The Bear | S3 E2 Part1 "Next"

The Tedcast is a deep dive podcast exploring the masterpieces that are Ted Lasso on Apple TV+, Wayne on YouTube, and The Bear on FX/Hulu.

Sponsored by Pajiba and The Antagonist, join Boss Emily Chambers and Coaches Bishop and Castleton as they ruminate on all things AFC Richmond, entertainment, and everything in between.

Boss Emily Chambers
Coach Bishop
Coach Castleton

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Welcome to our Ted Lasso Talk, the Tedcast. Welcome all Greyhound fans, welcome all you sinners from the dog track and all the AFC Richmond fans around the world. It's the Lasso Way around these parts with Coach, coach and Boss, without further ado, coach Castleton.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Okay, welcome back, beautiful people. Today we are discussing the Bear, season 3, episode 2, entitled Next. I'm your host, coach Castleton With me. Typically is Coach Bishop, but he is out on assignment and instead we have back the nefarious and well-read Emily Chambers.

Speaker 3: 1:01

Well-read is interesting. Yes, I am back. Apparently, Bishop and I are tag teaming. I know that you have mentioned that you don't love season three as much as you love the first yes, not even close right and I do love it.

Speaker 3: 1:14

I don't get the same level of enjoyment from it, but I get something else and I'm gonna want to talk about that later coming up like uh, you know, this is the same reason that I would watch the breakup scene in goodwill hunting because, like, for me, watching a show isn't about being happy necessarily, it's about experiencing the whole thing. So, um, having said that that I love the season and that I know that it was not your favorite, this is not me in season two of Ted Lasso, where people are like how could you not love the Rom communism Like I get? Why people wouldn't love this? I understand why you might feel uncomfortable with it and wouldn't like it. The fact that I do. I don't want that to make it sound like everybody needs to love it or think that it's brilliant. It's just I think I see what they were going for and I think that they did it really well and I am into that brand of what they were doing.

Speaker 1: 2:09

So and this isn't to say like other people just don't understand.

Speaker 3: 2:14

I'm saying I think that they were trying to make people uncomfortable in specific ways and I'm into that and I get why other people wouldn't like it.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Oh, you are closer to, okay, okay, all right. So so here's the. You are closer, like it. Oh, you are closer to OK, ok, all right. So so here's the. You are closer to that. That's a bummer. I, when we, it's OK. So here's the, here's OK. Let me make sure I heard this properly when I when you go online and you hear sort of dissenting opinions people get, then screamed down by lots of other people who say you just didn't understand it.

Speaker 3: 2:48

No, I'm not saying that they didn't understand it. I'm saying that I think people didn't like it. Do you see it as a departure?

Speaker 2: 2:56

from the first two seasons Like okay, yes. Okay, and you still were you were like oh, but. I'm so down with this departure because I'm here for what they're doing. And what are they doing?

Speaker 3: 3:08

So in my personal opinion, that's all.

Speaker 2: 3:09

That's all we can ask for. I don't have a non-personal opinion.

Speaker 3: 3:15

I think in the first season. So number one is that I think that overall, the series is going to be about trauma, dysfunction, grief and how people recover from that. I don't think I'm breaking any new ground by saying that Everybody knows that shit, but I think that a lot of people are not familiar with how that process actually plays out, and for me it feels very familiar and very similar to my own experiences. So the first season is mayhem, chaos, trauma, grief, death yeah, all sorts of shit. And at the end of that they made a little bit of progress and got a little bit better to a place where in season two they felt like, oh, we got this shit down, like we know what we we're doing. It's going to be like nonsense, chaos while we put this restaurant together, but we are being open and honest with each other, we are talking about our feelings, we are apologizing, we are growing, we are becoming better people. We are all working towards this goal.

Speaker 3: 4:21

And season three is when you move out of your house and go to college and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I am still so fucked up. I am still like more fucked up than I was maybe in the beginning of season one, because now the chaos that I had thrived in isn't there anymore, and so it like. This was me in my twenties. I fucking know what they're going through. I know how everything feels monotonous and stressful and you're not making any progress and you don't feel great about yourself, but you don't know how to change it.

Speaker 3: 4:54

Like yep I fucking get it I also understand why people would not want to experience that as a tv show. But again, for me this is like standing next to the fire without being in it, so I get to experience like the not fun, but like the catharsis of feeling that and not having it be dangerous. I'm, I am here for it, I, I love that they're showing me this.

Speaker 3: 5:18

I'm like, yeah, when I was 21, I was a fucking nutcase and I made it through. I'm better now, but this is for me then, like treading water, because they don't know where else to go right.

Speaker 2: 5:31

So in the I love this, by the way, this is. This is really insightful, thank you. Um, so, in the William Blakey and sort of divide between innocence and experience, uh, as fucked up as we are, while we're innocent we don't know how fucked up we are. Maybe that we are because we're innocent. We don't know how fucked up we are, maybe that we are because we're innocent, and you're saying like, once you get a level of experience, then you and you go, oh fuck. Then you know how fucked up you are and you go, oh shit, and it's a different kind of battle that you're fighting, or it's a different kind of a different set of challenges and maybe maybe less sexy than we would have seen in season one, or less visual maybe. So it doesn't comport to some of the general things that we typically see on television. And you're saying the challenge is there and it's every bit as dynamic. It just may be more nuanced or more subtle.

Speaker 3: 6:25

I actually think that it's less dynamic. I think it's stagnant. I believe that this season is intentionally stagnant intentionally stagnant also.

Speaker 2: 6:32

So yes, so uh chris store and the rest of the team was like you know what we're gonna do yep you ever see a quagmire, we're gonna just step in it and stay there for an entire season. That's our strategy.

Speaker 3: 6:46

Yeah, okay honest to god. I think that and also I have a real hard time with the idea of innocence. I don't like it. I know, yeah, I know I, I don't, I like I, I don't like our society's uh value that places on it. Like I don't think being uh not innocent is worse. Like I don't think being not innocent is worse than being innocent. I don't think that there's anything there.

Speaker 2: 7:10

I'm very sorry I brought up William Blake.

Speaker 1: 7:12

I was saying- no, no, no, that's fine, but you know, what I was going for with this?

Speaker 2: 7:15

No, no, no, no, no, you don't know how fucked you are until you have a little experience or a little wisdom or lived experience or something like is that right?

Speaker 3: 7:25

You're saying some level of that, right, I think? For me, it is very specifically about leaving the chaos. You were in for something that is slightly less chaotic and that without the chaos to thrive on because everybody on the show thrives on chaos, and I did too and when you don't have that chaos, you aren't surviving.

Speaker 3: 7:48

you aren't only surviving, you were trying to, like, figure your shit out, and that's an entirely different level of it's a different world of being fucked up yeah like when you were away from the actual chaos, when you were no longer in Donna's house and now you need to figure out how to exist in a world with people that aren't constantly screaming at you. How do you make that adjustment from I know how to function in the shameless Gallagher household to I am going to get an office job and have a roommate and try to be a sane person for five seconds, and how that actually unearths a bunch of shit that then you need to deal with.

Speaker 2: 8:33

And you have to be the one to build your own structure, which requires agency and dedication and self-awareness and all kinds of things that you can take down the road a little bit when you're in somebody else's structure, when you're in a family home, things like that, yeah. Or you reintroduce that chaos into your life after you've left your childhood home and now you have you can bring it with you, put it in a backpack and share it with all your new coworkers. Sure, exactly, that's not going to that's not going to work either.

Speaker 3: 9:06

You're going to need need, but it's so. For me, this whole season was that about that transition and about that adjustment and how it is, at times, more painful than being in the chaos wow, okay, yeah, well, let's explore that um.

Speaker 2: 9:20

We open, we open on uh, season three, episode two. Next, um, and walk us through what we're seeing here.

Speaker 3: 9:28

So it starts on Sydney. She is in the bathroom at her dad's house. Her dad knocks on the door. She says yes and he's did you hear me knocking? And she's like, yeah, no, I heard you knocking. I just he's like, so I need to get into the bathroom. She's like I heard the get into the bathroom she's like I heard the first three times I heard the first three times she's intentionally ignoring him.

Speaker 3: 9:49

This is, this is part of the reason why you have to move out of your parents house, because, because your dad comes home when it's your bathroom time, when he knows that you need to be getting ready for your job, and he's like, yeah, but I stopped and got chicken wings and if you don't let me in there real soon, oh, and she's like dad, I don't want to hear about your chicken wing diarrhea, which makes sense. That makes a lot of sense to me she's a grown woman.

Speaker 2: 10:15

If we didn't name this episode after the episodes we cover, I'm sure that would have been our title of this episode.

Speaker 3: 10:21

Oh, chicken wing diarrhea. Yeah listen, man. Uh, she knows she says you can't change the rules of bathroom time like this. This is when I'm when I'm supposed to be in there. There's some back and forth. This is just for me as much as anything else in the season, like sydney needing to not be here anymore is I. I get it like she is making so many strides in her professional life, but she needs to get out of her dad's house yeah, yeah, for sure, um okay so now she's brushing her teeth at the sink.

Speaker 2: 11:15

Uh, yeah, let's, let's get through this. Okay, good, uh, let's get through this thing, because I want to talk about not necessarily what's up in. About 50-50 percentage People who were like you and Coach went along for the ride on season three, episode one. It was called Tomorrow and you were like, okay, where are we going? Where are we headed? I'm on board, let's do this. And then you just enjoyed and the rest of us were like, when is this montage going to end? Why is there music, the same music over an entire episode? What happening? Why does this matter? What is going on? And so, okay, there's a. If you love this show and I do, you go.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Okay, season three, episode two please open with a scene. Please open with, like actually television drama, like like something that is that resonates with a tip, standard, fair, bear audience. And we open and it is. It was not a montage, so so it's functional in that way. But then I thought, oh God, there are these elements of it's funny when I think of of the relationships in the bear across the entire spectrum of all of the brazados and the everybody's, the richie's families and the you know, uncle jimmy, everybody, everybody on the thing I've, the one between sydney and her dad, has always been a little bit of a head scratcher to me, in, in, in, from the perspective of like, what are they trying to accomplish with it?

Speaker 2: 12:48

Um, it was sweet. When he's like, this is the thing he's like, okay, finally, this is the thing, um. So then I'm like, okay, we open with this. And is it just supposed to make us like, oh, or, she's got to get out of her one bathroom house? Is that all because it made me go? I made me like sydney less because I thought she was not empathetic. That's the way it played out for me, which I don't like because I love sydney and I've been rooting for her this whole time. And then I see her like on a one-on-one, really like a one-on-one relationship, making someone have a theoretical argument about bathroom time when they have to go to the bathroom, which for me is like all right, that's not. That's not great as a personality trait.

Speaker 3: 13:32

So there are a couple of things that happened this weekend. Number one is my older sister who listens to the show, so I'm hoping that she's listening as I'm talking about. One of the smarter things that she said is that she and I usually have a very big divide on TV shows. I am almost always here for the plot, yeah, 99% of the time. Yeah, I think I mentioned that Mayor of East Town I couldn't get into because I know that they were going for this is about grief and trauma and getting through that.

Speaker 3: 14:03

But the murder mystery plot itself was so bad that I was like I, if kate winslet, you're great, I can't fucking do this with you. She, my sister, always there for the vibes, like she, she doesn't give a shit about the plot, she just wants to like hang out with jamie and cersei and see what fucked up shit they're doing. She wants to watch hurley fix the van in that one episode of lost. She does not give a fuck, she just wants to hang out with these people. So this is the one show where I'm like I don't give a shit what the plot is Like, I just want to marinate. Yes, I did do that on purpose pun, intentional marinate in all of the like, grief, vibes and all the shit that's happening. Okay.

Speaker 3: 14:46

So that's number one. I think she specifically said like that asking her what the plot is for her favorite TV shows is like asking what the plot of a painting is, so like that's not, it's not it for me. Wow, wow, it's fascinating, wow.

Speaker 3: 15:01

I know. The other thing is that the song from my crazy ex-girlfriend, um, with the line because life is a series of gradual revelations that occur over a period of time, it's not some carefully constructed story, it's a mess and we're all going to die. Fucking great. I'll post it. It's a fucking great song. Josh Groban is there. It's wonderful, okay, but the whole song is about how, like movies take stories and give them order and plot points and they say this happened because this happened and this happened because this happened. Sure, and they say this happened because this happened and this happened because this happened. And on the bear they're kind of like.

Speaker 3: 15:49

Here's a little snapshot of what it would be like to live in Sydney in Emmanuel's house and she would get annoyed with him. She would be pissed off if she was getting ready for work and he came home because he ate the chicken wings that give him diarrhea, even though he knows that they give him diarrhea, and he did it fucking again, even though he knows that they give him diarrhea, and he did it fucking again, even though she needs to brush her teeth and get to work. She's gonna be annoyed. This does not need to be a point. Where she is now. I am a good person to get. This is like in her real life. This is how she would interact with her dad, and I'm here for it, okay yeah, I think if someone needs the bathroom, let him use the bathroom.

Speaker 2: 16:23

That's like pretty basic. But yeah, no, I. No, I get it. This is an insight into how this dynamic would hypothetically play out.

Speaker 3: 16:32

So, yes, I mean, I think the other thing is she did need the bathroom also.

Speaker 2: 16:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:38

You're arguing that he needed the toilet and therefore the toilet is more important than her needing to have access to the bathroom.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Yeah, my God, look at me mansplaining again um, but she.

Speaker 3: 16:48

They have a setup time where she is supposed to be allowed to be in the bathroom as much as she needs.

Speaker 2: 16:55

Yeah, and he was interrupting that no, no, right in, in all fairness, there is a schedule. Follow the goddamn schedule. Why have a schedule if you can just pick whatever bathroom time? That is absolutely valid, 100%. Sometimes the calls of nature don't always line up with the schedule. But you're saying they would have if you didn't eat the chicken wings you shouldn't have eaten, or whatever. He had a hand in whatever.

