Vodka, Aliens, and Parenthood: Third Episode of 'Task' and Wrapping up 'Alien: Earth'

Hey, welcome aboard the Taking it Down train.

If I'm being honest, I did not want to do this episode.

I wanted to lay on the couch and wallow in, I guess, semi depression or whatever it was.

But it turned out this is an excellent episode.

We talk Task and Alien Earth.

We talk Task, episode three.

In spoiler section, we talk the last two or three episodes of Alien Earth.

And spoiler section, we talk about them both in general.

To begin, you're going to get a lot out of this.

This will be the one you'll want to write home and tell your parents about.

You'll want to leave a review about.

You want to say these guys have ideas no one else has.

It's just me and Donovan this week.

Adam is very busy working on some kitchen remodeling.

It's okay, he'll be back.

We're going to get into a little bit of what, streaming and then Task and Alien Earth, in that order.

Let's get going.

Here's Donovan, Alabama tape projection.

This one goes out to Sam Pittman, who will be joining us next week.

Since he's free, since he has nothing else to do.

Any television catch your attention this week?

Just the ones I was watching.

Just all of them.

I didn't really watch anything that wasn't what we previously discussed.

Now I am intrigued by the Lowdown on FX with Ethan Hawke.

I like Ethan Hawke.

Okay.

I've got comments.

Okay.

And I was gonna ask you were thinking about watching it, did you end up seeing the first episode?

I did see the first episode of the Lowdown on fx.

Hulu.

And I did see the first episode of Black Rabbit on Netflix.

Oh, man, I forgot about that.

That's the Jude Law one.

We talked about it last week and then it went completely out of my head.

Kind of funny that they both have some similarities and are both presented very differently.

The Ethan hall series is the Lowdown on fx.

Hulu.

It's made by Sterling Harjo, who did Reservation Dog.

The very good Reservation Dogs.

Very poignant at times.

Beloved of this podcast.

Yeah, it's scrappy.

It's a little all over the place.

Perhaps in a good way.

Okay.

It's gonna be hard to say.

They did drop two episodes and I didn't watch the second.

The second probably would have helped.

I wouldn't say odd.

It did a.

A surprise toward the end that I thought, oh, okay.

I didn't think it was going to be this kind of show.

Okay, okay.

But maybe it is.

And then brought it up last week.

Netflix has the drama Black Rabbit, which I said Bateman and Jude Law.

Jude Law is a restaurant owner.

So there were some flashbacks at the Bear there.

Justin Bateman's his deadbeat brother across the country, calling him up, asking for help.

I like that one.

If I had to judge, if I had to say, I would say that I like Black Rabbit pilot a lot more than I did the Lowdown.

But the Lowdown had such palpable sense of place.

Okay, well, Black Rabbit was in New York and you know, everything's in New York.

And if you've been to New York, you've been to New York.

That was one of the.

I thought pluses of reservation dogs that it's.

Its place was very real and a place where like I've never been to Oklahoma, you know, y. Oklahoma is not super accessible to me.

Yep.

This one set Debt Zner in Tulsa.

If your name's Mike Gundy and you lose to Tulsa, you're going to lose your job.

That's what I know about Tulsa.

Speaking of Sam Pittman.

Yeah.

Apparently they didn't change hardly anything for set pieces.

Yeah, Just pure Tulsa.

And you can feel that.

That's cool.

I like that.

But, but I did say that the.

The Black Rabbit was a pretty propulsive and.

And interesting in a Netflix drama kind of way.

A high end Netflix drama sort of way.

It had a little bit of uncut vibes, uncut gems.

Now you're speaking my language.

Yeah, it kind of had that.

Give me that.

Give me that jittery energy.

Give me Adam Sandler making bad decisions.

Give me everyone making bad decisions.

How about Justin Bateman?

I would do jitteries.

I would watch that.

Yeah.

You know, Apple TV decided to not to begin streaming the the Savant.

I think it was supposed to start either this weekend or next weekend.

Starring just Jessica Chastain who poses online against.

Against or to investigate certain elements of the Internet that would maybe need to keep an eye on.

And they.

They pushed that one back due to the news events of late.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Makes me want to watch it more now that they think it's you.

I. I do often thinks that things that are polled because this is.

And by this I mean events in the news often are like network or whoever is being like completely sensitive ahead of the.

You know what I mean?

We're like, oh my God, someone could be mad about that.

It's almost kind of like I imagine it is that episode of the Studio where like they're just all sitting around and being like, oh man, who could get angry about this?

Right?

But no, it makes me more curious to watch the Silma.

The.

I do like Jessica Chastain.

Yeah, she's pretty good.

I like.

I like her and everything I've ever seen.

Yeah, I'll finish some thoughts on the Lowdown.

Not to jump around too much.

I did see that first one.

It was created and directed by Sterling Harjo, who was the, of course, the force behind Reservation Dogs.

But he did write and direct this one and he might do that a lot for the Lowdown.

The Lowdown is kind of this.

I think I had trouble figuring out who Ethan Hawke wanted to be in this series.

He plays a half investigative journalist, half troublemaker.

It's a raggedy but curious to see where it goes next.

Like I mentioned, it does have surprises.

I would have never guessed.

I didn't think it was that kind of show.

It felt a little overstuffed, especially with stereotypes.

Even if the Tulsa settings, brand new and very palpable and real.

Maybe it's Ethan Hawke who's more than likable as an actor, but when he's playing someone who's too rambunctious and too much of a bore, he can be a little less charming.

And that's his charm is where he thrives.

And here.

Here he feels too reckless or too uncaring.

But we'll see if that doesn't, you know, if that's part.

Part of the bit.

Interesting.

Okay, I'm curious.

I like Ethan Hawke in just about everything I've seen him in.

Not that I. I haven't obsessively watched his.

All of his movies.

I especially liked him in Paul Schrader's First Reformed where he is playing a man who perhaps sympathizes too much.

