Where Does 'Widow's Bay' Go From Here?

[00:00:01] Hey, welcome to Taking It Down this week. On this week's episode, we'll give a little talk of the return of the House of the Dragon on HBO. And then we'll have a lot of focus on Widow's Bay, its first season and its finale. I'll get Adam and Donovan in here and we will begin. I'll take projection.

[00:00:29] Here we are. Welcome to Adam and welcome to Donovan. And probably a lot of listeners are reveling in that first episode of House of the Dragon right now. But we'll be a week behind if we decide to give it conversation. Lucky bastards. We record on Sunday. We'll watch it soon enough. Donovan, you were a pretty big fan of the last season. I actually was, while feeling kind of ambivalent about the first season. Two-year break makes it like, am I going to jump back into this?

[00:00:58] But I felt like the second season was big, did a lot of things that were fun. And frankly, if you just give me an episode that thrills the shit out of me, like the big dragon battle episode. Oh, not Damon walking around an empty castle? They never would show full frontal, so that kind of lost some points there for me. Although I do actually like, I think that Matt Smith came more into his own.

[00:01:27] I like all the actors. I like the actors that play Eamon and the other one, the boys. So I think there's some good stuff going on there. I'm excited for this season. And I could be setting myself up for disappointment, but I like seeing peasants get roasted. I thought what one you ever was the bros coming into the dragon cave and attempting to hop on one. They were peasants. They were some.

[00:01:55] How well versed are you in the Targaryen tale? Not at all. I guess I could read it, but I haven't read anything Game of Thrones related since I read the last book that came out. Although I have read some other things by George R.R. Martin since then. Just simple recall. Are you going to have to read up on it? They bone their siblings. That's what I remember. Yes. We'll put a check mark down. It was a pass-fail question.

[00:02:25] I remember that this is like a – I remember the origins of this dynastic struggle well enough. You know, at a certain point, it's like these two people dislike each other. I think that the show actually did do a good job of like this thing has a life of its own now. And so like they're not going to stop fighting until something horrible happens.

[00:02:46] The one thing I'm a little fuzzy on is there was a twin who she was out alone and had kind of ran into a dragon. Oh, man. I don't even remember that. Yeah, me either. I guess I'll have to check the Wikipedia page. Same. Oh, I do kind of remember that. We'll do our research. Listeners, write in and tell me who these people are.

[00:03:11] Up first this week in real conversation is the last episode of Widow's Bay from Apple TV with Matthew Rhys as the mayor of the New England Island town. We're in non-spoilers here at the beginning of the podcast. So let me ask you if the series was good – as good at ending as you believed it was throughout. Yes. Yes. I think the important thing – it's kind of a spoiler, but we're in non-spoilers.

[00:03:40] Spoilers, and it's safe to say because everybody knows it – the last episode of season one of Widow's Bay. True. It's got its season two officially. It's sort of taken its victory lap right now, too, with the critical consensus is rising. It's a breakout hit, though maybe not the most popular Apple TV show. Still, it feels like everybody's talking about it. It bounces around their little dashboard. It bounces around between one and two. Yeah.

[00:04:08] It's been a fun one to track the – you know, a lot of the time with television, I have friends who – they're probably watching the same thing. Outside of the three of us, obviously, we're texting about these things. But, you know, still, like on Netflix, there's some Adam Sandler movie that I've never heard of that was actually the top thing that weekend. So, like, clearly, like, I'm not really – but, like, who talks about it, you know?

[00:04:31] But with Widow's Bay, it does feel like one of the rare times that I'm seeing the breakout hit happen, like, in my friend group, too. Like, I had friends who weeks one and two were like, you should check this show out. And then gradually you see, like, the word of mouth thing happen. And it's just really cool when a piece of – when a band or when a show or when anything kind of – people are excited and talking to each other about it.

[00:04:55] Yeah, I feel like there was – like, nothing – almost like a somewhat, like, tepid response when it first came out. And then, like, as the weeks have gone on, I assume as people have watched it with increasing delight, they've realized how fun it is and how good it is at what it's doing. And deservedly, it's getting a lot of attention, which is awesome.

[00:05:19] There's, like, a level of – you don't want to call it pluckiness because this is a show with, like, award-winning actors being put on by Apple, you know? It doesn't really need for us to advocate for it necessarily, but it does feel like, oh, this is – you know, oh, I saw this show early. You know, this is our – we have to root for this show kind of in a way like it's some, like, little indie thing. But obviously it's – It does feel like something that could have struggled to find its audience, especially with, like, horror is hard, comedy is hard.

