Prepare to be whisked into the bustling kitchen of critique as we unfold the second season of "The Bear" with the astute insights of Mark Pellegrino, Jax Schumann, Jennifer Buoani, and myself, Kirk Barbera. Together, we slice through the series' masterful storytelling, savoring the poignant and sometimes chaotic blend of aspiration, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of culinary greatness. Our discussion stirs up a rich stew of opinions on the complex characters who navigate the heat of personal and professional challenges within a 30-minute narrative that leaves a dramatic aftertaste.
In our conversation, we don't shy away from the meatier topics, such as the tragic entanglement of destiny and character flaws that echo the timeless echoes of Hamlet, or the savory debate over the mutual exclusivity of success and romantic fulfillment. We marinate in the themes of chaos and order, exploring how they serve up a narrative that resonates deeply with those who crave structure amidst the messiness of life. Our guest stars delve into the intricacies of organic acting, dissecting the ingredients that make performances like Jamie Lee Curtis's so emotionally impactful, proving that true artistry lies in the honest and natural delivery of a character's journey.
As we reach the final course, we reflect on episode seven's "Forks," a master class in how small actions can lead to profound change, and how personal redemption is a dish best served with dedication and finesse. The exceptional cast, particularly Oliver Platt's Uncle Jimmy, stirs the pot with performances that perfectly balance the delicate flavors of vulnerability and strength. Join us for this hearty conversation that will not only satiate your appetite for thought-provoking television discourse but also leave you hungry for more.
Prepare to be whisked into the bustling kitchen of critique as we unfold the second season of "The Bear" with the astute insights of Mark Pellegrino, Jax Schumann, Jennifer Buoani, and myself, Kirk Barbera. Together, we slice through the series' masterful storytelling, savoring the poignant and sometimes chaotic blend of aspiration, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of culinary greatness. Our discussion stirs up a rich stew of opinions on the complex characters who navigate the heat of personal and professional challenges within a 30-minute narrative that leaves a dramatic aftertaste.
In our conversation, we don't shy away from the meatier topics, such as the tragic entanglement of destiny and character flaws that echo the timeless echoes of Hamlet, or the savory debate over the mutual exclusivity of success and romantic fulfillment. We marinate in the themes of chaos and order, exploring how they serve up a narrative that resonates deeply with those who crave structure amidst the messiness of life. Our guest stars delve into the intricacies of organic acting, dissecting the ingredients that make performances like Jamie Lee Curtis's so emotionally impactful, proving that true artistry lies in the honest and natural delivery of a character's journey.
As we reach the final course, we reflect on episode seven's "Forks," a master class in how small actions can lead to profound change, and how personal redemption is a dish best served with dedication and finesse. The exceptional cast, particularly Oliver Platt's Uncle Jimmy, stirs the pot with performances that perfectly balance the delicate flavors of vulnerability and strength. Join us for this hearty conversation that will not only satiate your appetite for thought-provoking television discourse but also leave you hungry for more.
Welcome everybody to the viewing room. With Mark Pellegrino, Jax Schuman, Jennifer Buani and myself, Kirk Barbera, Today we'll be discussing the Bear, season two, although we will be talking about seasons one and two, but the viewing room formerly TV talk on ARC UK, did a season one discussion previously, which I'll have show notes to. Now. The Bear, if you have not seen it, is a show which is a show about a great chef, a world renowned chef, whose brother dies and the world renowned chef inherits his little sandwich shop in Chicago, which is a rundown shop, and he decides to go there and fix this restaurant up. That season one, essentially, is doing that amidst the very dysfunctional family environment. Season two is actually an all change where he is trying to, instead of fixing his brother's vision in the shop that he has it's this character named the bear, or Karmie is his name the chef into his own vision of the kind of restaurant he wants and opening that up and all the pressure again amidst the chaos of the dysfunctional family, and that's that's a big part of what's happening.
Speaker 1:Anybody want to add a quick thing to that, or is that a basic overview of the plot? Sounds great, that works OK. Now, so what we're going to do is we're going to do a quick review Everyone's going to give it either thumbs up or thumbs down and explain very briefly why and then we'll break down certain episodes and our views of the themes and how to get more out of your viewing of watching this or, if you haven't watched it. Or if you have watched it, you know, rewatching it again with the expectation of elevating your experience. There will be likely spoilers to step by. I OK, Mark, why don't we start with you?
Speaker 2:This is a two thumbs way up. This is one of the most perfect television series I have seen in a long time. The writing is spectacular. The film is. Film is very cinematographed sort of way. Documentary stuff is very rough. It's very gritty. The acting they take words that are written on a page and make them improvisational, which, from an actor's point of view, is what you want. You want those, those words, coming out organically and sounding like real conversation. The dynamics between the characters are a phenomenal chemistry between the characters themselves. But the the, the problems that each character has to deal with, their arcs, as we might say, are very, very well constructed. And and if you never thought that making a restaurant happen was the stuff of drama and comedy and insanity, this will change your mind. It is, it is the full package and there's there's a. So you know there's a reason why it's been. It got all kinds of awards Golden Globes and Emmy Awards because it's very much deserved. That's my initial take.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. All right, Jax. Yeah, I actually agree with Mark on this.
Speaker 3:I give it massive two thumbs up. I was watching season two again. I kind of binged on it all day yesterday to have it fresh in my mind and it made me. It made me remember how much I loved season one and, I think, because season two is slightly different in tone, I love that when TV shows do that, but still keep thematically, still keep you on point, don't like pop you out of the narrative. I think that the character arcs are absolutely amazing and, like every, every single character has their own great art in relationship to or arc in relationship to other characters, but in relationship to the restaurant as well. I, I really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was just so on point, so, and such great writing as well. I'm Saloon.
Speaker 1:Jennifer, I give it one thumbs up.
Speaker 4:I enjoyed the themes of it, the aspirational lifting of others up and building and creating a restaurant. I definitely enjoyed in season two the arcs of Carmen and Richie in particular, and even maybe the sister. Some of the other characters arcs were not as strong to me but they were. They were. They were supporting characters, so maybe that's not necessary there were.
