'Zero Day' Fails, 'The White Lotus' Needs a New Template, and 'Severance' Soars

Welcome to this episode of Taking It Down.

I'm the host, Blaine Duncan, and we are the working class TV and streaming podcast.

And I want to ask you to do one thing.

If you're a returning listener and you like this podcast, let someone else know.

If this is your first time to hear us and you get a little something out of what we do here, let a friend know and spread the word.

So in this, it's our 232nd episode, we're going to discuss Zero Day on Netflix, the White Lotus on HBO, and Severance on Apple tv.

Plus all of those will be topics in the first segment where we don't spoil any part of the shows.

Then, after a 30 second break, we'll get into the details of the second episode of this season of the White Lotus and the seventh episode of Severance that recently aired.

Stick around.

I'm about to get Adam and Donovan to join me directly.

Hey, I'm not pushing for a segment here, guys.

But instead of dissecting something alone at the top of the podcast like I've done a few times before in the past, I've started bringing you to a show which I know you haven't seen that I've watched or started a few episodes of.

Sometimes I'll try to convince you it's worthy of your time.

Today I'll warn you to stay away.

Maybe it's a boon to our audience of millions of listeners too.

It does fit nicely at the beginning of our podcast each week where we avoid spoilers.

This week I've got the Netflix series Zero Day.

It sounds like you cannot miss it.

Let me lay it out for you and you'd think to yourself, let me pause the podcast and go Hit play on Netflix stars Robert De Niro as a former president who never sought a second term, but who's been tasked by the current administration to investigate a serious and far reaching cyber attack across the world that halted computers, cell phones, everything you can imagine for a minute and warns it'll happen again.

Okay, well, you're not sold.

Did it disrupt porn blame?

Now that would be an interesting.

Oh my God.

For 60 seconds.

So an eternity.

Not only is De Niro doing tv, but it co stars Lizzy Kaplan, Jesse Plemons, Bill Camp, one of my favorites, Connie Britton, Matthew Modan and Angela Bassett as the current president.

What an impressive lineup.

I mean, the last time Dairo and Plemons were in something together, it was the Irishman, right?

Like I should be racing to see this, right?

Pump it in our.

In our veins.

Right but like Netflix shows often do, they.

They wrote the check to one department, but they didn't pay shit for the other departments.

All the money went to De Niro and co here and, and the writers and directors were obviously picked up at high school drama clubs around the country and asked to volunteer some time to make this, to make the rest of the show.

It'll look good on a college application.

They just showed a picture of De Niro and they were like, can you make this man happy?

But they made it.

They showed them one from Raging Bull, which was the trick, right?

It was not, hey, De niro is, is 81 years old, guys.

You know, I honestly thought he was older.

I thought he was young.

Asked me how old he is, I would have thought he was older.

I don't mean to be rude to any of our older listeners, but 80, 81, that's when that sounds to me like that's old.

Start getting a little old.

I think you just lost a significant port.

Significant portion of our.

If you'll look in the apple in the ample statistics that the drop off at minute 3:57 is right here.

Yeah, it's.

It's 80 years young, Blaine.

We need people with free time here.

They can vote and they can listen to our podcast.

Zero Day does play like a midd or fair to meddling ABC political thriller.

And that's not a knock against those shows.

They're fine if you like them, you love them.

People deservedly love them.

They do what they do.

When you hit play with De Niro, Plemons, Kaplan Camp in the same scene, you're expecting the Wire and not House of Cards Season 12.

One advantage the show has and knows it has in contrast to broadcast dramas is Netflix isn't afraid of limited tv.

That's how they probably got this cast.

And they, you know, broadcast TV does this thing where they want to try to keep churning out the same show as long as they can for ratings and they'll milk a cow long past its age.

But these actors are renowned.

It makes you wonder what, what they thought they were signing up for.

They're all doing fairly fine work and if not, not really amazing.

There is one interrogation scene that stars De Niro and he.

He brings some complexities.

There's a hint of old De Niro there.

Otherwise it's just not here.

I blame the directing.

I just don't think that they are trying to give them anything to chew on.

Three episodes in those zero days, like the antithesis of a.

Of a severance.

It.

It clings to a big reveal it's hoping will shock viewers.

And it.

And tease you to keep returning.

And it never really answers any of the questions.

I swear to you.

One episode ended with a huge moment and you're thinking, well, there's no way they can't just pick right up there in episode.

Whatever that next one.

Well, they.

They managed to never bring it up again.

That.

That sounds like a writing.

Serious writing problem.

It does sound like a writing problem, but I just think the directors aren't getting what they can out of this cast either.

Yeah, you know, the.

The.

The primary plot is a.

It's kind of a drag.

It's.

There's some real basic uninspired storylines, a moment of intrigue here or there.

But here's the heartbreak.

There is an absolutely fascinating, thrilling, wonderful show here about an aging and beloved politician who's trying to solve a mystery that's over his head due to changing times.

And why they're not.

Why they're not centering in on that, because that could even bring the pathos that could get a tear out of some folks.

It's just like, why aren't you doing that?

You've got the cast to do that.

You got the actor to do that.

It is funny that the.

The premise is that Robert De Niro plays an ex president who is brought in to solve a technological crisis.

He's to head a department who will tamp down on kind of a post 9 11.

We need a department to figure this out.

If you told me that he had never sent an email before, yeah, I would believe you.

I've never read James Patterson or that kind of novelist, but this is what it sounds like.

Feels like.

Like one of those kinds of airport novels on Netflix.

I feel like you just put the nail in the coffin for me.

I'm out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you put Grisham in, it would have just been just.

Yeah, it's basically that.

Cast it out to sea.

I'll finalize one thing that frustrates me before I move into anything else.

Bill Camp has shown up twice in three episodes.

The Bill Camp shown up twice in three episodes.

And he has stated in some form or another, I have something important that'll reveal it all and shock you to your core.

And then the scene changes and you're talking, well, okay, I'm old enough to.

Remember watching for the, like, next week on Lost bit.

And there's always like, someone will be like, this changes everything.

And then it smash cuts away.

And of course, nothing ever comes with it.

That's what it also feels like.

It makes me think of two things.

One that immediately calls to mind when Mad Men was still on the air and they had the next week on and it was always just like Don going, what?

And like somebody answering a phone saying hello.

Yeah, like just the most vague.

Those were hilarious.

Like John meets a new friend, you know?

