¶ Ted Lasso Episode 10 Analysis
Welcome to our Ted Lasso talk , the Tedcast . Welcome all Greyhound fans , welcome all you sinners from the dog track and all the AFC Richmond fans around the world . It's the lasso way around these parts with Coach , coach and Boss . Without further ado Coach Castleton .
Okay , welcome back , beautiful people . We're so happy to have you with us today as we explore and continue the ages , long , eons long exploration of Ted Lasso . Season three , episode 10 , international break . I am your host , coach Castleton , and with me , as always , is Coach Bishop .
If anyone tries to convince you that they're the deep dive podcast , you get the hell out of there . Hear me .
That would be hubris on their part we all know where it is , don't we Boss ?
We do , in fact . I'd also like to mention , if you are a white man born sometime in the 1950s or the child of a white man born in the 1950s , my condolences this week on the loss of Robbie Robertson . I am sure you were listening to his album as much as that was .
I was a child of a man born in the 1920s and I was born in the 1970s , but I joined you in lamenting the loss of the late great Robbie Robertson .
He was a yeah , well , it's because his yes , and his solo album that came out in 1987 is the whitest dad thing , like it goes so hard for white dads .
There was you two and Peter Gabriel and it was produced by Daniel Lanwaw and the boat deans did fucking backup Like if you were a white man with children a little bit your heart just started racing thinking about the combination .
It's wild , as the , as the resident white man , host on this podcast , I think I can speak for the . I think I've obviously zero problems speaking for the black man and the woman in saying , yeah , no , what White dads have never done anything wrong . Basically that's all just shake hands and kumbaya about that fact , correct ? Okay , boss .
I said boss , emily Chambers . For those of you who have joined us for the first time , you're in for a doozy today , folks , if this is your first time to the the good old deep dive podcast here , because I am under attack , I'm under siege at this very moment , and so we have a .
We tend to schedule a time to record and we try to adhere to that whenever coaches and out gallivanting or I am a renowned galavanter . Now you are , and so sometimes it's just me sitting here hoping , hoping to be joined by people alone in the , in the studio and and .
But but today if for those of you who heard the other day how I told a comical anecdote about wasp the size of my palm outside our house , we know a few of them , whole , whole , whole team of them , burrowing into the side of our house and getting into our , into our home as we speak .
So I am I wanted to pop in and say hello and launch this , this escapade of ill gotten gains , and see if we can make some make some headway with international break . I will , I'm going to toss it to boss and coach while I go , try to figure out how to protect the lives of my family . And that's an exaggeration , we're fine , but it gets really free .
These suckers are like . They're two , two and a half inches long . They look like little hummingbirds and you just go . Yeah , no , it's like European hornets , I think no , sir or cicada killers we can't figure out what it is . I don't think they're murder hornets , I don't think they get up .
It's far north , but they could , they might , I don't know it's , it's like the biggest .
Be careful of the European hornets . They'll come in your house and just declare it their own . So you gotta be careful . I'm calling us as we speak .
Anyway , I'm going to throw it to to boss take over and and hopefully we will make some headway . I'm going to pop in and out as I as I can , but boss and coach , I'm going to run and try to do some quick damage control and it tax me if you need anything . Thanks , everybody , copy that .
Although I have no idea why he said that he was going to put me in charge . That seems like the worst option .
No , we , we , someone . Someone has to guide this thing . By the time he gets back , we'll be talking about the Soviets in 78 . I don't even know anything about them , I'll just be talking about that shit .
So yeah sure .
Yeah , so we need somebody who , you know , at least spends part of their day creating order .
I don't know if I create it so much as I just record it .
But now I'm going to have to think about that . Yeah , I like that . I like that .
Yeah , the show Ted Lasso Right . Last scene we left off on was Rebecca getting advice from Higgins in his office about if she should go to this meeting . Yes , the advisor that she should . And then we pick up with Rebecca's face on Keely's cell phone . We don't know that it's Keely's , but in a second we realized Keely's cell phone .
She is at the pub grounding her sorrows after having to give up KJPR .
Yeah , yeah .
That's rough .
That's rough , like you , just like I don't know , I guess because we love Keely so much , but I really . There's some moments in the show that , yes , I feel , and then the other ones that , like , I take personally and I was like this , this hurts me , like personally , like I am experiencing a loss , poor Keely , but yeah .
So at any rate , yes , she is there and it seems like she will keep drinking as long as May will keep pouring at this point .
And I feel like May would support her in that decision . We talked in the wrap response that this was the first time that Keely and May have interacted on camera Right and that that seemed not odd . But I was trying to think if Jamie definitely has been to the bar .
Yes .
So Keely's spirit has been to the bar right His voice I mean the oh the entire team has .
But that's okay , Right , right , right , yeah , yeah .
So I don't know if this is not part of Kili's debacle that she's going through right now , but it just occurred to me . I don't know where any of the other players live . We know that coach and beard live very close to the pub .
You know what that's right ? Yeah , I mean , obviously we visited Colin , but we , you know , it was basically- like house right .
Like like they were like a relationship and not his house .
Yeah so yeah , yeah . I don't think , yeah , I don't think very much . I mean , we went to , we briefly went for a joke , we went to Danny's apartment , for that , you know after killing Earl and he woke up with the nightmare . But yeah , you're right , we don't go home with the players .
Anyway , unfortunately , Right , yeah , oh boss , we've been left with no parents for the weekend . Huh , all right , I see where we're going with this .
Oh boy , yes . So what Keely asks me is what's it called when you have the opposite of the Midas touch ?
The Midas shits .
The Midas shits . That's what I've got . Everything I touch turns to shit , shit helps . And then Mae says shit helps , things grow out love . So it seemed interesting to me . I was thinking about it .
This scene is should have been perfect for Ted to come in and do his coaching with Keely , Because I don't think that we've seen her need it previously , and this would be one of the few instances when he would have been able to offer some insight or advice Very interesting .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .
And instead it's Mae stepping it . Ha yeah .
That's really interesting . I mean , I appreciate that , mae .
¶ TV Show Themes and Character Dynamics
I guess for me I was like oh look , here's this woman who's like been through the ups and downs and she can like share this wisdom . But you're right that this seems like this is the perfect setup for a Ted moment , like you know .
Yeah .
Yeah .
And so I couldn't tell us that was a character choice , in that Ted would have been busy elsewhere , or if we wanted to step back from Ted in this episode , because I sort of feel like he doesn't have a huge arc . Certainly not in this episode no . Yeah , like he's around for a little bit , but then it's Rebecca and her meeting and Mae and Keely .
So yeah , it was interesting to me . Either that is a character choice and that they are pulling back from Ted and giving everybody sort of their curtain call , as it was , or if this is supposed to be symbolic of the fact that Ted is influencing everyone in the community .
It seems like both are possible , although also , mae being a bartender , she probably does have some experience talking to people about their problems .
I like that theory , though , of starting the show them doing the lasso thing without them . I mean , it fits very much in . You know my quote I've shared eight times for the first time from Customado Even that Ted brings up when he's explaining to Henry that in soccer you have to kind of trust them once they're out there . Blah , blah , blah .
Yeah , I wonder if that is some of what we're experiencing here , but I do want to point out , in addition to that , the scat element here is alive and strong .
Yes , I love that . You picked up well that you called it out . It's one of your favorite things , and so I love every time that you're like it's a kooky joke .
There it is .
Yes .
So , ori , I'm Keely , so I thought it was interesting that they made a point of them not having met each other , because you could have sold this as , like you know , we just haven't seen Keely there , but she's right .
It was very intentionally calling out that even within Richmond there might be people within the community , that they might be people who haven't interacted , and I think after the show ended they pointed out that Rebecca and Jamie never really interacted , that he was at for Dance Mutual in season two but they , like the two actors , love each other but didn't have
any interaction on the show , like didn't have any scenes together .
Yeah , you're right . Yeah , because they were at the ceremony when everybody threw their stuff into the bin and they but like they're in group situations where they might respond or react . But yeah , you're right , they didn't have that's huh , you wouldn't .
I wouldn't expect that , especially because , ultimately , she shipped Jamie off and so I would have thought that she would , either having owned it or just sort of to to ease her own guilt around , it might have done something nice in Jamie's direction .
But yeah , yeah , that's actually a really interesting point , because after she confesses to Ted , she tells Ted I sent away . Jamie Tardy , even though he told me not to , and then when he comes back , it seems like her only real concern is how he would respond to it .
See .
Jamie back on the team , but that actually and I'm guessing she wouldn't be able to like go to Jamie and say , oh , actually I was doing all these things because I was trying to fuck over the team .
And right , I guess , like she , yeah , I guess that's gotta be a pretty well held secret . Yeah , yeah , you're right , yeah , yeah . So I guess you wouldn't go down that road because like , well , why the hell would she do that ? And then the answer to that question is a true scandal .
Right , yes , that's . It's one of the things that always occurred to me how much Keely knows , how much Roy knows , because Keely knew , like at some point it feels like they would . I think I've mentioned that I feel like they would have had to have asked Rebecca why they were , why she had the paparazzi take those pictures .
Right .
Who knows what . Anyway , I guess part of the beauty of the show is that there is sort of an expanded universe that you get to wonder how much people's lives are affected .
After the show folks up .
This doesn't feel like one of those shows where it's like , oh , this is the end , this is done .
Oh yeah .
The characters are still out there someplace .
Absolutely , and one of the things I like about it and I guess in that way you know there've been some meandering moments , I can concede that much , but I do . I kind of did enjoy these two being put in the same space , even though all the things that we've brought up about it are true .
But having Mae and Keely , I don't know very much felt to me like a before and after , not only because she asked about business and being a woman in charge of a business , but that sort of comfort in who she is , fully a woman , not like striving to be one of the guys but able to joke around .
You know , I don't know like I could see Keely theoretically taking over this bar for Mae not that she actually would , because that's not what she does , but you know what I mean Like it feels like somehow there's a lineage there .
Right that it was a good . That actually might have been the inspiration for the this scene , specifically because she would need to seek out somebody who hadn't had a hand in her success previously . Like , not that Rebecca would be anything other than extremely comforting and kind and nice to her .
But it might feel weird to tell your best friend that you left your job with her in order to do this thing and now you failed at it and this thing blew up .
Yeah , yeah , that comes back up so we can get to it . But yeah , I think I definitely know the feeling , or at least that I thought they were trying to communicate , with the phone ringing and looking at it and going , yeah , no , I can't do this right now .
Yeah , yeah , like yes yeah .
Like I can't possibly answer and not tell you and I'm not ready to tell you , so I can't answer .
Right , yeah , and I think I do like that . The show sort of gives her a little bit of space in order to deal with it before telling Rebecca that's . I hate so much when people feel like they don't have any time to take with a change or something bad that's happened Like you could take a minute with it .
It feels fair that you don't have to tell everybody all at once about this thing that you're still processing .
And it's funny you mentioned that piece , because right now in our lives , maybe more than ever , there's this expectation , like I saw a joke and it you know fine to meme . But it's like , hey , don't you know , now that y'all broke up , don't stop telling us what was happening . You know , you've been telling us every step of the relationship .
Now we're invested and I get the joke . I get the joke .
But also there is a little bit of an expectation that , like we've all somehow all agreed that we are going to share all things and the the our , you know , every moment and feeling and thought and almost like those who are not participating are holding back , as opposed to like those who are participating are living their lives the way we used to before .
You know what I mean and you know a brand and a network .
