Wine and TV: THE WHITE LOTUS Season 1 with Beth Lisogorsky

What's that? Y'all are deep into Season 3 already? Yeah, yeah, we slow.

BUT, we are finally on this White Lotus train thanks to our special guest, BETH LISOGORSKY of Beth's Film and TV Recommendations fame!

Beth is a film and TV analyst and pop culture critic. She’s written for PopMatters, Valleywag (part of Gawker media), The Boston Globe, and The Jerusalem Post. And she watches ALL the TV and film (or seemingly, anyway) and let's you know what's worth watching and what's not on her Substack bethlisogorsky.substack.com

Beth selected WHITE LOTUS Season 1 to chat with us about. Yes, yes, y’all are deep into Season 3 already. But trust us: a revisit to Season 1 is something you want to do. We chat about the show’s history, it’s themes, it’s characters, it’s enormous strngths, its occassional weaknesses, and what changed for Beth between her original viewing of Season 1 and this revisit.

And as we learn in the show: you need to drink something special to survive rich peope. Or you could mainline cocaine like Armond. Do you.

Chapters

• 2:37 Special Guest: Beth Lisogorsky!
• 6:43 Beth's Contemporary Romance Novel
• 10:47 Spoilers Ahead / White Lotus Background
• 22:30 What Are We Drinking?
• 31:23 Why White Lotus Season 1?
• 34:39 The Music Interludes
• 40:24 Which Characters Are the Villains of the Piece?
• 57:23 The Female Power CEO vs. the Trophy Wife
• 1:11:50 Tourism in Hawaii and the Lives of (Some) Natives
• 1:17:54 Parts of the Show We Didn't Like
• 1:20:52 Dallas' Wine Pairing - 2016 TeCSZPS from The Blending Lab
• 1:23:51 Dave's Wine Pairing - 2020 Divai Alicante Bouschet, Alentejo, Portugal
• 1:24:58 Beth's Non-Alcoholic Cocktail Pairing - NA Pina Colada!
• 1:34:07 Outtake

Transcript

0:00

We need to talk about who the biggest villains are in this season. I you to think a certain thing. And I'm like, no, no, no. I came out of it. And I was like, I have two new people that have emerged as front runners. Dave and I'm Dallas and this is Ventertainment. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes those opinions are spot on. Sometimes they go down easier with a glass of wine. This is entertainment. The wine and entertainment pairing podcast. Welcome back to another episode of Vintertainment, the show where we pair wine with entertainment, dilute ourselves into thinking you want to hear what we have to say about different pieces of pop culture and art, but know for a fact that you need to hear what we have to say about wine because man, who knows nothing about wine, but listen to this show, you'll know something, a little bit of something each and every episode. And if you already know a lot about wine, well, you're going to have fun with how we pair wines with the works of entertainment that we natter on about here. And if you love what we hear today or have loved what you've heard before, dear sweet Jesus, I'm not even religious, but Jesus, probably why I can take his name in vain. Jesus, three times go leave a rating and or review on Spotify, Apple podcasts, whatever platform you are consuming this on, both a rating and a review. If you can be bothered with it, the more you do, the more the algorithm loves us and shows us to others who listen to wine or entertainment podcasts. And that's how we grow without, you know, begging like we're doing now. And if you'd like to interact with us or have comments, suggestions, or what have you, find us at our home base of operations, our sub stack at entertainmentstudios.com. That's where you'll find a directory of all our episodes, directories of all the wine and entertainment pairings broken down by category, bonus pairings not featured on this podcast, articles on the wine and entertainment industries, guest collabs with other wine and entertainment writers, interactive polls if you enjoy this podcast whatsoever. You simply must. Go follow us on Substack at entertainmentstudios.com. It is the best place to get to know us better. All right, folks, enough preamble today. We have with us a very special guest, fellow Substacker, Beth Lisagorski. We got the pronunciation right, we? Didn't we, everybody? Yes, I did. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We asked her right before we started. I had like five minutes. She just needed to retain it in my head for five minutes. We'll see what I do when we're exiting this episode. I say your name again. And maybe we will see how well it is stuck in there. But Beth, everyone is a film and TV analyst and pop culture critic. She's written for Pop Matters, Valley Wag, part of Gawker Media. the Boston Globe and the Jerusalem Post. And she has her own Substack, BethLisaGorski. still remember it. BethLisaGorski.substack.com. That is Beth L-I-S-O-G-O-R-S-K-Y.substack.com. There is a clickable link down below in the description of this episode. And Substack is where she writes about TV and film. There is so much to come through in the TV film landscape that it can be. daunting. Let me tell you when we asked Beth to come on the show, she was like, Well, what have you seen? I'm like, I'm like, have we featured it on the show? Because if we haven't, we ain't seen nothing. So every day, there are more shows and films, some schlock and some gems. It's a good problem to have and yet something that can cause unnecessary decision fatigue. No more. BethLiseGorski.substack.com is where Beth watches it all for you and will tell you what's good, what's not, and why. Now she gravitates to TV and films to center around relationships, drama, mysteries, and comedy, the stuff of life. Beth likes kids and dogs, movies and shows, music, books, walks and bike rides, and pop culture gossip. Yeah, she truly is that boring. It should also be noticed that Beth has written a manuscript. for an upmarket contemporary romance that she is currently seeking representation for. So hint, hint, literary agents, especially those on the pack. know you are out there. Beth, welcome to V Entertainment. How you doing this fine afternoon and are you ready to talk some white lotus? Yes. And thank you for having me, both of you. I am so excited to be here today and I have my drink ready. more than anything, I'm just really grateful for you both that you were willing to take this excursion to a resort for me for, you know, six episodes, each one of them, like over 50 minutes. So thank you for the sacrifice of watching Mike White. I really appreciate it. Of course, know, honestly, when people, it's a show that we've been meaning to watch for a very long time. And as Dave said, unless it is actually on the list of things we are required to watch, it's likely we'll never get to it. So no, Beth, thank you for forcing us to do something we wanted to do in the first place. I think just as a side note, podcasts are great for that because I would not have gone back on my own to watch the first season. And now that I'm into the third season, I'm like, this was so helpful because there's so many things that come up again in the third season. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to come back and do the second season with you guys. So just put that on the calendar. Absolutely. We will. We will. Absolutely. And we're to talk a little bit about the difference between season one because this show was actually conceived as just a mini series originally. So season one was supposed to be a done in one, which is why it does kind of come to this conclusion where you're like. And for a first season, I think a lot of the times most TV shows are like, we have no idea if we're getting a season two. So let's make sure we are ending it somewhere that like. You can walk away and be pretty happy with, but this one more than most, I was like, wow, that was just done in one. But then it was re-imagined as an anthology series going into season two because it was so popular. We're going to talk a little bit about that in just a moment. I did want to ask you, Beth, though, about that manuscript that you wrote. That is a novel manuscript, correct? It is a novel manuscript and it's currently at about a hundred thousand words. Yes! Now we're talking. Now, as a person who routinely writes 100,000 word nonsense and brilliance, I applaud that. Fantastic. What can you tell us about it? John Morell or anything? What you got? It's contemporary romance and it's really, it's about a 30 something Jewish woman who's working in corporate America. had that experience too, but not the experience of the particular character in her romance. But yeah, so kind of like they always say for your first like fiction novel, you draw a lot of autobiographical stuff, just to kind of write it and seed it. I would say that's fair. And it's really about her journey to self discovery, but also along the way she meet somebody who's it's I don't if you're familiar with romance tropes it's sort of a friends enemies to lovers kind of trope and so That's classic. It's classic and I think it's one of my favorite. I I include other ones in there, like, you know, the whole going to another country, speaking of like, that way another country but season two is. But yeah, like how that sort of affects her growth and development and just sort of being out of environment and coming back. But it was sort of a project that was about six years in the making. And I started it, put it down, didn't think it was going to go anywhere. And then the last two years, I just was like, I got to finish this. So. Awesome. We may have to put that on the list of things we read and pair with one day. Once it reaches market for sure. It's definitely, I've already thought about who's gonna get cast in the adaptations. Of course you have. Naturally. And actually, after it's released, if you want to come on and do a fan casting episode, I mean, you know, yeah. I'd have to think about the drinks too. That's exciting. Okay. Yeah, there you go. There you go. You can even do if you do like if you're into your characters and fan casting, like one of the things that people can do as well with pairing is like, what would each character drink? What would you pair with each person in the novel in the story? And I will say to your point of enemies turned into lovers kind of a thing and how awesome that is. Like one of my favorite manga that I've ever read is this manga called Basara, B-A-S-A-R-A, just like it sounds. And it's one of those where it's a rebel leader, her brother dies and she has to pick up the mantle, but she dresses up like a man because no one would accept a woman to lead the rebel army kind of a thing. So, and then it's the prince who just inherited the kingdom they're warring against. And in their downtime, they both like get away from their responsibilities, don't know who the other is. fall in love with each other, but then are complete bitter enemies on the battlefield, not realizing they're the same people. And I'm just like, this works. I'm like, this is so good and so captivating. And romance is not, mean, you know, being a guy, it's like, I appreciate romance. I watch a lot. I've read certainly some. