The Bear | S3 E1 Part3 "Tomorrow"

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 1. This is Part 3 of our conversation about the Season 3 opener. The episode is entitled Tomorrow I am your host, Coach Castleton. With me, as always, is Coach Bishop. Ready to review this music video.

Speaker 3 1:02

Let's do it.

Speaker 2 1:05

Yes, thank you, I'm very excited to hear that now, coach, we do not once again. Uh, our boss, emily chambers, is on assignment and um, so we are holding on the fort without her. We apologize for the lowered iq um the lowered average iq, yeah, yeah, we take a real ding there. We take a real ding yeah, it drops down into the double digits. I think, um, but uh, coach, you said you had some insight into our last conversation. Why don't you jump in with that?

Speaker 3 1:34

yeah, absolutely so. I, of all places, um, or of all things I was listening to, uh, cvs uh has a fantasy football podcast that I check out. Um, and what the host, adam azar, uh launched into, I mean, it was sort of amazing. They do talk about pop culture things, but we have just talked about this episode and he launched into a whole thing about what a waste he thought the first episode of season three was and how much he hated it. And they kept playing this stupid piano music. All the whole episode, the same stupid piano music, yeah, and I was like well, coach, you are quite obviously not alone. Uh, yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 2:27

So I thought, oh, that's, that's super interesting. Um yeah, so anyway, you will get a response, that's all right oh no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 2:35

I was just waiting, waiting to hear the end of it. Oh yeah, so.

Speaker 3 2:39

So I thought about it, because he said something. He said something else that was very in line, like perfectly in line with what you said, which is why I took note, because it wasn't just like, oh, you both didn't like it, it was like he had the exact same list and when he he said, nothing happened and I was like that's what coach said. And then I thought about this and it doesn't make it right or different or disagree with you. So it made me think about this. So, as you know but listeners won't, and the coaching work that I do one of the things that, when we set what most people think of as goals, one of the things that I do is we combine what and why. So it's not purpose, why, it's what emotional experience you expect to have, right. And so if I want to make a million dollars like the million dollars is supposed to lead to me feeling powerful or safe or whatever, but that we want to be aware of how is it that you expect to feel, so that you don't get an empty victory? That's literally what I've decided in my work. That's what an empty victory is when you get your what but not your why. Right, right, okay, I think karm had an experience exemplified by him standing in that field with the trees and that beautiful shot and that softish lighting.

Speaker 3 4:10

He had an experience there that was different and new to him when he was getting yelled at by the chef in New York. He got that. He know what. That is Right, he'd been there, fuck, got it, fuck you. Yep.

Speaker 3 4:27

I've heard that more times than I could possibly count or felt that right, or felt it right. But what I haven't felt is peace, what I haven't felt is calm, what I haven't felt is quiet, and I think I don't know that they meant it this way. I don't think they're like hey, orlando, we hear you're gonna watch one day and I know you love this whole idea. But I think that this is an exploration on some level of why and he thinks how I fixed last night which was the most you know, the extreme of his unraveled, chaotic experience of life how I fixed that is by doing the things that I did when I felt calm. But what he's not, I think what he's not recognizing and I'm curious to see what the show does with it is no, it's who you were being and that's what we got to get to.

Speaker 2 5:33

Who you were being when.

Speaker 3 5:34

All the fancy dishes, he was being calm, he was being present, he wasn't at odds with anybody right like he's, even in the shot alone and um. So I think he he thinks what he wants is a perfect restaurant in terms of the culinary like achievement, but I think what he actually wants is to get to the peace and calm he felt, if only fleetingly, when he was out there. So in a way, I think that element of it, combined with the fact that we've moved from an Italian beef place to this you know, we're going for a Michelin star restaurant, which is, of course, going to have a different vibe I would agree, thinking about it, I would wholeheartedly. I still enjoyed it, but I would wholeheartedly agree that this is a departure, and probably more so than I was giving credit for when I was saying like well, you went in with expectations. Maybe that's it, and I don't think that's untrue, but I think it's.

Speaker 3 6:53

It's a pretty radical turn in the way the story was being told and so that makes some folks uncomfortable. I mean, I think now the creators may be like, well, that's cool, like sometimes part of your audience is uncomfortable and that's good. Okay, but it is, it is. It is a more, it's a more radical departure from the storytelling than I think I was really recognizing until I started going down this path. And just the number of events that happened I was thinking about season one, episode one, when I was introduced to this yeah, and the number of just distinct events and actions, yeah, that I was like whoa, I got to stare at this screen Like literally, do not blink, right, compared to this, which you absolutely could blink, you could close your eyes if you knew the timing of it and listen, yeah, and that's just. You know it's very different.

Speaker 2 7:56

Well, coach, I appreciate you making space for another, another point of view. We have this mutual friend in the film industry who has all kinds of anxiety about his work and he'll say I'll read my script and do this whatever, and, and then I'll read it and some other friends and and his wife will read it, whatever, and then we'll all tell him the same thing and he won't believe it until, like, he hears it from outside his circle. So, like he'll like in his one case it was like a famous comedian read it and was like, hey, I think you should.

Speaker 2 8:26

Just it was like verbatim what you what I I mean and his wife and two other friends and he wouldn't believe it. So I I appreciate that you you don't typically get on social media about the shows that we cover.

Speaker 3 8:38

Yeah, and I love that it caught you in the wild anyway it, did it really, really did you know fantasy football Like I might expect this? Guy's take on the bear. But yeah, and it was. I mean, it was as if you knew I would be listening and you were like, hey, do me a favor, man. Yeah, say this.

Speaker 2 9:01

I'm going to send you my notes.

Speaker 3 9:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:06

I mean, it was so spot on. There you go and that is exciting, uh, and also, um, kind of a bummer, uh, because I root for the show and, uh, I don't want it to sort of get a bad, bad rep. Uh, I thought the first two seasons were a masterpiece and I was very comfortable with how they did things. When you talk about why and what, um, I thought, yes, they also did that the first two seasons, while moving the plot forward.

Speaker 2 9:33

Whereas a little bit less. So here, um, certainly it's. It's like, um, you know, if not growing vertically, the show is sort of expanding. It's expanding its size horizontally, not not in a gaining weight way, but in sort of just like a giving context way. And uh, yeah, okay, that's a choice. To me it felt like when, when um bill uh well, god, of course I can't remember his name, bill, uh lawrence had Ted Lasso.

Speaker 3 10:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about it too.

Speaker 2 10:07

It just feels like somebody's voice who was integral in the first couple seasons may have taken a backseat. It's a tone shift and it's a conceptual shift. So I was not prepared for it, I didn't expect it. I don't know how you would prepare for that with a show, but yeah, no, it's still an excellent show in many ways. It just again you come in hoping to see certain you have in your mind roughly okay, these are the plot points I'd love to see. I'm really curious about that. See, certain you have in your mind roughly okay, these are the plot points I'd love to see. I'm really curious about that. Like, like I said, I like answers and at least for the first episode, not not as many as, uh, I would have hoped.

Speaker 3 10:52

Go ahead, coach by the way, I was funny because you said I like answers and I was talking to daphne about it, um, just about the show in general, about the conversation we had, just, you know, talking about it, and she was reminded of being in um middle school and I don't remember the details of this short story. So it's you know, but I think a lot of people will have read the lady and the tiger. No, yeah, the lady or the tiger? Ah, I don't know it oh, okay, it doesn't.

Speaker 3 11:19

Doesn't ring a bell sort of the basic take home is this whole story. But then the story ends without you knowing what was chosen. It's not Schrodinger's cat, but it's got that kind of feeling of like well, what? And she talked about her classmates being like several of her classmates being furious, like even in middle school, that what do you mean? We don't know.

Speaker 3 11:49

Like I just read this stupid story what happened, and they just like that was it for them. Like they were like I hate this story for that reason. Like you took me all this way and then you left me in this land of ambiguity, all this way, that you left me in this land of ambiguity and Daphne noted, even as a middle schooler, that she didn't mind, that she really didn't mind not knowing. Okay, well, that's, you know, that's, that's it, that's what we're, we're left with. And she was okay there. But she, she, I like that she really remembered even in the you know, amongst kids, that distinction between people, that that that the answers are are more important to some than to others, and I thought that played in here too yeah, no, no, listen, you would think, oh, uh, oh, you're a person who needs answers.

Speaker 2 12:41

My favorite short story writer is ray Carver, who leaves things open all the time, like just all.

Speaker 2 12:46

I'm trying to think if he ever wrapped anything up in his life, which is why he probably, you know, wrote short stories. But I, if I feel like I am again number one, my number one question am I in good hands? Right, you go. You go to the first two seasons, you go oh, my God, I'm an amazing hands. In season three, I start to go. Wait a second. I don't know a show. Yeah, yeah, I got to rethink this, which I did not expect and is frustrating to me because I go, I can't think of a show that has music over back, you know, for the entire show and one in the same music. And to me it's a choice and it's a vast mistake. It is a active error, right, if I'm in that editing room, if I'm on that writing staff.

Speaker 2 13:32

I am lobbying like fucking crazy to shut that shit down. Can you imagine me in that room? Having to give notes. I'd be like um, okay, Like what? Yeah, I have been, it's funny. Um, I'm a big fan of the show creator, Uh, and uh, I've said that before and I used to know him personally.

Speaker 2 14:00

I remember, uh, critiquing one of his things he showed me one time. I remember critiquing one of his things he showed me one time. And when you're new friends and you try to critique different things, you know you sort of it's like in a creative space, yeah, because you love the guy and you think they're great. And you know you're like, oh, I love this person, but you also now it's like, if it has a business element to it, you go okay, like now I'm whatever Right, and and and, for whatever reason. I um, I don't know why, but coach, coach will vouch for the fact that, like I read a hundred, like so many people send me their stuff and I give notes and.

Speaker 2 14:35

I've always, I've always had a knack for it, um, and so he had this one take on something and I was like he's like, what do you think of that? And I was like he's like, what do you think of that? And I was like it's not my favorite. You know, like I, I get where I get with it. I like that you, you tried that it's good to whatever, but it's not. It's not my instinct, you know I.

Speaker 2 14:55

I don't know if it and I don't want to say what it was, but it was just like it's a story choice, right and uh, and he took it like he was awesome, he was great, and I didn't even you know he's like okay, like cool, which is really good too, which helps the relationship right because he knows like to be aware. Yeah, right yeah, I've heard.

Speaker 2 15:12

It said, uh that I might not tell you, uh, what you want to hear, but you're always going to get the truth from me um, and so I think he's since you know, since that, um, I've, in this episode, I've seen some glimpses of those days where where I, uh, I used to say, like, I like, I can see him making the choice, and you know what I mean, and and, and I know why he does. He just does a certain thing, um, and he likes to play around, he's, he's. I like that about an artist, where they, you know, they're like, oh, I get, I get a little antsy in my whatever, let's see if we can push the agenda a little bit. So I like that.

Creative Control and Studio Executives

Speaker 3 15:49

Yes to everything you said and I hear it, and that's about you and I'm, you know, having had you comment on stuff I've worked on, worked with me on my stand-up, like you know. Yes to everything you just said, and you are really good with notes. That's a real excellent uh skill of yours. Thank you, coach. Um, it's funny, though, because there is an instinct in me, like if he had said yo, man, I got this piece of piano music and I'm just gonna put that shit like that's gonna unify this exploration of the da, da, da, da, da. I've been like, try that shit, like it really would have been, like I mean, fuck man, you know it's not interesting, just, you know, try that shit.

Speaker 2 16:43

So I think, but I get this is why you have so many more friends than I do, because you're like yeah, man like go for it, I love it whereas I go come on, man like what are we talking about? You're a professional this is not afi.

Speaker 3 16:59

Uh, you know this is not a film school right, right, yes, this, yes, this is not film school and I think and I've been in situations where I know my I'll call them that because I think you captured it the way people will hear my film school instincts have been rejected and I get that Like I. You know, I've talked about Dinner for Two before. Maybe some people feel too much, but I try not to be that person anyway. Um, but you know, dinner for two, the the director's cut, by which I just mean the one where I was there and kind of get, I mean, it's not a deal but but, and it's a love story and it ends with, um, something we went and shot.

Speaker 3 17:46

that is basically outside of space and time, because the song, a Song For you, says I love you in a place where there is no space or time. They're just in this black box and they play out a final moment. I don't know who, you know whatever, and I don't know who in the hell in the world is ever going to see it that I'm, you know, playing with it.

Speaker 2 18:09

We should put it out. We should link to it in the community site. Everybody should see it. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 18:14

Actually, I can do that. That is a thing I can do, you should, and so I've seen it 10 times.

Speaker 2 18:20

I I don't know how many times. I mean like a lot I read it for 12 years or 15 years or something crazy.

Speaker 3 18:29

And the network cut it and at the time I was like, ah, just a classic artist kind of reaction, right, yeah. Yeah, where I was like, oh, but it's so beautiful, and blah, blah, blah, and it represents this and it represents that. And a very good friend of mine, diane little been friends since we were 10, had seen both versions, and she said to me I get why you love it and I understand why they cut it and it was great because Diane, like she gets me and why I was like it is fucking beautiful.

Speaker 3 19:09

Like what is what's happening right now. Like this is beautiful in the movie with this, and they were like, um, what is it? You know what I mean. Like, maybe not that extreme, like I'm not saying the people were dumb. You know what I mean. Like, maybe not that extreme, like I'm not saying that people were dumb, you know what I mean. Like they got what I was, but they. But their reaction was, yeah, no, we're not. Like time is money. We can't have three, four minutes of these two in some black box space in your mind, souls, whatever. That is. Um, yeah, and so I wonder if this is, you know, not to that quite that extreme, but if this is in some ways that for the bear you know what I mean where they had the power, after two smash seasons, to go yeah, no, we're keeping the black boxing.

Speaker 2 20:04

I promise you that's what it is. I just this is all, chris Storr, this feels to me like this is his instinct and this is what he wanted to do and he was psyched to get here and you know what how many artists get to do that, so it's like you know you might as well. We talked about Sudeikis putting his foot down and taking control of Ted Lasso, and just a lot of people don't have that power.

Speaker 3 20:33

They never get to do it. You never get to do it. So part of yeah, I'm with you, part of me is like well, you know what, if you bring that many eyeballs to the screen, you should get to flex every once in a while. But I think, but I think, just as diane got why they cut it, I think a lot of people would go look, even if it didn't bother me. I'm not sure you wanted to, like have an episode where I can't point to an event that made that episode critical.

Speaker 2 21:03

Yeah, so you know we have some studio executives that listen to the podcast and they'll that made that episode critical. Yeah, so you know we have some studio executives that listen to the podcast and they'll email me from time to time and what they'll point out is hey, yeah, you just gave examples in two hit shows where the artists took over and the show got worse. Or you know, comparably, in the public view, the show did not meet up to a previous standard and so that's why we don't let artists uh, you know, helm the ship often.

Speaker 2 21:32

And, and you know, that's the that's, that's the counterpoint to this Um.

Speaker 3 21:36

Oh, absolutely. And let me just point out, I don't, I tend I personally am more just, naturally, on the artist side of that. That's just who I am.

Speaker 3 21:50

Or whatever, whether naturally or whatever, the point being that's where I live. But I get why it's helpful to have a sheet of paper be 8.5 by 11. Because at some point, either you're out of space or you got to start making some decisions about what you're going to use that space to do. Yeah, and I think if you just have an infinite scroll, sometimes that's not. I think some artists believe, oh my God, that would be panacea. That would be if I had a billion dollars to make a movie. I promise you right now, if you took a billion dollars and put it in the hands of 99.9 as far as you can see percent of filmmakers, they would come back with, at best, a catastrophe of a completed film. I would guess that a huge percentage of those people would never finish the fucking film there.

Speaker 3 22:44

There's something about like you know again, but like there was something about going down there and them saying, hey, hi, how you doing? Okay, you have 14 days and you get real sober, real fucking quick, and you start making some goddamn decisions. Oh, yeah, you start saying, yeah, no, we're not shooting that, we don't really need that. Uh, I bet if we shot this in two directions, you know like and I do think that forces your hand to tighten up what you're doing I cut 20 pages off a script that I had believed in my heart for over a decade. That's it. That's a script. That's it. We've really we've worked this thing as far as it'll go, and they were like we'll only shoot it 20 pages short and I was like I will be back

Mystery Princess and Area Codes

Speaker 2 23:30

in three days yeah and let's yeah, no, it's, it's yeah. I mean, listen, this is a well, anyway, we'll dive into the show now. Uh, we've got enough backstory here. Whether or not this season works for you, whether or not this episode works for you, the pacing, the structure, it still is remarkably well done. We still are sort of very enamored with most of the characters. One person in particular takes a real hit with me this season, more so than the others. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm curious. When we get to it. His name rhymes with one of the branches of the military. Oh, wow, yeah.

Speaker 3 24:23

The mystery princess. The mystery princess, who could it be? Who could it be? Well, let me just say this fast, because it happens to be the shot on the screen and it drove me insane. And then, when I realized I was furious, yep, the tattoo on the left bicep, yep. Love the idea. Yeah, love the idea. Yep, it's 7733, so that's an area called Chicago area. I get it. I have a jersey, I have a Brooklyn Nets jersey at 718. I get it. My problem is I looked at that thing for two seasons and was like why did he? Okay, it's upside down, I guess, so he can see it. What the fuck is 322? Oh, and I mean, I was driving myself crazy. I ended up like, and it's kind of wild, like how this is, I'm sure how conspiracy theories really, um, take off, because I go look up 322 and it's one of the, it's a, one of the things that's used to like represent skull and bones, oh. And then I was like the fuck, like what is carby?

Speaker 2 25:35

say like oh, it's chapter 3, verse 22 of judges, right?

Speaker 3 25:38

I mean it could have been that, yeah, right but it was just like so random in the way. But but you know, if I'm some person trying to figure out that, you know, everybody in Hollywood is, you know, drinking baby blood, that'd be a great moment of like. And he's even got but yeah, but it's not upside down 322. It is in fact 773. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 26:01

It's amazing Even the tribalism that comes out around your area code of residence during your job Is that wild. I mean, it's just nuts. I remember in the movie Swingers when a guy starts dating a girl, and it was right. When they had introduced the new 323 area code to the Los Angeles area they were expanding the phone, the area codes and yeah, so everyone knew was getting a, was getting a 323 and he's like oh, I got this girl's number and they were like 323 and he's like no 310 and they all go, oh yeah that's great, that's a great, that's a great.

Speaker 3 26:43

Kudos to the writer on that one. That's cool. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2 26:47

Well, so, carmi, is we catch this? Believe it or not? We are 22 and a half minutes in. The music is still playing in the background. Still a montage. Those of us who, again, I don't have the type of anxiety the coach has, but I kept thinking like we're two thirds of the way through. Those of us who, again, I don't I don't have the type of anxiety the coach has, but I kept thinking like we're two-thirds of the way through, like, are you gonna have a scene, or did I catch you guys during rehearsal.

Speaker 3 27:19

Should I come back?

Speaker 2 27:21

it's just because this happens in the writer's room. And you go, like okay, I think, I think we're going to open with a. And you go, ah, like okay, the first eight minutes or so.

