S1E3: Grenade

Welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast. An intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McCaleb. I'm one of the editors of Pluribus and the host of this podcast. If this is your first time tuning into the podcast, this is not a recap show. It's more like a freewheeling, unscripted roundtable discussion about the making of each episode.

And if you haven't watched this week's episode, I strongly encourage you to do so before listening, because we'll be talking about everything. This podcast is about episode 103, and the title is Grenade. Written and directed by Gordon Smith. Now this episode starts with a flashback of Carol and Helen at an ice hotel in Norway and then picks back up where we left off. Carol flying home from Spain after her not so successful summit.

But she's not alone. Zosia is now traveling with her again. There's lots to talk about in this episode. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guests, executive producer and creator Vince Gilligan. Hey, pleasure to be here. Production designer, Denise Pizzini. Hi, Chris. Executive producer and writer-director of this episode, Gordon Smith. Howdy. And once again, she's back. Zosia herself, Carolina Vidra. Hi.

All right. As K-Stras, the Zimzam yo-yo man might say, what an episode. Yes. I love that guest so much. With this one, let's start right at the beginning. So refreshing to go way back. to get some more time with Helen and spend some time in this ice hotel. How on earth did you shoot that? Did we go to Norway to film that? I think you know the answer is no. He says, asking a question he knows the answer to. Yeah, no.

Yes. Yes, we did. What are you going to do now, Chris? Checks notes. No, we did not. We considered briefly what it would be or how we could possibly pull this off. And then we came to our senses and threw this challenge very early to our incredible production designer, Denise. And Denise went... Oh, my. You wanted me to do what now? Haven't you tortured me enough with the Air Force One? No, this was, this was, and it was so different.

And this was such a pleasure because what we did when we saw there was an ice hotel, we immediately started doing all kinds of research. And these ice hotels are seasonal. So they have different artists that come in and design these hotels. So we kind of took that role on.

It's like, well, if we were asked to design an ice hotel, what would we do? And we had some things, you know, the way it read, they had to walk down a hall. So we had to have other hotel rooms. Our room was kind of in the round. And it had to have a big skylight so they could see the northern lights. So we did a lot of research first with different plastics and stuff that would look like ice because, again, we didn't want it to look like a set.

And we ended up getting these plastic cubes from Germany that looked the best. Germany has kind of corners of America in the plastic cubes. Plastic ice cubes. And then we hired some sculptors to come in and our theme. For that particular room, I thought having waves and Japanese koi would be kind of interesting because it was round and the movement of the waves. And these guys, they sculpted it so beautifully.

And I just love it. And then it was lit so well. Paul Donaghy, our DP, went in, and we worked with him pretty close on how this would be lit. And Waylon did a great job. He was really excited about our gaffer, was very excited to work with Paul and you to figure out. where do we put these lights? How do we put these lights? Yeah, it was fun. It was like doing an art installation. If you would have seen our stage during those days, I mean, we filled it with styrofoam.

And it was quite an adventure, actually. But I'm pleased the way it turned out. I love it. It was beautiful. How long does it take to build a set like that?

You know, who knows? I mean, you know, right, right. Well, you know, we have so much going on at the same time. You know, it's not like we're just building that. We also had. some pretty big challenges on that episode so it's hard to say but luckily when the outlines come out I can flag Some of these sets that I know are going to take a lot of time and have a lot of discussion and evolve into what they should be. So I think we had enough time.

for that because we started out much larger we had a lobby bar we had all this stuff so we reduced it down to like the hotel hallway and the doors in the hallway so they could kind of run down we you know but we had ceilings we had a kind of a return hall which had this butterfly that we could shoot That's still there. We do get a good shot, I think, of that early going, which is beautiful. It's kind of glowing behind them at the moment when Helen touches the wall. Ooh, it's so cool.

When we had to cut it down, I was a little disappointed because I thought, oh, it's such a missed opportunity. But you don't miss it at all. You know, it's all in there. And I think it looks beautiful. My understanding is that you found the best styrofoam carvers in the business. I think I did. Yeah. Where do you go looking for that? Well, it's a union thing. They're, you know, part of, and there aren't a lot.