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite novels of all time. Sense and Sensibility, one of, we just did our favorite romantic movies of all time. But at the same time, like, do I read, read and consume a lot of it, not really. So when it works for me, when it's sort of like this, I think that's why I can fall in love with romance fiction though sometimes is because when it hits me, it's unexpected for me. It's not something I consume that often. So when it hits, it usually hits very hard. And that's one of the best tropes. I agree with you Yeah, I do love like kind of the hidden story of like not knowing who and I have a little bit of that in mind too. It's like thinking that you're this, you romantic interest is somebody that they're not kind of this person and sort of like mistaken identity. that's a great one. Yeah. and you know that the reveal has to come Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. All right. So let's let's jump in to White Lotus season one. Now, everyone, folks, we are only talking about season one today. There will be spoilers for season one if you have not watched it yet, because it's impossible to talk about these themes without talking about where it ultimately goes and how it ends. no guarantees on like expect spoilers. We were we just started the conversation. I don't actually know that we're about to say spoilers, but I'm assuming we are. So expect spoilers. Do not listen to this if you have not watched season one yet. Get your ass out to your TV and turn it on. Watch season one, then come back and listen to this. Season two and three, no spoilers for those. We haven't watched them. Beth has, but we, me and Dallas have not yet. So we will try our best. I'm gonna say no spoilers for that. We will be cryptic if we say anything about them. But let's talk a little bit about... this show and where it came from because there isn't too much to talk about. I don't want to go too deep, but a couple of cool things. One, the reason this show exists and the reason it is such an interesting, unique show. And it really is unique because it's one of those that you watch and you're like, how did this get greenlit? Like it's not, it doesn't fit a bucket, right? It does not fit an easy categorization. It does not fit an easy. tagline logline selling point like you're watching the show and you're like What is this about and you find out along the way while watching the show? It is wonderfully written. The characters are incredible. It does suck you in but when I looked up how this was made this made a lot of sense. According to exec producer David Bernard during the lockdowns HBO called Mike White asked him if he had any ideas that could be made in a bubble right because we were in the lockdown. So they're like what can what? can we make right now in 2020 when we can't be out and about, know, we can't be in public, we can't have multiple, multiple, multiple locations. We need a bubble location. And do you have any ideas for that? And Mike said, yes, I do. But no, he didn't. But he had one month to come up with an idea. That's right. And he came up with the White Lotus, which all is filmed in Hawaii at this resort location. It did not have to be pitched or accepted or anything like that really according to the exact producer It was like HBO just greenlit it because it was something they could make during a time when precious little could be made Now it was meant to just be a miniseries as we mentioned before so six episodes in and out But when those six episodes dropped the audience response was like people were so intrigued by this show it gained in popularity as it went And the word of mouth was so good that they were like, okay, we're going with it. This is now a series. And it became a quote unquote anthology series like American Horror Story or things like that where it's a different cast though some recurring characters from what I understand in season two and three, they pop in and out, make cameos or possibly are more important to the story that I don't know because I haven't seen season two or three. And thematically. It continues. Basically, it's a different White Lotus Resort in a different place in the world each season. In this one, we're in Hawaii. I know season two takes place in Italy somewhere. And I forget where season three is, but that's okay. We don't need to like, again, it's go ahead, Beth. No, one thing I was going to say a few things. One is like the theme for season one was really was money, according to Mike White. Season two is sex, even though I'd argue season one is also sex. yes, one too. And then three is death and spirituality. So he chose locations, I think that were meant to. mean, I know to your point, Dave, too, is like, obviously, this was a one and done self-contained series. But like once it sort of got traction and a lot of, you know, bigger fandom. which he sort of thought of it in terms of those types of motifs. And I think it works really well. I also just want to paint the picture of July, 2021, when this came out. I've always had prestige TV buff. Like, I love anything that's HBO, Sopranos. mean, this type of thing excited me when I saw it come out. You also have to realize it was like the rest of the fair on TV was about like there show, people. dogs, big mother season, gazillion, love island, same thing. This was like an oasis, right? And sort of a drought, a cultural drought was happening in our world. And so I think it sort of, it was a slower, slower build to kind of gravitate to it. But once people found it, it was like, my God, you know, kind of like, so yeah. And I can see that this was like this was unexpected. When I watched the first episode, you know, you have that reaction of like, OK, I don't I don't know what this is, but let's keep going. But this is intriguing AF. I mean, it has that I imagine I don't want to oversell it or hyperbolize it too much. But one of those things of comparing it to like what an OG audience must have thought of something like Twin Peaks back in the day where you're like, what is this show? Like what exactly are we watching? There's ostensibly a point. Like yes, all these people gather at a resort. There's the tensions between the different characters, especially in the different walks of life, a little bit of a mystery, especially with how it opens. kind of opens in a, it opens at the end and spices you up with like your experience. Like, okay, there's something you need to figure out a little bit of a mystery. And then we jumped to the past to see how it all happened. And that, course, keeps you so kind of like the death, you know, like someone was murdered in Twin Peaks, right? And so you're like, you know, it's a murder mystery. But then the way in which the story unfolds, you're like, I don't know what this show is, but I'm on board because I don't know what this show is. And I want to find out. Go Dallas. I'm curious what you have to say about that. I just remember when I first started attempting. So I attempted to start this series probably a year ago and only made it through the first two or three episodes. Because I'm not a huge fan of vibey. And Mike White is on record saying in some interview I'm watching saying the first episode is essentially about dropping an anchor and then vibing you into this world. And because it essentially is about the vibes, you know, you're you're you're getting this sort of puzzle, you know, dropping these sort of puzzle pieces. We understand that from that first scene where we had it, we get the destination. Somebody's somebody's dying. Now, the trip and how to get how we get there is very circuitous and interesting. But I just thought it was kind of interesting that he even in his description of the first season said it was about the vibes. And as a person who vehemently dislikes entire series predicated upon vibes as a writer as a narrative as a world builder it just offends my every sensibility and since I To be fair, he was talking about one episode, not the whole series. Well, again, but, you know, generally your series is kind of anchored by the pilot episode, you know, I mean, is only six episodes. I agree with that, but I also disagree with Mike and you that it's all about the vibes, because I don't think that's true. I don't think he meant the entire thing was about the vibes. think in his description to a reviewer, he was saying it's sort of about the vibes. And essentially, the first episode is very vibey. You don't know, as you've seen to your point, Dave, you don't know the relationships necessarily that are going to play out. get these sort of seeds that don't necessarily coalesce. But upon second viewing, I will say because of the character work and the performances, I was like, okay, this this is gonna pull me in the writing wasn't it didn't slap me around and, you know, invigorate me in any way but but I definitely disagree. I with Dallas on that. I thought the writing was the best part of this show. I think the script is really, I think the script's amazing. I mean, I actually copied and like some of the, had to stop some of the quotes, especially from Armand's character. think he's incredible. Shane, for all of his vowel doucheyness, he has so many good zingers. I just was like, I gotta copy some of these. I like he's... some of that conversational, like how do people talk like, you know, and some of those were just poetic, I have to say, like he calls me in that dinnertime conversations, like at the different tables every season. That's the thing that I'm like, I want to watch that scene because I know. Yeah, and was gonna say Dallas, you have plainly not done enough customer service jobs. You have not, like, trust me, this is very appreciable by anyone who has lived that life and had that dynamic. I'm not doubting that it's valid in its sort of presentation of that world. Let me finish, let me finish, let me finish. But also living in LA and dealing with rich people. And I've had a lot of, like I am not one of the rich people in LA. And you have hopes and dreams and you have plans and you have ambitions and you're trying to break into the industry in one way or another. You succeed up to a point, but you're still very much at the mercy of the paycheck and the day job. And of course the paycheck and the day job is for the cost of living. And we're going to talk a little bit about that because I did some back of napkin math based on tourism in Hawaii and what it costs to live comfortably in Hawaii when the show was being shot and based on how much money the tourism industry is taking in. And it is kind of grim. