PLUS Star City and James & Steph’s Yellowstone round-up

23:32He offers advice, but with a nasty edge. He is immediately horrid to Will. He calls Rebecca names when he thinks he's been sacked. He consistently laughs at the misfortune of others until he sees others aren't his character progresses to how he is at the end of series two over all the episodes leading up to it and it's not a complete character change

23:49Steph:at all do you know what she's right she's right she's right now now she said that it's true laura you're right it is a gradual i should have seen it coming yeah it was it was hiding in plain sight yeah it was like a simmering resentment it just felt really dramatic i think i actually at the time was kind of agreed. Yeah. Are you, sorry, are you pointing out that you were right? Yeah. Okay, but I just check in. No, I genuinely, because I kind of go along with the general, oh, it's a real kind of sudden turn when he, when he leaves and joins us, but I think I'm pretty sure going back, I found it believable and it was well deployed and well anticipated.

24:33So, yeah. You felt the same way about Daenerys as well. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

24:38Steph:I think it feels like a heel turn because the whole show feels like everything else is also a heel turn. Do you know what I mean? I think maybe that's why it feels more pronounced. I know. I will concede. There's definitely some signs. There are signs there. I do think it accelerates quite dramatically. I think the same could be said of Daenerys. And also, he goes through the whole grey hair shift when he goes into the third season. Silver, evil, yeah. I think maybe we forgave a lot of it early on because he's funny and because he came across as quite downtrodden. Like he was nasty, but he was a bit of an underdog.

25:12So you wondered if it was a defense mechanism. I wonder if we made allowances for it because of that. And then ultimately, yes.

25:18Steph:Oh, God, now I agree with both of you. Oh, it's so hard. Perhaps he was a bellend all along. Nice. Message here from Stephen. And Stephen says, it was fascinating to hear the interview with Emilia Clarke and the moment where James said that Game of Thrones finished seven years ago. And Emilia incorrectly said it was 10 years ago. And you could actually hear James wanting to correct her by showing great personal growth by keeping quiet and not mansplaining her own show to her. James, you are so... True story. Oh my God. You have grown. You have changed. That is... Well done, you. I went through a number of facial contortions while trying to bite back that particular comment.

25:57Oh, I have to send back to that. Oh, me too now.

25:59Steph:Everybody's loving that Emilia Clarke, isn't it? So you didn't say, I think you'll find. I think you'll find, Emilia. than it actually was seven years ago. James, did your face say, I think you'll find Amelia, you beautiful thing. Okay, fine. But anyway, Stephen goes on to say, with that in mind, who do you think out of the cast of Game of Thrones has had the best post-Thrones career so far? Sophie Turner. You think Sophie Turner? Yeah, I think Sophie Turner. Yeah. Oh, no, do I? Bryn of Tar? Gwendolyn? To be fair, Gwendolyn Christie's done very well. Yes. I tell you I haven't seen anything of where the hell is Jamie Lannister he's been in a number of things but you're right he's not done anything massively high profile that I can think of Kit Harrington what am I saying Kit Harrington of course it's Kit Harrington I mean he's done stuff but he's done industry in which he was brilliant he has done industry he was fantastic in industry that is very very true but certainly his film stuff I don't think has necessarily taken off Emilia Clarke's done a lot of things but they haven't all been particularly well reviewed I want to see it with Sophie Turner Lee's done a lot of things as well.

27:07Steph:No, I think Sophie Turner. You're sticking with Sophie Turner. Consistently, I would say Sophie Turner. She spent the day with me. And she's Lara Croft. Yeah, she spent the day with me doing two Q &As. So in many ways, she's achieved the highest honour. Yeah, she's peaked. She's made it. Jacob Alexander is in Interview with a Vampire, therefore he wins. Okay. If you say so. Yes, I do say so. Yeah. Okay, what else have we got in the post bag if I look down here? We mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I should have read this out then. This comes from Gudjon, and Gudjon says, Long-time listener, third-time emailing, I'd like to report a serial offender that continues to evade justice, specifically the control room info dump scene.