Or like you couldn't parse out anything.

Whatever.

You couldn't tell what was gonna happen.

It also you describing this show makes it seem like much more of a postmodern fever dream send up of one of these programs than it probably actually is.

And I'm just picturing Homer sitting there watching Twin Peaks saying, I have no idea what's going on.

Brilliant.

Now this show wants you to be just checking in.

Just go to the next one.

And it's just.

You wonder if Netflix came in to the writer trim and said, no, you can't reveal anything right here.

Do you think the rest of television is angry at severance for being such a try hard?

Yeah, that's it.

Set the bar too high.

The White Lotus aired its second episode of the season three titled Special Treatments.

Will maintain no spoiler status for this episode as of now.

But.

But, gentlemen, after two episodes of this third season season, I can say that improvements got to be made in this upcoming third episode.

Or the White Lotus and Critter might.

Why?

Well, I might have lost the mojo this time.

The template needs a little breaking somewhere soon.

I have seen other reviewers kind of saying similar things that, you know, where it's kind of like, hey, guys, we've been here before.

Yeah.

And there's not.

I, I don't like anybody this season.

That's true.

And they have Walter Goggins.

Yeah.

Walton Goggin.

I can't recommend this season.

I'll continue to see how it all comes together.

Just see if it changes.

If you're looking for, you know, surprisingly good tv, the first two seasons are great, but the characters and their interactions weren't aplenty in those first two seasons.

But they all clicked here.

It's like these people are starring in different shows or something.

It's most notably Walt and Goggins.

You know, it's just not as captivating.

I think a sign that something's wrong is I woke up Monday morning after watching the episode Sunday night, and I thought, surely I missed something.

And I even went back and skimmed the episode.

Again with the remote.

Just skimmed it.

Nope, same episode.

It is funny that we are, as we say often, we record on Sunday and this will come out On Tuesday when episode three is already out and it's a bit like going back and the social media algorithm is so non linear now that you will get served theories from episode one of season Lotus season three, White Lotus season three.

And you're just like, oh, that's already wrong.

That's wrong.

You know?

Right.

So who knows?

I mean, maybe episode three will be a real uptick.

Let's cross our fingers.

Yeah.

If so, we'll talk about it some more next week.

If not, we'll see.

It's on the chopping block.

I mean, what you're saying.

Probably not.

Probably it's walking toward the chopping block, but it's not.

This is an interesting place for this conversation.

I think this, this would have been going into this year.

I would have assumed we're going to talk about every episode of White Lotus and it's already in danger of losing that prestige position here.

The much sought after taking it down.

Must watch.

Yeah, yeah.

Shocking.

You know, they say that movie rentals from major streaming companies go up by as many as three endorsements.

That's three.

Florence, Arab and Connecticut.

Okay.

Yeah, I love that it's all of Connecticut.

We're parsing out Alabama.

I don't know where Duncan lives.

I mean, it's, it's not a big state and I do get around.

In our spoiler section, we'll be detailing the seventh episode of the enormously popular Apple TV series Severance.

That most recent one is titled Chicago Bardo.

Might help me with pronouncements there.

I know you got the second word right.

Yeah, well, Bardo, I don't know about the first one.

I'm not confident.

As for coverage of that show, there's little will say here that other than it's so original, it's easy to watch, it's digestible.

You should go see all that's available of season two.

If you, if you've seen season one, if you haven't seen either season, surely you can borrow someone's password for Apple TV plus and.

But honestly, if you're watching per Apple claiming it's now its most streaming show, so you're probably watching it with that, we'll, we'll hear some from friends, a podcast suggestion, and after the break, we'll spoil the White Lotus and Severance in that order.

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Taking on sports Details the sports action of the week with a lean towards Alabama coverage and a redneck hippie vibe.

Find it wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts.

Yeah, we pick up in the order we present from the non spoiler part of the podcast, which means we head back to Thailand to the lovely resort of the Wild Lotus episodes called special Treatments because that's what Saxon Ratliff believes he deserves.

I'm still.

We're in spoiler, right?

This isn't really a spoiler.

I'm still annoyed at him rifling through all the cupboards and just clanging pots and pans around while she's on the phone.

That guy drives me nuts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's perfect example of this guy.

We have a comment this week.

We have a couple comments this week.

I debated where to place it, but spoiler section seems better.

It's from Mr.

Jetta, undisputed longest listener champion.

He replied on the Alabama Takes site comment section.

Some of what he says is that the head scratching I've done concerning the show and what is or isn't happening with its accents.

He said, I'm with you.

With the accents of North Carolina family and White Lotus.

He I really, really hate fake Southern accents.

It's one of the many reasons that make Danny McBride's catalog in Billy Bob Thornton's classic Sling Blade brilliant.

All of the actors are from the south except for John Ritter.

Parker Posey seems like she's laying it on really thick, which she really shouldn't have to do because we.

Yeah, we detailed last week she spent some time in Mississippi.

Husband's played by Jason Isaacs, a liver Liverpoolian.

His accent too is a bit much.

But enough with that gripe.

One consistent feature is you're gonna shock you, whether it's Steve Zahn scrotum or these creepily incestuous siblings.

Yeah, they.

They're certainly sticking to the template here.

You know, Jetta, that's a pet peeve for me.

Is it?

Yeah.

I was gonna say I.

I can get over it some.

It's funny that he.

You bring up Danny McBride because that's what, like, that's one of the things that does make him so funny when I see him and stuff is like, it's.

It's a.

It's a completely natural accent.

Yeah, that's what people sound like that I know.

I love.

Exactly.

I think there is this thing where like Hollywood, quote, unquote, Hollywood, like media folks are like, think that people sound like William Faulkner still or something like that.

It's like, go, go to the south and.

And listen for this accent and then do it based on that.

Not what you think it should sound like.

I will say this.

The last 20 years or so, everyone I've known or met sounded like Danny McBride.

And before that, everyone sounded like the boy from Sling Blade because I was in smaller parts of Alabama.

Well, and you saying 20 years is.

You made a great point last week, Blaine, that the kids not having the accent is a good bit of work.

That idea that the generational loss of that.

Even though the.

I meant to bring this up last week.

The daughter is played by young woman from Montgomery who could conceivably pull off a better southern accent than the rest of the fam.

Yeah.

They don't ask them to do that.

Oh, a back to back comment.

I should have just went ahead and said it.

