‘Pluribus’ Episode 4: Carol’s Truth Serum

23:34Joanna Robinson:That they know what's right for her. That they know what's right. Even if that is a biological imperative telling them to believe it, that there's really no wiggle room on it. I'd like to note for the record that you just used unlicked casually and perfectly in a sentence. So thank you. Welcome, Rob. Okay. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

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25:42Joanna Robinson:This is sick!

26:12Joanna Robinson:in about 90 minutes. Shop top brand appliances now at the Home Depot. Offer valid June 17th to July at the US only C-Store online for details. All right. Freeze frame Mahoney. Waccaro 5 notes on the whiteboard. What would you like to highlight here before we get to the sort of other notes that she puts on the whiteboard? There's so many things. There's also so many things I wish were just a little more legible. I agree. Like there's a bit about the commercialization of the IRL spice trade that I'm like, I really wish I could make out exactly what she's saying here. first of all, I want to say this whole whiteboard setup, very jealous.

26:47I would love to have this in my home office.

26:49Joanna Robinson:I would die to have this. It's beautiful. Like functional, not the sliding whiteboards. You could do that anywhere, but the glorious wood inlay with the handle, really nice. That white car money spends, you know, it really goes a long way. Makes a lot of people very happy. And you can see why based on the contents of this whiteboard, I am most tickled by the fact that Carol so desperately wants to kill Rabanne and is looking for any permission to do it, including from her whiteboard, effectively. Rabanne dies again, this time for real, but then ask Val, right? Like, am I allowed to do this? Can I kill him?

27:26Am I allowed to do it? My favorite plot note or kind of like lore note that she has flagged is the Mandovia spice fruit. And she's wondering, is it a poison? Is it elixir? Double underlined. It's got to be a love potion. What else simply could it be, Joe?

27:40Joanna Robinson:Definitely a love potion. Love this. I will add, it just says Battle of Wits at one point. Near the sort of like cliffs of chartreuse and underneath that Battle of Wits. And then my favorite is just sort of like scrawled on the side. It just says Shakespeare reference. Yeah. And it's just like, I love that about Carol because she thinks she's so much smarter than the book she's writing, but she's like, I'm going to put a Shakespeare reference in it. nobody's gonna get it because these dummies who read my book don't know Shakespeare, etc., which we will obviously get to in a second. But look, she's a literary woman.

28:13She did reread Twelfth Night in order to prepare to write this book. So props to her. I also think we may have missed the boat. Licking the donut is maybe our greatest email of all time, but Killer Sand Flea Men would not have been a bad alternative.

28:26Joanna Robinson:It's pretty good. Our listener, Ren, wrote in about this idea of like why Carol specifically might be a person who is so resistant to the pleasant, can we give you everything you want nature of the hive mind. And it's because she has such disdain, partially maybe connected to the way when she has so much disdain for her readers. She is someone who has been crafting the perfect meal under a cloche for her. This is exactly what you want. You want exactly a lady who looks just like this. I know what smut you want. I know what, you know, flea men you want. I know what elixirs you want, et cetera, et cetera.

29:06They want to devour that space pirate. That's for sure.

29:08Joanna Robinson:Absolutely. And so this idea of like, am I just, to your infantilizing point that you keep rightly bringing up, are they treating me like one of my readers who I like think so poorly? Yes. And I thought that was a really interesting connection for my listener. I love that take. I also love the beat as Carol is kind of deciding before she goes to write her list of what she actually knows about the hive mind here. She kind of thinks about erasing her wins of Wai Karo prep for a second and then opts for the new whiteboard instead. And so from the perspective where you're just talking about, Joe, she hates these books and she resents the people who love them.

29:48She has been miserable for who knows how long. And yet, even when the world is kind of over. She's still clinging to a life that made her so miserable, or at least clinging to the idea that it could go back to a version of normal, I guess.

