‘Love Story’ Finale: Closing Time

21:33Rob:Yeah. I mean, the option is to just not show them, you know, show them getting into the plane, but not in the cockpit at all. But the disorientation, I do feel like not only telling us that it's like going under a wave, but feeling and seeing the lack of visibility from the plane. I do think it really does kind of anchor you in that sort of panic. But then when the characters aren't responding with panic, I think that's where you're getting that sort of dissociation you're mentioning. I think it's interesting that this description they have inside of the episode, spatial disorientation based on your impaired brain rather than your reality being taken under by a wave.

22:15Rob:showing you know paul kelly's performance as john in that moment where we're watching like sort of this crinkled brow this like almost like you know head empty no thoughts sort of like yeah you know we've talked about the way in which john is you know the the hunk flunk sort of like this kind of dummy performance to a certain degree i wish you for all of us saying they just went and said the thing i wish they had tied that in a way that made better sense to me inside of the themes of john and his i mean it's there inside of the show this idea like based on your impaired brain rather than your reality and carolyn constantly saying like you're the way in which privilege has inoculated you from the world.

23:03Rob:Your experience with the paparazzi is different from my experience with the paparazzi. Your experience at Hyannisport is different from my experience at Hyannisport. You have gone through life expecting that people, things will work out for you. And so they have. And so there is a way in which the show is sort of laid track for like, that's his demise, right? His demise is he's unable to actually connect with reality. And he's in that cockpit in the first place, because he thinks he can do something that he is actually not fully trained to do. So all of that is in the text of the show. I just wish, I didn't get, I didn't emotionally connect to that like, oh no, here it is, this like tragic flaw inside of this person taking, not only taking him down, but taking these two women down with him.

23:51Rob:Yes. I don't feel like they really sort of made that a character beat as much as I wanted it to be. It felt more circumstantial inside of the moment. Do you know what I mean? I completely agree with you. I think a lot of those moments in the plane feel so tepid in a way that, yeah, you're waiting for some reaction, some response in either direction, whether it's misplaced certainty or outright panic, but like you never really get to any of those notes. I do just think this is one of those areas though where I wonder if they got a little squeamish about putting thoughts into those characters' heads in that moment.

24:25And it is as simple as that of like, in theory, I agree with you. If these were totally fictional characters, tying a story beat to the way that they ultimately pass and like the decisions they make leading up to it. That's good storytelling. Can you do that here? And frankly, like, do you have the guts to do it with a story that means this much to so many people? It's a lot. It's a lot to ask and it's a lot to put out there.

24:50Rob:I think yes, but on the other hand, like we were talking about this last week, like anytime you've seen a Diana story happen, like her death, you know, and they talked about this a lot in The Crown when they finally like did the Diana death sort of moment inside of the crown where they were like, we didn't want to go into that tunnel with them. So we didn't go into the tunnel. Like we followed them up until the tunnel and then we were like, we're not going to go into there, you know? And we're not going to show you what the final moments were inside of the car. We're going to show you a bit, but we're not going to show you like it.

25:18Rob:So like there are ways in which, you know, the crown got squeamish about this thing that they had to do. But there are also ways in which that story, the hunting of Diana, that is such a clear, like, this is the narrative we've been spending so far. My brain's slightly, please forgive me, Survivor cooked right now, but while watching, sorry, so sorry to take us on the left turn to Survivor, but watching Survivor 50 is an exercise in watching reality TV editing because every episode of Survivor, someone, their game is over. And so it is the job of the editors to show you what are the fatal mistakes that they made along the way.

25:58Rob:So like we as viewers are watching episodes in advance. You start sort of tracking these narratives and you're like, what, you know, what are they trying to show us? Stakes are obviously incredibly different on Survivor versus this. But like tying these final moments of Carolyn just saying, like, just breathe back to John showing up at her apartment earlier in the season, panicking about his mother's death and her that moment of their beginning of their relationship, real beginning of their relationship, not their first date, but they're just sort of like just breathe him trying to kiss her, her being like, what are you doing?

