Speaker 1: We're Tom Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style Opinion Fest. Hello, KITT's,
welcome back to another edition of the p SL. I'm
the team. You're te Lo Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here
with the Loane You t Lo Lorenzo becas my love,
the husband who's you know what you're dying to say it?
Speaker 2: Go ahead say birthday to my wonderful husband. It's his
birthday today. He didn't want to me to mention it,
but I will, and I think I need to. He's
a wonderful man. I'm so honored and proud and happy
to be with you.
Speaker 1: The same.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it's his birthday and he's a wonderful person. So
happy birthday.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. You were also wonderful person. Much
to discuss today. We're gonna dive into some Pride stuff
and oh we're going to have a lot to say
about the finale Widow's Bay. That'll be in the second
half of this podcast because we're going to spoil the
hell out of that one. But we wanted to weigh
in on the current Pride Night controversy that is hitting
Major League Baseball. We have thoughts that probably shouldn't surprise you.
But actually I think our conclusions might surprise you. But
before we get into that, I kind of have an
announcement and it's not you know, it's not a happy one,
but it's not a terrible one. Don't worry.
Speaker 2: Oh, we just thought that you guys who have been
following us and following the story needed to do. Yeah.
We all right.
Speaker 1: So if you've been listening to us or reading us
or whatever for any length of time, you might know
that we have been working with a woman named Rachel
Harlowe on her biograph. Rachel is a trans woman who
U fifty years ago. Sixty years ago, she became a
cause celeb at the can Film Festival, and she went
off to Hollywood, and then she came back to Philadelphia
and opened a discotheque. And she had a very colorful life.
She dated Grace Kelly's brother at one point it was
a big scandal in the city. A lot of fascinating
aspects to her life and we, I in particular, have
been obsessed with her since I was a kid. She
was a local Philadelphia legend when I was a kid,
and I was obsessed with her. And then when we
were researching Legendary Children, our book on the history of
drag and queer culture. Her story came up and I thought,
oh God, no one really, you know, when you look
her up and everything, there just wasn't a lot of
information about her out there. She had faded in importance,
and I felt that we had a sort of a
responsibility to try and get her story back out in
the world. So after several years of trying to track
her down, we finally did, and we got her to
agree to work with us on this book. And we
spent three years interviewing her, interviewing her friends and colleagues,
and doing research on the book and pitching it. And
let me explain a little bit about the world of
pitching a book. So I've never written novels, so I
can't even speak to what it's like for when you're
writing fiction. But when you're writing nonfiction, you normally have
to submit a proposal for consideration, and that proposal is
basically a shorter version of the book.
Speaker 2: It's it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's more to it than that, but you
basically have to have every chapter of the book completely
mapped out and partially written, and you usually have to
have at least one chapter fully written out. You have
to have a more marketing plan, you have to have
you know, you have to talk about what your goals
and themes and everything for the book is going to be.
And it's a long process and it's a hard process.
And speaking as the co authors of two different of
two published books, you should know that we have gone
through this process six or seven times. There's you know,
you throw out proposals, but you don't always get offers.
But we felt very very strongly about this book, and
our initial round of pitches were met with some reluctance
because the publishing industry was feeling this and this was
last year, was feeling that maybe trans stories were too controversial,
maybe the public was turning against this sort of thing,
you know, in the wake of the Trump election and everything.
So we weren't getting offers. And then we retold it
and sent it out again this year and we started
getting a lot of interest with it. Actually, in fact,
more interest from this proposal than from any other proposal
we've ever had out there. At one point there were
four publishers who were expressing interest and our agent was
thinking about trying to get them into a sort of
you know, pitching battle or whatever in the end. But
like I said, it's very difficult right now, nonfiction publishing
is in free fall. Nobody understands what sells. The only
things that seem to sell are like celebrity books or
political books written by political insiders, but you know, everything else.
And there have been several high profile trands biographies that
were published in the last couple of years. One was
Marsha P. Johnson's, one was Candy Darlings, and they did
they didn't actually sell all that well, so it was
an uphill battle. At one point I said to Lorenzo,
was like, I feel like I'm swimming up a waterfall
trying to get this done. But we believed in it,
and we and there were there were publishers showing interest,
so we just kept plugging away and plugging away. This
was a very hard process for Rachel because everything I
just said to you about the industry, about the culture,
about where we are right now, and the difficulties of
selling a nonfiction book that was kind of falling on
deaf ears every time I tried to explain it to her,
because from her perspective, she felt like it was a
statement on her life, like she was taking the slowness
of this process somewhat personally. Long story short, we last
month we fielded two offers from publishers. They were not
lucrative offers, but they were very you know, the publishers
were excited, and the fact that we were able to
get these offers in this market right just insane, insane,
and we were ready to sign with one of them,
the one who made the better offer. When Rachel she bounced.
