Toma Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style Opinion Best Telican's Welcome back to another
edition of the Pso I am the t in your telow Tom Fitzgerald and I'm
here with the low on your telow. The runs on, Marcus, my
love husband. We are back from our Vacation's very happy right now, that's
actually very sad. I have my post vacation depression. I'm looking at the
six hundred pictures on my phone. Let's say they're homesick. I'm tripsick.
We're I'm vacation sick. Um, we haven't been. This is our first
podcast on almost two weeks, because well it might actually be longer than no
two weeks. Um. We recorded our last podcast on the day we left,
and we said it was going to be a big mystery and you had
to follow us on Instagram to find out where we went, and if you
did, we went to Madrid and Lisbon for like ten days and wonderful.
Oh my god, oh my god, let me tell you. I forgot
how wonder food is to travel. Yeah. I had never been to Lisbon,
and my god, I fell in love with that soth my god,
Oh my god, I should have fell in love with that city. He
was. I mean, we love Madrid. It was my first time and
we had the most amazing time. I mean Madrid it's gorgeous, yes,
as some of you probably knew. The architecture, it's gorgeous, the food,
the food, everything about it in this history. Yeah, when you
get to Lisbon, I mean Lizabeth East Lisbon, it's the oldest city in
one of the oldest city in the west, in Western Europe. I believe
it's the second. Athens is the first. I don't know, yes,
but it's one of the oldest cities. I didn't we were giving lessons.
It's just that I didn't know that. I knew it was old, but
I didn't know it was like the second of this right, um. And
it's and you can tell, I mean the minute you get there to talk
about old world charm and I mean, yeah, there's just nothing like it.
And we had my only grig writers that we didn't spend a little bit
more time in Lisbon as. I don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have
wanted to spend less time in Madrid. I'm just saying we should have been.
I know, I know I should too. Straight what about that.
But anyway, I it was well planned. We I mean we enjoyed everyone
fourteen hour days, like fourteen hour days of as much, um, just
soaking it up as possible. We also, I have had enough olives and
cod to last meet for quite some time. UM. And we drank gallons
of Saint Greet when we were in Madrid. Um, we had the most
wonderful time. We also went to Cintra, which is about forty minutes from
Lisbon. Lisbon, Oh my god, I cannot recommend it anything again.
I mean, Tom was just in love with Porsha Go. In general,
I wish we had had more time, as he said, to go to
port Toobo. We didn't. I mean I liked I didn't want to pack
too much because didn't you do you you just don't enjoy it because you're so
busy running, you know, from place to place. I didn't want that.
I wanted us to enjoy and you know, have the most wonderful time.
And we did. It was phenomenal. Uh made a new friend while
we were there, which was really fun. I know, I know,
we we don't usually do this, we would never never this, but uh,
when we went to CenTra and we were waiting for a train, and
uh, there was this young woman who was also we were going people on
the train station and she heard us talking to each other and she realized that
we were Americans, and she she just said high or whatever. I don't
think there was that. I think she answered a question that we had about
the schedule or something. It was something about if that was the right train,
you know, the usual, and that was you know, it led
to a little bit of small talk. And she was doing a trip and
she was doing like the whole youth hostel thing, and she was heading to
center like we were, and that was it. It was that was it
right? And then any other circumstance we would have just said hi, and
we actually did do that, but we ran into her again, like more
than once. We ran. She sat across from us on the train,
but the train was so packed we weren't we didn't really get to talk to
her all that much. And then um, we just were going to the
same places and wound up together and literally we spent the entire day with this
girl. Derby. Yes, we love you, Derby, doubt very much,
I know. But if she is, if she ever, she was
the sweetest woman. I mean, she was just fantastic. Yeah, I
mean, we had lunch with her. We we changed our plans so that
we were all hitting the same places at the same time. We hired a
took took driver to take us out to the coast, the three of us.
It was just amazing. We had the most amazing thing. I told
her at the end of the day. I was like, listening, you
need to understand, we are two cranky old men and we would never do
this with anyone unless they were cool and easy to be a ran. But
she and she was wonderful. She was so sweet. Um, she was
having the most wonderful time. She had been there for like three weeks,
something like. I don't want to give her life story anyway, but anyway,
she was having She was traveling by herself and meeting people when she loved
that. That's how why she met us. Yeah, it was just a
funny little It was fun. And then the minute we said goodbye to her
or in Lisbon, we turned around and ran smack into someone who said,
oh my god, are you Toma Lorenzo. Now that's crazy. Hellos to
Bill and Frank, who well, Bill and Frank were the characters on the
Last of Us, and as soon as they said introduced themselves, I was
like, oh, the Last of Us. Anyway, hello Bill and Frank
who might actually be listening. Yes, they were also very sweet, very
sweet. We were exhausted and sunburned, so we probably weren't. I mean,
I hope we were gracious, but we kept it quick and kept it
moving. But it was great meeting you guys. There was just insane.
We were living in someone and we're walking then I we I mean, we
heard like someone saying Tomma Lorenzo and I'm like, what, and we should
say. The only reason he knew because we had he had seen us on
Instagram post. So it's just, you know, it's crazy. We rarely
post pictures of our faces, but anyway, we did some posts, a
couple of pictures of us, and uh, we had the most wonderful time.