Yes , I think that that is actually the part of like I'll treat any wild thought that I have at any point , and then sometimes I have to apologize to . Luckily I don't think my mom follows me anymore , but otherwise .
I do .
But also there is this weird way that we believe that must be , not that I'm lying , but that this must be what people are actually like , as opposed to having sort of a persona . Sometimes it is like very obviously an actual brand and people are trying to get like they're marketing out there , and sometimes it's just I don't know .
It feels and I think we've talked about parasocial relationships before and I don't want to go too far down that road , but it's so weird when people think that you must know each other because of these things .
Yes , yes , because we like the same gift .
Yeah , like it does feel a little bit weird sometimes that the interactions are very sincere . I think that people have a lot of fun , that they make friends and that they meet people that they really enjoy , but also there is like there's some distance there and I don't think that we do a good enough job of not acknowledging that .
Yes , yes , and I think . So bringing it to here don't you get to have , and what you point out is , yes , you should get to have , but to have like an inner life to have .
Like there's repressing your feelings , which I would not recommend , but there's also like I'm allowed to have thoughts I don't share with anyone else and like I'm not like committing some sort of crime or you know , somehow cheating folks . But I did like that she took this moment .
I'm with you and also for me , that the mommy daughter thing they can fall into , which I think is great and that's fine and dynamic , is great .
But I think I want to see Keely be an adult to a certain degree and to me , taking your moment and dealing with it is the adult thing to do , not , oh , mommy , mommy , mommy , and the minute it goes goes left .
Yeah , actually the way that you're saying that now and especially given the next scene , the way that Keely responds to having a career failure versus the way that Nate responds to having a career failure , especially because in the first season , in Rebecca make Rebecca great again Nate says that his biggest fear is losing his job and having to move back in with his
parents .
Oh , my God .
Yeah , yeah , you're right .
Oh my God , yeah , you're right . Sorry , go ahead , but oh my God , no , yes , you're right . He describes exactly what that Wow .
What he then do does what he chooses to do , but he quits his job and he goes back to parents' house . Yeah . So it felt interesting and I don't just to finish up this scene between Keely and May , before we move on to that , may says shit helps things grow , love , oh
¶ Reflections on Relationships, Business, Gender
. She says oh , I'm Keely , what's your name May ? And then Keely says May , I wasn't expecting that . That's a really nice name , short for anything . And May says maybe , which is a funny enough joke . And then Keely responds with and this is your place , maybe , which I liked . I liked just the buy-in , like oh , okay , your name's maybe .
That's what we're doing now Got it . So , from there , as they go into , you know a little over . I forget how many years . It said no , we have that number deletion thing when we go through , but anyway , it was like 30 years or whatever it is . And when Keely says , wow , that's impressive . I liked it for a couple of reasons .
It is impressive first of all , just on its face , but also I have an understanding of how hard that is , right , like what , like you know , so I like that . She sort of responded to that that way . It's hard , though , right , being a boss , yeah .
Yeah , and she says it has its moments . But for some it's better to follow your regards than pretend to be excited by following someone else's , which is a great way of putting that entrepreneurial spirit . Like I have no interest in having my own business . I very much want somebody else to tell me what to do and I will do it and that'll be fine .
But I do understand the draw of when you want to make something or when you want to do something . You can't follow somebody else into that . Yeah , collaboration sure , but you can't have somebody else in charge of your business .
Yeah , yeah , which , in an interesting way , was not , it was Keely's , in a way it's KJPR , but it was the situation Keely found herself in , right Like . She was like no , I'm this kind of person . And they were like no , you're an issuing apologies kind of person , because that's what we're telling you to do .
Yeah , that's so I was thinking , and I don't want to go too far back into older upsets because , God knows , we've talked enough about all of those but I was thinking about how much of the breakup between Jack and Keely hinged on the fact that Jack didn't want to date a woman who had a sex tape made public and how much Jack didn't want to have an employee
who wasn't going to release a statement for PR firm that Jack got approved of .
So it's like there was like a double . I can't do this right , like I can't do this personally and professionally .
If you're not gonna go along , then that's a good point and in terms of a girlfriend , that's a terrible habit to have . But your boss is allowed to tell you that you need to do something , and if you don't do it then you get fired .
Yeah . Like not to defend Jack , not to apache the situation at all , but that is , yeah , that's for the deal .
This is unfortunately the side effect of sleeping with your bosses that sometimes they get to fire you for legitimate reasons .
And if coach were here , he would be once again shaming Keeley for that , because that's just who he is Absolutely .
Yeah . Well , he doesn't like women that much . That's what I found . He's gonna be so pissed when he gets back . But yeah , taysome follows up by saying oh sorry actually . Keeley says what would you do if someone took it all away from you ?
And she says , like the man once said , once you make it up to the top of the mountain , what's left for you but lightning ? And Keeley says wait , is the lightning a good thing or a bad thing ? And she says depends whether or not you're ready for it . Oof .
There's a lot . There was a lot packed in there and yeah , right , and I feel like Mm-hmm , no guy again .
We did mention in the rapid response the way that that echoes Rupert saying that he wasn't ready for it , that Nate wasn't ready for it when he had his chance .
Yeah , Rupert saying this is him not being ready and May saying who knows ?
Right . And also I think we come to these conclusions around whether you were ready or not . I'm not convinced that either of them was not ready . I think right , like how was Keeley's not ready ? Because , why ? Because she made sex tapes and you know , like for the person she was in an intimate relationship with , I mean , this wasn't taken off of her Instagram .
And Nate . Honestly , for all the shit that we could all say about Nate , it seems he left sort of on principle you know what I mean .
Like it wasn't , oh , absolutely .
Oh , he can't , you know , he doesn't understand strategies . So anyway , it's an interesting thing to look at , Like ready , right , Like what do we mean ?
Right . Especially in both of those cases , those were personal decisions . Nate didn't want to become Rupert and seemingly didn't want Rupert to be , didn't want to turn into a person that Rupert would respect and had to leave because of that , Wow .
And Keeley wanted to be able to live her life and sleep with who she felt like and have relationships and in both cases those outside things ended up hurting them yeah , Although I don't want to say hurt Nate , Like because it actually seems like one of the few instances where he showed some growth , and I appreciate that .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . But I mean I think certainly from the outside world looking at it , it'd be like what he lost his job coaching West Ham , like that was the dream . I also with Keeley in particular , and I don't know that we touched on this in the rapid response .
I'm not sure , honestly , but she , for all the noise we make about her video getting out there and all the scandal around it , there is the line for that jack says around and apparently some reality show soccer player , right , there is zero , exactly 0.0 fallout for Jamie , Like apparently there's a picture which I'm sure he sent in response or to elicit the video
or in some other exchange . But isn't that true to the world we live in , that there's literally a picture of his penis floating around the internet that everyone's like , oh , all right , and then she has a scandal on her hands .
Yeah , yeah , that's almost all the ways , the way that it goes Shockingly Like yeah , I think actually in real life . When there was the photo hack , Jennifer Lawrence was one of the people who was victimized in that and she was dating Nicholas Holt the actor .
He was just in the menu , although I always refer to him as a vauter boy because I was his first role , so there must have been pictures that she had of her long-term boyfriend at the time . He is a famous actor . I've never heard shit about it .
It's only Jennifer Lawrence and the other people , the other women specifically who are , yeah , great times love it . But luckily we do have two women discussing their actual businesses .
Yes , yes .
And Mayfell finishes up with no , I'm gonna get you some food because I can't have another sad skinny girl pass out of my pub . Fucked my Yelp rating , oh God .
I love May so much , I laughed out loud . I was like that line is so goddamn good , like who wrote that line ? Like for me it's like one May's only gonna get , but so touchy-feely Like we've seen her deal with PB and J . We've seen , like you know .
So one , two I bet this is true , like I bet this has happened and three , she really wants to feed her , but she's not gonna just go oh , I'm gonna be the nourishing mommy in your life and bring you a I don't know . For me it was like as close to perfect as you get with a single line of dialogue .
Yes , I was . When was it ? A couple of weeks ago , I was having a conversation with one of my favorite people who was a woman , and I won't get into too many details because I don't want it to either incriminate or identify her , got it , got it .
But she was telling me about how she was being a little bit of a bitch and I was like that's great , I love that , that's my favorite thing . Like I love that , and it occurred to me that not all men here I come in with my not all men .
but in a lot of cases men do rely on women to be soft and comforting and kind and give them all of the emotional support that they can't find from their guy friends . Because we live in a patriarchal society and because of that they don't have the same appreciation for a woman .
being a real hardcore bitch , like I'm not saying that men can't understand it , but I'm saying that today the epic is set up in such a way where women can be sort of meaner to each other in a way that feels comforting and nice , that I don't know if men always would respond to each other in the same way , because it feels like , well , you're supposed to be
nice to me . Like , why are you making fun of me ? Like that . Yeah , yeah , yeah yeah . It just that it gets a little more complicated than that . It's a thing I appreciate about being a woman and having them as friends .
I love that and I will share . It's funny . You made me think of a story , and I'll be quick with it because it's a bit of a spiral , but I was in it .
It's like I started to figure out how to explain it and I was like , maybe don't , maybe don't so , but I was very , very upset about something that someone had done and was not taking responsibility for . Like fighting , literally fighting men . And so I called a friend of mine , a woman I've been friends with for 40 years now .
We were 10 years old and I like leave a message and my message is like I'm having a real hard time not opening this door and going and delivering justice , basically , like I was like , and having known me all these years , calls me back . What's up ? I will punch you in your bitch ass face .
That is how the conversation started I will punch you in your bitch ass face . And I laughed very much , like you just laughed , and this person basically was like we're not there anymore , you can't go , do that . You have X , y and Z to lose . Like you know it , I know it , you cannot . But like I just loved that .
That's where it started , cause it was as loving and actually far more helpful than calling going yes , oh you know it's not worth it . Like there was something about the jarring , you know I will punch you in your bitch ass face , which is a quote that made me go . Oh yes , snap out of it Like , yes , this is enraging , but I can't do this thing .
And she's right , you know . Anyway .
Yeah , I love that Very cool . Whoever that is yes .
¶ Nate's Relationship With His Mom
So we then cut to Nate's room . He's sleeping . His mom comes in , checks on him , it pulls up the covers and then leaves , Unless you have anything about it . It's the only thing I know . I really don't ?
I mean , I get that he went home . Yeah , yeah , this , yeah , there's something with the dynamic with Nate and his mom too . That , while sweet is all , doesn't strike me as in itself 100% healthy either .
Yeah .
I don't know what to do with that , but just cause she's sweet doesn't mean that , like this , has all been beneficial . I don't know , but that's all I can say no .
I think that that's extremely fair and also I don't want to time travel , but we also see somebody else's mom , who is incredibly sweet , kind and happy and maybe not that helpful .
I really cannot wait for that moment . Like , yeah , I just like I remember as I watched the episode going oh my God , we may not make it through this , we may not Like , this may be the conversation that makes this like we have infinity episodes now because , oh my God , there's so much .
But anyway , but yes , but the you know mom coming in bringing the food , like that , all you know I got it . But yeah , I didn't feel particularly moved by this part .
I guess . For me it just felt like what we have seen Nate be in need of is much like my girl , gresham Kotler , from you're the worst a bottomless pit of need for male validation . So first he was getting it from Ted and then it wasn't enough , and then he was getting some of it from Rupert and that was the right kind .
It ultimately is that he felt like his father was never proud of him . I don't think that it's unreasonable that he would have gone home . I just think that it's interesting that he decided to go home at his lowest moment , when he is most concerned about making sure that his dad thinks that he's smart and powerful .