27:56You know the setup. A battalion of agents stands in a semicircle of glowing screens like it's the world's least productive aquarium. One person types like they're being paid per keystroke. Another narrates everything happening on those screens as if the rest of the room and we, the audience, have just woken up from a coma. He's accessing the mainframe. He's bypassing the firewall. He's, good Lord, enhancing. And then the real crime. Someone solemnly recaps the entire plot to their own colleagues. As you know, this is David Crane, a disgraced bioengineer we've been tracking for three episodes after he, as you know.

28:26This good one's on a tear here. He goes on and on with many other reasons why he absolutely detests these particular scenes. And so he's saying, is the control room info dump an unforgivable writing sin or a necessary evil in the age of second screens? Has procedural TV always been like this? And I've only just snapped. And what are your ultimate TV pet peeves? There's a good control room in Star City, where suddenly you arrive in this massive control room. And I kept thinking, that's very advanced for a control room in, you know, whatever the hell it was in the 60s in the Soviet Union. So, yeah, as I've said before, I love a control room.

29:04But it is, yeah, I mean, it is lazy usually often in many ways, but I still think, you know, I still enjoy it. The control room and the capture is like, you know what I'm going to say, the ultimate cliche, it's like a character in its own right. Oh, good God. Yeah, well, that's true. I think For All Mankind and indeed Star City do have great control rooms. But because the action is kind of playing out there, it's the hub of all the action, all the action filters through that room. I don't think they're guilty of a lot of the tropes that we're listing here. I think if I were to mention Prisoner, that is guilty of so many of the tropes that are mentioned.

29:40Which you really liked.

29:41Steph:Let's remember, you really liked that. I hated the control room scenes. Yeah, I hated the control room scenes in that. I really did. Did you just say recommissioned? Has that been recommissioned? Yeah, quite rightly. Did they not just get free at the end and that was the it? we can't say but oh my god are they still hangoffed at the end maybe yeah they may be season two is all about the main female character so oh i love her yeah okay fine and and sophie petzler i believe is one of the writers well if that may be even possibly the lead writer for season two maybe she will we'll see what she does with the control scenes if you she's come in for season two i believe so yeah yeah i think she wrote she was in the writers for season one i think which is doing more on season two, I think.

30:21And so, yeah, let's find out what her plans are. You could launch a personal plea. I could. I could say, please, please, please get rid of the control room. And I would say, keep the control scenes by all means, because I like them. Oh, gosh.

30:36Steph:But to answer this person's question. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm going to bring this back to it. Well, because I do have one thing that I hate, and I think I've mentioned this on here before. I absolutely hate it when the main character has to meet their spouse or partner and they're going to therapy and you have to go and like every kind of troubled brilliant detective usually has some something in their life where they have to go to therapy they have that scene where they're meeting someone and then they have this you know you you get into the underbelly of the character by them just sitting in the room and saying what their real problems are at home.

31:14Steph:I hate those scenes. I don't want them. They're unnecessary. Is it me or has that got nothing to do with control room scenes? This isn't control rooms. This is what else you don't like. Oh, just a general... He doesn't like control rooms. Are there other things that you don't like? Isn't that right, James? Isn't that the question? Yeah, I mean, basically, yeah. Are there particular things that bother you? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I do apologise. I thought you wanted more control seats. No, we've had it. Listen, control... Control room chatter is over. I'm going to take control. You're absolutely right, by the way, about shrink scenes.

31:45Oh, they're the worst. I often think that that character would not go to a shrink. No, of course it wouldn't. And it's often deployed, isn't it, with soldiers and cops. They have to go to a shrink as part of their kind of dealing with whatever they've done wrong or whatever. Yeah, no, that's a very good term.

32:01Steph:They're always unwilling participants, always. I mean, it's often a contrivance. It's like, how do we get inside this character's head without having some kind of dreadful sort of voiceover? I know, let's have them go to therapy. Yeah, for sure. A useful shortcut. So, control rooms, therapy, anymore. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, strip clubs. Strip clubs in, you know, kind of down and dirty TV shows, invariably about men who are, you know, like I'm sure even the likes of Breaking Bad probably had a strip club. It's absolutely like that. I can't remember if it did. but in I mean the Sopranos half a level of strip club action you want to know a strip club fact go on yes it is illegal in the state of New Jersey to have bare-breasted women and alcohol served at the same venue wow I'm not sure actually they're serving bare-breasted women but you know what I mean but like so you can't have topless dancing and alcohol being served like it's actually you can't do it so because when we interviewed David Chase for that he mentioned that so they just had to fudge it because actually you wouldn't be the badder being would not be a thing right Right, right.

