Discover the complex emotional landscape of "Fauda" Season One as Mark Pellegrino, Jax Schumann, Jennifer Bouani, and I unravel the artistry and cultural impact of this politically charged drama. Our candid discussion takes an unexpected turn as we peel back the layers of storytelling, character development, and representation, offering you a deeper insight into the nuanced portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Join us as we navigate the moral ambiguities and cultural resonances that make "Fauda" a thought-provoking encounter with the realities of war and personal struggle.
The heart of our conversation beats with the exploration of Palestinian identity and the intricate web of family dynamics that drive the show's narrative. As we dissect the characters' psychological complexities, Mark, Jacks, and Jennifer share their perspectives on how the show captures the adrenaline-filled lives of military units and the burden of conflict on loved ones. We tackle the thorny issues of martyrdom and national identity, examining how these themes resonate within the cultural narrative and the lives of characters caught in the crossfire.
Our debate crescendos as we ponder the series' authenticity in depicting combat and relationships amidst chaos. From the significance of realistic fight scenes to the pursuit of objectivity in storytelling, we delve into the artistic choices that shape the viewer's perception. We wrap up with reflections on "Fauda's" cultural reverberations and the responsibility of media in portraying the humanistic themes within such turbulent settings. Tune in for an episode that promises not just entertainment, but enlightenment on one of today's most pressing global issues.
Discover the complex emotional landscape of "Fauda" Season One as Mark Pellegrino, Jax Schumann, Jennifer Bouani, and I unravel the artistry and cultural impact of this politically charged drama. Our candid discussion takes an unexpected turn as we peel back the layers of storytelling, character development, and representation, offering you a deeper insight into the nuanced portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Join us as we navigate the moral ambiguities and cultural resonances that make "Fauda" a thought-provoking encounter with the realities of war and personal struggle.
The heart of our conversation beats with the exploration of Palestinian identity and the intricate web of family dynamics that drive the show's narrative. As we dissect the characters' psychological complexities, Mark, Jacks, and Jennifer share their perspectives on how the show captures the adrenaline-filled lives of military units and the burden of conflict on loved ones. We tackle the thorny issues of martyrdom and national identity, examining how these themes resonate within the cultural narrative and the lives of characters caught in the crossfire.
Our debate crescendos as we ponder the series' authenticity in depicting combat and relationships amidst chaos. From the significance of realistic fight scenes to the pursuit of objectivity in storytelling, we delve into the artistic choices that shape the viewer's perception. We wrap up with reflections on "Fauda's" cultural reverberations and the responsibility of media in portraying the humanistic themes within such turbulent settings. Tune in for an episode that promises not just entertainment, but enlightenment on one of today's most pressing global issues.
Welcome everybody to the Viewing Room. A new show on Troubadour Channel. I have Mark Pellegrino, jack Schuman and Jennifer Buani and we are going to be discussing Fouda season one. So in this first segment we're actually going to be talking about our first reactions and then we're going to talk about the writing, the acting and themes, cultural relevance, artistic elevation of the show. The goal is to help you get more out of your TV and movie viewing. Ok, welcome everybody to this new channel, troubadour Yay thanks.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us, Kirk.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Just so everybody who's watching knows, there was a show and maybe when the future will be called TV Talk on the Iron Rends Center, uk, which you three did. For how long did you do that show? Two years.
Speaker 3:Two years Yep.
Speaker 1:Couple years, ok, and we're kind of hoping we can move this over to Troubadour Channel and do a regular show for everybody out there here. So let's hop into the actual discussion of your reactions. So let's go around the room and see I don't want to give my reaction first, but I will if nobody else wants to go first. But with Mark, would you be willing to go first with your reaction?
Speaker 2:Sure, I just want to preface it though. You know there are some shows, movies, tv shows that you can see over and over and over again, and every time you see it it becomes better. You know it's like an onion you peel away every layer to find something new. The Big Lebowski is like that Every time you watch the Big Lebowski you find something new in it that makes you enthusiastic about viewing it. The show is the opposite for me. When I first saw it, it was an enthusiastic thumbs up. You'd think today, in the post-October 7th world where I show like this is totally relevant, that my thumb would continue to stay in this direction. But the more I watch the show, the more my thumb begins to inch in the downward direction. So I would say now I'm not completely a thumbs down, but I am a thumbs almost down.
Speaker 1:Well, that'll be really fun to explore. I'm excited to dig into that a little bit as we go. Who would like to go next? Jacks or Jennifer?
Speaker 3:Jacks, yeah, I can go next. So I am like Mark, and so I've seen the show twice now and I've definitely seen, well, seasons one through one and two I've seen twice and then, and then I watch seasons three. Are there three or four seasons, or?
Speaker 1:five seasons Five.
Speaker 3:OK, there's other.
Speaker 1:Is there? There's about to be that season.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right, OK, so five seasons. And then there's about to be a six season. So I watched seasons one and two before October 7th. And then October 7th hit and I started watching. That's kind of when I thought, guys, we need to do Fowda. And so I started watching Fowda again and watch season one and two all over again. And I am I am with Mark that while I heavily enjoyed it the first time, the first round before October 7th, I had different thoughts and as well Artistically I had, I had some different thoughts about it. So I wouldn't say I'm like as close to Mark Thumbs down, I'm like I'm like Thumb Med, but maybe more like a little on the positive.
Speaker 1:Thumb Med. Keep him halfway alive is what I'm hearing. Yeah, gladiator, up and down, keep him a little bit alive. Yeah, just cut off an arm or something. Ok, jennifer, what did you think?
Speaker 4:OK, so this was I. I have not seen it before and in fact when Jack says after October 7th we've got to watch Fowda, I started watching it. So I've only seen it once and I saw it almost to the end of season two and I maybe I don't know why they don't like it, but I actually really did like it as a first timer, getting to see the, the, this world at a very, very personal level. You know, like the, you've got the special forces undercover and their personal lives, and then you've got their enemies and their personal lives, and that was just a unique way of telling the story that I had never seen before and so I appreciated being brought into that world and shown the messiness of it. So I give it a thumbs up, but as a newbie.
Speaker 1:But you, kirk. So I, I, I'm having trouble with it as well for a variety of reasons. I had heard about it beforehand, actually from the Iran Brooks show, and I have thought about watching it, but I never did. And then, you know, because of the show with you, and then I think also after October 7th, this became more prominent in my mind to definitely watch this and watching it and learning a little bit about the background and the history of Israel and Palestine, I, I did also have some problems with it. I definitely think from you know we could talk about this later.