30:02Joanna Robinson:But I mean, one does not simply think of the cliffs of chartreuse every day, Rob. You have to keep those golden ideas, you know, steady. But yeah, Ren wrote, ultimately, she would just be a slop consumer to be placated with slop with the hive mind fully aware of exactly what flavor of slop is most likely to please. And I was just like, yep, okay, here we go. All right. So we slide over to the new whiteboard. These are the beats. What I know about them. Eager to please would give me an atom bomb. Can't kill, not a fly. Can't play faves like all jerks the same. So I think she's considering herself a jerk in that moment, obviously.

30:35Joanna Robinson:Trying to change me, which I think is like so key and something that I think some people are like, why wouldn't you want to join? I'm just like, why would you let someone reprogram you? And we'll get to, of course, the conversion conversation later. And then really honest, which then turns into the sort of like can't lie moment but a lot of assumptions here kind of taking these people at their word and just kind of inferring i mean i don't know i just think maybe i think they are resolute in their mission i think there might be wiggle room around some of these things like yeah they can't kill not a fly but they'll let almost a billion people incidentally die like that feels like important context that's true that's great they they are uh they have all the lawyers in the hive mind so they know all the loopholes of of the rules etc etc um then we get this interaction emmy winner jeff hillers here uh in a in a very tight bike costume um larry to his friends and uh and they have this great back and forth i loved this sequence and what carol is doing here this is this is how racy horn described on the official pod is she's like she's asking questions that she knows they know will displease her, but she suspects are true.

31:50Joanna Robinson:I suspect that Helen doesn't like my book or doesn't respect my writing. I know they don't want to tell me that because they know it will upset me, but I think it's true. So where does the rubber meet the road in terms of like, don't want to upset Carol, have to tell the truth. And that is the sort of trap she sets for Larry here to try to figure out this particular quirk of the rules. And that's the mochis in the whole episode. It's kind of like Carol the scientist. It's a very different disposition from what we've seen of her, which is mostly like downing vodka and sleeping on her couch. But here she is like trying to understand more about what is in play, what can she do, what can she learn.

32:29And everything you said makes total sense, and I think is represented in that performance. Like she's going into this deliberately with an objective. Joe, do you feel like when she hears Helen's thoughts about the Waikaro books and especially her novel, like to your point of what they said on the official pod, like she knows on some level what she's going to hear, but there's also the confirmation of actually hearing it. Do you think that actually hurts Carol in that moment? Or do you think her expectations kind of steal her from that?

32:56Joanna Robinson:I think it hurts her. And I think it was interesting. Miriam Shore, who plays Helen, did sort of like a bonus episode of the official podcast this week. and most of it was just sort of like what a pleasure to be here but the most i think i thought insightful thing she said was that helen was someone who um who protected carol from being hurt that carol was someone who would like walked around so easily hurt and so her bitterness and her bad attitude are really this sort of like protective shell and then it is helen's job to sort of try to shield her to sort of jolly her out of bad moods or all these other things and so Helen saw herself as like she's the softer-hearted person but she is Carol's first line of defense and so she is like defenseless without Helen there but I think Carol is for all of her bitterness for all of her cynicism a very vulnerable person again we get the conversion conversation we get this sort of like truth serum self-tape moment you know where she says like i'm not so bad right like that that aspect of it so you know i think i think she's tremendously hurt by what she hears even like and you you brought this up when we when last week when we were talking about like what if you could hear what everyone truly thinks of you and you and i were talking about what a nightmare it was yes uh so this is something that you sort of called last week and so yeah hearing it it's different to suspect it than to hear it totally you know So even when like, especially I would say Helen's thoughts on the Winds of Waikaro series are not damning.

