Sam Levinson on Addiction Consequences

This ad is sponsored by ZakDoc. Hi It's Danny Pellgrino from Everything Ionic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't w to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist, but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use ZockDoc. Now as a busy podcast or parent and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier And ZakDoc lets you search and compare local in network doctors with over two hundred fifty thousand providers across more than two hundred specialties. You can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minent and health issue pop up and I needed to see someone fast and instead of calling around Or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on ZakDoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. and made the whole process so much less stressful taking care of your health just got easier. download the Zach Doc Today, that's ZakDoc, ZOC DOC and book that appointment on your to do list Hey, this is Pablo from Pablo Torre finds out and winning takes a team especially in business, like the Total Solutions advantage from Comcast Business. It's a winning team of futures on the largest, fastest, fiber powered network gig speeds with equipment and security included plus a five year price lock Learn more, get started for sixty dollars a month for twelve months when you add an advanced solution to a qualifying internet package Limited time offer, restrictions apply, new customers only, requires three hundred MBPS interternet, security edge, and additional qualifying service one year agreement, paperless billing, and auto pay with bank account required Taxes and fees, extra For more at comomcastbusiness d. com This summer, JBL is on a mission to help you tune into what you love. audioobooks, podcasts, and everything in between with JBL's live headphones. These headphones are perfect because of their high res sound, making your favs stories and voices come alive with so much detail, exactly the way they were made to be heard Plus, they have eighty hours of battery life, so you can binge without pressing pause all summer long Find your pair at jbL. com Hello everyone and welcome to Decoding TV, a podcast television. I'm David Chen, joining me as usual is Patrick Leppk, Patrick I want to take an opportunity right now to let people know. Hey, check out Decoding TV across all your video platforms is not just YouTube But also TikTok and Instagram, we're posting Well highlights of our conversations over there. and occasional original stuff as well. I made a little Half man ending TikTok and Instagram. For those who have watched the ending of that show, we will of course have a full blown discussion on that later on, not Patrick because no he is he did the sensible thing and pieced out of that show, but I will have a great guest on to discuss the finale of Half Man But yes, check out Deoding TV on Instagram and TikTok,'re posting again short form clips and I think they're quite enjoyable. U But Patrick, how is it going to the United States right now? Is it getting as hot there as it is over here All right well as long as we're talking about the weather likeike how's it going in the United States? Like it's great. you know, don't Don't worry about it. No know, it's the at least in my neck of the woods and out in the Midwest, it's the one of the strangest parts of weather calendar where every day is either nice and warm and in the eighties or you're like dipping back down into the fifties. And so each day my kids like Shorts or pants. It's like, I don't know. We gott to check the weather. So you get some really gorgeous fun days that I feel like summer is here and then all of a sudden you're putting on sweatshirts again, but you know, school's almost over Vacation' on the horizon, so'm I'm doing good Well, it is getting pretty hot here in Portugal and yeah, we're bacon over here, bacon over here. So Hope everyone is able to stay cool out there. I want to let people know a little bit about what's going on with this podcast in terms of what we're covering over the course of the next month. U Today on the podcast, of course, we are going to be discussing Spider and M as our show of the week. We're also going to be doing some TV news and then recapping and reviewing the series finale Serious finale we've just learned h of Euphoria which just aired this week. In addition Uh I've mentioned that this month is a little bit weird. a lot of pass a lot of Traveling iss gonna be going on. Patrick's gonna to be out next week And I will be traveling in a few weeks and so it's just going to be Kind of a more fluid schedule than usual But we do plan to cover half manan in its entirety, full spoiler cast that should be coming sometime in the next few weeks I also am planning to do a bonus episode about the new Michael Jackson documentary, The verdict. with documentary girl on Instagram and TikTok. We have discussed other documentaries here on decoding TV in the past. It's been super fun. and so I expect it will be very enjoyable to discuss that documentary as well. And then in a couple weeks, Patrick and I will be discussing Cape Far on Apple TV as our show of the week Finally I wanted to mention that obviously we are entering a time period where we are not sure what show we should cover week to week We're doing Widows Bay as our bonus episodes But on the main show, we don't really have a week to week show I had this idea to cover Dark Matter season one, do a rewatch of that show. between now and Dark Matter seeason two premiere on august twenty eighth. Now I love Dark Matter seeason one. I thought that show was awesome But Patrick rightfully pointed out No one watched that show. And so U does anyone actually want us to cover it? I think it could be a fun thing. That could be our week That would be our week to week show until we get to lanterns and Dark Matter in August But I need to know if people here would actually listen to that So if you are listening to this right now And you have an opinion on dark matters is one you're like, Hey I'm intrigued by or I definitely wouldn't listen to that. Let us know decoding TV at Gmail. com. I will say for me, having watched many Sci fi, Apple TV shows with Patrick Kleck U Most of them bad. This was by far my favorite one and it's a tragedy that Patrick actually didn't watch this onev movie So I'm actually really excited about Dark Matter seeason two. I'm very nervous about it But I thought season one was great and certainly very thought provoking. So I want to know what people think should we cover this week to week? Let us know do So again, it's a Dark Matter season one rewatch leading up to Dark Matter season two, which we would then cover week to week Let us know at deccoding TV at Gmeot com or comment at deccodingTv d. comot Patrick, you' se episode one, whats what's your what how do you weigh on this? Obviously, u You're not completely opposed.. Well there were just glowing reactions from folks like yourself and others. I think it was just honest, you know, we have an ongoing joke about like Who's the person over at Apple that just keeps screenlighting these very splashy expensive science fiction shows, which is great because that's Apple's kind of the place for for that stuff for better and sometimes for for worse.. And I think just very little about the trailers for Dark Matter did much for anything. I think you know, we're coming off of I don't know how close it was to watching was a constellation that you and I watched a littleike I just feel like I got burnt out and burned too many times by Dipping into Apple sci fi waters that like I just I I will wait for someone else to tell me that this one is worth watching. And then It felt like That was then someone did David Chen and then you were like, I'll wait for someone else to tell you. And that's understandable. Well, we saw the season two was coming out and you asked if I'd seen him. like, well You know, I' sometimes I prop the iPad up while I'm cooking, you know, two dinners, one for the kids and one for the for the adults. and u ike I put that on. I enjoyed the first episode. I don't think I'm far enough to like see where all of the complicated nature of the premise goes, but I'm I'm intrigued enough both by the premise and the praise that you and others have given it that I would it would be fun to catch up ahead of season two So let us know. and again, what we would do is this would be the main episode of main show we're recapping week to week. And then we would still do like an occasional show of the week on top of that right until Lantern's preremiere is in August of twenty twenty six followed shortly after that by Dark Matter, then those would become our weekwek shows But let us what you think deccoding TV at ga d. com All that said, Patrick, let's get to this week show of the week which is going to be Spider Noir It's the show of the week It's the show of the week Yeah Welcome to Decoding TV's showow of the Week. This week we willll be discussing Spider Noir, the new series on Amazon Prime In Spider Noir, Nicholas Cage plays Ben Reilly, a private investigator who also happens to be a superhero known in nineteen thirties New York City as the Spider He's assisted by his secretary, Janet Ruiz, played by Karen Rodriguez, and his friend and journalist Joe Robertson, played by Lamourne Morris. who was also trying to uncover the secrets of the city. such as those of Brendan Gleason, who plays Silverme, an Irish mob boss who thinks he runs everything. Meanwhile, when an irresistible mystery comes his way in the form of Lgionly playing nightclub singer Kat Hardy. Riley must grapple with whether he will become the spider again Spider N Noir was developed by Oin Uziel who has worked on films such as twenty two Jump Street and The Lost City Orren co runs Spider Noir with Stehven Lightfoot, who is the showrunner for the Punisher There are eight episodes of the show. I've seen five episodes, Patrick How many have you seen two. Patrick scene two, we will not spoil anything past the first two episodes of Spider Noir right now Patrick, what did you think of the show overall Would I still be watching this show if Nicholas Cage wasn't in it And I think the answer to that honestly is no. I think Spider Nir is an interesting swing stylistically, For Nicholas Cage accent accentedly. It's's a fascinating swing that Tw episodes in does not really connect for me other than the indelible cage of it all. I don't think it's a bad show. It's not a disaster It's very watchable and the whole color black and white is an interesting dynamic. But I find it all pretty slow. and boring and The thing about a noir said it's about a mystery And I just don't find the mystery as presented early on to be particularly compelling I've I've heard the show picks up as it goes along, especially in its back half Boy, you're putting a lot of faith in nearly hour long episodes for something more than, Isn't it funny to see Nicholas Cage doing old timey accents notot really a lot of superhero stuff., which would be fine. It's, you know, everything has to be like people in a suit and swinging around U But then the rest of it's got to be interesting if that's not what we're here for. and So far, that has not been the case for me tragic How about your s U I'm a little surprised. I thought you'd be more into this show. like the show quite a bit even though I have the same problems as you I really like Spider Noir. I think you are right that Nicholas Cage's performance is Kind of classic cage. She is really unhinged. She's doing an interesting accent sled voice U