‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ Creator Explains Everything You Want to Know About Her Netflix Hit. Plus, ‘The Pitt’ S2E13 and Prime-Time TV Grids With Joanna Robinson.

21:42Right. And now it's like, we've reopened that like an hour later and that one, it didn't feel sloppy per se, but I was like, I don't really understand. I thought we kind of handled this last week.

21:51Joanna Robinson:Maybe it was that Santos like couldn't say it and he, you know, he's her main safe space in this place. And if he's just sort of like, even if you can't say it, I'm just going to do it. And I'm going to be here for you. And I liked their little sort of like non-look looks and stuff like that. And what I love about, you know, to your point earlier about people getting overly emotionally invested in this show and maybe watching it in a different way than the creators mean, the constant shipping of various characters that is happening in the fandom is fun in some regards. But then you constantly have the actors coming out and saying like, actually, for Frank Langdon and Mel King.

22:24Joanna Robinson:This is like a mentor mentee. We believe in platonic. Santos is a lesbian. So like for Santos and Whitaker, like those kinds of relationships, they give each other these sort of like shy looks, but it's about their friendship, them being roommates. And I did really like that. The one that really I thought was sloppy writing in this episode was when the new intern on the night shift, Nazalee, when she was like, there's a new guy in that bed that wasn't there before. I was just like, okay. Just shave and a haircut. It's not Darkman. He just got a haircut. He got a haircut. It's okay. I liked her though.

23:01Yeah, I liked her a lot. She was cool. Yeah, the night shift appearance, you know, the idea of these people being, their shift is done and we're probably not going to get a cold beer in the park to end the season. And it's actually probably going to end in maybe a grimy way where, you know, whether it's like Robbie basically like storming out and we don't know when he's coming back or you know maybe one of the things I've dug is that for as effective as the Hawaiian prayer for instance of last season was um people have tried to make their cases you know they've tried to make their big speeches and like I don't know that like Duke is going to be able to convince Robbie that like he's going to be okay he's going to go for treatment and it or or that Robbie is going to be able to convince Duke or that obviously with Mohan, like it's not going to end in a place where Mohan is like, I've realized that emergency medicine is my passion.

23:55You know, she probably is going to be like, I got a weird phone call from my mom and I do have to go to New Jersey or something.

23:59Joanna Robinson:Or like, I am going to try geriatrics or something like that. I mean, that's really interesting because again, that's more like real life because we're watching Mohan as a character. I really like Supriya as an actress and I really love that character. And I'm trained as a television watcher to be like, okay, she's struggling and then she's going to figure it out or someone's going to say something to her. You know, so many people, Mel to Langdon inside of this episode, Whitaker to Ogilvy, so many people have given grace to someone who's struggling today. Yeah. And Samira's not getting it. And sometimes that's just true.

24:32You know, sometimes you don't get

24:35Joanna Robinson:the advice you need or the support you need to make it. And sometimes you don't. Or how could you if you were at the end of a shift like that? Exactly. So, you know, as much as I want, because I'm rooting for Samira, for her to figure it out, maybe she will be happier somewhere else. Yeah, and also if there's a natural kind of like you cycle out of this job unless you decide that this is your passion and this is what you want to do all the time, like that's going to have to be something that us as watchers and fans of the show accept. Right. To the extent to which, so you bring up Landon and I would put him in my maybe not coming back zone.

25:13I think that Mel does a good job of cheering him up a little. But I don't think he's going to get closure with Robbie. And I don't think he's going to get closure with Santos.

25:23Joanna Robinson:There's a couple hours left of the shift, so who knows what's going to happen. But yeah, it's possible. And it's also from the sort of meta-watching-these-actors kind of way. I could see Patrick Ball, who loves to do theater and stuff like that, being kind of busy and interested in doing something else. Doing Hamlet at the Geffen or whatever, yeah. I know. Did you hear about that production of Hamlet? Someone described it to me. Apparently they were like, and then we do this major twist, and it's something else. And I was like, or you could just do Hamlet, I promise. But he's in a show on Broadway right now.

25:51Joanna Robinson:You know, so there's, you know, or Issa Brionis, like there's a lot of these actors. The Pit, like old school television, is a huge time commitment. A huge platform, but a huge time commitment too. And so, you know, how many of them are going to Clooney out of here? Yeah. You know, and how many of them are going to stick around? And doing the Clooney is a lot more accepted now. Right. Right? And it's like people do do multiple shows. This is sort of like a reality of the way that Hollywood has changed the way they make television. Right. Is that in the same way that writers are having a hard time, like, scraping together, like, okay, I did two episodes of this show and then I did an episode of this show and I'm trying to pitch my show.

26:27Like, these actors, like, yeah, the pit's like a really steady paycheck, but I bet that they are like, I need to also have, like, a stable other thing going, too. Right. You know?

26:37Joanna Robinson:Yeah. You don't want to do the full, like, sort of reggae-jean page, like, I don't need you, Bridgerton, and then, love in Tuscany or whatever that's called. Yeah. So did you see that he and Nicola Coughlin were sort of in the first episode of SNL UK? And everyone's like, are you coming back? He's like, are you coming back to Bridgerton? And there's this sort of like look on his face like, I made a huge mistake in my Bridgerton moves. But, you know. He was really good in Black Bag. He was really good in Black Bag. And the D &D movie, actually. I thought he was good in that too. Who else did I want to talk to you about on this episode?

27:09We talked a little bit about Al Shimi, but that like Robbie being like, I have identified this from across the room that she paused during her era John speech. I thought it was eagle eyed, but that'll be a good test of what we're talking about. It was like Robbie might be right, but he might not be nice, you know? And I think they have obviously laid some foundation for Alashimi to be like, here's what happened to me in my life. Like why I might, this might be happening to me. So whether it's a neurological problem, like it's sort of been suggested because she's calling her doctor's office at one point, or whether it's PTSD, I don't know.

27:48But yeah, there's a lot actually now that I think about it that they're going to have to address unless they want to drive people nuts for the nine months that it's not on.

27:56Joanna Robinson:Right. You need a Dr. Halashimi sort of diagnosis or information or something like that. something for Langdon, you know. I think we need another Langdon and Robbie scene, whether or not that is like a closure scene or something else. I doubt it. Robbie does not seem like he's in a place to give grace, any kind of grace to Langdon at all. Yeah, I mean, I saw, this is like, people may or may not want to know this because in some ways it's indicative of what might happen. But I heard a Noah Wiley interview where he was like going through like the themes of the seasons. Yeah. I can't remember how he actually like described it, but it was like um doctors make bad patients doctors and he's like doc and he's like doctor but the third season is about doctors healing and doctors making good patients making good patients or whatever and that might suggest a much different kind of season i was thinking yeah therapy are we doing in treatment you know everyone goes up to see the therapist over the course of the shift or something like yeah they've been pretty it's it's really interesting they gave themselves a lot of rules and obviously like they've built this set in burbank where they have this full 360 right you can be in the ed and like there are times where they're like it feels like we are actually doing it but they with the exception of a remarkably bright outside pittsburgh for 7 p.m uh rarely go outside the walls only to the ambulance bay or to the internment room where louis was kept for a while the part that so like there's they went to the park and the roof there's Robbie's motorcycle ride in where you get a little bit.

