‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 3: Little Miss Legit

Hello, welcome back to the Press News TV podcast. I'm Joanna Robinson. I am Rob Mahoney. We're here with episode three of Euphoria season three, baby. How you feeling, Rob? Mixed. Mixed? All right, let's talk about it. It's a wedding episode. This episode is called Ballad of the Paladin, which, as they mentioned inside the episode as a reference to the Have Gun Will Travel famed Western TV show, Paladin. How you feeling? Like, doesthedogdie.com is a website you frequent a lot. How do you feel about doestheparadide.com? Somehow better about it. I would rather a pair, if I'm having to choose. You're anti-bird. That's not what I said. Not what I said. But if I had to choose a parrot to die or a dog to die, I'm sorry, the parrot's got to go. Did, even having said that, my heart twinge when poor Paladin fell off his perch and spasmed to death. Of course it did. I'm but a man. I laughed. I'm sorry. So you really do want birds to die? I don't love a bird. I am pretty anti-bird. Birds in the wild are great, but domestic birds, I don't think they're meant to be kept in cages. I think you're right about that. We're going to need to unpack this in greater detail at some point. First, let's do a quick mail bag. Can you remind the folks where they can reach us if they want to email us about Euphoria specifically? I would love to, Joe. They can reach us at prestigetvatspotify.com all the time. But in this case, Maddie's number one boy at gmail.com. And if that's too much for you, you can find it in the show notes for this pot. So just scroll down, copy paste, bing, bing, boom. Send us your Euphoria takes at your leisure. Yeah, bing, bing, boom. All right. We got a lot of emails about Sydney Sweeney. As one does. I think she's swallowing a lot of the conversation around this show and definitely taking up a lot of air inside of this episode, which we can talk about, which I was sort of hoping would be more of a Jules episode. And it still feels like it's the Cassie and Nate show more than I would like it to be on Euphoria. We can talk about all of that. But we got an email from our listener, Andy, who wrote in to talk about, you know, we know that these actors shot these these episodes between other projects. We know they were quite busy. How did schedules align? And Andy is wondering, were any of these people ever in the same room together? Andy was calling out a few different ways in which things were framed. And I was like, it doesn't seem like even Sydney, Sweden, Jacob, Elordia are in the room together sometimes or Hunter Schaefer and Zendaya are in the same room together. And these are in episodes one and two that he's talking about. Right. And I don't know that I agree with every single one that Andy called out here. But I do think in this episode. Oh, my God, Joe, the complicated machinations of who's actually physically in the same space as someone else at the Cassie Nate wedding was pretty distracting and hilarious. Anything you want to outline here? I would argue it's not even one wedding. It's like four separate weddings. And shout out to Maude Apatow, the hardest working woman in show business, who I presume showed up on four completely different dates, probably on different continents to shoot different wedding scenes with different people. To go back, get back into that hideous pink dress. And she's like, I'm here. I'm here to work. The only sense of continuity we have. The only person no one seems to have an issue with. Completely. What a joy. Zendaya specifically, for Rue to be like, I'm going to this wedding just kidding by and leaving before I have to be in a reception hall near anyone else was pretty incredible. But I think specifically having like Maddie, Jules and Rue sort of like in these reaction shots by themselves, I thought was pretty funny. But never once like in the background as, you know, Cassie is walking by or anything like that. The one that I would really need to be convinced of, they make a big show of the scene in which the three of them plus Lexie are all up on the balcony. Yeah. As Nate and Cassie are taking wedding photos. And it's like, if that's not movie magic, I'm going to need like triple confirmation. I know, I know. They're really trying to sell you that these people are in the same place. But I don't even think that they could be that close to each other. There have been like long time rumors that, you know, the various animosities between cast members has influenced the way in which euphoria can be written. Certain people allegedly will not film with other people. So it might not even be a scheduling thing. It might just be a personal history person type of thing. Which I get like Kai and I can't be in the same room anymore. Kai just has to sit in that, like the little booth next door. Sad. It's very sad. Really tough, really tough. That was a messy breakup you guys had. All right. Olivia wrote in about Zendaya as Rue and said, young Heath Ledger, I can't unsee it the way she moves the charm, the smirk. It reminds me so much of Heath Ledger's comportment and things I hate about you, lords of Dogtown and Candy. I love to see that similar spark again. It makes me want to rewatch some other Zendaya movies and see if there's a thread there or if it's just Rue. And then I want you to react to that before we get to the other part of Olivia's email. I never put this together, but I love it. I really saw it. Like once she laid it out and you think about Heath Ledger sort of like dancing, you know, you're just too good to be true. Like you can sort of see the combo there. I love that combo. I think the grins in particular. Yeah, there is something about like the mischievousness that they can play, but it's just like unendingly charismatic. I think even with Heath early, it was so clearly like, okay, what, how do you want to channel this? How do you want to capture it? What is the right volume for it? And that seems to be like the constant conversation was Zendaya too, as far as like, this is a really special quality that you have on screen, but how can we deploy it without stretching it too far or too thin and keep it's like magic? Somebody do a composite of Julia Styles and Heath Ledger up on the balcony at the prom and do things I hate about you and that force them that you mentioned up at the balcony at the wedding and let's see if it comps dance. Well, honestly too, especially we know that Jules loves Romeo and Julie at least enough to wear the costume. That's true. I would imagine they've also seen things I hate about you. No. Oh, these nineties obsessed kids for some reason. I'm definitely excited. All right. And then Olivia goes on to say on a more somber note, I fear Angel turned that corner and got sex trafficked. This rehab could be a money laundering scheme for Alamo and simultaneously a way to profit on girls who have become otherwise unprofitable to him. If the double heist happens, I hope it somehow saves Angel from this fate. In the process, perhaps in Sam Levinson's quest to copy paste Tarantino, we'll get a little unlikely hero overcoming true evil story, Allah and glorious bastards, dango and change. And once the time in Hollywood with a Rue versus sex trafficking plot, Rue always messes things up, but it'd be nice for once if for once and to end her story. She got to fail upwards. So I think this set and I've seen it mentioned a couple of that. I think this idea that like it's not a place to just sort of bump off problematic strippers, but put them to work in a different industry. That's a light. It's not to work in a different industry. That's sex trafficking as recruiting. That's the next season of industry, essentially. But like, yeah, sex trafficking, horrifying to contemplate, but it makes more business sense than the scenario that I was coming up with last week. What do you think about that? I do think it checks out. I was also left wondering at the end of this episode, we see Rue get pulled over by the cops and the DEA specifically. It looks that's how they represent themselves. I assume it to be true unless we're told otherwise. Let me to reconsider the mysterious person smoking a cigarette outside the rehab facility. I had thought and we had talked about, oh, is this maybe somebody who works for Alamo who then is going to go take care of Angel? Now I'm wondering, is that a law enforcement official staking out this place and they're about to roll Rue into some kind of like CI wearing a wire. That's how Rue got on the radar. I mean, I certainly think Rue is going to be rolled into a sort of like CI wearing a wire scenario. I don't see Rue when she gets out of that. Presuming they are indeed the DEA pulling her over, but that's a great shout I would like to go back and look at that guy and see if he's. Yeah, OK. And then we get a couple sort of Sydney, sweetie defender emails. Defending from what? From our harsh words. Were we harsh? Tough but fair. I don't even think we were particularly harsh. I didn't feel particularly harsh. I think she is giving a good performance on this show. Sydney, sweetie, what a piece of work could be considered harsh possibly. Some people on this podcast are sure than others perhaps. So Dominique wrote about sort of Cassie. Don't get me wrong, what she did to her friends was awful, but deep down Cassie still felt like just a girl with daddy issues, trust issues and a lot of emotional baggage that led her to make bad decisions. Now it feels like they