All right, here we go. Hello, and welcome to the big picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie and television news, films of yesterday and today, try to make it all make some kind of sense. Seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online, contributing editor Natasha Bogutsky. Hello, dear Rich.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Good morning. And Seated Across the Microphone for me is Film Buff Online's greatest editor-in-chief, Rich Jeez.
Well, let's not leave out the fact that I have been Film Buff Online's only editor-in-chief, but I'll take greatest as well. I mean, I... Which would you like to say on your Timstone? Only?
Or greatest? I don't think I want a tombstone. I think we have this conversation and... Your metaphorical tombstone.
My metaphorical tombstone. In my obituary that I'm sure will run in all the trades. Of course. I will make some and it's worldwide.
Greatest. Okay, that's just my ego talking. This was the time for me to pump that area. Okay.
Anyhoom. Good morning. Welcome back, guys. It's been a little while.
It's been an episode of a few weeks back with my interview with Tom about his book, Sixty Spy Movies, and it's not in front of me, and I can't remember the exact title right now, so whoops. We were off on a little bit of Summer Hall a day. We had some adventures. You went to La La Land and I had a European vacation.
Yes. Nice movie reference. Very good. Very good.
I got calls from you when it was Midnight in Paris. Yes, you did. I'm shocked you missed that reference because that's how much you look. Yes.
Well, we've been doing a lot of things. We've had some stage work you've been working on. We've had a couple of film festivals. We had to go hit with our latest short film, which is very exciting, and we took some time off.
Well deserved. Well needed. Time off. Well, not at the same time, but we wound up going in opposite directions several thousand miles to relax.
This is only a week apart. I know. As you were barely back when I was when you were taking me to the airport to drop me off. It was so nice having a break.
Yes. And we're going to talk about our vacations and going to the movies and how being a movie fan can sometimes impact your vacation next week. Yes. And that's going to be a lot of fun because I haven't really pressed you too much about some of your Paris adventures, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about them.
Well, I spoke about the Millets Museum a little bit. Yeah, but I want to go more into that. I've got plenty of stories from the Academy Museum, Academy screenings. My screening of the Big Heat.
Going to a movie theater I've been itching to get to for about a decade now out there. Finding locations. All sorts of stuff. It was a fun, fun week that I had.
I know you had a wonderful week as well. I did. And we'll get to that in just a week. But for today.
All sorts of things. Let's talk about some craziness. Yes. One.
Don't now be three. Finally got a release date. Yes. I know you were.
My phone blew up and I was like, Oh, great. Any person who's friends with me, their phone blew up. True. True.
And when will we be talking about this on the podcast? Well, the film is released September 12, 2025. So probably September 13, 2025. Sounds about right.
So a mere 14 months and two weeks away. That's just enough time for me to start playing the next party. Oh. Yes.
I just started that last week. There's been a lot of a lot of other interesting news over the past several months. Paramount was almost bought. And then that fell apart.
Jim Henson's theater with for sale. Just after you left it. Yeah. Jim Henson's the Jim Henson company is selling their their famed studio lot on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles.
Literally they announced that like two days after I was standing out in front taking pictures of myself there because that was one of those places I just kind of wanted to at least. Be by for a few minutes. And that is a that is a lot that was built by Charlie Chaplin in 1919, I believe it was. And it was much bigger at the time.
It had like apartments for actors to stay. It had tennis courts and a pool. And he did sell off some of the land and like the cheese. I'm going to screw up the timelines on this.
I think it was the early 50s to some retail real estate developers. Then he sold off the property a few years later. CBS bought it. And the adventures of Superman, the classic George Reeves TV series was produced there.
Then it kind of changed hands a couple times. A&M records owned it for a while. They built a recording studio there, which is still there. It's it's where and I didn't realize this when I was watching the documentary about this earlier in the year.
It's where we are the world was recorded, which is like one of the most iconic songs of the mid 80s because it was all about that moment of time where people came together to kind of do some good around world. With that benefit and we also had live aid at the time and do they know it's Christmas out of England. So it makes a kind of sense though. What happened to that?
People don't do that anymore. Unfortunately, no. I think some people just get to jaded about such things and they don't want to anymore. So I'd love to see a return to that, of course.
But the Muppets were always about joy, happiness, helping others. So it kind of made sense that at some point the Muppets basically moved into the lot that we are the world. Was recorded on to me. And so like two days later, they're announcing that they're selling it.
It was basically because their creature shop is out in Burbank. And one thing I'll kind of say now about my trip to Los Angeles, I have a much greater appreciation for distances in traveling in Los Angeles. And where I can't quite, you know, mentally put together where things are in relationship to each other. I think if I had another week out there, I probably would be really good at that.
I was kind of dependent on the GPS to get me places. And sometimes I would plan my day and not realize what a pain in the ass. It was to get from point A to point B and then back to point C. But I kind of appreciate the fact that going from like downtown La Brea, basically two blocks away from like the man's Chinese theater on Hollywood Boulevard, where Jim Henson Company is, and out to Burbank, where their production company is, is about an hour schlep.
So if you're at the lot and you need to get out to the creature shop, or you need to get, it's a bit of a back and forth. And if you're in production on something, that can delay things. So I understand them wanting to get everything all together under one roof. It's a pity that they didn't have the space at the chaplain studio.