26:32Rob:not like this, slow down, slow down. That's a sort of attempted close of another loop that they tried to do here. But again, I think I'm with you where I just felt like wrong being in the cockpit at all with them. I don't think there was any waiting for trying for them here. I think it made Vincent better off if we did, not to rewrite the show, but if we had cut off at a different point in terms of our access to those characters, in part because of the potential culpability involved. You're right. Like the plane goes down in part because John is not equipped to fly it in that moment. And this is to me the biggest difference with the Diana story, right?

27:07Like there is a level of you don't want to go in the tunnel with Diana just because of how horrible it is and turns out, but she is the victim, like purely the victim of those circumstances. John is at minimum a participant in his own death and the killing of these two women. And so, or the death of these two women, I should say, which I think just makes the whole exercise like that much murkier and that much messier in terms of unpacking exactly what these characters are going through in that second. But if you're going to make the show, you have to be ready to wrestle with those things. And so those objections, like the problems that we're having, those are the arguments you raised before, you know,

27:45Rob:You even pick up this show in the first place. Right, maybe when you're cracking the story in the first place. But if it's all here in the finale and it's not delivering on, again, the one thing you have to get right, it's hard to not hold that against the show. I've been thinking a lot about American Crime Story, the OJ season, just the very best version of what they've done here. And especially with things like Anne talking inside this episode about how she wished, you know, the world had better understood her daughter, the extremely sexist sort of like it was her vanity, it was her manicure that caused the crash or whatever the case may be, you know, versus the much, I actually think, subtler way that the OJ season took a character, a person like Marsha Clark as portrayed by Sarah Paulson and just showed us, didn't tell us, but just showed us the extremely nasty sexist tabloid coverage of her as a person inside when she is like, you know, the avenging angel of this story and is painted in this way.

28:52Rob:But also that show had a really hard needle to thread because of the OJ case, we're not going to like show the murder. We're not going to say one way or another whether he did it because we can't say that. So we can only tell you a story where you have to draw your own conclusions about what actually happened there. Again, because, you know, a man and a woman died and, you know, a family is devastated and a nation is enthralled. But like all of these stories, American crime stories, this, which is essentially an American crime story, even though it's positioned as a love story, its job is also to hold a mirror up to us as sort of like, why do we have these ghoulish fascinations?

29:40Rob:Why do we have these like when you watch the crowd of people outside of John and Carolyn's apartment and they're sort of like ecstasy of grief, you know what I mean? This just sort of like what it means for us psychologically to just sort of like marinate in this public deification or grief and all this sort of stuff like that. And then Caroline as this like singular, actually emotionally affected person walking, like parting that crowd and walking through it. I thought that image was really, again, a dialogue-less moment. That image was like really potent inside of this episode. And I think this is why overall, the decision for this season to focus so much more on Carolyn, as opposed to even the internal thoughts and feelings of Don, I think pays off in huge ways throughout the season, and including in those ideas, right?

30:31If you're going to hold up a mirror to us and ask us to interrogate tabloid culture and why we're interested in cases and deaths like this and why not just there's this crowd of people outside their apartment, but it's almost like one crowd has been substituted for another of like the paparazzi was there and now it's these mourners and it's still just a big crowd of people out there. And Carolyn is the one who has to reckon with all of those differences in her life. For John, these are just facts, right? Like the paparazzi will follow him wherever he goes. Carolyn is the one who is affected on a psychological level to the point that she becomes a shut-in to the point that she's second guessing herself that she is picking a new color for her nails at the salon to fit in because she doesn't want to be too ostentatious.

31:11It's like she is the avatar for so much of what we're meant to take away and interrogate within the show. And if you're going to pick a character to do it and an actor to do it, like Sarah Pidgeon delivered on all of that stuff at a really high level. I wish the rest of the show kind of was up to it, but I don't know that it always was. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued? Wake up to ZepBound Terzepatide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. ZepBound is an injectable prescription medicine that may help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA.

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34:03Rob:On a sidebar, I'm sure you did because you're a person alive who looks at the internet sometimes. You saw the photos this week of The Rock and the Moana live. Of course. Right, okay. And so like the wig conversation. I've actually had, Joe, multiple people in my life ask if I have heard from you about The Rock wig watch. Yeah. I heard from our pals Nora and Jodi about it, like, you know, about my like expert take on the wig watch of the rock. But it got, you know, something I think that it was like, I think something that Nora, Nora Princeotti, I think, said to me is like, she was like, wigs have both gotten like much, much better.