flatten her into something else entirely. I sound like a Cassie apologist, which I don't mean to be, but I think they really miss the mark with her character. I saw that. Did you see the, the, like a semi viral tweet that went around where people were complaining about this or like season one, Cassie would never be like this. And there's a quote tweet that said, you mean the girl who orgasm on a fairs with a merry-go-round horse? So I don't know that Cassie, but we talked about, you know, some of the, like, especially one of my favorite, I think one of the most artistically interesting choices they made in season one was when Cassie has the abortion. And we see this ice skating sort of routine that goes along with it. Like that Cassie, that sort of emotional depth or fragility, I would say is absent from the version we're getting here in season three. Agreed. Yeah. Frankly, in defense of the carousel orgasm, like there is a performativity and an agency to that version of Cassie where it's like, I'm looking to get revenge. Right. Like I'm looking for something in a way that the current vacant form of Cassie. I don't even think has that. Like she really is just kind of like floating in space, waiting to be told what to do, absent, reaching out for the nearest floral arrangement that happens to catch her eye. So I think it's been a two season process of season one. Cassie, yes, not the most like intellectually stimulated character, but somebody who had actual definable traits. And over two seasons, I think it's gotten sanded down into like performative sex objects in this engaging of the like ongoing humiliation ritual. And I think part of that has to do with like how they've dramatically changed Nate. Yep. Cassie's sort of toxic relationship with Nate in season two has, there's more there, there than Cassie and the Nate that we get here, who is, as we've said, unrecognizable. So, okay. This is what Paul said. The main criticism I have the writing this season is that it really feels like Sam Levinson thinks that Rue should act like a straight man because she's attracted to women. The way she leers and augurs at women, she wants to work at a strip club because all the women are hot and that's cool and thinks that working for a likely human trafficker is the best because she likes girls too. That sounds like shit. I would have thought in high school before I actually knew any women. Rue is in her early 20s. So yeah, having a libido is fine. But for someone who was depicted as at the very least having a complicated sexuality, it feels a little jarring having her being so horny that she ignores all the sex work and danger for the women around her. I'm sure that's something that we'll get explored and use in future episodes, but it feels weird in the first place. I think there's a lot of, well, five years happened. You can do to explain that away logically, but I don't know if a logical explanation of something like this feels like enough for me. It can be logical and selfie out of feel out of place. Rue doesn't have to be the exact same character. The person she is now should hopefully feel connected to some of the characters core values and something I considered a core value of hers was that despite how much her fuck ups hurt those around her, she was sensitive of others and that often made things worse for her when her attic brain went over. I thought that was a critical aspect of the way she experienced her addiction. So this goes, that flag on the sexuality question, I think is really important because in season two, there was this whole issue with jewels, not feeling like, you know, Rue was talking about the way in which her drug has impacted her libido, but not feeling like Rue was like a very sexual person. You know, that whole question with Elliot, with jewels, with Rue. And that is a clear aspect of her character that is absent from this season. And I've been enjoying like the spark and the charisma and the comedy of it. But it does tell us into this other problem I have, which I raised last week, which is that Rue as addict and sort of like if Rue is still using, which she is. Clearly. And she's just fine, you know, like as far as her day to day operations in what we're seeing this season. I think that's really bizarre when the whole story was about how her addiction rendered her ability to live a life impossible. Yeah. I think there's a lot of muddling around Rue's addiction at this point, both in the sense of how it's manifesting in her day to day life. This is someone who we've seen just like really struggle having any sort of healthy balance to the extent that that's ever possible with drugs that are that hard when she is partaking. And at the same time, she's also like still kind of going through the steps vis-a-vis accepting God in her life or at least trying to accept God in her life. So it's like, how are you on step three? If you're constantly going back to the start, I don't really understand that part of the story, to be honest with you right now. And I'm kind of assuming she's going to fall hard at some point this season. It just feels like the natural cycle of where that character would end up. Rue does, yeah. And maybe the tension or the anxiety of being a CI or even just like learning what happened to Angel or whatever, you know, whatever course this story takes. You could see that kind of sending her down that sort of road. But I agree. It's it's a weird part of her story right now. And the larger kind of metamorphosis of her sexuality is odd. And I'm I'm I'm OK with some of the oddity, as you said, because it's of the way it's played for comedy. And because I think it's interesting, even if it's not true to character. This episode, it's strange a little bit in the sense that it's one thing for Rue to get this new job and be kind of moving up in her new world. Like, but she has escalated from she's a gun runner now. She's a fucking arms dealer. Like, I mean, we've gone from like taking care of the girls and you could understand how Rue herself might talk herself into thinking, OK, I am here to like look out for people like Angel and drive her to rehab. And therefore I'm still kind of living within myself there to selling drugs, at least participating in it, to now selling guns. I just I think even with the whole like we're going to do the Rue slide show thing and kind of like have her speaking to us via the VO via camera. All that stuff is. It was fun, yes, but also hard to track. But also what? Yeah. Last email from Brian just reads, I'm Maddie's number one boy. How dare you? Do you Rob, would you like to respond? Would you like to fight Brian? Like, how do you feel? It's a big tent. OK. Many number ones in the tent. There are many of us in here. We welcome everybody. Number one boys, number one girls, anyone who wants to be a part. OK. We are one in the church of Maddie. Our producer, Dev flagged something, which was a social post from Labyrinth. We discussed that Labyrinth's music, which was so core to the first two seasons of euphoria is missing here in the third season. We had discussed some sort of like public posts from Labyrinth about the messy breakup with the show. My understanding is that Labyrinth had written some music for the show and was maybe supposed to be working with Hans Zimmer. Or I don't know all of the details, but Labyrinth basically wrote a post a couple of weeks ago, saying I'm pulling all my music from euphoria season three and just recently posted something that they then deleted. But we have the evidence the Internet remembers. Labyrinth wrote, I should release a song every Sunday at six p.m. right and use the drama and the people who have supported me for years to generate more sales. Yeah, that's a great idea. And then some emojis and then in the caption, Labyrinth wrote, reduce my music to online fodder. I wanted to continue so I can readjust my relationship with music, figure out how to be present and taking the joy of connecting with people who care about my work. But it comes with an exchange, become a famed thirsty idiot. To as people who are also trying to be present in their work, but also enjoy a sense of this is what I'm wondering. Like we want the community and the work. Are we famed thirsty idiots? No, we're famed thirsty. We're idiots, but I don't know for fame, for fame, thirst. I'll take that side of it. If we're going to pick, I would rather the idiot side. Anything you want to say about Labyrinth's message here? It's hard to know. I mean, clearly this is not a good situation for somebody who is so instrumental to the look and feel, specifically the feel of the show with its sound. Overall, the scoring this season is not bad, but it's kind of generic to me. Yeah, it's very flat. I mean, so something we should say about Hans Zimmer, the way that Hans Zimmer works is that he has sort of like a fleet of composers that work under him. So just because something is quote unquote composed by Hans Zimmer, it does not mean that Hans himself was like pouring over every note. It's from his stable. Yeah, from the studio of Hans Zimmer. So I don't know if Hans himself actually worked on this show at all or if it was one of the many composers and his employee. But the music is fine. It's perfectly fine. I have seen a couple people re-score scenes from this season with Labyrinth music and it and it hits a lot harder. I would say the one that I saw that I really enjoyed was Maddie's entrance into the pool club, the scene that we really liked. But imagine