33:04That's brilliant. Oh, wow.

33:04Steph:Also in New Jersey, you can't pump your own gas. Somebody else has to do it for you. Are we still talking about strip clubs? Sorry, I'm confused. Nice. Just joking. And of course, to mention Euphoria briefly, which I'll be going back to, I can assure you, in the normal podcast, in the regular, what do we call it? The regular podcast. In the podcast. This season has had so much strip club action. It is preposterous. I mean, obviously, Rue works there, but still. it's the ultimate in strip club action scenes okay strip clubs, therapy rooms and control rooms they're out unnecessary okay we have a message here from Stuart and it involves grammatical pedantry so I'm immediately on board with this Stuart says just off the top of the top of my head I also cannot deal with this is in addition to the myself discussion that we had some time ago you remember this?

33:59yeah boy he remembers He's muted himself, but he does remember. Yes, I do remember. Anyway, Stuart says, things he also cannot deal with, people who say less and amount instead of fewer and number, from footballers to TV presenters, it's an epidemic. Yes. So the rule of thumb here is it is less cream, but fewer strawberries. If it is a plural, it is fewer. If it is a collective singular, then it is less. That is fine. Use of invite instead of invitation, as in send me an invite. You cannot do that. invite is of course a verb uh people who say he was sat rather than he was sitting now there is an exemption to this rule and it's called the io edebri rule and it is if you are just so seated it is okay to just be seated or indeed sat but other than that yes he was sitting not he was sad steph's looking at me blankly there you need to understand the meme for that and the last one not really grammar but the infuriating use of it's been a minute to mean it's been a while as used in every TV show but that's an Americanism

35:03Steph:it's been a minute like all Americans say that don't they what about the phrase the phrase it is what it is I mean that has become so I use that a lot I know he says that all the time yeah he does I mean it is what it is that's not even explain what it is do you know what I what I love about you Boyd is you always correctly say I'm doing a I'm doing a complete 180 instead of what most people say which is I'm doing 360 which is wrong. So you're back where you were then. Okay, fantastic. Well, to be fair, Mikel Arteta did a complete 360 when he held up the cup at the Champions celebration. Oh my God.

35:37Always back to us. This has to stop. Always. This has to stop. Oh no, I support you.

35:41Steph:I support you, Boyd. I love Arsenal. Joe Barton, by the way, has clearly cancelled his subscription to this podcast on the back of this. Yeah, I think so. Although Spurs are right, he'll be fine. He'll be fine. He'll be celebrating. Come back, Joe. Come back. Okay. Right, do we have time for more questions? I'm sure we do. Okay, here's a Paradise question, and I'm using this in part to name and shame both of you, because obviously it's about the most recent series of Paradise, which neither of you watched. Specifically, this comes from James, not me, and it says, Longtime listener and magazine subscriber back in the day, I have a confession and a question.

36:14I recently sat down to watch the last episode of Paradise, season two, and I thought it was brilliant, especially with how they left it on a cliffhanger. Who was this person talking to when saying, hello Alex. Only that wasn't it. The following week I listened to that week's pod and heard James talking about the season finale, which was clearly not what I've been watching. I returned to the Disney portal to discover that another episode, yes, I know. How did I not realise series are usually six or eight episodes, never seven? Actually, that's not true. You often get odd-numbered series these days, but I see what you're saying.

36:44The point and my question is this. I think that season two would have ended better with the ending of episode seven than indeed the ending of episode eight and that should have opened season three so my question for the pod team is have you ever watched a series thinking it had finished when it hadn't

37:02Steph:oh yeah do you know what that happened with to me with the bear actually i thought i think it's the bear the second season of the bear i thought the the it had finished one before it had finished now i can't remember the reasoning why but that has definitely happened to me and you just thought Oh, it's done. It's finished. Actually, there is more to come. Yeah, I'm not sure whether it was, what episode was it? Was it Forks or something? There was an episode where it was, or maybe it was the Fishers episode. And I thought, oh, that was, it felt like a finale. You know, that amazing Fishers episode where they all come around for dinner and there's the crash and everything.

