Netflix’s ‘The Beast in Me' Review

0:13Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. And this is our second of three Prestige TV episodes this week, Rob. It's a cornucopia, pre-Thanksgiving cornucopia of television. I'm overwhelmed, but honestly overwhelmed with good television. There's a lot going on. There's a lot worth checking out, including this one surprised me, Joe. The Beast in Me has been a delightful presence in my life. Okay, so The Beast in Me, which is an eight-episode Netflix binge drop that dropped over the weekend. Rob and I are going to talk about the whole thing. maybe not the whole thing right away but spoilers are on the table for this and this is like very much a sort of you know if you if you haven't uh maybe let's do like a top line recommendation right should we watch it or should you not this is claire danes and uh of claire danes fame and matthew reese of the americans fame and um claire danes plays a writer and matthew reese plays a a shitty super rich real estate mogul who moves in next door and he is sort of infamously known for perhaps killing his previous wife his current wife is brink snow perhaps who's to say who's to say and uh so she sort of gets drawn into this question of like did he or did he not it is very much in the sort of like uh not to get too gendered about it sort of like women's fiction sort of uh i would say ever since big little lies happened this iteration we've got kind of uh we've gotten a lot of i would say not tremendously great versions of this this year with like the better sister the girlfriend hunting wives all her fault like there's just like a bunch of iterations of this and then i would say this is like top line creme de la creme of this kind of story without getting into sort of like major plot beats or major specifics, sort of like what's your top line?

2:07Should people watch this show? Who's going to like this show, Rob? I think they definitely should. I mean, if you're at all interested in murder mysteries and you just nailed it, that there are so many bad versions of this kind of show. And I think most critically, versions that have two leads who just aren't as compelling as Claire Danes and Matthew Reese are. And so you're getting them. You're getting a show that doesn't look like a generically built Netflix show, but actually has some thought into the way that it's constructed and what they show you on screen and the care behind the camera is like really evident.

2:36I think the writing is really fun. I think the editing is really like snappy. There's just like a good visual rhythm to this show that makes it incredibly propulsive. So much of that. I was honestly shocked that this wasn't a novel because it has that sort of like, you know, airport bestseller kind of quality to it. Beach Reedy, Girl on the Train, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So some behind the scenes people. So Gabe Rotter is the creator of this and he is a novelist. but he also worked on the X-Files back in the day. So he has like some TV pedigree to him. And then the showrunner here is Howard Gordon, who worked on 24 and Homeland.

3:10And there is a lot of DNA shared between Homeland, the good seasons of Homeland and this show. This was, once again, an eight episode drop over the weekend. We got what was probably like the most predictable ever text from our boss, Bill Simmons, of like, I love this show, you need to watch this show. this is like right up bill's alley um it was predictable joe but you also like hank aaron called this sorry babe ruth called this shit like you called your shot that like bill will put up the bat signal and we will be obligated to respond to it heroes that we are to cover this kind of television and you could not have been more right this is so up bill's alley it's ridiculous and this but again this is like the this is the best version of a kind of show that bill is like loves to watch yes bill loves these uh shows and then he also loves claire danes um he loved i mean exactly and then also the first uh the first two in the last two episodes are directed by antonio campos who uh directed among other things the staircase and hbo max sort of like did they do it did they not do it uh show that bill and i covered together on this very feed so this is just like all all the ingredients were here bill is not here he is he is on business in New York.

4:24So you have the two of us who spent the last 48 hours consuming this TV show. We have a lot to say about it. So anyway, I would say spoiler alert, spoiler warning. Apologies to our producer, Donnie, who only got to watch the first episode. We're about to spoil the hell out of this show, The Beast in Me. It is quite binge friendly, though, we should say. If you've only begun it, you've already gotten a sense of that, how easy it is to just lock in for the next episode but if you haven't embarked on your beast and me journey as of yet i think you'll find that it goes down very smoothly it's it's just one of those shows that you can lock into pretty easily and i think there's a reason it not only appeals to people like bill and kind of your his sensibilities as you were saying joe but that it is just like wildfire on netflix right now like this is something that's just grabbing wide swaths of people because there is that like mystery element that can pull anybody in

5:44Okay, Nicola, Quizfrage. Home Office Bastard or bus costs? What brings us more? Wait, I'll check that out. Oh, Home Office wins. It brings us more than 150 euros a year. Yes, but why do you know this? Because why do the tax release is live? That's just the tax app for all cases. Yes, and it answers questions too. 24-7 and without a lawyer. That's just the app that understands us. Taxes completed? Safe! With Wieso Steuer. Now try it out. We're going to talk about Claire Danes in a second. And I actually want to start with Matthew Reese because I think Claire Danes is playing a character we've seen Claire Danes play many, many times.