I don't know , right , it does seem . Everybody ends up facing the deepest fear , right , like , at some , like everyone you know , and so maybe that's a testament to how low he is , that like , although this is his greatest fear , it's his only option left , I guess . I guess I also wanted to see they . Just I don't know .
For me maybe this is what it is , and , as we say , we're not gonna talk about it in five minutes later , but it feels like , right , I mean , but it feels like for me , everyone slipped into this very smoothly . That's what maybe is . It just seems to me like you came home , climbed through the window , we called the cops .
You know , frankly , dad could have brained you with the cricket bat . You know , like , what ? Like are we gonna deal with the fact that this is a lot ?
Yeah .
Right , it does feel I don't want to even time traveling through this episode . I feel like the actual culmination of the resolution of this conflict itself didn't live up to the buildup that we had for it .
Yeah .
Like and , of course , when Castleton listens to this episode , he's gonna be so pissed that we didn't follow the notes , that we're jumping all over the place because he's supposed to be the one with ADHD .
It's fine , but I do think that like having this little clip of his mom taking care of him and his mom being seemingly happy to have him there like she's happy the little boy .
so yeah , yeah , yeah , so .
I understand that , I know and I know that they're setting up . I almost wish again that they had spent a lot more time on this plot point , like don't give it to me in an episode , give it to me , of course , the entire season . So another one of those cases .
A lot in there , but cool . So that is what it looks like when we don't discuss a scene .
Got it ? Yes , exactly , it's only seven minutes . Okay , all right . Of course , the next one is also an extremely quick scene . We see Roy's feet coming into the Richmond facility , push open the doors . People are staring and whispering .
There is like some in the background , and when we finally pull far enough away , he is wearing Phoebe's shirt the red , orange and yellow and he's not even ashamed . No , he doesn't seem thrilled , but he's not ashamed .
No , no , not ashamed at all , right , but yeah , but certainly not thrilled . I think it's great the reactions . I thought this was very well done , like a very well told joke . I have to admit that I didn't know . I have to admit like I don't know , like just whatever .
And I was with , I was fully where the show wanted me to be , because I was like wait , what , what , what , what , what . And the reveal of the shirt , oh my God , I laughed so hard . And then to have Liam right , liam , you with the laugh Laughing .
Liam yep Laughing .
Liam and then he laughs . And then , because we got to ground it back in the reality of this show , roy turns and the two of them freeze and I was like , oh my God , this is so great .
Yes , and even the extended reactions . Beard notices at first , when . Roy comes into the office , ted isn't paying attention , and then they both look over , start to follow him out . And then actually the part that I did laugh a lot at Trent Crimm .
Yes .
Coming into the door frame ripping his glasses off because he cannot believe whether three of them have just seen .
And I like too that then they meet up .
And wordlessly go . What ?
the fuck . Without a single word , said what the fuck I know right . Well , hey , if that's what he wants to wear , they did all of that . Oh my God , this is so good .
Yep , I'll end just a couple of seconds and to make him proud , we're going to move on from there . Also , nothing else to see .
That's right .
You want to do this next one .
No , you got it . Yeah , go ahead .
Yeah , it's just Keely at the bar playing with the cards . She is trying to build a pyramid and finally manages it , just as Rebecca is texting her . The text says should have had this better queued up again with the notes . Okay , now I'm worried . Are you alive , text ? No , if dead , which is a good friend , she's got a fast friendship thing .
She knocks down the cards and we cut to outside of Nate's door where he is pulling in a new tray of food and sliding out the old one . Okay , no no , no , it's listen . I have been lucky enough that I have never dealt with prolonged , significant depression Like everybody has moments .
Sure sure .
I've never been clinically diagnosed and I've never had like this sort of can't get out of bed for days at a time type thing . If Nate's mom is wanting to take care of him like that and if Nate feels comfortable with that , I think they should do whatever works best for their family . But also , neither one of these could be me could not do it .
Same war . I really wanna hear this yeah , go , go , go go .
No , no , no , that's literally just . It's just
¶ Depicting Depression in TV Shows
like . I think that for me , knowing who I am , it would make it even worse . There is something about the idea that he had a tray of dirty dishes like in his room next to his bed , like just hanging out . Then , like no , you have to go put those in the dishwasher . That's where they belong .
Dirty dishes go in the dishwasher and then they come out clean and you put them away . But , like everybody , deal with it in your own way , mine is swearing but if this is , what he is doing . This is what he's doing .
Now here's , and this is so immediate and I get it and I think you're right that because we're packing so much into an episode , there's just some unfolding of this that we don't get to experience and frankly , that we have experienced with other storylines and done very masterfully in this show . So I think he even feel a little bit more .
I have been clinically depressed and have talked about that openly and happy to share . But I think to maybe I'm having the experience now that you had around Ted and his dad's suicide Because depression , like you know , like I was trying to explain , I remember telling someone that sometimes I get depressed and they essentially describe being sad sometimes .
Oh God , yes , and I didn't like , if you don't know , you don't know right , but like part of me was like you are comparing like a cup of water to the ocean , like I wanna like help , you like the vastness and the water , and so I guess I , if we were gonna go there with Nate , if he was gonna really be that like I just lay in bed and I would just
starve if I didn't have my mother to bring me a sandwich , I guess I wanted to see that develop . I wanted to see maybe a call from Jade where . Hida doesn't really connect or where she's like I'm worried about you . I don't know .
Somehow this seemed like it's supposed to be this deep depression , but I also feel like we're kinda treating it a little bit like melancholy .
Yes , yep , absolutely .
And I'm like which one is it ?
Yeah , no , I think this is a complaint that I have had about the show before , in that I feel like I love that they want to talk about mental health issues they can address panic attacks and depression and all those other things . It does start to feel thin when what they show is this massive problem . I shouldn't say massive , but this serious problem .
Like this is something that should be hard for Nate to deal with if he is having a breast-bepsoed , especially if there's something about when you get a new job , when you get a girlfriend , when things start to seem like they're turning around a little bit and then you lose that .
It almost feels like , oh , this was never gonna work out and this was never gonna get better .
Yes .
And that's when you actually need to start doing the work to make things better . Like , if something good happens to you and you respond to it positively . That's basic stimuli and reaction Like this setback for him should have been a chance where he began to actually delve into his issues with his dad and his own depression and figure that out .
And instead of doing any of that legwork or seeing any of that development from him , we get one episode where he sat in bed and by the end of it he's fine and it just it feels like it's not representative of lived experiences and that makes it feel like you were trading on the experience of depression without actually dealing with it , and that feels not good
to me , mm-hmm .
It's interesting when you said trading on , I thought that sentence was gonna end a little differently , but I think both things are true . I thought you were going to say they were trading on their audience's understanding , because what I did originally watching this was fill it in .
Right , I have been there , I have been in the like I don't see me leaving this dark room . Maybe ever We'll see , right , Like lunch today , don't even fucking think about that . And so I was able to fill that in .
¶ Shared Experiences in Storytelling
And I wonder , in the same way , if you were experiencing and you'll tell me experiencing that labor , you know what I mean with the Dr Sharon moments where you were like , yeah , I know , but like , let's go , Like , are we doing this or not ? And yeah , so I mean well done . Yes , I mean generally , overall , we've all said this is amazing .
We're talking about like we're now in the like 95th percentile . You know making distinctions , but yeah , I could have used , I think , a little more thorough journey here , and you mentioned legwork and we'll get to it in a moment . But even that moment we're talking about with that , when we get to it , Nate literally doesn't have to go anywhere .
Like , every like , right , yes , everything happens to yes . Everything comes to Nate . It's like well , why does he need to , like ? You know , at least go out to the living room , right ? Or he's like ?
yeah , man like your dad , but we shouldn't time travel , no . So I think the interesting thing about what you're saying is how much do you bring up your own experience to something , and how much should the show be informing ? Your understanding of it . I feel like song lyrics very regularly .
For me can't add a shared experience that I think the writer and I might both understand and that it is sort of a wink . It's like a . So because Robbie Robertson just died . One of the songs off of his solo album is called Fallen Angel . It's him and Peter Gabriel sings on it , and the Bodines and sorry , I'm talking a lot about American music .
In case you don't know who the Bodines are , somebody's dad loved them in the 90s . It's hardcore dad rock . They also the theme song from the TV show Party of Five is the Bodines song . That is a reference for you at all ?
Yes , I did not know that it's called Fallen Angel .
Oh my God . Well , in addition to loving Robert E Robertson , my dad was a huge Bodines fan and I , for some reason , being a child , I was like , oh , everybody loves the Bodines . And then , when I got older , I was like , oh , nobody knows who you're talking about . Okay , that's cool , it's totally cool .
So the song Fallen Angel was written about his former bandmate , whose name I'm blanking on right now , but the bandmate also died by suicide , like a year or two before the solo album came out .
Yes , and there's a line , if my eyes could see you kneeling in the silver light , and I'm like when I was a kid before I knew about the death by suicide because Wikipedia was around there . I'm like oh that's about somebody who died . Like that line is about somebody who died , but it felt like a little , it had it yeah .
Right , like I understand what you're saying , I'm picking that up .
I get it .
I think that those are really great things to include in movies where , like this little reference is something that you could tap into . This emotion here , if we are on the same wavelength and if we understand .
Right .
I think when you are trying to explain to somebody who doesn't have that , what that emotional reaction is , you cannot wink at it Like you need to .
Part of why we tell stories is so that we have something to reference to other people where they could say , like this was my experience with this , so expecting the audience to have that understanding coming into this felt , in a way , like they , the writers , weren't doing as much of the like deep downward that they needed to in order to get everybody there .
Like Sorry , yeah .
No , no , no , go ahead .
I was gonna turn it a little bit because we both reacted to this piece , but now I'm , you know , I felt like there's a total storytelling , you know . That's why it's hard , like at one moment , this one , you know , the protagonist , blah blah , blah , is on some level .
Is this a show that is taking that chance in its storytelling that this is like we've talked in so many ways the music references , the cultural references , whatever , that this is like a very Gen X show and so on ? Is part of it being that a sense of we don't have to explain right or wrong , or maybe neither .
You know , by the time you're 40 , whatever , or you're 50 , whatever . You either have experienced this , probably , or you know someone who has . So we don't need to go through a whole explanation of what it's like to be in your mid-30s and hit a down .
I'm not again , I'm not saying it's right or wrong , but I'm wondering if it's , on some level , a choice that the show makes .
Yeah , and I think that that is a part of what they are banking on is that we have these shared experiences . And I like in a lot of ways the way that they . I know that one of Castleton's favorite jokes is Don't Eat Candy Bar from .
Little and I'm blank . Ronnie Fauci , ronnie Fauci , there we go , yes .
So like having that experience of the kid on the playground , I think , and I can't speak to the depression , but for me one of the issues with some of the difficulties that Ted or other characters have had is that it feels a lot like a Hollywood version of that experience rather than a true experience of that situation . So , it feels a little bit like .
Is it like a reality , a shared reality ? that we have or are we still reaching out to touch movies and stories and TV shows that we could record , because I'm going to love that we haven't gotten there yet . We got to go back and finish up season two .
But the talk that Ted has with Dr Sharon about how his dad dies doesn't feel like the reality of the underlying yeah , you've mentioned that and I'm really looking forward to that conversation , yeah .
I'm really looking forward to that conversation .
