'Beef’ Season 2, Episodes 7-8: Burnt Ends
66 min
•Apr 24, 2026about 1 month agoSummary
Jordan Robinson and Rob Mahoney conclude their three-part analysis of Beef Season 2 (Episodes 7-8), discussing the show's tonal shift toward explicit messaging, character transformations, and the controversial finale. They debate whether the ending's theatrical elements—including an elaborate action sequence and symbolic tableau—effectively serve the narrative or undermine the show's grounded first six episodes.
Insights
- Shows that rely on implicit character behavior and subtext lose effectiveness when they suddenly become didactic; explicit monologues about relationships and capitalism feel ham-fisted after establishing a more naturalistic tone
- Cyclical relationship patterns persist across generations and socioeconomic classes; the show suggests that divorce and self-awareness may be healthier outcomes than staying in dysfunctional partnerships
- Wealth and privilege function as insulation from consequences; billionaire characters like Chairwoman Park face no legal accountability, which undermines thematic coherence when the finale attempts moral reckoning
- Character consistency matters more than plot convenience; Austin's sudden emotional perceptiveness and Ashley's personality transformation feel jarring because they contradict established behavioral patterns
- Theatrical flourishes (action sequences, symbolic tableaus, orchestral swells) can distract from earned emotional moments rather than enhance them, particularly in shows grounded in realistic human behavior
Trends
Prestige television increasingly struggles with tonal consistency across seasons, particularly when shifting from character-driven narratives to plot-driven conclusionsStreaming platforms may incentivize visual spectacle and explicit thematic messaging over subtlety, potentially compromising narrative integrityAudience reception of season finales is increasingly split between those who value thematic ambition and those who prioritize character consistency and restraintPodcast criticism is becoming more granular and format-specific, with hosts analyzing technical execution (cinematography, editing, score) alongside narrative choicesRelationship narratives in prestige drama are moving toward depicting separation and divorce as potentially healthier outcomes than maintaining unhappy partnerships
Topics
Tonal Consistency in Television NarrativesCharacter Authenticity vs. Plot ConvenienceImplicit vs. Explicit Storytelling in DramaWealth and Accountability in Prestige TelevisionCyclical Relationship Patterns Across Socioeconomic ClassesTheatrical Elements in Grounded NarrativesDivorce as Character ResolutionManipulation and Emotional Coercion in RelationshipsVisual Language and Symbolism in TelevisionGenerational Differences in Relationship DynamicsPrivilege and Consequence in Narrative StructureAudience Expectations for Season FinalesPodcast Criticism MethodologyCasting Chemistry in Ensemble DramasReplicability of Television Formats
Companies
Netflix
Platform distributing Beef Season 2; hosts discuss Netflix's official episode descriptions and production decisions
HBO
Referenced for Flight of the Concords HBO series and White Lotus; comparison point for prestige television
Spotify
Podcast distribution platform; email contact listed as PrestigeTV@Spotify.com for listener feedback
YouTube
Platform where Prestige TV Podcast episodes are hosted; mentioned for video essay distribution
British Gas
Sponsor offering Peak Save electricity discount program (half price electricity on Sundays 11am-4pm)
McDonald's Canada
Listener mentioned Frutopia as fountain drink option in Canadian McDonald's locations
Sparrow Bakery
Bend, Oregon bakery featured for cardamom rolls; mentioned in listener mailbag segment
People
Jordan Robinson
Co-host analyzing Beef Season 2 finale; leads discussion on narrative structure and character arcs
Rob Mahoney
Co-host providing counterpoint analysis; narrated video essay on visual language of The Pit
Kai Grady
Created video essay on visual language of The Pit; described as entering multi-hyphenate era
Oscar Isaac
Plays Danny Cho in Beef; discussed for his performance with the micro-mullet hairstyle
Carrie Mulligan
Plays Lindsay in Beef; praised for facial expressions and comedic timing in finale episodes
Charles Melton
Plays Austin in Beef; quoted discussing character motivation and fatherhood influence on performance
Kaley Cuoco
Plays Ashley in Beef; mentioned for physical performance in action sequence
Phineas
Composed music for Beef Season 2; appeared as fictionalized version of himself in episodes
Billie Eilish
Referenced in episode; song plays during Phineas workout scene; mentioned as hating Lindsay
Peter Sarsgaard
Suggested as potential cameo for Lindsay's brother role; known for playing fucked-up love interests
Michael Sheen
Suggested as potential cameo for Lindsay's brother; praised for scenery-chewing theatrical energy
Tom Hiddleston
Suggested as potential cameo; praised for pomposity and 'short king energy' in roles
Ben Whishaw
Listener suggested as potential cameo for Lindsay's brother; podcast describes as 'Wishaw friendly'
Leonardo DiCaprio
Subject of ongoing 'Leo project' mailbag discussion about multi-movie marathon viewing event
Jake Allyn
Showrunner; quoted explaining decision to add tableau ending instead of ending on Chairwoman Park speech
Quotes
"Here's how you know when we don't like a show. A, we don't cover it. That's the number one way you can know. B, we stop covering it. Radio silence."