Basically she found the whole process too, I guess, demoralizing
in a certain way, like her whole life was put
on a on a on display, and and and we
had to pitch it. Like I think in her mind
she thought people were just going to line up and
and just throw money at us. And you should understand
that we in agreement with Rachel that we were splitting
the advance with her, so she had a financial stake
in this. She was not happy, She was not happy
with the author with the offer, and away just walked
away from it, completely, cut off, cut off contact with us.
After three years. Yeah, let me you can get your
I'm not going to cut you off. But I always
want to say this was painful, beyond painful, and I'm
I'm not going to bad mouth her, but it was very,
very disappointing, and I want to reiterate she loved what
we wrote. This was not a bad her not believing
in the process. I mean she cried when she read
the proposal. She cried when she read the piece in
the Inquirer. So this wasn't about creative differences. It wasn't
about her walking away from something that she felt wasn't
in her best interest. She just you know, didn't think
it was worth her time, so to speak. And we
felt we needed to tell you because we put ourself.
We stuck our necks out. As I said, this is
like our seventh book proposal. We don't go around telling
everyone when we're because you don't know if these things
are going to work out.
Speaker 2: That's because we believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only that, but we felt like we need
to drum up interest, We need to be out there
telling people that we're working on this. So we stuck
our neck out and now this book is not happening,
even though we did get the offers right. So anyway,
I thought you needed to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, writing a book, pitching a TV show
or a movie or anything it's so much work that
people don't know. People don't know. That's why sometimes you
see you producers say, you know, it took us five
years to get this show. You know, someone to agree on,
you know, saying yes this show or movie or book.
If you're not very very famous like Barbara Streis and
line them Ali for example, or or the show Obama.
You know, people are not lining up to sign up
with you for anything. Believe me, you.
Speaker 1: We never went into this thinging it was you really
have to, because we.
Speaker 2: Know how it works and how hard you have to
work on getting a book published. Again, if you're not
Michelle Obama is, you really have to work hard. You
have to convince this people. And when it comes to books,
books is specifically there's a window there and if you
miss that window, then it's gone. Uh, they have no
interest anymore. And sometimes they have slots like like a
publisher will say, okay, we'll have well, we're gonna publish
five books this this semester this year, and then they
you know, if you're not one one of those books
or or whatever they want to publish that, then they
pass and then you move on to the next one.
It's just and then the whole political thing. Also, you know, people.
Speaker 1: Were scared of looking at LGBTQ stories when we first
started pitching this in like twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So when we talk to Rachel about this book, we
were very clear from the beginning that you know, we're
here to tell your story.
Speaker 1: We're not here to make money.
Speaker 2: We're not here to make money. I want to tell
you that we're not here to make money. And because
this is how it works. And the thing is that
when you get a book published, you might not make
a lot of money, but there's potential there to have
that book. You know, I don't know, pitch as a
TV show, a documentary or something. I mean there's potential
there after you get the book published. So sometimes you
publish a book not because of the money, but because
it's going to be out there published and things can
happen after that. So anyway, it you know, it's it's
it's a lot of stress. It's it's it's it's it's
not a funny, uh a fun process at all. It's
very stressful. You don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, you ruin my health this year. I'll be perfect.
The stress of this really had an effect on my.
Speaker 2: Thomas specifically has been working on this for three years
and it's just hard. It's as hard. And when we
finally and I give him a lot of credit for that,
because we got two offers, which is a maroquette.
Speaker 1: You know, I will state for the record that getting
those offers in this market, yes times, what I'm telling
this story is honestly one of the greatest professional achievements
of my life to actually get offers, because it for
a really long time, it didn't look like it was
going to happen.
Speaker 2: So so and I give him a lot of credit,
and I hope he keeps that in mind that he
worked trying, He worked really really hard, and we only
got offers because of him. But then, you know, after
we got two offers, we were excited about one offer
and then she decided not to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: So that was she write no context completely.