34:40Rob:And then also, they're either way, way worse or much, much better. And there's no like sort of like, it's kind of fine middle ground anymore. And so I was thinking about Carolyn Bessette inside of this about Sarah Pidgeon, because like Sarah Pidgeon is a woman with dark, her hair was such like a, supporting character in the season, not just the way that she was constantly like flipping around and playing with it, but also like one of the great hair flippers of all time. Let's just put it out there. I really agree. But also the way in which like she goes from this like sort of dirty blonde color to this like flat ironed, platinum, platinum blonde, sort of like Grace Kelly manicured Barbie, which is what Carolyn, Kenny, Carolyn Bissette, Kenny also did in her life, of course.

35:24Rob:So I was like, I was like, was that I was like, what was a wig? And what was it was like something I was curious? I was like, surely this exists somewhere. They put her in this wig as because I was like, when they when they showed us the manicure scene again, I was like, that's a wig. I was like, that is a wig. And so what I found out is that they had put out a photo of her in that wig and the Internet did not like it. And so they were like, oh, no, we're going to have a problem. Her hair is so iconic. So what they did for sort of the rest of the show is they, and Rob, forgive me for taking you so deep on this, but.

36:02No, Joe, keep going. What else do we have? How deep can we go? They put 400 K-tip extensions in her hair.

36:14Rob:So they used her natural hair. They dyed it blonder, but they put 400 individual extensions in her hair, which would have taken just an unfathomable amount of time. That's like a Frankenstein level costume commitment. That's so like so they want to like zhuzh up her hair and make it look like, you know, and they did. Like I was obsessed with watching her hair. And but it's also kind of her natural hair. So she can like flip it around. Her hairline looks real. but there's like 400 extra strands that they individually placed inside of there. And so, but to go back to this sort of like leaning into Paul Kelly as this sort of like empty suit depiction of JFK Jr.

36:56Rob:Leaning into her hair being like this natural part of who this physical woman is versus this like wig that looks kind of wiggy on top of her in these final moments is like a great sort of meta, you know, way to tell this story of this woman who becomes a Barbie, you know, at the end of the day. It's so true. I mean, yeah, it does kind of complete the look and complete the picture. I just keep coming back to Paul Kelly, though. Like, the chemistry is so real and very palpable. And I think there are obviously scenes and extended stretches of the season that really, really clicked for me because of the magic between them as performers.

37:38I left this episode wondering, though, because I feel like he's just kind of overexposed over the course of the season. If this had been a movie instead of a limited series, and it's a two-hour runtime in which he is JFK Jr. And yeah, he has like some monologues and some big reactions that maybe he delivers well or he doesn't, whatever it may be. But would just the pure volume of it feel more manageable and feel like something that fits within the context of the movie better as opposed to what we get on screen? What do you think of that idea?

38:07Rob:Love it. I had a similar idea, but it was just that this season should have been shorter. This season should have been six episodes max is what I think. And I think that would have helped solve the problem. I also think like a lot of things should be movies instead of limited series these days. So I'm not objecting to it at all, but - Let's not take away from our livelihood. You know, we need a good number of limited series. So like, let's keep things going through the machine. Prestige movie podcast, that's true. But yeah, I think also like it really clicked something for me when I found out that like he was such a last minute ditch casting effort for them that they like did not they had their other actors and they did not have a John and they and they finally cast him I was thinking a lot in this final episode of like what if they had cast someone who looked looked less like him but just was a better actor you know what I mean and just sort of like sacrifice that sort of like facsimile, uh, attempts for someone who could better match Sarah Pidgeon's ability.

39:10Cause if you think about someone like, I mean, I, you know, I go back to

39:15Rob:the crown and it's just sort of like Joshua Connor both does and doesn't at all look like a younger Prince Charles, but Joshua Connor as young Prince Charles is like one of the best things I've ever scene on television. And I think it's like more important to get that performance than it is, especially if you're doing what you said, which is taking dramatic liberties with a real person. You're not giving us a documentary. You're giving us the framework of a story we know. And then you have written these behind the scenes moments or tried to make larger character arcs that are tidier than an actual human character arc would be.