Jordan Robinson•Early in episode
"I didn't feel like it was of a piece with the first six episodes, basically at all. And I also just didn't find it to be a particularly energizing swerve."
Rob Mahoney•General discussion section
"You don't love me, you just don't want to be left by me."
Austin (character)•Episode 7-8 discussion
"It's all our perceptions. Someone can be tired and everyone thinks they hate their life. It's OK for Austin to not feel like he wants to read a book to his kid because he's so tired."
Charles Melton•Character analysis section
"I think it's like, is it not just straight mirror? It's close, but they don't get in like the argument that Lindsay and Josh get into in the car."
Jordan Robinson•Coda discussion
Full Transcript
Hello, welcome back to the Press to Yeesh TV podcast. I'm Jordan Robinson. I am Rob Mahoney. Rob, there's a rod and a fresh corpse in the mulch. There is. Fertilizer. Yeah. It's beef. It's the end of beef. Episode seven and eight, we're here to wrap it up. If you didn't know, we covered all of beef already in two other parts so you can listen to part one, part two. This is part three, the conclusion of beef. So if you've not concluded beef, I guess I spoiled that there's a corpse in the mulch, but also- Don't think that's a spoiler. Here we are. Parking reminders, I'll just say we're covering euphoria right now, so that's an ongoing thing. When will those euphoria episodes drop? Teach me. We would love to know. There's some stuff going on. We're hoping it is soon as possible. Where can people see social stuff from us, Rob Mahoney? They can find us on Instagram and TikTok at PrestigeTVPod. They can also, I think most crucially, Joe, go to YouTube, watch us on the Ring Your TV YouTube channel in general for this episode and all episodes, but in particular for the pits it goes out there who are really fiending, who are struggling after the season two finale. Who are like, where's your mailbag episode? Please. We were just clawing at the veins on their arms wanting something pit related. Our own Kai Grady has created an incredible video essay that I contributed to. Narrated by Rob Mahoney. Narrated by Rob Mahoney about the visual language of the pit. It's very cool. It was a great joy to make and to work with Kai on this, but in particular just seeing Kai come into his multi hyphen at era, producer, writer, spiritual leader. Videographer. Videographer. I mean, he wears many hats around here, but on this project in particular. Our queen bee, Kai Grady. Without a doubt. Furry, you know. Yeah, please check that out. If you want to email us about your lingering beef thoughts, I mean, this is our last beef episode, so good luck, but PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. If they want to email us about euphoria thoughts, Rob, what is that? Still PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. Or Matty's number one boy at Gmail.com. Whichever you prefer. That is all I have to say about that. So we're covering the hour separation and it will stay this way and you will obey the last two episodes of beef season two. We have a quick mail bag because we did get some beef emails from our listeners. The first one, I'm not going to call this personnel, but basically someone is like, Hey, I don't believe that you like this show. Please be honest. This show isn't very good. And I just want to say, just like it's a blanket statement, here's how you know when we don't like a show. A, we don't cover it. That's the number one way you can know. B, we stop covering it. Radio silence. That's how you know. Or we will be honest. Like what do you think is the show? The show that we bring up is sort of our shortcut for a show we covered that we didn't really like, would be a disclosure, I think. Like there were things to enjoy about. Disclaimer. Disclaimer, sorry, disclaimer. I do that all the time. It's impossible. There are things that we enjoyed about disclaimer, but there was a lot we didn't. And I think we were pretty honest about it. So that's what it sounds like when we don't really like a show we're covering. I think we've been quite unsparing when the situation calls for it. So we're never lying. And please, let me reassure you, in the time of the Pitt finale and the Euphoria premiere, we didn't have to cover. We were not lacking for content. This is for the love of the game. We just really liked the show. We'll talk about whether or not we liked episodes seven and eight. That's another question. Also, I don't know if I talked to you about this before. Were you ever a Flight of the Concords person? Yeah. OK. There's these. Wait, let me let me qualify because there are levels of Flight of the Concords people. I am HBO show fluent. Sure. Interested in the music. Right. Not