This week, host Bobby Finger has io9 writer Charles Pullium-Moore and Jezebel Managing Editor Megan Reynolds to the studio to discuss Sunday's Oscars (where Netflix won four awards and Glenn Close didn't win enough), all that is good (and frustrating) about The Umbrella Academy, and why Dating Around is the most fascinating dating show in nearly a generation. Later, Oscar-winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney calls in to chat about the powerful women in his new film, High Flying Bird, and why he can't get enough of "Watch It Again." Skip segments you'd like to keep spoiler-free with these handy time codes: The Umbrella Academy: 13:23 - 23:10 Dating Around: 16:02 - 23:10 - 32:45
This week, host Bobby Finger has io9 writer Charles Pullium-Moore and Jezebel Managing Editor Megan Reynolds to the studio to discuss Sunday's Oscars (where Netflix won four awards and Glenn Close didn't win enough), all that is good (and frustrating) about The Umbrella Academy, and why Dating Around is the most fascinating dating show in nearly a generation. Later, Oscar-winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney calls in to chat about the powerful women in his new film, High Flying Bird, and why he can't get enough of "Watch It Again."
Skip segments you'd like to keep spoiler-free with these handy time codes:
The Umbrella Academy: 13:23 - 23:10
Dating Around: 16:02 - 23:10 - 32:45
[Music]
Bobby: Welcome to I'm Obsessed with This, a Netflix podcast about the films and TV series everyone seems to be watching on Netflix. Over the past couple weeks, those titles have been the Netflix original series Umbrella Academy and Dating Around, the Netflix original film, High Flying Bird, and especially last night, Roma. And we are all going to discuss why. There will be spoilers in these conversations, so check the show notes for time stamps in case you want to avoid certain segments. But first, let's meet Charles and Meghan. Hello, Charles and Meghan.
Charles: Hi.
Meghan: Hello.
Bobby: How's the kombucha?
Charles: I mean, it's–
Bobby: Vinegary enough?
Charles: ...it's very spicy. (laughter)
Bobby: But is it good? Do you like it?
Charles: It's delicious, yeah.
Bobby: Meaghan, how's your nothing?
Meaghan: (laughs) I regret not requesting a kombucha.
Bobby: Why didn't you. I made it—
Meaghan: I don't know. Because I panicked, Bobby.
Bobby: I made it very clear.
Meaghan: You did.
Bobby: Any beverage.
Meghan: I know, again, and I panicked.
Charles: Why did you panic, though?
Meghan: I don't—I panic one to three—
Bobby: What would you have chosen?
Meghan: Probably a kombucha. This is my favorite kind of kombucha.
Bobby: It's the best one, gingerade. I won't say the brand, because I don't want to act like we're—this is an ad. (laughter) But you can guess.
Meghan: It's the one you see everywhere.
Bobby: Like, you can guess. But—
Meghan: Kombucha.
Bobby: I could talk about kombucha for a long time, which is disgusting. And I know that I have to stop myself now.
Meghan: Okay.
Bobby: I have a kombucha kit that I have not even started using yet.
Meghan: Oh, God.
Bobby: I got it as a Christmas present.
Charles: Do you trust yourself to make it, though?
Bobby: It kind of freaks me out, but I want to try it, because, like—
Meghan: Do they give you the mother?
Charles: That's what I was going to say.
Bobby: It's a little—
Charles: When you have to cultivate the mother, it's, like, a little Metroid, and you have to just grow it. Have you seen Pacific Rim 2?
Meghan: No.
Charles: I was watching it on the—
Bobby: I saw one.
Charles: I was watching it on the plane last night. So, you remember how, like, Charlie Day, like, links his mind up with—
Bobby: Yeah.
Charles: …like, the thing?
Meghan: What?
Charles: It's a big part of the second movie, and you see it in a tank. And I'm like, "Oh, it's a kombucha mother." (laughter)
Bobby: See, if I had known Pacific Rim 2 were about a kombucha mother, I would have gotten my ass in the seat. I don't know.
Meghan: There's still time. You can still watch it (laughter), it sounds like.
Charles: I've been there once.
Bobby: Enough about kombucha, which I feel like is not the last time I'll be saying that in the course of this broadcast. (laughter) Before we go on to the Oscars, which I think is the number one topic of discussion this week, I want to talk about something that we open every show with, which is what is next on your Netflix list?
Meghan: Okay.
Bobby: What are you watching next, Meaghan?
Meghan: What am I watching next? I think having just torn through Instant Hotel—
Bobby: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Great.
Meghan: ...which is phenomenal. It's Escape to the Continent, which is similar to Escape to the Country, which is a show about old British retirees, who are looking for country homes. Escape to the Continent is the same formula, but they are just looking for country homes in Europe.
Bobby: Okay.
Meghan: That is—
Bobby: There's, like, a Best Exotic Marigold Hotel vibe.
Meghan: Yes.
Bobby: Like old British people retiring.
Meghan: Yes. It's—I will watch as many episodes as are available to me.
Bobby: Escape to the Continent. (laughs)
Meghan: Yeah, it's amazing.
Bobby: Do they sell their original homes and then move?
Meghan: It's—yeah, they're, like, selling their original. They're, like, boring, , suburban homes, like, in the middle of England, and they're looking at, like, wineries in Paris—in France or, like, things in Germany. And they are often like, "Oh, my God, can we rent out part of this, so we can, like, make money, because we're retirees, and, you know, we're buying this giant, crumbling mansion?" The hosts are very affable. I watched half of an episode and I would like to watch more.
Bobby: That's good.
Meghan: Yeah, I'm very—That's my sweet spot on Netflix personally.
Bobby: What about you, Charles?
Charles: So, I'm coming off of watching Sex Education. And it's so just kind of, like, not heady or heavy, but it's left me feeling like I'm needing a palate cleanser, so next up on the queue is actually Nailed It, Mexico.
Bobby: Oh, nice.
Charles: Right? Because I'm—
Meghan: Yeah.
Charles: I'm super curious to see sort of like how the formula translates for, like, a different audience. Obviously, it's like it's not in a co-hosting [unintelligible 00:03:41], but it's kind of like you want to see if that same kind of energy, like, resonates.
Meghan: I get that.
Charles: And also just to see, like, are Americans, are we really just not crafty? (laugher) Because I feel like every time I watched Nailed It, I'm like, "You guys, just follow the directions."
Meghan: It's like easy.
Bobby: Like, it's right there. Just do it.
Charles: And there's always the one contestant, who's like, "I'm not going to look at the directions—"
Meghan: And it's like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Charles: …and you're like, "Why? Do you want—like, there's money to be won."
Meghan: Right.
Charles: Someone's like, "Here. Back this cake." All things being said, they're relatively simple. Fondant, you roll it out. You put it on, da da da da da. "I don't even want this money. I don't—I'm just going to wing it."