but he's also doing some things that I think only Nicholas Cage can do Nicholas Cage is such a unique actor Hm. The TV series community had this joke about Nicolas Cage about how like someomebody who is a like bad acting and good acting kind of collide and like coalesce onto Nicholas Cage's acting style. It's like Schrodinger's acting style. It is both simultaneously bad and good at the same time. And I think that is true. Like half the time you're watching him You're wondering, this is this bad? Is this actually bad what he's doing right now? But in fact it could also be deemed as really good. and either way, it's always compelling. Yeah. So I agree he adds a lot to the show Um Okay, here's what I like about Spider War First of all We get some pretty huge droughts between Spider Man content, I would say. like U betweenween movies and TV shows, there's pretty significant stretches of time And so this is one way to get Spider Man stuff is to watch Spider Noir. And if it is at least decently competent, which I think you and I agree then it does help to scratch edage By the way, he's not playing the same character as he was in the Spider Vverse movies Uh just asays FYI and this a odd though. like the opening line from this show has something to the effect of like one time somebody asked me something about universe I'm in and what unise I'm in one I've known. Yeah ye, which is, you know, that's a fun way to not like here we get here because of the Spiderverse films, but this is not that version of Cage's Spider noir. I really appreciated that as a form of a wink and a nod at the audience Well, it's also interesting because Patrick We live in times where that's even possible, right? Like you can imagine twenty years ago, right before Marvel They would have had to had some whole expl like first of all, twenty years ago before Marvel, this this project would have been unthinkable But they would have had to do everything they could to kind of explain, here's how this fits into the broader universe or make it like dum it down and make it as palatable and accessible as possible. Here they just like, you know what What if Spyerman was a war detective in that nineteen thirties New Yor City?ike they don't need to explain it. They just like They know you're going to accept it as the audience. And that's great that people are so seeped in superhero knowledge now that you don't need to do any of that stuff because then you can focus on the story. So the other thing I really like about the show is I think the chemistry between you and the actors is great. likeike specifically Lamourne Morris and Karen Rodrigueuesz, I think they make for a great foro and and Nicholas Cage has great chemistry with him. And I think that you spend a lot of time with these characters and I think they're funny, they're witty and goes a long way towards making this an enjoyable watch Overall, I would say it's a recommend. Having said that I do agree with you that The pacing of the show is not great. And I think you want to be intrigued enough by the central mysteries for that to drive you to watch the show every subsequent episode. And I just don't think the show does a particularly good job There are interesting mysteries and problems to solve as the show goes on But it's not like there's one central mystery that's super compelling in my opinion. or if there is one, it isn't presented in a way that makes it super compelling in my opinion. So I mean, like the opening mystery is basically why is he not in the Spider Man costume? or the Spider costume. That is, hey, we're watching a show called Spider Noir and we know that this person has powers Why are they just being a detective, like down on their luck not making a lot of money. And I that's what's presented. But even as that being the sort of like the core opening mystery, you don't get a lot of insight. It doesn't really the show doesn't focus on it very much and thus Hering to set up A mob supplot Right, right And I think the mob stuff is fairly uninteresting to me. And there's other stuff that comes up later that is more interesting and probably is why the stuff that comes up later on in this series is probably why people would tune into a show called Spider Nir. I'm going to just say vaguely without getting too much into the details, but Yeah, I will say, not a huge fan of the mystery. Also I think Nicholas Cage is a little bit too old to play this character. And Nicholas Cage is sixty two years old in real life Playing a character that I think is about ten to fifteen years younger than that he is in real life And that shows up in a couple of ways One is there is a kind of romance subplot between him and Kat Hardy. Li Jun Lee is a woman who is twenty years younger than Nicholas Cage and I think it's supposed to come off as veryer passionate and Uh, and really sort of you can understand how the how these people or one of them might be drawn to the other and so on But instead it comes off as a bit leering and creepy in my opinion because he's significantly older And that part just doesn't work for me. Like they don't I don't think those two actors have that much chemistry of each other U So that doesn't work really for me at all and then M It's very obvious when they're using a CG Spider Man. And then they cut to Nicholas Cage You know, what he Right. And he's just He's not he doesn't move in the same way as the guy who's swinging around, right? And Uh I guess we're spoiled to have like Tom Holland who's very athletic and it's like, oh, I can totally buy that that's the same guy. but when you have like they didn't change really Spiderm Man's swinging style that you know, they didn't make it like slow moving and shit like that. And so then when you cut to Nicholas Cage, fromrom the CG character, it just is less convincing in my opinion. So So oververall, I'm still quite positive on the show and still think it's worth watching. but I don't feel like the central mysteries are very propulsive is how I describe it. It's not like they're not interesting or don't have interesting answers. it's just more like The pacing wise, the show feels very loose and very ambling. And as a result, I can totally understand people not wanting to keep going. And also like some of these these casting issues withithout Nicholas Cage, there probably wouldn't be a show Spiderwar. And also there are some downsides of having Nicholas like he's awesome and compelling and makes the show worth watching. And also there are some downsides to casting A sixty two year old as a spider man who still needs to swing around the city and so on Uh, okay, Patrro Klepic Spider Noir is presented in authentic black and white or true hue full color And I was shocked to discover that apparently this was not the plan. Like I assumed, oh they shot it in color and then carefully calibrated the black and white to be accurate to what they were looking for But in fact, it does appear as though the plan was for black and white and then they changed it later on. According to an article in Screenrant I Spider and Wk C crew member Casey Loff posted on threads some interesting facts about how the series was shot He said, quote, I worked on this show as the second unit loader. We shot true noir style on set for a black and white delivery. The sets were all painted green, brown and pink to complement the gradients of grreay and black and white The color pass was not originally planned and required reshootes for almost a year Loff's story was backed up by Arsino J Alvarez, who served up more info about the film's post production process. He said, as somebody who was on the post production side, yes, the color was an afterthought We got the deliverables thenen the studio, not Sony, decided they wanted color. so the way to watch it is in noir, black and white to get the true filmmakers's vision end quote So According to what is described here, They had originally shot it in black and white And then the studio, which I don't know who they're referring to, but I assume that is Amazon then said, Hey guys, this is so good. We want it in color as well. And it's like, well, we can't just switch it to color because we they built all the sets and designed them so that they would look good in black and white. You can't just like flick the color switch and then it looks good So they spent apparently almost a year Reshooting it, the estimated budget of this show is apparently around four hundred million dollars What are we doing All that said, Patrick What did you think of how it looked in black and white or color Well,' it's actually probably worth even discussing a bit the UI of how it is presented. I'm I think like you watching this through an Apple TV, but I assume that the UI and the Amazon Prime app is pretty similar across platforms. But when you jump into an episode asks do you want to watch it in black and white or color And if at least on the Apple TV, If you're hovered over one of those selections or sort of a countdown and then it will jump into the episode based on where the cursor where it's left But then strangely, every time you jump back into an episode, It asked again, like hey man I know you're like mid eisode,ike you want to change like from black white to color? I'm like No, like I don't. So I watched the first episode in black and white h And then wouldn't have even occurred to me to switch it except that wereounds like they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the color. And so they it would like me to think about watching the color version of it So I watched, I don't know a third of the second episode in color just to kind of get a flavor of like how that changes like the tone and the look of the show I don't know it looks like a bad show in color, but It looks like the show it's supposed to be. in black and white. And so my recommendation for others would be if you're going to watch this show stick to the black and white version. I think it is the most authentic version of itself. And in some ways there's a sort of nostalgic or sort of like There's a weirdness to it that I find myself lingering less andm like, why am I not getting pushed along by the mysteries as much when I'm looking at this like this really unique aesthetically different show as opposed to the color version which looks a little flatter, a little more like a normal show. It's more of a period piece as opposed to the lighting playing as such a prominent role in the look of it all. So The colored version of this looks fine, but I was black and white all the way and you know, I'll probably stick with this show just because I'm curious to see how it all plays out and it's such a unique swing, but I I was really not that interested in an Amazon forcing it on me like trying to check out the The color version of the show. Where did you end to go I agree basically that The color doesn't look terrible most of the time, but I would say it doesn't look great in my opinion. It somehow makes the show look quote unquote faker to me then the black and white. And I will say the black and white in my opinion is strikingly beautiful very often. Like you're watching a scene and it's like, wow, this is clearly designed for B black and white. It looks great. feels like it's lit for black and white. And so I'm a fan of the black white and apparently people say that is how you should view it. Now I am really curious about the decision making here. I have no idea how this was decided. My guess is peopleeople saw the show and they liked the show. they saw the daies or they saw the episodes they were saying Wow, this is has the chance to be huge. And also We don't trust