39:51Rob:And for the sake of the drama, I support all of that um then i think you can get a little like loose with who you put in that role and especially we talked about this with the trap american crime story eventually followed it fell into which is like you really don't need to put like prosthetics on these people you really don't need to like you know snl any of this stuff so i i think you know paul kelly who looks so much like jay k jr or a young richard gear but then you think about like what a young richard gear would do with this role? And you're like, fuck, that's just like in the stratosphere of a better show than the one we got.

40:27It would have been something else. I mean, I think first of all, I don't blame anybody who would be in the room with Paul Kelly at any point or seeing him on a test. The magnetism that that man must have in a room has to be incredibly powerful. And I do think he pulls off a lot of this part, just not the parts that would really elevate it into being like an all-time thing you would return to over and over. And the contrast point, I'm glad you brought up The Crown because something that I was reminded of in the first episodes of this show was one of my favorite parts of The Crown, which is the Princess Margaret Tony meeting of Matthew Good, Vanessa Kirby, and like how charged that episode is.

41:07I mean, holy shit, just smoldering stuff. Matthew Good does not look like Anthony Armstrong Jones, basically at all, as far as I can tell, like no resemblance whatsoever. But to your point, is one of my favorite working performers and is like so compelling on screen. I think you raise a great idea of like, this might've been a case where you accept some of the trade-offs. Someone who's like also very handsome, but handsome in a different way or has a different kind of energy, I think might've also worked here.

41:36Rob:And I think you would've posed, you know, you're like not to rewrite the show, but I'm like not to recast the show, but I think it would've, what else do we do at The Ringer, honestly? But like, I think that it would've posed a lot of problems for them initially because they got a lot of shit from the internet at large anyway for like, she doesn't look enough like Carolyn. She's not as stylish as Carolyn. There was all of this pushback of the set photos. And Nina and Brad talked about this in the interview where they're like, oh, ho, ho, how the tables have turned. Everyone thought we were doing a shit job, but now people are putting Kangol hats on their dogs.

42:09Rob:I know. Like, you know, we've really done, we really did it. So like, and I love Nina and Brad, so I love that for them. But like, I do think they would have gotten a bunch of like, Like, what the fuck do you mean you've cast this person as JFK Jr.? He doesn't look like him at all. But then if the performance is, you know, outstanding, then I think it quiets all of those initial questions. That has happened time and time and again with casting. So it would have caused more problems for them up front, but I think would have paid off better dividends. But like, you know, they're sitting here with a very successful show.

42:41Rob:So they're like, what the fuck do you know, Rob and Joanna? I don't know. So, yeah. I think a lot of what we're hitting in my experience watching this season is like the first couple episodes, I think Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Kelly and really the execution of the show made a lot of this stuff look really easy. The set design is so good. The period stuff is so great. We talked about the soundtrack. Their chemistry clicks right out of the gate, at least it for me. Yeah. And then the deeper you go into the season, you realize, oh, this is really hard to pull off. Like this is going to be really hard to wrap up in a way that feels complete and substantive and fair to the people involved.

43:15and also delivers on the promise of like giving us a fuller portrait of the, like a version of these characters that's been refracted through memoir and time and our understanding of these people. But it's like, I don't know how you do all that. I keep coming back to it over and over, but I think this show like might've just been an impossible task and they took a stab at it and sometimes were successful and sometimes weren't.

43:35Rob:I think one thing that really did, I mean, Sarah, I think is solid, rock solid throughout, but I think really did Paul a favor in the first couple episodes is like how, I still think the worst part of the season is Naomi Watts as Jackie O. I think that was like genuinely like terrible performance from an actress I love. An all timer. Like it's, she has some of these. This is not the only one. Naomi Watts, like she takes some swings. We respect it. I respect the ambition of what she often tries to do. This one did not work at all. But I thought she was so bad. We love and respect Naomi Watts. I think we can call it, yeah.

44:12Call it what it is.

