What Is Dad TV and Is That What 'Silo' Is? How Good Was 'The Penguin' In The End?

A Alabama takes projection.

Adam and Donovan join me.

Makes my week that much more special.

Why wait?

Let's just discuss TV's biggest fiasco.

Flops.

Well, yeah, fiasco over the weekend, which was Paul versus Tyson.

Didn't leave me so much as a bad taste in my mouth, but more like a.

Like a feeling of a final seal of approval simply to go ahead and dread every aspect of the future of civilization.

I was at a farm brewery while this was going.

Did you watch it?

And doing trivia.

Please come.

They put it on on the TV behind me, and I looked over my shoulder, saw that it was happening and stared straight ahead for the rest of the evening.

We got first place, by the way.

See?

You know how to listeners.

I need to do a very blatant plug here.

Donovan doesn't use hardly any social media, reads books all the time, enjoys his job, rarely texts on the job or replies to us in text.

He keeps up with the news.

That's not making me a happier person, Melinda.

But I'm saying you're intelligent, you're erudite, and you enjoy your Saturdays at places like farm stands and breweries.

Oldest town in Connecticut.

Oldest town in Connecticut.

Breweries.

Look, if it's in an old mill, if it's haunted by Victorian children because they lost their fingers there 200 years ago and you're serving me a beer, God damn, I'm in.

I love the idea that these children lost their fingers and went on to become adults, but their main.

That's all they lost.

Their main grievance in the afterlife is the understandably so.

They were forced into child labor and lost digits.

But still, this is ground zero for mangled orphans in America.

Donovan's life coaching can be found.

You can email him and he only charges $100 a week.

And your life will be on track.

It's true.

I really do need you to life coach me because I'm sitting around.

Scroll.

I honestly taught myself today how I was last night.

As soon as this book comes in that I've ordered about Randy Newman, the biography of Randy Newman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

I am that boring.

As soon as it comes in.

Monday, Tuesday, I hope I'm fucking.

I gotta get off social media.

Both.

Both sides.

Any side, whatever side.

It's just.

I just realize it's just.

Yang, Yang, you know, you can set the old iPhone to have downtime.

Have you done this?

Go on.

No, I have done it for my daughter's iPad.

So I guess I know how to do it.

Same principle.

Oh, for me?

Why not do it to yourself or like a compulsive.

Like, I'm gonna click on this app.

Like, when I quit Twitter years ago.

Mm.

I put the weather app where the Twitter app had been.

And so I've done.

That's a maneuver I've been doing.

Yeah.

But because you still.

You open it and all of a sudden I flipped like two screens over on the iPhone to access the social media thing.

And I don't even realize I'm doing it like halfway.

I'm looking at like the hourly weather.

It's like, why am I looking at this?

Do you want to know what replaced hilarious Twitter in my little.

My little app thing where I would click normally?

What replaced.

You didn't go with, like, threads or something like that?

I did for a second, but you know what?

I did, but then I did.

I changed that like two weeks ago.

What'd you put that signal, you guys?

Our signal.

Yeah.

That's sweet.

So I just text y'all and look.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

All right.

You know, in something.

So, Paul Tyson, what a fiasco do you want to do we want to say anything about this?

We watched it.

I literally watched this.

The review I saw is like, just watch wrestling because the fix is also in there.

But you're in on the joke.

I don't know that this was fixed.

I did fear that going in and I was really worried about them wearing headgear and it being kind of a put on fight.

Like I've seen before that's been advertised to us where it's like, come watch this.

And it's not really what it is.

I mean, I hate it when they take precautionary measures against concussions as well.

So.

Yeah, that's why I exclusively watch the lingerie league, because they do not allow those women to wear helmets exclusively.

I think you could take that adverb out, Donald.

No, in something I'd actually planned on talking about before us to discuss.

It's the return of the Apple TV plus show Silo.

Too many S's there.

I gotta catch up on this shit I've been seeing.

How far did you get with season one?

Like two episodes?

Oh, man.

Did you read the book, right?

No.

No, I've not read the book for this one.

So Silos back for season two.

Created by Graham Yost, based on the trilogy of novels titled Wool Shift and Dust by Hugh Howey.

I think they're novels and I.

Toward the end, they might get into kind of short story type thing.

I'm not sure.

Donovan, do you know, no idea.

I can see the covers in my eyes.

Because you've seen them in every.

I mean, behind, when I close my eyes.

Because you've seen them in every bookstore and library you've ever been in.

They haunt my dreams.

Yeah, exactly.

Natalie has been making her way through them.

She's been doing the audible.

Yeah.

And she seems chewing up.

There was.

Yeah, she is.

And there's.

There was a period where we have this Bluetooth speaker that she was just like carrying around the house to listen to it, which was pretty funny.

So it must have gotten to her.

Natalie is one of our co hosts.

Listeners, in case.

In case that name doesn't ring a bell.

We will not ruin the show.

Not here.

We will in a few minutes.

You can scroll ahead if you need.

So we won't even ruin the first season here in case you decide you.

You'll play catch up.

The premise is that mankind's been forced by nature to live in a silo buried deep underground.

That's your title too.

People have, like, screens in various locations in the silo that projects the desolate wasteland.

And sometimes an ultimate punishment is to have someone suit up in a form of hazmat slash astronaut suit and go outside the silo where they have an option to clean the camera that projects what's on the screen.

Everyone who's ever gone by hook or by crook always cleans the camera, but they die a few paces away from it.

If you've seen the first season in this new episode of season two, stick around for spoilers in a little bit.

Where are you on this show?

Do you.

You pretty high on it?

You recommend it to a lot of people to whom?

It's a tricky show because when it's.

When it's hitting its stride, it's I think, very, very strong.

But I think it may have a pacing issue without spoiling.

I'll just say in the recap for this first episode of season two, they run through everything that happened season one, and I thought, man, just so much more happened that I guess led to the payoff towards the end of season one, but it just didn't really feel super tight, if that makes sense.

There's a lot of story elements that I'm not sure are load bearing and I don't.

I don't know that.

That we're so used to, like, almost like Hemingway short story being the gold standard of how to do a TV show now.