[00:05:49] Combining those two and somehow being really good at both – It's a double negative, Donovan. Is really hard. I know we're all English majors here, but that's just how it works. Both of those things are – make it so hard to gauge its greatness. It's so damn subtle. It's easy to brush off as, oh, it's kind of scary and it's pretty funny, and that's the show.

[00:06:13] But those two things, along with its depth of definition, makes it great, but also hard to see its greatness and hard to really pinpoint. Because they're doing great characters all along too. Absolutely. And just good, heartfelt writing is what pulls those two elements together to me and, like, makes it a great show. Which I think now that season one is over, I'm comfortable saying this was a great season of television. Same. Same.

[00:06:41] It felt like it was doing a balancing act. I think the – you asked how I liked the last episode. The last episode, like all the other episodes, somehow manages to show the quirky facets of these characters. They have a situation where Matthew Rhys is earning his money. There's a reason he's in this role, and it's really brutal and really sad, and it's hilarious the whole time. That's tough. Yeah, it is.

[00:07:07] I know you've gone to the trophy store and bought up a lot of awards to give to Spider Noir, but is Widow's Bay the second best series of the year? Widow's Bay is my favorite series of the year so far. The winner of the Better Than It Needs To Be award because it really didn't have to be this good. The Spider Noir gets the crazier than it has to be award, but that's just Nicolas Cage. Everyone else is fairly normal. He's insane.

[00:07:36] We will talk about Cape Fear and possibly maximum pleasure guaranteed some next week. Probably House of the Dragon at least some with only one episode there under our belt next week. What we'll do is we'll take a break here so that we can talk about some spoilers with Widow's Bay. The whole season's up for grabs, especially that finale.

[00:08:03] Many interviews can ramble, or maybe the host asks the same questions you've all heard answered. Not with short takes. Not only does short takes have the guests you want to know more about, but also the summer series manages to go in depth with just four questions. Back again this summer, short takes will air new episodes each Friday on the YouTube channel for The Alabama Take. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to the YouTube channel and you'll know exactly when each episode of short takes premieres.

[00:08:33] No sense in wasting time. Let's get back into Widow's Bay finale called We Hope You Enjoyed Your Stay. It's where Tom finds out that Ruth isn't the last descendant. The town gets incredibly antsy in the shelter and the storm comes to a close once the janitor dies mysteriously in the basement of City Hall.

[00:08:54] Talk about some seriously dark comedy in the opening moments with Tom rummaging through Ruth's medical files and he's saying, come on, cancer, cancer. Cancer, cancer. Wow. He gets to a file and the doctor's just written like, wow. I think she's so healthy. Yeah, her blood pressure or something is just incredible. He does instead find that she's been prescribed two different types of medications that she should not take together.

[00:09:21] One was Valium and the other I think was a pain medication and for which I say, bullshit. You can take two and even three of those bad boys together. You'll be fine. Well, we're in spoilers, so that's why she didn't die, Blaine. I know. Well, she has the constitution of a 15-year-old probably, so it didn't affect her whatsoever. It just got her a little sleepy. I would like to nominate her actually for line of the show and the actor whose name I cannot remember.

[00:09:51] Or not line of the show, sorry, line of the episode. As she's getting increasingly loopy, she's just like, the pullout method just does not work. And the way she said it was great. I was going to give her a line of the episode too, but only for a different one where she says, he got bit by an animal and became that animal. Oh, that was so good. And then the look on Tom's face, of course, helped me laugh more where he was thinking, what?

[00:10:21] Out of all the weird things, I feel like they have, if you're creating the show and you don't know there's going to be a season two, they have put so many little grenades throughout the season that if you had to go back and you're like, you know what, we want some more of that show. Just grab hold of one of those. And that's like an entire season. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the family tree alone is how many seasons of television? Lesbians.

[00:10:47] Speaking of her, when Rosemary angrily intones, didn't include me, guess I'll go fuck myself. That was a brilliant delivery as well. This episode, I feel like it's really easy to talk about the things that I thought were funny. And I can kind of fall into that just because, for me, that is kind of proof of how good it is. But one of the things I really did like about this episode is that everyone, like all of the supporting characters are really firing on full cylinders,

[00:11:17] even if they're just doing silly things. Like Jeff Hillersdale got a chance to really steal the show by whipping up some panic. And it was very funny. And it felt like every supporting character had like their little moment where we got to see like what we've learned about them. We get to see, except for the janitor, he's dead. His name was Keeney, by the way. Keeney? It's the whole, they killed Keeney.