But, you know, if it's helps them create and more efficiently and better, you know, I'm sure they will find somebody to get a good hour. Damn, that's from here to freaking Alindown. Yeah. And it's not a serious suburban sprawl.
Yeah, it is. It's amazing. And if we ever go out there together, I'm sure we're going to have a fun time. But I think you'll get to see all of that.
Whereas I could walk and hit majority of the things I want to in about three, four hours. And then I go, well, I guess the rest of my day is gravy. What the hell do I do now? Yeah.
Paris is a bit more compact and we're just. And no cars. Awesome. We're kind of sliding into next week's episode.
But I do want to just finish off the Jim Henson company story with the fact that Los Angeles declared the studio lot a historical landmark because my God. We're going to declare this a landmark. So it's not going to be torn down and used, you know, turned into a strip mall or some crap like that. Somebody else is going to come along and buy it.
And if somebody would like to give our production company, you know, several millions of dollars, we'll go out there and buy it and then just make all our movies there. No, no, because knowing us, we would have the several million dollars to afford the building and then we'd be sitting on an empty building and we wouldn't have the money to make the films inside. Well, we rent it out. We rent out the studio and then use that income to make our own projects.
Now you're thinking about it. Think about what it would take to run that studio. That's true too. Yeah.
That's true. But somebody will charge. Yeah. Somebody will buy it and it will continue to be a valuable asset in the overall world of film.
All right. Look forward to that happening in the future. Yes. I look forward to hearing about that.
Speaking of also, like some of the small craziness that's going on. All right. So you had to deal with the studio being bought. I have to deal with the studio telling me I'm old.
Oh, really? Wait, what happened? Oh, wait a minute. This is where you had vague posted earlier this week about something falling through, I think.
Is this or is this something else? No, no, no. I'm sorry. Okay.
If you don't want to talk about that, that's fine. That's not my conversation if you want. Okay. No, TCM has gone ahead and is adding new films to its roster for showing on the wonderful channel.
And one of them was Mulan Rouge from 2001. Which we've covered on this on the show. Yes, we have. Yes.
It's 23 years old. I get it. And I've had, I've had the conversation before that, you know, music becomes a classic when it's like 10 or 15 cars at 25, films at 20, clothing at 20. So yeah, I get it.
It was going to happen sooner or later, but God damn that hurt. Welcome to the club, sweetheart. Your, uh, your walker is over here and the nurse will be around with the pan and soft ice cream for you later. As long as they bring some gloves and some loom were fine.
Oh, dear Lord. And I broke him. Yeah, pretty much. Any hope.
Moving on. No, no, you're right. I mean, we've talked about this both on Mike and off about how movies sometimes can be a great indicator of times passing when you don't think you realize it. I mean, my gosh, when I was in high school, you know, say 85, 87, I graduated.
Old movies were from the 40s. And now it's almost 40 years. It's 40 years this September will be the beginning of my sophomore year from high school. So my, the movies I was enjoying in high school, some kid in high school now is going to look at and go, Oh my God, big trouble in little China.
That thing's ancient Ghostbusters. That thing's ancient. That's old. And it's, it's, it's an incredible gut check for you.
Well, I mean, when you look at, um, and I think we've had this conversation before. One of my favorites is when Harry Metzali and they talk in the film about Casablanca and they're like, you're wrong. No. I don't think she was.
I don't think she wants to go. Like they, they, they go back and forth about Casablanca the way we do about Star Wars. Yeah. So it's interesting watching them talk about Casablanca when we in turn talk about when Harry Metzali as classic film.
True. And the, the time is, uh, the time gaps in between are the exact same now. Yeah. And another example also I believe Nora Efron sleepless in Seattle.
They're watching a love affair and a fair to remember, a fair to remember. Excuse me. Thank you. And now people, you know, what movie are we going to see where somebody is watching?
And references sleepless in Seattle or, you know, whatever as a, um, as a classic. Mm hmm. And then, and then, you know, continuing that cycle. Yeah.
Oh, it's definitely, it's definitely getting to that, that point where, um, a lot of the things that we grew up with are now becoming classic film, um, which also makes them right for, um, for franchising. Uh, obviously when you look at all the things from the eighties that have been rebooted and recool and everything in the past 10 years. And now the, the stuff from the nineties, which is now going to become classic film, is having the same treatment. Hello twisters.
Yeah. Uh, which, which is funny because, um, you know, this is another thing we've talked about before where it's just back then we had studio executives who were filmmakers or former filmmakers or people who wanted to tell stories and they understood the storytelling business, the entertainment business. And now we have finance pros with MBAs. Yes.
Exactly. Who go? Okay. We have widgets.
And our risk adverse to make new widgets of, and, and, and it's a shame, um, it's like looking at a stock. These are, these are your Warner brothers. This is your Amazon, your Netflix. You can stuff as much money into it and you know that if that stock drops a little, you're not going to lose all that much.
Whereas an indie film is your upcoming, you know, penny stock, your startup that you don't want to take a gamble on because you're afraid it's just going to fall for now. Yeah. Given that there's a, given that there's a, um, level of cynicism or practicality, if you will, about the business at a certain exec level, that's not to say the people actually being hired to do the work, share that mentality. Case in point.