Speaker 2: So it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: So it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: And we want to put this out there because we
mentioned this book so much for you guys, and you know,
to give you a little understanding, a little bit of
you know, how things work. So if you write a book,
believe me, it's a long process. It's not just writing
a book. Type in the book and giving to somebody
and say yes, we're going to publish. It's a lot
of work. It's trying to convince a whole bunch of
a whole group of people that that book is worth publishing. Yeah,
it's a long process and you really have to believe
in it, which we did. But we were also relying
on her to be part of it. And when you know,
you decide not to do it.
Speaker 1: Just as an explanation, I mean, there was no question
of us continuing without her. The pitch. Every time a
publisher came back to us with a question or expressing
an interest, they all had the same question, how involved
is Rachel? Because they want they wanted her involvement, they
wanted and part of the pitch that you know in
the proposal was that we said that Rachel would be
available to promote the book, that she would do interviews
for the book and that sort of thing. But if
if she's not doing that, then you know, there can
be no book. Not in the current atmosphere, right, I
have all this material on Rachel. I have forty hours
of interviews. I'm not saying there will never be a book.
But this project is dead for now.
Speaker 2: The bottom line here is that, and the takeaway here
for everyone, even if you're not involved in this project obviously,
is that you know, you take a lot of nose
before you take a yes, and you just have to
get used to it right and if you and if
you're not ready for that, then you fall apart. That's
what happened with her. You just have to keep going.
And you know, it's a process. It's a very stressful process.
You have to work really hard to get that there,
and you know, we did and then we did it.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we're working on There was a book proposal put
aside several years back so that we could work on
this Rachel book because we thought it was more timely.
So we're returning to a previous proposal. It is about
movie costumes, and hopefully someday we'll have an announcement about
that one. As always, you just pick up the pieces
and rode on exactly. All right, So let's take a
short break and we'll be back and we're going to
talk about the Pride Night controversy.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're back, and we're going to talk a little bit
about the Pride Night controversy sleep in the Nation, So
it became what a surprise, let's start with this. Last year,
tonight is actually Pride Night for the Phillies. We won't
be going because we're going out to dinner for my birthday.
But last year we did go on my birthday for
Pride Night. It was the first time I had ever
been at a Pride Night. I've been going to Phillies
games since I was you know, for as long as
I can remember, since I was a child, but I'd
never gone on a Pride Night And it was lovely
and revelatory because, you know, the the lights in the
stadium were lit up rainbow, and every time you looked
at the JumboTron there was some queer person up there.
There was you know, trans people and lesbians and gay
people every single time and like gaying it up. You know,
there were drag queens and everything, and just that they
had the choir, the Philadelphia Oh yeah, they had the
Philadelphia Gay Men's Choir. It just it was lovely as
a Phillies fan and a baseball fan to have that
moment of community in a space where you never felt
like you could have that moment of community. And I'll
say something here that people they never like hearing this,
But you know, Lorenzo and I are gen X came
in we are gay men of a certain age, and
we didn't we didn't come of age. You know, a
world as accepting of us as it is now. So
to go to a baseball in a stadium as a
gay couple on a non pride night means that, yes,
you are kind of tempering your behavior. You're not gonna, like,
you know, get all affectionate in the stands unless you're
sure you're you know, that's just that's just the reality
of it. I'm sorry. We Lorenzo and I also don't
walk down the street holding hands. We've never kissed in public.
Like we're not of that generation and I and very
much even no matter your generation, a major league sporting
event is generally not the place for queer expression of
any kind.
Speaker 2: And to be honest with you, even when it's Pride day,
I don't feel that comfortable doing certain things, you know,
like holding hands or whatever. I mean, that's just see,
that's me because that's how I grew up, never holding
hands or never showing any affection. I mean even even
in the presence of family members. It's sometimes things have changed,
believe me. But but we are.
Speaker 1: Of the generation, and like I said, this isn't just
a generational thing. I think young queer people also don't
feel like a Major League Baseball game is necessarily a
place where they can make out with their girlfriend or whatever.