And let me tell you we I can't stop traveling anymore. I have
to be traveling. I mean, we really put on hold because of a
lot of reasons, and the pandemic and damage, parents getting sick and dying
and books being written, and it was just, you know, this is
what happens life gets in the way. The years go by and you're like,
holy shit, I need to go back to those things that I love.
But it's something that we need to do more often. I forgot how
much I enjoyed. You know, I've did it a lot when I was
much younger, and I just missed it. I think we're doing a short
trip and I won't say where, but at Christmas time we were traveling all
the time. Now and we might actually let people know where we're going.
Yeah, but at Christmas, I'm just gonna let you know that I bought
the tickets and we're just going to be traveling all the time. Sounds good.
Okay, So we have a podcast ahead of us, and we have
much to discuss. The entire podcast, as week is TV talk themed,
we have a bunch of shows to review or comment upon, and some you
know news that came out this week. Two things. Before we get into
the reviews, I wanted to talk about the fact that the Hollywood Reporter did
a report on Amazon and one of the big things that don't tell me to
speed up? Are you kidding? You still have no idea? You jeezus?
Sweet little background dude. Anyway, he's little literally doing the speeded up
motion. Okay, anyway, came out that The Rings, The Lord of
the Rings, The Rings of Power, the prequel series of based on Tolkien's
work, only had a thirty seven percent of viewership completion rate in the States,
and I think it was forty five international. And that's bad. That's
bad numbers. That means that only thirty seven percent of the audience finished the
series after starting it. That one billion dollars project, well, and this
is news because yes, it is the most expensive series supposedly in television history.
And you know, there's a lot of reasons to question the creative impetus
behind it, because it was basically Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon,
telling his people, I want a game of Thrones. I want you to
find me a Game of Thrones. And you know that isn't the best way
to launch a creative prospect. I want you to copy something else and find
that, you know, make money off it. I will say I loved
I know what the flaws in the show where I can understand why people It
didn't grab people as much as it could have, but I did love it.
I saw the flaws and it was it did get I think it was
way too slow out of the gate. I think it was trying to get
too cutesy about some of the connections. I'm not sure that as much as
I thought it was interesting to look at the hard Foots, which were the
Hobbit precursors there, they don't really have anything to do with the story,
and it just dragged it down. Um, we'll see, I didn't really
Um. We reviewed every episode and I was largely I wasn't effusive in my
praise because I could see that it wasn't really clicking. But I liked it,
and I'm sorry to see that. Um. I think it's a little
disturbing that these shows are that so much money is being thrown at these shows
without really locking down a reason for why people should watch them. You know,
it tends to be, well, this is Tolkey, and so it
has an audience built in, and I think there were so much focus on
the visual and that's all we're all. Mostly the money went, I guessed
because it looked stunny. I agree. I mean, the sets were incredible.
Everything looked amazing. But we even talked about it, and you mentioned
it's several times that the dialogue or the script was sometimes a little I don't
know, I wasn't quite there. And you know, it had an unf
which to compare a timing comparison which it welcomed with House of the Dragon,
and too, I think a lot of people surprised. House of the Dragon
came out of the gate pretty high quality, right, um, and the
acting and these and the scripts were just better than the Rings of People.
Also smaller and more intimate. I think I can't complain about that, Tolki.
It's supposed to be large and sprawler, so that's not a problem as
far as I'm concerned. But I do think it has to be said that,
um, the cast is not on on that level. There's there's a
lot of weakness in the Rings of Power casts. UM. Sorry to say,
but it's true. And I wanted to return to the point that,
uh, this was forced out of the gate because a billionaire wanted to make
more money and wanted to copy another show and this that's a part of that
that that really bothers me about it is that there's no creativity and nothing against
the show runners who have tried their best, and I do think the show
still has potential. I don't think it's a failure. I don't think Amazon
is going to cancel it. They've already invested the money and um, if
you know whatever. I think it might not be five seasons, but they're
definitely going to do three or four seasons. And I think it was originally
announced as five and it could so much. A season one was set up,
which was a huge mistake. When you're making a billion dollar TV show,
you're set up should be thirty minutes. I mean, that's the setup
for The Lord of the Rings was five minutes of Kate Blanchett talking and that
was it. That was right. That's how you explained it. She explained
a thousand years of history and five most beautiful things they ever made done.
Yeah, it is, it is. We could both quote it, but
let's not do that. Um anyway, again, going back to the point
about intellectual property and the lack of creativity. This ties into another bit of
news, which is at HBO, Max is in talks with none other than
JK. Rowling to launch another Harry Potter series that piv It would be a
television series with each season based on a one of the Harry Potter books,
and from what I've read, there supposedly some new take. I don't know
what the new take would be. I mean, oh my god, look
a lot of this. When this came out just this week, it was
met with a lot of who asked for this? Who asked for this?