Bobby: $10,000. Ugh. $10,000.
Meghan: I would gladly follow directions for $10,000.
Bobby: Let's talk about the Oscars.
Meghan: Oh, boy.
Bobby: It was a big night for Netflix in general.
Charles: Definitely.
Bobby: They won four Oscars. They won best cinematography, Alfonso Cuarón, best directing, Alfonso Cuarón, best foreign language film, and best documentary short for Period. End of Sentence.
Meghan: Oh, that's right.
Bobby: So, three—Romas won documentary short, which was arguably one of the best speeches of the night too.
Meghan: I thought so. I thought so too.
Bobby: But what was your favorite part of the Oscars? What was the big takeaway?
Meghan: The biggest takeaway for me was that it was so much better without a host. I mean, it was still a very long show. I thought—and it was, but it just felt like it was a lot zippier without a host. I do also think that had Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph decided to host the whole thing, I would not have been upset.
Bobby: I would not have been upset, but I would have—It would have been the same old stuff.
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: Like, even funny people kind of suffer in that environment.
Meghan: That's true.
Bobby: Because you're—you have all these, like, forced bits like we have to do another Ellen selfie, we have to do another thing.
Charles: Oh, right. And they can't all land.
Bobby: And they can't all land.
Charles: Right.
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: And they usually don't.
Charles: Right, and then, once the—
Bobby: So, it's like—
Charles: …momentum gets broken up, then the show kind of feels like—
Meghan: That's when it drags.
Charles: Right. And then, it's like it trips over itself.
Meghan: Right.
Charles: And you zoom out, and you're like, "Oh, wait. This whole thing is ridiculous."
Bobby: This is the same shit that it always is.
Charles: Yeah.
Meghan: Normally, around, like, 10:30-10:45 during an Oscar's telecast, I'm, like, exhausted and so angry that the host is still happening, that the show is still happening (laughter). And last night around that same time, I was like, "Oh." I, like, checked in with my, like, anger levels. And I was like, "Oh, I'm just tired now." (laughter)
Bobby: Yeah, and they were like—
Meghan: "That's nice."
Bobby: I looked down at one point, and it was, like, there are only four awards left—
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: …and we've got—we're making good time.
Meghan: Yeah, really just zipping along. I love that.
Bobby: It was good. Best picture, Green Book. Not a big fan.
Meghan: I think—
Bobby: I was gunning for A Star is Born, I think.
Charles: Really?
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: I was—I just, like, wanted it to have something.
Charles: Why?
Bobby: I wanted a surprise. I, like, I mean people just, like, responded to that movie in a fun way. And I was listening to the music in the morning, and I was like, "This is so fun." I went into it gunning for A Star is Born. And then, half way through, when Black Panther started winning a lot of technical awards, I was like, "Maybe Black Panther will win."
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: And so, it was like, "Maybe it will win." And then, I realized it was not going to win.
Meghan: It was not going to win.
Charles: No way.
Bobby: I thought for a second Black Panther would win whenever Spike Lee went up, and I was like, "Maybe it'll win." No.
Meghan: No.
Bobby: I thought maybe Roma for a while, because he got two—
Meghan: That's what I thought.
Bobby: …big ones.
Charles: Yeah, Roma, I thought was the frontrunner.
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: And then, people were—I saw some jokes on Twitter. Like I saw a good one that was after Glenn lost. It was like, "Quick. Someone give Glenn a producer credit on Roma—
Meghan: Yeah, I was that too.
Bobby: ...so that she can win something."
Meghan: Right.
Bobby: And I was pretty sure it wouldn't win by the end. And then, a few big shocks. What were you expecting?
Charles: I mean, honestly, I was expecting Roma to win just looking at the Oscars as sort of like a celebration of the kinds of films that Hollywood loves. And you sort of look at the front. And you sort of look at, you know, everyone, who was in the running. I, personally, I liked A Star is Born. I had great time watching it. The movie doesn't do anything particularly novel compared to, you know, previous iterations, which isn't a knock against it.
Bobby: It's classic.
Meghan: Yeah.
Charles: It's a classic, but it is, you know, it's a myth at this point. And while myths are enjoyable, I don't know that they really sort of qualify, at least not for me personally, as being like best film material. Like, "Congratulations, Bradley Copper. Gaga, you did great. Like, you guys are, like, fab. Like, yes, more of this (laughter) please. But, like, calm down." Green Book, again, personal opinion, ew, no. No. And then it, like, knowing everything that we know about Green Book from the lack of due diligence that the producers did in sort of reaching out to the Shirley family immediately disqualified it from any sort of recognition, which just makes the win that much more baffling.
Bobby: Yeah.
Charles: I—it's common place for the Academy to be wildly out of touch with the culture, but this was an instance in which people, who worked on the film were just like, "Yeah, we didn't do our jobs all that great."
Bobby: Yeah, what's the problem?
Charles: Right. And—
Bobby: Very defensive about it.
Charles: During the—apparently during the ceremony, I feel like there was a Variety report, where one of the screenwriters was behind stage being like—
Meghan: Oh, yeah.
Charles: ...something to the effect of "I didn't even know the Shirley family existed."
Meghan: That's right.
Charles: Which is like, "Well, my dude, where did you think he came from?"
Meghan: Yeah, where did he spring from?
Charles: And that was right after he said, like, "Oh, I was told explicitly by Shirley not to speak to his family." So, it's like, "So, did you know that the family—
Meghan: Right.
Charles: …existed or not?"
Bobby: (Inaudible 00:08:20)
Charles: So, it's that kind of thing—
Meghan: It's just like, "Tell the truth."
Charles: Right. And then, you have Bohemian Rhapsody, which is a bad movie.
Meghan: It was a terrible film.
Charles: It was—it's an objectively bad film.
Bobby: It's the first—this is the first year in, I mean, I can't remember when, that I haven't seen all the nominees. I have not seen Bohemian Rhapsody.
Charles: Oh, really?
Meghan: I—it's—
Bobby: I haven't seen it.
Charles: Oh, honey.
Meghan: It's so bad. (laughter)
Charles: Oh ho ho ho.
Meghan: It's so bad.
Bobby: Is it worth the walk? Like, is it that crazy?
Charles: It's like, it's almost like a technical achievement of badness.
Bobby: I saw the clips of the editing.
Charles: And the thing is, you see it online, and you're like, "Oh, someone's—this can't be real." But that is it.
Meghan: It's real.
Charles: And it's rough.
Meghan: It's all real.
Charles: And it hurts to look at. But if you're a Queen fan, which I feel is—that's the reason it's made so much money.
Meghan: Yeah, totally.
Charles: People fucking love Queen.
Meghan: People loved Queen.
