S1E9: La Chica o El Mundo

Oh, welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast, an intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McCaleb. I'm one of the editors of Pluribus and I'm the host of this podcast. This isn't a recap show. It's more of a wide ranging roundtable discussion about the making of each episode. So I strongly recommend watching the show before you listen, because we're going to talk openly spoilery about everything. This podcast is about episode 109, entitled La Chica o El Mundo, written by Gordon Smith and Allison Tatlock and directed by Gordon Smith. In this season one finale, Kusumayu joins the collective, and then Carol and Manusos finally meet face-to-face, and they're forced to navigate their evolving feelings about this new reality. There's so much to talk about this episode, so without further ado, please welcome our guests. Creator Vince Gilligan. Hello, Chris. Co-writer and director of this episode, Gordon Smith. Good to see you, Chris. Co-executive producer, Trina Cioppi. Hello. And our star, our Carol Sterka, it's Ray Sehorne. Yay! Excited to be here. Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. Woo-hoo! And also with us today on the mix board, on the ones and twos, is Assistant Editor Nicholas Tsai. Hi, Nicholas. Hey. All right, now back on the board. No, just kidding. What are the ones and the twos? It's like a DJ thing. I know. Yeah. Well, who's to say? You don't know what you're just saying? The wheels of steel? the ones and twos no it's it's a reference to uh dj stuff reference to lawrence welk and a one i like that too yeah that's what the kids are into these yeah so yeah this is the season one finale yeah episode 109 it went so quick it did yeah you can remember all of the things that we said in previous episodes yeah yeah should we tell them how we make the sausage this is the second one we're recording yes we yes we we full disclosure peeking behind the curtain we just finished recording the 101 podcast so the premiere and the finale of the season all in one yeah i was gonna start doing things like well as you said ray on the 103 podcast the other full disclosure is that 109 is not finished yes um but we cut you out of it too yes gordon was just telling Yeah, like I say, you die off screen in a helicopter act as an accident. Oh, not even on screen. Wow, that's a blow. No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit about your blood. Your blood comes on screen. A little wipe of blood. That's how Carol goes. Look, it's a choice. It's a creative choice. I could still pop out of the bomb box, though, in season two. That's right. Carol finally gets her atom bomb. Yeah. That's right. Which was a hard-fought choice. We actually came to that while we were working on the episode because we had delivered several scripts to Apple and they would gently push back and say, we don't know this is a big enough ending for a season. And we thought about it and Vince and I talked about it a lot and we were like, what about this? What if they just, she asks for an atom bomb. We had a series of somewhat softer endings that were interesting, but there were not quite as much of a line in the sand. And this felt like a line in the sand. We don't know exactly what it means, but... The folks we work with are really smart. And it was an executive note that made this, made the ending better, made it what it is. Nice. So it worked out pretty good. You know, Vince, something I've learned from you over the years is not disregarding any note and taking even a bad note, which that was not. But even historically, a note that you know doesn't work or won't work, but trying to address it because it gives you the opportunity to make something better. It gives you just that one extra pass to say, how can we make this better? You know what it is? And it took me a while to get there because I certainly had my share of years where I was saying, oh, these people are idiots. I'm the only genius. So you got to break yourself of that. I mean, you can do it any way you want. If you're lucky enough to get this job, do it any damn way you want. But my advice is to listen to every note, not slavishly, not assume every note is 100% correct. But the trick is that I've found if you get certain notes about a certain scene, for instance, in an episode and you get notes from different people and they're all kind of wildly different and they're all on the face of it, not workable, not not workable. How not workable as in, you know, in your gut, you know, in your heart, they're not going to make it better. They're not the way to go. So the trick I have found is to look beneath them and say to yourself, okay, their fixes, they are presenting, they are offering, are not going to do the trick. But there is probably something wrong here because we've gotten a couple notes from a couple different people. They're not worded the same, but there must be a little bit of a problem here. So you got it. You want to get like Quincy. You want to get, yeah, the kids will know what the hell that means. You want to get forensic. you want to you know like a forensic pathologist to figure