The Future is Now • EP315

like really good at building anticipation this episode. I just got so excited to realize it was the time Capsule, which, in the momentary joy of I know what episode this is then really turned out to shell over everybody. Yeah, we ran for a hot second. We were so excited, and then we realized, like, oh right, A lot of terrible things were said. Y'all. The time capsule is mysteriously opened and revealed to the whole school. Causes a whole lot of drama. A lot of people's pain points get

pushed on. Males and Lucas try to help out a friend who they've lost touch with in the past year. This is where we start to reconnect with Jimmy Edwards, Peyton and Ellie's benefit concert hits the stage with honestly iconic then iconic now I guest appearance by Jack's mannequin, and fallow Boy is back. Who yeah, I mean, it's

a whole lot happening. Let's start with the time capsule because my my favorite part of all of that was Whitey going with the principal principal journal didn't look at the wall, and he's like looking at the plaque like everything's fine, nobody popping this out of the wall, and white he pulls a poster back and the pillars like made of paper. Yeah, the schools held up by paper machee. Actually,

that was ridiculous. I don't know who in the art department thought that was going to be a great idea, Like, guys, we'll just punch a hole in it. It's paper. We'll just put a column right here and it'll look like a real column, but this one will be made of newspaper and glue. Also, um, you can't hollow out column. Like how many of these times capsules do they have? For every single Also and also and also and and also also end what about the fact that isn't a

senior class project. How random is it that it's the what is the junior's were juniors class time capsule? Wouldn't that be a senior thing? That is okay? So that's something that has always bothered me about our show is that it's one grade. When I was growing up, starting in sixth grade, hung out with eighth graders because I was like looking to be cool. Yeah, and then when I got into high school, I was like, peace, bitches,

I'm hanging out the upper classman. And then by the time we were upper classmen, I had a younger brother or who was a sophomore, and was like friends with all these younger kids. So the fact that our show is just like so insular is weird. There should have been seniors. There should have been people like kicking the Scott brothers asses because they're like, you think your varsity were varsity. It was all about the grades. There was something about who you were hanging out with, if they

were younger, the same or older. There was a whole class system within the high school that You're right, we never addressed that that hierarchy. Yeah, I remember when I started doing theater how cool it was as a freshman to be like, oh, I've got to go to Joeanne Fabrics with the juniors who have the driver's licenses to get more material for our costumes. Like, and it felt so cool. That's exactly it. Exactly you'd have to go to Michael's to get like more poster board and black paint. Girls,

you gotta make friends with someone with a license. That's what she did. That's right, right. I've definitely journal about that, like, oh my god, I got a ride from like whoever. But we're but we're but we are seniors this year. You know, that gets confusing on our show because it's just all kind of mush. But we've come back for summer break. You threw that beach party. We're seniors and

are we seniors now? I mean I guess because seasons one and two were junior year and seasons three and four we're senior year, and the way that they Yeah, and because basketball, you know, I don't know if it happens in faller spring, I should know it's a winter, probably spring, right winter. I don't know. March madness though, Okay, fine, that goes through playoffs. You're right, So it's it's fall

semester that we played basketball. And that was also how they budgeted our show, because they'd have to rent gym's one year and then not rent them the next year, and it was how they kind of made up for the budgets. Yeah, yeah, it's so, but wait is second see that. That's another thing about our show that confuses me sometimes is that it takes place over the course

of two years for our watching audience at home. But it never occurred to me that Lucas Scott dated Brooke Davis at the beginning of senior year and by the end of senior year is all like kissing up on Peyton and doing the graduation together. When we filmed it, it it was two separate years. But well, yeah, and that and and and it aired in two separate years. So that's really how they drew out so much drama for

the audience. But it was also how they managed to avoid the college years with us, Like they wanted all of us to be able to drive from the beginning, so we had to have driver's licence as we had to be sixteen. So they knew they'd only have two years of high school and they figured they could get four years of production before graduation. If if every season was a semester. I love that. I'm doing air quotes to you guys, and no one at home can see me. Hey,

does everything is drive? Does Haley ever drive Haley? I'm sure, yes, I know I've drink. I remember you driving in the show? Yet? Has Haley driven a car? I haven't seen it? I don't. Does Haley even have a car? We haven't seen Haley with a car? Does she and the chair one? You and Naven share that car? And remember? But then once up a game? Who gets the car? Girl? Are you drive you everywhere? I think? I think I'm like hiring Brooks Taxi? What do you know? That's what I'm doing.

I'm hiring Brooks Service. I like that they split it up because, you know why, it feels like that when you're in high school, it doesn't just feel like to us a year now, somebody says, you know, this is my one year goal, and like, good luck, you need five for that. You know, it's like five years is nothing. One year. Oh yeah, it's a reasonable, But god, when you're in high school, it's all so long. It takes forever. So I don't mind it I have read an article

about that. It talks about why summer feels like you is so long when you're a kid. It's because if you've only been alive for ten years, like you know, that's a huge chunk of your life. But now a year is one my life, like big whoop. Back in high school it was one fractionally fractically, it's that you said that because I was about to be like, well, if you consider fractions, and then I'm like, yes, because

that's what it is. Well, so here's here's the other thing about school is that you're kind of a narcissist all through your childhood and in your teenage years, you you know, big hero energy because it hasn't necessarily occurred to you that there are people outside of your bubble. And that's a skill set that's really important to learn as you evolve. But when you're a teenager, it's really easy just to kind of be the hero of your

own story. So this idea that there are Jimmy Edwards out there, and there are people there who you're not even considering, and that you could be a bad guy in their narrative is something that's really important. Um, because you're the bad guy in somebody's story and and so it's about identifying, you know, where we can be better. I also think it's really interesting. Years ago I read and I kept it like I thought the issue was

so powerful. Nat GEO did a whole magazine issue on the teenage brain, and one of the it was an article I read online that then prompted me to go and get the magazine that talked about how where you are in the actual development of your brain at sixteen, like as adults, even for us in our twenties looking back at high school, going god, why did it feel like that was the whole world? It is. Your brain understands your school and your community that is immediately around you.