37:35Steph:Maybe I thought it was, I can't remember. But yeah, it's definitely happened to me with the bear. Well, you thought it was done. Oh, there's more. Yeah. Oh, no, there's more. Yeah, definitely. Boyd, he's put his real thinking face on. I can't think of any time when I've actually watched one and thought it was the end, but it wasn't. I do remember once, I don't know why this has stuck in my mind, but back in the day, if you can imagine this, I was a Neighbours aficionado way, way, way, way, way back when I was a teenager. And I remember turning on Neighbours. I might prefer that, James, to this one.

38:05James, I'm not being funny.

38:06Steph:The other week, in the news section, when I gave you the information that Neighbours was coming back and you could watch it all again and again, you were not suitably excited for being a Neighbours. He was aficionado. I've moved on from Ramsey Street. I'm so sorry, Steph. He's renounced Ramsey Street. I have renounced it. Is your favourite episode Bouncer's Dream? Bouncer's Dream. I do remember Bouncer's Dream. That's the greatest episode of TV of all time. Well, I remember once turning on Neighbours and hearing the announcer on the BBC saying, now it's time to find out what's been going on in Ramsey Street.

38:39And then it began with a quite extended previously on Neighbours type of sequence, but without any explanation. and for whatever reason i assumed it was going to be like a clips episode because you know you used to get that in network tv where randomly you just get a clips episode and it was it normally had some kind of spurious framing device like they've done it on friends as well where they'd be kind of chatting and one of them say do you remember that time and then you just get archive footage presumably to save money or whatever it was the equivalent of a bottle episode but i thought that's what this was and so i watched like a minute of this recap i was like oh it's just a clips episode and i remember turning it off and then being absolutely mortified that i missed that episode and it has stuck with me all these decades later i don't think that answers the question and i don't know why i shared that information but you know what james every insight we have into your childhood trauma i feel is necessary yeah 100 necessary yeah i was deeply wounded by that

39:32Steph:is there any way we can find out which episode that was and then we can just get you a lot higher at the cinema do you know what we actually can because amazingly i do know the episode that it was there's a boxing match in it i want to say it's mike versus shane does this ring a bell in a boxing and i think they're fighting over plain jane super brain am i imagining that i think that was actually the episode that happened right don't worry i'm getting that episode sorted this is just all extreme it's descended into madness yeah i'm so sorry it is the heat pompous than you are now when did you drop boys be kind to each other please I will find the Mike V Shane don't worry fair enough I'm going to call time on the post bag with that revelation and say if you would like to send your messages in then please do and the email address which I am assured is working is post bag at pilot tv pod dot com right I'm going to go and watch a film now and then Seth and I will reconvene I'm going to go and see the film Power Ballad okay yeah and then steph and i are going to reconvene afterwards and we are going to chat all things yellowstone so strap on your stetsons get your spurs at the ready not those spurs boydy and uh and prepare for some cowboy chat with me and steph okay we're back i am back from my screening and it is time for pilot tv's cowboy roundup obviously steph you can't really see with the camera but if i were to pull my shirt down you would see the yellowstone brand upon my chest here nicely done you and i have not discussed this at all as per the rules of this podcast uh now you were going to watch it for last week's plus but you bulked at the feature length pilot episode because you had a lot to do to be fair i had a lot of stuff to do now the question i have to ask you now is as we go into this how many episodes of yellowstone have you seen this is going to give away a bit of how i feel about it right i started watching this because i was like i've got to watch this because me and james doing this for a special i started watching it at 10 o 'clock last night okay oh so really okay last minute 10 o 'clock last night okay and i can tell the last the last thing i wanted to do last night is go to bed i would had i started watching it Earlier in the day, I would have stayed up all night and continued going on and on and on because it was so amazing.

42:02Steph:I was like, so it's 90 minutes, this first episode. The first one, yes. And I was like, right, I'll settle down. And if you, listeners will know that I absolutely adore Dutton Ranch. And you really like Dutton Ranch as well. I did enjoy Dutton Ranch. Which has kicked off this whole, we've decided we're going to now become Taylor Sheridanites. and watch Yellowstone. I can't, I'm so annoyed with myself that I didn't watch it from the beginning, but now I've got Liam to commit to a full rewatch and his exact words were, I will happily watch this whole thing again because that is how good it is. It has everything I want in a drama.