So it'll be interest.

Interesting if that's the.

The flip of that.

That's real funny you brought that up because that's what I.

Whom I thought of when he in this role.

I thought, boy, he's.

He's not.

I've seen Ethan Halt do these kinds of things, but I have.

I would have guessed he would have gone with the more first reform sort of thing these days, but he's getting to be wide eyed and goofy and taking occasional hits of marijuana.

It has a big Lebowski feel to it.

I mean, I'm assuming chewing the scenery like that is probably pretty fun, right?

It has too much of a Thomas Pynchon feel to it and I don't necessarily like his stuff.

Interesting.

Do you have a specific, like inherent vice or anything in particular?

Inherent?

Yeah, I just didn't like that.

I actually like that book.

I haven't watched the movie.

I meant to, but I haven't seen it.

Anyway, we're sticking with our Sunday feast of vodka in a cup that is task.

Hey, Blaine, you know what's good for a concussion?

Vodka.

About 32 ounces of vodka drunk out of a Phillies cup.

At least 31 ounces if you can get that in.

Yeah, it's good.

If you have a concussion, the Phillies cup is really important because you can memorize.

You can work your brain, which has been hit hard by memorizing Phillies facts.

Make sure your concussion's not too bad.

The third episode, Nobody's Stronger Than Forgiveness.

We'll speak about it in general here, and then we'll go to spoilers a little later.

So this series is certainly about family, certainly about crime.

I felt like this episode was certainly about the specifics of family in parenting.

Yeah.

Yes.

And I found it very watchable because of that.

I like this episode, Blaine.

And I found myself thinking again at the end of the episode because it was about parenting and we have two single dads now.

So I feel like it also kind of circled around to men without women.

It did.

That first episode was heavy handed.

Not heavy handed.

It was heavy with the idea that these are men without women, and this could be a result of it.

This is a dilemma.

There is a dilemma, I think, in America of, I think people in Gen X, especially my generation and older and maybe a little younger and millennials and stuff.

I think there's an epidemic of just some sort of malaise or sadness or depression.

Yeah, look at the world.

It's true.

But what is it about Gen X, especially these guys, Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelfrey's age, that hits them in my age the hardest?

I wonder if you'd be about 10.

If I'd been born about 10 years earlier, I'd be Gen X. Oh, okay.

I thought you were right there at the cut.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I'm millennial.

Probably, like pretty solidly millennial because I have an 89.

Yeah, interesting.

I won.

There's like this feeling of being stuck in between spaces.

Yeah.

Stuck in between generations.

Gen X has always kind of been the forgotten generation.

I wonder if for specifically the characters we have in this show, I think part of it is they're both like.

I thought this would be figured out by now.

Yeah, that's it.

You know, that's it.

And I think when you're, you know, when you're.

When you're Knocking on, you know, 55 Door, and you're thinking, oh, I'm.

I should be five years away from retirement, but yet I'm trying to figure out how to be a good dad still.

I thought I would have had that figured out.

Or I'm trying to figure out how to be a good FBI agent.

Why have I not had this under my belt?

Even that.

Right.

And I think part of it is even worse, is like the way Mark Ruffalo's character imagined his life turning out was.

Was really snatched from him.

That's true.

Yeah.

Of course, That I think that goes into.

I'm having to figure this thing out that I never thought I would have to figure out.

And I think that goes in with the.

He's a man without a woman in the sense that woman was a shared future.

He can imagine when they are together, he's imagining a future when he's by himself.

The future he imagines is 32 ounces of vodka every night.

You know, he's not really, really planning or looking forward to a future or making a family or anything like that.

Three or four years ago, author Dana Milbrook wrote a piece for the Washington Post called Is Generation X the Weakest Generation?

We all know that's not true.

The greatest generation is the weakest generation.

Oh, really?

You think?

Yeah.

It took them six years to take care of World War II.

Could have done it in five.

Yeah, well, you heard it here.

You know, she mentions we never had our great moment.

We had 9 11, and like, a day after 911 happened, we were told, go shopping.

Yeah, that's true.

I remember that.

I remember.

That's.

That is crazy.

That.

Yeah, it's.

That's.

I mean, Obviously I was 12, so it was a little out of my hands there.

Yeah.

But, like, I remember that, like, go, like, it's good for the economy.

Show the terrorists we're not afraid.

Go buy things.

Yeah.

Go buy.

That's how you.

We're not defeated.

America is only capitalism, apparently.

Yeah.

I mean, that's neoliberal thinking.

Right.

When, like, the complete.

When your identity is tied up with that kind of thinking.

Right.

Maybe that's what's wrong with Gen X.

When your identity is tied up with that kind of thinking of capitalism and you can't afford jack shit.

I blame too much MTV, personally.

Oh, I love doing TV in the 80s task.

And maybe Brad Inglesby, the writer, creator in particular, he paints these characters in such tight corners that you find yourself asking, why would he do that?

And then the very next second you think, well, yeah, why wouldn't he do that?

What else is he gonna do?

What else is you realize the alternative and you think, well, yeah, I suppose so.

Yeah.

I think I've been enjoying that with our not so master criminals.

Because there's a lot of decisions that are kind of, like, dumb, but also, like, what would you do?

Like, yeah, this is bad.

Well, I thought it a lot about Mark Ruffalo's character.

There's a scene.

I won't get into specifics because we're not in spoiler section, but there's a scene at the end where he's on the porch and he says something and you think to yourself, oh, my God, why would you say that?

And then you think of the alternative and you'd think, yeah.

Oh, yeah, I probably would say that.

Yeah.

Also in the spoiler section pretty soon will be our thoughts on Alien Earth as a whole.

It's final.

Really?

It's final.

Maybe three episodes.

Two episodes.

Is Noah Hawley and company going to do another season?

Nothing's been released yet.

Nothing's been released.

He's very slow moving with some of his franchises.

He is.

