I need sports to have to play the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan.
I am an editor at the Ringer.com and joining me in the studio, my vagrant bird has come home. It's category world. Straight. Hold on, just rub it a little.
Just a little. Just a little cold water. I don't know if that works. You know me, I'm pretty emo.
I cannot wait to get to the bottom with Brad Inglesby at some point about whether that trick works. Well, the thing is, part exploding is that like a loose term for it or is it, here's why it's a winning strategy. If it ever didn't work. We wouldn't know.
We wouldn't know. We don't have that testimony. That's true. It has 100%.
It's on the other side of that information. Greenwald, great to see you. It's Monday. We're here to talk about task, episode five.
To be fair, it's not Monday. We are recording. It's a little bit in advance. We've got some personal travel coming up, but we wanted to make sure that we had our recap episode all locked down.
That's cool. And boy, oh boy. This is an interesting one. Broadly speaking.
Okay. First of all, let me just say I love this episode. Okay, thank God. Yeah.
I was worried you were about this at me. I was just going to say that, broadly speaking, if someone perhaps wearing a hockey mask and a recreational bulletproof vest were to come up to me. One of my hitters. And they were like, Hey man, like I thought there was going to be some somewhere gun talk in this episode.
I thought we were going to, it was going to call me. Well, I think we're. What to you? I think that the way that they did it is essentially like cutting, they cut it and they'd have a cliffhanger at the most amazing moment at the end of this episode, which is called vagrants.
And which finds Robbie and Tom finally meeting the Ruffalo Pelfry conversation that we've been waiting all season for. Just a week ago, Mark Ruffalo told us the characters never crossed paths. But this is basically what I think Ingles beat us very well and what the show is on a mission to do, which is to put on equal footing and equal standing the human element of the show. But what is this character's arc and journey?
What are they getting out of this experience? What are you getting out of this experience watching them? As well as what if we put heat and delco? I am interested that you found this episode to be more bark than bite, even a little bit.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I turn expectations. I said people might think that. Oh, this is how you say, this is Vice President Ryan. Yeah.
People have been telling me. I just say, the guy came up to me and was just like, damn, do you not thought they were going to get after him. They're on the way to the thing. They're on the way to the thing.
Sir, sir. I thought they were going to get after it. In Chris Ryan's America, people don't get after it anymore. No.
Because everyone's fine. I had that feeling more about the previous week because it was all tying, it was all heading towards the park and I thought the park was going to be something. I was thrilled with this episode, mainly because the only fireworks I was hyper-invested in was Robbie. Did you happen to happen right here?
My heart was exploding. Yeah. With Tom and Robbie crossing paths. Yeah.
When we spoke to a bunch of the creatives last week at Videots and Brad said that, you know, he took that very seriously. You made the joke. I'm going to find you a follow-up joke if necessary. That was going to do it in a diner.
I think that was your joke that I stole. We were reading from each other's place. Oh, that was pretty good. That was kind of like the best case scenario of Liam Cohen and Robert Salah.
You know what I mean? It's all within the rules. We're all sniffing out each other's scheme. I'm glad that we're the place to come before for eight day old coordinator beef.
I know. I know. We do not cheer. You know me for a long time.
Yeah. And during the majority of our time knowing each other, you know that I am an absolute heart-exploding sicko for our local teams, but generally don't care about sports. This is the year something switched where I have now developed. I think you've had this for a while.
I now have kind of a cranial itch where I'm like, is there a game on right now? I can tell I could have a game on. I can tell. Just any kind of game.
I would watch it. I have become the target audience for ESPN, the Ocho, in my quarantine to Ocho year. I know. Because you're just like Blake Snell's arm slot analyst.
It's crazy. Really strikes a lot of people out. I turned that game on. I don't want to get too distracted.
But your relationship to other teams is so pure. It's like a child like Kyle. Wow. He threw that ball far.
He shot it out of the stadium. I turned on game one of Dodgers Reds. Like when it was already six nothing. Yeah.
This is for the real like seam heads. Yes. You and Greg do away. That's focus.
Anyway, anyway, anyway, we're talking about fireworks. We're talking about hard exploding. Let me say what time Robbie. Here's the thing that I admire most about this episode before we get into the specifics.