that black and white a black and white show will be huge because Maybe they have data that shows that not all like most shows that are huge are not black and white or black and white is hard to sell in some territories or Whatever, there's probably some data that shows that. Black and white is sub often when it comes getting the most number of viewers. They're probably right, but they ged a show called like Spider Dar. Like I agree. like I think it's going to be a hard sell to like sell this throwback black and white show. U But you green let a show called Spider Noir. that's that's tell that version. I don't know if you know this, but sometimes at a corporation. okay The left hand may not know what the right hand is doing or A decision is made and then later on the people who made the decision are gone And then new people have replaced them and then they're like, hey, let's fix something that the last person did wrong. which in this case apparently was green lighting a show called Spider Noir withithout a colorvers. I will say that U the UI was fairly seamless, right? Like H When you switch from one to the other, it brings you to that exact point. in the show' like loads thinks for a little bit, but it brings you to that exact point in the show in black and white or color. It's cool. It's a unique experience that we don't really have for any of show right So I will give them props for an interesting experiment I feel like the only way this would be really somethingomething that would enhanceiew the viewing experience for me is if There was some something you could see in one version that you couldn't see in the other or something. You know, it's like you know, view the show from this person's perspective and you switch to that person's perspective and it's like different than what you would get the original. This is just an aesthetico like an aesthetic preference. It's not really like Oh, I need to go back and watch it again in color so I make sure I don't miss all the detail. You know I dont don't think that's true So anyway, but still interesting nonetheless. Patrick Kleck, any closing thoughts on Spider Noir? It sounds like you're gonna keep watching even though you don't love the show. What's going on there B Well it's just a like I like Spiderm Man. It's an interesting take and so that's sort of enough. You know what I mean? Like it's an itch that is fun to scratch and I've got some travel coming up and it's like, you know what? L this would be you know, uh I want to see more they do with it, especially because a lot of the revs that I did read were like it gets stronger as it goes along. It's back half Eespecially once you start getting a little bit to like, how did he get these powers? Is this different than, you know, is the origin story different than the ones that we're used to? Like I'm curious to see all of that out and chig is like I Cage is interesting enough, but U I've heard the show itself gets gets stronger as it goes along. and so again it's just a very unique There is nothing else like Spider Nar out there. and so That alone is enough to G get me going forward I will agree with those assessments that you've read. I will say that The Spider Noir or the Spider origin story like is Uh discussed and shown in some detail in the show at some point. And I won't reveal like how it's how it happens or how it takes place. or how it's shown But I will say that When I was watching it, I was thinking to myself Wow, this is actually really incredible that they did this. Like it's really incredible that they like they go to some amount of trouble to show you it all happens. And I was like, wow, like this is Really unlike anything I've seen before in terms of the Spider Man's history. So I was pretty impressed by it. I'm looking forward to hearing from you when you check it out And I do think there's some possibility that we'll do a bonus episode By the way, my wife really loves a show, so maybe like worst case I can do a bonus episode with my wife about it. Either way, I think it is something both Patrick and I will finish till the end. So Uh, despite some quals Recommend it Spider noir, cheheck it out. All late episodes are available on Amazon Prime Video And again, as a reminder, coming up for shows of the week in the near future here on deceoding TV, we got Cape Far And also a spoiler conversation about half manan is going to be coming down the pike So look forward to those things here on dececoding TV This ad is sponsored by ZockDoc. Hi, It's Danny Pelleaggrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't w to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist, but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use ZockDoc Now as a busy podcast or parent and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And ZockDoc lets you search and compare local in network doctors with over two hundred fifty thousand providers across more than. two hundred specialties. You can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and needed to see someone fast and instead of calling around Or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on ZakDoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. and made the whole process so much less stressful taking care of your health just got easier. downownload the Zach Doc Today that's ZakDoc, ZOC DOC and book that appointment on your to do list Iroducing the Total Solutions advantage only from Comcast Business. It's the largest fastest fiber powered network for small business, gig speeds with equipment and security included, and a five year price lck. No one does business like Ccast business S switch today? Get started for sixty dollars a month for twelve months when you add an advanced solution to a qualifying internet package. Limited time offer. restestrictions apply. new customers only requires three hundred megab per second internet, security ge and additionalifying service, one year agreement, paperless billing and autoay bank account required. tax and fees extra Patrick, let's get to TV news this week. So a lot of TV news to discuss U, first of all This The headline confirmed what a lot of us have been feeling The wait between TV seasons is getting longer, it's not your imagination Thats according to Hollyood Reporter And according to a new study by AmPR Analysis, the average weight between seasons of TV shows on major streaming platforms has reached what is almost certainly an all time high The study reports the gap has gradually doubled over the course of the last decade. fromrom an average of ten months in twenty sixteen to sixteen months in twenty twenty one. twenty one months in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five prior to twenty sixteen shows taking less than a year to return wereth the industry normal. Again. beforefore twenty sixteen Like imagine back in the Obama days U we would wait ten months between seasons of the show. Now twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, the average is twenty one months between seasons of a show. And this is something we have felt. It's something we've obviously discussed. It's something that kind of sucks Patrick Klepk, any reactions to this report that confirms what we've all been feeling? I would love if we could add another data point onto that, which is to track Like adjusting for inflation, the but the average budget of a television show alongside gap in time because I think part of this tracks with the trend of TV shows becoming like movies. And like we just, you know, we talked about Spider Noir having a, you know, reported rumored four hundred million dollar budget What shows used to cost like We're also cheaper and more economical, like to be spun around year to year. These days with productions are spinning up are essentially ten films that they're shooting and then distributing a couple of years later. So I wouldn't be shocked if the average like the budget for television has skyrocketed alongside the increased amount of time it takes to spin up, shoot post produce and then release these shows as well. Totally And I think that definitely reflects what a lot of industry trends are. People's expectations. have become super high for prestige television, right? They want TV shows that look great that are that feel like big events. Do they hold hold on. How much of that is the audience and how much of that is hing that happened because of the arms race of the streaming world. Like doesn't something like the pit betray All the people want is the most expensive stuff possible Yeah, uh I guess in my opinion, both are true, right? Like strranger Th thingsings also a huge hit and that took I think approximately sixteen years between seons right? And so it's like I think people have room under pallte for multiple different kinds of shows. And I guess that's what I mean, right?ike proble the problem is we skewed too heavily, right into the big budget. Extremely heavy VFX. a huge number of prestige actors, like A list actors and so on and so forth. And then it's like, okay, now we got to wait fucking three years between these things h and that sucks And so yeah And that weight would hurt less if it wasn't, I think part of the people's anxiety and stress and annoyances Oh, it's one thing of like this one show takes a long time, but it't everything else I'm watching is coming back into rotation quickly became It feels like everything I'm watching is on a this two to three year treadmill, and then suddenly that makes it more difficult because the like the diet of like sort of shows you're watching are all operating under a similar principle and then thus level of annoyance relative to your enjoyment of them You know, I was reading up on this and one of the reasons why it became this way is because back in broadcast TV days they had a calendar that they needed to fill out Whereas in Streamerland, you don't need to fill out the calendar. And so that need, that pressure went away becausecause people don't watch shows at preappointed times anymore So our desire for convenience has led to what in many ways has become a more suboptal situation because we have to wait so long between seasons because, you know, they can be more ambitious. and now we have to wait longer between seasons and it's a huge pain. But Thank God for shows like the Pit that are bringing back the annual release schedule And we hope that shows like the Pit will be an inspiration for others and be with us for a very long time Speaking of leegacy broadcast stuff, I wanted to mention what's going on in CBS's late show time slot Uh, as we have previously discussed, Byron Allen has taken over the late show with Stephen Colbert, that time slot And I wish he hadak taken. No you don't. No you don't. I mean, he wishes he did, you know? But you don't. And anyway, he is now hosting a show called Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen And that show has u Dropped in ratings since Colbert. eighty seven percent the eleven thirty five slot averaged eight hundred seventy eight thousand viewers down fifty nine percent from the late show season average But yeah the the they debuted eighty seven percent down from Colberar finale ratings and K Colbert finale rating was obviously very high because it was such a momentous I have previously played clips of the Byron Allen show here on deceoding TV I did enjoy Andrew Lawrence's Brutal Withering review of comics unleashed over on The Guardian For which I will read to you just a couple of quick passages. Comics Unleashed is not a show you tweet about in the moment discuss the next morning or DVR with anticipation It exists one evolutionary rung