Speaker 3 27:31

Oh no, that's the episode.

Critical Analysis of TV Show Season

Speaker 2 27:32

Yeah, no, we're going to do the whole thing. We're going to go, you know, 36. 30. Yeah, and change 36 and change. Oh okay, yeah, and change 36 and change. Oh okay, yeah. So you don't want? Did you not like the great reviews? Or just tell me again what?

Speaker 3 27:48

Is there a point at which we decided to stop being storytellers? I actually don't think that. I just think this is very funny. But I, again, I did like it and it did. It was enriching for my experience, but I do. I mean it is funny that like, yeah, I mean you easily could envision a version of this episode where everything we just saw happened in at most eight to ten minutes, and then we go.

Speaker 2 28:22

We have a different friend, a filmmaker, who he I gave him some. We go, I, uh. We have a different friend, a filmmaker, uh, who, um, he, I gave him some particularly tough notes, really tough, and I and I and uh, um, I, he, uh, I had given his wife notes, uh, before she was a writer, director, and that's how I got to him and um, and that's how I got to him and, um, you know, he had read the notes and liked him and then when it came to you know, hiring me for it, he was like, okay, well, you know, really hit me with both barrels, right, and so he was like stunned. He thought like my notes are going to be like, oh, lovely him and I get along great, you know excellent writer, you'll get me and I said, yeah, and I did.

Speaker 2 29:03

I got him but I said, okay, here's, here are the things I laid out, exactly what's happening, and he's like. He's like I I know, I know you're really good at this, but I get nervous about whatever. And I said, yeah, like these are yours to do with. No one will ever see these notes. These are confidential. You know what I mean? I'll never talk about you know who.

Speaker 2 29:23

You know whatever like like now I can say that it happened, but I'm not going to say who yeah, and I said, the only difference is I'm giving you these notes now in private, it's just you and me, but you will get these notes from critics and they'll be public on the internet. You'll get the exact same notes, it'll just be public. And he's like okay, he did not listen to me and the movie tanked and and and the. The notes were as if you had copied and picked, because these were easy notes.

Speaker 3 29:47

You know, and it wasn't like I wasn't splitting, splitting the atom here.

Speaker 2 29:50

It was like you can't, this cannot happen. Yeah, you know the premise is flawed because of blah, blah, blah, um. And so, you know, when you look at at the with something like this, you listen, someone in the room has to say, okay, like that, yeah, we can do a whole thing. It could have been a reaction to say the studio saying, listen, we're going to give you money, but like we've got a whole new group coming in, you got to give them. You know a previous on the bear.

Speaker 2 30:18

How do you catch them up? Okay, let's do it in montage stuff. If it got there that way, okay, I mean, I really I really understand that, um, but uh, you know it's a choice and did, did it work? I think not. Not particularly well. And, coach, we're gonna, we're gonna start digging in right to the, to the actual action. But I just have a quick question. Yeah, are you more open to this? I know you heard it in the wild and so that that is helpful to to my case but are you more open to it? Because now you're a few episodes in and you're like, okay, I can kind of see, I did think probably more would happen. Or you're recognizing oh, this is different, this isn't that. Or is it just like?

Speaker 3 30:57

a combination as in three isn't like one and two, yeah. Have you been able to?

Speaker 2 31:02

discern yet that it is a like this season feels. I've seen the whole season. It feels like a complete departure to me from the way we were doing things.

Speaker 3 31:11

Yeah, it doesn't feel like a complete departure. For me it does feel different and I think I'm so far, I'm experiencing it more as, yeah, well, life is different. Yeah, you know, like selling jeans out your oven is a lot different than Cicero being like. You know, like it's got a more money, more problems element to it too. You grab one of them, jeans whenever the fuck you feel like Right, but you can't, like't. Like cicero is like, hey, motherfucker, you need to. You know, get your ass some lando lakes. I mean I'm jumping time, but I mean he's basically like you, you're spending my money like a drunken sailor, you know. So, so, yeah, so, but but yeah, for me it still feels like a hole.

Speaker 3 32:02

I wouldn't, I wouldn't go so far as to say it feels like a just a total departure, but I do get that it is. This with this element of it is very different. I guess I'm maybe I'm so invested in some of the psychological pieces with a couple of these, or you know really all of them on some level that because I feel that continuing, I'm experiencing a continuity and I'm really exploring this like in real time as I'm saying this to you, just like what would it be? But no, but I guess the simple answer to your question is no, I don't. It has. It does not feel to me like this is a different show. It does feel like there's some changes in the pace and it feels appropriate to me because they have changed what they're doing and their circumstance has completely changed.

Speaker 2 32:51

Got it. I appreciate that. We'll see how that continues as we go on. I will say that for the people listening, I want to try to remain as positive as possible and I want to be curious, not judgmental, but I'm I am looking at it from, uh, with a critical eye, knowing that I felt, uh, underwhelmed, uh, by this season, especially considering my expectations. Now, what do my expectations have to do with the price of tea, china? Not a whole lot, but for the purposes of this podcast, typically I'm very into the work because I pick it. So pick Ted Lasso and got you on board, and got Boss on board.

Speaker 2 33:33

Pick Wayne got both you and Boss on board. Now the bear was sort of more of a. It's definitely my pick. I chose it, but I had the benefit of knowing that Boss boss loved it and I wanted her to not feel checked out the way she felt in ted lasso I'm feeling a lot like she did in ted lasso, but what I'm doing is I'm going through and I'm going okay.

Speaker 2 33:55

Now I'm going to look at choices. I'm just going to see they made these choices. I have nothing but respect for the like. I have crazy respect for the team that made this and what they've accomplished I think is absolutely stunning. Um, and so I say okay, in that I feel like I have disagreements with the way that things were done. I would like to analyze the why behind it, like what was the concept of this choice and what made me, uh, either check out or not buy it, or feel like it was unnecessary, let's say, because, if you ask me, having seen the whole season, I sit here and I think did it? Like one of my kids was like, hey, did you like get anything out of this season? And I was like I don't think so.

Speaker 3 34:41

Wow.

Speaker 2 34:42

Yeah, from like we were talking with a bunch on our internal message boards for our blog, there was one person who just kept. We have this writer who, when she watches a show, it's a stream of consciousness questions, oh my.

Speaker 3 34:59

God, I had to. As you know, god bless the whole group but I had to mute it because I was like, hey, hey, hey, I have not watched it, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I had to mute, I'll be back. I looked out at my phone. It was like another notification and why did? And I'm like, oh God, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 35:20

It's like real time, because she's watching it and reacting, yeah, and I called her up and I said, okay, hey, tell me like, let's get into this, like why, why, why. She's like this show went from I can't miss any detail to it's ridiculous and it's stupid. And I'll watch it while I fold laundry now, because I don't care if I miss anything.

Speaker 3 35:39

That's so funny Because that's exactly the thing I used as my barometer. It's like, oh, you can't watch this while you're folding laundry. So that's funny that that's exactly what she said about it. And I was like wow, that is a, that's a huge, that's a big note.

Speaker 2 35:55

Yeah, all right. So we pick up Carmi and walk us through here, coach, he is what.

Speaker 3 36:00

So at this point, we are washing vegetables, but in a you know again detailed way we wouldn't believe. Cut to where there's meat being prepared, then there's chicken vegetables being. He's being taught. This is like a real fast pace of just him jumping around being taught. He's tossing some spices into that.

Speaker 2 36:23

That's my pan right there, coach. That's it right there.

Speaker 3 36:24

Yeah, I think I can't see, is that's my pan right there, coach.

Speaker 2 36:25

that's it right there yeah, I think I can't see. Is that an all class? Yeah, that's exactly that's what those that's like when you have yeah, that's yeah that's amazing. Yeah, it's the copper stuff that's amazing.

Speaker 3 36:36

So, yeah, so, so this is definitely like the.

Speaker 3 36:40

You know, karm has become an expert and I've been impressed by the level of detail, not just in the shots, which is in itself amazing. And I'm sure there's some technical things I have no idea about, but with the knowledge I do have of lenses, they're playing with lenses and there's a lot of wide angle lens stuff, which, for those who aren't unfamiliar and probably you should be so you could pay attention to real things and make the world better. That you, you're the area, what they call the depth of field, the area within which things seem in focus in the shot. The wider you get, the short, the smaller that gets, and so that you get a real sense of like you are in it, because you know, I'm looking at the tip of a carrot and perfect focus, and by the time I'm at the end of the carrot, it's it's, you know, blurred and hazy, so we're really in there. Um, so it's both. I think we're getting in deeper, as karm's getting in deeper in this sequence yeah, the uh cinematographer is andrew w-e-h-d-e.

Speaker 3 37:54

I don't know how to pronounce that, um, but going with wade, I just decided it's wade okay, cool and uh and obviously a beautiful job.

Professional Kitchen Dynamics

Speaker 2 38:04

um, we get a shot of carmy. This is so. It was like I thought he was looking at a whiteboard in this shot, so it's like us behind a piece of glass that he's written on. I was like, wait, is this his like? Where is he? Where is he writing on a glass? Is that meant to be real or is that meant to be? I don't know. It didn't matter.

Speaker 3 38:23

Oh, I thought it was meant to be real. I did have the similar question of like, well, what is it? But then I thought it's like I guess this is where, one of the places where you and I diverged in our reactions, because for me it felt like oh right, this is how memory works, like you, you know, establishing shots in my memories, you know. I mean, it's like we're here, we're in new york, we're like a jungle.

Speaker 3 38:51

I'm not sure where we were yeah right, you know so that's how I experienced this part. So I don't I don't think we're supposed to know any more than we ever figure out who the hell that man was well, certainly, in this sequence, who that man was looking at those pictures.

Speaker 2 39:04

It's like this is just calm's life okay, and you're good to go along with it, and I want more detail. I want to say, okay, fine, but give me some context. Yeah, yeah no, and I get that yeah, uh, keep us, keep us going here coach.

Speaker 3 39:17

yeah, so we're tied on calm. Where he's, he's spooning some uh sauce over as, as it looked like maybe a piece of fish or something cooked. I wasn't quite sure there's something being run through there. We had a blender with the green melange. There's a lot of details, a rolling pin over. I have no idea what that is, but it's like a brownish striated kind of block. I have no idea. For all I know, I'm sure someone will write in and be like that is a side of beef, you fucking man.

Speaker 3 39:54

But that's the most plastic-y looking side of beef I really do not know what I'm looking at and I'm fascinated, but the takeaway is what the takeaway is. He is becoming unbelievably skilled and he is now working on a level like this. Ain't you know this? Ain't mom's chicken getting prepared here? Like this is some serious, serious stuff. And he's plating. We're seeing herbs being poured in and it looks like maybe that was a scallop being put on a plate. It's very detailed, it's very pretty and there's a lot of focus on his focus.

Speaker 3 40:38

If you watch, even as people are talking to each other, they rarely look at each other as they're talking, and I'm just thinking of this. He says you know, I'm sorry, chef, do you need hustle? Chefs? Every second counts. We're back on that. He only actually looks at someone else when something goes wrong and I was thinking about it and I think there's truth to that in the kitchen throughout and I would have to go back and watch. Yeah, but I don't. I think they're not looking at each other because the food requires every ounce of their attention, like you're not gonna have richie telling a funny story in this kind of kitchen.

Speaker 3 41:21

so if they have to look up, that means something is not moving or sounding like it needs to, and therefore I am now addressing that. Right, it's quiet chefs, it's you know? Do you need me to finish that? We've heard a few different times. If I got to look, it really does seem like if I have to look at you, that me, that already means you're fucking up yeah, yeah interesting so yeah so there you go coach.

Speaker 2 41:52

How many of the we're looking through four to five kitchens, uh, over carmy's life? How many of them have people yelling at the top of their lungs in them? None, none, okay, just putting that. That's a yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just ammo for later.

Speaker 3 42:06

I didn't think about that specifically in that sequence, but yeah, none.

Speaker 2 42:09

Earlier in this episode we had a thing where Kami went to Chef Luca and was like you got to hurry up Chef, you got to hurry up Chef. And he said it about that loud. And. Chef Terry was like quiet, please, chef. It was chefs like it was.

Speaker 3 42:25

Yeah, it was telling, it was almost like um no regular voices a lot it's like library etiquette yes, that is the I was trying to find, like where's a setting where there's that kind of regulation? And, yes, it has a library quality to it. But again, why are you supposed to be quiet in the library? Because people are focusing, people are reading, people are working. Yeah, right, and I think it's the same feeling here.

Speaker 2 42:54

So we get to a scene where Carmi is drawing now and Chef Terry comes in she says beautiful drawings, thank you, chef, very creative. She says. And it's just something he does that we know. We watch him walking through the kitchen with a huge uh thing of uh looks like game hens, trust up birds, whatever uh looks like he make. Did he make family here? There's like a family session, uh, people eating together. I still say, when he's in his uh, in his navy blues, this is the happiest he is. He's still junior enough where the pressure is not on him.

Speaker 2 43:31

You know it's like a whole cadre of young learning chefs, right, um, and he always seems very happy here, uh, in this, environment, as you describe it that way, I think of um.

Speaker 3 43:44

it's almost a trope of men who will say, oh, when I was of the gang, and it's all you fucking do or care about, and it's you just.

Speaker 2 44:11

What do we call that colloquially? Camaraderie? We call it finding your tribe right.

Speaker 2 44:16

Oh, yeah, right, when you get to like we joke about tribalism, but really that's like I remember when I moved to Los Angeles in the film industry for the first time and my whole life didn't matter where I was. I was seven years old. I could talk forever about a television show. I could talk forever about a movie. I could talk forever about a book, right, and my friends only had like limited interest and they were like you want to talk about like Larry Bird? I'm like no, I do not.

Speaker 2 44:44

I mean, it's fine, nothing against larry bird, but I want to talk about film yeah um, and then you get to la and you go, oh my god oh my god, we're all here right, everyone's fled to the place where, where you can just non-stop geek out over like one camera, move and and people, and people have you're like I'm the only one in the person in the whole world who noticed that in this scene this guy smirked right before they cut and then you meet a thousand people that that saw it the same.

Speaker 3 45:13

Oh my god, yeah, or you start to say a quote you're like and then in this movie, so-and-so says, and the person finishes the quote with you you're like whoa, so you know where else I found that and remove uh, when I started doing stand-up. Oh right, I had to move away from stand-up, for you know, uh, the reason that my children insisted on eating every day yeah, they, they tend to want that.

Speaker 2 45:37

Yeah, it's like unbelievable.

Speaker 3 45:39

it's just like give me, give me, give me. No, I'm good, but, um, but I did have to like let it go, but I maybe that is as much my tribe as any group I've encountered in my life. Now I say it out loud yeah, I was so dialed in I felt like I got it. Even the people in the tribe who I was like I don't want to spend a ton of time with you, I still get, get you. I just, you know, I don't like where you went with the thing, but there is a feeling when you're amongst people who have that nerd gene in you.

Speaker 3 46:14

It also reminds me of our fantasy football. Sure, one year, because we used to go to Vegas, because you know, we were younger guys who wanted to act a fool, but what happens very quickly is we never made it to the Vegas of Vegas because we'd be in this house, we'd meet up, we'd do the fantasy draft. And one year a guy who knew a couple of us was like oh, you guys going to Vegas, I'll come, I'll hang out After the draft, we'll go hang out. And we just didn't account for the fact of where our brains were going to be after six to eight hours of fantasy football drafting, and so he's ready to hang out now, and we're back to talking about the draft.

Memories, Reflections, and Comedy

Speaker 2 46:56

Yeah, he's like all right. Who wants to do coke and go see exactly exactly there's, there's.

Speaker 3 47:01

There's hookers and blow in the back and we're like there's cans of coke there, right there's. Like there's a diet coke, I think there's hookers and blow in the back and we're like just a minute, there's cans of coke there, right there's like there's a diet coke.

Speaker 2 47:07

I think there's sprite no, no no, no, now we're in vegas. Oh, I give a shit like I give it. I don't even have coach.

Speaker 3 47:14

Coach is laughing because he knows I don't even have that that gear right right that's like not your thing ever anyway, but even for those of us, the worst thing for him.

Speaker 2 47:23

It's the most antithetical thing to me is gambling away your money.

Speaker 3 47:28

Is is risk taking for whatever thrill people or and like the stripper club, all that stuff, no it's not for you and so I would you know, I, you know I I've had some, I've had some interesting evenings in my life um, never knows candy because I was uh, as I have shared, I was uh quite afraid that I would love cocaine like nothing ever in life and never be, never recover from my first time.

Speaker 2 47:53

So I stayed away. Very good instinct like yeah, no, everything you say about it makes me think uh hey, cocaine, hey man, listen, you know we would get along, but I, I don't want to I can't hey, hey girl like you know, this is written in the stars, but I. There are things I want, like a wife and paying my mortgage, and to live under my friends and family.

Speaker 3 48:31

Yeah, exactly yeah, exactly you and I hang out, it's over, but there is something magical about being in of photos of plates and totally get it yeah, right, I mean this is what's happening.

Speaker 2 48:53

Carmy is in this situation. What? Three? See three. A three panel wall three. It looks like three big bulletin boards, yeah, although it's interesting because they're not really bulletin board color unless they used like a filtering mechanism on this to sort of get rid of that cork boardy kind of appearance. But it doesn't look like that. It looks like a more synthetic kind of bulletin board and yeah, it's just shot after shot after shot after shot of plates straight down from above. Listen, I get it. I'm not one of those people. I don't think I have ever, I don't think I've ever taken a picture of food and then social media. It.

Speaker 2 49:36

Right right right, maybe once or yeah.

Speaker 3 49:39

You can prove me a liar right away. That's not really my deal, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 49:43

But I've taken a ton of pictures because I want to remember the like. It's funny, because people have seen me take pictures of my food and they're like oh God, here's this. No, no, no, no, no. I just want to remember, I just associate this with and I'll think about what's playing, what music I'm hearing, I'll think about the air or the city that I'm in and it makes this whole picture for me. But yeah, I'd like to remember that and I have a terrible memory. I don't know if it's the. Adhd or just my natural thing. I just yeah.

Speaker 2 50:13

So I say okay when I scroll back, rather than I never have been a journaler, I remember one of my friends. He said oh, my dad told me to write one thing about every day, and so he used to write these one. There's one thing I failed the test.

Speaker 1 50:29

Like one sentence and he started doing it in like sixth.

Speaker 2 50:32

He did it like in sixth grade and he did it for a few years Right and then eventually stopped. But when he looks back on that he goes, oh, that's really interesting For me. I can't do that, so I always use photographs as my, my sort of visual um, uh, you know, sort of visual I don't know corkboard of of moments or things like that. And I look back and I go, oh yeah, I remember I took, yeah, there was a, there's a omelet I had at this place, or this is yeah, I was eating with so-and-so right.

Speaker 3 51:00

It was a day that right.

Speaker 2 51:02

Yeah, yeah for that reason, be the one that goes hey guys, let's get a picture before we leave. Luckily, I've developed that trait, because sometimes you go and see friends and then you go oh goddammit, I should have, why did?

Speaker 3 51:13

he take a picture yeah, all the time. Yeah, someone I haven't seen in 20 years. I'm like, oh, what do so?

