The IRA,Vampires, and Hope in 'Say Nothing,' 'What We Do In The Shadows,' and 'Somebody, Somewhere'

A aloe vera tape projection.

My body is a wisp.

Joining me here, as promised, is Donovan.

No, Adam.

Adam's body is a wisp of smoke this week.

Adam's been very busy, so no Adam joining us.

He'll be back next week.

I should.

I should think we'll figure things out with Thanksgiving and on the horizon.

By the way, happy Thanksgiving to everybody who's listening before Thanksgiving.

If you're.

If you've got us pulled up on Thanksgiving morning and you've got the Macy's Day Parade on mute, you're living life.

Are you a fan of the Macy's?

So, Blaine, I am a fan of the Macy's Day Parade, but I'm not going to watch it.

Continue this thread because my town of.

Manchester, Connecticut does a Manchester road race every year that is televised on the local Fox affiliate.

And people come from all over the nation to run this race because if you.

Most people do not take it that seriously.

But if you win it in men's and women's, and I think there's an overall category, there's like a substantial cash prize that you can win.

So I'm locked in.

How many songs from Wicked are going to be in the Macy's this year?

Is it 500?

Are there 500 songs there?

At least 3,000.

So, my daughter.

This is all TV related, by the way, so we're not out of pocket yet.

Actually, we are.

I know y'all hate banter.

I get it.

But I do want to touch on a couple of things.

Macy's, Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But yes, they lip sync everything and it just drives you crazy.

The only one who can get away with lip syncing anything on national TV is a Sesame Street Muppet.

Well, yeah, exactly.

I don't want anyone else holding that bullshit.

Elmo gets the pass, not you.

I agree.

Also TV related.

In the tune of the song you're singing here is yesterday for the first time Now, I was asleep.

I got to sleep in yesterday, but my wife and daughter watch the wizard of Oz.

Her first viewing.

I was just expecting her to be startled or frightened.

And she was like, I loved it.

No, flying.

The flying monkeys scared me.

I used to crawl under the bed, right?

Literally terrifying.

Yeah.

No, she loved it.

I asked her, I said, what about the flying monkeys?

What'd you think?

And she shrugged me off and did a dance or whatever it is she does these days.

She's made of sterner stuff than you and I, apparently.

Right, Last thing, last thing.

Housekeeping thing.

And I swear we'll get started if you are listening to us because you found us from the Alabama take on Blue sky or taking it down pod on Blue Sky.

Thanks.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for being friendly to us and saying hello.

We've we've got a lot of new people there keeping in touch with what we're doing.

And if you are new, we do non spoiler talk.

Here it is.

We do not spoil anything.

We talk about whatever it is.

We're going to be talking about the shows, the movies, no spoilers.

And then, then we'll take a little, little 30 second break and then we'll talk about everything in detail.

There's a new FX Hulu show which premiered on the channel and then the streamer on November 14th.

And I swear it was commissioned by Adam Morrow.

Such a, such a sad time that he won't be here.

And this is, I was preparing for this thinking like we're really, I'm really suffering from the lack of Adam here.

I need him.

It's the series say Nothing.

Rave reviews for the series from every critic's headline that I've seen.

Based off a 2018 book authored by Patrick Radon Keefe and focuses on the Troubles in Northern Ireland and then throughout Ireland.

Have you read that book?

I have not.

Me either.

It sounds good.

I think this is the other thing where I'm missing Adam is because watching so listeners, we watch this show spoiler and you know, they kind of keep telling you what year it is, what month it.

You know, they kind of keep you in with the chronology.

And if Adam was here, he could tell you exactly what Bono was doing on any given day.

He'd just be like, Bono was singing that day.

Yeah.

The series is from Josh Zootmer, I think, who's really known for being a writer on the 2014 reboot of RoboCop.

Which I have not seen.

I'd never really heard of any of his.

It makes you wonder how you go from being a writer on 2014's reboot of RoboCop to, hey, here's your own show.

Well, 10 years did pass in the interim.

Maybe he killed someone.

Say Nothing's based on a true story about the 70s, 80s and 90s war conflict between the IRA and in Ireland and the British and loyalists in Northern Ireland.

For those who know almost nothing about the Troubles and by those quotation marks, that's me.

This story thrust you into the middle of it.

It does manage to give you a little bit of context, but you're going to be on your heels.

Did you get that Sense.

You know more about this.

I know more of the broad outlines, I think, not a lot of the specifics.

Whereas watching.

And folks, this is not the kind of show, like, I looked up some people because I was like, who is that?

Again, this is.

You do not have to watch this show with your phone in your hand.

It does a good job of explaining who everyone is.

This is more of like after the show, you can.

You can follow it up on your own.

It drops you right in the middle of it.

It really does.

I was so unaware of all this when I was a kid.

And it was happening not right under my nose, but I was alive during a large part of this.

Yeah.

When I was.

I was 8 or 9.

So this would have been 1997 or 1998.

My family went to London because we were.

My dad was stationed over in Germany, so my parents took us to England and London for a week.

And like, you couldn't throw your trash away anywhere because there were no trash cans because the IRA would plant bombs on them.

So they're just like, weren't public trash cans still.

Wow.

And this was.

Right.

I mean, and this would be like thinking back to Good Friday accords with what, 98.

So this would have been right around the end.

Ireland was never portrayed to us as in school, especially as some sort of war torn, problematic country ever.

That I recall.

Interesting.

Well, from what I'm guessing complicated reasons, and from what I know now.

So we got the Protestants, they are mostly loyalists to Great Britain.

And they wanted to stay with the uk.

They wanted Northern Ireland to stay with the UK at the very least.

Right.

Northern Ireland.

Why is that?

Because that part, which I think is called Ulster, that part of Ireland is settled by English colonizers who were Protestants, but they've been there for several hundred years.

They just feel like they're British, they're Protestant loyalists.

They don't want to be overwhelmed by a Catholic majority.

They don't feel like they're not Catholic.

They're loyal to.

They're Protestant.

And they've been.

And this has been a part of their identity for hundreds of years.