[00:11:47] Yeah. That's kind of, it might have been a nod to that. Incredible. Yeah. He's not actually dead. He'll be back in the first episode of next season. No, that really would be a South Pole. No one will bat an eye. This episode, more than anything else, I think, did a great job of developing the real horror, which is dirtbag teens. Oh, she's back. The girlfriend's. Dirt, dirtbags. Don't smoke pot.

[00:12:15] Miss, let's dig through your dad's stuff. Is back this week. She doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. Right. No. No. And I feel like there's gotta be, if they don't address that next season, I'll be a little disappointed. It does seem like a thread they could. PJ, right? PJ. Is the buddy's name. That guy's bad news. He's bad news, but he's. See, that's the thing. Heaven's not really a bad kid, but PJ? PJ winds him up. Well, let the debates rage until we see the next season.

[00:12:45] Is PJ somehow tied to the people making decisions about who goes in there? He shut that door pretty quick. He did shut that door. That's true. He lured him down there. Hmm. Now, he did ask to be strapped in the chair. Yeah, he does. I don't know. Hard to say. Did these kids go to school together? Like in a run room schoolhouse? Do they have to be separated? By their teacher? Yeah, probably. If they were in my classroom, yes.

[00:13:13] Let's go to the scenes at Ruth's house. Were you guys familiar with that Tennessee Williams quote she reads? Yeah. I don't remember what it's from, but I'd heard it before. I thought it was a wonderful sentiment that we love by sharing art, and that art could be almost anything. You know, being a parent's an art, a writer, anything.

[00:13:33] This was, I think, just another great example of where they just balanced the line so well with the poignant, because it is truly a poignant quote. But she's also, like, taking her sampler off the wall, and she's like, oh, can't read that. And you can see where she's like, like, she's stitched it too small. So, like, it's right. And yet it doesn't ruin either. It's not an ideal quote to have is stitching. It was very, that made me laugh.

[00:13:59] You know, the stuff in Ruth's house, I think, with, you know, like, as Tom, like, increasingly finds out what a good person she is, is, like, very funny. But also, like, Matthew Rhys is really, he's playing it completely straight. He's, like, trying to figure out if he's going to kill this person. Yeah. It was. And it was great. So unbelievably tense on both sides, because I don't know about y'all, but the whole time I'm thinking, is she about to launch herself across the room?

[00:14:29] Yes. With some sort of supernatural force. And this would not be out of step with the rest of the show, really. I mean, it's kind of trained us. And you have this trope of this, not helpless, but, you know, as Patricia says the episode before, this woman makes his birthday cakes. You know, like, although when they show her walking when he first comes in, one, it's funny because, like, there's a storm that's already killed somebody on the island.

[00:14:59] Right? Like, that's happening as they meet. And she's just in there getting her steps in. Just not worried about it. And so I'm thinking. Two miles. I'm thinking the whole time. Like, does she, is he going to find her in this state of relaxation because she knows she can't be killed? Because she's part of this. Well, does she know the facts of her lineage? You know? And then you get there and you're thinking, is she going to do something to him? And they do things like the steps.

[00:15:27] And then when she, like, pretty much runs up the stairs. Yeah. And they make a point to show her very swift, swift little feet going. And I don't know. So on the one hand, you're like, like when he is a little bit into it, but he walks back down with the pillow. You know? And you have that happening. And then you, so it's like, is he going to do something ultra violent? Is she going to explode in violence? But it ends up being a lovely conversation between someone who ends up being his mother-in-law. Yes. Yeah.

[00:15:56] It was, again, a balancing act. Like, they, I'm astounded. But, like, it's the, you know, it's the, one of the things that makes it so good is I'm astounded in the moment. But I'm also, it is not something that I'm just watching, like, abstractly. You know how, like, sometimes a Kubrick film maybe can feel a little cold. You know, there's a kind of icy perfection to it. This is like, I'm involved with this. It's funny. You're talking about Tom coming into the house. They filmed it very well.

[00:16:25] They had a couple of moments where Tom looked dangerous. Walking up to Ruth's house was reminiscent of how the boogeyman looked. Keeping him out of frame in her living room. Shooting Ruth on the couch and having the doorway of the living room cut him off just created that dread. You're talking about that he might do something really violent with the pillow. But yet he's out of shot, so you don't know where he is. Is he near? Is he far?