Tim from seti Memco, our buddy said, glad you're watching the White Lotus.

Is Parker Posey's southern accent over the top on purpose?

Is it a symptom of her drugged up self?

And he says, I predict that Moocs brothers are the people who robbed the resort.

That's a good prediction.

I think something's up with this.

She's making a deliberate choice with that accent and it might be because she's thinking, oh, this lady's constantly on drugs and.

Or pills and this is what I need to do.

Which I.

There was a very funny moment and I thought it was the funniest moment of the most recent episode.

I haven't found it as enjoyable as previous seasons.

But her going to the massage table and saying, before I do this, I just gotta relax.

It's like.

Well, I think I even wrote down the line so I get it.

Right.

But it was so funny that she had to take a pill before she could get a massage.

That's the point.

I think I do see what you're saying about like maybe it's poured on so thick is like a.

You know, I mean, I think it's easy to predict that there's a certain veneer going on with this family.

Yeah.

That both.

Both to people outside the family and to.

To each other.

They need to convince themselves that they're a certain thing and that having that accent as thick as it is is part of that.

Possibly combine that with some chemical influence.

And maybe that's why we.

We are where we are.

Donovan, you were out last week.

I noted.

And tell me if you noticed that the.

The father, Tim, his.

He is from England.

I felt as though his accent dropped a couple of times.

To.

And I'm not the kind of person who hears that and.

But if I notice it, something's up kind of thing.

Liver Liverpool can't compete in.

In the accent game like the Irish can.

Oh, man, they can do it, can't they?

He's doing a fine job.

You can tell he's doing an accent and it's fine.

It's fine.

But it's.

As opposed to like Parker Posey.

Well, I was gonna say Matthew Reese, like some of his work where like hearing him speak with his natural accent is genuinely shocking.

It'll jar you because.

Because he's so.

He's so good and so natural.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's kind of the difference for me.

Let's dig in.

The episode opens with an odd first person point of view rising from the ocean and maybe even peering into the Jackalyn's bu.

Bungalow.

Who among us hasn't risen from the ocean and peered into a bungalow?

That's got to be something.

If not.

If nothing more than a red herring.

Compared to last week.

I will say this.

Walton Goggins Rick seems more relaxed.

He seems less hostile.

You have to wonder if what he expresses to release his tension to the lady who's helping with him with not meditation, but relaxation.

You have to wonder if some of that's true.

Where he talks about his past.

It feels like it could be a ruse.

It's fascinating, you know, and I suppose it's sad.

It's not unusual for the show to have somebody have that kind of history.

But he does deliver it in a manner.

It's not leaden, but it's not really melancholy, which is a Goggins thing, you.

Know, when he also.

I just caught.

Because they're playing it during the week, you know, and so on the YouTube TV I saw it was on and clicked on and caught that scene again and thought for a guy who's completely shut down, he immediately knows how to speak the lingo in that encounter.

You know, there's obviously been some.

And I think maybe it's beyond what we're just supposed to accept as this is tv, that these characters are intelligent in the ways that we need them to be intelligent, to have interesting conversations.

Sure.

You know, and I don't.

I think that this show is not so lazy as to do that with this.

Like, even though he's kind of got this gruff thing going on, he's still able to talk about in pretty.

Pretty grim terms, but also pretty thoughtful terms.

So you buy some Buddhist idea.

Well, I buy that he I don't know if he's telling the truth, but he's able to frame it in a way that goes.

Yeah.

Blow for blow with this woman who is speaking in this spiritual way.

I'm sure this show would never ever look at like the difference between like surface and reality.

That's probably not this show.

That's.

You don't think so?

I'm.

No, I'm kidding.

You caught me off.

I think that's.

I think that's a really good observation.

Yeah, that's a good.

That's really good.

I didn't.

That didn't.

I think you're right there.

That's what you get from a second watch.

It is telling you something.

Right.

About his knowledge, at least.

Right.

Or the fluidity with which he can move into different spaces.

Well, and maybe the.

Yeah.

The self awareness.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I still don't know.

Jerry's still out on like what he's trying to accomplish by being there.

I know that's kind of one of the big.

It's.

It's mysteries.

There's a bit of.

He's a sinister guy.

Some in there you can read it as.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you can.

I think they're still playing it real close to the vest on.

Is he looking for.

You know, some people think that it's his father is the.

The hotel owner's wife, her husband.

And other folks think that he is possibly a head man.

He's been sent.

So we speculate.

I still don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

Too early.

Yeah.

Too early to tell for sure.

Great things to say before episode three that everyone's going to watch.

And we've only seen two years.

We're such a.

We're at such the disadvantage with.

With that and.

And by the way, hbo.

We'll take your screeners.

God damn it.

Just send us the link.

Oh, you mean episode three where he walks out with the name badge that says, hi, I'm a hitman.

Yeah, it's right there.

Rick, by the way, speaking of Goggins, he.

He meets.

He meets Greg slash Gary and they don't get along too well.

Now, I'll admit, talking about this, maybe I liked it more than I thought because it's one of the better scenes of the past week where Rick sarcastically smiling and saying that he does this and that too.

What do you do?

This and that.

You know, those two right there really played off each other.

Well, yeah.

Rick's gonna be off to Bangkok.

We suppose to a meet up with Scott Glenn's Character, the Jim Hollinger, he's probably not an estranged dad like I initially thought.

I think it said in this recent episode that Jim had a recent stroke.

I mean, he may be a hired murderer or maybe the guy owes him money.

I think a brief trip away from this island is what this series needs right now anyway, just to break the.

Mold a little bit.

Yeah, something's gotta happen.

As for Mama Ratliff, Parker Posey's character, she, you know, Kate comes up to her at the breakfast table and, hey, remember me from this weekend?

Baby shower.

And does she not recognize her because she's on that many pills, or is she not like her?

I mean, she greets her like Kate owes her money or some shit.

She's like, yeah, I don't know.

That's another, like, little maybe gap in the presentation, Right?

That.

Because at first you think, well, she's so stoned out of her mind, she doesn't know what's going on.

But then what she says is what?

We were together 10 years ago.

What do I care about, like, being friendly to this person?

Which kind of is like.

There's a way to read it where it's.

You see all interactions in that social strata as, like, transactional, and there's nothing left to get out of this.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, why should I be, like, friendly and cute with you when our worlds don't really overlap?

Talking about this makes me wish I was watching Madman.