Not that you know, you should be watching the game
and cheering the game. It's not. It's not a place
to make out. But even so, any sort of affection
or or queerness or expression of yourself you sort of
have to temper it. You sort of have to make
sure am I okay here. That's just the reality being
queer in the world, and even more so in twenty
twenty six. So I just want to say I loved
Pride Night, and I I think I felt more of
a sense of pride and community there than I did
at the most recent Pride event, you know, Pride Parade
or whatever that I went to, maybe because because of
the setting. The setting itself wasn't gay. The setting was,
if anything, ragingly heteronormative. So to see that sort of
queerness and that acceptance of queerness, and let's be clear here,
it's a stadium of forty five thousand people, maybe maybe
five percent of them were queer, and everybody else just
had to deal with all that queerness around them and
there was no problem. I mean, Philly is not the
most progressive called, you know, socially progressive city in the world,
but it still is progressive and liberal and there was
not a problem. So this week San Francisco, and that's
that this is part of the issue here is because
San Francisco was like the queer capital of the United States.
It always has been, right and said, the San Francisco
Giants had a bride night and the players were given
caps to where, you know, giants caps that had a
rainbow logo, you know, had the Giants logo rendered in
the progressive rainbow flag, and several of the players wound
up writing over the logo in silver marker referring to
a Bible quote about the rainbow covenant with God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the genesis whatever quote quote or whatever
you yeah, about God creating the rainbow as a sign
of you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Covenant with his people. Which, Okay, this is where we're
going to get into some stuff. For one, Okay, I
think those players were obnoxious assholes for doing this.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, But.
Speaker 1: When I read what the verse was, I was like, well,
you know, honestly, honestly, I think their dicks. But that
could have been way more offensive, Like they could have
written a verse about man shall not lie with man,
or about sodom and gomoor or whatever. But it was
just about trying, as quote a Christian to reclaim the
rainbow or to you, you know whatever. I think in
terms of protest, in terms of Christian based protest, they
could have been a lot worse than what they did.
I'm not excusing it. I am offended by it. I
am hurt by it. I am hurt that Major League
Baseball cannot bring itself to to to welcome a queer
fan like me.
Speaker 2: I feel bad for the queer people who love sports,
for example, right because one, because you know, you feel
like you have no space, no place, uh and and
it's just and it's it's it's bad. It's horrible. Actually,
I feel bad for all the for all these people. Yeah,
it's a horrible thing. And you know you can't just
leave it alone. You have to make some sort of
statement like that that clearly you know you just want
to offend people. Because that's just to offense.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not suggesting that what they did was
an offensive. I'm just saying at least at least they
they sort of took the path of least resistance and
just did a relatively inoffensive take on the rainbow. Like
I said, I lived through the eighties and nineties. The
rhetoric could have gotten a lot uglier than that. They
really would have called me an abomination before the Lord
or whatever. Now.
Speaker 2: Also, I just want to add that it's not just
these you know, football it's unfolding. Yeah, it's now become
a thing soccer players in Europe. Here in the United States,
male and female. My I should dad, you know, just
not wanting to wear anything pride, you know.
Speaker 1: Because and there was a minor league gave in York,
PA last night, York, Pennsylvania where the team wound up
before fitting the game because they refused to wear pride gear.
So this, this gets into some complicated questions because there
is a big, big, big, big big part of me
that does not agree with the idea of forcing people
to wear pride gear.
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 1: That's that's when you start getting into all right, I'm gonna.
I just feel as queer people and people on the
left generally, we've never been very good at picking our battles.
And a prime example of this is the the wedding
cake battle, right. I remember when that was unfolding and
suing all these bakers, and I was like, this is
only going to anger the right wing more and now
they have a rallying cry, and sure enough they did.
And that actually, all of those lawsuits and that crazy
bitch in her corduroy skirts that I can't even remember,
Kim Davis, she wound up becoming a cause celeb on
the right and it helped fuel entire political campaigns. And
for what so that a dozen queer couples could force
a baker to make them a cake. I don't think
that was a battle worth fighting. And it became a
national cause celeb and it has it became a stand
in for just queer people being demanding and annoying and
blah blah blah blah blah. And you see the same
thing here. Senator Josh Holly came out today. Jd Vance
came out and made a statement about this. It is
only going to grow right and I think major league Baseball,
and I will say Major League Baseball came out and
denounced the Giants for acting this way and made a
very firm statement. But again, you were getting into forcing
people to wear rainbows. I mean, how would we feel
if people were forced to wear crucifixes, you know, or
pro life messages or anything like that.
Speaker 2: It's I.
Speaker 1: Don't think this is the path to acceptance. I just don't.
I think you should have pride nights. Absolutely, you should
have Pride nights. I think the team and the organization
should welcome and support any queer people. But forcing team
members to wear that stuff that really does not sit
well with me at all.