above a looped fireplace video The sort of thing Walmart might run silently on a showroom TV wall Uh, so This guy, Andrew Lawrence, not a fan of comics Unleashed U and yeah, he's he's just really not a fan of, you know, he says here quote, The only thing comomics Unleeast has going for it is that it's scarcely twenty minutes long without the all important commercials That was a lot of fun, huh? Allan says to close each interchangeable episode. Raw materials soon to be recycled into Slop for Buzzfeed Byron Allen's latest media acquisition As the credits roll on the Red Shacket episode, he gathers the guests for a group photo The lady comic peels away almost immediately to check her phone It's a reminder of how easily the whole thing could be replaced by whatever's already waiting in the feet Much of it genuinely funny and how quickly everyone in the studio will forget they were ever there quote Meanwhile, CBS is saying, Hey, we made a great decision. According to Variety, CBS says late night deal with Byron and Allen will generate fifteen million dollars in profit According to a spokesperson or as a company statement We're proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and marketing and programming model for Late Night that proactively addresses a network day part that was cost prohibited to continue. With this time by model We have shifted an hour that was losing roughly forty million dollars annually to fifteen million dollars in profit, a fifty five million dollars swing So Patrick they went from Negative fifty sorry, neegative forty The positive fifteen fifty five billion dollars swing in the right direction. Now the problem is I think that doesn't account for a couple of things, right? I mean, number one the ratings and loss of prestige that have happened. And number two, Stehven Colbert, when he was interviewing stars from the network, he was promoting CBS shows, right? And so there was some benefit that they would get from that. So yes The hard numbers line up that, hey, they're making the right decisions, but they're also losing a lot that's not accounted for in that fifty five million dollars Petroclypic Any thoughts on The ignominious end of the late night slot on CBS. Well, it's a little like vulture capitalism, right? It's like you buy a distressed asset You lay everybody off and go voila prorofit. I did it I did it. I bought the private equity about the whole thing. There's very private equity about it, which is That doesn't mean it wasn't a distressed asset. I think I would describe like late night TV Yeah broadly speaking as sort of a distressed asset terms of like What is the size scope? What is What is the networks running it, getting out of it? How does that fit into a broader media ecosystem Um something that needs to be reconceptualized or scoped differently, all that Makes sense, butike CBS's explanation is like, well, we took something that wasn't making money And now it's making money because you got rid of all the stuff that you were spending money on is True. It is it is true It is ethnical level. It is true Right, But like you said, it's the loss of presties, It's the loss in house advertising. it's ye there are, you know, the there's a, you know, the sense of wood would have lost leaders exist for they exist because they help the broader pie even if the object itself is not necessarily generating as much money. So I I think that is a silly short sighted explanation for what here that is technically accurate, but does not speak to U it It doesn't I disavow the more cynical interpretation of why they did this, which was the finances allow us to make a political decision and hand wave it away because technically, now we're making more money. Um, when at the end of the day probably should have come down to a contract negotiation with Stephen Colbert of like, you can't keep making the show at this scope anymore. Are you two hundred plus people Can you do it without the band? Can you do it, you know Kimill had a funny joke about that when the although the other a bunch of the Latenight shows came host came out and was like, well you reason that, you know, you're going under Stehven is like How many people are over there in that band? And it's just a, you know, like they're went in a way that if you wanted to do something smaller in the same way that when Conan went from Um, from NBC to u TBS, right? and did like a like a He was on there for a while. He went But it went to weekly instead of nightly Wekly like the scope of the show was smaller. It was travel stuff, you know, I mean so Maybe St even want to do that. Maybe like Cole Bearw would look at that go that's not the. I want to make this big grand show Yeah. And that's like a way less acrimonious breakup. Like the way they did it was u sort of like maximal impact in terms of reading it cynically and politically, as opposed to Stephen Colbert didn't want to take a budget cut to his show Indeed. Well I'm curious to see whether Byron Allen will catch on. Like I'm genuinely curious to see like like does literally just appearing in that slot grant you some amount of Notoriety that you wouldn't otherwise have? No, or no. No and also I'm already mad that you already betrayed the bit that I set up likeike for this was that if you are going to invoke This show You're going to make us talk about it. I need to listen to one of the jokes and you didn't. I thought maybe you were getting there. So you read like a really insightful criticism from the Guardian. Okay That's one route David Chen, another would have been to hear somebodyoney tell a joke from this. nextext time I bring it up, I will play you some a clip from Byron Allen's monologue and I think we' all get to enjoy it. I apologize for that That's my bad. That's my bad Filmmaker Jorge Gutierz drops plans for AI generated series funded by Amazon MGM Studios after backlash Patrick, not too long ago, there was a headline from Variety that said Amazon MGM Studios embraces AI green lightights three series for Prime Video under new Gen AI Creatorors Fund So Amazon and Jes Studios touting the power of AI to create cinematic entertainment Announced the GenI Creators Fund providing funding and access to air production tools to filmmakers. And they announced three projects to go along with it Punky Duck from Jorge Cutier as the director of the Book of Life Love Diana Music hunters from Albi Hech. who is the chief content offfficer at Pocket. watchatch and cupcake and friends from Buzzfeed Studios All three series will premiere on Prime video, but no dates have been set yet end quote, That was in late to May of twenty twenty six. So not too long A go. U and just literally days afterwards Jorge Guter has dropped out of the project. And he said, quote in his statement I have decided to drop out of the AI program at Amazon. I will not be making a punky duck series. Actions speak louder than words and quote, which I do admire the reacting to your fans and customers and so on in a very responsive way, but I did just find it mildly amusing The words, I will not be making a punky duck series actually speak out of the words and quote, juxtaposed with each other All that said, he said he continued, my intent was to showcase artists both new and seasons, both inside and outside the studios driving this new tech My sincerest apologies to those I upset. I promise to do better moving forward. Thank you for your patience with me I will try harder, end quote Reps for Amazon MGM did not immediately respond to requests for comment So Patrick, it does seem as though the toxicity around the sentiment for AI is becoming so intense that People are starting to be afraid of putting their name associated with any generative AI projects pulling out of projects generated. I mean I say this, but The same has not necessarily been true in the film world, right? Like Multiple filmmakers have declared that they are interested in using AI, Stehen Sootderberg as an example. and You know, I don't think the reaction has cowed them in the same way that I think it does for some TV personalities. Patrick, you're seeing this kind of stuff in the video game world as well, right? Like U There is just some really powerful anti A sentiment. We've discussed it here on Deoding TV. Any reaction to this latest move by Jorge Guterz I think one thing that's note about Guter is that He has a documented receipt l in history of being anti AI and pointing out that especially the like image and video generation is by its very nature built upon these models stole from artists to then profit off of that theft. And he has talked about how like that's bad So to then announce that you're partnering with one of the thieves is going to like this is somebody who was pretty beloved in the animation community. Like this isn't some like part of the reason this wasort targeted at him. I was following a lot of this on social media from a lot of animators and artists that I follow, who are like genuinely heartbroken that you're watching one of your heroes choose to align with some but like to get in bed with the enemy. And so you know Credit to you know, this filmmaker for might have happened partially because of Bullying from like friends, colleagues and fans for going to step down I mean,' a couple of things going on. One. If I take this decision to sign on in the most good faith way possible, it is probably reflective to some degree of how difficult it is to get funding to produce animation these days. like I expect that that is a very difficult proposition and that one thing facing a lot of these creatives is One way that I could get money is like there's a lot of companies who Almost regardless of how much AI you use, we get to say that it's an AI driven project and then like then we willll sign on for the budget to, you know, make this to make that. So I have a I have I have a strong suspicion that that is driving Some of this and that is that's tough, right? Like That's a depending on the level of filmmaker and what wealth they've built over the course of their career. Is this the difference between putting food on the table and your ethics That's hard. That is that' a difficult question to be placed in front of people U The other one is that those names you put you rattled off as the GAI ones, it is important u like Was it cookie cupcake and friends They're targeting children's entertainment I've written about this over a crossplay The normalization of Video generation in AI using AI is going to happen first and foremost children. Yeah. Chren cannot tellell the difference now or in the future on animation that is just Crummy outsourced cheap CG animation and something that is coming from an AI product. And so children who have no artistic taste have not have no sense like they're not supposed to. like like that that's why it's the parent's job to sort of step in and find the line between Something that's mindless colors on the screen and like entertainment or value. Hm But like The idea of it like companies would target children with slop makes all the sense to the world because they don't know any better. they can't reject it. they have no And so that's the part I find really frustrating because it's the most cynical way to go about this to normalize it is to do so to an audience that basically can't say no or even know that they're being serviced something that is like theft or you know, all that. So I find that very frustrating. Like and the last thing I'll say is you know, on Like YouTube is rolling out some new measures to sort of attach AI labels to videos on their platform that are believed to be by YouTube's tools to be like not