44:14Rob:That I was like, well, as soon as Jackie's gone, this show is just going to get a lot better. I think that's what I thought. I was just like, and like - Well, that's what all John's girlfriends thought too, apparently. Daryl Hannah certainly hoped that. But yeah, but then her absence then made me focus closer on Paul's performance, which then sort of started to feel fair for me. All right. Anything else you want to say about this episode before we get to this little like side quest I've decided we should go on inside of this podcast? I want to give like one little shout out before we move on, Joe, to the scoring for this show.

44:48Like the central theme. The theme is so good. It's so good. And I think over the course of the show, it proved to be just incredibly versatile where you change the key a little bit, you slow it down, you speed it up, you layer it with other sound in kind of the soundscape. And all of a sudden it can be first date music, meet cute music. It can be like your mother just died music. It can be we're at the funeral for John and Carolyn music. Like somehow the fact that that core melody could play on all those situations. I mean, Bryce Dessner from the National scored this show. I just think did a pretty amazing job with it.

45:19Rob:It was so good in those first couple of episodes. It was so remarkably good in that it felt immediately recognizable. I'm historically kind of terrible at... In shows like Game of Thrones, those composers will compose individual character themes that will come up again and again. And I'm kind of historically terrible at identifying them. I have friends who could be like, oh my God, did you hear how they blended Brianne's theme with Jamie's theme? And I'm like, no, I didn't. I could not tell. I am like, I'm deaf to that kind of stuff. But the theme for this show was so immediately like memorable that I was like, did they still, I was like, is this lifted from something else?

46:01Rob:Yeah, did they pull it? Yeah. I was like, is this, you know, did they do what they were doing the 90s and put like the theme to Stargate in every single movie trailer? And you're just like, hell yeah, I feel it. I love how, did you ever see that show, The Adventures of Briscoe County Junior? Do you know what I'm talking about? I think you know I did, Rob. I think you know, of course, I did. I'm glad that you did, in part because the theme from that show just became like the theme for the Olympics somehow over time. It's like the way this stuff gets repurposed is truly remarkable. Right. But this one, this is distinct.

46:31Rob:Yeah, they really nailed it with that. Okay. The side quest that I proposed to you late last night after I watched this episode. was I thought Constance Zimmer not only like stole this episode, but kind of stole the entire series for me to a certain degree. But more than anything, like Constance Zimmer shows up early in the season. I was like, oh, they got Constance Zimmer to like play her mom. OK, that's interesting. What an incredible actress to be in kind of like a thankless role. And then she had like this speech to give at the wedding. And I was like, OK, I can kind of see why Constance is here.

47:05Rob:but the way that she just like put her hand on the throat of the show for the last like half of this episode i was like this is why oh you hire constant simmer we're still confused why donald log is here as uh teddy kennedy i think he's confused why he's here in some of these scenes i have to imagine there's something cut like i have to imagine there was more for him to do that they cut out i really have to imagine that but uh but i i'm like okay i get it i get why constant and similar, you know, is here. Also, in reading some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, it's clear, you know, as is the case with most older versions of TV shows, they were writing as they were going.

47:46Rob:So that's not always the case with a limited series. Oftentimes, a limited series is fully written before you start shooting because the episode ask is shorter and the way things get greenlit these days, blah, blah. That's not the case with this because Sarah Pidgeon has talked about like, oh, we were shooting episode seven and then we got the script to episode eight So they hadn't seen all the scripts. And Nina and Brad were talking in that Vanity Fair interview about how sometimes you understand over the course of a season what you're supporting actors can do. That is something they said, basically in giving the answer about Anne and Caroline in this episode.

48:19Rob:And so I really think they were like, hell, we got Constance Zimmer. Let's use Constance Zimmer. That's what it feels like to me. My only question about that, Joe, is like, have you not seen Unreal? You know, like, are you not familiar with her work going in? Did you not already know? Um, so Mike, the, the, the exercise I proposed to you was let's come up with a loose list of, so that's why they cast that person in that role kind of performance or as, or like TV closers or something like that, which was like a nebulous prompt. We might come up with some answers that don't like, again, this was like a late last night ask.