6:22Nobody does it better. I think the upset is that she's in a show with a character who has bipolar disorder and it's not her. Like that is that is shocking information. So but, you know, the 49 minutes in the chin is wobbling. You know, the eyes are wild with with suspicion and anxiety and grief and all these are like everything you want Claire Danes to do. she does she's even got the like my so-called life ginger hair like all the hits are being played here in this uh show but i want to talk with my start with matthew reese because uh someone who maybe some people might be less familiar with because as much as um i love the americans i know it wasn't like a super uh you know hugely watched show um perry mason sort of ditto a show for that wound up with like probably a nicher audience than they had hoped i think matthew reese is like one of the best actors that exists wildly talented so good and this is not you know on the americans we had to we watched him play a spy who then plays a billion different roles inside of that role in many wigs many accents i was about to say how many how many wigs and sub wigs within those roles so i feel like we've seen a lot from him but i have never seen him do precisely this which She requires this character, Nile Jarvis, is, you know, there's like shades of trumpiness there, etc.

7:48But it has to be, especially in this first episode, an unapologetic asshole. Yes. And also someone who is so sort of compellingly charismatic that you understand why Claire Danes' character, Aggie, gets sort of drawn to him in a way, even as she is repulsed by him. What would you make of this performance? The degree of difficulty of what you just described is astronomical. Like, there just aren't that many actors who can pull both parts of that off. and I would say in particular that first meeting you have with with Niall it's just like within 90 seconds maybe like he has you know told Aggie what to do he's negged her he's antagonized her for not publishing another book yet he's like stuck in a jab about her dead son like the speed with which this show gets you to hate this guy yeah is overwhelming and then it just starts peeling it back with like a little bit of intrigue or like a little bit of truth you know like yeah that book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia does sound really boring like these some of the jokes are landing and all of a sudden it's just like you are eating out of the palm of this guy's hand even if it's covered in rotisserie chicken juice like there's just something about it that is gross and repelling but also works oh my god I forgot about that scene where he just like devours the rotisserie chicken um really great stuff um I was I was telling uh our producer Donnie before we started recording there was something in some of the jobs I've had like in the Vanity Fair world or when I was working in San Francisco at City Arts and Lectures, there's a couple of personalities that I've met that are very similar to this where they say extremely rude, brusque, like, you know, just outrageous shit that is so repulsive or personally insulting.

9:37But then they also just have this sort of like they can get away with it. And you're sort of baffled as to why. But there is just a je ne sais quoi about them that they've gone through life this far, you know, saying whatever the fuck they want to say, perhaps insulated by money or power or whatever the case may be. And the moment inside the first episode when Aggie winds up going to lunch with him and then you see sort of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia alike, her get sort of drawn into this kinship of a certain kind of him or fascination. And I'm just like, yeah, I feel like I've been at dinners with these people where I'm like repulsed.

10:19But like they're never boring. No. And there's something about that that is just sort of exciting. Do you know what I mean? Especially for a character in Aggie who is bored with so many aspects of her life. It's like looking for something to grab onto to interest her again and make her feel alive again after this incredible personal trauma, losing her son, the dissolution of her marriage. She's now had like years and years since her last book came out, which was Beloved, but she doesn't know how to follow it up. And this guy just like literally moves in next door, like stumbles into her basically.

10:49Yeah. And her want to try to make sense of him is interesting. And his want to mess with her is also interesting. And especially as a person who has that personality type you described, Joe, but also has read her book and can locate it very precisely. Like this is a woman with daddy issues who is like craving for a kind of approval from somebody. And honestly, if you were like overwhelmingly mean to somebody, apparently that's a playbook for that kind of behavior. And there's like a weird attachment that forms and a mutual fascination between those two characters as they're trying to get to the bottom of each other.