29:30Joanna Robinson:There's Mel last season picked up her sister. I think that's as far as we've gone. Okay. Then there's the roof and then Whitaker's room. But like we never got to go to admin to hear about the cyber attack or whatever. Right. Or we're not following like Howard, a patient we really invested in. We don't go up to surgery with him and stuff like that. So will we go in a meaningful way to another floor in this hospital? Should we fantasy cast Robbie's therapist? It shouldn't be his pal who's like, hey man, get some therapy. Should it be Eric LaSalle? Yes, actually. Yes. Where are you on the season versus season one?

30:02There were more memorable, like, enshrine that in some sort of TV Hall of Fame moment. Like, wing in the first season. But the second season, in a way, is better. Like, the second season to me is, like, riskier, braver, like, more interesting and is a drama. Whereas the first season had moments where I was like, I forgot to breathe for five minutes. that hasn't happened as much this season like I think my relationship to some of the cases and patients have been like they haven't lost that many people like on screen like a lot of it has been like Ogilvy's patient got like they lost him upstairs but there hasn't been the like guard of honor for dead child stuff

30:45Joanna Robinson:a little girl drowned or a young man is brain dead Roxy happened off screen so like there's a lot of it has been I think a little bit more Louis. Oh yeah, Louis. That's right. And that was really beautiful. But I think that so much of it has been about the Doctors and their internal crises. Yeah. It's interesting because when something explodes out of its first season, the way that the Pit did, I'm always so nervous about the second season because how much of it is novelty, how much of it is just sort of like, oh, they're doing a full shift or, oh my God, procedural television is back in a prestige kind of way or Noah Wiley, we missed you.

31:22Joanna Robinson:Or if the case may be, I think a lot, there's a lot of great examples of that. Empire is the first one that always comes to mind where people were just obsessed with the first season of Empire. And then it just sort of, the second season comes back and that momentum of the newness isn't there. And so I think the pit did something really smart in what you're saying, which is just sort of, hey, come spend time with these characters you're invested in. Not we're going to shock and awe you, but you know, yes, there's cyber attacks. Yes, Emma's in a headlock. Like we do have these moments, but like it's about you hanging out with people who over the course of a day are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

31:54Yeah. And I mean, like, even the big moments from the season, like Jesse being arrested by ICE, it just seems like Jesse is going to be in prison for the weekend. So I doubt, I don't think we're going to get, like, Robbie riding his motorcycle with a helmet to the courthouse to save Jesse. Hashtag free Jesse. Hashtag wear a helmet. Let's talk a little bit about what else is on. The easiest way to do it is kind of like this primetime grid. But before we do, because I have this interview with Haley, And I don't know if something very bad is going to happen is on your primetime grid. But I wanted to just see if you had gotten a chance to check it out and what you thought.

32:31Joanna Robinson:I did because of you. Thanks for Ryan. What an influencer you are. No, I had heard like some negative things about it. And then you were like, I'm really digging it. And you said it, you doubled down on that. And so I checked it out. I really loved the, I watched the whole thing. I really, really loved the first couple episodes. I think the cast is incredible. The leading actress who I thought was one of the best parts of Daisy Jones and the Six, which I thought was like a mixed bag, but I thought she was a real standout. I think she's like Sarah Pigeon in Love Story level of just really watchable.

33:04Joanna Robinson:Just I want to see everything that she does. I think she's really like, this is just a huge, I think, hopefully boost up for this actress who I think is incredible. But I think all of the performances are really great. And, you know, this is an interesting experiment for like this sort of like produced by Duffer Brothers era of Netflix. Right. Stranger Things is over, but they have all of these other projects that they've touched. And this is one of them. Right. And so and it's a hit, which is not always the case of these big Netflix. Yes. Yeah. I mean, they have the Burroughs coming next, which is their kind of their EP, which is like a kind of like it sounds like cocoon.

33:41Joanna Robinson:Right. It's like at a senior home or not assisted living, but like a senior citizen. like elder care place and it sounds like there's aliens or something happening but it's got like a fucking crazy cat like Alfre Woodard is in that. Yeah. There's the animated Stranger Things. That's right. Yeah. Do you, are you like I need a little bit more Stranger Things? I'm pretty good but I'll watch it. Pretty good. I'm obsessed with how they styled this character who carries the show as like a Liv Tyler and Empire Records like in the craft like 90s sort of thing. I think she's styled on Hayley. It just feels very reflective of her personal style.

34:23I mean, just great stuff.

34:24Joanna Robinson:I'm a huge fan. Here's the thing I would say for anybody listening. Your mileage may vary on horror and your mileage may vary on if you want to be in that headspace for that long. I found it the second half of the season is actually quite funny and I wouldn't say daffy in places, but it's a different vibe than the first few episodes. It's different. And like, I've been kind of waiting for something to come along this season. I was going to ask you like, if you had had any like leaders for like, this is my favorite thing so far of the year. But like, what this did was like, I had seen a fair amount of stuff that even if it was good or fine, I was like, okay, I feel like it's still like throwing the same pitch that I've been watching for a while.

35:12And this felt very different.

35:14Joanna Robinson:I think for, you know, this primetime grade assignment that you set me, I was checking out some things that I was a little behind on and stuff like that. And it did all feel very like samey, especially since, you know, there's like this massive Bill Lawrence spread across, you know, you've got, you know, the Taylor Sheridan. You know, there's just like a lot of things that feel like they're the same show reiterated by one creator. Yeah. So I think in that way, this like fresh new voice, I'm excited to check out that interview is really exciting. And then I think for me, my leader would be a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

35:45Joanna Robinson:That's very much, you know, my shit in general. But I do think it was like Thrones, but a different tone, you know. 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. ZetBound should be used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity. ZetBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

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39:11Joanna Robinson:Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. So I would give it that. Yeah. All right, let's do our grids. Okay. So I usually style this in a traditional fashion, but you can take the assignment anywhere you want. Now, here's the funny thing about the way we used to do TV is I realized that like in my normal everyday watching, I do the reverse of this. So it used to be that they would lead with the comedies from 8 until 10. 10, yeah. And then they would do a drama at 10 and then you would go to bed or you'd watch late night. Right. I watch the hard stuff first now and then try to do a come down from that sitcom or comedy show after.

39:54Joanna Robinson:Okay. but I'm doing the grid as if it was like Thursday night. I don't think I intentionally stack shows that way. That's interesting. Oh, so you don't ever like, you're not like that was a lot, like you don't watch an episode of Industry and you're like, if I'm going to watch something else, it can't be like an hour long intense drama. No, mostly, I don't know, just mostly because we're doing it for work. It feels a little different, but I think that, I'm thinking about the way that even HBO Sunday Night used to be two comedies into a drama sort of thing. Um, no, I don't think I do like, I shouldn't do that for my mental health.

40:29Joanna Robinson:I should do decompression television. What a great idea. There is sometimes like I can't, my wife and I watch horror a lot, like on Friday or Saturdays. And it's just like really weird dreams. Like when you watch, like, you know. I had really weird. I watched a lot of Something Very Bad is Gonna Happen yesterday. And I had some weird dreams last night. Very weird. Okay. Walk me through your grid. Okay. so I get two comedies two dramas or right it's however you want to do it like I have I tried to do this of shows that I we either haven't really talked about or haven't talked about in a while yeah but it can be whatever you want as long as it's the the sort of 8 to 10 or 8 to 11 and then the bonus is like are you watching any like late night variety whatever or whatever you're watching on YouTube yeah right or 90 minutes of Survivor that drove me crazy last night.