And this might actually be a little gray area, but Warner brothers, James Gunn and James Gunn. Yes. Exactly. Where are you going?
You didn't even need to say Warner brothers. I still have a look on your face and I knew exactly where you're going. Yeah. Even though he is technically head of DC studios.
He still answers to an exec, uh, suite of executives at Warner brothers who ultimately kind of are his boss, but he's the one who's like, you know what, I want to make a Superman movie. I love Superman. I have a great story. I have a passion to tell the story.
I'm not telling this story just because we have to keep the IP active because in 2034, the, you know, the copyright goes into the public domain kind of a thing. So, you know, the people making the movies themselves, if they can get their passion through the cynicism of the execs to make their things is great. Um, I want to make a Star Wars movie and I want to do, you know, I want to tell this kind of story with these characters that I know such and such studio already owns. That's fine.
That's great. It's the fact that we don't get a lot of entirely new original ideas coming into studios. I don't want another barfield movie. Give me a Felix the cat.
Ooh, okay. I would like to see if you're going to adapt a classic comic strip for a film, do one that hasn't been done before. I'm not sure any, I have a specific example springing to mind, um, but take a creative chance. Like when Warren Beatty said, Hey, I bought the rights to Dick Tracy because I love Dick Tracy.
And damn, that Dick Tracy movie from like, what, 91, 92, 91, is 90, yes, you're right. I'm sorry is awesome. I mean, it's one of the best post Batman movies to come out, I think, you know, because Tim Burton's Batman came out, which was also a risk and a chance because everybody's, everybody outside of the comic book world saw Batman still as Adam West, the 1966 TV series, Campy Bam Piff bow and and Tim Burton took it in a dark, yeah, Tim Burton showed up and said, you know, this is going to be messed up. And Michael Ooslin, who was the producer of Batman, who had bought the film rights back in the seventies for a song and has held on to them till now, um, he was one who was like, I want to do a serious Batman movie and couldn't get any studio interested.
And finally, he and Burton collaborated, got mourners, you know, interested and that spawned a whole series of movies in the nineties where people were going, what's up comic property that we can take and maybe do a little bit more seriously. And we got things like, Oh, and also having that pulp influence. So we got the shadow. We got Dick Tracy.
We got the Phantom with Billy Zink, which is not the greatest, but it is, it kind of spun out of that. We got the rockets here, which is an all time favorite of mine. We got some films that are promptly forgotten like, um, she and a queen of the jungle and Brenda Starr with Brooke Shields and a couple other movies I appropriately forgotten about. So, um, And then we had Marvel's dark period with blade.
Well, okay, first Marvel had to get shake. Uh, how were the duck out of their system, which I kind of like admittedly there's flaws in that, but I like some of the music from Thomas Dolby. Um, I have a super crush on, you know, who? And, um, I think, uh, Tim Robbins does a fun, gives a fun performance in there.
Um, Jeffrey Jones for all his later issues that we don't talk about him. Anymore for, um, gives a good performance. And my gosh, the dark lore overlords of the universe at the end that, uh, stop motion animation monster is really good. Um, oh, and I would say the, uh, the ultralight sequence where they're flying around, trying to escape from the guys in the ultralight.
I never finished it because I couldn't get through it. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I'm giving you a couple of reasons, maybe to give at least a couple of sections to try, but I think the ultralight section is really good for, you know, actual practical snuck flying, you know, in a, in a glider, basically powered by a lawnmower engine.
And, you know, there's other things in it that are just kind of yikes. I will admit, when I saw Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie in the cinema, that film terrified the fuck out of me. Really? Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting because, because of one particular actor. Well, I'm just going to say, if you say the woman who played M.A, I'm going to be very disciplined. I love her, I'm hearing her. Yeah, she's a doll.
Um, no, willums of foes like split personality performance was so damn, so damn good. He actually terrified me. Now, did you go see a Spider-Man two then in the theater? I mean, three years later, you're a little older.
Yeah, I saw two and three in the theater. Um, in two, when, um, Doc Ock's tentacles come alive. I know the hospital's seen as his own evil bed. Yeah, I was going to say, did that scare you at the time or as much or?
Okay. Okay. No, the, the, the actual gore element of it was less terrifying to me than the mental, what the fuck is going on inside? Will and Defoe's head.
Okay. It was, it was a stronger robotic arms versus internal performance, which is more terrifying. Okay. That's fair.
That's a good question. I like that. I like how you broke that down. I found both of them kind of freaky for their own reasons.
Um, and, um, I know you've been trying to get through Sam Raimi's evil dead trilogy and it's just not working for you. Oh, and I, I started army of darkness and shut it off after about 12 minutes. I'm sorry. I'm best David's I tried for you.
I tried and I was actually talking to a friend about it the other day and I'm like, look, I'm super fucking picky when it comes to horror. I cannot handle schlock. Okay. You don't like horror comedy then is that?
I, it depends on the horror comedy. I love cabin in the woods. I absolutely love cabin in the woods. I love the screen series, which is in a way a comedy.
It's a, it's a dramedy. I would say, but, um, when it comes down to it, it was just so ridiculous. And I've been, people have been shoveling that shitty franchise down my throat for the last 10 years. So you don't know horror, but you need to see this.