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But when you deal with rich people, especially the because there are like eight different plots. in right between characters between the character dynamics and none of them are the the uber plot is really just when rich people meet. Both the staff the work staff the people who are there to be paid not enough to make their lives to make the rich people's lives better as though the rich people are the one that need their lives to be made better and. all the tension and dynamism that comes from that and the push pull and how everyone makes worse and worse decisions as the show continues to go on. And yet, and we'll talk a little bit about this in the themes, like when the way the show ends, all the rich people are in a better place than where they started. And none, none of the work or the people who aren't rich are, they're all in worse places than when it started. That's Mike White's constant running commentary. That's what he's People come here, they use people, right? And they get their mistakes covered up by them. Because everyone's making terrible mistakes, but everyone is making terrible mistakes, but only one subset of people suffer from making those mistakes. We need to talk about who the biggest villains are in this season. I want you to think a certain thing and I'm like, no, no. And I was like, I have two new people that have emerged as front runners for. Before we get started on that, let's do what we like to do near the beginning of the show before we get into the deep conversation of White Lotus Season 1. What are we drinking? What are we pairing with the show? We're going to get some hints to see so people can get an idea of what we might have chosen and then we'll have the deeper conversation then we'll reveal at the end and put that context into full play. But Dallas, kick us off. What are you sipping? What are you drinking? What are you pairing with White Lotus Season 1? Right, as I said, when I first started to wait through this series, I don't know, months ago or last year, it was just sort of a melange of storylines, which is great. That's what you want from a good series, a good ensemble. But it didn't really come together for me. But I remember, Dave, you and I had a wine at the blending lab, which is where Dave is affiliated. And they do curious little blends. That's kind of their cornerstone. And I ended up tasting this 2016 blend of four different grapes. The dominant grape in this bottle has really gritty tannin, but is complemented by the sort of silkiness of one of the other grapes. And the dominant grape is the temp at 48%. You know where we are, Dave? I'm getting the nod and recognition. I know it's my favorite one from the thing that they've ever made to date. It's a great one. I still have two bottles and I've had like four. I know I still have two bottles. I think I have like six or eight or something like that. I'm just sitting on them. You it's kind of great. All right, so I picked something for me. You know, I really wanted to go with the colonialization aspect of this show because, know, Hawaii, this is the point, right? America just like took over Hawaii at one point and we have not been great to the natives there. We never have been. We may never be really. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we. dig into the show. And as I said, I did some back of the napkin math for how shitty we've been to them in many ways. But and wine is all about colonization as well. Right. There's Europe is where it all started. And they took their when they were expansionist and imperialist. They just took their vines with them everywhere. It's why wine is in America. Why wine is in South America. Why wine is in Australia and New Zealand and South Africa. It's why wine is anywhere is because they kept colonizing places, refusing to live there without their wine. So they would bring their vines with them and plant them there. And it's not indigenous to any of these places. It's all colonization. But what I wanted to do, so at first I was thinking, okay, that doesn't really limit my options. That doesn't help. But what are like the better stories? So what I went with actually, is I went with a rare country where the people are still the natives there. The ruling people are still, since prehistoric times, the indigenous people. 90 % of this country are still the indigenous people and less than 10 % are foreigners to this day. And there is a grape that is a French grape. kind of counter the cultural appropriation in reverse. They took a French grape. and made it their own and it's the place that now grows this grape. And France is basically abandoned at this point. So they took what wasn't, you know, something that was kind of probably made it up there. I think it made it up there only by trade, like trading with other countries. So it wasn't about that. They've never been colonized by another group. So they have this grape and it's also a special grape because it is what's called a tin turier. which is a red grape with red insides as well as a red skin. So it's all bloody red through and through, even the pulp, even the juice. I felt it makes much like Dallas's wine, it makes something that's, it's decent bodied, it's robust, it's fleshy. This grape is known during prohibition. It was actually huge in the United States because it's such a fleshy, thick skinned grape that you could press it three times, keep getting juice out of it. Even the third pressing, that was fermentable juice, there was still more fucking sugar in there that you could turn into wine. So could just like keep making wine out of this motherfucker. When it was all illegal, like that's what you wanted. You wanted to buy one batch of grapes and just make three batches of fucking, probably terrible wine. But it was like you were making it and you were drinking it you were happy because it was all you could get. But now it's known as a fine wine in this one place. I went with that because I wanted to celebrate something where it was still the natives, a little bit of anti-colonialism to sort of counteract all the themes of this show. And then the style of the wine fits the feel and tone of this show, which is like, it's intense, but also smooth. Like you can watch this show. It is not, there are no, know, from, I am not a binge watcher. I refuse to do it. At the end of one episode, I cut myself off and the next episode will be the next day at least. I want to digest it. I won't jump right into the next episode right away. I only did it on HBO Max because HBO Max sucks at keeping your place of where you are. So I would let the first two to three minutes start. So then when I would click on it the next day, it would go to the right episode rather than sending me back to the previous episode. And so I was like, OK, I'll do that. I didn't watch the next episode, not watch watch it until the next day. But at the same time, I could have. Like this was so effortless to watch. And so I wanted a wine that was just like smooth, smooth tannins, great juicy body, fruity, like, and yet bold and punchy in its way. Like it had some grit, it had some tension, it had some heft, but just so fricking drinkable. So that's gonna be my wine when we get there. Beth, what did you pick for this? I'm going to be a little bit more explicit, I think, but that's OK. I don't know how to describe. I don't have all these like really good descriptions of what goes into this drink. However, what I will say is I chose a different tact of going with a blended drink. And so I chose something non-alcoholic. I'm not a huge fan of wine. Sorry, guys. I know that's. well we're doing a non-alcoholic wine series coming up, so it's a real thing. Yeah, absolutely. It's my stomach and you may enjoy that episode coming up. We'll send you some info. Yeah, let me know about it because I feel like that could be good for people like me. They're like, okay, this is making us tired. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I went with the theme of pineapples. Not gonna say the tree, pineapple, but pineapple room, right? And also my favorite character, Murray Bartlett's Armand, who I think is like just the breakout character in every season. He's not in every season, but he could be. He makes a comment. When the people are coming in the guests he says, you know, they are the special chosen babies and we are the mean mummies denying them their pineapple room. And I just loved that because the pineapple room essentially becomes like the symbol, especially for this one guest Shane of like what he was denied that he was somehow. should have gotten this, it was the biggest room and really the only difference is right is like there's some sort of fun tool that they probably, even his new wife wouldn't even use, but it's just the idea that they would not be. See, that's the best written character in the entire thing for me. That character is so real. I know that guy and I want to show life out of him. It's interesting you mentioned that about your drink choice there. A little sidebar here. Generally in the pairings in the past, I would have one of two methods of pairing and it would be the drink I would drink as a character within the world or the drink I have passively while on the couch. And yeah, I If I'd gone with the former, then I probably would have chosen to drink along your lines as well because of Murray's character. So yeah. of pineapples, right? And then the other thing is when you see one pineapple, you see it everywhere because the upholstery of the He's with pineapples. Everything's pineapples. It's a cliche icon of Hawaii, right? Something like that. Pineapples and coconuts, like those are. And like hula skirts and things like that. That's what you get. That was Nordic inography. Yeah. All right. So Beth, why White Lotus season one? Like, what made you choose this to talk about on the show? What is your how did the show hit you originally? Like, yeah, give us give us your background with this. So if you guys follow me on Substack, I write about season three all the time. I wrote about season one. I'm sure I definitely wrote about season two. And I think it's just one of those shows that I'm like, it does, you know, back to what the things I gravitate to, relationships, drama, comedy, like all of those things really well. And I think Mike White is just brilliant at getting at sort of... the cutting satire that is life and how people treat each other. And even when they can have good intentions, where it sort of nets out and what that intention really is about. So I think he's just really clever at making us look at our own behavior. Not that I'm also the 1 % staying at the White Lotus, but like that idea of like what that sort of, know, how ugly people are to each other in real life. grittiness of that, sort of sugarcoated with all this prettiness of the, you know, the resorts. I think just that polar polarizing difference really appealed to me again, like when I first started watching this, wasn't something I had like researched or anything. It's just was like, back to that kind of oasis of like good content as like, yeah, there's something on TV that I want to watch. And so that's what really drew me in. I'm always a Steve Zahn fan. will show up. I saw him at the farmers market two days ago actually and yeah, yeah, he's so funny. He's so funny I just saw him in Silo too. don't know if you guys watch it. Yeah. So anyways, I will pretty much show up for anything he is in. And Mike White, he's done stuff with Laura Dern and they were in Enlightened and I loved that show. And so I think the other thing is in this interesting world of like reality TV, which I think if you watch the dialogue enough, you're like, this feels like... even the premise of like what real world used to be when we watched in the early days, like people getting real with each other. This kind of takes that and kind of is a little bit like blows that idea and concept up in a very fun way. so, but he was on Survivor and a friend of mine keeps reminding me, she's like, I love the season that he was on. You guys have to watch the clips. was on Survivor, Yeah. He was character on that show. He's a good time to watch. So anyway. So yeah, so all that said, this kind of fell into my wheelhouse very naturally of things that I gravitate to. And then I managed to pull my husband in, which is always good because I find lately there's fewer, I'm like, I'm off watching this and he's watching. Boat Thief or whatever, which I haven't started, it really into it. stuff like that where there's fewer shows that, so when we do find a show, we're like, let's watch this. So this one was, we didn't binge it, cause they dropped it like, you know, whatever that was, like first two episodes might've been the first week and then like an episode every week after. I also found a few things I noted and