predominantly AI. generated. If there's not a disclosure, they're going to attach one to it And if they're building these tools to like disclose it and attach it Why can't I as a parent, then go into my kids YouTube accounts and say if you if you have a reasonable suspicion that this is AI generated Do not surface it to my children. Like filter that out in the same way that you would filter out. violent or sexual content. And I've asked them specifically about that and they have told me it's not in their plans and it's frustrating I do think this is one of the few times where there has been a significant negative prolonged backlash to a piece of tech that a lot like virtually every company Every tech company in America is Working on, working with or has some plan for. You to this graduation ceremony, Click? Yeah, I know, right? It's like the kids are all right, David. They're booing. When when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone It wasn't like people like B Boo Boo. this sucks, you know, like There's something about AI and I you explain, here's how theiPhone is going to make your life better. right AI is like so and you' graduate in college you're not going to have a job. right? It's like teechnology has historically been pitched on evenven if it's snake oil and how it is going to make your life better And the predominant pitch on AI is We are going to transform how the economy works takeake away your jobs. don't have answer for donon' You know, it's like this, you know, the the South Park joke, right? Like the underwear gomes. there's profit. Takeway jobs likeike it'ss it's just never technology is not usually pitched in a way that is So hostile. the folks that they're essentially pitching it towards Yeah, uh Number one, I agree that they haven't done a good job selling it. Num two Uh Even even for technology that hasn't been sold well, like I'll just put this out. Google Google.ot rememember Google L launch, wasn't like there was huge Google ad campaigns everywhere. It's just like, hey, we're launching a website and people like, holy shit, this is so useful. Everyone's using it, right? Um Sometimes you don't even need a good pitch as long as people think that thech technology is really useful. And I think a lot of people are just rejecting this outright because they know the implications are what the implications are for their job, their jobs, for the things that they create, and also Um They they don't see the utility in the same way that tech executives see it at this moment. One of the other programs, by the way that was greenlit as part of this project is love Diana Music Hunters. which is based on pocket. watchatch creator partner Diana, the most followed girl on YouTube, a young band of K pop space traveling musicians races the planet Goo, where they must perform a concert to restore the music and save the aliens, end quote Patrick, I don't know if you. realize like that sounds suspiciously like another Netlixs TV showow Who could say. And that show, of course I'm referring to is the Burroughs. If you haven't seen that, No I'm just jokings Jet GPT, what does this show sound like But it' I mean, it's called Love Diana Music Hunters. and it has c. Not even not even trying.id Did the AI come up with the title? Why did you put hunters in the title?ike R If you're gonna copy it, don't put hunters in the title. Do you know what I mean? Anyway So we'll see how that plays out, but it does seem like, oh, u I think it's a bad sign for the initiative if one of your three Marquee people that signed up has been getting extxtremely horrible threats. We do not condone that at all. you know, like threats and bullying and such, do not condone that But then to the point where they feel like they need to drop out of the program completely. Like that's just It's both AI has a huge perception issue right now and I'm curious to see how people will go about trying to solve that This episode is sponsored by ZockDoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start We've definitely been there and that's why we use ZockDoc Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed, but we hopped on to ZakDoc, found an in network dentist, had great reviews, saw real time appointments available, which was key. 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N new customers only. requires three hundred megabt per second interternet, securityedge and additionalying service, onene year agreement, paperless billing and autoay with bank account required. Taxes and fees extra topic bath at sixty minutes to the Daily Beast CBS Ns editor in Chief Barry Weiss has fired a trio of top women at sixty Minutes, including its executive producer and a star reporter who accused her of choosing access journalism Over accountability reports that corpondents Sharon Alfonse and Cecilia Vega were fired on Thursday, also reportedly act was as his executive producer, Tanya Simon, a thirty year veteran of the program, who's being replaced by a man who has never worked in TV news. E quote, That's of course, referring to Bilt in Who is now in charge of sixty minutes U byy the way, at the same time that this was happening, a young man named Santiago Campos was receiving an award for excellence in journalism. He accepted the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship at the forty seventh Use Emmy Awards. Saring the stage of the biggestames in the industry I'm reading from his YouTube channel During which he said this in part. And while I want to thank CBS News for funding this generous gift towards my education, I want to also acknowledge how the recent direction of the outlet stains the legacy of Mike Wallace the namesake of this scholarship. So you have Young student journalistm is like go young student journalists just going out there calling CBS out on a major stage. He then went on to talk about U how he felt like u issues around genocide were not being spoken about with as much force and prominence as they should be Uh, and Yeah, meananwhile, Nick Bilton, you might be asking who is this guy? Wh is this guy who's been tasked with taking over sixty minutes. Rusty Foster over at today in Tabs had this wonderful write upp to say. Nick Bilton was born at the New York Times and grew up as a design editor in the newsroom and a researcher in the research and development labs, which are real jobs, according to Wikipedia. Before he became a Tes technology columnist writing asinine takes like what if Trayvon Martin had been wearing Google glasses when he was murdered And is your smartwatch give you cancer end quote Uh and so, you know, Nick Bilton has written and directed and produced like a couple of documentaries over the years So it's not like he has no experience whatsoever, but he has not run a news organization like sixty Minutes before I will say had you heard of Dick Bilton before this happened, Patrick? Yeah, like Bilton is ve been around blogging circles for a long time. So not someone I had Like when the name floated up. How do I know him from the Gawker era? of which he has some connections? I worked at Kataku and were they were surrounded by Gawker. I will say Patrick when they announced that Nick Bilton would be taking over sixty minutes My first reaction was that's not as horrible a decision as I would have thought. Likeast at least this is a person who uh, has some mild connections with actual journalism And u doesn't seem He is trying to actively destroy sixty minutes, which is why I would think that they would choose. Yes. As we're recording this Scott Pelly is reported to have said in a heated internal meeting. He accused Barry Weiss of murdering sixty minutes U and doing great start And so You know, this has been a bloodbath for sixty minutes, onene of the most storied news organizations in American media history And it's a tragedy. We're watching like this actually relatively high quality journalstick outlet and program. be completely dismantled in slow motion over time Uh But the Nick build is a little complicated. Like it's When I when I heard it, it's like, that's not a good hire. But it's not an atrocity. You know what I mean? It's not like Oh, that's like the worst person you ever could have hired. you know, it's It's not like yeah, anyway, that was my initial reaction. But think I think the Scot Pelly stuff is an extent maybe perhaps less about Nick Bilton Ccifically as much as what he represents and the fact that If you work in and around sixty minutes in and around CBS, you can no longer take these decisions in good faith. Like whatever leash there was given in terms of folks work in there like this is a bad situation, but You know, we can outlast them and like we can try and do the best work we can in a bad situation. Everyone's been in a version of that you know, different points in their lives and different jobs And I think here you have senior members of sixty Mutes who are a lot like no they will say something, it will be leaked and they will not be fired for it. or if they are fired for it, it will simply propel them to The next thing that they do Kind of do we hope. We hope But yeah, I mean, there have been multiple defections already. Anderson Cooper obviously didn't renew his contract. Leslie Stall, I think still TBD, but It's just sad man. It's just a bummer and u I feel it's important to talk about because you know it's a thing that's happening and people will start to feel it in the quality of sixty minutes over time. Um All of Barry Weiss's decisions have been horrible And I think that the woman who was fired Alphfoni, made a really great statement. She says about she slammed Weiss in a fiery statement. dared her to fire her. She said this was not a routine corporate transition. It was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting E qu, this is about the CCot El Salvador jail report that theoretically painted the Trump administration in a negative light. She continued, It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom, and she claims CBS leadership is now choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it, quote, which is A great line and as far as we can tell completely accur. Uh, yeah, I mean Eventually it will come to a point where it's no longer interesting to talk about because sixty minutes will have reached its final form which is somethingomething that only covers celebrity news. And how awesome the current government is doing at making American citizens' lives But until then, I'll keep mentioning every time some major travesty occurs Anyway That's going to bring us the end of TV newews today Patrick Klepp, before we get to our conversation about Euphoria's series finale You want to let people knowking if they find more of your work on the Innet this week Yeah, proud to say that's that we're coming up on in the midst of the third anniversary of remap, the company I co founded. some years back Jetisoned from from Vice. And so three years still going strong. L's a very healthy business thatm I'm really proud to be a part of. And this week as was a part of that business. I'll be traveling to California to attend summer Game Fest which is a big sort of like a big trade show where like they show a bunch of new games. You can follow all the stuff that I'm doing there and our anniversary shenanigans over at Remap Radio and wherever you get your podcasts and then over at Crossplay, which is my newsleberal parenting, gaming, technology. recently like by recently I mean twenty four hours ago I purchased my daughter an Apple Watch as we try to straddle my almost ten year old's desire for more independence, which she has earned, and she can