And look, I don't like JK Rowling, and I wish people would move
the fuck away from the Harry Potter verse, but it's clearly still got legs
like that. They're still still clearly a fan base. Having said that,
a report came out that like JK. Rowling's earnings have dropped like seventy percent
or something in the last Honestly, I question reports like, oh so she
she went from why millions to z millions? Now? Yeah, I mean
she probably Yeah. The The Fantastic Beast movies did very badly. It's successively
worse with each one, and the third one did terribly, So there is
no doubt that her brand is fucked. And um, I don't think it's
a given that a Harry Potter series would flop, but um yeah, I
wouldn't write it off. I just wouldn't completely write it off. The people
who are rolling their eyes out, I just well, So what I'm saying
is if you don't want this to happen, and you should not want this
to happen because that that that woman doesn't deserve any more money. Well put
into those you need to protest loudly because right now it's in the talking stages
at Warner Brothers ahead putting that horrible person in the slide. Um. Um,
I don't. I just don't see. I mean, I was never
a fan of any of I never read the books. For it, it
was a millennial thing. Well even no, I mean well, I mean
I know a lot of millennials were talking about when the books came out.
That's true. Yeah, I was young, and I could have read them
anyway, Yes, I would that you were okay, So I never read
the books. Um, but I was never interested. I don't even I
don't think I've I've seen all the movies. I think I to a couple
anyway. Wasn't that interested. But if you are, if you read the
books and you love every character, blah blah blah, I guess. But
I just why bring it back? I mean I don't understand this. Well,
I mean we could say that, but why bring another Batman movie back?
Like? I mean? True? Why bring James bond back anyway.
But it's just a fortune because it's more money to her and to her cause,
and you know, and things are just so bad right now when it
comes to transgender you know anything. She's a huge um tan turf. She's
a transphobe. She has used her possession and money and money to relentlessly attack
trans people. Um. It's not even a little like side thing, it's
her whole thing now. Yeah, and you can see why why are we
singing singling her up or whatever? Well, she's a she's a zillionaire.
Yeah, you single out the powerful fresh. She has more money than God,
and she's using that money to you know, donating money to all these
anti you know, trans associations and groups and so on. It's just a
horrible person with a lot of money, which is never good. So in
some rings of power, still hope when it's going to pull itself together.
I'm watching it. There's no I Like I said, I enjoyed the first
season. Didn't think it was perfect, but I enjoyed it. Harry Potter
two point out, let's not go there people, Let's let's yell at Warner
Brothers a lot and tell them not to do this. Incidentally, I think
Warners I may have mentioned this before. Warners in the last year has made
a lot of moves to cancel things and move things off its schedule, and
it is there's a large number of projects that were affronted by people of color
or queer people that just got removed from the schedule. So the fact that
they're courting a known turf like this, I don't know. I got a
really bad vibe off of Warner Brothers lately, just a really really bad vibe.
Anyway, that's my take on that. Now, what a TV show
do you want to talk about? First? I think we should talk Do
you want to talk about Beef? Yeah? We can. I mean I
watched Beef a long time ago. The screeners, and let me just set
it up because you are going to do most of the talking. Be just
dropped today on Netflix, starring Steven Juan and Ali Wong, and it's a
dramatic sort of snapshot of modern anxiety and modern tension and modern rage. And
I mean, I think we're all walking around with a lot of anxiety and
rage right now and for various reasons. And this show centers two people with
very interesting stories, very interesting characters and actually two great actors. I knew
Stephen could act, but Ali is fantastic. Is such a tightly wound spring.
I want to say, I haven't watched much of it. That's why
I'm tossing to Lorenzo because he watched the whole season and screeners. So I
watched the whole season a long time. It has it premiered yet today?
Okay, So I watched it a long time ago, and I just found
in love with the show. First of all, I was surprised and happy
to see that. You know, the cast is Asian, right, um,
which is great. You don't see that much. Um, you're seeing
it more, but it's you're seeing it more about it's a rising trend.
It's still great to see and playing normal people doing normal things, not some
you know, typical Asians, not character I think normal would be a bad
Not normal. Yes, let's say it's just standard uh right now, daily
life type of situation. Sorry about the modern or normal expression anyway, Um,
just doing daily thing, just having you know, a regular life like
everybody else. Um. And and it's great because it deals also with with
stress and anxiety and um and rage that the Whope story starts with you know
they Um, I guess I can say that, Yeah, they have.
It's a road rage type of show. Uh. It happens that they there's
an incident between the two characters. The two characters are strangers, yes,
and and and that you know pretty much dictates everything that happens, um throughout
the entire sees. Yeah, it escalates and and it pretty much tells you
know, it's the starting point of the whole thing. Um. And it's
just a great show. I thought it was great, Uh, just very
It felt fresh, the dialogue, the situations, the and and and it's
nice because it deals a lot with the them being Asian, uh, and
dealing with Asian being Asian, and with their parents and the Asian culture identity
and all that, which is great. But it's not just focused on that.
It's also focused on their lives and things they gave up or things that
they had to do. Uh and you know it and their lives their careers.
I thought it was great. It was a great show. It felt
very modern. Um, the dialogue and the situations and and there both they
have amazing chemistry together. They're great, They're absolutely great together. Um.
The guy who plays his brother Young Musine you know, is also very good.
Um, everyone is great. I love the show and the um he
gets a little repetitive towards the middle, but Mike exactly. But if you
just hang in there, keep watching it, and then and and then the
last episode, to me, it was absolutely phenomenal. I'm not going to
give it away in anything away because it's just it was so unexpected and I
just loved every minute of it. Just brilliant dialogue. Uh, it's pretty
much just the two of them the entire episode, and it's just great,
great, great. Uh, the back and forth and and what they say,
you know, what they talk about. Uh, it's just amazing.