I assume he's waiting on the network.

He was talk.

I mean, like, the articles you find.

Find.

We all know how the Internet works, right?

Like, the.

The articles that you find at this point in the news cycle are like, will Alien Earth be renewed?

Find out here.

And then it's like, you read it and we don't know if Alien Earth will be renewed.

But, you know, we all know how this works.

But some site had, you know, they were asking him about renewal, and he's like, well, if it doesn't happen, then I have to leave it to the fans to figure out what happens next.

That's not the worst thing in the world.

So I don't know.

He's.

Maybe he's got a Zen view about all this.

Yeah, I would like a second season.

I like one.

Think it would improve my viewing of the first season.

Let's get into that a little bit.

Did your opinion of the series shift at all?

You were really big the first three or four episodes, maybe even five.

Did your opinion shift?

This was around the time I jumped in and caught up.

Well, the only part where I was not sure if it was intentional or not was sometimes there were people doing stupid, dangerous things, mostly around laboratory animals that I was like, is it the point that they're stupid, or am I just not supposed to think about it?

So that's probably my big nitpick.

I was Thinking about this today.

Cause I really do think with my overall view of the series, I think you could sit me down and I think I could come up with things that could have been improved, things that didn't work, things that could have gone a different way.

But honestly, I kind of don't want to.

As a whole, I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed where it was going.

I enjoyed that it took risks.

I enjoyed the characters.

I enjoyed the cast.

I really enjoyed the last two episodes.

You know, there was a little bit of.

Especially in the last episode, like you noticed last.

Last time.

Blaine, like we're gonna give away the answers to the homework here.

We're just gonna tell you the theme by having our.

Having our actors say it out loud.

Yeah.

Which the show did early and often.

Do you think, though, here's my question.

Do you think it took on more than it could chew with its quote unquote, big ideas?

No, I personally do not.

First off, it's been a show, at least in this first season for me.

Others might feel differently.

It's been a show that's really good in questioning and in having characters that are ambiguous, like even their identity.

The synth children themselves are kids who.

Their identities are ambiguous.

They have these minds of children in these machine bodies.

Everyone's trying to figure out the relationship, the relation there.

And I think that the backdrop of corporate greed, the elevation of money and power above human life, the absolute, the utter lack of care for human beings as anything but consumers of a product.

Which is Gen X, is malaise.

And I guess Noah Hawley's probably Gen X too, right?

Anyway, it all rung true for me because this stuff kind of was all operating in the background of what was going on.

So I enjoyed the plot, but it.

It felt like it was all.

Yeah.

In the free.

Because, you know, I'm watching this show.

I'm watching it for like an alien eating people too.

Like that's in there as well.

Yes.

And I am looking at it from no one who's seen an alien film.

And I.

But I did like.

I like the show a lot.

If you've never seen the series, you should watch it.

It's very action packed, very easy to watch.

But let me say this.

I am going to put this in a very high school teacher pedestrian kind of way.

Great of art to me.

Have a focus almost singular, but I guess not singular.

Have a focus on about three big themes that they really want to tackle and wrestle with, and then off of that shoots 7 or 8 or 10 more that just tend to be Wrapped up in it.

But it's the three they're really focusing on.

To me, this show tried to focus on all 10 and I thought to its detriment toward the end.

Now still.

Whoa.

Immensely enjoyable.

Please give me another season.

The.

It looked like, dare I say a movie.

It.

There was no point where I thought, oh, that looks weird.

I was enmeshed in the entire series in the every episode.

It was.

It was good.

It played well.

Noah Hawley has set himself up as this fearless showrunner who's not afraid to ask big questions, to take some bigger than normal swings here.

I thought he connected some, but he wasn't very consistent.

He still made a entertaining piece of television.

If he was.

If he was pointing the direction of what causes monsters rather than what makes humans.

What is it that cause things to be monsters versus what are the aspects that makes us human?

I think he got close to the former than the latter.

I liked it all though.

For me, an example of where Noah Hawley did bite off more than he could chew was the fourth season of Fargo.

So I didn't have that feeling for this one.

And I do think.

Was that the Chris Rock.

Agree with the Chris Rock one.

And Blaine, I agree that there was a lot of stuffed in here.

Honestly, for me, the grounding of these questions in Boy Cavalier's understanding or lack thereof of Peter Pan, that really worked for me because Peter Pan.

Have you met Peter Pan?

I have, yes.

Yeah.

I haven't.

I did not realize it was that creepy.

It's a very.

Knowing this stuff that they read is all from it.

It's that eerie.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, it talks about like it's about kids realizing they're going to grow up because they realize they'll die one day.

The Lost Boys, who I think is really important.

Right.

Is that Peter, they idolize him, but he's.

He's their absolute ruler.

But he can never grow up.

Right.

He can never think through the consequence of his actions.

So he'll actually purge Lost Boys.

Yeah.

You know, because he can never.

He can never become a child.

Anything but a child.

And I think there's a.

A little bit of.

And we into more of this in spoiler section but there's a little bit that I was seeing in the idea of children growing up and what that means and those.

The ways that we fail to grow up or that we fail to develop.

Yeah.

And things that.

And then the things that are.

That are.

Are monstrous came out of those.

I see.

Yeah.

I think overall it was very well Done television, not the type you see on a day to day basis.

Not with this sort of cinematic sheen to it and so entertaining.

I'm glad I watched it.

Yeah, I was very high on it.

I think I remain very.

And like I said at the beginning, I think I could sit down with you and like honestly acknowledge these things.

But it did it almost not exactly that.

Like, it's not nitpicking but to me, in my own head, it almost feels like nitpicking where it's like, wow, you took such big swings.

Like I'm throwing stones at the moon when I'm criticizing this little thing.

Like, we'll get into more on the spoiler side.

So what we'll do is take a break and join us for spoilers on task episode three and the last two episodes of Alien Earth.

If you haven't watched those, there's your warning.