Ace Carver's Local 426. Right, right, right. The foam brigade. One of them came from Atlanta. The other one came from L.A., who happened to have a house in Albuquerque. So we brought them in, and they did a fantastic job. And then we have a guy on our crew who's been with the construction crew for a long time, Andy.

who does all kinds of things. And he kind of jumped in. And then we had a few people, local artists that came in. So we had a lot of, it was obscene, the amount of styrofoam we used on this show, because there's more styrofoam to come. biodegradable. We'll have it for future generations.

yeah but they were amazing so we would kind of show them what we wanted and they would be like well how's this and it was like their test and it was like good enough to shoot just their samples you know i think if it was all that kind of plastic ice your brain would start to see that it's fake right but sort of mixing the like snow texture and the kind of compressed blocks of snow which is is real according to the research but like it makes it so you can't quite grasp onto it and see that

falsehood in the same way it just feels more real I don't know how to put it but yeah I thought it felt pretty real too because that was always the scary part was like uh what's this gonna look like but you know they carved it then we had to hard coat it and then the painters went and painted it and then added some little sparkle and crystals. And then Werner brought in the, you know, the fake snow, the real fake snow.

and put that all over when you add that and then where we had the cubes was one of my main concerns but It's on the bed, and you have the skins on the bed, so you're not just staring at those cubes, and then they're lit nicely. So I was pleased with it. It was great having Miriam Shore.

Back in that scene. Did you have a good time directing her? Yes, very much so. She's so great. And she's such a pro. And we both are University of Michigan alums. And so I could sort of chit-chat with her about that. Of course, she's like... She's had such a long and crazy career. And shout out to our Bjorn Torknay, who did a great job. And he had a tough bit there since he had no idea about any of these. It's both a flashback and it's a flashback to non.

others, non-main characters. He had to fly blind through the whole thing. And something that we also did with him was we had to add some lines of his. And for the longest time, I was doing an impression. Serviceable? How would you describe my impression of him? Schwarzeneggerian? Rather than perhaps Norwegian? But good, good, serviceable.

you know one of the things that happens on tv and film anything is that you write a script and for whatever reason you get into the realities of production the budget or the schedule things ultimately have to change i mean it's a it's a pretty common it's a commonality with like all television you just run into the wall of reality yeah that can sometimes stymie the

swimming pool of of creativity yeah dreams yeah and i i certainly know that that happened on this in a couple of different one uh carol returning from spain and then also the sprouts sequence which i'm sure will talk extensively about. I mean, both, yes. I think this is the first episode after kind of the pilot or the pilots from episodes 101 and 102. And I will say that the line production staff, Chris Mironoff, was great.

we're like um uh because we had already a big build in the in the form of the ice hotel and we had this sprout sequence which we knew was going to be extensive and difficult We didn't know how extensive and difficult at first. So it was like, hey, we can't do this. So there was some concern. And then some of that we solved before as we could. And then once we'd had like about a week of prep.

And we're like running into like, no, this is really we were just having trouble figuring out how to do it. Jen and I went to sit down with Vince and go through the script and be like, hey, this is what we've learned from prep so far because you were busy shooting while we were prepping.

You always want to kind of present a problem with a solution. You don't want to just be like, Vince, good luck. Everyone's telling us this is impossible. What do you think? We were like, here's what we're trying to do. The conversation we had, we looked at the... there was a first act sequence when carol returns from spain that was very involved and it was multiple locations in the house and it was like carol essentially trying to get back to normal by

willing herself to get back to normal by like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to get back to laundry. I'm going to get to do this. I'm going to do that. And it was stuff that would have required us. because of the way we have the house set up, it would have required us to be shooting on stage and at our back lot for like every scene, every little like half page scene. So they were doubled up. It would have just taken us forever to do it.