Speaker 1:Artistically, I thought it was just a pretty straightforward thriller to me, which was fine. I like thrillers, it's good. But the the challenge, I think, for all of us and for anybody watching, is all the emotions that are integrated into the show itself because of the real, real, real world situation that's going on, which I think we probably will have to talk about a little bit at some point during the show. So I, you know, I joked around about the not you know lopping off of an arm mid level, but I'm kind of there, probably leaning more toward the negative on it as well. Most, but not because of any of the artistic elements that the problem I'm having is trying to suss those, like to pull those apart, the like what's the good in the show, what art as art versus all this cultural baggage? And you know, I'm thinking they're not doing enough in what I think is a valuable effort to show the world what's going on in Palestine and Israel is, I think, a separate issue.
Speaker 3:Do you think we should give a very quick overview of the show for our listeners who have?
Speaker 3:not seen it. Please, I'm just going to kind of read from Wikipedia, because I do better that way, but I'll sort of paraphrase and Mark or Jennifer Kirk jump in anytime. So this is a it's an Israeli television series and it is, and it follows a special unit of the Israeli Defense Forces called the Mitzah Avron, and I'm so sorry if I'm pronouncing it the wrong way. It was developed by Lior Raz and Aviah Sharif and the interesting thing about and Lior Raz stars also as the our main hero, doran Lior Raz also happens to be he was in the IDF as well and in fact, after October 7th, rejoined the IDF to help rescue other Israeli soldiers something that's really interesting, and you just you don't see that from American actors.
Speaker 3:Well because they're just not in the military right.
Speaker 1:But well, elvis, elvis was to. A lot of them did go back to war, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, but not to knock Lior down a little bit, everybody's in the IDF. The only way you're not in the IDF is Israel is if you're a religious fundamentalist and then you get subsidized to read the Torah. Yeah, so I think he was actually in a wing that was very similar to the wing that there Correct the subject of this today, which I want to talk about a little bit later, because there's aspects of some of the characters that take me right out of the imaginary circumstances, for reasons I'll tell you about. So it was hard for me to believe that he was the real deal. Let's just put it that way Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 3:So just to kind of continue with the with the series overview, really quick the. So Lior Raz created it with Avi Ashraf. Avi Ashraf is also a journalist and Israeli journalist who heavily reported and continues to report on Israel and Palestine. The premise of this is that Doren has to. Doren has retired. The character of Doren played by Lior Raz, has retired from the special forces of the IDF and is brought back from retirement because he's he's done with it. And I mean, you know, these are basically like seals or army rangers. They're they're a very specialized elite group. They go and undercover. There's, you know, kind of plausible deniability that they go in for special, special missions. And Doren is encouraged to come back because of a terrorist that his group was thought to have killed and the terrorist is Tafiq Hamad. There's there's news that he's still alive. This is and this is a Hamas terrorist. So there's news that Tafiq is alive and the group decides to go in undercover to the wedding of Tafiq's nephew or son, I think it's brother.
Speaker 1:Oh, was it his brother, his brother, yeah, his younger brother, OK Bashir. Bashir Right.
Speaker 3:So they're, and Amal is who he's marrying right, he's marrying Amal.
Speaker 1:We live in Bashir, yeah.
Speaker 3:So they decide to go in, and they decide to go in to the wedding as undercover caterers, basically so that they can take out Tafiq, and Tafiq doesn't show up until the very last minute. Things go sideways and Bashir, the groomed to be, is killed by Boaz, who is part of the unit, part of the Israeli unit, and there's all kinds of relationships that we can get into. There's brothers, there's, you know, people sleeping with other people. It feels kind of very incestuous with, like all the, the families and the whole of the one point, but yeah, that is yeah, absolutely so, thus kind of.
Speaker 3:So the, the, the catering fiasco goes awry, they they fail in getting to Fik. They shoot him, doran shoots him but he ends up surviving, and so thus, kind of, is the is the series or the season opener for the entire season one. What I like about the show is that they have a big bad every season and then they solve that you know big bad in a certain way. So the entire season is about how do we get to Fik. His, his right hand person, waleed, is a despicable character who we can go into later, but that's basically kind of it in a nutshell and it tells the lives of these Israeli soldiers, their family lives, how being in the IDF, being in this special group, affects everybody, and so from that perspective I think it is very interesting. And that's kind of the basic overview. Do you guys have anything else to add to that?
Speaker 1:No, I think it's just a. It's a cat and mouse type of show, right when you have, you know, like you're saying, a terrorist, a block med, who's out on the run. He killed 116 Israelis, including the elderly, children, women, and this force is trying to get them back. Doron is the character who comes out of retirement, as you said to, basically, but the question is, why does he come out of retirement? A lot of it seems to be for revenge, and Fauda, by the way, means chaos, and so it's.
Speaker 3:I think it's an Arabic, I don't know if it's, it's Arabic, it's what they, it's what they shout, it's what the IDF shouts when they're in when it's about to go down, bad yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like they shouted.
Speaker 3:Are we allowed to swear on this channel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the yeah. Like when they're in the wedding sequence they shout Fauda a couple times because Doron, of course, goes a little crazy and shoots the guy when they could have gotten away right. So that's part, and I think that's part of like what springboards everything into this whole action sequence of trying to catch this person. And you know, jennifer, I would be curious because you'd seem to like it the most. And again, I do want to say that I enjoyed the watching of it. I don't want to say like I hated it. I was like miserable and pulling out my fingernails or something. But you know, like I said, some of the problems I had with the way realism was used and the. You know, I think the real life situation was problematic. But I'd love to hear more, jennifer, about what you liked about it.
Speaker 4:Well, I'd love to hear what was problematic about it, because I feel like this guy, leo or Roz, who played Duran, like he was in it, he was front seat to it and Then he he stepped out of that world and went into the entertainment world and started and took his PTSD and also the fact that he had actually lost his girlfriend to a terrorist attack and that pain and he turned it into something positive, a TV show that creates meaning around this. I mean, as a writer who likes to turn his purposes to to find meaning in this life through storytelling, I'm almost envious, almost. But yes, there's incredible Experiences and that he's taken the time to do it and to to bring it to us and and and yes, he did give a little. He shows the other side, the enemy side and the human side of it. You know the, the, the grieving mothers of the, of the Hamas, dudes, and. But I think that's real, like I think that that's what he experienced and I also I see the problem with the I for an eye principle. That's, like you know, over the three thousand years old, and why that, even if you're a civilized, of civilized nation that Promotes human life, how you can get sucked into it, duran got sucked into it and and it becomes this black hole. So to me, I Love that he brought the story. It was so it it maybe. I even like I maybe have a crush on him because he's just like so heroic in that he took these experiences and turned them into this. So that that's what I like about it.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a really important observation, though, like, in my view, when experiencing TV film, anything with like a person there I do think it's one of the challenges is trying to separate your own personal feelings from an evaluation of the you know for a particular character because that, or an actor, because I think it's very easy to see an actor Be attracted, that actor, and then add in all this thing of like how valuable the show was, when really you just found the actor or Actress attractive and that's really what it is. Now the question is, I think, why is that actor attractive? Like what is it about, is it? Or that character, like what is it? Is it his heroism? And then let me.
