it does.

It needed to stop and point, and instead it gave viewers a pretty captivating reset that we'll see nothing of for two or three years.

Right.

And especially if.

I don't know.

I shouldn't complain about it because I did the episode, but I was kind of like.

I was.

Especially if this is gonna recontextualize this whole season.

Yes.

Honestly, in two years.

I am not gonna.

I can't.

I don't have time to just go rewatch everything before the new season.

Like, recap videos can only do so much.

There's a fear for me that I'm like.

That I'm not gonna remember because we get hints throughout the Seattle episodes and definitely in this one that there's something else going on that we're not really familiar with.

And I'm afraid that I'm gonna forget all the pertinent details come season three.

I'm not gonna know what's going on.

I know the tease for next season is that we're gonna get these three days from Abby's point of view.

That's my understanding.

And if she shot Ellie.

And I don't know if we'll ever get much more about Jesse's quick and sad death.

Poor Jesse.

That was sudden and striking.

There's a lot of after depending on what they do next season, there's a lot of aftermath that I would want to see.

Went right into it.

Yeah.

When Jesse and Ellie were watching the wolves deal with the one scar and they were having to hide and he was holding her back from getting involved, it really did feel like right then he, oh, he's gonna die, isn't he?

And he was talking about being a dad just before that.

Oh, yeah, he's gonna die.

Absolutely.

But you knew it.

He was too good for this world.

The finale did what many finales do, it drug its feet.

But to the last 15 minutes where it didn't have time on purpose to finish what it started.

Right.

I expected Ellie wasn't going to get Abby in this season, but I don't know.

A more resolution, more resolute action could have ended it.

I'll actually flip that.

And I think that I appreciated that it didn't drag its feet as much as it could have.

The runtime for this episode was a little shorter than even some of the mid mid season episodes.

I was like, okay, good.

Because you, you can really.

They could have really dragged it out, especially for a finale.

Right.

They could have gone with a bigger run time or a season finale, bigger runtime, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah.

I have heard critique that it almost felt like they just entered a portal and then they were in Seattle with Elliot and Dina that they could have used a.

I mean, the character building there.

They showed me enough of them journeying that I'm like, that's great.

And they had already set up their relationship and they didn't give us like nothing on when they're traveling.

Like, we do still see their dynamic.

Yeah, that's actually speaking of their dynamic, that's when I knew Jesse was gonna die when he's.

I'm cool with you and Dina.

I just want.

You're dead.

You are dead.

Is that cool?

Yeah, it was.

It was funny that we.

I failed to mention this last week, but I guess it was because we were discussing the penultimate episode a lot more than any others.

But the addition of Jeffrey Wright to this season is good stuff.

As soon as he was on screen, I felt the answer to my question of can a show be as good without Pedro Pascal?

And yeah, he's good.

Jeffrey Wright's got gravitas, so, yeah, he could.

Yeah, he does.

Pair him with Caitlyn Deaver and this could be a good third season coming up.

Yeah, it's definitely seems to be teed up to give us something that we've not seen.

Before which so many times we complain that we just see the same old thing.

But the teases they've given us of the principal characters, I think speak well, like, it's probably gonna be good.

Yeah.

Did you pick up on anything with Abby?

Video game players are.

They could butcher us if they wanted.

But there's something important about her to the Isaac character.

Is it because she might have some of the knowledge of that her father had as the son?

I don't know.

And this is a video game players.

Turn it off right now.

Just don't listen for a second.

I was going to.

I was like.

When they were like, she's not here.

He's.

He really needs her.

And he gives the explanation that she's the future.

She's being groomed for leadership, essentially, and she's.

Who's going to take over if he gets killed.

There was a second where I was like, is she immune?

Oh, but.

And I wondered if there would be like a.

I don't think that this is where it's going, but I kind of wonder, like, if she was immune and they.

The story then would basically be like her father chose Ellie instead of his own daughter.

I don't.

I don't.

I don't think that's what's happening.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

But I just.

I just had a moment where I'm.

It was more like, well, that might be interesting if they had done that.

I don't think that's the case.

Yeah, I do that.

We're now living in the world of the show where there.