And when we were talking about it, in my memory, at least, we were just like, does this do enough work? Does this tell enough story? And so that led us to sort of ask, like, what's the real heart of this? Not just can we do this more economically and more. dramatically and that led to instead of having a bunch of things that carol's doing to try and move on she's just getting mail that came from nowhere essentially like the last mail that's ever going to be delivered she's receiving

What is that like? And we focused it in on just that one moment rather than a bunch of moments that kind of made her sad. It was one moment and having that one moment kind of play opposite the grave, seeing the grave of. which was always the intention was that that was where it was going to end with seeing the grave but we just kind of felt like maybe we could streamline this and it helped i think that cut probably four pages of script and it cut i i would

guess two days of shooting out of the schedule i remember that there was a lot of things and then when you rewrote it we got and we're like huh interesting yeah and it is i know the scene you talk about and it is great because there's all the elements of struggle and yeah and it and we we like

because it, you know, it focused a little bit more. It's the first time in this episode where it's like, could we go from you just being like, I love what you do when you're like, we think you're gonna like what's in this box. It's just like, it's so sweet and there's no agenda and then it's like.

She opens it and it's just so, we don't know exactly what's going through her head for a while because she's just so tightly wound. And you're just like, yeah, she got you this. She thought you'd like it. She bought it on the tour. Isn't that great from the sharper image and blah, blah, blah. And then she's like, I want you to never, ever mention her name again. And it's like, oh. And it's one of those like, oops. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That did not go over well. There's a lot of moments, and that's what's great, is these moments that their emotional intelligence is so great, but they missed the mark. And then they get to evolve from that, which is great. And I love that that was in the script a few times because they're not perfect beings. They're humans. Sure. And even the most... highly emotionally intelligent human being is going to have faults and then they're going to evolve from that and

Learn a lesson. So it's great. Those moments I thought were so such great nuances into like what humanity is, what a human being is. We have faults and we learn from them. Which I think another thing I think you did that I love this moment, which is. you know for the whole episode is basically it's you going how about this it's like it's you're a you're a dog bringing various toys like do you like this do you want this how about this or a kid showing you like would you like this mom and

the moment where you bring the grenade and it's like, we, we thought maybe we probably thought you were being sarcastic, but we didn't want to take the risk that you actually wanted this and disappoint you. Right. But there's a moment of, Oh. Oh, I see now based on your reaction. Oh, you. That you were not. It's one of my favorite moments of your, you just, I love that reaction of you with bigger.

Are you being sarcastic? It was so well played. And you're so adorable. I love that moment. That's one of my favorite moments. Thank you. Thank you. It's really sweet. And like you say, it's learning. But it's the moment of like, okay, I've learned.

I could keep pressing this, but I've been pressing it the whole episode. You know what? I'm going to go until she invites you in. And so it's a nice moment of growth, I think. Let's talk about it. These two together are so good. Absolutely. Ray and Carolina.

Carol is just so deadpan, just annoyed. And then your character, Zosia, is just so sweet. Let's talk about that grenade sequence. Because there are a few, I think, a few very interesting things about it. One, that several elements of it were shot. practically including the explosion so do you want to talk a little bit about that about rigging that up so that i remember getting the dailies and i was kind of i didn't really understand what i was looking at

At first, because it didn't make any sense because there's our lead actors and the wall is exploding behind them. How did that? How did you do that? And how did that? What was the idea behind? Well, the idea behind it is like. hey, the best version of this would be seeing them in this moment and seeing how their bodies are, how their faces are, all that stuff.

and it's like the trick of it is that's not we had to make sure that that was as safe as we could possibly make it and of course part of that is everything that's blowing in is styrofoam and balsa wood and it's light and it's not really going anywhere it's blowing in off of air cannons there's an air cannon that are that again werner our sfx guru rigged and it blew through the walls and there's a light flash that we had to queue up with it

so we had to do all of that work and then we had to practice with you guys and like make sure that it felt like you could do the fall which it was we did some stunts with yeah we did some sense to make sure that we when we

felt it was all safe and like the way we're gonna fall yeah and there's two parts to it because it's you know it's what can you do the the sort of tackle and make sure that that felt safe and then what do we need to see there and then also the part of like what can we do with just

sort of landing on the ground at the exact moment that the explosion happened right hopefully you felt like i remember talking to you and ray and just being like is this okay because i know that this is like and we walked through it and we sort of practiced it so that it felt like you'd be tense but i think you don't expect the the sound of the explosion and things being thrown at you and that you you get worried about like even though we felt it it was very soft and felt very safe you still