Speaker 2 51:20

yeah, no there's a guy there was, uh, my, I think I mentioned they tell you, I think I said on the show my mailman of 25 or 20 years, um, uh, retired and and I caught. I happened to be outside on his last day, didn't know it was his last day no way and I got real emotional and I was like, oh my god, like this guy's been coming, he's so every day, for every day and he's like he is a so.

Speaker 2 51:45

So a lot of people hear me talk about smarts versus dumbs, right, and I go uh, oh, you know, that sounds like an elitist position, or that's whatever and the smarts are not the smarts you think they are.

Speaker 2 51:54

It's not just doesn't mean educated and the dumbs are no, no, I can't think of a thing and this guy's like, he's one of those guys like I would go, just like you know, it's like pick up, pick up, just pick up a flag to wave it for the guy, because he is like I don't mean an American flag, I mean I am in his corner as a human being, because I've only seen him be kind and approachable and nice.

Speaker 2 52:18

He is just a local, wonderful guy. He's of the community. He talks like this. So if you say like like uh, I'll just be him, go ahead say pretend you're talking to me. Oh, what's going on, man, hey, I got a package for you here orlando. How you doing there today, guy, he's that guy right, right, and you go good, I'm doing good. Oh good, oh man, hot enough for you. Yeah, no, it's just perfectly whatever.

Speaker 3 52:44

It's that the whole, but he's just the energy is just always yeah.

Speaker 2 52:47

It's the same, right, it's predictable and he's kind, and so I just always like the guy. I never heard anybody say a bad word about him. And then, as he was driving away, I realized, oh my God, I didn't get a picture with this guy. And so I peel out, drive down the street, chase his truck and he's like he sees me and he's like did you? Forget something?

Speaker 2 53:06

Yeah, I was like no, I listen. I want to wonder if it might be weird, but you're retiring. It's cool if we get a picture in front of the truck, or he was like you know, he's like lit up. You know what I mean. He's like oh my God, yes it's cool and I it's cool and I'm just yeah, my family loves this picture because I look so happy because I'm like I love this guy and he's got his arm around me and he's got a thumbs up. Did I ever send this to?

Speaker 3 53:32

you no, no, no, no, we took a few.

Speaker 2 53:34

Yeah, we took a few yeah, I'll send it to you I'll share it on the uh, I'll share it on the community site yeah, good, good, there you go but he uh, but you know it's that kind and so you know, in the same way, a lot of us take for lack of a better term we take pictures to keep track of the chronology of our existence, and some of these pictures that Kami's looking at are probably things he can do, but he's in a developmental stage. So he's like, oh you know, it's almost like a what do they call it Inspirational wall.

Speaker 3 54:03

Yes, absolutely yes. Connecting it back to the stand-up for a moment. Always loved stand-up comedy, Always loved comedy. Looking back I'm like, yeah, this all makes perfect sense. I watched Beverly Hills Cop like 30-something times on VHS. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 54:22

Now I'm like, yeah, you should have taken a hint, but anyway, um, once I started standup, there was something really amazing about watching amazing standup. That was new. Yeah, because I was like, okay, I now under fucking understand how hard it is to be on stage for seven minutes. Oh God, 30 seconds. You can die in a three-minute you can die out of the gate.

Speaker 2 54:58

You can die because the guy in front of you or the girl in front of you killed.

Speaker 3 55:02

Yeah, and now you're dead.

Speaker 2 55:03

Now you're dead. Yeah, thanks a lot so this stuff.

Speaker 3 55:09

So so I feel like you're right that this is part, and I don't even know if these might be. This might be the same photo array we saw the other guy looking at.

Speaker 3 55:16

Maybe, but when you, when you're learning and you're like hmm, you know, like oh, look at like oh, I never thought of the fact that. You know, if you put that in the middle of the plate as opposed to the. You know, like he's, he's taken all that in now. So when he is barking out, or not even barking out, but saying no, we're not going to use this, we're going to crumple potato chips Like it's so like, wait all this fine dining. And then I've heard potato chips like it's so like wait all this fine dining. And then I've heard potato chips like seven times like what's happening.

Speaker 3 55:49

But this allowed him to think about all that. So when he spits out that answer, it seems to us, perhaps, or even in the kitchen with him, like he's just saying some shit, but all of this is in him to produce that answer. Right, it's like football, coaching football, where you see a situation and if you've seen enough football, you go oh yeah, that's it. If we bring the safety down, at least we can take work. You know what I mean. But somebody else watching it is not gonna see that. They just haven't stared at football games enough to to process all that.

Speaker 2 56:22

So here's the thing. We've talked about it so many times. There is a level it doesn't matter what profession you're in. There's a level of artistry that you can do on your personal level and you can say you can show me any profession and I'll point to it. I've talked about how my dad and I stood for five minutes watching a forklift drive.

Speaker 3 56:40

Yes yes. Because it was like a ballet.

Speaker 2 56:45

We were just like oh my god, a boss has talked about the artistry of certain elements of her, uh, accounting profession which you wouldn't think, because you think, oh, accountants are all losers, right, uh, boss is the queen of all the losers. Uh, no, no, you would think. You would never think that you.

Speaker 2 56:56

But you would think like, well, it's very rigid with, you know, spreadsheets and but but, yeah, there are ways to to find your own personal sort of vibe in it, and and this is something that is what brings a lot of the buttercups together, a lot of the listeners together is people who are able to see the distinction. So in this world, there are people who are completely content to sort of access information or use things, and then there are the makers who, despite all of whatever, they feel compelled to create in some way or another. It doesn't matter. You could be creative again with spreadsheets. You could be creative with an athletic workout. I know we have a friend in LA who wrote this starting workout for my, for my 14 year old, who's trying to like start getting a little shape over the summer. He's going to a new school and he wants to look good, uh, and my friend just put together this like it's so thoughtful and it's, it was customized to my son.

Speaker 2 57:57

It's so beautiful and it requires so, and he was like this. This guy is incredible, first of all as a trainer, and he's like explaining some things from ancient china as part of his theology he was. You know who.

Speaker 2 58:10

You know who yeah and he was going like okay, now you know he's telling my son uh, have you read socrates? Because let me give you a couple things that socrates felt about. You know the importance of feeling the complete, uh physical, that's strength of your body, and you know you're like, oh, my God, like it could just be, like, oh, you're going to do two sets of 12. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 58:31

You know what I mean. There's ways that you can take the artistry out of it, and we tend to appreciate the people who are, you know, finding their own artistry in whatever the field that they're in. Go ahead, coach.

The Artistry of Boxing Training

Speaker 3 58:45

No, I was going to say in that, in that vein, you know a lot of stuff triggering today. But when I went to actually learn out of box, like not just you know, like oh, me and my cousin, but like I was 29 years old, my father passed away I need, I gained like 30 pounds and I just needed to like get myself together on a number of levels, including getting rid of those 30 pounds, and I went into a gym, had no idea that this guy would be there, but the guy who trained me, his name was amilcar brusa and I couldn't know this when I met him, but this guy had been WBA trainer of the year. He trained, like I want to say, 12 different world.

Speaker 3 59:34

He certainly trained a famous, famous boxer named Carlos Manzon, and this guy would focus, would work with me alone for, like, I don't know how much I was paying him, but it was less for a month that I should have been paying him for five minutes, right. And there was something absolutely amazing about this guy who has literally done it at the tippy top level. Being able to translate that for a screenwriter right and get me like where he started me and where I ended with him is like unreal. But it was because of what you're describing that he could see things, he could whatever, he could put me in there to spar and then tell me, like whatever, and every once in a while I'd do something in the ring.

Speaker 3 1:00:30

I remember one time like I was on the ropes and I rolled under a punch and got out and like, by the time the guy realized he had missed me, I was facing him and he was facing the ropes, oh God. And I just remember the yell from behind me like he said like something, like I see, yes, or like which is, like there it is, or that's how it is and um, yeah, when people bring that with them, I find it makes me want to go to a higher level too, and I think that's where the artists, in the way you're describing it, not necessarily that you paint, but when you bring that to your work, I think it makes the people around you and the people who experience it more likely to go huh, how can I be bringing a little of that to the game? So I just love it.

Speaker 2 1:01:20

There are careers that don't naturally lend themselves to that sort of artistry, or there are workplace environments where they don't want the artistry, absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:01:28

So that can be daunting, but it doesn't mean it's not there to be had and it doesn't mean it doesn't exist inside of all of us and all the listeners and all the people who sort of have a take on things is watching, looking at all these different inspirational sort of images. He's taking pictures of some of them. Um, things that you know seem to jump out at him, uh, still music over top and uh we see him like send the picture, uh to um who coach he sends a picture to Mikey and Mikey then shows the picture on his phone, shows it to someone oh it's Tina, what the hell is that?

Connection Through Silent Communication

Speaker 3 1:02:15

Tina says, to which Mikey says absolutely no fucking idea, and I thought that was awesome. I thought that was awesome. It was like he was like this guy, like he's a, he's a phd now, like we're a bunch of like elementary school did anybody fix the video game? People like I don't know what the fuck this is, but looks awesome. Um, so I thought that was really, that was really fun.

Speaker 2 1:02:43

Well, it's sweet that he sends it to his big brother oh yeah. So he doesn't say there's no words.

Speaker 3 1:02:48

No. He just sends a picture.

Speaker 2 1:02:50

He just sends a standalone image. No, it's great and okay so.

Speaker 3 1:02:57

So here's the thing. There's obviously a very real and meaningful connection between them.

Speaker 2 1:03:04

Yes, I was just going gonna say that and I'm not sure that I you never know it on this calm under.

Speaker 3 1:03:13

Yes, I'm kidding, I'm just kidding, but I mean, I'm saying, like you don't see very many moments, even over the course of everything we've seen, of their connection right, like even some of the interactions here suggested exists, but those aren't the moments we're seeing. But this is that. This is. I am happy to send you the text and I am happy to receive the text and we don't need to say anything because there's no drama around it yeah, this is who we, so I do. I really did enjoy that.

Speaker 2 1:03:45

And and he shows it to Tina and the insert of Tina. I'm like what is going on here? Tina is like out of uniform. I was like is she? She had a scarf on or whatever. I'm like I wonder why. I was like that's just weird. And her hair looks different, like oh, is this? Like early days I was trying to figure out what this was oh, interesting, I just took it as like.

Speaker 3 1:04:05

Maybe it was like before. You know, they got started like but, but you, but you may be right.

Speaker 2 1:04:09

What then? What's she doing at the beef? Is she a customer at the beef?

Speaker 3 1:04:12

this is happening in the beef right, yeah, no, I mean I'm saying like, let's say we open at noon but we usually show up at 11 and we got to chatting, yeah, 11 to 11, 10, like that. Like I mean I'm making up all the details of that, but you see what I'm saying, like I I just kind of like attributed it to that. But you, you're right, maybe it is, maybe we do need to pay a little more attention of what the relationship is there. I thought you were going to point out her smile. Oh, because as much as she, especially out of the gate, was kind of like fuck you and your bullshit and you're this and I cook my shit the way I cook, whatever um somewhere in her oh seed had already been planted.

Speaker 3 1:04:56

That like wow, that really is beautiful, that really is special wait a second, okay.

Speaker 2 1:05:00

Okay, I love that you said I totally disagree, because here's the thing I don't think that was in reaction to life, because she's like even at the first dinner she's like I'm happy for all y'all motherfuckers or whatever, like what she's thankful for. So I never thought her as general, as a person, like a malcontent. I just thought she didn't like that a younger woman was coming in to boss her ass around and talk down to her, that's the thing I thought was the trigger for Tina.

Speaker 2 1:05:26

I thought in general, and also my sense was, as long as Mikey was around, she was probably pretty happy and it's nice to see the two of them. I don't know what's going on here. There is a well, with the benefit of having seen the whole season, I do know what's going on here, but in the moment I don't know what's going on here. Right, but we see the video games in the background that we had in the first episode, with all you lizards coming in and Richie has to shoot his gun. Coach, let's test your 1980s white boy credentials. What is that poster? What movie is that poster of in the back there?

Speaker 3 1:06:09

Oh, that is that Tom Cruise. Yes, it is Tom Cruise, and it's Tom.

Speaker 2 1:06:16

Cruise. What's he wearing?

Speaker 3 1:06:19

Is it a Letterman's jacket?

Speaker 2 1:06:20

It's a Letterman's jacket. Look at you, coach.

Speaker 3 1:06:22

But I'm trying to remember which of the Tom Cruise like. I see the, the image in my head, but I'm trying to put it. In which movie is it? Um, the slide across the floor? Why?

Speaker 2 1:06:32

no, that's risky business risky business.

Speaker 3 1:06:34

That's not risky business, not what is? This. What is this one?

Speaker 2 1:06:36

it's all the right moves, all the right moves.

Speaker 3 1:06:39

Okay, got it yeah but I do remember that image.

Speaker 2 1:06:42

That's an iconic uh poster yeah so, but it's funny that there's an all the right moves poster in what I don't know when this would be 2016, I don't know. I have no idea when this is, but right, but it's not.

Speaker 2 1:06:55

It's not a city seven that or that's that's that stood the test of time, apparently, um, so to have lasted this long, um, but you know, mikey's like I have no, absolutely no fucking idea, but he does not, not bothered about it, and, uh, we cut now to richie outside a door I don't know where this is. Um, there's some artwork on the walls. You know, mikey, let's get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 3 1:07:19

It looks like he's at mikey's bedroom yeah, I, I assume that was mikey's bedroom door from the, just the the the way the scene plays out knocking, let's go. Come on, I really braced myself at this moment, like I really braced myself, did you?

Speaker 2 1:07:39

oh, what did you think, you thought he's gonna find him.

Speaker 3 1:07:41

I thought this was him finding him and I'm still not convinced that it isn't?

Speaker 2 1:07:44

didn't he do it on the bridge, though? You might have missed that in your oh, you're right, he did say that.

Speaker 3 1:07:52

When he's walking around the hardware store with sid, he does say where it happened. You're right, because I, because but I did, well, doesn't take in the moment. I did go. Uh, I was like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, but yeah, so that was the sense I got, though this is Mikey's bedroom, and open the fucking door pick him up.

Speaker 3 1:08:13

Now we cut from there. Yeah, open the fucking door. I think that's what got. I don't know. I did have that in my head, but I think you're right that this wouldn't be that, but it does. Somebody's got to come to your door and say open the fucking door. It means the door is locked. And why am I retrieving you? Something's not right. I mean, certainly something's not right with Mikey in this moment, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:08:38

No, no, we're at the 25th minute. I'm like, hey, we just got out of a huge cooking montage a lot of plating. It's God, I feel so, even to understand use the term plating as a verb, like I know what the hell I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 1:08:54

It feels, moderately pretentious, but I'm trying to accurately capture what they would call it, and there's a ton of artistry to that. So we're seeing that as part of the montage A lot, tons of cooking imagery, everything from a dash of salt thrown in, which is always more than you think. By the way, every time you watch a chef online, they're like, hey, a little pinch of salt, and the pinch is like a handful of like fucking kosher salt, like the big thick lumps of salt. Yeah and uh, kosher salt. Like like the big thick lumps of salt, yeah and uh. And you know, jesus christ, uh, all my stuff must be pretty bland compared to how these guys use salt and pepper. Um, salt and pepper and everything.

Speaker 3 1:09:33

By the way, it's like everything always isn't that amazing like you think like oh, it must be some fancy, whatever, like yeah, yeah, salt and pepper.

Speaker 2 1:09:41

I'm gonna make a delicious burger, just put salt and pepper. Oh wait, do I need to put like chipotle? No, no, no, no. All you need is a little salt and pepper. I'm like Jesus Christ, anyway. So then we get a shot of insert of Carmi with the snapping pictures, and then we get a matching no, it's not matching, that's not the right term but we get a uh, a um, uh, oh, god, what's the word? Um, uh? It's a complimentary shot, it's the complimentary shot of where the text went and and we do it in a linear fashion. So we so unlike a lot of the jumping around right we'll have, we'll have claire doing a um, giving a kid a shot who we've never seen before. So right, so there's, no, there's no connective tissue to that.

Speaker 2 1:10:28

It's not like. Then the kid goes into the beef or something right? Right, right, right, it's a standalone.

Speaker 2 1:10:33

There's a stamp, there's we've, we've switched time frames five, six times we've right, every all these different uh time frames from the, the, and now we say, okay, now we're going to show where the shot goes. And then we have the establishing of Mikey and Tina and we're like okay. And now we go, okay, wait, does the shot with Richie then connect in some way to whatever? And you go, no, no, I'm going to have to be okay at the 25th minute with music over top, just accepting whatever you know. Thank you, sir. May I have another? Not that it's a punishment. I'm going to have to be okay at the 25th minute with music over top, Just accepting whatever.

Speaker 3 1:11:10

Thank you, sir. May I have another? Not that it's a punishment, no, I got you.

Speaker 2 1:11:12

You're deciding. I thought I was coming into one thing. It's okay that we don't get the other thing. But now I'm like, okay, so now my brain goes okay, I need to track what we're getting, and sometimes it's connected and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's standalone, sometimes it's montage, sometimes it's food related, sometimes it's not. We cut from Richie saying open the fuck up. We don't hear anything from Mikey, so we don't know Right. And then we're back with where it's, coming, back to the goodbye scene with Sugar and Carmi. I want you to have this. I'm not going to do that. She's trying to give him some money. Please, fucking take it. Please. I'm not going to fucking take your money, nat, no. And she and he won't take it. Um, and she gives him a look she's disappointed. So I.

Speaker 3 1:11:56

I wanted to to just quickly highlight that, because I think that's a class moment, that's a that's not a class moment. That's not a class moment. That's a moment that's got a lot of classes and socioeconomic class woven into it. And this idea of, like I'm taking, I'm going to give you, you know, I'm going to kind of like palm some money and give it to you as you go wherever I think the energy to me, even Carm, saying I'm not going to take your fucking money, the energy is you can't afford to give me money, like we're both fucking broke, not broke broke, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 1:12:34

Like the energy, I think is. But there would be a version of this where everybody at the beef put in 25 or 50 bucks so that Carm wouldn't starve in New York, right, and they just say, you know, it's not like Dr Sharon and an envelope of money where it's like let's go drinking, it's like no, no, no, I'm going to have to move some shit around and make my lunch for a week so I could pay my light bill, but I want to make sure you're okay. That that was the energy I got from that and I really wanted to call it out because I think it matters to how this family, through all the stuff we've now seen and are aware of, holds together despite it all.

Speaker 2 1:13:24

Right, yeah, no, it's true. And and we get an insert of, uh, the the carmy's tattoo here, like we're focused as we cut away from sugar, we're back in the kitchen and we get a shot of carm carmy's. Uh, he's got a tattoo on the back of his right hand that shows like a knife piercing through a hand, through the palm of somebody's hand, like that's a tattoo. He thought it was a good idea and and I'm not judging no, no, curious, curious, not judgmental no, no, no, no, no. Listen, I think it. I think, it.

Speaker 2 1:14:02

I think it, you know, symbolizes his, probably his struggles as a chef or something along those lines. Interesting that we opened the scar on his hand, maybe connected to that. We see as he's pulling time off of a little stalk there, chef Daniel is saying I love time. Carmen says yeah. He says oh, it goes with everything salt pepper and fresh time. This is the Daniel character. What's very important is that you don't want smoke, but you want music.