You need to see evil debt. You need to see evil debt, evil debt, evil debt, ash, chainsaw, zombies, and economic con, economic con, it's everywhere. Has seeing the movies taken away your love for the title? That title so makes me giggle.
Okay. I still can't get there. And I sit down and watched it and I messaged a friend of ours. Mike and I told him, I'm like, I haven't watched something in so long that has made me want to put my foot through my own television.
Wow. You see, this is, I mean, I know you didn't like the first movie. Yeah. You were very vocal to me.
And the first movie is more of a straight horror film. Um, but the second and third is where they, you know, Sam Rainey and company kind of veer in a comedy and they really show their love for the three stooges. And I know you're a stooges fan. Um, we've talked about that, you know, how for classic comedy teams, you're a three-stooges girl on a Marx Brothers guy.
And so I was kind of like crossing my fingers going, well, okay, maybe some of the slapstick stuff will kind of sustain her through these movies. I don't know. I'm hoping though, uh, because I'm not a big three-stooges person, but I do love how the comedy works in evil debt to an army of darkness. Um, and I'm, I'm sorry it didn't work for you.
Uh, I wish it had because I will give evil to debt to, uh, credit where credit is due, there is this incredible fucking one shot where it chases ash, the camera chases ash through the cabin, through the back of the cabin and then pulls back out to reveal the cabin from the outside. That is an amazing fucking shot. Amazing one shot. And, um, that's also the moment when you realize that the cabin's tardis, because they're a lot fucking bigger on the inside.
Um, but other than that, I was just going, I mean, I would, I would hold at least from your standpoint as a filmmaker, um, appreciated how much was done with very little money for the first film. You know, they raised that money, basically asking, you know, dentists and other people to, you know, become producers on their show. If they throw in $10,000 into the budget or something. I did appreciate a lot of the set work, a lot of the practical work, um, and how they tried to get creative with it.
Uh, the blood and the light bulb sequences and image that I will never get out of my head because it was just, it was, I looked at that and I went, you know, that's actually really fucking good. Um, and I can't imagine many people being able to do something like that now without there being, oh, you have to do this and you have to do this and jump through this hoop. And, and we have to, you know, work with wiring and bubble, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, why this is my issue with filmmaking nowadays.
Okay. You're hindering creativity because now there are more steps that you have to take in order just to do something so fucking simple. Um, I would agree with you. I think maybe to a point, um, you know, first of all, on bigger sets than ours, you know, when they have more than six people in the crew.
Uh, there's, you know, there's, we've had a lot more than six. I know, I know, um, I, I, for some reason I was thinking of when we shot, uh, Reese's Pieces, uh, a couple of, actually it was about a year ago, a few days ago to the year. Um, and that was a very small crew and which was nice. And, uh, literally the crafty ended up as part of a prop.
Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, it's just a couple of people. And what's the plan when you have a bigger crew though, you're paying people and you're trying to protect jobs in a certain way to say, well, okay, only, you know, grips can come in and do this.
And if you're the director, you're sitting there going, okay, um, can we get this, you know, let me just move this light. You know, and like nine people are like, no, that's my job. And I see where you want to be hands on and I understand the urge, because I want to be hands on with everything as well. But on some level, you sort of have to let the other people do their jobs.
Oh, no, I get that. No, it's, for me, it's more of a case of, um, you want to do something and people are looking at you going, well, you could do that post. We had just sent it over to visual effects or, or, oh, we have to green screen the shit out of this or like get creative guys thinks outside the box. How do we do this in camera instead of having to jump through all those hoops and say, oh, it can't be done because you have to do a lot of visual effect work you can get around doing the post credit, uh, post production visual effect work.
You just got to start using your fucking brain. Yes, I, I'm with you that I will always argue for a, an in-camera practical solution to something versus, uh, well, we can just, you know, if we drop a green screen here, we can see G this thing and then that fix this and post or do this and post. I'm like, that's great. But on a certain level, that's going to look and no matter how good this technology gets, um, it could still be trade that fact that it's a, it's a digital metric rather than something we did, um, practically on sets.
Um, and I'm going to break my vow of not talking about my LA trip for a second because when I went to see one movie at, uh, when I went to see a double feature at the new Beverly, they were car, I'm going to talk a whole lot more about these movies then, but there are two car movies and in one, one of the movies, there was a really good stunt and at the end, everybody applauded and cheered because it was done practically because this was a movie from 1971. There was no other way to have done it. And that's the kind of, that's the kind of craftsmanship I would like to lean on more the practical side of things. And so I'm with you there.
Yeah. We just have to sell it to the people we work with. I'm not going to tell you what movie that was until next week. See, I didn't, uh, but that being said, seeing everything practical, having a tangible feeling to a world, um, it, I think that will always come across more when you're watching it, uh, than visual effects ever could probably one of the reasons why I absolutely love, uh, period pieces and why I love the show.
That is our main discussion. And before we segue to that, one more example, though, that just occurred to me. And it also ties into, Hey, we have a piece of IP. We need to, you know, continue to exploit the Star Wars TV series.
Mandalorian looks fantastic. You know, that opening shot of the very first episode where it's like this wind swept, wintery, uh, planet and everything. And he walks in there and you're like, Oh my gosh, did they go to Iceland to film this or something? And then you find out, Oh, it was all done digitally and that's fine.