11:23um he uh so spoilers genuinely for this uh because the crux of this show is did he do among other things did he do it right and um did he do any of like four different things as the show develops many many a murder um uh and honestly even once we saw him do his first murder i was like but did he do all the murders this is the thing i kind of i kind of suspected that that we would get like oh he did some but not these those but not like yeah that that was kind of the space the show wants you to be in he did uh as it turns out all the murders um maybe all the murders that have ever been um and uh and at towards the end as aggie is trying to draw his current wife Nina played by Brittany Snow sort of like in into helping her because she's been backed into an impossible corner she basically says he doesn't respect you because you've you decided to believe the lie right and so that sort of like spit you spin that back around to the top of the season and just sort of Niall Jarvis as this very smart very shittily privileged whatever guy who like kind of wants someone yeah to see him for who he is uh and his analysis of her as someone who like her father was a con artist and all these other things and he's like but you you admired him anyway like he wants that he wants someone smart enough to see him for who he is yes and and to admire him anyway is something that it seems like he wants from from aggie and i would say ultimately kind of succeeds in getting from aggie among other people and and honestly from the audience too like this is a show in which nile is constantly messing with aggie like he has this little riff in the middle while they're in the you know uh mid like bender about how killer whales are the only animals that play with their food and it's like he is playing with his food the whole time and the show is playing with its food the whole time in terms of like it's gonna wink a little bit it's like the psycho killer is gonna put on psycho killer like we're going to have these sort of like dance break isn't this so funny moments of revelation uh but it's also just like constantly teasing you and leading you on down like various alleys of figuring out who did what exactly in a way that is i think just really captivating and there is this so um i i you know i had i had set a prompt for one of the few prompts that we're going to get to inside of our coverage of how do we talk about eight episodes inside of a podcast uh one single podcast we do our best but um one of the questions i sort of asked you beforehand was if you had a favorite episode versus a least favorite episode and episode six which is the beast and me which uh during which they go on this massive bender together transcend it to me i just thought this was so good the psycho killer included like everything that happens and they wind up in in you know and then he talks about the romance of them the like you know there isn't even a little part of you that wants to like have sex with me like all this sort of stuff and so i think i wanted to dial in on that because the decision to make aggie's character gay uh and and her ex-wife played by the great natalie morales like um you do have this like sick fast double fascination and this seduction and this draw but it's not sexual it's something else and that you know that takes it one step to the left from Homeland.

14:58So we're not just doing Homeland again, we're doing this sort of like intellects circling each other, slightly twisted, vengeful psychology circling each other, but not just because we've seen the version of that where then they have like sex during their bender, but they didn't because it's something slightly different, which I thought was smart to do. I think it's a really great idea. And you're puts the spotlight squarely on the psychology. It turns it from, are these people just going to fuck or what? To is there something that these two human beings are sharing on a different kind of chemical level, a different kind of imbalance or however you want to describe it.

15:37They are wanting and needing something. And is Aggie as vulnerable to the sort of bloodlust that she has hinted at and talked about and thrown a brick through a window to try to achieve? She's been wanting something for so long and i think what's so great about the way niall is portrayed in the show where i mean he's just like a straight up mustache twirling villain sometimes like they're shooting him in murderer lighting he's just doing full like sbu perpetrator kind of acting at some point like it all really hits in a broad way but a really successful way so i mean he has these big broad portrayals that i think really work especially for this character um but at the same time it's like the show almost doesn't want you to fully believe that he didn't do these things it's like it's writing i think the edge of like plausible deniability reasonable doubt right it's like there's just enough gap between the version of the monster you see on screen and the actual proof tying him to any of this stuff that i think there's like there's just enough wiggle room there absolutely and there were plenty of times where i was like maybe he didn't do it maybe this is you know i was asking donnie before we started recording like who i don't is spoiled now but had only watched one episode i was like do like do you think it's more interesting interesting if he did it or if he didn't do it yes and i had decided that i would be more interesting if he didn't do it um but actually i like the way it all turns out and i will say that like on this on this front of like plausible uh you know doubt i guess about whether or not he did it we've got Jonathan Banks, the great Jonathan Banks from the Gilliganverse, Mike Ehrmantraud himself as Niall's father, Martin Jarvis.

17:17And then Tim, I think you pronounce his last name, Guy Neer Guinea, who plays his uncle Rick. And they're both, both of these are like specifically cast to be kind of red herrings of like, did his father have, you know, his wife killed? Did his uncle Rick do it to shut her up for some reason? Like, or did she leave a fake suicide note so that she could like just disappear and answer you know and you've got and then you've got like actors like bill erwin playing her dad earnestly saying like uh it can't have been niall so there's all these like you know they're they're carefully seating the cast around him with like shady enough figures and it just turns out that martin jarvis i mean was he covering up his son's uh murders yes of course but he's like dies well dies of suffocation but basically dies of a broken heart that like he's just not gonna his murderous son is not gonna stop you know what i mean and it's just sort of like it's it's great casting to put jonathan banks in that um good old they broke my son uh jonathan banks in that role um there's like just enough stuff happening in the frame i feel like to to back foot you just enough to keep the plot moving as you said these kind of dual heavies that the story has kind of at its disposal could open up any kind of possibilities.

18:34And I think there's the lingering question, whether it's with Martin or anyone in the story, of not just did Niall do this thing, but who knows or who is living in the ambiguity of thinking he did, but denying it for whatever personal reason. And what I was kind of struck by in watching it is the way ambition is ruling over this story. It's like every single character has something that they're after, and sometimes Niall can help them get it. Sometimes their daughter was murdered, but they're over leveraged financially. So they have to believe in him. Or even in Nina's case, it's like she tried on a certain kind of lifestyle and liked the way it fit and sort of rode that social ladder all the way to the top, even if it came at the expense of living with a murderer.