Donald, what should we advertise here?

Well, we have a good friend who can renovate your kitchen on the cheap.

If you need your kitchen renovated.

Let me, let me find his number.

If nothing else, you can always go to the alabamatake.com click on shop and buy yourself one of those T shirts that says kill the algorithm from Alabama Tank.

You will get questions and make and you're gonna make new friends.

Let's get back into the show.

Yeah.

We'll start in the order that we presented them.

So we're returning to HBO's Sunday drama task episode three.

We are a day behind because we come out on Tuesday, we record on Sunday.

We haven't watched the fourth episode.

HBO does not send us screeners like BritBox does.

The third episode is called Nobody Stronger than Forgiveness.

When I saw the album, album title, the episode title, I was like, I didn't even look ahead to see what the talking about forgiveness.

Last week I gave myself a little gold star.

Yeah.

Did you wear it all evening?

Paid attention to the homework.

Little gold star for that good episode.

But I don't think it will be as good as the other episodes until maybe we see it in context.

I mean we're only three in every assessment I've had about the episodes.

I think has bed with that like proviso, like it's a provisional estimate because it's seven episodes overall.

Not a lot, but it is meant to be a whole.

You know, we're not judging it just on this standing alone.

Alone.

Yeah.

It continues to have realistic and moving scenes.

Very real and grounded this week.

Maeve teaching the kidnapped Sam to swim.

Man, I'm going to tell you Something that was as beautiful and poignant as TV can get.

I think it was the line about taking the good from parents and leaving the rest could just bring tears to your eyes if you're not careful.

That alone was worth the price of admission.

So this may be one of the lower graded episodes by me, but just having that scene in there alone elevates it.

Thought it was a great scene too, because I think, well, we'll see how this works in the hole.

But for me, it centered Maeve, who is too young for the role that she's been in for a lot of things, but as, like, this really, like, wise person.

She's been forced to be wise, who is being ignored.

Like, wise and good, who is maybe not being listened to in the way that she should be.

Yeah, she.

An early wisdom most people won't have because of the situations have been easier than Maeve's.

And the scene where she's teaching him to swim was filmed the same way it felt and it was beautiful and.

And kind and, you know, she's the mother figure who's way too young to be the mother figure.

And grand advice to take what you need and leave the rest is just what we all should do.

Especially because she knows Sam's parent.

Well, she knows Sam's parents are dead, so she's speaking to that.

But also I think that there's the.

You know, obviously her father was also in this gang.

She's not crazy about it, his biker gang.

So it was almost this.

At least to me, this probably overly sentimental, but kind of the.

Like, what if you had been able to.

What am I.

What if I could say this to my younger self and this very gentle, exactly.

Innocent boy, Sam.

That's what I saw.

I liked it.

I could concentrate the whole podcast episode on this scene.

I won't, though I do think that.

Well, we'll see if it makes.

We'll see how the whole thing does.

But one of the things I think that if.

Sometimes if you have a show and it's just like, the world is dirt, everything's dirt.

No one can love each other.

There's nothing.

It's like, yeah, it's bleak, but, like, who cares?

The world is terrible.

It doesn't matter if anyone lives or dies in it.

But when you have a show that's able to show that, like, hey, you know, like, the world is terrible and bleak, but there are moments of profound beauty and connection between human beings.

That's when I think you're saying something that actually is real and matters.

You're not just making misery porn at that point because, like, folks, the world is dark and bleak.

I don't know if you've noticed this, like, open a newspaper or don't, but at the same time, right.

Like.

And I think this scene kind of brought it together.

Like, we have the wonder of nature still.

I'm glad you pointed that out.

And the beauty of human relationship and connection.

And I think that all kind of came together in this.

In this way that there's another side to the world.

It's important that they're not at the local public swimming pool.

You pay $2 and get in.

Yeah, they're not at.

They're somewhere else.

Well, that was kind of what I thought, Blaine, when you said that the scene was shot like it felt.

Yeah, that was.

I thought the setting was very part of what made that true.

Exactly.

Both the task force and the gang have moles who are leaking out information.

Of course, we know who the dark hearts mole is.

It's Jason's girlfriend, Aaron.

Now, she was having an affair with Robbie's brother, who's now dead.

Why is he dead?

Jason found out that was the affair and I think.

Beat him to death.

Beat him to death.

Didn't even shoot him.

Killed him horribly.

Aaron seems like an obvious suspect once Jason and Perry found out there's a mole, doesn't she?

You think so?

Why would they not go there pretty quickly?

Well, my thought for Jason.

Well, I don't know about Perry and I don't know the whole relationships, but Jason, you're done as the leader, right?

If you're being.

If your girlfriend.

Sold out by your own girlfriend, right?

And maybe we're supposed to understand that subconsciously.

Or maybe maybe they think she learned her lesson from the horrific beating that Bobby got.

Or maybe she's just keeping it on the down low.

Maybe she's good at it.

Well enough.

Perry, to me, on.

On that side of the equation, still the most intriguing character to watch.

McShane has these eyes that can go from normal to evil in seconds flat, yet his facial expression never changes.

Yeah, yeah, Good acting.

He is good.

He can scare you with his eyes.

I want to highlight almost the opposite of that, where you kind of see like, oh, that's why when he's dancing with the bartender and like, he's kind of.

They've got a past and he's kind of trying to get a little info out of her.

And he's got a little steal, right, because he's talking business.

But he's a little charming too.

And I'm like, that's.

And he's doing it mostly with his eyes.

Yeah, I thought he does pretty damn good.

That actor's really good.

His last name is Shane, and I keep wondering where I've seen him before.

He's just one of those actors.

Oh, he's been in all kinds of.

Just, like, stuff.

There's all kinds of stuff.

What has he been in?

And I wouldn't.

Beats me.

I don't know.

Fear of the Walking Dead.

He was in that.

That was it.