You know, not a wasted breath kind of thing.

Like, if you can take a word out, then it's a successful story.

I'm not sure that this passes that test.

At the same time, the world building is really fun, and I think it's asking, as the season went on, very nuanced and important questions.

Mm, I'm with you.

That's kind of my take on it.

It's an odd compliment, but the show at least looks right.

The sets don't look like sets, ever.

It gives you an idea that the creators know where they are and even when we don't as viewers, and the characters don't either.

It felt real, something that's been lacking in a few shows I've seen lately.

Here's another view, which I wanted to push back against until I read more TV critic Katherine Van Van Erendonk wrote in reference to Silo that it's dad tv.

And seeing that label made me scoff at first because I was like, there's the stupidly obvious fact that it has a female protagonist.

But I mean, I'm gonna just click off that review and listen to Wilco, I guess.

Yeah.

But no, she has a whole article where she expands on how dad TV is now for everyone.

Because it's rooted in a concept.

This is a direct quote.

It's rooted in a concept of a specific viewer, an actual dad, and revolves around a core set of values to which that viewer adheres.

Dad TV is about competence, process optimization, a fundamental trust in or desire for functional social institutions, and the bone deep belief that good drama comes from taking something broken and fixing it.

God damn, that's pretty good.

But the problem with that is the.

Last of Us dad tv.

It must be.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

The problem with that is that almost applies to any drama.

It almost applies to everything that's not comedy.

That's a really broad definition she's using there.

I want to see that written out.

But I wonder.

The faith in institutions part makes me wonder if something like the Wire, although.

Oh, that's dad tv, come on.

But it doesn't have faith in those institutions.

There's the competition, but that's constantly, constantly undercut.

And we're constantly shown how decency and morality is not rewarded, how the system destroys people.

So I wonder if that's kind of like where the daddish part comes in.

Whereas, like Walker, Texas Rangers like, we're fixing this every episode.

Oh my God, what a great reference.

I haven't thought of that show in forever.

Walker says I have aids.

Hey, I.

No, I just.

My mind.

I'm glad you brought up Walker.

Because my mind immediately just goes band of Brothers, you know, sure, war.

Any war kind of thing, Right?

Which is kind of our running joke here, is that it's.

It's dad tv, the Napoleon movie last year.

That's around this time we were like, oh, that's dad movie.

Maybe not tv, but that's not a dad movie.

So anyway, Gladiator dads are ready for that one.

Can I wait, this year's version.

Hey, same director, right?

Yeah.

Billy Scott.

Yeah.

He is monopolizing the Thanksgiving weekend money.

And he.

He can take mine.

I went to see Napoleon last Thanksgiving.

Oh, I'm going to see Gladiator.

There you go.

This is an interesting.

Can I do a cross reference here very briefly about another show that's on tv?

Is it Walker?

It's actually shrinking.

Donovan, did you watch season one of shrinking?

No, I have not.

I still haven't seen that without spoilers.

These are people who are very free with their feelings.

Right, Blaine?

Like, they're trying to work through things and.

And I feel like sometimes the show stalls out because they're manufacturing problems to solve in that way.

It's not.

It's not a like for like thing, I don't think.

But maybe it is because there is some belief in therapy itself is kind of glorified in a way in the show.

And people are always trying to.

To progress as humans and to solve each other's problems.

And I did not think of that as a mirror to Silo, but I think it's maybe one of the things that is slowing season two down.

But we can get into that on another program.

Yeah, maybe next week I can get caught up.

I'm just going to rattle through my list of Apple TV shows, and whether they're dad TV or not, I'm ready for that severance.

Not dad tv.

Skeptical of institutions.

Skeptical of capitalism.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm gonna quit.

Oh, he was flipping notes there for.

I thought he was able to roll.

Well, that does make you think about, like, what is.

That's kind of like what Donovan said.

Like, what is the mechanism of storytelling?

My thing, especially when teaching, is to say, if you're struggling with this, which Lord knows I often do with ideas, think of what the opposite is supposed to be.

So what's Mom TV?

Oh, 700 Club, I think.

No, it's not.

It's for moms who can't sleep in the middle of the night and they're flipping through, and there it is running on ABC Family.

And they know ABC Family because that's where they watch their Gilmore Girls reruns.

Mom TV is.

What is Gilmore Girls?

Mom tv?

Yeah, I guess so, probably.

Yeah.

Do they solve institutional problems or rely on institutions to be solid and.

Oh, I don't know if that one is so much about institutions, though, so much as it is about the relate.

Like, the institutions are just kind of assumed to kind of be static, and then the relationships are taking place in that.

Mom TV would be Hallmark movies, man.

Moms are lame, aren't they?

Oh, come on.

I'm so glad I'm a dad.

I'm just trying to think of what my wife watches.

No, I'm kidding.

It's what my movies are.

What should I text you right now and say, what's your favorite show for?

Collar up.

Put her on the air.

Put her on the air.

I think that this is great that the three straight white men are speaking in very broad terms, publicly.

About what?

We're such douchebags.

Someone must like Silo because it's number one for Apple over the weekend.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

By dads, I guess by dads.

They're like dads.

I gotta read this review to get my head fully around.

What?

No, it's an article.

She doesn't talk about this show as specifically as she does this notion of what dad TV is now and how everyone loves dad TV now.

I mean, fair.

I mean, I guess also to be fair, I read a paragraph or two before I had to click on another app because my urges.

We're in non spoiler section.

And last on our list this week, we only have two things.

It's coverage of the Penguin, which we can talk about it as a whole later.

Donovan, we did not see our enjoyment of this coming in the least.

No, we got broadsided.

We've been on record as denigrating D.C.

and Warner Brothers stuff for a couple years now.

Yes, maybe up until the Batman itself.

That one.

I mean, in the gulf between, like, the Nolan Batmans, sure, there was.

It was.

It was desert until we got Rob, Robbie, Pat in there.

Well, I think Matt Reeves has a handle on this world.

Yeah, I think so.

It's still dark, still DC ish, but.