probably cause I've watched a few seasons of this, that one of the things that drove me nuts about this, we can go into the details of this season. Some of the music interludes were like driving me up the wall. found myself like fast forwarding them and I felt so guilty. I'm like, what's wrong with me? Like, do I need constant action? You are the third person in as many days who has mentioned that an annoyance with the music of that particular opening credits, I don't need the interlude. It's just it was felt really slow I haven't noticed it so much in this season what everybody's griping about this season is They changed the intro music this season and nobody is loving it I'm like who listens to the intro music Anyways, we all fast forward it like it's like skip intro I don't I mean apparently there was a lot of love for that and they changed it up and people I never skipped the intro. I don't. But I don't binge. So it's like it's one of those things I'm telling you, when you take your time, like you want the opening every time because that you into it. is that true Dallas? Do you want the opening every time? Here's the thing. I'll give you a good guy. I. I do. I won't know. Not really, but I do think if the opening credits are. Well done and they sort of light the fire of the series, because that's not. Is is just pure art, but generally sometimes those opening credit sequences are for lack of a better term, a throw away. They. seem a little disjointed from the world, from the world of the series sometimes. And with this intro, The music is a little atonal at times, it's a little unresolved and- It's very basic. There's nothing there. mean, there's nothing there. It's the of thing that's sort of, it's an annoyance that simmers underneath. So I do think it's effective. I just don't enjoy listening to it for this show. Yeah. I mean, so for me, the only thing I'll say as a sort of I enjoyed it, but I will admit that like it reminded me a lot of video game music, the musical interludes and the opening credits. It reminded me there was this old RPG video game Final Fantasy and there was a tropical like place, an island you would sometimes travel to where these little creatures, the begins with a Y. I'm going to totally forget not Yoshi. Something like that. where there It's like that. Well, I find it interesting too, because what I read about, people were so up in arms and it was coming up in the chat about like, can you just let me know what's happening with the music? And I was like, God, I didn't even think about this. So then I thought they were talking about like, there scenes that they're showing in the intro that are kind of dropping some type of like hint about what the season's about. But no, was just purely the music. And I read that like for this third season, the guy that composed it, same guy that did the first two seasons, but he was given like 10 months to put this together. That's too much stuff. I don't know how much time for each of those months, I was like, this is insane. Right, right, He one day a month. It's a totally great call out that it is like the tropical island theme of a video game. Yeah, thing I did appreciate in this season one is that it was less effective in that first episode or two, but by the time we were about episode three and things were ratcheting up and like the animosities were getting worse. And a lot of the times when the transition music would hit would be right after something like Armand had to snort some more coke or something where it was like things were getting worse and worse and worse. And then that music started to be take on this eerie. Like almost like because it is so kind of screechy kind of like nails on chalkboard in that way that can annoy people. But then things are getting bad. So then you get this do do do do do do do do do. And I'm like, yeah. And it started to really I thought how it was ramping up to where it's like, like, no one's liking this. Everyone's getting worse and worse. compliments and elevates the mood and the arcs of the emotion like it's very effective it is very is it enjoyable no but it is very effective is effective, especially, you're right, the ones before the 10 scenes. Something bad is going to happen, whether it's another bender or he's in the, Armand's in the room at the end and you're like, oh, this is not going to end well or something. So yes, I fully concede that it serves a purpose. I just found the intro is going to me nuts. And just those interludes along, it kind of felt very like... cultural tourist of like showing, you know, the beach in Hawaii and then playing sort of these the native music and stuff. And I was like, I'm just like not the audience for this. Like I'm checked out here. Fast forward. want to get to live lot. I don't know. But I find I do watch a lot of content. that was I was going to say, I don't watch a lot of content. So I have that sort of like natural patience where I'm like, because even when we see the tourists, I'm like, yeah, that's thematically on point. That is what you're showing me. Is it necessary? Is it giving me more? No, no, it's not. But I didn't mind at the time. let's actually talk about going from that, Let's go into the, so we've already talked. We know this is about sort of rich people coming to this resort. and the hired help having to deal with them, and then the tensions that arise, and then everyone making really poor decisions in dealing with this and everything going wrong as it goes. So let's talk about, you said you had switched who the main villains of this piece are, and it's gonna all have to do with that one way or the other. let's start with you, and then me and Dallas can pick up from there. But Beth, who were your main villains and what changed and why? Yeah, so I think like clearly Shane and I know we've talked a little bit about him played well by Jake Lacey. Like he clearly is a villain in this, right? He is like that annoying privilege entitled guy that thinks he's owed everything and treats people like shit, right? Like you hate this guy from the get-go and he is a villain. I think that is fair to say. I think the people that always make me think, wow, these are bigger villains are the people that seem unassuming. and maybe you don't see their true colors because they haven't spoken out. And when they actually say something or do something of, you know, mention, you're like, these people are not so great. And so that happened to me with two particular characters in the rewatch. And one is unfortunately the Steve Zahn character. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. broke my heart, but yeah, and he goes through a lot in this season. does the air It's all completely self-centered, right? It's like beyond navel gazing. And anything about anyone else, like can't really, like he'll say he's sorry, but you can, but then he goes right back to himself. And you're like, my God. Yeah, he's not sorry. So like, that's right. And there's people like that, right? Where they're just like, they'll say sorry, but not sorry. And you're like, just don't say what you're for me, Jennifer Coolidge Jennifer Cooley was Gus. She was the one I had the biggest problem. A of trivia about her and she is a funny sh- But apparently she was only supposed to be around for one or two episodes, but her performance was so insane they just sort of halted everything. I was like, no, she's here to die. You know? First of all, she is such a great comedic actor that it's difficult to discern until episode two, whether or not this is going to be like a flippant sort of comedic performance, because that's just, that's the architecture of who she is. You know, if you're familiar with her, you know, with her work, but you start to see that because she's so effective at both, there are moments when she's giving you stuff to just cackle at, but also the very next moment is just something heart wrenching and deep or, you know, inappropriate and It's performance is just so dynamic. It's insane. She's great. But I do agree with you, Dave. She's probably she's probably biggest villain for me outside of Steve's on. I have another one though. I have another one. I think she's going to be more controversial. So just stick with me a little bit because I know you're going to be like, oh, you're thinking of this one and I'm not. So there are two college age girls in the super, you know, college age. All right. And One is the daughter of Steve's on, right? She's part of the wealthy family and she brings her friend, Paula along. And we find, you know, the first couple of episodes, you feel bad for Paula. You're just like, ugh, like to be friends with this person and also know she's like out to covet and take whatever you have and that you can never have anything of your own. That's pretty awful. But then she convinces, and again, this was sort of misguided, but like she convinces one of the hotel workers to steal. from the Steve Zahn family, the Mossbuckers. And he doesn't, she gets off Scott free essentially, except for her guilt. And he's like, you know, essentially messed up for life. And so I think for me, was Pollock. I don't know. I guess I more from her. Yes. even at the end, her and Sydney Sweeney, her other friend, the other girl, like they bond and come together over there. Again, all the well to do or well enough to do like she's not Paula is not as rich as the family she's with. But she's still like, I'm going back to college. I have my whole other life elsewhere. She's going to go back to this with a stronger bond with a friend that was falling apart before this whole thing happened. Like everyone. Well to do is better off by the end. And they're making in many cases worse decisions than or instigating the whole fucking thing, right? It's like, I can help you by doing this. And can I just say too, from a story perspective, this sort of drove me nuts, but like she's texting the guy later after it's all said and done, right? And I'm like, you didn't come up with like an innocuous text as like a warning to get out. when you know the parents are going back to the room. I'm like, why wouldn't you have with him be like, if anything, if anything, if you need to abort, like I will send you a text that is not incriminating right in any way. But you will know what it means and you can get the fuck out. And instead she just sits on the boat doing nothing the whole time. And I'm like, and you had his number. That's I think the worst that she doesn't give me. I mean, he's kind of stupid. won't lie. Like I feel bad, but I was like, my God, like he's so not stupid. Maybe just gullible is the right way to put it. But I was like, you should not do this. And you were not prepared for what it took like because of all his his handling of it was terrible like when things go bad you're like these are all the worst decisions you could do this is all the worst possible thing you could do dude don't do that any of this you know The villain arcs, right? Initially, I thought Shane was going to be the biggest villain for me. And there's a case to be made. Sure. OK. But the character says something in the bed with Rachel. He says, everyone hates me. Everyone's hated me my entire life. I can't help. I was born into this world. And I was like, all right. In terms of the writing, I'm not sure how effective that was. based on what happens later. think they were just sort of, it's a great sort of character stripe, right? To paint the question as to whether or not this character is as big a villain as we have