that with like some Labyrinth music playing. Or her walking into the wedding in this episode. I think there's just so many of those moments. And it just like it was such a core part of what made euphoria feel like euphoria. So I think the the show is poor for not having the music. But again, yeah, I agree with you. I think the music is fine. It's just not exceptional, which is what it used to be. I think the only reason they can really get away with it is because you have this significant period of time between seasons two and three. And the show is already doing kind of a larger reinvention. Yeah. So it's like, OK, it's going to it's going to sound different. The characters are going to be different. This episode, though, is kind of where I really bumped up against how not euphoria this felt. Brings me to my next question, Rob, did you like this episode of television? I didn't dislike it. I think I mean, ultimately, I was fine with it. You got your soos content. I have a lot to say about soos. I just thought there was something very clearly discernibly off in this episode. And I say that because I could tell that the show wanted Cassian Nates' wedding to feel like a big deal. And to me, it did not. And I could tell that it wants everything that happens on the wedding night to feel like this big dramatic swerve. And OK, like it was surprising, but it didn't really mean anything to me. And so this is where I kind of come back to the stitching together of who was together when in the filming of this show, because I think that's more than just like a punchline and something we can kind of joke about when you're asking these actors to be like, OK, have a conversation with a tennis ball and pretend that it's Hunter Schaefer. And then you're wanting to capture the magic of what euphoria is. I just think that's going to be kind of impossible. I actually do think that Hunter was there for most of it. She did seem among the more present between the various groups. And like, I think we talked about the Jules intro, like we had a ten, like a solid ten minute intro with Jules inside the episode before we get the title of euphoria. We get a Jules and Nate scene, a Jules and Cal scene. You know, there's like a lot going on there. But to your point about sort of like acting, who's who's wearing, who's acting against whom. This is a I mentioned that Jacob Alorty is not doing press on the show. And that is true. But clever journalists in the world asked him plenty of euphoria questions when he was doing Frankenstein press. So there are got ahead of it. There are some old quotes from the end of last year where Jacob Alorty is talking about the process of working on euphoria. And here's what he said to Entertainment Weekly last year. I had no time to get ready for it, and I didn't have scripts in any kind of full sense. Usually I would like, and then he sort of tries to pin this as like frame, this is like a good problem to have. He says, usually I would like to obsess over what I was doing and understand what was happening and have the time to go through every element and construct it and put together. I was coming off a plane from somewhere and later I had a small amount of time to fit in a lot of work. And so I hit a point where I could only go day by day. I could only do what was handed to me that day and then try to invent something based on what I know of the character, based on what I see on the set live in front of me, because I had no choice. I got to be free in the acting process because it was kind of just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what would stick. Less thinking about what feels real and more about like, how does this work in the frame? Or is this funny or not funny? I had a more relaxed way of approaching playing a character, you know, what an actor. So Jacob Alorty's description of working on euphoria season three, if that gives us any insight into sort of what someone with a busier schedule in the cast was forced to do. And I grew, like, I like, I really like a lot of the jewel stuff in the side of this episode, but I'll be curious to see how people react to it. But I actually really liked that 10 minute intro section. Rue's stuff remains incredibly compelling to me. It's just Cassie and Nate is not interesting to me. So Cassie and Nate's wedding is not going to be, especially when I have to spend once again, so much time watching Sydney's, we like cry hysterically. They were really playing the hits, you know, just like, like a histrionic sort of reaction. She's screaming. She's like firing a champagne cork at his at his eyeball and no one's really paying that much attention. It's very odd. The whole dance sequence, which I think was supposed to be high comedy, would just really just at the end of the day, annoyed me. Not just high comedy, but that felt like one of the moments where they're reaching for the meme, like specifically Sydney Sweeney, like cry torquing. It's like they know what they're doing and they're trying to interact with the reputation of the show. And honestly, I find nothing more off-putting in terms of modern television than when you can feel them reaching for like the quote card or the GIF or whatever, that kind of like grabbable moment that's supposed to feel that way. And it just, it feels a little, a little gross. Only famed, thirsty podcasters are allowed to do that. I thought Jacob Elordi's comedy blood gurgling performance was quite good. Everything Sydney Sweeney was actually quite annoying to me, but like, but him in the background, like gurgling blood and I guess is the contrast, of course, is like the source of the comedy, but him being like pulled down their incredibly tacky stairs onto their incredibly tacky carpet after their incredibly tacky, very expensive wedding. And I, I laughed at that and when the bird died. So I did think it was funny. I think the entire sequence, I want to give Sydney Sweeney some credit, specifically that Cassie like wailing, I'm bleeding as Nate gets his face bashed in. I did enjoy. I also enjoyed her commiserating really nice. That was good. That got a huge laugh for me. Yeah. He never listens. It was really, really good. More people together. More of Naz and Cassie sort of being like, Nate, what a piece of shit. You know, yeah. I'm glad that he got his signature move turned on him. You know, we've seen Nate do the like lurk and wait in an arm chair for somebody many, many times on euphoria. Got his comeuppance couldn't have happened to a worse guy. Yeah. Hate that guy. Love to see him. You know. All right. Let's go a bit more in order. But that's sort of like the big picture. You and I, this was if they were aiming for a sort of like red wedding, Conor's wedding, Esk HBO event moment. That's not quite what we got here. I would say especially because this is one of the few signature events I would imagine in which it actually makes sense to have all these people. I mean, for that, you know, they accomplished. It doesn't make sense to me. It makes sense to me why Maddie was was invited. That was explained to us. Yeah. It doesn't really make sense to me why Rue was invited. Rue was invited so that Jules can be invited so that Rue can then leave. Yeah. And then Jules can be there and talk to Nate and to Cal. It's really it. OK. Baby being there, just an extra joy for all of us. OK. Plus Nate's dumb brother. I did enjoy all we'll get into it. But I appreciated all the callbacks. I always whenever he's in an episode, I always write down Josh Myers, you know, Seth Meyers brother like that. He's like, he's the real Josh Meyers to Nate Seth Meyers. And I like Josh Meyers, but like, yeah, he's a real. He's a real dummy. Aaron, right? Aaron. OK, let's go back to the Jules intro. So a lot of fans, you know, I was poking around the the red upboards this week and a lot of fans have been worried about what they call the sort of catification of Jules this season, given that she was absent from episode one and barely and like just barely an episode two. So here she gets 10 minutes dedicated to her entirely. We've talked about the visuals before on euphoria about them sourcing special Kodak film. I thought this was like there was something particularly absolutely exquisitely gorgeous about the way this sequence was shot. I think very, you know, all of it, a lot of like deep dark bluish blacks with, you know, the pops of like red lips on on Hunter Schaefer or I think very specifically when she meets her sugar daddy Ellis when they're in that red booth. And it's just the way they're shot from sort of above is just like extremely artistically beautiful. And then we get this sort of cellophane boxing, Helena, very creepy move here at the end of the section. I'm really curious how people are going to react to that, especially in a season where people are having a lot of conversations about the commodification of women and bodies and stuff like that. Of course, you know, this is of course a very intentionally engaging with that. Ellis is supposed to be a kind of creepy dude. I mean, it's Sam from Trueblood and I'm a fan. But like, but he has a darkness tune that I don't even think on Trueblood, he ever really got to fully play. Sam was like a pretty good guy on on relatively. I don't think he's aged a day. No, he could break up a swampy bar fight right now. He looks great. We've never, have we ever talked about? I don't think so. We stay away from very related conversations generally. But the Ellis, the casting call that went out for this