Charles: And it is just Queen's greatest hits with some very questionable and not well crafted narrative written around it to sort of string one song together.
Meghan: It's like a concert – It's like a concert move.
Bobby: And like Green Book, like, questionably sourced history. Like, not great. I am – and again, to go back to Roma, I am sort of surprised now that I think about it. It's about movies in a way that Hollywood loves to celebrate. Like, it's about Alfonso Cuarón's childhood. And yes, it's about Cleo, and, yes, it's about, like, these women, whose stories don't normally get told, but it's also about Alfonso Cuarón.
Charles: It is.
Bobby: Like, it's about, like, how I became a director, and, like, these things that impacted, you know, my creative process and the things that happened in my childhood that made me the director I am today. There are so many scenes that take place at the theater. Like, whether they're just Cleo on a date or the young boy watching a movie, and, like, having his life, you know, flash before his eyes, like "This is what I want to do."
Charles: Right. And it's also a testament to the ways in which the industry is changing. You know, we all sort of—when Roma first came out on Netflix and in theaters simultaneously, everyone was sort of, like, you know, lifting their nose at it. And it was like, "Uh, what's Netflix doing?" But it's like, "No, no, no, no. You guys. Like, this is a –" I don't want to say this is a real film, but it's like, "No. Like, this is prestige film that you are meant to really sort of sit with and reflect on and sort of understand that there are layers and depths and a degree of nuance that demands attention and recognition." And that's something that—In my mind, it's, like, as an Academy member, that's exactly the movie that you vote for, because it's, like, tailor—it's almost unassailable. Like, I—you don't hear critiques about Roma all that much. You don't hear ways in which people were really let down or disappointed by it. And it's like, you as an Academy voter, you sort of in terms of your posturing, that's like the easy choice. Just do it. Do it like, "Oh, I voted for Roma," and it's like, "Oh, that's right. That person gets it." Yeah, it's like, "Oh, I voted for Green Book." (laughter) There are quotes running in the press where it's like, "I voted for Green Book, because I'm tired of people telling me what to do."
Meghan: Oh, Lord.
Bobby: Oh, God. Every quote from—Academy member quotes are always the worst.
Meghan: They're incredible.
Bobby: It's so bad.
Meghan: It is so good. (laughs)
Bobby: But another thing about Roma and just movies in general that have sort of non-actors in the lead roles—and there was again with Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade—
Meghan: That was so good.
Bobby: that we like. Like, we like actors, who aren't actors. Like, it's easier to root for them. So, like, people loved Yalitza. People were so excited when Marina got nominated, because no on was really expecting Marina to get to get nominated.
Charles: Right.
Meghan: Right.
Bobby: So, it's like the fact that Roma had these people that we could see ourselves in was sort of a nice thing too.
Charles: It's a little bit interesting, the ways in which we sort of—It's not quite the same, but there was much more of a celebration of Gaga's transition into film—
Bobby: Lady Gaga.
Charles: ...in a way that it hasn't been done for Yalitza in the same way. It almost feels as if people expect this to be like a one and one novelty thing. Like, this is just sort of like her first and only. "Oh, look, she's at the Oscars for the first time. She's having a great time."
Bobby: "I hope she savors it."
Charles: Right. Right, right. Where it's like Gaga's just like, "I’m just going to wear—I've got a back up costume. Call it glamour and you're all going to clap for me." (laughter) Come on. Come on. We've seen that before.
Bobby: Like, with a moon rock on my neck.
Charles: Yeah, we've seen that look from her—
Meghan: A diamond…
Charles: …before a few dozen times, sure.
Meghan: It's true.
Bobby: I mean I would like to know, is she even the frontrunner? I would like to know what she had planned to wear. Because there's no way she planned to wear that—
Meghan: No. I agree.
Bobby: ...like, if she thought she was going to win. Whereas Glenn wore gold expecting to be up on the stage.
Meghan: Glenn was like, "I'm fucking winning." She was like, "I'm going to win to win this goddamn thing.
Charles: Have you seen her on the carpet, and just like doing—I don't even know what to call it, but just looking around dramatically?
Bobby: Oh, yes, I saw that. (laughter)
Charles: And there's no one around. It's literally just like Glenn Close in the corner of the screen being like, "Oh."
Bobby: Like, you know, it's one of those things, where it's like these people who lose, when we root for them to win and they've been around forever, they will continue being around.
Charles: It's true.
Bobby: Glenn Close is going to be fine. If anyone's going to be fine, it's Glenn close.
Charles: Very. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Meghan: I'm not worried about Glenn Close.
Bobby: Is America going to see more of Olivia Coleman? TBD. Will, like England see her?
Charles: Yeah.
Meghan: Yeah.
Bobby: She's such—she's so prolific.
Meghan: Still there, yeah.
Bobby: She's in every thing. But it's like, Glenn, we don't have to worry about Glenn.
Meghan: I've never been worried.
Bobby: But next up, we have a surprise performance. Please welcome to the stage Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. (laughter) And they're going to—They're rolling in the piano now, we're going to have them here.
Meghan: Oh, I guess. (laughs)
Bobby: I asked them to just do the same thing over again.
Meghan: Oh, my God. That performance.
[Music]
[Clip plays]
Male: We'll live in eight days. I have no idea how to stop it.
Woman: I'll put on a pot of coffee.
Charles: Umbrella Academy began as a comic book written buy Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance Fame—
Meghan: What?
Charles: ...in 2007.
Meghan: Wow.
Charles: It was a pretty popular comic book. It has now been adapted into a series on Netflix starring among other people Ellen Page. And it's sort of an X-Meny type story, where you’ve got these children, who were birthed from, you know, unknown origins. Like, imagine if one of us suddenly got pregnant and gave birth within a span of five seconds—
Meghan: Totally horrible.
Bobby: Or if you were on a subway.
Charles: And it—yes, and it happened all over the world, and there were dozens of these children, who were born—
Meghan: That's a nightmare.
Charles: ...spontaneously. This is seven of those stories. [laughter] Seven of those children are adopted by an eccentric billionaire, who dies, you know, some years later, like 20-30 years later at the opening of Episode 1. And his children, who are all these, like, sort of weird superpowery things come together. And each of the has a power except one, you know, put a pin in that. Maybe she does. She does. [laughter]
Meghan: Obvious. I assumed as much.
Charles: They're coming together to stop the end of the world, which is you would assume the highest stakes imaginable.
Meghan: I would think so.
Charles: Stop the apocalypse. As many times as it's mentioned in the show, they won't let you forget the apocalypse is coming. "Hey, did you know? The apocalypse is coming?" [laughter]
Bobby: Eight days.
Charles: Eight days—the apocalypse is coming.
Bobby: Eight days. Okay.
Charles: It's like, "Bro, we get it."
Meghan: Like, "Okay."