I really recommend the show. Um, it felt fresh to me, it
felt contemporary. Uh. And it's an all Asian cast, you know.
I'm about that. Um so highly. Lorenzo recommended. Oh yeah, oh
in Ashley Park, isn't it Yeah? And she's also amazing. Yes.
Um So, now I'm going to take over the micro for a second,
because you have nothing to say about The Mandalorian, which I haven't spoken about
at all this season. It's on its third season, and the reason I
haven't spoken about it or written about it and I, except for briefly this
week, I haven't tweeted about it. Pardon me is because it kind of
sucks. It kind of sucks. All the charm has gone out of the
show. I really lost a lot of interest in the Star Wars universe over
the last year because it has just flooded the zone with so many mediocre I
think my breaking point was the Obi Wan Kenobie show, because I was like,
if you can't get this right, and they couldn't. It was boring
as hell. If you can't get an obi wan Kenobi limited, you know,
like a six episode series, right, what the hell are you don't
like? And then they did the Boba Fette Show, which nobody asked for,
and it sucked, And they resolved the cliffhanger from season two of The
Mandalorian in the Boba Fete Show. So season three of The Mandalorian picks up.
And you know, if you didn't watch the Bubbafet show, you don't
understand that's weird. It was all of these weird I think they're trying.
They're trying to do this interconnected Marvel universe kind of thing, everything and everybody
working. It's not working. Um, I also think, uh, like
this week's episode it had Jack Black and Lizzo in it and and Christopher Lloyd
and wow, yeah, and well, first off, I love Lizzo,
but she can't act. She's not there yet. I know that she probably
I can guarantee she's moving into an acting career at something. Really. Yeah.
Oh, I can guarantee that she's got a big personality. Yeah that's
true. M yeah, I can definitely say it, but she's not there
yet. Um, and oh my god this. I know some people liked
this episode, but I actually couldn't finish it and I went and read a
recap to see how it ended because I couldn't take any more of it.
After there was like ten minutes to go, and I was like, no,
I'm sorry, I'm out. Um. I think a huge problem is
that they have lost focus from the main character, which is Den Jaron,
which is m Pedro Pascal's character. And I, yeah, you said that,
like he's the main character and he's barely there. He's in it,
but he's not really driving the story anymore. And even Grogu Baby Yoda is
just this prop that gets passed around that doesn't really have an arc anymore.
Or you know, um, like there was a point to Baby Yoda's story
where he was trying to find a home for this Jedi you know, blah
blah blah, this four sensitive and that's just all been let go. Really,
none of that's in there anymore, and now it's about, you know,
the Mandalorian culture and bring it in together. And that's fine, I
guess, but um, you know, the first two seasons were den Jaron
in his Mandalorian armor and being super cool and everything, and now it's him
in a group of literally one hundred other people wearing similar arts. I mean,
okay, so right, yeah, he was like, now he's not
Now he's just one of them. And they've also really gone in hard on
the never removing the helmet thing, which is of course built into the character's
lure and background, but they kind of found ways once a season or so
to have him remove his helmet so that Pedro Pascal could actually be on screen.
And the thing is, the more the harder they lean into that whole
thing, the more it's like it's very hard for me as a viewer to
really get behind because it's cultish, it's weird cultish behavior, it's disgusting and
unigenic. There's just not a lot of reason for me as a viewer to
be like, yes, I want to learn more about these people who probably
smell really bad, Like they all look the same, right, And I
don't know, it's not working for me. I don't think. I think
leaning so hard into the Mandalorian, you know, cult aspects is you've lost
the originality with the character. You're relying on a lure that is it's just
not great. I mean, at least like Jedi were always flawed from the
Gecko. There's a lot of reasons you can say you shouldn't bring the Jedi
back, but at least they were cool. At least they looked cool doing
what they did. But the Mandalorians, admittedly they do look cool. I've
said all along, he's basically the Star Wars version of Batman. But they
that whole mythos, that whole thing about never removing your helmet, and it's
just it's not working for me. Also, there is a focus on Bocatan,
who was being played by Katie Sakoff. Gotta say, the problem isn't
her, If anything, the problem is that she's so good that she's removing
even more focus from him. There's an interesting story there about her and about
her quest and about what she's being charged with doing. But I hate to
say it, but like, go give her a series if that's what you
want, because this whatever I liked about The Mandalorian's first two episode seasons,
it's just not happening for me anymore. That's a shame. That's a shame
because even I watched the first thing and loved it. Yeah, and dull
it feels. I can tell there's a direction, but I'm not invested in
it. That's the thing. It's not entirely direction list, it's just that
I'm not interested in the direction it's going in. I tend to think the
the Star Wars universe is just starting to get overstopped and overdeveloped. I don't
know that I will watch the Ahsoka series that's coming out with Rosario Dawson.
I never got into the cartoons and all that stuff, and they're leaning heavily
on that lore right now. That's fine. I'm not mad at it,
but it's not from me. It's not really interesting me all that much.