I think that it's something that real long distance runners develop. I say real because I run all the time. I don't think I have this, which is a kind of innate sixth sense of the distance left to run. And you're aware of what's in your tank.
You're aware of when you can push it. You're aware of when you might need to refuel and you carry that rhythm with you from the starters gone all the way through the finish line. Watching the way this seven episode season has been constructed to me is a masterclass in the writing version of that sixth sense. I feel like Brad is pushing all the right buttons at all the right times and bringing those characters together in an unexpected way early, even though it is kind of late in the, you know, in the scheme of the show felt both surprising and natural that we are midway through the fifth episode and all the cards are on the table now.
Like everybody knows who was doing the robbery. Everybody's in search of people. We're also everybody is also aware of who's been selling them out. Well, not everybody.
We are. We are. We are. What's the sort of storyteller who knows when to hold them knows when to fall.
It's going to show the cards to advance the story that he wants to tell and there are countless examples of shows that I feel like at this moment are either too precious with secrets or telegraphing too early that it's going to be something bigger, the cliffhanger blow into something else entirely. This feels expert to me. And so much so that I had that secondary level of engagement with a show where if Robby had killed Tom in that moment when he's walking him out of the car, if Tom had taken a shot at Robby at the end of the water's edge, I would have said, Holy shit, but I also would have leaned and been interested. Like there was a version in my brain of a show where one of these two leads exited the show.
Because there's so much still there. That is such a sweet spot for the audience to be in. And it's very, very hard to shout out Liam Cohen and scheme that up from your desk two or three years before you even shoot the thing. Well, here's the thing too.
It's like maybe if the show was set in Cincinnati and had different actors. Right, I'd be like, yo, okay, let's go. Let's get to what we're getting to. But because it's pelfery and because of the way that he performs, especially for the last two episodes, but very specifically this episode and two scenes, one, the scene with Aaron, where he finds out the cliff's been killed.
Which you have seen in countless crime shows and crime movies is the main character finds out that the walls are closing in, that the only partner he had is gone, that he's out of options. And the way that pelfery acts that moment, that revelation, because it's not just my friend died. It's the surrogate brother that was standing in for the brother that these guys also killed is now gone. In the same way.
Yes. And I think that there's this moment where Perry refers to Robbie as crazy Robbie. We've never heard that before. And that's really all you need to know about the character.
You know, I was thinking about like, no, does this guy like cocky? Does he like to go to the movies? Like, I don't really give a shit. It's like just having a motorcycle gang president think that he's crazy Robbie.
Incredible. It's like, yeah, this guy's a little like, maybe he's the kind of guy who thinks you can just run away to Canada with a million dollars in fentanyl money and a family that's not really yours. And it's such a smart, that's such a smart observation because we meet characters cold and we believe what we are shown. Or we print on them because you and I are both like enough from the area of where he's from.
They were like, oh, I wonder if he did this and I wonder if he does that. Yeah, right. But we don't know. And what that one throwaway line from Perry suggests is that maybe Robbie and his brother were balanced each other out.
Maybe Billy was the together one. Maybe he was the planning one who in some ways anchored Robbie to a reality. And once he was taking off the board that Robbie spun out, we don't know any of that. I have another moment of help for you, excellence that I feel is related.
I'll just, I think that the scene in the car with Tom and Robbie can go wrong or can become cliche so easily. Like you strive to have a moment where the cop and the robber are confront one another. And you know, we have these examples of things like heat where you're just like, well, how does it get better than that? And I'm not saying that this was as good as the diner scene and he doesn't really matter.
But what they talked about was true to the kind of people that I think that those characters are. Yeah. And again, there's the efficiency of some of the more ambitious writing is really shocking and really impressive. That they connect it on a level of humanity.
They recognize some innate good in the other, which then will be reflected in everything else that happens. I want to go back to, oh, just the other self-reseeing I was thinking of similarly was when he meets with Ray's wife. This episode I realized was played by the great Mickey Sumner, daughter of Singh and star of Francis Hall. She's in Francis Hall.
Yeah, one of the first stars. Oh, she's great in this, especially like just a remarkable, memorable face. When he says, no, no, that's not true. Ray Texa Cliff last night and you see Robbie thinking in real time.