be trusted with my desire to not be a helicopter parent, but how do you navigate the kind of technology you have access to that allows you to really keep tabs on what your kids are up to. So this week I'm writing about me doing my best to navigate that tension in a world where you can sort of surveill your children as much as you'd like and A what point does that cross a boundary where you're not allowing your kids to live their own lives? So you can read about that over at Crosspllay. News Very cool. And I want to just remind people we are transitioning to potentially having no weekly recap at this point, although we are covering Widows Bay and bonus episodes become a paid subscriber at decconingt. com to get those And we're considering covering U Dark Matter week to week, season one until season two premieres in August. Let us know what you think of that at decodingTV at gmail dot com d Let's get to our conversation about the Euphoria season three finale I just know that I'm tired start losing people hardest m in my life. these rooms and diners and at my house talalking to kids Helping kids to poor my fucking heart and souls, kids. On tonight see even get a second chance I'm done O only thing I know for certain is that there is a right and a wrong in this world any in between. You're either making the world a better place or you're making it worse. In the end, it's that fucking simple Welcome to deceoding TV's coverage of the Euphoria season three finale. AK of the series finale. We just learned that HBO has confirmed there will be no New episodes of Euphoria, this is definitively the end The episode is entitled in God We Trusts We need to start with overall thoughts, Patroclepic What did you think of this finale? We have talkaled about how this has been a pretty scattered season Did the finale redeem things for you or did it confirm that this season has been largely A waste of time I think this finale is where the illusion finally completely shattered for me in which holding out hope that Sam Leinson had something to say onlyn be confronted with what I can only describe as complete nonsense in the final episode. was profoundly disappointing because I think Euphoria seasons one and two, you know, which we talked about in a different podcast as I did my first watch of the show straddled a really interesting line between aesthetic maximalism And genuinely trying to provide an insight, having something to say about its characters, the world And watching it ride that line and like at times choosing screw it I don't want to have anything to say. like I actually just want to like lean into the aesthetic. like It made for something genuinely thrilling So like it felt subversive, it felt dangerous at times. It was a really exciting show to watch In season three of Euphoria Jettisons any attempts to walk that line. And by the end I think cast the whole show that I've been watching trying to give the benefit of the doub. Like, o, I guess if I just choose to watch a different show I can maybe get on board with what I'm watching I was so deeply frustrated by the end of the show How would outright betrays, I think, a number of characters U betrays any sense of a real like resolution and closure over the course of the show. I think it is it doesn't make retroactively make Euphoria one and two seasons one and two worse But the way I'm going to think about Euphoria after having watched the end of it is that it ended at season two It had a beautiful ending for the show. And then there was a fan project backsed by HBO that they call it before fora season three because it had a pretty beautiful ending. and You got to like it's easy to slip into. Well, I guess retroactively. That wasn't like no, like Euphoria season like There are incredible highs. like some of the best television I haveve ever watched scattered across those seasons That is not taken away, but I think season three I'm happy to escort to the side because I have I have no interest in thinking about you. past the recording of this podcast I think the tragedy of Euphoria season three is that Sam Levinson actually shows thats actually he's a very talented genre director this season There's some really great tense sequences throughout the whole. Absolutely And I also think that Alamo Brown as a character is a really wonderful creation. Like I think That is a compelling character and represents sort of an element of America in some way. Like he is kind of America's Best and worst tendencies mostly worse Mostly worse tendencies. embodied in a single character, right And the best parts I would say like are like the entrepreneurialism, the belief that you can always improve your own conditions that you can be anyone you want to be These are things that are distinct to America and they don't really exist in other parts of the world to the same degree or in the same flavor. And so I think Elmo Brown is a great great creation Virtually everything else about this season has been kind of a disaster. I think that U I also think that by the way, if they had just chosen to focus on Rue this season that that actually would have been better because in my opinion, all of the stuff that was not rue All the Cassie stuff, all the Nate stuff All the lexi stuff, all the show business stuff amounted to nothing at all Like there there's Whatever commentary they're trying to do has been done better or more incisive or funnier elsewhere H I do not know what he was trying to say about Hollywood. in Euphoria season three But it was not anything particularly insightful or interesting in my opinion That's that's my reaction. I mean, oh, like every every job, every job in Hollywood is like some kind of sex work h we're all pimping ourselves out to some degree or, you know, like What it's its own show. It's its own show. there's three or four shows in season Three of Euph four you all undercut one another. I don't know if they would have individually have been good shows, but it would have been an opportunity for any of those to have the chance to breathe and say something as opposed to what we end up here is like every Sideshow suffocates the other one I think if this had just been about Rue and Ali and maybe Juleles like imagine if that was the whole season, right? And it was just about them or Maddie. I M Maddie's intersection into Rue's story. I ultimately It didn't justify the whole you know, Cassie like Nate subplot, but I bought those worlds overlapping and That happens so late in the game that it doesn't really get a chance to really explore that. But I'm with you on the broader point of They just focused in on Rue and then a couple of characters in the universe that Maybe just kind of jumped in and out, but look, we have Almo Brown. We've got this strip club. We've got this. We're going to do a Tarantino Breaking bad sort of thing and a drug addict kid Wh who's like can talk talk good game is our is our window into that Cool. I go make that show. They didn't make that show They need to get one third of it And I would say a lot of the decisions that characters make in the series finale Euphoria Re come out of nowhere I mean Ali's big turn at the end, you know, I don't know if I fully believe it. And then of course Bishop makes a really huge decision that it's like Okay, did we really have do we really lay the track for that really? you know, I don't know if we it makes important moments of this finale make the previous events like Matdie slipping on mentioning the The DEA stuff Even more infuriating. You wrote this season. L you didn't have to invent like the flimsiest of reasons to arrive at this If you wanted this to happen, there were other more organic ways for it to happen, not for a bunch of characters to do ridiculous things to contrive we are just so J just like shivving different characters along the way to arrive at at a forced conclusion I'm going to read the plot summary this episode from Wikipia Rue escapes Laurie's ranch with Gee's help after injuring Wayne and fleeing from Harley. And again, and you know, I'll stop there for a second I think that Some of the filmmaking here is just Really good. you know, like this sequence, I think is really good with the whole last sewing Zendea and like Wow, they actually it looks like they actually went out and did something like it and then Marshawn Lynch with a Sipeper rifle coming in and saving the, you know, it's just like And he was good. Look L like this get lost. His character is pretty minor Mars on we have a loser to Marshon Lynch in You live in Seattle, so you, you know, like He is One of the all time One of the all time great running backs in terms of talent, but in terms of personality, in terms of presence, in terms of what he meant to a certain era of Sadle Seahawks football. Yeah, nothing like watching Marshun Lynch And man He's pretty good in this show for what he's asked to do. He's asked to do not a lot, but what he's asked to do he does He's got some great moments in this episode in particular I was like, Mash Shawn, maybe you should be in some more Usually hes doing goofy acting stuff, comedic stuff that is part of like a b, you know, sort of a trading on the fact that he was a football player and that he was he's, you know, he's such a big guy He does some shit in this episode that I was like, oh you could use of Marsarchon Lynch in euphoria Yeah, I would say he has been surprisingly good in TV and film. And in particular, I want to call out he appeared in the movie Bottoms And also he was he played himself in The Netflix series Murderville. That's a show where Will Arnette goes and tries to solve crimes with people in real life and they're part of like a real life murder mystery Anyway Marshall Lach, ye, solid acting career sofar. He's got a got a bright f post football feature ahead of him Anyway Great opening sequence just really well done and also As the DEA closes in on Laori's operation Alamo takes control of a fentanyl shipment by switching ambulances, end quote. Now All the stuff with Laorie being apprehended I thought was just beautiful. It's just beautifullul. you have these Pice this law enforcement vehicles whizzing by in this fog and illuminated the night. It's like o my gosh it' so beautiful Um Also a pretty funny scene when they switch ambulances And the guy says, Hey, where's my cooke? And he says, I thought you were done. And he's like, was I don't know you, Patrick, but This is a common urnt in Chen household where if I'm sharing aink soda or most often it becomes like an ice cream with my wife It'll be a thing where it's like, oh, you know, you hand the ice cream over to a person. And then they eat like more of it than you had originally planned for them to do. You know what I mean? Has that ever happened to you? This ever happened with you and And your wife Yeah, like ice cream one doesn't happen too often because she just wants a bite. But then sometimes I'm like, well Should I just get my own? And sometimes I' smart enough to re like We've, you know, we've been together many decades now, like now she understands I I'm just gonna get two kid sized ones. and then you just have your own. Yeah, I have my own Yeah, it's not fight I agree that's a no disappointment. But I did think that that again, there's like, oh man, that's like clever that they had this funny moment about sharing Coke, and it turns out to be a clue about the fact that they switch ambulances It like I actually think that's good. wr for like good genre writing, you know Anyway, facing arrest, Laurie kills herself And Alamo gives Rue money and percassette pills secretly containing fentanyl and she dies from an overdose