Speaker 4:Let me be clear. It wasn't the actor that I'm saying, I mean the character. It was the writer. That's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's that's even like an outside element from the art is part of what you're like more open to. I'd like to your mark of some of your. You know some of your challenges within and then I could talk about some of mine.
Speaker 2:Then maybe we can move into Maybe maybe we should talk about what what I think is right about the show first. Okay, a little more positive than to get into things that I had issues with. I, because I think it's a very it's a very interesting, compelling thing that Jennifer is very influenced by the guy's personal life and what she says is, in real life, a very heroic thing. Yeah, turn tragedy into art and to and to then take that tragedy that would probably crush most people and make it meaningful, and Then to make that meaningful subject matter, something that influences other people is is a wonderfully heroic thing. One of the things that I really like about the show is that it understands that a Show isn't a show about anything, is essentially a show about the interactions of the people. Supernatural isn't a show about two guys that kill monsters. It's a show about family and in the end, people love family dynamics. They love, too, orphan brothers who will go through literally hell to to be together and to and to to fight of bad guys and the people who come into the universe, including Lucifer is. It's all familial Relationships and in this case we get to see the personal dynamics of the people behind behind the scenes. We see what drives them. I'm. I think Daron is driven less by a sense of justice and not revenge, but more an adrenaline junkie who can get enough of the rush of putting himself in dangerous situations. That is a complex element to a character that's very interesting to explore, and it and it's and what and what I like very similar To Jennifer is that it shows how the, the special forces unit, is a family unto itself. It's a unit that can only relate to one another and the people on the outside Aren't allowed in, they can't get in, and that creates a Psychological dynamic between the people in the special forces and the people on the outside. That's a very interesting subject to explore, not not from a perspective, not not explore as a scientist, but as a part of narrative, and we, we see how, how the kinds of, what kinds of peril the individual characters are in and how that affects the ones they love. We get to see.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I thought was interesting Was not not seeing that the Palestinians have, you know, families to and that they cry as well. I think that's a bit of a cliche. What I, what I did, I did see something that I thought I needed to see, which was that the Palestinian movement is an identity that permeates everything they do and and and what. What I liked about some of the characters was it there's a clear conflict between the Palestinian identity and right and Good and what's right for them as individuals.
Speaker 2:So there's, you know, there's a time when some of the one character, in particular Ahmed's wife, is put in a put in a dangerous position by having, just by, by making the choice of her, her, her son's life or Her relationship to the Palestinian people and its cause. Let's not forget that when Bashir is killed, they drape him in a Palestinian flag. There's, there's, it's, it's all about the movement. This was something that I think disturbed a reviewer from the Guardian, but which I found to be probably one of the more true elements in it, and one of the reasons was it a Palestinian flag or a Hamas?
Speaker 3:flag or is there a difference between the two?
Speaker 2:Was it Hamas. Well, yes, no there is no difference between the two. It's not a. There is no difference between the two. Since the Palestine? Well, I thought there were two different flags.
Speaker 3:They are two different flags.
Speaker 2:But they but I. I hold them as one is. This is the spiritual core of the other. One is a pan-Arabic, religiously fanatic group that animates the Palestinian movement. The whole, the whole concept of a state, palestinian state, is grounded upon that spiritually.
Speaker 3:My only point is that if they, if they put them in a, in a Hamas flag there's, they're very specifically propping him up as a Shai right, which they did.
Speaker 2:Yes, they prop up as a martyr, which is there's no difference in that, that realm Of the movement from. You know a state actor and a religious actor. They're one in the same right, the. The reason why you're you're killed as an apostate is because it is for the same reason you're you're killed here as a traitor to your state. At least they look at it the same way. So the national identity and the religious identity are fused and I thought that was that. That was sort of interesting. Yeah, the things. If you want to talk about some more positives, that's great, I can.
Speaker 1:I'll start hinting at negatives later, but Well, I agree with your positives, for sure that was definitely my favorite part of the show in the sense of getting Getting an understanding of that world and as realistic and real you know, with real realism in it, that the wives and the mothers in a, in a very important way, of the palestinian Hamas, like the panther, or Amad's mother, she's really pushing him to do this, like she's, and so at some point, even as the wife is, even though they have conflicts with a injured daughter, and you see that in the conflicts of other characters who have injured daughters and like, should I go to Israel, even with the best doctors in the world, or I don't want a Jew to work on my daughter or my son, and that's an important part of the story of what's going on in this world.
Speaker 1:And then, just all the little, even the side characters, the way that I think they honor the, the martyrs and the becoming a martyr that they all like. You know, the becoming a martyr that they all like, that's an important part of this world that I think a lot of us in America and the west probably don't grasp. When we think about like, like you're saying, mark, hamas and Palestine, they're two separate things, completely different, maybe a little bit, but you know there's a lot of like admiration on the streets for these people who are fighting the, you know, fighting this war for them, in a sense, and they're giving the spiritual fuel To these martyrs, or these going to be martyrs, the Shaheeds, I believe they call them, and and that's an that's an important part of it. So I agree that, in terms of seeing that with your own eyes, in very realistic sense, with good writing in that realm, I think that's very valuable.
Speaker 2:And also my favorite part of the show and also seeing the impossible dilemmas that characters are put in because, you know, because Ahmed is is a A mass murdering terrorist. His wife is put in a terrible position, her family is put in a terrible position.
Speaker 3:Which one is that? Yeah, so Fikus is real name?
Speaker 1:I believe, yeah, but his name is Abu.
Speaker 2:Ahmed Abu Ahmed.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's his terrorist name.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so and so the terrible position that it puts their family members in, not only because their, their significant other, has declared war against an entire people and is a murderer and they become complicitous in it by Protecting him, but because the identity of the Palestinian people is so wrapped up in a fake liberation movement, you know, is something fanatical and something dogmatic they they become.
Speaker 2:It puts them at odds with their own interests, as we see, when she has to make the choice for her son and decides On real liberty, going to Germany and and taking her son there to start a new life, um, that's a choice for, that's a real, that's a true liberation movement within the fake liberation movement of Palestinianism. I think it's and I think it's a good thing for people to see this dramatized because, you're right, nobody in the west really understands the concept of a death culture. Nobody understands why somebody would seek death as a, as a proper end to their life. If anything we do our best to. We have a longevity movement in the west where we're trying to extend our lives as long as possible, and the idea that it's great to kill yourself and take as many other innocent people along with you as possible, as a, as a moral virtue is is something very it's incomprehensible to us, and I think it's part of what feeds the pro-homas, the pro-homas, pro-palestinian movement Is they think they're just like us and they're not and they.
Speaker 3:I think that there's a level of denial too that they just can't accept Um.