Speaker 4:As far as the plot, there was very clear plot and I admire whenever somebody can take a business because Jacks and I are working on a screenplay right now where it's a business and you have to dramatize it and make it interesting and a lot of times that that topic can be dry. You know the trouble, the topic of making money and being profitable, and they do that well and they do it by interjecting a lot of conflict. But to me there were a lot of things that I didn't know about. But to me there were a lot of the conflict. The family drama is interesting. There were moments where it felt the conflict felt forced, such as like a car alarms going off or just just screaming at each other just to be annoying and high anxiety. It just it just felt a little like cheating. But that's my only issue with that. That's why I wouldn't give it like two thumbs up, but overall it was a great series and it was really interesting.
Speaker 1:So OK, so I also give it two thumbs up. I definitely think it also has, in my opinion and we'll talk about this later is one of the greatest episodes of television I've ever seen in my life and I can. I think there's a lot of two thumbs up, partially because I think the acting was phenomenal, the so I don't quite agree with some of your assessment about the chaos which I think was part of the greatness of the stylization of what they were trying to accomplish, but so that hopefully we could talk a little bit about this as we dig into the, the season, and I think that the, the arcs of the three main characters, karmie, sydney, richie, I think, and then the donut gentlemen I forget the donut guys, is it Marcus, marcus?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think their arcs are wonderful and this is remember. This is a 30 minute sitcom, a set. They're not a sitcom exactly, but that's the format, that it's essentially. Yeah, and I would call it dramedy I consider it far more dramedy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then sitcom. I didn't find it funny at all.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't. Yeah, I didn't find it funny. This is a comedy.
Speaker 1:This is drama all the way, and a lot of people argued that too and you know I saw a lot of people. I have friends who love Ted Lasso and they were upset because this one, I think over Ted Lasso, I believe in the Emmys because it was a comedy and people like this isn't a comedy. But I do think again, if you think about comedy in a more broad sense in this you know the sense of more uplifting in the end and not during it. There is a darkness to the comedy. But I agree I did not like laugh out loud much. It made me think of more of the Shakespeare type comedy where people get married in the end type thing, but there's still a lot of turmoil and bad things happening. But again, to me, I think the reason they did it was because it was 30 minute format of this kind of structure. That's, that's my opinion. Ok, I do think, actually speaking of Shakespeare.
Speaker 3:I do think that there's a lot, there's a lot of Shakespearean quality to this show. So maybe, maybe more in support of Jennifer's point. Like I didn't, there weren't places where I was there were. There were some places where I laughed out loud, but you know, for the most part I was stressed and kind of on the edge of my seat, and there were some. It had a lot of elements of tragedy to it. Carmen is a tragic character right now who's trying to be a heroic character, but we can get into that a little bit later. That's interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, I'd like to essentially push back on that at some point, but we'll do, I think we should start there, since you brought that up.
Speaker 2:I think the character of Karmie. He's the.
Speaker 1:I think the lead in a sense, although I think Sidney and Richie are also co leads, but so Karmie is the main master chef. He comes into this rundown sandwich shop in Chicago in a post COVID world where being a restaurant tour is very challenging. The whole landscape is shifting and he's trying to bring it back. He's trying to make it great. You know, I think one of the great lines in the first episode is you know, we can fix this, or something like that. I can make it better is one of the things. I think that's something like that, and so you know, when you're talking about him as a Tragic character, I would like to understand what you mean by that. It's I'm going to fix this place is one of the I think it's episode, one which I think is a it's a heroic thing to do. Right, that's the first thing he sets out I'm going to fix this. So why don't you go ahead, jack?
Speaker 3:So I think that he has tragic elements to him. But as we end in season two, where we end in season two, I feel like he's on the path to achieving his goal. But there are elements, there are still sort of dysfunctional elements in him, all to do with, I think, how we grew up in the kind of mother that we see. He has the kind of family environment that he grew up in that he kind of keeps shooting himself in the foot a bit.
Speaker 1:And even his intentions are heroic. Can you expand on shooting himself in the foot?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit. So I think in season two he kind of finds love right. He gets this great relationship with Claire Bear, who's an ER doctor or in her ER residency, and I think it was brilliant that they have that as her occupation, because I don't think that there's anything else on the same level as what Carmen is going through and opening a restaurant that somebody could understand better than an ER doctor, and so I think they have this really kind of beautiful relationship. He falls for her but he's making choices that where you know that's how he ends up getting locked in the freezer right In the very last episode.
Speaker 3:The opening night of their restaurant is he's getting sort of distracted by her and he's not calling the refrigerator, a pair of guy and there's other things that he's not following up on and he's not 100% there, like in partnership with Sydney, and I don't think that his having that relationship with Claire is shooting himself in the foot. I think he just he hasn't risen yet to that. I guess he hasn't risen yet to that hero status where he doesn't see it. He actually sees it as a distraction. He sees that relationship as something that is interfering with his path to success, and it doesn't have to be that way. I think that's kind of the tragic part of it. So maybe I guess what I mean is he's more like internally tragic. He doesn't. He doesn't like destroy things, he doesn't like destroy the world around him. I just don't think that he has risen yet to that level of internal hero. I'd like to know what you guys think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mark, did you. You said you wanted to push back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think we just have to define our terms. For me, a tragic character is somebody who has character flaws that are so deep they're sort of born under a star that will not enable them to go on any other path but the one they are on. So Hamlet is a tragic character. No matter what he chooses, he's destined. There's a certain concept of destiny to it that takes away from the willpower of the character. It's going to be a loss, no matter what he does, and you see in Hamlet how each foiled attempt sort of leads to further down the path of tragedy. I think he's a complex character, which means he has internal conflicts that he has to overcome in order to still achieve what he wants. But he's a very heroic character and I think his conflict with his girlfriend comes in when Uncle Jimmy lets him know. It sort of fills him in on a truth, if I remember the episode correctly, which it's, which harkens me back to my own, to to the attitude of anybody who's successful. He basically sort of says you got to choose. I mean, you can't have a distraction. If you're going to, if you're going to succeed in this, you got to be on a one, you got to be on one track, man, otherwise it's going to go nowhere. And that's sort of what makes great businessmen great businessmen, great artists, great artists and yet sort of crappy in the, in the, in the personal realm, because their focus has to be, if they want excellence, it has to be in this direction. Now there are people that say you can have it all. I don't know that you can.