¶ Parental Perception and Adult Child Relationship
Yeah , so I mean obviously all the good things there , but yeah , for me there was something about Nate . Yeah , there was something about him being so simple to slide back in , even , and now I'm writing and then we can move on . But even if , for example , he doesn't live there , what if dad had decided to like whether they celebrate ?
I just want to celebrate Christmas , and I should probably shouldn't . But what if they , dad had decided to keep the Christmas decoration bins in there ? Because why am I climbing up and down from the fucking attic ? No , it's it right .
And then , at the very least , you see Nate having , like , get around the boxes and mom saying you know , lloyd , come get this shit out of the way , at the very least . Then it would feel to me like , yeah , like life has gone on in this fucking place . You're not like , you're not 15 . Like , what are we doing here ?
But there just wasn't any acknowledgement that this is not normal , it's okay . Like I've told , I've told my own kids like , go out into the world and go for it . You always can come home .
I've told them that .
Go for it , you can come home , there is no question , there is no problem . You can come home Wherever I am , you can come home and but I think there's like we'd have to , you know . Go like oh well , now we keep the key here and now we use slay milk , right , or whatever .
Yes , and now we have milk .
Now , yeah , and there's just none of that for me here .
Right , which I think . I don't know if the show runners and the writers meant to indicate this , but it tells me that not only is Nate's hunted as an adolescent or a teenager , not only is that sort of where he got stuck in his development , but it's where his parents still think of him as a person . Yes , they didn't change his room at all , yeah .
And you know well they're functioning relationship . Yes , go ahead . Finish that point .
Just that they're functioning . Relationship is that Nate's dad still thinks of him as being like sort of a teenage fuck up who , like his girlfriend , is too good for him . You're not going to want to anything and his mom still treats him like a little boy .
Yes , and we see that elsewhere . And I guess I may have vaguely thought this , but I think maybe there's a closer connection than I thought about . Rebecca's mom doesn't touch her room .
So there's something , there is something built in here around being present that I'm feeling and there's something like if we're not dealing with the current versions of each other , then what does that cause ? And I'll say , one place where I've seen it is in my own and I don't , you know , not like in my own marriage , but in other marriages .
One thing I was told early on , right after I got married , was that women marry men and I don't mean to be totally , you know , heterosexist , but this was in the heterosexual context . And they said women marry men hoping they'll change and men marry women hoping they won't .
And I was like God damn , there's like one of those , like there's a lot of truth in that . God damn , and and I . But . But I think part of what that highlights is like in the relationship there will be change . Like I met , I got married when I was 25 years old . Yeah , you know what I mean . I'm 51 .
If I were the same exact person as the day I got married , everyone would be like what the fuck is wrong ?
with you . What the ?
hell is wrong with you .
Yeah Right , yes , absolutely so , yeah . So what does that mean in a relationship if mom can't deal with adult son and is still like is talking to an adult form but really relating to , you know , an eight year old or a 12 year old ?
Yes , and especially just time traveling all over the place . When we see Rebecca reflecting on her younger self . Like , what does it mean for Nate that not only does he still feel like he you know , there's a little kid inside him who doesn't know what he's doing but what does it mean for him if his parents also see him in that way ?
Like , how are he supposed to reconnect with your inner child , or your inner children , as a queen of the buttercups Jenna talked about when she was on , I love that yeah .
I know dealing with these different versions of your younger self and resolving some of the issues in the trauma when you're still being treated as the version of you that had that trauma happen . Like is Nate really recovering ?
Is it like that simple that his dad and fuck spoiling shit all over the place , that his dad says like I didn't know how to deal with the genius and that that resolves everything that was happening with them ? Their dynamic right now isn't that you could have a relationship with your adult son like that .
So it feels like they wanted to indicate one thing to us and maybe it feels mostly right , but I don't know if they got it exactly .
Yeah , yeah , no , I see what you're saying . There's some unintended yeah , but yeah , anyhow .
¶ Discussion on Danny Rojas's Character Development
Now comment you know , lanny , when Mexico comes up in here in our kitchen .
Oh , okay , so speaking of getting it exactly right this is when all the players are in the locker room watching the game the international game Got it , got it . The commenters talking . You know , lanny , when Mexico comes up here in our kitchen , our record books go right out the window .
Lanny says well , that's for sure , bruce , it's a tough game , but there's a begrudging mutual respect between the two teams and they go out together like nachos and poutine . So this is Mexico and Canada and sweet little Danny Rojas . Oh my God , mucho , mucho joy .
Oh , my God , danny , danny .
Flams fan dam right in the face of the ball .
And we part of what really worked about I mean a lot really worked about this actually , and you know I was not as in love with the Ranny Dojas you know I was like hey , I'm not too sure about it , but what did work for me here in this setup is it made total sense that this exact thing would have ? It could absolutely happen , like Danny is a striker .
We've got it right . Like it didn't feel like they had to like contort themselves . But we also know that Danny can kick the shit out of a ball and can and can hit right . He can hit this post , he can hit that post If he hit you in your face . Guess what he meant ? To hit you in your fucking face , Right .
Like that wasn't like , unless your name is Earl . He didn't mean to do that to Earl Right , that was an ass .
Earl did insert himself into the situation he had . Things went a little but , but you know what I mean . Like so that I think the intent , like the minute that ball goes off of Van Damme's face , I feel like , certainly , as the audience we know , oh shit , Danny did that shit on purpose . Yeah , like it's not a bad thing happened .
No , no , no , and I know that there were a lot of viewers and some of our listeners who did not like that . Sweet Danny Rojas got that mean . I understand it does seem out of character . I think maybe that was intentional .
We just talked about Nate going home and you know , becoming this little kid and sometimes going back to a place where you were sends you back to who you were Really sharp . Yeah . So if Danny was playing for El Chapo's football club ? Oh shit , you're right . Yeah , I mean he could .
He could have been kicking guys in faces with balls his entire teenage years , right .
Which . I'm guessing by his age , was like three ago , three years ago , right , right , but also that like , also having been encouraged to be that right . Yes , like , not just like it's . You know what we've learned from from coach around . You know , you know Mexican soccer in terms of like the national style of play and blah , blah , blah .
And they say straight in the sniffer that almost seemed deliberate , which like , yeah , almost , but yeah , that's . That's really insightful , that it's , it's a reversion . It's not him becoming something he's never been , it's him returning to something we've never seen him be .
Yes , and I think , as much as I love that Danny showed up and was immediately ready to go like into the lasso way . The coach told him to play and he's going to play . It seems like that personality trait could work for anybody .
So if Ted goes out and says be kind to each other and pass the ball and work with your teammates , and the El Chapo manager said go out there and fucking kill them , Right . He's going to be like okay .
You know what You're not . You're . Not only do I think you're right about that , but I think they've shown us that , because remember how he behaved with Zava . He literally , like like a little kid , mimics Zava's movements , yes and yeah .
So that's him , and he's just happy to be part of it and whatever he's , wherever he is right , he just sort of like mimics that he becomes that . Yeah , yeah , yeah .
And it doesn't it feel like in an insincere way . It just feels like he is happy to go with the flow , whatever the flow is . Yeah .
Because that's where I am now . So I'm now , I'm with my you know , I'm with the Mexican team and we don't take any shit and you know , boom off your face , yeah . Anyway so yeah , really fascinating , yeah , there we go .
But yeah , he will see all that being said , he drills the shit out of bandam Like he , oh my God , like the whole room full of the whole team . Like goes , oh you know , like he really deals .
Yeah , yeah , like all of Richmond is extremely upset about that , and this is exactly why I swam , because the walls don't move , that's like nothing is going to All of a sudden fly at you , you know exactly where you are .
I like that , I like that , so I will . I tell the story I've told it on stage of getting knocked out , like truly knocked out , cold on a football field , like cold , like oh shit , like yeah , in the video , like there's a whole , I got was like wait , what ?
Like there's all this time in between what I thought was like oh , I landed and they rolled me over . Like I'm like oh , that was like they were , like there was like a minute or two there . Oh my God , yeah , no , no , no , they not . I got knocked out .
I came to my next memory after tracking the running back is looking at the sky and my coach and the team doctor and being like what are you doing out here ? I got fucking clocked yeah . So I .
So I am not one of those that's like well , back in my day we used to be out until the street lights came on , we didn't have helmets and like no , it's smarter that we put helmets on children .
It's a better idea . Come on , guys .
But it is shocking to me the number of times that I heard like from people playing sports oh well , they got a concussion . And now we're like , oh , you mean a traumatic brain injury , like you say concussion , like you bonked your head , but it's like no , you're it rattled around in there .
Yeah , and hit things . The brain isn't built to do that . To do that . No no , absolutely not .
So , yeah it's fucking wild to me that we were like oh you know , you're fine , we got your bell run , like what Like what are we ?
doing guys Like why are we treating this like it's not a real thing ? The follow up on this and I may have told this part of the story before is that so that's a Saturday game Monday , like I feel like shit man . I am sore , my neck is sore . Like I have this shit knocked out of me .
So I go to coach and I'm like you know , I don't think I should practice today . He goes we won't be hitting much today , get dressed . Oh my God , that's what concussion protocol was in 1989 was we will be not . Not , we won't be hitting , we will be hitting , we won't be hitting much , get dressed .
And I guess what I did I got dressed and went to practice .
Yeah , yeah , this is . I'm not even like that's impressive that you were able to do that , but I can't even be like generationally proud . I'm just like , hey parents , what the fuck was going on .
It was a complete like yeah , I'm with you that we kind of talk about it , like , oh , these silly kids . I'm like , yeah , maybe we shouldn't been riding in traffic on bikes with no helmets . Like , what is what the fuck were you all even thinking or talking about ?
And if someone had come out with a helmet rather than being like well , I guess that kid wants to protect their brain . We would have openly mocked that kid .
Yes , absolutely . I think a lot about how my nieces enough . You now have to be in safety seats until they're oh , my God usually like six or seven years old , like booster seats and all other kinds of this .
And I remember distinctly being a six year old and my mom telling me hop into the very back of the station wagon and grab something for me , and like I would just take off my seatbelt and wander around through the car in the middle of traffic and like that was totally acceptable , that was fine . I used to ride back there sometimes .
Oh yeah , I was just about to say my aunt used to . You know it would be a bunch of us down there in Baltimore over the summer and she'd pile us in her hatchback and sometimes , you know , you were the one who ended up having a you know scrunch up back there , you know , in the cargo space , and you would just and we just did it .
She's like nobody was like , oh my God . The safety issues , Like get in the car .
And sometimes , sometimes it was the best seat . Sometimes you're like hell , yeah , okay , way back , right , right , right .
Right Now , I've got all this to myself , right ? Oh my God , yeah , yes .
So that's wild . Just to make sure , because I feel like Castleton will be mad at us if we don't mention it . The Canadian announcers yes , yeah , bruce says that's a lot of blood , for gosh sakes . And then Bruce says I apologized for the language there , folks , because Canadians being so polite .
Yes , that was actually kind of great .
That did get me . I didn't catch it the first time that I was watching , but then the second time .
I was like yeah . After it was pointed out , I was like yeah , that's a quality joke , especially after all the fruity language we've heard throughout this show . It was to apologize . For gosh sakes , really , that's quality stuff . Then we have good old Roy taking off from the facility .
So we do , but I need to very quickly mention that it's just one of those quick scenes . We have a lot of them in this episode . Rebecca's phone chimes . She reaches into her purse to get it , which feels like my phone is right next to me out on the desk . If I were at work I don't know if I'd have it in my purse . This is fine .