And then there's also the whole, you know, the colonizer colonize thing, where these are people that came over from the England and Wales and we're talking about, you know, they're colonizing.

Like, you know, Edmund Spencer, right.

Who wrote the Faerie Queen.

Yes.

So that's a wave of colonization.

He's an official right for Queen Elizabeth over in Ireland, as the English are colonizing.

So, you know, this is happening in the 15, whatever, it's happened before.

Cromwell gets over there and does a lot of damage.

There's a real.

We don't see ourselves as you, the Catholic Irish.

We are Protestant loyalists and we're afraid of what will happen if you become the majority.

What do they think would happen?

Like, what's the first off?

You'd have to live under papists.

They just basically thought that, I think, and I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but what happened to the Catholic community in Northern Ireland would happen to them.

You know, they wouldn't have a say in the government.

Right.

They'd be overwhelmed by a majority.

I mean, it's kind of like, I don't want to like paint with too broad a brush, but there's some other situations in the world where peace cannot be had because folks are afraid of joining with the majority and they'll lose rights, freedom, whatever.

And of course they kind of flip around and do the same thing.

And this is tarring with an overly broad brush, but they kind of do the same thing to the Catholic folks who stay in Northern Ireland or, well, are living in order.

You know, they stayed there because they lived there.

Yeah.

The Catholics of Northern Ireland want to become a part of the rest of the island of Ireland.

All of that is to say that it isn't quite a religious war either.

It's a.

And it is.

It isn't even necessarily a full blown war.

Right.

You know, if you call it.

War is a contested term.

Right.

So if you call something a war, there's an idea that it dignifies it.

Right.

So like maybe we'll call this an insurgency, a rebellion, Terrorism versus war.

In the show, the IRA members themselves call it a war.

War ennobles.

You know, it's something you can do and still be good.

You can be just.

There's no just insurgency, there's no just terrorism, but there is just war theory.

Right.

And yeah, apparently like a lot of people put.

Put this as more of like an ethno nationalist conflict as opposed to a straight up religious conflict.

So the religious part are identity markers, but it's not.

We're not talking the wars of religion like in the Europe in the 1630s.

The show is saying nothing.

What do you think is the.

Is the audience here people who listen.

To too much YouTube?

The Morrow House.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Anyone who is at all interested in this period in Irish history.

So I guess the city of Boston is one of their targets.

Yeah.

Is it for the sort who likes historical fiction Is there room here for people who lack political intrigue, too?

Yeah, and I think just because, like, yeah, it's historical fiction, but, you know, like, a lot of these people are really still alive.

And a lot of this happened within.

Maybe not by Gen Z folks listening to this, but within our lifetimes.

Right?

Yeah.

If you're interested in the political side of things, if you're interested in Irish history at all, if you relate, if you're interested in Irish art or literature, and if you just like a good.

Story, well told, you liked a lot, right?

I thought it was pretty good.

Yeah.

I'd give it a couple thumbs up.

Three episodes in is Donovan, and there are nine total.

Yes, I can.

I see this show, though, being disregarded with audiences, even though critics love it.

And I bet it pops up on a lot of best of list, even toward the end.

First of all, it was dropped all at once by Hulu.

Yeah, I think that that almost feels like an old Netflix technique at this point, doesn't it?

Where it just feels like a disgrace for what a show can do like this.

Can you imagine Shogun or Fargo, last Fargo season, all at once?

I don't think we would have been talking about him like we did.

No, I don't think so either.

Honestly.

Not something we haven't said before, but not going week by.

I prefer the week by week for a show because it helps me digest it better.

Whereas I watched 3 and I'm already a little bit muddy on what happened in episode two and three.

You know, they just all kind of start to blur together.

It's true.

It's just a bad policy.

Yeah, it is.

And this one especially feels like a.

They're sweeping it under the rug, though not on purpose.

I thought the show was quite good.

Maybe.

Maybe other people can watch TV more dispassionately than I can.

But I don't know if I would necessarily say, like, I need to binge this.

You know, it's heavy stuff.

There's bad stuff.

There's bad stuff that happens and it's real, you know, it's not made up.

Well, I mean, obviously it's made up, but it's based on real stuff.

I have my qualms so far episodes under my belt, but I have to sit on them for the next section.

I will say that it's not as enthralling as I'd hoped, though.

I've only got two episodes under my belt, but I'll explain why.

And I think I've got a reasonable case, though.

You know, they can easily get turned around.

I'm curious to hear what that is, because I actually did find it well paced and engaging.

All right.

We also want to talk about two shows that are going to be done and gone by the end of the year.

It's Somebody Somewhere on HBO and Max and what We do in the Shadows, which is also on.

It's presented by fx, but it's on Hulu as well.

Both are billed as comedies, I suppose.

And what we do in the shadows is 100% that somebody somewhere leans more into the dramedy label we've all come to know, though.

Less drama and more storytelling with jokes.

Yeah, it's got a lot.

Somebody Somewhere has a lot of situations that you can probably choose to see as humorous.

Oh, yeah.

And the characters themselves do or do not, to varying degrees.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's not set up for a joke or punchline ever.

We'll separate the two.

Let's touch on what we do in the Shadows on FX and Hulu.

We've.

We're unabashed fans of this one.

Started as a spin off from the Jermaine, Clema and Takahtiti film of the same name.

It's what we do in the Shadows.

But this one's now in its sixth and final season.

I would not have assumed that it would run this long.

I wouldn't have assumed it would run this long or that I would be looking forward to a new season coming out.

Oh, yeah, exactly.

You know, like if you told me, but you know, I'll check out the first season, but I'm not expecting much.

That's exactly how I felt.

I had my doubts beginning it, considering its origins.

Usually reboots and spin offs aren't noted for success or quality.

That's the thing.

I quite liked the original movie.

Okay.

I thought it was funny.

Oh, it's funny.

It's.

You know, it's funny.

It's the same.

You know, it's basically the same vampire mockumentary, but in New Zealand.

But I feel like these guys put a.

Put a real good spin on it.