Bobby: Charles, tell us. You weren't a big fan. You did read the comics.
Charles: I did, yeah, so…
Bobby: Did you read them contemporaneously?
Charles: Yeah.
Bobby: Like, did—You're a big fan.
Charles: I wouldn't say I was a huge fan, but I was at the ripe age, where Gerard Way, I was a bit My Chemical Romance fan. Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the illustrator on it, who, you know, created a series. They were making something that really spoke to my angsty 17 year old self, you know. It is very much an X-Menesque comic. And it has elements of The Avengers. It's all the motley crew thing. It's like, "Oh, we're a bunch of weirdos, but we save the world." But it had something that really set it apart from something like The X-Men was that it was really up front about the ways in which the mentor figure, Reginald Hargreeves is kind of like an asshole. There's this longstanding interesting conversation about The X-Men about how Charles Xavier is a, like, a piece of shit, who recruits children to fight his war. And many of them end up dying, you know, and he manipulates them all and does these terrible things. And it doesn't always come to the fore in the X-Men comics, but it's something that is very much like an undercurrent. With The Umbrella Academy, it's text instead of subtext, you know. All of the kids have an understandable ambivalence about their father, and they all recognize that he has not ruined them, but raised them in such a way, where they were never able to become real people, you know. As kids, they were not just superheroes, but celebrities, you know. They do the press circuit, you know, they're standing in front for photos and things. The six kids, who are a part of the core team, then you have Vanya, the one, who we are led to believe doesn't have powers. She's always pushed to the side, and that's sort of, like, her thing.
Meghan: Gotcha.
Charles: And you can sort of—from a zoomed out view, you can see, like, "Oh, Reginald doesn't know how to raise kids." He doesn't actually have the skills to be a proper mentor. He sees them as these fascinating oddities, who can be spun into, I guess, a brand.
Bobby: Yeah. Definitely.
Charles: They have comics and—yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, flash forward to them in their adulthood. They've all gone their separate ways. One of them is a famous movie star. One of them is, like, a junkie. One of them has been on the moon. Yeah.
Bobby: On the moon.
Charles: One's dead.
Meghan: Great.
Charles: But also, one of them can see the dead, so they hang out.
Bobby: [Unintelligible 00:16:45] time.
Meghan: That's cool. That's a nice—okay.
Charles: Yeah, and so, like, it—like, on its—
Meghan: I love that.
Charles: One its face, it's very interesting and has all the makings of something that could be fascinating.
Meghan: I would watch this.
Charles: But—
Meghan: Oh.
Charles: Here's the but. The show plods. Plod, plod, plods. And it does—it's interesting, because we're coming up on a point, where Netflix's, like, superheroes—just like their Marvel superhero shows are going to the wayside, right? So, Umbrella Academy is like, "Oh, well, they can do superhero things. Let's see what's going on." And there are a number of points throughout the series, where it falls into a lot of the same traps in terms of pacing. There's a lot of showing rather than telling. It's like, "I'm Allison. I'm The Rumor. If I tell you something that's not true, it will become true." And it's like, "Okay—
Meghan: Oooh, that's—
Charles: …that's fine.
Bobby: That's her power.
Charles: It's fun.
Meghan: Wait. I love that.
Charles: Show it to me. Don't explain it. Like, let me—
Meghan: Right. Don't give a lecture.
Charles: Right, right, right. All of the flaws that make them interesting in the books are there, but they're not really mined in a way, at least at first, that really makes you connect to any of them. The good thing about this show and the thing that I was drawn to in this show—because I'm not a sci-fi person. I'm not a comic person. So, this show really isn't for me in any way. But, like, I did notice that it's, like, structured well, like great cliff hangers at the end of every episode. I understand why people could be drawn to the show, even if this isn't necessarily their bag, because, like, who can imagine higher stakes than the world—I already said that, but it's true. But one thing that bugs me about this type of show—I think just anything about time traveling with the exception of About Time, the movie, which I will defend to the [crosstalk 00:18:16] [laughter], is that—
Meghan: That movie—
Charles: ...is that—about to go, you know, a complete 180, but—
Meghan: We can talk about that right now.
Charles: ...movies about—movies and any sort of art about time travel fundamentally have these flaws and these rules that sort of blow up the stakes, so to speak. So, like, at the end of the—at the end of the show—spoilers, Meghan—
Meghan: Fine.
Charles …you certainly don't care.
Meghan: I'll watch one episode now.
Charles: The apocalypse finally comes.
Meghan: Thank God.
Charles: They understand what causes it. It is Ellen Page's Vanya character. I was, like, can we take just a moment to appreciate what her powers are? So, all of the kids have, like, wild, weird—they're not, like, traditional cool superhero powers.
Meghan: Okay. Because, like, Rumor sounds like an amazing, hellish power.
Charles: Rumor is like—and Rumor is, like, very important.
Bobby: Right. Right, right, right, right.
Charles: You've got Spaceboy, who is just super strong as a child, but then he gains a gorilla's upper body?
Meghan: What?
Charles: Comics. Don't worry about it.
Meghan: Okay. I'm not worried now.
Charles: This is what it is. Seance can see the dead.
Meghan: Perfect.
Charles: So, Ben, the Horror. Anyway, let's get to Ellen Page. Her—so, her—
Meghan: She's Vanya.
Charles: Vanya.
Bobby: She's Vanya.
Charles: You learn that, you know, she'd been drugged her whole life, because she's the most powerful of the seven of them.
Meghan: Obviously.
Charles: Obviously.
Meghan: Sure.
Charles: And her ability is not clearly defined. It has something to do with sound.
Bobby: I was going to ask you this—
Meghan: What?
Bobby: …because I wasn't—
Charles: You know, I was really not sure if it's vibrational energy, if she's just making things vibrate at a certain frequency.
Bobby: Stored energy or something.
Charles: Right. At certain points, she's moving things with her mind.
Meghan: Oh, it's one of those, like, catch all kind of…
Charles: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. It's a catch—Right. She's got McGuffin powers. And then, by the end, her musical talent has become so powerful—
Meghan: The violin playing [laughs].
Charles: …she can fling beams of white light [laughter]. And then, bleaches her entire tuxedo white.
Bobby: She's in a white violin.
Charles: In a white violin and her siblings are just like—
Bobby: Gagalicious.
Charles: "Vanya, no!"
Meghan: Wait a minute. [laughs]
Bobby: Yeah.
Charles: And then, and then, and then, and then, right—is it after they stop or before? I forget.
Bobby: No, they stop her.
Charles: They stop her.
Bobby: They think it's all done.
Charles: They think it's done. And then, a beam of light shoots from out of her and hit the moon.
Meghan: What?
Charles: Right? And the—
Bobby: Middle of the moon.
Meghan: In the sky?