out okay i gotta deconstruct this i gotta figure out there is a problem here let's figure out what it is something you gotta be a detective at a certain point maybe got it yeah the note beneath the note is a good right good way to look for things and it gives you the opportunity to readdress and be like chris was saying is there a better thing here is there something else to try right speaking of is there a better thing. Carol and Manusos finally coming together. Finally meeting in real life in front of Carol's house in the cul-de-sac. I want Carol's house. It is a beautiful house. I need that house, right? Denise Pazzini designed a beautiful house. And the construction workers. Two beautiful houses. Two beautiful houses. Yes, there's the back lot, and then there's the set. And as we went through the season, they would build further and further towards the interior of the back lot one it was just more like right towards the window so you could shoot over me to shoot out horizon line and all of these great viewpoints of the cul-de-sac but if you were shooting in you you were pretty limited so they kept building more in and by i have to say by the end so much of it was built and there were so many days where i would walk out and be surprised that i was on set or surprised that i was on the back lot i was like oh that's weird what i thought i was yeah I would totally forget. So you'd walk out and think you were going to walk into the cul-de-sac, and then you walked into the soundstage. Yes, or the other way around. Or the other way around. Yes, or I'd go run to the stairs and they're not going anywhere or whatever. It was always funny. And I had a running joke with my fabulous co-star, Carolina Widra, because she would often go and sit in one of the rooms and be on her phone or more often than not studying her script or just reading or writing in her book. And walking past that set to go to wherever we're filming, and she was forever surprised. And I was like, you know you're not alone, right? Like, we're shooting a show. Like, you're not in an Airbnb by yourself. You were just filming, and now you're over there, and I'm still filming. She would always be like, oh, Jesus. I'm like, yes, there's people here because we're on a sound stage. The other thing that happened by this point in the season, by nine, the shell house, the back lot house, things you don't think about. when you leave a hot house, basically unattended, you get a lot of mice, you get a lot of animals, because it's not a house. It's not really sealed like a house. And so we were like, oh, right. This is essentially still half colonized by people, this area. So we were like constantly dealing with mice and bugs and things. Yes, I do remember that. Remember when Simon had to, Simon, one of our transpo drivers, when he had to go over because somebody was letting their dog poop in the fake little park yard. Oh, yeah. Thought it was an actual real dog park. They, like, took their dog park. Oh, my God. I didn't know that. Is that like people using the toilet at Home Depot, like the display toilets? Yeah. Hey, don't back it until you've tried it. That's like using the toilet on set. Yeah, right. Because if we want to flush the toilet on set, you got to rig it up with special effects. Which I have seen, and I will not name names. Oh, no. But, yeah, it has happened. Not on our sets. Not on our cruise. Not on our cruise. There was a giant tub in like one of the annex rooms. It wasn't labeled like electric or props or anything, but it came off the set and there was a huge bucket tub with a lid on it and a giant sign and Sharpie on it that said, this is not a bathroom. And I was like, it makes me really sad that that had to be written. Like what was going on? Prop yourself up on the barrel. who drops by spots a bucket is like yep this is where i should go not the bathroom that's 10 feet away from here again i'm not liking the judgment i was gonna say i was gonna say vince you as somebody who has directed you know you can't get offset that often sometimes you can't get far away sometimes the bathroom comes to you the bathroom comes to necessity is the mother of invention yeah um i mean speaking of which of necessity and invention One of the big ways that Carol and Manusos are able to communicate is through that translator app. Oh, yeah. And I know from editing it, I know that both you and Veska, I know that you both had earwigs. Yes. And you were hearing a real-time version of that translation. And even though you all know the scene and you're fully studied and prepared, you have to be waiting for that translation to happen. Can you talk about the... Yeah, that was technically difficult. Difficult. And he speaks fluent English. I do not speak fluent Spanish I sad to say But I know the scene so I know what he saying and he knows what I saying very clearly But we are supposed to play people that don know what each other is saying So you have to wait for the translation. And then on top of that, working with Gordon and we're working on it all together. And we realized that there were times when the pace necessitated us by context, surmising what