And I think that's a testament that you can watch it if you've seen the movie and if you haven't.

I know nothing about the original movie and I just fell right in.

If you've seen the original movie, there are a couple Easter eggs.

Oh, are there?

That's pretty much like Jermaine Clement's character from the movie actually appears in an episode he's on, like the Vampiric Council or something.

Okay.

But you.

But you don't need to know that.

It's just there for fun.

Yeah.

They're completely separate with.

Same premise of a documentary.

A camera crew is filming a set of vampires.

In this case, three of them.

Nandor, Laszlo, and Nadia, and an energy vampire named Colin Robinson, and their roommates Gizmo.

And they have a human who is tasked to help them.

How do you present a case for this if somebody hasn't watched it at this point?

You know, it's not.

It's not a spoiler because it's from the last season, but I'm like, guys, do you want to watch a show where a vampire talks himself into flying into space just to see if he can?

And then he doesn't?

And the subplot is that their neighbor can't get elected to Staten Island's comptroller board because he has too many DUIs.

That's good.

If that doesn't make you chuckle, I can't help you.

I would let anyone know that, yes, the vampire thing's merely a vehicle to have four protagonists be hapless buffoons.

Absolutely.

Without hating.

That's the key.

You don't ever hate them or grow tired of them because you're like, well, they just don't get out.

They don't get it.

I have another layer of.

You know, I like all the actors, and they're all very funny, but another layer for me of just personal enjoyment is Matt Barry.

And if you've ever seen him in any.

I think I love his character.

And it's his, like, he just has really good delivery.

That's fantastic.

They all have such great delivery.

They're.

They're pretty finely tuned with each other at this point.

Yeah, I kind of binged, if that's the word.

We.

I could use many of the episodes this weekend because I was only.

I think there are seven out right now, streaming.

I think you're right.

Seven available.

So I had only seen one, and I kind of had to binge a few.

Not so much back to back, but over the course of a few days, I started talking to myself in Nandor's voice, which, again, if you haven't seen it, that's hilarious.

It's one of my favorite types of comedy is where someone is so stupid that it's almost impossible to dislike them.

Absolutely.

They're very intelligent about the world they came from, but that was 200 years ago.

I would say they're very intelligent about that world, sort of.

They're not even about that.

No one has to be Dissuaded by the fact that vampires are a staple of horror.

Right.

Like, that's.

They play very winkingly with the tropes, but it's not like.

It's not really for, like, horror nerds or something.

No, it's for laughs.

Yeah.

And you know, the stuff that they'll mention as far as being a vampire, I think you'll know.

Oh, yeah.

What you have is this just hilarious examination of what being internal could do if it was real.

These.

These people are out of step with reality, including news and culture.

Second of all, it does really clever things, even within the confines of the supernatural, like energy.

Vampires is a gimmick that just keeps on giving.

I would say, like, if it has a weakness, it's that they're.

They kind of are, like, willing to throw jokes all over the place.

Sometimes it doesn't work, but when it lands, man, it's great.

I also love it when a comedy has a plot line that continues throughout its run.

Like, Arista Development did this.

Yeah, it did it through to the end.

And, you know, shows like It's Always Sunny don't rely on a through plot line as much as repeated jokes or in jokes.

What we do in the Shadows does both and quite well.

Yes.

In jokes, inside jokes, as well as there's a little bit of a plot to.

Especially with Guillermo the Human.

So there's.

There's a through line when Guillermo.

There's.

I think they actually do a good job of, like, it is silly and played for laughs, but there's kind of like, oh, there's some.

There's some humanity.

There's some real heart here.

So even though this is funny, we can kind of.

You know, it's kind of endearing to.

Very slight bit of humanity.

And because it's pure comedy in the sense that the jokes and inside jokes happen at a pretty good clip, it's a rate that isn't over the top.

It's not trying to be too much, but it does keep you laughing.

And some won't land for you, I think.

I think that's fair.

When you said that, it just had.

A risk of swinging broadly.

It's not always going to.

In the last show, we've praised the HBO series Somebody somewhere, even as recently as a month, and it's there for you if you need it.

I grade it high because it balances, like, the profound that you find in the mundane.

And it still is a comedy with some especially funny scenes and lines.

Absolutely.

If you started it, it's in its third and final season.

Not a lot to catch up on.

We'll get into what it does so well, but it just makes you feel comfortable every time you watch it.

And I'm only bringing it up in the non spoiler section because just to say if you have it, I think you'd like it.

Give it three episodes in the first season.

Not because it takes that long to get good, but I think it takes that long to kind of see what it's doing.

And if you're, if you're, if you're still there at episode three, I think you're good.

I remember episode one.

I just like to Vibe.

So I was definitely gonna come back.

It was good, but I think, like episode one, you're kind of like, oh, this is, you know, they're gonna do the church thing for the rest of the series and then not really.

It kind of goes off in different directions.

We'll pause here and give you a break before we get into spoilers, and then we'll just return in the same order.

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Your mind will thank you.

Yeah, let's go back to FX's say Nothing streaming on Hulu.

We'll be discussing at least the first three episodes, a little of the third maybe.

So I talked about qualms I had with the issues.

While I'm interested to see what's going on, these stymied some of my enjoyment.

They kept me at a remove.

The the first episode's the cause and it had a lot of do to do with some of the actors.

I just had a slight issue of keeping up with the who, what, when and where.

But I do know very little of this time period of Ireland and the show doesn't hold your hand.

I agree with that.

Although I did not have the same experience.

You know, pretty quickly it's like, okay, there's.

There's Dolores, there's especially because it's a little confusing because, you know, hey, guys, the overarching thing about this show is that it's going to invest 3,8 a real or not investigate.

The central drama is the real light disappearance of murder by the IRA of a woman, a mother of 10, who they thought was passing information to British security forces.

So, like, I knew that.

So I'm like, okay, this is probably who this is at the beginning.

And then it kind of jumped around and I was like, once I got my feet, I felt like I knew who everyone was pretty well.

Yeah.

The opening scenes with that large family in Belfast, it was a great bit of tv.