19:19Right. Telling herself she wasn't living with a murderer. Telling herself she understood who he was, but like really knowing the truth. And I think the fact that that relationship specific, like Nina is such an interesting character in this story and you already talked about kind of her ambiguity and the way that character's knowledge or lack of knowledge sort of becomes the main text of what is ultimately like the climactic confrontation between her and Niall like of did you believe this like she's trying to get him on tape confessing to all these murders the fact that the ambiguity for her becomes the point in the way that it has been for all of us all throughout this show I thought it was just like a really artful way to wrap this thing up i guess on the one hand yes did not work for you well no i mean i really liked this show i loved episode six episode seven is like a full flashback episode which i had some questions about like does that feel like we're just pressing the breaks on i don't know the deployment of flashbacks i had that was maybe my least favorite that was also my least favorite episode and we really show you and i personally we need to get layla george out of these flashback episodes um just like was living in the past on disclaimer yeah and here is just like and i think she's legit good in this part and there are moments specifically with her interaction with brian abbott who plays who's this fbi agent yeah and when he's telling her like maybe you need therapeutic help more than you need protection and the like unraveling on her face as she is processing like one of her lifelines kind of slipping away from her there's really great stuff but like let this woman act in the present tense please free leila george um by the time it got to nina and and niall in their bedroom and she's like wait you killed like you know it's just like so clearly that she was taping him it's telegraphed for sure but you know what new york a one-party consent state you know they actually they got it going on it's true it's true um okay i wanted to ask you on that on that sort of like plausible doubt front this was like a prompt i had for you if like are there i actually love a story like this yes um where we the viewers are constantly asking ourselves you know because there's a way in which you can be like too far ahead of the main character or two or they hide the ball so well that it's just like a last minute reveal and it's not that interesting but this idea of riding the line between like did he do it did he not uh or did she do it did she not etc um especially over eight episodes like a lot of the examples that i could come up with were films where you don't have as much time to sort of keep you in that space so what were some of the um similar stories that you came up with it that you maybe uh liked and i guess we're going to spoil all of these uh stories i mean we can we can lightly spoil i think i i agree with you that i think tv has a huge problem with this the shows that try to attempt it it's just too much time on the tightrope and you feel it one way or the other and so it does work better on film to me there are two people who are just the absolute masters of this kind of storytelling one is hitchcock no surprise like this is this is where that guy lives and eats vertigo does this as well as any movie or artwork has ever done it um park chain wook i would say is the other one and specifically the combo of the handmaiden and decision to leave i think are just like expert versions of this sort of almost more con man than they are murder mystery of like how much can i trust this person in the version of events that they are selling me as an audience member and as like a surrogate character from whatever point of view you're being told uh again that's just as good as it gets for me um i also have hitchcock and park turn woke on my list um hitchcock there's a carrie grant movie suspicion uh where carrie grant it's almost as much it's like about the storytellers you mentioned two directors but also the performance Like Cary Grant as like, you know, someone whose new wife is like, is this a murderer?

23:16Yeah. Similarly in the movie, I mean, one is called Suspicion, the other is called Shadow of a Doubt. In Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotton plays the Uncle Charlie who comes back. And that Hitchcock movie, Shadow of a Doubt, which I love, has two modern counterparts. There's Stoker, which is Park Chan-wooks. Like that's basically like a remake of Shadow of a Doubt with Matthew Goode in the Uncle Charlie role. um and then good is particularly suited to that kind of thing too exactly he walks that line very well uh matthew good and then dan stevens in the guest which is like also another sort of like contemporary remake of shadow of doubt i think are just like really really good versions of that um the guest is almost a different formula though because it's almost like what is this guy capable of more than what has he already done you know there's like a there's there's a wolf in in the in the herd so to speak and you're just trying to suss out like how dangerous a situation is this it's just my memory that like that reveal does come earlier than this but not like at the very beginning and dan stevens who up until that point had like just played cousin matthew in downton abbey and so you're like not prepared for him to like not only like walk around in just a towel but also like be super murdery um what about gone girl and like the the amy rosamund pike uh of it all like if you don't know the twist of that movie is that sort of like an interesting space to exist in what do you think i mean unquestionably effective i think the only question with that one is the structure and the timing like is it coming early enough in the movie right to tip the hand in just like a way that makes it a different thing because ultimately like I think what makes the project of something like The Beast and Me so challenging is not making the audience feel either too smart or too dumb like you want them to turn their brain off and be along for the ride and Gone Girl does that really effectively by tipping the hand almost a little earlier than this but it's it's hard to string it out over eight hours and it's hard to string it out even over two or two and a half the last one I have on my list here and actually this is just again this is sort of like Dan Stevens coming off of Downton Abbey mm-hmm chris evans and knives out sure coming off of such a long captain america run uh and the first knives out i don't know about you but i definitely there was like a middle of the movie where i was like maybe he didn't do it yeah and then it's like he definitely he definitely did it spoilers for knives out guys um but you're you're locating something i think with chris evans and matthew good and dan stevens it's like these are just among the most charming human beings alive.