Bobby: Like if the—if the ceiling opened up and the moon was there, just hit the moon.
Charles: And the siblings look like, "Oh, it'll be fine. It'll fine." And then—
Meghan: It won't be fine.
Charles: But then, like, chunks of the moon come out. And they're like—
Meghan: It’s obvious.
Charles: …"Oh, fuck. The world is going to die." This is the apocalypse that was predicted at the beginning of the show.
Meghan: Whoa.
Charles: Interestingly enough, this is where the series deviates from the comics. Because in the comics, they stop that.
Meghan: I would hope so.
Charles: Yeah.
Meghan: That seems bad.
Charles: Okay. Well, this is—and that's what bothered me. So, it's like, if you're playing with time in this way, if nothing matters, then why do I care, you know?
Bobby: Why do you care?
Charles: Like, especially by the end, when this gigantic thing that they've been trying—this calamity that they've been trying to stop for eight episodes just happen, and they say, "Do over."
Bobby: Right.
Charles: And they go back in time to try and stop it. Especially because the do over comes at a point in the series, where the emotional connections between the characters finally start to feel like something. As good as the entire casts is, big casts are always, like, a tricky situation just because you have—it's a puzzle. How do you put together this story in a way that highlights everyone and still comes together into something. My biggest critique for the show in the beginning is, like, it spends too much time trying to explain everyone individually and never really—you never really get the sense—you never—you don't have a chance to get the sense of what their dynamic as—
Bobby: A family—
Charles: …a family is like. And there's also this really heartbreaking and fantastic moment, where you learn that one of the main ways that Hargreeves was able to convince Vanya that she was normal as a child was by asking Allison, her sister, to repeatedly lie to her.
Meghan: Whoa.
Charles: That's why she believes she doesn't have power.
Meghan: Wow.
Charles: Right. Because as a ch—In flashbacks you see that there were. He did attempt to train her the way that he did her siblings, but she just couldn't control it, and then ended up locking her in, like, a soundproof—
Meghan: What?
Charles: …like, bunker. It's real fucked up.
Meghan: Jesus.
Bobby: She's too powerful.
Charles: Right.
Bobby: She's Ellen Page.
Meghan: Obviously.
Charles: And then, to deal with, presumably with, like, the trauma of being a young girl being locked in a basement n a metal tube—
Meghan: Definitely. [laughs]
Charles: …you know, they bring her sister down to, like, you know, try to wipe it away.
Meghan: I see.
Charles: And then, once Vanya learns this as an adult, there's this really great scene between Ellen Page and Emmy Raver-Lampman, where you see, you know, that sisterly bond. Allison is trying to tell Vanya like, "I love you. I did not understand what I was doing. We were children." And Vanya, you know, understandably is just, you know, super not just pissed, but she feels betrayed and "I could have been a part of everything that you guys had. I could have felt like a part of this team." I feel like it's in that same episode, where—no, it's—yeah, it's in the episode after—well, she kills Allison.
Bobby: And the death of Allison, yet another thing, where it's like, "I cant even be sad about the death of Allison—
Charles: Right.
Bobby: …because we're just going to start back over gain.
Charles: Right. Very. Yeah.
Meghan: That's annoying.
Charles: I mean, to be fair, all—like, all of my criticisms aside, it's not a bad show, right? It's—there are—like, there are terrible superhero shows out there—
Meghan: Totally.
Charles: …that I just can't watch. And this is not one of them.
Meghan: Oh, that's good.
Charles: If you—even if you're not a fan, even if it's not necessarily a genre you're interested in—
Meghan: It's not, yeah, but—
Charles: …it's something that is watchable. But yes—
Meghan: Okay. I love watchable.
Charles: Yeah. [laugh] But it is—there are just times, where I just, like, I'm like, "I can see what you're going for. I can see. I can see another version of this that's better."
Bobby: But enough about Umbrella Academy.
Charles: Yes.
Bobby: Let's move on. Let's move on to the subject of romance.
Meghan: Romance, is that what you call what happens on this program?
Bobby: Let's talk about Dating Around.
Meghan: Ugh. What a program.
Bobby: Dating Around, Meghan, can you explain the premise of Dating Around—
Meghan: I mean—
Bobby: …the new six-episode reality dating show that is unlike any reality dating show I have ever seen in my life.
Meghan: It is a beautiful program. There is one dater. There are five dates. The dater goes on all of these dates. The dater picks someone to get a second date. That is basically it.
Bobby: It's beautifully edited. Have you watched it?
Charles: It's gorgeous. Yes. Yeah.
Meghan: The editing is, like, I mean—
Bobby: I think that that was the first thing that I was really drawn to in this show, because it seems like dating shows are—have been like a dime a dozen since, you know, the middle of the century, but, like, specifically my life since MTV, you know?
Meghan: Totally.
Bobby: Like, Next.
Charles: Yeah, I was thinking like, "This is just like Prestige Next."
Bobby: Yes. Prestige in 24 frames per second.
Meghan: I love—
Charles: Oh, my God.
Meghan: I loved Next.
Bobby: A really, like, extreme widescreen too.
Charles: Yes.
Bobby: Like, you've got whatever that ratio is. I was like—
Charles: It's, like, nice cinematic shots.
Meghan: It's beautiful.
Charles: People lounging.
Meghan: It's beautiful. Everyone looked so good.
Charles: And filmed at night in New York.
Meghan: Beautiful Williamsburg. [laughter]
Charles: But they—Beautiful Williamsburg, so much of this.
Meghan: That’s a phrase I say.
Charles: Wherever they live, they're ending up in Williamsburg.
Meghan: God awful. A nightmare.
Bobby: But they—the way that the show edits these dates together, which all happen across five nights—
Charles: Did you look this—did you read these stories?
Meghan: I did—I did not. I mean, I assumed, like, after I watched the first episode, I was like, "Okay. This is not one—obviously, this is not one night. This poor person is wearing the same outfit—"
Bobby: Five times. It's like Bake Off.
Meghan: ...in the summer, it looks like.
Charles: It's weird, though.
Bobby: Like, in Bake off, where they have to wear the same clothes every day to make it seems like they do it all—
Meghan Like they just—yeah, I know.
Bobby: …do it all in one day.
Charles: I was fooled by the illusion.
Bobby: Yeah, and we're fooled by this too. Five nights. And then, at the end, they're told to pick their number two person, their number two date. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes they choose themselves. And then, they have one final shoot, where they, like, meet them at the second date.
Meghan: Like, at a random, like—
Bobby: But the way that the show—
Meghan: It's so weird.
Bobby: ...ties all of this footage together, it's like it—like, we laughed about Bohemian Rhapsody earlier, like, how terribly edited that movie is, but this show is the complete opposite of that.
Meghan: Masterful. It's amazing.
Bobby: It seems like a master class in that.