[00:16:53] Is he running toward her, you know? Well, she's, you just don't know that much about her. And, you know, you wonder, again, I really, did you guys not think she could just do something that shit crazy the entire time? I was, like, ready for a jump scare. They were setting it up like that. Yeah. For sure. And like you said, the whole show at this point has primed us to think, like, nothing's off the table. Yeah.

[00:17:19] And so now you're left wondering, like, how much does she know, you know? Or her response to the stitched quote and really all the crazy things that happen kind of brought the whole show into focus a bit. Where she essentially, and I'll paraphrase here, you know, if you've only ever lived on that island, then what is normal? Yeah.

[00:17:43] You know, like, it's just life, you know, and she equates all of these weird things to, well, we go through some weird stuff in normal life, you know, like there are diseases that just show up and wipe you out. Or all of a sudden things turn out, you know what I mean? So for her to just be, like, this peaceful roll with the punches kind of person, you know, I do think she is not telling us everything that she knows.

[00:18:08] And I think we are meant to think until season two, like, is she withholding it because it's just her life and you don't think to tell every, this guy everything about your life? Why would you? Or is she strategically not saying everything? Little hints, like the mayor who's Howard the coward, you know, like what is he a coward for? Yeah, right. What all has she seen? I mean, if Wick has seen all of these things and has this knowledge, then she should have that much more, right?

[00:18:38] That's right. But it did make it kind of this heartwarming thing. Again, we keep saying, like, they're doing the horror and the comedy so well, but the undercurrent is just, like, good writing and good character development and good feels. Yep. Her just kind of being like, yeah, that's life. What are you going to do? I agree with you, Adam. I thought that was great because, like, a car attack, a car attack, a car crash is as scary as, like,

[00:19:06] a werewolf attack or something, right? Yeah, like, you can get hurt in real life, too. Like, real life is just as scary. Yeah. Tom's the antagonist to her protagonist in this episode. She, and they do that with him bringing up the trolley dilemma. And she explains how she sees it, that there's nothing you can really do but maybe enjoy life with love.

[00:19:32] And he thinks that you have to kill saving folks that you love. Sharp-eared listeners will remember that Adam brought this up last week, so I bought him an award as well. That's right. Is that in the mail? It's in the mail. No, that's great. And then Tom and the sheriff believed the same thing, which put them at odds at the very end of the episode because Tom's kind of come around. It does seem like there's possibly going to be, like, a recalibration of what's our goal here.

[00:20:02] Yeah, I think they were going to have to. With the island, you know? Like, it seems like they're going for broke on we have to do X, Y, and Z to just rid everything once and for all. And once they accept that that's not how that's going to play out, probably, like, what happens next? How shocked were you that the sheriff did come in and try to kill her? I thought it was great. Pretty high tension.

[00:20:28] It made sense to me, especially if it's setting up Tom and the sheriff to be at Loggerheads because obviously the last descendant being Evan, they're similar characters in the sense that they will both do anything for their son and newly born child. I forget if it's a son or daughter. So I thought it was excellent. Like, it played off of Tom so well.

[00:20:56] Adam also brought up, is Tom in denial about a lot of what's going on? And he does admit to what he thinks is a dying Ruth that he's denied a lot since his wife had the stroke. He realized there's more going on here than he would be willing to admit to himself and very much to others. And he's denied it too long. And so, of course, then we get the biggest reveal of them all that Evan is of the lineage.

[00:21:23] We suspected that would happen somehow or another. Were you shocked at all? Were you surprised at all that Evan is? No. It made sense. That seemed like a foregone conclusion to me. I think so, too. In order to get the stakes incredibly high, it would have to be that Tom's one huge love of his life remaining Evan has to be in danger at some point. Yep. Absolutely.

[00:21:53] I do wonder, Donovan, you mentioned Tom and the sheriff ending up as potentially foils to one another moving forward. And I'm curious because they both seemed so, especially the sheriff, so even-keeled all season that it made his response that much more earned. Like this is a logical choice, right?

[00:22:16] You go here and you, if I kill this woman, then my child who is going to be born any second doesn't have this lifelong curse. When that's not successful and they see that scene when everything stops outside, does everybody get together and compare notes and say, what just happened to y'all last night? And then get a cohesive strategy? Or is there going to be episodes of information like the telephone game?

