‘Furious’ Episode 5: Cat Meets Mouse

21:49and I have no idea what's real and what's not, but that's kind of the magic of this performance.

21:54Joanna Robinson:I do think when she tells Hal, I just don't want him to be alone, right? That just felt so honest, like incredibly true. And I don't know, you're just like, okay, no, these two crazy kids cannot make it work, but is there a way in which this connection could be something healthy? I mean, something Yossi and I were talking about is sort of like, where do you want this character, Kath and Grace to end at the end of the season. Like, should she die in pursuit of her actual goal? Should she wind up in prison? Should she get to go to Zewataneo and like get off scot-free? Like what's the ending for her?

22:35Joanna Robinson:And I can't tell what exactly yet, what show we're watching here. And I like that. It's sort of similar to what you're talking about in terms of like, is Alden going to be okay? Is this girl Mira going to be okay? Like, is Kath and Grace going to be okay not in an okay that i think she's done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve any consequences for her actions but like i don't know i get this way even even with something like uh did you ever see red dragon or read yeah right yeah so like in red dragon ray fines plays a horrible serial killer but there's this just like moment of true connection between him and emily watson's character and like for a moment you're just sort of like what could have been if they had if he had found this kind of uh empathy or connection with someone before he did all this stuff that is sort of like uncombeack from a bowl you know what I mean and so that's sort of my feeling when I see these two in bed and she's just sort of like gently running her fingertips on his arm and it's just sort of this like beautiful connective moment that I don't know if I want to say she doesn't does or doesn't deserve it, but I just felt myself like drawn into it.

23:47Joanna Robinson:Yes. Well, especially, I mean, this is why no show that I have seen basically has ever been able to resist the you're not so different, you and I kind of structures. Like you want those moments of humanity, even in the murderers, even in the people doing crazy crimes or horrible things to people. Like you want to feel that pull. Yeah. And it's so tempting to have, and it's so structurally satisfying. And it's like, it's what draws you into those stories in a way that can sustain having us spend half a season with a character like that, where they're not just murder, they're not just murdering people, but you also hear in this episode and over the last couple, like the parallels in Alice's life, right?

24:23Like there are parallel lines to a certain point between Alice and Catherine and Isabel, basically. And they go off in opposite directions, but like Alice was a teenage girl who was pregnant at one time too, and her life could have unraveled in a totally different direction. And she ended up here. I'm going to be honest, here doesn't seem great either in very different ways. Like she's got a lot going on and a lot she's trying to work through. But needless to say, she's lived an entirely different life than these other two girls have.

24:49Joanna Robinson:Would you say it's almost like a fractured, broken mirror left on the wall of an unfurnished apartment? But a mirror you fractured yourself because you were seeking out something kind of resembling the very violence that puts you into this mental space to begin with. It's not always a subtle show, but I really like it. It's not. But here's the thing. Like, it's not subtle. Yeah. But one thing I always appreciate with a show like this is, like, this show to me is all about survival mechanisms, right? It's like, whether you have done horrible things or have had horrible things done to you, how do you pick up and move on?

25:22Like, how do you take the next step back into the real world? And every character is dealing with some version of that. And so, yeah, it's not like everyone is on these, like, incredibly distinct journeys. Like they're all interwoven. They're all overlapping. They're messy and really good. And I think interesting ways. Yeah. But it's at least kind of cohesive in the story that it's trying to tell. And like, to me, the very real human responses to a lot of this stuff.

25:45Joanna Robinson:There's also, of course, this interesting skin of Greek tragedy that the show is painted on top of all this in that like, you know, we start with the story of Medusa in episode one. We get the sort of various strains of fury inside of Greek storytelling, Greek thinking. And then I've been thinking a lot about, you know, the room that Nora goes into to watch these horrible videos. And what she tells Alice is like, that's your reward, right? That's what you want. You get access to that. You get to go into hell and hang out in hell and see how you do if that's a place you spend time with. Like, see how you cope.

26:35Joanna Robinson:And if you don't wind up drinking straight rye whiskey out of your Stanley or something like that at the end of the day. So, like, yeah. And this idea of Nora as this sort of, I love this Nora character. You're an amazing character. Really good character. Incredible performance. But like this idea of like the avenging angel, but the cost of just sort of even spending any time being an avenging angel inside of this. And then also the compromises. Like the compromises she made to even stay here to make any kind of difference is she had to at one point along the way, and we still don't know all the details of it, but she had to compromise on this Jane Doe case.