It can only process about that much space and that many humans as the world as adults, and especially now thanks to the way we're also digitally connected, we were more globally connected than ever. We have a bigger perspective than ever. But if you think about, especially pre social media, high school feels like it can break you because it's

your whole universe. And when I think about all the dumb we did, specifically the three of us, not just all our friends at home who are probably nodding along when we were in our early twenties, Like, your brain is not done developing until you are twenty six years old.

You're still a kid at twenty two. So when you think about how how much further from being fully developed you are at sixteen, it means that you know, as this issue posits that when when you have a big wound, or you're ostracized or left out or bullied, or or even you hurt someone and you feel like you could just die because you're so ashamed, it's it's so consequential.

It's like your whole world is turning upside down. It's harder to it's harder to measure any kind of injury as the receiver or the perpetrator as a team because you don't really have fractionally anything to hold it up against. And it it really was illuminating for me about um the effects, Like we see all the data on the effects of bullying, we see all of the testimonials about what these young kids are going through, and and it really there was something about that science that helped me

understand how it feels. Yeah, so I wonder about like a Jimmy Edwards and he that character feels like everybody hate him, and so he hates everybody and it's like global to him. Heartbreaking. Well, back then, we didn't have the tools for you to reach out to people in other communities. Like right now, Jimmy Edwards could go on Twitter, he could go on Instagram and be like, I'm into Marvel movies. Who else likes what I like? And and

find community that way, And we didn't have those tools. Man, if you didn't go to camp, do you know what I mean? Like camp was how I met people that didn't go to my high school, and I felt special because I got to go to those things. But for the kid that you know, I just woke up and went to school and came home and didn't meet outside circles. Yeah, it gets claustrophobic, especially if you've grown up in the same town your whole life. You're just like I've known

you since you were eating your own boogers. You're awful, You've always been awful. I can't wait to get out of here. Yeah, And even with all that access that kids have now to be able to find a community that they get on with, there's still a lot of kids who are just suffering from issues at home. But you know, if somebody's being a bully, somebody's bullying them. And that's that's something my mom always taught me when I was little, um, and you know, it's I it

was hard to watch that. It was hard to watch Jimmy Edwards acknowledging like, you guys just left me in the dust. And yeah, he's right. You know, it's a two way street. But also not everybody has the capability or the understanding to be able to reach out. Sometimes you have to start, you have to pick up the phone and make the first phone call. And you know, you just never quite know what's going on in somebody's in somebody's life home life is so different than what

it is when we walk outside of our four walls. Well, it's also situation, I mean situationally here. It's not like Lucas and Mouth and the other guys went and they were hanging out with a parallel social group that was also like still kind of underdog. They started hanging out with all the popular villain kids, right, and it was all of them. You know, now Skills is kissing a cheerleader and you've got Lucas hooking up with multiple cheerleaders

and Hayley married the captain of the basketball team. Like, what is going on? Well, And I think something that's really interesting to your point is it can be, even as adults, really easy to be entrenched in whatever your silo is and to make assumptions about everyone else. And we saw it with Lucas when he goes and checks

in with Faith a couple episodes ago. She is like, Brooke Davis is just a you know, junior whatever the means, cheerleader, Meredith Maloney whatever, And Lucas is like, no, but she's not, Like I'm telling you, she's not. She's different than we thought. I know this person's heart now, I know her motivations, and that's what I think is is always so powerful. You know, people talk about how you can other someone

until you know someone like them. You know, they talked about even when we when we think about the way kids used to be siloed pre social media, like imagine you're the one gay kid in like small town, Ohio and you have no one to talk to. That's why everybody moved to New York when they turned eighteen. Literally, you know, people ran and it's you got these like cultural sort of bastions of art and theater and all these things because of the migration that resulted from people

trying to escape being ostracized. And you know, when I you can feel real lonely in a big city too, though totally well, yeah, of course, but that's what I'm kind of getting at, is when there's no one around who knows you, it can be hard for you. But on the other end of that information again, and like, as we've pursued more equity and justice in our country, the data, you know, I love an article um years ago when we were doing the fight over marriage equality.

There was a great article that talked about how the minute a person knows one gay person, whether it's a gay man or a woman who identifies as a lesbian or whatever, their opinions change about equality because you know someone, you know their family, you know their spouse, you love them, You want them to be able to be as happy and protected as you are. You know you as miserable

you are. Yeah, literally, remember that as a teenager hit me so hard when someone was like, everyone should be able to get married so they can all be as miserable as I am. And I was like, oh my god, genius and that's where the comedy cuts in. But it's like, if we could just get to know each other a little bit, yeah, it makes a huge difference. It makes a difference and the way we care about each other.

And and I think that's what really makes it hard to watch this episode now, is you look at Jimmy and you go, oh God, all these people have managed to break a barrier and get to know each other. Like you've got Brooke Davis on a time capsule talking about how she is so sure she's going to be married to Marvin McFadden and he's gonna be senator. Look like it's a two way street of this sort of boundary breaking. And Jimmy's the one kid who didn't. He

didn't cross the bridge. He didn't he didn't go with everyone, and he's so heartbroken. And and it's so common that you see young boys cover their heartbreak with rage because we don't we don't teach them that it's okay to feel any of their other feelings. And I don't know, there's something about watching this as an adult that like, it breaks me in a way that is deeper than it was when we did this, you know, in real time in two thousand six, Jolie, I don't know. You know,

you and I have older kids. You know, Gusta's school is in the high school, the high school in middle school are connected, and so I wanted to think that it was different now than it was when we were kids, and like everyone was using slurs and just like being really abrasive and hurtful with language. Like the nineties were a time. Yeah, we all said words that now we wouldn't dare utter, you know, and you go back and you see movies from that time and you're like, oh

my god, like what was everyone saying? This is crazy talk? And having a kid that comes home and it's like, oh no, all that language is still alive, and well, you know, and I'm a psycho mom. That's like calling other parents like did you hear this? You need to talk to you know. Um, yeah, I guess I thought it was different now because we've had so many like anti bullying Camp Haynes, and you know, I think human nature is human nature. I just think this is who