Tell an actor to think on camera. That's really hard. I believe that that's what he said. I love that scene.
Another like kind of like, so Shelly is going to get him just the minute and again. I think it is the saddest Bruce Springsteen song I've ever seen on screen where it's just like, these two people are just fucking at options and they're going to do something so stupid and desperate because they do not see another way out. Shelly would probably rather die getting involved in a major fentanyl deal than stay with Ray. Or Robbie.
Or Robbie is out of time living with Sam eating crispy pancakes and may have taken care of all his kids. Do you know what's so, one of the more heartbreaking moments is a small one when he walks into Freddie's dining room after Freddie's already been like, here's how we're going to play this. He walks in, those sad eyes are, they're just puppy-dolled. He's all themselves out.
He's like, he just walks in with a face that says, will you adopt me? Will you please take me in? The thing you said about how we would feel about the show if it was in a different place, I think is important one to address because we are obviously the mark for the show. And we love all of the references.
There was a crazy one today. Oh, oh, some character was taking the like in a hospital. That's right. That's what they stitched on my broken wrist real good there.
And so we do love that extra layer of familiarity with the show and it vibrates on our soul frequencies. But I think I would love it as much if it was in Cincinnati made by a creator from Cincinnati. Because there's a. And Shawn's insanity.
Because in addition to the beautiful production and the acting and everything and the writing, it has the two things that matter most to me. It has just diamond sharp specificity, the names of the hospital, the order of the diner, whatever it may be. But it also has this generosity of spirit that gives humanity to every character. Every character.
And whether it's Shelley in every moment. It's really up here. Similarly, like the moment, it's a kind of scene that maybe if it was a more traditional writer's room, might get kind of steamrolled. It might not be room for it.
Someone might not fight for it. Or in the edit, a weaker show runner might say, yeah, we don't have time for that. But the scene with Sarah, right? Is Tom's daughter?
Yes. The scene with Sarah. Oh, Sarah, the one. Sarah is my mother.
And Jean Emily have a sort of little bit of a taunts. Yeah, true. And Sarah's telling story. It's not really starting.
No, but Sarah reveals something yourself. It's vulnerable in a way. And it's just like, you know when you see, you go to a museum and it's an exhibit of an artist and there's like the beautiful canvas of the painting. And sometimes if it's a retrospective, there's this small sketch that they put in the room next to it or next to it or near it.
So you can see how it started. That little bit of Sarah's backstory felt like a pencil sketch. But it hung in the same museum, if that makes sense. I found myself riveted by it.
I felt there was truth in it. And it opened up my heart to a character that was not, it doesn't enter the stage as someone you're particularly excited to see, frankly. I've continued to read the Richard Warr book, falling upward. Seriously.
Which is actually I find to be, as a not particularly spiritual person, it's been somewhat interesting to read it in the aftermath of my mom's passing and everything. But there's a lot of stuff about storytelling in the book as well. And the usefulness of myth and the usefulness of storytelling to a society or to an individual. And I couldn't, I couldn't have noticed some of the very old, deeply underpinned storytelling mechanisms that Inglesby is engaging with Robbie going back to a childhood home in Anali High River in the Poconos to have this final reckoning with his past, with his anger, with his soiled future now.
And I think that's my favorite shit, is when you've got something that's like, this story could only be told here and in this way. But the story is the story we've been telling ourselves since Statasie is about a guy trying to get home. And this one makes it really significant writer in television today is that you could spot some loose ends here and there, but he's writing from a very deep place, I think, about a place that he knows very, very well. You can be successful as a screenwriter if you are incredibly good at genre or structure, or dialogue, or form.
And I think you can be successful, maybe with a lower ceiling as a writer, if you are able to passionately advocate for the things that interest you and that you believe in. The real masters of the form, I think, are able to take that fountain of like true inspiration and then funnel it into a shape that is pleasing. It's popular, there's entertaining. That's what Mad Men was, that's what Breaking Bad was.