27:14Joanna Robinson:Yeah. In order to just even stay, it seems like, in order to even just stay inside of the department, you know? And so I think, yeah, the mirror just keeps splintering. They really do. I mean, so many characters are making that sort of compromise. You and Yassi touched on that last week too with the teenage girl who was also like complicit in the trafficking of other girls. It's like everyone is getting pulled into these systems and making compromises to protect themselves. Yeah. One thing I loved about this episode is it felt like Alice was almost making the inverted choice where her, I mean, like the bargain she has struck or the approach she has chosen to take is like, can you swallow your pain and your pride to basically like engage in this sexual or faux sexual situation with this guy who abused you for the sake of like getting your professional career back under your feet again like can you get this case back and maybe some kind of power back if you're willing to swallow all this other stuff right when nor is like this is the thing in your way you can clear this out of the way then you can get back to doing what you want to do and she She does it in like the most fucked up way possible.

28:19Joanna Robinson:Demented and like really good. When she pulls that bag out, yeah, I guess we're not, let's not worry about going exactly in chronological order. But when she pulls the bag out, Fiona Apple kicks in, right? That's how you know. That's how you know. And to watch her open the bag and for those of us watching at home to begin to process what it is she's looking at. And she's looking at artifacts of her old life. And you're wondering, why did she keep you know there's a part of you that's sort of like why did she keep this why did she keep this clothing that you bought for her these photographs of them as teenagers and all sorts of like that and for for that to happen and just the way that the photographs were stacked for you to see them so young for you to see them actually quite recently like this photo was clearly taken on the set of this show like they are look the same age they are.

29:15Joanna Robinson:They have the same hair that they have. Like this is a recent in these characters' lives photograph. But there's more flash, so you know it's point and click early 2000s photography. Sure. But you can see the photos of her bruised and battered face sort of like in the stack, the way that the photos are being held. It's not like a jump scare that you like come across it. It's there and just slowly being uncovered. The music doesn't change. It's still Fiona. like you know but her result like she gets sort of lost in this sort of my interpretation of the way that Emmy Rossum was playing this was like she gets lost in this sort of slight soft nostalgia for who she was in the more innocent times of that relationship and the safety that she thought that she found there and then seeing those photos of her own face puts this deal back in her spine in terms of like what she has to now do to entrap Marshall, if that's how you choose to define it.

30:19And I think what she does only really works because of that soft nostalgia part. Like, because there is still a part of her that is holding on to, like you said, the version of her that used to exist, the version of her relationships used to have, like who she thought Marshall was before he revealed who he was, all of those things. Like, there is a connection between them. And there is something that she is tapping into that is still there. it's just like covered up with so much scar tissue because of everything else. And it's like, she needs all of that to be Catherine level manipulative in this setting, right?

30:52It's like using sex as a weapon to get what you want. Like we've seen Catherine do it many times throughout the course of the season already to say nothing of what she's had to do before to survive. But it's like, you kind of have to have that other part to tap into it for exactly this sort of thing.

31:06Joanna Robinson:What I love about what both Catherine does and what Alice does here is that they are relying upon the weaknesses inside of these men in order to accomplish the gambit here. So like, for example, with Rob Delaney's character, a perfect asshole, right? But for her to, if he had just actually kicked her out when he first sort of thinks about like, okay, you got to go. Next morning, you got to go. I don't know that he would have necessarily survived, but like - He would have bought him some time. He wouldn't have set himself up. But she's like, no, no, I'll stay here. I'll do whatever. You know, she sort of like lays out this temptation in front of him that he can't resist.

31:49Joanna Robinson:This sort of like, I own you, my power over you, all the sort of stuff like that. So he's just sort of like walks himself into this trap. And similarly. He even tries to think that he doesn't want it. And then he's like staring at the security cam at work, you know. You know, and then the guy winds up being Campbell Scott's like son. And the way, I mean, that whole sequence where she's just sort of like parked herself up at the table and taking fake Zoom calls is just like incredible. But she's just sort of like relying on, you know, again, all of the characters inside of the show are quite smart.