Speaker 3:Most western culture can't accept that there actually is an entire culture devoted to and that values death over everything else, which is um.
Speaker 3:I think one of the one of the more interesting Aspects to me, along the lines that you guys were talking about in terms of being able to to kind of see what it's truly like to be um, to kind of like going into Gaza and the west bank and to really understand what the palestinian culture is like, one of the more interesting characters to me, and and she becomes more interesting over the seasons is Nouraid. She's the female, the only female in the idf squad and she, so all of the, the, the people in the idf they are sorry in this group, in Doron's group, they all speak fluent arabic as well, because they all have to be able to pass uh when they as arab, when they go into or as a palestinian Um, when they go into Gaza and the west bank and the, and when they go into Gaza, um, they have to be undercover effectively and Nouraid, as a female, has to be. I don't know if they call it like the. What is the, it's not it.
Speaker 3:She's not wearing a burqa, but like a hijab, right Um yeah she has to cover her head because, um, and she has to because there she's got to be able to speak with other females and go into places where only females are allowed. Um, they send her in undercover to go and talk to the doctor, that uh, that Doron, the friends, who actually is the one who, who has patched up um, ahmed and uh and the one who actually has puts a bomb in boas Uh and brings. So that was interesting. But I think when you, when Nouraid, goes into Gaza and undercover um, you see this Incredible difference between who she is in israel and who's her, who she is in uh in televive, versus who she is in Gaza and the way that she has to act versus.
Speaker 3:She's such a free Uh character in general, she's a she's a really, really interesting character and she's having an affair with her boss, uh, right, um, and all of these. You know she drinks and you know, but then she goes into palestine, she goes into gaza and she has to be completely repressed. And I think that the show they might have done this on accident, because I think that they were trying to show how you know, you know it's a respectful culture toward women. You know for the most part, and but I think it failed. I think it failed in that respect because every time I saw her going into Gaza I was like oh, here she's putting on like her oppression clothes.
Speaker 4:You don't see that with men. I watched Journeymentv, which was behind the scenes, and it showed some of the. They had Israeli women playing some of the women over on the West Bank side, because they couldn't get them, because they're not allowed. Actually, people, women over there, are not allowed to act in these shows. So they were complaining about that, talking about how hot it was. They were just like they were bitching about it. But yeah, so no, I don't think it was overlooked.
Speaker 1:Doesn't look comfortable to me, yeah.
Speaker 3:I just wanted.
Speaker 4:I didn't want to interrupt you, jack.
Speaker 3:No, I was definitely going to interject with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mark. Yeah, just to sort of jump off on the different conceptual relationships in the societies with respect to women. You see a very accomplished French trained doctor, chirin. You see how powerless she is in the face of Wadi, her cousin, who has an incestuous love for her, and she more or less gets trapped between the two wheels of power. They're trying to find Abu Ahmed and she becomes a person of interest for the terrorists, for Hamas, who want to potentially take her out as a collaborator. His way of saving her is to marry her.
Speaker 2:Now, the fact that that is a legitimate means of saving somebody would be very alien to people from, I think, our culture, and perhaps isn't so much to that one. But certainly to see somebody as westernized as Chirin almost go down that rabbit hole because she had really almost no choice in the matter, was a very interesting juxtaposition, especially when you see it with Nareet. But I do have to say that there are scenes with Nareet and with Duran that bothered me and I could talk about that later because that's part of my beef with the piece.
Speaker 1:Well. So I didn't know if we had any thoughts about the act or we talk about the acting in just a minute, but the writing and specifically, or even just the way that the show is structured. And I'll just say that one of the things I was noticing was the even-sidedness of the whole situation, that they would often have female, male characters and relationships and the way that on the Israeli side the way that they were portrayed was often chaotic love affairs, lots of problems, cheating, things like that. And on the Palestine, hamas side, you saw, even though the war is what being in war is what caused separation.
Speaker 1:You saw more, I think, from the Panther, abu Ahmed's character of his love for his wife and there's a mutual loyalty to them that was almost superior to what you saw in some of the other Israeli, which I thought was an interesting writing choice to make that lifestyle as more tenable to at least a long-term marriage than what you see in the one. The only marriage you see on the other side, which is there's to life with affairs. They don't love each other. Doran even gets pretty aggressive where he's like almost hitting her at one point. He pushes her pretty hard and he's very aggressive, I think in a negative way and I just found that.
Speaker 3:Who does Doran do that to His wife?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he hits her at one point, Got it. Yeah, he pushes her very hard in a way that's almost like in the second to last episode, where they're in the kitchen. He's like do you want to be with me, or do you like, do you love me?
Speaker 3:Well, this is after he's found out that she's been having an affair with his teammate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he had an affair at that point too, by the way, and again, my point is not necessarily any specific action he took. I mean, I definitely don't agree you should do that particular action even if you're mad at somebody, but I definitely. It was just to me interesting that the wives and mothers seem so respected and treated well. My point is the even-sightedness was a little bit bothersome, but I did. But you guys are pointing out something to me that I agree with, which is they did include that Valide I don't know how to pronounce the name character, that incestuous part of it. So you know where that what's like that is that negative thing of you know, that kind of machismo culture, I guess I'll call it, where you have to have a protector, to have someone at least that's the perspective like you have to have someone.
Speaker 3:But to your point, kirk, to your point you're right. Even though they included that incestuous part, valide to me seemed like a character that was not. He's a non-typical, he's like especially bad, and the way that they portrayed it is that he was like kind of a non-typical example of how love relationships go in the, you know, among the Hamas people, which I disagree with right, because on the one side they're showing, on the Israeli side everything is dysfunctional, it's, you know, everybody's cheating on everybody else. I don't think that they're actually, as I think about it, I don't think that there was a true like love, functional relationship shown at least in season one, as you go through the series Boaz had a very yeah that was going to say Boaz.
Speaker 3:Boaz had a very yes with the woman that died, that Bashir's fiance killed in a suicide bombing. And then, and even Gabby, who often acts kind of, you know, in some ways is a little bit of comic relief, even though he's a very serious character, but he often, you know, jokes about how he's been married four times and you know, get married so you can get divorced already and live your life. That's what he tells one of the characters at one point.
Speaker 3:Right, whereas the Hamas characters. They're the relationships. The women are devoted to their men. They love them and that's really not accurate in that. I mean, that's how they have to be on the outside, but a lot of them don't have choices in terms of who they marry. They get married off. It's a facade.
Speaker 1:Well, it's definitely a right choice because they could. They could portray different perspectives in Palestine, right? I would say?