41:24Joanna Robinson:I mean, Survivor is absolutely rotting my brain right now. Also, fucking shout out Trump being like, I'm preempting Survivor to just read my truth social posts and not actually do anything. You'd love to shout out Trump on this podcast. Fucking shout out, brother. Shout out Trump. Thanks for that. So I'll start with the comedy and I'll say The Comeback. Who I have not checked out yet. Season three of this show that has been, you know, sort of come and gone a couple times. And it's, I think, three episodes into the season, maybe two or three episodes into the season. And this has never been my favorite, favorite, you know, HBO show or Lisa Kudrow vehicle or anything like that.

42:06Joanna Robinson:So I don't have a long-term investment in it. But what they're doing with this season, and there's a lot of shows right now that are very, like, Hollywood-looking inward. That's what the comeback has always been, but there's a lot of shows like that right now. but how it's engaging with basically you know the the SAG after WGA strike COVID which all seems like very ancient history but like there it's a very piercingly funny show and I think in contrast to sort of the Bill Lawrence spread which you're getting with like shrinking scrubs and rooster all being on at the same time which is very like kind gentle comedy something more incisive and cutting like the comeback is really welcome.

42:49Joanna Robinson:Okay. I was reticent to jump in because I was like kind of neither here nor there about its earlier iterations, but I'll definitely check it out. Yeah, I don't think you need to be at all. And I think that the strike and the COVID of it all is the very beginning. But what happens because of, you know, the state of the industry that we find this character, Valley Cherry in, is she gets talked into doing a sitcom that's written by AI. So Andrew Scott is here this season as like a horrible exec. Abby Jacobson and John Early, who are her like comedian stalwarts, are here as the head writers of a show that's being written by AI.

43:25Joanna Robinson:And it's just like a great premise. Like it's really good. They're all keeping it secret that it's written by AI, but like, you know, there's all these jokes about it. It's very good. So that would be my first comedy. Do you want to like ping pong? Sure, we can ping pong. My first one is one that Andy and I discussed a little bit about him, maybe actually a while ago because it had debuted on Peacock and then did the like, and seven weeks from now, we'll start airing this now, but it's The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is the Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe vehicle from Robert Carlock and the Tina Fey industrial complex.

44:00Yes. And is incredible 30 Rock Methadone for people who are still looking for can you fit nine jokes onto a page. Yeah. Triple like visual sight gags in this frame. I see with great excitement that the Daniel Radcliffe Megan Thee Stallion relationship on this show has started to take flight on the internet and listener this is really special stuff

44:27Joanna Robinson:his like obsession with her yeah and her like relating to him being like okay talk to you later is like amazing they have a tryst in the back of a mail van I believe and he becomes smitten but yeah this show in case you don't know is about a disgraced ex-athlete Tracy Morgan's Reggie Dinkins character who was trying to make a comeback after being kicked out of the NFL for gambling and Daniel Radcliffe's character is a failed documentarian who is making his comeback as well trying to make a doc about Reggie Dinkins' life and the cast is stacked everybody is hilarious there are some episodes better than others but it is really really really good like like solid sitcom making i think it's offering you something you already know you love which is tracy morgan just doing the only character tracy morgan with a head head statue of himself yeah um and then dan radcliffe like if you didn't see uh you know his tbs sitcom like this is this is the this is what dan radcliffe in addition to winning tonys for musicals and whatever.

45:36Joanna Robinson:This is what he loves doing and he's very good at it. So like, you know, there's something familiar and then if you aren't, I love Dan Radcliffe in this mode. Like, and I think he's a great fit for this universe and I love that this is a project. I love all of his choices that he's made in the last couple of years. What's your second show? My second show, even though I just talked shit on the Bill Lawrence spread, is I will say, I don't mind Rooster. Like, it is the exact same show that he's making. I saw Bill Lawrence making fun of himself about this because someone tweeted out sort of like, Bill Lawrence just makes the same show over and over again.

46:06Joanna Robinson:And then he quote tweeted with like, no, Bad Monkey was totally different. This is the problem. You can't really say anything about Bill Lawrence shows because he'll quote tweet it. Talk about that familiarity. Like I was thinking about the fact that we have like Noah Wiley, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Carell, Tracy Morgan, you know, like all the, you know, Ted McGinley, Kristen Miller, like they're all back here on our televisions. But like Steve Carell back as a lead of a sitcom is far preferable to Steve Carell on the morning show or anything else that he has wanted to do recently. Or Steve Carell, wrestling coach.

46:39Joanna Robinson:I'm a big fan of it. Wow. We'd love to come back to Foxcatcher. Danielle Deadweiler is kind of wasted here, I think. But Phil Dunster, who was like my favorite part of Ted Lasso, is like a great pompous character who we have Robbie Hoffman, who was such a great breakout on the last season of Hacks and is a comedian I really like. is just here to make fun of his character. That's a delicious dynamic. Okay, I'm going to dip back into this. Honestly, I think my lasting takeaway was I need more for Daniel Deadweiler. After the first episode, just bring me the X-Files immediately. Exactly. Oh my god, I'm so excited.

47:17But yeah, I don't think I am a Bill Lawrence sitcom guy. I don't know if Bad Monkey 2 will work better for me, But like for some reason, I just need a little bit more of an edge, I think, in my stuff.

47:33Joanna Robinson:Bad Monkey was like a really great half season. And then it just kept going and just sort of got lost, I think. But yeah, I agree. I'm a little frustrated with how prevalent the Bill Lawrence effect has been in the last couple years. But I think Rooster is something I could hang with a bit. um okay so my second uh my second comedy kind of thing is uh something that i didn't really think was a real show until i made sure to check it out and that's last one laughing yeah oh no that's my late night one oh okay but like let's talk about it okay so uh i saw the premise for this show that jimmy carr was hosting what is essentially big brother for some of the funniest people in comedy in England.

48:17Joanna Robinson:Yes. That they're trapped, essentially, in a room together and they are all trying to make each other laugh and, you know, if you laugh, you're out or whatever. I was like, yeah, like, I could watch that for, like, five minutes, but, like, I think this is incredible. Yeah. I think this is unbelievable because it's never just people trying to tell, like, a crazy joke that will get a laugh. It is full-on, like, characters and bits and long stories and performance pieces by these. You'll definitely recognize some of the people when you watch it, but it's on Amazon and it is so delightful to check this out.

48:54So my favorite person on this, David Mitchell is incredible on it. Bob Mortimer is really, really funny. Bob Mortimer is an icon. But Diane Morgan is so funny on this show. There's a couple, I don't want to ruin any of the gags, but you're also a fan of this.

49:09Joanna Robinson:Yeah. So this is the second season of the, so my understanding is that it's, it's sort of an international hit. They've done versions of this around the world and UK finally like hopped on. I'll be curious to see if there's an American version that we wind up doing. But I had watched the first season. So this is the second season. Bob Warnerberg, spoilers, Bob Warnerberg won the first season. So they brought him back for season two. And yeah, and these are my faves. Like I love British comedy. I watch, as I've talked to you about before, I watch British panel shows all the time. So this is such an interesting experiment because it's quite cringy.