It's great. And the volume is a wonderful tool for filmmakers, but watch and or and or they went around the world for a lot of those locations. That's why I love Game of Thrones and I think it lends a certain greater sell in the two to everything in Game of Thrones or even better killing Eve. Every single time they say they're in a city where it'd be Copenhagen or they're in, you know, just some backwater in America or they're fucking there.
Yes. Yeah, they traveled for that show respect indeed. And so let's travel back in time. Oh, so we're going to talk to her now.
Oh, the British episode. Absolutely. The British episode after who as well as a classic. Yeah.
Doctor who had a couple of quick bangers in the middle of the season road. 78 yards, 73 yards. It was amazing. Was great.
I thought bubble and dot was really good. You would think bubble and dot was not going to be all that good. And but it really had something to say as much as I love. Shooty got words for trail of the doctor.
The two doctor light episodes of this season, you know, some of the strong or some of the strongest, I think, because I think it was just Moffat kind of stretching and going crazy with stuff. Moffat didn't do anything or or Davies, excuse me. No, he wrote one episode and he's writing the Christmas episode. I knew he was doing the Christmas one.
Yeah. So that should be fun. Yeah, I'm sure we'll wander back and forth to Doctor who over the next couple of episodes. But yeah, let's let's get to Bridgerton season.
Bridgerton. Three. Lovely. Penelope, our little and second wall flower, our pen of the ton.
Our lady whistle down has finally decided she wants to grow up. And there's going to be a lot of spoilers in this. But as of right now that the second half of the season has been dropped on Netflix a week ago, no, it's been like two weeks ago. I'm sorry.
Yeah. Dropped like right when I was leaving on vacation. But I unplugged from a lot of stuff. So for me, mentally, it's it is like when I got back, I was like, Oh, yeah, I have to catch up on Bridgerton now, don't I?
Yeah. And so, um, but yeah, it was, it was a great season. And I think we've talked about this before. Um, I'm more interested in like the lady whistle down, scold juggery than I am with a lot of the romance plot lines, because for me, there's because of there are comedies of manners in a way that everybody has to kind of talk around their feelings half the time the women don't know how they get pregnant, which just drives me up a wall.
And people don't want to talk about that. That's a historical fact. I know it is, but it's still like, Oh my God. How did we ever crawl?
How do we ever invent computers when we're descended from dummies like these people? We're not descended from dummies. We're descended from the normies. I got the normies.
I know. I know. I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but, um, yeah, this, this episode, I think kind of balanced things because the lady whistle down stuff fed into the love affair story. And I like that because we're seeing how it impacted her, how it impact up and how everything, you know, plays out.
Yeah, before we only got to see one side of the double life. And slowly in season two, we started seeing a little bit of the other side, but not enough to do a full story, I think, on either one until we get to this. And then we get both stories. We get lady whistle down and we get her.
Yes. Um, and I know that they pulled this story forward from the novel series. Yes. Um, because Nicola Coughlin really wanted to do this because I don't want to say she was brave to do nudity because that sounds condescending in a way.
And I don't want to say, say that anyway, that's kind of body shaming. Um, but I mean, she, you told me she herself was very vocal about wanting to do what's the story required of her. So, and that scene, uh, both sequences in that book, the carriage sequence, as well as the mirror sequence are lifted straight from the book. Um, they are very important sequences in the book.
Um, I kind of like that they didn't, it works better. I think in the book that it would have played out in the script, uh, by the end of the carriage ride when he goes, Penelope, are you going to marry me or not? She fell out of the carriage flat on her face. I don't, I don't think that would play a slapstick moment.
Yeah, no, it would not have worked. Not with this couple. It would have killed the, uh, the tension there. Any, any of the other feathering tinsisters.
Well, Penelope, we never get a slapstick moment from hers. It's almost like they're not fucking related. I know. It's, which, which makes me wonder about her father.
Her father was the same as the other two sisters. And that could be an interesting story. I don't know. I've not read any of the books.
I've not investigated that, but it would be an interesting story to possibly have. Um, yeah, cause Penelope has always been kind of like the one character in that family that they had, that the story, I think has respect for the two sisters are idiots and are rightly portrayed that way. And their husbands are nannies and income moves this season. And the mother is always a conniving bitch.
I, by the time we got to the second half of this season, I had so much respect for Portia, like I've always had a little bit, I don't like her methods, but I understand why she does what she does. Yeah. You understand why she does it. And I respect for it.
I just never liked her as a character, but those last couple of episodes, one secret started coming out and things are, we're unraveling and she doesn't quite say it. She's proud, but she is proud of her daughter that her daughter was able to go out and amass a nice, tidy sum of money doing this thing, turning what she saw as a weakness. Her daughter's kind of invisibility in society and how she took it and turned it into an asset. Yeah.
And I hope that if there is a season four, they haven't announced one yet. Have they? Oh, yeah. Oh, they did.
Okay. Yeah, they renewed season three and four together. Oh, okay. Okay.