He's Lieutenant Moyers in Fear of the Walking Dead.

I may have seen him in Fear of the Walking Dead, though.

I may have quit watching it at that point.

I'm not sure.

He plays a lot of detectives and police officers.

Oh, and now he's getting the other of the loss.

There you go.

But he's.

He's clearly a journeyman actor.

He's just.

But he was good.

I was kind of surprised I hadn't seen him in other stuff.

Same here.

This episode adds some more layers.

Well, there's the mole in the task force.

We don't know.

The oddity, though, is that Grasso in the task force and Stover, the.

The lady who came in with possible divorce problems or something, as soon as you see her, she's.

She's got wads of paper in her arm.

She's trying to carry on a laptop.

She's on the cell phone.

You know, old Snickerdoodle.

Snickerdoodle.

Stover's incompetence is part of the story now.

Yes.

Alia's intense admission of leaving an abusive situation is part of the story.

She even uses that to get a connection made with one of the criminals.

Yeah.

I think for Snickerdoodle, for Stover.

I'm curious to see where this is gonna go, especially.

Cause this is not anything to do with the TV show.

But we did just have a storyline that we watched in blue lights where a cop is afraid.

Oh, yeah.

Jen Robinson.

Yeah.

Again, this is not anything.

Task is drawing or anything, but just in my mind.

So I'm.

I'm interested to see where this one goes, because I am interested in, like, the cop who's kind of like.

Like, she's kind of not good at her job.

No, she's not.

And she's.

And she's scared.

But she went and, like, chased that guy anyway.

But she didn't help Tom when he was getting seriously injured.

He got the concussion.

She could have.

Yeah, no, she.

She didn't.

But also, she she still chased after that guy.

And this.

That's Cliff.

This is Robbie's friends Cliff and his abused wife who went to rob him and force was investigating Cliff, and they just so happened to catch the robbery and the.

The man and the abused wife.

And that's how this came to be.

Now, what are you saying about Stover?

Are you saying that she.

What?

That she's got like.

I just think that there's something interesting in a character who she knows she screwed up and she's obviously scared, but she does it anyway, even though she's like.

Like there's almost nothing more dangerous for many police officers than pursuing a suspect on foot because you just don't know what's going to happen.

Or at least so.

So I've read or been told it's a very, very dangero situation.

So she could have just been like, oh, nope, gotta give you first aid or something.

I'm just saying I'm curious as to.

This brings just kind of another dimension to her character.

I'm curious as to what will develop out of it.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Maybe she's just not good at her job.

I'm under the suspicion that Alia and Dover are supposed to be strongly juxtaposed, you know, for sure.

Especially.

Oh, I was gonna say when they go to talk to the men in the tree, the workers, the cut trees.

Thanks.

Cannot think of the name of that kind of company.

The arborist.

Y.

They talk to the arbor.

That's their first moment where Aaliyah shuts that down.

Having bad.

She says, Lizzy.

Lizzy is nerv.

Is uncomfortable.

Yep.

And unable to take control of the situation, as opposed to Aaliyah, who was professional.

Yes.

And, you know, basically shuts it down, like you said.

And so.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Contrast.

And then you get the exact same contrast.

I should.

I shouldn't say exact same.

Then you get a different contrast to remind you of this.

Where Aaliyah is.

Is intense and focus.

And Stover comes in with snacks to try to improve.

In the interrogation room.

In the interrogation.

And Aaliyah gets it out of her through the truth.

Through an intense opening of truth.

I think an intense sharing.

And so therefore, I'm going to say that just because shows love surprises, I think Aaliyah might be the mole.

You think so?

Yeah, could be.

You know, and I don't want to speculate on our podcast because, you know, by the time we're out of on Tuesday, it might be revealed anyway, so.

And I don't like to speculate Because I'm always wrong.

Well, you.

You make a good point.

I could be just thinking from, like, the.

A drop.

Like a drop.

Like, this is a drama point of view.

Yeah.

But then there's Grasso, too, who seems standard.

FBI guy wants to do the job.

Tell me what to do, boss, I'll do it.

He's a little eager.

He's a little smarmy.

Little eager, a little smy.

What do you make of him trying to say safe face for Stover there when her state trooper comrades come in and are just really giving her hell.

Going a little over the top than just poking fun.

First off, very nice of him.

Secondly, there may be ulterior motives of one sort or the other here.

Like, I don't think the.

And we'll see.

We'll see, right?

What happens.

But I don't think we're set up to see them hanging out at the bar as, like, just friends, you know, like, there's a little spark there.

Maybe there's some attraction.

One of the last scenes of the episode is where Tom's on his porch and he admits to his biological daughter that, no, he doesn't want to see his adopted son again or something of that nature.

Right?

No, he doesn't care if he goes to jail for his crime.

Yeah, He.

You know, his daughter says, I'm worried that you'll end up like mom.

Apparently his wife, by the end of the end of her life, was really wrapped up in the son's therapy, medication, ability, or inability to live in the world.

And.

And he kind of shuts that right down because he's like.

He says, right?

He's like, I don't want him living with me.

I don't want to see him.

I can't forgive him.

I can't forgive him.

I think is.

And that's the line that his adopted daughter overhears.

And that's when you.

I think, oh, no, why would you say that?

There's no way a real person would actually say that.

And then you think, oh, yeah, a real person would say that.

I think a real person.

Honestly, that conversation.

I hope I will never be in a situation where I go beyond sympathizing with it and empathize with it.

But it rang very true.

Because, I mean, honestly, like, there are thing.

I think we all even.

Maybe not out loud to another human being, but there are all things that someone has done to us that we're just, like, we just can't get over, right?

We think, like, I just can't forgive that person.

Maybe we don't put it into words well after.

But we.

After but what?

15 ounces of vodka at that point.

I was say, but we have, we have that feeling in us.

And so I, I found that to resonate as true.

And then the unfortunate thing was that his adopted daughter has heard it after coming back from having visited her bro.