character Ellis, it said a white or Asian man with some quote coldness to him. So this is like, we're supposed to be sort of chilled by this person. What do you make about, you know, we had already sort of established that Jules was was in this dynamic. We get the explanation of how that happened. Yes. And an introduction of this character, Ellis. What did you think of all of this? I think as far as Jules goes, like the part of this that I really enjoyed was seeing her kind of enter into this world and understand how it works. And specifically, the idea that rings true for me is that this would be easy for someone like Jules, who just does have a power over a lot of other people, men and women alike. Power for me. I mean, all of us, frankly. And the fact that once she gets going, she like knows how easy it is for her. She's like, oh, I'm clean. I'm going to absolutely clean house. And you can see how a person like that would go from art student trying to subsidize their education to like, this is just kind of my job now and I'm going to kind of buy art supplies with it and maybe still be an artist. But like, this is a way of life. Are you worried about I was like, all in. I was like, yeah, take these dumb fucks money. And then she's like calling her. When it was just the finance bros and the movie producers and the candlestick makers and talking liquors. But when she's like, when she's dropping out of art school and then there's a line is like that she didn't really worry about making as an artist anymore. And so that just makes me worried that the easy money of this arrangement or becoming an artistic object rather than an artist creator. That seems, you know, I'm pro sex work and I'm pro, you know, jewels taking money like separating idiots from their money. But if it means she's losing sight of this thing, this passion of hers, that worries me. Of course. And specifically with this man who not only has a coldness to him, I do think there's something interesting and fertile potentially about pairing jewels with a plastic surgeon. A lot of interesting conversations about identity that can be explored through something like that. But really for me, it's about that coldness and it's about this idea that you get into with him of like the combination of the anything can be improved plastic surgeon mentality, plus the like, I might just keep you forever sentiment that he expresses in this episode that is it's just on a different level than the nylon licking. Right. Like there is there is an indulgence of fetish that's happening all throughout the sequence. But for him, it is something that is more possessive, that is more controlling, that is more cellophane wrapped like you are a prize that I'm going to put here like a statue. When we see you are an object. Exactly. And when we see jewels come home from the wedding and it's clear, I think, right, it's clear that he's there. And so she sort of gets herself ready. You know, she's like sort of slips into like always on the clock, right? Like whenever he decides to leave his family for his proclivities, she's she's ready to go. I don't love that for jewels personally. I don't love it either, especially because of like, if it is that kind of possessiveness and that kind of controlling, what what comes with it? What are the costs of these things if he's trying to get what he's paying for, so to speak? I do want to call it a bit of of writing that, you know, sometimes there's writing on the show and you're like, what? I think I know exactly what it is. Is it a conversation with Vivian? No. OK, I have one too then. OK, tell me your, tell me your name. I want to hear yours first, Joe. The trick with Zendaya is Zendaya, as Rue, can say almost anything in a voiceover and you're like, sounds great. Yep. Windows of time when anyone could strike it rich. Gold Rush, prohibition, cryptocurrency. It's all about timing. What does that mean, Sam? It means it's all about timing. She said it. OK, but sex work is like till as old as time. So what is like what is selling pickaxes in the Gold Rush about being a sugar baby? Aren't we told our oldest profession? Yeah, exactly. It's a great call. I don't know what about this moment, especially, you know, we get this larger conversation with Alamo about how like processes become so big that they get legalized. I mean, sugar, sugar, babying and daddying is certainly a great area for all this. But I can't say this is the Gold Rush time for being a sugar baby. This kind of thing's been happening for a long time. That's just an evergreen profession. Let me try to try to match, if not one up you with some writing. As Jules and her roommate Vivian are talking about sugar, babying and all that entails, this is a line from Vivian. The good thing about rich people is they actually have something to lose. All right, we're there. No, can't stop. The answer money. Just in case you didn't know what they have to lose. Vivian and Jules are here to tell you thanks to Sam Levinson. One more piece of writing I want to I want to call out when Ellis says I slice women open for a living. There's very little that makes me uncomfortable. Felt a little author insert to me. Little Sam moment, I think. All right, anything else you want to say about this, this Jules intro? Let's keep it moving. Other than, I mean, we just need so much more Jules even still. And I share your frustration that for all of the build up over the first two episodes, this was not so much more Jules than even what we got. I was glad for those 10 minutes. I thought the Cal scene was good. I thought the Nate scene was also good. But, you know, I've thoughts. Rue is now arms dealing, as you mentioned. We I don't think we mentioned it last week, but I want to make sure, of course, to mention that Rosalia is here stripping in a neck brace. Jeweled neck brace. Jeweled neck brace. How do you feel about this? A wonderful scene. I also want to know, you know, you read the cast and call for Ellis earlier. I would love to hear the cast and call for like mouth breathing, dude who's gawking during her dance. OK, I don't have that one. I have them for a few people, but I don't have them for the mouth. I just wanted to know what they were looking for. Yeah, exactly. OK. And then we get, as you as you mentioned, this is as close to sort of the slideshow charismatic Rue business that we get under a trench or maybe for the Misses' Sundress. The mention of if it's any consolation, the majority of weapons I was selling were headed to Mexico, etc., etc. And then we get the at least Alamo appreciated me and then into this sort of legitimacy conversation. Anything you want to say about this you haven't already. Just that I mean, Rue as a character, if we're saying that that character is taking jumps in some ways that we don't necessarily recognize, one of the things I deeply do recognize is like the devil may care part of Rue that's just kind of like flowing through life. Fuck it. This is I guess it'll work out or maybe it won't. And we're just going to kind of keep moving. That version of Rue I completely completely believe would go to her boss and say, I know you are a drug selling club operating brothel running, drug arms dealing, sex trafficking guy, feeding people the pigs, possibly. Who's to say? Yeah. But I'm looking to get legit at some point. I do believe that she would think that that's an OK and smart thing to say. In this sequence, post Rosalia pre arms dealing, we do get a shot and maybe we've seen it before of a fairly sizable snake. And I would just like to add it to the check. Out of the check. Come on. Check it off the check. Don't show me a yellow boa. If it's at minimum going to be draped around somebody's shoulders, it doesn't have to commit any violent. So you want like a spears of occasion of this. Exactly. Right. You want you want it in a dance. I wanted to choke someone during the chaos of ice. That's what I would like to see from this. But I mean, history tells us the aquarium tank gets busted open. The snake gets loose. Yeah. Just when you forget about it, it crawls up and strangles somebody to death. So who's dying by boa? Marshawn Lynch, unfortunately, I think is going to get boa. Really tough. Outside of Cassie being like, he never listens. Here's one of my favorite lines of the episode when Alan goes, you know history, and Ruth says, not particularly. I want to start doing that when people are like, do you know mathematics? I'll be like, not particularly, not really. Uh, again, this read is very Tarantino light, this sort of idea. Light, light, light. Raketeering, turning into legitimacy of the lotto system. Yeah. People say it funds the educational system from Bishop. Bishop Stealth. Really like Bishop. Killer in the show, just like great stuff. And then here we get a pig busting. The pig is back, busting into the club. A lot of pissing, just like more pig piss than I care for on a Sunday evening, personally, which is no zero. What's the normal amount? It's zero. Okay. I'm glad you clarified. On this show, you have to clarify. It's no pig piss. Okay, good. That's my preference. So then Alamo asks Rue what Lori cares about the most. Yeah. And then we get this cut to Lori with her parent Paladin and she said, who's my perfect little baby guy? And here's my question. Yeah. If you were a character on Euphoria and the camera were too rudely cut to you. Oh, wow. To reveal you caught, you know, like baby and your dog, like what would be the most embarrassing thing that the, that the camera