25:52Exactly. And so to your point about Nile Jarvis as a character, it's like there are certain people who can just get away with stuff. And the way you create that sort of character is by having that kind of charisma, this like undeniable quality that you can't fake and you can't put on. It's like you either have that or you don't. And so I think you have to be really careful in the construction and the casting of these movies that you have the right people. And I think Matthew Rhys and Claire Danes, unquestionably the right people for this show. one last thing about matthew reese uh since we uh are talking about matthew good uh matthew reese and matthew good did a um a wine show that i really recommend wait what yeah it's just the two of them going around and getting trapped like it's like a travel wine drinking show where the two of them like go around drink wine get absolutely yeah trash hammered uh and it's how did i not know about like these are two of my guys and i just missed it welcome welcome to uh thank you joys of that okay let's talk about claridanes uh i mean one one of the queens and joe for you and i i mean i think the first show we ever potted about together was fleischman is in trouble so a real return to form for you and i really with our good friend claire um who also No spoiler is both unraveling and not believed in that show.

27:14Shocker. This is a common theme for Claire. Can I ask you a question about the unraveling in this show though? I would really enjoy that if you did. Ask me that question. If you lived in a place that had wallpaper that was this busy and this much stuff on the walls, wouldn't you also be unraveling? uh if my house reeked of sewage at all times would i not be unraveling if if the dirt of your past was burbling up through the drains like could you live with the metaphor what what i love is like when nina comes by with a pie and um aggie like apologizes the fact that she's having plumbing issues and the house smells bad and nina like somewhat right but like it's like no your house is charming like does a really good job and then immediately after rick breaks in and is just like you get the first real sense of how much it absolutely reeks in that house uh when rick is like doing a b and e and also can't breathe because it's so disgusting in there but even even nina does like a quick like little once once aggie turns the corner kind of a little hold her nose hand wave like oh my god this is so bad i just can't say it out loud and it's just so interesting that like we knew that we saw the suit we saw her get like splattered with the sewage like we saw it happen but like if it reeks that bad then like her clothing smells like that like when she goes out into the world all of her beautiful drapey woolen sweaters and coats and stuff like that reek of sewage and that's just like a really interesting detail of this particular story uh if it were me and i understand why she lives there she lives there because her son died while living in that house and she has preserved his room in amber and like can't let go of the house because it means letting go of the dream she had of starting a family with shelly her ex and cooper her son and all of that sort of stuff like that but i like her uh editor i was just sort of like screaming through the phone like sell please sell that house sell the haunted house please yeah sell the haunted i also love uh i mean that house looked so i mean it was so beautiful absolutely beautiful but also like a little ramshackle you know like the the paints peeling on the outside and stuff like that so um yeah claire danes is great in this guess what surprise claire danes is great in something she's great in this um absolutely iconic um day i think this is the best thing i've seen claire danes in just like best suited for her since Homeland, I would say, since the first couple seasons of Homeland.

29:49She says a lot more to do here because you're right that she does play some version of this sort of freak out basically all the time. But this rounds it out, I think, where you get the freak outs, you get, I thought the scene in which she is giving, apologizing to Shelly through the crack in the door is just arresting must-see television. And she is freaking out there, but it is coming from a different place. And it's almost like she was freaking out and she took a second to breathe and she's saying the things that she always wanted to say and still gets the door slammed in her face. And it's just, that's heartbreaking in a way that Claire Danes then spiraling can only be heartbreaking.

30:25And I would say that Natalie Morales as Shelley, and I love Natalie. I think she's great. Her performance in that scene is so good. Her absolute devastation of like listening to this, I think on a certain level, believing Aggie about certain things, but still not being able to offer that hand because sometimes you just like someone's drowning and you can't hold on to them anymore. Yeah, I thought all that stuff was really good. I'm just like, I'm happy. Okay, here's my question. She's so good at this. We've seen her do it again and again. But this is not all she's ever done in her life, especially earlier in her career.

31:06she had uh far more varied um subjects to deal with do you want to see her do more of this and she's the best to ever do this very specific thing or would you like to see i mean she did uh i did watch the apple show she did called the essex serpent and it wasn't particularly great um but like do you want something else from claire to be her next project or are you like keep on doing what you do Claire no one does it like you I would definitely take a wider range like for one we have enough on tape again also in Amber that I can just turn back to any of these performances anytime I want we know she can go back to it and dial it back up if she ever wants to do that again but like there is a range of performance that has eluded her I would I would guess on a casting level like you and I were talking about this that this is a script that kind of reads please put a claire danes type in this movie and they just got claire danes but where's the script that's like we want a steely cate blanchett type and it's like claire danes isn't cate blanchett but she has a buttoned up oh like very polished kind of performance style that could fill a similar role right like you you can even see it in this in like the photo on her books like dust jacket cover it's like there's there's a headshot version of claire danes it's like, you know, woman who kind of has it together, but kind of doesn't in a turtleneck, like that doesn't have to be spiraling and making conspiracy boards.