I was not aware of that. Yeah. But I hope one season four comes around. Nobody has hit the giant reset button and reset the mother back to sniping at her daughter, reset the older sisters as being ditzes, because even by the end, in that last episode, when the sisters hold their ball, we suddenly see them kind of like ditzy as the mother, as Lady Featherington says, you're as you're out of control, like a child who's just had his first bite of cake and it's, but, but through that, I think we see them gain a respect for their younger sister for Penelope.
And we see their husbands actually not be complete nincompoops. Is the only word I could find to describe. I will admit, the feathering tinsisters were so much comedy this season and not in a bad way. I, I popped a really, I popped the bottle of champagne for each part of the season when it dropped.
And I sat there for four hours, my champagne just enjoying it. And when they did the, when he inserts himself and sets himself away, I was choking on my freaking shimmy. It's just like, what do you and Mr. Finch do?
We kiss and then he makes a strange noise and has to go change his bridges. Yes. I was like, oh my God. Yeah, it's funny, but on a certain level, I'm just like, oh my God, he feels so funny.
I died and it was delivered so perfectly. But we, but we kind of see a better side to them by the end of that ball. Oh, yeah. Definitely.
I kind of like that growth. I don't want to go back to them being, you know, the comic, the dumb comic relief and there's a coda on the show too, that if we didn't have it, I think the show would have ended fine. If that was the last episode of a series finale, it would work great. Maybe show them having the babies a year later.
What have you? Um, and I think it's going to be weird to see how they try to go forward from this point with anything involving lady was on that because how good is a gossip columnist if everybody knows who the writer is, because ultimately that's going to be just people trying to, uh, plant stories for their own advantage. And it's, it changes the dynamic and interests of that story. Well, maybe that is part of the, the drama for the next season is, how does she surf the echelons of knowing what is real and what is not?
Oh, yeah. I'm sure that's going to be particularly when she is now, no, she's off the marriage mark and she is, um, you know, running a household. She's away from it all now. Um, uh, I need to really talk about Benedict this season, one of the okay, Richard and brothers.
Yes. We will get to call in in a bit, ladies and gentlemen, keep your shirts on or don't, you know, we'll get there. So Benedict has some serious growth. Yes.
Yeah. Um, I'm fine with that. I'm sure some people were like, Oh, do we have to do that? Um, and I was like, well, yeah, why not?
Because he's always been the one who was the most open-minded to begin with. And kind of stuck, but Richard and became woke. Well, because now he's gay. I know he's taking advantage of his position.
He's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's mystic. Yeah. And that's fine. That's an interesting idea, um, especially playing that against the society that, well, 95% of the people don't know where babies come from, apparently.
Well, they don't know where the babies come on. They had no television back then. They fucked a lot. I guess.
And they got they got creative with it. It was only the maidens who weren't supposed to know these things. Once you were married, believe me, that's all I talked about. I guess.
And that seems like, I mean, it's a lifestyle I would find incredibly chasing as you know, I would not be one for like, okay, we're going to sit around with our inherited wealth and make babies and march up and down the lawn here and be proper about everything. I don't think I would survive well in that kind of environment. Well, on the upside, you don't have to tell your boss to go fuck off because you are your own boss. That's true.
So yeah, points in that. That being said, in season one, Benedict had a lot of fun time with Madam Delacroix and a few other artists have known right now and at parties at their house. So yeah, we already kind of got the idea that he was he was he was he didn't stick, but I think he's lost each season. I've noticed before we get to their great leading position, like for example, Colin, last season was about him finding himself when he got back from Greece and trying to fit in again and dealing with Marina and moving on from that and growing the fuck up.
Last season, Benedict got a gut punch about his art and that was the one thing I think he always had some semblance of confidence in. And then to find out that his position was paid for him and he didn't actually get in there on merit. I think that was one of the biggest punches to his confidence and he's been trying to find himself ever since. So he was looking for acceptance.
He's looking in the wrong places. Yes. He's he's going off the rails here a little it's growth, but I think he has to go through this in order to come out stronger on the other end. OK, then let me ask you this.
When he reaches that realization, maturity points, you know, kind of end of that portion of his character arc. Would it be better? Is it a better story choice for him to remain by, if you will, or does he decide, no, only like late, only like the ladies. What's the better way to resolve that?
Because I can see where you could get some backlash if you resolve it one way. Um, we'll get to that question because I think that question is better posed for another character in a moment. OK, but here I would definitely say I know based off of the book, he ends up with a woman by the name of Sophie Beckett and it is when he sees her. It's like love at first sight kind of thing, but it's interesting because then he as he pursues her, he wants her to be his mistress, which I think is going to be an interesting dynamic to come out of a out of the end of the season where he's an obvious hedonist and, you know, by and then he says, I, I feel like I just, you know, found this and I don't want to give it up yet by settling down and being in a relationship.
That's what he tells Tilly. He's enjoying his new found freedom and his wild side. So then to have to meet Sophie and all of a sudden, bam, how's it going to deal with it then? That's true.
I'm asking more to the point that oftentimes when there's a bi character who ultimately settles down with somebody in the opposite sex, there's a pushback from some people in the LGBT community that, oh, they're OK to be bi for a while, but ultimately we have to push them into a heteronormative relationship, which I would say is bullshit because if you're bi, you're going to be attracted to either sex, but ultimately love and marriage is not just about attraction on a surface level, depending on on the other person's sex. So yeah, if you made ultimately made a connection, a real love connection, which is what these stories are about here in Bridgerton, you know, a love match, then it shouldn't matter if they ultimately wind up in a heteronormative relationship or not. Down the road, I find that that question is going to be posed about a particular character. OK, so I'm rushing things a bit.