Speaker 2: 17:27

I just think, okay, granted, all of these points you're making are rock solid. And then I still came away going like, oh, okay, huh, so we're going to open. Okay, so now are we Okay? Okay, I'm like, okay, so, at the very least, coming off of episode one, which was five different timelines, many, many different perspectives, uh, you know all sorts of things, things we would have known, things we wouldn't have known, things we could have seen. Things we could have imagined, things we might not have imagined, things we might not have been able to know. It was a scattershot representation of all sorts of things.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Um, that coach and I went over just to try to find some through line and it was really just like we compared it to a jackson pollock painting, saying they just threw a lot up there. Um, and we're not suggesting that it was thrown up, not by artists we did say jackson pollock, uh, but but that there was just a lot and it was a tremendous amount to wade through. And, if you remember, one of the things I love about this show was that it's like higher tier audiencing. You sort of have to pay a little more. It doesn't talk down to the audience, it doesn't dumb things down, and I really appreciate that about the show.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Having said that, I was confused by the first episode episode. So when we come into this one now, I'm recalibrating and I'm saying, okay, so now what we're doing is we're in real time, we're in present day and we're moving forward, like because this is a now thing, it's like present and okay, so we're picking it up where we left off. That was my understanding. Um and boss, walk us through. Uh, you know, once sydney brushed she. She acquiesces and goes and brushes her teeth in the in the kitchen, which she didn't have to do because it was her bathroom time. It was very nice.

Speaker 3: 19:16

What I will say is absolutely appropriate. She 100 was right to let him use the bathroom, but she was also 100 right to be annoyed by that and not need to feel empathetic to it. Sometimes, when you live with people, they fucking piss you off and I like that they are acknowledging. She is not always going to be empathetic. Sometimes she's going to be annoyed, right, right. And she's annoyed while she's brushing her teeth at the sink and saying I'm going to bring you home food from the restaurant. Do not go to ricky's again, don't get those fucking wings. They fuck up your stomach, right. And then, uh, on her way out, he says I love you. She says love you too. And then she says can you put my toothbrush back please?

Speaker 3: 19:59

and he shouts yes, chef, and then she leaves she rolls her eyes and leaves of course, but also when her dad comes out, he does say, woo, 10 pounds lighter, which, yes, jeff, and then she leaves. She rolls her eyes and leaves, of course Also when her dad comes out.

Speaker 2: 20:13

He does say woo, 10 pounds lighter, which, like I'm into toilet humor, but you don't need to say that to your daughter. I'm not and I think that's crass.

Speaker 1: 20:17

I don't like it at all, at all. It's like terrible dad joke nightmare.

Speaker 3: 20:22

Yes, it's just lazy. If you you're gonna make a good fart joke, great if you have a perfectly timed fart. Absolutely hysterical. I'm super into that.

Speaker 2: 20:30

This is not that's not appropriate to your daughter.

Speaker 3: 20:32

I don't, I don't think, I don't think maybe not daughter, but nieces and nephews love it oh god, jesus christ, it's like you say it to your.

Speaker 2: 20:43

I don't say it because it's not my jam, but I totally get that type of humor and there's, I don't know. It feels like stupid guy humor. Whatever, it's fine, whatever, and it seems male to me. It seems predominantly, you know, gendered towards dads or something, or dumb, I don't know. It just seems like a guy joke.

Speaker 3: 21:12

Or 30-year-old women on New Year's Eve when your buddy you're having a cigarette with asks you what your New Year's resolution is and you fart on him. Sometimes that happens. Right, yes, sometimes it happens and Jeremy thinks it's really funny and I did get a big laugh out of him for that thinks it's really funny and I did get a big laugh out of him for that I, I um are wishing that bishop were here right now.

Speaker 2: 21:38

Very much, yeah, got it. Yeah, no, no, that makes so we move on from this scene. Um and uh, sid heads out, and you know it ends up being actually like, you know, fine, like they love you, they, they, you know, she kind of trashes him a little bit on the door and in a loving way, and then she's out and then we get like this oh God, I'm so excited we get to talk about this. I'm just going to let this run for all 14 minutes. Now we get a new opening and it starts with an overview of Chicago and then I'm looking at this going okay, what is? I see the newspaper industry. I see it is an extended title sequence Hockey rink. There's a metal grinder, there's a Zamboni setting, a different restaurant, people walking over a bridge. It is a for lack of a better term a love letter to the industry and people of the city of Chicago. Is that a fair?

Speaker 3: 22:43

Yeah, and a couple of these places that they showed. I've eaten. There's the something hotel, ohio hotel. I'll forget it, but that's just like a deli place. There's a sandwich place. There's. Lou Mitchell's. They show in there.

Speaker 2: 22:57

But it's not limited to places it's rowing on the lake. There there's tons of establishing, street shots, floral shots. I mean it's like I should have tracked exactly when we started. I'm going to do that, but it's many minutes long, okay. Two or three is when we start, okay, so we're more than a couple minutes in here.

Speaker 3: 23:28

And it goes jim's original. I would like to shout out as uh, excellent, excellent. Hot dogs and burgers, or not burgers, just hot dogs. What have I eaten from there? Sorry, I think just a hot dog, but still delicious okay.

Speaker 2: 23:39

So, as a viewer, are we meant to say it's a brand new day in the world of the bear, Everything's changed because they've redone the title sequence? Are we meant to say, um, God, this show loves Chicago and the the show runners are, are have been really welcomed by the people of Chicago and so this is their tip of the hat back to them? They're going to sort of put all these people on national TV as a thank you from a from a creative, from like a giving back standpoint. It's really charming that all these sort of local Chicago personalities are just. There's a lot of blue collar workers here, there's cops, there's firemen, there's, you know, there's all. There's all kinds of things and, um, actually I didn't see cops, firemen, there's, you know, there's all, there's all kinds of things and, um, actually I didn't see cops. I shouldn't say that I did see firemen.

Speaker 3: 24:28

Did you?

Speaker 2: 24:28

see police officers? No, I did see, uh yeah, firefighters, and you know people are, I don't know. It was like a million different professions here, um, and we finally let's see when we're finally done. It's two minutes and 30 seconds. Yeah, so it's like two and a half minutes.

Speaker 2: 24:43

Yeah, two and a half minutes for the full. And I go, okay, I am not immersed as a viewer, because I'm like, wait. I'm now thinking like, wait a second, what am I watching here? Like why isn't this food-based? Okay, so this is Chicago-based. I was like, all right, okay, this is just a tip, tip of the cap, I think, but I'm, but I, but I was like, oh, okay, all right so I can't settle back in yet is my. Is was my feeling.

Speaker 3: 25:15

It's so funny to me how things have changed so much, because it feels like you are not intentionally being judgmental, but you, this is not a place where there's more curiosity than not You're. I think that you are looking for answers. Yeah, and I was like I again, this is something that I'm willing to just like hang out in, like I'm going to see what they're doing. I'm not going to make any assumptions about where they're trying to take us or what they're doing. I'm not gonna make any assumptions about where they're trying to take us or what they're trying to do. It did feel very much like they were trying to evoke a specific feeling. That worked for me very well, although I live in chicago, so like maybe it's only a chicagoan thing. Um, but so we have not discussed it yet.

Speaker 3: 26:04

But the opening scenes of episode one in season two yeah, I did write about what I said is that, um, in the middle of winter, after christmas, we're talking late january downtown chicago on a sunday afternoonish sunday night like 5 pm on a Sunday afternoon ish Sunday night, like 5. Pm on a Sunday in downtown Chicago is the loneliest fucking place in the world, cause there are supposed to be like tens of thousands of people, it's capacity is for that, and there's nobody around and nothing is open, and you are by yourself. And the opening scenes of season two gave me that I knew what they were going for with that. It was quiet, it was lonely, it was cold, and so this is giving me something else. This is all vibes, and usually I hate all vibes, and this time, 100% here. Oops, all vibes.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Great for me. Okay, yeah, great. I mean, listen, like I said, uh, if I, if I um, you know, I can imagine chris store being like we're gonna do something really cool I wish to film a ton of people in in chicago and put them all on the screen. They get to be on the screen for one time in their life and it'll be fucking rad and everyone's gonna love it. And that's how I read it. It's just like a personal, uh sort of choice by the showrunner, the show creator, um, to be a fucking great dude, and that's how I know him and that's what I think comes across. Um, does it serve the overall purpose of the show? Especially when someone's coming in a little bit uncertain after the first episode Okay, it's fine, it's not a, it's certainly not a knock on the show. But I'm like, oh, okay, all right, so we're doing a thing, remember, I say I always say am I in good hands? Right, and you know you're in good hands the first two seasons.

Speaker 2: 28:03

And then this season felt like, wait, I might wait, I might had to rethink if I was in good hands. In the same way, you're like, why wouldn't you just do the same moves and ted lasso that you did so that we would have another perfect season. Why would you change the move? Why would you whatever and that, and this is what happens with art, and this is what happens with, uh, you know, sophomore albums. All the time, you know, it's like, it's like do the thing, do the move in the way that we like you to do the move. And so, for me, I have to reevaluate with season, with episode one and then episode two, I go, am I able to settle in? And I go. No, so far I'm not, and so that's all I'm saying from a, from a experiential point of view. Um, I'm still waiting to go. Oh, I'm back in good hands, okay, who?

Speaker 3: 28:46

and I understand that. I think that for me it felt intentional in the way that we have been saying that the show doesn't talk down to you, doesn't dumb things down for you. When car me in season one says to sydney, like is my hair on fire? And she, she says not. Yet we are supposed to understand that that is a language that they get and we're just going to trust that they are going to explain things to us when we need to know them. I feel like season three is trying to do that to us emotionally. Okay, and so I'm still here for it. I'm still super fucking good, I'm still here for it.

Speaker 3: 29:30

I have not checked out as a viewer at this point at all. I just go, okay, like no, no, no, I just I still really enjoy it. I think also one of the things about showing what they were showing is that, uh, the bear is the restaurant. The bear is the end product of all of chicago's work at sort of a four in the morning getting shit together. Like the people that are doing that, the people that are pressing the tortillas at I hope it's el milagro, uh company, because those are the best fucking tortillas in the entire world I will take on a mexico city tortilla. It's shit is delicious. Um, oh my god, I applied for a job there once and they didn't give it to me and I was genuinely like extremely sad for about a week. Wow, wow, because I, because I was hoping for some free, some free tortillas, um. But so I think that this is like a connection between the two, that their work contributes to the bear in these very specific ways.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Okay, uh, so we. The next scene is we're on carmy, uh, organizing peas. We're real super tight. Um, he's organized these pea pods that are half shucked, or whatever you would call it, and so they're the little peas in a boat. Uh, for lack of a better I don't know what the right terminology for peas in half a fucking waste of time.

Speaker 3: 30:44

Well, because, because you had to shuck all those bitches and then put them back into half. Well, he's, you took them all the way out and put them back. He's an artist. This is what I get. I get it, I do, I just man.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Man, that's a lot of time it's a lot of time and we're very tight on carmy um and in walks, uh, of course, uh, somebody we all know. Uh, who is this boss? Oh, you've got no idea. Okay, right, a guy we don't know. But he's featured A guy we don't know and he's got like kind of a he's from.

Speaker 3: 31:14

Chicago yeah, he is from Chicago, he is. If your only reference of Chicagoans are the super fans from SNl in the 80s and 90s, this is new super fans right, that's a very accurate.

Speaker 2: 31:31

He's a local chicago guy, he's got he's wearing a track suit right he has a chain he's got an accent, uh, and and he, he seems to know carmy somehow like he's very, um, just kind of easygoing familiar, yeah, yeah, uh, to the point where he drops off some stuff. There's a conversation about micro vegetables or whatever it was, uh, and he says, uh, you want to go burn one, meaning you want to get a cigarette. And carmy saysie says no, I quit. Since when? Since last night? What are you thinking about your health? I'm thinking about the five minutes it's going to take me, which I actually really liked. That I liked. I thought it was a very good line. I was like oh yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: 32:17

That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Yeah, especially with the new list of non-negotiables and all the things, you go okay, yeah, yeah, like he is, he is, it's not even doubling down, he's completely wiping the slate clean and like resetting the robot, uh, mechanism yeah so the guy's like uh, speaking of time, you got to get this fucking beef window open, dog.

Speaker 2: 32:39

These regulars are talking shit. Yeah, I know, I'm aware he says karma. Yeah, but you don't hear it like I hear it, which is true. Yep, that is very true. You never hear it the way someone on the inside hears it if you're not on the inside. Um, I like that. And he says how do you hear it?

Speaker 3: 32:54

I hear it like yo, this fancy fuck, I want my shit bingo, and I don't know that chris store is paying attention to reddit and is, you know, taking his cues from there. But I know that on reddit a thing I've, and just the internet in general, but over and over and over again, chicago and saying the show is great, I love it. If somebody tore down my favorite beef place to put in a fancy fucking restaurant, i'd'd lose my mind. And so it feels like acknowledging the audience's input and saying, like you need to keep the beef window open or else you're not going to have that connection to Chicago. That's going to make locals and, like Chicago originals, they're not going to go to your shitty fucking restaurant.

Speaker 3: 33:42

It's going to be a place for tourists to come to, and it's not going to be what you want it to be if you don't keep this window in.

Speaker 2: 33:49

Right, and you have to figure out, yes, no, there's a valid reason for that If it's a reasonably priced sandwich that you get every day and you've always gotten it, and all of a sudden you have to go $175 meals, like what are we? We talking about? I don't have that kind of who's got, that kind of money, especially now. So you just go all right, yes, I, I firmly understand that. Um, uh, boss, we, um, we talked a lot about whether or not carmi has an actual love of of the nurturing side of chefing. Uh, right, no, nope, nope, says boss, we, we, we arrived there as well, or the service side of it that Richie relates to.

Speaker 2: 34:30

You know, you want to wonder who this, who the bear writ large, is for. As far as, like the rest, the fancy restaurant side, we know who the beef is for and they've been in business for however many years, right, they? We know who they're for. And and the people are demanding that the window be open. Um, so this was a, this was an interesting um choice, because we don't know who this guy is. He talks like he's a regular. Uh, it's like if you, if you picked up season two and you hadn't seen, sorry, season three and you hadn't seen one or two, you'd be like, oh, this is a regular on the series. Like, oh, this is one of the guys that's always been on it, but we've never seen him before, right um yeah, yeah, but I don't have any problem with that.