32:35I was curious for you, Rob. So as we mentioned, the creator of the show is a novelist, has written novels. Rob, I know you don't read fiction or write fiction, but you are a writer. How did all of the sort of like grappling with the blank page stuff go for you. I actually thought it was quite good. And I think ultimately, I think the risk you run with this kind of story is anytime you have to read the writing out loud, it sounds ridiculous. I think the parts that they read out loud that are supposed to sound ridiculous do. And the rest of it actually does sound fairly compelling to me. I think there's actually some good writing.

33:13Now, it's not all that way. There's one line, especially at the very end when she's doing her reading where aggie says reading from her own book nile smelled my bloodlust and midwifed that story into being i mean fucking gross that's that's just disgusting i'm sorry no absolutely not it's not great it's not great um i i called her editor it's it's her agent uh played by deirdre o 'connell and uh who's having like such a two years she's unhinged and great in eddington she's unhinged and great she's like sort of the elder stateswoman of of the claire dane's sort of like manic energy in the penguin she was so good in the penguin uh as colin farrell's mom the penguin's mother um and what a juicy part the penguin's mother she's really good at it she's so did you watch i haven't seen i don't doubt it it's just something about being cast as the penguin's mother that is very indicative of where we are right now yes it's well i've been told it was very like live soprano but you and i don't know that much about live soprano don't even know that reference you know um but uh she i think she's really good in this and i think the um you know she's she's not in it that much she's mostly on the other side of the phone from yeah from aggie but that tension of i've lied to my literary agent about how much of my, I'm like three years past my due date.

34:45I've lied about how much I have. I have nothing. I have like a - Just string out nothing, Joe, nothing. I have like post-its on the wall, but I have nothing of my Scalia Ginsburg and I'm asking for another advance on my advance. That anxiety that pulled out of me of like I'm so past my due date and I have nothing. And I have to tell someone that I already told I had something that actually I have nothing. That's it. I hate it. I hate it. And it was very effective. Yeah. But I hate it. You're like a meet his deadlines kind of guy, though, right? Oh, OK. No comment on that. OK. All right. Absolutely no comment.

35:29I will say I am not and never have been. And this is the sort of outside version of a nightmare space that I've lived in my life around deadlines for writing work. So yeah, this produced more anxiety in me than many other murdery aspects of this show. I will say - The murdery aspects though do create some of that too. I think the show is actually really effective just sort of putting you on edge constantly. And some of that is like Matthew Rhys will just like pop up in a window behind Claire Danes sometimes. Oh my God. Like there are like those sort of jump scare moments. But I could tell the show was having an effect on me because I was just at that like heightened level of awareness and sensitivity when I would turn it off.

36:11So something in the alchemy of this show, whether it's the writer anxiety or the murder anxiety, was definitely like messing with my system. One of the things I loved, you mentioned the FBI agent Brian Abbott who shows up drunk to Aggie's back door. A moment that I loved really early on in the show is he shows up drunk, disheveled, and then she like looks him up and you see the photo of what he looked like when he started this investigation. And it's just sort of like sharp of jaw, clean cut, like the whole world's in front of him sort of thing. And this is a man who does not survive the season, but one might say was like already basically dead when this show started.

36:54And so this evidence of, no matter whether or not Niall Jarvis killed his wife, early on, what seems evident to me is this is what happens to people who try to get close to him yeah they get broken the way that brian abbott uh you know and they talked about him being an addict and like all this sort of stuff like that but like was that the case before he started i you know i suspected based on how like personally he seemed to be taking everything i suspected like that he was romantically attached to maddie in some way or another uh the dead wife um and and that goes back to like some of the quote unquote revelations that happened in the flashback episode where I was like, I feel like we already knew some more of this than they're expecting us to know.

37:40And I wonder how much of that is playing into the Netflix or current TV idea of we need to over explain things for people who are second screening this, et cetera. What is this show if that episode just doesn't exist? If you take out episode seven, is it just a richer experience having some belief in some of those like plot developments and also some ambiguity around some other ones like did we need all of those gaps filled i don't know that we really did i agree i actually think you could just cut that entire episode out and it would be okay i didn't need to know that maddie was like you know uh informing to the fbi i didn't know need to know i definitely with love and respect to hedion park who is an actress i really like all of the erica brett and stuff didn't work that well for me as the other FBI agent who has been sort of got into by Uncle Rick.