Yeah.

I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I knew it wasn't gonna be good.

So they set the tone well.

Very, very arresting.

Yeah, it was, I thought.

And then you just don't really know anything else about her.

She's brought up in an interview later, and I mean later, like the last couple of minutes.

So I was.

I was baffled, knowing very little about the history.

Of course.

The second thing that troubled me is that in the first episode, none of the actors grabbed me by the throat like you kind of need these unknown actors to do.

All were acceptable.

They were making passing grades.

But the most captivating to me in episode one was Dolores sister Marion.

And she had so much more screen presence than the young actress who was getting center stage attention.

That was the lady playing Dolores.

And then by the end, I was having issues with the older version of Dolores.

I just found myself unable to make up my mind about her acting.

And the idea of using these older actors to continue the story in the future to be the ones who are sitting down for this interview.

I understand that's what the book does.

That is the premise of the book.

It's not even a premise.

It's just what it is that these people involved in IRA actions interviewed think even in the U.S.

is that correct?

There are university archives in the United States that have these recordings.

Some of them are like, you know, we won't make them public till whatever years and other.

It's, you know, once you die, this can be released.

That's most of them.

Once you.

They won't be released until you're dead.

Yeah.

I couldn't tell you off the top of my head.

Which universities, but Boston area, I believe.

Yeah.

The show, though, seems to believe that the story in the writing was going to pick up the slack.

I just think I had.

I personally had an issue with caring about some of these characters, some of these people as characters.

You know, it's still a show.

It's still a.

I think a piece of non fiction can skirt problems like this since there isn't a lot of question of who someone is or what's their reality.

You know, it's pretty much.

It's based in a real world.

So you don't really concern yourself with that.

You don't concern yourself with them as a character, but as a TV show, you.

I do.

And I was just thinking, okay, well, you told me a lot about these.

These sisters especially.

But everyone else, I don't know that I know them that much or care that much.

Everyone else is like the other IRA guys or.

Okay.

You know, for me, it completely worked with, like, the two sisters being the N.

And then these guys are kind of, you know, the cool daredevils in the ira, right?

To these girls, right, who are moving from the path to nonviolence.

And so that kind of worked for me where it's.

To me, it was like.

It's almost like the way they see them.

Right.

And then on the third one, I think there's.

We get a little deeper with one character in the third episode as the girls are moving more and more into this world.

Their march or protest, nonviolent one in the first episode, is very good tv, I think.

And again, it's one of those moments where you know something bad's gonna happen.

You just don't know what.

Talk to me about the framing of this as an interview from older Dolores and some of the other characters later.

You know, that's how the book came to be.

Does it work for you in television form when they switch back to this older Dolores or this older version of Brendan or whomever?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, it totally works for me, especially because.

And I don't even know if I can put this into words, but there's something I always find kind of captivating, especially here where, like, these.

These are the guys.

Like, these are the survivors, right?

Like, this is in some way.

I mean, in some ways it's not over.

We still have Northern Ireland, some end issues there, but, like, they're on the other side of it, right?

And so they're looking back, you know, they're like.

They're looking back on this stuff that probably.

That felt so momentous at the time.

And it was.

I'm not saying it wasn't, but just kind of like what happens for all of us as we get a little older.

Right.

Like 20 years later.

Your first heartbreak doesn't feel as raw.

And I think it's really interesting to have people trying to put their lives and their history in perspective.

And using words to do that, I find particularly interesting because that's what history is.

Right.

In many cases, we're trying to define what happened and what it meant with nothing more than our words.

I even wondered if I would like it better as a voiceover as much as that's played out.

Something about switch from some of this action or I'm starting to get more involved with this person.

Or I'm starting to get.

To get a little bit more Marian in episode two.

And then suddenly I'm back in almost present day, I guess you could say, as close to present day as it could be.

It's funny that you had that reaction, because I almost had the opposite.

I liked what it did for the pacing.

You thought it chopped it up nicely?

I thought it chopped it up, and I felt it made it propulsive.

And it was a good framing device for kind of discrete scenes.

It is very much a framing device that I just don't think it works for me yet.

It very well could.

You fascinated me with a text message.

Jerry Adams is a name familiar to you, right?

Or did you just look him up?

I knew who he was because I've had friends who did, like, Irish studies stuff.

Yeah, I see.

Not Monopoly.

He's a very.

I mean, he's just a very prominent politician.

I didn't know him and obviously still didn't until you messaged me and then I looked him up.

But he's a character in the show.

I do kind of wonder because, like, they have this legal disclaimer at the end, right, where he's like.

He's always denied being involved with the IRA or being an IRA member.

And he was.

You know, he was questioned in real life by the police for this.

Okay, well, he.

And he's still very much alive.

He's very much alive.

He's still very active.

I'm like, can they not get sued over this?

Not with a disclaimer, really.

Because I was thinking this is.

Well, it's not the eu, I guess, but I want, like, libel laws in Europe are often stronger.

I don't think so.

I think.

I think that covers their bases with the.

I'm sure they get the lawyers involved.

I'm Fascinated by it.

I was surprised that the writers treated him as someone a general audience like me was supposed to recognize.

Okay, did you or was I not?

Because they were like, that's Jerry Adams.

And I.

And I just went with it.

And then later that day, I guess I got the text from you, I.

Think that you don't have to know who he is so much as to know, okay, he's a big deal in the context of this show as a young leader.

And then if you see the disclaimer and you get interested and you Google him, you can find out a little more.

Now, this show is not blatant, and I think they could have been here and there and not heard it.

But again, they've got an idiot watching this when it comes to me.

Okay.

I need my hand held when it comes to this kind of thing.

Let me jump into some things I do like, though.

Anthony Boyle appears a few times in the first episode.

Not a lot, but a lot more in the second.

He's Jerry's friend, Brendan Hunt.

Now, I know him from being John Wilkes Booth in Manhunt and as that disgruntled young man, Alvin in the Plot Against America.

Do you remember him?

Yeah, I do remember him.

Yep.

Of course, I had no clue he was Irish.