34:29Like this is probably what Carol in her heart of hearts at least thinks to some degree. At least it's represented that way in what she thinks of her readers. But the novel is a different case. And like Bitter Chrysalis remains like an absolutely elite bad novel name. It is way too long for literally anyone to be writing a novel that much. um but but to your point about helen as carol's protector i love that line about helen and val had kind of talked about the novel and decided like it wouldn't hurt her career and it just would make carol happy to to publish it and that's that infantilizing thing that you're talking it is for sure and it's like that that sentence and that sentiment alone is like it's such it's such a it is a caring thought right like there's a germ of something there that is genuine and affectionate and like trying to be protective, but it's protecting a person from something that they don't want to be protected from, which is their own creativity and expression and self.

35:21Like, how can you do that to someone even when you love them? And yet we do it to people we love all the time.

35:27Joanna Robinson:Did you think, as I saw that some people did, that it was like incredibly emotionally manipulative for Larry to bring up Moira, she of the crazy hats, who was you know like brought back to life by the Waccaro books I actually found that really beautiful I don't know and like I don't know that I would consider that manipulative it was like him finding a truth which is that like to someone and we are all one your book is the most important thing that has ever happened and you're not Shakespeare but there is value And I don't know, I was thinking about this in terms of like, I've been thinking about this a lot as I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to talk about Wicked for good on House of R this week.

36:14Yeah.

36:16Joanna Robinson:Thinking about Wicked, my experience watching the first Wicked movie was I had like a pretty bad time watching it in the press screening. And then I went to a wide release with like an audience that loved it and it actually changed my relationship to it. Superman, a movie that I kind of liked. And then I talked to my nephew about it and he loved it and it changed my relationship to the new Superman movie. And that's okay. Critics are supposed to form their opinions in a vacuum. We're not exactly precisely critics. And they're like, it's okay if your relationship to a piece of art changes based on how other people feel about it.

36:50Joanna Robinson:And it's not like I'm dumbing myself down or anyone's dumbing themselves down or whatever. It's just sort of like when something matters to someone, when they find an emotional resonance in it, it can bring it out for me. That happens when I talk to Mallory all the time. It's just like she loves things so fiercely that it's quite infectious. So I just thought this was like a really interesting way to talk about, you know, art. Art can be art, even if you think it's not Shakespeare, it's art to someone. And I think that that's, I don't know, interesting perspective. So I also really enjoyed it as a way that the hive mind, you know, we talked last week, Joe, about like, is the hive mind capable of creating great art?

37:32And I think there's a lot of complications in that prospect. But this is about how the hive mind understands art. And maybe, you know, it can cite, you know, like, you know, portions of the book that really resonated with other people and made them tingle and all that stuff. But ultimately, like what it is good at at this stage in the story is not high emotional intelligence. It's like fact, right? Like this woman was in this situation and your book, shitty as it might be, like gave her second thoughts before committing suicide. Like that is a real thing. And to be very clear, like more than validating the exercise of publishing or creating anything, like if you could create the worst book ever written and it saves someone from killing themselves, like that is a huge net win in the grand scheme of the universe.

38:14And so I'm like, I'm pulled by that sort of sentimentality you're talking about, which I think is very real. And what a work of art means to one person or a small group of people is incredibly meaningful and resonant and not something you can easily write off. And I'm also in the hive mind's portrayal of that pulled in the opposite direction of the like, let people enjoy things kind of self-validation that exists in so much like of our art and cultural moment right now. It's like a hop, skip and a jump away from like, you're being a snob because you didn't love Fantastic Four. You know, like there is a lot of distance between these things, but they're all kind of connected.

38:49Joanna Robinson:I really agree. I am like very torn about it. I'm of two minds because I don't agree that we should flatten all romanticy with Shakespeare. Like, of course I don't. You know what I mean? I think it matters that we say some things are smarter or better or whatever. But I also think it's like, yeah, you can enjoy Fantastic Four. Yes. But like, I can also say I didn't think Fantastic Four was very good. You know, and like... It was not very good. It was not very good. You know. Okay. And I want it to be good. Okay. So here we get Carol visiting Zosia. She's back at the hospital. We're at the hospital three times this week.