Your body has its own natural reaction to things, and so you can prepare yourself, but once you're in it, you're like, okay, okay, okay, I got it, okay, it's going to be okay, right? Yeah.

which again that's kind of why we wanted to do it all in one so that you could get that general like real reaction versus like you know if you had two people clapping a board and saying okay react we could have like composited it and we did discuss whether that was the way to do it but did you actually fall on top of right That's tricky. Not from standing. Not from standing. I think stunts did that part. We did it from kneeling down and then falling and then going down.

and but we did when they oh yeah we did that when the explosion actually happened yeah we were already more down on the ground Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we could have timed it otherwise. No. Yeah, that would have been hard to do. Getting you from all the way from standing to the ground and then. because i think also they had to i think kind of go from like standing but like in the air kind of go down like it was like a whole thing that you wouldn't be able to like the perfect

timing of where to fall and how to fall. For the camera on the ground. We sort of planned everything around that moment. That's the hero shot. sort of was just trying to figure out, like, what do we need around it to kind of get to that shot? And that was...

I think it's the same. Werner Handliner, amazing head of the Department of Special Effects, said, I think it's the same technology he used for killing Gus Fring in Breaking Bad. Like you said, it's air cannons. It's a big tank of nitrogen gas so that when you release it under pressure, it doesn't.

turn into visible condensation yeah it looked friggin awesome and again also shout out to Waylon and our electric crew for getting that flash like it happens in a pretty perfect spot you feel like you've seen fire and obviously obviously the way that that chris cut it and the way that our our colorist dave our colorist dave did a great job

but it was cool on set when we did it everyone was clapping everyone was just so excited and they were just like oh my god that was incredible how many takes did you do i think we did two takes and then I remember that whole night, everyone would walk around and be like, did you see that? That was amazing. Everyone was so ecstatic about that shot and how well it turned out. When you see that explosion and when you see them landing on the ground in front of the camera.

And you see little pieces, like particles interacting with them and hitting them. That's all real. There's not like a glass wall.

It's all really happening. Denise, as the production designer, how involved is your team with the build of that stuff? Well, we had to. change out some of the window frames and the walls. And then we worked with Werner. We did a lot of research on how a grenade actually explodes. Does it come in? Does it go out? And what does the debris look like? And then what's the aftermath? What does it look like afterwards? We are more about the after.

Does it look real after the grenade goes off? But, you know, he put some charges inside the walls. And we knew early on, thank goodness, because there's always a very... comprehensive outline for all of these so we knew early on that there was going to be a grenade and explosion so when we built that front room we made sure that it could accommodate that effect.

And we also when we were talking about it, because it's like getting clarity across the team, because, of course, you know, everybody has a different vision for how an explosion happens. A grenade doesn't really blow up the way that. Right. A lot of people think it does. And so it's like there's really two explosions that are kind of happening almost simultaneously, which is the grenade goes under the truck, the truck out front.

blows up so there's a flash of fire but you wouldn't really get that from a grenade so just figuring out all of the damage and like what's blowing up that's causing what right where it would actually hit and you do want to see something You know, because maybe if it's not that impactful, but you do want to see something just to kind of. Yeah. You got to Hollywood it a little bit because I think a real grenade going off might not even. It's not that exciting.

It's exciting if you're there. And we did research the timing of it too. We tried to be as accurate as possible with like from the time the spoon, from the time it flies out to the time it.

blows up is it's it's something like it's pretty close five to six seconds or something and oh yeah we talked about that yeah but also like having that it was obviously a fake grenade but having and you just realize how a little not flimsy but that spoon is it's a little hard to get out but once you do it's like how quickly everything happens you just let it go and throw and it's just boom it happens it just feels i don't know you just you think of like grenaded something so much more

intense and complicated and you're like no just pull the spoon out and just let it go well you pull the ring and then the spoon goes flying oh is that what it is yeah yeah yeah the ring okay yeah that's my favorite chat i love the explosion but my favorite chat is

but ray's like yeah like you'd give me a real hand grenade and then it goes twing and goes flying through frame that's that's practical that is that is a real we were worried at some point because it's like hard to figure out how to get the spoon to fly in a direction even messing with like the shutter angle but also that shot after that when that happened i love when gordon's like okay so you're gonna come up to her calmly like

we got this everything's okay okay like you just did that we only have five seconds now and i'm like are you sure this is like intense moment you're like yes that's what i want you to do and it works so great you play it so great it's like carol we may still polite still kind still you know giving her the autonomy to be like make her own decisions you know