Speaker 2: I have a problem with forcing people to to wear something,
especially because they're saying, well, it's a uniform policy, you
have to wear it. But again, as you said, I
mean a pro life hat or a Chris effects Christian
hat or whatever would you wear it? Would you say
yes to it?
Speaker 1: A star of David anybody? I mean, I realized that
queerness isn't a religion.
Speaker 2: But I'm actually I I don't look for acceptance anymore.
I mean I'm always dead. That hasn't happened yet. I yeah,
I gave up on acceptance. I want tolerance. I want
you to I want you, motherfucker to accept that I exist,
that I have the right to exist, and that I
have that I have the right to live my life
the way I feel. Saying motherfucker anyway, anyway, it effects
are rating anyway. My point is that I'm not looking
for your acceptance. I'm looking I want your tolerance. I
want you, just always the case, to understand that I
have the right to live the way I want to
my life. So back to Friday at Friday Night or
whatever at a stadium. I accept them to have those events.
I think they yeah, right up.
Speaker 1: To rainbow, put up the rainbow flag by in my yard.
Speaker 2: But if you play it doesn't want to wear the hat,
then why he should.
Speaker 1: Not be forced to whatever, Because then what you're doing
is you're you're forcing situations like this. Yes where listen,
if those players walked out on the field in basic
San Francisco Giants gear, without the rainbow and without the
Bible messages, people would have noticed, but the queer people
in attendance would not have been hurt or offended by that.
I think so when you force players to do this,
they are in response going to become even more offensive
in their response, and you're hurting queer people.
Speaker 2: That's that's where.
Speaker 1: I stand on this, and I realized that not a
lot of queer people think that a lot. I mean,
I'm standing sort of in opposition in my community because
I think the general community line is, well, screw those guys,
they should wear the rainbow and up. And I'm like,
I don't really think that's how it works.
Speaker 2: It's complicated because back to the wedding cake thing. I mean,
you saying, all right, well, we shouldn't force these people
to bike a cake for us. But at the same time,
you can't start, you know, adding people to the list
of people you don't want to bake a kate, you
know for. So it's complicated because then you're going to add, what,
I'm not baking a cake for a black person, an
Asian person or whatever. Then you start adding you know so,
and so it's complicated. When do you stop with that?
When do you allow them to do whatever they want
to do.
Speaker 1: I think you need to weigh the potential for backlashs
at least somewhat, And again people don't like hearing that.
But my issue with the left in this country with
liberals in this country is that they had this fantasy
of quote unquote winning and all of those people who
exist in opposition, and let's be clear, are here violent,
deep opposition to liberalism exists in this country, and it's growing.
And there's this sense among the left that if we
just force those people out or whatever, we will win
and social progress will happen. And No, every time you
force those forty million people who voted for Trump, they're
not going away, okay. And my point is not, oh,
you have to learn to live with them, that's not it,
but you have to come up with more effective ways
of countering them. We have a crazy twenty two pound
cat who is rolling around and now he's starting to
bite us on this.
Speaker 2: Day, jacking the equipment.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Do you want to wrap this up or do
you have anything more to say?
Speaker 2: No? I think as I said, I think those events
should happen. I think Pride Day, Pride night, Pride, whatever, love.
Speaker 1: Yet, dinner bro, the community, they should happen.
Speaker 2: They they in fact, they we should force these those
I think you should forth their absolutely pole to wear
something during those events. No, I say no to that
because I wouldn't be wearing certain hats if I was fortune.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the blowback is now becoming more virulent,
and you've got the freaking vice president weighing in on this.
Speaker 2: I know you have the Vice president saying, you know,
Trump one, we don't have to do this anymore. Or
then you have all these right wing public figures say
I'll pay all the fines, you know, let them do
it all right, I'll front the money so that they
keep their hatreds.
Speaker 1: They're not going to go away because you want them to.
They're just not. So you have to figure out effective
ways of countering them and forcing And let's face it,
I will never forget. My brother's a big Phillies fan
and he's also gay too, And you know, you love
your Phillies, you love those boys. And he said, yeah,
but have those guys voted MAGA And you just know it.
Speaker 2: I know that's the heart.
Speaker 1: That's the hard part of all major Yeah, that's the
hard part of it, is that you love your boys,
But then you know they're all millionaires and most of
them are concernatives.
Speaker 2: Of them gay people.