attending all the live shows or anything. No, but there are like lyrics lodged in my head about hippopotamia, etc. That are just going to be there forever. But I know some people it's like it's a whole thing for them in terms of their lifestyle and I wouldn't go that far. Yeah, I would not say a Flight of the Concords is my lifestyle or my religion or anything like that. But I was a real Flight of the Concords HBO show fan. And the the Fudefafa, the French song they sing when they go like a mental voyage a supermache and they're like palm on us. So like we got a couple emails of people just like titling it. Buff, which is beef and French. And that's the way you hear it. That's how I have been saying beef in my head this entire time. I've just spared you on the podcast, but like I call it buff in my own head. And I just thought I would share that. Well, this is your last opportunity. So I am for you, Joe. Anytime you want to say beef, throw this bud, give it the proper pronunciation. Give it the ginger that it deserves. All right. Jay wrote in to say for your quest for frutopia, which we talked about. And we got a lot of feedback on your Leonardo DiCaprio events that you do. Very helpful. Frutopia apparently is a fountain drink option in Canadian McDonald's. That's what Jay wrote in to let us know and sent us like a photo of the menu. And so the Jay wrote, Rob, Canada will host your Leo party. November 11th also happens to be Remembrance Day here. Our Veterans Day is our Veterans Day as well. But like, how would you feel about relocating the Leo project to Canada just for the fountain frutopia? Amazingly open to it. But it just needs to be a place where there's readily accessible quality pasta and frutopia, which I assume is very doable. I've had great pasta in Vancouver actually. Yeah, I mean, honestly, Vancouver, very high on my list of places to visit. Gorgeous. Several people wrote in with an idea of what to call. And they've they seem to have landed on Leo de Caprothon, but that just does not roll off the tongue. It's easier to type than it is to say. Plus, I think they're going for like de Cathillon, Marathon sort of thing. De Caprothon, it's not really working for me, but it's grasping at something good. But I also think it misrepresents what the day has become, which is we are too old and washed, at least I am failing to convince my friends to watch multiple movies. The way that you could watch movies all day. Yeah, if you just if you just want to run basketball diaries back three times in a row, OK, I'm going to find something to enjoy about screening three. Yeah, it's just a tough sell sometimes for normal people with lives and children to just to lock in for multiple Leonardo DiCaprio movies. Couldn't be me. We got an email from a listener, Jordan. Is this your actual friend, Jordan? This is what it sounds like, possibly in this email. Do you have a pal named Jordan? I mean, I know people named Jordan. The same as name Jordan. Rob, come on now. It's called Leonardo DiCaprio. And then it says, you're welcome, brother, PS, that's for breaking my TV, bro. Is this a real Jordan or is that a reference I'm not getting? That's a reference that I'm also not getting. I don't for breaking my TV, bro. First of all, I've never broken anybody's TV, much less a Jordan. You'll cop to. I would never. Jordan, follow up email. Let me know what that was a reference to. The only thing I would do to anybody's TV. Sometimes your real life friends do email this part. They do. Unfortunately, the lines do blur and, you know, they're really trying to infiltrate my work life over here. The only thing I would ever do to somebody's TV is I will go in and turn off motion smoothing. That is just every time who I am. Yeah, absolutely. But I would never break somebody's TV with their consent or not. Well, like if they know exactly. Yeah. If they pretend they don't see it and I say pretend because who couldn't, I will change it while they're in the bathroom. What was really annoying to me in this move is as I was setting up the TV in the new place, like every single time that I adjusted something, I had to return off the motion smoothing on my OLED TV. OLED, don't do that. So, you know, there you go. OK, Michelle wrote in to say, so happy you're covering B season two. Just wanted you to know that when Rob said, who but Oscar Isaac could pull off that haircut, I was in my car yelling Whitaker back at you guys. But seriously, he's been rocking all season to not as hot results as Oscar, but it does work for him. And I really agree. Whitaker in the mini-mullet. It's working. I don't think it's working. You don't think so on Whitaker? For Dennis? No. Well, don't don't call him by his Christian. I'm under you. Only when he has