Can we? Can we please? You know? You played that really well. Thank you. And I think it's a moment of emotional intelligence because I think if she had a hesitation, like, no, I meant to do this and I'm gonna... I was going to blow myself up. You would have let her go. Yeah, we had conversations about it because she has her own agency to decide what she wants to do with her life.

if she wants to blow herself up we're like and you you'd have been fine with that oh well for me yes of course it's like but it's that moment of like yeah you can see that she's like oh this is she's paralyzed with fear and i think it's in a moment of emotional intelligence that's like this was not intentional This is not what you want. I can see that you're okay with me throwing this away. And you know, Denise brought up an important point a minute ago that I had forgotten.

But it's very important for folks who want to do this job. We had at least the outlines of all these scripts. We had most of these scripts, actually, before we ever shot day one of episode one. We kind of knew where we were going. But like Denise said, the very design of the front of Carol's house in large part was colored by, so to speak, by the fact that we wanted to have a hand grenade scene. And the.

Her vehicle needed to be parked close enough to the window and how should the window be shaped? It led to that sort of round, what do you call that? Like a bay window or something, but it's kind of rounded. And then we're out there measuring it. Can you throw a grenade from the window to where the car is, whatever vehicle she's driving is parked? Yeah, it's amazing when you have the time, or rather when you know where you're going story-wise. It helps so much.

just it's a wonderful all of that like just her breaking into her own front door can the neighbors see it from there i mean all of that plays in and And a lot of that was taken from the outlines that kind of drove how we designed that whole neighborhood. You know, what happens. And the more we knew, like, what happens to other houses, we could plan ahead for that.

Does she have a big enough backyard to bury her loved one? All driven by narrative needs and narrative decisions. Yeah. Something else that happened in that aftermath of that scene that I think is really interesting, Gordon, was... Having the camera techs unseat the lens and kind of go like have it practically moving the lens in and around to kind of enhance the chaos. of that moment as Zosia is bleeding out and Carol is trying to save her life. Yeah.

Do you want to talk about that? Sure. I mean, well, we I think I've seen something of a behind the scenes of Lost Highway or a scene from Lost Highway that reminded me that like there's a moment where David Lynch took the lens out of the camera and it does a weird unfocusing.

And it's like right when the lens is seeding, it kind of jumps around. And so I said to Paul, I'm like, you know, this is supposed to be like a kind of impressionistic and fractured kind of feeling. Like, what if we tried that here? taking it out and receding and it's very hard to do and all credit to chris norris our incredible a camera first ac his job is generally you know finding the focus and making sure everything's sharp but he's also taking the lens out

and putting it back in and finding the focus through the course of the shot. And it makes, that's where the camera, it jumps around a bit. It looks a little bit like. It's not an editorial trick. It's practical. And you don't want to drop that damn thing. It's worth like $20,000. Those lenses are very expensive. You want to be able to do it so that the timing is right and it's not just fuzzing out and you kind of feel it, but without.

so it's very kinetic and then and then i think we took it a little further with some of it and we did remove frames here and there just to to really make it more It's really subjective. Yeah. The scene is way more subjective and kind of from Carol's point of view, kind of that just the way that it's feeling for her, I think, is really represented visually, which I think is very cool. Yeah. And again, practical.

We're not digitally manipulating that image in that way. It's actually happening with the lens and then just removing frames here and there. And the blood effect. So it's when we're watching the bleeding and you're kind of on the ground and all of that. Hopefully it adds a little bit of a... a flavor to be in carol's head of how completely discombobulated this not only did she not intend to blow up this grade she she really had no idea that this was a real grenade she just assumed

that they're liars and they'd be like oh you wanted a grenade look we'll make you happy and that there's nothing to it but but she learned something very important You did a great fall. I was just going to ask you about that. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. How much prep went into that? And was that frightening? I mean, because I know that there's some movie magic. The stones are padded.