First time we've seen him.

Yes, he is.

Is a more.

At least at this point in the show.

He's a figure of pity.

Right.

We've.

He's lost.

We know he's lost weight cuz he's in prison.

He tells his sister everything's his fault.

And the sad thing is everyone kind of agrees, you know, he's the puppy.

In the shelter right now.

To us as viewers for sure.

And we, we didn't.

You don't know if that's the way it is all the time.

That's what I was about to say.

We didn't see the scariness because Emily in maybe the second episode, maybe the first episode, maybe it was the first.

Is talking to a counselor.

She's very torn.

She doesn't think her brother's gonna get the help he needs if he's in prison.

Which is absolutely true.

Prison is.

This is a side rant.

But prison in this country has become a de facto second mental health system.

And people are not going there to get better, but they are being penalized.

But she says, him getting out scares me more than anything.

And that's his sister who loves him, who might be giving a statement to try and him less jail time.

So that's.

It's like we're like, he is the puppy.

But also like everybody in this show, there's not a single person who's like, he didn't mean it.

Yeah.

It's just another character that's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

This poor guy.

Tom's biological daughter, the older she's on the phone and you even get hint that she's having marital problems where the insensitive husband says, well, can we talk about us now?

That actually made me laugh because it's just the worst time to read the room.

Like, when can we talk about us?

And then Robbie and Clif about getting to Canada.

So you know, they're the walking dead, man.

They're so and every.

I mean, things are already falling apart around Robbie and Cliff's ears.

Right.

Whether they know it or not.

Like the FBI is one little thread away from unraveling this whole thing.

I'm surprised.

I have seven episodes Planned when they're right on the heels of everything.

I know.

Well, that's why I was.

I was like.

It was going a little faster than I thought, which I.

Having seen Mayor, I have some art.

Mayor of Easttown.

Sure.

I have some trust already in this guy.

So I'm like, okay, if you're moving things through this fast, I don't know what to expect from these next four episodes.

So, yeah, cool.

Like, I'm.

I'm.

I'm open for it.

Bring it on.

Okay, now we'll conclude the FX and Hulu series Alien Earth, brought to you by Noah Hawley.

If you hear us mentioning his name, he's the showrunner, writer, creator.

He's sort of known for doing things with ip.

We're on the back end.

We're really only about the last two episodes, I think is mostly what we'll do.

And if Don.

My first question is that, I don't know if you noticed, it's kind of.

It's easy to miss.

But in the lab, Alien Earth.

This is spoiler, by the way, people, did you look in the.

In the background of one of the cages and Sam Pittman is in it.

They won't even let him have his old cold beer.

No, that's what they were giving him.

In the little boss where they're forcing him to do.

Yeah.

No, well, no, no, no.

He was wanting it.

He was, you know.

Yeah.

We talked about.

Does it try too much?

Does it ask too many questions for its own good?

I think balance is key.

I've always been a fan of, I think, great art, you know, know, really has a focus on about three things it wants to tackle and then a lot of stuff spins out of that.

But I felt this one was a little too top heavy.

That's fine.

I think, guys, everyone listening to this show, I will freely admit right now I am biased towards liking this because it did a lot of things that I liked.

So I do.

I do not pretend to be completely objective.

And Blaine, I think that.

I think that you're probably right.

It's just.

It didn't.

I didn't feel like there are a lot of big swings and misses.

Part of, I've been trying to muddle this over.

Part of I think for me is some of the stuff is just our world as it is only, like taken a little too in the future to a little bit more of an extreme.

So it just felt like background that other things could grow out of.

For me personally, it reminded me of Bob Dylan commenting on writing time out of Mind.

And he said every line could be an album.

And I felt like that with Alien Earth, where I was like, well, this scene could be the story.

And starting around episode six is where fans are just, quote, you know, quote unquote, the Internet.

They got flustered about the direction of the show and they were saying that these were dumb decisions.

Now, I'm not going that far.

Well, I think the characters made some dumb decisions.

That's true.

I personally am happy that the show took it in a.

In a direction I wouldn't have guessed, I don't think, but in a way that felt of a piece with what had been shown before.

Yeah.

I think episode four and five, there were slight lulls and it was nothing major.

It was nothing that made me say, I'm turning this off.

It wasn't anything bad.

Everything was just fine.

But what it did is it set up episode six to where the shit hit the fan.

And I thought I had to message you, which I usually don't.

If I know we're going to talk about the episode I messaged you, I was like, that one got me.

Got you right.

And that's where all that kind of.

Stuff gets basically eaten.

Yes.

We have the Isaac gets eaten.

We have our loving alien mother.

We have payoffs with a lot of kirsch.

Still my favorite character in this whole thing because God only knows what he's doing.

The episode the Fly can get you questioning.

Okay.

Does my cat have thoughts?

Yeah.

Does this lizard I keep in a habitat car beyond eating its bugs and leaves?

And that's one of the good questions that the series does turn over in this episode.

I still don't see any friendliness in a Xenomorph, though.

I don't see any.

Well, you know, I do kind of.

I don't think they're friendly.

I think they're the perfect weapon.

But like all children, they want a mother.

So this is something.

Sorry.

This might be a spoiler for if you haven't seen aliens, but in the first Alien, we only have one, right?

That's right, yeah.

In the second Aliens, there's a lot more.

And we learn and we learn that they're kind of like answer bees.

They have a mother that lays the eggs, and it's bigger than all of them.

So these aliens now have Wendy as their mother.

They're looking for a mother.

Okay.

So that's kind.

I don't think you really need to know that to enjoy Alien Earth, but I felt like that's what that was playing off of, too.

And the idea of children being unexpected.

The thoughts, the thoughts of the characters, who has them, who doesn't?

The animals, the specimens.

That's probably an example of one thematic choice too many, but at least it helped Hawley bring about some great action, I thought, in propulsive scenes like in Emergence, I was pretty forgiving about the one too many thematic choices.