32:24Joanna Robinson:And so the cunning that she uses and the way in which she knows how to manipulate people and find out where their weaknesses are and where they're sort of like were too liberal to throw this woman out of our house sort of. Oh, she folded that boy up into some tinned fish. She just sealed him right up. It was nothing. Tinned fish, boy. What did you think about tinned fish coming back in another show so soon? Fitting and alarming. Yeah. But it's kind of in the zeitgeist, you know? I mean, look, yuppie liberals of a certain kind do love tinned fish. It's having its moment in the last couple of years.

32:57Joanna Robinson:But, yeah, what do you think about the trap that Alice lays for Marshall here? The seduction is not just her and sort of like, Emmy Rossum said in an interview with Gold Derby that it was like her idea to put his hands on her throat and stuff like that. And then how the alcohol is sort of like woven into that, this sort of like breaking of his sobriety resolve at the same time. I mean, this is excruciating to watch and so well done for exactly those reasons. I think there's a couple of different elements. One, just the idea of Alice as basically a compulsive liar is something we've established all throughout the season.

33:38You give this girl any chance to tell a version of her backstory that is not real and she will do it for the sake of getting like one inch closer to the things that she wants. But then there's also this part of it where, I mean, frankly, just the idea that a TV show in 2026 would have a victim of sexual, like of domestic violence seduce her abuser using her sexuality, that it's willing to do that. Like the balls on this show, frankly, the three dimensionality of these characters like I just think a lot of shows fall into what can be a very understandable trap when they delve into things like domestic violence of they try to take it so seriously and it's very well meaning I think in a lot of cases where it's like this is what this character becomes

34:22Joanna Robinson:it's very precious it's very precious they are this they are confined to the space everything they do in their life is through the lens of this thing and part of what I appreciated about this sequence and the fact that she would even do this in the first place is that being assaulted doesn't change you from being a human who wants other things. Right. There's a lot of stuff going on in Alice's head. I wouldn't even deign to know what's going on up there. But she wants to know who this murderer is. She wants to get back on this case. She wants resolution. She wants to figure out what happened to these other girls and women.

34:52Like she wants to know who, which assholes in power are implicated in this. Like she wants to go back to work. And this is the thing standing in her way and her way of dealing with it is not super healthy, but it is a thing that she wants. I like that even the damaged part of her is willing to subject herself to something like this for the sake of a weird, bizarre outcome that like I would never have expected and just makes for good TV.

35:15Joanna Robinson:Well, similarly with Catherine Grace, the fact that she's like in order to, I mean, she could just meet these guys and shoot them in the street. She could. That's not what she's looking to do. She's looking to torment them. And part of the torment is, I mean, she has sex with them. Yeah. And she makes them believe that she wants to and that she cares about them and all these other things in order to make the vengeance feel like taste that much more delicious. In this Gold Derby interview, this is what Emmy Rossum said about sort of a lot of what you're saying about the compulsive liar aspect of Alice and then also the kernels of truth that are exist inside of this interaction she has with Marshall.

35:57Joanna Robinson:Right. So she says, I think that Alice is a shapeshifter. It's almost like she's acting a lot of the time, but we get to see her vulnerability and her truth when we're alone with her. So she was saying that to underline the section of the episode where we watch her get ready. That's like the most truthful Alice because no one else is observing her. It's just us and her and the broken mirror. She goes on to say, but a lot like what I think acting is, she's often using the truth to make a trick work or commitment to a truth to make a trick work. And so we see her shapeshift into a softer, younger version here.

36:29Joanna Robinson:Her clothes are different. Her approach is different. I want her voice timbre to be different and subtler and softer. There are some things that she's saying that are true. She's a little bit drunk. She did have a terrible day at work. She's wearing these old clothes. She's really bad at decorating the house. But she's saying them in a way that lures him in and won't make him suspect that her ultimate goal is to waterboard him with whiskey, to tempt him, to lure him in, and to compromise his sobriety. I have two logistical questions about this episode. One is, do the cops show up that quickly, even if it's nosy neighbor Margaret who's calling in the I saw a drunk guy outside?

37:04You already know that they don't. Also, Margaret has called the police many times. So many times. And the station is like, okay, this woman again. Yeah, exactly. Take your time.