Speaker 2:I mean, I would say a stopped clock is right. Twice a day, you know. And rigidly religious people. They have a set of values, and it just so happens that those values that they dogmatically stick to are marriage and the types of relationships that men and women have. They're very strictly adhered to, not because they've thought them through, necessarily, but because God told them to. So it just so happens that there's a kind of order and a clarity in that world that you would get, I think, equally from a Christian fanatic or a Jewish fanatic. And there's a part of us Mormons, right Mormons and there's a part of us as objectivists, who like clarity and principle behavior, who would gravitate towards that, even though it's not precisely that. And with respect to the chaos, the fowda on the other side of you know the the fence, I'm reminded of Jack Nicholson's line in, in, in, in.
Speaker 3:One clue over the cuckoo's nest.
Speaker 2:No, no, no what.
Speaker 3:No, china town shining, I'm just going to throw out stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. The the Sorkin movie with Tom Cruise a few good, good, good men. But I'll say that again.
Speaker 4:Can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2:I'm reminded of Jack Nicholson's line in a few good men where he says you can't handle the truth. That touches on something that I think is a truth in the show Another positive point about it which is a certain breed of man and or woman puts themselves in these kinds of situations. That's why I said Doron's. Doron's engagement in this world seems to be less about you know, less about a cause as it is with the people in Hamas, and more about adrenaline rush, something within him personally that needs to be satisfied, that the rest of us can't necessarily relate to, because we just not aren't built that way. We're not built like Navy SEALs who need this kind of. They have something in them a kind of aggression, a kind of flirtation with disaster and a desire to go into the, to the darkness that we don't. All the other functional fighters have the same drive to go into that world that none of us would voluntarily choose if we could help it. So there's it's not. It's not surprising to me that people who are extremely functional in these high pressure situations are not functional in life. Right Actors, who are probably the some of the greatest, most genius folks you've seen on screen, are dysfunctional in their lives, partly because, partly because you know, the profession that they're in incentivizes, you know, and promotes certain behavior, traits and certain ways of looking at the world and responding that are not what you would consider social or domestic values. And so it's. It's very difficult for them to acclimate to society and what society needs when the time comes.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was, I thought that was a very good, you said was an interesting story point. You had issues with it. You had issues with humanizing bad guys, as that's my take. But you know, I think the reason I think I think the chaos on the one side was was was a very character savvy way of presenting you know, all of the all of the principles as flawed human beings, superior at what they do in this one respect, but that superiority causes blind spots in other areas. I remember Stella Adler, the great acting teacher, used to say if you want to marry Romeo, don't, don't, don't get together with George Washington. I mean, you know, one man has a particular focus that makes him excel in one area but be a very terrible diplomat. The other enables him to be terrible, and probably the romantic sphere, but a great statesman. We can't be all things to all people and all things to ourselves, so I thought that was a pretty realistic and interesting take.
Speaker 1:What about you, Jennifer?
Speaker 4:Well, I agree with Mark, and, and it would extend it to just that's what you get in a free society. You know where women are free to choose. You're going to get messy, you're going to get messy relationships. So that's, that's maybe a trade off, but trade off I'm willing to take.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I appreciated the, the realism in that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because what is what is interesting about that is that they're not. They're not miserable in these. You know in these relationships that they're in, they are messy but they, they, eventually they work them out. Doran, especially with his wife, it becomes messy because she's having an affair and then he was having an affair, but what you actually see over the series is that he and his wife end up having a much stronger bond together as co-parents to their children and just, and they and the love that they share between each other is really is really wonderful. You know, there's a season when really, I think at the end of season two, if we have, we all seen to the end of season two.
Speaker 1:I don't want to spoil it.
Speaker 3:Really terrible, really terrible thing happens to Doran and and he withdraws. That's kind of his go to is. He just completely withdraws and it's his wife who, even though they're divorced now, his wife comes to his aid and she's always there for him. She always comes to his aid. So in that way, because they have that freedom to divorce right to, she has the freedom to be with anybody that she wants. She comes back to him in in a way where that their love has actually grown for each other in a more platonic way, but it's very endearing.
Speaker 1:I also. Maybe the last thing is like there's a moment when the sheik, the season one, when he tells them all your duty to your country and your cause is to have babies. So just, you know, basically this is a immediately after her fiance, on their wedding day, is murdered and lying right in front of her and he's like, oh, it'll be okay, you know, your, your jihad is babies and and having. And I just thought you know, like I did, like that they included that Cause again. I think that's the pressure and she didn't want to choose that. So she decided to die instead and have a suicide bomb. Now I did want to make sure we covered some of the acting. So we've talked a little bit about the writing and like the show overall and our thoughts. And, mark, you had a comment about the two, this two actor moment, what, what's wrong?
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not. It's not specifically a moment between the two of them. I don't know that. They have many scenes alone together. Who are the two? Well, the, the, the, the one who plays the Doran and the one who plays in the reed, have they okay? So what happened is is two, two scenes that are my pet peeve, all right, and this I have a pet peeve. My pet peeve is, if you are, wait a minute what?
Speaker 1:Where is that coming from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, where is that? That has like a whole no, I like it.
Speaker 3:I appreciate, I appreciate all your pet peeve.
Speaker 1:It's backstory yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there is. I'm trying to sort out where and why. So. So if you are supposed to be a fighter, for example as an actor, you have a responsibility.
Speaker 2:No, you may not have the time to be able to do it 100%, but to look like a fighter. Daniel Day Lewis, when he did the boxer, had the luxury of studying boxing for two years. When he gets in the ring, he looks like a boxer because he really is. And you get the same thing from Marlon Brando and, on the waterfront, when you see him punching Johnny friendly, he's punching like a boxer because he really was. Now, you know, in the night of that, one of the main characters was supposed to be a champion lightweight fighter and he couldn't box to save his life. And it was very clear when he was hitting the bag that he was not a boxer at all.
Speaker 3:We had a whole rant about that.
Speaker 2:An amateur boxer, let alone a professional boxer and a champion level boxer. So when I see Noreed who's supposed to be a special forces, you know operative hitting the bag like an amateur, I can't watch it. It immediately takes me out of the situation. And when I see Duran hitting the bag like an amateur, I can't watch it. It makes me feel like and this is a guy who is supposedly the real deal. It makes me feel less like he is the real deal. When I see when I see that because it's such a technical snafu If you see a real professional hitting a bag, the difference is like night and day. And you can't in all good conscience as an actor or filmmaker, show that fully If you don't have the skill you got to do what they do in you know born identity, lots of fast cuts so that it appears that you're actually doing something that you're probably not very proficient at or not as proficient at as a real professional.
Speaker 3:Which I found really interesting, though, because they are IDF, they do go through that training. You know, where was the Krav Maga? I wasn't really seeing that they have that mandatory training. I felt the same way when I saw it. I didn't. I forgave her more for it, I don't know why, but him being the leader, are you supposed to be the baddest ass? And yeah, I had that issue as well. But what was your other issue then, mark?
Speaker 2:But these, these are. It's not. It's not so much like everybody's IDF, but not everybody is a specialized soldier. That means these people do it professionally Right. Everybody's drafted into the, into the service. For what?