48:55Rob:Um, but what did you come up with to answer that you want to start with Rob? Yeah, I've got a pretty long list. I think I'm going to start with one we can both agree on, which is Fiona Shaw in Andor, where Fiona Shaw shows up and it's like, love Fiona Shaw. Okay, I'm glad she's here. Yeah. And then yeah, when it comes hologram monologue time. Yeah, we're fucking cooking Joe. We're absolutely cooking. And counterpoint, because of the flip experience, Fiona Shaw in True Detective Night Country, where I was waiting for this moment, I was waiting for the why is Fiona Shaw here moment. and it just never came.

49:31Rob:It's interesting because like this, this particular exercise is really for the sickos who spend too much time watching film and television because like, you know, I don't know that the gem pop is out there being like constant Zimmer, but again, watch it real. But if you know, you know. If you know, you know. Yeah, this is for the ball knowers, I guess. So like, I will say something very recent. I don't think you watched it, but we did cover it on this feed. In Death by Lightning, the John Garfield show, So much was made of the cast of that show, an incredible cast inside of that show. But Betty Gilpin is there playing Lucretia Garfield, playing the wife character.

50:06Rob:And this is an answer I came up with a couple of different times where I'm just sort of like, why is Betty Gilpin here? Betty Gilpin, who is just incredible in everything that she does. Why is she here as the wife? But then, spoiler alert for history, John Garfield dies. And it's a very similar role where like she then becomes the emotional fulcrum for the final episode of the show. And I was like, ah, that's why Betty Gilpin is here playing Lucretia Garfield. Lucretia Garfield is an amazing name, though. If it was just just on the sides alone, I might take that part. And he called her I think he called her Crete.

50:40Rob:I think that was her nickname. No, Crete. You hate it. OK, I think that was James. James, come on. I could be wrong. Anyway, that's Betty Gilpin and Death by Lightning. That's one of my answers. What else you got? I think that's a great one. Where do I want to go next? How about Jake Johnson and Kristen Milioti in Mythic Quest? Yeah. Which if you're familiar with Mythic Quest, like all of the standalone episodes are among the best of the series. But it's very much like, wait, what? Why are these people on this random Apple TV show about game design doing a plot that seems to have nothing to do with anything else that's happening?

51:16Fast forward an hour later, and I'm a fucking wreck. I am in pieces.

51:20Rob:That's one of the best episodes of television that has ever existed. It's really, really good. I was trying to figure out a place to put Kristen Milioti on this list because, you know, like, would I do it for Fargo or The Penguin or Black Mirror or How I Met Your Mother for that matter? I was about to say, yeah. That's a different model because it was like an introduction, but you became very clear very quickly, like, oh, this is why they cast her. Yeah, she's one of those actors. I would definitely call her a TV closer, a term I've just made up. Um, but, uh, similarly to that, to that mythic quest answer, I would say Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, who are like, why are you here for one episode of the last of us playing characters inside of the video game who are just like not even on screen, but like, you know, barely on screen, like via letters known via letters.

52:06Rob:And it's like, Oh, then you watch a long, long time. And you're like, Oh shit. And then Nick Offerman wins, uh, an Emmy and Murray Bartlett gets nominated for an Emmy and probably they should have split that Emmy between them. And it's just an incredible hour of television. You're like, oh, that's why Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett are here. I have a couple more, Joe, that I don't want to say too much about because talking too much about it would be a spoiler, in a sense, for a lot of what happens in these shows. I have twist ones, too. Okay, what do you have? So Yahya Abdul-Mateen and Watchmen.

52:35Rob:Watchmen, that's on my list. 100%. Christian Slater and Mr. Robot, I think is a show we don't talk about a lot, but very clear, very quickly, why he's on that show. And also Ted Danson on The Good Place, where like Ted Danson will just take a random sitcom role now and again, but you can tell when he's really got something to work with and that show really gives him a lot to work with. Bless you for not wanting to spoil Watchmen, a show that came out in 2019. We try. Love that about you. Similar, on a similar note, I mean, we're both weeded heads. You watched Dollhouse, right? I did. Alan Tudyk on Dollhouse.