49:44Joanna Robinson:to watch these, like, comedy assassins who are the peak of their game and are so, you know, Alan Carr is here, like, all, you know, Ramesh Ramanathan's here. Like, they're all here and they're doing their best and nobody's laughing except for, like, Jimmy Carr in another room. And so you're, like, kind of dying inside while you're watching it. But you're right that in that sort of Big Brother reality show kind of way, once you sort of settle into the social experiment of it, it's really absorbing. The funniest thing on the show by far is the faces people make in an effort not to laugh. Oh, yes.

50:20Like what they have to do.

50:21Joanna Robinson:Mel Gedroy, which is like basically like they're they they look like they're all having heart attacks. Like it's unbelievable. But honestly, like these episodes are like 30 minutes. Oh, yeah. Easy breezy. It's six episodes a season. I could definitely see it. This actually being a better like late night hit. But what's your what's your next one? So this would be 9 p.m. 9 p.m. I think I'll do something very bad is going to happen. Like, I think I would put that on my grid. I think if you watch the comeback in Rooster and then you get like weird, creepy horror drama with Jennifer Jason Leigh, like, I think that's a that's a good mix.

50:56Joanna Robinson:Maybe the opposite is true, given your prescription of watch a drama and then come down with the comedy. But I think I couldn't think of another. I'm not watching. I mean if we're not going to do the pit which we yeah the pit would be a really logical you know really easy um i'm not down with dtf on hbo so i don't think there's a lot of great options in the drama in the hour-long drama space right now what did you dig up it's not really a drama it's not really comedy okay and i don't even know if it's that good okay but kiki palmer's really good on the burgers oh okay i haven't watched it but like i do go to the grove sometimes and if you've gone to the grove in the last couple months it's just sort of like it's really burped out it's all it's burped up it's on peacock yeah uh i think the whole season's up and i'll be completely honest with you about how this is working out this is the show that like i put on like as i'm falling asleep yeah i thought i was on episode seven it turns out i'm on episode two It feels a little longer than it needs to.

51:58It is that kind of very last three, four years phenomenon of a basically murder mystery with comedy. Like there's definitely like they're trying to do only murders. They're trying to do like a lot of like twists, a lot of red herrings. Jack Whitehall plays Kiki Palmer's newlywed and also new parents. And they've moved back to his hometown. and then they are interacting with all like the neighbors the two neighbors who are like unreally like they're just so good on this is paul appell and um mark prosh from uh from what we do in the shadows and he's riding a recumbent bike and i guess much like dtf but like they are trying to solve like multiple mysteries justin kirk is in it that's i was gonna ask how how my

52:51Joanna Robinson:guy Justin Kirk was. So far. Unrecognizable. I thought it was episode six. Yeah. Just in the three episodes, we mostly see him as the creepy neighbor that nobody understands across the street. He's rattling it up. Our guy, Justin Kirk. Kiki Palmer is like one of the best comic actresses that we have right now. No argument. And this is about as close to like, let's give her like a classic Diane Keaton role and let her just interact with all these people and do her thing, but also be very, very funny. And it's like a little like normie, but it is really, really like, she is worth watching at least once.

53:26Joanna Robinson:Is it connected to the film, The Burbs? It is based on characters created by the person who wrote The Burbs. Okay. I did not re-watch The Burbs. Okay. It feels like it's like our suburban nightmare is like the premise, but maybe there will be more of a connection to... So this is like a few blocks over in the same neighborhood. Sure, yeah. Here's what's happening. I think it's just like IP they had lying around. I was like, what if we turn this into a comic mystery? What if we picked up the Burbs IP? Something everyone's been clamoring for. Sounds great. Okay, what's your drama at TED? Oh, well, that's where I put something very bad is going to happen.

54:01Joanna Robinson:So since you took Last One Laughing UK, which I love for both of us, I'll do SNL UK. There you go. You know, two episodes in, I think, right? Tina Fey hosted, Jamie Dornan hosted, a bunch of like other British comedians I like, but much newer on the scene British comedians. And I, you know, you and I are both fond of English culture and it might be confusing to people who don't know who like Keir Somer is or like whatever the case may be. Very long David Attenborough sketch. But like the Prince Andrew sketch I thought was really, really good. So there's just like some real gems there and they've got a good, some good Weekend Update hosts.

54:41Joanna Robinson:So I'm just like curious to see if this very American property can translate over to the UK. Yeah, it seems like it's doing well over there. I think the thing that's been interesting is that on the English side of the media and also the commentary around it is the emphasis on the money that was spent to make it. but more as an example of just people don't make a ton like salaries are different there uh and like i think people are like wow like this isn't just a set where like four people sit at a table and go through the news and make quips like they actually like spend a ton of money and like saturday night lives fuck expensive show to make so even even the like the uk version i don't know if they do as much stuff as the U.S.

55:28version, but everybody is like, wow, this is like an American-style production here.

55:34Joanna Robinson:That reminds me of what they did with the last couple seasons of Doctor Who where they got this sort of Disney Plus money into the Doctor Who budget, and all of a sudden it looked better, but it looked wrong because Doctor Who should look kind of janky and under-budgeted. So yeah, that's interesting. Alternatively, if you don't want to do a U.K. show, though that's available on Peacock, right? Have I got news for you? Speaking of sort of like news panel shows, the American version of a UK panel show, Michael Ian Black, Roy Wood Jr. It's a really, really fun sort of like news panel show. I haven't watched this one yet.

56:12Joanna Robinson:Yeah, it's on CNN. I'll check this out. Yeah, it's really good. Okay, so that's like your 10 p.m. kind of? Yeah, well, no, I'm going to say, so I've got two comedies, a drama, and then that's my like late night, I guess is what I would say. So I have Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, last one laughing, The Burbs. A show that Andy and I are going to talk about on Monday that we had gotten some emails encouraging us to check out is a Netflix spy series called Unfamiliar. Yeah. You guys got me. Yeah. This is basically Eastern Gate meets the Americans. Yeah. And it's fucking good. It's a Berlin set spy drama about a married couple who are running basically a safe house business for spies on the run while also running a lovely farm-to-table restaurant in Berlin.

57:03And they get pulled back into an old case that they were involved in in Belarus. And Andy and I discussed this a little bit on text. Has anything good ever happened in Belarus? Not one thing. Is anybody ever like, I had an incredible honeymoon in Belarus? It's just always like some really fucked up stuff happened in Belarus. Yeah. watched two episodes of this last night I'm hooked it's interestingly written by a British author British writer TV writer and I assume unless he's also fluent in German translated into German to be made as a German TV show so the international co-pro yeah this is Gaumont who I believe also did Le Bureau but does a lot of I think Gaumont did 000 they do a lot of international vibe.

57:50Joanna Robinson:And you're sub not dub, right? I'm sub not dub. Yeah, yeah. That's the way. I'm trying to get off subs for English languages. I can't. Pry them out of my cold dead hands. I was watching, what was I watching the other day where I was like, I can't be this stupid. Oh, Survivor. I was like, I don't think I need subs for Survivor. That's fair. But I think especially when we cover it for work, I don't want to miss a keyword that I misinterpreted or something. The thing that was driving me nuts was industry because I wanted subs for like the offscreen banter. And I also needed subs for the elaborate financial jargon.

58:29Yes. But found myself reading blocks of text at the bottom of the screen rather than looking at Marisa Abella's face, you know.