Anyway, Derby Day, huh?

Interesting that she's on all these pills and Rick reveals that his mom OD'd when he was 10.

His dad was murdered before he's born.

You know, he's got these.

And he self medicates with weed because his baseline stress is an eight.

When he said that, I thought, yeah, so is mine.

Baseline is about eight.

The lady who conducts these stress meetings, I noticed she had an interest in Goggin's character, and I couldn't gauge what the level was.

Was it an attraction or was it she just wants to help?

I did find it fascinating that this week he's a lot less distant and aloof.

And I'm honestly hoping he bumps into Sax and beats the shit out of him.

That'd be great.

Wouldn't that be nice where it's.

Wouldn't if that's where it's.

You know.

What about a good drowning scene?

Old Saxon, he's chilling.

Are you so angry because the massage didn't have a happy ending?

I mean, you again.

Who among us?

Exactly.

Ye without sin.

If he doesn't get Some sort of big shattering comeuppance like Rick beating the hell out of him.

I fear this season Hughes too close to real life for his archetype.

Yeah, this family is not getting off on getting off.

This family is so uncomfortable to watch on screen at all times.

And I think the show, you know, we knew coming in, this is an ensemble thing.

There's going to be multiple parties and storylines going.

So it's not like they invented this for this family.

But you get the sense that Rick would also watch their scenes on TV with us and find it extremely odd.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're not asked to accept that.

Like, some families are wacky, you know, like.

Nope, they're.

They're freaking weird.

It's.

That younger brother is going to be the one who will explode with a.

With a thousand secrets.

Right.

Something.

His sister, the.

The middle child, Piper, she's a little paint by numbers.

And.

Is that the writing suffering from a junior year slump here or, you know, is she going to have something happening, too?

The thing I think that I dislike the most about episode two was their dad Tim's plot of the business being raided by the feds.

It's just him on the phone again.

Like, I saw that last week.

So what, that he's on the phone and finds out that he's being raided by the feds?

That could have happened last week and would have been just fine.

He talks to a partner or something who gets a little bit more angry or they dissolve partnerships or something.

See, I liked that.

That they kind of doled out do how.

How bad is the trouble?

You know, and now you find out, you get the sense that he.

Because he's on the opposite side of the world and should be relaxing, but is completely powerless to do anything both physically and, like, can't get anybody on the phone because time difference and all of that, that he's.

His world is crumbling and he's not there.

And I mean, it's kind of a cliche that you're hiding how bad a man is hiding how bad a situation is from his family who thinks that he hung the moon, you know, But I think that's going to be pretty satisfying to watch and seeing him just get absolutely, irredeemably furious at somebody.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, he encourages someone to kill themselves.

It's like, this is.

Yeah, he does.

Intense.

It reminds me of the plot line with the three friends.

It's.

That one's a little more the same as well.

Anytime there's an absentee friend the other two berate them on some level.

And it's just, you know, they did that last week.

I think I get to just.

We could move them into something else.

Well, now we're into odd jealousies about how their wellness, whatever rating went.

That actually seems very believable to me.

Like, having met people, I'm like, there's somebody out there right now getting mad about this somewhere in the world.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

What do you guys think about the.

The theory that Lori Carrie Coons character is Portia from last season's mom?

Be an interesting connection in a show.

That always wants to make these connections.

Yeah.

Would a mother go to another resort in a chain where her daughter was almost murdered?

By what?

What were they?

The.

The gay mafia?

I haven't seen that one, nor have I considered it.

I'd have to think about that some.

There's a few evidence points.

Like they.

They talk about her daughter, such a cool young woman, and blah, blah, blah.

Huh.

Something to think about.

The jewelry store on the island, the break in there, that snake bracelet's gonna come back.

The camera really wanted us to notice the snake bracelet, right?

Or I guess it was a bracelet.

Something to keep an eye out for too.

Do you think Rick is gonna use that to kill?

I hope he chokes sacks with it.

Yes.

The manager, Fabian, puts out such a weird vibe.

What the fuck is that actor trying to tell us?

I have no idea what the hell's going on.

Anytime he pops up on screen, I'm thinking, what am I supposed to take away from him?

Do you get the sense that someone like.

I don't know the actor's name off the top of my head, but someone like, right.

Every scene that he has, right before he.

Someone's whispered in his ear, just go out there and have fun with it.

And that's what he chose to do.

So I'm wondering what the hell the director's telling the actor who plays Fabian to do.

Just go out there and be fucking weird.

Have fun with it.

Convey no real thing to the audience.

Okay, go do that.

Belinda does spot Greg, and she does recognize him, but she doesn't.

And she plays this perfectly because this is where you convey to the audience exactly what they need to know.

Because she says, her face says, wait a minute, I know that guy from somewhere.

She doesn't play some camp.

Yeah, I do that every day.

And man, what a great little expression.

That was good, though.

So, yeah, what I was saying is most of these interactions, the dynamics do not grab me.

I hope they improve.

I Think we need to mix the pots more though.

One possibility for enhancement is to having them, you know, interact.

Maybe just have Rick blow some more smoke on Tim.

Anyway, that family can be annoyed.

Yes, I welcome it.

Even the youngest one who seems innocent and, and only kind of creepy in his innocence.

Lachlan or whatever his name is.

Next season, my Wyatt the creator has to go for the throat and make Leon Musk a White Lotus visitor.

He's probably just an investor.

He needs to visit the White Lotus in hell.

That one that's down there, they probably.

Do have a chain there, right?

Yeah, they do everything in hell.

Yeah, there's one in Arab Alabama you should come by and see.

I'll wrap our talk with this.

And it might honestly took a couple minutes to.

To wind down.

Adam, you once criticized or just noted that shrinking the characters there just.

You could just smell them in their houses.

Yeah.

This season of the White Lotus is a lot like if that crew from Shrinking weren't funny, weren't interesting enough, and were hateful, and they had no self awareness and they went to Thailand for no good reason.

And I mean the no good reason is a knock against some of this variety and, and set up this season.

I don't, I don't think these rich have an idea what they're.

What they're doing in that foreign country beyond spending their barely earned money.

You know, and I'm not too sold that the riders and why know why they want them there.

I'm talking about Thailand specifically.

Why not?

It's more than just like why not?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's like a, like easy exoticism.

Right?

That.

Yeah, but I don't think you need more than that.

That's.