could catch you sort of like showing a vulnerability about. Not just saying it into a microphone in front of some cameras. I mean, not to know but you, but I don't baby my dog that much. I like to have adult conversations with my dog as if she was a human being who could understand complete sentences. What sort of topics are part of the discourse that you have with your dog? Who you, who wears sweaters sometimes? No sweaters. Bandanas, crucial distinction. I mean, we're just talking about current events, you know, like, you know, the state of the Iran negotiation. Absolutely. Is it open? Is it not? Gas prices, you know, like the implications for a dog, you know, like, I'm sorry, we just can't go to the dog park. It's literally too expensive now. What does Margot think about the straight? You don't even want to know. Very controversial stances. Um, Jules ends up at the wedding because Rue invites her. Right. That all makes sense to me. That part makes sense to me. Yes. Uh, Jules's reluctance to go makes sense to me. Jules saying, I haven't seen any of these people since high school make sense to me. That should be true for more of the people on the show than it is. What I did like is the pan across the bathtub. Uh, I don't know if you'd freeze phrase, freeze frame a hony. I don't know if you'd talk to me. I did not. So, uh, Jules is one of those like incredibly great wooden sort of plank things on the bath as you do. Um, I believe what I saw was ash tray, cigarette. Okay. Lines of Coke. Yep. Okay. Water proof sex toy on the, on the wooden thing. And then one just like sort of lingering in the bottom of the bathtub as well. So like multiple toys, lines of Coke, which either they were doing together or Jules has decided she has no problem doing in front of Ruth, someone who she is concerned whether or not it's clean and then the cigarette. I mean, this is the, the trifecta. This is, this is your living your best life. Right. This is modern life. Are you disappointed that we pulled the trigger on the email already so we can't do like water resistant dildo. I do all that. Oh my God. What, the possibilities are really endless once you incorporate water resistance. I think there were a lot of options. It's a lot of options in this episode email wise, but. Maddie came first. Anything else you want to say about this Jules, this like, I'm your sugar daddy now, dress sexy, a line for Rue or anything like that. I just continued to want Rue to be at the wedding with the other characters. And the most generous interpretation I can give the show is that Alamo's plan, if it needed to be executed at all, and it really didn't, I don't know why we're still doing the pig thing. I don't know why the pig thing now involves a parrot thing. It's all very convoluted. We are escalating. I don't really need that part of the show. But if you're going to do it, Lori does have a certain soft spot for Rue. And so the idea of bringing Rue along on this run, basically to distract Lori so you can drop a pill into Paladins. I don't know that she misses her that much. Should we kidnap her? Should we kid, they go from should we kidnap her to should we profit share very quickly. My understanding in grasp of capitalism is loose at best. But I don't think that the jump happens quite so efficiently in my experience. You know capitalism, not particularly. Definitely not particularly. Genuinely of all the frustrations in this episode, Rue leaving exiting the wedding. Rue getting a call basically from Zendaya's agent being like, you don't have to be at this wedding anymore. You don't have to pose to Sam Levinson on the red carpet and you don't have to do it. Very frustrating. OK. Maddie at the wedding. Was she even there? Maddie talked to Bibi and was glare and like still takes up complete possession of Nate's mom's brain all the time. Uncalled for. Marsha. In the speech. Calm down. Like it's been five years since Maddie's been in your house. Yeah. Calm the fuck down. All right. Maddie wearing scraps of green fabric. Not quite much. Looking incredible. Jewels not much more. Not much. Jewels is in like a sort of artistic confection. Right. Yeah. Maddie is more dressed to kill. Yeah. There was this idea, you know, a lot of fans based on the trailers that they put together for this week's episode, etc. were like, Maddie's going to show up at the wedding and just ruin it or do something that's really going to, you know, like enact her revenge on Cassie. Instead she gets like quite emotional. Cher is sort of like an emotional look with Cassie and then goes home in an Uber kind of sad. Maddie's number one boy. And I don't know if I want to claim number one, but I'm like right up there. Girl, I just want to say to Maddie, do not be upset about these losers. Why are you upset about these absolute losers? Nate and Cassie, who gives a shit? Their wedding is so ugly and tacky. All that money for those flowers. Wow. In the in the like CNN letter flower arrangement, tacky ugly. At least it was volume. You know, if you're going to pay 50 grand for florals, you're getting arches. You're getting the installation. You're getting the lined aisle. You're getting flower petals also lining the aisle. You're getting flower girls to then put petals on the petals. Petals on petals. It's a hat on a hat. The only thing I did like was the four piece string quartet that is much more tasteful than the rest of the wedding. Very classy. Everything else seemed like it sucked. I thought so. It fit. I mean, shout out the Langham Hotel, which is where this was set. I love the Langham Hotel, but they tackied it up. I think I think it fit Cassie's aesthetic pretty perfectly. Yeah. I, I know I just said I was most frustrated about Rue leaving this wedding. I got to up it and just rewind and erase that because I think I'm most frustrated by bringing Maddie to the wedding and not having her have literally any conversation with Cassie or Nate individually or together. The meaningful glance is nice. I'm actually very open to the idea that she would come there and be oddly emotional more than she expected. That's that's an interesting character beat. Yeah. The whole point of having her at the wedding is so that these people can be in a room and have a conversation after they have not in years. And there's so much unreconciled and there's so much like history between them. And she never even talks to Nate. I kind of believe from a person standpoint that you wouldn't want to run into your ex-boyfriend who cheated on you at their wedding. And the whole situation is very uncomfortable, but this is not real life. And Maddie is not a real person. And I like, maybe it's just me wanting, I don't even need the histrionics. I don't need a big fight. Like I don't need a rehash, but I need to know like where these people are all these years later in relation to each other. You would rather that than Nate talk about an endangered flower for like five minutes of the episode. Fuck the flower, Joe. Fuck the flower. Say it with me. Fuck the flower. Did you see that when Jacob Alorty was on the Tonight Show last year for Frankenstein was asked to sort of like explain Euphoria Season three in a couple words. And he said the name of the flower, the white, whatever it's called. He's like, it's all about that. And then there's just like, wait, hold on, I need to find it. There are these great Reddit posts that people wrote about what that means. White fertility is the name of the flower. Yeah. Here's a Reddit post I found of people reacting at that time on the Euphoria subreddit about what the meaning of this flower could be. Quote, these flowers can represent fragility, regret and confronting what you've done. That fits Nate perfectly. His story seems like it will focus on him dealing with the consequences of his actions sort of. In a way. And facing parts of himself, he's avoided instead of relying on control and aggression. I wouldn't hold your breath for that. But I just like, I mean, as someone who has just run wild with theories myself, I just love when people overanalyze incorrectly. And this person wrote a very beautiful post about the meaning of this particular flower, when in fact, it's just an impediment to building his scammy little retirement community thing that he wants to build. Scamming does seem exhausting, though. The amount of management that Nate has to do, like he's managing this neighbor who's invested with him. He's clearly managing Naz poorly. He's managing Cassie's feelings and vulnerabilities. Like he's just constantly having to put out fires in a way where I can see why he's dry heaving into a stall at the beginning of this episode. Pre-ceremony dinners. We've got Nate, but we've got Cassie. Yeah. Definitely wearing another Sydney Sweeney corset as part of her wedding dress. And then her team around her, which is her shitty neighbor, Heather, who does not seem to like Cassie at all and like tattles on Cassie at every single opportunity. So that's one of her bridesmaids. And then her literal sister, Lexie, who like has to do it. And then there's like a couple of, like. I think there's one other bridesmaid. There's like a blonde girl, but like sad state of Cassie's, you know, friend group at this point. Um, but don't worry, he picked you, Cassie. So it's fine. It's all good. Your life is justified. And then we have Seuss. You think Diarrhea is bad trying to get his boyfriend? Oh, wait. Hey-oh. A lot of you buck, I don't know if she's going to be in any other episodes this season, but