Speaker 3 1:14:39

You hear the music here. I think that was okay. So there are two things there Talking about cooking salmon or something, right? Yeah, it's a piece of fish. And he says all you need is time. Again to the point we just made.

Speaker 3 1:14:53

Right, I would think that it'd be like oh, when you take a sprig of this and a little of that and you reduce it down and you he's like no, you just take some time, some salt and pepper and get the four out of the way I'm like oh, okay, thank you, and that's sometimes the art too, but I really then feel like the artistry piece comes out with music, because now we're getting to when you truly love something and you know it, and you've thought about it, and you've considered it, and you, I can, I, um, as only I would. I guess maybe me and bill belichick, uh, was watching video of the 86 giants.

Speaker 3 1:15:38

That's why I say bill belichick because he was a defensive coordinator and I was showing daphne and it was just, you know, just a couple clips, highlights from their season. But there was one play in particular was a running play and everybody just was moving like they were supposed to and the running back gets where the running backs going and they're like four guys there and I literally, in trying to describe this is the, this is the defense that led me to love this sport. I actually got a little emotional. Like I didn't start crying or anything, but I was like, look at that, like, like I really was like, look that they're all working together.

Speaker 3 1:16:23

How, yeah, and so to me you like the music was that you know how many pans you have to stand over and how many times you have to get this almost right to the point where you can listen and hear that. To me, that's amazing.

Lessons on Fear and Courage

Speaker 2 1:16:41

Yeah, no, but this is why you call a guy of this skill level like a virtuoso, because they are hearing the music and and they're able to frame it in that way and look he's. He has he's like this the most genial face. It's a welcoming thing. Come back, come into the, come into the music with me, young man. Yes, right, yes, it's an invitation yes right, right, yes, yeah, and Carmi's smiling.

Speaker 2 1:17:04

How often do you see Carmi smile in the kitchen? Not often. Right, yeah, he's appreciating it. Yeah, he likes this reference and he's like, yeah, no, I get that actually, which, again, you only get if you get it. You can't Right People who get it get it. Really nice moment. Um, we cut back to stevie, covering him up. Again we cut back to the kitchen. He's wiping smudges off plates. Uh, the mean chef is going. Fuck, I'm sorry, chef, he's like you shaking you nervous. No, chef. Um, we got now.

Speaker 3 1:17:36

By the way, I hate this is crazy, I know, but I hate you shaking, you nervous, like it it. There were several moments where that guy being an asshole, that chef being an asshole, I found irritating or maybe like mildly amusing in the way like sometimes with somebody that is kind of funny, like it can be funny. At that moment I like wanted to jump through the screen. And the reason is and there's a thing I have in my own coaching and in my work with people I really bristle at anything in the vicinity of be fearless, because fear is a reaction and it's unfair. It's an unfair thing to ask of somebody to never be fearful. Also, it means you're insane.

Speaker 2 1:18:29

Yeah, no.

Speaker 3 1:18:30

The only people who are fearless are four-year-olds and sociopaths.

Speaker 3 1:18:34

That's it so to me you're just saying that to get in his head. You're just saying that to make him additionally nervous. To me, the lesson is not don't be scared. The lesson is be courageous, mm. So I like that. I think you could go. I would have had a totally different reaction if it had been okay, like if we'd seen you know you're shaking and if you can't get yourself to stop shaking, you can't do this. Right, that's not a hug, but it's still leaning toward. Let's get you there. You're shaking. It was like you can't do it, get the fuck out of here, and I'm like what are we doing? The coach part of me really reacted to that part.

Speaker 2 1:19:28

I mean it's a great way to frame it.

Speaker 2 1:19:30

There's a movie called Nobody's Fool that I love, starring Paul Newman, and there's a great scene at the end where he's got his grandson, the grandson.

Speaker 2 1:19:37

He asked the grandson to bring Paul Newman's friend in the movie, an old man, his prosthetic leg. The man is at the other end of a bar room and he says listen, I know it's hard to be hard to be brave, but of course you're scared. You know, I know you're scared, but that's when you get to be brave, the only time you get to be brave. And so he says I'm not going to ask you to be brave forever, but I'm asking you to be brave for one minute and I'm going to time you. He shows him a stopwatch, like a little you know pocket watch. That's awesome, and you're going to go there and you're going to be brave, you're going to bring this leg to whatever. And the concept of oh, of course you're scared, we're all scared, but like that's an opportunity to be brave, that's right, right, that's, that's uh, that's not how they usually teach it and uh, right. I really admire that sort of that, that outlook or that way of looking at that.

Speaker 3 1:20:32

I think it makes room for more heroes for sure, because feeling scared doesn't tell you, oh yeah, well, obviously I'm not a hero. If I were, you know, if I were odysseus, you know?

Speaker 2 1:20:44

it was like yeah, if I'm hercules, right yeah, it's like all right.

Speaker 3 1:20:49

Well, I'm not hercules, so I guess I could just go, you know, sit around and be of no use. But if you say no, no, like you can be a hero too.

Speaker 2 1:20:58

Um, I think that's I actually like a lot of the modern retellings of some of those legends and things where they humanize the person and be like. You know, we haven't seen it with Hercules, but we will someday Right, god damn it, I don't want to fight a fucking lion man, that's nuts.

Speaker 3 1:21:13

I love the moment and I forget which movie it was. It might have been Endgame. I'm not an expert, although I like the Marvel movies. I'm not that kind of man, but I loved when the Hulk shared that he's always angry. I remember just being like that is phenomenal. That is a phenomenal fucking choice. We think he's walking around normal like the rest of us, and then sometimes he gets pissed off. He's like no, no, I'm always pissed off and what you see, like the all the other times, is how much work I'm doing to not walk around this green motherfucker all day. I was like, yeah, that's great. And I yeah, I'm big and I'm with you on that I like, I like bringing that kind of human element.

Speaker 3 1:22:02

I'll connect it to something you wouldn't expect and a beef I've had for years. I remember going to see Passions of Christ and you know there was such a fuss about it. A fuss, I mean, you remember you were there. It was a little more than a fuss, yeah, and so I go see it, in part because it was pissing people off. But also at that point I knew I liked movies and blah, blah, blah. And what I hated about it and was the about the backlash was. It was like how dare you show this human form being human? And I was like I thought that was the whole fucking point of jesus, like if all we're gonna like isn't the whole fucking point of the jesus thing like flesh, like that's why he walked among us.

Speaker 2 1:22:59

The Lord sent his son, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:23:01

I hate, you know. I'm not saying you want to think about it every day, but I'm pretty sure he ate and shit and farted Right Like, and I'm I like the idea that Jesus farted, because that means, though I fart, I could still be excellent, I could still be good.

Speaker 2 1:23:18

Yay. But though I fart through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil oh.

Speaker 3 1:23:26

I will fear excessive garlic.

Speaker 2 1:23:28

Oh my God, coach, why do you always, every episode you got to bring up my boy, jesus, like can we keep Jesus out your mouth for one episode? That's all I'm asking.

Speaker 3 1:23:42

Yeah. So, as you can tell, I upset a lot of religious people, anyway. But I'm like, yeah, well then, good, yeah, because I can do that, I can summon my courage. I cannot promise you I will be fearless, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 1:24:14

Well, that's great. I can't attest, for the rest of the populace know that, uh, I remember the whole narrative around uh, having a president, uh, and whether or not you'd want to quote unquote have a beer with him. Jesus christ, and uh, and so I go. I just that shouldn't be the criteria, people, but so so, yes, I don't know, uh, the, the value of that, um, but good point though.

Speaker 3 1:24:39

Yeah, it's very different to me, but I get where you're like. I think some people might like oh, they're like me and some people go oh, I want a yeah, you know, I want to.

Speaker 2 1:24:48

I want to believe there's better than me, because I know I'm a piece of shit and I think people like the the ask, not even aspirational quality. They believe that some people are better, or something along those lines, and so they go.

Speaker 3 1:25:01

No, I want whatever. I want that in charge, which yeah.

Speaker 2 1:25:04

I get it, or, yeah, I want. I don't know, I don't know. At least they can. You know it works inside their belief system. So, yes, you do get the shaking and nervous from the jerk chef. And now we're back on the bridge. This one, uh, we know carmy's been fighting intrusive thoughts or not. If he's fighting them, but he's, he's afflicted by them, uh, afflicted with them, and so this may be one of those thoughts.

Speaker 3 1:25:33

We oh, it's the first shot of the show- yeah, I also forgot, or, you know, didn't fully process the um, mikey and the bridge. Oh yeah, yeah, right, sure.

Speaker 2 1:25:52

So now that you've brought that back up for me, you know him crossing this bridge and the bear I mean, he's the bear, but mikey's the they're all bears autos so right I mean it's sort of like oh wait a minute, there might be some layers to that that are getting revealed um, and after season two, it's hard to look at the cage with a bear in it and, and specifically a insert shot of the latch, and not think of carmy being trapped in the freezer. Yeah, same way. I mean, it's like just a really yeah.

Speaker 3 1:26:24

So yeah, really now the framing, and I'd have to, like you know, split my screen up here and do homework on it. We're not gonna do that now, but I'd be curious to lay that shot of carm walking across the bridge on top of or next whatever, to compare it to the shot in the field with the two trees. We've got two lights, that kind of like really balance in the frame around him. It's very centered, it's very, um, formal framing, especially for this show. So I may, I'm gonna, you know we can talk about at the top of episode two, but I think there might be something to that yeah, that is a different sort of cinematography, cinematographic feel in that dream sequence than for the rest of it.

Speaker 2 1:27:13

I mean, right, uh, you know, most of these these restaurant scenes, we have sort of like a fluorescent light or halogen light kind of vibe. Right, it's a real white, white out. We cut right back after the bear scene on the bridge. We just stopped there for a blip and we're back to this jerky chef saying you want to step out for a second? A little too much. Hey guys, why don't you all stop? I'm going to let Carmi catch up. He says to the whole kitchen Goddamn, and you know they all stopped, by the way too. Right.

Speaker 3 1:27:54

You at least got to stop for a second to be like what's going on over there? I wouldn't want to be on what's going on over there, like, oh yeah, I wouldn't want to be on that guys no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 1:28:03

Uh, now we cut to richie. Yo, he's on the phone at the beef. Yo call me back. Where the fuck are you? Um, okay, okay, I'm guessing is that the day of? Is that the morning, or is that one of the times times he was hunting Mikey down when it got real dark?

Speaker 3 1:28:22

In the words of fact, we don't know. Yeah, we don't, yeah, but it definitely seems to be of that time. Even his tone is like. This is not the first time he's had to track him down.

Speaker 2 1:28:34

Right, that's for sure. So we go from Richie, we cut right back to New York City. We hear the chef's voice.

Speaker 2 1:28:45

Ok, let's lose the blood orange and the zucchini and add fennel. And he's just looking at Kami's work. Kami just nods yes, chef, just take your time about thinking about that. Yes, chef, just wait longer for that to process. You know that's going to be my dish then, yes, chef, like so, this is like a copyright infringement, right? He's like I'm going to take all the work that you did and then I'm going to say, okay, just do this and this. Now it's mine.

Speaker 3 1:29:09

Right, that belongs to me now well, uh, this person now has a much uh bigger fish to fry, to use a a metaphor that's on, uh, it's thematically appropriate, but, uh, the word was about, uh, sean, uh, puffy slash p diddy combs, that a lot of the songs that we oh, puffy produced this and puffy produced that that there was an awful lot of puffy walked into a room, a track was playing. He said put a symbol here, and then puffy produced it. That was the rumor I'd heard, even back in the 90s, that, like, there were all these guys coming up under him and he would just, you know, effectively take their shit and you were gonna, you were gonna let it happen because he was puff and you know this was you were. You were in a seat a lot of people want to be in, even if they were going to be robbed. So, yeah, but so that's it. There's something real cold about the level of work we know went into this that this guy is like yeah, that's mine too, by the way I'm.

Speaker 2 1:30:17

I've been wrong about a lot of people, but never him I from the different really oh, from the, I've said this before he's the one guy from the second like I was like, ah man, something about this guy rubs me so fervently the wrong way, and he did that with a couple of friends of ours in the music industry.

Speaker 3 1:30:36

Not that he stole things but he would get away with things that nobody else would get away with.

Speaker 2 1:30:40

I remember in really bad ways, yeah, yeah he would call and be like yo, it's, I need this. I remember calling a friend of mine. Didn't say he was gonna pay him. There's a producer, record producer yeah, I need this. He's like all right, yeah, I can have it by tuesday. He's like this is fucking dude, I have mentioned whatever he knows who he is.

Speaker 2 1:30:57

He's like, but he says this is my name. I I'm not saying it because I don't know which version of him he was sure name wise, I don't know, uh, but he said that and my friend's like okay man. And I was like why'd you say okay man? He's like oh, then I worked on it all night. I had it next morning. I'm like why? Because, like they just pissed me off. I'm like fuck, and did you get paid?

Attraction, Masculinity, and Comedy

Speaker 2 1:31:17

he's like no, I'm like oh, my god, it's like people are so smitten by success or notoriety or now you can go to a party and be like yo.

Speaker 3 1:31:29

I uh a mixed thing, but the other side of it, though, is that, like, imagine right now and I would bring it to your the story you just shared, and I yes, I've heard that kind of shit in the world, but about him, but imagine what happens to the guy who's like I can't do that, I have other clients and I have to get it to you on Tuesday, like, unless you are I don't know, not even Rick Rubin, because that's not really what he does, but my point being, unless you are a serious fucking heavyweight, dr Dre, you're going to pay for that shit. Puff is not going to be like well, that's reasonable. I mean, everyone's got a busy schedule. He's going to find ways to make your life a fucking misery.

Speaker 3 1:32:19

Well that's the belief.

Speaker 2 1:32:20

Or maybe he won't, maybe he'll be like oh shit, Okay, Someone who has I mean. I don't know, I don't know, but I hate that, like he gets away with that and has gotten away with it. And now you find out about his character. Yeah, that's not a whole lot there, and and and uh, anyway, it just it's a um. Anyway, we got a cut. We got another shot of uh, some more plating. Some looks like liquef I don't even know what that says fennel something yeah, it's some sort of pureed fennel more plating, more plating music over top.

Speaker 2 1:32:53

Uh, fennel dropped on with tweezers. Uh, carmy trying some stuff, um, and somebody's not right, judging by his face, um, he's trying to figure something out. It's the longest we've held on him, um, and we see him sort of reach in and grab his phone and and call sugar or no. So, no, sorry, he didn't call sugar, he's he, sorry, she was calling him and he and he just ignores it and puts it on the thing and we see call me in all caps on a text message. He's missed two calls from her. He's not answering and he's thinking about, he's focused on his work and she. We cut to her again. Now we're back to complimentary image, images, um, and images, and she is crying like wailing.

Speaker 3 1:33:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we don't know it for sure, but it does feel like this has to be the news, right like for a sister to be frantically trying to reach a brother and then cut to her, just weeping uncontrollably.

Speaker 2 1:34:05

And she says Carmen. And then we cut to Carmi's face with the phone to it and she says it's Mikey, it's Mikey, yeah. He's like what. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:34:21

And then it's the smile over the shoulder and this reminded me, this reminded me um, interestingly, and I was of the crying game, and in the crying game there's a sequence of shot. I don't you know. I don't want, I mean, spoiler.

Speaker 3 1:34:40

It came out about three years ago but at any rate but, like you know, there's a, there's a sequence of shots that are sort of abstract of a certain character, and then there's another moment where they change the shot and the character's sort of smiling and it's experientially we. It's like. This is the experience, like from beyond the grave. This is the experience from beyond the grave. This is the experience, right.

Speaker 1 1:35:03

That this person is sort of like yeah, now you know, now you know.

Speaker 3 1:35:07

And this smile although obviously it would have actually happened when it was live this felt like a smile from beyond the grave to me.

Speaker 2 1:35:17

No doubt yeah. And again, it's how people remember things, these little glimpses. Oh, I remember this person like that.

Speaker 2 1:35:25

I remember this person you know, like that, um, this is, uh, john bernthal, as as mikey, um, they do him. There's a way that they shoot him in this show that maximizes all his strengths and at through the end of season two, mikey becomes like a folk hero in a way. Yeah Right, they just really max out all of his stuff. Um, and we're going to see a little bit more backstory for him, a little bit more like again spackling this season, season three, um two, uh, what I believe is a diminished effect, but we'll talk about that. And he's so handsome.

Speaker 3 1:36:10

Yeah, I was actually thinking that in that shot I mean he just is handsome. He smiles and you're like, oh yeah, I get it, I get how. In every room he walked into I was like you know what I mean? And he's the brand of good looking. He's handsome, not pretty. I think pretty guys can sometimes end up taking shit from groups of guys because that's. But he's the brand of handsome that like truly guys want to be him kind of a it's.

Speaker 2 1:36:41

Listen, he's, he is right, absolutely, coach, and and we, it's funny. Uh, as a gen xer, you'll sometimes look at some of the uh movie stars of today and you'll look at the timothy chalamet's and the austin butlers and the um, uh, you know andrew garfield's and and there's a, there is a sort of um. You know they're like they don't comport to some of of the standards of like what people thought movie stars were in the past. They don't have a leading man standard, but but in the case of the of the john bernthal character for mikey.

Speaker 2 1:37:18

He does have a like sort of a very familiar masculinity right to him.

Speaker 3 1:37:44

He's sort of a leading man yeah, you know, I think that's a, that's a really um one. I find that very insightful in terms of the character and I think it matters to the storytelling here. And you know, I know I've been obsessed with the new manhood, right, sure, and there's something, because that's not what Karm is. But I also see Karm and think like, oh, that's a good looking dude, like I get where you know women or anyone who might be attracted to him, sorry, would watch this and go, wow, you know, look at those eyes, look at whatever, but he's not what we're describing here. He's not. You know, send down a central casting for, like the man, he's not that.

Speaker 3 1:38:31

And I think it's interesting that one of the pillars of his existence is that um and I, and I wonder part of his aspiring to mikey and and let's partner and we'll do a restaurant together and is him wanting to have that about him? Um, some right, quality, right, yeah, no, I could see something tells me, nobody ever had to go talk to any women for mikey, mike. Mikey knew what to say, he knew when to say it and they wanted to hear it and it all went just fine. You know what I mean, carb, that's why it's just like a general sense.

Speaker 2 1:39:10

Yeah, yeah, there's a. There is this thing going on right now. Yeah Well, listen, I can't downplay the effect. We've talked about it so many times. Humans are programmed, hardwired, to trust attractive people more than unattractive people. It's such a failing of the species. But that's fine If you're in that group of beautiful people. We greet beautiful people every time on this show and we're always talking about what's going on on the inside and give a shit about what's going on on the outside. It was funny when you brought up comedians. I've had this, this connection. I know what you're saying. I think I would have fit in that tribe, but I never had the courage to get on stage and do it.

Speaker 3 1:39:55

Oh you have, because it's just, people are just bent like it's crazy. It's like, but like a fun crazy, like what the hell made you look at the world from that angle? What?