experienced him to be up until this point. So, you know, on one hand, as a fan, I'm like, all right, throw this guy away, throw him off the fucking boat, he's horrible. As a writer, I'm like, okay, I get that, I get it. That's a good point. as a character, even though he's responsible, not entirely, because Armand makes a lot of bad decisions all on his own steam. he has this addictive personality. Like he said, when I fall off the wagon, I fall hard. Whoa, boy. Like I was like, holy shit. And what I like about that is they didn't even make a big sort of case of the moment when he fell off the wagon. was like, we're here. This is we're right. The moment he starts, because the moment he starts to fall off, I mean, it's kind of zero to 60 at which he's aware of. And he says, which is kind of similar to Shane being like, I'm like this, I suffer this, but I'm not going to change. Although I think the redeeming thing with Shane is he he's the only rich person character that has a sort of arc and a sort of change at the end when he says, thank God. You know, when when Alexandria Daddario comes back to him. I mean, has he like changed? Changed? No, probably like that's too soon. But he has actually been somewhat introspective in a way that no, maybe Sidney Sweeney also and maybe Paula because of what happened. Like they're also being introspective. But, know, Shane's biggest issue was that he just couldn't, he lived this life for so long. He could not understand. He could not get it. He couldn't get his wife's POV on anything. Like he has that thing where he's like, I'll be there for you, but when you're done spiraling. I'm like, no, When they're spiraling is when they need you, not after. His defense with that because in the rewatch I had a different at first. God, when I watched it the first time I was like, I was just dump him, dump him, dump him. And I still felt like it coming out of this watch. But I was like, God, Rachel, like that's the Shane's wife. I was like, just speak up. Like, just tell him what a shit he is. Like, why is this so hard? Like, and I know she has a billion reasons, power dynamics, money. She's just gotten married and all of that stuff. But I was like. just talk. And of course, when she talks, he gaslights her and does everything else. So you might ask why. my favorite scene, the speaking of the wife's arc at the end, is when Belinda, after she's been wronged by Tanya, who basically abuses her, she gives her card before then because she sees, here's this other white woman, Rachel, and she's like, my life is terrible. And she's again, Belinda's kind of falling into this trap of trying to be nice and empathetic, but then realizing that the last time she did that, came at a big cost to her life. But in the midst of that, she gave a card to Rachel and was like, if you need anything, I think at that point she's thinking, she sees Rachel crying, maybe Rachel's being abused. It's hard to know what the situation is, but she offers a card, the olive tree, the tree branch and all that. And so what happens? But Rachel takes her up on it, gets her own room that last night when everything spins out of control. She's, know, Rachel's going into her venting about things and what, you know, needing advice. And Belinda's just like, I'm all out. And I was like, that was probably the- That's me reached. Yeah. Yeah. So I was happy her arc, it made me sad. But I think it also came with like a realization and lesson learned of like how I'm willing to get to these guests and putting boundaries in place so that, you know, what's empathy and kindness and generosity doesn't get sort of abused. Well, and also she was she had just been turned down by Jennifer Coolidge's character, right, to do the business. And so here's this now taken care of for the rest of her life, married woman who got the deal that she didn't essentially. Right. And then and she's like, I think I want to reject it and walk away. And she's like, I'm out. It's like, I would I would take that. Turkey. wouldn't take, I don't think she would choose that husband, but I do think like she is set up financially and I get that. I just think in that emotional moment, her POV was like, I wanted this so bad and was just turned down and you're actively rejecting it when it's being offered to you. Like, fuck you. You know, it's like, I can't do this right now and walked out. Like that's how I read a big piece of that scene as well. on that note, Jennifer Coolidge, like she... I loved her performance. I loved every time she was on screen. But she was the one that gave me my PTSD with rich people in LA so much in that way, even the way she dealt with Belinda in terms of, you know, the money. well, and just like, I could fund that. And I've been in that situation where they're like, yeah, we can do this. Maybe something together that like I could never do on my own because I don't have those means. And you're like, you don't want to take them that seriously right away, you know, but then they just keep talking. They're like, yeah, let's, let's dot to dot. And then one day, so the moment you start taking it seriously, suddenly they come up with a reason to just like, and I'm distracted and I'm going over here now. like they, yeah. And they like never call you again. And you're just like, do you know what you just did? Like pushing, pushing, And, and again, from Jennifer Coolidge's characters POV. It's because at the moment that was what she cared about, the moment something else entered her orbit that she cared more about, she just could not bring herself to care anymore. think you're giving a little too much credit to it because they do know what they're doing many times when it becomes when it's habitual. They get a certain satisfaction from being the carrot dangler, from being the dasher of dreams, from building that of, you know, that intensity up in a person, that expectation, and then being able to say, not. I'm not saying all. I didn't quite see that in this character particularly, like that she wanted to be a dasher of dreams, but they're also cavalier with it. Like they don't see the harm in offering something that there may or may not be completely serious about yet. Though I do think Jennifer Coolidge, like the thing is, is she's just, she's in the moment all the time. There's no real, and that moment is exactly how she feels. So like her bad habits are like, but I feel this right now. And so I must pursue it. But if five minutes later, I feel something else, I must pursue that and drop the thing I was just so into and so intensely talking up and caring about. few things on that note. So first off, I think it's showing stunted development, right? Because she talks a little bit about the sort of she got from her parents growing up. So I think she sort of stuck developmentally in the age that she was maybe when her father died or something. Because we know she's there trying to spread her mother's ashes. it's as Shane says, whatever happened to baby Jane or something kind of character. But the other thing, and I wrote this down, I thought it was of it note. Both Belinda and Tanya bond, right? They're both these motherless daughters, right? They both lost their mothers. They talk about that a little bit. And at one point, this is kind of going back to the point of like, you know, what is at the heart driving Tanya to behave the way she does, right? She says, I can't get rid of this empty feeling and I want someone to clear it out for me. And I think for her, filling it with these sort of like helping people, know, hopes and dreams type stuff. And getting part, you know, that sort of excitement that comes around that is very much trying to like nourish that empty feeling. And similarly when she meets Greg, right? He's sort of that, you know, and somebody wanting her, even though that's not really what it seems like. But, you know, regardless, like this is her idea of she's just sort of chasing that nourishment or that, you know, calories for her empty feeling and trying find it wherever she can because she has. Though if someone had like for because for me even if you're like, okay, I shouldn't do it for that reason. You can still be like, well, why don't I do it because I like this person and this is a good cause or this and it will be meaningful to them and they did do me a solid and like it that's a different reason to do it and pulling out now after making this person draft a business plan. I mean, come on. You know, it's like, and again, not really comprehending who you're talking to in terms of what this means to them and what this, what this carrot is that you're dangling in front of them. And I do think that this character, like, just because this is her life, this is how she's always lived, she does not, she cannot see from that POV of like what this carrot does to someone in Belinda's position. Yeah, no, I disagree with that. She's been doing this her entire life. She knows what she's doing. is her mode of operating, right? mean, she is... I think there's lot of ways where I'm just like, and I think this is what makes Tanya so tragic. It's like, you could help yourself. You have the means. You have self-awareness to know. She even said, I'm deeply, deeply insecure. And I'm aware that I'm deeply insecure. I'm empty. I'm all these things. And yet you don't do anything with that. And you don't change your behavior. And so I think for that reason, I'm out. No, it's not Shark Tank. But you get what I'm saying. You You know, another thing she says is, and I think this is a stroke of genius in the writing. You mentioned it. She says, I just want someone to fill it about the void talking about the void. What was the line? I just want someone to be and I want someone to fill it And it's sort of a testament to being a number one to have the means to find a specialist to always do a thing. And she's saying, you know, I wish I had someone who was sort of specialist to come in and just do this thing, fill this void. And yeah, I do like the character. I think it's very dynamic. I think she does an amazing performance and she should have won all the awards and I think she has at this point. So yeah. Stiffly small. God bless her. So on that note, the other themes that we should probably tackle, one of the things that I also liked about this show is that there were between Rachel's character, and I forget the name of the mother of the family, the CEO. Real quick. So she's the CEO of Uber or some Uber parallel or YouTube search engine, right? She's CEO of I thought yeah, like Google or something. Can we get a second room for five people? They want the family together. I don't know buddy, I don't know I agree. It made no sense. I've actually thought about it because I was like, we're traveling with my family. But I get it. They're trying to paint her as that sort of mom who's on top of every moment. I get it. get it. get it. Well, and mom who like she wanted the son to just like be in the living room with the other two girls, like as the bedroom. Like she really didn't. She was also had a hard time comprehending like what works in social situations like that. Like because again, from her POV, she's like, this is fine. And all the kids are like, no, like the the the son would rather sleep on the fucking beach than, you know, be in the room with the other two kind of a thing. like she was plainly checked out. the one thing that I did appreciate that this show kind of did is you had Rachel. And then when the mother-in-law came in that relationship, and she was talking about like, trophy, what like, you don't work, I don't work, we don't work. You just you spend you throw parties. That's a lot of work. Don't worry about it. You know, and then you just this is what we do. Please don't get a job. Don't even think about getting a job. And then you have the high performing CEO that never stops working. And that's the theme on the Nicole's end of the thing. you have this like the two extreme ends of the rich lady spectrum. Yeah. The trophy wife versus the high functioning must prove it to everyone that she deserves to be their CEO, that she's better than any any man they might have hired in that role, right? Especially because this is 2020, right? 