Speaker 1: So I'm not I don't have illusions about that. But
I think Major League Baseball as an organization should support
its queer fans, but they should not expect individual players
to come out and and they should certainly not force
those players to show. Yes, well, that's not support. I
think you're forcing them to wear a rainbow. That's not support, right,
that's domination.
Speaker 2: I think that's the part that we need to focus
on money and gave people have money just like anybody else. Yeah,
so we need to focus on that. Where are we
spending our money? And these organizations know that we have
the money to spend and if they don't want to
support us, then we don't support them. That that I
believe in. I believe in doing that, fighting these companies,
organizations and clubs or whatever uh to force them to
support us. Forcing some jackass who homophobe jack us to
you know, wear a rainbow and hat. No, I'm not
going to do that.
Speaker 1: Some guy who only went to Christian College on a scholarship.
Speaker 2: Now, I.
Speaker 1: Never saw black people until he played a major League
baseball game. And you can't force someone like that. They're
just gonna, well, come on, that's a description.
Speaker 2: There are anyway, yes.
Speaker 1: Hicks in major League baseball. All right, So let's everyone's
gonna get mad at me.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, I don't even care.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm allowed to be mad at these people.
All right, So let's take a quick break and we're
going to come back and talk all about Widow's Bay.
We're back, and now we're going to spoil the finale
of Widows Bay, which we have the show. Yeah, we've
been singing the praises of that show for the past
couple of podcasts, and like a lot of people, I'm
kind of sorry we didn't get in on the ground floor.
I watched the first couple of episodes, but I didn't
really realize until about the fourth episode, where I was like, oh,
this is actually really good, and I kind of wish
we had started in on the on the beginning. Don't
you worry, though, because there will be season two, and
like everybody else who writes about tell or talks about television,
we will be on board when that happens. This show
has exploded, and if you haven't watched it, yeah, it's
my favorite news show of the year, and I will
admit if you haven't watched it. The first two episodes
they're cute and quirky, but they don't necessarily it's really
by the fourth episode, you're like, oh, okay, this is
super inventive.
Speaker 2: I think you don't know exactly what the show is
about watching the first and the second, but the writing
it's hilarious from from day one, from like I mean, yeah,
it's just funny. I love how it exploded. I'm on
TikTok as you guys knew, and I love watching and
you know, listening to Matthew Reeves talk about how he
can't believe how.
Speaker 1: Big the show got. Yeah, and it's just adorable. It's
just adorable. I think it caught them a little bit
off far a little so, all right, let's get into
this final episode, which I was correct, but I will
also say it was a very common theory online and
I did not come up with it on my own,
which is that Ruth, the secretary at city Hall, is
not the final right Westcott Warren line, and that she
had a secret baby and that baby was Tom's wife,
which means Tom's son is the final member of that
family line, and if they want to break the curse,
they're going to have to kill Tom's son.
Speaker 2: Well, I would go, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's actually clever because they
made that kid so unlikable that you're like, whoa, Oh.
Speaker 2: My god, those three kids, I want to murder them all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're terrible. So let me just say this. I
thought some of the energy went out of the show
in these final two episodes, and they weren't quite on
the level I would have liked for the show. They
weren't quite as funny as previous episodes, and they weren't
really all that scary at all. They were just sort
of mostly just contemplate it. Like it was a lot
of Tom and Ruth sitting on Ruth's couch, and I mean,
some of the stuff Kay Callen was saying in those
scenes was absolutely hilarious. In fact, I think it was
kind of interesting to get the perspective of someone who
grew up on a cursed island. You know, so her
morality is a little off, her view of what life
is supposed to be like is way off, but she's
basically a decent, kind person. She just doesn't realize how
fucked up she is.
Speaker 2: See. I love that, I guess because ever since I
was a little boy, I used to listen to love
to listen to my grandparents talk about their lives, and
you know, their experience and showy pictures. So that whole
episode I loved. I love I love her telling all
those stories, showing the stories were weird, but I love it.