But you're really, I mean, with no hesitation. I don't remember how many times we tried it. I think we talked about it and then I think I practiced a couple of times and then we just didn't. We also talked about... you know when i come out of the house of like how injured is she and how you know these people the others when they get injured they feel pain as as normal people do is they're less than the levels of all that stuff and yeah so that was um

that was, yeah, we would just practice a couple of times and then I just went for it and we shot it, I think two or three times and yeah. And there was just more, yeah. I'm sorry, the part that makes me cringe the most is you drop it to your knees. Because it was, yeah, so I was wearing knee pads. That's right, thank you. I was wearing knee pads and the padding on what it looked like, it was the stone, it was pretty thick, so.

it was completely fine it didn't hurt and so it allowed me to really allow myself to go for it and let it happen yeah so that was yeah it was great another thought where i think you did a great job was just the performance of when you're like laying there and you're like don't worry carol it's not me it's it's don't worry people are coming you know it's okay like

you're passing out you're bleeding you've got shrapnel in your back and but you're terribly injured but i'm like it's okay but you're not yeah it's like you're you feel the pain but also you're you have the sort of zen of being

And I loved having all these conversations, you know, just like, how far do we take it? How far do these people go for Carol, for the old schoolers, you know? And so it was such a... great thing to be able to play that it was fun yeah can you talk a little bit about the audition process for you because just preceding that the scene where she's brought the grenade but shuba must do and when they're she's talking about uh aquavit

My understanding is that was the chemistry Reed scene. Yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With Ray. What was the problem? I would have asked you in episode two, but I didn't want to give away. The scene? Yeah, of course. Maybe talk about what that experience was like and then how it informed or differed from actually shooting the scene with her. Well, it was amazing because I think before the test, I got to speak with Vince.

And Vince took me through what the day was going to be like. And we sat down, we talked for a while and that was great. So we got to know each other, got more comfortable because it's such a nerve wracking process, you know, and it's just.

you just there and then once kind of like all right let's see what you got you know but it just felt really comfortable and i mean i was nervous i was incredibly nervous i was shaking my whole body i was having an out-of-body experience because i was like here i am meeting vince for the first time

And then meeting Ray. We sat around, we talked, and then, you know, again, it goes to like to Ray. She just makes you feel so comfortable. And at one point they asked if we want to step outside, Ray and I, and, you know, rehearse the scene.

and all that and i remember i was like no i think i'm good let's just let's just do it and just see what happens and um just you know playing with ray and and um she's again she's just so giving she's so present she's so there and we just play the scene and then vince gave notes and we play the scene again and i remember i said something to you vince i was like i think i'm smiling too much am i smiling too much and you're like

no you know you're you're here you killed it you were the it's a very tough role because as ray herself explained it to me when you were acting You're reacting to somebody else and you always, you go on an empathetic journey with somebody. Yeah, of course. And you're matching emotion. Yeah, you do. If someone gets mad, you get mad. If someone gets sad, you get sad. Well, also you react to their madness, right? So if somebody gets mad.

naturally your body reacts to that anger and the others don't yeah they just have to hold space and just has to wash over them just like you know like nothing I can't not ask

Gordon, about the Sprouts sequence. And it's impossible to talk about having so little time to shoot in the actual Sprouts. Shout out to Sprouts for letting us shoot there at all. That's awesome. When I turned this in. Denise immediately was like, this sequence is insane. And I was like, what? It's just a supermarket. We just found a supermarket. And she was like...

No, this is insane. I don't know how we're going to do this with the ice hotel already. And like you say, when you write something and you find out this was one of those. And yeah, we did have to figure out how to do it. It was it. First, we found Sprouts. I think Christian got into it with Sprouts, our wonderful location manager, and said they might be interested. And when, of course, when you're talking to them, it's like...