39:22Joanna Robinson:Um, this is when we get the sort of the conversion, uh, therapy conversation, the conversion camp conversation. I will say we had a listener, Mikael, who, who called this out as like a possibility. Yeah. um in a previous uh email and then just said like the subtext has become text this week you know essentially um but uh i this was a stunning i thought interaction between carol um and zosha what did you make of it i i completely agree and i think specifically the juxtaposition of these two camps right of this like smiling group of people who supposedly are well-meaning and have your best interests at heart and are fundamentally trying to fix you.

40:06I think that's part of the thing with Carol too, is not just like we want to bring you into our mold. It's as Zosia mentioned last week, like you are drowning, right? Like you are drowning in your own life and we have the solution. We have all the answers. If you simply give everything you are over to us and never be a person ever again. Yeah. Where would someone like Carol have heard that before? Where would she have heard the idea that she is someone who needs to be fixed? Such a damning thing for certainly a teenager to hear, but also not a surprise that someone like Carol would carry it with her in every interaction that she would have for the rest of her life.

40:39Joanna Robinson:And I think that like, you know, I was, I was wondering about this. Like there's there, we got a lot of emails of people wondering, like, why doesn't Carol have like any family outside of Helen? And she might, but she might be like completely no contact with them because they did this to her, right? And then also, I was so curious why in, you know, 2024, 2025, whenever this takes place, someone would be, maybe this is just a privileged bubble of mine, but like why someone would be, someone who's in the arts would be in the bubble and in the closet that way. Like that's, I was just sort of like, I know people are still in the closet, obviously, but it's just sort of like, what is stopping Carol who is like, you know, beloved in this space and like, this is part of it.

41:26Joanna Robinson:There are many other reasons. And I, and I, you know, So looking the donut of gmail.com if you thought that was like the worst thing for me to say. But this particular trauma being something that would just make her so hesitant to let anyone know her truth, let her wider community know her truth, I think is, you know, very important piece of information for us to have. Well, let me ask you this. I don't know if you have any more information on this front than I do. But I wonder if there's something to the idea of being a romance or a romantic author in that. I would say a line of work that lends itself more to pseudonyms and more to working names than almost any other line of fiction, certainly.

42:05There is a level of remove that I think a lot of romance and romanticity authors want to have for various reasons. I wonder if there's like a – would your audience read your hetero relationship with a space pirate in your book the same way if they knew the inner workings of your actual personal life? I don't know how protective people are of those things in that space.

42:23Joanna Robinson:Yeah, I mean, my experience in the sort of like sci-fi fantasy genre space is that it is like so queer friendly. At the same point, same time, romanticity specifically right now also has a large like conservative following, you know what I mean? And so like, I remember this specifically from, sorry, excuse me, book talk when like, in our most recent presidential election, there was this huge schism on the book side of TikTok where there were people were sort of like, why would we ever bring politics into talking about books? And then other people were like, books are politics, you know? Excuse me, have you read a book?

43:04Joanna Robinson:So like, I remember this sort of like, can't we just talk about our fairy smut without bringing politics into it? And I think maybe some of those people would want not want to know that Carol is gay. I think that is possible. But I got bad news, though. The fairies are getting deported. You know, if we literalize the metaphors, bad news for all of your favorite fairies. It's true. Bad news for all of your favorite fairies. My favorite pull coat from this podcast. All right. So Carol goes into the pharmacy. I loved it. I mean, the whole heroin sequence is just like extremely funny. I don't know why she knows to look for the thiopental sodium.

43:43Joanna Robinson:Perhaps because she has studied many a fictional elixir for her book. It's true. So she knows some things about how elixirs work. Once you get into the inner workings of the spice trade, Joe, you learn a lot about recreational and medicinal drugs. But okay. Okay, so here's the specifics that we learn about thiopentyl sodium. It doesn't say underneath the truth serum. So that's not like what it's called. But induction agent for anesthesia. Okay. Emergency management of seizures. Is this Chekhov seizure, anti-seizure medication? Like does having a syringe of thiopentyl sodium, could that save another millions of people dying if she like upsets Zosia again?