the other person said. Like it was literally like a rhythmic thing where like the pace was off. if you didn't like jump here, jump there, but there weren't hard and fast rules. And we had to like all decide those things together and then play the actual frustration of when you have to wait. Right. And the sort of comedic absurdity of it. Right. Without the characters thinking it was funny. Right. Because yeah, the word order is different in English and Spanish. But there's times where it's like, if you hear telefono, you're not going, God, what does that mean in English? I just, I gotta wait. So you can just, there's places where, you know, you, when you're actually speaking a language, you kind of, you absorb it in a different way than word to word. And also performance. Yeah. So there were times when we did more heated takes, more like really combative with each other. And Carol would probably respond to somebody barking at her, regardless of what you're saying. Like, don't bark at me. But there's other times where, when we would take other. Snapping. Yes. Yeah. One of my favorite lines. Do not snap at me. I don't speak snap. I love that. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. And then, yeah, there's other times where if you brought the heat down, it would be a certain word that was further along in the sentence that would irritate somebody or exactly what are you saying and waiting for that information. And plus, Carol's lying the whole time, which was so much. I don't know why they came back. I don't have any idea. Like, what do you mean? Why are you looking at me suspiciously? We had so much fun playing that. And that was the scene that he did the screen test with, the audition with him for. That's right. Chemistry read. So had you done that scene with other actors before in the past for chemistry read, or was it just Veska? I did. Yeah. Yeah, no, we're not going to say who. I did. I'm just saying, so you've done this scene. I will say this, if a single one of them is listening to this, brilliant, brilliant. It was a decision of what story you want to tell, right? Absolutely true. It's one of those situations where it breaks your heart, you can't hire everybody. But that doesn't take anything away from, like, I mean, he's shown. He was magnificent, and then he has delivered 10 times over on what people expected. Oh, yeah. He's magnetic to watch. Absolutely. He is. Yeah. And he's very funny. He has a very dark sense of humor. When we came in from the desert, the majority of the talking on the phone, and then I think you added, Gordon, Wasn't it added our cross into the back door? Oh, yeah, yeah. We added that. Walking by the grave. Yes. Yes. So we had been doing the dialogue stuff and trying to figure out. And like I said, it was challenging, but cool. It was like all hands on deck. We got to figure out how to make this scene work the best it can work. Plus you have technical apparata that you're trying to figure out. And Veska was like, you know, as all actors, myself included, we were like, is it us? Are we screwing it up? I'm like, no, no, no. It's just a thing where it's a puzzle that we've all got to figure out. So we finished that. And then you added that piece where we're passing the grave and he just needed to put the umbrella down right behind me and then walk in. And he kept messing it up. And he was like, oh, are we still shooting this scene? I think for a second it didn't click that we added that section that it's not that we're going to go back and do the dialogue again or whatever. But instead I said to him, I go, apparently we're going to shoot all day until you can put the umbrella down correctly. And he was like, what? He was like, oh, you're messing with me. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that umbrella was a pain. It was a pain in the ass. It was a pain. Total pain in the ass. Looks great. What do you mean more than most umbrellas? More than most umbrellas. Kind of, yes. It's quite large. It's a quite large umbrella. OK. So getting it, like, to get it up and get it right. And then there's the tag that's hanging down, the whatever, the tag that you wind it up and seal it up with. Yes. Was that dangling in different positions? And it didn't always stay down. I mean, it's no gum on an escalator. People, that's the hardest thing in episode one that I do. This is the hard-hitting stuff that folks in the real world do. Drive trucks and work at Factors for a Living love to hear from Hollywood. How hard it is to open and close umbrellas. My dad somewhere looking down will be very happy, though, because he used to always tell me that I can't walk, talk, and chew golf. Is that your regular walk or is that your stage walk? Yes, I also have a fake walk. Angie, our first AD, told me one day, like do your was it her that said it first no you said i think you said it first and then i started right somebody was like do your regular walk and i was like this is my regular what's wrong with my walk so i just started coming up with weirder and weirder yeah i was taking weird like mini mini steps like the cartoon if the music's like it was that kind of