we are as a species. And what you know, our job as parents is as we raise the next generation and then they raise the next generation, and you know is to start passing on more and more kindness, more and more civilized behavior. Um, you know, the more that we can pass that on, I don't think it's as much as it it's clearly not as much as it was in the nineties. I mean, I think if we just look around us in media, we can see that

things have changed. But um, there is still bullying. There's still I mean, I know Maria has had her fair share of kids picking on her and people, you know, making fun of her about random thing. You know, kids will always find something to make fun of you about no matter what. They just want to feel better about

themselves by putting somebody else down. So you just gotta keep I've always taught her the same thing my mom taught me and uh, which I just said before, and then just go find the kid who looks only if you feel left out, go find somebody else who looks left out and sit next to them and have lunch with them and be nice to them, because it's not all about you. And going back to what you were

saying about everybody being a narcissist. When you're a kid and you're kind of like supposed to be coming out of that middle school high school, you start to be learning about other people. Um, which should seguate me into the brook using that amazing video into I mean the the horrifying video and turning it into something amazing with the turnal full aspect of how I love that. What our show did so well was always adding in charity

to everything. I'm going to get there. But the first thing I want to say, crumbs over there, but I'm still going over here. Just post it and continue It's on, Michelle. UM, yeah is that? Yeah? We are, you know, young narcissists. You are supposed to be growing out of that as a kid, and that's what having those friendships are supposed

to do with you. And that's what those opportunities with kids bullying you, It's supposed to be an opportunity for you to look at that person and with compassion and know that something bad is going on in their life to put them in the position where they need to put you down in order to feel better about themselves. So continually, you know, renewing your mind in understanding other people, putting yourself out there that it's not all about you.

Sometimes somebody else needs you. In a day when you go to school, it's a boring day, but maybe there's one person who needs what you have to offer. So instead of looking around waiting for everybody to serve you and do something for you, what can you do to you know, ask, not what you can do, what you can do for you. That's right, um anyway, So but yes, I love that that Brooke took that terrifying moment and mortifying.

I mean, so many people would have just crawled under a rock, and so many girls have been so hurt by things like that, just awfully hurt by things like that, and that she took the power back. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's it's dark. It's my child, That's what I was gonna say, Like it's it is, it's it's child porn, Like she's a sixteen year old girl. You know, it's not appropriate. I think that's where some of the lines blur, because we were in our twenties as actors, and you know,

there's some sort of concessions made for those things. I to your point. I love that she turns it into a positive. I love that she's like, this super shy thing happened to me and we're going to do something great about it. I love that like that is that is so um indicative of Brooks spirit to me. And I also think, as you know, adult women looking back, we can be like, whoa, that was super inappropriate that a bunch of grown ups wrote that someone put a

naked teenage girl on the internet. Okay, but by the way, like great story. One thing our show failed at is follow up because we do all these explosive things and we don't followed up. How great would it have been if Brooke Davis's dad suited the school system for his daughter being child well, by the way, because part of the disservice, I think is that we made it no big deal, so then when it happens to girls will

go it's not a big deal. Come on, who cares? Hand, it does set this example that you you shouldn't feel so violated. It'll be fine, crack a joke. But what I will say for a little behind the scenes to obviously, we didn't trust the people who made our show in the editing room, and when we did the episode, you know, they put each of us in this little like sort of black box and we recorded our confessionals very like MTV, you know, real world style, and you know I do

the script. I'm sitting there in this cute little blouse and then I take the blouse off on him in this bra, and they had to find a bra that hooked the front, and they were trying to sell me on, well, obviously we're going to cover it up, so like we want to shoot it so that you unhook your bra and flash and like you'll just have pasties over your

boobs and obviously we'll we'll air brush it out. And I was like, you guys, I don't trust you, so we would you know, we drew out the Like I'm sitting there holding the front and being like, well, you know, and aliens, you might have eight eyes, which means and I'm like, I keep pretending to unhook it. And then when it was time to actually unhook it, you guys, I put on a grandma sized strapless bra. It was so big and ugly, and I was like, okay, hold on, and I just like put it on under the bra

and then I was like, let's shoot it. And they all were like, well, we can't possibly work around this, and I was like, figure it out. And you can see the like top edges of the straplets really badly air brushed on the sides of the of the breast cancer thing that goes across my chest and I'm in my face is hot. I feel so minded hated by it.

I love it so much because I know I've them up and I'm really proud that I made sure that some creepy person who shan'n't be named didn't get to look at my boobs, even with pasties over my nipples. Was like, it's not happening, guys. When I visited the writer's this it was either season three or season four, because I went with Daniel. There was like they were having a concert in the Writer's office in l A.

And we were out there doing press for something. It was like Teen Choice Awards or something dumb um not dumb, something awesome. I just never won one, so fine be gauys are done. Always not one of my little triggers right there there it is God sometimes I was pop up.

So anyway, we're like out in l A. I visited the writer's room one time in the entirety of my run on the show, and when I got there, there was a dark board with one actor's face on it, and then there were screen grab like print outs of other of us from like Daily's and like shots from the show in our underwear and stuff like that and what joy And I remember being like, what is that? And it's like polaroids from wardrobe fittings like that. And by the way, it was online so creepy, and you guys.