[00:22:46] Right. Like who knows what? Because why would the sheriff and Tom not work together? Everyone seems to have little pockets of information, too. Like Dale, as far as we know, is the only one who watched the videos. So Dale, as far as we know, is the only one who knows about the church bell. Because they weren't able to find that out from the pastor. Right.

[00:23:09] Well, I mean, you wonder if when Tom and Evan are standing beside the water at the end, oh, what a great last shot, too. Yeah. Where the bells toll. They toll for thee, you know? You just wonder, does Tom already know in that moment? All right. Hey, people. Yep. Here's my question to you guys.

[00:23:30] I've seen a couple of critics note that the ringing of the bell at the Varian in that final shot is to be taken that the island needs that many more deaths. I thought it was acknowledging that it had gotten that many and things were kind of coming to a close at least for a year or two or whatever. No, I think because of the first episode, I think it's eight, right? That it tolls in the last one. It is eight.

[00:24:00] I did count those. And there's nine in the first one. Oh, okay. So it has accepted one and will continue. The beatings will continue until morale improves. It needs eight more lives. So in the end, it's all about something that requires a death of people afraid in order to be satisfied. How creepy was that? The footage where they're all in their underwear with the things over their head.

[00:24:29] That was like genuinely unsettling. It was. And it was the most scary the show has been. Yeah. In that video where it was probably an old mayor explaining. It was two sets of videos. One was for the people who were going to be sacrificed and one was for the people who were guiding them into it. It was creepy. Just a hair's breadth away from being, hi, I'm Troy McClure. It was so good.

[00:24:58] It was almost that. I imagine that these are the kind of videos that you would see if you were in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. If you were prepped for your roles. I thought they did. It was good. That was exactly what I was reminded of. How they have to sacrifice however many numbers they're supposed to that time. It did remind me of Shirley Jackson's writing. That sound design, I don't know if you noticed it, particularly when they were coming out of the shelter, was super well done.

[00:25:28] I think this may have been another episode of television where I watched with the headphones. I've gotten into the habit, now that we have an Apple TV player instead of a Roku, it will pair with my headphones just at a snap. Oh, that's cool. So I'll listen to television with headphones on. It's pretty magnificent. You can notice some subtle sound design elements. So yeah, the island needs to death in order to survive and demands it from the townspeople.

[00:25:57] Scariest scene of them all. And then Jeff Hiller's reaction watching those old movie reels was somehow or another, you know, once again, scary and funny with his mouth fully open and in shock. Wow. When he comes out and he's all like ashen faced and like you just know he's about to lose his top.

[00:26:18] That reaction, his reaction, I know I pointed it out last week, but when Tom is trying to get his attention on the radio from the thing and he's like, hey, listen, that was deeply relatable. And his mouth agape watching this was also just like, yeah, that's this man is not a hero. I mean, he may end up being a hero, but this is this is a human reaction to this.

[00:26:44] And speaking of things you get to play with next season, he still doesn't have a backstory, but you know that they have something for him if needed. I've seen critics say like you don't hire him without some heavy lifting in the future. That's my feeling, too, because like he's been great and a fun peripheral character. But if they don't have more, I'd say he's you know, that would be underused. Yeah. Because he can obviously do it.

[00:27:12] What to make of the note Patricia sees and tucks away? That's never really mentioned other than she sees it on a scrap of cloth. I mean, that's that has to be left from one of the sacrifices. Right. What did it say? Remind me. That's my assumption. It was it was something like if you're reading this, I'm probably already dead. Right. That's what it was. If you're reading this, I'm already dead. OK. That may not be it verbatim, but. OK. Quite an unsettling thing to. Also how I read it, that it's from one of the sacrifices.

[00:27:42] Yeah. Well, and you have to think I need to go back and rewatch the priest, his scenes. When he finds out about the bell, when he does his descent into the tunnels and when he comes back and encounters the teenagers. Some folks have said that he points directly at PJ when he's talking about the evil that's on the island. So I don't know if he's discovered something about him down there.

[00:28:06] But this is the only person up until Dale at the end that knows what's happening. Right. And he goes. Yeah. He goes and hangs himself. And he destroys all the evidence, too. So that nobody else will know what's happening. Right. All those scenes would be very interesting to revisit with the knowledge. As would all of Ruth's scenes, I think, knowing what's actually going on there. She has to be home every day at three to help her neighbor.