58:37Joanna Robinson:A crime against humanity. No, I think that the thing that disturbs me is when I go to movies now and I'm like, where are my subs? I know. I was, you know what? Where's my progress bar? Project Hail Mary. I was like, I wonder how much longer this is. Not in a bad way, but I was like, I'm not used to not being able to like. I'm disoriented. I can't like wiggle the mouse and find out how much longer I have. So yeah, Unfamiliar. We'll be talking about this on Monday. There's a couple of pretty cool international crime shows out. There's Privileges on HBO, which I'm going to check out this weekend.

59:08But yeah.

59:09Joanna Robinson:I mean, this isn't, you asked, you gave me this prompt at an interesting time because we have a lot coming, you know, like Hacks and Euphoria, Beef, like all these sort of like very muscular shows are coming back. And so I'm really excited to see what happens in April. We're going to be busy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also really looking forward to Widow's Bay. Yeah. Yeah. The Matthew Rhys show. Though I'm curious, did you see, oh God, what was it called? The Apple Do Law Show? That was sort of about like an isolated island community. That was - Wasn't that Apple? HBO. That was HBO. That was HBO. and I can't remember but that was a classic like me and Andy watched the first one and we were like is this show the goat?

59:50Like this is the best thing ever. And then like

59:51Joanna Robinson:and then you kept watching. Okay. Yeah. But I can't remember the name of it. I can't remember it either. The third day. Thank you. For some reason that's such a COVID era show to me. Like yeah. And that was also a time when like they were like Jude Law is happy to like call in from his garden if you could make the time. They were like do one episode live. You know like there was like a weird gimmicky thing about it but like for some reason the trailer like they released a little teaser for this and I was like oh I'm all the way in it felt very to a peak sea like really excited about Widow's Bay and then they they like dropped a trailer and I watched it and it gave me third day vibes in a way that I was like I watched that whole show for nothing please don't do this to me again but if Matthew Rhys is in it I'm gonna watch it can I just dump for one other British thing um and this is very me coded the other Bennett sister which is uh you know burning it up over in the UK right now and then it's gonna hit Brit Box, I think, at the beginning of May.

1:00:43Joanna Robinson:But this is like, I'm very snobby and picky about my Jane Austen adaptations. And this is Pride and Prejudice, a bit of Pride and Prejudice than after told from the point of view of Mary Bennett, who's like the sister nobody likes. And it's really, really, really, really good. It's so, so good. Where is it? It's going to be on Brit Box. I think May 6th is when it starts. Brit Box. Yeah. You guys, always delivering. Do you want to do like two minutes on Survivor? Did you watch last night? Yeah. I am always wondering whether or not I think the reason one of the reasons why I don't think I was a huge survivor person from its inception aside from whatever reasons is that like I always just kind of found like the alliances to be unbreakable like in my experience watching it earlier seasons where it would just be like we have seven they have five we're just going to pick them off and then that's on our side yeah and so it was fascinating last night Don't worry.

1:01:37They're articulating like Sari and a couple of other people are really articulating well like there is an old school block of players here that want to play I got your back brother.

1:01:48Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Style survivor. Yeah. And last night you know Colby goes Genevieve goes. And Camilla. And Camilla goes. Got kind of like a mix of both sides of that game. Yeah. Two new schoolers and an old schooler and like the old schooler in Colby. My biggest takeaway was just like, that was an interesting gambit to make it like Blood Moon, nothing is safe. But then it's like, yeah, but this person has an idol. This person has immunity. So it's only one of two people. And I just, regardless of like whether I want to like hang out with her, Genevieve's just a really good survivor player. She is. And so I was bummed that she got voted out.

1:02:23Camilla too.

1:02:24Joanna Robinson:Camilla's a really good player. It's tough because the dynamic of the Blood Moon episode, Jeff taking like literally five minutes. Five minutes. to just basically say triple elimination that or the applebee's promo is that your question was it the bacon burger or the blood moon that got more time why didn't they have like a blood blood moon bloody mary available from applebee's where was the synergy there the albis logo has a red apple you could have just turned it into a red moon then you've got like why aren't you branding. Call me. For Mark Burnett. Call me.

1:02:57Joanna Robinson:Horrifying. But I, yeah, this is a real luck of the draw episode. It's just like they drew rocks for these five person team. And if you were, as Genevieve was, just sort of like the odds are completely stacked against you. There's, there was no maneuvering for her. It was just like a real, there's, so there's no social game to it inside of this episode. It's just a real luck. And then we'll see what happens in the merge. But yeah, I love this old school. What they're trying to do on the season of Survivor, and I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know, is try to do this Avengers Endgame almost like referendum on the whole franchise.

1:03:32Joanna Robinson:These years you've spent with this show matters. We're trying to give you as many flashbacks as we can to make you really feel the passage of time. We're showing you that Colby's foot hurts and Ozzy's back hurts and all this other stuff like that. But Dee is crying at Tribal because she has to send Colby home And Colby, you know, is a player that inspired her to get into the game in the first place. So there's this like big tapestry of history they're trying to present. But also this, yeah, old school, new school. Is Sari going to be successful because she's an old schooler who can be more fluid and adaptable?

1:04:07Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Well, Chrissy was. You know, Chrissy was able to do tearful, like, I get it. It's not personal. And then immediately went and was like, we can't do me. Like, what do we have to do not to be me? Call an ambulance, but not for me. Like, real moment from Chrissy. But I think that, like, another thing about a returnee season, and I was on Tyson's podcast earlier this week talking about it, is, like, all the pre-gaming alliances that have happened, you know, which is, like, no shame in the game. Like, what are you going to do? Like, not pre-game when you go into a returning season. But the Colby, Coach, Stephanie, Jonathan, like that whole sort of thing is a pregame.

1:04:47Coach has given me a nickname. Yeah. Joe is part of that. Right.

1:04:51Joanna Robinson:Like the Zoom alliance. With Yakuza. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're cut from the same cloth, as Christy said. Did I miss what the inciting incident was between Aubrey and Genevieve? Because. It was. So Mallory and I are in a survivor pool. Okay. And we put Aubrey high on our list to go all the way because we thought that Aubrey Genevieve, they did an Aubrey Genevieve scene in the first episode. That was so weird and out of nowhere in the edit where it was just Genevieve walking up to Aubrey and being like, hey, do you want to play with me? And Aubrey's like, not sure, which is a really weird thing to do on day one of Survivor.

1:05:26Joanna Robinson:The common thinking is that you always say yes no matter if you plan to or not. Like first day of Survivor, you're just like, yeah, I'd love to work with you. That's what you've got to do. Aubrey for some reason. I think it's just like they're too similar. Smart girl, smart girl. Not going to be like challenge camp lord, but like we have to play our social game and that's going to involve you. You're too much like me and I don't want you here. Because I thought that their like blood feud was like, I was like, you guys really could have helped each other like in this game. And also neither of you, both of you play pretty fluid games.

1:06:01So it wouldn't be like, hey, like I can't do anything about it. I'm in an alliance. It's like Genevieve, I think like, I don't know what it is or she's like really, really good at Survivor. But like clearly like everybody's like, we got to get Genevieve out. Like when she was talking to Christian, I was like.