I don't know, they're very clearly not letting the people who usually make decisions make decisions.

And you know what?

I need to put a pin on what I said.

Wonder Woman was a bright spot.

And then number two.

Oh, that's right.

The first one was.

But that's horrible.

They so clearly had D.C.

people being like, make the color palette look shittier.

You know, like, this may not be fair for Matt Reeves, or it might be giving him too much credit, because the showrunner here is Lauren La Frank.

She said in a recent interview that she loved writing for this series because.

And I love this quote, it felt very freeing.

Because he's an asshole.

Yeah, absolutely.

Isn't that great?

Absolutely.

That's why I loved this show.

Well, I'll say.

I liked this show a lot.

We're not spoiling anything, but the writers had a feel for who they wanted this protagonist to be.

He's an asshole.

And they just went with it.

And there's something fun with this.

I think by the end of it, actually, the writers had a pretty good handle on all of the main relationships.

There's some side people that it's like, okay, fine, whatever.

Well, there was just one for me, and I'll tell you who later.

But then there were, I think, by the kind of important ones.

Mm.

I'm like, oh, yeah.

First episode or two, I'm like, I'm not quite sure I see what you're doing.

By the end, I got it.

Not saying it's a masterpiece, but I give this one of my rarest ratings.

Better than it needs to be.

It's so much better than it needs to be.

It did not have to be.

It would have made money if it was way worse than this, and it's way better than it needs to be.

I'm going to say this, and then we might move into the spoiler section, the audience for this.

You know, if you're thinking, well, do I, Am I going to go back, watch these episodes or not?

It's someone who doesn't mind these crime or organized crime tropes blended with some surprises, some fun, fun, fun acting.

And it's really not even for Batman fans.

Holy.

But since those first five or six episodes are like, like, really, really good, those who found the Batman to be a nice meal of a movie will get this, like, a delicious dessert, you know, And I think that this is the way Marvel and DC can, can work going forward.

You got a character, don't use some of their story to be a commercial for what you're doing next.

Just tell us something cool and fun and, I don't know, play with characters, get an idea or two or a question in mind you want to tackle or a theme.

And it's going to be fun.

I don't know.

I love the show quite a bit.

If you have an Oscar winner that's kind of a weirdo too, that can always help yes.

Speaking of which, is Oprah Winfrey working on anything these days?

Just kidding.

Let's get into spoilers and we'll do it in the same order in which we talked about it.

Non spoilers.

So we'll be back in just a second with Silo.

If you like quirky movies, you might know about the View.

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Bigot.

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Your mind will.

Thank you.

So Silo and its second season, Rebecca Ferguson, the star here.

I didn't mention her.

Up top.

I should have.

I mentioned a female protagonist.

That's her.

Juliet.

This was not my favorite show last year, but I'm happy to watch it again.

You know, I didn't love this show, capital L, O, V, E.

But I was like, oh, that's.

Yeah.

Let me settle in here Saturday night.

It's gonna be fun.

I think somebody somewhere isn't dad tv.

Here we go.

We're back.

Okay.

I love that.

I just take it in.

That's good, man.

It's not dad tv.

And there's something sweet and gentle about that anyway.

Dads can be sweet and gentle.

I'm a sweet and gentle dad 98% of the time.

There isn't an expert, Silo, by the way, there isn't an expiration date on this show's foremost idea of, like, power is going to hide the truth from you.

The question of why, it's going to tell us a lot more.

We haven't figured that out yet.

The notion, too, that generations of people endure a situation they may forget.

What got them there?

Just accept reality, so to speak.

I think that's what you were talking about earlier, where you're like, it does have some nuanced themes Some questions to ask.

It's a very nuanced version of, like, what is power's aim?

You know, because not only are we.

Are we fully into spoilers now?

Yeah.

So season two opens with what happens when it turns out the power is corrupt, but also trying to do something, if not good, at least protective.

Protective in the interest of preservation.

You know, I don't know how you want to frame that, but I don't know what the show or what the original book is trying to tell us about.

When people are restricted access to their own reality.

And in this case, it's.

They're shoved underground for, like you said, generations on end, and they become convinced that they bring.

They're being lied to and they can go outside, and then they all kill people to make it outside, and then all die because it's toxic to be there.

What is the statement about power there?

I'm not saying it's a one for one analogy, but this is Alabama banning pornography.

Expand on that.

No, he can't anymore.

Porn is banned.

I live in Alabama.

It is an interesting moment to watch the show because I think we're all having questions about the impact of populism on democracy and what.

Well, 50% of us are.

Everybody who voted made a decision about.

For me, I love the idea that someone who is infinitely smarter than me is, like, in charge of something that I don't understand.

And clearly that's not how everybody else feels.

So you can sleep at night, right?

Yeah, like, they got it.

I'll go watch my porn.

Oh, exactly.

I'll do my thing.

You know what I mean?

Like, how.

How do you know?

I do.

How do you have a society where.

Because you have to have power, somebody has to.

To run things, but how do you make that equitable for everyone?

And I think that's maybe the question being asked here.

And what is the.

You know, I think it.

The idea of story and knowledge was so fronted in the first season or hinted at, like, almost materially important, you know?

Yeah.

And, like, it can be so hard to convince people that story is what drives our lives, but, I mean, it completely is.

Yeah, you lose sight of that.

I don't want to completely interject here, but talking about the election, I think this kind of holds up with what Adam's saying is, like, there.

There's this guy, I think, that's really smart, and he was talking about some thoughts of his about the election.

He studies information and misinformation, and he's like, prices were the big thing that most people saw.

In their everyday life.

Right.

She's like, that was the most thing that like, was for real for people.

And then everything else for all of us.

Right.

Is like, it's what story you were told?

That's what you believe.

We saw what we all saw the same thing, but we all believe different stories.

And that's powerful.

Right.

Like, it puts us at vastly different conclusions.

Right.

Like there's.

You know, I ForGot that season one opened with a celebration of destroying a revolution.

Right?

Yeah.

Isn't that what they're celebrating?

Yeah, something like that.

You know, as you start to question things.

And of course, maybe we're always as Americans thinking like, well, no, revolutions are actually kind of good.