Speaker 3:But he, but Leo Raz was, it was a specialized soldier, so why did?
Speaker 2:he get that training. Well, he might have, he might, he might be, he might be very out of practice. I think Jennifer might have an answer for us. But my point is, if he's out of practice, have the self perspective not to film it, because somebody who knows a little bit about striking the striking arts even is going to be a. It's going to, it's going to pull them out. I think of the scenario.
Speaker 4:We're making an assumption that the IDF has those skills, which I think is a good assumption. But when I was watching the journeyman TV, they were there, the people that actually they were interviewing, the real people, and the guy, leo or Roz, was talking about how they they. They were doing some fight scenes and they were taking it from, like trying to make it as real as possible. So it's it's hard for me to believe that they were at that mindset. Without trying to make it possible, that's good PR, it just doesn't look right.
Speaker 2:So it's like, if you can't make it look right, you know, cut it in a way that does make it look right. That's, that's what I'm saying. I'm sure they wanted to make it as truthful as possible, you know. But if you've seen, they used to have a show like Army Ranger versus Navy Seal, massad versus, you know, sas soldier. And when you see a massage, a real massage guy disarm somebody, it's gnarly. And if you have it, if you and this is this is the situation that I, that I'm talking about that the massage soldier, it wasn't choreographed, he didn't know what the other person was going to do in response, and yet it was a thing of beauty to see. Now you have the luxury of choreographing something. You have to make it pretty. You have to make it pretty. His point was in real life it happens instantly.
Speaker 4:It's not cinematic Bullshit. Yeah, but that, yeah, but if you wait more than 10 seconds, you're dead.
Speaker 2:It's irrelevant, so they ended up stretching it out in order to, but it's irrelevant.
Speaker 4:In cinematic, in cinematic life, we need to see it beautiful.
Speaker 2:We need to see it beautiful. We need to see efficiency, because that's what these guys are supposed to represent. They have to be in a good position they're supposed to represent. They have chaotic lives personally, but they're ultra efficient, ultra efficient in their professional lives, even even if there on impulsiveness, which is which is a, is another, I think, writing thing. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong. It's a character flaw in his part which also becomes something that's heroic. It's something that is part of his strength as well. His impulsiveness gets him into a lot of trouble, but it also fills him with courage to enable him to go that extra yard to get the job done. So, look you go ahead, no you go ahead. Finish with no. I just I just feel like physical confrontations have to be pretty. They're not in life, but they have to be pretty Pretty.
Speaker 1:Well, one of yeah. So one question I have. So we can, you know, we talked a little bit about some acting, and I think that's interesting because when we think about acting, you know, as a non-actor, I tend to just think about the delivery of the line, you know, do they cry or not? Like that's basically the level and it's, you know, hearing from a professional actor, it's, it's, it's true, like you know, when you think about it, obviously you have to embody the whole thing and figure out how it's going to be portrayed on screen, which is an important part of the whole series, or, you know, any kind of acting that you're going to be doing that, that you're, as it as it, you know, embodying this character. So my, but my questions. We talked about, actually we talked about writing, talked about our reactions.
Speaker 1:I do want to make sure we save some time for themes and overall culture, but one question I have for all of you in listening to this is especially Mark. What you're talking about is what's your view on realism in TV, so in cinema? Because what I agree with you 100%, mark, in terms of even if you're trying to go for realism, you should still be a stylized version in a sense, like I always think about John Wayne and early, early cowboy silent films. If you watch like action films, action films like cowboy films from like the 20s, the silent era, when they have a bar room scene of fighting, it was chaos, it was absolute chaos and you cannot really tell what was going on. And one of the things that John Wayne did and is like an actual you know change he made in the early, his early career was he wanted it to be more choreographed so that the camera was more on him. He seemed like the hero. So he, you know he's. I find John Wayne to be a very interesting person in doing that, but it's, but it's very choreographed and there is some you know process involved, even if it's chaos and it's weird and you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Just watching McClintock when they're all like having fun, it's like a dance fight type thing, and so you know. But this version in this show is all about realism. I think like they're really like that seems to be a core thing that this show is trying to accomplish is making the viewer see the quote unquote reality. Now we all know that it's not real, it's scripted, it's you know, it's a version of reality that's stylized in a certain way. But you know, jennifer, you're saying like everything happens in a second Mark, you're saying that it still needs to be kind of shown out cinematically. So I wanted to get all your thoughts on the overall season one. As you know, realism was that good versus should they have done more in terms of, you know, stylizing it up, having more of a direct theme in that realm. What do you guys think?
Speaker 3:I'll let Mark go first, since he's the actor, so he should comment on that first, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think we're talking about two different things. In a way, all fight scenes are choreographed, so all fight scenes sort of fall into that realm of stylization. Right Now there are some who will choreograph it to look sloppy, you know, like, for example, if you see GoldenEye, the first Bond movie that Pierce Brosnan did, I loved it because he fought like this SAS guy, you know, and the final fight with him, I think final fight with him and the villain in the end was this beautiful, compact Aiki Jitsu thing, and then maybe people complained, I don't know, but the very next movie he did, he fought like a drunken sailor.
Speaker 2:I wasn't as impressed by Bond, because Bond is a 007. He's a very particular kind of agent and I want to see him doing like Daniel Craig does, really elite shit that I can't do, and that's these guys aren't just IDF, they're elite soldiers that are trained to, to, to do these crazy things, to actually infiltrate enemy territory and engage them in a way that most people would never even think of. So, as far as I'm concerned, the violence has to be. It wouldn't be this way in life, of course, but it has to be. It has to be efficient.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a pure efficient, you're saying.
Speaker 2:It has to look like that's yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, no fight would happen like the Bourne identity fights where you see that awesome fight in the bedroom where he's using everything as a weapon and it's this crisp, clear you know in Krav Maga craziness and it puts you in awe. It's like, oh my God, this guy's a machine, he's crazy. Yeah, no fight would actually look like that in life. But it has to look that way in cinema and that that that because I'm looking at Jason Bourne who's an, who's a, who's a, an archetypal character. Right, he's a, he's a, he's a big, big, big character and he has to. He has to demonstrate that in some of his other actions Now.
Speaker 2:But but Jason Bourne is nonetheless acted realistically by by Matt Damon, and the people in that movie are acting realistically, meaning they take the circumstances as true, and they they're acting is not stylized or put on, there's no artifice, they're just taking the situations as true. So for me, when I see good acting, I ask myself is that person really doing something? Are they really engaged? Are they really solving a problem? Are they pretending to?