They just announced today this morning that Jay z Ridley is coming back as Ray
Skywalker. In a new movie, and I'm like, yeah, I really
liked her, really liked her in the part and everything, and I would
not have been opposed to seeing that character again, but not this quickly and
not that supposedly he's just going to rest how much the Jedi order And I'm
like, okay, all right, that's really not grabbing me in any way.
Shape before they should have given John Boyega a movie. I would have
liked to have seen that character come back. Anyway, those are my Star
Wars, he thoughts. I still love in Star type of card Karta,
stay still living for that shit. I will be doing a right up on
that when the season wraps up in a week or in two weeks. Actually,
it's not flawless, but it's so good. It's just the best Star
Wars. It's a great cast. Right, I'm wanna say it's the best
Star Wars because I gotta say I just recently watched Strange New World, rewatched
Strange New World season one, and that is the best season of Star Wars
in decades. I gotta say decades. Anyway, moving away from all that
nerdy crap um, we can either do Yellow Jackets next, or we can
do schmigandon next, or we can do your obscure Spanish TV show that I
know nothing about. Now I'm being mean, please. Anyway, I got
back and couldn't stop thinking about it. Got back from Spain. Yeah,
I got back from Spain and and and port you going. Couldn't stop thinking
about the trip. And one I usually do is I look for shows so
that I can see the city again. Yeah, yeah, it's it's cute.
So I was like looking for shows in Madrid and Spain, so I
could, you know, see the grun Via again and all the main avenues
and you know boroughs and all that. So and then I was watching all
this show and then Netflix suggested one that I hadn't seen before, called The
Girls at the Back, which is a weird name for a show, but
anyway, it's it's called Las Las de la mafila I meaning the one you
know, the one from the back. Anyway. Um, it's a mini
series about five friends and they travel every year together. They've been friends in
school and um, so this time they're traveling and they find out that one
of them has cancer. They don't say who until the end of the show.
Um, and then they come up with the idea of having I have
like a bucket list of everyone has to write on a piece of paper without
the other knowing who what they want to do, something they haven't done before
that it's sort of like daring and um they have to do it together.
Um. So at first I was like, well, I don't know if
I want to watch this kind of a little depressing or whatever, and it's
not my thing. But you guys know me, always give it fifteen minutes.
So it started, and I just fall in love with the show.
It's they're so amazing. The actors are amazing. They're they're so friendly and
you know, so happy and linked as friends together and and they're just great.
It's a great show. They have. It's funny, they have funny
situations. Um, they have fun. And they actually shot the whole thing
in Codige, which is this beautiful place in the south of Spain which has
beautiful beaches and gorgeous architecture. So it's beautiful to look at and the actors
are really good and it's actually very interesting. I like it seems like the
basic story. You know, friends and one has cancer and they all traveled
together, but they managed to do it in a way that it's it was
a little different and a little unique in a way how they presented the situations,
how they had to confront certain things. So I really enjoyed it.
I watched the whole thing in one night, I mean, which is very
fast. I was like, oh, it's it's done. So I highly
recommended this called The Girls at the Back in on Netflix. Um, so,
you know, give it a try. Just I loved it. I
thought it was a great show. Absolutely, And now we're gonna get really
cranky about the next two shows, which are beloved and coming back for their
second seasons, and gotta say that neither season has set us on fire.
Let's start with Shamika. Don how about that? Yes? Okay, So
we absolutely adored Schmika. One of the best things ever. It was one
of our favorite shows. I don't know did I come out in twenty twenty
two or twenty twenty one, but we it was the best, one of
the best shows of that whatever year it debuted and at the first season was
a pastiche of a bunch of classic musicals, mostly from the forties and the
fifties, largely from the Rogers and Hammerstein sort of school of musicals. The
cast was stacked to the rafters with a bunch of Broadway veterans of musical theater,
and it was just hilariously funny. I'm reading a lot of people since
the second season debut who are like, yeah, I tried to watch it,
but I it's not for me. So I understand if it's not.
If you don't get the references, if you don't think musical theater is worthy
of your attention or whatever, I get it. It's not for everyone.
So you really have to sort of love musical theater to love Schmega Dune.
The good thing about season one is that they were doing such classic takes on
things like, you know, Carousel and Oklahoma and the sounding music stuff that
every high school in America has done a version of these musicals, so they're
incredibly familiar, and they're easy to pass, you know, to parody and
pastiche and they it was broad in a way that was very easy to grasp.
Second season now, listen, I think this is a brilliant ploy,
but so far I don't think it's working out. For them. Is that
they have advanced to musicals from the sixties and the seventies, and they are
making and they're we're talking like, um, uh Cabaret and Chicago, and
there's a little bit of hit. Well, there's actually quite a bit of
hair in there. Uh, there's some there's actually a little bit of Annie.
There's some Jesus Christ Superstar. There's um Company and the Fantastics and Pip
in all of that. Um, I'm sorry, Shirley McLean, no Sweet
Charity, thank you. So there's a little bits of all of that in
it. There's a lot of Fossy in the first two episodes. Uh.
And they're making the point that they're sort of giving a little history on a
lesson on the history of American musical theater, because they make the point right
from the get go that things took a much darker turn during this period of
American musical theater and the stories. It was less about plot and it was
more about vibes, and it was a lot darker. There was more sex,
there was more murder, and all of this is true. Um.