And he is good.

They're good at accents, aren't they?

Yeah.

Isn't there, like a New York Times piece on this?

Yeah, I haven't read it yet, but, yeah, that just got published.

It just got published the other day.

No, he's from Belfast itself, no less.

Yeah.

Now him.

Let's talk about.

Let's talk about Anthony Boyle for a second.

When he's on screen, even as John Wilkes Booth, I was just like, what's he going to say?

What's he going to do?

I don't get that from some of these other actors.

Well, that was one of the things.

Sorry, I don't mean.

No, you didn't.

This is where, like, he's kind of my focal point for that idea that these guys are, from the girl's point.

Of view, the heroes.

These young, kind of cool ira.

They're almost swashbucklers.

That's a great word for it.

He's got.

He's got charm, right?

And he does.

He's daring.

They don't see him kill anyone yet, you know, so they haven't seen that part of it.

So Anthony Boyle's perfect for this because that's what he brings, I think as.

Again, even as John Wilkes Booth, he was like.

I mean, he was a Despicable guy.

And they made sure to play that up.

But you were just interested in what he was going to do or say.

He had your attention, is what I mean.

And you can kind of get an idea too, the way.

And I think he.

Well, I think the actor is very good at this.

Like, wouldn't you want to have the regard of a person like that, to have them look.

Think that you're cool?

Maybe not in so many words.

Right.

But, like, that's sort of a powerful force.

Right.

Like someone with that kind of charisma taking you into the inner circle.

Oh, yeah, that's cool.

Right?

Like, that's powerful.

Yes.

You can kind of see it.

Right.

Like the attraction.

And I think I may be a little turned off by Dolores character, the way she's characterized as this.

She's undeserved in her cockiness, and she may have been in real life for all I know.

The choices that we may hear sometimes hinder it.

And it kind of has me bouncing to and fro from, oh, this is good, too.

Oh, okay, let's move on from this.

The addition of Rory Kinnear.

He's in the second episode as Frank.

He's a British military sent in to squash the terrorist, as he calls them now.

He was a welcome sight.

When I saw him on screen, I was thinking, oh, yeah, this guy, he's pretty good.

He's gonna.

He.

He always has a little bit of a gravitas, if not in.

In a comedic sense.

In this case, he's obviously not.

It's not a comedy.

No.

You know, he kind of gets my attention.

Marion has.

Jerry has my attention, simply because I realized, oh, God, that guy's still living in.

Pretty big deal.

Now.

Let me see where this is going with him.

I do think it's a definitely done television show.

I mean, you're not going to be like, you know, this is just a piece of crap.

And I am not saying that I.

In fact, I can't wait to watch out more and get more of this history and digested.

And I'm.

When it.

When it cooks, it cooks, man.

I.

Let me give you an example.

That overhead shot of Brendan trying to escape the gunman in the street and going into, I would say house, but I guess it's more apartment to apartment.

That had some real excitement to it.

Even though that was very good.

Yeah.

And I mean, it had excitement even though, you know, he survives because you've seen his older self give some interviews.

Yes.

He dives in a window, grabs a gun.

There's car and the image of cars smoking in this desolate street from being bombed.

I'm just like, this is what I want.

This is what the show could do for me and really get me involved.

Yeah.

I think for me, the show had a lot of great bits like that, the riots, right.

Where they're building barricades, just things like that.

But also worked for me where it wasn't.

We'll just let the action overpower it and it's all rah, rah.

We're not gonna let you.

We're not gonna give you time to think about it.

And that's probably for the best, I think.

So.

I think some of the things I'm complaining.

I think that's a fair.

Some of the things I'm complaining about would be a little silly to maybe pump up a little more.

Yeah.

I think they do a good job of.

At least in the episodes that I've seen.

Steering it from.

There are moments that are thrilling, but it's not a mere thriller.

Right.

Especially because, you know, literally thousands of people, including in this specific case, of this specific show, one.

One specific woman, you know, died as a result of this conflict.

So, yeah, when it goes to the mom of Tien in her apartment, it does get back to her and her kids.

Very, very tense, very.

You're on the edge of your seat, even though there isn't necessarily a lot of action because something's gonna happen.

Yeah.

Anything you want to add about the third episode?

And you may completely disagree with me after seeing it, but it deepens their involvement, especially in a particular way with the ira.

And it tests what Dollars and Marion are.

You know, part of it is like they're.

They're getting more, you know, they're getting progressively bigger responsibilities.

Right.

They're driving cars between the.

You know, they're not a huge spoiler.

Right.

But one of the things they have to do is they're gonna.

They're.

They're bringing explosives up from Ireland, from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland.

And so that.

That they go deeper with the activities of the ira.

But I also in the other activities of the IRA in a murkier way.

Right.

I think it's.

It's a testament to the.

To the series and probably the book where it's not.

They're not trying to make any one side.

Right.

Or a heroic.

No, I think unless you're looking through the eyes of those two, you know, 15, 16 year old girls.

Yeah.

I'd agree with, like.

I mean, it is a story about the Iraq they almost like.

I think they do a good job of portraying it through the eyes of those 16 year old girls.

And I think this would make it a different show, but there were Protestant paramilitaries too.

Killing people.

Just like, you know.

Which is brought up.

Yeah, yeah, which is brought up, but not really, you know, but so it's like they're not like overbalancing the scales or anything, I guess is what I mean.

It's a show about the IRA and that's what they're gonna focus on without necessarily glorifying them.

But they also kind of don't show that there's, you know, it wasn't just the Iraq.

Maybe it's a case of me watching too much tv, but maybe it's the interview her.

The interviewer himself I find distracting.

I'm like, who is this guy?

Why is he on the TV screen right now?

They could be.

They could have just had older Brenda talking or older dollar is talking, you know.

No, no interview.

Sure.

You've seen Banner Brothers, right?

Yeah, most of it.

Because they kind of do that, you know, with the end of the show.

Right.

They let the older folks talk, but they're not being interviewed or the actual veterans talk.

Not the older folks, I think is a book that works incredibly well.