1:06:15Joanna Robinson:That was a great argument. And I was like, you're just too good. It was it was really smart. Christian was like, she's very convincing and that's why she has to go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, it's a good season so far. I'm excited. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Thanks for pulling double duty on the pit. And let's get into my interview with Hayley Boston, who is the creator and writer of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, which is on Netflix. This conversation is full spoilers. So if you have not finished the show, I recommend you do so before listening to this interview.

1:06:44And I recommend you do so anyway, because it's a great show. So let's get into my interview with Hayley. Thanks to Kaya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to everyone here at Sycamore for producing today. Andy and I will be back on Monday. We'll probably be talking unfamiliar. Maybe it's some privileges. maybe we'll dabble with the new season of your friends and neighbors. We'll see how much time Greenwald has. And I can't wait to do it. Thanks so much for joining me, Joe.

1:07:09Joanna Robinson:Thanks for having me. Haley, thank you so much for joining me on the watch. Something very bad is going to happen is, I think it's like one of my favorite shows of the year for sure. I wanted to talk to you obviously like about some granular plot stuff, but if we could start with a conversation topic that Andy and I kind of brought up on the show on Monday when we were first discussing it is, like the challenges of sustaining horror over like a multi-episode kind of track yeah because obviously there's like the things that you can do in a two-hour feature that you're building up to certain crescendo and then like explode exploding it but this is like okay how do i keep tension throughout an eight-hour kind of run and i i have like theories about how you did that but i was curious if you could tell me a little bit about your approach.

1:07:58I mean, honestly, I am surprised that people think the show is so scary because it's hard to be objective about that. You know, it's been living with me for so long that I getting that response. I was like, oh, good. It's effective. But I think that I mean, what we talked about a lot was like changing the genre a bit as as the season goes on. So the first episode has a lot of jump scares. It is a lot of that dread and tension. And I don't think you can do that for eight episodes. You know, you've got to change it up. We actually I was like, I think we had talked about it. I'd seen two and Andy had seen one.

1:08:38And I was like, I don't know if like you if people could handle it. Right. If it's the first episode for eight hours. Yeah. I mean, I think like David Lynch can do that. and has but honestly I had a lot of trouble finishing The Return because of like four episodes of Dougie wandering around I was like I don't know I like respect it but I don't ever want to watch it again so the first two episodes have a lot of that like dread and tension and it sort of turns into a home invasion thriller in episode three and then we've got the found footage in episode four um and then you know the whole season shifts into the supernatural um and I was inspired by Servant um the first season of Servant I thought was was brilliant the way that it shifted the genre yeah and you the audience doesn't know by the end of the pilot you're like is he crazy is she crazy is is this supernatural like what's going on and I think you kind of need to do that in order to sustain the horror in in a series and and in something very bad it's like then there's a bit of body horror I I would say obviously the last episode the horror is I think quite poetic yeah it's it doesn't it's not as scary in the it's like yellow it's like there's so much red that you're like this is kind of beautiful yeah yeah so but but it was really about approaching it within those subgenres and talking to each director about, you know, then we have the seance in episode six that trying to get that kind of talk to me energy in there.

1:10:19And then a lot of it was figured out in the edit and in the mix. You say that you are pleasantly surprised to find out people find it scary. Did you have a hope for what people would find it like in your most sort of kind of like, okay like keeping all this stuff grounded like how did you want people to receive it you think i want people to react to the emotional story and that was so important to me when we were figuring out the curse and what that would look like yeah um i i really did i wrote out rachel's emotional arc and you know took away the genre and then once I figured that out and figured out that she is someone who has a lot of doubt and then needs to believe by the end um that's where the idea that the curse the antidote to the curse is is belief yeah um that's where that came from so I knew I wanted everyone to bleed to death but it was a matter of figuring out how to how to make that work in the supernatural logic, but it all came from emotion.

1:11:33And so that's what I hope people who aren't horror fans even, like, relate to the emotional story. Yeah, there's something, like, kind of beautiful about how, at the end, and we can get into, like, sort of unpacking what happens at the end in a second, but, like, there is that idea that, like, the characters who survive are the ones who are, like, living honestly in some ways. Like, and even if their honesty is, like, the way Jules and... and now are kind of brutal with each other, it's still like a truthfulness that other people don't touch on because they live like these lies. I wanted to talk a little bit about the way you constructed the show a little bit more because I was thinking about how if the show had begun with the two of them pulling up the driveway to Nikki's parents' place, it feels much differently if Portia and Jules arrive, are in the second scene, and he's like, okay, my family's weird, by the way, and then they walk in.

1:12:26that whole first episode it's so important to the rest of the season but it's also like a fair amount of like red herrings or stuff that's just like really cool but you don't 100 % need to know about the end so like when you're writing that first episode and you're you're kind of like yeah like Larry Blackpool and the Barbie shoe and the dead foxes like they're important but they're not like central to what happens to Rachel yeah is that hard to convince anyone that it has to start this way yeah i mean the first version of the pilot that i sold they don't meet the family at all oh wow okay really all the road trip got to the house at the end um and it was quite different but um yes it's a it's a bit of a prologue and that's challenging in in tv uh and then it sort of like slowly turned into a little being a little more traditional in that you're meeting the whole family.

1:13:26But I wanted to really capture what it's like to be Rachel. And she is like living in a horror movie as a person. And I wanted to make sure you're getting a bit of their relationship before it gets kind of disrupted by this family. There isn't actually that much time in the show that Rachel and Nikki spent together. Yeah. Yeah. and that was something I was worried about uh in the writer's room just you know oh god are people gonna root for them are they gonna care about them but yeah I mean it was that was important to me and then there is a lot of thematic um groundwork that we're laying in the in the pilot I mean the foxes become this sort of motif for what Rachel's going through um Larry Poole as a red herring i've read some internet comments or not satisfied with with larry pool not being a thing but that podcast episode that they listen to i mean victoria pedretti recorded that yeah that's an easter egg as well yeah i was as it was happening i was like is she the baby but like yes so it's it's sort of it's and there's this pregnant woman who gets murdered or almost murdered by larry pool and then they find the baby like it yes plot wise it doesn't matter but it's meant to be this sort of like rachel has a has this premonitory dread yeah and these things she's encountering listening to being thrust into these situations it's just meant to um highlight all the things she's going through and and will be going through yeah i mean even the diner conversation is obviously this hugely crucial thing to understanding how she came into the world.

1:15:16And I liked it a lot because you're also watching them and you're like, are these guys in love? You know what I mean? Even in the first pass of it, which is funny, as a horror fan, I think you're just always waiting. I personally really love the setup almost as much as the scare because if it's a good setup, the scare doesn't even have to be that spectacular. can just be something kind of like i mean leatherface is extraordinary but like i watch texas to watch them in the van totally see how weird it is so in some ways that road trip is the van at the beginning of texas and you're just like okay i care about what happens to these people yeah yeah there's the the conversation they have in the diner is also sort of you know it's a brief moment where rachel talks about this girl kathy who could see her past life yeah and nikki's like or she had a great imagination.

1:16:08And it just really immediately sets up the fact that he doesn't believe in this stuff. And you should have seen it coming. So I wanted to really look at everything they were going through and make sure it felt telegraphed to the end of the show. Sure. I want to talk to you a little bit about the mechanics sort of behind the scenes because I think typically I think of horror as like a director's genre or as a director's medium kind of. And tell me a little bit about your relationship with the filmmakers and the directors working on the show because I imagine there's collaboration, but there's also like, I do need you to do X, Y, and Z on this block, right?