run but part of it was in the Boots I'm wearing all through episode one and probably seven more episodes. I can't remember. But they had soft, like, leather soles. And then the carpets were crazy slippery. And I had a bizarre fear that I was going to go careening into a window. And, yeah, but. No, and that would have been very bad. I got it eventually, though. Oh, you looked fantastic. It was great. You have to take wide steps when you run. Wide, wide steps. Well, this one we had to figure out in terms of running, because we had two big runs from your house to Manusos' house in this. Yes, downhill. And it was like, okay, you have to run, and it's intense, and you're worried, but you're not that worried. So I was like, okay, wait, you have to save something for the next run. The next run is the real worry. You're very worried, but not that. So it was like modulating these like, okay, so you've got to run in a certain way that says I'm really worried, but like not so worried that you're freaking out because we have to save that for the later run. Oh, my God. No, that's not. Yeah, this is like a 7.5 panic. And then we're going to do like a 9.2 panic. And also opening the door. How panicked. Less panic, more panic. That was fun. That was fun. And then the amazing Heather Bonomo also had to run for me sometimes, who's fantastic, my stunt double. We didn't talk about the world's greatest Texas swap. That was a good one. That was a good one, where Heather backs the truck up to pick up Helen, who's, you know, to get her to the hospital. So it was Heather backs the truck super fast in a frame, jumps out a frame after Heather exits frame. You come in and then- Go to the sandwich board. Go to the sandwich board, and then we swap again. Outside the tavern. That's a double Texas swap. There was a double Texas swap. Yeah, but like one of them is like the best I've ever seen because literally she leaves frame one frame before you enter frame. It's just like it was amazing. It was the best I've ever seen. She was so great. She got your mannerisms down and your run and your walk. It was so. She studies everything to do. Yeah, it was really great. Hard to tell the difference. And she studies performance whenever she's allowed, which was whenever she wanted. I would want her to hear, like, your notes to me for performance because she would take that in. It would change her body language and everything. But, yes, we did a lot of modulating to Manu Sos' house, which was fun. that was fun yeah and of course the big moment there that's so awesome is uh the the cocking of the shotgun when you're when you've blown the thing i remember now why we use you you're so cool in that moment that's why you're such a badass when you go you're right every single time we watch it it's either vince or somebody was like it's a badass i mean so many oh yeah it's awesome in so many ways you know they talk about like the hero's journey and it's a big part of it is refusing the call and it's so much of this season is carol being like does it have to be me right right do i have to do this like this doesn't feel right this whole world sometimes it feels good sometimes it feels bad i i don't like it this should be somebody else's problem right but it's your problem so yeah it was it was fun and it follows directly right my scene where i come back to carolina and to zosha and i'm like wait so you love him the same yeah Yeah, it does. That's a heartbreaking scene. Yeah. I love that scene so much. Both of you are so good together. She was great. And I'm sure we've said that many times by now on the podcast. But in that moment, because you said something to me early on about it's a very hard thing to not give back the amount of energy you're receiving. Yes. You have a very different energy in that moment than she does, which is very important. Yes. Zosia is very solicitous in that moment of Carol's feelings, but she's not giving back. The thing you would expect would be like, oh, no, we didn't mean to hurt your feelings. And she doesn't do that. There's a reserve there. It's very polite. And there is quite a bit of empathy. But there's also a distance there. Yes. I can't wait for you to see it. I'm excited. And it's super hard. And Carolina just crushed it. But it was a journey. And I would tell her all the time, like, dude, hats off to you because as humans, we are built to mirror the emotions and the visages that come and the gestures that are coming at us. If somebody changes the conversation into talking about something very sad, we tend to empathize and reflect it back. And, you know, they teach all the negotiations. It's better if you don't mirror, but it's a hard thing to do. If somebody is escalating the conversation and making this emotional when it should be business, you need to not match them. and as actors we're also supposed to be affected by our scene partner and she couldn't do either and yet she's not supposed to be cold and completely removed from caring about me and she had to thread that needle all the time and she was fantastic at it and in her screen touch she was one of the people that was the best at don mirror me