Speaker 2: 35:12

I I think oh sure, you introduce new characters all the time, right.

Speaker 3: 35:15

But well, but even in the way, I know that, um, the episode that I missed, you guys talked about the chef at the french laundry, maybe that they, like Carmi, had a moment with him where they like said hey, chef, and then he walked away. I, I am very excited about TV shows not doing what we have been expecting, of course, and I'm not saying that you're not, I'm just saying that I feel like what would, I'm feel like, what would the show have done in the past?

Speaker 2: 35:46

They would have had Ibra come in and be like Chef, we got to open, man Whatever. Or it would be Fack would be like hey, they're going to kill me out there if you don't fucking open. It would be one of the main. They haven't done this where it's like, for all intents and purposes, this is the opening episode of the season in that it's a uh, you know, a you know scripted, um, uh, sort of episode in the way that the first one was.

Speaker 2: 36:15

The first one was definitely montage, definitely a choice whether or not it was a reaction to a studio note or let's get a brand new. Uh, you know, millions of new people are going to come flooding in because nothing else is dropping at this time in video games or tv or anywhere, right? So you're going to get all these millions of new uh viewers who don't know what are you going to do to to sort of catch them up. And it may have been a reaction to that note, I don't know, but I know that, like now, episode two is basically okay, we're gonna get back to business and in that, right exactly and historically, we're gonna pick up from last night and this is where we begin to move in the future, after an episode where we saw a lot of the past.

Speaker 2: 36:55

Um, and we we have historically put those lines in the coming out of the mouths of characters that we've. That we know, that's all I'm saying. So it was a departure, it was a choice, like, oh, okay, so we got some new people In a way that's refreshing. You're like, okay, let's round out the team, let's see who these people are. I had the sense, once this guy was this familiar with Karami, that he was going to be a regular.

Speaker 3: 37:20

I don't know if I considered it that much. I mean, I think part of it for me is also like this entire show started with Carmi on a bridge with a bear in a cage and I at first I was like what the fuck is going on? What are we? What are we doing with this? So I think, sort of from the jump for me, I'm I have been of the opinion that they're going to show me things and if I'm not comfortable with it right away, I need to give it a couple of minutes and I will get there, okay. So I feel, yeah, that's fair. I feel sort of fine with it.

Speaker 2: 37:54

Okay. Kami says okay, fine, yeah, we can open tomorrow. He thinks about it. It's kind of funny.

Speaker 2: 38:00

The two of us are in here again, says the guy. Yeah, remember when we were kids, yeah, slicing bread, wiping tables, felt like we could have done anything. Probably a little different for you, you know why, different for me. Karmic says Different because you knew what you wanted to do. So you were like this, you know, and we were like, you know, he makes a sort of action all over the place and Karmicm says you mean like possibility? Says yeah, that's what I mean for us, uh, I got a cruise, all right, all right, uh. And then suge walks in. So, yeah, I'm like okay, uh, oh, this guy's been around. He's, uh, you know, wonder, carmy, uh, feels, you know, comfortable. Carmy doesn't stop what he's doing, he doesn't. It's not a thing, it's not like entertaining guests, it's like it's another member of the family we didn't know about, right? So I was like is he a fac? Is he a? I don't know who he was, but he's, you know, he grew up with these guys. Shug says good morning Shug, good morning Christopher.

Speaker 3: 38:58

So, christopher, that's his name, is now the childhood friend, carmi says hi and walk us through this, please, boss. So as she's walking in, she says basically like it. There's a look that she gives him. She says hey. He says hi as she's walking in. He says hi. And she says I said hi and he said did I not say something? And this is like their communication is off. Immediately he said hi. She says I said hi and he said did I not say something? And this is like their communication is off. Immediately he said hi. She didn't hear him, he didn't know that. He said hi, it's all fucked up. She's obviously not pleased about last night, um, so she says how are you? He says okay. He said did you call? Richie said do I want to know about claire? And he says nat. And he says calm because they're siblings and this is how they interact. And he finally takes a beat and he says good morning. And she says good morning.

Speaker 2: 39:52

And then she says and she gives him a look like good morning. Oh, of course, yeah, there's a full, look Good morning, yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:08

And what happens next is she says so, how long have you been here? And he says I'm good, right, which I actually loved. A sibling shorthand like I feel like my siblings sometimes can say like, oh, so when did you get here? And I'd be like, no, it's fine, I've been at kathy's house for four hours, it's fine, don't sweat it, it's okay, nice. And so immediately he says I'm good, she says yeah, and he says yep, I'm focused. And she says okay, and she says you, and she says I'm good, great, fine, not any of those things. And then the next word she says is shitty. I'm good, great, fine, shitty right, right.

Speaker 2: 40:42

He says do you want to pick one?

Speaker 3: 40:44

uh, not great, 8 am stuff, because sure that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 40:51

I think it does make sense. Actually, my I I have one of my children hammers me with stuff, like, like, as I'm getting out of bed he hammers me with, like the mo. He's like oh my god, project 2025, have you heard about this? What are we going to do? Are we doing? I'm like, oh, just let me like, can I have my coffee?

Speaker 2: 41:10

It's not even that coffee doesn't do for me what it does for most people. Uh, it just keeps me up late at night if I drink coffee, like so I know I love coffee, but it doesn't do the thing where I get an instant hit of caffeine and I wake up. I wish, I wish it did. That doesn't do that for me. Um, but uh, but yeah, no, I just have to like wake, let's wake up a little bit. Like a little bit, let me just get my, my eyes open. Um, and carmy just goes okay, you got she. Warns him. She's like all right, it's an 8 am thing. And he goes all right, you got me. Yeah, he makes a choice largely based on their conversation of you. Never ask me how I am.

Speaker 3: 41:46

Yes, once upon a time right, okay, yep um, and so what she says is I'm gonna have a kid in two months. I could just. I wish I could just push a button and get the baggage put away like it, which makes a lot of sense to me. She doesn't. When I was texting with my older sister over the weekend, I said essentially, like people think of grief or trauma or baggage as being a thing that you deal with and then it's gone. And that isn't it. You reprocess it when you turn 40 or get a new job or get married or have kids, and so or it colors everything.

Speaker 3: 42:25

Yes, so yeah, so you think like I. I think when she says that she wishes she could get it put away, there are I. I specifically have experienced different times where there is shit that you've already dealt with, that you've put in the back of your emotional closet, that then you need to dig out and figure out again for no fucking reason, just because and then you need to figure, like it is the actual process of it, where you need to go through everything and deal with it and then put it back away, and you know how it's going to end.

Speaker 3: 42:57

You know how you're going to get there, but you need to actually go through the thing. And so her saying like I wish I could just put it away, I wish I'm having a kid. I can't deal with the fact that we're fighting again and yelling at Richie and you're having tantrums and we're running a restaurant and I'm about to have a fucking kid. Like I can't do this right now. I need it to be done already.

Speaker 2: 43:21

Yeah, I also heard it as in having a kid. She doesn't want to taint the kid with all of her shit, Like she wants like a fresh spring, so to speak, where it's like, oh, I want the child to be born in an environment where it's not in the middle of this maelstrom of emotional weight and I think that's fairly common to say, oh, I want the baby to have better than I had, or I don't want them to start out with baggage, that kind of thing. So that seems like a real understandable you know understandable worry or concern. On on sugar's part, Carby says that's like 4 PM stuff she called it out.

Speaker 2: 44:04

She did say that and she agrees. And then what, what, what? She says I told you, that's funny. Eber walks in, they both say morning and keep going here.

Speaker 3: 44:15

And so then she picks up the paper and says what is this? And he says non-negotiables. That's how we do this correctly, that's how the restaurants of the highest caliber operate. And she starts listing respect, tradition, push boundaries uh, you good. And she said we got to be excellent every day.

Speaker 2: 44:35

Okay, that's not what she's asking. I it's really funny. She's like oh, respect, like immediately. She's like you good, are you good Like?

Speaker 1: 44:45

yeah, Like, do you do you know that your hair is on?

Speaker 3: 44:49

fire.

Speaker 2: 44:50

Cause you're not asking anymore.

Speaker 3: 45:03

Now your hair is on fire. You good, it's not. Are you good? You good is you're not good. You're not good, right? Yeah, you do you realize that you're not good and he's not good. I like everything about this season aside. What happened in at season one was he wanted to fix mikey's restaurant, right. And season two was that he started to fix Mikey's restaurant and then in season three, he thinks I lost my focus. I let people in, I didn't make my world quiet and that's why I fucked up, and so now he is going to make the world quiet again.

Speaker 3: 45:29

Like season three is his making. Everybody is pushing everybody out.

Speaker 2: 45:33

Oh for sure, Without a doubt. Everybody is pushing everybody out, oh for sure, without a doubt, but also forcing his agenda into a place that doesn't necessarily belong. Well, you know what I mean. Like in the world of the bear, in the one of the reasons that you have the, the locals going, hey, where the fuck is my, my beef, right, my italian beef? Is because that was more, um, more sort of more of a natural fit in this neighborhood or natural fit in this, in the world that they've portrayed, at least than the most you know, than a restaurant that's at the top of the world, michelin star Like it feels. Like that's a car me thing. That's not necessarily a Borsato family thing. You know that they all share.

Speaker 3: 46:17

Yeah, absolutely, although this is again I'm going to knock Chris Storer at times when need be. Uh, river North is the River North of the show, is not the River North of the real world. In River North, you would absolutely find this restaurant. Um I what I would say is that the biggest issue for me with this is he is pushing his agenda onto the team without their input. Like it's one thing if he says we together, we collectively, need to come up with a bunch of non-negotiables. He's not. He's saying these are my non-negotiables, this is my fucking restaurant. It is not a team building exercise whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 46:58

Well, he's the only one that's been to the promised land, so he's the only one that knows.

Speaker 3: 47:03

But it well, and we can discuss this more when the scene comes up. But he is trying to get everybody's buy-in In some cases literally he wants everybody to agree to these non-negotiables and nobody had any fucking say no. You can't say these are my non-negotiables and you have to agree to. You can say it if everybody believes in you enough but you can't say that and say these are now out or the. He can't say these are our non-negotiables, that I decided. That's what he can't say.

Speaker 2: 47:39

I think he can. I just don't think it's very effective. I think he's the captain of the ship. He can say whatever he wants. It's not a democracy, but is it an effective way to do it? Or is it the right way to get buy-in, or is it going to work?

Speaker 3: 47:52

I don't know. So I think what I mean is very technically, like a literary, a literal, pedantic definition of that. He can't say my non-negotiables are our non-negotiables just because I and our are not the same, like. What I mean is literally when he says I have decided all these things and they are for all of us. No, those are, those are your non-negotiables, carm. If people want to buy in, they can, and then they can accept them as their non negotiables. But when you say for this entire group, I am determining the non-negotiables, it isn't for the entire group, it is yours. That you are implementing onto that.

Speaker 2: 48:34

Okay, all right, yeah, okay, I guess I sort of. I mean, again, he is the voice of the restaurant. He has to decide the way the restaurant's going to go. Yeah, I guess, if, when we look at this from a like a Ted Lasso standpoint, you just wonder about the choice and you go, is he of the mind that this is the most efficient way to get this done, because, in his experience, chefs with a record of excellence have trained him to do this? Or is this like really, him choosing you know, one of his pieces of baggage is coloring, that this choice is a necessity to him and he's bringing that into this analysis. Or, if there is even an analysis, it felt like me, like this was a knee-jerk reaction, yes, like a closing of borders, isolationist tactic, emotional isolationism, and this is just the best way that he can, um, sort of protect himself inside of this environment, and that, yeah it also may be conducive to a great restaurant?

Speaker 2: 49:43

I don't know, and he and he does know, but I, but I I have to trust that because I don't.

Speaker 3: 49:49

No one else has worked at a michelin star place I mean, I think that you and I well, uh uh, sydney did, cause she worked at Alinea.

Speaker 2: 49:58

Did she? Okay, Is that a? I didn't know. I know she worked at some fancy place. I didn't know she worked at.

Speaker 3: 50:05

I will need to double check. I'm almost positive that Alinea has a Michelin star, um Havac. I don't know if it does, but I could double check that too, um. But I think you and I are actually saying the same thing is that he is doing this in order to isolate himself and make things easier for him so that he could run things the way that he needs to, but then is also saying and everybody's going to do it, everybody's going to get on my page of crazy. You, as the boss, are allowed to say that it isn't great leadership and, as we're going to see in later scenes, when he says I want this to be all of us. No, you don't Like, like. What I'm saying is not that he can't do these things. I'm saying that there's a disconnect between how he is implementing things and what he is saying he wants to implement. He isn't looking for a team restaurant, he wants a him restaurant that everybody does exactly the way that he wants to yeah, I think he's.

Speaker 2: 50:58

He's in in his trauma over over what happened. He has decided that's the only way this, this, this ship can sail. So uh, he says to sugar, can you print those up? And uh, type those up and print out a bunch. And she's like bear, like right, she's like uh like no, like he's like no, he's like please.

Speaker 3: 51:16

Bad idea, bad idea.

Speaker 2: 51:18

And she just sighs. She knows, and Sugar has been around enough mental illness to. I mean. She just said she just wanted the baggage to go away. And here she is with a whole new set of baggage, like happening in real time. It was like almost the worst possible thing that could have come. His only reaction, instead of like you never asked me how I am, he asked, she started, she gave him like one sentence. He's like that's 4 pm stuff, I told you. And then he's like oh, you know, she notices the non-negotiable right. She's like oh, great, now I can feel my, you know, of the back.

Speaker 3: 51:57

It's seeping into my uterus, it's like jesus and and I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think one of the things that's gonna not I don't think I know one of the things that comes up over the season is people's actions not lining up with what they're saying. So you can say I'm 100% buying into this. But if you don't actually buy in, what you're saying isn't true. And so Carmi is saying yes, I care about you, I want to make sure that I'm asking you how you're doing, but I don't really want to hear. So his actions are sure Belying the fact that he isn't interested in what's going on with him yeah, uh, uncle jimmy walks in.