Speaker 1: She dated a guy who got bit by an animal
and he turned into that animal, and uh, it's just
fascinating and funny and created. They had her unpacked the
whole trolley problem in a way that actually made a
certain amount of sense, even though it would not be
considered the moral choice. But again, I think it's sort
of unpacked. She's a decent person, but your morality is
going to be fucked up if you never got to
leave a cursed island, right, which brings me to I
don't want this to sound like criticism, but this is
what has to happen with the story like this. If
you're not going to do it all in one season,
if it's going to become a series, it becomes. And
I think that's what I felt in these final two episodes,
because you know the previous episodes there they would cycle
through these various sort of genres of horror. So there
was like a sea hag, and there was a killer clown,
and there was what else was there? There was the
the serial Killer, the you know, the Halloween guy that
Jason Kay. So they would cycle through all of these
different things, but now it feels like they have to
establish lore. And when they got to that bunker or
whatever the shelter, it felt very lost the series TV
show Lost, And obviously maybe not, that's not obvious, But
to me, I thought it was obvious that that was
a deliberate homage, just like when they were out on
the boat in the middle of the night, they were
clearly homage. It was an homage to Jaws. There's homages
to all kinds of horror films and suspense films and
everything like that. So you know, you go down into
this bunker, underground bunker that has secret industrial movies, and
there's all this weird like signage and everything and voices
coming over the speaker that is as lost.
Speaker 2: As Lost gets. I thought, what's awesome because we lost? Yeah,
and I agree.
Speaker 1: I agree with that because also so many shows have
tried I had to mimic Lost, and they always wound
up as cheap copies. But if there's any show that
almost has earned the right to have a couple loss,
I mean, they are on a cursed island that they
can't leave. I mean, the comparisons are right there. But
and again with Ruth sitting there, paging through her and
just telling stories, and you're getting the sense of this
island having lore. What happens with that is and it
happens with all these shows that happened with Lost. The
lore cannot sustain itself. It cannot hold up. And that's fine,
because I don't think you should look at Widow's Bay
the same way you would look at a show like Lost.
It's a comedy horror show. There's a certain lightness to it.
There's a certain sense that you shouldn't take it all
too seriously. But I was sitting there going, Okay, there's
a lot of elderly people in this community. How come
nobody really knows anything about this past where they were
evidently sacrificing people to this creature under the island and
it was they they shot movies about it, they built
bunker like obviously it was sort of codified, and it
was something that people knew about. And those films, they
can't be more than sixty years old. And you look
at someone like Ruth, who's like she said she was
eighty four, Like, well, the other question is I mean,
like the son Evan, like he literally has never left
the island, and in seventeen years there's you. I mean,
how do you explain that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: How do you explain that? And if everybody on the
island over a certain age knows this, I guess if
you try and unpack this too much, they're right off
the coast of Massachusetts. And you mean to tell me
there's a whole community of people who cannot leave that island, right,
wouldn't that be known or understood? I mean, it's like
a three hundred year old community. You don't like any
of this, I could tell you're getting antsy with it.
Speaker 2: It's just that it's trying to make sense out of
something that doesn't have much sense.
Speaker 1: Doesn't make money. If they're going forward, they are going
to have to I mean they are. That's clearly where
it's moving towards us that they're going. In fact, Katie Dippold,
who is the creator of the show, she said, what
I love is that it's and actually I don't disagree
with this. She said, it's creating like this whole mythology
that we can explore. She said, I'd love to do
a mini series just about whatever happened in that inn
or whoever ugly wore tense is. I mean, they have
established that there's a deep lore here, even if they
haven't unpacked it all that much. And now they as
they unpack it, they're going to come up, you know,
they're going to face the issue of how do you
make it all makes.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll have more episodes like the Betty Gopin one.
I'm hoping that they, you know, they go back and
talk about whatever happened in the past on the island, right,
they have time now.
Speaker 1: To Yeah, I mean there's a lot that they can unpack.
What else, what do you I just want to say.
One of the things I do want to say, Jeff
Hiller I said last week that they're not giving that
guy something to do. And I laughed so hard at
his freak out. It was just so well delivered and
the timing and it was so good.
Speaker 2: He's funny.
Speaker 1: He is funny. I I don't know. I was surprised
that the sheriff tried to kill Ruth. I actually thought
it was going to be wick.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, makes sense, I thought made sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's desperate to save his child. I wonder
where that's I kind of thought like the episode was
going to end with like him getting his wife on
a boat and just speeding off the island the next morning.
Speaker 2: I just, I just I love the silliness of it,
like I do too, Like when he gives her a
tea with medication, like if she's the one, she's not
gonna die. So it was funny because you think she
she's dead and this.
Speaker 1: She wakes up by now she wakes up.
Speaker 2: And it's just hilarious. Yeah, it's just funny, funny, funny.