37:12Joanna Robinson:Okay. Number two, have you ever in your life seen a wanted poster of someone? No. And multiple people are seeing it and calling it in and registering. Yeah. Here's the thing. even. I was like, where would I even find one? My issue is in part the wanted poster and in part Alice's recognition at the end of this episode in a distorted reflection that the woman in front of her is in fact the girl she has seen at like age 14 in a photo. I simply could not do it. But I'm not an FBI agent. You know, I'm not a detective of her caliber. You don't pay a lot of attention to things, Rob. No. That's deeply untrue.

37:53Joanna Robinson:Yeah, the water poster really got me. For both Alden. When Alden has it, but then also the other care worker is like, I saw it, I called it in. I was just like, where does one find, like, are we, is it like the next door app? Is that what we're looking on? There's also like crime, like when I lived in Oakland, I lived with a guy who would check the crime reporting app like all the time. And I was like, I was like, what, how is this helping you enjoy your life here in Oakland, California? It's not keeping you safer. It's not doing anything. But perhaps that is like a place where a wanted poster might come up.

38:30Joanna Robinson:But other than that, I don't... Facebook? I don't know where one finds a wanted poster. On a bulletin board at the post office? Right, right, right. Your local coffee shop? A bodega, perhaps? I don't know. Those are just some logistical questions I had about communication of information. You know what? Plot needs must. People needed to know that she was a wanted fugitive. And so, you know, the word is getting out. Should we talk about Campbell Scott? How? I would love to. Roger Dodger himself. Okay. So the idea of him being adjacent to a kind of pickup artistry, if not womanizing, if not who knows what's worse than that in Roger Dodger's life.

39:07Joanna Robinson:I really missed you, Rob, because I was just about to ask you what role you most associate with Campbell Scott. Your answer is Roger Dodger. It is. A movie that most people listening to this podcast have not seen, but it is Jesse Eisenberg, Campbell Scott, early Jesse Eisenberg. And it's about a young man who learns from his uncle how to pick up women. But guess what? Or how not to. They learn from each other along the way. Honestly, I think it would hold up. Like, I think it's very knowing about how slimy it is. Roger, Roger. It's such a wild bull. Well, what's yours? What's your touch point?

39:42Singles, where are you?

39:44Joanna Robinson:Singles is a good one. The Spanish Prisoner is one I really love. I think seeing like Hope Davis and Campbell Scott, who were just sort of like twin icons of a certain era of late 90s indie film, is really fun. Lo, here we are in the muck and in the trenches from our sort of whimsy era of independent cinema. But Roger Dodger is a great answer, and I'm proud of you for it. Thank you very much. But Campbell Scott, I'm used to liking Campbell Scott. and so obviously the show is leveraging that with a number of actors that they have they've chosen to use here yeah and um for him to plead his case as someone who's on her side and i've got my laptop here and i've got information yeah and we can take him down together and i've been he's a piece of shit and i've been wanting to take him down um and not only that but also when she's talking about getting married and she gets the wedding dress out and he's sort of like yes anding her and supporting her.

40:46Joanna Robinson:As he sobs. And then she like turns her back and he's like I'm gonna fucking die here. I thought all of that was really good. It's an amazing scene. I also think I love this layer of Catherine too where I mean again the psychoanalysis I think is a dangerous slippery slope to get into with her where like why she does the things that she does but it does seem like she wants in the Arrested Development way that you and Yasi were talking about with her, like the approval or the support of these men at times. Like she does kind of want him to say that she looks beautiful in the wedding dress. Yes. And she does want, like I love that her like signature move is like pillow talk.

41:26Like she drugs these guys into oblivion and then lays one inch from their face. Yeah. And it has like this real unguarded moment of intimacy with them in which they cannot move. They are subject to whatever she wants to say. And it's like, there is like, look, it's not tenderness. I don't know what it is, but like there is something that she is clearly looking for from these men beyond just killing them. Although like the killing them seems pretty satisfying too.

41:51Joanna Robinson:Well, I do think it's interesting that like, we have not been taken inside the actions of this horrible photograph that we've seen. And obviously there are like horrible abuses there. But I guess based off of my unfortunate time with Jeffrey Epstein documentaries that I watched when we were covering industry, there is this story that a lot of these abusers tell themselves that they are helping these young women. We are giving them things they didn't have access to. Yeah, like money, opportunity. This was the Glenn Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein logline was like, we are giving them opportunity. You're giving them clothing they couldn't have, job opportunities they couldn't have.