Sorry. Oh, no, this is not book canon. This is going to be show canon. Oh, OK.
Interesting. Francesca. Yeah, yeah, OK, so even if you hadn't read the books and you're like, OK, I'm curious. I just want to Google this character.
You've probably seen everywhere exactly who this character is and why they matter so much and why this is going to be an interesting storyline that they have decided to change. As if you had been watching the show by the end of the season, Francesca Bridgerton, the middle child, yes, yes, very much a middle child. I love that they kind of as a middle child. Yes.
I kind of love that they play her as slightly on the spectrum as well. Ended up with John Sterling, the Earl of Kilmartin. Also very kind of quite possibly also on the spectrum as well, just slightly. And in the final moments, this is after her mom had had a conversation to her about when she first met her husband.
It was love at first sight. Sparks, who I forgot my own name and her mom, Violet, praises Francesca for teaching her that love doesn't always have to be like that. Sometimes it can be the slow burn. You can take your time about it.
You can find other ways of speaking to each other, sometimes in silence. And I love that conversation. And within the last few minutes of the episode, John introduces Francesca to his cousin, the Kayla. And what happened?
Sploosh, she got her own name. Yes, yes. It was it was very much a, oh, that's interesting. The reason why that is so interesting is in the books.
Sorry, spoilers. John passes away very suddenly, not even a year after their marriage. And it takes her a little while before she comes back to life again. But then she marries Michael Sterling, the next Earl, his cousin.
Oh, so they've gender-spropped the character interesting. And obviously you can't marry a woman in this time period. No, no. So that that's going to be very interesting to see how it plays out.
So if you've been thinking, I'm going to get ahead of this show and read some of these books. It's not going to help yet. Yeah, some of it will. Some of it won't wait.
Or at least as you're watching the show, then you'll be intrigued enough to go, huh, how they're going to play this out then? So that'll also keep you invested and involved. Eloise thoughts, Eloise. I always like to read her friendship with Penelope.
So the whole being bitchy to each other, which happens in friendships every now. I was glad to see that that kind of got fixed at the end. And Eloise is still kind of like, yeah, I don't care about any of this nonsense. She still remains a character identified with that on certain levels.
But she's going to Scotland. And she's mellowing out. Yeah, she's not as militant as she was. I'm sure she's going to have a fun time in Scotland and maybe need a guy, you know, the head of the stables or something at the castle that they're going to.
And I can tell you who she ends up with. I know that. Let me have some mysteries to watch for. Well, you already met him.
I will say that. OK, then you actually met him in season one and season two. OK. Now you're crazy.
We rock. Who was it? Who was it? The printer boy was it?
No. OK. That'd be interesting. It's definitely a member of the song.
OK. We'll just leave it at that then. OK. But but I think, you know, her character is kind of growing.
It should be interesting to see how her friendship kind of evolves and how her own ideas about marriage maybe change a little bit when she gets back and sees Penelope happy and with a baby and she starts to be high on the fun ants. So let me, you know, take a little time with the baby and then maybe that change. Maybe she gets the baby fever. I don't know.
I just I thoroughly enjoy that one of the the factors that has been playing in for Eloise's story this year is starting to realize how alone she is with everyone that, you know, she she grew up with going off and getting married and leaving her behind and she's going to start feeling stuck. Yeah. I really I really enjoyed that a little bit. I think I think even to a certain point when Penelope gets engaged to Colin, I don't even think it matters that she's Lady Whistledown.
I don't think it matters that, you know, she is engaged to his her her brother. I think the main issue was you're leading me and you're making him leave me. I think there was a little bit of that in. Yeah.
Yeah. I can see that, you know, because she always leaned on him and she always leaned on her. Yeah. But I think when she comes back, she's going to be hanging out of their place a lot metaphorically.
Yeah. So that's and that's fine. I didn't I did not enjoy the relationship between her and Cressa the Calper. Honestly, in the last episode, if somebody had said about the whole thing with Aressa trying to blackmail them and stuff, if somebody just said, I think we need to murder her, I would have been on board.
I would have been totally on board. Even even if the show did something as hacky as, oh, she's on her way to the queen and she's like walking down the street and a runaway horse tramples her to death, I would have been like, okay, that's my way to resolve it and couldn't happen to a nicer character. So in the story, Cressa has already married and I think she's possibly widowed at this point and needs the money desperately. So yeah, she did come forward and say, I'm Lady Whistledown for the reward.
I kind of like I like the story that they made up here because it gives her more of a reason to feel scared because she has more on the line of, I want to get the hell out of this nonsense and go live in Paris or wherever and just be my own, be a leader, yeah, be my own mistress instead of having everyone tell me what to do. And I have the greatest respect for that, but it was not done right. And she's not smart enough to try to pull it off. Sorry.
So fucking idiot. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah.