42:41Steph:I just, I love all the characters because we loved Dutton Ranch so much. So if you don't know about Dutton Ranch, Dutton Ranch is the kind of, It's a sequel in a way, and it focuses on Beth and Rip and their life. And if you watched a couple of episodes like James and I have of that, and then you go back to Yellowstone from the beginning, you're like, how? They're not even married in the first episode. They're just basically like fuck buddies in the first episode. And she doesn't particularly like him. And I was like, I have to know how they got together. that I need to know the whole story. I need to know absolutely everything.

43:23Steph:And because this is spoiler special, obviously we can say, I was really distressed about... So the whole thing is obviously establishing the characters, understanding their motives. But immediately, as soon as you're introduced to all of them, I know about you, James, I was well drawn in. I loved all of them. I'm so distressed because I love Dave Annabelle, who plays Lee Dutton. Dave Annabelle, who I believe, if memory serves, was in Brothers and Sisters, right? I've just written this. Right. Oh, my God. Because I called this Brothers and Sisters with cows and he's fucking in it. He's actually in it, right?

43:58Steph:So he was just in Brothers and Sisters. He was. And I love Brothers and Sisters. But do you know who loves Dave Annabelle more than anyone else in the world? Kay Ribeiro. She loves it. But now she can't watch this because obviously he dies, right? Spoiler. I can say that. No, you can say that. This is a spoiler special. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. When he died, James, I actually cried when he died. I was so upset. I was like, how can I be so attached to this person? And I've only been in his company for like, you know, what was it? About 70, 78 minutes. But I was before he dies. I was like, oh my God.

44:31Steph:But I had preconceptions about this because as I said, I think I said before, it had been on in my house and Liam had watched all of it. So I felt like I'd kind of watched it vicariously. I know he couldn't do that, but I'd watched a bit of it. but I'm so I now don't want to watch anything else except this because I need to know about what happens I need to know I obviously know that something happens with Kevin Costner right at the end of season seven it's seven seasons isn't it the whole thing five yeah okay five sorry I'm counting all the I'm counting now I'm going to go back to Marshall I was really I was like I know because I put Marshall but I obviously I wasn't I just wasn't in with Casey And now, my God, Casey is this wonderful, gentle creature.

45:15Steph:And we need to know why John Dutton told all the children to leave. So there's that brilliant bit in a way where he says, he told them all to leave and he's the only one that left. And obviously now he lives on the reservation with his wife and child. And she's gorgeous. And just, oh God, everything about this show is why it's such a massive success. And we're so stupid for not having watched and talked about this a million times before. I yeah Kelly Riley my god how does she become how does Rip penetrate not literally how does Rip penetrate this this hard outer shell of Beth how does he get there you know there's a great there's so many great establishing lines where you know where um the the brother uh who plays Jamie where's Bentley yes he plays Jamie Dutton and at the funeral bit she he turns to his sister and says dad never looked at me like he looked at Lee and she just looks at him and says and he never will and it's just there's so many great lines in that and and to me it wasn't even corny it wasn't none of it I love the whole outdoors I love all the horses everybody's got some wonderful soul deep within this kind of traumatized situation whatever they're in there's like the goodies the baddies and oh just i i lapped it up absolutely lapped it up i can't help not saying you still haven't answered the original question which was how many episodes have you watched oh so right okay so i only watched that one because just a pilot then okay yes that's a very long winded way of saying you just watched one episode i just watched the episode but the reasoning behind it was because i started it so late and i would have said i would have stayed up and watched it but as you know i'm deep into ted lasso at the moment but ted lasso's or the back burner i this is all the things i'm putting on the back burner for yellowstone right and or i know shock for me right that is shocking paradise back burner ted lasso back burner they've all got on the back burner now all of them because i'm fully yellowstoned i loved it i loved it and it gave me all the feels it gave me okay and the other thing is you have to it's got that it just it reels you in and you feel like you're just part of the part of their world you feel like part of in the same way that i am going to argue brothers and sisters did but this is obviously just in foods and and dutton ron slightly different uh yeah but just in terms of the this is just in terms of the camera work it's just since you know absolutely sensational um just is beautiful to watch it's beautiful to absorb i just i couldn't love it more i couldn't i just adored it james if you didn't love it.