And I'm not putting task on the level of that, but in terms of the project and the way that Brad approached the job, I think that is what he is doing here. I think that's what he is capable of. We were, this is not an anyway intended as like a drive by or a stray, but it's an interesting contrast with the way we were discussing Alien Earth in that we could tell Noah, all his interests, his passions, what moved him in the story, which by the way is a major thing to be able to do to communicate that. I think ultimately we were mid on the show because the vessel and the message were misaligned at times.
This is a successful example of them being aligned. And it's not easy to do. Yeah, let's talk about some of the more significant moments of the episode, I think. You ever been to Bushkill Falls?
Well, I did Delaware River canoeing, but I've never, I don't really think I spent a lot of recreational time, honestly, in the polka-dos to be completely candid with you. Yeah. So that far up 100 is a little bit of a mystery to the kids. I'm a vet, I'm a vet up there.
Okay, when I was a kid, my husband. I was a bird and then you could go North or what? Well, my grandparents were coming from Wolf's Bear. And so there were a couple summers on the kid.
Great steps on Wolf's Bear. Yeah, totally. The Serengeti of Pennsylvania. There were a couple, one or two summers and I was really little, they rented a small house in the summer.
I remember this is classic only childhood. I remember being there with my parents and my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and like my grandparents, friends, Julian and Miriam. It was not another kid's sight, not another kid within miles. Within miles, what did you do?
It was like, I found some, when I was home, in Philadelphia recently, I found some photo albums at this time and I'll say one thing. The adults seemed like they were having a hell of a time. They like, my grandfather traveled with a wet bar. It was like bloody merry time or whatever.
And then like, I'm sort of off to the side with a transformer or a balloon. Like that's my experience. I remember picking Blackberry's once. And then actually my other Bushkill Falls memories I'll never forget is I do remember my parents taking me to the Falls.
There's a few waterfalls up there. And there's like steps to climb, not pave steps, but like wood framed, cut out little dirt path up to the waterfall. And my parents are not, this one, which camera, this will not surprise anyone. Not really the outdoorsy type.
Right. And I remember it was unique that we were doing this trip because I think Jim and the martinis were being served back at the rental. But I remember we walked up in such an odd way. And then after the waterfall, I said, why were we walking with me in the middle?
And my mom was like, I told your father to do that because in case you fell forward or backwards, you wouldn't die? Is that how steep it was? No, but my takeaway from that wasn't waterfalls are beautiful. It's that I'm one false step away from instant death.
Let me get back to my balloon and my fucking care bear. I thought it was a transformer. I both. I only child, I contained multitude.
Okay, so a couple of big moments from this episode. Razzo Grasso. We called it. And again, he withheld his sacred life force from Lizzy.
That's a strange look joke. I know, but look, people out there, casuals know your feelings about Lizzy. Yeah, I'm very happy about that. The back clip of you taking a knee is at, with less check, 2.6 million views.
Yes. So people know what you're about. Yes. He, I was wondering what you thought of the scene between him and Jason in so much as what you think their dynamic was.
Like, you know, I'm sure we'll get, we have two more episodes. So I'm sure we will get like the backstory on Grasso. Why he's doing this? Yeah.
Are they childhood friends? Was he in the gang? Like, you know, is his dad Perry? I don't know.
But like, what did you think of their dynamic? Cause I thought Jason being like, just remember who fuck you're talking to. Yeah. Obviously indicated that he felt like he had Grasso in kind of a headlock.
But Grasso is also like, do what I'm telling you to do. You know? Yes. His feeling, his behavior suggests that, you know, it's typical for thrillers.
Like I'm in control of this actually. You know, which I thought was interesting. He's also, you know, this is not unexpected for the show. Complicated enough that I think that his narrative of himself, that he's a good guy, is plausible.
Right? That he's just trying to keep, keep everybody's motors running. Yeah. Like keep, keep everyone alive, keep the system in place.
I don't think we're going to find out that he's a sociopath. No, perhaps. But I think it's going to be something more like either, I grew up in this world or they had something on me. I will say of all of the many characters that we spend time with are get slight POV moments with, Jason, I think is the least sketched out.
I understand his motivations and his brute force, but in terms of like even Perry has some moments of certainly not grace, but regrets. For Greg, yeah. You know, and you see the complicated emotions. Yeah, we'll get to Perry's.