I think they're having a difficult time parodying this material right. First off,
parodying anything Fossy has been so done, so done. I'm pretty sure they've
done it on Marjarine commercials at this point, it's really hard to find something
fresh. And Dove Cameron did a take on My Hair and listen, she's
great. She gave it everything she had. But they never failure to launch
the song. It was called kaput, and I was like, yeah,
this isn't doing it for me, and not because it didn't sound like Liza
or anything. The song just right, this has been done. And I
think there's a major difference between parodying things. There are consudered perfect you know
what I mean, like very good. The music was from the forties and
they're perfect. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, they have a wonderful ending.
Everything it's beautiful about out them. So it's it's fun to make fun
of those, uh and mock those, But when you get to appear where
it was more about being real and presenting life exactly or just like you know,
gruesome or is just very real people with real issues going through shit and
war. That was the war. There's a lot going on, So it's
different to make fun of that. Um because in a way these people when
they made these music was they were sort of like criticizing or they were criticizing
musicals. Yeah, it was a fatigue exactly of standards and musical and that
was the brilliance of and they acknowledge that in the beginning, they say,
oh, you know when they stumble again, uh into the whole, you
know, into Schmick. I'm like, oh, that's it. No,
I want the old you know, I want the funny, cute. Well
that's exactly. Yeah. That's a good point is that the characters themselves,
they and Michael Kayan and Cecily Strong. Uh, they start off being like,
yeah, I don't want to be here. This is and and I'm
afraid that as a viewer I didn't quite get over that. Listen, I
love these musicals. I love Chicago Cabaret and all the St Jesus Christ,
Super Superstar, all of them. And I think there's there's value in I
think it's a bold choice. I think it's a creative choice to take this
concept to its next step. I've only seen the first two episodes. It's
just not charming me the way it did last season. Part of the problem
from me, I think is as much as I like King of Uncle kay
and Cecily Strong, I think we would have been better off with two new
people visiting schmickadoon instead of taking characters from last season and having them read it,
because we're dealing with their disappointment and disorientation the whole time. There are
the characters that we're supposed to relate to, and they are disappointed that they're
here and sort of confused about and I'm like, yeah, this is not
getting across right right. I was actually fine with the numbers, but when
he got to the whole thing about like the murder, the murder mystery or
whatever thing, I was like, all right, that'shit. They lost me
here because it's just very plain and just boring. I'm not interested. It's
not making me laugh. No, it's not the only thing that really made
me laugh. And she's Jan Garkowski, Like Jesus Christ, she and I
turned to her. I was like, she really knows what to do with
this material because she has a musical theater background. But she also is a
brilliant comedian right and has done a lot of comic television work, So she's
she is really her and Cecily strong Um I think are the two MVPs do?
They are both a joy to watch in all of their scenes. Everyone
else it's just it's not clicking. I think Dov Cameron is great, but
I don't know that she's the best choice for us Sally Bowls, No,
she's I felt that she was trying too hard. She was trying too hard,
and also I was disappointed with are you the bo who? Amazing?
Yeah, they cast her as the MC. Yeah in Cabaret, Well take
on the MC, and that's fun, you know, fun to do it.
Just think it worked. I didn't think it worked. And the weird
thing about her her character was that, unlike most of the rest of them,
she was like repeating almost word for words some of the lines from the
MC. And I was like, well, it just didn't work. Yeah,
it just didn't work. Um, I didn't land. Yeah. I
did think Cecily Strong's audition scene was really funny. Um, And like I
said, Jan Krakowski's number is really funny. I still think it's funny the
way they make fun of the whole Uh yeah, um, you know,
Titus Progess is not working for me at oh. I mean, yeah,
it's a little too precious there. It feels like they're trying too hard in
a way. Uh, it wasn't as fun as natural as the first season.
Here's my thing. If they had just introduced two new characters who wander
into Schechicago and and and did largely the same story, I think it would
have benefited from it a lot because, and maybe this is just me,
but the they're using all the same actors from last season except their cast,
you know, the musical theater. They're all casting new roles, and Cecily
Strong and Keegan Michael Key keep commenting on it, and they commented on who
they played the previous season, So that just leaves you I can't help but
be like, Okay, so what what what are they like? Are they
ghosts? Are they are? What it's happening? Here? Are they?
You know? And you're starting to to set up something that needs to be
explained, or the lack of the explanation is starting to hang over the whole
thing. And if you had just done another season with new characters and not
tried to have them comment on the ones instead of it does instead of focusing
on what's going on, You're like, you still thinking they keep telling you
who they this person played the previous season, and they're actually naming the car
and I'm like, okay, yeah, I know that that's not working for
me. Not none of this love the cast. I do think Keegan Michael
Gee is not great. Uh he keeps one of the thing and it's actually
got It got annoying in the second episode when he was in the jail cell
with aaront fight, who was actually really funny. Um, he keeps reacting
to everything like he doesn't know what's going on and he's never seen any Like
where's this music coming from? Why are you acting this way? You came
back to because you know how it works. Yeah, that's what makes cecily
strong performance because everything she says it's very knowing. She knows exactly exactly how
it works in this world, so she's not overreacting. I just don't like
his take on the character. I feel like I'm being mean because this is
such a beloved show. But I I and it's only two episodes in.