She has to reach into the purse in order to get the phone and comes out with both the green matchbook from Olas that Sam gave to her and the green army man that Ted gave to her . This is another time when the writers decided to fuck with people and they presented almost a love triangle or some sort of something . Ted back it ish .
Then she grabs her phone . I think it's a message from Rupert . Let me double check . Yes , so the message from the devil saying that basically , I hope that you will consider going to the meeting at a Cofo's . We would love to have you there , and then we cut to Roy .
Well , does she respond yet , or do we get that later ? I'm not watching the episode , I'm just scrolling here .
No , we get that later . She does seem to be contemplating , but then we just cut away .
Got it Okay . So then Roy's exiting in everyone's favorite shirt oh wait .
Sorry Did .
I fuck up .
I was wrong , so we actually cut to Rupert right after that .
And she responds to Rupert , that's what I was picturing . We see it on his end , that's what it was .
Yes , On his end she says I'll be there .
Okay . So I thought that was great , we'd seen her decide with Higgins . I also thought to Rupert people are just possessions that breathe . So , like he got what he wanted and I think I write , and so whatever manipulation I'm sure the optics of having a woman owner , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , all that , he got what he wanted .
I think it's interesting that he never considers that it ain't just going to go his way .
Oh , okay , and he was never worried that she wasn't going to show up , or certainly if she shows up , she's not going to be a problem at all .
Like he's bringing her along and she'll just be along for this ride . Great , we got through the silly making your own decisions part . See you at the meeting , yeah , just you know . Anyway , that was the vibe I got from . It was like you know , okay , my plans coming together anyhow , so yeah so then , roy is leaving in everyone's favorite shirt .
And the thing that pushes him over the edge with the shirt is and I'm going to mess up the bus driver's name , but it's my man who does the Toad Venom and so on . Oh yeah , I'll look up , I'm like it . But at any rate he's also got on a tie-dye shirt . Hilariously , his is actually a muted version of Roy's .
I mean , he's downright formal compared to Roy and he says , hey , twins . And I think that is then we get fuck's sake Like . That was just it . That was the one that was the straw that broke Roy , who strips off his shirt in the parking lot so now we're shirtless in the parking lot again and throws it on the ground . We stay with the shirt .
From the moment he's taking it off , I'm like yeah right , you are not in any universe , absolutely not Right . I mean , like I was like there's no universe where you are going to throw away a shirt that child gave you . There's just no way .
No , definitely , absolutely not . Also , the bus driver's name is Kenneth Kenneth Kenneth , sending Roy into a rage where , yes , he takes off his shirt which thank you for that but after he throws it on the ground , of course he picks it back up .
Just to make clear , just in case anyone was worried yes , he picks it back up , he does not leave it , he didn't put it back on .
No , he just grabs it and puts it in . There . I got a level , yeah .
I mean honestly , if I were Brock Goldstein , I would not wear a shirt that much either , I just wouldn't .
I love it . He just shows up places . All right , everybody . How's everybody doing ? Just shirtless .
Yeah , yeah , I think Matt Daly was on .
I really wish the listeners could have seen the smile on your face as you contemplated . That was pure joy , that was really . But go on .
¶ Parenting Concerns and Personal Growth
One of the things I was thinking about is Matt Damon talking about Matthew McConaughey on some late night show and how McConaughey's favorite thing to do was to ask the director if he needed to pop his shirt off for this scene , just like . Whatever it called for , it didn't matter , it was like what do ?
you think , that's funny ?
Think I should go ahead and pop my shirt off . I'm going to go ahead and pop my shirt off for this scene .
I love it . It's not called for at all no we weren't going to . Okay , you're going to take it off , all right .
That's fine . We're in a boardroom , right ?
I'm not sure how we explain this , but okay , so he screeches back , picks up the shirt off , he goes , and we see where he was screeching off to , because it's time for him to take Phoebe's school , right ? Is that what we're going to call ?
It is Right before that we see Keely , having finally been fed , and wandering away from the bar . It looks at her phone and then , after she checks the messages from Rebecca , looks over into a shop window , sees something she likes and then we cut away . This time we get another shot of Nate's mom cleaning up the dishes .
I should say His dad doesn't look thrilled about it as much as his mom is really happy . His dad seems concerned and exasperated probably he doesn't say anything quite yet but not really happy about having it . Really disturbed by having it . That's what I should say .
Yes , and I love that . Disturbed and concerned . I mean , I think there's probably some exasperation in there too , but I do think that the concerned piece of it deserves accentuation , because is that a word that sounded funny after I said it , but anyway , we'll allow it . But the thing is , it's not as fucking , you know what I mean .
It's more like what the fuck ? This is not okay . What is happening right now ? Why is there an infant in my house ?
I like that about it . It did seem , and I think that it intentionally was . You knew that the emotion was strong and that also he wasn't thrilled about it , but it wasn't . It was sort of vague . Especially in retrospect , seeing what had happened later , we kind of understand what his actual emotion at that point was , but it does seem like exasperated concern .
He's not wanting to kick Nate out , but he's like why are you still in your bedroom ? What is happening ?
No , I get it , I go to me and that's an interesting I guess . But during the lockdown there was a stretch . I mean , my son still does it , so I know I'm talking about it , but he'd be in his room and just playing video games with his friends or just on his own and it'd literally be like lights off , shade down .
He can't sit in a pitch black fucking room indefinitely , dude . And I remember and it was exasperation actually , at some point maybe that exasperation came out in a way that wouldn't be recommended by the parenting experts Blah , blah , blah .
No , I've since apologized for that particular explosion , but really there is part of you that's like what the hell is happening right now and it's an odd way to express concern , but it is an expression of concern , like it wasn't just that I was like , oh man , because it was like , hey , dude , what's going on here ?
Yes , I think a lot about how late I occasionally slept when I was in college , probably like when I literally would not wake up until one or two in the afternoon .
Yeah , seriously yeah , and like I felt fine , but I'd been up all night the night before because I was , you know , in my twenties and drinking , and then I slept all day , and now , if I was in bed until two , something bad has gone on . So I do feel like there's that difference between some ages and what is acceptable .
And I think that we were getting to the point now where he was like oh okay , well , there was something very wrong happening .
Right , this isn't just you know . Yeah , he tied one on , or something .
Right , I should mention that one time my younger brother did sleep until like 3.30 in the afternoon during a summer break . I want to say that I was in later high school , so he would have been like middle school maybe and I was like , what the fuck ? Like you can't sleep until 3.30 . You have to wake up .
Yeah , I was like , come on , it's time to wake up . And he said I'll be meowing . I didn't go to sleep until five . And I was like why didn't you go to sleep until five ? And he said I watched the Lion King three times in a row . And I was like , so you just stayed up all night watching the Lion King over and over and over .
Yeah , not , I had to get to the end . I got to the end and started over .
You watched it . You watched it at 3.30 in the morning . You were like you know what ? Better , better , give it one more , better , do it one more time , watch another 90 minutes . I was like yeah At 3.30 in the morning , I mean it is At 3.30 in the morning . Like it's a great movie , but come on now .
Yeah , no , it's a lot , that's a lot , that's a lot .
So that is the apparently universal sort of parental response to please don't stay in bed all day .
Yeah , all right .
Oh , and actually , even before we find out what happens with Roy , we now get to the scene where Rebecca , in front of the mirror , settling herself before the meeting , making herself big , so big that she could invade France .
Yes .
And sees herself the little girl and sort of wanting to know what she would think about growing up for Rebecca .
This was one of my favorite moments in the series , I think I mean I have to sit and think about it some , but it felt so honest and organic in all the ways we've debated . You know sometimes I've disagreed but does this really fit ? Do we really need that , do we ? I didn't know this moment was coming .
I wouldn't have anticipated this moment was coming and when it came I thought , oh my god , I needed this and for me that was an amazing piece of writing . The other piece I love with it is my own experience in work .
I've done therapy and so on and , as I've shared with you , I've done EMDR more recently and it really pushed me to deal with some stuff from my younger years and there was a moment in that process where it really like it felt like the dawn , you know , like I'd gone through the night of all this crap .
And then it felt like all these versions of me somehow were able to reunite . I told a friend of mine you might be familiar with the concept of Ubuntu , which is like we are because I am . I am because we are essentially that's a very fast , but Desmond Tutu has talked a lot about it and anyway it's this real , like we are one kind of concept .
And I told a friend of mine that coming out of the other end of that EMDR work was like psychological Ubuntu . It was like all these parts of me that had kind of been like in conflict and moving in different directions . And then it was like everyone came together and I was .
I felt like I could move forward in one direction , not feel like I was being pulled different ways , including back to like oh , but this happened , like I felt like I could just be here and move forward . And I guess I went through that with Rebecca here , like where it was like that's right , that's right , young lady .
Yeah , I am such a bad ass owner of a football team , the football team my father rooted for that I took from my cheating husband that I am now being invited to a meeting to see if I want to be a part of the superlink .
Yeah , and I think that that framing of it is much better than she was getting ready for a meeting , and that's what she did , right ? I think the scene is beautiful . I really love it .
I said in the rapid response , I don't know if I felt like it was needed for going to a meeting for something she's not extremely interested in , but she's going to go test it out . I don't know if the scene had , or if the reason for the scene had , as much weight as the scene itself . I do think , though , especially the way that you were framing it .
And number one , this is about her growing up altogether and trying to heal a lot of the stuff that probably that little girl dealt with . And also , if you have a thing that works for you , just go ahead and do it all the time . Maybe she doesn't need it to be a big deal for her to make herself feel big .
I know a lot of people have a favorite song that sort of either chills them out or gets them hyped up , or whatever else . You don't need to save it for a special occasion . You can just put on whatever song you want at any point . So if this is her thing , I love the way that they showed it to us .
And if she does it every morning , before she does it every time she leaves the house to pick up eggs or whatever if she likes it . If it works for her , good for her .
Yeah , I'm with that and also in my coaching work I encourage that . So it's a huge but yeah , depending on who the person is . I had a client who felt they didn't like how they showed up in meetings and we talked about it and I may have told us one before , but quickly I said so how do you want to feel in meetings ? And she said regal .
And I was like what an interesting word . I said OK , yeah , I was like , oh , ok . I said so how does a queen sit ? Like , if you were a queen , how would you sit ? And she described it . And she's on the phone . I was like , all right , sit like that . I was like how does that feel Good ?
I said next meeting you go into , you have to change anything else , just sit like a queen . And she contacted me after the meeting . I was like , oh my god , I was like is it right yeah ? But , like you're saying , if sitting like that works for you , then by all means sit like that Right and as often as you need to do it Right .
So yeah , yeah , I feel like that's a really interesting idea that unfortunately , too many people , especially in late stage capitalist societies , now that we can't waste things , because we wasted a bunch of shit for a really long time and now the earth is bad because of it .
Right .
I realized I was saving emails , Not like I stored them for later reference , but like if I needed to email somebody about something I would go back and find an email that we had about a similar topic , not so that they knew what we were talking about , but just because I was like oh well , that email has already started , so I don't need to get out a fresh
email . I could go use that and then after a certain point I was like oh , it's not real stuff . You could send all of the emails .
You could send a million emails every day that you're not actually wasting anything , anyway , and so one of the things that I sort of I know it was the weirdest fucking thing when I was like you don't need to respond to that one , just send a new one . It's not real .
Yeah , no , I'm hearing you and I'm going huh yeah , I guess I'd probably do some of that myself , yeah .