42:36Joanna Robinson:You know, we are helping them. Actually, they're horribly abusing them. But just sort of like the way in which it's wrapped up in this pretense of care. Yeah. And so I think the way in which she is dishing that pretense of care back to them. Yes. While destroying them at the same time, I think is really interesting. I guess my question for you is like, do you think that is a jab? Or is that an honest return of some of that care? Like, you know, like Oliver Charles giving her the glass of water and she brings him the glass of water. Is that a poke at him for knowing like he should have known how horrible a guy he was?

43:11Or is it like in this weird fucked up way? I was in a hell hole and you did give me a glass of water.

43:16Joanna Robinson:It's kind of more interesting if it's the latter. Yeah. I think if if if her emotions around it are more complex than that. And I think and what is even more complex about someone like Hal is for him to tell the story to himself that he was not one of the abusers, that he wasn't there until later, that he was protecting. I mean, there's a there's a clue dropped here that we don't really know what he's talking about. He says I was protecting her, protecting her from him. Right. Pronouns. We don't know what we're talking about. Well, presumably that is probably the biggest smoking gun pointing to the Isabel's daughter versus sister theory, right?

43:58Of like the her in question would be Isabel's daughter with Jay Easton maybe. Oh, yeah. And protecting her from him. Right? I think that would be kind of where my mind would go, but there's a lot of tangles going on here.

44:11Joanna Robinson:That's a great interpretation, I think. But this added wrinkle also of Catherine basically admitting that she doesn't remember. Yes. what happened. Huge reveal, honestly. You know, and so she's on this vengeance spree, but she's also actually trying to find out because she's like, I don't know who else is on my list. Yeah. Because I know who was in this photo. Yep, I can find them. Yeah, but I don't know who else is on the list because I don't know what actually happened. And so, you know, something I was saying to Yossi, which I guess now is not true, but I was just sort of like, I like that the point of this show is not what happened because we kind of know what happened.

44:49Joanna Robinson:But now I guess we kind of don't know exactly what happened. And I guess my question is, what the alarm bells, it kicks off for me, is if Catherine, in her various trauma responses, can't remember what happened. Yeah. Is she somehow, in whatever degree, complicit in what happened? Could be, yeah. Like, has she blocked it because something happened that she feels responsible for in one way or another? Or is the reason Isabel got tangled up in any of this to begin with somehow because of her? Like, is there a chain of events by which she feels rightly or wrongly responsible for what happened? I think feels very possible.

45:29I love the fuzziness of this and her trying to put the pieces together as much as anybody. And yeah, it could be a pure trauma response, like dissociative, like just like blocking out what happened that night because it was so awful and such a terrible moment. It could be, we're told repeatedly, these girls are just like pumped full of drugs in these moments. And so maybe she's just literally out of her senses. And this was one of those moments where like I wasn't sure how much to trust the earnestness of what she was saying. But when she was saying like her theory is like she was literally strangled so much that her memory is bad now.

46:00Joanna Robinson:Right. And so it's like there's so many ways in which this person has just been put through the ringer of life by these men that it could be any of them or all of them all at once. And also the when she tells the Hello Kitty story and she's like I did this and she's like actually or was that Isabel? The way in which she is sort of like blurred their experiences together. And, you know, the sort of idea of, like, I was in love with her. She let me look at her. Yes. Eye-fucking sort of thing. So this idea of, like, and the, you know, the woman who gave this backstory information about them in the previous episode, how she was just sort of, like, there was something...

46:37Some weird going on there.

46:38Joanna Robinson:Something weird before we got here. There was something weird going on. So, like, this idea of, like, coveting someone blurring your personality or your experiences with them and all of that. All of that was already kind of in the mix before we got to this degree of damage for something like Catherine Grace. Especially with how little we know of Isabel otherwise. Like most of what we know is through the lens of either police reports that, I mean, let me stop you from the freeze framing. Don't freeze frame and read the police reports. Like they are among the most heinous things you will read in terms of like the injuries that Isabel suffered before dying.