I bet that is a very good book.

Very interesting book.

I just for me personally, I don't know that it's working.

The puzzle piece by click into place.

Okay.

I'm going to continue to watch it.

It's going to be a good show.

Me too.

Thumbs up for me.

Although not always a fun ride.

Not that it's not good, but it's, you know, political violence is not entirely unknown in many parts of the world.

It gives you a lot to think about.

Right.

Well, from Ireland we'll now discuss some chaps who likely made a stop in Ireland on their way to Staten Island.

It's the bumbling and hilarious vampires of what we do in the shadows.

We're going to be talking about almost all the ones that are pretty much all the ones that are now streaming, which would be actually they release on Sunday this year.

Yes, it is.

How weird.

Used to be Thursdays weird, but that's fine.

So by the time you hear this, there's actually an extra one out there.

We're gonna talk about the first seven I set up at the top.

That one of my favorite types of comedies is sure to make me laugh, is when you give me a character who may be too ignorant for his own good.

And the image of Nandor trying to clean up an entire pot of spilled coffee with unrolled paper towel.

Just the roll of paper towels.

He doesn't even bother to tear one off.

That image sticks with you.

He's vacuuming desks.

Donovan, can I admit something here, please?

I have vacuumed our kitchen island.

You could go.

And you could go to work for Nandor.

So, Nandor.

And again.

So if you're listening and you haven't watched, then.

Well, these vampires do silly things like go get jobs as janitors.

And the idea that they had no clue they had neighbors on the other side of the house until season six, that is just funny.

I love it.

That particular episode we'll get into.

It's episode six.

It's called Lazlo's Father.

One of my probably least favorite episodes in a while.

That was probably the weakest one for me.

Yeah, it's kind of weak.

But this season, you know, it's not afraid to ask the big questions.

Questions like, why would I build a new jerk off machine when I have a perfectly good jerk off machine I built a hundred years ago, which is.

Powered by a live raccoon turning a wheel?

You know, it's not only that they're idiots, they get some funny lines dotted with self awareness on occasion and some intelligence on occasion.

The continual reference to the greenhouse as being a place for Lazlo to wank off is just genius.

And it gives us this visual, that visual gag of that raccoon propelling the old invention of a jerk off machine.

So here are two very tiny worries we can talk about.

Sure.

About this season.

It's the last one.

We've yet to mention any.

The show's yet to mention any reconciliation or attempts at Guillermo becoming a vampire.

I thought he had achieved that.

He did.

Did I forget?

But then he.

He relinquished it.

How so remind me.

Did I.

He gave it up.

Remember when Nandor wanted to kill him?

Yes.

And then after that, there was other stuff, and Guillermo was like, actually, I don't.

I don't.

This.

I don't love being a vampire.

It's.

It's.

It's.

It's not what I thought it would be.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna say, no, I'm gonna not be a vampire.

I'm not gonna be the familiar anymore.

How did he get rid of that?

Because he was kind of half vampire for himself.

I don't remember.

Yes.

Something silly.

Okay.

I was really worried that we weren't going to see the dumb Staten island bro.

Neighbor.

Sean.

This guy's got to make a final appearance.

And then, lo and behold, he goes for the job interview at the railroad, which is completely fake.

It is completely built by Colin Robinson and Laszlo too, because they don't want to hurt his feelings, as they're covered.

That they work at the railroad.

That's all they've ever told him is that they look at the.

And they can't hypnotize him anymore because he would be.

His brain just can't take any.

He was dumb anyway.

Just edit out me chuckling like this, wheezing with laughter.

I got good news for you.

And the one that you haven't seen yet.

March Madness is also a Shawnee episode.

Or as Lazlo calls him, Shawnee.

Why does he call him that?

So he's Shawnee, but he just says Shawnee.

Weird.

My good time boy.

I don't think this season is as strong as it's been, but it is still so good.

There's just stuff in here that.

Yeah, and I think I'd agree with that.

It's not.

These are not like the best episodes ever.

But there's stuff that just keeps me laughing.

Like when they go.

Nandor has to go to New Hampshire because he's making a vampire army and they chase after him or an army, I mean, and them going into Apocalypse now with Colin Robinson becoming the Dennis Hopper.

Colin Robinson as the devoted.

As the Dennis Hopper character.

He's coming private.

He's got like.

No, he's the photo.

He's the photojournalist from Apocalypse Now.

Oh, that's right.

He's the Dennis Hopper.

Yeah, well, Nandor calls him a prop.

Oh, yeah.

But at the end he's like, whoa.

You don't just like, see, Nandor man killed me.

Like, that's so funny to me.

He's so into it.

He's doing the push ups with the hand clasp.

And none of the other vampires are hilarious.

When he crawls under the strings for the, you know, the army crawl, he does it much faster than Lazlo and Nadia.

And you would expect it to be the opposite of that.

I'm so appreciative of Nadia's work at Cannon Capital.

We talked about Nandor's, but her work there is just so funny how she just is belittling to these tech bros or not tech bros.

Excuse me, but Wall street pros.

Finance bros.

Finance bros.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It's just such a good gag how she's like, she wants to go out and be an independent woman, even though Lazlo expressly forbid her yeah, she's got, like, the 80s hairdo and clothes on.

The working girl.

The working girl theme.

It's so funny.

So good.

Of the three, she.

She probably is the smartest.

She's the most competent when she wants to be.

Right.

And she can kind of pull some strings, but yet she never lets them know or doesn't let them know as much.

She kind of winks at the camera.

And the idea that it's a documentary being filmed gives such good moments for Guillermo to look at the camera.

Like, oh, me.

You know, these guys are so stupid.

And it's like, I just love how, like, they continue with, like, Guillermo's in a really weird, unhealthy relationship with them where he can't, like, really.

He can't, like, really get rid of them, but also, he kind of doesn't want to.

Exactly.

He lives in their shed now rather than under the stairs.

That's so good.

It's not any better, really, because he has no bathroom.

Right.

He has a bucket.

Right.

Which he's not pooping yet, by the way.

He wants to be clear about that.