Charles: I'm sorry, did we watch different shows? I couldn't tell how much of it was is this editing that is designed to sort of highlight the awkwardness in those moments, where people weren’t talking, because there were so many moments, where people were just like—
Meghan: Just like, "Duh."
Charles: And it's like, "Okay. Were you—
Meghan: Just like looking at their phones or whatever. Yeah.
Charles: Not even in the car, but, like, during the date. It was like, "Where you between the thought here or, like, did the energy literally, like, fall down?" And so, I wasn't—And I feel like that's purposeful. You're not really supposed to understand. And I ended up binging this on a plane and thought to my—and I came away thinking to myself, "these are designed to almost sort of reflect what it's like to feel like you're lost in the monotony of dating."
Meghan: Yes. Exactly.
Bobby: The repetition. I used a lot of reality shows as background noise, you know?
Meghan: Same.
Charles: Really?
Bobby: And Dating Around, I felt like I had to be paying attention.
Meghan: Pay attention. I had to look, because I'm like, "Who's next?"
Bobby: I was like, "Who is this person who's annoying Sarah? Who is this person Sarah is annoying?" Like, all of these things I had to be very focused on it. And every episode flew by. And I think—and I was—and I just see that in the editing, the way that these really long date were just condensed into—
Charles: And it's also, I think, it's because there's no direction. Dating shows will tell you, "And here are our daters," you know? And this was much more like it's almost sort of you are in the position of someone who's, like, at the table next to them, like, watching these people on a date. And you're just like, "Oh, and how's this going to work out?"
Bobby: It was very awkward, voyeuristic—
Meghan: It was so so good.
Bobby: We've been there, like, where we can't even talk to the person. We're at the restaurant with—
Meghan: Because you're just, like, listening.
Bobby: …because we're too busy listening to the terrible first date that Gurki was on with what's his name?
Meghan: Josh? [laugher]
Bobby: The worst man in New York City.
Meghan: The worst man in New York City. I think his name was Josh. The Gurki episode, I really enjoyed. The first episode—what was that guy's name, Luke?
Bobby: Luke, yes. And he chose—
Meghan: He was like—he—oh, who did—
Bobby: He chose Victoria. Yeah.
Meghan: Oh, right. You know, that episode—
Bobby: Which was like, "What?"
Meghan: Yeah, I mean—
Charles: Which one was Victoria?
Meghan: The red.
Bobby: The blonde, who was like, "I'm so annoying."
Meghan: Oh, no. That girl sucks.
Charles: What? Did she?
Meghan: I thought so. Good for—good for them.
Charles: I thought she was okay.
Bobby: I appreciated—
Meghan: Good for them to end up together.
Bobby: I appreciated the openness.
Charles: Yeah. I liked—I was super turned off by the Jersey girl, who was just like—
Meghan: Oh, her?
Charles: Like, "This is me." Oh, yeah.
Meghan: Oh, I enjoyed her.
Bobby: Oh, yeah.
Charles: "I'm brassy." And it was like—
Meghan: Oh, I liked it. [laughs]
Charles: And it's like, "Okay. But you brought an—You bought an 'I'm a boss' T-shirt at, like, Hot Topic."
Meghan: Yeah, she did.
Charles: She had—
Meghan: I liked her little red jumpsuit. I was like—
Bobby: I liked—
Meghan: …"Okay, girl."
Bobby: The jumpsuit was cute.
Meghan: She looked great.
Charles: I was watching it wit captions on at one point, because I was watching something else with captions and never turned them off.
Meghan: I always watch TV with captions.
Charles: And her captions had a lot of, like, "Lips smacking." Like, "Smacked lips." I could taste it. Get some air in there.
Meghan: Oh, I loved—no, I enjoyed her.
Bobby: I think my favorites—Well, Gurki's ending was an instantly iconic thing. Everyone was like, "Well, wait to Episode 2. Episode 1 is a little rough, but Episode 2, you'll understand the point of the show." And Gurki after five terrible dates chooses herself.
Meghan: Gurki chose herself.
Bobby: And at the end instead of, like, finding a man on the corner of, like, Park and—
Meghan: Bleecker and whatever, right.
Bobby: …whatever. And the way that they were chosen was in the interview with the show runners, they—she was interviewed about it, and she was saying that, like, well, the—she worked on the Bachelor shows. And so, she's worked in dating shows, and she knows that when you put out a casting call for people, you're going to get a very particular type of person.
Meghan: Totally.
Bobby: And so, it's like, if you want people who don't want to be on television, you're not going to find them on casting calls so they were actually going around New York going to places and approaching random people.
Meghan: I was wondering how they handled the casting.
Bobby: Because when you solicit it, you're going to get the person—
Meghan: You're going to get—
Bobby: …who wants to be on television.
Meghan: Yeah, you're going to get, like—
Bobby: Which is like—
Meghan: ...a Bachelor reject.
Bobby: …why the show was filled with people, who looked very uncomfortable on television. Like, even the most, like, if you saw—like, some of—like, the beautiful people on this show looked uncomfortable, where it's like they're the ones, how we've been conditioned to see on Bachelor, where it's like, "Oh, they're, like, schemers. They're conniving. They want to be here."
Meghan: Yeah, totally.
Bobby: Everyone looked a little weird. And it was easier to see yourself in all of them.
Charles: You saying that makes me look back and reflect on it. Like, coming away from this, I thought to myself, "All of these people are really bad at first dates." You know what I mean? I feel like, I—it's been a while since I was single—
Meghan: Same.
Charles: …but, like, I remember what it's like to—you feel somebody outa nd you have that energy and you have that vibe with them. And no one really had, like, organic patter in a way that would necessitate or justify, like, a second date in my mind.
Meghan: Totally.
Charles: And so, to see them just sort of like rise up triumphant out of the subway and be like, "You're the one." I'm like, "Why?"
Meghan: Like, how?
Bobby: Like, Lex—
Charles: Lex and Cory. Chose Cory.
Bobby: It was not who I expected.
Meghan: Oh, I was—yeah.
Charles: You're going for Moviefone dude.
Bobby: Moviefone Town.
Meghan: Moviefone dude? [laughs]
Charles: You touched his hair.
Bobby: Who among us did not google Moviefone—Moviefone gay guy?
Meghan: It was like, "Holy shit." [laughs]
Bobby I mean, I looked up so many different versions, and I could not find him anywhere.
Meghan: Me too. [laughs] Me too.
Bobby: I was like, "Did he lie about Moviefone?" [laughter] Moviefone was founded in the '70s and I don't appreciate—
Meghan: I know.
Bobby: ...this guy. [laughter] I was like, "This guy might be a scam artist."
Meghan: I was very stressed out.