There are wolves and scars and then there's the Ellie Tommy form, formally Jesse gang.

Yeah.

We're caught in the middle of it all, and there's just no forgiveness from either side.

Yeah.

It seems pretty vicious out there in Seattle and mysterious and mysterious.

That part didn't feel like a slot to me because you're still in their point of view and you don't know why they don't just say, you guys have this side of the street.

I'll have this side of the street, and leave us alone.

Right.

You don't really know what's going on.

Yeah.

You don't.

Beyond the broad strokes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How the scar people, the seraph bots, have turned into such Luddites or adopted that sort of lifestyle.

Yeah.

Who's their spiritual leader who seems to be dead.

Yeah.

You know, two, three, four.

Confusing.

Yeah.

So what'd you think of the season overall?

Yes.

Big thumbs up.

I think that there is an element of Discovery, almost like what Adam was talking about with Hundred Foot Wave.

There's a.

There's almost an element of Discovery and finding out, like, the world in the first season, that's exciting.

And no second season can ever live up to that.

And so you have to be just understand that, like, you're not gonna get the same way you felt about the first season.

And I do think that it, like this season, the episodes were more connected, if that makes sense.

Not that the.

The first season stood alone, but there's ones that don't work as standalones at all.

And having all already laid out the ground rules, it's still good.

It did a good job of showing us the world.

And there are hints of some deeper threats coming.

Right.

They're smarter, seemingly smarter.

And I do.

And I think that, like, it wasn't paced perfectly for me.

I'm having this really weird thing happening where it's only seven episodes and I watched it every week.

Like, I watched it pretty much every Monday after it came out.

Yeah.

And I'm still feeling like I took a gap between, like, episode three and four and didn't watch it, which didn't happen.

But I.

Thinking back on it, I don't know if that's a function of it possibly needing another episode.

I do think that the penultimate episode was the emotional culmination of the season, and I think that worked very well.

And I think they pulled that off extremely well.

And it did contextualize this episode too.

Right.

Because off you see Ellie's feelings, but also would Joel even wanted this for her.

Right.

You know, she's.

Yeah.

I thought that was very good.

And they got another feat ahead of them, which they're gonna try to do, which is they're gonna make us sympathetic to Abby now.

Oh, yeah.

And I assume we will be.

She's a very good actor.

Yeah.

And you're gonna, I'm guessing, even be on the side of Jeffrey Wright's Isaac and say, I'm for this guy.

I want.

I, I.

Not that they wouldn't pull for him versus Seraphites, but would we pull for him against Ellie?

Probably not.

But I assume we'll be more sympathetic to Abby.

And even at the, like, at this point in the game, so to speak, Abby has done nothing that Ellie hasn't done or tried to do for very similar motives.

That's exactly right.

And that's what they're gonna play with next season.

I assume that they're gonna be doppelgangers.

You know, they're kind of mirror images of each ways.

How much of that.

Yeah.

Immune.

Yeah, I doubt it.

That was just.

That was like a stray thought that I was like, whoa, that would be cool.

I'd like to see that.

But I strongly doubt that, as video game players are probably gonna be like, please open the Wikipedia page and look at it.

And I'm tempted almost.

But I'm also not tempted.

I think I'm not going to because I liked not knowing Joel was gonna die this season, which, if anyone played, I didn't know that.

And I think that's good for me.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

I imagine it shocked you.

Yeah, it did.

When you're kind of like, man, it's episode two, and he's.

He's the co star.

Yeah, he's a bigger star than Bella Ramsey is.

He's the biggest star of just about anyone in there.

All right, that's the end of our episode here.

Hope you enjoy it.

Head to the Alabama take, and if you want to hear from us without being chained to social media, subscribe to our free newsletter.

We'll tell you what's new with anything on the site and even tell you a silly yarn.

If you're really lucky, you get an Andy Griffiths recap.

There you go.

And again, help us reach our goal of 500 subscribers on YouTube.

It's growing.

That's our mission for the next couple weeks.

For Adam, for Donovan.

I'm Blaine, and we hope you don't get capsized in the pouring rain near Scar Island.

It might get ugly.

Talk to you all next week.