And we're rolling inside of him. Jason so far is more of a blunt instrument. And that may change his things before. I guess the question remains, I mean, I guess that makes that moment of Grasso not sleeping with Lizzie like, I guess thoughtful.
Or we're seeing it differently. Because now you know that there's something about him, his interest in Tom's prepast in the priesthood. There's something about like his kind of sweetness is, it doesn't seem like an act. It seems like maybe that's the person he wants to be.
And he knows he's not. He is attempting to connect himself to Tom's story in the sense that he also feels like he's a fallen angel, right? That's the vibe I get, cumulatively from his behavior with Tom and in light of what happens in this episode. He's trying to sketch out a narrative where both he and Tom tried to stay to something pure, but then like had to get down in the muck.
It seems like he's a bit further down in the muck. Then Tom is, but I think that's what he, that feels like his yearning. Head fake with McGinty then from the last episode, or do you feel like she could still be? I think she, I think, yeah, I don't think it's a head fake.
I feel like we weren't wrong to underline the moment when Grasso says some lady interviewed me. So lady interviewed me and then it's after Tom leaves and says I think I have a problem on the task force and she's like, no, you don't. Then she calls presumably this guy who comes in that she then mocks for not wearing a sufficiently summer casual outfit. Glad you mentioned that one of the best moments in the episode.
There's still room for Loles here at Task HQ, thank God. Yes, Clinton's got him. She's dishing him. She's all fired out.
Like she's the, I'm an emotional eater. The line was great. Her going into that Starbucks bagel, like that sad kind of like her morning. Yeah.
But I presume now that the phone call that she made was to somebody in her office to interrogate the, to revet the people on the task force. And then now something with Grasso is pinged. That doesn't stop her from then spending the day essentially with him after picking him up. Yes.
You know, and she never seems within the car, she doesn't seem to indicate any knowledge of Grasso's duplicity. I mean, like just on a fundamental level what you're saying, this is also what I mean about why I'm so engaged by it. It's the humanity. This is a show with a body count, but that respects the severity and finality of death.
Like people are double crossing each other, but for the most part, nobody wants, nobody wants to trail the corpses. Yes. And it allows the deaths when they occur to be. And think about like, all these things are connected to each other and really going back to my point about like, this is an old story.
This is about a guy avenging his brother's death. And the brother and this girl, Aaron, had like a love that was. So pure. But it was, you know, it was doomed.
It was a doomed love affair. Like that, like Jason is psychotic and is gonna get violent. And that's, you know, like, this is the ripple out from those, those original sins in some way. How much of this would you do for me?
I was gonna ask you a question. Yeah. Later in the episode, earlier in the episode, rather I believe when Perry visits Maeve. Yeah.
He's happy to see her. Do you have a picture of me on your fridge? Thank you. I wanna talk about this.
Photographs are doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it. It's really hard to write stuff that connects dots or people something to do when they're feeling sticking right out there on the fridge.
Just talking out, it's like Robbie Cliff, best boys for abs. Robbie Robin with Cliff. I have like, there's one picture of me currently up in my house. Oh.
In the entire house. It's a Polaroid of me in the Criterion closet. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
How often do you put it back up after Phoebe takes it down? She doesn't take it down. She just has a different aesthetic. It doesn't involve your face.
Yeah. I guess I've just never really thought about putting pictures of myself up. Here's the biggest follow up. How many pictures of you to be?
That's what I'm saying. I feel like Phoebe wouldn't mind if this picture me. Yeah. I think if I had like me and the boys, but it would be like, I don't know if I'd put it on the fridge.
Right. So inevitably, there would be like, you know, a takeout menu from the FUS, the FUS, the FUS, the FUS, FFA, or something, blocking my face. Yeah, probably. The way you get away with, sorry, I like that restaurant.
I think the way you get away with just a pro tip, putting out pictures of yourself in your home, is you have children and then you frame the ones that you're also in. Gotcha. And then everyone's like, look at these kids. I bet you're in the background like, you know, Lampan, across a Nova style.
I'll make sure I have kids. I'm like, dude, I got picture of my kids. I'm weird about that. I've got some cute ones.
They're very photogenic. One day you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time.
TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. We covered Shelley and Robbie's scene. I get the plan.
So talk me through this. Freddy is going to essentially set Robbie up and take double the sort of commission on that. Or is he getting it? 100% of it.
I go away from the fentanyl. You sure? Okay, right? I'm sure I'll get explained a little bit more clearly.
I mean, I grasp what's happening even if I don't understand the details. When Jason calls Perry, he's like, he had me over a barrel. He needed double. I was just a double of the money that you get for selling the fentanyl, I guess.
Or double the percentage they'd already agreed to. Did they agree to anything? I thought they were going, remember in the whole story? Yeah, because that's right.
Because he's like, I either pissed on you or you agree to my price. And those guys were like, make a fair point. One point I would like to make that is, it is uncanny that both task and dope thief built to a collision between more factions than each faction realizes in a quarry. Like that is bizarre.
I would also say that the differences in the execution of those scenes also speaks to the essential difference between the shows. So I won, we were taking quite seriously. One we thought had some good performances. Sure.
Because I don't think you watched enough. I watched a couple of Quorries, yeah. No, not the show quarry. I mean, dope thief.
Oh, sorry. Yeah. My bad. The dope thief scene in a quarry where a character who drives them to do the job.
Decides like takes out like a high powered military grade rifle and just starts screaming, like shooting people. It's a different attitude towards the vagaries of life. Yeah. I think also the function of the settings that we revisit often.
I found, you know, Aaron's death, for instance, in this episode, Margarita Lave's character. On one hand, I would say that her character was not served particularly well this season. And I think a lot of her is a performer. No, I mean, on the show.
I mean, I was just like, she kind of is like, I am in a flashback, I am in a kitchen, I'm in a couple of scenes, but like ultimately, like what Aaron functions like a photograph on the wall to like move the story. Exactly right. And it is the benefit of HBO and of a talented team that you get the A plus version of AC plus role. We both think she's a great, great actor.
So she brought a lot to it, which is kind of what you need to elevate it when there's not a lot of real estate for springtime. But there was a moment when, and that whole scene was shot beautifully and Jeremiah Zegar was back behind the camera for this episode. That whole scene with the kids listening to the indie rock band, Honey. Oh, I was in a way.
Yeah, with smoke, like that was just beautifully shot and realized and disturbing and creepy and all that. And effective in the sense that there was a moment when, I don't know if there should be a term for this that we should come up with. It's like what I was saying before about your hearts and your throat and you're like, a character could die here. Like suddenly everything is in play.
The best shows bring you to that point where you're questioning your own experience and watching things for many, many years. And so there was a moment when he was chasing her where I was like, she could come up with a rock and win, but of course she doesn't. But that feeling engages you in a different way. Yeah, and I think this is just a very, very, very soundly constructed show in terms of its theme, in terms of its themes.
And this episode specifically, Tom does this speech about a bird, a vagrant bird that gets kind of lost but can always get back home. Obviously, Robbie leads all of these factions to a childhood escape. Erin, when she's on the right, when her life is basically falling apart, notices this kind of like a really nuanced little phenomenon that's essentially it's vape smoke, but it looks like clouds are coming down into this waterbed area. Waterbed, what am I talking about?
Like, is it a lake or is that the quarry? I thought it was the quarry. In any case. Not the show, Cory, which is very good.
What is the show, Dope Dave? My point is that obviously Erin is like having a reverie about like when she used to come here with Billy. And maybe even to her childhood when she used to be so carefree that she would vape at the quarry, you know, or whatever the kids did back in the 90s, you know? I'm listening to you, bro.
And that's where it does. And she's swimming to get to this time in her life that she remembers. And Perry stops her, obviously. But I thought like you see these like recurrences.
It's not just doubling where it's like, oh, Tom and Robbie are going through similar experiences. It's like, this is about people trying to get back to a place that maybe doesn't exist anymore. And people trapped in the same fishbowl they've always been in and not understanding whether water is so cloudy and murky now. It was what we were talking about the other week about the spaces they live in, like even Ray and Shelley's house, you know, vacuum looks like a perfectly nice old house, you know, with a nice backyard.
But what has it become? What have these what have these towns become? What have we filled them with? What has it become of all of us?