she made a meal out of her opportunities here. And I just like, Seuss is wearing a dynamite dress. It's like red sequined number is like dancing with the James Brown interpreter, uh, impersonator. And like, I just, I had a great, Seuss is having a great time at the wedding. I'm having a great time with Seuss at the wedding. Thank God for her. Yeah. Thank God for her in all of these sequences. I mean, yeah, the dancing, the drinking, the telling Cassie about her own doomed marriage and the naivety of even thinking you can ever fully understand another human being as they are literally walking down the aisle. I also did love the some dreams do come true line as Cassie is getting into the stretch, Hummer limo with the man who definitely hates her and also has set her up for like a miserable wedding night and presumably a few years. And Lexi's like, hmm. Okay. I'm Lexi for a second. I'm not here to like virgin shame you lose your virginity whenever you want to. But you're pro herpes. Did Lexi not go to college? She must have. Lexi would have cleaned up in college. But what kind of I could like Lexi would have cleaned up. If you told me, I like Lexi would have cleaned a smart girl who looks like Mon Appetow in college with all of those college boys and or girls, whatever she prefers, but I think it's boys boys. Then like boys, then you're telling me she got through college a virgin. I don't think so. If you told me she went to an all girls, very liberal liberal art school. I could see that. Oh, just a sea of lesbians and Lexi straight all alone. I don't know what happened, but it seems more elective for her. She seems she's exercising some restraint in a way that basically no one else on this show is. Okay. I mean, yeah, I'm anti herpes, but I'm just saying this a lot strains credulity on you for you. And you're telling me that Lexi Howard out of the shadow of her sister in college didn't clean up. I think she did. So I'm just very glad we're finally getting you on the record, Joe. You I find you to be like a little squirrely in your opinions on certain things, but Joanna Robinson, anti pig urine, anti herpes, you know, I stand firm. I'm happy to talk to your dog. Your dog would like my opinions on this. Yeah, Suze is a little lecture to Cassie down the aisle. Never realizing it was the last happy moment I would share with your father. It looks so beautiful before I started looking like an anorexic. She's so fucking good. She's so good. I want to know how much a lot of you buck is improvising on this show. I think it's a lot. She needs a co-writing credit. She's so. Because even if she didn't write it, she is selling this in a way that basically no one else on the show is. Can I can I list for you, Joe, some of the things I did like about the wedding? So I know I've been a little harsh. Yes. The Sue stuff. Absolutely. You love an ice sculpture. Well, I do love that bit of Cassie, like Fred, I got the proportions of the ice sculpture. I do think Jacob Elordi's performance in the encounter with Nas specifically, there is like a quivering to him physically as he's trying to hold it all together and present this like very strong composed front that I think is really, really good stuff. I do think the return of some of the BBs and the Nate's brother is a nice touch. The perspective shot at the like altar from Cassie's POV looking up at Nate is very like, I and you understand the appeal of even this psycho guy or I guess formerly psycho guy now sometimes psycho, but just getting his face beaten in mostly as a as a hunk of meat, if nothing else, you know, like you can you're really selling me on that moment. Also Nate in full cult leader mode, like really, really whip and votes as far as the fuck the flowers go. I think that sequence is very good and very funny. And overall, like there's good stuff here. It just all felt kind of disjointed and uncanny in terms of how it all fit together. Tell me about your seems like you had a negative reaction to the Cal and Jules conversation. It felt a little bit like, can you remind me what happened with us in season one? And also, what are you doing here in season three? And why are you talking to your son? Better than being alone. Yeah. It's not every day you fuck one of your son's high school classmates and record it. Yeah. It's like, I don't I don't need this. I don't think these people need this. That was one of the worst things that ever happened to either of them. So I don't know what else they have to talk about. I don't know that that's true, though. I think it is a very messy show. I mean, that's fair. And I think Jules, I don't think Jules left that encounter saying that's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. To clarify, I don't mean the encounter with Cal so much as the whole issue of the tape and the blackmail and everything that Nate made it about. And so then there's the follow up of like, OK, somehow Jules's tape did not make it in with the rest. There must have been someone looking out for me, looking over at Nate. And then the show decided to feed the, I'm sorry, unhinged Nate and Jules shippers that exist out there. I, I alerted you were not aware that no, that this is a vibrant and vocal member portion of the euphoria fandom are the people who are hoping that Nate and Jules, those two crazy kids will just work it out. On what grounds? You're asking me to defend a ship that I do not subscribe to? What is your understanding of like, what is it just based off of the connection they seem to have when he was impersonating this guy on the app that they were talking through? And when he says, I, I, I, every word I said was true, you know, that there, there, I mean, the show has definitely fed it. There have been moments of if Nate allowed himself to be his true self, perhaps Jules would be the person that he would be attracted to. The echoes between Nate and Cal of like sort of a person who is repressed inside their sexuality. It has to choose the most obvious cassies of the world to have Cal say, you're a success. Just look at your wife, you know, this sort of like picture perfect blonde buxom, like whatever. And Jules is two different and interesting and compelling and queer and all his other things outside the lines of that. Can't allow himself to be like his dad, to be like that, but there is a part of him that wants a Jules. And I think all of that is there. And I think all of that is interesting. Nate is just such a piece of shit that I don't want him anywhere near Jules. Like I want him, I want everyone to be their true authentic selves, but part of his true authentic self might be more queer than he allows himself to be, but part of it is also being an absolute psychopath. And I don't want a psychopath near Jules. So that's how I feel. Nor do I. I think the portrait you've drawn helps me understand the case a little bit better just because from various fandoms and ships across all of fiction, the idea of like this guy is a piece of shit, but he's not a piece of shit to me. Like I could be the one who he's not a piece of shit to. Yeah. Obviously he's very compelling. I'm not tagging you in this particular picture, but I'm just. I feel attached. I'm not saying I'm just saying, but if you are one of these people, if you are one of these people who is a part of this particular ship, I am worried about you. I am very concerned about you engaging in that kind of thinking with like, this is not a normal store brand dangerous dude. Like he is not like high school level bad. He is a sociopath. I say there's no wrong way to be a fan, but your neighborhood fame, thirsty, idiot, podcasters are here to tell you, and we think this is a bad one and we don't like it. We're here for you. And if look, if there's an argument to the contrary, if you have seen the light in Nate Jacobs and you would like to tell us about it, Matt, he's number one boy, I do. I want to hear the case genuinely. The show is definitely feeding it in this encounter that they have outside of the wedding here. They share a cigarette. They do. They pass the cigarette back and forth. Now, Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan pass the cigarette back and forth in centers. So this isn't 100 percent guaranteed that they were in the same place. You know, you know that that ship exists out there too. People are wanting everything. Smoking. Smoke X stack. I guarantee you it's a thing. I just want to promise you that I, I, I'm pretty sure the Hunter Shaffer and Jacob already were in the same space inside of this scene. You say that it could have been Hunter Shaffer and Andy Serkis. Like we don't know. That's what I'm saying. But they're passing a cigarette back and forth and we get a sort of like, you love who you love. I mean, this is definitely feeding that. Do you think we get any other Jules and Nate interaction the rest of the season or was that the, the crumb for the Nate and Jules shippers and go with God? That's the last you'll get. I'm sorry to say to those shippers, I think this is the crumb. I agree. I don't know how these two people would end up. In the same room again. I don't know how, frankly, Nate is making it out of the season alive. Honestly, he's not in a good space. I want to talk about that. But before we get out of all the wedding stuff to rewind to Cal for a second, I did maybe my biggest laugh of the episode is Cal talking about being a registered sex offender as the modern day Scarlet Letter. You literally had sex with a bunch of minors and you're like, oh man, poor pitiful me. My guy has not read the Scarlet Letter. Even, even I know that this is not the right comparison to make. Famed non-reader of fiction. Famed, you know, I'm not a fan. No. But I'm fluent enough to know. Out on Nathaniel Hawthorne. Actually, you know, I don't want to dememore. Now what I said, I could be convinced of the larger merits of Nathaniel Hawthorne, but I'm pretty sure he was not writing about being a sex offender. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's true. I'm pretty sure that's true. A little casual adultery is a little bit different than a statutory rape. I have some questions about how they decided to use Eric Dain in this. And by they, I just mean written, directed, produced, executive produced by Sam Levinson, decided to use Eric Dain this season because Eric Dain, who has since passed away, had pretty advanced ALS at the time. And so the decision to have Cal be in the show anyway, but show up everywhere drunk, so that the slurring nature of his speech, you know, which was just a, you know, a function of the ALS is written into the plot as Cal has, you know, only feels loved by his whiskey or whatever. I don't know. What do you, what do you think of that? I think if he's going to be in the show, I mean, these are the two paths, right? Either you don't talk about it or you may get hard of the plot. I don't really. Or you don't use him at all. Yes. Or you don't use him at all. Given that he's going to be on screen and they made that conscious narrative decision, Cal being pretty deep in his cups feels consistent with that character to me. So it's not like this came out of nowhere. I buy it. I'm on board for like this kind of speech he would make at a wedding like this and how he might be feeling and trying to get through the night. That part checked out to me and Nate telling his brother to go grab the mic. And then his brother doesn't seem to do that. Why don't think he wanted him to grab? I think it was like, you know, I'm going to give you the collar and you do the hook. That's what he's wanting. I'm calling out then the Nate's because when Naz is there, I would say pretty loudly threatening quite Nate. Let's see at least is somewhat paying attention a little bit, but not as much as I would, you know, because Heather hears it. Lexi is closer. Lexi is just sort of like, are you OK? Not, hey, it sounds like someone's threatening your husband with bodily harm because of his exorbitant debts or something like that. But I watched season two. Lexi is the watcher of the show. Isn't that the whole bit? She's a writer. She's a writer. She's an observer. She's constantly eavesdropping in on conversations like. That's true. Not my Lexi. Nate's brother is right there. Just staring off into the middle of distance the entire time. That tracks. That man has like a little dog jumping over a fence in his head. Just starting to look. Before we leave the wedding, I just need to shout out that Jules ordered my drink, which is tequila soda. And that is just, you know, a very classy drink for a very classy lady. I just want to say. I can't disagree. Do you have any particular accoutrements? Are you doing like a little lime squeeze in that or just straight tequila soda? Tequila soda rocks, lime. Yeah. Can't go wrong. Especially at a wedding open bar. Oh, yeah. That's the time. That's the place. Absolutely. Anything else you want to say about the flower, about Fred and Heather, about anything else? Just that a full wedding make out, I would expect nothing less from Cassie and Nate. This I do think they really did. No, no, no, no. They nailed a lot of the particulars of what it feels like these two people might do at their wedding. The last tacky detail is the white stretch homer that they take back to their house where he says she makes him want to be a better man, a better husband. One day a father and then he calls her Cassie Jacobs. If this is his like, I agree. Like if they had leaned even further into Nate Jacobs' cult leader, as you call out, that flower scene is really good. Just the way in which and we talked about this in season one and two, the sort of like psychological games that he can play with people, the emotional and literal blackmailing and all that sort of stuff like that. And so like Nate is a more successful weaver of stories, but they're opting instead to make him look bumbling and idiotic more often than not, it seems like, or nicer more often than not that he was. But like him talking Cassie down in the stretch homer with one day a father and then calling her Cassie Jacobs, I thought was like pretty diabolical and good. So, you know, agreed on that. I do think as far as a lot of his interactions at the wedding, that's where you could see a little bit of the like compulsive liar Nate Jacobs popping through it, not just the manipulations, but just like the way he puts out those fires, the way he's trying to constantly deflect and buy himself time. I agree that I don't even read him as necessarily more bumbling this season, just fundamentally nicer and kinder. And the bumbling, I just mean, in like the whole NASA situation, like I don't think he would just ignore that. I don't think he would get that far into debt to someone that dangerous. I think that's probably true. And just say, this will be fine. Well, you know, just to make the devil's advocate argument. What if there is something to say in this show about like a person who grew up with a like, all of my mistakes get wiped away kind of privilege than Nate Jacobs does. And just thinking that like, I'm just going to keep saying, I'm going to bring him the hundred grand next week and I'm going to buy myself time and it's going to be fine because I'm starting quarterback, Nate Jacobs for whom all is good affect effectively. Is there a part of just like that obliviousness to consequence that could make sense? And it's one thing to sort of manipulate high school girls. And another thing to get into this with with Nussim here. That's a great question. Anything else you want to say about the wedding night? I mean, many things. I think for one, I think we have confirmation that the only reason there is yellow carpet in this house is to be blood splattered. Right. It's just for the contrast, right? Is there any other design choice that would lead a person to do such a thing? Tackiness. I don't know. Maybe so. Maybe it is that simple. You can have a yellow carpet and it'd be nice. I would just say not that carpet and not in that house. And not comprehensively yellow. It's like yellow wall and yellow carpet. I mean, the very like monochrome thing I can be sold on in certain contexts, but maybe not that particular shade. Anything else you want to say about it other than your interior design? That's what people come here for, Joe. I mean, rest in peace to Nate's toe. There had been some chatter online about is Jacob Lourdy only in three episodes this season? Like, does Nate die at the beginning of the season? I don't think you cut off his toe just for him to die. So I think he's I mean, obviously he's not dead by the end of the episode, but like, I don't think Nate's going anywhere. I don't know how much Jacob Lourdy is in the rest. Like I can I could see the beginning of the season being kind of Nate heavy and then a handoff a little lighter later on. But like I don't there were been a lot of theories that he was only in the first three episodes. I don't think that's the case at all. Clearly not. I mean, the investment in his and Cassie's story has been so significant that even if you do kind of shift balance, you're going to have to show what happens to them. Well, I have some, you know, literally we have not watched Beyond Episode 3. We do not know what's coming. I have watched the like this season on trailer and there is a lot of like Maddie Cassie content. And so I'm curious if if this idea of some women inherit fortunes, others inherit debt. If Cassie is on the hook for Nate's debt, if if Maddie and Cassie just get to generating those bucks. You think the only fans is back open for business? Oh, I definitely do. You think baby play is in season. I think we have not seen the last of incredible get ups on Sydney's week. I mean, that was always going to be the case, regardless of its any professional capacity for her or not. But overall, I mean, this toe included, I've already had my fill of foot stuff. I think we're OK if we just want to if we just want a skirt. I know we're going to denial on since and this is the turn to the light season. No, we can't we can't no foot left behind. There are just a lot of fetishes if you want to indulge them out there. And so maybe let's let's diversify. OK, so every week Rob comes down on another fetish. I'm not planning to, but that's just what the show is going to do. OK, great. Before we get to all of that, we have Rue talking on the phone to Fes. And so this is another in the vein of me asking about the use of Cal this season. We had an opportunity here. So like Angus Cloud passed away. Fes cannot be physically in this season. So they made a decision not to kill that character off screen, but to put him away in jail so that we cannot physically visit him. Yeah. But then to take it a step farther and have Rue have a phone conversation with him where we don't hear the other side obviously. But like I found this kind of ghoulish. How did you feel about it? I had ghoulish written down that it didn't quite get that level for me. Like if it had stayed on speakerphone and