Speaker 2: 52:38

What are you doing here? Oh, what am I doing here? Hold on, hold on, it's coming to me. Uh, let's see. Oh, yeah, I remember now I own the place, so whatever the fuck I want, correct? Uh, which I was like, yeah, it was like so that was my first laugh of the season. I was like, oh, thank god, oliver platt's back. Like, okay, like I can get some comic relief or some. He has a quality of being the, um, the voice of reason jovial well, he, oh, without a question.

Speaker 2: 53:05

But also his functional role sometimes is to be like I don't know what the fuck a restaurant is. Break it down for me. In a way, I speak fucking english. He's like, he's like that guy. So for those of us who don't know what staging is like Richie in the first episode, you're here to what you know. It's like okay, what are we talking about?

Speaker 3: 53:25

And he's like oh, yeah, actually, as a practical matter, I own the fucking place, so I did like and I think that this mimics Carm and Richie's relationship in the first season, where Richie was like oh, I'm in charge, I know how to run this place, I do this. And Carm he was like no, because he left it to me. And now Jimmy is like well, I actually own this fucking place, so you're not going to tell everybody what to do because I'm the fucking owner and I can shut you down.

Speaker 2: 53:57

Interesting. Okay, yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but that's, that's an interesting parallel. Right there, our corollary, so Carmi, goes. Sorry because he remembers who he is at that moment and their relationship, even though he's been up all night working without sleep. Right, he's like a, he's like a ghoul right now.

Speaker 3: 54:18

He doesn't look like a ghoul because he's a handsome, handsome man, but oh, yeah, yeah he is a ghoul, as as um, my uh good friend well, like I don't know if she'd want me to say good friend my friend sarah carlson, sent me a little picture that talked about the uh tattooed goblin greasy line cook. Ah, and I was like yes, yes, yes, yes yeah, that is it exactly.

Speaker 2: 54:34

Yeah, we, coach and I, we started talking about rodent men and all the rat men, whatever they're calling them, and we just said, oh, boss isn't here, so we don't understand it, we need to table it, but what I'm telling you is that Jeremy Ellen White is a bird horse, and we will get into what that means.

Speaker 2: 54:49

Good, I like it. I like that better than the rat the uh ratman, uh cryovac. What's that cryovac? Why do we need a new cryovac? That's a better cryovac. Better how, what? What? Are you asking me to stop spending my fucking money? Yep, you don't think I'm not seeing these fancy new earthenware fucking hippie plates heard thank you, he says.

Speaker 3: 55:12

And yeah, sugar jumps in with Sugar's shirts pressed perfectly. She's reading now the non Personal hygiene. Know your shit.

Speaker 2: 55:22

Sugar, reading the non-negotiables in front of Jimmy is the most passive-aggressive. Yes, it is so she knows what's up. This is not like if she was doing him a a favor, she would just take those non-negotiables and walk into the into the office.

Speaker 3: 55:39

she would not read them out loud right, but when the leader is out of control and karm is actually the leader of the kitchen, you need somebody who can pull rank on it.

Speaker 2: 55:51

Yeah, yeah, he's the only one that Karma will listen to in any way. Break down all boxes before putting them in the dumpster. Yes, no surprises. Never repeat ingredients. Technique, technique, technique spelled wrong. But whatever, change menu every day, constantly evolve through passion and creativity. And something about teaspoons that I can't read. Yeah, I'm sick of running out of fucking teaspoons. Karma says. Says so you think we're ready to constantly evolve through passion and creativity? If they're running out of teaspoons, he says, we're gonna find out. Just karm, yes, why are you doing this?

Speaker 3: 56:28

and he says I can't waste that much time, which is one of those things that makes me fucking crazy now that I'm, uh, solidly in middle age, especially because my plan is to off myself right after my 80th birthday, so I know exactly how many years I have left. Yeah, um, this idea of running out of time. I I've I've already done everything that I've done in my entire life and I have to do that one more time. I again need to do that for another 40 fucking years. Are you kidding me? You're nowhere near close to being out of time, carm. You were 32 years old. Give me a fucking break. You might have to do this twice over. If you're not as smart as me and don't kill yourself, what are you doing?

Speaker 2: 57:18

absolute madness. I do love the next line. He says this and that says I think some part of my heart just broke and it's like she has a inner knowing about, yes, like first from being uh, dv's daughter, donna's daughter, right, she just has this understanding about what she's watching happen in real time in front of her. He says it's a good thing that we know it's not. There's no part of this that looks like a good thing. He says it's a good thing. She's like mm-hmm. And he brings her something. She says oh, thank you, Aunt, Genie, Time doll. And Karmie says where's mine? And what does Jimmy? She brings it. He brings her something. She's thank you, I'll get any time doll. And and Carmi says where's mine? And what does Jimmy say here?

Speaker 3: 58:01

Says you know, buddy, I called you to get your order, but they said that you were back in the fridge yelling at yourself.

Speaker 2: 58:08

Yeah, so he didn't get him a cup of coffee. That is a.

Speaker 3: 58:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot there. I think one of the things that I want to mention that you and Coach talked about in the second episode of episode one.

Speaker 1: 58:26

Part two of season three. Part two of episode one yeah.

Speaker 3: 58:30

When Chef Terry was telling Carmi five more seconds on that, always five more seconds, and that that is significantly better instruction than Carmi looking at the sauce in season one and saying it's not good. So Carmi spent all night figuring out what his non-negotiables are, and what he came up with was constantly evolve through passion and creativity. How do I do that, carmen? How do I constantly evolve? What are the benchmarks? What are these techniques that I'm supposed to be learning? How do I learn them? You have all these non-negotiables that you expect me, presumably as the kitchen staff, to reach, and you haven't given me any sort of roadmap to get there.

Speaker 2: 59:16

Wow, that is. It is so fucking nebulous. I might have used it as a goal for this podcast yeah, what the fuck does it mean? And constantly yeah, and someone like you goes okay, wonderful, great, okay, what is step one on the yellow brick road to constantly evolving through creativity or whatever? And you're like, okay, fine, but like give me the how. Now I understand the, the premise, and it's.

Speaker 3: 59:49

It's not even that. All of them are. These lofty ideas like you come up with is fucking corporate america. I'm not even in corporate America. It's fucking nonprofit. We still do this shit. You come up with overall goals like these very lofty ideas about.

Speaker 3: 1:00:03

we're going to make sure everybody in the city of Chicago is housed. We're going to blah, blah, blah, we're going to do this. And then it is how do we actually get there? How do we show that we've done that? How do we make sure that the standards of housing and addressing food insecurity, everything else, what do we want? How do we do it? How do we show we've done it? He says we're going to evolve through passion and creativity, on the same page as break down the boxes before you put them in the dumpster. How are we having that much distance between what you consider to be a non-negotiable oh, interesting, right.

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

So the non-negotiables in and of themselves are so wildly varied, from practical things to these sort of yeah, the vagaries of whatever Carmi thinks in his mind constitutes passion. Creativity, yes, yes, in his mind, constitutes passion.

Speaker 3: 1:00:55

Creativity Right, because teaspoons is not a non-negotiable.

Speaker 3: 1:01:00

You just tell somebody to order more fucking teaspoons. That is a checklist item, that is not a non-negotiable, that is not a goal, that is nothing else. That is, you need to order more teaspoons. It may be even twice a year. Maybe even you replenish the teaspoons because for some reason people are stealing them if they're very small. It might be me, I do love a tiny little teaspoon. But this is like. Even his thinking on the non-negotiables is all over the fucking place yeah, no, you're absolutely right, you're absolutely right, uh.

Speaker 2: 1:01:29

And so, uh, sid walks in, uh, you know, uncle jimmy gives him a little shot out the door. He's literally walking out out of the kitchen. Uh, morning, sid. Tasty shit last week morning, thank you, sid says, and he's out um morning, car me, hey, I, it's funny. I was like, oh, it's so interesting and we'll get into this a little bit in season three. Um, I was like, oh, what is the relationship between sid and uncle jimmy? It's like really interesting, because he is he's very well written from the perspective of um, uh, so I have god, so it's so interesting. So what? The what we consider the mob to be and what the mob actually is are very different in this day and age.

Speaker 2: 1:02:15

But one thing at least I've seen. I grew up with some people that were connected and one thing I see is that they're amazing at controlling variables. So, like my friends who were in this situation, sid would be a variable they didn't understand, and then they would make sure they were her best friend. They would get to know her I know how their methodology understand and then they would make sure they were her best friend. They would get to know her. They would what they just I know how their methodology goes. They would be like, oh, they bring her into the fold, then they get her a little bit dirty, they cut her in on whatever, and then now she's part of the team, now she's, she's now trustworthy and whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:02:51

But until they do that, there's this, there's this little dance that they do. So when I see him, uncle Jimmy, when I see him sort of compliment Sid in that way, I'm like, oh, so here's where it starts. I was like, okay, because you always start with a friendly sort of thing. Okay, so anyway, that's the way that I see that dance, starting with Sidney and Uncle Jimmy. I just see the beginnings of it.

Speaker 3: 1:03:22

I would shockingly not agree. I think that this is more like on the wire when Orlando who ran Orlando's needed to stay 100% above the law at all times Do not get your nose dirty, do not get a fucking parking ticket, stay clean. I think that, because the bear is going to be not even a front, this is going to be a legal establishment. They're not actually going to funnel cash through there. They want it to be a functioning restaurant. Oh yeah, sydney, they're not going to cut Sydney.

Speaker 2: 1:04:00

Oh no, no. I don't mean that. I'm saying that's how they. No God, no, no, no God.

Speaker 3: 1:04:03

That's not what no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 1:04:05

How they do the dance, how they, how I just, oh God, I can't even explain it, I know it like a second language when I see it happen, and then I see it always work. It just always works, and I'm, I'm always, I'm always amazed, amazed at how, how it goes down. And it's just this, it's this sort of it's, sort of this movement that you get used to seeing, uh, in in guys that are connected and um, and I go, wow, it's just and it works, it always works. I've never seen it not work 's like so, except for, I guess, me, probably like it doesn't work, but but for everybody else my

Speaker 2: 1:04:39

work. It's like this people get sucked in and sort of buy into the whatever. So the guy has a narrative like uncle jimmy's got a narrative around him and it's like, can I get city to to buy into the narrative of what I am the way everybody else does, because right now she's a sydney be like who? The fuck is this guy walking through the restaurant Like, oh shit, in a hat, I don't know you, dude, like there's nothing that says she has to be like, has to like him or get along or whatever. And for me, at least to my eye, I just see him doing a thing.

Speaker 2: 1:05:10

I think it's excellent writing where it's like she's the one person who's not in the fold, in a way that uh is like everyone else. So you know she's. She's this high end chef that Kami brought in on his own. She didn't come up through the normal, you know things. So so it behooves uh Jimmy to sort of make inroads with her. That's all I'm saying. That that's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that he's going to be a front for the mafia, anything but that. But in the same way he would do the dance with someone else. It seems to me like he's beginning to do the dance with her, but again, that's just an with is that Jimmy wants people.

Speaker 3: 1:06:01

Jimmy benefits when people like him. I think that there are a bunch of ways that he benefits. I think sometimes it is monetarily, and sometimes it's illegal things and sometimes it's just he doesn't, especially if he's going to be butting heads with Carm. He doesn't need Sidney to be on Carm's side also, like if he can. He is the owner, he knows that Suge likes him. He knows that he and Carm are butting heads. I think that I also think that Jimmy would probably just actually like Sidney.

Speaker 2: 1:06:32

Maybe, maybe. I would think that would be secondary to somebody like him.

Speaker 2: 1:06:34

but yes, I think they have an ability to compartmentalize their feelings in I I would agree with you, except after seeing him in fishes I think that he genuinely enjoys when a lot of people like I I I think that his thing is being the life of the party and that he would want sydney to like him well, so he, he departs and Sydney is now looking at we get an insert her POV subjective camera of her looking at all the stuff Karmie made and she's like Karm, and she's like hey, what's up? And I guess I'll start with what is this?

Speaker 3: 1:07:21

And he says it's R&d.

Speaker 2: 1:07:22

You know the way that um lots and lots of kitchens have lots and lots of r&d, obviously listen, I don't know one of the big things you get online when people ask about about kitchens, they go where do you get the budget for this? Much like wasted food all the time, like just like what marcus is doing at constantly. Or it's like do kitchens have this much r&d or whatever? Um, and I guess it's true of the higher end kitchens, uh, on some level. But it's funny.

Speaker 2: 1:07:49

She comes in, right. It's just like amazing how this is supposed to be this fancy opening, right, and everybody that walks into Karmie's aura gets fucked up from it in one way or another, right? So the Christopher guy walks in and he's like we demand that the thing is open and Karmie, whatever, he kind of goes out unscathed, so he's whatever. I guess he's not. He doesn't get fucked up by car me in the same way. Um sug comes in and she, she just like feels like a part of her dies. Uh, um, uncle, uncle, uh, jimmy comes in and he's got to like reassert that he owns absolutely no bullshit, yeah right.

Speaker 2: 1:08:31

He's like wait what? I'm here because I can fucking be here whenever I want, whatever. And now sid comes in, carmi's ostensible partner, and she's like we get this, insert this one shot, a single of her where she goes. You redid everything, like you know, head tilted, accusatory, she's got her brow furrowed. Like what in the fuck?

Speaker 3: 1:08:56

it's 8, 20 in the morning yep, and this is such a departure from like the last episode of season one, where they are talking about the concept and what they're going to make the restaurant look like and he, he says a window on the side. She says four scene, which is literally finishing each other's sentences. Season two we haven't talked about the table scene, but like them underneath the table talking about how they need each other and everything that goes into that. And this is you did not even consult Sydney before you started doing this. You didn't wait until she got in and said listen, service was obviously bullshit because I was stuck in a refrigerator, but we need to redo this.

Speaker 2: 1:10:02

You decided to do it and you did brothers, or you'll get like a team that works so well that you can do two people, but once, once you get this is why they say too too many chefs, um, uh, spoil the soup. I'm like, okay, I, I naturally, me, as a human being, I I uh gravitate to the concept that one it's got to be one person's artistic vision and that's it, and then everybody else sort of rally around that. Uh, with regard to this, though, in the way you frame it, I'm like, okay, what I don't know enough about kitchens to know as his partner or as his like second chef. I know there's like a hierarchy to it, like, did he broach some etiquette in redesigning the dishes or is that well with?