That was a nice recall to that. I thought that the Perry and Mave scene was great. Like we've talked about Perry referring to Robbie as crazy Robbie. You might think I might have thought in a different world that like the Sam plot line was a little anti-climactic.
Just like, oh, and then she takes him. There might be more pages to turn. There might be more pages to turn, but I thought also it's like, yeah, that's when Mave decides enoughs enough. It's when fucking Perry shows up.
Yeah. And this kid is 10 feet away. And I think that if you could map this out, if you took the Mave story, separated it out, I think it passes the plausibility test, which we don't put on shows that are excellent. Yeah, that's anti-art honestly.
But if you did want to watch it that way, I think what she did with Sam initially, you know, trying to bring him back and then taking it back for reasons and then finally saying enoughs enough, that makes sense. Right. We should chat out Jamie McShane who plays Perry. Great job.
Just that someone who, you know, I go to Wikipedia page and I'm like, I have definitely seen this man in a number of television shows and movies. He was in Sons of Anarchy, Bloodline, Avengers. He works, he's been working after. Avengers like the Marvel movie?
Yeah, who was he in that? I have no idea. He was in Thor and the Avengers. I don't think he was Thor, but I'll check.
OK. He reminds me of the best of UK television where There's a show he's got that. There's a series of incredible actors given opportunities to show what they've always been able to do. That small sense of familiarity, but then you get surprised.
What's the name of Perry's on again off again? He's Agent Jackson. OK. You remember him from Thor?
No, I really, I got to say, I seriously do not. What's the name of? I don't remember. I know you're asking.
She's good. Also good. And that's another example of like just somebody doing a very good job in a very small role and I'm sorry, I don't know your name. What else was there from this episode that I wanted to discuss?
I want to talk about the whole, the architecture and the emotion of the Tom and Robbie stuff. Yeah. I loved Ruffalo playing Old and Broken Down. I loved the Pepsi Cam on the back of the toilet.
And then that coming back around with everything like nobody pisses like that. Yeah. It's pretty funny. I thought the it earned it.
Right? It was worth it. That kind of collision with everyone calling and wondering. And then that feeling of there's just a kind of there's a feeling of freedom, I think, when you feel a show say, fuck it, we're here.
We're at the point where this needs to happen. That is also something that I would reference bringing back to being expert at. Like it bringing back was never afraid of turning page. To this.
When you've gotten to the end of this sentence. Yes. And I thought that was really compelling. I thought we got some more backstory about Tom and his wife in an interesting way.
We got shout out to another local hospital. We'll bring more hospital investment on there. Nice one. I thought there's a I think when you watch Copp's and Robert shows, you're assuming that what you're going to see is Popeye Doyle or Vincent Hannah or the guy who chases guys.
And Tom's not that. Now, whether Tom got put on this task force by Kathleen to lose or whether nobody really cared about this case or what are we doing with Tom in the first place. There was no world where Tom was like, I'm actually incredibly invasive driving. And I'm going to like, you know, there's nothing he's going to do.
He's got a gun to his back. And what's called kids? Yeah. Beautiful moment where he's just like, he's not yelling.
There's no ornate dialogue. There's no he's not cursing him out. He's just like, man, let me call my kids. But this is also why the specificity matters because it may not resonate to anyone who didn't grow up in the area.
But when when Robbie opens his license, Tom's license, and he says, Tom Brandis from Springfield, just like a guy. Yeah. Yeah. He lives near them all.
Yeah. Just like birds loves birds loves birds. Did you think that Perry's strategy of popping his collar was an effective way of hiding the scarring and clawing? Well, I think what it does is it first of all, this is such a unique and beautiful place to stage what will be the climax of the series.
Well, I would assume. My sense is that we're going to have fireworks and then we're going to have a long emotional thing to mom up and alley. I think there are a lot of fireworks still to come to because everybody who's kind of arriving at the river, gathering at the river as well. There's all these different factions within factions.
There's the Dark Arts divided because unbeknownst to Jason. So far unbeknownst to you. Perry's killed Jason's wife, girlfriend. I don't know the state of there.
They have family together. Common law way. Yes, right. Partners.