47:53Steph:And I can't really tell by your face if you did or not. I'm going to be so upset because we need to keep doing this. I've seen the pilot for Yellowstone before because I watched it once before. And I remember being a bit mixed on it. And I remember this was said that where the whole brothers and sisters with cows thing came around. Right. Because that's got, it really reminded me of that because I thought it had a kind of a soapy vibe to it. And I remember, I remembered bits of it. Some of it came back when I watched it. And I thought actually, all things considered, because the things that I'd sort of stuck with me are there was something to do with some missing stolen cows and it was a bit about a river and that that was basically all i remembered from the pilot and those are to be fair the two main plot for us some stolen cows and a stolen river like that's broadly speaking the plot but there is something about this that is weirdly compelling and to to the extent that i did watch the first feature length episode and i watched the second episode the third the fourth the fifth the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth.

48:50Then I got into season two and I watched the first one and the second one. And I've started the third one. And that's basically where I've got up to. So I'm three episodes in season two of Yellowstone at this point, uh, because it was a very hot weekend. It was very hot. It was 30 degrees, but what was I doing, Steph? What was I doing on my hot weekend? I spent my hot weekend, my bank holiday weekend on fucking Dutton Ranch on the Yellowstone. I was herding cattle. I was breaking stairs. I was doing all of that stuff. Couldn't get enough of it. Hated myself a little bit for it, if I'm honest with you.

49:21Because I'm watching the show and I'm like, oh my God, I can't get enough of this. I need to keep watching it. Just one more, just one more, just one more. And if someone would say, is this a good show? I'd be like, is it? I'm not sure. Because I'm really enjoying it. But I think my initial instinct of it being quite soapy wasn't a million miles from the mark. It does have some soap to it. And it is so melodramatic. There's always something. The boy falls in the river. Oh, fuck me. There's a rattlesnake. like there's always something ridiculous going on but for whatever reason oh my gosh you've been broken i've been broken like a steer and i just i can't i just can't stop watching it so i'm so jealous utterly obsessed with the other stone at this point and look it's partly it's a performance thing i think kelly ryanne is fantastic as bad okay i don't i don't want to reduce i don't want

50:12Steph:to reduce kelly ryanne just stay on kelly ryanne for one second i don't want to reduce but my god that woman is hot. I know I said this in Dunn Ranch but my God she's so sexy. She's just so sexy. She's acidic in this and she's clearly having the time of her life playing as well. Really enjoyed her. Luke Grimes, great as old Casey Dutton. I've seen him as he's a former Navy SEAL don't you know? Obviously I've seen him in Marshalls and now I appreciate him a lot more. Wes Bentley is the kind of downtrodden kind of like brother that nobody likes. Oh he's not getting a spin-off. There's no spin-off for Wes.

50:43No he's not getting a spin-off. There's no Jamie spin-off in the works. I mean, there was a hundred thousand, there could be a hundred more Yellowstone Spinos. Jamie's not getting one. But the, I'm sorry, the MVP is Cole Hauser as the unknowable Mr. Rip Wheeler.

50:57Steph:Okay. So now it all makes sense. You know, when Liam and I was like, why would he do that? So basically, again, listeners, sorry if we repeat ourselves, but when we watched Dutton Ranch, I was telling the boys, I was saying, I spoke to Liam and I said, why would Rip act like this? What is his backstory? And he turned to me, he was so furious. and he was like, Rip cannot be known. He cannot be known. And we all kind of laughed about it. But now you totally get it. He is the MVP. What is it about his character? Why is he so... He is the manliest man who ever manned in the history of men. Oh my God.

51:33And it's just extraordinary.