Speaker 2: 1:10:45

I can't imagine Chef Terry or Daniel or someone spending up all night Right Like the top chef at that jerk chef, the New York City chef, right Spending all night and then someone coming in and questioning them. I can't even imagine. It's like unthinkable to me in those things. So why is it not unthinkable here? Why does Sidney get to challenge him? And is it just my ignorance of how a kitchen works to say that like, oh no, obviously she should, but I just can't imagine imagine happening in those other places.

Speaker 3: 1:11:18

I think what happens in other kitchens is actually irrelevant, because within the show, what we saw was Carmen saying I can't do this without you and she said you could do this without me, and he said I can't. I can't do this without you and you said I can't, I can't do this without you. Once he said that, what he was saying was this is going to be a team effort, in the same way that this is, for all intents and purposes, your podcast. You get to set up how we're going to do these things and how we're going to discuss things and how we go through them, yeah, and then you just tattoo whatever, yeah every time.

Speaker 3: 1:11:57

No, but seriously like totally, totally.

Speaker 2: 1:11:59

That's how it all shakes if you decided unilaterally.

Speaker 3: 1:12:04

Yeah, well, actually, what we're gonna do now is 30 minute episodes where we talk about basketball. I'd be like, well, I gotta get the fuck out. I don't know how to do that shit. That's not like it.

Speaker 2: 1:12:15

So so no to basketball.

Speaker 3: 1:12:20

You didn't like that idea that I pitched you. I know the balls are orange. We could talk about that Hoop hoop. I got, I got it.

Speaker 2: 1:12:28

We're not going to. We're not going to transition to that for anybody. No, I did not pitch. No, sorry, that was a joke.

Speaker 3: 1:12:33

But like this. This is not how restaurants function. This is how their relationship is built, and she has already made it clear to him that she's not going to put up with this bullshit, cause she left in season one even though she came back and then when they talked about like we are actually putting this restaurant together, they said to like that was those were vows of sorts. She was saying I can do it with you and he was like I can only do it with you. And now he's doing it on his own. Now he is leaving her in the middle of this partnership.

Speaker 2: 1:13:05

There's so much about your, about what you just said, that I really, I really hate. I know it's, I know it's right and and I and it makes such, it makes such sense, it's very clear and it makes a lot of sense, but it goes against my understanding. So I go. Well, he is trying to elevate them to get to this goal of the other restaurants he's worked at, that's the shining sort of goal on the Hill right, and in order to do that, he feels like he's got a series of rules and and so, ultimately, it doesn't matter what sydney thinks. But you're, you're really right that in the context of this, like sort of agreements were made, whether or not they usually they sort of align with the standard restaurant configuration. There definitely were agreements like sydney.

Speaker 2: 1:13:59

Sydney came back based on a conversation where he said two tops at whatever, like that big moment where they found all the money. Yeah, there was a, there was a communication where they both contributed to their idea of a perfect restaurant and that's what sealed the deal. That was the okay, fine, I'll come back is when I'll come back. She heard that. She had a voice in it. So you're very, very right about this. Um and first time Congratulations, um and so, uh, we have, uh, her, I mean, her look is so, it's so funny, it's like you never want to be on the on the fucking business end of a look like this where her eyebrows are up. It's just like are you for fucking serious? It's like that, oh my God. He says well, you know, she's like you changed the whole thing. He's like yeah, well, I, I subtracted and and I pushed.

Speaker 3: 1:14:53

And then, finally, she's like well, do you want to spell out for me exactly what you subtracted and what exactly you pushed? Oh god and what I? The last thing that I'll say about this scene is that he does, he is the executive chef, he by every. What is she again?

Speaker 2: 1:15:14

uh, the cdc, okay, okay, so cdc is second, I think that she's, and then the sue. It comes after the cdc, that's what I believe that tina is right, yes, she's her okay, okay executive chef cdc. I always get those confused.

Speaker 3: 1:15:26

Okay, I know me it doesn't make that much sense. Oh also, um, I double checked elenia does have three michelin stars. Oh, jesus, yes it and smith both have three there in chicago.

Speaker 3: 1:15:38

Um, ever has two oh, what a dump, what a dump I know fucking garbage um, um okay, so sid has worked at michelin star restaurants before yes, sorry, that was the point. Yes, um, so he technically has every right to make those decisions. He cannot insist that Sydney continue doing this with him, though that that is the issue. Like, in the same way as any other relationship, any time that you are doing something together, if you want to act however you want to act, you can. You can't make the other person come along with you and agree to that she could leave. That's the issue here, got it?

Speaker 2: 1:16:23

Okay, he says Sid. He stops her in her tracks and says Sid, and then we go tight on him and he says we're going to get a star, and then she laughs. She laughs, she's like what? Like I thought that was a trap and you know. Okay, so this is. Yeah, he has. She's referring to the fact that in the past he's been like don't shoot for the star, yep, and now he's just completely using that as a mechanism to manipulate her to support his emotional isolation. Am I right in reading that properly?

Speaker 3: 1:17:03

That is also how I took it.

Speaker 2: 1:17:04

yes, I thought we were going to be dialed. Okay, your cook was excellent, by the way, he said.

Speaker 3: 1:17:13

And she says thank you for saying that.

Speaker 2: 1:17:20

It's such a she. She says but you still changed all my shit. He says it's our shit and just some of the adjusting in the plate and the scallop is perfect. Scallop is perfect. We don't need to do this. The ribeye was too big. There's a cleaner plate. So the bucatini or do large ravioli.

Speaker 3: 1:17:32

She's like yolk inside yolk inside and pancetta dust right and she's like doing.

Speaker 2: 1:17:39

You can see you're doing the arithmetic about the ideas and the merit of the concepts in and of themselves.

Speaker 3: 1:17:46

Um, go ahead, boss well, and this is why it becomes more important, rather than knowing what is the right way of doing things in terms of restaurants, the right way of doing this in terms of Sid? She would get there with you If you had come in and he had said like, hey, the food was fucking excellent, but we were wrong about the menu. We need to fix these things. Here are my ideas. She would have been 100% on board from the beginning. There is no manipulation needed.

Speaker 3: 1:18:16

yeah, she it's just the how of how he did right ready to buy in yeah, exactly, yeah because when, when he says I put potato chips on the sea bass, she's like oh she's intellectually approachable.

Speaker 2: 1:18:28

She's, you know, like she. She loves the art form enough to be open to constant improvement. Um, so yeah, that's, but he is incapable of it at this point because he's in free fall. He's like an emotional um yep. So you asked if chris store reads the uh reddit boards. One of the big knocks about this season is that they feel like the uh writing staff only did fan service. It was like oh, do you like the facts? Let's give a lot of facts. Do you like that? Whatever you like cameos, let's give new cameos. Do you like the um? Whatever? Do you like whatever it is like? So in this case, you know there's a lot of groans at this where it's like oh, you like the omelet scene with uh sid and um and sugar, where she put potato chips on top, like let's put potato chips on the sea bass. Like people were like oh god, like, this is just fan service so what I'll say about that number one?

Speaker 3: 1:19:20

I dislike the criticism that something is merely fan service. Fan service is not always bad. I will point to um american gods, which is one of my favorite shows that I can't watch because no place will fucking stream it. In the book, laura Moon and Matt Sweeney never even meet, and on the show the actors who play them obviously Pablo Schreiber and fucking I'm forgetting Laura Moon's name right now Emily, somebody or other. Damn it, I'll look it up. They had such amazing chemistry that the showrunners were like oh OK, they're a thing. Now they're doing a road trip together.

Speaker 2: 1:19:58

That happens all the time. Yeah, it happens all the time.

Speaker 3: 1:20:00

Sometimes fan service is fucking amazing and it created one of the best relationships I've ever seen on a TV show for me, not for anybody else. So I'm never going to knock fan service just for being fan service. But I think it's interesting that a lot of people are saying it's such a departure from the first two seasons, but also you're only doing exactly the same things that you did in the first two seasons, like the cameos and the potato chips. Like I think people can't argue both things and three. I don't think that that was fan service. To put the potato chips on top of the sea bass. I think that Carmi was saying I have watched your work, I am taking something that you did and putting it into this dish.

Speaker 2: 1:20:43

Yeah well, it's right, he does it. He says that, and then she finally kind of gets on board they get rid of the cavatelli, it's better for service, and then there's like a beat.

Speaker 3: 1:20:52

And then he's like a beat and then he says what it says right, I'm going to change it every day. And she says the cavatelli or the ravioli, raviolo, and he says everything. So the second that she was sort of bought in, where she was like yeah, okay, this is like we did one service. We had to refine the menu. This happens, it makes sense. Now she's's like wait, you, you've decided you are going to change it every day.

Speaker 2: 1:21:21

Cool then. Her reaction shot is the lighting and the framing of this shot is like is like when a, an arch villain, is born. That's typically when you do this.

Speaker 3: 1:21:30

I'm not saying this is her origin story. Yeah, is like their.

Speaker 2: 1:21:34

This is that moment where the way she looks at him in reaction to that, to what he just said, is like like it may have broken something inside of her. You just get this really funny. It's not funny. It's not laugh out loud funny.

Speaker 2: 1:21:49

You get this very serious shot of her like glaring at him uh yeah, and, and you know, iod bree, just what a great piece of acting. Very simple nod, eyebrows up and down, like okay, but but like there's so much behind it, it's, it's uh, and she just just comes back with, you know, like kind of a snark. She's like we're gonna change everything every day, like I want to, I want to, I want to speak it back to you. I had a manager who would always say let me just say it back to you to make sure I got it.

Speaker 3: 1:22:38

Uh, and I think that that face is like you. God bless her. Every once in a while, there is just a single face in a shot that does everything. In this case, she is angry and in disbelief and slightly impressed. There there was a tiny hint of like oh wait, you're going to do what we're like. She doesn't want to necessarily, but the fact that he thinks we're going to do this is it's out of his mind Bullshit, but it's impressive.

Speaker 2: 1:23:10

Well, isn't it funny too that, uh, that he waits till uncle Jimmy's out of the uncle Jimmy was complaining about the cryo freezers or whatever the hell they're talking about, and he's like you got to stop spending all my fucking money. He's like oh, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make sure we can't buy in bulk. Let's just absolutely eliminate that as a possibility.

Speaker 3: 1:23:32

Let's just get a dozen eggs at a time.

Speaker 2: 1:23:36

It is Whatever he says. Uh, yes, uh, I made a list. Uh, she's like why? So they can see what we're capable of, who's they? Tina can do farmer market, probably, but you didn't answer my question. Uh, and there's a docusign in your inbox, did you see that? She's like karm? Uh, no, saying what? It's a partnership agreement. You mean that there's a vetting schedule, a vesting schedule, sugar corrects?

Speaker 3: 1:23:59

vesting schedule uh thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:24:02

Uh, okay, and what does that say? How much of this place you're going to own?

Speaker 3: 1:24:05

he says so this is, I feel like, everyone, not everyone's. Well, I feel like often there are terms that are introduced to the larger lexicon and overused. This is a form of love bombing in a restaurant way, in that he just said we're doing my vision and my plan to get a star that I told you we are not interested in. I'm going to make things more difficult for you. You didn't have any input in this, correct. And when she's pushing back on that, when she's saying like wait, you didn't answer my question. Even he says I'm going to give you part of my restaurant. Bitch what? No, I asked you who's going to do the fucking farmer's market. I don't want you to give me part of your restaurant. I want you to give me part of your restaurant.

Speaker 1: 1:24:54

I want you to answer me about what the plan is, but it is overwhelming to me.

Speaker 3: 1:24:58

And it is intriguing and she also does want that and it does make her feel valued, like the reason love bombing works is because it works, because giving somebody part of your restaurant is a fucking lot, and I think that it does make her feel like they're back in that partnership for a second. Like he is saying you are going to be my partner in this restaurant. I think that she is willing to believe that I would yeah, oh, my god it is.

Speaker 2: 1:25:24

So it is like borderline, dastardly, um. But also, but I don't think he's clever enough to have pulled it off in the way that it's pulled off, because I think sugar was involved. So it's probably like sugar, like hey, we got to do this, we got to do that, and him having talked this out, but the fact that he drops it right now, recognizing he's in a world of shit, right, you know, like he cannot defend his actions, so he's like all right, I got one of one arrow in my quiver that might shut this down.

Speaker 2: 1:25:52

Oh also, you're a partner in here and and she yeah he's like are you okay?

Speaker 3: 1:25:57

And she's like I feel like I've been here an hour and I feel like, um with another term that has been possibly overused um, gaslighting. I don't think that people need to consciously think like, and now I'm going to love bomb them, or and now I'm going to gaslight. It is a thing that people do because it addresses a need. What he needs is for her to buy into his idea.

Speaker 3: 1:26:21

Right so he is going to give her as much as he feels comfortable giving her in order to get that back. I don't think any part of it is dastardly or conniving. I think that he is just saying, like I know what I need to do to get to the place I want to get. I need you to come with, so I'm giving you what I can give you to bring you with. It makes perfect sense to him. It's just not a good foundation for a partnership. This is a him doing whatever the fuck he wants and needing somebody to help carry him up there.

Speaker 2: 1:26:55

Well, yes, and and to his credit, most people who do this the type of narcissistic behavior that usually leads to this, uh, they leads to also the person not getting a cut of anything. So, at the very least, it's nice that, uh, yes, that he's willing, that is very true. You know, carve off a piece for for sid, he, he admits, yeah, it's a lot. She says I've been here an hour. She's like why are you doing this? Um, and he, he says, uh, so you can push, I can push you and you can push me that's what. Is that what you?

Speaker 2: 1:27:26

that's what you wanted right, that's what she says. And he takes out some nicotine quitting smoking, yeah, nicotine gum. I'm saying, uh, you, are you going to be smoking? He says yes, she like factors that in have you talked to Richie yet? Because this is now Abraham comes in. Carmi, can you please take the beef to the fridge? Yes, chef, thank you, non-negotiables. And this is Sugar coming out with now the typed up list, right? Yes? Hopefully all spelled correctly Right, of course. Yeah, that would be nice.