Speaker 2:And it's because it's that level of engagement on the human level that you, as an audience member, actually relate to. You relate to the experience the other actor is having, by going through the experience, in truthfully, through the, through the narrative. So and there's very little an actor actually has to do, because you come to the, to the, to the event, already suspending disbelief and already being quite accepting of what a person is going to do. So if something pulls you out of it and our artifice pulls you out of it they have to do something extraordinarily bad, like hitting those bags to pull you out of it. Now, if those two people were just normal guys that were reservists in the IDF, I wouldn't think anything of them hitting the bag like that. But they're special forces so they can't hit the bag like that.
Speaker 1:OK. So, jennifer Jack, any thoughts on the realism of the show or no? It's OK if not.
Speaker 4:I mean definitely. I have thoughts about the acting and the fighting, because these are two skills that I don't know anything about. Why don't you even mean the fighting and the acting.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I think what they were trying to accomplish with the whole show was to give you because one of the things I saw in the reviews, the most common word was an objective portrayal of the Israeli, the Israeli Palestine conflict. And that's even what Leor, the creator, and his partner were even saying they were trying to accomplish was an even-sighted, objective, realistic portrayal of what's going on with this war. So I just so, yes, I think the fighting and all that's relevant in the, the style of realism.
Speaker 4:I don't know that it's possible to be completely objective and we all come with biases in this case and including they admitted that. They said it wasn't propaganda and they were emphatic about that for the Zionist state. But they did realize that it was more prose, their side Absolutely and they were okay with that your side's right, but okay, well, their side is right, and you? Know what Jennifer.
Speaker 2:Jennifer, this is your first time. This is your first time seeing the show, but my first time seeing the show I didn't notice how pro-Israel it actually is, but it really is. I mean, when you really watch the scenes and the dynamics between the characters, it's very, it's almost. It starts to verge on didactic in a couple of places, but it doesn't quite go there.
Speaker 4:I mean the bad guys are so bad Like Walid, is that on the second season? We're not talking about the second season, but he would. He's being investigated. He just gets evil, like this face. He's pure evil.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe it went more that way, but again and see that we need to stick with season one. The question is, what's going on there? So I definitely and Jack's on a move to you so we can because then you saw you said something to say. But I definitely saw like okay, yes, they were terribly bad and irredeemable when they bombed the nightclub. I thought that was really good, like good, you know, as a portrayal of their evil, where there's just no redeeming qualities to those individuals who blew up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like and putting well. The thing that with Boaz, though, is again, if you look at it from an outside perspective, is well, he is a fighter, so he's part of this world in a sense. Now, I don't agree with that philosophy, but you know, that's, I think, how a lot of people think about this thing. But I think, with the netclub in him, horrible, it is horrible. The whole thing is horrible. War is horrible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a disclaimer that you have to sign when you're in the, when you're in this special IDF forces is you may be, you may be kidnapped and and have a bomb planted in you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't but Jackson, just something to say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I guess. Two comments one about the realism I do agree with what Mark was saying, especially on the fight scene is a good way, is a good example. But I think it applies to all the different, all of the different types of all the different types of scenes. I think that it has to be, it has to be cinematic, it has to be.
Speaker 3:A famous great philosopher, you know, once defined art as the selective recreation of reality. Selective recreation of realities. That's why it's important to choreograph those fight scenes. That's why it's important to have that dramatic dialogue right. I mean the types of you do want to write things in a stylized way. You don't want it to be so stylized that you can't relate to it.
Speaker 3:But again, we think of, in examples like billions. You know the way that, the way that Chuck's character speaks is very Shakespearean. We talked about that in an earlier episode of TV talk. Probably not the way somebody would talk regularly, but he, it was so stylized and so well done that that's the dramatic part of it, that you're, you're brought into it.
Speaker 3:That's why we do art, that's why we do drama. We do things in a way that don't exactly happen in the real world in order to describe and in order to show what actual reality is. I will say that in terms of showing the negative aspect of Palestine versus the negative aspect of Israel, one of the things I did not like and I have a really, really hard time with I wonder what you guys think about this is when Leor's Leor's character, doron takes captive to Fik's daughter and straps a bomb to her. Remember this in season one. Straps a bomb because they want Boaz back. Takes a daughter, takes a child, straps a bomb to her, threatens to blow her up and and then does I mean, doesn't blow her up, but she loses an eye.
Speaker 3:Blast happens, and this is when Boaz gets blown up who launched the blast, though? It was Tafik, it was the right, it was Hamas said and he was aware of that.
Speaker 1:His daughter was there. He was informed. His daughter was there.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, he blew up.
Speaker 2:Boaz anyway, and I think which was the breaking point for his wife too.
Speaker 2:So I mean you see how utterly devoted to the cause they are and what kind of man it takes to fight somebody like that. It's Jack's you, me, kirk, jennifer, we could. Could we strap a bomb to a child and send them out there and threaten to blow them up and really mean it? I don't think so. But somebody thank God can't, because look at what, look at what he was fighting. He fought somebody who did not care. It's not that he didn't care, he thought that the the sacrifice was worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so when we talk about like the themes, we can end here with talking about themes. Cultural impact of the show. I you.
Speaker 1:One of the things that came to my mind when I was watching the show was the poetic epic Iliad, which famously actually portrays the Trojans, the enemies of the Greek, as Humanistic. Actually, they're often thought of as more human. When you read the Iliad, then the actual heroes of the of the Poetry, which was the Greeks, hector famously has a scene with his son and daughter and wife. That's very pitiful in the Greek sense, like very bringing up, you know, emotions of pity for this person and what's happening. And so it's a very ancient technique actually, because this is a Greek Homer writing this about Trojans who they sacked and killed everybody there. And so I thought when I was watching this, that's kind of what I was thinking about was I was thinking about the Iliad, which is one of my favorite stories of all time, and the kind of that portrayal of the whole thing. Because what I started Think, seeing the, the theme of Fouda, which is chaos again, is the chaos that war brings into every single person in Habitants lives. That's that's what I saw as a dominant theme is it in every side, on all areas it brings. It kind of brings out the worst in people.
Speaker 1:It's obviously bringing, and it shows this in some in you know, somewhat stylized detail in terms of you know, I would put it as like love and war are two dominant things, because the way that each of the characters have chaos Manifest is actually more with their love relationships. Like that seems to be how that that is portrayed over and over and over again Versus any other way. I mean, you have it a little bit with the mother of Abu Ahmed, but you don't really. You know you have a little bit with the brother-in-law, but in I guess you could also add family in there. But I think love relationships are the more intense part of the show, where you have multiple love relationships that are all going auri and they're all bad and in a sense of you know, having chaos come from it all caused by, of course, war and then, as Mark's pointing out, the important element of the net, you know what it does to your soul and the kind of person that it brings out of, like the, the true detective line where he says you know the world needs bad men and there's, there's a kind of thing where you guys are pointing this out about the Strapping a bomb to a child, and this is why it was difficult for me to watch this post October 7 Then.