this particular haircut. Because you know that he is so about that farm life, that you feel like the the mullet takes on like a different tone when it's a when it's a farm boy rocking it. I actually think people who do work on a farm wouldn't have this kind of mullet. It feels like a very like fashion mullet. It's definitely a fashion mullet. Definitely like an adoption of a certain lifestyle. It's a co-option is what it is. And I don't appreciate it. Yeah. Their culture is not your costume, as you like to say. That part is not my culture, nor anyone's costume. How did you feel about the sort of prisonification of Oscar Isaac's micro mullet in this? We got this sort of like grease back into the mullet look in the prison sequence. I am into it. OK, you like that. I am into it. All right. Derek wrote in to ask, I'd love to know what actor would you have wanted to make a brief cameo as Lindsay's brother, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Bloom Scully? And Derek suggested Ben Wishaw, which is a great suggestion. That would be super funny. Always pro Ben. Of course. This is a Wishaw friendly podcast. What's your answer? I have two. And they're both in the vein of Oscar Isaac himself has played Kerry Mulligan's brother and fucked up love interest in a variety of things. I'm trying to capture the same energy. How do we get someone who's played her love interest fucked up or not, who can also come in and play her brother? One Peter Sarsgaard. That's a very fucked up love interest in an education. But I think he would be like such a great literary blowhard. And I think he could be wonderful. But I'm really partial to Michael Sheen in this way. I just think he. Oh, that's a great one. The scenery he would chew in this particular role. I would I'd be delighted to see it. It's like real midnight in Paris, Michael Sheen energy. That's the exact calibration. That level of enthusiasm. Sometimes meaninglessly, sometimes needlessly. Yeah. But he just can't turn it off. Oh, that's great. My suggestion would be Tom Hollander, who has been in a movie with Carrie Mulligan was in Pride and Prejudice, famously with her in one of your favorite movies, Hannah, on White Lotus, Crushed on White Lotus. Tom Holland, there's just like nothing he can't do. And in terms of like pomposity, I'm a big, big fan. And he's got that like short king energy where he just really feels like he needs to compensate inside of the room. And I just like love that about him. So I do love that. I think you're right about the pomposity. Yeah. What kind of book do we think Bloom Scully is exactly? Oh, it's definitely like a children's book. Oh, is it? Don't you think so? Oh, no, I thought it was like a somewhat highfalutin literary, like very literary novel Pulitzer Prize. Sure. I mean, I guess you could want to pull it. So for children's fiction, maybe I think maybe I'm just thinking of Bloomsbury, the the the comic, but great question. Yeah, I think folks should write in to what is what is Bloom Scully. Yeah, what is Bloom Scully? Many people are wondering. Tammy wrote in to say you mentioned there was no reaction to Lindsay talking about her brother's novel Bloom Scully. But I thought the reaction to it was one of the funniest moments in these three episodes, Eunice says to the chairwoman, quote, she's not talking about anything important right now. Pretty good. It's an important part of translating is really cut into the come through the fat, you know, I mean, the we talked about this a lot when we covered Shogun, like the opportunity for comedy inside of a like translation relationship is fantastic. Someone who signed their email, R.S. So I won't out their full name wrote in to let us know that he said, my family has been in the golf business for 40 years, more blue collar hijinks than posh uppity clubs. But let me say this for a club that size, there's absolutely no way that you do not have a staff smaller than 50. The turf management and agronomy teams alone and Gronomy, agronomy teams alone would be approaching 50, let alone the hospitality FNB. I don't know what FNB even is. I was going to reach for some, but I got nothing and pro shop teams would easily eclipse that figure. Take this a step further. A Bevcart server is almost never a full-time employee. Are we sure Ashley was a full time at the start of the series? So some well actuallys from R.S. about the economic structure of country clubs. Of country clubs. Good to know. Tricia wrote in, this is actually in reaction to a conversation we had on a paid podcast, but I'm smuggling in here anyway about the spice of life. Tricia wrote in. This is not the place. Cardamom absolutely is the spice of life, especially here in Bend, Oregon. Most famously it is the featured ingredient in