So weird . But I think that that's a weird way that we do a similar thing with feeling good in certain ways , like you don't want to waste it , you don't want to use it up . So , like this situation doesn't call for me to sit like a queen , well no , it fucking does . If you're sitting , you could sit like a queen who cares .
Right , I mean you got something better to do . I mean yeah , no .
I wouldn't yeah .
Right right .
If you want to sit in a different way , go ahead , but if you felt like don't save it for something you can fucking do it . So yes , so I've come around on this scene for Rebecca and .
¶ Roy's Encounter With Ms. Bowen
Castleton no more abortion jokes , I promise .
This is that episode . See , I have to make a confession . Sometimes I listen to the rapid response going into these and I can't tell you why Other times I feel like , nah , I don't want to be weighed down by that , I just want to go in and respond in real .
So this one , I will be honest , I have not listened to the rapid response since we did it basically , so I'm not remembering , but was this the infamous abortion episode ?
This was it , because Castleton actually mentioned it a little bit ago when was it ? But he was like , yeah , this is when I was trying to have a nice moment . You made an abortion joke . I'm so mean to him . Why does he hang out with me , doesn't make any sense Jesus . Yes , but now we are at where Roy was rushing off to shirtless , and that was .
To drop Phoebe off at school . So he's got our red , orange , yellow means Roy tie dye shirt on and have a nice day , uncle Roy , you too . And then she goes to the building and here comes the teach-in temptress . No , I'm kidding , but yeah what .
And is her name Ms Bowen ? Yeah , no , no , ms Bowen , yeah , so Ms Bowen comes up , you look nice .
Oh no , sorry , sorry , sorry , sorry , I'm mixing up the lines . Let me do that . I'm going to take that again . Let's do it . So , all right , go on in , roy . Have a nice day . Uncle Roy , you too , he's very sweet .
She turns back , you look nice , To which he says sure which got another laugh out of me Because he's like I cannot take this anymore , but I'm going to because it's for Phoebe , and then it's by . Then we have the teaching temptress , ms Bowen , who I don't know if I've mentioned this , but not so bad , I don't know .
Oh no , in my version of post finale he goes you know what I'm going to do ? I'm going to go see about Ms Bowen , yeah .
I think great , yeah , I mean , he shot a shot . It didn't work out , why not ? I think that he is interested here . Just to make sure so that we address the conversation . She says how are you doing ? She also says that her name is Leanne , that they don't need to . He doesn't need to call her Ms Bowen anymore . And she says I like your shirt .
You have to protest the Vietnam War , and he says Phoebe made it for me . She says you look different and he said well , yeah , I normally don't dress like a fucking clown . And she said I don't mean the T-shirt , I mean you . You seem lighter than the last time I saw you .
Yeah , Less stuck and I was like wow .
Which as much as I love Roy Kent and I really do and I love Brett Goldstein's performance and I love what they managed to do with him . I didn't quite understand why they would talk about this here , about him being not stuck and being lighter .
And then immediately for the end of the series , put him in a place where he still has a lot of work to do , and I think , I've mentioned before , when I was terminating therapy with my therapist . I shouldn't have said that like that .
But when I was terminating .
I said I was concerned , what if I'm not done yet ? She was like then come back . So I want to acknowledge in real life and in the show you can move forward and take steps back and move forward Again . There is no reason that Roy needs to keep moving in only one direction across his character arc .
But I wasn't sure what they were going for here , unless it was specifically to tie up some loose ends on one part of the relationship with Keely and then move on to this other part , what it feels like he's doing right now . So she's flirting with him .
She says that she's a teacher , I don't mind cleaning up a mess , I just hope that mess didn't cause too much damage . So at this point is when he figures out oh fuck , I really hurt Keely , gotta go make that up with her .
I would have actually really liked if they had ended sort of Roy and Keely's relationship right there and not done what they ended up doing in the next episode . I liked this . It felt weirder watching it , knowing what happens in the future .
I see what you're saying , so once you revisit , yeah , that definitely happens on the rewatches because you know , oh well , this thought I had . No , it's not that , it's actually this . I thought I did like that . Ms Bones , or Leanne , said the thing about him seeming stuck and in part because we all bring our things in .
I don't think it's a coincidence that Rebecca married the Philandering owner of the team with her Philandering father . You know what I mean . We do these things . My mom always pointed out my C plus grades and I'm not saying that's what Daphne does , but it is and she doesn't listen , so she'll never know why I said that .
No , I'm kidding .
But she will know , because I know people will now tell her . But I think it's interesting what we are attracted to in the world that you've talked to . You've mentioned the ruining of credit and we've all had a good laugh about that . But on some level I thought it was very self-aware of Leanne and sort of honest that like , yeah , I found you pretty hot .
You seemed physically attractive and , frankly , emotionally stunted and I was turned on .
I'm like , oh well , hello .
Like wow , OK , OK . Yeah , it was an interesting moment for me .
¶ Exploring Imperfect Relationships and Attractiveness
Yeah , and those are usually the relationships like TV movies , whatever else that I like the most . I think and I've even mentioned on here before like Higgins and his wife Julie . He talks about how she's the air I breathe , reasons for living and everything else , and I like there is some beauty to that .
I understand the draw of that kind of relationship , but the ones I like are the well , yeah , you're really fucked up , but I still love you Like there is something about understanding that people don't need to be perfect in order for you to love them .
In fact , that's very fairly often the reasons why you love them are all of their imperfections , yes , and because they're an asshole about one thing and you're like great , I love that .
Right .
So I like that . She knew not only could she handle it , but that was not going to be an obstacle for her Right , that she didn't need him to be . She liked that he was lighter now , but she doesn't need him to be perfect in order for her to go after it .
Yeah , you know , it's almost the opposite of what I was saying about Rupert earlier . Right Like Rupert is absolutely . You're essentially a thing Like I get that you have whatever is the English equivalent of a social security number , but other than that , like you're a thing that does things I need done or get the fuck out of here .
You know what I mean it's like and this is like I saw you and found you interesting and wanted to spend more time around you . Not necessarily , I mean , I guess you would know who Roy Kent is , but you know what I mean . Like I didn't get the sense that she was like ooh , a rich guy I can like . No , it was like I find you interesting .
Right , we've had sort of an interesting exchange here and I like your wittiness and I like you know , and I like that you , you know .
Like your niece so much .
Yeah , yeah , you know it's funny you say that piece because , as I'm sure , I have the show on Stuck it's what . But this stage show I talk in every version of it because it's developed over the years .
One of the key stories I tell is about coaching kids and for me it's because that's such a big part of my life and I find that , like , the lessons I want people to get are really simply shown . When you just sort of like there was a kid the kid couldn't catch , we worked with the kid Right , this very straight line .
But a woman who is an actress and has been around a lot of stuff was advising me on sort of like changes to make . Or you know , I was asking for notes and she basically was like don't ever stop talking about how much you love the kids . She goes as a woman , let me tell you .
And I was like , really , and she was like , oh yeah , she was like you have gotten a lot of women to buy in to sit there and listening to you because you're that guy who absolutely loves kids and will stand on stage and go on and on about it . It made sense after it was said , but I hadn't ever thought of it in those terms .
So I think you're on target that , like any guy who spends enough time around Phoebe now , we don't want Phoebe cursing , but who spends enough time around Phoebe that she curses with that level of skill . I'd like to get to know more about that guy .
And it's the weirdest thing I don't want kids . I've known that I haven't wanted kids for 20 years .
This is nothing new .
So it's not even a . That person will be a good father figure to my child . He'll be a good kid , good dad to my kids . Because Ollie Palmer , who plays for Rexham , which we've talked before about , welcome to Rexham . Ryan Reynolds and Rob McLehaney's team In the queue . There was a . It's good , it's great .
There was a tweet the other day of all of the footballers walking out with a team of kids , so holding all the handouts .
I love when I do that .
And Ollie Palmer was the only one that was like actively engaging , talking to the kid , like listening to his story . Everyone else was like you're about to go play a game , you're doing your job walking out like getting ready for that , and he was visibly excited to hear whatever the kid said .
That's great and I'm like I don't even want children in my ovaries or dying , like what is that ? I don't want to be responsible for that child but I love that you like him .
That's awesome , yeah , yeah .
Yeah .
It was an interesting the distance between and I think it goes in all sorts of directions , and I'm sure this is true like pan , sexually . I guess , or however you would say it that the things we focus on or tend to think are the things that make us attractive .
Are not ultimately those things Like the number of women I've met who've told me like yeah , of course I can look at a picture of some guy who's ripped and blah , blah , blah , but I'm really going to cuddle up with somebody . That's not really my choice . And I'm like , isn't that ?
Like again , like huh , but like , meanwhile , you can sell supplements from here to eternity , convincing guys that they got to get down to 4% body fat , and I'm like , not from what I'm hearing , and I'm not saying don't be in shape , but you know what I mean , this idea that that's what it is that's going to make the ladies come to you .
Meanwhile , if you'd just be nice to kids , you'd probably do a lot more for you .
It's the weirdest shit I'm trying to think . I know that back when I left the office and I don't love it as much anymore . It's still pretty good , but I loved it .
I want to discuss that at some point , yep .
Yeah , we can talk about that , but there's a scene where Ham and Jim are talking about when they first developed crushes on each other and I think it maybe is only her side but right after he started she said that he came over to her desk and said this is extremely weird and I shouldn't know this , but the yogurt you're about to eat is expired .
And she said that that was the moment that she was like , oh , I like this guy , like this is because he paid enough attention and he warned her . And he was like , hey , don't eat it .
Yeah , so like sure , yes , you could have a million dollars or even more and be extremely interactive , or you could make sure that the yogurt and the quibisumptionist doesn't eat an extra . Don't let her eat the bad yogurt , and then you'll live happily ever after . I guess , yeah .
Well , you know , mostly , mostly , as far as you know , there's a lot of talk online about how , in real life , pam and Jim would be divorced now . So I don't know , that's like the meaner side that I get into .
All right , coach is just going to have to be pissed . Why are they divorced ? What's happening ? What the hell are you people doing on Al Gore's internet ? I left them fine and fucking intact , and what the fuck is happening .
OK , we're not saying for sure that absolutely they would be divorced , but their relationship started in a weird place because she was engaged to somebody else . And then they ended up getting married . She , oh no , no , no . Before they were married , I think she was like working in New York for a summer and there was like some weird issues there .
He went up to like find her one time because he was worried that maybe she was cheating on him .
Yes , that was a weird thing . Yes , that's correct .
Then he was in Austin working for the sports marketing company , maybe something like that , or Philadelphia , I can't remember where he was working somewhere else . They had some issues with that . Also , he bought her parents' house and didn't tell her and then they moved into it and that was supposed to be like a cool gift that he got for .
Yeah , I'm just saying like , absolutely no relationship is perfect . I'm not saying that they have to be . But , also there are some red flags and maybe lacks of communication .
When I was a younger man , still out there figuring it out , no , but really a man , a guy who was older , said to me relationships go how they start . And I remember being like really , and it's one of those that as I've paid attention over my lifetime . It's not 100% , but it's one of those like , yeah , I see it and more than not .
And one of his points was don't ever think you're stealing someone's girlfriend . Anyone you steal can be stolen . I still remember him saying that too , Anyone you steal can be stolen and it's logically correct . But of course we're each wired to think oh no , no , no , no , no , no , it's because I slash .
Our unbelievable love that Shakespeare missed out on writing about is so fucking special that this one time this person is going to be this way , but their character is going to be totally different in this magical relationship , you know .