Bobby: Which is maybe why he wasn't chosen, because his scam was that dumb. But I—I really liked—my favorite episode was Leonard. The weight of their lives was like an extra character in the show in the way that it wasn't a character in the young people episodes. Where it was like it was like these people who were dealing, like, with loss and, you know, decades of being in relationships and, like, seeking out relationships. And so, it just—it added an element of, I don't know, like melancholy to the whole thing? And like, it was sad in a way that I—sad and hopeful in a way that I'm very drawn to. It's my favorite genre of things.
Charles: And we don't see enough narratives about, like, love later in life.
Meghan: That's true. We don't.
Charles: You know, it very much—especially, like, we're all youngs here. But someday [laughs]—
Meghan: We'll be old eventually.
Charles: ...we'll be old and, like, people are living longer. And this is something that people really do need to start considering, like you may outlive your partner. Oh my God, this got really morbid, but…
Meghan: I know, I'm like oh.
Charles: But it's a real part of life that needs to be reflected in pop culture more, be it through, you know, fictional narratives or through reality TV. And to see it done so, like, not voyeuristically. Just really sort of treated—
Meghan: It was kind, yeah.
Charles: …with respect. It was, like, fantastic.
Meghan: I could watch this show for the rest of my life. It's so much better than, like, The Bach—
Charles: It is.
Meghan: …like any other—
Bobby: Well, The Bachelor tried—The Bachelor treats us like idiots. The Bachelor thinks that we're going to believe that this relationship is going to work out, when the precedent is that it always tanks.
Meghan: Like, it fails immediately afterwards.
Charles: Right, right, right, right.
Bobby: And this show knows, like, this show is too smart to say anything definitely. It's just like, "You got a second date." That's it.
Charles: I, like, looked at it as like, "Hey, this show's about whether or not these people are going to hook up." The stakes are relatively low, which I feel—I wonder—
Bobby: [Unintelligible 00:31:33]
Charles: But I wonder how much that was, like, operant in the participant's mind. Like, it's not—it is low stakes. It's not The Bachelor. It's not—if it doesn't work out between you and whoever, you're not going to be on the front of a tabloid tomorrow.
Meghan: No, you're just going to go back to, like, your life or whatever.
Charles: Your life, down in FIDI.
Meghan: Down—exactly.
Bobby: Yeah. But I will say, like, now that we have this first—now that we have this first season, I'm not convinced that—I mean, if they make more, I'm not convinced that the other ones will ever be as pure as this one.
Charles: Right.
Meghan: No, because—
Bobby: Because there was—like, everyone was caught off guard her.
Meghan: I was shocked.
Bobby: They had no idea what to expect. And I'm sure that no one thought that there would be, you know, score of articles written about them like, "Who's your favorite?" Like, I saw, like, a fuck marry kill of the Dating Around contestants. And it's like, "Yeah, I bet they didn't expect it." You're getting on episode. It's just a date. It doesn't matter. But, like, we all end up getting emotionally attached to these people, whether or not it's—whether it's 20 minutes or two hours or a season of television. Like, we—
Meghan: And unfortunate—yeah. And the way that, like, things work now is that you could do one episode of something and you could be, you know, as annoying a Sarah or as charming as Leonard, and then you are somehow in some pocket somewhere a meme or something for, like, the rest of your days.
Man: You're a sweet person.
Woman: Thank you.
Man: You know, you have a lot of charisma. But, yeah. Best of luck to you, right?
Woman: Thank you.
Man: You take care now.
Woman: Oh, my God. I'm going to go home and masturbate.
Bobby: Last week I had a brief chat with the screenwriter of High Flying Bird, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Moonlight a couple years ago, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and we talked about High Flying Bird. We talked about Roma. And we talked about what's next on his list. So, let's listen to that. How did High Flying Bird fall into your lap? How was it the follow up to the screenwriter of Moonlight's Oscar win?
Tarell: High Fling Bird, I think we started it about four years ago in conversation. And so, you know, even the greatest augerer or oracle would not have been able to tell us what Moonlight was going to do. Moonlight was a independent film that Barry was shooting and filming at the time, you know. And we, you know, and Andre was a part of it. And when we cast Andre, I was like, "Yeah, it's great, because I’m working with Andre on other things." So, the truth be told, Moonlight, High Flying Bird, all of the television show I'm working on, the plays, they're always just a—they're always works that are happening at the same time usually, and they just mature at different rates. And so, Moonlight just happened to come out of the gate when it came out. Again, nobody on our side could have forewarned of the great success Moonlight has been, and it continues to be. And so, in the middle of that, I was also working on something else [laughs] called High Flying Bird, which, you know, literally while we're on—we were on press tour, Andre and I would be having conversations about the script and working on it. So, it wasn't necessarily like, "Oh, I have this plan. It's going to work out this way." It was more so, you know, finishing what we started, and just happened to come out, you know, two years post—post best picture win.
Bobby: I watched an interview, where you mentioned that it was Andre, speaking of Andre, who first gave you a copy of The Revolt of the Black Athlete.
Tarell: That is true.
0Bobby: And it sort of struck me that you're doing the same thing for the audience of this film. Like, it's a move that ends with a homework assignment in away, where Zazie Beetz gets the book and she says, "You need to read this" almost to the camera. Can you just—It's like in a weird pay it forward sort of way. Can you just talk about the significance of the book to you and how that sort of evolved form when Andre gave it to you to how it became this crucial element of the film?
Tarell: One of the reasons why Zazie says that at the end of the film is because for the majority of the time, I think a lot of the people watching the film could think, "Yeah, this is about getting a player, Eric Scott," played by Melvin Gregg, "to think outside the box." And what's interesting is that Andre and myself, at some point come up with the understand that Eric Scott is a player. He is the way the industry has been set up for the past, you know, 20 years has, you know, made it so that young boys like him train up and they come to the industry and they do exactly, you know, what he wants to do, which is get on the court, make, you know, make whatever money he makes, and, you know, retire with some name in glory. And that's great. That's good. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, Spence and Ray both say, "I ain't mad at him" to that. But the real disruptors are the women. [laughs] The real disruptors are the people, who get it, the people, who get what Ray is trying to say are women, are, you know, Jamero Umber's mom gets it. Myra gets it. Sam gets it. And so, she's sitting there reading, and the whole time, she's been saying like, you know, "You use these platforms for X, you know, with Instagram and that age of information, people don't even own their own image anymore. How's that possible? License it." Just talking to Myra about licensing rights, you know, for apparel. Again, things that we all have. I mean, go through your trunk. Go through your closet. Tell me you don’t have one pair of basketball shorts or a sweat that has some team logo on it. I mean, there's a whole industry and commodity made of fields where that is benefitting off of these people doing extraordinary things. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, it's like the folks, who are in it sometimes don't know just how skewed and how much industry is being made off of their labor. And Sam is sitting there reading his book, and here are all the ways in which black folks have used their platforms for change, especially their athletic platform, for change. And how even until this day, Train 19 marking the first Africans taken from the continent and brought to this continent enslaved, here is this book chronicling how that revolt has been going on, still goes one, flares up. He talks about it in cycles. He talks about sometimes, you know, people—something will happen and we'll galvanize [unintelligible 00:38:05]. Something, someone will speak out and we'll galvanize around that person. Mohammed Ali. Someone will say no or talk back, and we will, you know—there'll be a new understanding of what misogyny and massage noir are in the field during the [unintelligible 00:38:23]. I mean, like, there are moments, where we watch the cycles of this activism happy, particularly on black bodies. And it's deeply connected to a tradition in the United States that we got to pay attention to. If we want forward motion, we've got to focus on. And now that focus has got to stop being on quote unquote "the man," and we have to look at these very strong activists who are women and who are creating things. I mean, the Black Live Matter group was started by three queer women. And—
Bobby: The Me Too movement too.