2021 when it came out and that was post Me Too. It's all pretty raw and all the DPI law, right? When you think about like lawsuits coming out against men and things like that, this was sort of that time, right? And so, and as we learned through Nicole's character, she's not the kind of person, I was like, really, this woman is a woman leader, like heading up the company, like with all these like ethos of moving women forward, because it feels like, everything she's saying between the dynamic of her daughter and her son is about how her son is, you know, and yet for other reasons, yeah, he does sort of get neglected, but not for the reasons she's thinking, which are, he's living life as this, you know, privileged guy, like, you know, and what that means. And so, and that's, he's having a difficult time. I mean, he's having a difficult time because I think, you know, there could be interpersonal things and family dynamic stuff and his dad divulging things. mean, clearly it's his parents. They are just in different places, Clearly it's just bad parenting. Yes. But like instead, what I find interesting about Nicole is she sort of broadens it and generalizes it as a movement. here's why it's a hard time as opposed to like, we'll look inside and see what's going on. Which actually, that's an interesting point because in terms of the parenting style, it does seem like she handles her family the way you would handle, would manage your team at a company. It is so clear. So yeah, I'd like to dig deeper into that at some point, but not now. Sorry. That's interesting. I think that's the thing when you become a CEO like that and like they do they make you work for the company like it's 24 seven it's your life it's what you live and eat and so you view the world through this lens and through this ethos and probably her even getting this job like getting the position. know Rachel she gets mad at Rachel because she Rachel reveals that she wrote this piece that said she wrote the wave of me too into this position and she's like I didn't. I didn't need me to, I got it for my own merits, you kind of a thing. And of course, two things can be true at the same time, right? It's like, you could have been eminently qualified for this position, but the whole point of me too was that women who were eminently qualified never got these positions. And we needed me to, to like push the culture to change and to let it happen. It's not that you weren't qualified, you could have been more qualified than all the men they wanted to hire in your place. But then also being in that role, and I don't know, we never really get to see if it's like, is it because she got this role? But you're in this corporate culture where you are a bit of a unicorn. And so you wind up parroting the male POV, the high functioning male CEO POV of like, but men now have it so hard because look at me, I'm in this position and now they won't hire men, which probably all the men around her are saying. And she's adopting and she's taking, she's, she's what's the word term for how it settles into you. anyway, she's consuming it. She's deciding to believe in it. And so she has this very, even though she is a high functioning female CEO, she's has a worldview that is your typical classic male CEO. Yeah. And for better for worse, I think she's living with, and this happens to lot of women, the insecurity that she only got this job and people, or at least people are thinking that, that she only got this job because she's a woman and she benefited from that action. So it doesn't matter how capable she is, right? So I think that's the underlying tension all the time. I think that the scene that really opened my eyes was the scene between Rachel, of course, is like, deciding what kind of life she wants and nice that she has that decision of like, do I wanna pursue my journalism career that doesn't seem to be going very far according to her and getting, she's not getting paid a lot or looking at a woman like Nicole, she's a go getter and it's done all these great things and the supporting and providing for her family. And so she goes and introduces herself and it turns out that actually these two sort of know each other because Rachel's written this. what she calls, Nicole calls a hatchet job on her. And where she questioned and she's like, and Rachel's recollection is that was a nice glowing feature. Like I don't understand. That's where we see like all the insecurity kind of flow through. And I just thought it was an interesting moment where Mike White again is highlighting, see, this isn't just like chiving. It doesn't just go together. actually, this is the thing, right? Like each one is judging, you know, and this, the... the CEO unfortunately is judging Rachel because she feels like she should have had her back in a way that maybe she didn't maybe Rachel was feeling the pressure of whoever she was reporting into who edited things and made it sound a certain way and neither is really coming to this place where they're really hearing each other. So funny. So so funny. that because two things. Nancy, is that the wife? Nicole. Connie. Connie Brayden's Yeah, I know. She she tells Rachel, know, you basically took this article from someone else and repurposed it. And, know, and Rachel says that it's like, kind of well, I repurposed it. And then following the next scene, the next scene, Nicole tells her family how bad a journalist Rachel is and I thought that was a really interesting point. It was like this this concept of of your of the self right of your sort of professional ideal you know of who you are of this this thing you want to do and you do this technical the skill to sort of pursue this career and in her mind she's apparently very good but is she because she's creating these sort of hatchet jobs and sort of you know just repurposing content that that yeah go ahead Well, I want to add to that because in that same scene in that exact same thing where she's like she's a terrible journalist, but she was also saying she wrote about me and liked me and looked up to me. And it's that was worth something even in Nicole's eyes that this terrible journalist looked up to her, which kind of belies how terrible a journalist she does or does not think Rachel is right. It's like she's a terrible journalist because she nice things about me. Right. Or at least in person, then she said things that I can now I will consider nice things. I think the hatchet job is just like that is such a CEO thing to think when you read anything that isn't the narrative you wanted because you didn't control it leaking out into the public, right? And someone else just wrote it and threw it out there. And you're like, fuck that. That's a hatchet job. I don't like that. Because I think when you live in the corporate world, like you're so used to PR, you're so used to like everything. There's a machine controlled narrative. Yes. And it's exactly what you want to say about yourself and be seen as. And the moment you lose control of that, you're very uncomfortable with that and you're not happy with it anymore. Yeah. I love that scene. I love those two scenes together. I loved it too, because I was like, he can show me new things. I'm like, just like, like just mad respect for that. But I like another theme, which is on this theme of respect is two of the characters in this kind of floats into future seasons to both the Steve Zahn character, Mark and Rachel, who are both the spouses of people that have more money that are the breadwinners, let's say, they're the ones, both of them struggle with respect and self respect. And I found that interesting and both seek external validation in different ways and really need it. I think their partners, because they have money, and mean, Nicole, in that example you gave, like, clearly she's seeking external validation, right? But I think more so we're seeing a lot of insecurity that these power dynamics can create. And I don't know that there's an answer to it. I don't think Mike White's saying like, here's the solution, but he is shining a light on that sort of disparity. It is that dissonance. It's like that simmering dissonance between those two worlds. And it's just really isolated in these relationships. And it's most clear for me in that scene when Steve Zahn comes home from the bar drunk and he's trying to like seduce his wife, but it's very passive aggressive and very passive, low stakes. And he's like, you know, grunting a little bit, clearly drunk and he's crawling up on the bed, you know, and he's it's it's so it's. It's just demoralizing the whole thing was like, God, it's just wow. and she's just this breaking wall. know, she's testing team. have to say I was like, if she gets with this right now, because she's like, literally kind of like doing the right. Running like an ape. See, what's amazing for me is I thought he was just, it was so desperate on his part. was such desperation on his part. she was really sort of content to be in her little block, little bubble, and she looks at him and says, stop it. No, I mean it. Turns over and is like, thank also we know this until the next episode but the chief the the affairs that he had had so we didn't know that there was that tension between them yet and why the sexlessness between them in recent years. only the only clue we even had is when he thought his balls were swollen and that wonderful scene where we. She's like, I haven't seen him in a while. There was a lot of fascinating male nudity in this show that I think was like the pooping scene, the balls scene, like all these little like, you know, very grotesque male nudity going on versus anything that was actually titillating or tantalizing from either gender. I guess that depends on your perspective because Mike White is an interesting character and he's done lots of interesting things. His canon, his body of work is interesting. That's the only word I can use. was gonna say pooping is a fetish now that I think about it. he's doing is probably better. watch that scene either. was like, can't do this. I will say my one of my favorites, the absolute favorite scenes was when it's against the day. I think it's the second beat after Armand. It started drinking. He's at the bar and Mossbacher is at the bar as well. And he starts asking about the gay thing. This is after he finds out his dad died of AIDS. And he's like, can I ask you a question? Yeah. Does it feel good having sex with whatever he said? And our mind just looks over and says, you want to find out? You want to find out? moment. moment. You know, like you think about that, you're like, God, I wish I had like one liners like that. He could have gone either way, right? He could have gone either way. And Armand was on something at that point, right? I mean, this was the beginning of his falling off the wagon. It