Just two crazy kids. And unbeknownst to some of the people in the task force, the task force is divided because Grosso is actually working on behalf of the Dark Arts. And then you've got Robbie, who I imagine wanted this to take place where it's taking place for reasons beyond the Odyssey and wants it to because he knows the terrain. He knows something.
Maybe he has hit something somewhere, whatever it is. So I love this image of these people moving down the river banks and converging on Robbie. But I think that there's a lot of story left. Because not only are you going to get whatever happens in the woods here, you're going to have to have an accounting of everybody's divided allegiances.
And who's going to come out of the woods and what to say will they be in? How do they feel about Lyme disease? Because that is a real issue there. I love you.
Robbie felled by poison oak. Just scratching both of an alley. I love that part in the car where he says, oh, and also like Freddie's out there. So I don't know if he's going to the Pocanose, but I mean he's got a veggie experience in Lancaster.
I've kidnapped the world's most depressing human. So funny. Great line. I fucking like you, but I don't like you enough to let you fuck up my plan.
Also, never get serious, Zelle Radio, I guess. Yeah, that was a really good little check-offs radio show. Out-walk country shout out there, where it's like, I was like, damn, serious thrown down the five bucks to get in the show. And then it winds up being like, it's a satellite.
So you can ping them, you know? Did you like the parallel? You spoke so well about what Aaron was seeing through the Hanes. And it's mirrored by where Tom ends up on the other side of his woods walk.
When Robbie says, walk about a mile, you'll see it. It's beautiful. Yes. And what he sees is normal America.
Well, yeah. And just the world that both of them have left a long time ago. I've found it interesting that this show is driving towards the woods, like most of the action of the last two episodes. But specifically, this one is happening in a kind of pastoral setting.
I don't know what it means necessarily. But it's not a Philly show anymore. It's kind of this weird, like these animals kind of almost from the city coming into the woods to be wild. Maybe that just goes back to it's not the original sin, but it's the original smarts of Brad Inglesby and his writing that he's done for HBO.
It's, you could say that Merrivy's Town and Tasks are Philly shows, but they're not. They're Delaware County shows. They're Pennsylvania shows. That is a much different thing than an urban setting.
And I think you can tell a certain kind of phoniness. The salary for them would feel very funny when we asked her if she had, you know, what were some of the things that she thought were hallmarks of it. She was like, I never need to see the woods again. Like I've seen so many different woods to set our like little scenes and like.
And I think we could and we I'm sure we yearn for programming that is super Philly coated because I think again, I feel bad doing strays like this, but like Dopey was supposedly set in Philadelphia, but was deeply unfilid. It was Philadelphia in the way that a lot of other mass entertainment has been where it's just like Brooklyn South a little bit. Yeah. I'm not just talking the accents.
I'm just talking about like specific things about that make it a unique place. And so the fact that the show is dug into such an unexpected patch of ground makes them. I think makes it resonant to people who are from there. Is it worth making predictions?
Is it worth saying like, oh, what do you think happens out there? I, you know, I hesitate to mention this, but in the teaser that had the Guns N' Roses song, you can you can see some things about this shoot out. Look at you. I know I didn't.
Did you go back? I watched it 300 times. So like I just remember the beauty of my life is I remember nothing. I don't even remember when we started this podcast.
It's all gone. Yesterday. It's possible. Anything else in a way I'm always doing this podcast.
Don't you think sure? Sure. Sure. Not a bad way.
Yeah. It's fun. OK. Fun.
There's one way to describe it. It's fun to have a show that is socially trenchant. Yeah, but it's fun to have a show that has this much depth and engagement. And I look forward to more of it.
I don't know what you want to say. You got the job. I feel like this is the whole podcast, right? You're going to do something else.
I don't think so. You're not going to do anything else? Well, I mean, it's like, you know, I don't know. Will you just plug and play?
I want to have this be like the chunk. And then if something else, what am I going to do? Just be like, you know, I really think that's again is really turn a quarter there on episode four. Like Johnson's like 4D gamesmanship to keep the government, the re-open the government.
That's going to happen this weekend or something. Thanks for joining me. Maybe there are more to the podcast I don't know. And I'll be back on Thursday.
Maybe you will too. Awesome.