47:14And I believe in episode four, there was an allusion to the fact that like her face was unrecognizable or lots of horrible stuff happening. But most of what we hear about Isabel is from a police report or Catherine's memory or like this sister slash daughter's memory or this like group home worker. All kind of second and third hand and fuzzy and 15 years ago. And it's like, we really don't know a lot about her story yet. And so we're just starting to get these bits and pieces to connect the dots on of who Isabel was in the first place.

47:45Joanna Robinson:Yeah, that's a great point. Anything else you want to talk about that we have not gotten to? On the Hello Kitty front, this is a sharp turn. I apologize to you and to everyone else. How aware are you of the fact that Hello Kitty is not a cat? For some reason, very. She's a girl. Yes. For those not in the know, Hello Kitty is a human girl. I don't know if she's wearing a cat. mask. I don't know if she did like a nip-tuck style, like make me look like a cat. Hunger Games sort of capital. A lot of plastic surgery happening there. I don't know what happened, but she has, I believe herself, an actual cat, which feels fucked up.

48:24Look, it's not my area. I'm more of a like Batsmaru guy, personally, if we're going to dive into Sanrio, but I just, the second this came up, it was all I could think about was like, man, I forgot that Hello Kitty's not a cat, and it's fucked up that nobody's talking about it, including Adria Murata, who loves Hello Kitty.

48:41Joanna Robinson:Do you think he knows that Hello Kitty is not a cat, but actually a girl? I think if he did, it would have broken him. While we're here in left turn land. Let's do it. I want to go back to this email that I didn't read earlier because it didn't feel appropriate, but you've set the tone. Thank you. Our listener Moe wrote in to say, this email is about the revelation that one can make tuna salad with more ingredients than just tuna and mayo. I've heard a celery being added, of course, but Rob's total dismay, near horror, overhearing the simplicity of Joe's recipe for tuna salad. As me curious, this is leftover from Cape Fear.

49:14Joanna Robinson:I honestly did not know there was another way to make it. What does Rob add to it? Relish, mustard, spices? I mean, I feel like you simply don't really eat tuna salad. The answer is don't do it. Yeah. Because you're anti-mayo agenda. I want better of all of you. All of you out there, and certainly a few, Joe. Like, I just want better for you than tuna salad. Tuna salad's great. And here's the thing. If you're going to eat tuna salad and it's just tuna and mayo, for God's sake, season your food. Like you kind of put something in there. What about something like furikake in there? That's you were getting somewhere.

49:44Yeah. But also don't do it.

49:45Joanna Robinson:But just there are other foods. Tuna salad is delicious. Absolutely not. No fish salad. No white fish salad. No fish salad at all. What about what about like a niçoise salad? Like tuna on a salad? I still wouldn't. You're kind of anti-tuna. Especially anything that's coming out of a casserole. Something that's coming out of a can or a pouch or involves cheese. No. That's just so elitist of you. Is it? Some of us survived in college off of... 75 cent can of tuna. Eat a 99 cent pot pie. Eat a cup of noodles. There are alternatives. I'm not saying they're healthy, but they taste better than that.

50:18Joanna Robinson:Anything else that we haven't gotten to, tuna salad or otherwise? I, like you, I think like most people after episode four, very dismayed at the trajectory of Nora's character. Like her kind of recoiling, trying to cover her own ass, like buying into the security of her career over advancing the case in episode four. Very tough stuff. but I think Alice reels her back in a little bit and kind of gets her more invested in proceeding with the case I think she does it in a very clever way too that speaks to Alice's like situational awareness and understanding of people of like her appeal to Nora is not do the right thing or like open this case back up for some moral reason it's like dangling the puzzle piece of the not hospital hospital bracelet of like this thing that she knows Nora was interested in in a case she did care about you almost got there Like you almost got it.

51:08And I think we can, I think we can crack it together. That being what brings Nora back in, I found to be like, again, just like a great turn for a great character in the show.

51:16Joanna Robinson:I agree. Where are you on my guy, Frank Choi? Are you a Choi boy? First of all, no one is a Choi boy. The miracle of Frank Choi is like, he's such a wannabe guys guy. And also the most like unapologetic brown noser I've ever seen to a degree that literally everyone hates him. It's remarkable. Honestly, incredible work by him to alienate literally everyone in your workplace. Should we consider Choi Boy's a genome? Only if you are the aforementioned Choi Boy. I might be a Choi Boy. It simply wouldn't be me, but I love what Rob Yang is doing. I think he's so funny. It's so funny. It's such a great presence to have in the office.