38:35All and like she's got divorce drama going on with her family. It felt like we've talked about this before. It's like one extra character too far where I'm just sort of like I don't have space for this storyline in my heart, I suppose. I don't know. What do you think? Well, it's coming from a good place, too, because it's like they have the extra character. And so they're trying to explain her motivations as an actual human being. And so it's like, that's a good instinct. But ultimately the FBI stuff, I think, is among the least successful part of the story, period. That's true of Brian Abbott too, who I agree with you.

39:05Like the initial, his initial appearance of like, who is this guy? Is he who he says? Like, what is his, like, what is his situation and deal? And seeing that photo is a really striking thing. But from that point, I just was like always wanting to get back, you know, to get back to Aggie and Niall ultimately. Like if they're together, absolutely. If Nina's in the mix, absolutely. Like there were just more compelling characters on the board and those were not the most interesting ones to me. But I do think they contribute to this sense of like, who can you actually trust in this story period? Because it's shown through the power that the Jarvis family has.

39:39They can kind of get out of almost anything. Right. That's not a straight up smoking gun to the point that, I mean, for one, as far as Erica is concerned, I don't know why she would believe a word that Aggie says. Like she showed up at her boyfriend's, her dead boyfriend's apartment and there's a random woman in there like going through his stuff. like why would you believe anything she's saying i don't know i also have a question about like aggie believes that this suicide note ripped out of the birder journal is a smoking gun and i'm just not sure it's a smoking gun like that is circumstantial evidence at absolute best at best it's um i feel like it's sort of like okay let's say i don't know this is a labor metaphor but like let's say the um it's a box a wooden box has been nailed shut i feel like you can you're prying off like one nail if you have maybe right you're like you're just like putting your foot in the door of like it's plausible yes and how can we sort of follow this somewhere but it's not it's not gonna open it shut no no no like if there's a world where she just has that evidence and goes to the authorities and thinks it's gonna fix everything without the voice note confession from the murderer she gets absolutely nowhere she's wrong she's wrong okay um anything else you want to talk about oh and then there's also this other plot with um an aoc-esque figure i would say and olivia benitez uh who i did like the reveal in the flashback of you know there's this jarvis developed like building development that they're trying to get passed that it has uh opposition from city government uh and it turns out they like literally need to build that building because it's literally where the body is buried, right?

41:22And it's not just our greed, our ambition, our legacy, which is sort of what we've been meant to believe all season, but it's like literally Madeline's body is down there. So they have to finish building the building on top of her or else what? Look, they love to literalize a metaphor in this show, whether that's like, oh, your legacy is your children or your legacy is your big old building or the only way to hide it is by feeding into those things. It's not the subtlest. piece of art I've ever encountered but I appreciated the tying of the loops as we mentioned it's 49 minutes into the first episode when the Dane's chin starts wobbling and doesn't stop until the end do you think it's hard for her?

42:07is it hard to summon that particular she can just turn it on and off like nothing she's done it since she was a literal teenager in my so called life she's so good at it a prompt i had for you was like which felt very in honor of bill simmons this felt like a very bill simmons um thing to ask best on-screen crier is does anyone beat claire danes as a best on-screen crier i mean she's a generational talent in this in this particular way especially like great across the board but no one has ever done it like she has and part of that is the longevity you talked about i think florence pew might be the heir apparent i think she's got a real shot you know If she keeps sobbing and quivering and screaming into the void, maybe she has a chance.

42:53Personally, very close to my heart, the Leo Claire Danes cry off in Romeo and Juliet. Specifically, the Claire Danes line read, gun to her head, but not so long to speak, I long to die. It just doesn't get better than that as far as emotive criers go. I like when we have similar answers. I definitely had Florence Pugh. And when I think about Florence Pugh crying, I think of Midsommar. Like that's sort of like the vision that's in my head. And that's like panic, fear, grief, everything. You know, it's like it's a lot rolled into it. I was thinking about pairings because I also had Leo in Romeo and Juliet.

43:32I am Fortune's Fool, like all that sort of stuff. But like the feedback loop of Leo and Claire together. And it should be said earlier in his career, he doesn't do it as much anymore. But like, you know, basketball diaries, like there's a number of like great young Leo crying performances. As Once Upon a Time would tell you, Joe, he still got it. You know, he can still pull it out. That's different, though. That's not as like, that's like tear in the, welling up. And we're talking about like crying. You're absolutely right. That Claire Leo cry feedback of Romeo and Juliet. I was thinking about Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in Live in Time.