Speaker 2:I remember Stella Adler talking. They're talking about personality types, you know, and like George Washington is not going to be Romeo, so Martha Washington would hopefully not wouldn't marry him in the anticipation that he's going to be a deep romantic and completely focused on her. Because he's a man on a mission and almost entirely focused on that mission. And you have to sort of absolve them of that area of their life because their greater purpose is what they're, what they're bending towards. So I like the conflict that that sets up in his life. You know he's. She's a great girl. I have a total TV crush on her. She's an amazing, she's an amazing actress. Her soul is so expansive and so and she seems like the perfect partner for somebody who is myopic, who has to have that artist's focus on things, and so I do want to see where that's going to go in the end. It's a perfect kind of conflict for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I will say that. That voicemail, that that she sends him at the, that he listens to, finally, at the end of the, at the end of season two, broke my heart in like a million pieces.
Speaker 1:So I want to. So I'll say a couple of things real quick and then, jennifer, if you have something on Carmen, and then we can move on from Carmen. But one thing is I I definitely see the art of the show is that it is making clear, I think, the message that Mark is saying right now about that viewpoint, that to be successful, you know, especially in the context of this, what endeavor, this immense goal that they have, this dream, that's a huge vision of their life, that you can't have any distractions and thus romance is a distraction. Now, I don't agree with that in life, but I definitely agree with that as this. That's what they are saying.
Speaker 1:In this story and one of the first in the first season, there's the line you can't start at. What is it you you can't start at, fucked, and that's that's done by Uncle Jimmy and that's about the episode. Like the whole thing is a messed up ecosystem. That's so messed up and he's trying to bring order. Carmen is trying to bring order to the chaos and as he's trying to build this and give all these types of things, and you see all the chaos that's going about in the story in season one and season two again, as Jennifer was saying, where you have like car horns and you have like alarms and people screaming and everyone's yelling which I thought was a great, actual Personally I thought was a great element of the show and that he's trying to bring order. That's why he's saying we were going to say chef, we're going to say hands, there's these certain disciplined orders that we're going to implement in order for us to accomplish something great, which is consistency. And he talks about that.
Speaker 1:And they even have, in season two, a discussion of the basketball coach that I'm forgetting as a self help type guide, and I forgetting the name of this basketball coach who's helping them through all of this stuff. And so, yeah, I won't go into it too deeply because we don't have the time, but I'll just say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that you cannot have financial business success and a myopic focus on greatness in your, your career and your a final focus on romance. I think it is happens, john Adams, I think even someone like Washington you know if you he did write great letters to his wife like I don't. So I don't agree that it's not possible, but I do agree that there's a certain kind of dynamic between the two, but this is a whole other conversation.
Speaker 2:It's a whole other conversation. But let me just say, I know, we know, martha Washington burned a lot of his correspondence because she understood that whatever he wrote was going to be for posterity.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's true. We don't know. We don't know the messy agenda that went on there previously. We could certainly see what happened with Ben Franklin and his relationship, but I think that has to do with Ben Franklin, franklin I, I tend to think. I tend to think that, you know, in Atlas Shrugged we see that these it's possible to do both, to be excellent at one thing and also great romantically. We see that as an ideal. How it translates into life, I don't know. Yeah, super hard, super hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I think the reason so many marriages and relationships fail is because good relationships are as hard to achieve as good businesses or great artistry. It's. It requires a lot of clarity and focus that we most of us aren't able and most of us are taught not to necessarily bring to that that area of our lives. So I tend to be more in sync with Uncle Jimmy's perspective, but hopeful that you you are right, Jennifer.
Speaker 4:I think something I really appreciated about Carmen's arc and understanding his backstory plays into this. I don't know if he's a tragic character or not, but I think the reason why he can't do both and I think normal people could do both he's not his background. And when you see the, the middle, I don't know episode five, the fishes episode, that's an hour long, where he's go a flashback to his his childhood or not his childhood, but you know young adulthood where you see his mother and how she handles the holiday. It was so uncomfortable to watch this part of his life and it's so critical because I believe that's why he is the way he is.
Speaker 4:He is trying, even as a grown man, to still please his mother, who is impossible to please. She's, she's scary. There is this moment oh, jamie Lee Curtis, wow. Or she's like in the kitchen and she's crying and he comes in there to console her and he's got, she's got like these dark eyes and it's just just. Can you imagine being a child growing up in that environment and that sort of emotional, mental abuse? And that is who he is. And so I believe that he, he, his entire path, career path, is perfectionism and in trying to please his mother deep, deep, deep down in there and that is why he can't. He doesn't believe he's good enough for somebody like Claire. You know he he's, he's. He's got really deep issues that he's dealing with and until he can get past that he can't have both. So and maybe the uncle understands that because he knows intuitively what his background was like he was there, but I think that's a key part.
Speaker 2:As much as I like and agree with everything that Jennifer's saying, I have to say something that I don't know if it's relevant or not. But when you say normal people can, they can marry their career ambitions with their relationship ambitions, I have to push back and say, but these aren't normal people. People who strive as hard as somebody like a Carmen does, carmen is not normal. The great artist in any endeavor is not normal. So it's hard for me to use that as a standard of measurement for the normal, as a standard of measurement for success in this, even though I agree with you. He's got demons, and the demons clearly come from where he grew up and how he grew up and the uncertainty that a bipolar parent probably had him live with. It definitely creates obstacles to his growth and obstacles to achieving what he wants to achieve, which I think are interesting. That's what's beautiful about complex characters the drama can be internal, not just things coming at them from the outside. I still think he's not normal, but in the best sense of the word too.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you guys a question.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. I mean not normal in the best sense, Like when you say somebody's weird, but you mean it in a really cool way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think this is a longstanding theme in American literature. But in terms of the difference between having your career success and having your romantic success, I don't again, I don't agree with that dichotomy, but it's definitely prominent in American literature. In particular, one of Einran's favorite early novels was Calumet K, where this exact thing happens, where you have a great businessman essentially building a grain factor and he's there's also a woman he's interested in, but he has no ability to make that work or figure out how to do that, and it's very common you see that a lot as a conflict in a sense. Now. But I wanted to ask you something, jennifer. You brought up the fishes episode, which is episode six. It's the episode right before the one that I really want to spend a good amount of time talking with you all about, which is episode seven, but it's.