He saves that for work.

And doesn't Colin Robinson call him out on pooping at work?

Yes.

There's no way.

So when this show first started, I was like, give me more and more Colin Robinson.

But now I'm just like, any of them.

Just give it to me.

They're so funny.

We did have a good I like Colin Robinson and Laszlo episodes.

So the one where Colin Robinson is creating a monster after Laszlo's.

After Lazlo's gotten frustrated with it, that's pretty good, too.

Oh, yeah, the monster becoming a recurring character.

Actually, it started as a gag that Lazlo was Frankensteining as a hobby, if you'll forgive me verbing that one.

But then he and Colin turns it into a walking, talking animated corpse who is the president of the railroad company.

And hire Sean.

He likes the cut of his jib, you see.

What do you think about the monster?

Is that.

Is that working for you?

It's making me laugh because it's so dumb.

I think it's a Frankenstein joke.

Right?

Like, it is a Frankenstein joke.

It makes me laugh.

And like.

Yeah.

When he was like.

They're like, oh, well, he can be the president of the railroad.

Right, Right.

Like, that was good.

That made me see if he can carry on conversation.

Yeah, exactly.

I thought the monster being kind of a character was just a little silly, but it's not.

It's not that bad.

He's in the background mostly Lazlo's father does notice him.

He does.

Even the weakest episode of the season, which was Lazlo's father.

I saw the title of this, and I was like, oh, yes, this is going to be magnificent.

Weakest episode of the season.

But it still gives you.

That's okay.

But there's some chuckles in it, definitely.

That's the thing.

That's the thing.

A bad episode of what we do in the Shadows still gives you some laughs.

And this one, to me, was Laszlo's ghost of a father was trying to fuck Guillermo, and Guillermo was looking at the camera like, the hell is wrong with these people?

He gave one of his best side eyes to the camera in.

In that episode.

And that actor is so good, and he's fantastic in his role as Guillermo.

It's really all I've seen him in.

But I've seen him in that and a GEICO commercial.

Oh, man.

Really?

How funny.

So good.

Such a good show.

Tell me about March Madness now.

You think they stole my idea?

I think they stole your idea.

So I have this running joke on.

It's my personal back in the day Twitter account.

And then I think I moved it to threads this year.

I don't know.

But that March Madness, it's.

It's a very easy joke to make.

That March Madness is like a disease, mental disorder.

It's the madness of March.

Is that what they do in this episode?

Kind of.

Because they hear Sean screaming, Screaming at basketball.

Screaming and flailing around and losing control of his body in the basement watching a basketball game, and they think he has a demon.

He's possessed by a demon.

And then Charmaine's like, oh, it's just March Madness.

And they're like, throughout history, humans have thought that demons were but madness.

So they have to, like.

They have to exorcise him.

Oh, man, that is so good.

In the B plot, Guillermo's trying to become, trying to figure out his work identity at Canon.

At Canon.

And unfortunately for him, the Work Funny Guy has already been taken by Nadja, who pretends that a banana is a telephone, and that's her only joke.

It's hilarious.

The Canon plotline, like I said, this is a show that does.

It doesn't just use a plot for an episode.

It continues it often.

The Canon Capital plot line, I love.

I think Tim.

Tim Heidecker.

Yeah.

Super funny.

I mean, he's perfect for these kinds of bro boss, you hate kind of thing, but he's just.

He's killing it here.

He's perfect for that kind of thing.

And he fires Nandor or wants Nandor fired, and he gets pissed if they bring the wrong kinds of prescription medicine to him that he's probably getting illegally because they work at night.

I saw a theory floated that some of those guys might be vampires, but I guess they're not at this point.

We know that.

Not.

Not yet.

Yeah, not yet.

So where does it end?

You think it's just going to wrap as Staten island status quo?

I think so, honestly.

You don't think.

What's his name, Jerry the vampire's gonna get them out of Staten island if.

He gets them onto their next dumb thing?

That would be fine with me.

I would.

I would just be.

I would be upset if anyone actually accomplished anything.

I could very well see them just moving to Queens.

Yeah, that's as far as they get.

Yes, that's right.

Like, the conquest of Queens begins.

Yes.

Oh, I'm gonna miss this show.

But I can't wait to see all of these people do something, you know, especially Matt Barry, like you said, who's already in a few things that I have never seen, but you have.

Mm.

How good is he?

He's funny.

He's basically this.

You know, he's just got that same kind of delivery.

Doesn't do a lot of serious roles.

Okay.

I've seen GIFs of him, like, singing as, like, a rock star.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, he actually, like.

That's his.

That's his other job.

He does.

He does.

He literally does sing.

Right.

He does music, and a lot of it is, like, he'll do kind of, like folky British out.

He's very good at, like.

That's right.

Like, doing, like, genre pastiche stuff.

And he's actually pretty good.

Like, it's actually good.

Like, I would say, like, his best albums are, like, worth.

Worth a listen.

Well, that's him doing the only different version of the theme song.

Yeah.

In the Nandor's Army.

Yeah.

Episode.

Okay.

That's what I was thinking.

Sounded like him.

Well, we'll wrap very briefly with the last, what, two episodes or so of HBO series Somebody Somewhere.

Yep.

Two episodes.

Looks as though it's inching toward a piece of happiness for some of our characters, Samantha and the rest.

Somebody Somewhere does a lovely blend of melancholy and hope.

You know, you don't end the episode thinking, God, I'm depressed.

But you also don't end the episode thinking, ain't life grand?

It's this tinge of melancholy with, I feel good now.

I like what it has kind of done this season so far.

I think it did in the other seasons.

But talking about how, okay, like, Joel and Brad are together and moved in together, and that's good.

Right?

But like, for every good thing, there's all.

It's not all one thing.

Right.

Like now Joel is like, I'm not used to sharing everything with a person and now I live in someone else's, you know, And I think it does a really good job of that.

In other shows.

This is what makes it so distinct.

In other shows, that would be a blow up or played for a huge laugh or both.

You'd be worried about their relationship.