51:35Steph:Yeah. He's like in the dictionary where it says man. It's just a picture of him. It's a picture of Rip Wheeler. Do you know what? Dutton Ranch should not have been Dutton Ranch. it should have just been a show called rip and it's just it's him like jack reacher walking the earth and just punching people and i would have paid to see that show but the thing is so amazing about him is it's his um it's his physical acting because actually arguably like in in this first he gets the he doesn't get loads of lines but it's just the way he delivers them like what so when he does that um when he's like laying out the dynamite so they divert the river from the new development and he's like shut the fuck up and he just he just he just shuts everyone down and everyone listens to him when he goes in so there's a bit in the thing where he goes into this giving this guy a second chance this guy who's been thieving stuff and he gives him a second chance and the second chart that the options he gives him are going to take him to the sheriff and giving back all the stuff that he sold or being branded with the yellow stone brand which He's just been casually heating up on his stove as he was talking to him and then coming to work for them.

52:40Steph:And the guy chooses to be branded. And then he turns up and works for him the next day because that is the power of the unknowable rip. Well, Steph, as you will come to understand, the brand has meaning. The brand is not something you earn, Steph. It's something you live up to. Oh, my God, James. do you know what right it's really hard for me because I'm simultaneously like so excited and happy with you and loving you for loving this and that we now have this thing together which is so lovely that we're going to live through together and I'm really angry that you've got so much further than I have I'm quite disappointed that you haven't seen the whole first season because I was really expecting you to have done a sniff oh if I 100 % I'm telling you now by next week I'll be I'll have finished season two by next week okay by the next time next week I'll have finished it by the next installment of our Yellowstone roundup you'll have seen enough that we can talk more about season one and two can you promise me are you going to go further than season two though can you just wait for me to catch up oh my god you're fencing me in you're fencing me in like a cow like part of the herd you're not letting me go past the end of season two see oh that's going to be tough I'll try please try just try I'll go really really quickly I'll go really quick I'll stay up tonight I've got other things to watch so maybe but I had other things to watch this weekend and I didn't fucking watch I watched all the other things.

53:58Steph:I was like, I better watch all the other things I need to watch. Okay, please try. Can I tell you, I was late, like genuinely, all the stuff we were supposed to review for the main pilot, which we're recording tomorrow, I was so late watching any of it because I was just like, on the backhand, I was like, yeah, I'll watch some of that. And I was like, well, I'll just watch one more Yellowstone. And then I had a kind of a tricky weekend. And I was like, do you know what? Fuck it. I'm all in for Yellowstone. I'm just not even going to pretend that I'm going to watch anything else. And so I've just been, you know.

54:21Steph:This is the thing, James. If I didn't have to actually go to sleep, right, have continued watching it and i was like it was so late and i was like i really need to go to sleep so i'll get up super early but i was like i would have it's a good job i didn't start it earlier than 10 o 'clock because i would have just gone i would have raced through this bad boy to discuss as well because the characters as i have come to now understand them are not what you think they are when they start and kevin costner's john dutton is a fucking monster is he because i think he seems really nice when he cried when he's oh my god but when casey gave him the stallion and he was like I gave it I'm giving it to you and then he takes it in and he has a cry for his son and when he's sitting underneath the tree cradling Lee his dead son and he's cradling him he's stroking his hair and you're like oh my god you're just lovely is he awful there is a line later on where someone says to Beth that that Rip is a bully and she says he's not a bully he's exactly what our father made him and that's that's that is who Rip Wheeler is yeah because Rip kind of is like kind of the adopted son, isn't he?

55:22Steph:Yes, and you'll find out more about that. So, so much to come. Are you trying to tell me that eventually unknowable Rip will become slightly knowable? Oh, I'm just going to say there will be a flashback. There'll be a flashback. You will find out where Rip came from. Oh my God. So yeah, so short answer to this is I'm absolutely loving this. But if you were to ask me if I think it's brilliant, I would have to struggle to find an answer because while I am loving it, there is an element of guilty pleasure to this. Okay, okay, right. Let's unpack this, okay. I feel like I'm repeating myself again, but I'm going to say it again.

56:01Steph:It depends what you think makes a show brilliant, okay? So for me, I think a brilliant show is something that you cannot stop watching. You just want to watch, as is so much the case with shows that we review. Sometimes I just can't stop watching it and I'm like, oh, I've watched all of them because it was just that brilliant, okay? And I think you love it when it's like some other element to it that other things can't do, don't you? And that's for you what makes it brilliant. Would that be correct? It has to have a sheen. Yeah, I think there is definitely a quality sheen that I look for. But as I've said many times, there are science fiction shows that I love which are objectively terrible.