Speaker 1:Fishes is a really good episode in the sense of explaining a lot of what's going on thematically in and what they're all trying to accomplish, and there's there's always something in the background going with every single one of these characters that's revealed as you go through a kind of damage, that the restaurant is almost like a crucible to greatness. It's a crucible to betterment, a crucible to self improvement, and I think that's a big theme that I saw here and you see, like the cause of the necessity for that in the fishes episode and I wanted to ask you all about the cannolis. So at the end of that episode he's looking at there's chaos everywhere. The whole thing is what I would say is like a beautiful dance of chaos, and they do that really well throughout the whole series and I thought that was very powerful, even though I felt I think it was you, jennifer, who said this I felt very anxious a lot. I don't, like I said, it.
Speaker 4:I did not find it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I'm going to. I'm going to tell you why. From an actor's point of view, you might have felt that. And it's not just because the situation was uncomfortable and they're dealing with a mentally ill person who's for whom everything is a crisis, right, and you're always stomping out fires. I think there is a technical reason for that, but I'll get back to that. After you make your point, just remind me.
Speaker 1:Oh, ok, yeah, and I'd love to hear that, oh, and that, yeah, you don't see it as beautiful. What I, what I, what I see is beautiful, is, again, there's there's purpose behind it. It's like this is how I mean this, and I could feel the emotion of like anxiety, because I'm a person who likes to order my world and I think I'm pretty good at that, and so like I would want to take certain actions to make it a more ordered world, and I was like I can't do anything and this is freaking me out a little bit and I had no control over anything, and but I thought they did a good job of like conveying that kind of thing, but anyway, so that whole episode is is a culmination of chaos into one climactic moment. And then I think, from the climactic moment which is I'll just spoil the mother, after having a breakdown, runs her car, drives her car through the house. It's that crazy, right?
Speaker 3:And then maybe, maybe for just really quickly just set it, set it up so for the viewers really quick is that? This is? It's a Christmas episode basically. It's an hour long episode and it's a long flashback to. It's a long flashback to Christmas, with Christmas, with the burzados basically, and it's like 250s, like they started out like 256 weeks until they open, which is, you know, many years of a flashback, while Mikey's still alive and and it's the, it's the slice of life of the kind of environment that Carmen has grown up in. Yeah, and mom's in the kitchen making food for days, basically.
Speaker 1:So she says yeah, but yeah, so like she crashed the car. But then he looks at the cannolis, which are perfectly ordered and untouched, right, and I always found that interesting because then toward the end of the series, then they bring the cannolis back as a representative of an important part of gaining the meaning, back to what it means, and I think that's a big motivation. But I wanted to think, if I ask all of you what you thought about that chaos, if the cannolis meant anything to you or if you noticed anything like that.
Speaker 3:I noticed the fork in the cannolis. That's what I remember, so I didn't know. I call through it. Oh yeah, that was like major symbology. So the cannolis were perfect at the end, but Mikey's throwing forks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And the one thing that was perfect and beautiful he stuck a fork in it. Like, stick a fork in me, I'm done. Yeah, that's a good point. That's what I noticed about it.
Speaker 1:Anybody else, or is it just me?
Speaker 2:What exactly do you think it represents and what do you think kind of closure you get with bringing back the cannoli and towards the end?
Speaker 1:So part of it goes into deeper theme. I guess, like part of the theme I categorized in a very broad way, was order through chaos via purpose. It's not a great formulation, but it's broad enough for me to hold it's order through chaos via purpose. Part of what drives Karmie is, I think, gaining order in his life. He's trying, and that's why he's so drawn and dedicated, like he's a. He's a machine. He's turned into a machine in this great restaurant in season one right, that's before the the season starts.
Speaker 1:That's who he is. Is this kind of person that is all about perfect order, getting there early, working harder than everybody else, being better than everybody else, being that perfectionist. And what's behind that is that he comes from this place and this is how he's able to gain control in his life, and I think that's a big part of it, and I think the cannolis represent that in a sense. That's that's how I took that. And so when he has his own restaurant, at the end he brings them back in order to say this is mine, this is you know, and now it's not something I have no control over. I'm again bringing it into control.
Speaker 2:So that just makes me, that just harkens me back to something Sanford Meisner used to suggest in acting, that that talent comes from neurosis and that drive comes from neurosis, particularly for the artist. And so that makes me get the sense that and I've always rejected I've rejected that, by the way because I think neurosis is a block to your talent I think I think you're out of adjustment with reality when you're, when you're neurotic. But it seems that you're suggesting that you know the drive to make order out of chaos is part of the fuel behind his ambition to be good at what he does, and to me that's a neurotic drive. It's not, it's not a healthy drive and perhaps, perhaps one of the reasons why he's constantly feeling like you're, you're, he's on the edge of the cliff and about to go over, yeah, and I think that's what I thought it was healthy what he did with the cannolis.
Speaker 3:I thought it was a healthy thing for him to do to actually bring them, bring them back and not make them the kind of trigger trauma event that that they were before, like he felt like it wasn't he. He felt like he kind of lost ownership of that, of it, or like he lost the right, in a way, to make cannolis because it was too much, was too much dysfunction, it was too much neuroses, and I felt like it was a really great step in a healthy direction for him to like no, you know what, I need to decouple the bad juju memories from the cannolis and I need to like make these mine again. That's not. I think, yeah, I like that. I think that's very. I think that's very healthy.
Speaker 2:I'm just. I'm just not not sure how on this the page I am, with neurosis being the fuel for art. Well, I don't agree with that either.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, Mark in real life, but again I do. My argument is that that's prevalent in the shell, like throughout the whole show. This is a big part of the story, of all the characters I think even Sydney Richie is a big one where this happens with him in the sense of gaining a self confidence. But again it's coming out of this neurotic you know neurotic is a good word for all these characters this neurotic chaos and how. To you know, even in episode seven, forks, which I want to talk about in a few minutes, there's when you learn about some of these side characters, backgrounds, like Garrett, the guy who's guiding Richie through this the greatest restaurant in the world, essentially one of the great restaurants of the world is part of Garrett's revelation is that he used to be an alcoholic Right and part of what he says is that I, this brought me purpose and value and I became better through this.
Speaker 1:And you see that with pretty much everybody in the series, they all have that thing and that's coming out of that through the restaurant, through building a restaurant, and but I agree with you and Mark in the sense of in real life. I don't think like if you do have that in real life, you should try to see a therapist Like it's not necessary for the greatness which. I think you get that view a lot Great artistry and great work. I think you get that view a lot in our culture and this is an example of that.