Speaker 3: 1:28:00

And what does Sugar say when Sydney says non-negotiables?

Speaker 2: 1:28:02

Yeah, I have nothing to do with it. Explain, Carmen.

Speaker 3: 1:28:13

That's a bunch of stuff. Oh, that's great Good job. It's a bunch of stuff that's going to make this place more efficient. This is the list of things that you made.

Speaker 2: 1:28:19

Yeah, he also made a docusign, right. Did he tell you that he also made a docusign, right? Did he tell you that he also made a docusign? Yep, it's an exciting day, right, it is exciting. I mean, it's like really this oh god man.

Speaker 3: 1:28:28

I mean I. I should say this is I actually agree with you about the idea of there being a single vision or any organization. There needs to be one person that ends up making the final decision. But having that person in that role doesn't exclude collaboration, and what Carmi is doing is excluding collaboration. Yeah, he is saying this is how we are going to do it. I'm going to let you do it with me. Saying this is how we are going to do it. I'm gonna let you do it with me, but this is how we're going to do it. So there is a happy medium between a dictator and, uh, you know, communist. Uh, what's the fucking word I'm looking for here where the hippies hang out?

Speaker 2: 1:29:13

oh, like a, like a, um, like a I keep, keep thinking commune commune, commune, yes, yes, yes, yes, there we go, thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:29:23

A commie commune, as I should have. I don't think we can say hippies anymore. Oh, fuck that. I went to college in urbana. I could fucking say hippies. My parents, like, didn't go to woodstock but definitely would have. I can fucking say hippies, um no. So there is. There is a way that he could have done all of this better, and already we are seeing that this is not the foundation to build a restaurant on without a doubt.

Speaker 2: 1:29:50

Yes, and the and the, the leaders that we admire and we've talked about it for years now are not people who run organizations like this. I remember the first time I heard a white man CEO say oh, I don't need to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, if I'm not the dumbest person in the room, I'm probably not doing my job. I was like wait what my job? I was like wait what, like what? I was so blown away by that as a transitional concept from the like gordon gecko era to be like.

Speaker 2: 1:30:22

No, no it's about, like, getting all the best ideas and then making a good decision, like, like, the decision making process in and of itself uh, you know, yes, the locus of that is on the leader right, but it's not like oh, but I also also have all the right information, naturally. It's like no, no, the compilation of that from the help of other people and sydney is being left out of that process.

Speaker 3: 1:30:44

Yes, um, she's just meant to catch up and maybe this is what he thinks and go along yeah to hear what he says and help uh, you know enact his vision without any saying it, even though she is a part owner. It's. What I'm saying is not that it can't be done, but that it will not work. Ok, I should also mention, with all of the talk of AI and everything else, what most what I've read people are saying like oh, ai is going to replace writers and do this and do this and do this, and painters are going to be a thing of the past because AI could just make it. No, ai would actually be very effective and very efficient in the CEO position If you had an AI that was taking in all of the information and making decisions based on that. Actually, that's a pretty good model. Those are jobs that should be replaced by AI. But instead we're like oh, need paint, we don't need musicians anymore, we could just have a keyboard do it.

Speaker 2: 1:31:39

it's fucking bullshit I, I, as the as the um identified defender of entitled white wealthy people, I? I am forced to dispute that on the grounds that, uh then, I mean, what are all my co-conspirators at the top of the food chain going to do, boss, when they don't get their $41 million a year paychecks and their huge golden parachutes? I mean, what you say doesn't make a lot of sense, you know, because then a lot of really really wealthy CEOs would be out of job. That would be, oh, that'd be.

Speaker 3: 1:32:14

They could die. They could die.

Speaker 2: 1:32:20

They could I, yeah, this is like an Attica moment for this podcast. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it, I'm all for it. Yeah, no, isn't it funny If the shoe's on the other foot boy, it doesn't fit so well. To your point, the computer drafted up the agreement. Uh, sugar says so. Make sure, uh, to have a lawyer looking at it, what which? Computer, the computer, yeah, and we know who that is right. Do we know who that is?

Speaker 3: 1:32:46

obviously do you not know the computer.

Speaker 2: 1:32:47

No, we don't at this point, we don't know as viewers, we don't know that nicholas marshall is the computer.

Speaker 3: 1:32:55

And everybody does know Nicholas Marshall.

Speaker 2: 1:32:58

They do not know Nicholas Marshall at this point. Damn it. Yeah, nobody knows Nicholas Marshall, but it is. She says Nicholas is Sydney's like. Is that AI or something Like the computer? No, nicholas Marshall, that's the computer is a person. Of course. Why wouldn't he be? Sydney says, because now she's again in, that she's a little bit of an outsider in their fucking crazy world. Of course there's a person named the computer in their world.

Speaker 3: 1:33:24

She says okay, yeah, go ahead. A friend of mine, a friend of my sister's friend, the family putting together her wedding list and her husband saying well, we should invite Steve. And her husband saying well, we should invite Steve. And she said Steve, who's Steve? She said you know, steve, steve, steve G, you mean Milky and I'm like, yeah, okay, but you can't put Milky on a wedding invitation, like he has a real name too. Yeah, it happens sometimes.

Speaker 2: 1:33:50

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:33:52

You didn't invite Milky to your wedding.

Speaker 2: 1:33:54

I yeah, I've told stories about that how brutal I am I. You didn't invite milky to your wedding. I yeah, I've told stories about that, how brutal I I. I know, in season one I told the story about a woman who went in to get her husband's paycheck from this local uh construction company and no one knew who david roberts was oh, definitely not. And then somebody in the back office like yelled like she's talking about fatty.

Speaker 2: 1:34:13

Yeah, obviously and then she's like, oh, it's't she, why, if it's fatty, oh, get fatty speech. That's a whole and and you know you're just like oh, man, that's yeah. That was the I was. I witnessed that. It's just, it's just, it's just. Yeah, sid. And see, look it, that's the sound of the fire truck going through Chicago in the background Would have fit perfectly on the opening montage there.

Speaker 3: 1:34:41

Actually, unfortunately, probably an ambulance, because I happen to live half a mile from two different hospitals in either direction, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:34:51

Oh, that was an ambulance, got it? That also would have fit. I think we saw an ambulance. Sid says, okay, I don't have a lawyer. I think I know one is. Yes, you do. And they both say she says who you know a lawyer and who did they say I was surprised about this? Yeah, you know pete. Yeah, pete's a lawyer.

Speaker 3: 1:35:11

Of course that makes sense of course pete is a lawyer he's, yeah. And of course he's not a trial lawyer. He's a, he's, he's like some sort of corporate yeah, you know the the worst people in the world lawyers, just the no, no, no, no no scum of the earth.

Speaker 2: 1:35:28

No, I just I trash who are you making fun of right now?

Speaker 3: 1:35:36

Oh, a few people. I was thinking mostly of producer Seth.

Speaker 2: 1:35:39

Oh, yeah, right, Producer Seth is a lawyer. Yeah, we, yeah. No, no, we have him on staff, but no, I once said I never attack a profession. I once suggest or intimated that bankers are. I don't even know what I said, but I got a bunch of emails about how nice bankers are. So, um, yes, there's good and bad everywhere. Uh, now sid is reading the constantly involved through passion and creativity of the place. Is that what mise en place means? And then who walks in?

Speaker 3: 1:36:14

richie suited up he wears suits now. So he wears suits now, Even at 8 in the morning. He's not going to change into a suit. He's wearing his suit all day.

Speaker 2: 1:36:27

Yeah, right, yeah, I hadn't noticed. That Isn't that interesting. He starts with the suit now. Yeah, because he wears suits now. Yeah, that's so interesting. Oh boy, wow, talk about putting on armor. Coach mentioned, when I, when we were talking about this, he mentioned his, that he had tattoos that were his armor and what that does for him. So this is really interesting. So Richie walks in. Good morning team, how's everybody feeling? And boy, his, his, he is, he is ready for battle. It is crazy the look on his face.

Speaker 2: 1:37:01

he comes in and right, he's charged and he and he, he pretending to be sort of. I mean, it's the aftermath of a pretty big fucking night and right.

Speaker 3: 1:37:13

And a big fight, and a fight that everybody saw. And also I'm sure that this has been on Karmie's mind all night, like when he's cause he hasn't heard back from Richie, he hasn't got a text or a voicemail or anything else. So you know that there's going to be a secondary confrontation, that this is not resolved yet. So Richie came in knowing that he was going to talk to Karm. Karm was waiting all morning for Richie to come in, and and now what's happening?

Speaker 2: 1:37:40

So I was reading about trauma and that when people have a trauma response to an anticipatory dread over an upcoming unavoidable interaction, it's actually like the way this report I was reading was framed was that it's not, that it's actually healthy, it's actually oh, this is not a weak reaction or a fight or flight thing. It's like, no, you accurately understanding the elements of the upcoming traumatic event that you're walking into and um and and and. Part of it is that, um, we have so much experience trauma that you're able to sort of draw on past trauma to project how this trauma, the upcoming trauma, might play out, which traumatizes you further, which is actually not healthy, but how it sort of plays out in the human mind. And you know, neurologists are trying to pinpoint exactly how the brain uses different thought centers, like you know, we know the to pinpoint exactly how the brain uh, uses different thought centers. Like you know, we know the limbic system is basically where the emotional um element is, but there's a lot of interplay between the cognitive, like the cerebrum and, and the medulla, where the limbic system works.

Speaker 2: 1:38:55

And so I was reading about all this stuff and I think about Richie walking into that room and how many times I have had to steal myself for like a bad upcoming interact. You know and we all sort of do it a little differently how we get ready for that. Some people just don't do it. Some people go I'm not walking in that room, like that's it. I'm never walking in that room again and they check out, um, but when you have to do it, I'm always fascinated by the strength and the courage of humans and sort of like how you brace yourself for these moments. Do you have anything before you go into these moments? Do you have any preparation? You know Rebecca would make herself as big as possible. She'd do that thing in the mirror where she would get herself ready, and she would, you know, make herself feel big. You know that sort of thing. Yes, do you have anything you do before interactions like this boss?

Speaker 3: 1:39:43

absolutely not okay. I think about it as little as humanly possible and then I'd get it done, okay that's very like I yes I have, um, there is a very thin line between, uh, functional and dysfunctional repression, and I walk it fairly well. So, yeah, no, I just like. I literally will tell myself my brain like we're not going to worry about that, and then shut it down as much as possible until it happens.

Speaker 2: 1:40:11

There's a character in a book series that I love by Joe Abercrombie and he always says better to do a thing than live with the fear of it. He's just like just get it done. That's it. Don't waste time Fucking. Handle it, and then you'll be past it.

Speaker 3: 1:40:26

Then you'll be done and this is so. I know that you were talking about Richie stealing himself to come into the kitchen. I was obviously because he's Luke Gallagher thinking about how Carmi did what he was supposed to do. He called Richie last night. He tried to like address the situation right away, he let it rip immediately.

Speaker 2: 1:40:47

Yep.

Speaker 3: 1:40:48

And then had to sit and wait for the blowback from that. So, like the one thing that Mikey taught him, the one thing that he got good at where he's like I'm just going to fucking get it done, I'm not going to worry about it, you're not gonna think about it, I'm gonna do it. And then still had to sit with the, and now it's still coming. Now I'm still dreading it for the entire night.

Speaker 2: 1:41:09

It's a good point. Yeah, right, he does, let it rip. Um, uh, and and and. Right, he won't know until now. Did he call? He called in the morning, though, right, did he call for, or did he call last night? I'm trying to remember when well.

Speaker 3: 1:41:22

So it kind of depends on what you're calling morning and night they presumably got done with service. I think they said that they it wouldn't know, they just had the one service. So you know they got done 10, 11 or whatever. He was busted out of the freezer maybe midnight. I'm guessing that he called like one ish in the morning but didn't richard, hear about it in his, in his car.

Speaker 2: 1:41:41

He was in his car at some point, so, richie was in his car hearing this at one in the morning I'm guessing that he left the restaurant and drove home and carmy called him in that time okay, all right, um, so anyway, we get these two in the same room for the first time. Richie looks at everyone there's like they share a lot of.

Speaker 3: 1:41:59

Looks like a straight out of fucking western yeah like everybody, it's close up on the eyes, everybody looking at what everybody else is doing right.

Speaker 2: 1:42:07

Somebody's gonna pull a gun at any second seriously, if we were, if we were on a, a western set, uh, the all the people would be boarding up their doors and running into inside. Um, uh, hey, chef sid, have you seen? Um, uh, what does he say? What is what does richie say here?

Speaker 3: 1:42:24

he's like he, he breaks the silence right and yep hey, hey, chef sid, have you seen my iron, which I I guess that's a reasonable thing to ask? Um, he says also would you ask Chef Carmen, what the fuck he did to my table?

Speaker 2: 1:42:45

My table's out front. Yeah, my table's out front, remember, carmen.

Speaker 3: 1:42:49

He was moving the flowers.

Speaker 2: 1:42:51

Yeah, he was resetting the sets and then the whole table, and then he redid the thing. Yep, and to his credit.

Speaker 3: 1:42:58

Carmen does the very mature thing and says uh, chef Sid, would you please tell Richard that I thought I would set him up for success and arrange his table in a more efficient pattern.

Speaker 2: 1:43:12

Yeah, is that what you? Did. Yeah, that's what I did.

Speaker 3: 1:43:15

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2: 1:43:16

It was really funny. I walked in and it was so strange. It looked like the person who had done it previously had never left the city of Chicago. So this is car me saying that to Richie. Which which Richie?

Speaker 3: 1:43:30

says what. You can leave the city of Chicago out of it.

Speaker 2: 1:43:33

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:43:35

Which I would like to say has a it reminiscent of shut the fuck up about Chicago, a thing that happened online last year that I enjoyed very much. Where it? Because some news outlets constantly talk shit about the outrageous levels of violence and how Chicago is practically a war zone. And watch out, you can't walk down Michigan Avenue without getting shot. No, shut the fuck up about Chicago.