It could absolutely turn things around. Um, but I it really didn't grab
me in the first two episodes. I actually found them a little difficult to
sit through. There's a difference between like, oh my god, the second
season, I can't can't stop watching it. Then Okay, I love this
show so much, I have to give it a try. I have to
stay here and watch this. That's sort of how I feel. Um um,
yeah, that's how I felt like I would. I had an obligation
to watch it, which I don't like. Yeah, which is and like
they could turn it around. But that's it's sort of it's a huge disappointment
that that I'm feeling that way about suing right out of the gate. We'll
see. It could be that the material is inherently difficult to parody in the
same way as sort of the Rogers and Hammerstein stuff. Or it could be
that that material has already been over parodied so much that they're not finding anything
fresh. But something about it or the whole entire thing about it just isn't
working for me. Sorry, And now we have to move on to the
second point that's going to piss everyone off because everyone loves Yellow Jackets, and
I don't have a lot of criticism of Yellow Jackets yet, but I will
say that the first the third episode dropped this morning, but I haven't watched
it, and this is part of the reason why we haven't done recaps.
It kind of sucks. I hate when they do this. First off,
the first episode dropped while we were in Europe, and I just there was
no way. I couldn't even get to a screen or and I didn't have
the time. Takes hours to write a recab and all. But I was
on a much needed vacation and then I thought we I would get caught up
when we got back. But they Showtime is doing this thing where the episode
airs on Showtime on Sunday night, but they're dropping it on their streaming service
at like first thing Friday morning. When when do you put the recap at
right? You know, and at this And I'm already behind that. So
again, um, much like Star Trek McCard, I'll probably do an end
of the season recab when Yellow Jackets is all done. But uh, And
enjoyed the first two episodes, but I'm not on fire like I was last
season. Do you agree? Disagree? Um? I yeah, I love
the first season for for it's boldness. It was so breez, mainly Melanie
Lynsky because I absolutely love her, and Jets and Christina Rechi. Yeah,
yeah, I'm gonna name all of them. They're all great and I love
their characters. Uh. And this time, um, I'm still adjusting to
the whole thing. Because it's very much focused on on their time there when
they're young. And I don't think the actors are that great. Um.
See we disagree on this, but yeah, so I I don't know.
I was more interested in their lives as adults, but it is not.
It's a little boring now because it's it feels like they told everything they need
to be told in the first season about the adults and then they're just sort
of like, you know, killing time now and then spending more time with
the young guys. I enjoy it, but I we we did get to
I don't know, it feels a little. I mentioned it to you that,
Um, it feels to me, um and I never say this,
but it feels to me that it geared towards a very much younger audience to
this season. Um, especially with the young people. Um and uh,
you know, the actors and the characters. I don't know, it feels
that way the whole thing. I mean, we were we all knew that
we're going to end up eating somebody at some point. I'm not giving anything
away, And when you finally got to that, I felt it felt very
performative. To me. It felt very vampire, you know. Like like
the Vampire movie. It's just very showy. I didn't like it at all.
I was turned off by it. Actually, it felt very TikTok to
me, like Okay, we're gonna put up a show here instead of like
do it in a more organic way. I just didn't like the whole thing.
So but I'll keep watching there it's you know, I'll keep watching.
I'll keep watching it, Okay, I have I don't disagree with most of
that, but I do have a different take on what part works for me.
I think the stuff with the younger versions of the characters is more interesting
the stuff that's happening with their middle aged selves in the present day. I
believe it was the Review and Variety. I don't know which one made the
comparison, but a lot of it's getting very Desperate Housewife, especially the whole
murder thing with Shanna and her husband covering up the murder, are and their
teenage daughter trying not to, you know, to discover the murder. And
I don't love that storyline. I know that it's a continuation of last season
storyline. I actually didn't mind it last season, but I didn't realize they
were going to spend like this is going to hang over the characters for a
really long time, which, of course, it's a murder, it probably
should. I I love Christina Rache's character, I love Juliet Lewis's character,
and I m I actually think their adult stories are more interesting than what I
love Melanie Lynsky. But I'm not loving this this storyline. I'm really not
this this sort of covering up my lover the murder, you know, the
murder of my lover, and trying to keep my teenage daughter from finding out.