It was not until I went to work on White Collar and I was in a van with all the writers and I was just kind of like right now, like we are right now, just kind of telling it with like oh my god, and you guys won't believe this and laughing about it that they like stopped me and they were like, honey, you're so young, and we have to interrupt you. This is dub And I was like, what are we talking about. They're like, we've never heard

of anything like that before. That's insane. But yeah, if but Sophia, had you done that in the pasties, there would have been a screen grab of you in the pasties on somebody and they would have like drawn on the ads. But my bare chest would have been out for the world to see. And I knew not to trust them. And it's funny when you talk about our polaroids. Oh, it makes me so ay um not only because we had some some I'm not going to say fans are

fans are dope. The people who got um past the line of being fans who had no boundaries, Um, I don't know what to call them other than inappropriate. But you know, there were some people who did those email hacks of Carol's yes and a lot of our fitting photos, including a lot of photos of things that were being emailed back and forth. Email got hacked. Sonogram photo was

released when I was pregnant. I remember that, and they were Remember they were doing all that thing, emailing each of us as each other, but they were like weird Gmail accounts. I remember Lisa Goldstein one day coming into work being like, hey, I caught your email about those photos, but like I can't attach enough to the It keeps saying it can't send the file, and I was like, what are you talking about? We go on a second. This happened to me after I left the show, when

I with us I got hacked. Was that all part of the same thing, all the same things? And I mean it was very disturbing, like like photos of like Austin's niece and nephew at bathtime got put on the internet. Like things that were so inappropriate, and a lot of our fitting photos, a lot of us in our underwear wound up online and there's one photo all of that

made me enraged. I'm enraged thinking about it now. I feel like our characters with the time Capsule being released right now because I'm hearing this for the first time. Well and by the way, maybe because we made no big deal of the time Capsule, people thought that we wouldn't be upset about this or feel violated by this, even though it's deeply violating. And the one bright spot

in this dark story is that there is a photo. Um, I had to do this hilariously stupid episode in like all these costumes Hilary after we left, and one was like a full like leader hose and thing and obviously being in it, like it's such a corset, and I swear to you this thing like pushed my tits up

to my collar bones. And I took a photo for Carol like holding my booze making this face that was just like like you think this is great because I knew I knew who was going to see it back in l A. And I was just like, dud, I know what you're doing so many people have shared that photo and been like, this really seems out of character for Quencia. What is she's standing like this? And I'm like, yeah,

because I'm trolling a pervert, trolling the pervert. No one was supposed to see it except the pervert being trolled, So now everyone is a pervert. But yeah, man, I guess long story longer is I just don't like other people having any non consensual images of any of us. I think it's gross. Well, if you create something like the time capsule, or like our photos or maybe our private emails, where you think it's going to be between you and one or two other people, it is real

shitty when they get released into the wild. And when I left the show and started seeing Jeffrey, someone broke into my email and took a picture of him and I and released it. And then he got an email from someone that was like, she's leaking photos of the two of you because she's using you for attention or whatever. Yeah, and I was really hurt by it because we were new and I was really trying to convince himly no, I was hacked. So you guys have validated a thirteen

year old wound all right, so deep dark. I the emails that started coming in, we're so insane, And then they started creating like, by the way, I don't have any version of my name with without my middle name, with without middle name numbers. Every version of my name at Gmail is taken, as is yours, as is Joyce and and quote unquote fans I will call them perpetrators. Um,

we're would figure out how to get people's emails. I think once they were able to break into the writers or whatever, they got everybody's and so they would do this and it and it was really sad, like you know, to get pictures like you said, of the two of you as a new couple, of like me and my then partner on vacation with like kids who were like naked running around in the ocean, because those are sweet photos for your family to have, but not for strangers.

Like there has to be a line, like joy when you reminded me of what happened when you were pregnant with Maria, it sends such a rage through me, like I can't calm down about it. It's so nobody's posing business. I remember coming to work. It was my first pregnant baby, new and exciting, and I was young and like, yeah, it was just a really precious private time in my life, and you deserve to have that Briday sonogram, like people could see the inside of my belly. Like I just

felt like such a violation it was. I'm sorry, that's yeah, But you know what, compared to some of the other things that people have had to deal with, that's really nothing. Well for a kid like Jimmy Edwards that doesn't have coping mechanisms and like he doesn't have a support group, you know, like you could come to people and be like this sucks to at least be together. Someone like

Jimmy just has a target on his back now. And especially because what you do believe just as you sharing something like that with your family or you know, Hillary to your point about you're actually a kid who kept journals like I wish I had, and I think I never did because I was always so afraid someone was

going to read them. And and this idea that the time capsule is supposed to be kind of like a journal, like it's going to be private the way that some people vented Nathan vented about Haley and then was mortified me is in such this dark place, feeling abandoned, and he thinks it's a secret. And to have your your secrecy and your privacy taken away from you, you know, in real life or on screen, is so harmful. And I mean you see him, like he gets attacked, he

gets beat up. It's it's like if if that had not been released, you know, he had the chance in private to act like somebody he wanted to be, or be this guy he thought he was going to try, and you know, he was like he was putting on a personality for that video, and you could see it even when he was lightening up his cigarette. It was like he's trying to be somebody. He doesn't quite know who or where he is yet, but he's on his

way and he's trying on all these things. And if you can do that within the space of privacy, um and control, that's fine. But to have that exposed, it's just such a deep, vulnerable cut. It's your identity, it's you're trying to you trying to figure out who you are. Yeah, it's just so it's so awful, and he probably would have been fine. Yeah, that's the thing. I hung out with a lot of Jimmy Edwards in high school and

I loved them. I like the dark. You know, they were angry, and I remember as a kid being like, you guys are crazy, you know. And then we'd go to poetry slams together and they would read their poetry and it was lovely. And now they either like work for the government or living on they're like our ends, you know, like they all have these like very adult, functional jobs and lovely lives and they've come out of it.

But those moments of deep humiliation, I think are the situations that make or break up person because some people are able to crawl out of that and other people aren't. Humily, humiliation for teenage boys is is probably the least under stood emotion because anger we can figure out, you know, with sadness your girlfriend dumps you, Okay, we can figure that out. But humiliation there's something very specific about that that we don't necessarily talk about the coping mechanisms for boys.

You know, Brooke Davis handled it right like this cute girl is like I'm going to turn it into a thing. Mm hmm. And I love that, But I will say women are told to handle it, you know, like and they're just like oh, get over it. You're being too sensitive. And what makes me sad for our boys is that essentially the only emotion we reward from boys is toughness, and toughness is expressed in anger. So we teach boys to channel all their feelings into anger to be respected.