would be parallel. But you can see he gets confidence when that happens. He gets very sexually driven, libido driven, and very confident. And you can see why he was an off the wagon person for so long, is you're like, woo, you painted town's red, motherfucker. I can see this in you. I will definitely fact check this, I do seem to recall Mike White saying that he himself has struggled with some of the things mimicked in Armand's character addiction and all that stuff. And the way Armand just looks at this guy and you can see in that moment, there's this sort of mix of sexual interest. Like the demon is clearly on his shoulders again and ready to make his appearance. And like I said, Dave, you know, paint the town red. And to Mike White's directing credit, he just lets the moment sit. Armand drops the line. And the entire scene is just in Nicole, in Mosbacher's face. his reaction is beautiful. Great direction there. All right. All right, last things before we get to the revealing the drinks we are, are coming up on the we should probably start wrapping this up, but I didn't want to mention two things. This is all about colonialism and like the rich white people coming in, taking over and not just the work, the white workers. But, know, in episode one, Armand, the thing that really makes him start spiraling and falling off the wagon is the pregnant lady that he does the trainee at the hotel, which is a local. And he's so into his being a manager and doing his job, he doesn't even realize she's pregnant and in labor and her water bursts, like standing in the middle of the floor, one of the best scenes, like one of the scenes where even I was like, what just happened? And I didn't, I didn't understand for a moment. And it took me a second and I was like, whoa, what the hell? But yeah, We're all in that boat. I was okay. This happened and I was like, does that it doesn't happen like that. I don't think It doesn't, it doesn't. But it was a great visual. It was a great scene. And when he finds out that she's men, like he can't find her at the end of the day and she's in labor in his office. And he's like, I trained her all day and I never realized she was pregnant. and that hit, but to his credit, that's the thing is he was so in this rich person world, like just doing the job and making these people's lives great and being that person up, you know, and That, I think, was the crack, where he was like, why am I, I don't want to be this. Why am I like this? Why do I care so much about these stupid fucking rich people that have a great life? Why do I care so much? And I should be caring more about my employees, other things. He kind of completely falls apart by the end. It's not really about caring for other people, per se, really. But it is the thing that kind of breaks him of being this manager at this great resort and whatnot. It is about the workers, also the natives are a big thing, which I, so I did, I did two things of quick research. One thing that I already knew just to know what tourism has done to Hawaii and a little bit of what this show was kind of playing with, although it doesn't go deep into the natives there per se. But you know, we were, obviously it was a very big place during world war II and post world war II. It actually was a military testing grounds, a big part of Hawaii. And the Waikoloa maneuver area of 1945, literally tested, was grenades, mortars, bombs. They just tested thousands upon thousands of them there. And to this day, and then as tourism became huge in Hawaii, they pushed the natives to actually start, their villages had to be in this area where the testing grounds used to be. And to this day, there are things called unexploded ordinances or UXOs. which is scattered basically all these things they tested that for whatever reason, know, faulty didn't go off at the time. They have no idea if they'll ever go off and they have tried cleanups. They have already found over 2,700 unexploded ordinances in these areas, but they expect that the cleanup will take until at least 2053 at this point. But the villages have already sprouted up there and It's the side, the areas, the size of a hundred thousand football fields. So it's going to take a lot of time to clean it up. And just to put this into perspective, most of the villages there don't even have basics like schools, libraries, police stations, cause they can't build anything really there. It's so hard. A local library just went up recently. It took them over 20 years of planning to make one library because of how dangerous it is out there. so. This one of the big causes of tension is that the natives are generally living in these relatively inhospitable areas. The resorts are not where they're allowed to be because it's too expensive and there's way, you know, the prime real estate has all been sold off to the private companies. Now let's talk about though, they get jobs, right? Well, tourism in Hawaii in 2019, which is the latest that we have here in 2019, it brought in $17.75 billion, the tourism industry. 2.07 billion went to state taxes that were raised there. And it supported 216,000 jobs. And that's with 239,000 daily visitors coming into tourism. So fewer employees still than daily visitors, which is fine. That's probably pretty typical. But I did a little back of the napkin math, right? Minus the 2.07 billion in taxes. That brings us down to 15.05 billion. Now, let's say all the companies together combined made five billion in profit. That's probably too low. But let's say that and let's say that leaves 10.05 billion for workers. And that doesn't even include operating costs. Right. So this is just like, let's say that's what you have to pay your workers. That only averages forty six thousand per worker for all two hundred sixteen thousand. And right now in twenty twenty four, living comfortably in any part of Hawaii averages to needing 55,000 or more annual. And if you're near the resorts, like in Honolulu, you actually need 200,000 or more per year to live comfortably with the cost of living there. So yeah, the trade-off between tourism and the locals is that push-pull in a lot of places where it's like, it's jobs. What other jobs would there be if not for this, but the jobs ain't great. Armand makes a big point all the time being like, you don't get paid shit. I don't get paid shit. Like we're not getting paid enough to be doing what we're doing. So I just kind of looked into it a little bit and I was like, yeah, likely there is not enough money to pay all the people they need enough, even with the cost of living in Hawaii or most places of Hawaii. And the places a lot of the natives live aren't even that great or well kept up. So. wanted to say all that as our public service announcement for those of you who have watched White Lotus season one. And on that stage, the last thing I wanted to do before we get to the drink pairings, was there anything we struggled with or didn't like about the show in terms of season one? Or was this like anything where you're like, the only thing that I struggled with was that cell phone thing when the heist was going on. And I was like, I feel like the show didn't really give a reason why she wouldn't text him, she just doesn't. Like the show didn't think of it. So that was my, I feel like that's the only storytelling like true blue gaff that they should have tackled in some way shape or form. And this would be an interesting cultural piece to analyze a bit more. I think it's more just a Mike White likes to drop these Easter eggs of how books connect to the character because everybody's reading that kid who always wants the phone, who doesn't have a phone. like, I just am like, okay, we had those two girls, the college girls reading, know, Camille. and Aglia and Nietzsche, and then Rachel reading My Brilliant Friend, and then Shane reading Plink, and all of those are cultural commentaries on each of those characters. So course he's dropping those in for that, but it bugged me because in this season, I'm like, in season three they're supposed to leave their phones at the front, so that kind of makes more sense. think he's solved it. But I'm like, they have their phones. Why would they Why would they be reading a physical book? Though I do like that they made a quick joke where they're like, no, these books are just props. I know. They're literally props. They are. Which by the way, just FYI, that is a real thing that Instagramers and influencers do. Oh yeah. They have a book stylist? They're stylists. Yes, they're book stylists. They're stylists who will style your outfit and compliment it with a book because you're going to a place that is heavily Instagrammed so that you can be seen because again, it's all about the vibes. Yeah, you're not. You're not going to be seen reading the DaVinci code. Yeah, that's just that's not. That's not what Instagram wants. So much so that about about two years ago when I first heard about this, it may have been. Because at the time there was this Instagram thing about the book. What are they called book? We just discussed it book stylist, the book stylist. It was a real thing, right? And so it was a it was a moment in time. It may have been around the time this came out, but. I started thinking about that as a character like who is that person like who is the book stylist? I even stayed a little pitch of 10 never went back to, but I may have to may have to circle. Anyway, let's get to the work. you're on the show is to have like a book. I was going to say that could be an employee at the resort. That's right. Like everyone needs it. Especially now, yeah. right, well, let's get to it. What are we pairing with White Lotus season one Dallas kick us off? Alright people, so as you heard me say earlier, we've got a blend here. It is a quarter blend, so we've got temp, cabsobs, infandel, pizda, petite sera, 48, 28, 18, and 6. It is from the blending lab, impossible roblets. It is the T-E-C-S, I'm gonna get this wrong, that's right, T-Z-P-S. call it the Polish wine? Because it looks like something, it looks like a Polish word. And one of the owners of the blending lab is Polish, so she actually calls it the Polish wine. Yeah, anyway, it is full bodied. I think the show definitely as I said the first episode. Again, it was so vibey and I get it. That's how we onboard into shows these days, but it definitely opens up the characters do go places that one or two of them. I really wish they didn't. It is a dominant dark. think the show has a a flippant kind of airy quality to it, but at its core is some just sadistic sinister kind of darkness that they allude to. You get a little the clove in here, which is some of that homey spice. You know, there's a core there. It's it's just a good wine. It's one of Dave's faves, I think, right? We discussed this is one of your faves. This is at the oh wow. This is of the blending lab. Yeah, yeah, it is the number one. So get lots of the Blackberry in there. You get some good Jammy in there. It's just very satisfying. Again, I'm not a huge Temp fan because of the tannins, but the way they blend with this Zen and Petite Seurat specifically, it's sort of like the two characters here, Shane. Shane, I keep going back to Shane because Shane's character. on the surface is just so unpalatable. He's just so disgusting. But he's also slightly clueless in the beginning. He's just on his thing. He is what he is, which is why you which again reminds me of a temp. The temp is just it's, you know, you got to soften it up, you got to roll