It's very Yeah, it doesn't have quite the edge that the show seemed
to have last year. I think Tawny Cypress has Taisa. I think that's
Tie. I know that color Tie. I think it's Taysa. I actually
do like her storyline as well. It's getting incredibly dark. But the thing
is, I hope they pull this off because I suspect the viewership isn't ready
for that Walter White breaking bad moment where they realize that the people that they're
kind of rooting for are really awful people. Melanie Lynskey's character is objectively a
terrible person. She's murderous, she lies, she's you know, it's just
that she's Melanie Lynskey. And it's the same thing with Ty, where you
know, she's fabulous, she's glamorous, she's you know, she's an LGBTQ
senator, blah blah blah, but she's objectively a horrible she'd be head of
the dog for Fox's sake. And they're they're you know, dancing around you
know, trauma and mental health and all of that is true. Obviously these
women are all suffering from tremendous trauma, but some of them are really bad
people. And I think the show is, if they pull it off,
that will be great where they will have to have this moment where the viewership
understands that you can love Melanie Lynskey but understand what she's not good, and
it's there. It's an interesting balancing act that they're doing, because I do
think they turned a corner with the cannibalism scene, where well, first off,
it was always hinted at but never entirely spelled out, so there was
a deniability fact like maybe they didn't eat someone, um, but they went
all in on that scene, and I get what you're saying. I didn't
love the whole fantasy aspect of it. But um, I do think that
these are traumatized teenage girls who have a sense of the dramatic, and that
is how some of them would justify it to themselves. And I think that
that scene is of course meant to be disturbing because they were eating a person
on camera, but it was weird. I think the whole way they got
to the point where you know, they they tried to cremate Jackie, but
then nature turned it into an oven and accidentally cooked her and then they couldn't
resist. That was a little bit more much for me, Like that was
just a little I actually was more shocked in the previous episode where Shauna popped
Jackie's ear into her mouth and he hated, Like that was more That's what
I mean. That had more edge to it. Yeah, that that feels
more natural and a way was more disturbing than this thing where they're all dressed
up. Like I do want to say, we are middle aged men,
and that was the perspective of teenage girl. Only get to say that once
or twice a week. People have seen the pictures sweetie anyway, Um,
but yeah, this is a teenage girl perspective, and I'm not going to
criticize that it wasn't for me, but I do understand it, and I
do think the show was doing a really really good job of unpacking two things
um teenage female teenage um aggression and rage and how it plays out socially,
and because these aren't stories that we tell, you know, teenage girls and
really fuck each other up when they set their hearts to it, and if
you put them in a situation like that, it's really interesting to explore because
a lot of that. I don't think it's it's a coincidence that the first
girl that they ate was the most popular girl, because in that sort of
social milieu that those figures are both loved and hated with inequal measure, everyone
wants to be them, everyone wants to kill them. And I think that's
very much unpacking like teenage girls, social norms and everything, of course taken
to an extreme. The point is that all barriers, social barriers that have
been broken down. There's no adults to stop them from doing this sort of
stuff, and they are of course starving and you know, possibly hallucinating about
weird things in the woods. I am still enjoying the Girls in the Woods
I'm still intrigued. There's a lot of mystery there about what the hell is
going on. You still don't know if there is Is there something supernatural going
on? Or are these girls just all completely delusional and starving? And I
do think that's interesting to unpack, which is why the covering up my lover's
murder story. It just doesn't interest me. It just doesn't. We'll see.
I hope that having this out of the way done, the whole eating
her thing, maybe we'll see. Maybe. Oh, there are more people
to be eaten. The gay coach apparently never came home. And of course,
where Shawan is baby? Oh, dear god, where Shan is baby?
Okay? Um that we should also note that m Simone Castle came in
as well. I can't remember what the character's name is. She came in
as the adult version of her. Uh now I have to look her up,
you talk. I don't have anything to Okay, she came in.
I can't remember the character's name, but she came in. Well, the
antler girl, the one who's thought all the um. That's the other thing
is that they started introducing more of the background girls the team, because they
only focused on a few last season, and more and more of them are
showing up in the scenes. I'm assuming because they're going to eventually be eaten
or killed or whatever, or maybe they're we're going to be introduced to adult
versions of them. I still think the hook is great. I'm definitely watching
for the rest of the season. I'm not disappointed in the way I was
with Schmeiga Dune. I still think it's there. It's there's still a lot
of joy in watching Melanie Lyndski, Christina Ricci, all of these, you
know, Juliet Lewis, all of them. Like I said, Simone Castle
is really really good. Um. And I think the team girls you were
saying, how about Ella Purnell is just she is amazing. Well she's gone
now, but no, it's a shame because she is really really good.
Um. And I think almost all the team they're none of the actresses are
teenagers, but they're playing teenagers. All the team girls are are good.
Um. I just yeah, I want to see where. I feel like
we said this last season when we when we and we talked about the show
on the podcast, and the creators came out and said they had a five
season plan, and we were both like, Wow, you don't remember this.
We were both like, oh okay, because a five season play and
implies like this extended mythology lost puzzle Box show for I don't know that.
I want that. I wanted teen trauma and middle aged PTSD. Yeah,
we'll see. There's still a lot to unpack. They've already gotten to the
eating people, a long camera stuff, so what else is there after this?
But we'll see. Like I said, the one thing I'm holding out
for is that they have this, they pull off this moment where the audience
realizes these are not redeemable characters. These are all pretty bad people. Trauma
or no, they're bad people. Um, we'll see, because that to
me would be the interesting way to take it. It's too interesting. I'll
watch it. But it's great casts. It's such a ya. They're great
and the music, the music is amazing so good. Yeah, it's just
great, great everything everything, it's it's well done. It's well done.
Um so I just it hasn't Lottie Simone Kessel plays Lotty. She's the antler
girl. I just saw it on IMDb. I was scrolling and talking at
the same time because I can multitask anyway. Good for you, I know.
So that's her thoughts. We'll return to almost all of these shows at
some point, either on the podcast or on our site before they wrap up
their seasons or when they wrap up their seasons. So until then and until
we come back next week, we'd love to hear what you want to think
about all of these shows that we've talked about, and we want y'all to
take care of yourselves and love you mean it. Bye bye bye