But anger and loneliness really go hand in hand, yes, and but it's so detrimental. And then you know, we look around as this society and like, you know, not, I don't know if I'm supposed to say trigger warning or or what the thing is to bring up prior to this, but I think that's so connected to why we look around and we go, well, gee, why is it that you know one and four girls has been assaulted, you know, sexually assaulted by the age of twenty two.

And it's like, well, because we we don't give boys anyway to be in the world except angry. And what is the expression of anger. It's violence, Like and I know that is a bit of an oversimplification to many

societal issues we have. But what I what I find myself so drawn toward as an adult is healthy expressions of emotion, where we give every person, whether it's a group of us as women, or or our male friends, or anyone the opportunity to experience the sliding scale of their emotions from what we have societally deemed as traditionally masculine to traditionally feminine, and to be like, where do you find your sensitivity? Where do you find your empathy?

Where do you find your art? What? What is it that makes you angry? What does that fuel? Rather than where's a healthy place to express it? Because each of those things, I don't I don't think that anger is meant to just be suppressed and pushed down. It's a great, important emotion. It informs you of so much. It's just what you're doing with your anger that makes the difference. Yeah, and you're right, a lot of people don't have a space to put it, and they don't know where to

put it. Have you ever met boys that watched our show. I'm still baffled when I meet grown men that are like, yeah, I watched your whole show. I watched the whole series, and I used to cry all the time that it's so I mean, I don't know if it makes me feel like a dinosaur that I'm like, oh boy, watched our show gender norms. Um but I think they liked it. I don't know. I mean, go ahead. My husband loves a show that will let him cry, yeah, and my

son loves to cry. Like. I think there were a lot of boys whose sisters watched the show or girlfriends in college, and so they kind of had the uh excuse, like the social excuse. Oh yeah, well my girlfriend watched it, but basically really loved I loved even when our show when it was on, and you know, boys are age

would be like yeah, you know. I always would remember like the night at the bar where the guy would be like, my girlfriend loves your show, like, and three hours later he's three drinks deep and he's like and then when Brooke Davis founded she couldn't get pregnant, man, that really sucked me up. And they're like crying at the bar and I'm like, this is great. I love this. This.

There was like a foreign military I can't remember what country it was, but I remember getting all these letters from some like foeign military where they're like, we're all watching this show on bass and like their English was very broken, but they were like, but we are very invested in these in these little stories. It's like, well that was one of the coolest things, popping around on like different USO tours, like all over bases in Turkey

and Germany. Um, and you know, even the stuff we did with the us SO guys closer to home in Wilmington's like we were one of the I don't know eight shows on the Armed Forces Network and really, oh you guys, we were on a f N forever. I don't know if we still are, but I loved when we get those you know, once once we all got on Twitter and stuff. You know, we get videos like from guys on base like making up songs on their guitars about our show, and I was like, I really

think this is great. Cute joyce a minute moral of the stories. We like boys who are in touch with their emotions. Yeah, we like we like healthy men. You know, Lucas and Nathan in this episode, uh could have gotten into a fight about the dan of it all because we kick off the episode with Lucas you know, talking down Yeah, and instead they get into this hallacious fight as teammates to you know, break up this attack on

Jimmy Edwards. That fight was bananas. That was who are those grown ass men who they brought it like those were like thirty year old dudes. That was insane. Yeah, for sure, those were supposed to be the seniors. Yeah, these are high school boys. Get out of here. How big is this school? I've never seen those kids before. And Rachel's got her pepper spray. I loved that. Danielle coming in with the peppers. Thought it was hair spray, you did, Yeah, I totally thought she grabbed it off

the countertop in the back. It was like, which, by the way, if you've ever shot pepper spray, you know, it comes out of this really nasty like stream and it's gross. They were definitely using like a water like like an aviance. They painted a heavy on black. Yeah. Also what I learned the hard way. I remember first getting pepper spray and being like, well, I gotta know, like how far does it go when I need to use it? No one warns you that, like, yes, it

shoots forward, but it also creates a cloud. It definitely choked you too lightly. I went, I was like burning all over and just like hacking, coughing. I was like, cool, cool, Okay, when did you have to use pepper spray just for fun? I just I when I first got like my first pepper spray. I was like, I'm going to shoot this out into the distance, like, yeah, I wanted to test it. I just wanted to know what I was outside with the wind too. I just was like outside, I y'all,

I did not. It did not end well for me. Chet the wind before you check your pepper sprayers. My sister's My sister has two boys, and one of them sprayed the other week face with bear spray bears. It was, oh, yeah, for sure. It was a whole thing. I mean, my daughters standing here, She's got her mouth wide open. No way, yeah, Nathan Spratt, Dylan, Yeah, so we the pepper spray only hit the wrestlers in our scene, but didn't get Nathan,

didn't get Jimmy. Get Jimmy. It's because it was heavy on my god, because whoever decided to punch the hole in the column paper wall is also the person that created the basic container exactly. I mean, I like Rachel's interactions in this episode because they are very on brand, and I like that she searches Jimmy out. But there's also kind of a lesson in that where you know, if we're all trying to act too cool and cavalier. What Rachel saying is like, you know, it wasn't for you. Yeah, No,

I wasn't. I wasn't here to protect you. Had she just let him think ink that yeah, yeah, he could have gone home and like, you know, not freaked out. Yeah, I wondered why, And part of me thought when she said that, I thought, Okay, what's the mask they're giving her. Why doesn't she want to admit that she doesn't like to see people get hurt and what's the purpose of her saying this to him? And then obviously we think about how far he's meant to be pushed for the

next episode. So but it definitely did stick out to me a little bit. And maybe it's just because I know Danielle is like the most caring depends, so I'm like, oh, Ryant, she's too nice. Um, But yeah, it was so flippant and like honest, and then she goes and gives that cutting It wasn't honest, no, but she said it sorry, you're right, not honest, very frank like she spoke to

him very frankly girl. Yeah, And I was like, but why, especially then when she goes and says what she says to mouth, like she really had a chip her shoulder. It's very like John Hughes, like going back with Gus and watching Breakfast Club. No, it does not hold up the twelve year old audiences like these people are disgusting, right, And I thought for sure he was gonna love Judd apatat or not jut apta Judd. I really thought he

would think, like, oh, that guy's cool. And Gus was repulsed, which I hadn't seen the movie and you know, fifteen twenty years, so I'd forgotten it is repulsive. And Rachel is kind of behaving like that. She's behaving like this kind of cartoony nineteen eighties. I'm going to say, like the cool thing to say, and the lesson is that when you think you're being cool, you could be incredibly damaging. She's being really damaging here with out knowing it well.