Because I mean there times where I just I mean early on the airplane scenes where I just like get away from me You're disgusting. I hate you. Blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm just awful. Yeah. Screaming at people. Yeah. Or crying or, like, in deep pain. And you can't fix it. And those were hard for me, too, because I would ask you and Gordon all the time, like, so has Carol lost her mind here? Or like, just trying to figure out what's the level of denial and what's the level of like, to me, in the end, I thought she has fallen in love with holding onto a raft. Because I just, it was one of the ways I started to process it is like, she just, yes, there's a part of her that knows I've already been explicitly told that I am not uniquely her romantic partner. plus these people as I've already had an argument you know with Diabate that like this isn't real consent these people like you know whatever I'm still choosing to let go part of it is Helen's I think hearing Helen in my mind and in my heart that like can't you ever just let go and be happy and she never could so maybe that is the answer maybe I need to stop just struggling just float just go in the direction the river's going and this is the only raft I have and so it behooves her to try very hard to believe in it yeah that's well that's well put and and you know 40 days it's almost yes which you guys remind me all the time the isolation she went through i hope i never found i hope none of us no ever find out what it's really like but i've read all my whole life that solitary confinement's one of the worst punishments that anyone can give you yeah yeah yeah when there's like two days when jen is out of town and i'm alone in the apartment I start talking to myself like I'm a lunatic for 40 days. And that's in an apartment where there's people, where there's a city around. But if I'm just like isolated by myself, like walking around with the cats. Right. Well, yeah, well, looking back at the season, I mean, in episode seven, when Carol is alone all that time and she's filling the silence with song and just singing and singing, and you're watching somebody really lose it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. descending to the depths. Well, also, there is no end in sight. It isn't, I'm by myself until my partner comes back. There is no other end. She's seemingly going to be like this forever. Right. And the Golden Girls DVDs are going to run out. They should have made more episodes of the Golden Girls, I think. That's what she's thinking. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's what she's thinking in those moments. Yeah. Well, it doesn't have to end, as we learn in the teaser. That happens in a very authentic-looking Quechua village, which, you know, opening an umbrella may not be the hardest thing, but it seems like building a village would be. It takes a village, yeah. Yeah, it takes a village to make a village. You want to talk about constructing that village and assembling the people? Our art department and construction department did an incredible job. It's in a ranch in Pecos. Pecos. On the Pecos River in Mexico. Yeah, on the Pecos River. Just this ranch house off in the woods that had some flat land that was shaded into the valley and all of that. Other than the family members that we meet in episode two, how many more people are in that village scene? How many did we have? I don't think we had like 25, maybe 30, something like that. There were about 30 folks in the village wandering around because they're doing a... It's a show for... It's a Potemkin village, except it's a Kachua village. So they've built something to keep up the pretenses for Cusimayo. I mean, to me, it's her village. The village preexisted, the joining. But the people are very performative. They didn't leave as everyone else did. To make her feel comfortable. To make her feel more comfortable. And she's happy to, and she has said that she's willing to join them. It's sort of the test of that. Like when you say like, oh no, sure, I'm willing to give up my individuality. How willing are you really? like when it's actually coming on a jet plane towards you like how much do you feel feel good about it but the the village was quite an undertaking there was also there's a little bit of efx to make it a little feel a little bit bigger and feel a little bit more extensive and make it feel a little more andean and less pecos river yeah so so there's quite a bit of work i love the costumes hair and makeup they oh they did they did a great job so much research yeah tech advisory monasano trish almeida jennifer bryan yeah and just making sure that it felt authentic and and kind of not like it was a a vision from the past but like what a contemporary yeah indigenous village would look like and we could not get all south american indigenous people but we tried to hire indigenous folks from albuquerque from the new mexico region yeah Hopefully they appreciate it. It was very cool talking to that aunt and the, wait, who? I think it's an aunt and a cousin eventually. Elena and Jennifer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they