It's just an interesting, like why.

What's the difference in going there in Hawaii?

Right.

I mean, the answer is a longer plane flight.

And you said you went to a different country, which is like part of the current monkeys and monkeys.

Part of.

Part of the currency of our current social media world is travel.

You know, that's like a status symbol.

And so you're one upping.

If your friend went to the White Lotus in Hawaii, you go, well, I went to the one in Thailand.

You know, I mean, I don't think you really have to look any more into it than that.

And it's also a set of people who are regularly.

I mean, I think like with Rick especially like, you don't really see them as being based anywhere, you know, so like ending up in Thailand is.

It's just part of a globetrotting existence.

Hey, that might be the problem.

Am apologies to listeners who disagree, but I think that Walton Goggins may be such a.

More.

Such a better actor, more interesting on the screen than anyone else on this show.

So you just.

I just want to know everything about his character, and I don't care that much about the three rich ladies, and I don't care that much about the.

I.

Well, I kind of do care about the family.

Just.

I want to know their secrets, but, you know, do I care about them?

No, I want to know their secrets.

But you can tell me whether they're alive or dead.

Rick, like, who is this guy?

What's he doing, you know, does he have a heart under that tough exterior?

Why is his girlfriend with him?

I mean, I'm rooting for.

For Lori or Carrie's character.

Well, Carrie Coon can be.

Yeah, she can definitely hold her own.

Don't give me.

Yes.

Don't get me wrong.

But I guess just Goggins has the star power, dare I say, you know, when he's on screen, you wonder maybe they needed a little bit better cast or two here or there.

Just here or there.

I mean, he's definitely got, like, the charisma, you know, where you're like, I'm interested.

You know, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it.

Right?

Yes.

It's like, okay, I'm intrigued by this person in a way.

I enjoy Amy Lou Wood playing his.

His girlfriend as kind of like a foil to his.

I mean, it's been kind of pat.

Right.

So far.

Cliche that she's this younger woman dating an older man who has this adventurous spirit and is kind of goading him into, you know, conversation with the other old man at the table in that one scene, or kind of to have him.

Yeah, yeah.

But she's interesting on her own, too, I think.

And it'll.

I don't know.

I like her accent and everything.

You're given to understand that she is not, like, say, Piper.

Piper is the name of the.

The daughter.

Right.

In the family.

That they may be approximately the same age, but one was brought up to expect to stay places like this.

And this is a bit more exotic for.

For Chelsea, for Rick's girlfriend.

Yeah.

It's the type of show where the setting should matter to probably a large degree.

And I just hadn't seen that play out yet.

But I think I get what you're saying about that, Adam.

And.

And I think the other thing is just that maybe I would have cast it Just a little differently.

I think it's suffering too.

That season one, it was.

We were aware that it was made during the pandemic and it's like a clever way to get around some of the restrictions.

Kind of a new twist on an old idea.

Season two, you have nods to Italian cinema and maybe a bit more star power and.

Yeah, and now it's.

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

For sure.

I brought it up last week.

I'll just say it one more time.

Aubrey Plaza and Theo James were just sizzling on screen and even their co stars with them, each one of their respective wife and husband, while not well known actors, were still easy to watch and interesting.

So.

Well.

And Jennifer Coolidge was regularly taking over the Internet with her high meme ability, so.

That's true.

Okay, well, we'll see.

Well, you know, it's a.

I don't.

It's not on the chopping block per se, but because I do think we probably need to hash out if the third episode rises to my expectations.

This has been the most we're not mad, we're just a little disappointed talk we've ever had about.

Yeah, it is an episode of tv.

On this program.

There's a New Yorker piece and I can't name the author who.

Who kind of agrees with me.

I didn't read the whole thing.

I did.

See, I read the lead a little bit more.

But anyway, last time.

It's the time of the week to put our 2 cents in on the episode of Severance we recently watched.

This is the seventh one.

If you'd make one critique of this season of Severance thus far, it'd be hard to find anything glaring.

But one component is that it still hadn't told us why Mark loves Gemma.

Now, logically, I get it.

Losing a husband, wife, any family member sounds horrific.

But as Ms.

Casey, Gemma was robotic, affectless, and kind of a plot point a little bit.

The writers needed to humanize Gemma.

Critique one thing.

If you told me Blaine, critique one thing about season two, I would say that they probably need to humanize Gemma a little earlier.

This episode maybe should have come around.

Episode two or three this season where it is is fine.

It's quite fine.

We're about to fight, I can tell.

Yeah, I just said that they could have done this sooner.

It could have been bumped up sooner.

Other than the Mark reintegration plot, of course, as a second or third episode, a cold hearted bastards like me would have been emotionally invested in finding Gemma as a person and not as an idea.

If we are, we can.

I disagree with you here.

You can disagree.

And again, we're in spoilers.

So whatever you want to say.

Yeah.

Fire away.

My.

My guy.

I think that this was a perfectly placed episode.

Okay.

Because for it's.

It's the tension and release thing.

Right.

So there's.

Not only are you all of a sudden getting answers rapidly, you have to be invested in Mark and Heli or Helena.

Until this point in the story, I think like the.

The previous episode where we commented that even when Audi.

Mark and Helena have that weird encounter at the Chinese restaurant.

Yes.

There's still a level of chemistry there.

Yeah, there is.

Yeah.

And I think we're going to talk a lot this week about what sticks into your subconscious and how you recognize that in the world.

And that's obviously what Lumen is investigating with Gemma.

But you know, you.

You have to be rooting for Mark and Helly to only then have that completely undercut by being reminded, oh, he had this great love of his life here, let's show it to you in full color.

Yeah.

You know, for the like seeing Spring for the first time on the show.

Oh, yeah.

It's one of my big, big notes.

One of the things that's going to bring up.

Yeah.

I'm sure we're getting into all that, but I say all that on the surface just to strongly disagree and to say this is a great tension and release for me.

Yeah.

That you.

It is revealed that here's this entire.

The iceberg underneath the.

The waterline.

That makes sense.

I think.

I agree with Adam too.

Just.

And Blaine, I.

I don't think you're wrong, but I think too for.

Especially for our.

Any Mark, it's.

It's more of an idea.

Right?

It is more of an idea.

So that's okay.

And Heli or Helena is the real person that he's seen and that we've seen.

And now like Adam said, it's like, whoa.

All of a sudden you thought she Was just a MacGuffin?