It was in the context of that speech with mouth, it felt like she was It felt she was trying to put him in his place or keep him in his place or something, which that just is what felt strange about it, Like because she on the heels of that goes right to mouth and she's like, listen, he's either going to sink or swim, and it's not up to you to save him. You know, you guys all graduated to hang out with the popular crowd. The elite girls.

Heard elite girls, but you know, someone doesn't jackets with elite girls on it, Pink ladies. You know what. I like what you're saying, their joy And it's interesting because it jogs my sense memory of scenes that Daniel and I have later when Brooke finds out that Rachel used to be, you know, for categorizing these kids, Rachel used to be kind of a Jimmy Edwards. And she, you know, by the way, we all have issues with the storyline,

we'll get to when we get to it. But she, you know, for better or worse, transformed herself to be, you know, quote unquote her name, an elite girl. And in a way, what I realized now, only because I have the experience of having done the material with her, is that she's beginning to foreshadow that she was willing to cut out her whole life. Yeah that's great. You know that she's like, suck it up, this is what

it is, and you've got to do the work. And it's kind of like, whoa what is that there's darkness there and it feels strange, and I I'm wondering if that's what this was meant to be, like a foreshadowing of learning that Rachel Gettina wasn't always you know, the girl we've met in Tree Hill. It came off as jealous to me, like that she was being territorial of Mouth.

Because if Nathan and Hailey are at this club night together and Brooke and hate her being super cute, and Lucas and Mouth are having this night with their old buddy, nobody's talking to Rachel, you know, and she's just like Pete all over Mouth's leg in the last couple episodes. So it just it's weird when you see jealousy out of someone that you wouldn't expect, where you're like, oh, I thought you had the whole world by the tale,

Why are you being a weirdo? It is also what you were saying so about her feeling like I did the work. That's also very human nature, right like when if we feel like we've done the work, we've been able to fight through whatever we had to fight through in order to get to point from point A to point B. So if I could do it, You can do it, and there's no reason you can't. And that

also creates a divide. It creates discompassionate, It creates loneliness, It creates anger and jealousy and frustration because there's always going to be another level that you're trying to get to and you're having difficulty, but somebody else has reached that level and they're looking at you saying you should be able to do it. So there's a constant bad

cycle that comes from that kind of mindset. Yeah. Well, and I think that's one of the things you have capability, you know, whether it's the tools or the capabilities I suppose to do as an adult is to say, oh wow, I can see what's going on with you, and I can also see my reaction to it, yeah, and see what what triggers me or where my expectations lie. And at sixteen or seventeen years old, like, you can't do that, No,

you can't understand. Everybody goes at their own pace. No, somebody pushes your buttons then and you're just like, what are you doing? And there's no parents to pick us up? Right, drives home, We'll be like this happened, this happened. This happened, and somebody's parents would be like, well, you guys, there's no parent driving home on our show. It would be Karen and Keith. But you know they're all busy getting

all engaged. The kissing being cute. Yeah, you were so cute in that scene, Sophia jumping up and down and squirling and like wrapping them up in your arms. Can I make your wedding dress. I'm sixteen years old, please please, please, please please. I remember that. I remember how fun that was. I like, I have a visceral like sense memory right of hugging you and Moira, just like yeah, and it was, Oh,

it's so fun. I just remember that whole episode being so fun and even for you and I like you hosting and us being off to the side of the Trick stage all night. I remember that. I remember, dude, we had a little water bottle full of vodka and we like like it was a real club night hanging out on the side of the stage. It wasn't real. Sun Kissed, oh Man kissed wherever you are. Thank you for paying our bills, thank you for funding our show. And stunt Kiss traveled all the bands out because that

was expensive. Also, Jack's mannequin speaking of the band still hits. Yes, you remember how excited we were the Dark Blue song and get It Forever Forever. It's such a good album. Cool, and it was so important to have an artist there that backed up with the with the you know, charity work of the show was all of the cancer research that we were fictionally and also realistically trying to support. Um. Yeah, I really liked hanging out with those guys and it we were like in a bubble. So I was still

really nervous that we had these school kids coming to visit. Yeah, same, because we weren't you know, we weren't working in La or New York work where every weekend you go to a show where you meet somebody from this or that. Like, it was just us. It was the nine of us and our crew and like the college kids in town.

And so when a band that we loved would come to visit, like, it's probably still I don't know how to be cool and rooms full of people, I like, I'm just like, wow, you may get this, and everyone's like please, like stop, you have to stop. But I just remember we were so geeked and and truly like for me. You know. This was also around us stage where I was beginning to work for nonprofits and really find my voice, like my early voice as an advocate.