Speaker 2:Right. So are they perpetuating a myth? I mean, in a sense they are, but they're also going with it and saying the solution is purpose. The solution is that's what I like about which I like. But I have to say something negative about this episode six, and maybe I could be completely wrong, but I feel like.
Speaker 3:Which episode are you talking about? The fish? Is Episode Fish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I. I get the sense that we feel anxious in throughout this entire episode, not just because of how incredibly inappropriate the mother is and how incredibly chaotic the entire episode is, which is great. This is a necessary episode. You need to see where Karmie comes from. You even need to see sort of the origins or the beginning places of Mikey's suicide, because you start to see the incredible family dysfunction that could be at the root of his mental illness, even even inheriting it from his mom. That makes him unable to deal with whatever we're going to find out with respect to Mike you later on. However, there is a distinctive the chaos follows every episode. There's a lot of chaos and noise and roughness in every episode, but this one was distinctly different, not just because it was dealing with the family, but because the style of at least two of the actors was very different.
Speaker 2:Up until this time, you've been dealing with chaos with actors who function in an extremely relaxed, technical way. Now, they may be going through lots of stuff emotionally, but they're relaxed. When an actor isn't relaxed, when an actor is pushing a story, this is a technical thing you, as the audience member, get tense. You get tense, and it's not because they're going through anxiety. It's because they're trying to make you feel something. They're trying to. It's a presentational acting in a way. It becomes a little bit glaring because you're so used to not seeing any cracks. You're so used to not seeing any acting in the show that when you do see it it's a bit arresting.
Speaker 1:Can you give examples?
Speaker 2:by the way of each of those. Yeah, I mean now this just could be my taste in the way that Jamie Lee Curtis portrays this bipolar person. It just felt active to me and that's all I could say. She has a tremendous thing to overcome, a really, really difficult part that demands hyper-emotionality, that puts a lot of stress on the actor, that puts a lot of strain on the actor because they feel an obligation to live up to that emotional life and there could be tension in themselves while attempting to live up to it. It's really hard to release and let go a characterization that's so specific and has such clear emotional goals for the actor to reach. And I also found that with another actor. I don't want to say, but I did find the same miss, the same kind of self-consciousness that I didn't see in Bob Odenkirk. I didn't see any other characters who were engaged in just as much of the stressful situation as everybody else, but they were dealing with it like we deal with life in the moment. I see what you said. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So this could be just a taste Like, it's just like an organic thing. You're saying like it came, it felt like they were really someone was really going to throw a fork at you. How would you react?
Speaker 2:to that. No, it felt like trying. An actor can't feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, would you call it overacting.
Speaker 2:I would say the actor is trying and that's going to sound strange to y'all, because actor is doing, but the actor can't try to feel, they can't try to fulfill the, they can't try to force the emotional elements of the scene to happen. And what makes this project so amazing is that throughout, you never feel that with anybody. What they're experiencing comes right out of the raw moment. And but you know, the mom had to propel the scene and she had to push the action. Her insanity has to push the action and I, it's super hard to do something like that without pushing. And it's that element of pushing, that technical element of pushing, that creates the, the adjuda dynamic in the, in the, in the audience member, who doesn't even know why they're feeling tense, because I don't think you'll feel tense while you're watching a situation like that organically acted. You'll feel uncomfortable. You'll feel different things Shame, pity for the people who have to go through this stuff, or anger, sadness.
Speaker 1:Is it a separation you have as an audience? It is done well.
Speaker 2:No, when it's done well, you have no separation, no, you have a melding with the, with the, with the actor and the, and the situation Like whenever Karmie and his girlfriend are together, and that this just could be a technical thing, that I noticed. Actors notice choices and they and they asked themselves would I be that? Would I be that good, would I be able to do that? Would I be that organic? Whenever I see her looking at him? It's so simple, it's so clear, it's so honest. There's no, there's no veneer. There's no, there's no idea. Quote, unquote. Now, this may sound bad to objectivist, but the actor has to have ideas about the way things go and let them go and trust that the other person in the situation will bring it out of them and that that lends the relaxation to the piece that enables you as a, as a viewer, to engage, to, to, to fully go, to fully invest yourself in their emotional life. Otherwise, there's a part of you that's defensive. There's a part of you.
Speaker 1:That's, you're right. I just read this, or heard this recently, and I would be curious what you say about this, because I'm not an actor. I took like an acting class and I was terrible. But I think, like someone was saying, a critic was saying that one of the things you can see is somebody who, when they're trying to convey sadness or, you know, being sad at some level, there's two different ways, two big ways. You could do this. You could, like, just start breaking down and crying and sobbing, or you could try to restrain you, trying to hold back the tears. And he was arguing that holding back the tears and having that in your body is actually more impactful to the audience, because then they have to feel that. Is this what you're saying? I don't, in a sense, but I'll say it differently.
Speaker 2:I'll say it in a way that may be easier to grasp. The actor has to be engaged in doing, they have to be engaged in doing, and out of that comes an emotional life. She has to be engaged in getting the problem solved and she can't. It's just like a problem of sycophus and she has to do it like that and out of that comes her anxiety and emotional life, as opposed to knowing that. She has to be anxious and filled with emotion and demonstrating it. Acting is not a demonstrative art. It's not demonstrative in doing and then experiencing, based on your commitment to what you're doing. And if she was super committed to getting it done, then it will take on an organic life of its own. It will take on a real organic life that won't make you tense. It'll make you feel for everybody involved.
Speaker 3:I have a question for you, mark, in terms of Jamie Lee Curse's performance in that episode versus, I feel terrible saying this, by the way, because I love her as an actor.
Speaker 1:I've worked with her before.
Speaker 2:She's got. She's so very creative, dynamic she also has a difficult job.
Speaker 1:She's jumping into a season two, one episode and it's like she's got to do this, she's got to carry the whole show. In a sense, it's impossible. It's a very difficult job so.
Speaker 3:I see what you're saying, so how do you feel, though, about her? Good?
Speaker 2:I just want to impress upon people how difficult it is to jump into a show that already has a rhythm, that already has a style where people are totally comfortable with themselves in it, so that they can work on that level of improvisation and skill, and then to come in on a show that has you on the emotional edge of a razor and having to really carry the emotional life of the show on your shoulders. That is a hellacious task.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, jack's what I'm going to say so.