Speaker 2 1:40:08

the fuck yeah, yeah, no, it was actually believe it. I was just thinking it was the creator of the bear chris store who introduced me to bo burnham um comedian. It's first time I'd met him and I had said oh, I like this comedian.

Speaker 2 1:40:21

He's like I'm friends with him and so we went and uh, had uh this lunch together and the whole time we were just talking about other comedians that we loved, and sets that we loved and jokes that worked, and the construction of joe you know what I mean it's like. So you just go like, oh my god, like this is such a um, it's fun. It's fun to be inside those worlds. Yeah, but to your point about Mikey not having to, oh, you know, he has the confidence the world has shown him. He is welcome in just about any situation, right, because it was looks.

Speaker 2 1:40:52

There's now this thing I'm trying to look this up. There's like this thing called rat men or rodent men, who are hot rodent men of the summer. So Jeremy Allen White is this guy that people are categorizing as the rodent men or rat men. Right, and they have the bear, jeremy Allen White, the crown. Josh O'Connor, west Side Story, mike Face, salt Burn, salt burnberry keegan I think he pronounced it. Dune timothy, timothy chalamet, um 19, the 1975 front man, maddie healy. So now we're into musicians uh, adam driver, kieran culkin interesting adam driver.

Speaker 3 1:41:33

Yeah, I'm getting it I'm getting it.

Speaker 2 1:41:35

So I mean, I don't know, I wouldn't call them rodent men or rat men. I don't know why this is. I think it was a I don't know. It was NBC or something. I saw the article somewhere where somebody coined that term hot rodent boyfriend or whatever and I think it started with Jeremy Allen White and we really need Boss here to sort of give us more insight into what this I mean. I just think they're all attractive men.

Speaker 3 1:41:59

I would never right I don't give them a rodent quality.

Speaker 2 1:42:04

I don't know what that is, adam. Adam driver has always been someone who people have said you know his hotness is cause he's so, not hot Like he's like. So what I was like goes past right, you know. It goes to the other side and comes around the back end, yeah, yeah um, but whatever, it doesn't matter the guy's. The guy's unbelievable and as are all these actors we're naming um.

Speaker 3 1:42:27

I don't know what makes them that, but they don't have the mass appeal, historically, of a, you know, a leading man type figure you know it's interesting, interesting you highlight that and even when you talked about, like, the thickness of the frame and whatever, because I do think that one of the things that has happened progressively in in the world and society as we've moved forward technologically is brawn has become decreasingly important, mm Right. So at some point somebody had to carry these motherfucking logs from here to there, but once we got a cart right and the fact that you could, you know, so now we just need somebody who can lift these motherfucking logs onto the right. And then once we made a forklift, and so I think some of what we're um experiencing is that some of the elements that pointed to oh, I should meet with that person is shifting, and I think the whatever the specifics of this rat thing you're describing, it feels to me like it is at least a cousin to um. When everybody was going on and on about how it was all about nerds, all of a sudden, who was the hot guys, the nerds, the tech, blah, blah, blah. Right, it wasn't necessarily the star quarterback at that moment, and so I think we're going to see more of that.

Speaker 3 1:43:58

I would combine it with another trend, and this is in real time. As you were talking, I was like this is really interesting, which is the splintering of our entertainment world, right? So there was that time of like three networks and you know a couple of radio stations, and so we were all sort of like we all agreed the Fonz was cool, we all agreed, the Huxtables were the family we all wanted to be a part of and aspire to, we all right. And now we don't all agree on shit like I was just talking to, to Daphne and another friend yesterday, which a July 4th thing, and um, we were all talking about things we watch on youtube. Like the conversation just went there, but we were talking about it in that way of like it's fucking amazing, like it does not matter what you give a fuck about, you can just go on youtube and spend the rest of your life watching shit about that.

Speaker 3 1:44:55

And that didn't exist, I mean no, theoretically yeah but like that level of volume and blah blah, it just didn't exist before. So I think there's more room for people to say well, we find blah blah attractive, and then they meet in their corner of the internet and that corner grows and grows and grows and then it can happen the bear never would have existed. I can't imagine in a three network universe.

Speaker 2 1:45:29

No, because it wouldn't Jesus Christ. You know what I'm saying it wouldn't be this guy. What's the term? Coach Least objectionable programming? So they would be like no, we need a standard. What's the term coach Least objectionable programming? Yeah, exactly that Least objectionable programming.

Speaker 3 1:45:40

So they would be like no, we need a standard handsome blah, blah, blah guy. We need Tom Selleck, magnum PI. We don't need who the fuck is this guy? He can be the quirky friend.

Speaker 2 1:45:54

Yeah right, exactly, he's the sidekick. I mean, this is what's been. Oh my God, least objection exactly he's. Yeah, that's the. He's the sidekick when this is.

Speaker 3 1:46:01

this is what's been, oh my god, least objectionable, objectionable programming, I know I bristle at the sound of that makes me crazy.

Speaker 2 1:46:06

I remember janine garofalo when she was blowing up like sucking weight drink, eating nothing, so smoking cigarettes to try to be a leading whatever. And they're like oh no, you can always be the plucky best friend. And I was like god damn it. Like not all of us want that, you know. It's like fuck you. Like I don't need your, your idea of what love your aryan leading lady. Like I don't give a shit, I want real people. And thankfully, thank god, thank the universe, that we are streaming now and you know you have these quirky offbeat. You know strange looking people that you know once upon a time, listen, they're beautiful. Thank god for federico felini, because you watch any of his films but he's obsessed with the human face and and and what other people might find ugly. You know in quotes he finds beautiful and you know, unique and amazing, that's it.

Speaker 3 1:46:58

Specific Unique yes, unique's a great word.

Speaker 2 1:47:01

Yes, right, and he's like, really wants to, to have you join him on that journey. You can get that in all of his filmmaking. And so, yes, I don't know what constitutes a whatever, the rodent gentleman, whatever. The same way, I don't necessarily understand. There's a cyclical thing to the kate mosses, right, and then it comes, you know, people come in and out and all of a sudden, like what's fashionable? And and somehow the human body keeps becoming commodified into a place where corporations have a say, which makes me sort of grossed out, I think, like I probably think other things are beautiful than what the standard is. So, uh, most of us do so anyway. It's very, um, very unique, but at least these guys are having a day where they can be appreciated, um, for their skill and talent and outside of just whatever their appearances is.

Speaker 3 1:47:55

I also think, in a world you know, dei is now used as like a curse word, so with grain of salt. But I think there's, I think there's always value in this society, at the very least, to saying different people find different things beautiful and that is not only okay, as in we can let it happen or something. But it is amazing. There's a story.

Speaker 3 1:48:33

I don't watch Bridgerton, so don't expect any detail here, but I have seen articles recently, um, talking about a mixed weight relationship on the show. Oh, wow, and I'm like, how is that a fucking thing? Now someone pointed out and I think this is fascinating, this is actually not new, it's just new for the skinny one to be the duke. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So they showed all these like sitcoms and movies that were like some you know portly dude, with some you know model-esque, uh, woman, and we're just not accustomed to seeing it going in the other direction. But I I thought wow, like yeah, well, if that's a thing that we need to break up in our minds, that you know, how could this you know super hot guy find this woman to be the one he wants to be next to? Then, yeah, let's break it, let's go ahead and break that. I like the idea of breaking this too. It's great.

Speaker 3 1:49:32

It's insane. Anyway, I could go into a whole thing about that, but yeah, I think the whole idea that the skinnier the better is like what? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:49:45

The concept of tastemakers and that sort of thing. It's right out of like, yeah, what is it? God, what's the Will Ferrell movie, jesus Christ? Or like who's going to Regina King going? Who's going to watch the watchers? Who watch the watchers? Like oh. Then when people put watchers, like yeah, but then who's going to watch? Yeah, it's all that Like where you go? All right, I don't know who's picking these things, but uh, we should be entitled to the call. There's like three or four different shots of him reacting to this, like, just just, he gets that far off. Look, and we're, we're watching his, those crystal blue eyes of his whoa where he is standing over a lit stove.

Speaker 3 1:50:38

Yeah, and what's he been doing when he, you know, has his disassociative sleep moments? Setting shit on fire on the stove? Mm, I didn't think about that until this very moment, but that feels significant.

Speaker 2 1:50:55

While he's staring here, we get a lot of overlapping like voiceover from donna, from lee, who the? You know people are like who, the? Who the hell is lee? Um, you know, he was the one at the when we did the uh, the sort of fish, whatever, the yeah, the fishes episode, where we go back in time. Bob odenkirk kind of came in to play this uncle lee character. We get him there. We get mikey saying let it rip, tell us a story. I've heard a million times. Lee says, donna says I don't think I can do this anymore. There's like a lot of stuff cooking in this moment. Tell the story about how you're living with your mom. Donna's laughing. You know, we just get this whole sort of really quick, smash edit of whatever these experiences are hitting Mikey all at once I'm sorry, hitting Kami all at once and featuring Mikey. And then we cut to what here, coach and featuring like, and then we cut to what here.

Speaker 3 1:51:58

Coach, it's a, it's a really um, slow push in someone's in bed shoes still on, and we're just moving slowly up the side of the bed. Then and to this person's face, they've got a beard. It looks like who are we looking at? Who are we looking at? Who are we looking, looking at? We continue to push in and like it's, it's, it's um, you're given no break and my eye sees marcus, but we're just going in slowly. And then that's when I clocked oh, look at all the like medical kind of supply stuff, right, um, they're on stuff, right? Oh, he's not. That's not even his bed. He's in the bed his mother had been in.

Speaker 2 1:52:46

All the times we've seen his mother and I yeah, that was gutting yeah, that was gutting now we cut, we smashed the black off of that and we cut back in Kami's back doing some more plating. He's in his blue navy blue apron, right. We see a crazy tight insert of peas.

Speaker 3 1:53:11

And you see what I mean, though Like it's so tight that, like some of the peas are not in focus, I'm like, yeah, that is, that is one tight ass shot.

Speaker 2 1:53:20

Yeah, that is crazy. Um, we get a shot of him, uh working and then uh outside of a church, uh, ostensibly for the funeral.

Speaker 3 1:53:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:53:31

We, we cut to car me writing. Vibrant collaboration Uh, no repeat. Ingredients consolidation and something, confidence and something.

Speaker 3 1:53:47

Yeah, by the way, confidence is misspelled. Competence, I believe, is also misspelled, because I think that's the one that made me go. Wait a minute. Confidence and competence, competence he spells C-O-M-p-i, yeah, and you know, as a former spelling, uh spelling bee competitor, uh, that made me go. That's not right um competitor.

Speaker 2 1:54:12

I was waiting for champion, as a former spelling bee um like participant audience member.

Speaker 3 1:54:20

Hey man, hey man, I got a day off to go over to the district as the alternate. Don't pick on me. There you go, I love it.

Speaker 2 1:54:28

Then we're back to super tight inserts of plating all kinds of stuff In and Out is one of his sort of non-negotiables. Pursuit of excellence is another one. He's just any underlines excellence. For the first time we cut back to um the people filing out of mikey's funeral all in black. We see tina with we don't know who. This is a gentleman's got his arm around her maybe it's her husband.

Speaker 2 1:54:57

we don't know. I don't know if t is the gentleman's got his arm around her. Maybe it's her husband, we don't know. I don't know if Tina's married at this point. Do you know anything about Tina at this point? I?

Speaker 3 1:55:02

don't think so. No, I mean it. But yeah, I did feel. Whoever that is Relative, there's a very close relationship, somebody who would accompany you to a difficult funeral.

Speaker 2 1:55:15

We're super tight. I thought that.

Speaker 3 1:55:16

Richie walking out. Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:55:18

Coach no, no, no, that's it keep going. So when Richie walks, out.

Speaker 3 1:55:22

I don't know, maybe there could be a lot of projection here Whether this is what they were going for or not. He had that look To me, he had a look about him. That was Sort of when you're not Really there.

Speaker 2 1:55:41

Yeah, he's got like a thousand yard.

Speaker 3 1:55:42

Stare where it's like I mean he's kind of taking a breath but kind of like he's just, you know, he is just knocked down, um, you know, and so I just I really took that in. Like you know, you mentioned me and Team Richie. I think I'm slowly I like a number of characters, but slowly Richie's becoming my guy and I really felt for him here he's just so alone. Tina has someone and we know that Sugar would have someone Right, but you know who's got now got no one, richie, and you know who wasn't at the funeral, who, at the very least, could have been kind to someone, calm, so we don't right, we don't.

Speaker 3 1:56:32

You left me, you at the funeral, you left me alone yeah right, you left me alone in the worst I mean nothing worse could have befallen this family and in that moment you left me to stand there alone right, we do not see carmy come out of the church and we already know. We've been told that he didn't go to the funeral uh, we cut back to the, the non-negotiables, after.

Speaker 2 1:56:58

Pursuit of excellence says details matter and know your shit. Exclamation, two exclamation points. There's tiff and we get one of the facts arm around.

Speaker 3 1:57:09

You know people are consoling each other, but we don't see anybody console richie right we don't see that.

Speaker 2 1:57:16

Um, we got ibra at the funeral reading a note. We don't know what that is Right, he's just sort of looking down at a note and then we sort of there's an interesting shot where you know, we talk about fly on a wall kind of shots. Whenever we shoot through a door or something, we pull way back from the front of this cathedral or slash church and as we do, we realize Carmi is there.

Speaker 2 1:57:46

The next shot is the reverse of him watching everybody. He's in his coat and his black coat and tie. He was there but he didn't go in. Coach this gutted me.

Speaker 3 1:57:58

This gutted me, this gutted me. So I want to say first of all, once that, once I realized what that shot was, that it was his point of view, I went look how fucking crowded that shot is. We've got barren trees, branches hanging down in a from the top of the this one's kind of out of focus. It's not at all balanced. This one's kind of half out. That shot, by comparison, is a fucking mess. You know what I mean? Visually, I mean it's a beautiful shot really. But you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 1:58:34

It's being portrayed that way, and the minute I saw him I said oh my god, apples don't fall far from trees. He's his mother's child. She just did this.

Speaker 2 1:58:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She doesn't want to go in and ruin it for everybody. She wants to stay out. She doesn't trust herself enough to go in. And you read it the same way way she, donna, avoided going to the restaurant opening of the bear because she wanted carmy and sugar to have this moment. She didn't want to ruin the moment. She didn't trust herself enough.

Speaker 3 1:59:07

So you think that's what's I don't know if it's ruin as such, but somehow he just couldn't do it. But it was too, because I think that's true for Donna. But on another, just another way of expressing that is, she is unable emotionally, psychologically, whatever, to navigate this moment. She just can't do it Like she cannot, she. She got all the fucking way to the restaurant At some point. She thought she was going to go in that restaurant. She didn't come all the way there to cry to Pete. She thought she was going to go inside. And she got there and was like nope. And to me, carm got dressed. Carm drove all the way to the church and he sat in that car and some part of him said nope.

Speaker 2 1:59:55

Well, there's also the thing where he goes. You know, richie says to him I don't want to give you the the note, because then it would mean mikey was really dead. If carmen goes in there, mikey's dead oh, absolutely just the tricks we play on ourselves oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2 2:00:09

Um, for whatever reason, although he's very handsome and I'll give him credit that um, even in this shot of misery and you rightly point out the framing of it and the cinematographer uses the reflection of the windshield, yes, to make it intentionally murky and sort of there's a, there's this, yeah, what is it? It's a muted quality to it or or a detached quality, like he's behind glass watching everybody. Yes, detached, I mean, it's behind glass watching everybody.

Speaker 3 2:00:40

Yes, detached, I mean, it's how you would look at fishing in an aquarium, right?

Speaker 3 2:00:44

I mean, it's not you know, like he has decided, I'm safe here, I'll observe, but he can't be a part of it and we're forced to be apart from him being apart from them. We could have been in the car for this shot, as you're pointing out. A choice was made he is going to stay at a distance and, honestly, isn't this what he yelled to Claire? Now here I am with my clean plates and my beautiful ingredients and my world, where I learned to hear the music of the pan and shit turns out and is beautiful and blah, blah, blah. And then here I am at home where my fucking hero killed himself and my family's just demolished. He's like I get it.

Speaker 3 2:01:36

I would say fuck, this place man this is too much.

Speaker 2 2:01:39

Well, when Carmi is a chef, and the type of chef that he is, he has a semblance of control. Yes, he pulls time off of the thing. He's out there, he picks the right flour, he takes it off, he fashions it in a way where he has as much control as he possibly can over the finished product. And outside, on the other side of that windshield, guess how much control he has, coach Zero.

Speaker 3 2:02:07

I think that's a really insightful point and I would add to it, in terms of the control piece, that life and maybe I'm going to play with this from where we are right now I think life is a lot more like an Italian beef spot in reality than it is like a fine dining experience. I think life tends to be sometimes the rules are a little better than other times. Sometimes people drop shit. Sometimes you know what I mean. Sometimes, oh, I forgot, I cooked a little too long, the meat's a little tough today, and I think there's something about, like you're saying, the level of control, of control. Do you think there was a conversation that happened in that Italian beef spot, or any Italian beef spot, where somebody told somebody else to cook something for five additional seconds? I am 100% confident that has never happened in the history of Italian beef, ever, not to say it's not excellent, not to say I've had, let me tell you, those sandwiches Making me hungry right now.

Speaker 3 2:03:21

Seriously. But it's not that and I think you're right that when you've been in a chaotic world, that level of control really is huge. And when you don't have it, I'm sure you know you may have. Really, I really I'm sorry, coach, but you may have really unpacked something there because, yeah, he gets mad at mikey and for talking to clear, he's not controlling when he, when he's not in control of what's going on including I'm trying to get the kitchen under control, but it doesn't feel right. Here you come with this motherfucking donut. That's when we see him melt down. He couldn't get out of that cooler, which is why he just completely lost his shit.

Speaker 3 2:04:03

Control, yeah, and actually now you're making me want to go back over the story again and go like, oh, wait a minute, but you're. But it's true when. Whenever he feels things are out of control is when we see him spiral and when.

Speaker 3 2:04:21

But when he feels like he's got out of his control right out of his control, but when he feels he's controlling the situation, he calms down. Therefore, hey, yeah, you're right about how we should change things in terms of how they work in the kitchen, but you notice how things been kind of chill. You notice how things have been kind of under my control recently, so I don't want to improve it right now. The biggest improvement is under my control.

Speaker 2 2:04:46

Well, look, when he looks up at someone in the kitchen, it's when they are messing with his trajectory or his timeline or his whatever, which is things he controls.

Speaker 1 2:04:57

So now he's got to remind you faster, chef, you know?

Speaker 2 2:05:01

um, so outside this windshield he has no control. I was going to say he looks great I and everybody looks great in a black. You know this, this sort of funeral attire uh, made me want to see him in like a hitman sort of role. I was like, oh, I want to see his reservoir my dog. Yeah, it just looks good the ties are so stupid.

Speaker 2 2:05:19

I I'm amazed that they've stood the test of time. I can't believe human, human men tie something around their neck and then dangle it in front of their body and people are like that's, that's, I'm like what the fuck is that?