it around something else, you can't take it on its own generally in too high a volume. So as a whole, not mixed company, he's not It's not bad. Exactly. The same with the attempt. that's my guy blending lab. You can pick these guys up. Although I don't think they have much of this left, right? This is. We do. We don't have much, but we do still have some. When you have it online, they will ship to you or visit our tasting room if you're in the LA area, because we're in West Adams. We love to see it there. So for me, as mentioned before, I went with one of the rare countries that is still controlled by its indigenous people, which is Portugal. So I went to Portugal and, you know, it's based. Generally speaking, so the Portuguese and the Spanish don't get along. But this is a French grape. So they do still call it by its French name because they're they're fine with the French, apparently. They change the name of every Spanish grape for the most part and come up with their own name for it. But then for the French one, they were like, Alicante Boucher is the name of this grape. And this is a 100 percent a 2020 divide the idea. I Alicante Boucher from the Alentejo in Portugal. So again, a little bit of reverse cultural appropriation where they took a French grape made it their own. The French barely grow it anymore. We grow a little bit of it here in California. We like it here as well. But the Portuguese in Alentejo, it's like where you find this grape these days. And it is a rare red fleshed red inside grape. There's only a handful of those in the world. So most grapes you can technically make a white wine with, right? Because red wines you only make by soaking the juice on the red skins. So if you just crush it, don't soak it on the skins, you can make a white wine with it no matter what the grape is. But this one, no, you must make a red wine with it. It will always be red. So it is a pretty bold sucker. It's a pretty powerful thing. also, this was stainless steel fermented, so not too much oakiness. Six months in neutral French oak afterwards, so a tiny bit of wet wood on there to tame the tannins. It's smooth, but it's rich. It's big bodied. It's balanced, it's got that elegant tannins, really long finish. And it's a rarity that I think for this, I found this on, this is a group called Denise Sellers, D-I-N-I-Z Sellers. They're also based here in LA, but they have a website. You can order this if you'd like. It's hard to find a 100 % Elaconte Boucher in the state sometimes. They're around, but there's not many. And this one, I thought it was just, it's got the richness. really wanted, there's so much going on in this fucking show. It's so layered. There's so many characters. Like every episode, you're following so many things happening and you have so many thoughts about it that, you know, I didn't want something light and, too light and refreshing. I didn't want something too light on its feet. I needed something a bit more robust, a bit more bold and powerful and something that you're gonna sip and savor as you just keep watching these hour long episodes. so, and then I loved the theme of going somewhere like Portugal, grabbing a French grape. and then yeah, that blood redness of this grape, which is just this show is all about, animosity and, and the rage that we internalize and it comes out in all the wrong ways if we do that and make all those terrible decisions. So that's my pairing 2020, Debye, Boucher from the Alentejo Portugal. Beth, what you got for us? I went the sweet route. Ya peanut colada! and the reason being, obviously we've talked about the pineapple, I call it the ode to Armand, because of his statement about the pineapple room, also, you know, mean mommies and, know, platters. It's made from very sweet pineapple juice and cream of coconut, along with ice. And it was pretty quick to make. I found like rooting for the ingredients, not super challenging, but a little bit off the beaten path of the normal. I gotta go look where I'm gonna get all these ingredients, is, but unexpectedly kind of smooth flavor. I know we've talked about the white lotus being a smooth show, but like very, very kind of sweet and sacchariney a little bit, a little bit like. almost too sweet for my normal palate flavor, which I think is not necessarily, you can't say any of these characters are super sweet on the surface. But I do think there's just kind of this artifice of, you know, what the way people are supposed to behave in these settings and then, you know, kind of getting to how they actually behave. So I like kind of that sort of artifice of the pina colada drink. And yeah, I just, to me, the white lotus is Armand. So I have to It really is, it is, it really is. one especially, he's the figurehead, right? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think he would snort a lot of like drugs and then drink this, but or just blend it in it's a blended drink you can use all those pills crush them into the pina colada goes down smooth Although I will say, it didn't take a whole lot to throw Armand off the wagon. It really didn't take whole lot to throw Armand He tried to recover once or twice. was the progress. But every time he fell, he fell. Like was not like I had one drink. Oh no. It was like, no, no, I got blasted. Like completely went off the rails. Now tried to recover, then went off the rails again. But again, I'll- awareness to know that there's no halfway. He knows he's not there's no halfway. Yes. Although my my right of brain is always reediting and editing if it's possible and I was like I wish they would have made the relationship the annoyance of Shane kind of the cat the actual catalyst because that's that felt like a more linear kind of push off the hill. But you know, I don't disagree with the the birth as being sort of a core of of the de wagging. Well, I think the birth is because again, this is what he deals with. Like, that's the point of this is not a special. It winds up being a special week for this resort because of how off the rails everything goes. But the things that crop up are things he's dealt with before plenty of times. So it is the catalyst, but there still needed to be an initial like, you know, the hairline fracture that then what he normally could deal with and be professional about it. He's like, fuck this, can't. And from there, it is all Shane. is almost entirely fucking Shane from that moment forward. And it's Shane's inability to let it go, even though Shane has very little to complain about. written that chain characters. Yes, yes, yeah, I agree with that. find yourself asking why he promises the boat because he knows what it's what's going to ensue. Yeah, that's his grand. That's his grand. Remember, it's battle of passive aggressive behavior. So if you know this, the two of them are combatants, but they are doing it passive aggressively so that only the other person understands the hit. It's it's it's it's classic. You find it a lot. It's kind of like it's it's upper middle class and wealth warfare. It's a passive aggressive thing. Once you identify your primary combatant, you and he then engage in this sort of battle, which only you and he can kind of understand. And so when he does that, it is his absolute, okay, I can make sure this is a great experience for you. when they, it's so beautiful. When they arrive and what's her name? Forget the characters. Yeah, but with university starts going on her death rant. It's just so you want to come and eat with us? Just being like, as clear like that, that perfect like, like, it's more sociable up here. And it's just like, lady, they're on there. They're trying to have but neither side wants to give the other side an inch, right? you think they're there for her? That's what's amazing. Well, yeah. So, but that's the thing with Armand is I did mention all the characters make terrible decisions over and over and over again. And I do think that was what Armand was doing is like, once that hairline fracture begins, he's like, I can't let this go. I will never give you what you want. I will never ever, ever give you what you want. And it's all bad decisions from that point forward on all sides. It's a series of giving you what you want with one degree of separation, which is angering, maddening to person who can get whatever they want, whenever they want. That's right. Beautiful. has once again been, let's see if I remember, Beth, Lisa Gorski. That's right. And Beth, where can people find you? I've already mentioned it once before. There are clickable links down below, folks, for all of her social media and Substack, but I'm gonna let her say it one more time. Beth, where can people find you online if they wanna follow you and your film and TV recommendations? Thank you. It's best TV film and TV recommendations. And you can find me on Substack, www.bethlisagorski.com. think there's a .substack.com in there. But it's just my first and last name. It's part of the Substack. Please go look her up guys, it's fantastic stuff. Are you Instagram or are you are you the kind of Instagram where people are supposed to follow you on Instagram or no? I don't do much on Instagram. I occasionally like repost what I write on Substack. it's more promoted. Exactly. It's all Substack. Unless it's LinkedIn for, you know, business purposes. Yeah, beautiful. Wait. Well, thank you once again, Beth. This has been an awesome first season, a brand new show on our radar. We will definitely do season two sometime in the near future. But we're going to let you go here. Thanks for listening, guys. We will be back next week with another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. Take care. Until then, ciao for now. Later guys. Can I just tell you a horror story before you hit record? It's already recording, but that's okay, we'll edit it out. We may keep it, but go on. No names, no names. I'm not calling out any names, but I recorded a podcast last Friday afternoon. I was super excited about it. And it turns out, and it was a really good conversation, that it had not been recorded. The whole thing. And I felt so guilty. was like, I felt guilty even though it wasn't, I was just like, my God, I should have noted like that somehow wasn't getting recorded or whatever. And he felt terrible because it's a horrible thing. It's on them, right? Ultimately, it's really because we did one where we made this poor sap go through his whole like it was an interview. He was pitching something this brand new company he was doing. It was like a and it was like the best pitch of his life. Like he had just like rattled it off and he was like, I'm usually not this on fire. And as he was wrapping up, I looked down in the corner and he just saw me like sink my head in my hands. And he just sort of trailed off and I was like, I'm so sorry. We didn't get any of that. We have to start from the beginning. So we are the guys in your story there. Yeah, no, think as a person who deeply empathizes with doing such things, like I felt really bad because I was like, oh my God, he's feeling like crap right now. Like this is awful. Like, so I felt for him. And then we talked for another hour and then I was like, oh, this was like lightning in a bottle. I mean, how do you and so I was curious, like it sounds like you were able to recover that energy. But like, how do you like reignite that kind of initial like all these things we didn't know each about each other? Now it's like you're pretending not to know them. I don't know. It'll be an interesting take two on that.