1:16:54So yeah, like Veronica obviously comes in and it's got like this incredible sensibility. But can you tell me a little bit about working with those folks? Yeah, I mean, yeah, Veronica has, really incredibly talented and, and so great with, um, perspective. And that was the thing that, um, drew me to her after watching Baby Reindeer. Um, and I really felt like she nailed being in Rachel's head. So when we were talking about the horror of the first two episodes, especially, it's like very much about Rachel's subjective experience um and she you know shot everything also in Rachel's POV and that was so um helpful in the edit to to be able to have all these characters like that dress fitting scene in episode two circling her and looking cutting at her directly into the camera and um and so that was a huge piece of it and then in talking about the scares we really just looked at how to technically kind of achieve you know the the uh the fox in the bathroom was inspired by a scene in scream um when sydney's in the bathroom yeah um and you got the stab shirt on today thank you yes um big scream fan talking about the tension the you know impending dread and having all these long shots and um it was something that she and i just understood together the found footage stuff i mean axel who directed that episode is a big horror person i mean she's done a bunch of mike flanagan stuff yeah um and I thought that sequence was so well done and Victoria and Logan performed it very well and we got away with having 15 minutes of story that had nothing to do with, I mean not nothing to do with but we cut away from our main characters and that was something that was challenging at the script stage.

1:19:09Really? Yeah it was originally written to be intercut with Rachel watching the tape. Oh, okay. And then in the edit, it was just like, how much can you really cut back to her watching this? No, but then when you do cut back, it's fucking like, oh my God, she's been watching this. Yeah, putting her, I mean, I love the moment where her mother says, hi, Rachel. And like, you know, you realize you're on the same journey basically as the pilot. And I think, you know, tying up some of the, threads from the pilot in episode four um i i feel like having the opportunity to do that kind of helps with some of the um questions that yeah you know you're left with in the pilot you're seeing oh rachel had stopped at all these same places as her mother and it's almost like they're kind of on the same it also helps if if there's like the the voice in the back of your head it's like because she could just leave like why doesn't she just get in the truck and drive away like these people are really weird this isn't working like go go go yeah which is like the thing that's always happening when you're watching horrors you're like get out of the basement but it it she can't leave if she can't leave like because she's always supposed to have been there you know totally yeah yeah there's some there's sort of like a faded aspect to this place yeah um and a familiarity i mean she her remembering the the coldies logo is impossible she was technically there inside of her mother um and there was a character description of rachel that was in the pitch where uh it was like she believes that she and her mother share the same body um and and i think it was like and if she ever got pregnant she would birth herself and the world would end like that's a that's a racial anxiety uh and so i think some of that stuff just stayed within the story even though it's never explicitly mentioned camelia uh i was curious like to what extent the character morphed at all once you decided to go with her because even watching her watch her mother die first of all like that scene kind of reminded me of red did you yes yeah um i love that movie it's fucking it's amazing and but it's like i was like damn like she has one of like she's got a top five watching something face yes very she's so good and so i was curious like how much once you cast her did you start writing into her and her like specific skills i would say no yeah that's yeah but uh the character as originally written was more sarcastic and dry okay and cammy brought a lot of warmth and humanity to her um just by being who she is uh and that i always i saw rachel as being sort of the more like even like sort of aubrey plaza energy and nikki being more like um golden retriever and adam is a little more subdued and camilla is a little more energetic so it ended up kind of still having the balance that i had initially conceived of but in an opposite yeah yeah so watching them together i didn't change any of the the writing but it made sense still and and i think there were some lines in the in the script that could have come off as unlikable everyone's worried about an unlikable female lead especially.

1:22:54There was a line that we cut where she says in the car, I don't see old people as people. I got a lot of like... Lots of people over 65. Yeah. Cami brought a lot of charm and warmth to the character that I think is fantastic and I think makes Rachel even more relatable. And she's just so great. her expressions are so delicious. It was so fun being in the edit, just watching all of her takes and going, oh, yes, let's put that reaction in there. One of my favorite passages of the series is her retelling their origin story like 10 times increasingly. I was actually wondering, are you like, okay, you're on Champagne 6 now.

1:23:40Right. So do this. Totally, yeah. The only way for that episode to work was for it to feel like a whirlwind. and actually when I wrote that episode after I wrote it it happened to me oh okay I was I wrote the episode and then I was flying to my brother's wedding just like Nikki yeah and at the airport someone told me they were afraid something bad was going to happen come on had you already named the show this yes I was writing episode five I had turned in like Netflix draft one of episode five and I was doing a rewrite. This is why I always say that I'm actually Nikki and not Rachel. And this person was really scared because the, uh, we were flying out of the Burbank airport.

1:24:30Oh, well, to be fair. And it was really hot. Yeah. And that's, I think has one of the shortest runways of any airport. So the plane had to stop in Ontario to refuel and then fly to Oregon. Okay. And this girl was just like really scared, had tears in her eyes, and asked me if I was getting on the plane. Go ahead. She was like, asked me if I was getting on the plane. And I was like, yes, I have a thing because I'm afraid of flying too a little bit. But I have a thing where if I have like passively envisioned something happening in the future, that means I'm not going to die and it's going to happen.

1:25:11Like I've envisioned myself at my brother's wedding, which means we're not going to crash. That's definitely a more healthy coping mechanism than either someone famous is on this plane and I don't think this is how they die, which is one of the ones I used to use. Or babies. Yeah. Yeah, but none of that means anything. I know. I mean, neither does my defense. Neither does a passive plan. But I told her that and I was also like, you know, Sarah Paulson always talks to the pilot before getting on a plane. I read that somewhere. Okay. Who knows? I could be spreading a rumor. But so I was like, she was like, I'm going to wait and decide.

1:25:51And I was so, I really just wanted to follow the plot and see what happens. You wanted to drive to Portland? I was like, I can't miss my brother's wedding. I said, all right, well, I'll see you on the other side, which I shouldn't have said. And then I went through security. She did too. and she asked if I would sit with her on the plane. Oh, wow. And so I did. Were you like actually in an aisle? So it's kind of like where I was sitting. I actually had a like business class seat. Nice. But I went back to sit with her and she bought me a drink. But it was funny because I told her on the plane, I was like, just so you know, I'm writing this show.

1:26:28When you see it in two years, like I've already written this storyline. It's very strange to me that this is happening. it's not based on on you because it already has been written and then she was like what's the name of the show and i was like i'm not gonna tell you until we land it almost would be better if you were like plane crash she asked does the plane crash yeah show and i was like no yeah plane doesn't crash oh my god that's too much nick is i wanted to talk to you about nick because that's interesting that you're like i see myself i see more of myself in nikki like I have I've actually like you know often it's like a mixed bag when you're looking online for reactions to stuff especially on like message boards or whatever but like I found like people's different interpretations of Nikki to be kind of fascinating I haven't read anything is he like a simp or is he like an actual like is he a romantic or is he just destroyed by his parents in the same way that Rachel was kind of destroyed but in a different way you know I I think Adam does like this really interesting thing as him where I'm like, I like him, you know, but I don't love him the way I do Rachel.