Speaker 3 2:05:34

I it. Maybe it is crazy, you, colonization is a real thing. I get everything. You mean, I get everything whatever. And I got to admit when I'm going to whatever I have like special knots I've learned to do. Sure, of course you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 2:05:52

I'm not saying it doesn't look good, yeah, but you're right Like what now? You know, but anyway, yeah, it's bizarre. So, yeah, we pull back, and the same way we pushed in on Marcus, we pull back from Karmie in the driver's seat and then we crossfade to the. It's the little iconography that they give you.

Speaker 3 2:06:13

I forget there's a name for these things probably when someone passes away they give you the yeah, a little card, yeah, and then their like name and stuff is on the back and dates and yeah my friends.

Speaker 2 2:06:24

Uh, I it's funny because I I haven't been to that many funerals uh, but I do save these and what I do is I always put them in my car and but I only put one, one dead person's weird thing, one per car.

Speaker 2 2:06:37

So I'll be like because I'm like I'm like I don't want to burden all the dead people, but like, like I remember my friend's mom who passed away. I'm like she's, she's in the sob with me and I'm always like, all right. Uh, like her, her name was delores. I'm like all right, dolly, let's do it like it. I just like keep me safe keep it safe, girl.

Speaker 3 2:06:56

I love it. I I tend to keep. It's funny you say that I keep um the actual programs yeah, so it might seem morbid to people, but like I I have, like in my nightstand there are a few and a couple other places I have a few like, just of oh in multiple places.

Speaker 2 2:07:13

I wonder why it's not because it's not nothing having to do with adhd, anything right, I know, I know.

Speaker 3 2:07:19

It's not one. I came home and I put it on the table.

Speaker 2 2:07:22

So some of them are in the table in the nightstand, right where you walk in the house. Some are by bed, because that's where I took off my trousers and then they lived there and now that's become the. It's like such circuitous logic. I know I have the same it's so stupid? Maybe that I know I have the same it's so stupid maybe that's why there's one in each car, because right, right I drove a different car to the anyway.

Coping With Mortality and Funerals

Speaker 3 2:07:43

No, it's funny, but yeah, but yeah, so I I yeah, I tend to um in the way you talked about photographing meals and having that. It is a like I somehow physically touching the program brings me back to why I was there. I had a neighbor who lived across the street. I'm not friends with his son. Actually, we did an episode of Unstuck AF where he talked about you know being sad.

Speaker 3 2:08:07

Oh no, I heard that one actually yeah yeah, so him and I went to his funeral and like we were very I've been very pleasant with that family, they've been very pleasant with us. But it's not like you know we're best friends or you know we're going on vacation together and shit like that, and and I just sat at the man like I like his death hit me so freaking hard on so many levels, like I was like kind of a little weirded out like god, it was really.

Speaker 3 2:08:37

Like I was like kind of a little weirded out, like God, it was really like I went and I read the man's favorite book. After that, like they had talked about his book, like it's just one of those moments and what struck me about it was I knew at the funeral like oh, I've got to be careful, like I don't leave this in the car or something like that. I'm going to see, I want to save this because he had like been these things. But we had a lot in common. I think there was a reason why he kind of got me and vice versa and I just holding it. So, yeah, when I saw this here, I got it very deeply about having that I don't know icon or amulet or whatever that represents the whole relationship to the person and to death and all of that. That. Just there it is. Um, yeah, yeah, I thought that.

Speaker 2 2:09:49

I thought those were very cool choice yeah, thank you for clapping in your microphone and blowing everybody's eardrums.

Speaker 3 2:09:54

I'm sorry I really was thinking I was really talking to Coach at that moment. Let me tell you guys, I forgot we were recording a podcast for a minute.

Speaker 2 2:10:09

Well, this insert is kind of cool actually, because you know you're at the beef. There's a notepad on top. It looks like the back of a lighter a, a serving spoon, the type of bell you hit when an order is up. Order up and you hit the bell. It's like a school bell, like you would have on a teacher's desk.

Speaker 2 2:10:26

There's a one of those magnets that's a hook, a stainless steel hook magnet with a disco ball on it and then just a naked magnet, uh, one of the little black magnets that fall out of other magnets and somehow you end up keeping it right, right, right the thing was attached to uh, and that is what's holding up the yeah, they used to a little card that used to keep the letter p on the refrigerator, but now right, yes, yeah, right, exactly where they're, like the little ones that fall out of the back of letters, right, exactly right, um, and so, yes, uh, you know, faced with our own mortality, funerals can hit differently, especially at different places and different times in your life. We look at Del from Wayne, who for some reason had to go to the funeral of a stranger judging her.

Speaker 2 2:11:21

Uh, was curious and said listen, I'm. He shows up at the funeral of a stranger to support her because you know it's. It meant something to her. Therefore, it meant something to him, and and um, and who's to say why, except that it had it felt like it had tendrils that connected it to her own passing. Um. So, yes, we all, faced with, with the, the, the absolute inevitability of our own mortality, people uh cope and process in different ways. Go ahead, coach.

Speaker 2 2:11:50

Three shows three unattended funerals ah right, ted lasso at a funeral, wayne at a funeral, right, and each time you know, Delvin. Delvin didn't go to his mom's funeral.

Speaker 3 2:12:03

Ted didn't go to his dad's funeral Right.

Speaker 2 2:12:05

Carm didn't go to Mikey's funeral. I will be damned, that's it.

Speaker 3 2:12:09

Look at it. That's so wild. Like when you just said, I was like, oh my God, that's actually like I don't know what that tells us about the shows that we've chosen, but that's interesting. It's not like every story has that beat in it or that element interesting.

Speaker 2 2:12:28

I was just thinking about the fourth show that I have queued up no funeral scene in it. I'm trying to think if there is, but I don't think so. But when you get to know the characters you'll go. Oh yeah, I can see how they'd miss the funeral, but yeah, so we have this little insert that crossfades to the beef and then crossfades out of it again. It shows Carmy in his car, driving away.

Speaker 3 2:12:53

I also thought the decision to drive away. I thought it was in the context of what they've done here. We've talked about whether this was the best way to start the season, so okay, but in the context of what they chose. I like that they showed that, because that means he didn't go to the house later. He didn't. Whatever. It means like to me that he didn't call from his car on his cell phone. That meant he decided nope, I'm not participating, goodbye.

Speaker 2 2:13:26

And he stayed out of it. No one had an inkling he was there, that he was even there.

Speaker 3 2:13:31

It wasn't like they were like I can't believe you didn't come in the church. They thought he was off wherever picking time leaves, you know.

Speaker 2 2:13:42

Of the spackling for lack of a better term in this episode. I believe that feels like the most important revelation that Kami actually was there and didn't go in. And I would still say, does it fundamentally change my understanding of the character or the situation? Was it necessary, was it did? Imparting that information in a visual medium, in the, in the montage episode that is, season three, episode one, um, did that fundamentally sort of fill in a blank that I was missing? And the answer is no, not for me.

Speaker 2 2:14:25

I might've imagined he would do that. I could have easily seen that he. I didn't think he blew it off because he was bored or didn't want to go. I thought there was too much pain. So whether or not he was experiencing that in LA, or I mean there was too much pain, so whether or not he was experiencing that in la, or, I mean sorry, in new york, or or, uh, you know, 10 feet from the, from the, the church, I, uh, it didn't, it didn't sort of cohesively wrap up anything for me. I, I it's nice to see and it's nice for as a yeah, but I don't know if I needed it per se that wasn, wasn't my experience.

Speaker 3 2:14:58

I got to say, and again I think we've kind of discovered that we're because for me, not going is its own choice, right, yeah, but it could be like one of my cousins, you know, got killed and so I was in LA by then and this was because I'd been like I love this guy, he's been good to me, like actually one time I used his name to get out of a good old-fashioned ass-kicking.

Speaker 3 2:15:29

We were good and I would have wanted to have been at his funeral. But when the news came I was on that like oh no, you know, I better not get an overdraft fee or like that, and I just could not fucking go. It was like I guess I could start walking and see, if you know, and I think that if we'd known that about karma still says some things. But I think the fact that he got all the way there and then it was just too much For me that spoke to something new, New information yeah and then he's like it's beyond his processing, like it's beyond he didn't know he couldn't go in until he was sitting there.

Speaker 3 2:16:17

So he's not, he doesn't know where he is fully yet, and I think that is relevant. To me, that's different than a decision okay, I'm not going to the funeral. To me, this decision is different than Ted Lasso's decision in that way Ted was like fuck that guy, he quit, I'm not doing this, I'm not going. Which is different than I walked up to the door of the church, put my hand on the handle and decided, nope, that's like you know. So I get what you're saying, but for me it did fill in some reality of the situation for Carm.

Speaker 2 2:17:02

I get what you're saying, but it did for me, it did fill in some some reality of the situation for car. I get it, I listen it's yeah. Ultimately now we know. So that's good and I, you know, I like knowing I was never. I was never, ever suffering under the delusion that car me was like fuck this or I'm not. I always knew it was like I can't, I can't do it, I can't do it, I cannot do it. So, how, the how and why, and the specifics of how he couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 2:17:27

Uh yeah, nice to know, but I'm not, um, I'm not, uh, shocked by it. So once the car pulls away, uh, after, know your shit, we go back to the non-negotiables at the very bottom. And it's funny because I first. So when kai writes this word, he puts a strange gap in the middle of it by just because he's writing, and he's a messy writer. And I saw cuz and I was like, oh no, cuz. I was like, is that?

Speaker 3 2:17:54

let's say oh, that's funny, yeah, I see. I see if you're like quickly kind of like, yeah, processing, yeah, but the word is actually focus, but the fo are a little separate from the oh, that's funny, I see, if you're like quickly kind of like processing, yeah, but the word is actually focus. But the.

Speaker 2 2:18:02

FO is a little separate from the CUS, like oh focus, yeah focus. He, rightly or wrongly, has decided in the walk-in that his pursuit of what he calls fun where the definition from. I looked up what the definition of fun. And there's the pursuit of whatever pleasure or whatever it's at.

Speaker 2 2:18:36

He's like I don't need to give that, I don't need to get that, don't need to get that, I need to. Whatever, I need to do this and and what we're we're finding is he attributes his dalliance into uh, humanity as a weakness and something that has harmed, yes, the restaurant, and he wants to get back to what I would consider his level of control. He can control these. It's an illusion. Lots of us delude ourselves.

Speaker 3 2:19:10

As we learned the other night, it's an illusion Of all the things they considered. I'm sure there was not a plan B for what if Carm goes, goes into the fucking walk-in and can't get back out yeah, yeah and so uh, so yeah.

Speaker 2 2:19:25

Focus is the last thing, um, and which feels like a uh, that a decision has been made, uh, regarding claire. In some, some way, he's doubling down a little bit by underlining focus.

Speaker 3 2:19:41

Also, and it's one of those things in life where focus and obsession what's the difference? Right, because I feel like in some of what you're describing, you're burying yourself in this so that you can avoid the part you actually find difficult, which is the messy humanity of it all. Yeah, call that focus, but I think that's. I think I don't, I wouldn't. I think he is conveniently labeling it that. I think it's obsession, I think it's avoidance, I think it's right like it is not just a healthy like, because I want to be great, you know, right, he's bringing to it and and I think that's relevant especially to guys like us who have spent some time thinking about our uh, ability to focus and the ability to focus and one of the most important things I learned about adhd is not that, it's not a lack of focus.

Speaker 3 2:20:54

Even calling it a deficit is misleading, because I got a ton of motherfucking attention. Oh yeah, oh, I got it. I just don't. I just haven't always pointed it in the right proportions, in the right directions, in the right moments. I got a ton of motherfucking attention. Let me tell you right now, oh yeah, what I know about fantasy football. You know what I mean, so I can do it. But so I think what he's really looking for though he doesn't know it is that and I came how I described it was that power is the effective management of attention and intention. Hmm, right, so he's saying, okay, I'll just take all my intention and put it into this one thing, and that's focus, and I would argue no pointing it in that direction. When that serves you and the people around you best is focus, and then sometimes you're going to have to focus on other things, like that's called life.

Exploring Character Depth Through Visual Storytelling

Speaker 2 2:22:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that's the, that is the. Unfortunately, that's what we're all faced with. Um, it's funny because when I I said I didn't get like nothing happened, is the is the criticism? When that happened, when I saw him say focus, I was like god damn it. Because from a story consultant point of view, I go okay. Now I know what that means. Like, as a watcher, I say all right, I go okay. Now I know what that means. As a watcher, I say all right, karmie's doubling down on not getting back together with Claire.

Speaker 2 2:22:43

He's going to view this as the accident of her hearing his internal monologue and then the subsequent breakup he'll view as a good thing. He'll reframe it. He'll double down. He underlines focus and I go shit thing. He'll reframe it. He'll double down, he's underlines focus and I go shit. Because now I know, from a stakes and dramatic pacing element, now what I have to look forward to this season is one of two things uh, the, the will. She won't will, they won't they get back together sort of thing which isn't my favorite.

Speaker 2 2:23:17

I'm I'm not all that interested in it, or the they won't, they won't, they, they, they're not going to do it. But we see his pain in a series of different things, or we bury it inside other mannerisms. And I'm like, from a filmmaking standpoint, you have to be visually, it has to be something you can discern and and try without the benefit of a confession via Al-Anon or a letter where someone does voiceover. You know, conveying internal thought processes of a visual character is a trick. It can be without a narrator, without a right, an omniscient narrator without a you know.

Speaker 2 2:24:04

So, yeah, oh, that's why so many shows have therapists, because it's a, it's a way to beat the system in a visual medium to try to get to explain what the character is going through. And sometimes you'll see, oh, you know, an adaptation stalled of a beloved book. It's like, well, how much dialogue was in that thing and how much of it was a great narrator. You know, the writer of the novel telling you what's happening inside this guy's head. It's like now someone's got to take that and transplant it to a visual medium.

Speaker 3 2:24:33

Right, right, it's not as simple as it sounds right, it's really difficult.

Speaker 2 2:24:37

if you've never done it, believe me, no, no, it's difficult. No, no, it's really hard.

Speaker 3 2:24:39

I've actually worked on a book adaptation, sweet Jesus, like, oh, I didn't even really consider this because I was going through and experiencing it, but that's part of what I meant when I said. This episode specifically has for me a novel, not as in unique, but as in a book, a novel feel to it.

Speaker 2 2:25:03

Prosaic kind of quality. Yes, yes, it has some of that to it.

Speaker 2 2:25:07

We have now a cut to Carmi breaking something down. He's got service and time. We have Richie's voice over the top. This is your brother's house, remember? I was running it fine without you and we cut to that scene. We see richie's face and we see the line that boss uh really loves. Why didn't he leave it to you then? Um, it's interesting. I was like what, why revisit that? Or whatever. But I was like, okay, is this a previously on the bear episode? Is that? Is that really what this is supposed to be like? If you hadn't watched that, that is a pivotal line, like even if you've never seen anything about this season, if you see that, you go. I got it. I understand the dynamic between these two right.

Speaker 3 2:25:52

So I'm like, okay, you may be right that they took a note about catching everybody up and they said all right, how can we do this in a way we feel good about artistically? That may very well be what it is. Um, yeah, that may, that may very well be what drove this for for me. I thought cutting from that to where did you work before here? I stayed at the french laundry, whatever st Staged. Staged. Oh, I staged, sorry, which I love. I'm reading the when.

Speaker 2 2:26:24

Yeah, you're reading the when, carmi hired Sid and he's like she's staging. Or she says in the walker it's like episode one. He's like I'm staging and he's like Richie's like what the fuck You're whatting?

Speaker 3 2:26:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does that even mean?

Speaker 2 2:26:38

Staging is such a yeah, it's such a specific word, anyway, I wonder.

Speaker 3 2:26:46

Did Mikey know on some level like that it's going to take Carmi and Richie to make this work?

Speaker 2 2:26:59

I mean no, Coach, no.

Speaker 3 2:27:02

Because service We'll revisit this. I thought about the service and time and Richie in an interesting way. Richie understands service on a basic human level. That is not what we traditionally always way. Richie understands service on a basic human level. That is not what we traditionally always would think of that way or whatever, but he's the one when people even when it was the beef when people coming in and he'd be like hey paving the roads like he got, like he gets that part.

Speaker 3 2:27:34

In a way, I think Karm is wrapped up in what he's doing and doesn't get that part of people and how to do that.

Speaker 2 2:27:44

We had the Richie had the benefit of Garrett, played by Andrew Lopez, explaining how he got. He was really, you know, fucked up or on substances, and then he came back and really sort of framed a life of service and why that was important to him and that resonated with Richie. You don't know if Carmi got the same speech or not, but definitely Carmi does not understand service. I sometimes I go outside of control. Outside of control. What does Carmi like about? About being a chef? Again, I'm trying to remember like he likes that. It turns his spinning mind off. He likes the control of it. But I was like you know, a lot of people have the nurturing service like I'd like to feed people, I want to make people happy. That's a, that is a theme, the thematic element of the culinary trade, right, I don't know how much genuine joy Carmi gets from nurturing or feeding others, I wonder, or providing yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 2:28:44

No, I think you're onto something there, Right, because, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 2:28:53

He.

Speaker 3 2:28:54

Yeah, no, this is really.

Speaker 3 2:28:55

Coach is thinking he's thinking Sorry, sorry, he, yeah, no, this is really coach is thinking he's thinking sorry, sorry, no. But it's really interesting because he, I think, part of what he likes and I think to some degree this is also true of sid he likes the gold stars. They're even going for a star, right, yeah, they something in them, respects, appreciates, desires, the external. You know you are great from someone else, right and it's, and you're right. It's not about the service part, it's about you eat something I made and you go oh my God, this is amazing. And then therefore, somehow I know I am amazing, right, and I do think even the choice that's made oh, we're going to change the menu every day. Well, ok, I get that Theoretically.

Speaker 3 2:29:54

I guess I also wanted to talk to some people in the restaurant business and ask how that's viewed, but it struck me as like, oh well, I don't think you'd ever be my favorite restaurant then, because not that it's, you know, michelin star level stuff. But I just thought the first restaurant that came into my mind I haven't been there in years is, uh, this place out here called versailles cuban place. I'm out here in la, I think there's something like miami's mother place. Anyway, I get a taste for one of three or four things and I'm like I need to get back over to versailles. I want some arroz con pollo, I want the garlic chicken, I want whatever they have like ropa vieja, which is like this shredded meat which is unbelievable. But that's what I'm going there for. I don't want to show up there and they're like oh, today we're doing halibut and a lemon, blah, blah. I didn't come here for that.

Exploring Emotional Quotient in Culinary Industry

Speaker 2 2:31:02

I'm glad you're doing that. Where's my? Exactly and I think it's really interesting that he's not going to give anybody that.

Speaker 3 2:31:12

Like that's that could be a thing, right. Like how far is that from? We serve the same pasta every day. It might be it might not be flavored the way you would flavor at the French Laundry, but people come here and they eat it and they know that's what they came here for and if they wanted pizza they would have gone somewhere else. They came here for their Italian beef or their. You know what I mean. Like that means zero to karm he. No. Like there's no emotional attachment. There's no. This is my favorite dish. There's no. My family and I come here every year for my birthday. Vibe it's we are going.