44:25Joanna Robinson:Do you know what I mean? But how are you going to distribute it to all the millions of people? Well, isn't stopping Zosia's seizure stopping everyone's seizure? That's a great question. See, this is another case for Carol the scientist we need her to really dig into. We need her to yell at Zosia again, risking the fate of who knows how many people. Inject her again and see what happens. This wasn't traumatic at all for her, so I'm sure she'll be right back on the case. Everyone did great. Everyone was fine. um anything you want to say about the pharmacy or about the the dosage footage that we get i was a little i don't know i was a little underwhelmed by the dosage footage okay tell me you know like obviously we do get these sort of character moments and some great lines and i thought like you know carol reading from her own book in a bad british accent like there's there's great stuff in there yeah i think i was just like waiting for more of a reveal of something from from any part of this, I guess, from Carol's dosing herself or eventually dosing Zosha.

45:22It's like, it's a lot of process and there's no payoff for it yet. And I'm open to the idea that maybe that payoff comes in episode seven or whatever. But for now, it's just kind of like, okay, there's this truth serum and it's been administered to two different people. And the most telling information we've got is that Carol thinks Zosha is fuckable, which we already knew.

45:41Joanna Robinson:I don't know that everyone already knew, but like, yes. On the official podcast, Ray Sehorne talked about filming that sequence and how she had to like film all of it because they were just like scrubbing through like they scrubbed through it but like she had to film all of that like together and one thing that they cut like one of the things that she did that they just decided to zoom through was her singing melissa etheridge and i'm like release the etheridge cut please i beg of you i think listen i'm not that bad was really a really good moment i mean like why they have to make her so fuckable is of course and then carol's reaction to seeing herself say that it's almost like revelatory to like carol can't hide from her intrusive thoughts when she has taped them for herself but um but yeah i just thought it's very funny but i think i think you make a good point because then we get this like we're back at the hospital again and we get this whole sort of like after the music in the elevator uh sequence outside i would say that song has been stuck in my head non-stop well it's it's the uh christopher it's not the christopher cross version i don't think but it's that like best that you can do a song from Arthur.

46:44And I'm like, it's just rolling up here. I don't know what it is about that bit of elevator music, but it really got me.

46:50Joanna Robinson:Are you a fan of elevator music in general? Hold music? Apparently. I didn't know this about myself, but revelations abound for me and Carol both. I love this. I think, do you like your cop car, as you say, as a phantilizing shirt? How was the heroin? It's good. It was really funny. Really good. But also, I will say, I think what we learned from the pharmacy interaction, like the fact that Carol did heroin sophomore year. It was crazy. But then he's like, it's been a while since you injected your, like, I don't know. Like, what is Carol's? We are, we've already talked about her substance abuse and sort of like her drinking and stuff like that.

47:31Joanna Robinson:So like, what is her history with drugs? Like, what is, you know, and again, we're keep, we keep getting these like hints of the darkness in her, in her past. you know like sophomore year is tough so i did some heroin is like not something i would say i don't know um no but what were you up to sophomore year joe not doing heroin um one would hope i was working or at least not injecting theater that's what i was doing sophomore year i mean that's the heroin of the soul you know that's that's what got you hooked to be in this line of work now you've been an addict for a long time it's true it's true it was the butter and the popcorn machine that did it, I think.

48:08Now you're going to see fucking Tron Aries and just like, you know, living it up.