51:57We're getting like everything else is ultra serious all the time. And here's just this fucking idiot. Everyone hates. Yeah.

52:03Joanna Robinson:When I said everyone is smart, I forgot. Frank Choi not smart everyone else pretty smart but I think an important presence on a show like this where if you are having people it's like this guy beat up Alice these super rich men are involved in trafficking young girls like these people are truly awful yes and you need someone who's many many many many rungs down who's just like this guy sucks this guy sucks in a real basic way he doesn't make my skin crawl he just sucks all the time and by comparison I love watching it yeah I'm also I'm a Yara fan I don't know Yara is just is here to be like why not pregnant kind of over it but all about mental health and is quite helpful inside of the department I mean she seems like a joy to have in class a joy to have in the workplace just a bright light for everyone who knows her alright anything else the only other thing I wanted to circle back to is that moment where Danny asks Alice to come with him to New Jersey of all places as one does But specifically, Alice's response.

53:06Joanna Robinson:Wow, he's coming down on canned tuna and the Jersey Shore. I don't think that's a controversial take. I think there are some nice spots on the Jersey Shore. Even that, you're couching it within couch. You're like, there is this little spot where the sun shines just right, and that place would be okay to stand for a moment, is what you just said about the Jersey Shore. It could be nice. It could be nice. The point here isn't necessarily that it's nice. He even says, it's going to be freezing. It's probably going to be terrible. But you know what? Meet me in Montauk. It's not here. what did you make of Alice's response to this though where I like she seems touched in like her immediate response like I think the gesture means something to her she also seems like deeply wounded understandably and then goes home and screams and grounds herself and goes immediately back to work but like what do you think she is going through in that moment?

53:53Joanna Robinson:she did the classic Amy Adams sharp object scream into a piece of clothing move love it Claire Danes isn't around either so somebody's gotta do it someone's gotta do it um something maybe this is cheating to use something that the actor said but Emmy Rossum said in that Gold Derby interview she said when she was talking about Marshall and what he's in the way of one of the things she said was in the way of her relationship with Danny yeah like just sort of like her unresolved issues around Marshall so it's not that and I think this is I already thought this was like abundantly clear but like it's not that she doesn't have feelings for Danny it's not like they are clearly She says that what he does is get scared women to fall in love with him.

54:33Like, it's a little autobiographical.

54:35Joanna Robinson:Clearly in love with each other. Like, clearly. And I would love for those crazy kids to make it work, honestly. But, like, the Marshall stuff is so unresolved and so in the way that she can't. It's sort of like she can't feel her fingertips. Like, she can't connect with him because of this thing that's still lingering here. And what I like about, to go back to the sort of like why she lays this trap for Marshall, and you were talking about the motivations here. Her motivation is, I want to get back on the case. And it's not vengeance for what was done to her because she did not officially report him when all of this happened in the first place, right?

55:16Joanna Robinson:She didn't set about to destroy his career, or we can like dig into like why she didn't report him. But like. Seems like she just tried to run away as far as she could. She was just like, I don't want to be part of it. And then like, he's the one who's like now showing up on her case, you know? So like, so it's not that she was just sort of like, I'm going to get him for what he did to me. To your point, it's like, I want to be able to do this work and also maybe go to the Jersey Shore with Scoot McNary. And I think she deserves it. I think we all want to go to the Jersey Shore with Scoot McNary in our way.

55:50Joanna Robinson:This person with Scoot McNary? Yes, I do. He plays so many dirtbags. It's true. It's nice for him to be like, it's still the dirt part of the dirt bag, but like he has a heart of gold. You can kind of smell him. You can smell the cigarettes on him. You certainly can. Maybe that's like sort of the nice like reverse of this other casting we've been talking about in terms of like casting these sort of beloved figures as these complete scumbags. And then we're like, and we're going to take Scoot and make him just like the sweetest, nicest guy. Except I am very scared. Not only, and I said this to Yassi, I'm going to say it to you too.

