Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm Catherine Jileco. As parents and parenting writers, we can't help but see everything through a parenting lens. But as our kids have become adults, we find ourselves more interested in getting caught up on movies and streaming than I'm going over the same parenting topics over and over.
So since we're pretty sure we can find parenting wisdom anywhere, we're going to talk about what we're watching, what we thought about it, and maybe what we can learn from it, if only what not to do. Watch and listen along, and let's all make like we're doing something important for our families. Each Wednesday we bring you our thoughts on a newer entertainment property, and for this week of February seventeenth,
we're continuing with a Man on the Inside. This was season one, episode four, so the halfway point, the curious incident of the dog in the painting class.
In which there was in fact a painting class, and there was in fact a dog, though I stuffed.
A little stuffed dog, and Charles is making friends in a way that is probably not helpful to his mission.
Still it was charming. It was very charming. What it didn't have is a lot of parenting because no Emily.
Yeah, yeah, we liked we liked having Emily.
A little just completely apropos of nothing interlude of parenting in the middle of this show. That's about something else, right, But you got bad kids.
Know, usually they at least talk on the phone. Did they even talk to the phone?
Talked on the phone? I think she was not involved whatsoever.
Yeah, so you.
Know his friend's son is moving to Singapore?
Was it?
It's not going to have time to come by and he could say, yeah, my daughter has been getting in touch with me every day, but today, Nope, she's not calling children. Such a disappointment.
I miss here.
I had a lot to do last week. So maybe she just wanted to stay home. Maybe her boys were having some sort of crisis and we'll hear about it next week. But this was just about the case and being a spy in his level of spycraft, which is I mean, he was getting a lot of information but also getting attached to people, which apparently you can't do, which I feel like this detective is not taking good
care of her. Operative just go in and spy on people don't make friends with them, and if you do, do it in such a way that you can then betray them. Yeah, and expect that there's going to be no problem with that whatsoever, no fallout from that. There are probably some seniors that you would be able to do that with, but not this guy.
Yeah. Well, it did seem that by the end of this episode, DEDI had kind of decided she didn't need to be suspecting, you know, that whatever she thought was fishy about Charles she kind of got over.
So that is we think the significance of the putting his file back in the file cabinet, that was what I thought, it seems.
Did you have another interpretation?
As the Siren goes by, Kate got away again again? Havether theft down at the home? All right? Yeah, I mean I figured that must be what it was that we hear his file was out, so she had expected him, suspected him, and now she's putting it back in. But I don't necessarily see what would have made or suspicious in the first place, and if she was suspicious, what would have caused her to not be suspicious?
Right?
So? Okay, well, I think at least she has less lines than the guy unlost, but yeah, the filing cabinet in a meaningful way.
Stephanie, Yeah, I guess I just thought it was sort of like she was keeping an eye on him, and then when she saw that he was, you know, integrating pretty pretty well, then she she decided, Okay, he's he's.
Interpretation and probably the intended one. I can't think of what else it would mean, So.
Sure we did. You know? The dog of the title is the stuff dog that has been fairly prominent in almost every So you never noticed he always has it by him.
Terrible spy, Have we noticed this? Have we mentioned this?
No, whenever he was sitting by at his in his like armchair, he always had it next to him.
So I'm glad to know that because then the story about it being his wife and reminding him of her as legitimate and not just to cover at the last minute. Holy cow, what is going on in my neighborhood? Do you hear all these sirens going by?
More sirens?
Yeah? Two out of four of my family members are not home, so that makes me nervous. Whenever I hear a siren, something is going on. Nobody's set their terrible father on fire or something, right, built a senior citizen out of jewels. So I wonder if this, uh, this lady who was the volunteer and had met his wife, if she's gonna be trouble. H.
Who was that actress? By the way, good question, because I felt familiar, she looked familiar, and I didn't.
Let's look on IMDb.
Jama Jama Williamson. I have no see, Yes, that's that's her name. Oh, she was on The Good Place. She was on eight episodes of The Good Place.
Okay, who did she play?
Val? Oh? She was on eleven episodes of Parks and rec as Wendy Haverford.
Oh was she Tom's? Oh? Yeah, she was Tom's. Tom married him to be able to stay in medical school, right, and then she dated Ron for a while.
Yeah. So that's how we know her from those to Mike, sure.
Jason has passed since last right, swin that show?
Since we watched either of those things. But we knew she looked familiar.
Yes, there we go, And like trouble watching any show by a showrunner you've seen before is just like always a.
Wasn't that right in the show?
They were on this show? Who were they? I don't remember these people at the end when he took off all his spy stuff and left it in his room. Yes, isn't there a thief at this place that goes into people's room.
Yes, hopefully he locked his door.
I need not to maybe hide it. Perhaps there's a safe somewhere under the bed. I don't know. It just seemed like very put it here, is all my spy stuff right now on the table where I can find it again.