53:09Rob:That is also a twist that I don't necessarily, but that is just sort of like, what is Alan Tudyk doing here? I know. And they're like, you should know. He's a leaf on the wind. He's got something cooking up. I see why Alan Tudyk is in this episode of Dollhouse. Amy Acker also, I think similarly on Dollhouse. There's a lot of like, that's another one where it's like, if you are plugged into the very particular frequency and troop casting of like a Weedonverse-like property and you see the familiar faces pop up and you're like, that's weird that this person is here and they just don't have a lot to do.

53:40And then come the penultimate episode, Right. They're given like a huge moment.

53:45Rob:Who else do you want to highlight here? How about Regina King for The Leftovers as well, where it's like, that's another part that on first blush, it's like, what is this? Like, why would Regina King be on a show like this? What place is she going to go with this character that seems on surface, like kind of bland, and then turns into one of my favorite characters in television history. And one of the great performances because it's Regina King. I have a similar... she's so good um this is another like sort of like it wasn't obscure balled over but it was like i remember i was podcasting about breaking bad and jesse plummons shows up in later seasons and i was like they got landry but i was the person i was podcasting with had not watched friday night lights so he was sort of like he was just like oh yeah this guy's here and he's playing todd who's just like this kind of this guy who's here and i was like yeah but it's jesse plummons And so like, it's gotta mean something.

54:41Rob:And then he had, this character has a real turn on that show. And you're like, that's why, that's why you get Landry over here. Jesse Plemons on Breaking Bad. That was like a, that was a real like, and it happens a lot in podcasting, I think, because you're just sort of like, you like really early in a season, you'll like tab someone and you'll like tap an actor. And you're like, why is this person here? There, it has to mean something. That's the sort of like law and order, like spoiler casting idea, right? Or just sort of like, you have to be the murderer or a huge red herring to put this person inside of this episode.

55:14They're just too notable at a certain point. I think that's kind of the two categories, right? There's the actors you know and feel overqualified for the material they're given. And then there's sort of the characters that are just sort of lingering around and kind of have stuff to do, but it's never that notable or interesting until all of a sudden it pops and you see what makes that performer really special. I think for that latter category, I also want to shout out Brad Dourif in Deadwood. where Doc Cochran is like a nice supporting character. And then there's a plot line late in season one where Deadwood is like this emerging frontier town and the minister of this frontier town gets a brain tumor and is not only dying, but in extraordinary pain.

55:52And Doc Cochran, the one doctor in town played by Brad Durf has this incredible like pleading with God monologue to kill, like, please let this man die mercifully. That is, I mean, wrecks me every time I see it. I don't know what it is. about me or my Catholic upbringing that gravitates toward these like men yelling at God monologues. But here I am yet again on this podcast telling people to watch, in this case, Deadwood.

56:16Rob:It's really interesting because in the case of Brad Dourif, there is this, you know, because he's like an Oscar nominated actor, right? But there is this question of like, okay, but is it a point in his career where like, this is the best Brad Dourif could get at this point in his career? Has he been forgotten? And Deadwood's like, we didn't forget. We know what Brad Dourif can do. So we're going to let him cook, but you're gonna have to wait a minute to get there. Did you have anyone from West Wing? Because like West Wing has so many notable guest stars, but I didn't know if that really was the same if like a John Goodman or a Glenn Close shows up, you know, for like a couple episodes and you're like, I always kind of knew why John Goodman or Glenn Close was here or something like that.

56:53Rob:Did you have any, something like that? That almost felt like a different thing to me because it's like John Goodman's not really on the show until he's on the show. And so it's like, that is kind of his emergence. And so there's no moment of wondering like, Like, why is John Goodman delivering these random lines that any other actor could deliver? Because of the way he enters it. But you're right, there are a lot of guest stars. I just think it might be like a slightly different categorization. On this very nebulous idea that I came up with last night. That's what we do around here. I would add, oh yeah.