do speak Quechua. And Jennifer, the cousin, she's from Virginia. She's from my home state. Yeah. Wow. But in small world. Now, was Dorinka speaking Quechua too? Yeah. Yeah. She was impressive as well. Wow. She's Peruvian, right? She's a Peruvian and a lovely young woman who is going to my alma mater, NYU Film School, to study being a director. She's great. And she was very directable. She wanted to try things. She was like, okay, how is that? And all of that was great. But yeah, the song was great. We also had a shout out to Phil Palmer, who is our production sound engineer. He's our wizard on set. He's a wizard on set. And he did years and years and years on Glee, where recording and playback and getting everybody to look like they're singing while you're doing a playback was their bread and butter. And so he was like, no, this is- place to hide mics on those costumes was real hard. Very tiny, very tiny costumes. But yeah, so he knew exactly how to make this scene so that it would feel like this group of people was all singing, even though it was pre-recorded. Yeah, seeing those pieces come together and getting the dailies, every day it was so exciting to see all that stuff. And that song just stuck in my head and I found it very haunting. Yeah. I really loved that part. Just one more thing in the teaser that I wanted to talk about. When the plane lands, I remember you talking about this, Vince, that that was Angela Krieg. Oh, yeah, Angela. She's another badass. She's a badass. She was LAPD's first female helicopter pilot back in the 80s. That's incredible. And I fly with her sometimes. She's so cool. And that's Steve Stafford, the guy who taught me how to fly helicopters, fly in the jet. And then she hands out that box with the secret smoke in it. Yeah. To Henry. Henry is a stunt driver who half the crew knew. He's one of the most respected stunt drivers of the last, like, 30 years. Just, like, everybody knew him. It was like, oh, my God, you got him to do it. And it's a very small thing, but he's apparently a kingy. Yeah, Henry's the man. Actually, Steve knew him. Steve had worked with him years and years ago. Yeah, everybody knew him. They were just like, oh, my God, Henry, hey, oh, my God. Trina, because you did stunts, do you still know a lot of stunt people? Oh, yeah. It's a pretty small world. It is. world of people, isn't it? It's kind of large, actually. It is small, but when you get into the different types of stunts, like there is, you know, fighting. So there's a whole fight community, stunt community. Oh, I see. And then there's like the car drivers and those, you know, and then motorcycles. But it's another family. It's big, but small. Do you ever just do a fall to keep people on their toes? Just like, oh, oh my God. All the time. I do the banana slip a lot. You know, I'll just toss it in front of me. Whoa. I was going to ask if she gets super judgy when other people are doing their stunts. Oh, yeah. I'm just like, in the back, Vince is holding me. I'm like, come on, let me in there. Let me in, coach. I did want to talk a bit about the kind of emotional climax of the episode and of the season in some ways when Carol kind of goes off. Well, it starts with this kind of romantic journey around the world. And do you want to talk at all about how that came to be? You know, because we were, as you see now in the season, And we shot a bit in Spain and the Canary Islands. And Montana. So we had intended to shoot the sort of little montage of the vacation, your attempt to go with the flow. Yes. We were going to shoot that entirely in Spain. But yeah, we had before the strikes, we intended to shoot in Spain in the summer. And then we ended up shooting in the North Atlantic winter, which meant that we were getting storms in San Sebastian and all this stuff. So we weren't actually able to accomplish what we wanted to do in Spain, which I think was to the better. because then Vince and I were talking about it and we're like, we need to do something different here. We had one piece that felt like, which was by the pool that felt like, okay, that could be a start of this journey that you're going on of the last temptation of Carol trying to go with the flow. But we needed other pieces. And so we're like, well, what could we do? And so we sort of talked about what a world-spanning vacation you had the whole world to play with might look like. And then we sort of thought, well, we're shooting in the winter. We've got to be shooting in the winter. Let's embrace that. Let's say they've gone to tropical locations. They go to the winter. They go skiing. They go do something. And so we scouted and we tried to figure out. We scouted in February and it was negative 27 in Big Sky, Montana, which some people. That's too many negative numbers. Thank you. It shouldn't go that well. It was cold. It was cold. It wasn't that bad. It was bad when you took your gloves off for me. I was like. But you're from Michigan. I'm from cold weather. So I'm like, I was, there were some people on the crew who were like, you people do this to me again. And it was like, it was luckily warmer when we shot about a