You would think, oh, man, they're gonna get angry and fight and it's gonna get ugly.

Or it's just gonna be this big old LOL moment.

But instead it's just a calm thing where Brad says, what?

You know, what do you want?

And Joel says, I want to load the dishwasher.

Yeah.

And it's fair.

I can give you that.

What else you want?

I want to put pictures on the fridge.

Okay.

I've never done that.

Let's do that.

Yeah.

And it's just so kind.

It's very good.

I thought it was very good.

And then when they go to church, even Brad's.

It's the only time Brad has ever gotten angry.

He's such a sweet, gentle soul.

But he yells at him.

But he's got the road rage.

He's got road rage as a passenger.

And he yells.

And even that is just awkwardly not that mean.

Right.

He's like, you now.

That could have hurt someone.

And then he just.

That's it.

He kind of doesn't have anything to say.

He just rolls the window down.

Has to roll the window up.

Well, he's a.

He's a teacher.

Yes.

They.

Maybe they know when to stop.

Yes.

Before some of these characters can get any happiness, they have to get rid of an std.

I was like, oh, man, we're back in classic territory.

Somebody somewhere in territory here because Trish and the actor who plays her is so good because, you know, she's like a little bit different.

Like, she and Sam obviously love each other, but they have trouble communicating relating sometimes.

So to ask Sam to do something that Trish is really not comfortable with, such as diagnose her infection.

Diagnose her infection by appearing at her crotch as she's sitting on the toilet.

Yeah.

That's good stuff.

I thought it was good.

It made me laugh.

I did too.

And there's a realism to that.

I think that probably you've called your brother in and going, look at this.

Oh, God, do I need to go to a doctor?

Like, who else can I ask?

Yeah, who else are you gonna ask?

And middle of the night, you're not going to a doctor.

That's right.

The lady who plays Trisha, the wonderful line about her ex husband waving his dirty dick around town.

That was good, too.

Like in Sam's laughing and I'm kind of laughing.

It's like.

You're kind of laughing too.

Because it's like.

It is funny.

Just like Sam.

You're like, I shouldn't laugh too loud at this.

But her losing her mind in the shower is pretty funny.

She kicks her underwear out and it hits Sam on the foot, which kind of sort of grosses around.

Perfect.

Not a uti.

And, well, you know, you go to the.

You go to the urgent care the next morning.

Yeah.

Again, the end game here.

Maybe that Sam goes out on a date with the.

The guy from Iceland.

We'll see.

I don't know if there's perfect happiness awaiting all of our characters.

No, no, maybe not.

We'll see.

See if she gets to go out with Iceland.

Yeah.

And that's all they call him Iceland because they can't pronounce his name.

I can't pronounce the actor's name.

The Miller sisters, though, are closer through this bit of hardship, including a divorce and the death of their sister, which starts the whole series way back in season one.

And their parents are still alive on the show.

Yeah, they're just in Texas.

They're just in Texas and apparently much happier.

So they apparently.

The mom is out of the nursing home kind of hospital she was in.

Recovery center.

Rehab center.

Recovery center.

Interesting choice here to do that because they, you know, mom was kind of a bit of a plot line in season two where they would have to go visit her, take care of her, double check on her.

And it gave us the opportunity to see this dynamic of how troubled their mom can be in relation to them and how that affected them growing up.

And then in between seasons two and three, they just make that decision to say, let's just let her go hang out in Texas with their dad.

Yeah.

On one side, I'm like, you could have given me a little more than that.

But also, I kind of respect their willingness to not get hung up, to let go with the big stuff rather than the particulars.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

All of the huge things that the very, very huge things that could happen seem to be happening off screen.

Like, that's not way this show tends to handle things.

It's the smaller moments.

I like that.

For example, right?

Like, we see the relationship of the two sisters with their mother in season two, but we have that obstacle sort of removed, and we again have them on to, like, maybe this is kind of better, or, you know, Trish's event planning business is taking off, and Sam is helping her, and this is all good, but there's still the same, you know, trouble with communication, and they're different people.

And, you know, sometimes they open up and sometimes they retreat and, you know, just instead of sticking with that, instead of, like, having it all be solved by, like, well, mom's out now.

It's real without being boring.

Yeah, it's good.

It's very real without being bored.

Very reflective.

You'll get some chuckles, too.

You get some chuckles, and I think you do end up kind of maybe even reflecting on your stuff just a little.

It's a good opportunity.

For sure.

For sure.

If this season ends without me crying, I will be shocked.

In a good way.

I love life kind of boy, sure.

And with that, we'll end.

Let's all love life.

And again, happy Thanksgiving.

If you've listened to us before Thanksgiving, maybe it was good or maybe it is good.

It's going good.

Are you cooking right now?

Are you.

Do you get a chance to cook anything?

Nah, no one wants me to cook anything.

You know, I help out with stuff.

But you do help.

I don't like.

Now, your wife is borderline shelf.

Yeah, she's very good.

She's very good.

I've seen her.

I've seen pictures of her.

I just, like, cut vegetables.

That's my level of helping, you know, and, like, stir things and that kind, you know, like, measure out.

But I'm not really in charge of it.

I'm the dessert guy.

Okay.

I've made dessert to family gatherings.

I can make a killer cheesecake.

You're a valuable person to know.

Well, you know, there, I've got about three in my back pocket I could do.

I could do a.

I could do a Reese cup cheesecake.

I can do an oreo one, and I can also do a white chocolate blueberry.

Okay, Those are all pretty solid.

They're pretty killer.

So thanks, everybody, for joining us on your Thanksgiving week.

We should be back next week.

Might want to keep up with us on social media, just to double check.

I don't think anything Thanksgiving is going to get in our way to.

To record.

And honestly, the week might even open up for us to watch a little television.

So you never know.

You just don't know, old chap.

I'm.

I'm sorry, my darling.

This is all entirely my fault.

I am nandle sorry, guys.

For Adam and for Donovan, I'm blame.

We will probably talk to you next week.

Thank you again.

Follow us online and we'll talk to y'all a little back and forth.

Take care, everyone.

Bye.