Speaker 3:My question is how do you feel about her performance in that episode, in the Fish's episode, versus her performance in the very last episode, where she shows up at the restaurant but chooses not to go in in the conversation that she has with sugars? Because I felt, if we talk about it in terms of anxiety, I felt less anxious in watching that, and it wasn't just because of the tension of the Fish's episode and that she was going to go nuclear, but there was, I felt like there was something more relaxed about the way that she showed up as mom in that very last episode. That allowed me to feel the full weight of the sorrow that she's carrying in having. She knows she's got a mental disorder which, by the way, I think she's borderline and not bipolar. It's a smaller distinction.
Speaker 1:She's also terribly lonely and sad.
Speaker 3:Well, she has abandonment issues. She's afraid that people are going to abandon her and that's very borderline, that's classic borderline oh that's scary.
Speaker 2:Well, look, I answered your question. Yes, I didn't feel as much anxiety in that section. But look, here's the deal. I think in a normal quote unquote TV show, I would have never noticed. I would have never noticed because it would have fit completely with, it would have been a series of great choices in a TV show with the same tone. But because I had been you know what, six, how many episodes 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 episodes into a show that has a very I mean nearly impossible level of great acting, like just superior on everybody's, on everybody's rate, like, could I achieve that? I don't know, I don't know. In those conditions I could do that.
Speaker 2:But when you see that and that's your standard now anything that just falls slightly short of it, an ounce of self-consciousness, will be readable. It's like we'll be readable. I'll just be able to see you're acting. I know you're acting, I see that now, and you don't see it in any of the characters. You literally don't. And so it just makes the choices look like choices to me as opposed to looking like an organic thing. But that's my own take, maybe my feeling, because of my eye, or just what my taste is your profession works on you and you're working on your profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I get it.
Speaker 1:That's really good. Let's move on a little bit so we can finish up with a couple things. Jennifer, did you have any? Because there's a quote or two I wanted to talk about. That would move us into episode seven and one that I wanted to talk about. But, Jennifer, did you have something?
Speaker 4:Oh, I can. Just. I kind of started that topic, I guess, but I can wrap it up by just saying well, if they were trying to create anxiety so that we could feel what the characters feel, walking on eggshells, it did work. Yeah, Because I was just like what is this episode going to be over?
Speaker 1:I felt the same way, yep, and they did.
Speaker 2:They did.
Speaker 1:OK, I one of the great lines in movies. I think there's a lot of great lines in movies. One that I love is as good as it gets when Jack Nicholson's character says you make me want to be a better man.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:I think it's one of the great earned lines in storytelling. I think like it's because you really get a sense of what he's going through, what he's trying to accomplish bettering himself. I think this has the next best one. I wear suits now.
Speaker 1:So he says that over and over again in one of the later episodes and it feels like such a great earned moment in terms of his arc and if you think about where he started, I mean he gets stabbed, he shoots off a gun, he's constantly yelling, screaming, he's chaos, he's sad, he's divorced, he hates his, he has a conflicted relationship with his daughter. I mean, he's just chaos personified.
Speaker 3:He really, and he has no purpose.
Speaker 1:He doesn't like them messing up with his ecosystem, which is exactly what losers say, right, every loser in the world has always said no, things working great. Now it's like no, dude, your life is a mess, you need to do something. And he's like, no, you're messing with the ecosystem. No, you're not messing with the ecosystem, You're a loser. And someone calls him out as a loser at one point two big loser and then stabs him in the ass, which that was great, but I'm not on purpose. But but so the eye wear suits. Now is such a great moment. It comes from the episode seven, which I think is one of the great episodes of television called Forks, where, if I recommend just watching that episode again, if you've seen the show because it's so, it's such a great, beautifully done show you know it starts off with that basketball coach. Again, I'm embarrassed, I don't remember his name, coach K, thank you Coach K Krasinski.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he is giving them motivational advice. And I've always been obsessed with self-help in my past and one of the problems with self-help is you just read books and you don't do anything, you don't take any actual action. But this is a show of. This episode is about taking the small actions Right, like he goes to this great thing and I call it a crucible, right it's. You're going a crucible of action to get great standards and great becoming a better person. And he does and want you know, great montage and it's this beautiful imagery of the perfection that goes into fine dining. I think it also is a great episode to you know, like, go find dining. Like the passion that these people have. That, you know, helps you understand the karmic as well. It's just so wonderful and it makes me want to put a lot of other things aside and like, ok, I need to get that kind of level of perfection in my podcasting, in my writing, in my day job. Like, just that level of standard of like they're yelling about it, one smudge and they have the whole staff there and he's like who had the damn smudge? Who did it? Like, and just like, then the passion behind you know, we change, we make people's days that's why I do it and like we want to wow people, they want to give a free meal to this person who did on Instagram, this teacher who's saved up so they can go to this rut. Like it's just the perfect episode.
Speaker 1:And Richie is seeing all this. He also gets bad news about his wife getting his ex-wife getting remarried, like it all happens. And then, boom, he starts waking up at five thirty. He starts doing everything right, he's clicking. And then he that moment when he puts that suit on, I'm like, yeah, I love having suits. I'm sad that I'm in Texas and it's too damn hot all the time. But I was like, yeah, I want to get a suit back on again, baby. Like that's right, it's armor. Like the world sucks. Sometimes it's challenging to put on that armor. Get that sword and get back out there. What do you guys think?
Speaker 2:Episode seven Anybody want to go before me?
Speaker 3:I, I thought episode seven. I think that somebody who hasn't even seen the show could Watch episode seven and not know anything about the characters, about the context, and and I think that that episode will explain the entire show to you of where that show is, what, what, what that show hopes to achieve, because that was such a positive arc for Richie. He starts out at the bottom of the barrel. He doesn't give a crap about cleaning the forks. It's called forks because you know he comes in and he has to clean forks all day long for eight hours. And it was. It was such a beautiful example of a man who is he's searching for purpose. He doesn't, you know, he's, he is a loser. He's searching for purpose and and it's through what what he learns is, it's through the act of doing that his purpose comes, rather than waking up one morning. And what's my purpose? And let me define what my purpose is he has to go through doing a whole bunch of shit that he doesn't want to do and he kind of has to go through these motions. And that's what Garrett is teaching him is. You know, it's, it's almost kind of like the fake it till you make it, but in a really real, beautiful way that like makes sense, especially for his character.