You know, that's how you.

You know, we are kind of a frontier culture founded through the idea of.

No, we know best about self governance, all these things.

We always are attracted to the underdog.

It just starts to unravel in a bunch of different ways that whole season, you know, who is right, who's wrong?

Does it even matter?

Yeah.

Adam, correct me if I'm wrong is this episode in season two, we're supposed to come to the realization that, oh, the air is toxic outside.

Like, we didn't know that at the end of season one, right?

No, we definitely didn't because it's not.

Played as a huge relevatory experience.

I think that we know that everything outside the reveal at the end of season one is that she should have died.

Okay.

Because.

And the only thing that saves her is that she has made so many friends in amongst the.

I guess they would be the working class of the.

The silo that they provide the.

The tape that keeps her alive.

The people in the very bottom of the silo where she was kind of semi raised after teenage years.

Right.

So she is the only one who's been given a functioning suit, essentially.

Gotcha.

Everyone else had a faulty suit that makes.

They go out.

They see the projection, but the projection is to make them then go clean.

Right.

And to believe.

Maybe it's like kind of a mercy that they think things are better than they actually are as they're slowly suffocating, you know, whatever.

Whatever form that death takes.

But so she survives and she goes over the hill and discovers that they're.

They pan out and it shows.

There's hundreds, if not thousands of these silos and erect sky skyline in the distance.

Yeah.

Which is clearly Florence, Alabama.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really was disturbing.

Yeah.

No, I wondered going into this episode, what's the gain by those people in control?

Because they have to exist in this hell hole dumpster, too.

I see.

That's a funny, like, investigation of power, right?

Yeah, exactly.

No, that's what I was questioning.

But I see now that they are preserving themselves, too, because the air actually is toxic.

So maybe some of the questions are, who's planting this image of it's actually green and nice outside?

We don't know that.

Well, but no, nobody sees that except the people with the inside of the helmet.

Right.

Well, did she get some kind of computer disk?

And there were images of such.

Right.

But you figure out pretty quick, like, the birds always fly in the same formation, right?

Like she's seeing a video, okay.

That's then played inside the helmet.

Okay.

Well, we get this idea of what's.

What is real, what is being shown to you and why.

How real is it, you know?

Right.

And you even wonder why, if you've been in the silo for generations, like, obviously you just would.

You would think you adjust to your surroundings in that.

If you are an ambitious person who would have done X, Y, and Z in our world, all of a sudden you just want to be powerful, even though we think it's kind of a shithole.

Like, you want to be mayor of the shithole, right?

Yeah, but what's the difference in people like that and people who are doing it for means of preservation?

Like, why not just tell everybody, no, for real, it's toxic outside.

Here's, like, a scientific reading of why we can't go out there.

Right.

And I think we're right back to story.

Like, maybe story is more powerful than fact in this situation to scare people into staying in place.

Yeah.

It does make the show better than a few, because it's doing this not to trick the viewers, but to trick the characters.

And it makes you hang in there with them.

You're on the journey of discovery with them.

You know, we say all of this and what I said at the top about, like, a pacing issue, there's these huge ideas, right, that, like, are very relevant to our world and kind of about, like, inescapable human things.

Like, if there's more than one person and you're trying to divvy up resources, then, like, somebody has to be in charge of that.

Like, power is just innate as a need for our societies.

But then the whole first episode, I mean, you learn a lot, but then you get into this silo that everybody's abandoned, and it kind of turns into, like, a Tomb Raider game.

Yeah, it does.

For 45 minutes.

Yeah.

It's like Indian Jones for a while.

It'S like, what are we doing?

Oh, you didn't like that?

I thought it was interesting, but I.

Why they are combining these giant ideas with, like, 45 minutes of her, like, problem solving is just.

Yeah.

MacGyvering her way around.

It's a good thing she's got engineering mind.

I suppose.

Yeah.

That's her, like, plot armor.

Right.

Is that she can fix anything.

Yeah.

She's really smart.

It works.

It's okay.

The craters were all.

Excuse me.

The craters.

Well, there are craters with the silos in them.

And those silos were all connected at one point.

So was it the revolution that made them shut all that down?

They flooded them, right?

I guess so, yeah.

It seems to be.

No, you're right, Adam.

I was noticing chatter online.

People are in two camps with this premiere that.

It was really boring or it was really captivating watching her work through these problems, creating bridges, swinging from one side to the other.

It was.

It was fun to watch, but at the same time, in the same way that, like, watching the season one recap, I was like, oh, yeah, Rashida Jones was in this show.

Yes, she was.

And so is.

So was David Oyelowo.

Right.

Like, huge names.

Yeah.

And you.

By the time it really hits its stride, you're only thinking about her having some knowledge and running from common.

And Bernard, played by Tim Robbins.

Tim Robbins.

And I think this will be the same at the end of the season.

We'll think back and think, oh, they spent three quarters of an episode, like, figuring out how to cross a bridge or whatever.

It might have been too much for the dads.

It might have been too much to try to get you back into this world with all of the quasi political stuff shoved back in your face at once.

Maybe you just need to see her investigating this empty silo and be like, oh, yeah, theirs looks just like this.

Oh, yeah, there was a revolution.

When season one ended, I was struck by, like, I really wanted to see the next episode because I wanted to learn more about the world.

Yeah.

And on that front, it succeeded, you know.

Yeah.

There's a complaint to be made.

I think that season one sort of feels like a long pilot episode for getting out of the silo.

Well, that's kind of the question, right?

Like, is that.

Did the meat of the story happen there, or is it still to be done?

Yeah.

Before I get into the silo, I found the body count to be pretty effective.

Like, there were hundreds of thousands of bodies.

Thousands for sure.

Is it 10,000 people live in a Silo?

Is that what they say?

Oh, is that what they said?

Well, wow.

It would have been almost all of them seems to be.

See, my complaint was the childhood flashback stuff.

I don't know that they offered up any knowledge I didn't already know.

It was.

Yeah, it was kind of boring.

That was kind of phone material, to be honest with you.

Yeah, it was.