Speaker 1:Why I had a little bit more of a negative view of it is because to me, the what's needed in art is the clarity of Showing the wonder of Israel and the rightness of what they're doing. You know, there's a line in Fouda when they literally say Abu Ahmed is planning the next 9-11 in Israel and of course that's what they have called. October 7 is the 9-11 for Israel in a sense and I thought you know the again, to me it was to the, the even sidedness that he was trying to go for. It's just not appropriate Culturally to me at this moment. That's the part I had a difficulty with is I want to see. You know, I don't want to see paper figures of these, these villains.
Speaker 3:I, that's that's one of the good things about the mustache twirling yeah, I don't want to see that.
Speaker 1:I want to see the depth of their belief, which I liked Seeing the depth of their belief, but I definitely don't at this point. You know it's. I just have a problem with the sympathizing because they are so evil and if, or at least the, they should emphasize the evil More. They had it there, but I'd want to see it more emphasize and more the, the, the, you know value and the morality and the good of the Israeli side. Now, that's just what I want to see. It it's just. This is why I was saying it's difficult for me to see this after October 7th, learning a little bit about the history of this world that I have been over the last couple of months, and that's that. That. That was my part. I do think that thematically it it landed in that sense of delivering on the chaos of war and what it leads to our individual lives. So why don't we do all concluding thoughts? If you have any last thoughts, I'd love to hear it from everybody before we wrap up.
Speaker 3:I'll check on to. I'll tag on to yours, kirk. I completely agree. That was why my second viewing of Falda was different, because it was after October 7th and at the end of the day and I've seen all the seasons that exist at the end of the day you still kind of have a sense of, well, yeah, I mean definitely Israel.
Speaker 3:You know they're the more positive and they're the ones that are more in the right, but it wasn't definitive enough. It's not like a it's. It's not like a war war two Show where, like band of brothers or what was the other one, like saving private right, it wasn't. It wasn't like a very obvious you know Nazis bad and, and I didn't get that sense from. I felt like it was.
Speaker 3:It was too even-handed and in a disingenuous kind of way they were showing. They were showing the Palestinian plight Too altruistically and that actually I think is a fundamental internal conflict with Israel in general is their, their level of altruism and and their they meant for Duran to be when he strapped a bomb to that little girl. They, they meant for people to cringe at that right rather than the way that mark just reacted to it, which was who's got the guts to do that in light of what they're facing, what they're challenged, what they're challenged by. So I do. I had, I had that same issue that they weren't showing, and I agree exactly that you shouldn't do paper tigers and mustache twirling villains, but there's a way to show Like definitively right versus wrong, and I don't think that they that they nailed it on that. I'm going to be very interested, however, in what the next season of fowl to does, because all the five seasons of fowl to were Filmed prior to October 7th, so I'm going to be real interested to see what they do in the last season.
Speaker 4:And that that's kind of my point is give them a chance. Um, here they. This was before October 7th, when they wrote and and filmed this and um. I got from it that they took the. If you take the journey in the arc of the main character d'Auran, um, I got this sense that the theme was not just about war but about this principle, this age old principle of an eye for an eye and how, how Irrational it is, and yet, at the same time, how you can get sucked into it. Here's this, this main character getting sucked into it and seeking revenge and and and not being any better than that, and that that's a warning um to humanity, I think, and I I respect them for for putting that out there, but I do think we should. What a season four or five or whatever the next one is coming out, what are they going to say? Maybe they will be more um Hone in on the, the, the, the philosophical differences of let's hope, of the two civilizations. You know um marted arm versus respect for human life. We'll see.
Speaker 4:Yeah mark mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so much, so much to deal with there. Um, yeah, I mean, I wanted to address something. This I think jacks was talking about, um With, with a sort of moral equivalents, by, by diran strapping the, the bomb onto abu's daughter. Um, it just to me highlights the, the, the fact that what, what, what mcconaugy says and true detective, and what jack nickelson says in a few good men, is that you think it's horrible until you see that the, that the terrorist is undaunted by it and will continue to go through anyway, that he's animated by something that doesn't have to do with life and death or or or with personal values or personal gain, or he doesn't value anything in the world, and doran is appealing to that value in the world that the other person abjectly rejects. And so to me that that highlights Um lots of things that I can, that I could put in the box of. That's very good and heroic and very interesting, and not so much a moral equivalence, even though other people might not think that, um, I, I as much as I would agree with you, kirk, that we need to see the heroes as heroes. We need to see the bad guys as bad guys, without making them caricatures. Um, it's hard for me to believe that people would buy it today. I mean, audiences are far more sophisticated today. If you see a twilight zone today, you know, 1962 people had a very different, much more Simplistic grasp of the world, not to put people down in 1962. But if you see the stories today, they don't necessarily translate, you know, into our present time. They just don't have the complexity of character that we like to see. Because, even though we like to see people at least I like to see people rising above, you know, their own internal obstacles, the obstacles that the world puts in front of them. Um, I also like to see complex people, right, I like to see them struggling. What that's part of the struggle, part of the overcoming, is their own internal obstacles, like hankers. Why hank reared and is one of the more interesting characters in iron ran story? Because he has an internal obstacle to overcome in addition to an external one.
Speaker 2:I think the cultural relevance of, of this, believe it or not, I'm going to sort of come down on the other side. I think the pro-palestinian movement has avatars of, of palestinians in their heads. It's an artificial group of people that they've endowed with, you know, a special, a special place on the hierarchy of oppression and they that they feel deserves Justice. It's a fake movement and what you see in this, in this world, is fanatics. Fanatics who are who, who have a whole community of people in thrall, some of whom don't want to get out of that, that lane because they're afraid of censure or other violence, and some who just buy it.
Speaker 2:You know some who just animated by the dogma and and I think people will even though there's aspects of the palestinian World in this show that we can have some sympathy. We can have sympathy for a mother who loses her child. We could have sympathy for a broken marriage or somebody not being able to see her, her husband or you know and being caught between you know, social acceptance and you know, doing something for her son. All these things are very human things that we can relate to it. I think it it will do more to puncture the avatar image of palestinians than you know Then us talking on twitter even about what the real issues are. It's concretizing a real problem that's out there and I think now more than ever, people need to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a that's a very good point. I, I think I've, um, have a lot to contemplate, and maybe watching the rest of fowda is worthwhile For me, and so I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this, on the viewing room, and I hope that all of the audience you know get something out of this, and if you haven't seen fowda, well, you've just seen it because we've talked about pretty much every episode, but hopefully that's still worthwhile for you guys. Spoiler alert yeah, I'll put that in the description. Definitely, um, this show is definitely gonna have spoilers. There's no way to talk in depth about a show without spoilers. So, okay, that's the our first episode of the viewing room and thank you, audience, for you know, hanging out with us. Please leave us your comments, subscribe, like the channel, and we will plan to do a lot more of these types of episodes. So, mark jacks, jennifer, thank you so much and thank you everybody.