No, no. First they're like, yeah, sure. We'll give you the run of the place for a week. And we're like, that's fantastic. And then as it goes up the corporate ladder, those days get shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. Because they have a business.

because they have a supermarket business because they have a supermarket business and we have to figure out how to empty the store and then restock the store and and all of that so eventually we've sort of figured out a two-state solution where we could shoot inside sprouts but not outside Sprouts in the parking lot. And we had a, there was a sort of Busby Berkeley-esque sequence that I'd written. A truck ballet.

A ballet. Well, I had it written for inside the store. The restocking where things are going up on the shelves and all this stuff. Storyboards exist for this. They're really lovely. We just couldn't. It was impossible. We just did not have enough. Right, because you were going to see them actually restocking everything. Way more than we did, yeah. We see the hints of it.

but we were going to really make a meal out of it. And we said, look, we can make a meal out of it, but we had to sort of shift it to be outside and then figure out, because the parking lot is in an abandoned Sears in... a totally different part of town than the supermarket that was able to shoot with us so god bless sprouts for giving us the

the ability to shoot there at all, but it was quite a deal. I'm sure you probably remember more details than I do about how this whole thing came together. Sprouts was really helpful too. We used a lot of their people that help us because we actually did empty out half the store, you know, and... And restock it. So there were, you know, a couple of overnight crews in set deck. And then when we went to the Sears, I still had, we had shot.

On Better Call Saul, we had created a whole department store in that Sears. That's right. Did you write that? No, no, no. That was Allison. And Michelle McClendon directed it. Right, right. And Joey, Lou, and I edited that. yeah and i was kind of like oh boy you know because so that's why when i saw the sprouts thing i thought oh because it almost killed the art department on saw i thought i don't know that we can do this you know especially with rural food and and all this other stuff but

Thank God that Sprouts did decide to play along. They were wonderful. Yeah, they were. And then we made the parking lot to the exterior of that Sears, our exterior of Sprouts, which worked out. Fine. And then we ended up addressing all the trucks. Yeah. Yeah. Visual effects, uh, making it. Yeah, really.

And those trucks are really precision drivers. The reason we stay in some of those shots so long is just so you can see those trucks are actually hitting marks, driving with other-esque precision. We could talk about it for... three hours about that whole sequence my hope is that when people see it it will feel effortless like because it should feel like the others kind of just oh sure you want a supermarket we'll just do it I think that everybody

our stunts team that had those drivers and our vfx team because we had to do some compositing to just make that crowd feel like it was coming from everywhere and all of this and figure out how to match because when there are a few times where you're inside sprouts looking out and it does not look like the sears parking lot and there's a couple times where you're outside looking back and you just had to make everything match

neato or movement choreography and worked with you and worked with the extras. Yeah. Extras were great. They did a great job. Nito and Angie worked together. Angie Meyer, first AD. Yeah, our first AD. They're in charge of extras or background action, right? But we had so much precision that needed to be there. So Nito and Nito had practiced with some of his key people that were sort of dancer trained so that they knew how to move.

And those people had to be filtered in with all these other people who had no training that Angie was working with. It's more complicated than it looks, I think. Looks pretty complicated. It's, again, one of those effortlessly complex things where it's like, it feels like a dance and it feels like... Everything just slots in perfectly, but the amount of detail that went into actually making it a reality is just staggering. And of course, credit to you for figuring out how.

to put these pieces together. It's incredible. I remember seeing it and going, okay. I'm so tense when I'm seeing a sequence like that, and I'm like...

is this going to work at all? And it's like when I saw your cut, I'm like, okay, we'll figure that this is going to work. It's not going to be a disaster. I'm glad you're happy. How many days total inside the Real Sprouts? and outside the Sears. Do you guys remember how many days total you shot? I feel like we had two days in sprouts with breakdown and break. I think it was three days total, but one of those was like...

An overnight dress and then an outside looking in and maybe three days shooting total. And then four. Yeah. Three or four. It's serious. Yeah. One of those just truck driving. One of them just unloading. It's a real testament to the crew. And like you said, the extras that are doing such great work. They did a great job. Marie found some good people.