Anyway, all of her piecing together the pulleys and the bridges and the ropes to make it to one of the sealed chambers that resembles one of the ones that her silo used to keep watch on people with some screens and stuff.

Lo and behold, it's Steve Zahn behind the door playing Moon River.

Was that Steve Zahn?

Yeah.

I knew his voice immediately.

You could only see his eyes.

Donovan.

The voice gave it away.

Good old Steve, huh?

That sounds pretty good.

Blame.

Oh, thanks, man.

Yeah, I'll welcome.

Steve's on in anything, so count me in for some weekly watching.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's going to get good.

He says to her, I love the line too.

He's got a few lines that say, you always wonder what's behind a closed door.

I know you can't help it, but if, you know, if you try to open this door again, I'll kill you.

Something like that.

Yeah.

But at the same time, he drew her there with the music.

Is it that she'll die if she comes in because of some sort of air thing and he's immune?

I don't know.

Why draw her there with the music?

It's a good setup for episode two.

It also asked the question of, like what?

Once the music started, were you struck by the thought of whoever turned this on?

Not only were they born into a world of silo, but they watched everybody flee out and die in this bloody revolution or outside.

And for some reason they decided that it was worth continuing to live.

Alone.

Yeah.

Alone.

Yeah.

Like if you.

If you don't have the scope of like, I may.

Maybe he's in there talking to other silos.

We don't know yet.

That's true.

There's a lot to be figured out.

You know, I think it's always.

Anytime there's like a survival style movie, it's.

Or show or whatever.

It's like saying something about the human spirit that it wants to continue on.

Yeah.

It's going to be such a disappointment if he's in there just watching Paul versus Tyson Buffer.

He's saying all he has to do, all Tyson has to do is just first round.

If he can just get him just right, we could see a YouTuber die on Netflix.

He's too young to be the boy from the revolution.

Right.

Or did the boy die?

Did he.

Was he involved in the.

Do we see him, you know, jump in there in the revolution?

I can't remember.

I will say the I've made the Tomb Raider thing, but the idea of her, like, having to pull the bodies up that have been hung, you know, like, I mean, it was very good.

World building.

Yes.

And maybe he is the boy.

I don't know.

He could be.

So we only have the one episode.

They did a one episode release rather than two, which I guess that might be a little bit more standard for a second season.

It's a weekly show Friday, so I don't know, we might check into it, might let a couple pile up and then talk about two at a time or something like that.

We'll see.

I still don't know if we're gonna wrap up and say, do we recommend this?

I'm like, I don't know.

It's not going to make my best of list.

But it's a fun Friday night, late night hit play.

I think this is a person by person recommendation.

Probably is.

You know, it's not a blanket.

Two thumbs up.

Yeah.

A more broader recommendation I can make is the Penguin, though, on Max.

Adam, you ducking out to avoid spoilers?

I am, because I do want to watch it, but I haven't seen a single second of it.

It's entertaining.

It is entertaining.

Yeah.

You won't be bored.

I think you'll like it if you're forgiving of the very slightest bit of kitsch and mafia trope.

That's funny.

Cause I was gonna say, like a little chess.

And I think, I mean, what you mean there, Blaine.

But they're also blending in some, like.

Oh, that's a real life thing.

That's a real human moment.

I mean, there is a bit in one of the episodes we're gonna talk about today where I expected Young us to be like, ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a gangster.

Yeah.

And you do be like, okay, yeah, there's.

There's some of that.

Yeah.

All right, Adam, I've seen Good fellows.

I'm fine with it.

Yeah.

For real, for real, for real.

All right, thanks, Adam.

We'll see you next week.

In spoiler section for Gotham, let's talk about the Penguin.

So as much as it is, like, you know, it's grim and it's dark.

Yeah.

It, like, kept cracking me up.

Me too.

Like, there's a Specific thing in the.

Because I watched the last three episodes all.

Oh, did you?

Today?

Not today, like, over the weekend.

Just because I need to catch up.

There's a bit where, you know, he's threatening the council.

Oz is threatening the councilman with a pair of pliers, and it looks pretty painful.

And then the councilman has to back his car up, and he's a little hesitant because Oz parked too close to them.

Oh, that's like.

You got more room than you think.

Go on, you got more room.

It's just like, call it.

It's so funny.

It's so funny.

Sometimes they were wise about this show.

This showrunner, Lauren Frank, I think her name was.

I said earlier she's smart.

She's got an idea of balance for television here.

It's.

You know, I've got to sprinkle this in.

I've got to let Colin Frell do his thing on.

On in this moment as well as, you know, have him cry.

And not just in a cheeky kind of way.

But, no, he's really feeling emotion here.

And maybe you do, too, the viewer.

Something I really liked was how.

And maybe this comes in with your concept, but how stuff that was introduced at the beginning almost comes around with a flip.

So one of the things we were saying, or at least I was saying when we first started watching this, was it's really fun to watch Oz try and bullshit his way through something.

Right.

Like, we're enjoying that.

We can tell when he's doing it.

But then by the end of the show, lying and bullshitting and having people admit or not admit what they know becomes really important to, like, the core of the show.

Right.

To the core of Oz.

So admitting or not admitting what they know about what?

Well, in this case, what really happened.

Oz's brothers.

That's right.

And as Oz, Oz and his mother are lying or seem to be lying to each other.

Mm.

Admitting the truth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I kind of liked.

Maybe this goes in with your idea, too.

What they did with Sophia, where they kind of take her and tip her up and flip her over, but she always kind of feel she a character that I was like, I'm not really sure what they're doing with her at the beginning becomes like, okay, yeah.

Nope, this worked.

Yes.

His mom is the centerpiece of him, if not how we should view it.

Disturbingly so.

Which we find out in the very last scene.

We'll get to that, though.

Yeah.

And I hate when podcasts do that.

We'll get to that.

But anyway, I just don't want to build.

There's a few things I want to build up to here.

Yeah.

Kristen Melody's performance stepped up to the plate for me after episode three, or maybe during episode three.

I thought, big thumbs up for me from her.

Yeah.

It went from cartoonish to well done.