To the heel turn from just a shrewish idiot mean girl, the mean girl of the tawn to the conniving, scheming, Machadvellian bitch of the tawn. It didn't quite work, which is why I think that was the point. Yeah, which is why I was, well, yeah, because ultimately it blows up on her face, but which might have led me to want her to be trampled by horses during the whole thing, I don't know, but but overall, um, as we start seeing, obviously, we Simon and Daphne aren't, I mean, Daphne came back for a little bit in season two and then passed the torch to Anthony and Kate to carry on. Yeah.
Um, but Anthony and Kate seem to be, you know, heading off to India for a while as well, um, is it a good idea that we slowly shed these older earlier season couples off of the show entirely? Does it feel like that? Because then we can concentrate on, oh, yeah, the kids are getting older now. They can actually be characters instead of like, you know, two kids running around playing and no, no, they can start, we start seeing a little bit more out of them this season.
Yeah. No, I, I'm completely down for that. And to be honest, it also makes just logistical sense because there's a logistical problem like wrangling of that entire cast and wrangling Jonathan Bailey with all the projects he's got going on in Simone Ashley and all that was now that Bailey just got that. He put out what four different projects this year.
He did, um, he did, um, he did a, he's doing a play in the West end. He's doing Richard the second Wicked comes out at the end of the year. He's just been cast as the lead in the next Jurassic Park-ish film. Like he's, he's cranking stuff out.
He's got a fucking career outside of this. He's not going to keep coming back, um, to keep playing Anthony Bridgerton. Um, but I'm looking forward to it. They do decide to shut off those two as they go off to India to see Penelope and Colin take the mantle and speaking of it is time for the man of the hour.
Colin Bridgerton. Oh, okay. God damn. It's just the amount of magic that somehow Shonda rhymes puts into giving her, her leads, their glow ups, both the men and the women.
It's she needs to be burned at the stake as a witch. I'm sorry, but Anthony Bridgerton in the first season with those really horrible sideburns and the tassel hair and all that. It was just like, no, and then he shows up in season two with a shine. There was, there's just something about him.
He was so clean and there, he grew up and then they took a Colin from boy to dandy to sexy pirate, baby. Okay. I mean, if you look at his costume and it is very kind of like he just stepped off a ship with the long hair ish, yeah, the hair, the way it's done, his long coat, the waistcoat. It's, yeah.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, Colin right now is giving the most I can get my hands dirty kind of feel. I'm not just going to sit back in my castle.
It is a when I want something, I'm going to roll up my sleeve, show off my very impressive forearms and I'm going to grab it. And I thoroughly enjoyed that there was a little tongue and cheek joke about the glow-ups right at the beginning of the season in India, the carriage when he finds he sits with Benedict and and Anthony as he's getting changed in the before heading off to the ceremony for Francesca. And they're like, in what foreign land did you get so study, brother? Yeah, you got sturdy.
I have a feeling that when he traveled, he didn't ply upon his nobility. Yeah, if we were if we were to phrase it, that way, like if he was on a boat, he was he wasn't just sitting in his cab until he got to the station. He was probably out there working, okay, can I give a hand? You know, show me how to, you know, hoist a sail in a mizen mast or other nautical words.
I don't know. But yeah, yeah, he he didn't just travel to broaden the mind. He traveled to broaden his shoulders as well. Oh, I think he also traveled to to broaden.
Yeah, I think about that for a second. That was no dear. Thank you. All right, back to the regularly scheduled program here.
So sploosh. The second time we said solution is episode that makes it the third. We need to instigate like maybe a one slush rule for episode or something. I don't know.
But then again, this is Bridgerton, which is anything about Bridgerton. It's all about, you know, hotties, hotties, hotties, the carriage sequence, the mirror sequence. They broke a leg off the chaise lounge doing that. And one of the most beautiful little acting detail moments is in the carriage scene.
And that was not told. He was not told to do that. It wasn't in the script. He just did it on his own spoilers, guys.
But if you haven't seen it, so obviously he fingers and that would be yes. But then he reaches up and fixes her dress and her hair sweeping her hair over her shoulder and pulling the shoulder of a dress back up when they reach Bridgerton house, but the fingers in which he does it with are his ring finger and his thumb. I appreciate that so freaking much that he did not want to soil her. And that lit so much on on social media, on TikTok, on Instagram, that they were like, oh, my God, he didn't want to get the panisti juice all over her.
TikTok strikes me as a sometimes horny place. So I can see it was on Instagram and Facebook, too. Like I saw everywhere. And but I love the attention to detail in sequences like that.
And it just it shows so much respect for the characters and how how they cherish someone else. I love Colin's Trek. He is a trek through this season of trying to figure out where he stands and knowing that everything that he has done shadows in comparison to his wife, finding out that she's a lady, whistle down. And I mean, obviously that plays against contemporary mores where the man is the bread winner and the man should be the one who's most successful and the women are just, you know, baby factories, but that he comes to accept it and embrace it even, I think.
And ultimately, she helps him with his writing. Yeah. And they become a real couple. She's the one who tells him to turn them into they're a modern day couple now who are now trapped in this time period, unfortunately.
And not a lot of people are going to understand that maybe that leads to some drama over the next season or more. One of one of the last moments in the book is when she's editing his stories for him and she's like scratching stuff out and he's sitting off to the side as he's still writing and looks up at her. It was like, she's like, no, this doesn't work. You got to change this.