month, month and a half later. So then we got to, got to Montana and we got this really cool it actually a restaurant that has that view And so we redressed it as sort of more of a lounge area more of an apres ski area And I was surprised to learn that we built that fireplace It is a fireplace that was there, but it was not obeying the laws of film set. And so Werner, our special effects king, had to rig it. Augment the flame. Augment the flame. And Denise augmented the facade a little bit. The place is really cool, and it's very interesting postmodern architecture that we don't really see in most of the show, but it's a little cold. Very pretty. And that's really the view out the window, because a lot of people say, you know, well, they just digitally put that in. No, that's what's out the window. It's incredible. So we got some snow, and we got some good-placed blobs of snow falling in the background of various shots. Serendipity. Yeah, I think it ended up being such a wonderful thing that we got to shoot there. Just everything from adding that scope to the show. It felt like a better nod towards some time passage to have such a different looking place. And then just the way we all came back to film such difficult scenes was a crew that had been apart for a month. And it's like everybody got all this rest but missed each other. So it was like the perfect way to come back and say, oh, we get to do it one more time. And it was really nice. I always say that, you know, you think when you spend that much time with someone, you want to kill them or, you know, I just want to go home. I don't want to see them on the weekend. I don't want to talk to them. Our crew actually hangs out with each other when we're not working. Yeah. We're with each other on the weekends. We invite each other to our party. You know, it's like we can't get enough of each other. I expect craft service. We have it out there. I don't know if we've talked about the Ita Reggie yet in previous podcasts. The Itareghi, the wonderful boutique hotel we shot at in just west of San Sebastian in episode two, or the luncheon, the luncheon scene in episode two. Gorgeous. Just to go a little further with what Gordon was saying earlier, originally, yeah, the wonderful vacation, the last temptation of Christ sequence, as Gordon was saying, once Carol begins to give in to temptation, so to speak, give in to the others. that was designed to be shot at the Eteregi. And it really, just to amplify what you were saying, I'm so glad that various things conspired against us to not allow us to shoot at the Eteregi because story-wise it would have been weird that of all the places on earth she could go back to, she'd go back to this place where she, it's a terrible memory. So it worked out, you know, the film gods initially were frowning upon us and made it so we couldn't finish shooting in Spain, that sequence. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, actually. And that pool scene is? That's the interregion. Yeah, that is the interregion. We were going to shoot sort of stuff that wasn't going to look exactly the same, but it still would have been identifiable, I think, if you looked at it. And it would have been a little bit weird. But there's also something of just, I mean, we were going to do this in Spain as well, sort of sitting by the fire, but it really worked out with the snow. Oh, the beautiful mountains. The feeling of just like, oh, this is so cozy. and I'm finally kind of let a weight come off. You know, everything, the rest of the episode is one tense run, really, for you, of like, this guy's coming and he's doing things and I don't like it. It's the trouble of another person. But then it's, hey, this is okay. Oh, this is great. We're here. We've been hanging out. Oh, wait. Yeah. Oh, wait. You know, like just the ultimate betrayal. The scope of like everything out the window, like I don't know why I found it very beautiful but very lonely. Yes. As opposed to if we had been in that, at the Iterag, the stone sort of cabin that we were talking about. It's quite intimate because it was not a lot of views and closed and dark and tight. But I don't know. There was something about being with the backdrop, but the windows is like, yes, it's intimate that I'm with her, but there's also this thing of like, without her, Carol is alone in the world. Yeah. The expanse and the emptiness. The expanse. That's exactly. Yeah. that I really really liked and the gondolas were fun yeah I was afraid I was gonna I have extreme motion sickness as many people in the show know and when they said there's no way to reset that glass gondola to do the second take you have to ride the whole thing around I was like it won't go back what was it 13 minute what was the time I think it was yeah we had to wait to reset every take you had to wait till the gondola came back 13 minute ride you got on you I don't ski and even when I have tried the J lift itself is the worst part for me when I was like Look how beautiful it is. And I'm like, I'm going to puke all over the kids on the bunny's lap. Oh, no. But turns out this very fancy gondola glass-enclosed sink doesn't move at all. Oh, wow. It was, like, so steady. And heated. And it had heated seats. So if Caroline and I look like we're dragging ass not getting out, some of the takes, we were like, just toasting buns. Just toasting buns. I didn't know your motion sickness was that bad. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. I ended up being fine. Ended up being fine. did you have that motion sickness when you were delivered in a helicopter back to your no weirdly i didn't feel the motion sickness in the helicopter i thought that would also be very floaty yeah because when i stay with my in-laws at a lake they have a little speed boat and i was afraid to get in the water because i used to get very sick but they were like fishing boats where you're docked or anchored and just the way but this is like if i can see the horizon line and i'm going at a clip. I don't have a problem. The helicopter, especially when Steve or Angela were flying, was like, I don't have any problem on an airplane either. I mean, turbulence like anybody when it just drops your stomach, but no, but take me in a car up my hall and drive, forget it. Forget it. Did you have a problem when Carolina was piloting the helicopter because it absolutely looks like she was. Well, she was. No. Why are you saying she wasn't? Why would you say that? What do you mean? She learned to fly a helicopter. So I thought I could not understand in the dailies because that's practical. She's looking down and she pulls a lever and the helicopter, it really, it wasn't on a crane. I'm just telling the audience, no, that's real. And, you know, somebody, a real helicopter pilot is actually piloting the helicopter. But Ken Fole was the, this guy, his day job is either dropping water on wildfires or it is doing long line work, which is what he's doing in that scene. He's literally lifting a steel shipping container and dropping it over and over, not dropping it, setting it down like a baby over and over again, exactly where it's supposed to go. That is a whole different level of flying a helicopter. I did four hours of training with long line work and talk about motion sickness. I got out of the helicopter. I'm trying to get this barrel down in a certain spot, and I say to the instructor, I gotta set it down. Is that okay? And he said, yeah, yeah. And I lay in the helicopter and I was so queasy. And he's showing me a picture of his daughter. He says, and he said, hey, you want to see a picture of my daughter? And at that moment, I threw up on the ground. Wait, did you say something about because of where your eyeline is when you're dropping it? Is what made you queasy? Well, you have to look straight. Well, it depends on which helicopter you're flying. Either you're looking out to your left or your right. when I was doing it, I was looking. You have to cock your head at this crazy angle. The guys who do this, the men and women who do this, are just, my head is off. I didn't mean to get off on this tangent. No. I'm interested. She looks so, it looks so real. And Ken is in the other seat flying. Gordon put the camera in the right place, Gordon and Paul, and it really looks real. For the audience, that is her in the shots where it looks like she's piloting the helicopter. That's her in a helicopter in the sky. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy that we just were able to, yeah, find a way. And all our camera operators, Matt and Roxy, were able to find angles where we could just miss them. Yeah. Just miss the fact that there's a pilot next to Carolina. Awesome. It looks so cool. Yeah. There's a million other things I wish we could talk about, but we're definitely out of time. Maybe we'll be able to do another mini episode or something to wrap things up. For the finale, we should. Yeah. Well, just, yeah, and thoughts about the season and, you know, hopes maybe for what's to come. That's a good idea. This has been such a treat to, you know, take this journey with all of you. I've enjoyed all nine of these podcasts. They flew by like they were two episodes. Three was my favorite. Three was great. It was really good. You're so funny in three. Thank you. Yeah, thanks you guys. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much to Ray Sehorne, Trina Cioppi, Gordon Smith, and Vince Gilligan. And thank you for listening to Pluribus, the official podcast, an Apple TV podcast produced by Highbridge Productions and Sony Pictures Television. You know, on a personal note, we have been just blown away, truly overwhelmed by the response to both the show and the podcast. We love making all of this and it means a lot to us that you're enjoying it. So thank you for taking this journey with us. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to follow on Apple Podcasts to get the next episode in your feed, including those bonus episodes. And watch Pluribus on Apple TV where available. Our editor and mixer is Nicholas Tsai. Theme music by Dave Porter. Associate producers are Alana Hoffman, Justin Verbeest, and Nicholas Tsai. executive producers are Jen Carroll and me, your host, Chris McCaleb. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.