Yes .
Yeah .
Anyway .
Yeah , so actually Bill Lawrence's connection .
¶ A Surprising and Shocking Grandmother's Story
The line that I always remember is on an episode of Scrubs where Elliot and Keith , her fiance , are doing some weird shit and they're so in love . They're making everybody around them sick because they think that their love is so special .
And Carla says to him at some point every couple of things that they invented love , every couple of things that their love is more special than anybody else's , and they're like but ours is more special than anybody else's . She's like it is not Right . Everybody's love is that .
So I think about that too , that when you were in love yes , good for you , I'm very happy for you you didn't invent this .
No .
Teenagers always think they didn't bet tax Like you . Didn't do that either , it's been around .
I remember my mom saying that to me and me being very confounded . Then came the time that I realized that chances are that she and my dad had sex more than twice to create me and my sister . That took some processing . That took some processing .
Yeah , sometimes it takes like two and a half times Right .
So there's that I've not got a couple kids , yeah for sure , I mean I don't because my siblings listen to this .
I don't want to get too graphic , but my mother did have five children , so that's a thing , yeah .
So at least that's a thing we have to know , at least five and a half times . We know that much .
At least five and a half times .
Love it .
Also I feel like who was it ? I don't have it offhand . Somebody reminded me that I owe you guys a story about my grandmother , that I'm not going to talk with Castleton not here but I did text you guys the other night when I was doing research for one of the shows .
I realized that my grandmother was 32 years old when my dad was born , which in and of itself is not interesting whatsoever .
It doesn't matter .
Until I tell you that she was 32 years old and he was her eighth child .
Oh , you did tell us this , and then she had three more after that .
No , no .
I've decided I'm just going to tell people no , like if they say something and they don't , they're like no , no , no .
No , that tiny little no is exactly right . You're like 11 ? No , 11 babies . No , before you were 40? .
No , jesus , like I don't have the requisite apparatus , but I would think that I would need a break . I know if I work out too hard , I need some days off . Like what the hell is going on here .
What Like seriously , what were you doing , Good God ? And also . So she had nine babies and then got her tubes tied and then got pregnant again no , even at , yeah , no . Yeah , and she didn't know until she was in labor that she was pregnant with twins .
I'm sorry listeners , I just silently put my hand over my mouth like a horrified lady who teased . But that was my honest reaction to that . Ok , like let's be a grandma for a moment , because I think sometimes we just have to be a grandma for a while .
Let's be a grandma for a moment because I think sometimes we tell these stories and we just kind of like go on . So you have had eight . Count of eight children . And you go all right , I think I have done my part to populate the planet . Ok , I'm going to wrap this up and we do an actual medical procedure to knock it off with the baby making .
At which point there is medically improbable , just about impossible baby making that results in not one but two babies showing up . As a surprise Did I get ?
all of it . You got all of that . Yes , Because .
I feel like I would just weep . Like I feel like I would like love these babies . I'm sure going to take care of them who else would ? But , oh my god , like I think I would just weep .
Well , I honestly have no idea what you would even do in that position .
¶ Twins and Characters in TV Show
So also , I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before , but there's this American life where one of the producers is talking to a body of his who just had twins a year or so ago , before the recording and the guy says people call him twins . You can't call him twins though , because that doesn't really get at what's happening .
It's not twins , it's two fucking babies at one time . Two fucking babies at one time .
Yeah , no shit .
Yeah , and so he was like twins is nothing but calling him twins . It's like calling a massacre of a fight Like it's pretty fucking ridiculous so yeah , I can't imagine what was happening to her when she was like I have to go home with two Unbelievable and for the listeners , daphne and I have twins .
We're now 18 , so pretty far from that birthday , little birthday . But that description of its two fucking babies is so on point , and that is true in so many ways . Like it wasn't . Like hey , it's a change in time , so we're gonna just take the two babies and change them . No , no , no , no , no . It'd be like some crap-tastic scene from 113 to 125 .
And you'd get that done and question your life choices and just as you sit back down , there's whaling which you now recognize as which child and what the problem is , and you go oh my God , it's another crappy diaper . I'm gonna jump off something super tall , this is too much .
Yeah it's hard , it's really hard being up here . It is so hard . I mean not even that I know , but just like the limited experience I have with child rearing , it's wild .
So I don't even know how we ended up out here , but I'm glad we took the oh Leanne , it's Leanne , and being able to identify a guy who's emotionally stunted , that sent us on our way . There we go .
Yes , yes , yes , yes , there we go To it . She finishes with quoting herself I don't mind cleaning up a mess . Smooth move , fuck , which I like . That she swears probably as much as Roy does .
Yeah , that at least would be a good combination , but I have to say you were let down by the transcript here because she says smooth move , fuck witch , which is the name . Fuck witch One of the names that the kids call her , but she's so cool that she actually likes the worst ones . So I thought that was funny .
I like that they stayed with her for this moment , and usually I would not . So I'm trying to . I feel like I'd be like listen , she is a tertiary character , Roy's gone , moving on .
But there's something in line with what I do about Ted Lassler , even when it frustrates you and coach a bit more about the fact that Leanne is quote , unquote , a person living in her life and she doesn't have the backstory of like , oh my god , he's thinking of Keely and how he hurt her .
He's a guy who she's flirting with They've now openly acknowledged the flirtation and then he takes off running like he just saw a ghost . So of course she's going to have a reaction to that .
Right , I like that . You excuse me , sorry , let me try that again . I do like that . You pointed that out , especially right after talking about the way that Rupert treats people .
Yes .
Like the show does know you can't treat people like things . So they do give her her moment and I do like that . This is sort of her curtain call , like she is a smaller portion but she gets this little moment , so I do like that too .
Love it . I want to see the spin off with her and Roy working it out . Jamie meets a nice girl .
Well , jamie met a nice girl , so maybe once Keely is totally out of the picture when Roy is hooking up with Leanne he will not be outside of Jamie Deets's sister yes , and they all have to move into a duplex for unknown reasons .
Done and done , let's go pitch it to Apple .
Let's stop the episode right now , before someone else one of the buttercups is going to pitch this and I'm going to be like no , all right here we go .
Well , if they're going to do that , they're going to have to have a spin off . Keely is obviously still going to be involved in Phoebe's life ?
Yeah , very much .
We have Uncle Roy and stepdad Jamie , and Aunt Phoebe's friend Barbara is going to have to be there .
You mean Aunt Keely , aunt Keely .
Yeah , what did I say ? It's Aunt Keely's , yeah , yeah , aunt Keely's friend Barbara .
Yeah , absolutely right . Yep , yep , have to .
Which was my very terrible segue into the fact that the next scene is Keely giving Barbara the snow globe , yes , and I didn't think it was so terrible .
I would have gone with it . I was with you , I was with you . Yeah , I appreciate that . Well , we could skip past , and I don't think we should , because I thought it was , again , just a hilarious touch . And , my god , I fell in love with this Barbara character . She's wearing a and it's gray , which I think is also significant a gray juicy sweatsuit .
And I laughed because there's a joke and we'll do the joke . But I laughed immediately . I was like what ? What is the life of this woman who enjoys rugby , because it's bloody enough for her , and who is she ? What is happening ? So I just thought the juicy sweatsuit just was like oh , my god , wow .
She has a little bit of style , even if it is gray , she doesn't need it to be flashy and pink . She can just be juicy with her gray sweats .
Yes , yes , and I thought , yeah , if it had been pink I'd be like what's happening here , but so that was perfect . So , hi , barbara , that's a nice outfit . Oh , thank you . Yes , I like clothes that tell the truth . Pause , pause the show Last , wow , ok , OK , so Keely , now I got you something . Thank you for your help . There's a little chuckle .
I really wish that we could have worked together longer . You're fun and yeah , yeah , go ahead , because I yeah .
No , just that , I think . God , I'm all over the place on this . Years ago I met somebody who it was at a friend's party and he said something about being the only CPA you'll ever know , with a badass motherfucker belt buckle .
I love it .
And I was like well , but also my grandpa Little did you know , he is an accountant , so he didn't have that belt buckle . But somebody said , oh my god right right , right right . So I do just like the idea of you probably wouldn't consider Barbara fun or think that she would value fun . Necessarily .
I like when characters don't just subvert expectations but also do so in a way that seems very relatable to them . So like the great juicy suit that tells the truth .
She's not only a bore and she's not only going to give Keely shit , like she's got some stuff to her , yeah , and one of them is that she does actually appreciate fun , even if it doesn't seem like it .
Because she seemed like genuinely surprised and pleased , right , like it's that thing where you see when it's positive , obviously , but when you get a glimpse of yourself through someone else's eyes , yeah , there's something really cool about that , especially if it's something you don't necessarily claim or think of yourself as being or like .
You don't recognize why it's a big deal , which a lot of us don't , because it comes natural to you . So that's what you do and no big deal .
So , anyway , I really , yeah , I enjoyed that whole piece between them and it speaks to me , it speaks to Keely having which he didn't have , naturally , having absorbed some of that , having absorbed some of the last away , right , yeah , absolutely , because you have to take the time to get that , barbara , as fun .
Right , this is paying attention to the fact that Nate makes a great sports drink . That's right Knowing who is good at what and being able to see that yeah .
Yeah , I really appreciate that .
But of course , even though she likes being fun , she immediately says that it's just that I have to buy the snow globe myself .
Like I'm fun , but I have standards .
If I'm just gifted all of these snow globes , like that's , it come on . And then to talk about the receipt , the payment , and come on , I get accounts payable , I understand .
I thought this was great . I thought it was a great way to have her keep being her . She's not suddenly going to become Keely Light . I mean , she is who she is and Keely doesn't want her to be and we don't want her to be . Right , barbara is awesome , right .
And I thought it was because I would not have thought about this , I would have thought of it just like character quirk , but I like that . When we did have a discussion about this together , a coach brought up that it does seem like there's some spectrum kind of element being brought into the writing .
And I have to say and we'd have to ask them , I do feel like there have been some intentional attempts to include a certain level of neurodivergence in this show . Like I don't even think it's different personalities , like you know , I think Ted has ADHD , absolutely positively , you know .
Like most of the things I recognize in him , I'm like , yeah , find some place to fucking eat . What are you doing now ? What happened to you ? Now , jesus Christ , find the fucking restaurant , will you ? So ? But yeah , and then this , and there are a few different places where I saw it .
But I really appreciated that about Barbara and that then she found a position for herself , a way of going through the world that actually very much leverages who she is .
Yeah .
Right yeah .
And no , I think that's a great point . It's also pretty like . Beard is obviously a weirdo I'm not sure about an actual diagnosis , but that's sort of his whole thing .
I do think that we don't see a lot of instances of women having spectrum , being on the spectrum or having spectrum characteristics and watching how women mask , because women are socialized to be more outgoing and to talk more about their feelings and all these other things , and so I do sort of like as a woman myself . I am not on the spectrum .
I am not claiming that , but I am not the warmest person you'll ever meet . I don't know if that's come through . Nobody's nodding along in agreement now , so I will say , at least of all the kid who was in you ?
who ?
no longer is .
I did that , just for you .
I did that just to let you guys know that coach is back .
Yeah , oh my god , here he is , although , no , we're pretending he's not here .
Oh , he's not here .
I thought you were coming back in , I was like , here we go , no , no , no , I'm here , I'm here . Yeah , coach , thank you For the first moment back . I was going to get to real pain .
Go ahead , boss .