Speaker 3:I have so much to say about the show. I don't want to like hog the spotlight, but I will also say I have so much respect for, I thought, one of the greatest performances in that episode. Sorry, I'm saying I have respect for the episode. I think one of the the greatest performances in that episode was by the actor portrayed, garrett, who I have so much respect for, an actor who can come in and not be part of the show for just one episode.
Speaker 3:I guess, if you want to contrast it maybe to to the portrayal of Donna the mother, versus the actor that came in and did Garrett like he was such a great character and he was such a great contrast to to Richie. You know he was, he was like he's showing to Richie. You know this is who you can be Right, but you're not there yet. I just and that the arc that Richie has from from beginning to end, it was so positive and it was such a great we talk about sense of life. It was such a great sense of life feeling for him because he he's he doesn't understand like there's something that's always separated him from Carmen and it's that Carmen has had purpose and Carmen is a perfectionist and just rigorously dedicated to his purpose and he feels like Carmen is punishing him in the beginning for sending him there or sending him to to restaurant school to you know, forks, all right, and that was the last thing from Carmen's mind, right.
Speaker 3:And in the end, when Richie finally figures out, you know, he tells Carmen I don't know if we see it in that episode, or maybe it was the episode after where he says I understand, cousin, what you did. Now I understand what it's like. Yeah, I thought it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Let me give you some purpose, Get those streaks out of those forks, Garrett says. And so he said let me give you some purpose, Get those streaks out of those forks. Jennifer Mark, did you have comments on episode seven?
Speaker 4:Well, it sounds like Mark had a bunch I have.
Speaker 2:I have times that I'll defer to Jennifer.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 4:I mean this. This episode didn't stand out to me as much to you guys. I absolutely agree with Richie's arc was beautiful and I think what I also appreciated about it was the aesthetics. It was so different from the every other episode. You know you go in and there's these blues and grays and everything's calm and perfect and clean and and I thought that was a good contrast to to be in an environment that he was stuck into. But I'm interested to hear why.
Speaker 1:Well, that good montage is where you saw that perfected the greatest restaurant in the world. Essentially is what they call it.
Speaker 3:They have three star, three Michelin stars, which is like the highest you know, and they've kept it since year one.
Speaker 1:But you have great montages where they're, they're showing you that, that episode or that restaurant, and then they're cutting to the Karmie's restaurant revealing a table, putting down a seat cushion and things like that. So it's like that. Here's the vision of what they want and here's the process of beginning. Mark what you got.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, I got to experience what it would be like to step into galt's galtch for a minute, for an episode. This is what it would be like and this is how that exposure to people who live consciously on every level this is the kind of transformation it could possibly have on me, and we get to see it in on Richie and it is a tremendous. It is a tremendous transformation where he learns the little things matter, that attention to detail matters, that being conscious throughout, through every part of your job and your life, matters, and that's what. That's what makes you better.
Speaker 2:See, I think Richie was was living on autopilot, he living on autopilot, and I think a lot of people live in that state of what objectivists would call drift and you know where. They just absorb what's going on around them. They react to what's going on around them not in a necessarily efficient or good way, because they haven't really processed that stuff. They're in a state of drift all the time. And that's the state that he's in and his exposure to people who take every moment as if it matters changes him into a man who understands that every moment matters.
Speaker 3:Every second counts.
Speaker 2:Every second counts Every second counts, which is the mind they have up there. It's so true, so good. I'm getting chills right now. I love that. I'm just even thinking about it, and that's why I agree with you, kirk, that that is the best episode of the season and one of the greatest arcs I've seen in television in a long time. And what's so cool about it is it's so subtle, it's so human, it's so poetic.
Speaker 3:And they did it in 30 minutes. They did it in 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:These writers are incredible. They're crazy good and these actors are crazy good. That's why I feel bad saying what I said about Jeanine de Cardez, because she's crazy good, but she's in there with people who are ridiculously good. They're not touchable in a lot. I mean, oliver Platt is Uncle Jimmy. I have to just give a shout out to him. He's amazing. Oh, he's perfect, he's perfect.
Speaker 3:Amazing.
Speaker 2:But he brings to every moment that thing, that thing that I talk about as an actor, which I respect, that total clarity, that complete relaxation, that total vulnerability and openness to what's going on, knowing what he's doing and how he feels about it and letting the world take him there.
Speaker 1:That's the key was a gangster at any point. I did. I thought he was like a gangster, like a Tony soprano at first, and then later I was like no he's, he's just a normal guy.
Speaker 3:He's just a businessman. He's a rich businessman Because he says like I might break your legs or something. Oh, but I mean, this is Chicago, chicago.
Speaker 2:In Chicago and New York, you got to figure there's. You know, the businessmen and the gangsters are one step removed from each other. They probably share the same, you know the same space, as oftentimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. He does wonderfully, jennifer.
Speaker 4:That was. I went back and listened to our season one commentary and that was one of the things that Jack's had said. When we asked the question where do we want it to go? Where does it go from here? Before they had put out season two, jackson said I think that the mob is going to get involved somehow.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you remember saying that, but yeah, bagley, I trust when you say I said it.
Speaker 2:It is Chicago and the mobs tend to like what the waste, the waste management and restaurants. So it's not, it's not irrational to say that.
Speaker 1:Well, there's definitely a link there in a sense, because I remember there was a point when he was like, when Richie goes outside because they're doing some kind of drug deals or something is like you can't like, please don't do this here. And it was a symbiosis of, like you know, the mob is there and they are the mob, but they are. There's a kind of interesting respect.
Speaker 3:They brought them food and they were like hey look, you can't like have shootouts and stuff here, we'll give you some food. Just maybe keep it out the corner. Yeah, we're trying to work business here.
Speaker 1:And they all agree in a sense of. I mean it definitely this whole show. I have to say some other things as we try to wrap up in the next five, 10 minutes or so, but some some really interesting things about you know, the beauty of a city and the dynamism of a city, of a big city, which I've actually never lived in a big city Denver, I guess, is the closest. I've always lived in the suburbs of a city or something like that and a lot of my friends always try to convince me of it and I love visiting them. I think I would like to live there if I didn't have to live in poverty. But just the beauty of the transformational process that happens in shaping a city and how, like I can imagine, these restaurants are shaping these cityscapes because it's going to bring in a new kind of clientele. It's going to bring in a new if it's a really successful good restaurant that Karmie does and it works out, that area will change. Maybe, Like that's one thing that will possibly happen. So I thought the romanticism of the, of the whole show, in a sense, was the beauty of the cinematography, of all the, the perfection of the like. The food was beautiful, right, it was beautifully shot food and that which emphasizes, I think, an interesting theme, which is food, is love.