[00:28:35] You find these things out, right? Like she actually has this very full calendar. It's not that she's going home for a nap. She can't stay at work because she's helping. Yep. Up the stairs and down the stairs. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah, or something like that. Onto the porch and outside and inside, I think. She's got the group she meets with to write and share stories. She's doing the writing group. Fantastic. That's how Frankenstein was written.

[00:29:05] She's no Mary Shelley, though. That's what she says. Even stuff like, you know, she grows her own herbs. And she's, you know, it's just like. She doesn't waste herbs. The sadness in Tom's eyes as this keeps going on is. I've got to prolong this possible murder. Yeah. Hilarious. Or when the tea, when he chose the wrong tea. And she's like, that takes 27 minutes. Yeah. She's like, Tom, I'm not going to waste herbs.

[00:29:35] She got very Southern there. She did. Well, there is a hint of Southern Gothic to a lot of these individual tales. I mean, I think that's the great thing about the Gothic is it does have these resonances. And I also think that for all of the sense that, and the truth that things are very different between, say, Mississippi and Maine. There's things that are very similar, too.

[00:30:04] You know, there's things that are like, you know, small towns are small towns. It's the best Shirley Jackson adaptation we've had that wasn't really a Shirley Jackson adaptation. That's true. I love the homage, perhaps, to Salem's Lot with the font. You know, the Widow's Bay font that starts in.

[00:30:24] I feel like there was some, or maybe not even Stephen King, but it felt like very intentionally like a 70s or 80s paperback that you read at the beach.

[00:31:03] Yes. There's a cabal of people choosing who goes in. I was wondering about that, too. Is she aware of that? Does she have to carve some time out in her calendar to go to those meetings? Like, what is the state of that? There are people making decisions somewhere on the island, right? Or at least were back then. Were back then. Is Tom, as the Lord Protector, supposed to be doing that? Is that why he runs unopposed? Probably. Two, we haven't really talked about Wick this episode. No.

[00:31:33] He was great. I thought the scenes with him in the shelter were very good. You think of him as this tough guy, and he talks about how quick the panic can break out, and you really do wonder, like, can Wick keep this under control? That was a great part of the tension. But even better than that was when Tom is on the radio with Patricia, and she says, you don't have to do this. And you hear Wick in the background going, yes, you do. Yeah.

[00:32:00] And that line was so good, I had to give it a shout out in there. One more chance at them being the good angel, bad angel on Tom's shoulder. It made me laugh. Steven Rue is a treasure. Agreed. I always love to see him. I wish I could go back, speaking of going back, to myself at episode one and two and say, hey, buddy, it's going to be okay. Just enjoy it. It's really good. It's real good. You're going to love it.

[00:32:27] Will you guys rewatch it before season two? I might. I liked it. It helps that it's not an hour long. Mm-hmm. And that there's only ten episodes. And it's a fun place to visit. I don't know if this is Apple's M.O., but they have a lot of shows going now that run at that 35 to 42 minute range. It's perfect. It seems just spot on. The only one I think that's airing now that's kind of big is Cape Fear. It's about 50 minutes, sometimes 52. That's more in the, yeah.

[00:32:57] That's the usual, right? It feels like Apple. Like, HBO's done that, too, where, like, you'll have, like, they'll have, like, a couple longer episodes, but then it cuts back down to 30. And it'll kind of vary depending on how long it needs to be, but it kind of hits around that range. I imagine House of the Dragon this evening will be an hour and 15 minutes, probably. It better be. Well? I've been waiting for two years.

[00:33:24] Some things you do want, but other things you want in those 35 minutes. Episode length and things like that are interesting to talk about, especially because I think in this conversation, you can look back at some of those Netflix series that were clearly committed to being an hour long and had, like, three episodes too many. But I think the flip side of it, and it kind of worked perfectly for this, but, you know, it did, like, the shorter length did always kind of leave me wanting more.

[00:33:53] Which I would be, I don't know, I'm sure someone has studied this, but I'd be curious how my reaction would change if I just had that extra 10 minutes. I think it was perfect. I do, too. Oh, for sure. Yeah, it was perfectly paced. Yeah. And I liked that, yeah, we had some shorter episodes, but it was able to spread, and we had some longer ones kind of as needed. Yeah, this finale was a little longer. Which I think made it, and the first one, I think, was a little longer, maybe the first and second.

[00:34:23] So I think that helps it not feel constrained. Yeah, well, that's going to be it for us this week. I always appreciate Adam and Donovan's time and our listeners for joining us each week. For Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine. And if they're herding you into the shelter, just be careful. Have a nice week.