Speaker 2 2:31:53

He doesn't even have a favorite dish he doesn't, that's true. We've never seen him have a favorite dish. It's all about what's working right now, what's doing? I think this is working. There's no.

Speaker 2 2:32:06

He's not like I'm all about burgers, baby, and we're going to make burgers and we're going to make the best burger because I love burgers. I mean, we've seen it with Sid when she makes an omelet for sugar, there's love in that omelet. You can see that there's care and she likes the nurturing process. The food means something as a connective tissue and with a lot of these people we talked about Pete's low EQ. Pete is born without an emotional quotient right. He doesn't.

Speaker 2 2:32:33

So a lot of these people who are in the chef world. You look at Chef Terry. She's got high CQ, she's got a high creative quotient, but she's also got a high emotional quotient. Chef Terry, the nurturing and the feeding is important to her and she's got a high, what appears to be a high IQ, right. So all of those things. But some of them, like Carm's, got a CQ off the charts, but probably anq that floats down closer to pete than we might. You know. Oh yeah, comfortable with right. Whereas mikey was all eq, richie's all eq, right, I don't know how creative. I don't think. Richie, I don't think, uh, mikey had a creative bone in his body that seemed, from what I saw, not of that sort and he didn't care to.

Speaker 2 2:33:12

He didn't. That's why he's fascinated that.

Speaker 3 2:33:15

You know, there's something yeah, what's that I have no fucking idea?

Speaker 2 2:33:18

I have no fucking idea he's not gonna.

Speaker 3 2:33:20

He's not gonna text back. Oh, is that a leak? Like I don't give a fuck what it is, I don't care.

Speaker 2 2:33:25

It's beautiful. My little brother, my god, he's a he's. He's absolutely amazing. He's got more talent in his pinky than I have in my whole body, but yes, creatively, or kill it, and from a culinary standpoint, but not from an emotional quotient Like connectivity interpersonal skills. You know, Richie. We've seen many times like he's good with the people, even the people that piss him off, like the video game people. He knows how to manage them and Karmie is lost in those.

Speaker 3 2:33:55

Not only does he know how to manage them, he knows that the fact that they're about to show up there is gonna be a clusterfuck the minute he's like no, no, no, like. You cannot do that. That is a mistake. And I and he was ahead of me on that one I was like oh brilliant, carmy, let's get the people in the door right, there's an opportunity cost for the dollar signs from the coin and the mandatory purchase. Yeah and he did all that math like instantaneously.

Speaker 3 2:34:25

So, yeah, no, I think it's, yeah, I think there's something very interesting there, but I, I think your thing about control is huge, I, I, I really like you're gonna say a lot, this one, or re-watch, I really want to rewatch the first two seasons with control as a theme on my mind, because I think you nailed it there and it makes it so that if something doesn't go the way I specifically wanted it to go or planned for it to go, somebody has done something to me.

Speaker 2 2:35:02

I mean yes, absolutely. I posted the shot I love of Carmi where he's smiling outside in that garden. I posted it on the community site. Is Carmi happy because of the piece? Or is Carmi happy because now he can control the process from stem to stern? I don't know, but I'm saying maybe it's a bit of both yeah, so we're with.

Speaker 2 2:35:22

We're with chef terry. She sits down with car me drawing. She says where did you work before here? I stashed at the french laundry. Um and a family-owned restaurant. Uh, which is. Where was that uh, coach? Was that uh someplace in chicago?

Speaker 3 2:35:37

where'd did he?

Speaker 2 2:35:37

stage at the family. Yeah something, yeah. Carnivore-based restaurant.

Speaker 3 2:35:41

But I thought it was amazing. Yeah, like he could have said something. It was almost like he didn't want her to know.

Speaker 2 2:35:48

Yeah, he's like I hung out there. Yeah, because we know he didn't actually work there. Have you ever been to copenhagen? She says right, hey, shakes has said no, beautiful um, never probably been out of the country. No shots of copenhagen just uh voted the second most livable city, I believe. Let me look it up. I just uh hold on, let me see. I put it on my phone. I sent it to my family because I always talk about moving to Europe, right, right, and especially these days.

Speaker 3 2:36:19

I was going to say you probably, I don't know somewhere around November 6th, just spitballing here it was.

Speaker 2 2:36:25

Yeah, vienna was number one Most livable city. Wow, a rating of 98.4. There's like 13 categories and it goes Vienna, copenhagen, zurich, geneva, helsinki, frankfurt, luxembourg, amsterdam, berlin, paris, oslo, hamburg, munich, stuttgart, budapest, anyway, so a lot of really wonderful cities in that list, but I definitely noticed Copenhagen because of the show we get an insert of. We know Karm is in Copenhagen. There's him journaling, and then the after we cut from the piece of him sitting on a bridge and a bridge of all things in copenhagen, um, journaling quietly to the. It was the. The specific choice was to port us back to the fishes episode in the exact after aftermath of Mikey hucking the fork at Lee, the one he was just teasing for a while, and he eventually pulls the trigger. Right, everybody, it's all the responses of everybody flipping out and then the car smashing into the house.

Speaker 3 2:37:37

I just want to call out one of the freaking out moments, cause I think it's really important.

Speaker 3 2:37:44

We don't know all the details of the relationship, obviously, but not saying you're okay, you're okay To her mom. She's such a little girl, desperate for this mother to be okay, she's yeah and it's. I feel like that is at the core of her existence, this vibe of her like mommy, it's so, you know, it's so, no more wire hangers and and it's um, yeah, I just, I, I just think that that I don't think you can understand a lot of the story without taking a moment to make sure you get what the dynamic was with this woman and her mother. And I think it's interesting that neither both of the boys seem to be aware that mom's a bit much, yeah, but only sugar seems to be the one who's who can't deal with it. And I wonder if in some ways it's because she caught An uglier version of it. If in their existence she might have been Quirky is too kind of word but she might have been unpredictable or, you know, easy to agitate, but she would get agitated around them, she wouldn't get agitated at them.

Speaker 3 2:39:10

Right Is the vibe. I get. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that you know it gets into other stuff there. But I do think you have to stay aware of that specific dynamic to get this entire story.

Speaker 2 2:39:23

Yeah, no, there's definitely. Yeah, there's a lot in these flashbacks.

Speaker 3 2:39:29

I mean the keep going anybody who's experienced any kind of like survivor's guilt. That line To keep going. That hit me hard the first time. It hit me harder the second time Because I was like there are moments where you have to make a decision, Like if you you got to let some people in some places go, you got to let it go.

Speaker 2 2:39:52

Right, yeah, no, it's a lot man. It's. Oh my God, yeah, I'm looking at all these. Yeah, no, it's, uh, it's, it's a lot man. It's. Oh my god, yeah, I'm looking at all these different things. That was cousin michelle who, who said keep going in the insert and, um, that's the sarah paulson character. And then, um, you know, we get. Now we cut back to that moment between sugar and uh. It's a really interesting match cut because we see Carmi talking to cousin, and then the hug, yeah, and then it pivots and now we're sugar going in to give Carmi a hug when he goes away for the first time, and now we're, we're behind sugar's back and then we get the reverse and she says she says what here, coach?

Speaker 3 2:40:34

Let it rip beer and I go, come on. I'm again. What here, coach, let it rip bear and I go, come on Again. I know, I know you were unhappy. Adam Azer was unhappy.

Speaker 3 2:40:45

I was so in, oh, I was so in here, like, specifically in this sequence I was like oh yeah, oh yeah, oh shit, yeah, oh, like I really had an oh yeah, oh yeah, oh shit, yeah, ooh, I really had an experience around it. I really did and I'll share. Well, first of all, I'd just like to just shout out Sarah Paulson, and if ever you should decide to put out a series of you reading phone books, recipes, ingredients, just know that I will be streaming that, but anyway, I don't know that you're out there, but if you are, please know that I think your acting is sent by some form of God. Okay, she's fucking amazing. Anyway, aside from that, when we this back and forth about take the money, this part of why I wanted it earlier I've been in a couple of situations like this specifically, and I've been on either side of the exchange, and so maybe then too, I think there was a pull for me of that.

Speaker 3 2:41:55

Like I fucking get it and there's somebody. I will share this story because it speaks to, just like when it's emotional. I won't say who, because that part of the story is not mine to say, but there is. There was a teenage, young woman at the time and I was a teenager then and there's not to do with me, I wasn't involved in this part, but there's an unexpected pregnancy and so she has now confided in me.

Speaker 2 2:42:26

You put that in there. Yeah, I was like, as I was telling the story, it's like this is going to sound like a different story that I read to be telling. So yeah, so I was like yeah, so I'm not somebody up Exactly, no, no, no, no, it's not that, it's not that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 2:42:40

But here was this problem I mean, it was presented as a problem and in context it was a problem and they were figuring out what to do. And part of the figuring out was where would they even get the money to pay for termination of the pregnancy? And it happened to be relatively close to the holidays because, um and so I had some money that my dad had given me for the holidays, nice. So we had talked and talked and I felt terrible and I knew this person would never take my money, never Like. We were super close, like since we were before we started school, we knew each other, but I knew this person would never take my money.

Speaker 3 2:43:33

And so, when they went out of their room, I went to their dresser and put what for a whatever I was 15, 16 year old boy was, it was like my net worth damn near was in into their drawer, into their underwear drawer. And I said boom, and just like, went and sat back down. And then, when I was leaving, I I gave them a hug and I said you're gonna be okay, you should look in your, you should look in your underwear drawer. And she just looked at me, said no, no, and I and I just walked away. I just walked away from the door, and, and she, knew I'm.

Speaker 2 2:44:13

I am ruining this with my my the fact that I can only see life as a comedy. She's like wait, you're in my underwear drawer. Yeah, no, no not like that. I have some notes.

Speaker 3 2:44:27

Can you imagine she's like nice to know you're a freak?

Speaker 2 2:44:30

Yeah, yeah, you're going to be all right. Check your granny panties, the ones you didn't want anyone to see, with the waistband that is stretched and the real all cotton I don't know, I don't know what happened to thursday, but you need a new set anyway.

Speaker 3 2:44:44

Um no, but well, coach that is uh beautiful. That's a real, that's a true story with a you know somebody's very good friend of mine and and so like I don this, really this exchange in particular, and I like that they wove it through, it really got me, like even Sugar's saying I feel like I'm never going to see you again, like yeah, this really spoke to me.

Speaker 2 2:45:11

You are the sweetest of all brothers. You really are. I kid myself to pretend like I am and I'm not even in the same. You have a sweetness and a hopefulness and a kindness that it really comes through and the generosity. I love it, coach.

Speaker 2 2:45:30

I love it, it's an honor to work with you. I was not there at this point in the. Maybe it was the. Maybe it was the. Uh, carnival-esque soundtrack in the back, like playing on starting to make me twitch I mean we're 32 and change in and I'm like wow, like it's they're doing it.

Speaker 3 2:45:57

Yeah, no, they, they. It's like they decided like we are doing this, we are not half doing it. Um, I love you was great, and then I even love. He takes a drag of a not very smoked cigarette and throws it on the ground. I was like he knew. Like I'm gonna be traveling, I'm gonna be whatever, let me just get this last little punch of nicotine. He tosses a cigarette on the ground and Sugar actually looks down at the cigarette as he's walking away. I have a thing about smokers who just toss their cigarettes. This is a thing of mine where I'm just like, hey look, man, you can smoke if you want to smoke. But I mean like, come on, man, like, and the rest of us got to live here too um, yeah, but that's not part of the smoker rebel ethos, exactly where it goes right you.

Speaker 3 2:46:50

I'm done with this cigarette. Nicotine does make you want to say so I thought it was an interesting choice to have him do that too. Again, I think speaks to class Like how far is flicking cigarettes wherever they land from? Oh my God, is that a smudge on your plate?

Speaker 2 2:47:12

Yeah, I guess ostensibly right, there is a, but you wonder if you need to flick the cigarettes to get to a place that is smudge-free, maybe? Yeah, that's a great question, I don't know. Great question. We've talked about how nicotine cures what ails you. Not that I'm advocating for it, but it's a hell of a drug. Right Now we're back into the Daniel restaurant. Karmia's plating again Totally different to the Daniel restaurant. Karmia's plating again totally different camera angles. We've. We have switched camera angles. I bet. I bet this has the record If you, if you looked at any show and look at the camera angles no that were up top or down below under it is, it is

Speaker 2 2:47:53

in the same way I I feel like they. There was no uniformity to the thought about what the episodes are. Not that they didn't think about it, but they chose to say yeah, we'll do five different timelines, We'll do six different POVs, We'll do things that we saw and witnessed. We'll also do things we didn't witness and we'll also do those things we didn't witness from several points of view. And we'll also do voiceover over the top of things we witnessed, and we won't do voiceover over things we didn't witness. It was everything. It was like a.

Speaker 2 2:48:30

Jackson Pollock painting of. You know what the negative view of it is to say, oh, somebody gets um, you know premiere pro or something for the first time and makes their first video and goes fuck it, I love everything, throw it. It had that element, right, right, we gonna go film dissolve cross, dissolve right right, right, right yeah, like whoa, whoa, there's a lot, yeah, there's a lot, and for someone like me, I go wait. Am I in good hands again?

Speaker 3 2:48:57

because yeah, no, I love that you mentioned jackson pollard. Um, I'm not, you know super, you know educated in terms of that brand, that kind of art. But I will say I I always remember I had an art uh teacher in high school I ended up developing a real friendship with actually, and he was the first person who said to us like he would get so angry, frankly, but definitely offended when people would say things like it's just a real I could have done that and it's like you don't.

Speaker 3 2:49:32

It's such a profound misunderstanding of what's happening to be like, oh well, anybody could just splatter paint. It's like no, he doesn't just splatter fucking paint. Like that's like there's a thing happening here. That's like beyond your understanding and that's why other people who do this can look at it and speak to you know whatever, and so yeah, but coach, my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

Speaker 3 2:49:56

So there you go, Just like the man said no, but I think, but I, but I think it is interesting that you went in that direction. I don't think it's a coincidence. I think this is this has some what we would teasingly say like artiste vibes to it. Yeah, and you know it didn't work for you, but that's also the price you pay. The reason for least objectionable programming is we don't want a bunch of the audience feeling the way Thor felt after season three, episode one. We want them to come back. We want them to buy the fucking Heinz ketchup we're selling. We want to keep everybody perfectly fucking happy, right? So, yeah, yeah, once you start making more intense and clear choices and stop worrying about least objectionable, well, by the definition, it's going to be more objectionable, and so you are going to upset some people and you're going to upset some cards yeah, that's, that's true.

Speaker 2 2:50:54

But listen, it's a, it's a, it's a. You know, fortune favors the bold, and there are a lot of bold choices. We go from the daniel, where we have that supportive chef that I love, to the jerk chef back. Why are you so fucking slow?

Speaker 3 2:51:07

you know, maybe we've reached as far as your talent I mean, he's really like I have identified your psychological weak point and I'm going to tap dance on them. It's really intense yeah, uh.

Speaker 2 2:51:21

Then we get an insert of carmy, uh buckling an air airplane, uh type of um seat belt on and uh, you know, this is, this is interesting, we, we. It again fills in the blank like oh no, he did. I'm assuming he flew home. I don't know if this is him flying back or I don't know. We can't tell which direction he's going in. He pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket and that shows.

Speaker 3 2:51:51

Oh, this is when Sugar tucked that in his pocket while they were hugging or something right, which also speaks to the kind of family they are, because, to me, anyone might have wanted to give them the money, but to think of and to have the fundamental skill set to hug somebody and slip something into their pocket, right, like it's just a little more gives you a little more of this family, right, a little more of the vibe around them. They would have an Uncle Cicero. He little more gives you a little more of this family, right, a little more of the vibe around them. They would have an uncle sister. He might be the one who taught them how to do that shit.

Speaker 3 2:52:22

Um, so it's, it's interesting. But this, see, I didn't want to say it then because we're going through the story and I want people to experience it, uh, as far as our breaking it down. But this is what. This was actually the moment that made me think of that story, with the money in the drawer, because I was like I'm not fucking fighting with you, you need this money and you are going to take it, and that is the end of this conversation.

Speaker 2 2:52:50

Well, if you think about what prevents people from taking money, so pride cometh before the fall. People don't take money because you know they have self-respect. It's like how often are people slipped money, especially in like I don't want to say immigrant families, but like I know that was a big quality of mine and my greek side of the family, my mom, is from the old country. It was like you don't, you know you don't, you're not going to take any money, but when you get the money it's. It was like you don't, you know you don't, you're not going to take any money, but when you get the money it's still awesome. So, but you can't give the money because there's hey what are you trying to say about me?

Speaker 2 2:53:24

So slipping money has become a skillset that I have. Um, and it's like, uh, it's in there. Anytime money's involved, it gets real weird, and so I, I think about that. Um, anytime money's involved, it gets real weird, and so I, I think about that. I have an amazing skillset of paying for dinner that everyone else thinks they're paying for. Oh, that's great. You know what I mean. Like yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 2:53:45

I love that.

Speaker 2 2:53:46

And if I, if I know I'm up against somebody, that meal is getting paid before we even show up Like there's no there's no way you're not going to beat me on that. I've had years and years of of just just on the job, training with people who, uh, you know think they're paying for food and and I.

Speaker 3 2:54:03

But I like that because I like taking care of people and I like yeah, stress and you know, I had my favorite of that type of story, you know, slipping somebody money and, like you say, not kind of like acknowledging that it's happening, but also putting it in terms that allows everyone to kind of go on with their day. I was a PA, helped me out once and really went out of their way. Like we were shot Monday to Friday and I needed them to open something up for me on Saturday. Which is like, are you fucking kidding? Like they were great, like their attitude was like sure, no problem. But I was like this fucking kidding, like they were great, like their attitude was like sure, no problem. But I was like this fucking sucks, right, yeah, so I, as we were leaving, uh, the place that I needed opened up for me.

Speaker 3 2:54:46

I had a bill in my hand and I went, oh, I think you dropped this as we were walking out, oh, nice, and you could see her look at me like I didn't fuck it and then, like, kind of like, I saw her like the light go out in her eye like oh, and she's like oh, thanks, you know, kind of smiled and then we just kind of we never spoke of it again, like whatever, but it was just, you know. But if I had just gone here, let me give you a. You know that's not, it's too much, it's like it's not. It doesn't allow her to sort of continue with her day in the same way. Now, somehow I've like paid for this, as opposed to having said thank you or having said, hey, I know however much money I have. I have a funny feeling at this exact moment in our lives, it's more money than you fucking have.

Speaker 2 2:55:33

So there's let me the amount of complexity around this like there's a dirtiness element to it. Yeah, there's a disrespectfulness element to it there's a presupposition element to it, so that all of these there's ego, there's resentment, it's just, money is tough and humans don't navigate.

Speaker 2 2:55:51

The humans are messy, I say it all the time, and they get messier as far as money goes. Um, and so, yes, it is a nice beat here when carmy pulls out the wad of cash and um, you know, he has, you know, it is meant to be a gesture of love from his sister. Um, now we get a quick, super quick insert of the tape cutting the, the, this lime green tape, the writable tape that they write on with Sharpies. Um, and what's happening here, coach?