Speaker 1:We talked about chaos of family, and food is really a way that they convey love. Like they have, remember, in season one, they have what do they call it? Family dinner, dinner, family, whatever, Right, and that's just for the workers, right, the workers have it and it's very important. They even assign one of the chefs to do the special meal and they take that very seriously. It's not just like I've worked at restaurants before they never did that, I've worked at restaurants before but it's like just, yeah, go get something for the kitchen. I don't know, I don't know. They literally sat down, they hung out, they, they laughed, they yelled at each other. They did that, but they were getting ready for the day and I, I, I really love that. That whole theme of food is love, which I think is a good part of the fish's episode too, of what's trying to happen and what you know, the chaos of the kind of love that they experience.
Speaker 3:How they, how they shot the food reminded me a lot. Did you guys ever see the movie like water for chocolate?
Speaker 1:I saw that yes.
Speaker 3:I think that's it reminded me a lot. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 3:It's a movie of love, love of food. It reminded me a lot I haven't seen. I haven't seen food shot that well since I saw that movie, except for the bear, but I do want to. Kirk, I wanted to to kind of tack on to what you were saying about bringing in like the aesthetic of Chicago. There I I loved the aesthetic quality of the show. I love the music that they chose. I love the, the type of cinematography. I love the really good like close ups and I love how they make Chicago its own character and it hasn't been since a show.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you guys ever saw the TV show with Dennis Leary, rescue Me. That took place in post 9-11 New York and it reminded me where New York was really. The New York was just as much of a character, but the music was so integral to the, to the show, and I felt this the same way, like this is Chicago, just all the music just reminded me so much of like, just like. I've actually never been to Chicago but I like, if I, if I had I've been.
Speaker 3:I've been to like oh hair, but we have the viewing room expedition.
Speaker 1:We have to all go to Chicago, one of the greatest cities.
Speaker 2:It is one of the greatest cities on the planet. You have to go.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, this is a kind of side note, but that that moment in season seven or episode seven, when Richie delivers the deep dish pizza to that table, oh yeah, how proud he is and how excited he is. That's such a a wonderful moment. I thought like he, just like he goes like this can I, can I send this out? Can I please?
Speaker 4:be the one to get this out.
Speaker 1:And they're like yes, we can do that and I thought that was, I thought that was wonderful, um, okay, so I guess one last thing and and I'd love to hear your, all of your final thoughts, I and I kind of mentioned this with the Chicago thing, but just building on the, the romanticism in the sense of one thing that I took out of this and again, the goal of this show, in a sense, is to help you get more out of the shows that you watch. Elevate your experience is one thing that I think is important about romantic type of any kind of romanticism. And in elevation is that that sense of taking what is just a seemingly mundane thing the running of a restaurant or the making of a meal and filling it with purpose, filling it with meaning, filling it with all different aspects of family and love. And like all of that goes into, for instance, when Richie is told to you know, let me give you some purpose, get out those streets. Like that is such a.
Speaker 1:How many times have we dealt with that kind of moment and we don't think about the purpose and the meaning behind it. But this gives you all of that in one shot, one moment, one second. Right, it's all, it's all kind of just packed into there, and I think that's one of the great things about good art and great art is that it does that. It adds all of that, it elevates our daily, mundane, often boring lives, and it really does. Makes it so that when the next time, you know, I want to go downstairs and make sure that my area looks beautiful and I'm ready to cook a good meal, like it does that and I want to do my work a little bit better because I watch this show.
Speaker 2:And that's the translation.
Speaker 1:Any last thoughts with everybody and we'll wrap up here.
Speaker 2:I just want to piggyback on what you said, which is probably just pretty much the same thing, but good art helps you elevate your life to art, and so you know, I think, I think, yeah, imagine, imagine the experience of somebody who goes down to make his area the best area possible, the cleanest area. That person has elevated themselves and they've elevated themselves to the level of art. And that's one of the great things I love about the bear it's elevating me watching it and it's not just giving me a window of bird's eye view of what it's like to have to run a restaurant. But beyond the realistic stuff it's about, it's about the heroic arcs that these characters are experiencing, and they're possible to me because all of those characters are accessible.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right. Jennifer Jack's Last thoughts you want to go ahead, jennifer.
Speaker 4:I don't know that I have any more to add. I just appreciated the themes of aspirational characters reaching for something beyond themselves and building and how that was contagious and how they, even if they didn't know they wanted it. They kind of went along for the ride, even the supporting characters, and they were open-minded to it some more than others. So I love that and I love the arcs of it of especially Richie and Carmen. I like the complexity of Carmen's character in that he has this mother and he has a relationship and brother Like he's just. He's a really interesting, cool character that I would love to see where he goes in season three, if they make a season three.
Speaker 1:Oh, Jack's.
Speaker 3:So I, this show actually makes me not only does it make me aspire to kind of being better at what I do, just for the sake of just because it's for the show and it's so compelling and it's so well done, but it makes me want to be a better writer as well, because the show is so well written. There's this, you know it's a lot of the characters talk over each other a lot, and in screenwriting it's called dual dialogue. Where you write it, you know you're writing both chunks happening at the same time and it's really difficult to do dual dialogue and a lot, of, a lot of screenwriting books and teachers say to kind of minimize it because it's very difficult to do that. It's very difficult for actors to do that, like talking over each other all the time and being able to focus on on one. You know what one actor is saying versus another.
Speaker 3:And I think that this show and it was the actors being able to carry carry that out well enough Sydney in particular, I think the character of Sydney who won an Emmy for her performance she does dual dialogue really really well so that you can actually hear what she's saying. Well, you know you're listening to what the other person is saying too and and that happens so consistently and so well done. I meant to actually and I'm going to do this anyhow to download a script and to see how it was actually written, versus I'm fascinated by how it's written and then how was it performed? So, because those are often two different things, but anyhow, I just I have such an appreciation for the, the artistry and the, the level that the show operates on.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Okay, well, thank you everybody for watching another episode of the viewing room and make sure to click that like button and subscribe and come back, because we will be back with more shows. So thank you, everybody and see you next time.