with Ali finding her the next day So with Ali finding over the next day. Now actually is not detailed here, is what actually happens to the rest of Lauri's crew spepecifically Fe and Wayne Get away Right? Fay is like hitchhiking and then Wayne approaches the thing and then I think I think Harley's if if I saw correctly, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think Harley surrenders as well. But yeah. Th thenen we get this dream sequenceer through where She learns that Fez has escaped and she is going to go and try and save him And My reaction the whole time is Rue, what are you doing? This is a very silly thing that you're doing. But turns out, it was just the this fantasy that she's having As she was dying from being poisoned with fentanyl By Ema Brown U and she in this thing she's in this dream sequence she embraces her mom. who had one line this season, Nika King had one line this season. U and kind of has a vision of her dad as well and then has a has a vision of Fz who again, in this universe is still alive which again, you, as I discussed in anlier episode, I think was a mistake because This is less significant. because Fz is still alive and she's dying. And so it's like the idea You hope is that they're kind of passing into the same plane, but in the universe of the show he's still alive Um, and then Rue is dead. And first of all, we called it Patrick. I mean, I think we predicted that this would happen. I think we're shocked that it happened because Indeay is a huge star. And I think we're very shocked that it happened about halfway to two thirds of the way through this episode So there's still a whole third of the episode left. Anyway, Patrick, any reactions to the end of Re Yeah, I was getting dangerously worried with the whole Fz stuff. My man We about to like AI Fzz into the show. I was sweating bullets on what they were about to do with this character. likeike o this could be so incredibly tasteless if if we proceed in a certain direction You know, then it eventually clocked for me well, you know, as they as they cut a away to to re hand in the air like, ah, right, okay. I guess it makes more sense that she's dying than Fez having forget how the news describes. He's got like a very unorthodox escape by an inmate today. He parkourred out of the prison and it shows him like that shuffling up It shows a Fzz Angus double Pcouring up the wall, right? Extremely extxtremely shouldh have taken that less at face value than I did. That's on me, I guess, show to just to just completely go with that. But I mean, it'ss it's one of the parts that I struggle with. Like I think Broadly this finale does not work. I think broadly the season doesn't work. but where Rue ends up. Um, dead at the hands of the decisions she made bothoth of her like home volition and in the throes of addiction. Um make a lot of sense. like I think like her getting to the end of the show And not being able to, I mean, many addiction narratives that we,, watch on television are you know, very optimistic. and that's not always the case. And And here you have a character that you're rooting for Mhm, you know, now granted that, you know, she didnn't realize it was lace by that, you know, you run that risk. when you sort of like engage with like these kinds of drugs, that like, you know, this is something to this se in particular has talked about I think Sam Lemenson has said that was intentional. like He sort of became obsessed with how commommon fentanyl. deaths had become in the United States and then that's direct extension of how much that becomes sort of a running commentary and theme through the season. But it's worth noting that this Euphoria season three takes place I believe during the one hundred and seven days during which Kamala Harris was running for president against Donald Trump if' not mistake. But they make that real clearre during an uncomfortably long sequence of the news reading out the state of the race between Harris Is are we going somewhere? Like it was like thirty seconds long for like this Yeah, he was caster. but, you know, I againgain, India such phenomenal actor. I know She sells What happens to her as best that she can. I think she gets a fitting set send offff sort of narratively for where that character was O the journey they've been on It's just, as we've discussed, I sort of disagree with how we arrived there, but I don't necessarily disagree This isn't a pretty natural place to say goodbye to the character I will say that. Okay. so first of all, we do see Alamo takeake one of the perk sets, right? one of the pills himself u to kind of demonstrate, hey, there's nothing wrong with these. You can pop them, but he has we believe it is intentional that he has laced her. pills with fentanyl and it means for her to die, right? Like we believe that that's true Um And U And I but I do agree that there is something that kind of makes sense about Rz de We talked about Nate Jacob's death as like that coming out of nowhere for that character. But yeah, this is this is a logical end that if you like escalate your involvement with these types of figures then that is something that will happen. Now you know Was she in the process of really doing that before Laorie came for her at the beginning of the season? I don't think she was, right if I recall correctly, right? Like, wasn't just trying to live a normal life? but then she had this She had this debt that she had to pay back. Now now that may also be true to life where people have commitments that they made that like then need to be called back or something that something they prom someone in jail that needs to like be called back on now that that person's out of jail or whatever it is Um, And so but all that said, The idea of Ru dying. Makes sense. It makes sense and I don't mind it. I don't mind it as like a thing I do mind the stuff that comes after. We're gonna talk with that right now. you're telling me that's not also a dream sequence. That is actually the storytelling of the show. Oh, that's unfortunate Three months later, Ali attends his final recovery meeting where he confesses that he has lost faith and declares the dealers, politicians, and enablers of the drug trade simply evil He then confronts Alibo at his strip club After Bishop secretly unloads Alamo's gun, Ali shoots and kills him E quote. let's just talk about that Again Pretty effective sequence. now, would Ali actually do we believe that Ali would actually go do this I don't know, Patrick, you've watched you have re watchatched like Ollies's interactions with Rue more recently than me Like does the Ali that we saw in the specials and the rest of the show, do we think he would saw the tip off of a shotgun and go in guns blazing into strip cllub like this? What do you think Definitely not one hundred percent not. if you wanted to have the character See You know, kind of origin story we get for this character just recently in the show Um If you wanted to use that earlier and set the stage for a character who finally breaks right? They were an awful person, you know, to their to their to their wife, to their children and then have tried to rehabilitate themselves and help others. but their method of helping feeleels good feels like they're doing good in the world, but it's not enough. peopleeople just keep fucking dying this approach maybe isn't the best use of my talents and my contribution to doing good It's like the kind of conclusion he draws. right? I don't think is not is necessarily one the character couldn't have drawn, but it all happens exceptionally quickly. So No, I don't think there's any world you could get me to he picks up he saws off a shotgun in his fucking house and then like goes and impersonates a veteran and like heads to this drip club. none of that. I'm I mean was I was genally hoping by the end Oh you set up this dream framework Is this This character breaks. The death of Rue is just one death too much. cannot believe that this happened to someone He uses the term daughter later on in a way that I do not feel like was earned by the relationship between those two and I thought was was a little odd. but Let's let's take it. Like let's let's assume like at some point Ali had sort of like looked at Rue as a daughter given that he's not really involved in the lives of his actual daughters anymore fanticized about like doing something like this, but then it turns out No, that's like not actually something he could do or would do be an expensive dream sequence, but it would have made more sense narratively than one in which That's how we get Alamo Browns you know shocking send offff is by him marching in there and Well, he lost the gun fight He didn't even win the gun fight. He won by default A C couple things. firstirst of all, Ali is shown having war medals in the. So he's not impersonating a military officer Um But Yeah, and I will also say the scene when he saong off a shotgun, I do think might be a reference to no countountry for oldld men when we see U Luell and Moss do the same thing. He saws off a shotgun before going up against Antonchigger. The kind of way in which it's done kind of like shot and edited kind of reminded me of that. So I just wanted to call that out U But yeah, would we believe that he's willing to go on a freaking shooting spree? The consequences of which we never really find out 't I don' he just kind of leaves and he's able to move about the country freely afterwards. So okay, fine. But anyway Speaking of unresolved things, we also never really find out what Alam OBrown was doing with all those girls' IDs Uh they were in his his IDs were in Laurie's they were in his shop. Lauri took them. He got them back And presumably he was using those girls for some kind of trafficking purpose, but we never discover what that is. That's never let. becauseuse I mean one of the IDas is the girl that Rue took to Yeah. Angel reab Angel and Sylvia came back. So I I assume that is But they never they never explain what that is so they don't resolve anyway So then Alamo Brown faces off against Ali after, you know, talking with, you know, he has this open moment with Maddie where he he's very vulnerable to Maddie and says like, I want the American dream and I want more than I have right now. And again, I think Alo is like a compelling character. I don't really have anything negative to say about the Alamo Brown character. Like that seems like a fully fleshed out character All of whose actions make complete sense to me. Would Ali go in storming guns blazing to try to avenge Ru? I think you're right that the show doesn't fully earn that they have that level of connection Um, especially because the whole time He's convincing her to not do illegal things, you know, like he's He's already straighten himself out and like Is the death of Rue that shattering to him that he's like, I can't believe that happen. Its destroyed my faith and faith my faith in the universe. I just don't. Like not only do I not believe that, I feel that kind of cheapens the Ali character Yes one hundred percent. Yeah Yes. And so Then Uhuh. Then Alam O Brown sets up this duel, right? And he says, Hey, like roll this bottble And then when the bottle hits the ground, then we draw and then which is dw which is sick. I had I his commitment to arbitrary bits to determine the life and death people is is great. I like in in an episode in aen game recognized game. I mean, I like have very little say about in terms of cohesion The alba around character and especially this little bit of his is as soon as he said, I'm like, Lve the fact that he's making it a farish fights and like we have the