One of those action scenes was so grim.

It was the two boys in the.

They're two boys, but they're in men's synthetic bodies, of course.

And they're dragging Arthur's dead body across the water.

Yeah, that works.

Grim.

That whole Arthur's plot actually really worked for me.

Yeah, me too.

Especially because Arthur talked about things that'll make you weep.

You know, Arthur's trying to say, like, whatever you've done, the people who really love you, like, you can say anything to them.

Because we know that that's probably not true of anybody else on that island except Arthur.

Any other adult at least.

How much is too much?

I ask, and I mean about the show and not its ideas now, because I ask it when it comes to real billionaires on Earth.

But Kirsch made me think of it again when he tells Joe Hermit that Marcy has the potential to travel to distant stars.

And I kept.

And I was thinking, yes, she does, but do we need.

Need that we see what that brings.

Do we need people in the show to bring back more species?

The answer for the show is no.

In real life, it might be no.

Well, and I mean, I think too that one of the questions maybe not.

Maybe that could have.

Well, it might have been two of her stuff.

But like, I think one of the questions kind of going through it is like, who does this help?

Yeah, who can afford a synthetic, for example, who can afford a synthetic body?

Trillionaire billionaires, millionaires, you know, this Marcy could travel to the stars.

It's not for the riff raff here on Earth.

I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but this is something that was kind of in the background.

I liked it underscored this point to me.

It looks like Joe, when he's being deployed and he's reading his letter from Marcy.

This is in the past.

He's been deployed.

He tells us there was a war going on.

And it seems like part of it just is desperate people and he's part of a military unit that's just holding back people who are desperate for whatever reason.

And that, you know, it was like that thing where it's like, you know, it's kind of like when Elon Musk says, like, we can go to Mars.

When he says we, he does not mean.

He doesn't mean you and me.

No, he doesn't mean, you know, people on food stamps, people just trying to get by, people getting kicked off Medicaid.

He doesn't mean those people.

Those people don't matter.

Yeah.

You mean just in this.

In the same way that, like, the children that they turned into synthetics.

They don't matter either.

They don't as people anymore.

They just need to survive, I guess is the word.

They just need to continue.

You.

They're just proof of concept.

You bringing up Joe Hermit reminds me that the acting on the show was stellar.

It's good stuff.

Timothy, we talk about every week.

But Sydney Chandler, who plays Wendy Marcy and her bro, her brother Alex Lur, who is on a lot of good British television and some Netflix shows.

They do great.

Yeah.

This show is actually prejudiced against Americans.

I think every actor in here is British.

Oh, they might be.

I even.

Except Timothy Olivan.

I found myself really even liking, like, some of the.

I enjoyed Arush and Smee.

I can't remember his real name.

Yeah, they're like, back and forth.

Like, the different actors did a pretty good job of bringing different, like, childish things.

In the Sims, there was a one where I thought, that's a little too much, but, you know, bring it down a notch.

But then the next scene would be, no, that's very much what a child would do.

Right?

Exactly, Exactly.

A little horseplay back and forth, like they're good friends.

But Samuel, what's his name?

Boy Lincoln, Taking it right to the line of overdoing it with his portrayal of Boy Cavalier.

At first I wasn't sure.

By the end of the series, totally.

Worked for me, I think.

So there's a bit where he takes a video call with his feet that just seemed like a real.

Like.

Yeah, I just hate this guy so much.

Yeah, you hate him.

But that's also kind of what somebody like him would do.

Exactly.

Shmi was played by Jonathan Ajay, by the way.

I liked him a lot.

And.

And I.

Now of all the.

The whole.

Whole seven, eight episodes, he had one of the best reactions of the whole show when slightly convinced him to drag the body of Arthur to the beach.

And he just gives this nod and it's half a second and you think, yeah, that's a very childlike nod.

Yeah, I thought he did a great job.

He did most of the time.

Sometimes I thought he overdid it.

I enjoyed all of the actors.

I enjoyed the resourceful Mr. Morrow as well, who just.

He was good.

In a good counterpoint to the xenomorph.

He also will not stop.

Stop.

Yeah.

You gonna have to kill him and stop him.

And you finally get that scene between Morrow and Kirsch in the elevator and you.

And there's something inside you that think, you know, we've been trained as television watchers, so we think we wanted this scene.

I mean, I did.

I did, too.

The story got a little bumpy, which, you know.

Hey, I don't think it got as off the rails as the Internet does.

I thought.

I just thought it had bumps.

I don't think it got off the rails, no.

But it did have a look, a tone, a set, great action, a sense of place.

I thought it all worked well.

And the action when it happened was tense and visceral.

Visceral?

Yeah.

You leaned in.

There was a bit where, like, when we had been set up, when we had already seen one of the synths kind of get a little.

I'm already forgetting everyone's name.

Nibs.

Nibs.

We'd already seen Nibs.

And then it ends up with an episode ends with her ripping someone's jaw.

Yes.

That was the penultimate episode.

Yeah.

I mean, it was.

Honestly, this was the.

I was like, I didn't know you could show this on fx.

I know there was.

There were bits like that.

The bits where the.

One of the.

This is just something I read, but I did one of the review I read this was in the Guardian.

Compared the bits where the xenomorphs and various life forms are breaking out and going through people as almost like from, like NBC's Hannibal, where it's like.

It's carnage, but it's also.

There's kind of something.

You can't tear your eyes away from it.

Like, there's almost something scary and beautiful.

Yeah.

And I thought they did a great job with the xenomorphs in, like, you're terrified of them.

And on the other hand, you're like.

They're almost like seeing like a tiger in a zoo.

Right.

You're just like.

This is just the biggest, coolest thing around.

The scene where Nibs, Wendy, Marcy and Herman all come upon the original children's graves gave us a lot of think to think about.

I thought.

My first thought was, man, what would it be like to see your own grave?