44:07like that that cry out andrew garfield's a really good crier and that that sentimentality sort of ping-ponging for them in that movie was extremely good uh similarly on the pairing front uh carrie coon and justin thoreau in the leftovers just very rob and joanna core um and then perhaps the most rob and joanna core uh allison hannigan and buffy vampire slayer when willow cries we cry so it's a classic for a reason it's undeniable i also i mean there's a bunch that we've kind of talked around or about as we've been going through other prestige TV stuff like Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars is another one that like anytime a character is that sort of steely and and like oh yeah and then it feels like they have it all they have all the answers or they always have an option and then it's like all of a sudden everything just comes out at once that's always really effective I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge at the end of Fleabag specifically is among the best to ever do it this is an area where I think TV can hit in the same way a movie can and maybe even more so because of that time spent because you're getting to know these characters whether they're reserved or whether they cry all the time it's like they can just press these buttons in a totally different way and maybe this is recency bias for me talking Joe but like Henry Ian Cusick and lost and specifically in the constant but I would say maybe that's not him crying but me crying there's something happening there as like in a in a again more of a welling up kind of capacity You answered, Penn.

45:34How do you answer? It's just two people talking on a phone and I'm a mess. What's going on? I will say on the sort of like House of R front, we're doing these like Nolan movie rewatches. So I would be remiss in not mentioning McConaughey and Interstellar, which is an all-timer on-screen cry. I mean, so good it became a meme. What are you supposed to do with that? And then, you know, I don't think he has the widest range in the world, honestly. tom holland you know when he decides to cry it is tough to watch so i don't know how much young telemachus uh telemachus will be crying in in the odyssey but uh i i look forward to finding out maybe that will be a tearful movie i mean some of these like i mean you could just say literally every person in magnolia basically is kind of in this category um also paul mescal i think has has a chance as another oh not up and coming at this point because he's pretty well established but elite crying and normal people as a sort of once again dynamic duo um my last one is is viola davis and doubt uh that is just like a that's a like um okay so if you want to talk about what claire danes does is she's got the chin wobble which she can do before even a single tear starts falling and then her whole face can crumple um all of that uh viola davis committed to the sort of like like snot running out of your nose kind of crying, which is just like a different kind of, you know, doesn't throw, does it while singing Simon Garfunkel and the leftovers like that.

47:06Just like you're drowning in your own tears, sort of chills. I mean, that's how you walk into a movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman in it with Meryl Streep in it. And you steal it in like eight minutes. Completely rip it out of their head. Like Viola Davis is unreal in doubt. um all right anything else you want to say on the crying front um uh and then you had like one more sort of prompt that you wanted to do for this i do i want to before we even go to the last prompt like i want to spend one more beat on nina and in particular like britney snow britney snow also also a really great sort of like walking the edge of like is this lady a total bitch is she on my side it's like yeah is she trying to appeal to me with the the pie or the vinegar you know like ultimately she's one of those actors who i think can be really like really interesting in that way and in particular you talked about um you know the the gender dynamics and in particular having claire danes play a character who is gay and these early interactions she has with nina of like tenderly touching her ankle on the trail of like this woman clearly like aggie has not felt the touch of another human being in like five years and the way they sort of play with that but sort of don't i thought was interesting until they just sort of dropped the thread on it i know the the idea of hers is kind of because the proximity between her asking aggie to go for a walk for with her and uncle rick breaking in yes which are which as it turns out unrelated but seems like she's like the honeypot to draw uh aggie out of her house so uncle rick can break in that ankle scene but then also what i loved is that when she then meets shelly the artist natalie natalie morales's character i think shelly was also attracted to her i mean she looks like britney snow so that's like you know uh no duh but i like this idea that she's just like walking around and all the gay women of of new york are just sort of like oh hello to you um and i think you know that's something you know whether you're a a pitch perfect truther or um a hunting wives enthusiast that is something that bernie snow has been playing with for a little while so absolutely yeah and i think ending the show with her i thought was a really like her searching her baby's eyes for like whatever it was she saw in nile i thought was like a great like not like twilight zone-esque quite but like almost to that level of like we solved the case the bad guy went to jail everything is fine dot dot dot is it yeah really good okay uh your final prompt for us my final prompt joe i mean very much inspired by the show i would say it has taken a very familiar trope that you are not so different you and i and it has modernized it it is it is kendrick lamar did it uh oh you know what they're that guy's not like us he's not like us they're not like us i they repeated that like three or four times in this series and so i wanted i i wanted to see your favorite examples or go-to examples for this like you're not so different you and i whether a direct conversation or like a thematic conversation in a show or a movie like this um yeah i think it's sort of cheesily done in the first episode when her face is like superimposed over the like her reflection in her laptop over a photo of his face right right and like he is the beast like you know you want the vengeance the bloodlust the all this sort of stuff like that is she capable of this him framing her for that i think is all works really well like a lot of the other stuff and again as i mentioned episode six this sort of like uh drunken debauch uh night i think that that is really good sort of we're not so different you and i uh conversation um I mean, Heat is like a go-to sort of dumb example.