You're quite right.
Yes, again, maybe there's like a spy class at a junior.
Should have done that first, but Mark Evan Jackson was not going to have time for all that.
I think he's had insufficient training. And also the psychological impact of this sort of thing should have been figured in and worked on. And you know, maybe there's a special secret therapist he could see while he was doing this stuff. Yes, yeah, but it was it was fun seeing him making especially like the guy he's making friends with. That was fun. Yes, And a lot of Shakespeare and painting.
And I'm surprised they don't have any podcast classes there. Yeah, it's like the kind of place every one of those old people would have a podcast and they'd be competing with US for traffic. So I'm very glad, right, but hey, I'm a senior with the podcast, like, may I can teach it? Are they hiring? Hey, I'm the wrong. We could be a tele class, you know. I don't need to be there, right, Yeah, just do it on zoom.
I have often thought of writing a I started a pitch email that's been sitting in my email thing for years and years, to like write something for the ARP magazine on how to start a podcast. Yeah, it's not that hard. It doesn't cost to have to cost anything, right, You can just sit down talking to your phone, you know. But I never did that, one of the many, many, many things I talked about my substack lately. No, we have not, and you know why, Well, life is full of.
Once you retire and move into the retirement living community, then you'll have title for all these.
Things that place Molly cow me taking all the classes. I'll get up on that stage shoo yep, yep, yep, yep. There was a lot of I guess. The parenting for this week was with Charles's friend and the friend's son, both in terms of you know, I remember when he was a little good and how he's a grown up man with a bright job and no time for me, And yeah, I can, I can. I don't know that I can relate to that entirely because my kids are still here and they still need me in various ways.
But I do miss the surveillance opportunities I had when they were in school and I could ask people what was going on, and I don't know that anymore. I remember when they had para professionals and I could flag them and talk to them quietly in a corner. And I also was amused in the having their meeting, the residence meeting, and Charles gets kind of swept into being vice president. Yes, virtue of being new and not knowing
how to you know, hide and make no eye content. Yeah, we've all fallen down that trap once in a while in our time as parents.
Yeah he was.
He was just be in the restroom when that time is coming.
Yeah, he was subject to flattery there. That was yeah, dangerous.
He just reeled him right in. Everybody else is like, oh, what does that? What's that on this corner? Is this on the floor? Let me just go down and crawl and get it right. Oh man, you gotta watch out. Yeah, because nobody wants. That also the difficulty of kids who move far away from aging parents because his friend's son is going to not be around now, which is of course why places like this exist. Yeah, but still it is nice to get visits and stuff. So it's kind
of sad. A lot of it was kind of sad, kind of abandoned or alone, you know. And to some degree they're not alone because they have each other, but they're a it's an artificial peer group. Yeah, so you know, it's not like being in your family and so you're not alone or your longtime friends or your neighborhood. It's a bunch of people you happen to be in the same facility with. And and then for Charles to have to take a step back and like, well you can't
actually be friends with them. You tend to be friends with them, but then you're going to take away their fun things.
Yeah, they're booky.
That is just really sad.
Yeah, that was the sad part for me of it. You know. Oh wait, I yeah, I'm making friends. I care about these people and I can't do that to hurt them. Yeah.
The thing I like about it the least is that it seems to point towards an episode where he gets caught out and everybody's mad at him and hurt by the things he's done, and I want to watch that. I want to watch that, Mike, Sure, I do not want to watch that. So that could all happen off stage, okay, and then everybody could be okay, right, I don't want to watch that.
Yeah, well, we only have four more to go.
Wow.
Yeah, I think there's eight total, and that was okay, this was number four that.
It makes me wonder how this continues as it's already been renewed. Does he just take two seasons to solve this one case or does he have to do this again with a different community, or does he stay with this community and just just work for Dede solving any little mysteries that come up. How do how do we move forward with this?
Good question?
I don't know that I want a completely different cast every season. No, But at the same point, how much crime.
Can there be?
Just come retirement community high jinks? Right, that would be nice, that would be fine. I could lose the mystery trappings, but then it really sort of does lose its I don't know that you could do that. Yeah, So well, we'll see what happens.
We'll see what happens. For now, we'll just continue with episode five. It is called presence and Clear Danger, so fewer words.
Yes and a little bit more mangling of the original than they be yes. So there's it's starting to get hard. Yes, we set up this thing. We got to keep doing it.
Now, we have to keep doing it well, not just.
Be clear in presence date.
Yeah. Well, who am I to.
Tell these highly professional television exactly gurus how it's done. I'm pretty good with the title though. Man, you guys could call me yes, I'd be very reasonable.
Well, we'll talk about that next Wednesday, and we'll see you back here tomorrow for our weekly Roundabout roundup.
Yeah, thank you for listening. You can find all our episodes on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find recaps, links, and an opportunity to comment on our website at parentingroundabout dot com.
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