Tarell: And the Me Too movement. Again, we—but we don't focus on that, right? We focus on like, "Well, you know, Colin Kaepernick's finally got a job, he's kneeling." It's like, "Yes, that's great. That's wonderful." But I bet you, if you go around Colin's inner circle, you'll find a whole bunch of young women or women in general, who are aiding him and giving him advice and strategy. And so, that was really important for us to see Zazie work in that way. Because she's the one who's done the most movement in the entire film. And only when you watch it on the second time do you go, "Wow. She went from being assistant number one, you know, to basically running the player's association. And now she's got this book in her hand. What will she do next?"
Bobby: Have you spoken to Dr. Edwards at all about the book? I know it just had its fiftieth anniversary, and I went to his Twitter account, and he seemed very excited about the film.
Tarell: I've only spoken to him peripherally, and I've said things like, "Thank you so much, and, you know, very much to meet you. And, you know, your work is great." Andre and him have a closer working relationship, which, again, you know, feels respectful for—to me, because what you don't want to do is sort of keep dragging a person like this through those works over and over again. His work is paramount enough that you don't really have to go back and—you know, one of the things that drives me nuts as a writer is, like, people will read your script and then ask you 70,000 question about the same script they just read. And you'll be like, "But it's on page three," you know. So, what's great is that he's got all the information you want is right there. And for us, it was—for me—I won't say for us, but for me, it was very validating to hear him—to see him see your thing, see the work, and then respond so positively.
Bobby: That's—correct me if I'm wrong, that's a line in the film. Andre calls it the Bible, I think—
Tarell: Yeah.
Bobby: ...so, it's, like, imagine another piece of writing that is kind of unimpeachable. Like, you don't question it. You just—it's there.
Tarell: Yeah.
Bobby: I mean, this was incredibly helpful, but I have one more question. I don't want to take too much more of your time.
Tarell: It's all good.
Bobby: Just to throw it back to the podcast itself, is there anything you've seen on Netflix lately, it could be an original or whatever, a film, a TV show, that you've just been really surprised by that you recommend, you know, to strangers right now?
Tarell: Huh. Well, Russian Doll. Is that everybody's? Everybody's saying that, so I should find [unintelligible 00:41:13].
Bobby: If it's the truth, then that's great.
Tarell: To be fair, I'm one who likes to go back and watch the same thing over and over again.
Bobby: Oh, yeah. Me too.
Tarell: There's an episode [laughs] of Stranger Things that I'm like, "I love this. I need to watch this again." So, I can't remember the name of it right now, but I'll—I'm sure—because I just scroll and go, "That's the one. I'm going to see that again." [laughter] But I like Stranger Things, and I can't believe we've been so long without it. That's a little annoying, but that's not me complaining. That's just me going, "I just wish it were here." Was there an—oh, I saw Roma, and that was heartbreakingly gorgeous. Me and The Crown spent a little time together, maybe too much time together. [laughs]
Bobby: And they're only, you know, like, five seasons left of that.
Tarell: Yeah, but, like, but Claire isn’t coming back, so that's crazy.
Bobby: Oh, yeah.
Tarell: Which—and that's, I mean, that's great. That's great. It's great. It's great. I'm not—it's not a problem. It's great. But, you know what I'm saying?
Bobby: Yeah.
Tarell: I love Claire.
Bobby: Who is the—who is aging? They're aging her up. I already forgot, who's playing the older queen.
Tarell: I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. I mean, I haven't seen—I've just not looked at it, because I'm like, "It's going to happen, and I'll just look at it when it happens." But, you know, there's this great feature on—What I'm really obsessed with is about this great feature on Netflix. And I think it's called One More Time or, like—
Bobby: Watch it Again?
Tarell: Do it—Watch it Again.
Bobby: Yeah. That's my favorite category on Netflix, just stuff I've already seen.
Tarell: Yeah. Me too. [laughs] It's, like, I should go back and just, like, She's Gotta Have it. You know, if I—yeah, so that's—yeah.
Bobby: Well, I really appreciate you talking to me. And I love the film so. Have a great one. Have a good weekend.
Tarell: Oh, thanks. Thanks so much.
[Music]
Bobby: So, with that, I think we're done for today.
Meghan: Okay.
Bobby: Thank you, Meghan and Charles for coming in.
Charles: Thank you.
Meghan: Thank you for having us.
Bobby: This was really fun.
Meghan: This was great.
Bobby: This was really fun. What are you going to watch when you get home?
Meghan: I'm going to watch Escape from the Continent. I'm going to put it on while I finish working. It's perfect background television.
Bobby: And what about you?
Charles: I think I'm actually going to start watching Norsemen. People keep recommending it to me.
Meghan: Who's that?
Charles: I have no idea.
Meghan: Who is she?
Bobby: Is she Netflix or is she something else?
Charles: In 790 A.D., the Vikings—
Meghan: Oh, boy.
Charles: ...of Norheim have a hectic schedule [laughter] that includes—
Bobby: There's another one of that?
Meghan: I'm sorry. The Vikings?
Charles: …that includes pillaging, plundering, and enslaving others.
Meghan: Wow. They are really busy.
Charles: I thought hectic schedules were a purely contemporary, like, modern thing.
Meghan: It's, like, ruins, like—
Charles: Do you find it difficult to pillage the village next to you? Oh, you're a modern Norseman [laughter].
Meghan: It's, like, ruin day planners. Just booked every day, like, pillage, rape, like, enslaved, like, check. I mean, that sounds fun for you.
Bobby: Opening of 2001, they're like, "We've got a hectic schedule. I found all these bones. I've got to—" This is wild. So, we all have hectic schedules. Thank you so much for being on here talking about Umbrella Academy and Dating Around. We will see you in two weeks. Thank you for listening to I'm Obsessed with This. Goodbye.
[Music]