I truly liked.

And this is throughout the whole show, too.

Kind of like you have these two, you know, she kind of ends up like.

She and Oz basically end up being the primary adversaries of each other.

And I liked how, like, obviously, like, morally, neither of these are good people.

So, like, take that aside.

You're kind of like, I kind of like Oz, and maybe I want him to do well, but I kind of like Sophia, too.

And, you know, I kind of like that where it was like, I'm actually enjoying seeing.

I thought the acting and the writing pushed it very well in that direction.

Yeah.

You were questioning who am I supposed to be pulling for here.

Yeah.

I'm equally engaged.

And obviously the answer is the good people of Gotham City who are just caught in the middle of all this.

Yeah.

Turns out we were supposed to be pulling for Vic the whole time.

Now he was kind of pulling for Vic.

I was, too.

Oz's mom is supposed to be his rock, and she really isn't.

It's kind of funny that, and it's not funny, but I think that's the way we are, where the one person we want to rely on isn't reliable.

Right.

You get a sense that that's how she parent him.

Parented him before the dementia.

And then you do get the flashback stuff, which cements that in a way.

Right.

But it's like you.

You have this edifice of something that you've built your whole life on.

Yeah.

And at some point, it's going to, like.

And I think, like, I spoiler viewers, we're all going to die one day.

Like, at some point, what you built your life on will come tumbling down.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do think the show falters with Dr.

Julian Rush's whole existence.

You know what?

It's funny that you said that, because I was kind of jumping off with what.

It's funny.

Adam brought up the, like, is there a spare?

Whatever.

Wasted.

Yeah.

And for this show, I'm like, you know, for eight episodes, it was fairly lean and mean, but I would have.

I would agree with you.

I would cut Rush.

I would cut him.

Sort of works for, like, one plot point.

He gives a little bit of insight into Sophia, but we get that in all kinds of other ways.

And much better, Much better with Sophia's relationship with other men.

Couple things don't work with his character.

He kind of has a heel turn that's very quickly done.

That's a little earlier in the season.

And then at the end, he.

As much as I love Theo Rossi as an actor, I do like seeing him in things.

His character here, he was just basically one of Sophia's henchmen at the end.

And then to have him prop back up as, oh, I got my old job back at Arkham.

It's good that Arkham human resources didn't red flag his file.

Yeah.

For real.

That's what I was thinking too, Blaine, revolving door policy around Arkham.

So what did you.

What did you make of, as I've been calling him in my head, Little Eyes Lil Oz.

Oh, man, Lil Oz, that little actor was fun, wasn't he?

That guy?

And like, so again, like, he.

And I will actually say, like, sincerely, I think there were a couple people like on the edges that were doing like a little bit of an eye rolling performance.

Yeah.

And obviously for Oz, the chewing the scenery is part of it.

But honestly, like, the core of the actors in this show were actually pretty good.

Yes.

And this kid was actually pretty good.

He was.

And I think I liked.

I don't know that I have anything super sophisticated to say, but I liked how with little Oz, you see some of the things with big eyes that are a problem.

Right.

Like the spoiler, viewers, when he gets mad and kicks the door closed right in the sewer tunnels.

That's very like him shooting Adrian Falcon at the beginning because he gets mad and maybe he hasn't really thought through, but then just like, I mean, and it is a little ambiguous and it is a little up in the air, but it seems like he sticks with the bet.

Right.

Once he's done it, he doesn't regret it.

No, not at all.

That's the monstrous side of him.

Did he do that on purpose?

Like to kill them?

I'm completely happy with maybe not leaving it open.

Yeah, maybe not.

He did it to punish them.

Absolutely.

And the punishment was severe.

And when he got home, realized they're coming back.

Cool.

That's the monster mom.

Well, yeah.

The mom time.

Yeah.

You know, it is the she can.

Devote all her attention to me and not the other.

It is the.

Not just because we got the bird story.

Right.

But he's sort of the cuckoo here.

Right.

The other eggs get pushed out of the nest and he gets all of the love and attention.

For sure.

Oh, a little trivia for it.

Astaire with his mom.

That's right.

No, I was going to go there with the trivia.

The movie they're watching is Gloria.

It's about a mafia wife harboring a kid from mobsters.

Have you watched it?

Never have, but I've heard about it.

Okay.

Just from the end.

The dancing scene I'd seen before, the one that they show there with the Tommy to pretend.

Tommy gun, obviously.

But the series does a good job of building sympathy for Oz very effectively.

To pull that rug out from under you.

Yeah, I love that.

Me too.

That's what I was.

Kind of.

Maybe I didn't.

I think you articulated it better.

But I liked that about young Oz.

That kind of like we see the older Oz in him, but it's also like, it's not like.

And you know what?

I actually really did.

Like, sometimes I'm getting a little tired of like flashbacks to childhood trauma.

I was going to mention if this one worked better for you.

This one worked for me because it's not really.

It's.

It's a revelation on his character.

It's not this circumstance that made him.

I mean, yes, it is a circumstance, but it's also him and his actions.

And I was like, you, you know, okay, that actually that worked for me.

That's right.

That.

That was.

I was not annoyed.

Yeah.

And then even into adulthood, whether or not his love for his mom is creepy to you before it gets there.

You know, the medical issue and having a parent with that kind of problem and you being unable to afford care for her.

That's not an original thought.

But you just don't see it as much in some of these kinds of shows.

And I think it worked that way.

Sure.

You know, does Oz got my sympathy?

Despite his evil ways of gaining what he believes he is, it's still some of it he's gaining because he's trying to help my mom.

She's never had this.

He's trying to help his mom.

Some of it is so clearly, especially with Vic and his guys, like he's the hero in his own mind.

Right.

Just like a star of a TV show or movie.

And part of it is you can tell with Oz.

Right.

He's a shark.

Right.

He just keeps moving forward.

Guy is not going to quit.

He's not going to lie down and die.

Yeah.

Like.

Like Eve says, you know, it's funny with him.

It's like he's not that complicated.

Right.

And I thought that was funny because it's like there isn't like there's some, you know, enjoyable, but like, at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, he's not that complicated.