You know. I started working on my first political campaigns in oh seven. This was Andrew. Andrew was such an inspiration to me. I was like, whoa, You've used your art and like who you are as a human to advocate for this thing that's important to you? Like you're allowed to do that. Everybody tells me I was supposed to keep my mouth shout about politics and about causes, Like what do you mean just stand there and take your kid, Yeah, just stand there and look cute and

write a check to your charity. I was like no, and he really, he really kind of was an early inspiration for a different way, uh to advocate to me. And yeah, it's funny. I haven't thought about that in a really long time, but it's kind of all it's all coming back to me now. We need to hang

out with that dude again, coming bag. Those days were long long because it was all I mean, how many bands there were three three songs, three bands and you have to shoot it from twenty seven my song Jack's Mannekin and Fallout Boy, and you so Okay, so three songs. Your song was so good, Joy, it's a good song. Yeah, that's the number one requested song from you in this with your long hair. I like all of it too. I love you guys for saying that. I was saying

while we were watching it. It's so cringe e to me. It's like watching a musical theater kid try and do rock and roll but it's just cringe e and not working. Um, I don't wrong, but whatever, I loved it. I loved it. It's like I also loved I loved you, like putting that little gravel in your voice. And I don't know, man, it gave me. It just gave me vibes. I don't know. Something itself is great. It's more just the whole the stage performance. It's like I hadn't quite figured out how

to I didn't have like a stage presence. I didn't know what I wanted to put out there. Yeah, it's not like they got you like a choreographer, Joy. Yeah, nobody was crafting anything. It would like just go stand

up there and like, you know, move around. I'm like, okay, this could be so much cooler, but here Here's the thing that probably affected me most in this episode is the speech that Haley gives Nathan where she says, I am afraid to love it again, and I'm afraid for you to see me love it because I have felt that in my life where it's like I gotta tamp down my excitement because I don't want to threaten anybody.

And it's such a specifically female saying. If you're an ambitious female, to feel like you have to our normal gender roles are like, oh no, I'm going to be the caretaker. I will handle the homestead if you will um this idea that Haley is vocalizing, I'm afraid for you to see me love it is. Yeah, I loved it. You did such a good job with that. Thank you.

It is And and they really have gotten so good at this point in writing for you and James, They've they've dialed in Nathan and Haley in a way you guys get to volley. The dialogue is really good. It's really connected, it's well thought out. You get to play inside of it because it's good. You're not trying to force the material to make sense. It does. And so when you get vulnerable with him in that way and

all of us goes oof. We felt that when he then comes back and says, I'm scared, I'm scared to be vulnerable with you, and you realize that these two people are they're going through the same experience. They're just each on a different end, you know, of a distance looking at each other across it. It was so it was just so nice. I thought they did a beautiful job giving you guys the the space cross scenes to

really make that conversation so impactful. Yeah. I like that they took the time to really bring them back together and draw that out. It's fun. I haven't seen that a lot in TV. I guess where a couple gets together almost right a but then they they actually have to spend the majority of the time trying to find

their way back to each other. After it's like a fast to get together and then a fast fallow part and then you know, the long stretch of time to find their way back to each other, which is how it happens sometimes. I think that's really interesting. What was that show Divorce? What was that show The Girlfriend's Guide

to Divorce? She hooke up with ther ex husband on that show, which is so much more taboo than hooking up with like a new guy, you know, the idea that Nathan is your husband but also like your ex because you guys didn't kind of break up a little bit. Um. Yeah, I liked. I'm glad that they brought back the two little boys, the Dan, the young Dan and Keith, because when it first showed up a couple episodes ago, it felt so strange. It was like, why are we doing

a flashback with these two kids? And I see now that they're trying to thread a device for the next little while. Um, So I don't know. I'm just glad that they tied it in with something that wasn't just totally random. I used to see that happen. Um. But a lot of a lot of build up there with Dan and Keith. Interesting too, to see how they brought in the storyline that Dan was the one that got bullied pretty consistently as a kid, and Keith came to his rescue, and Dan grew up to be a bully.

And while you're watching this man, you know, who's forty or however old, he has deal with what happened to

him as a kid. You see a teenager dealing with the ways he has felt bullied or ostracized, and it's it's an interesting device they're using to kind of show you the ways that, um, what we go through as kids, you know, to your point earlier, the humiliation um, whether it's real or perceived, by the way how it affects us, because you know, Lucas and Mouth make that great point to Jimmy, like, dude, we're sorry, but you didn't call us either. You know, you kind of dropped off too.

And it's it's that question that we ask, you know, how much of a responsibility do kids have to like pull others with them, and how much of a responsibility do kids have to figure out how to overcome their obstacles? You know who whose whose responsibility is it? And it's interesting to see all of these ways that it can

turn out represented by these characters. Well, moral of a story is, if you are in high school and middle school, UM, I'm not sure you should be listening to our podcast because it's kind of round sometimes, but you are episode yes, yes, and you're sitting in such a lovely velvet tone. Ladies and gentlemen. There are a lot of bombs dropped in the particular episode at your own risk. But if you are, you know, and you see somebody who's sitting alone at lunch or they seem like an outcast, go be a

friend to them. Let you know, let go of whatever your social priority is for the day and just make an effort on occasion or you know, as often as feels natural to you to go and be friends someone who looks like they need it. And if you're grown up like us and you have children, um teach that to your children. And if you don't have children then and even if you do have children, you should be doing it yourself and leading by example to be like, yeah,

if you have kids, you're off the hook. Kids. You got to ask specific questions. That's that's don't ask them if they're fine, be like, what's going on with Susie, what's going on with Todd? What's going over? So you gotta be specific at pickup, drive your kids, everywhere and be specific as possible. All right, what we got, we got questions. I like it when people are specific with me. By the way, just as a little asterisk on that specificity,

you love. It is a love language, you know. It's also a love language for us when you all send us cute questions. We like them. I don't know how I feel about this question. What is it? Say? Okay, yeah, it's from Sasha. She says, was the Peyton and Pete went storyline? Your idea, Hillary, And if it wasn't, were

you majorly surprised? It became a thing you guys. Okay, Look, if we were going to be able to request what singers we were going to get to make out with on our show, we would have had way more power. You also would have requested like Pad Benatar. Yeah, to be clear, to be clear. Um yeah, I mean, look, I I like Pete. He's a sweet dude. Um he Yeah. At the time, he was with a buddy of mine. I had worked at MTV with Ashley Simpson and was obsessed with her. She's so fun, She's like the nicest girl.