No, actually she's a.

She's a real person.

Yeah.

Well, and you.

You're built to question, you know, the dead spouse, dead lover, whatever is frozen in time.

Right.

And there's no imperfections with that.

And you only remember the good and what my life could have been, blah, blah, blah.

And we're meant to question that in a show this good, I think.

But yeah, just.

It was.

It was brilliant.

She's Han Solo frozen in carbonate.

Yeah.

She is in hell, like watching this.

Like I've often said like, these characters are in hell.

But, like, there's the scene where she's like, can we just get a break from, like, the dentist?

And he's like, it's been weeks since you've, like, she's in hell.

Jesus Christ.

Yes.

Deccan Lockman, I think.

Surname, her act, the actor's name, and she is doing an amazing job here.

She, as Ms.

Casey, of course, affect list, very robotic.

Always looks kind of the same here.

You see, you feel why Mark would have such an attraction to her.

She charms the pants off me in this episode as herself, as her real self.

I would say it's probably one of the.

Maybe the best episode of an already really better season than the first.

I would.

I would agree with that.

I think she had a great performance, but I think part.

And I kind of just appreciated Adam Scott in this because, like, how good is he at having, like, chemistry with people?

Yeah, he's really good.

Just like across his whole career.

And I feel like I saw that.

Felt that way with him.

Like, he's really good at connecting with people or feeling like they have a connection.

Talking about the little things that all of these actors have to do.

You know, we've talked about the subtle facial changes from Heli to Helena to, you know, to then going from Mark Adam Scott having to play invent a man who has, before the fall, so to speak, who's not been drained of life.

You're right.

You know, he.

People online are commenting like, Adam Scott is hot in this show, you know, like, because you've seen kind of this kind of dope of a guy in the office and then this very dark, depressed man outside of it.

And so this guy with a spark is a whole different thing.

And you're right.

The chemistry is through the roof and you immediately believe the love story, you know, and kind of get swept away in it.

He gets more room to stretch these long acting legs that I wasn't even sure he had.

And, you know, in the memories, he's not depressed.

Instead, he's helpful in love.

He's giddy, especially with the possibility of a baby.

You know, he gets these other things to do with Mark that he hadn't been able to do, that we've only kind of heard about.

You're right.

He.

He brings it.

Yeah.

You see a world surrounded with.

With books and ideas and excitement and possibility and a social life and all of these things that.

When you contrast that with how small and cold and snowbound everything has become, it's just so dramatic.

It's crucial that.

Yeah.

That there is an outdoors in their memories.

It's not snowy.

It's got sunshine and flowers.

I thought it was a great episode of Show Don't Tell where like on some level we.

This is not a criticism, but like at some level we're kind of told or we understand implicitly that obvious that the Mark Post losing his wife is not the Mark pre moving his life.

But we don't really.

We just kind of like from his sister and from other people.

And then we got the whole.

A whole Show Don't Tell doing a fantastic job of showing, like, what.

What is this guy like lost?

Like, what's missing from this guy.

Those scenes of Mark and her from Memories had that nice film crane you'd see in movies from the 70s.

Such a beautiful aesthetic to apply.

Sort of.

This is going to sound like a really weird thing, but it sort of reminds.

Do you know the director, Samuel Fuller?

He did.

He did Big Red One.

He did I Shot Jessie J.

Anyway, he has a movie called Shot Corridor where a guy goes into a mental hospital and pretends to be a mental patient so that he can.

He's a.

He's a journalist.

Right.

So he's gonna write about the hospital.

But the movie's in black and white.

But there's a bit where he breaks in with his own.

Like, I think it's 8 millimeter home movies in color right in the middle.

And it felt exactly like that.

Yeah.

The.

Like grainy color.

Yeah.

I don't know if there was.

It's probably a common enough thing, but that's instantly what I thought of.

Well, it was shock.

That's funny because you bring up a director, there is an office memory between the two.

It's kind of in the middle of the episode.

And it harkens maybe purposefully to David Fincher style of directing, particularly Panic Room and Fight Club.

Yeah.

And those are both.

Well, that's a movie about being trapped and then a movie about two selves in the same body, respectively.

It's just funny that they used a pretty blatant David Fincher style of moving the camera through something really small.

It's like two wires or something.

Yeah.

Which apparently was a practical effect.

Cool.

Wild.

They're doing some crazy.

I was just the behind the scenes stuff.

It's fun, too.

Shared here and other things that I've read.

It is really interesting to see what they're doing.

We get the scene with Drummond.

We know him as Iceland from somebody somewhere.

I guess we could start calling him by his character name here.

He's hovering over what could be construed as a microdata refining for Mark and his crew, too.

Or.

Or just Mark.

But I suppose they're only watching the progress, though that does seem like overkill, because Milch and Ms.

Huang would do that.

Well, they're.

To me, they're, like, overseeing the actual work, whereas Milchek is, like, managing people.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

That would make.

He's kind of like the floor boss.

The floor copy.

You know, he's only dealing with the people that are dealing with a bigger idea.

Okay.

And that.

It was such a simple concept to have the reverse camera.

You know, like, the idea of, like.

It's almost like you're watching a crime procedural and they bring the guy in for the questioning or something, and you get to it.

But to have the computer monitors be.

That was such a.

Yeah, it's nice.

A clever invasion of, like, there is no privacy.

It kind of reminded me of, you know, like in 1984, there's always a party man watching you from your TV screen or whatever.

Right.

You know, there's just.

When you think you are most alone, you're in fact, being intently observed.

Now.

1984, written by George Orwell.

You might not have known.

I think Iceland had the best line delivery of this episode, too.

When he's like, why are you wearing that stupid sweater?

That was great.

That's so good.

Turns out it's for absolutely horrifying reasons.

I.

My favorite.

And I may have wished for someone too.

High five.

In the moment when Gemma, who speaks for us all, demands, can you please talk like a normal person?

I was like, me.

Yeah, that was really good.

And then he immediately says, dream sweet instead of sweet dreams.

Well, she gets this disregarded request.

She.

She requests something of that doctor who's so full of the Lumen lingo.

He doesn't give her straight answers like everyone does.

And.

And as a worker there, you would have to grow sick of it.

Even as an innie, it seems like an innie who's accepting of that.

It seems at some point you'd be like, although she's not her enie, she's.

She's Gemma down there, which is scary as shit.

You know, when.