Speaker 3: 1:44:03

You don't actually know what's going on. You don't know where the violence is or why the violence is happening there. If you don't live here and if you're not invested in it as a community, you could shut the fuck up about Chicago. So, yes, leave the city of Chicago out of it. Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:44:17

Wow, god damn. Oh of Chicago out of it. Wow, wow, god damn. We have people listening from all over the world and that is a very foreign, because in many cases they can trust their news sources, which we've learned to in the last years thanks to you know.

Speaker 2: 1:44:37

Fucking assholes concerted effort on the part of people trying to destabilize society that yeah, uh, we now don't trust the fourth estate. Um, so, carmy, okay, why, I? Just, I, I'm I'm chalking this up to richie's manner and tone. When he comes in um carmy, the fact that he hasn't slept, that he's, he's strung out on whatever he's on like, and he starts you know why attack. There's a choice he could have made like oh, I, I readjusted it so he starts out with efficiency, but then he says you know, you're a fucking hayseed, zero flow, no efficiency, looked like shit. Um, so I thought I'd give you a hand, and now they're using sid as this weird. Uh, yeah, hey, chef, sid, I can tell carmen I can give him a fucking hand if he wants. Uh, you know all. It's just this sort of you know machismo, bullshit. Well, it's sibling rivalry bullshit.

Speaker 2: 1:45:44

Yeah, Like.

Speaker 3: 1:45:45

I know that they.

Speaker 2: 1:45:46

But it turns into physical threats right away, like, oh, I'll give you a fucking hand, yeah, give me a fucking. Like it's this. Oh, yeah, well.

Speaker 3: 1:45:54

I mean, but also these are the same two that in episode four of season one did get into a physical fight over the giant hot dog. Like they, they are close enough that they are essentially brothers, especially in their shared loss of Mikey, where they are still like, luckily. I don't know a lot of grownup siblings who act like this, but this is exactly a sibling relationship. They are being asshole children to each other.

Speaker 2: 1:46:20

I mean they were. They were before all that shit came out in the freezer. I mean I would say definitely all that stuff was pre car me saying you're a fucking loser and I should have dumped you and you're obsessed with my family and you're fucking. That was really bad. Yeah, and it's really bad in one direction.

Speaker 3: 1:46:40

No, richie kept saying I love you, I love you, I love you oh, we're gonna need to talk about that a lot because, in addition to him calling carmy donna, which is not fucking okay, absolutely not okay, uh, okay, all right no, no, no, let's not litigate that right now, because because that's a different episode. Um, also, I have thoughts about him saying I love you. I don't think that it was as kind as as a lot of people took it to be okay.

Speaker 2: 1:47:16

Um, uh, sid, says I. Here's an idea. I'd like for both of you to stop, because I don't like this at all, which is a fair request. Yep, um, you know, sid, it's fine. Chef carmen uses power uh, power of phrases because he's actually a baby replicant who's not self-actualized, which is maybe why he repeatedly referred to me as a loser. Richie, I apologize. No, it's good, I don't need your apology. I know how you feel now. Also, I respect your honesty and bravery from inside a locked vault. You know what? Matter of fact, chef Disney, I don't remember Richard apologizing for all the shit. He was literally screaming at me. Natalie, you want to help here, like Sid is calling? Yep.

Speaker 3: 1:47:54

Hey Mom.

Speaker 2: 1:48:00

Hey, mom, again, right, Same way. That fact would call for, like we're going to get this, yeah. And Richie says, like I love you, like he's like wondering what he said. No, what, call me, what, you know what. I'm keeping this shit separate, our shift separate from this shit, like a goddamn G out here, out there, that's my dojo. Richie points that's my dojo. In here, she gets rearranged without my approval or consent. It creates an environment of fear and fear does not exist in that dojo.

Speaker 2: 1:48:28

Um, richard, I added more two tops because all the four tops are fucking nonsense. Okay, so keeps calling him richard, which is such a yep. Right, um, two tops and four tops are obviously, uh, not obviously if you're not in the restaurant industry or whatever. The only reason I knew is because I waited tables. Four top is a table that seats for a two times the table that seats two. Um, and he says you know they were nonsense.

Speaker 2: 1:48:49

And richie's, like you added the four tops in the first place. I moved, uh, flowers, because there was a lot of flowers, like so, so they're just fighting back and forth. This is is like the, you know, and they both have valid points in a way like from their own perspective or whatever. I think it's easier to see Richie's thing because Karmie's the one sort of upending the ship after the first night. If Karmie picked the four tops and then got rid of the four tops and is making it seem like it was somehow a bad Richie decision or whatever he's like, you're the one that fuck it Like. I don't know what you're like. What is going on? Um?

Speaker 3: 1:49:26

so what I will say is that I think it is completely reasonable that you have a soft opening for friends and family to work out all of these kinks. Yeah, and Carmen could think we're not going to have groups of four. Carmen could think we're not going to have groups of four, we're going to have dates. So we need to have more two tops. It's fine to fix that. We can't do the menu. We don't need seven fishes. We'll have one fish. That'll be fine.

Speaker 3: 1:49:47

All of his decisions are fine, if not correct. His method of doing it is not okay. You don't rearrange somebody's table without clearing it with them. You don't change Sydney's menu without clearing it with her. And the only thing I'll say about this is I think one of the valid points that Carmen is making is he apologized. I'm not saying that that makes everything okay. I'm saying that when you fuck up, the answer is apologize and try to make it up Like, try to make things better. And if Richie isn't willing to accept the apology yet, or if he needs more time or if he needs to work through something, that's fine. But for Richie to continue being sort of a dick like that isn't helpful either.

Speaker 2: 1:50:34

That's what you're seeing here. Oh my God, I would think that's so funny. I never know. You say you're the one with the fucking rules, but like you would be the one that's saying a non-apology is not an apology. Like yes, you went through the motions of an apology, but the second I walk in here I see that you've rearranged my shit and you're combative and argumentative and talking down to me again and the first thing you say is a is a cut down about my you know sort of rube nature, which alludes to your feeling that came out about that I was a loser. Like so yeah, no, it's not a real apology I need to see. Like you're the one that says I want to see it and yeah, he went through the motions, but like it's very clear. Like that's a non-apology apology. That's what it seems like at this point.

Speaker 3: 1:51:20

I didn't take it as a non-apology apology. That's what it seems like at this point. Um, I didn't take it as a non-apology apology, I took it as sincere. Um, I also think that when richie walked in, what he said was have you seen my iron? And also will you ask, uh, chef carmy, why he did this shit, like richie actually immediately started with. I'm not talking to you, I'm going to talk to them and have them talk to you, because I don't even that was a little bitch move on his part. Oh my God, I understand.

Speaker 2: 1:51:46

He walked into his front area, his dojo, and somebody rearranged it. That is not In the same way. It's not cool that Carmi did the rearranging of the food to Sidney. It car me did the rearranging of the food to Sydney. It's not cool that he did the rearranging of the front without at least consulting Richie or bringing him in or talking through. Isn't that the same sort of mechanism? But did?

Speaker 3: 1:52:07

did Richie come in and say I know that we had a fight last night, but why did you change the front without consulting me? I run that you need to consult me. He came in and said oh, sydney, will that you need to consult me? He came in and said oh, sidney, will you tell Carmen that I don't like that? He did that with my flowers, like no, that's not how you act like an adult. That was not an adult response to the fight that they had. He is still carrying over this very childish sibling rivalry and by the way, when I say all of these things when, I

Speaker 3: 1:52:36

say all of these things. I am not judging Richie for that. A big part of the entire show for me is that I don't feel the need to speak on if the characters are doing right. I don't think that the show is saying like Carmen is a role model and everybody should act the way that he does, in the same way that, like ted lasso did about ted the character. So when they're showing us richie and carmy or sydney or whoever else fucking up, I don't feel the need to be like you guys. You're really come on now. You're not acting. They're trying to get across to us that they're fucking up. They're showing us how much they're fucking up.

Speaker 3: 1:53:18

I am just saying they're both fucking up, okay all right, all right okay, I, I mean like I'm not saying that either one of them is doing this right the horrible shit he said to richie I.

Speaker 2: 1:53:35

the fact that richie just walks in here is a testament to his commitment to the place and his you know, whatever I mean, it was really bad. What he said to him, like the worst thing you could say to someone, especially after he bared his heart to you and said I'm worried, you're going to leave me, and he's like I should have fucking left you, which is his worst fucking fear, and he threw it back in his face, his worst fucking fear. And he threw it back in his face. So do I expect that richie is going to come in and be fully healed over a recorded phone message? Apology, no, I didn't.

Speaker 2: 1:54:07

and and then the additional trigger of the of the moved around thing. Uh, is, is it a? Is it passive, aggressive, to go through sydney? Of course, I will concede that, but Carmi is the one sending way. Just like we said, ted Lasso is the ripple in the water that gets the type of change everybody else needs, and that was the positive thing about Ted Lasso.

Speaker 2: 1:54:29

Carmi is getting negative change. He is putting ripples of terrible negativity in the world in order to protect himself. Ted did it to make everybody better. Carmi is doing it to protect himself. Ted did it to make everybody better. Uh, carmy is doing it to protect himself based on what he thinks he has to do to be, you know, safe, uh, emotionally safe or whatever, or or whole as a person, whatever, whatever the. You know the, the. The outcome of it it is to fulfill what feels like a narcissistic drive to prioritize himself and his mental health or his being, whatever it is. But it's sending ripples of negativity outward and hitting a lot of the people that really care about him, and so, because of that, it's very difficult for me to see Karmicide in almost anything, even though I say, oh, there needs to be one final word, there needs to be one final person and one artistic vision, you know, in an ivory tower. I look at that and go, yeah, no, I agree with that as a concept, but the way he's doing it is wrong in every way.

Speaker 3: 1:55:35

So I think that this is part of the why I judge Tom Brady the way that I do. I am not saying that Carmen is more right than Richie is. I'm not comparing the two. I'm saying Carmen is doing all the things that you said that he was. I just said that he was fucking up with how he's doing it with Sidney. He's fucking up a bunch of shit, but what Richie is doing is coming in and being passive, aggressive and childish outside of what Carmen's doing. I'm not saying that he doesn't have any reason to. I'm not saying that it's unfounded. I'm saying his actions are, if we look at what he's saying and how he's saying it, childish and passive aggressive, childish and passive aggressive. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm saying how Richie is behaving is in this way and you could say that it's justified if you feel like he is. I'm not going to argue that it isn't. I'm saying that is still what he is doing.

Speaker 2: 1:56:34

Well, let's take it. It's also very gendered in this one scene, because Sidney is confronted with Carmy's crazy and she's instantly pissed off and then mollified by the promise of belonging or the promise of sort of vindication.

Speaker 3: 1:56:56

And also the ability to see his vision. She does agree with what he's saying, possibly yeah, she's at least open to that, she's uh sugar is um like.

Speaker 2: 1:57:07

Literally has her heart broken because she sees some form of dissent or some form of um regression in her brother and still like. Her only mechanism is to be like, okay, like, and just eat it, we'll figure it out, yeah whereas richie comes in and he's screaming, yelling, carrying on, uh, uh, you know, uncle jimmy comes in and right away he's like yeah, I own the fucking place. Like you know, he's got a, you know yeah a certain I'm here because I own it.

Speaker 2: 1:57:34

It almost feels like that, that terrible trope of like oh, we have some really naughty boys, sit them next to a good girl in the back of the room and let maybe he'll, she'll rub off on him. You know what I mean. That's how it feels in this scene where I'm like, oh my god, the women in the scene are just like they're in this minefield where it doesn't matter where you turn, there's like an immature boy, um, acting like an ass. Whether it's justified or not. It's hard to see like a thing where you know it's not. It's hard to see like a thing where you know it's not specifically coming from Carmi, but then having sort of these emotional bombs or these emotional sort of triggers for everybody else.

Speaker 3: 1:58:13

So I will say that I don't think that Uncle Jimmy was being immature or childish in any way, no, no, but he had to assert himself like he was being like hey, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 1:58:20

Being like hey, because I fucking own the place or whatever, like he's you're gonna.

Speaker 3: 1:58:24

Okay, yeah, so I, I.

Speaker 3: 1:58:26

I for once I'm not sure if I see it as there is an element of gender to it.

Speaker 3: 1:58:32

I just I think that richie and carmy are so stunted with their relationship and each other like this is something that we're going to need to get into when we go back and discuss season one. But, um, I 100 understand why richie was so pissed off in the first season and why he was such an asshole, because his best friend left him and betrayed him by leaving their restaurant to his shitty little brother, yeah, and so there's a lot of animosity there and richie is hurt and betrayed and pissed off and everything else. But carmy also thought that mikey was his best friend and richie was like their entire relationship is based on the fact that they loved the same person, and so they have a connection there. They both lost somebody that mattered more to them than anybody else, but also that person picked the other person for both of them. For both of them, mikey didn't love them as much as he loved that other guy, and so I think that this goes back decades.

Speaker 1: 1:59:39

I, I understand why you're right about everything right now but this is like.

Speaker 3: 1:59:45

This is the same as them fighting in the beginning of season one for me.

Speaker 2: 1:59:49

Okay, they didn't really pick each other. They got lumped together by mike, they picked mikey and then he, he forced them together, he velcroed them together. Yeah, so they're not. I don't know, I don't even know, I don't, I don't know, that's it. Well, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 2:00:02

The same way that your siblings are people that you pick out. It's not like your parents velcro you to some kids and then you have to share a fucking bathroom for 16 years with them like they are. They are brothers. They shared a brother. They both wanted him to like them best. He didn't like either one of them best, according to what they felt like, and now they're fucking pissed at each other again, Right?

Speaker 2: 2:00:23

Well, the only thing that ends this screaming interaction between the two of them, which just keeps escalating, is Sydney having to raise her voice and say will you both please shut the fuck up. Yep.

Speaker 3: 2:00:37

And then they do Because they're children. I, I think, like I don't, I don't like the connotation that women need to be the voice of reason or anything else like that. I do think these two individuals right now, because of the way that they're fighting, need someone to separate them. They're they're, they are regressing to childhood and they do need a parent of some sort to step in, say back the fuck up, go to your, go to your rooms and everybody shut up.