Culinary Artistry and Symbolism

Speaker 3 2:56:26

So we have keep fucking going and we sit on that for a second. So make sure you can see it. Um, and then we'll cut. We're back to the fennel and dealing with that plating. And this time we know he's tasted the fennel combination with this dish and not liked it. But it is what you know chef asshole told him to do, and so he calls for hands and he's still moving. And then we see him move in the blood orange and I you know as far beyond me to be able, whatever, but it looks like some sort of you know potato chip ish kind of deal that's put on top of the fish and then the blood orange sauce that we knew he had been working on before.

Speaker 3 2:57:14

Now he has simplified the. He has simplified, he has gone with the simplicity of the dish, but he's gone back to the flavor he brought to it, which I thought was an interesting thing to do in terms of the storytelling. He says the fennel allergy sub blood orange. I'm not sure there was a fennel allergy, I think he decided I'm going to see how this works and it seemed a lot like a certain plucky sous chef who was told that a dish wasn't ready and who then proceeded to put that dish in front of a food critic at the beef. So they may be more alike than either of them understand yeah, maybe, uh, we get to the list of service time.

Speaker 2 2:58:04

Not about you, which I was like uh, is he talking to somebody else, you're talking to himself exactly pretty sure I wasn't sure, I wasn't sure either. Like okay, perfect means perfect is another one. No excuses is another one. This is super healthy, super healthy list.

Speaker 3 2:58:24

Well, here's the thing is again no excuses. Am I a fan of excuses? No, like I've told players, like my mantra as a coach with players is like an excuse is a reason that leaves you out, that's all it is Right. Is like an excuse is a reason that leaves you out, that's all it is Right. So so I I definitely am not a fan of excuses, but I find that the majority of people I know who get going on the theme of no excuses, it's uh yeah, it goes a little beyond what I would describe as not allowing excuses and it's much closer to that perfect. You know, perfect means perfect deal and nothing's ever perfect. Like again, if he had said we are always pursuing perfection, I would feel like yes, I am on board, everything must be perfect.

Speaker 2 2:59:15

Sounds like a way for everyone involved to lose their minds well, it's also subjective that perfect means perfect, uh, in parentheses to me well right, if I like. Who's? Who's? Who determines the perfection of anything? Um, yeah, except at a dog show. It's so funny to watch the judges at a dog. You ever see one of the the dog shows coach where they go around and look at the teeth. They look at the hind quarters and look at the tail they.

Speaker 2 2:59:40

Oh yeah, based on the standard set by the american kennel club. Yes, this is a perfect right. You know, fucking basset hound or something like okay like somebody's got to know what. All that again, it doesn't matter what, doesn't matter what field you're in. It's so funny because all those people walk their dogs around in that sort of loping walk that they do, which is hell, but inside of it still, sometimes the artistry comes out and you get a, get a dog. That's really fun, or?

Speaker 3 3:00:09

somehow just got a little right it's a little left to center.

Speaker 2 3:00:12

You're like nice yeah god damn, I like that dog, um so, uh. So now we cut to this scene. After perfect means perfect, uh, we get the scene of a waiter we've seen. We're like, oh, we've seen that guy before. And he drops a plate on the table. The plate that carmy just made a popiette of hamachi with blood orange enjoy. And now we stay on the plate. The camera we got a camera move. It's a steady cam shot where we go from the plate to the person leaning in to smell it. Right, and who is this? Coach? It's.

Speaker 3 3:00:50

Sydney and we know that she has right Like we know she's aware of. We know right, we know. We Like. We know she's aware of right we know, we know, we know. Now, I'm so glad you paused on this shot.

Speaker 2 3:01:02

I had to because it's the most beautiful shot of the episode, it is Okay.

Speaker 3 3:01:05

So there's a shot where, within the context of the restaurant, we've got this beautiful ceiling that we get into the shot.

Speaker 3 3:01:13

So we have to shoot it from low, which works because we're shooting kind of eye level, with Sid sitting at a table and then we're.

Speaker 3 3:01:21

So there's an ascending staircase, there's this beautiful ceiling, beautiful lighting pillars I mean it's just gorgeous and there's a tree growing out of Sid visually, and I think that's significant because, even as like intro to photography in college, you want to be aware, when you photograph somebody, of something sort of looking like it's poking out of their head or shooting out of their arm, like just in how you frame somebody that you. So a choice was made here, and to me this looks like the tree of life. Choice was made here and to me this looks like the tree of life. So for me I was like oh my god, very much so a black woman at the very base of the tree of life, having a culinary experience that will be at the core of everything in this series, because she walks in day one of our experience of the place and then these two build together. So I, just I, I don't know, I, I went a little bit nuts, more than a little bit, when I saw this shot because I was like beautiful show whoa whoa.

Speaker 3 3:02:30

well, there's a lot going on and I also have to say, as a big fan of black women, big, big fan, big fan, my mom sister had a lot of black women around me using her hair. I mean, we did the same thing with sugar, but for her to use her hair this way and to have it be this big natural, I just thought again like that is a fucking choice and I am here for it. I really like that a lot.

Speaker 2 3:02:58

Yeah, this is great. It's a beautiful shot. The only thing stopping it from being a Wes Anderson shot is there's two trees on the right of frame and one on the left. Yeah, I noticed that, and there's not enough quirky velour and 70s colors. Other than that, this has that type of symmetry, but it's a gorgeous shot. That's why I paused here, and we know from the lore of the bear that this is where Sid had. She felt like she was not up to date.

Speaker 2 3:03:26

Everybody at CIA in upstate New York knew more than she did. I think it's Albany area, I forget where CIA is located and so she went down to New York City and spent all her money having the best food, and we know that this is the best meal she ever had right here. It was made by carmy, no fennel, sans fennel, um. So yeah, we have that beat uh in. In a way you go, this is the beginning of everything. The tree of Life stuff is definitely intentional. It's a core principle of, you know, archetype of many of the world's mythologies and religions and philosophical traditions, and it's on my armor.

Speaker 3 3:04:10

Oh, is it? Yeah, on my back Tree of Life. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll show it to you. Yeah, I can't wait to get yeah yeah, yeah, I'll show it to you.

Speaker 2 3:04:18

Yeah, I can't wish you didn't Get your shirt off there.

Speaker 3 3:04:20

Big boy In Brooklyn. You're looking past it at the skyline of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Speaker 2 3:04:27

Really. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah, I lost it.

Speaker 3 3:04:33

When the shot came up, I was like oh my god, wow, yeah, yeah, oh my God, yeah, wow, yeah, yeah. It really spoke to me.

Speaker 2 3:04:41

It's great. It is nice to see a black woman framed in that way. I mean I know she's black.

Speaker 2 3:04:45

I don't see color Right, exactly, exactly, but yes, how many times have I said black women saved this country twice? I can't believe I have to ask them to do it one more time. Please, please, sweet cheese. Anyway, we won't get into that. Um, uh, okay, so we, we, uh, we now, uh, have this moment. We close up on sid as she's like just this, this youthful, uh, io debris, just what a great is. She really does a great job, it's.

Speaker 3 3:05:17

It's not like she's now 60, but somehow she manages to capture a different energy than she has later Very, very clearly, with just like a facial expression.

Speaker 2 3:05:33

It's like, wow, she seems younger and more hopeful and less jaded less like yes, it's just somehow. She pulls it off in like one little insert.

Speaker 3 3:05:42

It's pretty, pretty amazing I mean and this is a difference between um film acting and and and stage acting, which I have tremendous, uh, respect for both, but the ability to use one's face that effectively is part of what means you can be on screen. You can be, or you can be, great on screen. But yeah, there's a lot going on and yeah, anyway, I just enjoyed that.

Speaker 2 3:06:15

You wouldn't notice if you took acting lessons in school or if you were in plays or whatever. You wouldn't believe how many shots there are, as a professional actor, of like reactions. Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:06:27

Some shows it's just all reaction shots. I remember, if you ever want to see, like the most painful thing in the world, what's that nerdy show? Oh God, what's the show where they take the lap, this, the laugh track out? Uh, the show with oh god, it's the they took the laugh track. It is so brutal. Uh, and we've mentioned it, we mentioned in the first season we first did head lasso. I'll put it in the community site.

Speaker 2 3:06:52

It's the show with all the nerds no, not freaks and geeks, uh, like the two main nerds. And then there's a girl nerd, um it was a network show, so I forget the name of it, but it was like your mother no, uh, anyway I'm gonna look, I'm gonna look up nerd shows and everyone knows what.

Speaker 2 3:07:11

Everyone people probably know what I'm talking about. I can't think of the name, but but that show was so much about the reaction shots that once you take out the laugh track you just go oh my god, like so. They play, they do the joke, they do business, what they call it's like the colloquialism. They keep it busy for the anticipation of the laugh track and then it cuts, like the reaction shot right, tell you how to, and you just go how to feel right yeah, you're like jesus christ, so, uh, it is a skill set, it's a, it's a power that some of the greatest uh actors have.

Speaker 3 3:07:44

Um, and we get some, some again, some crazy inserts of uh super hyper designed food, and this one in particular, I, I, I thought did a good job of making sure we understood that these are the imaginings in those drawings, realized at least some right, because this is definitely the drawing that made the chef come in and say, oh, very creative, this one here yeah this one right here this is like it looks like a rolled I don't know if it's cabbage or or like a like a dyed cabbage or lox with what looks like caviar yeah, it was a caviar.

Speaker 2 3:08:25

Yeah, it's, caviar some sort of garnish with a with a sauce outer that matches the exact like the drizzle on the outside.

Speaker 3 3:08:33

Yeah, yeah, color wise, you're right. It matches like whatever was used there, you're right. Oh my god, like a carrot drizzle it might be carrots.

Speaker 2 3:08:39

Those could have been carrots, I don't know.

Speaker 3 3:08:42

Anyway, if you, yeah, if you were to slice something and then roll it, yeah, that makes sense. But anyway, what do we know?

Culinary Artistry and Self-Reflection

Speaker 2 3:08:46

for all I know. What do we know? There are all these really, uh, beautiful dishes. And we cut to now carmy uh at the current bear restaurant. Right, he's back home, theoretically in real time, and he has a series of dishes in front of him. We're like, oh, were these the dishes we just saw? Like these hyper-customized dishes. They love inserts of his eyes because he's got some of the most beautiful blue eyes on the face of the planet earth and let's not waste them by not showing them. So there's all these really great shots of of him, from from Nick nose to mid to mid forehead, just like an eye shot.

Speaker 2 3:09:31

Let's insert the standard Jeremy Allen white eye shot, please, but also he's bent over, forward looking and so like.

Speaker 3 3:09:41

Again, to me that speaks like he's not right over the bulls, like he has a vantage point from which he is choosing to look at these to see things that neither of us will see Right.

Speaker 1 3:09:54

It strikes me as like any expert you see doing something like that Right.

Speaker 3 3:09:58

You know cause I'm like why couldn't he just stand back and look at it? But he knows what he's doing, that precisely that he needs to lean forward and he needs to be this far away. Yeah, yeah. So it's very, it's a stunning.

Speaker 2 3:10:13

So, coach, what time is it on the clock there?

Speaker 3 3:10:20

Three, 28 is what I'm seeing. Is that right, 28? Yeah, so yeah, it's uh somebody, somebody's not uh respecting the power of sleep he has it's.

Speaker 2 3:10:28

It's very important to core.

Speaker 3 3:10:29

Seriously, actually, I've spent years working on my sleep.

Speaker 2 3:10:32

It's a real thing, yeah yeah, now we really hold on him as he's uh, as he is studying these all these uh sort of dishes, and we get it. We, it's longer than usual, it's several beats of him. He leans back against the stove. Um, it's just him and the food. Again, what are we saying when it's just him and the food? Late at night, uh, the only comfort he can have is a hyper curated thing that he can control is that what we're saying is what we're saying.

Speaker 2 3:11:08

He's more comfortable alone than he is with people is what we're saying. The food is the only thing that understands him. You know, like, like. Here's what I will say alone with his creations. Is that his frankenstein monster? I'm not sure what the specific is, but but you can take it like in, in a way that you know the raymond carvers of the world will leave an open-ended question. This does leave us, you know, going okay. Well, what is that? Go ahead.

Speaker 3 3:11:36

Coach, it's a redefining of comfort food in a way right, I mean, doing this brings him comfort and what I think we just witnessed. I didn't think about it in exactly these terms the first time I watched it, but having now stopped and discussed and whatever, I think we watched Carm prepare these dishes. That's what we watched In preparing these dishes. All of that is going on in him, but what we watched happen in terms of the event is Carm come up, at least theoretically, the way it's presented with the new menu but it includes all of that, it's all in there and I I I didn't think that originally, but as I'm watching it now, I don't know christmas story.

Speaker 3 3:12:31

But I would be very curious to ask that question like is that what I was supposed to take from that? That as he cooks these dishes, as he thinks of what he wants to do, as he whatever that he's walking through all these things to understand like, okay, this is how we want to proceed?

Speaker 2 3:12:47

I really like that. I think I would have been more forgiving if if that's the way I thought this was intended. Yeah, because you have inserts, like our interstitials, you have these, these scenes with. They're not scenes, because they're part of the montage, because the music never stopped, but you have this, um, these little vignettes, right?

Speaker 2 3:13:08

that are that are, you know, sort of um macrame together in a way where, okay, if that was the like, oh my god, it was just. We were with him the night late, you know, the day later, as he breaks down the menu and this is what breaking down a menu looks like it's, it's a, it is a, it is the cumulative action of all of his life experiences put into food. I think I would have liked that as a takeaway, but because there were episodes like some of the vignettes had claire with no carmy giving a shot. I'm like, hey what? What do you know that?

Speaker 2 3:13:45

how like what is the you know? So it wasn't, it didn't seem all subjective. Um, how would you know about richie knocking on mikey's door, how you know?

Speaker 3 3:13:56

that's another jackson Pollock element of this which you just described, which usually shows either the side we get to be objective and see all the things, or we're going to go through in a subjective way with one of our characters, or you know, essentially, and this doesn't do that, this doesn't make a choice.

Speaker 2 3:14:16

Or if it does, maybe it's the omnivores't do that. This doesn't make a choice. Or if it does, maybe it's the omnivores version of that. It's like, yeah, we're not going to keep it all subjective and we're going to do something else Again, an artistic choice. And then you say, did it land or did it not land? But as we leave the episode, we cut to black and we get the splash screen of the directed by and that is it for season three, episode one tomorrow. Yeah, a lot to think about, coach, a lot to process, a lot to consider. Again, certainly a tour de force with regard to the uh, the quality of the cinematography and the acting, uh, it's, it's. It's tough to to convey things in these very bite-sized um you know vignettes, or even smaller than bite size in some cases.

Speaker 3 3:15:12

It's just very quick cuts, yeah, even to call it a vignette. In certain cases it's, it's an image, that's a stretch.

Speaker 2 3:15:18

Yeah, yeah, it could be a combination of it. It's like montages within montages. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, yes, you know maybe, maybe we need German words to to accurately capture all of the different things going on here, but but still nevertheless, uh, we, we have made it, uh, kicking and screaming to the end of season three, episode one.

Speaker 3 3:15:40

Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm, you know, I'm excited for the three of us. I'm curious what the flow will become in some of those conversations, um, about this season, Uh, but I think there's going to be some rich stuff there. There's a ton to look at. Like I think that again that I have liked about your choices, Like there's not been anything here, that's like all right, yeah, well, you know, boy meets girl, girl, you know.

Speaker 3 3:16:14

We're done here, like everything has had some real richness to it, and I'm super curious. I mean, you've watched the season, so the things that I'm thinking about that you're probably like, yeah, nope, that's not it. You know, and I get it. I mean I'm not the arbiter?

Speaker 2 3:16:32

I don't know. I just know what I've seen and I know what I inferred from that. I don't know, I just know what I've seen and I know what, what I inferred from that. And so I'm not, I'm not saying, listen, I've just. When you, when you go this deep and you have a genuine affection for the show and the, the show runners and the and the, you know what, you what, what I would describe as an incredibly, incredibly talented team behind the show not just in front of the camera but behind it you say, ok, I want to understand Whether or not it was my cup of tea. I certainly am going to give this team the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 3 3:17:13

They've at least earned that much for me in my uh, in my streaming fantasy world, I could uh contact. I'm trying to think of who I would contact first, but I would contact, uh, I think I would contact karm first and then make sure that I befriend sid and richie so that I could come in and work with the team and then work with them all individually, like. My actual personal reaction to this is like, oh no, you're fantastic, you're each and all fantastic. You're deeply damaged and in grief, and if we could just work on some of those parts you won't blow this thing up because you're damaged and you guys could come together and make it work. So, anyway, I am rooting for them real hard at this point. I thought this was going to become the greatest Italian beef place ever. So when they went in that, I think part of me let go of what I thought was going to happen at that point, because I was like, oh, we're doing all of the things.

Speaker 2 3:18:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, part of me let go of what I thought was going to happen at that point, cause I was like, oh yeah, oh, we're doing all of the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 3:18:22

So we're going, we're going for a star, we're not going for it, it's it's a, but it's a weird, uh, the duality between keeping a beef window as part of the, you know, yes, five-star restaurant is also like, uh, the marriage of two different sides of someone's personality. Um, yes, you know, but anyway we can get into that more as we continue with the season. Uh, coach, uh thanks for getting through this with us.

Speaker 3 3:18:49

uh, with everybody Um where do people find you? If they want to find you, all right, I'm going to beat this drum a couple of times. It won't be every time, but if your organization needs a speaker, I'm getting out there, I'm pushing it, I'm taking my light from under the bushel. But come in to talk about alignment and how it can impact everything from innovation to your personal development, to your team building, to all of it. Let's talk. So there you go. That's where you can find me these days.

Speaker 2 3:19:29

Love it. Thank you, Coach. I would like to thank everybody for joining us. Thanks for taking this journey with us. That concludes our coverage of Season 3, Episode 1. Tomorrow we will be back. Next time Coach may be on assignment. We're still working that out. He may be with us, but it might just be me and the good boss. Yeah, it's iffy.

Speaker 3 3:19:49

I've got to figure it out.

Speaker 2 3:19:51

Yeah he's got to figure it out and we always question his commitment to this unpaid job that takes more time than a full-time job, as you do. But thank you, coach, if we miss you, we'll catch you after that. We'll be back next time with Season 3, episode 2 next, and until then, please support your local libraries and the written word, raise better boys and uh and keep, keep, uh, keep bringing that creative, your cq into the world wherever, however that may hit you. Absolutely, uh, you know, really, really understand. There are people out there who, who value that and want you to find the most creative component of your own personality and bring that in the world and share it. It's fascinating. As much as we make fun of humans for being messy, some of that messiness, uh. Leonard cohen said uh, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. Yeah, I've heard that one. Yeah, uh, some of that, some of the most beautiful things, are because of the messiness. So thank you for joining us everybody and until next time we are.

Speaker 3 3:21:04

Richmond Till we get that music to stop playing in coaches ears, because that was sweet.

Speaker 2 3:21:12

Thank you, sweet Jesus. Oh God, it's over. Finally, all right, everybody. Thank you, we'll see you next time.