Background casting. That's right, she did. I got to give a shout out to Robert Bailey, who was our DHL guy. Yes, he's so pretty good. Love, love, love. Just because that end moment. And I like the squeak in his shoes and his performance. It's so tricky because he has to have the same kind of energy that the Carolina that you're bringing to Zosia and you have so much more time to inhabit that character and understand. And he's.

has the same feelings, the same expressiveness. And I thought he just knocked it out of the park. Yeah. He makes me laugh every damn time I see him. He's so funny. Yeah. And it's weird because it's like, he's like you say, Chris. He's continuing that emotional journey. Right.

you've been on yeah it's great to see all these other people come in and be the others right because it just gives you like the real feel for the world in a weird way we're giving a shout out to you because you're him as well Yes. You're all one. That's right. Yeah. We're all one. You're all one. You're all one. Yes. You're every woman. Compliment is all of you. As we, you know, we sort of leave Carol thinking about what her next move is going to be.

we bring in that really great daka braka song oh yeah do you want to say how that Came to be. You've seen them live, right? Twice. You and Jen have seen them live twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've seen them live twice. Oh, I want to see that so bad. We saw them at the Ford last year, and then we saw them at a festival. at Georgia O'Keeffe's ranch in Albuquerque last year. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, at a little festival show that was great. But they're like a Ukrainian folk jazz...

band. The lead singer looks like Rasputin. He kind of dresses in a black cassock and they wear these big fur hats. But they're very talented musicians and really compelling. They're just very energetic and interesting and the music is cool. And I think Thomas sent us that cue. I think he sent us it to try it over the Sprouts montage or something like that. He sent it for an earlier spot. It was for something else. Or it was a later spot maybe for something else.

I think, yeah, I think it was something else, but we went, what if we tried this for, like, I think we were all sitting there and I don't remember who said it, but we were like, what if we tried this at the end? And it was like, yes. And then we tried, you slapped it in and it's like. Oh, it works great. We got to go with it. The song is called Sonnet, and it's just spectacular. And one other musical note, Sade. Oh, yeah, Sade. The grocery store. That's a Gordon Smith.

I love that. I love that music. That works so great. There was a lot of stuff that we were happy that we were able to get in. The Golden Girls. The Golden Girls. Yeah, the Golden Girls here love the show. And I personally, I'm not making... fun of Sade for being supermarket music. It just felt like the right cue. Sade's great. Golden Girls are great. It's the right energy. I love that song. I feel like it was just the right energy for like, it's funny, but it's not.

We're not making fun. I think we're genuinely fans, especially also of Golden Girls. Golden Girls are incredible. Golden Girls are great. It's so neat seeing Betty White. Who doesn't love Betty? We had so many. I remember we were looking at it, trying to figure out what pieces we wanted to use. And our post team pulled together.

whole sets of like runs of Betty white monologues. And they're so, so good. There's a lot of heavy lifting on that show with the comedy. She does. He does. I love that shot of her reflected in the, on the backside of the DVD. That's a really cool shot. I was very happy about that. I pitched it to Matt Cradle, our camera operator, and he's like, yeah, that sounds like fun. And we were sort of working it, and our...

Keith, our VFX supervisor, was like, I don't know if that's going to work. Maybe I can put it in in post. And then Matt came in and was like, no, I've set it up. Let's take a look. And he showed us. He auditioned the move and it worked perfectly. And it was like the TV was really playing over his head.

Yeah, the TV's playing and it's a real reflection. And the timing kind of, we had a great playback operator that had everything so that we could do it practically. Movie magic. Best movie magic is the simplest.

Always. Yes. The best movie magic is the friends we made along the way. Awesome. Thank you, guys. This was great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much to Carolina Vidra, Denise Pizzini, Gordon Smith, and Vince Gilligan. And thank you for listening to Pluribus, the official podcast. an Apple TV podcast produced by Highbridge Productions and Sony Pictures Television. Be sure to follow on Apple Podcasts to get the next episode in your feed.

including those bonus episodes, and watch Pluribus on Apple TV where available. Our editor and mixer is Nicholas Tsai. Theme music by Dave Porter. Associate producers are Alana Hoffman, Justin Verbees, and Nicholas Tsai. Executive producers are Jen Carroll and me, your host, Chris McCaleb. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.