Well, that's why.

I mean, I thought it worked.

It made me laugh a little bit because I was like, how convenient that this Path to the boat happens to, like, have the cemetery in the middle of it.

Or that boy Cavalier would okay them being buried.

Right.

But it totally works for Nibs.

Right.

She seems the most unsettled by it.

And we also know that she's probably a little bit of a religious kid, right?

She.

She tells us that babies come from God.

It's kind of.

She's almost doing the thought experiment, right?

Like, if there was a teleporter and it.

And it broke your body apart on Earth and then reassembled it on Mars.

Mars.

All your atoms here destroyed and reassembled.

Who.

Who.

Who steps out of the booth on Mars?

Yeah.

You know, I think for.

I think like, the.

Almost the.

The fear maybe for a religious kid is like, if who died, did my.

If my body died, did my soul?

Is.

Am I the same person who died?

Am I.

Did my soul go all the way through?

Yeah.

Or did my soul die when my body died?

Yeah.

You know, question of.

Are my thoughts and memories what I am?

Exactly.

And.

And even if you have been brought over, I always thought this was kind of scary, right?

Like, if you have in science fiction scenarios where you have someone who's achieving immortality by just, like, say, cloning another body with his memories from that point, but the old body still gets old and dies.

Like, you're not really living forever, right?

Because there's still something that died.

And if you take it a step further, you know, if you're like, I'm cheating death, but the body that died, like, that soul's still going to hell.

Hell is the other one.

This is.

Not that I'm saying this is happening, but I'm just saying, like, this worked for me because, like, little kids get scared about things like dying, going to hell, and eternity.

I think this is probably the problem the Internet had, and they.

They might not be able to voice it.

It's that having the sense, since there is probably too big of an idea to be wrapped up in all this specimens and alien and xenomorph stuff, what is it that makes us us?

What is it that makes a human human?

Is it the thoughts, the memories, the conscience, the soul?

And what is the soul?

That's probably just a little much for Alien Earth in seven episodes, I guess.

I mean, it's a big question, of course, but I mean, folks, it was.

It was there from episode one.

It was, but they never unwrapped it enough.

I think I'm okay with hinting and teasing, especially if we end up with a second season that's True is the children have undergone.

By the end of it, the children have undergone.

They've had a period of self revelation.

They are growing.

Yeah.

I want an alien to sick on my enemies.

I mean, there are dangling threads of some of these characters who are still alive where it wouldn't be a detriment to pick up these threads and explore them, continue to see where they're going.

Yeah, I agree.

What's the period at the end of this sentence?

You know, kind of thing.

Do you have any feelings one way or the other about Wendy being able to talk to the xenomorph and kind of halfway control it?

No.

It makes sense to me.

A lot of people complain about that.

I don't know why.

Because first off, we've seen.

They've told us she's got a ma.

Like it's.

It's magic, right?

I mean, it's not really, but it's like if you tell me within the.

Like if you.

If you set me up to understand that this can happen, we understand that she's.

Her mind is able to go and develop places that she wouldn't have been able to go before.

So, you know what?

Fine with me.

She's a super computer.

She, you know, they can upload.

You know, Isaac has a bit, right, where he just.

You just learn things all at once.

Fine with me.

No, the thing that annoyed me was when Boy Cavalier shows the eyeball alien PI and it is in Arabic numerals.

And the alien responds to that.

Of course, an advanced species would know what PI is.

They're not gonna know God damn Arabic numerals.

No thing.

You know, with Wendy being like the mother for the lost children and Peter Pan completely worked for me that she's the mother for the aliens.

And she's also.

She has an innoc essence humanity doesn't have necessarily.

She's the one who's able to be like, they're.

They're babies and you're taking them and you're like, I don't.

I wouldn't want one on my planet.

But she's right.

Like, she.

You didn't.

They didn't ask to come here.

Yeah.

She's in this.

That brings upon her righteous anger.

Yeah.

Which element in the way that children often are that, you know, see things very black and white.

Yeah.

Which element that Holly had.

Holly and company had tried to unpack and tried you the most.

I thought by the end of the series, just the idea that children grow up, children are kind of like.

Children are kind of like those.

Those aliens that we have trapped in the lab.

Right.

Like, when they're little, you kind of have control over them, right?

You can teach them right from wrong.

But as they grow up, you start.

I mean, and this is.

Well, this is what should happen anyway.

Like, as children grow up, they gain more autonomy.

You're.

You exercise less control of them.

You can't control who they are or what they.

They're going to become.

And so it's.

I.

It's almost.

There was almost the, like, the under underpinning of it.

Like the.

Like the Frankenstein.

Like a Frankenstein question here.

And like, you know, by by creating something that is human or an imitation of humanity, you, by the very nature of what we are, have created something you can't control.

So for me, I am kind of okay with one of the themes being, like, all children are monsters.

Like, all children are like, in the sense that, like, all you're going to lose control.

You should lose control of them.

Okay.

But they're going to do things that hurt you.

They're going to do things that hurt themselves.

They might do things that hurt other people.

Like, you don't like that baby.

You don't know what's going to happen to that baby.

Just like the kids here.

Just like the aliens that break free of containment, you know, in our hubris, we think we can just mold and force people and beings and things to do whatever we want.

That worked for me.

Yeah.

I think mine was.

The one I'd mention.

Is that our memories and thoughts that make us human.

How much of what makes us human is our bodies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a good one.

That was a good one.

Well, that's the end of our episode.

Maybe there'll be a season two.

Usually with Noah Hawley, it takes a couple.

I'll cross my fingers.

I'd like to see more.

I'd watch more.

And in the meantime, I'll probably watch the movies, too.

Oh, you should.

They're on Hulu.

Yes, they are.

I noticed that for Adam and Donovan.

Adam who wasn't here, but for Adam and Donovan.

I'm Blaine.

And we hope that your kitchen renovations are all done.