48:12Joanna Robinson:Rob, you need to give the people all the information about me going to see Tron Aries this week, which is that I went with some friends. We found a deserted theater. We heckled Tron Aries and it was a great time. And you told me you thought that that was a great idea. I do think it's a great idea, but I am a fellow movie sicko, as are you. I also have a bit of breaking news for you, which is they were all deserted theaters. You could have gone to any of them for Tron Aries. Actually, that's a lie. There were four people in our theater. I hope they were having a great time. But they were having a really, they were also talking through it.

48:41Joanna Robinson:So the point is, we were not disturbing anyone. And our point was to like, I went with the same person I saw Morbius with, and we also heckled Morbius in a deserted theater. So I just think that like, this is how you should consume a Jared Leto film. That's my personal opinion. There's no doubt. We did talk, Joe, we talked a lot about the hive mind as potential AI. And I think this heroin bit, which is really just kind of cover for her to get the needles, which is, I think, pretty clever on Carol's part. It reminded me, we didn't talk enough about ultimately the hive mind here as like dark web concierge.

49:14Joanna Robinson:The heroin's eight miles away. There is a version, you know, there's a group of emailers who are telling us about they want to race cars, they want to play golf courses. There is a, you know, an unheard majority out there who have some really deep dark shit they want to do. But I'm not inviting it. I'm just saying there is a brand of stuff that's out there and possibilities in this universe that people don't even want to touch in polite company. I suggest you email lickingthedownut, D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T. With all of your dark web fantasies. With your dark web fantasies. I'm sure that person will love to have those in addition to all the other pluribus emails they've been getting.

49:54Before we go out of the hospital, though, I want to ask you about one thing. This like final sequence we get with Zosia and Carol in the hospital room where Zosia is telling her like, we have been you, but you haven't been us. And like, we know what it's like to be truly alone and to suffer. I mean, this, this sequence like really caught me. I think first, first of all, in a sort of like weaponized empathy kind of way. And also made me wonder, like, is that something that the hive mind is even capable of? Like this group's emotional intelligence has been so spare to this point. Like there's a lot they miss in context in terms of the actual humanity behind the words and expressions people have.

50:37For one, like could a hive mind even practice the kind of understanding that it claims to hold over what it means to be alone? Is that something that they could even comprehend?

50:47Joanna Robinson:I would argue no. And I would, you know, it's the same, I think that's the very same question we're asking about, like, can they create art? There is just something, like, deeply human that the flattening of, you know, their experience cannot, they don't have access to that. But will, can they get there? Will Zoja, like, what happens here at the end of this episode is extremely traumatic for Zoja, obviously. Yes. and and for the people i mean it's a very scary sequence um carol screaming like backup i have agency but like not feeling confident that that like this is a risk she's taking right yeah exactly um something on a something that they said on the official pot so the person who comes through with the sort of machine to help um zoja at the very end of the episode um her name is rosa estrada And this is the woman who, with that self-same machine, saved Bob Odenkirk's life on the set of Better Call Saul.

51:50Joanna Robinson:If folks don't know, Bob Odenkirk had a very serious heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul. Ray Sehorne was there. And this woman, Rosa Estrada, and I think one of the ADs or something like that, did chest compressions and worked on Bob and brought him back. But it was very touch and go in that moment. So they wanted to like bring this woman in to like give her this moment. But they were also talking about how they want to be very sensitive to Ray in filming this sequence. And also when she was doing chest compressions on Helen, that like this is something that this person, a very traumatic thing that this person went through with a beloved co-star, Bob Odenkirk.

52:29Joanna Robinson:uh and uh so i thought that was really i thought racy horn's performances are always really good but like her terror and guilt and all the things that she's feeling and frustration of not even getting the answer going through all of that and not even getting the answer but coming close seemingly coming close um i thought was like really upsetting i i take your point that like Like we did all this and we didn't get the information. Which is fine. Like from a plot perspective, just from the condensing of an individual episode. That makes sense. Was this an episode of TV or was this part of a larger project?

53:07It felt like more like part of a larger project.