57:24Rob:Carol Burnett in the final season of Better Call Saul. Oh, sure. When they talked about casting her, they were like, well, why wouldn't you take the opportunity to work with Carol Burnett in Better Call Saul, but she plays this sort of like doddering older woman in the entire show. Saul Goodman, Jimmy McGill has had this like way with older folks, older women particularly. But then she like, she has such a like climactic, pivotal, important role to play in the end of that story. But at first you're just sort of like, oh, did they just like want to hang out with Carol Burnett so they got her to play this like - Would you?

58:02Rob:Yeah, I sure would. I sure would. What else do you have on your list? I have one final one. And it's one that we covered on this feed relatively recently, which is when Sam Rockwell shows up in White Lotus Season 3. Sure. Which the reason he's on the show, I would assume is just because Leslie Bibb is on the show. That's an easy end. You know, you know a guy who knows a guy. All of a sudden, Sam Rockwell's on your show. But yeah, like he doesn't just show up to show up. He's given some rather meaty material, if you'll allow it. And I just think that there's a lot there. to for people like us to unpack, but also to kind of wait for and deliver on a moment like that.

58:37Rob:Meany material is what you decided to go. It wasn't planned. It just kind of came out that way. All right. I will wrap up with this year's Oscar winner for Best Actress, Jessie Buckley, on Chernobyl specifically, I think. Oh, yeah. Because at that point, I had seen her in Wild Rose and War and Peace. And she's so good in Wild Rose. I love Wild Rose. And I'd seen her, she did like a live performance of the music from Wild Rose at South By and I was just like, this person is like so incredible. Yes. And then she shows up in Chernobyl, a completely stacked, incredible cast of incredible veteran actors.

59:15Rob:And I was just like, oh, she's newish. She's young. They've just cast her here to play this like wife character. But then the character that she plays, Ludmilla, like becomes for me, the emotional just like. like stab me through the heart uh aspect a part of chernobyl um you know by episode three you're just sort of like holy shit um yeah but that was one where i was just sort of like is jesse buckley too new that she's just sort of like taking whatever an hbo show she's very new but they were like no we saw wild rose or like we saw we saw we know what she can do don't worry we're gonna use her so it's like a don't worry we're gonna use them kind of uh thing so i'm glad that the promise with that with Constance Zimmer was delivered.

1:00:00I mean, when she gets her chance, I would say all of the lead up that we've already talked about in terms of, you know, her conversation with Caroline, her kind of negotiations about the remains, like all that stuff is really powerful. Her at the funeral is something else entirely. And again, it's like, it's a line reading of a poem. And so like, it is put in a different place from the rest of the dialogue of the show. But it floors you in a way that this episode needed something like that. and it needed a character and a performer like her to bring it.

1:00:28Rob:And it's one of those things where like, who, you know, we'll see if interviews, they reveal this, but like, who knows if the original intention was to have her reading sort of narrate the rest of the show or if her reading was so good that they're like, let's make this, you know, what we end with. I just thought that was really strong. And then, you know, the final shot of them, like on the beach, like the idea of, I mean, Lauren, once again, left out on the narrative, But the idea of burying them at sea and then like coming and they're still like in the in the world of the show alive and in love and together on the beach.

1:01:01Rob:I did think it was like a really beautiful closing image for this series. Totally agree. OK, we did it. If you have any other of these like TV closer performances that you want to shout out, PrestigeTV at Spotify dot com. We love like getting your suggestions. Thank you to all the people who have watched The Pit within the last 24 hours and sent us your suggestions for cute nicknames for doing drugs while being a sports person. We've had some really good ones already. You know, some different stuff going on on that podcast, it turns out. It's truly hard to explain. We'll be back with our next episode of The Pit.

1:01:39Rob:And on the horizon, we are definitely covering Beef, the Netflix limited series that's dropping next month. That is something we're really, really excited for. and we'll have some other stuff coming up, but we will definitely be wrapping up the last month, I guess, of The Pit. It never stops. Thanks to Deb for their work on this podcast and thank you to Rob Mahoney for your devotion to love stories and thank you to Katie Rich for launching this series with us. Absolutely. We will see you soon. Bye.

1:02:44We'll be right back. find it in reality. Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.

1:02:50Rob:Rated R. Written and directed by Ben David Grabinski. Only on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumble subscribers. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in. With a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles, you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip-off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing.com. Your beer, fit for all times.