I really liked hanging out with her, and so when they were like, Oh, her boyfriend's gonna come on and you're gonna kiss him. To be perfectly honest, I was weird about it because I was like, is she coming? Like I probably would have been more comfortable kissing her. So, Um, No, it wasn't my idea, but we had a good time. And Pete was very respectful, you know, like the last time we talked about Pete and I was like, yeah,

this storyline is inappropriate. When the news outlets pick up our stories from the podcast and then just aheadline, I'm like, guys, you gotta give context. Um, you weren't saying he was inappropriate, Like we never said that. It's so annoying, like Pete an adult kissing a high schooler. Yeah, not so great right now, that storyline. Um, But Pete Wentz was a doll and so respectful, never crossed a line. Um, good dude, you know who. I loved seeing Pete bond with Jojo. Yes,

she washed his hair. She washed his hair for him one day and he was just like in that bowl getting his head massage, and I was like, this cute whatever this is in the corner, like I can't. It was precious ant well, because she always hung out with bands in Atlanta when she was in her twenties and bar attending and so she just right and so she just get right down into into bar talk and like

band talk. And he was like, oh, okay, ask him about amps, and yeah, alright, Lenny wants to know there are so many iconic love quotes in O t H. If you were writing wet Ean vows, what would be a quote that you would use? No pressure. This isn't an iconic love quote, but I do really love the quote at the end of this episode from Whitey saying that the journey is the destination. Um. That seems very applicable to a wedding vowel. Yeah, that makes because that's

a whole life. You know, you're you're embarking on a journey. You don't want to get to the end of it. Yeah. Is it cryptic if I say that quote from Ellie Every song ends? But is that anything? What a twisted thing to say. Can you imagine being at a wedding if someone used that, you would be like like a toast. That's the drunk cousin toast. Every song ends. There's no reason not to take this journey. Oh my god, I hope I hope someone uses that. God bless you guys,

these are going to I will say it was. I will always be nostalgic about the fact that, like when we were prepping our whole ceremony and working with our officiant, like, you know, there's a reality that your your story is being told, and I was just like, I'm pretty excited I get to talk about my friends in our story. So like when when Lorie was giving our overviews about like Grant's life in my life, and like the mention

of y'all came up. I'll never forget, like standing at the altar but then looking over my shoulder and we just did our little thing, and I was like, this is this is fist pumped at your wedding ceremony and you were like like joy And I put in in season eight when we did the Brook and Julian wedding, like you and I at the speech did this little like that thing that everyone's like scripted, and I'm like, no,

that was just me enjoy. And so I turned back at you guys, and we were all just pointing at each other like, oh my god, it's real, it's real. We totally sat on the wrong side by the way we were supposed to. I always thought it was the opposite side. So we walked down the island. We were like, wait, no, I think we have to go on the right. We should sit on the right. And we sat on the right and then your face, your back was to us. I was like, doesn't. I was looking at the dress.

I love you so much. I was looking at that I was on the right side. That son's always so funny to me. And we realized it when we got up there, like we put our parents on opposite sides, because I was like, his parents should be able to see his face. My parents should be able to see my face. But we didn't think about like for the hubbub that it was of like how are we gonna get Grandma Ethel in her seat? And how will my

mom know where to go? And then like we're up there and luckily, you know, his best friends would become my best friends. But I'm standing there doing my vows, just looking at his whole bridal party and realizing that all of my bridal parties staring at my back. You guys were staring at my back. I was like, we didn't plan enough of this. I was it was perfect. I loved it. You know what I liked seeing I liked being able to look at his face and see

how and love he was with that. And you know, that's what the friends are there for, really, is to make sure this guy is going to do what he's supposed to do. As your husband and you could tell every inch of it in his face. He's I do that too, Like I remember, you know, even at your wedding hill. Like the minute I saw you, I was like, I need to look in Jeffrey's eyes right now. Yes, Yeah, he was like holding George and like he was like

handling children. He was. It was so sweet because he was he was like holding a baby and like weeping, and I was like, weeping exactly, That's exactly what should be happening right now. Boys, boys, cuties. I love them. Well, thanks everybody, we're here, and uh, get you on your way. What do we got today? Most likely to go Hillary, what's it gonna be? Most likely to completely lose it

on a roller coaster? That's so weird. I realized Yesterday has never been on a roller coaster, and I was showing him videos of Bush Gardens Williamsburg because that was the theme park we went to growing up, and he was like, Mom, I have to go on these roller coasters. So I feel like in the next month or two, we're about to make some poor choices. So it's gus in real life. Then, Yeah, he's so pumped, but he's not gonna lose it. He's pretty, he's pretty even Stephen

um okay, who would lose it? Who's a hysterical person? Who would lose it? I would like, I don't know about lose it. But the person who's like no, no, no commentary I would like to hear on a roller coaster is Antoine. Antoine because the best part about Antoine is that he talks a very big game and then it's just like, hold up, well, we don't actually want

to do this, right? He would he would like get us to go to bars with him and be like, we're gonna stay out till four in the morning, and then at like twelve thirty he'd be like, so we're good, right, Like we did it. I think it's Antoine. I think it's skills in the show, and it's Antoine real life. You know what I will say as a follow up to this that I love if y'all have not gone down the rabbit hole of the videos of people passing

out on roller coasters, do yourself a favor. Jenny like sent me down some TikTok rabbit hole of this, and like people who get launched in those things and they're screaming and then they faint and they come to and they're screaming and then they faint like it is the funniest. If you are having a bad day, just look up people fainting on roller coasters. It's chefs kiss. This is how everyone can spend the rest of their week until our next episode drops. We got you great, You've just

given me something to Maria to do next time she's poored. Yeah, good luck everybody. All right, We love you guys. We'll see you next week. See you next week. Hey, thanks for listening. Don't forget to leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at Drama Queens O t H or email us at Drama Queens at I heart radio dot com. See you next time. We are all about that high school drama. Girl Drama Girl, all

about them high school queens. We'll take you for a ride in our comic Girl Cheering for the Right Teen Drama Queens draw up girl Fashion, but your tough girl. You could sit with us Girl Drama Queens, Drama Queens, Drama, Queen's Drama, Drama, Queen's Drama, Queens