Speaker 2: 2:01:10

Richie apologizes. Sorry, sid, it's just textbook sublimation. Seen it once, seen it once. You've seen it a thousand times. He's talking about car, me. Uh, sydney says what here, boss?

Speaker 3: 2:01:21

says I actually don't know what the fuck to do right now and then the lights flicker.

Speaker 2: 2:01:30

Uh, oh, my god, am I actually having a stroke? Uh, sydney says no, no, um, you know it's funny. It's funny like that, it's a good. It's a good, it's a gimmick, but it works in this, in this moment. Um, and so the lights flick, electrical humming. Uh, am I having a stroke? Can you please stop yelling for 10 fucking minutes? Uh, is what? Sugar comes out and says richie says I'm not yelling, mom, I'm not yelling, yeah and started it.

Speaker 2: 2:01:59

Sugar says am I having a stroke? And they both say it's the lights. Richie's already texted Facts are on the way. That's plural facts. How many facts? At least two, less than five. Again you go. Oh God, fan service, maybe she says tremendous. How many?

Speaker 3: 2:02:19

are there? Definitely fan service, but also my dad was one of 11, so these families exist if you said the chambers are coming. Any number? How many chambers do you have? Oh my god, all together, yeah no, no, like in your siblings. Sibling group oh, and my siblings. I am one of five, right, right.

Speaker 2: 2:02:38

And I'm one of nine. Yeah, so we're the facts.

Speaker 3: 2:02:42

Yeah, I mean I've got 30 first cousins. This shit happens.

Speaker 2: 2:02:49

Sid says how many facts are there? Eight, nine, nine. He thinks he's like. I always forget about Avery. Sid says Christ almighty, she's rubbing her eyes.

Speaker 2: 2:02:58

Okay, richie, here's what we're going to do. You got a problem, you got a question, you talk to me. This is what Sid says okay, she's like I don't know what to do. This is what we're gonna do. Uh, he does not exist. She says about Carmi right, he's like good Chef, sidney, I have a question. Yes, richie, what's this ass? He says, picking up the non-negotiables. What's this ass? What's this ass? Carmi says what those, the non-negotiables.

Speaker 3: 2:03:19

What's this ass? What's this?

Speaker 2: 2:03:20

ass Carmi says what? Those are non-negotiables. Are you not familiar with that phrase? And Sidney has to step in again. Stop yeah. It says right on the top of the page you, nothing from you. She has to treat her boss like a child. Mm-hmm Right, who am I hearing?

Speaker 3: 2:03:39

Mm-hmm, Mm hmm Right, who am I hearing? Oh, they're children. Oh, children, it's the summer camps. There's a. There is a picturesque park. Yeah, half a mile down the street from me. They take the kids to the park, they let them tire themselves out and then they attach them to a rope and walk them back past my house on their way to attach to whatever rope back past my house on their way to whatever rope. Okay yeah, they put all the little kids they have a little handle. Well, it's like it's not real rope.

Speaker 2: 2:04:06

No, no, no, it's like a little like a well, it's like a thing that they hold onto Right. Yeah, and they just put their little hands inside one of the one of the loops, and then they walk them down the street, yeah, like, and they shout sounds horrible, sounds horrible. Uh, but I, it gives me calm to think. Okay, if I was leading kids through a city, I would probably want them holding on to a I mean it's a side street, like half my street is.

Speaker 3: 2:04:31

Oh, only one way it's oh, is it? Oh, wow, okay, yeah, yeah, okay see, it's usually very quiet, just not in summer or other times.

Speaker 2: 2:04:41

So Richie's looking at the non-negotiables. Sid says, richie, these are non-negotiables. Carmi says I can sense the sarcasm right away. No, no, no, not sarcasm. Sid says Snark Contempt even, which I was like that's a. When I read that. I was like that's a. When I read that I was like that's a really really funny, well-written line. That I'm not 100 sure someone would say in the moment. But like contempt even is really fun. It was great, I loved it. I was like, wow, I I don't know if they would be able to get there this quickly. That felt very quick to me, but I, I loved it. I was like okay, like, especially in this thing where a second ago she's like but again, you know, I guess she did um.

Speaker 3: 2:05:24

So I will say. One time I was arguing with my mom about something and she said I'm sensing a little bit of sarcasm and I said you should. I'm laying it on pretty thick and she didn't appreciate it at the time. Later on in our lives we we came to talk about that more fondly. But yes, everyone's. Well, it happens.

Speaker 2: 2:05:47

Yeah, no, no, it's good, I love it. Hey, listen, it's a good, a good rejoinder is is amazing. Um, uh, richie goes. Chef Sydney. Follow-up question. What the fuck are non-negotiables? Richie? Wish I could tell you. Uh, they are on the page. You may read them for yourself. Uh-huh, uh-huh, richie studies interesting. You know, I gotta say that some of these suggestions, naturally I would have suggested uh, richie says uh, great, but you know, when it does come to something like vibrant collaboration in quotes, I mean that can get really fucked. Uh, you know, can't it? Um, which is it?

Speaker 3: 2:06:25

yeah, well, it doesn't mean anything. Vibrant collaboration doesn't mean anything. You like it was a. Whatever your ideas are, karm, you need to workshop these a little bit longer when we first saw this, uh, in episode one.

Speaker 2: 2:06:39

Uh, coach said he quoted the thing about the beatings will continue until morale improves. It has a little bit of that, the musk of that to it. Uh, that can get fucked, right. No, you can get fucked. Carmy says no, no, you get fucked. I'm sorry, I think you can get fucked. No, you can get fucked. No, please. After you, I'm, I'm reading what they're saying on the screen. No, I insist you get fucked. No, please, you get fun. This is no less than what. Eight times each, one of eight in total. Four each. Yes, no, no, now we go nine. Absolutely, you get fucked first. Now you go ahead and get fucked. 10, 11, I insist you get fucked, my good man. 12, 6 each. Yeah, I mean, this is, you're right that this is the like. This is childishness. Yes, at a, at a preposterous level. You both can get fucked. I would love to start working.

Speaker 3: 2:07:30

Sid says yep and I think maybe part of the reason why I am not angry at either Richie or Carmi for this is there is an implication that because they can say this to each other, they will eventually be able to figure their shit out like I don't. The siblings I know who are not very close and don't hang out that much and don't genuinely like and love each other. They would never do this. I know how fucked up that sounds, but when you're in this position, being able to say no, you get fucked is actually, weirdly, a sign of closeness Not as close as not telling your siblings to get fucked, but when you can do that, it means that there is still a level of intimacy where you don't feel like this is going to break the relationship.

Speaker 2: 2:08:20

I mean, listen, if you're a Chambers, yes, the Chambers family picnic, from what you've told me, is full of people getting fucked, so to speak.

Speaker 3: 2:08:32

Metaphorically, I don't want to say that.

Speaker 2: 2:08:35

No, coach already wants to. He's dying to go to these picnics. I don't want to give him too much incitement. Coach already wants to. He's dying to go to these picnics. I don't want to give him too much incitement. But what I will say is that for some families, different families or different people, that would not, that's not a term of endearment, that would be like a deal breaker to be talked to that way. Sure, yeah, so.

Speaker 3: 2:08:54

I absolutely understand. No, and I'm not saying that it's universal. What I'm saying is, when this is the way that you are raised, when your mother is Donna, if you were to see this in another family, it might be a signal that they are never, ever going to speak again in this family. It means they are still close enough that they could say to each other.

Speaker 2: 2:09:13

Okay, richie says also, when I see something like change menu every day, I mean, for lack of a better word, that is fucking demented uh, they are correct, they are non-negotiables, they are not to be negotiated. This is what carmy says looking at no one, looking at no one, right, he just looks off into the distance and he says they are non-negotiables, they're not to be negotiated, hence, hence the name non-negotiables. Yeah, uh, I'm already negotiating that half. Uh, some of these are bullshit. Oh, sorry, I forgot. You worked in a three-star restaurant for 10 minutes. That that is I had I.

Speaker 2: 2:09:56

I have an uncle on my mom's side who used to get mad at my dad because my dad was. We didn't know he was on the spectrum. My dad was definitely on the spectrum, trust me. He was on the spectrum and he would categorize people in very black and white things. He believed in good and evil. There's either good or evil. And he would say people that are winners or losers, that's it. And my uncle would be so mad because my uncle had a thing where he self he's self-police. He thought he might be a loser. This is my uncle on my mom's side, so my dad's brother-in-law is a hate when your dad says he calls people losers. It's so demeaning and, and you know, like we're all, we're all losers until we win. Everyone's loser trying to get ahead. We're all we start, but this world makes you lose out of the gate and you're just trying to win, but some of us have a hard time winning. It was fascinating insight from someone, but actually dad would never have said my uncle was a loser either. He'd love this guy but he should drive my uncle crazy to be like no lose, that's too much of an of a all-encompassing sort of thing, and so I think I'm sensitive to the term because of that conversation with my uncle and hearing my dad say it.

Speaker 2: 2:11:06

Um, when I heard carmy call that to uh richie, I was like, oh man, that is, that's gonna leave a mark. I knew right there. I was like that's not gonna, he's not gonna get over this, no matter how many phone calls, it's always gonna be in the back of my. You know, at least for this point in time, you really thought I was a loser, like I heard it for real, like, and so that's what I'm hearing is the a lot of the fallout of that or a lot of, but it seems like Harami's actually doubling down on that when he says you know I forgot you worked on it, whatever, for 10 minutes and unspoken that I put you in. You never would have gotten in there without me, you know. So it's like this very, it's nasty, it's dirty pool in my mind. It's fighting dirty.

Speaker 3: 2:11:55

I understand that, I don't disagree. I just I also understand that car me, being the little brother yeah, the one who was always seen as being in the way shouldn't be in charge doesn't know what he's doing. Think about some of the shit that um richie said about car me to Sid in the hardware store in season one. Like he said he was a little crybaby he was a snuff. I think that that relationship is still in place a lot.

Speaker 2: 2:12:29

Everyone always cared about Carmi. No one ever cared about him, right? Everybody bent over to protect poor Carmi and all he was was a little bitch the whole time.

Speaker 3: 2:12:37

Right, but Richie still thinks that he's a little bitch. So does Coach Castleton bitch the whole time.

Speaker 2: 2:12:46

right, but Richie still thinks that he's a little bitch, and I mean, I hate to say it.

Speaker 3: 2:12:48

But uh, well, in the same way I hate to say it about Richie, but prior to working in this restaurant that Carmen built, what was he doing? I don't like the idea of winners or losers, because I think that there are a shit ton of things that I could win at and a bunch of shit that I lose at. Like, I don't like making it that blatant, but the part of the reason why Richie was concerned about that was because Richie felt like he had not accomplished a lot, and I don't know how much he had accomplished. He has a daughter that he absolutely loves and he's a fantastic father, but at that point he wasn't really gainfully employed outside of the sandwich shop and was divorced. I'm not saying that that makes him a loser. I'm saying that he had had setbacks. So like, if we're going to say that Karmie is sort of a little bitch, we're also going to say Richie wasn't doing that great by himself before Karmie came along.

Speaker 2: 2:13:44

Okay.

Speaker 2: 2:13:44

All right, we're going to explore this. We're going to see, let's see how these characters as season three plays out. We'll see how Richie impacts other characters and we'll see how Karmie impacts other characters. I'm curious to uh explore that with you. Um, uh, sydney asked them to stop. Uh, richie says what if I change the beef sandwich every day? What, what the fuck would have happened then? Probably would have gotten better. Car me says shut up, stop.

Speaker 2: 2:14:13

Sydney's just trying to put a kibosh. It's true, not, okay, that's mean anyway, but whatever, it's fine. Okay, richie, think about it this way. Okay, these are goals for us to. No, no, no, no, no. So Sid tries to be like oh, we're going to, these are aspirational, right, and Carmi stops her right away. He says no, like they're not goals. Okay, they are musts, they are non-negotiables. If we want to get a star, this is what we're gonna do. Uh, that you two can keep talking shit, but this is what we have to do. Okay, they're non-negotiables. Uh, they're not to be negotiated. As sydney says I know what they are. Now her tone looks at him, yeah, and and he says you don't think I can it. And she scoffs Richie and her share a look. She goes are you for real? Right now he says yes, this is like a for me. I'm like, oh my God, like he's like an open wound. But whatever she laughs and she goes wait, sorry, who is an open car me right now. He's so raw from like literally being up all at night.

Speaker 2: 2:15:15

Now it's like a whole other thing. You don't think I can do it. She's like what she says. I think you've managed in a miraculous way to make this about yourself, Yep, and I think both of you have been yelling for the past 10 minutes and have given me a migraine at the base of my fucking skull. And that's when the facts walk in and that's where we will leave it for today's episode. It's 830.

Speaker 3: 2:15:43

Hey, we did it 830 in the morning.

Speaker 2: 2:15:44

In this shot here, boss, I mean it is like she feels like she's been there for 30 hours. Boss, where do people find if they want to find you?

Speaker 3: 2:15:54

You can find me on threads, although not as much when I do's horrible, sorry about that if you go check out my threads. Lately I've been rough um, but at threads is emilychambers.31 also everyday reading and presumably at some point writing for the antagonist, which is antagonistblogcom.

Speaker 2: 2:16:19

Thank you, boss. Thank you, Thank you for joining us as we've tried to figure out this. It's amazing because the show, there's a lot of chaos on this show and sometimes, even in figuring out the chaos, it just lends itself to a number of sort of interpretations. But I think it's fascinating. It really is a show that is designed to start up conversation maybe season three more than anything in a way. So for that part, I'm really excited. We're going to be back next time with season three, episode two, part two. We'll finish up next with coach Bishop when he's back from the wars. Please support your local libraries and the written word, raise better boys. And until next time, boss, we remain Richmond till we die. I love it, I love it, I love it. And and when I go, uh, just just have a nice, nice nice, cool down, nice, sit in a dark room Just just some, some positive self-talk.

Speaker 2: 2:17:32

Um, that's it, thanks everybody, We'll see you.