Yeah.

Such a rich and powerful image where Oz is helping his mom get dolled up at the apartment without any power.

It's when they're without power and you get a glimpse of his fingers with all the dirt under them, but he's trying to make them look her, look fancy and pretty.

And he, you know, he literally has dirty hands.

He's getting his hands dirty to create a life of luxury for his mom.

I thought that was.

That coincided very well with what the show was trying to do.

And that was like upper tier thing.

It's when it's.

Sometimes it's the small things, you know, it's the details that make it a little bit of elevated television.

Yeah.

It's.

I think you're right when you say the details.

Right.

Because it is just not that.

It's not that this.

So this show, I noticed, would do a little bit of like, tell me something and then be like, yeah, got that right.

Oh, yeah.

But.

But I do think that what you're right, Blaine, because it's the details show that there's a level of care.

Right.

And like, we've all watched shows where it's obvious they do not give a shit.

They're just getting from one scene to the other.

Yeah.

Or they're rushed through it for whatever reason.

Yeah, yeah.

But the details, that level of care can really elevate something.

Uhhuh.

If you're a viewer, if you can keep at the forefront of your mind that Oz and Vic's bond can be a little heartbreaking.

He hugs him after the murder.

Yeah.

And he's like, the first one's tough, buddy, you know?

Yeah.

There's a.

But if you keep that in mind, then what happens later is it's affecting.

I think it worked for me.

I like the guy who played Vic.

I felt like this could have been an annoying.

You know, he did start as our, like, he's our entryway into this world, but I think he became a little bit more.

And I thought he could have been annoying, but I kind of like the way that the actor really, truly tried to seem to play him with a mix of, like, sincerity and bravado.

Trying to live up to what Oz expects.

You know, he's a lost kid, right?

Yeah.

It's so obvious.

Played by Renzi Feliz.

I've seen.

I've seen him in.

He did a good job.

I've seen him in Hulu's Runaways, the Marble.

He was good there, but his acting got better here.

Every time, every episode, he was good.

I think he took what could have been a tricky role and did a very good job with it.

You talked about how they push your face into it.

One of those things was Oz pointing out that if you get people to love you by being the neighborhood king, that's how you live, you know, that's how life becomes great.

Right, Right.

It lacks some things in subtlety, but it makes up for it with intent.

Sure.

That's where I think it wins.

You know, it almost becomes kitschy, being so repetitive.

But, hey, the intention's there and it fit.

Yeah.

And I think it gives you an enjoyable twist.

Right.

On a lot of the mob crime stuff.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Right.

But, like, give me, like, a painted wheel, like, it's a new color.

I go back to what you said after the first episode or two, where you said, is this going to be another Tony Soprano and his mom?

Not so much.

Not quite, actually.

Not at all.

By the end of the series, I was like, if Tony Soprano had realized this in episode.

I mean.

Yeah.

In the first season of the Sopranos, be a very different show.

Yeah.

And again, that attention is.

There's a lot, of course, moments that happen to me building up to the finale.

Of course, Oz is going to be drawn to his mom because he feels less than every day of his life.

And of course, he doesn't feel remorse for actively inactively killing his brothers because he's got all the affection of his mom.

And of course, he would look up to momsters because his mom kind of does, and they take care of his mom.

There's a good sort of inevitability about it, you know, like when the.

When the pieces fall when you can.

When not always works.

Right.

But, like, when you can see the puzzle and the pieces, like, lodge in, like.

Of course, of course, of course.

And I think part of it, too, is because they gave us two or three or four episodes without, like, a ton of background on him.

Besides, we know he's got his mom and he's trying to get ahead in the world.

Then we learn a little more about him as Sophia's driver.

Then we learn a little more than we.

And, like, the more we learn, the more it is like, oh, that's why he acted like that.

And I know they wanted him to drive her one more time in the finale, but I thought it would have been very good to have if he Would have made her to driving because it would have made also more sense to have the gun pointed on her because she could have choked him or something from behind.

Anyway.

Small.

Small thing.

I didn't think about that, but I was like, he must just be very confident at this point.

That's true.

Well, he.

He does get too confident at times.

There is such the line of the series.

Oswald has always been so goddamn needy.

Yeah.

That when she said that, his mom says that, I thought, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well.

And, like, that's perfect, too, Right.

Because it's like, we see that even with, like, his relationship with Vic in some ways, right.

Where he's like.

It's like Vic hurt his feelings.

Right.

And he's got a gun on Vic because Vic hurt his feelings.

You know, he wants to be admired by Vic.

Right.

He wants to be admired by.

You know, how much does he love it, right.

When his guys.

Because he paid them.

Stick with him at the end.

Right.

When.

When Sal.

He loves it, he gets to make his speech.

Yeah.

He gets to have all eyes on him.

Yeah.

He's needy.

He's a drama queen in some ways.

Like, he's got to be on the center of the stage.

Right.

He's a drama queen.

All of that is.

Could make for a good TV show.

But then when you build upon.

When you build up to it by saying, yeah, he doesn't have a dad.

He was picked on.

He wants his mama's attention.

He never felt appreciated.

He has a disability.

Yeah.

And maybe this wouldn't go anywhere.

Maybe it would be dumb.

But this is in the Batman universe, Right.

Batman is famously also about his parents.

So kind of having those two folks sending them different.

Maybe different ways.

Yeah.

Maybe similar ways.

Yeah.

Matt, if you're listening, that's season three.

Yeah.

His desire for his mom's attention is way too edible to make you comfortable.

It's awesome.

And if you didn't catch it at all, they go over the top a little.

But I think it's okay.

I did like that at the end.

You did with Eve.

Yeah.

Because it's like, we all saw it.

We all knew it.

That's why he was banging Eve, is because he would make her kind of act like his mom.

No.

Well, I think that's where it ended up.

You think that's where it ended up?

You don't think that's how it's.

I don't think that's how it started with Eve.

I think that's how it ended up with Eve.

Well, mentally, in his mind, like, Maybe he didn't tell her to dress like.

Mom, but, like, I think it's really different from the other costumes she's wearing in other wigs.