56:22Joanna Robinson:just in case the show is listening and they can change the ending if this is not the ending already. I'm worried about him dying. Sure. But more than that, I'm worried about him disappointing me. Don't disappoint me, Danny Kelly. Please don't do that. Either Danny Kelly. Either The Ringer's Danny Kelly. The Ringer's Danny Kelly has never disappointed a soul. And certainly never you or I. No, no, no, no. An absolute saint. A prince among men. Well, let me ask you this question. While we're talking our beloved character actors who are doing heinous things on this show. Yeah. Campbell Scott, clearly not a good guy.

56:51The proximity to all of this human trafficking and having sex with underage girls. Horrible. Don't do it. He should not defend himself in any context. His wife, Janelle Maloney.

57:02Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Our beloved Donna Moss is here. At least my beloved Donna Moss is here. Is Janelle Maloney innocent? How much does she know and when did she know it? That's what I'm worried about. If she just thinks she's married to a lawyer for rich guys. You're putting Donna in the crosshairs. I don't know. You wouldn't stop her red lights to take your vengeance on Donna. I'm asking proximity to proximity to power. Yeah. How many rings out do you have to go out before people start getting innocent? Well, and I mentioned this, but I do think this is why like Hope Davis and Janelle Maloney are like really good casting in these very waspy with love white women who are daughter of or wife of these creepy men.

57:41Joanna Robinson:Yeah. These very specific types of women. I don't know. I'm curious. Why is Hope Davis on this show? She has more to do. She has more to do. She can't just be showing up for an occasional interrogation. No, no. That's not it. No. Anything else? I think that's it. I think we did it. We really did. At least for this week, there's so much more to happen on this show, though. It's true. We've got five more episodes to go. Actually, I lied to you. There is one more thing. Okay. Look, my freeze framing in the police files was not a good time for me. Oh, no. My freeze framing in Alden's room, though, quite fruitful.

58:14In particular, our guy's got a blue velvet poster just hanging right there, which might be a cry for help to a certain audience, but I happen to respect.

58:23Joanna Robinson:Listen to some bad religion. Also, I think like a predator poster. I'm trying to remember what language it's in. It's not in English. Maybe Japanese predator poster. I like his monitor setup. Great. Seems like he's doing some day trading. Seems like he's doing quite well for himself. Oh, I think he's got a lot of money. He's making it work. Yeah, I'm interested to see what happens. Like, is he done with Catherine or is he going to be protective of her in some way. I mean, he did literally just learn that her name was Catherine. It was a real rollercoaster of emotion for him between, will you be my girlfriend?

58:54Oh, wait, your name is not Vanessa. It's Catherine. Oh, wait, will you marry me? Oh, wait, you're a murderess.

59:00Joanna Robinson:Is that your uncle? I lied. I said we have five. There's only three more episodes. It's an eight episode season. So only three more episodes to go. Is Alden going to be okay? Is Danny Kelly going to disappoint me? Is Jay Easton going to get got? Yeah. I'm really emotionally invested in him. getting what's coming to him. Well, he's going to get got one way or the other. It's true. He does not have long for this world. The question is, can Catherine beat cancer to the punch? I would like him to get got by something other than natural causes. That would be my preference. Feels more narratively satisfying, but maybe this is not a narratively satisfying show in the ways that we might want.

59:35Joanna Robinson:Anything else you want to talk about before we go? I'm just so excited to be podcasting about this show with you. I'm so glad we're doing Furious. Thank you for teeing it up. Thank you to you and Yassi for starting us off with a bang. I'm having a great time. One last thing I'll say, This is one last quote from that Gold Derby interview, which is just something I didn't really fully understand. When she was talking about why Alice – I mean, Rossum was talking about why Alice can't shower. It's not just a sort of like the trauma of the way in which Marshall used to like pull her out of the shower in order to abuse her.

1:00:03Joanna Robinson:But she says she can't get into the shower not only because she can't shower, but because she can't take the gun into the shower and be vulnerable for a second. Yes. So this idea of like the gun and like needing it on her person at all times. Yeah. I'm just going to end on that up note. Thank you to Kai Grady. Thank you to Jacob Cordett. Thank you to both safety and vulnerability and those that can somehow have both at once. Thanks to you for coming back from vacation. Thank you, Joe. We know you're going back on vacation quite soon. And thanks to everyone who comes, preemptively who comes to our live show on Friday.

1:00:37Joanna Robinson:We'll be very excited to see you there. and we'll see you soon. Bye.