53:09Joanna Robinson:I thought it was really stunning. They talked about how everyone in the crowd is crying and they had to use like vitamin E oil on their faces or whatever, because it was like crying at a rate that like you couldn't sustain as a human. But, and then like, they're not smiling. So like to have this crowd just like standing around her not smiling. Very scary. Very scary. So. And again, like listen, listening to her directives, right? When Carol wants them to step back, they step back. When she wants them to let go, they let go. But also sort of the like wall of sound as they're kind of chanting to her, which is not as you alluded to.

53:44Yeah. Yeah. The please Carol. And you talked about this in an earlier episode, Joe, where it's like it can't be fully in unison because there's kind of a weird uncanny balance to all that. And so it ends up as it's just like overwhelming wave of sound and emotion and moment. And Racy Horn delivers as she always delivers.

54:00Joanna Robinson:Anything else you want to say about this sequence or the episode? Here's what I will say. We didn't spend as much time as I probably should have talking about Jeff Hiller's performance in this episode. But last week we had talked about like all the celebrity camos we would like to see. And like we got some good suggestions. And I do think it's a really fun idea. But like thinking about Robert Bailey Jr. who showed up as the DHL delivery guy last week and Jeff Hiller showing up here, like maybe I would actually prefer this. Let's find these like people who are, you know, Jeff didn't have his Emmy when they cast him in this.

54:32Joanna Robinson:And I think before he won his Emmy, fewer people knew who he was and people still might not know. And they should who Jeff Hiller is. but like these people who have been around and doing great work and let's just like let them show up and do like a gangbuster scene in an episode of pluribus you know what i mean completely i think like the track record is there too for gilligan in terms of you've seen what he can do with like michael mckean you know it's like an actor of a certain repute and like success and it's like if you just want to come play for a little while like we'll give you really fun and interesting stuff to do we'll put you at this table opposite ray sehorn and you get to be kind of disarming and charming and also incredibly eerie and creepy at the same time.

55:13It's like there's a lot for, I think, character actors specifically to work with on a show like this that could be really fun for a lot of people.

55:20Joanna Robinson:And how excited we'll be if Larry, Jeff Hiller, comes back and sees it. And we're like, oh, Larry's here again. He doesn't have to become a main character, but it'll be fun to see these people again. They did talk on the official pod about this idea that Larry's been in that bike uniform since the joining hasn't changed it. I don't know if that would smell great. Do the unlicked shower? That's a great question. They said - I'm sorry, do the hive mind shower. I hope the unlicked shower. Carol sometimes doesn't. Sometimes she doesn't. This idea that they have no vanity, right? So they don't care what they look like.

56:04Joanna Robinson:unless they're trying to like appeal directly to Carol, I guess. But I have a question. Like, again, I'm just curious if they're all going to eventually wind up in like matching jumpsuits or something like that. I don't know. So we'll see how the hive mind continues to hive. Anything else you want to talk about? I will say if that's what ultimately happens, it might be appealing to Carol, who has been a leisure wear icon to this point. I was having a conversation with our guy, Kai Grady, at the office, who pointed out her, to this point, several full body matching like sweatsuits that she has in incredible colors.

56:35And it's like, maybe if you just give Carol a nice pair of sweats, she would be down for all this. They just don't know the weight of her heart ultimately.

56:42Joanna Robinson:That what should be under the cloche is some nice leisure wear. I love that. Absolutely. That's a great, that's a classic Kai Grady observation. Thank you to everyone for listening to this podcast. Lickingthedonetatgmail.com. Please keep your emails coming. I know I keep saying there's a lot of them, but I do love reading them so please keep sending them um thank you to donnie beecham for his continued heroic friday morning turnaround on these pods always like really really good and to justin sales of course for his work on the feed thank you to rob mahoney thank you joe no thanks i guess to pigeons uh rob still is uh considers you his enemy and get lost they're literal vermin uh we'll see you next week.

57:20Joanna Robinson:Bye.

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