When she says that, it just made me think how you're supposed to admire this person and their ability to persevere.

All of this, when they can even have a sense of normalcy at that point.

And if you've been locked in, like, a subterranean hellscape and still think, like, please behave like a normal person.

You know, how do you even know?

I would go insane in three days.

How does this person who's been down there theoretically for years retain any, like, compass?

You know, like, what is.

What is north?

Why does she ever ask?

I get for story purposes.

But does she know why she's down there?

Because that's not an Any Gemma that's there.

It's.

It's her.

It's Gemma.

I thought that was intentionally left unclear.

Yeah.

And I get why it has to be.

Yeah.

And it seems like there is something transactional with her being down there.

Okay.

They haven't come out and said it.

Okay.

It seemed like there was two options.

One is they could get her.

If they wanted a person to be there, they could get her there without her understanding, she would just wake up and there she is.

Right.

And even this show is so great.

I know.

I talk about this almost every week.

They introduce questions and then answer them.

Yeah, that's what we want.

Such a.

Yeah.

Rapidity that, like, it's like, oh, you could.

We could have had the.

The outdoor excursion as like the season finale, you know, but instead, that's the first half.

And with her, it's like.

And they did this with heli in season one.

It's like, why don't you just go in that stairwell and run away?

And they explain why that's not gonna work here.

She does the thing that I, you know, you want the character you're rooting for to do.

It's like, take the chair.

Yeah.

Yes.

Hit the guy in the face and get out of there.

Yeah.

And they show why it doesn't work.

So that's one, ready is that she's just there.

And two is, I think if you are an eagle eyed observer, you see all along anytime that a medical process from giving blood all the way to going to the fertility clinic where one of those doctors is there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of that is a Lumen thing.

I mean, they could have taken that blood and immediately had everything they needed to know about Mark and Gemma, which.

Is probably what happened, because when they were giving blood, it was a Lumen blood driver associated with Lumen.

And they might have found out what they wanted from both of them and, you know, somehow or another got Mark to work for them and what, kidnapped Gemma after faking her wreck or whatever.

Probably something like that seems to have happened.

I think at this point, with it being constantly winter outside, I think we have to start asking, like, what reality is.

The outside world.

Yeah, we do.

And not just the winter, but just the Completely almost like featurelessness of the outside world with, like, the cars that are all just kind of, you know, where it's like it's deliberately somewhat unreal.

Yeah.

In the midwinter.

And maybe the Mark's memories are also merging with dreams in a way that, you know, the beautiful day becomes more beautiful and the love becomes more intense.

And all because you're dealing in nostalgia.

Right.

As much as anything, but.

Cause he is regaining memories.

He's not.

And memories aren't reality.

Nope.

But still, seeing, like we said, a spring day, like, it just felt so much more three dimensional compared to this snowy nothing.

It does such a good job of, like, symbolically doing something the show's been interested in, basically.

Like, this one person, Mark, has all of these different sides to him, as all people do, you know, just the.

Like the contrast and the light.

I mean, obviously his acting too, but, like, the contrast in the light, I think, just really underscored that.

Where it's like this.

This version of Mark is as valid as the depressed version of Mark, who is maybe as valid as the innie.

We don't know.

You know, I thought.

I thought they did a great job.

So they're doing that on the.

With the memories.

And then immediately setting up after Irving's very weird dinner party last week where.

Yeah.

They're theorizing with the Lutheran minister that maybe there's multiple selves.

You know, like, if one's kind of been a little shitty, maybe you just create a different version and that version can go to heaven.

And then a week later.

Love that.

That wrinkle.

A week later, we're shown how many times they've split Gemma's soul.

Theoretically.

Yeah.

And are, like, testing her in all these different ways.

And Mark is a bunch of different versions of himself.

And how are you to be judged which one is the.

Yeah, the.

The real you, so to speak.

Donovan, what you brought up, it.

It gives you faith in the creators because almost everything's done with purpose and you gotta admire and love that.

And I'm actually.

Wait, it's from last episode.

But what Adam just brought up with the minister, I love that they put it in there just because it seem it fit exactly with what they were doing.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

You know, I'm actually.

I'm gonna.

I haven't taken time for this, but I'm actually genuinely curious.

Like, I wonder if I can find out, like, were the severing process, like, would anybody in the world theologically be like, there's two souls, or is that Just crazy.

I'm genuinely interested.

Something chilling Adam brought up Eagle eyed viewers would see one.

One chilling aspect is on one of the doctor's walls where Jim is being tested is they have an eye exam and it's the type you would use for kids too young to know the Alphabet.

And if that doesn't send a shiver down your spine, hopefully they're not testing kids.

It's.

But Harmony Cobell was raised by the Egans.

That line is just dropped without any follow up.

I was like, wait, what?

I got that right, didn't I?

Like, Ms.

Wang also came from a school like some sort of like community school that's trained and she would have been like the best student that they sent to intern with Milchick.

Right.

I just figured she was homeschooled.

Don't they talk about some like community school that she would have been top of the.

Maybe this is people inferring things online.

But I will say Rick Hobby the lady who's working with Mark or trying to get him to Renegade.

She really needs to take into account how untrustworthy and unsafe she sounds when she talks to people who don't know as much about the process as she does.

Just pump the brakes.

Explain a little I saw because this.

Is a collision of two characters who care about Mark in some way but are on opposite ends of understanding what's going on.

And they both like, she can't give too much away to his sister because what if the sister's compromised?

That's a good point.

Okay, so, but then her, the sister, it's like, well, just why don't you let her finish what she's doing?

But obviously she only cares about his immediate physical well being as you would with a sibling.

Loved one.

But that, yeah, that interaction did have me a bit like.

Like it's the opposite of the.

The bad guy monologuing and over explaining what they're like, y'all are on the same team.

Come on, y'all get together.

And yeah, I did love that.

In one of their memories, Gemma, she starts to get some of these odd cards that resemble the one that Dylan took from a Lumen room.

And one of them, it says, ego death.

It's a man fighting himself.

Talk about things done purposefully and little breadcrumbs.

That's such a.

A good one.

It ended up being a very softer, more melancholic episode.

A lot of close up of Gemma's eyes to really, you know, convey that's who we're focused on.

And snippets of certain Memories.

Feeling a lot like how images work in your own brain and memories.

I like that.

I thought it was one of the better episodes maybe.

Maybe of the entire series.