were like Paul Walker style, like reconstructing sentences. Yeah, if it was either previous footage, reused or AI driven, I think I would feel that way. This just felt unnecessary. It's like, why do we need this? We already had the mention to kind of cover our basis of like what Fez is up to. He's not going to be in the story. He's in prison. Collins is in Portland and Fez is in prison. And important things happen off screen. And in this case, you can only understand why I did not need this conversation. I think it was just to give Rue one more thing to do on her way to the air. And she doesn't need to be on. It's just kind of a bummer for a bunch of different reasons. But I just think it's pretty unnecessary from a narrative standpoint. In Lori's camp, we're setting up this, you know, with Fe as this object that her foot soldiers are sort of arguing over. Yes. But here's the. Nazi one, Nazi two. Do we know the other guys in Nazi or not? I mean, let's assume. Birds of a feather. Let's assume. Here's the most important. Safe watch 2026. Faye is allowed in the basement unsupervised. Just something to know, something to put away. She has basement privileges. She thought that was interesting. The Thomas Crown Affair outcome for the season is in play, Joe. With the snake, I hope. Lori says the grass is always greener by the septic tank, which I think was a great line. Want to shout that out. And then Rue is on the job. Bishop poisons the bird. Bishop has Lori. If Lori named the parrot after Richard Boone, she says she didn't know, quote, blacks like Westerns. And then we get the whole cowboys and versus Indians, which one of you and Bishop says he's a motherfucking cowboy. Again, I think this performance is better than the writing, but Bishop is really working for me as a character. I like Bishop. I did like that line. I wouldn't say that I needed the dramatic money toss onto the table finger guns routine. I kind of liked it. I don't dislike it. I think it gets that overall with this whole sequence, like there is an attempt at intensity in this whole like standoff. What are we doing here? What is this run all about kind of dynamic in the room? And also of style with shots like that and the construction of those scenes. I'm just kind of like, all right. Like again, like something about the way we got here felt so contrived that putting all these people into an intense situation just didn't really like deliver for me necessarily. I don't know. There's something. So Daryl Britt Gibson is playing Bishop, who I think I know best from you're the worst, but has been in a million things, including the wire or Californication, etc., etc. Barry, etc. Like just a great, a great face, a great energy. I find him just like compulsively watchable. And so I think if it were if it were like with love and respect, March on Lynch in this sequence, it would have fallen really flat for me. But there's something so off kilter about him. Definitely. And this character and this performance that I just I was kind of bought all into it. Also, he's poisoning a bird and then like covering it with all of this other nonsense in order to get away with the poisoning. And you have been wandering around these office halls, yelling death to all birds. When will we. I do think the idea of. Do you know that? OK, please. Quick story about. Wow. That's your. I've never killed a bird, but. I'm glad you also clarified that going in. A friend of mine was a teacher and one of their classroom pets were these doves. And occasionally she would have to like take the doves home as you do with like a classroom pet. Sure. And it turns out that like when you cover like the bird cage at night, they sort of like think the world is over. There's nothing about bird brains where they just like get addled and confused easily by a darkened space. Can I ask you a question? Does this not happen to you? Oh, when the lights go. I mean, that's just what I've that's just where I'm living. But OK, OK, maybe me and the doves. And so her husband every night when he like threw the cover of the cage, he just would death to doves. And it made me laugh every single time. It's a fantastic fit. Those poor doves death to doves. I think about it all the time. The doves are fine. Well, I mean, I'm sure they died eventually, but they were not because of that. The world object permanence. Yeah, exactly. Your whole world blink out of existence. Extremely rough. And then we get the DA DA showing up on the scene. Rue still listening to the Bible, so still committed to this bit. In the many critiques that people had about euphoria this season, one thing that we noted in episode one, certainly it was like, this is so breaking bad, the opening felt very breaking bad to us. I saw an article that was essentially the same gist, but the headline they used was Rue is now inside of a Netflix crime show. And I just want to say, excuse you, it was an AMC crime show before it was on Netflix, Breaking Bad is AMC. That's all I just wanted to clarify the record. This is not Narcos coded. No, no, no, no, no, this is Breaking Bad. But this did feel very like. I always think about like effects in this era and I bring it up all the time. But like Sons of Ant, this feels like very much like a Sons of Anarchy turn of the plot or something like that, like we're someone who's been involved in crime all of a sudden here comes the DEA and this is where the story is turned. Now, so yeah, especially like a somewhat unwitting person who does have a conscience who isn't of this world. Because it just happened to Pinkman quite easily. I mean, easy to flip. Yeah. Anything else you want to say? I just don't know any other reason other than being flipped why Rue would be being pulled over in this capacity, unless like Lori's place was already being staked out. But it doesn't make sense to me that Lori or anyone in her gang would call anyone on Rue or that anyone in Alamo's game would turn her in. At first, I thought it was Lori, you know, even though you saw the red and blue lights. At first, I thought, you know, when they were talking about kidnapping Rue, I was like, you know, is this a fake out and she's about to be kidnapped? But now I don't think it's that. I think it is genuinely the DEA. I think probably so. Pulling her over. OK. We were mixed pause on the first two episodes. Do you think you're like mixed negative on this? No, I wouldn't go that far. Yeah. Some of it's just like I had such high hopes for the moments in which I mean, the name Cassie Wedding, Maddie's presence there, what it was going to feel like to get all these people in the same room. And it was just a little dispiriting to find out that many people involved are just not going to let that happen for perfectly understandable reasons. But it's just like not what euphoria is going to be. Right. And so I'm just like missing. I'm missing the magic of like all of these performers have such unique and sometimes conflicting energies. Yeah. And you don't get that like very particular euphoria blend of having like three of them having one conversation or a gaggle of girls in the bathroom, like all bouncing off of each other. And I would love to get some of that back, but I just don't think it's what euphoria is going to be. I do. Yeah. I'm thinking about the plot lines going forward. And if like Cassie and Maddie are sort of in the same plot line, does does that intersect with anyone else? How does Jules's story possibly intersect with anyone else? How does like, you know, we got a little bit of a bait and switch to Sharon Stone. We haven't seen Sharon Stone in like two seasons, but like Lexi's whole, you know, soap opera. How does that intersect? And then the Rue crime story, like are these separate stories? Never the twain shall meet or are they all going to blend together somehow? I'll be interested if I think they're all going to be a very exciting crossover episode of LA Nights. Tune in. Can't wait. I do have one more wedding related question for you, Joe. Get low plays at Cassie and Nate's wedding. Yeah. Millennium Anthem. It is played at. I'm not joking. Every single millennial wedding I've ever been to. Really? Completely. Is Gen Z rocking with it like that? Do you think this is a Cassie and Nate era song? Or I'm granted. Or did Suzer request it? I mean, maybe songs of all times play at a bunch of weddings of all styles. So it's not like it has to be so beholden. But you're like, is this the new electric slide or not? I would. Is this the Cupid shuffle or no? Frankly, I would be honored. If this is the contribution from our generation is that we are getting low. I think it's a great it's a great signifier of everything we're about. If you're Gen Z and you want to email us, Maddie's number one boy at gmail.com and let us know if you would play get low at your wedding. We would like to know. Please. Anything else you want to say? One more message for the jewels and natures out there. I think I've done my bit. OK, you'll be OK. Let it go. All right. We will be back with more euphoria. That's all we're on right now, actually, is just euphoria for the foreseeable. We'll see if anything else crops up. But if you're late coming around to beef, we've done now three episodes covering the entire season of beef, which is a binge drop on Netflix. So you can go check those out as well. Sounds great. Thanks to everyone who worked on this episode. That would be Ky Grady, Devon Aldo, Jacob Cornette, the whole crew here at second war. And we'll see you soon. Bye.