So I will say that when I was in college my older sister is a few years older than me , so we had some overlap . She was studying psychology and I was studying English literature at the time , and so she and a lot of her psychology friends I would pick up some of the terminology , but none of the ability to actually do the therapising .
So I would hear them say things like you want to validate their feelings and then talk through the process and blah blah blah . And so I was saying something to my sister one time about how a roommate and I were discussing something and I was like so I validated her feelings . And she was like you did you validated her feelings . I was like yeah , for sure .
She was like how did you do that ? And I was like I told her that's valid .
Oh my god , oh my god . How else are you supposed to validate somebody's ?
feelings . Oh my god , like you . Just tell them it's valid .
Oh my god , oh my god , oh my god , I don't . I'm like wait , oh Wait , wait . I'm legitimately no bullshit stumped Like I was like wait , that's what you do .
You tell them that's valid . Ok , so yeah , no . So I get Barbara a little bit , just the weird way , the ways in which , when you're not a naturally sort of nurturing , warm woman , that it comes across as being a little bit weird .
Right .
It's funny in some ways , as we've , I guess , established several times , but that I have always been essentially just a big ball of emotion , masking itself as something else from time to time , and so it's so interesting for me , like for me , the feelings are always so big , the feelings are always so much , there's so many of them , right , like I'm , you know ,
sometimes a kid writing poetry and like really bad short stories , but always all this emotion , like it's all this , just all you know .
So it's so funny to me to hear you say that and go , wow , if someone told me to validate someone's feelings about something , that that could be half a day , like by the time I'm done running my fucking mouth , I love that you were like that is valid , that is valid .
No , that coach , that's a lifelong process . That's like I remember , because we're the people that have the friend that we were friends with the seven years old . And now we're right in our fifties and we say hey , man , like hey , I should remember when you cut your knee that day . You're still validating their feelings . Boss , just is like fuck .
Yes , right , she's like yeah , yeah , very much so .
Your feelings are valid . Moving on , I did it .
I checked the box . Oh , that's so great . Like you're supposed to do this and then I did it's yeah .
I love that . It's great job , that's fantastic . So where do we ? Oh , so , where are we ? You're fine , right ? I am ? Yeah , thank you , I just have to read . Ok , sorry , we did all that . She has to buy the . Snow Globe , the cash it's actually a quid . Oh , I think you picked .
I think it was 60 quid .
Oh , that's right yeah it was 60 quid , because she gives her .
And she gives her 20 , I think . Which is like 80 bucks for Snow Globes and she says I think you paid a bit too much there , which I think is great . Even now , she's like we've got an overage on the Snow Globe gift , so we're going to have to figure that out in the budget . I think it's so good . Yep , thank you for this . You're welcome .
¶ Ted Lasso and Other Topics Discussion
And there's this warm moment , and I always get this word wrong . It's like just a mental block for me . So I'm going to intentionally slow down now and say Tee-klee cutter , because I always say Tee-klee and I don't know why . But what's wrong with it ? Is it Tee-klee ? Is this Tee-klee Instead of Tee-klee ?
See this is why I'm fucked up .
No , no , not Tee-klee .
Tee-klee is a type of word . This is what see , and every goddamn time I end up doing this , so it's Tee-klee .
So , there we go .
Don't say you got yourself , coached You're out of right .
That's why I slowed down , because I was like , oh no , I'm going to do it again , so I'm going to need a receipt , or need the receipt was so perfect , because what a lovely scene . It was funny , it was hard . It's like all the things we talk about when Ted Lasso was just humming along and the three of us are all thumbs up .
And then let's not get too sweet , though I'm going to need a receipt . Back to business , I can email it to you . Email's great . All of that and in a way , that last exchange and then also the sooner the better .
The sooner the better is my favorite .
The sooner the better , I'll get on it . No , no , no right , I will email it sooner .
Yes , Got it Anyway , I very much . There was a lot to love about that scene and Barbara , my god .
Yeah , yeah , and I liked the very end after . The sooner the better , I'll get it right to you . There's a quick look around the office at . I'm forgetting the cat's name . What's the statue's name ? It has a name , right ?
Yes , there you go , tricky Bell .
Tricky Bell , there we go . This is why we brought you back in the very end . Flow is strong .
Yeah , thank you . Thank you , Little ringer , the morning's got that adrenaline flowing .
He's on fire .
Yeah , no , she looks over at Tricky Bell and then she looks at the neon sign for KJPR and then it switches off . Ordinarily I would say that that could be a lot sadder than it was . There was something about Juno Temple's face itself where she didn't seem distraught or heartbroken .
She seemed like she was thinking and of course , having rewatched it and knowing where the show goes , quite a little bit more into that . But I like that when the moment ended , it wasn't her refusing to get into the elevator , it was her closing everything down and dealing with it .
It's time to go right and it's what is right . I mean , you know so much in life , but certainly in this show characters run into trouble when they resist . What is ? I mean , that's the suffering . So yeah , she's like all right . Well , turn out the lights . The party's over .
Yeah , think you're out of next step .
Well done , well done , team . I'm going to jump in and stop the mattress and I can only imagine what a brilliant analysis you've both done by both our man and our coach . Sounds about right Good with that , and I'm sure this was a wonderful experience for our listening audience . I was out handling murder hornets .
I want everyone to imagine that what I was doing was capturing them one by one , karate style , whispering a word of thanks to each and every one of them and then sending them on their way . That's very Ted Laszloz Generally what I was doing . It's a little bit of a fun .
Why would you thank them , though ? More like bees is one thing , because bees give you honey Also . Does everybody know that it turns out that honey is best described as maybe orgy vomit ?
OK , so no .
So you hadn't heard that before .
Coach , I was waiting for you to be like . I'm going to do it . That's the space I was in . You read me correctly .
I'm sure I'm going to shut that down in the least , go on .
Yeah , that's essentially it .
How many times do you get boss talking about dodges ?
No , they just go collect the nectar and then they process it a little bit , but then also the queen is laying eggs . So that's the reproduction element of them hanging out in the hive and taking care of the babies .
And it's not sex exactly but , it's what they do for it , and then they vomit the nectar onto the babies and other things , and that's how the honey is made .
I want you to now picture Coach and I as worker honeydoos and I'm just watching the queen in silent silence , and then Coach buzzes up next to him and goes , and then I see the queen and then we both vomit In unison . That sounds perfect , that's exactly right .
That is when you pitch this . That is what I envisioned . This whole podcast is what I thought . That's how it was going to turn out , Wow .
Love it . It's generally what it is . So , yeah , thank you everyone . How did we do time-wise ? How did we do once we removed the most loquacious element of the podcast and most irritating how did we fare time-wise , linear time-wise ? We have no understanding of time whatsoever as a species . But damn straight , damn straight .
And this one we got through 10 and 1 1⁄2 minutes , still increasing 9 and 1⁄2 minutes . Last episode Amazing , we squeezed an entire another minute in . We got you here .
My god , that's some value we should on the one you know and our hiatus here , we should really think about firing . That's valid , oh , ok , yeah , yeah , that's good .
See , did you see that coach ? That's valid , that's valid . It's not firing me . Nicely done , that's valid . I don't think I'll forget that that's valid story for a long goddamn time that is wow . So make sure you validate your feelings . That's valid . Oh OK , I guess I love the person too , talking to you , though I'm like .
Well , it's not like she didn't validate my feelings .
No , I can't claim that I can't exactly what I'm supposed to do .
Yeah , no , it's , you're right . There's no getting around it , you are correct .
All right , thank you both . Thank you to everyone who has listened today . Coach , where do people find you ? If they want to find you , I'm going to continue to encourage .
Go check out Unstuck AF , our podcast , where we talk to people who are getting unstuck or have gotten themselves unstuck , and folks just share some amazing stories from their lives and can't wait for you to check it out .
What about you , boss ? I am still on Twitter at Dumbly Underscore Chambers tweeting about Ollie Palmer and Robbie Robertson , and then also , before she kicks me out of the clubhouse altogether , I am still writing at the antagonist , which is antagonistblogcom .
I love it . I love it , I like that she is . Should have mentioned that , yeah yeah , managing editor Laura Burns , it's not the that reminded me of . Have you been watching Mrs Davis at all ? Did you say that , mrs Davis ? Yeah , and it's time someone says she and doesn't attribute it . I go oh OK .
Talking about Mrs Davis Singularity .
Yeah , yeah , talking about the supercomputer that runs everything . Sometimes , when things get rough , my natural default tendency is to laugh about it , and then I think I'm in a simulation . There's no way this many things could hit me at once .
So while I was out fighting my mornets , we found out that not one , not one , but both of Juliana's parents are in a war . Oh no , they're OK . They're OK . But have you but ER related ? Yeah ?
So like they're OK .
But I just put her in the car and she drove down and then I was going to tell everyone we're going to have a couple days off because I'm bringing my daughter to college and she's going far enough away from me .
She tried to get as far as possible from me , but we were going to plan a little family trip and I'm guessing at this point I'm guessing it's going to be me taking all the kids to bring my like to fly down in two days . You know what I mean . And I just go . This is a joke . Ouch , they cannot be , Holy shit .
Yeah , this is why big families can be nice . We have a lot of people around we can be like you know a sister or brother , you go , hey , can you take the kids for a couple , but no , I'm going to be flying . But , anyway , I try to do it with a big smile on my face .
I'm thankful that Joana's parents are OK , they're just , they just she's got to get down there so she's driving from Boston to down in New Jersey on a Friday afternoon . Yeah , that ought to be a straight shot . Boom . Oh god , that's amazing .
Yeah , so , so yeah , listen when , when shit hits the fan , and it does for all of us , and I have a theory , by the way , that it's hitting the fan for everyone more- than anyone else , oh yeah . Have the .
We keep finding out , like right now especially we keep finding out about people who are like on the edge of financial ruin or are on the like have some really , really bad things going on right now and people I wouldn't think like friends of ours .
Coach where I go oh , I think they're fine . You find out , no , no , he lost his job three months ago . They're not fine .
And so I'm seeing this everywhere and I want to let everyone know we're all in it together . We are . This is why we try to raise your spirits . That's why we try to have this podcast while Hornets are at the back .
Oh my god .
That's why I drummed up the courage to actually ask for help today from my two co-hosts , because I hate asking for help , but I did it and they acquiesced . I'm guessing they did a substandard job , but we'll find out when we replay the tapes . And , yeah , this is why listen .
Yeah , this is what the people who listen to this podcast and the people that we have found while reviewing this tremendous show get it . Everyone gets it . Everyone who hears this goes yep , I get it . I'm going through that too , and we all have these challenges .
So I want to thank everyone for keeping their spirits up and tuning in to experience this with us . We couldn't do it without you . We really appreciate it . Please consider subscribing . The link is in the description . We're working on when I get back .
I could have done it today a little announcement about our community , but I'm going to do it when I get back and then , yeah , we'll go from there , but it's going to be fun .
Please support your local libraries , please support the written word , please support the writers and actors who are on strike , who make the movies and TV shows and everything else that we love . And the Women's World Cup is entering the quarter final stage and semi-final stage .
So the more you can support them , the better it will help all the women in developing nations who need more validity inside there . They need people to do what boss did and say that's valid to women's sports .
They're funding .
Yeah , yeah , seriously , the people who fund women's sports in some of these nations . We want them to be able to keep up and compete and be on an even playing field . So we thank everyone all around the world who has been listening , and until next time we are Richmond till we die Die . Woo . All right , I'm going to go hornin' it out . See you everybody .
Thanks for listening .