most ridiculous terms to determine who is going to when they're going to fire. Great. no notes. But he finds out that Bishop has already replaced the bullets with nothing. He's taken the bullets out and given Alamo an empty gun and Albo is able to realize What happened right before he dies and I think this kind of sucks, you know, And what I mean by that is I am able to be convinced that Bishop would betray Almo Brown. I am able to be convinced, right because Bishop has seen a lot of bad things. He's seen Almo treat his employees very badly includluding killing Ru, right? he's witnessed all that go down. And therefore, I would buy that he would not be happy with Alamo and want to betray him I just don't think the show D anything? Like like the show really needed to not tip its hand so that you could be surprised. And like whoa, I can't believe Bishop did that And that is just a really sad way of generating support like what what I think we would be better in that scenario is Oh, this is the logical conclusion of Bishop's character and you really are satisfied that Bishop got one over on Alamo, but like I don't think the track has really been laid for that personally. Nope. Pat. Yep, you agree? Yeah. ye. Ag, this is things that are basically impossible to do with the running time that they can dedicate, even even as they were characters were overlapping and the world was getting smaller There's just not enough time to allow an arc like that to feel completely satisfying. It wouldn't happen? rewound it, Did I miss something? like where is this? Like of course there's backstabbing amongst like groups like this, but I don't Nothing that I've washed across this season is clocked It's like a fun I it's okay for it to be a fun surprise, but this is just a surprise surprise. even his earlier speeches against Rue seem more with Rue seem more like anti Rue than anti Alamo. you know, And so Yeah, I I do not believe they have sufficiently laid the trke. I do actually like Bishop as a character overall though because it is reasonable to me that a guy who works for Alamo would need to have no effect because of the horrible things that he sees all the time. And therefore like you would not have any emotion at all U But he did such a good job that it's like, whyy does he have emotion at the end there? Like what's going on And we never really get any explanation. L it's not like Bishop sits down and explains like why he did what he did, right? So Elsewhere, Cassie and Maddie plan to turn Nate's house into an influencer business and invite Lexi to join, but she refuses Jules copes with Ru's death by painting her portrait I don't know, man. like Why even include this character this season. Wh Why even include this entire subplot? A lot of people have pointed out that In season three of Euphoria, it feels like every woman on this show is in the process of being assaulted, abused, or demeaned in any given scene. And U that definitely is true and that's not necessarily like Uh, you can I don't necessarily think you canot do that As long as you're trying to make some really good point about The sex worker industry or only fans or what have you And I don't feel like the show did that at all. Like I did not find it to be particularly insightful. I thought You know, Margo has money troubles has got money troubles. like another show on Apple TV plus that also deals with only fans is more interesting and insightful about what it's like to try and balance your life with this whole other existence you have online and the troubles that come with that. L this show, in my opinion The entire Cassie, Matdie. Lexi subplot just added up to a big Nothing burger for me, Patrick Am I wrong No, it's hasn basically just leveraged the aesthetics of only fans as a way to show Syidney Sweeney naked and in different costumes for the course of his season. add's up to nothing There's literally nothing to say about seex work and the commoditization and like democratizing of sex work, it just Only fans is neat We'll just drop that into our show. like profoundly frustrating. I don't think it evers one interesting moment at the very, very end when the camera pulls out of house and you see Sydney Sweeney's character there all by herself Almost like she's in a doll house, like just preserved their lonely not surrounded by anyone she knows or loves And it's like, oh okay, it's maybe about the isolating impact of what this industry is Make me about is like the most you can get to, right?ike That's right. That's right. Like that visual lands that point. It's a better a great shot. I It's a great shot. But it's this is What drove me in like nuts about this episode is it convinces you of substance that does not exist. And this is not a substtex is for cowards situation. I don't need to show to like turn to me and go So Yeah, here's what we were There's nothing, there's nothing there. It's an illusion. It is aesthetic masking the lack of anything any substance or anything to say. And that is, I think no more best illustrated then in the The Cassie storyline in particular, which is just a grab bag of things Um that doesn't really add up to anything. And that shot is a beautiful shot. like I feel like I'm going to see clips of that. sharered around because it is really striking the way that camera pulls out And it could be that thing we're in the moment like, Yeah. But then if someone was to pause and like, what do you think that means? Profound Like bard about ot sure. And like that's how I feel about this season of Euphor. M Fair enough. The way that music sort of manipulates your emotions, like it puts you in a place where like You can hear music that accentuates you feeling happy or sad I think that's what Sam Lemison does with Like visuals is makes it kind of puts you in a place where you're feeling something. But if you like to really examine, What's happening with the words and like the stories and the characters It's not It's not supporting the visuals in the way that you would Speaking of the music, I do think that Han Zimmer helped to write the score for the season I don't think it was a good fit You know, I think it made it feel more it felt like the music was trying to make things seem more dramatic and epic than they actually were and I was just not not a huge fan of the score of the season alsoso My biggest complaint about season two of Euphoria is that it lost sight of the rue Jel's relationship. And then this season seems to do the same thing. likeike why even introduce Jules again if you're not going to do anything interesting with her Dastrous. like I do not think that where their relationship ended was satisfying at all And This just is a huge bble Ali later visits a religious family Ru had known, introduces himself by his Islam pre conversion name and leads a prayer during which Ru appears peacefully in a vision A lot of people have been talking about whether or not Sam Levinson is trying to promote some concept of Christianity in this episode of the show. There is this whole speech that Lexi gives about reading the Bible And she says, I read it and I thought it'd be boring, but no, it's so interesting And Patrick Klepk I have read the Okay And I don't know what Bible reading program Lexi was using. Bible GT that. She does there are vast sections of the Bible that are inc like if', especially if she's reading from beginning to end, there are vast sections of the Old Testament that are just Really, really boring. like endless Laws, minutia about what laws you're supposed to follow and Uh Her description of the Bible is kind of true, but it also felt like It was false advertising for the Bible. likeike, no, the Bible is one of the most interesting texts ever made But it is not necessarily riveting reading in the same way that L if you listened to Lexi and started reading the Bible afterwards expecting what she says, I think you' be disppoed I'm not convinced Sam Leemison has read the Bible Thank you, Rad a summary how the st was really I can understand why the story summaries may be a little intriguing, but I'm in. I'm notinully convinced he's read the Bible. There is an interview that Sam Levinson gave to h The New York Times. And I think it's kind of interesting about what he says to them, right? First of all, the New York Times Um talks about how he think they think like, oh, it ends in such a dark place Like Ali has just murdered these guys And it ends in such a dark place and he says, really Like I thought it ended at a place of grace, you know, at the table and everything like that. And Hm And then it kind of ends with, you know, God bless us all shhot of his farm with an American flag and One of two things has happened. Either Sam Levinson is promoting this trraditionalist Christian vision of America as a kind of sve or balm fear some of the deepest ills and issues that some people in this country face in America face Yeah He doesn't know what he's doing. He's just thrown around shit without any sense of what the symbology means The symbolism means. and it just inadvertently comes off as a promotion for American Christianity What do you think is more likely petrolypic I think if I'm continuing my own response and arguments on the lack of substance in his episode It really just feels like His TikTok feed showed him trradwives. I was like, All right. Let's put that in the show I truly, it's like as like his good faith of her because the alternative is what you're tal that's the answer to people's problems is like we need to go back to our roots of like living on a farm with people we love And that would that would solve everything. likeike people wouldn't have, you wouldn't need fentanyl if you did that at all Everything was fine back then Um, yeah, it really again, it feels I'd I don't think it's it's I don't think it's saying anything. is like how I view that. It really does feel like it is just taking what is now in the pop culture, the popularity of Tadwives like Bachter's tradition, which is obviously any reading up on that will That is just far right indoctrination of women and trying to establish them in a different different role in society than the one they're in now I don't know that I didn't look at that and go like I think San Levinson thinks when he thinks the far rights points on tried wives or That's what that's what will fix what kills us. I don't I don't think that what I actually think is not much better which is that It's just taking the icronography and the aesthetics of that in the same way that he's doing with only fans and Tarantino with A lot of the the crime arc and just applying it haphazardly without a real sense of what it's saying or how it could be interpreted. I mean, it's a really It's a really lazy way of applying aesthetics. likeike it just betrays any sort of meaning beyond, I don't know Eye of the beholder? What do you see in it? like I do think he's onto something about how a lot of drug addicts turn to religion as a way of coping with the world and making sense of the things around them But I don't think that that is particular has been particularly built out in any significant wavous season U And if people disagree, let us know in the comments at YouTube d. com size has he decicoding TV Y your interpretation is he doesn't know what he's doing. He's not promoting Christianity. And I think you're probably right. I think he's just kind of Hey, this looks good This feels right. It's very vibes based, I think, is probably what it is. It's very vibes based You know, makes perfect sense to end this story with Ali and not Rue's mom. and sister. That's yeah, great Yeah, that' should be the final shot