1:27:41Can you talk a little bit about where you have to put a character like that to make the rest of the story work versus like also wanting to give him like a definitive like arc? Yeah, it's tricky. And that was a really big challenge because there's, you know, the horror trope of the husband who doesn't believe the wife. Right. And and also I I wanted people to root for them. So I didn't want you to be like yelling at your TV, just dump him. And I've seen that before in a lot of horror. Sure. So I'm sure some people did have that reaction. But but I was trying to make him sympathetic and loving. And and I think you do feel that Rachel really loves him.

1:28:31And that's obviously why she has this dilemma. It's like, well, he's great. I'm not going to. Am I really going to leave because of this guy who told me about this curse? Yeah. So and, you know, the the emotional version of that is like, I love this person. Maybe they're not the right person for me, but there is a lot of good. And how do you wrestle with that? I'm a Nikki apologist. Like, I think he is just he's trying to do the right thing. I think it is romantic what he does at the altar. He just should have done it. the first time the first time but him realizing like what he says you know you're doing this for me i pushed you here you'd never wanted this that is a loving thing to do yeah um it's just that he doesn't see her fully and then of course betrays her but i think nikki is someone who needs other people to model behavior for him so he's looking at his parents marriage as like well if i just do what they did then i'm good and then of course that is shattered for him which is is based on my own like i remember in the writer's room someone asking me because we figured out we wanted nikki to say no pretty early but then it was like how do we get there um and and one of the writers asked me, well, what would make you question everything?

1:30:04And I was like, if I found out my parents' marriage is not what I thought, it would completely change my understanding of love. And so for someone who puts so much stake in that, it shatters his world. And then after that happens, he's looking at everyone else for, okay, what do I do now? And his mom being like, just go get married again and then his brother saying I know what we can do and he's just he doesn't he's not mature enough to have his own like backbone and and Rachel clearly is yeah um so I was always looking for ways to make their relationship feel like it's not quite balanced and that they're not quite seeing each other without making the audience you know too aware of that that they are not rooting for them so it was a real balance yeah i mean do you consider him doomed at the end totally yeah i mean he he hopefully learned something from that i've learned a lot um but the the other thing when we were sort of figuring out the ending i i wanted to have the drag me to hell ending um which i find so satisfying because you know you're watching rachel do everything right and um and then it's sort of like nikki is a forgotten you forget that this wedding is two people and that he's off having his own arc um and you know it would be interesting to see the the nikki version of this show what all the emotions he was going through that we don't see the nikki cut the nikki cut yeah what does he think on his drive on his aborted drive back to get the dress yeah what is he doing yeah is he just like re-listening to the larry pool podcast he's just vibing yeah he's like everything's great my family's wonderful uh that actually does bring up something i wanted to ask you about is like i'm sure like going back through the pages of the script but also when watching the finished product you're like there actually is a Wicker Man show and there is like a fucked up Mulholland Drive show in this show you know especially before you get to the second half and then the second half is obviously like brings in like the idea of like this supernatural like decade spanning curse is there a Clubhouse favorite of like I kind of want to go back and do this version of the show You know, the sorry man.

1:32:43Every time I watch the pilot and you hear Portia's story of the sorry man, I'm like, man, I wish we saw that guy. Yeah. Like, that's fucking cool. I've always been interested in the idea of someone being turned inside out. And that's how Portia describes it. Yeah, that would have been cool. I definitely didn't want to do any visions or nightmares. Because at one point I was like, should we show the sorry man? But then it's like, whose perspective are we in? Also, most of what Rachel experiences at the house feels like a nightmare anyway. Right. So it's like how if you break it and you start having nightmares, then it's like, well, then what's real and what's not real?

1:33:29I know, it becomes confusing. The mechanics of the curse. was that fun to like diagram or were you like fuck? It was honestly, oh man, you should talk to my writer's assistant because poor Isaac. Did he become the keeper of the curse? When I, when you know, the, the WGA has this like new rule where you have to have a writer come to set. Yeah. My show predated that. Okay. So they were like, no, none for you. Wait. So like they're just on set trying to like be like, so this curse is like what? Well, I had I didn't have anyone. Yeah. So I was like we figured out the curse in the writer's room and it was very challenging because it was like, how do we make this all make sense?

1:34:17And also like try not to to dump exposition with the witness at the bar. I think that scene is is really fun looking back and Zlatko is so weird and cool. Yeah. But but yeah, I mean, it was challenging and I actually did end up changing the mythology during prep. OK, it was. Originally, the curse just spread not to Nikki's bloodline. It just spread like a virus out. Yeah. OK. Um, and I think it was Veronica's idea to, to put it on Nikki's bloodline, um, to give it more, you know, personal consequence for Rachel. Um, so it's, it's about really like, do I sacrifice myself or do I sacrifice him? Um, and so that came into the picture a little later.

1:35:15Uh, but yeah, trying to get it to all make sense. And then, of course, Rachel becoming the new witness and and figuring out, OK, at one point it was, you know, is this something that she does in the finale where she like makes a deal with death in order to live? But it just felt like too much happening in the finale. uh and i i just i wanted it to to be the kind of like surprising but inevitable ending where i actually told you how the whole curse works in episode four right so at this point you should be able to to you know logic out why she becomes the new witness yeah um and maybe even the moment that nikki says no you're already kind of telegraphing it uh but all of it again was in service of the emotional story so you know it's ultimately a breakup story and it's Rachel choosing herself um and realizing Nikki doesn't see me I'm better off on my own and when you get out of a relationship it's like a death of the self yeah and a rebirth yeah and so she's free from that and drives away with this like little relief that she now can go find the right person do you feel like there's more rachel to to talk to like a more rachel story to tell now that like if you if you introduce her as a witness like in theory in theory i think that i think rachel would be a much better witness than yes i'd much rather hang out with her Zlatko's witness because I mean he's 200 years old yeah he's over it at this point I think she would really try to prevent people from you know bleeding to death yeah um there was a version of the show where it did have more of a like leftovers vibe to it where there was no explanation and it was just a global phenomenon yeah um and Rachel this was like season two back when before the curse and before i figured all that stuff out this doesn't work anymore but um rachel's like a couple therapist oh my god and for this like new dead world world of like if you marry the wrong person one of you will bleed to death at the altar and like no one knows why so it was about um trying to figure out why and what makes people right for each other so that was something that that like wasn't defined in season one originally but then it it became you know clear to me that that would be dissatisfying yeah yeah I mean I like I like a show like this that ends on that note where it's like if she becomes god what was that uh show the hitchhiker where it's just like he's just driving around like there is a version of this where she's just like going from wedding to wedding but i also thought it's such a complete like statement you know right it sounds like a very compressed and like quick turnaround for a show but like are you kind of like through processing that like this is out no and number one on netflix and that people are freaking out about it not at all we finished the show on monday after it came out um i mean the i i finished the final mix of eight two weeks before the show came out so i haven't even recovered from finishing the show.

1:38:44So it's almost I'm almost like what do you mean you've already watched it? People obviously watched the whole thing the day it came out. Yeah. Which is crazy to be like I spent two years making this. Yeah. And you're done? And DMing me on Instagram being like season two? I'm like I haven't even slept. It's weird. It's fun though like I love when this happens on like the Especially if this happens with new Netflix shows, where you can kind of see it, kind of like, oh, it's like people are starting to check it out, starting to check it out, and then obviously, it just goes into some sort of slipstream of like, oh my god, now everybody's watching it.

1:39:22That's cool. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. And good luck with everything in the future. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.