56:40That's true. This is not a terrible show. This is a genuinely good show because from the get-go, it makes you care about these characters. Yes, that's the magic. Yeah, it really does. And the characters do get their hooks into it. And also, it's stunning, this kind of Montana landscape. It just looks so beautiful. The location is gorgeous. It's kind of everything you want, it really is.

57:01Steph:Okay, well, let me ask you a question then. For this show to be elevated enough for you to think, what would it have to have for you to then say it was brilliant? What would it have to have? Don't say Patrick Stewart, because it can't be Patrick Stewart. For me, it would have to be a bit more out of range, where they discover a portal to another dimension on the ranch, which is literally what happens in Outer Range. But I don't know. I think, and you know what, if I'm honest with you, and I feel like I can't really discuss this with you at this stage, but we'll get into it next week a little bit.

57:31But I would argue that there's a lot of melodrama where unlikely extreme things happen to characters on an implausibly regular basis. to cover for the fact, I would argue, that the overarching plot arc is quite nebulous. So I would say, you know how Brothers and Sisters was like this? Well, it was all kind of soapy melodrama, but there'd be like an overarching, oh God, someone's going to take over Ojai Foods. What are we going to do? But actually that plot isn't exactly like a whodunit. It's very much like it's bubbling in the background. It's not exactly urgent. It's just a thing that's happening.

58:06There's an element of that here where the future of the ranch is in jeopardy but it doesn't ever feel like an immediate problem because there are so many rattlesnakes and runaway horses and shit going on in the foreground but it's okay because actually i don't mind that and i think the character stuff is enough as as evidenced by the fact that i've literally watched nothing else all weekend yes the character stuff is enough to keep me hooked to keep me invested there were a couple of episodes where i'm like this is this may be bad at times but it's okay because i carried on i'm interested to hear what you think once you've seen the whole the whole

58:40Steph:of the first is nine indeed the second immediately after we've stopped talking i'm gonna literally start watching the rest of them because i can't bear you being ahead of me i literally i can't bear you knowing more about this than i do this is the thing that happens with great tv though it's like you don't want someone to know more about the people that you love than you well if you if you don't come to the next record with like a white tattoo on your chest i know really disappointed do you know what i bet there's so many people who get that like yeah oh my god I bet there's so many people. Yeah.

59:12Steph:God, this has been joyful. How lucky are we to have Yellowstone in our lives now? I know, I'm very excited. I'm concerned that I'm going to burn through this at an alarming rate, and then there won't be any more. Yeah, but then you've got Dutton Ranch. And then you've got Marshalls. Well, I've not only got Dutton Ranch, I've got Yellowstone, like I've seen the prequel, I've seen 1893 or whatever. I've not seen 1923. I haven't watched Marshalls. So yes, there's a lot, there's a lot more Yellowstone-iverse for me to immerse myself in. It's true. Look, I don't want to say we should, but we definitely should start a totally separate podcast called Yellowstone.

59:44Yes, we should do a Yellowstone watch-along podcast. We should absolutely do that.

59:49Steph:Oh, God, this is a great day. Okay, fantastic. Well, that was our initial Yellowstone debrief, our Western roundup. For more Cowboy Chat, come back to Pilot Plus next week, as ever. Thank you very much for subscribing. We'll be back in your ears on Monday when Russell T. Davis will be back on the podcast and we're reviewing his new show, Tiptoe, assuming they give us screeners, which I have not seen yet. And of course, we will be doing, I think, La Brea, which is a science fiction show. And we're going to be doing two weeks in August, I think, as well. Yes, we're doing all those three shows. All of these shows that I should have watched, but I haven't because I've been watching Yellowstone.

1:00:21Steph:So do you know what? Right, okay. So you've cheated on me, but I've watched all those three shows. Think about, I could have finished season one if I hadn't watched those three shows. Yeah, you could. You could. This is, you were professional in the wrong way, Steph. Yes, I was. You were misguided. good times okay that's it from the yellowstone ranch for this week until next week pilot out