You know, they're applying for help with fertility, and they went to Lumen.

That's at the top of their paper.

They're filling out Lumens, basically.

This shows Leon Musk with its hands and all parts of the digital and real world, isn't it?

Okay, just checking.

Yeah.

Big umbrella corporation.

Right.

When you start tracing back, like, who owns everything, you know, like.

I mean, are there Lumen shopping stores?

Shopping grocery stores?

There are, yeah.

Yeah.

This was a big.

Where he bought the fridge from.

Or the.

The fridge.

The crib from.

This is a big topic online that people realize that the reason that the.

The.

Was the OD department.

ODP department was making.

They have big 3D printers, and they're making things, and they don't really understand why they're to go downstairs.

All of the things in all of the rooms that Jim is encountering are being made up there.

Yeah.

Because somebody said, why would you.

Why does Lumen have to make, like, a watering can?

You know, it's like, why don't they get it?

So maybe they already own everything that's at the target, you know?

Yeah.

The title of Bardo does allude to or hint at Lumens trying to attempt some sort of a transition metamorphosis.

And it continues my personal theory, which others have.

I'm not saying that I don't even know if I came up with it on my own.

I think I did that.

They're trying to.

They've saved the consciousness of Kerrygan into some sort of body or computer, and they're trying to put that into a person or resurrect him somehow or another.

The prevalent theory online.

You know, Gemma has asked in this episode, if there were a mudslide, would you be more afraid of.

What did they say, suffocating or drowning?

Yeah, drowning.

Was it suffocating or drowning?

Those are the two options.

Yeah.

And she says drowning, right?

Yeah, she says drowning.

Right.

So, yeah, they're theorizing that possibly the car accident involved going into a body of water and being unable to escape.

Possibly like a cold harbor where they might simulate this experience.

And now they're.

They're approaching death.

And, like, what traumas do you remember from one?

Yeah.

Like, how much can your body imprint, essentially.

Yeah.

So the final one would be.

Yeah, death.

It's curious that Irv is the one connected to that long, dark hallway with the Elevator that gets Gemma to the testing floor and not, I don't know, another character.

Pick another.

And that's Harmony Cobell, who sent her down there Initially, she's down there because Harmony said something's not working.

Her dissatisfaction with Ms.

Casey.

Well, though Irving talking about, you know, painting the.

The dark hallway, there's some rather bleak theories floating around that possibly he was trapped down there at some point.

Yeah, but it is.

It doesn't quite fit, does it?

I've seen some of those theories, and it doesn't pan out, does it?

Well, how would you know?

Yeah, if he's reset in some way, which they've shown they can do, and we know that he used to work somewhere else, but even though he doesn't remember that, and the idea that him and Burt have possibly, you know, they would be maybe an original test subject for the subconscious.

What are you remembering from one experience to another, one room to another?

What if Bert was his doctor and they're still keeping an eye on him?

I don't know.

The genius thing so far to me about this show is you can fall into all of those theories and have a really good time with it, but whatever they come up with has not been disappointing so far.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

Like, you can.

There's a rich world of theorizing, and a lot of shows disappoint when that happens, and this one somehow seems to exceed what you're expecting.

I.

I agree with that.

I feel like if you want to go down the rabbit hole, that that's fine, but if you want to, just almost kind of like I'm taking one episode at a time.

Watching the show as a show.

Yeah.

It succeeds, you know, just as, like, a drama about people.

Yeah.

That's one of the great things about Separates to me, is that it blends that human, that universal with the.

The whodunit mystery that send us down Reddit holes.

Usually a show can do one or the other fairly decently, but you got to have that balance, and this one has it.

And sometimes I want to avoid the guesswork or speculation that shows like this almost demand of you, so I can see if it's also putting together something well beyond a puzzle.

This episode solidified that Severance does both well.

It's a show with a heart.

Something to say well beyond just a mystery to solve.

Yeah.

Way more than just a puzzle box.

Well, this is the first episode where I thought, oh, Orpheus.

I kind of see what's going on now.

When you're able to invoke Just ancient myth, human experience.

On top of, like, y'all are saying the.

Can I solve this puzzle?

That's.

You're doing some good work, Ben Stiller.

I worry about placing too much on Dan Erickson and the other writers because to demand so much is an expectation that they would have had every detail planned out well in advance.

And all the ideas have been scrutinized with a fine tooth comb, which maybe they have, but that's a.

That's a heavy weight to bear.

There's a lot of folks online that swear.

They say, you know, just.

Just enjoy the show.

The goats don't mean anything, blah, blah, blah.

And then other people who want every.

Every single detail to matter.

And I think the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I will end our discussion on severance from the other thing that Tim had emailed us, which is kind of gets back around to where we started.

He said that he.

He didn't like that we were shown what was happening with Gemma.

Now he would rather we discovered this along with the characters.

So that's a different approach than what I said.

I said earlier.

We get the more human experience of caring about Jema.

He says, find that out along with the characters.

I think that would be a holding.

I don't know.

When you don't get it in this package, you don't fall in love with her.

Like, I agree with that.

And I think, you know, the fact that he gave her an ant farm that has multiple levels like that, I think we're getting the snapshot approach like that.

The.

The Cutaway Donovan.

I'm trying to remember the name of the books that you could get when we were kids that were like, here's a castle and all.

The Cutaway.

Oh, yeah.

You know.

Yeah, I like that.

I like that.

That's the version of storytelling they're using.

Just telling, like, hey, it works as a TV show.

This episode was really good because it kind of took her from, like, a MacGuffin, really.

Just, like, the thing moving the plot around to a person and a person who.

We even see, like, when she.

When she hits the doctor with the chair, we see her like a person of agency.

And then to have that completely taken away at the end, it's like this, like.

Like, on the human level, that works for me.

I thought you're gonna say, who hasn't hit their doctor with a chair?

They put the chair in the room for a reason.

We have come to the end of our weekly episode.

It's just vital that you tell a friend about this podcast.

Trust us, it's been a fun week.

But it doesn't have to stop there.

You could tell a friend, y'all could discuss it.

If you have something to add, put a comment on this podcast's page@thealabamatake.com if you have an idea for your own podcast or you want to ride something, or just talk via email, email us at the alabama take gmail.com we're under that umbrella.

Pitch us ideas or say hello.

Thanks for listening.

For Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine and I think we're all getting severed this week, finally.

Bye.