No, it is, but his mom's hair and his mom's.

But he had been paying her to have sex with him all along.

So what was it like in his mind?

Was he.

This is as close to mom as I can get.

I know he wasn't making her dress.

Like, he's never going to hear his mom, right.

Say, I love you, I'm proud of you, because she can.

She can't ever.

And also, I will.

I do think something, and I didn't realize it until the end when she's wearing the wig, is that both actresses have a very similar facial type.

So she actually does kind of look like her.

Eve actually kind of looks like his mom.

Yes, they do, sort of.

I agree with that.

So that was like, ah.

It's like, I would not have picked up on that if she.

If they hadn't done that at the end, I don't think I would have picked up on it where it's like, maybe, like, subconsciously, right.

Like, he's picked someone that sort of, you know.

You know, something that I thought was a nice little.

A very small subversion, but was good.

Francis.

His mom tells Oz, I hate you.

You're a disappointment.

And you think, oh, this is the moment.

This is the turning point for Oz.

Not really.

He still loves her.

He takes her to the hospital, he.

Loves him, and he never.

He never deviates.

Yeah, never deviates.

Here's the thing.

It's when she can't recant that hatred and be witness to see his success, that moves the needle a little on him.

I think maybe that's a good explanation on why he kills Vic in the end.

I don't need this to happen anymore.

This was absolutely.

For me because he's just lost, like you said, his rock, the thing he's built his family on.

Like, this was the version of, like, you get to a certain point in your life and you're like, I can't.

No more new dog.

No more new puppy.

I can't go through that again.

Yeah.

Except he had to kill the puppy in this case.

Yeah.

But, yeah, that absolutely works for me, Blaine, because it's like, it takes what had been a source of strength for him, and then all of a sudden, all that energy, he has nowhere to put it.

So with Vic, he's like, what do I even do with you?

I agree.

He couldn't let him run Free.

He could.

Because that would never work.

Never.

He's too.

He's too deep in Vic.

I mean, Vic.

Vic is too deep in.

With Penguin.

Oh, yeah.

The shock of the moment made me have to sit with it, though.

But I'm with you.

It worked.

It worked well.

As he's like talking to Vic and kind of building him up, you're just like, yeah, he's something.

He's going to do something horrible.

You can just see it because, you know.

Yeah.

And poor man.

Poor.

Speaking of puppy dogs.

Poor puppy dog.

Eyed Vic just wants, you know, just wants.

His dad wants to commiserate with a guy who misses his family too, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot is going.

Not a complicated guy.

He just wants to be loved.

A lot's going to hinge on.

Did you buy into Vic?

Were you okay with him being a character and you had some empathy for him or.

Or not, But I did pretty early on.

After about episode two or three, I was like, no, this is pretty good.

This guy.

I like this actor and he's doing fine.

Yeah, Agreed.

They did put a little too much on Vic's speech to the other mobsters in the wake of the explosion, you know.

Right.

Well, like, punched in the stomach.

He does get punched in the summit.

But I was thinking, well, okay, the cronies are tired of not moving up.

All right.

It affected them.

Right.

I just want to thank the show for not being just a huge setup for a big reveal that points you toward the Batman 2.

Yeah.

@ the end when they switched on the bat signal, it's like, all right, okay, here we go.

They didn't even have to do that.

No, they didn't have to.

I would watch this as a setup to more Batman.

Oh, yeah.

And also by itself.

Exactly.

No.

Yeah.

We're over that whole.

This is a commercial for the next movie.

We're over that.

We've grown away from it or we've moved on.

If more of these kinds of shows would treat it as a deepening of characters rather than an eight episode commercial, I think fans and critics would both be on board.

Yeah.

Can you imagine how much they were able to do because they didn't have to shoehorn in like 10 cameos for the next however movies or what?

You know, it does make me question, can you just have him show up in the next Batman movie with all this baggage that viewers know from these eight episodes and.

And have it balanced with people who didn't watch?

Does it matter?

Gonna be another Batman in the Matt Reeves universe.

Yeah.

There is Well, I think they're in production even.

Maybe that's good, because by the end of it, I was like, I would really want to see Oz and Batman because, well, Batman is someone Oz does not understand.

No, he understands, but we do.

But he doesn't understand Batman.

There was a moment in about episode six where I was like, I don't know if I could pull for Batman vs Oz.

I think I'm pulling for Oz.

But he.

I think the killing of Vic helps.

Sure.

Like, oh, God, this guy.

I can't.

I can't root for him anymore.

Jesus.

I mean, he spreads a lot of pain and misery.

You know, he's pretty.

It's his reasons behind it, I guess.

I'm still like, damn.

With him and Sophia.

It's like, they're not.

Neither of them are good people.

But you're kind of pulling for both of them a little bit.

Right.

You're like, I see where you're coming from.

They're not good people because of their environment, for sure.

You know, maybe he was born with the.

With the leg thing.

Was he born with it?

Does it ever say.

No, it never goes into it.

When we see little Oz, he's wearing the.

The brace.

And that's really all kudos to little Oz, actor who mimics the walking style to perfection.

Yeah, he does.

Looks just like him.

He did.

He did a good job.

There you have it.

We love the Penguin.

Thumbs up.

Better than it has to be.

Way better than it has to be.

Its intention and delivery definitely outweighed its three or four flaws.

Absolutely.

I really.

I do.

I think it's almost as hard sometimes to take something that's kind of tired and make it seem not new, but fresher.

And I think this actually did a very good job of that because it's all stuff you've seen before until you're like, oh, wait a minute.

This is kind of new.

Batman has always had more interesting villains than Batman himself.

That's true.

I just worry that Batman 2 will try to cram in Joker and this one and that one.

Let it be Oz v.

Bruce Wayne.

I'd watch it.

Yeah, absolutely.

We set them up in the first movie.

We get this, and then.

Sure.

All right, well, that's it for us this week.

Follow us on online social media if you want, but definitely follow the podcast and you'll get new episodes every Tuesday morning, bright and early for Adam, for Donovan.

I'm Blaine.

And talk to you next week.

Bye.