And I didn't make the connection that people were making
it online obviously that when the captain died or whatever,
that guy died, then she's the one now with the
you know that's going to live forever, right, Ruth is
gonna he kind of passed on to her. The whole
mortality thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that well, yeah, because other family members,
I mean, he had three hundred years of decebit. None
of those people were I guess immortal.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think his immortality is being granted to anyone.
Speaker 2: Well, she didn't die with with anything, that's true, but
I mean she was shot and didn't die. You know,
I think.
Speaker 1: That's just he could be right. I mean, I've never
heard this theory, but again, it wouldn't make sense because
uh oh, I see what you're saying now that he's dead.
Speaker 2: She bested on to her the whole immortality thing because
you can see, like she goes up the stairs very quick,
and she says, she's doing all these things now, and
if you and if you.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good theory. I didn't think that.
Speaker 2: And if you remember the first episode, she's this old
lady who can't remember anything, and now she can remember everything.
She can go up and down the stairs, she helps
the neighbor. You know.
Speaker 1: Like the interesting thing about this is I really thought
they were gonna kill Ruth Off because kay Callen is
ninety years old and it takes like three years to
do these seasons, and are they really relying on her
living to then? I mean, I hate to be morbid
about it, but come on, yeah, anyway, I think that's
that's an interesting take.
Speaker 2: I think she carries the whole immortality on.
Speaker 1: Kay Callen being hale and hardy to shoot another season
of this show. And that's the other thing. They have
been greenlit for a second season. But I really hope
they don't do the Apple TV thing where we have
to wait three seasons for this.
Speaker 2: Still now, like that the other show I forget the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, plor of Us. I mean that show ended like
six eight months ago, and you know they're halfway through
writing the second seat.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, come on, you forget about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the House of the Dragon comes back this weekend,
and I am going to have to go back. I mean,
I have a general sense of where it ended, but
it's these long ass seasons just.
Speaker 2: You have to go back towatch the whole thing. And yeah,
I hope not. I hope they don't wait that.
Speaker 1: My one request for the next season is to bring
Betty Gilbin back in the present day as the descendant
of Sarah Westcott Warrant. That would be awesome. I mean,
just make her a series regular. I want to see
her dealing with Patricia. I want to see her dealing
with Rosemary. Tom needs a love interest. She would be perfect.
She would be absolutely perfect. And if you're not going
to do that, at least do more flashbacks with her.
Speaker 2: But Patricia, my god.
Speaker 1: Trician, Rosemary, they are just the MVP.
Speaker 2: I know, I want to go back and watch everything again.
Just pay attention to her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything else anymore theories?
Speaker 2: Now? I hate the kids and what them all did.
It was. It's interesting that the guy died in a basement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they caused his death because they were such assholes.
I guess you could say, Look, if you're sixteen years
old and you've never left that island, yeah, you're going
to be kind of an asshole, a reckless asshole.
Speaker 2: They are, all of them, that's three of them. What else?
I think that that it was just interesting.
Speaker 1: Great cast, really really smart writing, really clever idea, and
it's funny when it needs to be funny and scary
when it needs to be scary, and that combination is
just not easy to pull off. Otherwise we see it
more often.
Speaker 2: That's it. Yeah, I just think the writing is very
clever and funny and kind of you know, I hate
to put it this way, but kind of real. You know,
like the situations like you you see someone going through
the things they go through, right, if that happened to you,
if that situation happened to you.
Speaker 1: What happened to those bitches that I know?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: When they're all dead, don't they are like that, that
is something about the show, and I realized they're packing
all this stuff into it and they don't have time
to let people react to things. But well, yeah, okay,
so Patricia was stalked by the Boogeyman and people knew
about it and it was confirmed and he was cremated
and nobody reacted to that, like, there's no follow up
on that. I thought some of those women were going
to be in the in the bunker or something, but
they just weren't. I don't think he killed them, and
nobody said anything about them getting killed.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we don't know, we have.
Speaker 1: It happened lots of loose ends, but that's why you
come back for another season, and that just means they
did a good job setting up their first season.
Speaker 2: So I love the show. I am. I'm going to
watch it.
Speaker 1: Again enticed, and I really really hope it's back before
I'm eighty years old, before I look like Ruth. All right,
so that's it for this week. We'll be back next
week with whatever crosses our eyes or crosses our desks.
Until then, take care of yourselves, love you mean it,
but bye bye,