the world famous ocean roles from Sparrow Bakery. Let's go to Bend, Oregon and have the Cardamom roles at Sparrow Bakery. Happy to have the role. Cardamom is not the spice of life. If Cardamom is the spice of your life, I think you need to reexamine your spice balance. Did you go, you went to Introday's in, in, okay. Of course. Did you have a Cardamom role when we were in Stockholm? I don't think you could avoid one. Right. And you didn't say, hmm, this is a spice of life. I did not. Well, you should have. There's also salt in that. So it's both. I think salt is definitively the spice of life. I think that's been asked and answered. I think it's the boring answer with the spice of life. It is the scientific fact. But why not Cardamom? All right. That's all the mailbag stuff we have. General discussion, the final two episodes feel like almost like a completely different show. They should do. What did you think of the turn? And we, and you know, I had not watched these episodes. I hadn't even read any reviews and like going back and reading some of the like mixed negative reviews, the way the, the season ended sort of factored in, but I didn't read those because I didn't want to know, like, you know, reviewers often put in plot details for like a binge drop. So I did not know what was coming in seven and eight at all. But I did mention season one, I think takes a real sharp tone turn towards the end. And I think season two did the exact same thing. We're right back. Did it work for you? What did you think? Did not really work for me. I didn't feel like it was of a piece with the first six episodes, basically at all. And I also just didn't find it to be a particularly energizing swerve. Like I love a genre shift. I'm open to it. But it just didn't capture my imagination or my interest in any way. I just felt like, oh, we're just going to do a totally different thing. Yeah. And by the way, we're going to try to say a lot of like big stuff about relationships. Love, second marriages, capitalism, many, many things in like big speech monologue pattern. I'm open to some of those messages. Some of them are like both shown and told in a way that feels excessive. And some of it is just like the way that it's shown. Oh, brother. I mean, we're just. We're really going ham-fisted with it by the end. Do you think that if they had put a cowboy hat on Dr. Kim or Cherowan Park when they were speech-defined, you would have had a better taste for it? This is what I need. A little distraction. OK. Some theatrical play. That's the euphoria reference if you miss this crossover event. All right. I largely agree with you. I think it worked a bit better for me than it did for you. And I was thinking about that this morning, actually, in the drive-in to work, where I was like, why does saying the thing so overtly bother me in the pit, but it didn't bother me so as much here. I think particularly Dr. Kim's speech, even though you could tell by the turning of the camera, like what the punchline was going to be, they didn't exactly conceal it. I still found that speech kind of. And then similarly, like Austin becomes incredibly perceptive out of nowhere, emotionally perceptive. And so when he tells Ashley something like, you don't love me, you just don't want to be left by me, like they're just saying the thing. Yes. But inside of beef, a show where no human acts like a normal human would, I think I mind that less than I do in the pit, which is aiming to be a realistic depiction of human behavior, you know? I'm absolutely cool with people not acting like actual human beings in a show like this. And as you're saying, they haven't really the whole season. I just want them to continue acting like some version of themselves. Of the same human. And this episode in particular, I quite like that the individual episodes of beef sometimes have been like, oh, there's a jump of a couple of weeks, a couple of days, maybe maybe months even, like we're not really told. Absolutely. I like that there's these like indetermined gaps between the episodes. But this one, like we check in with Ashley and she has transformed. Right. Like it is not a subtle influence that Lindsay and Eva by extension have had on her life. Right. Austin, as you say, is like kind of the same person, but also like weirdly attuned to like everyone's bullshit, of course, not his own, because I mean, that's just what we do as humans. But there's just like a little too much of that of just like, who are these people? Right. Ashley's physical and personality transformation. I guess she had been sort of trending this way. Ashley, I kind of see it was the Austin one for me that felt the most jarring, the most not himself. And then for Lindsay and Josh, it didn't really stick out to me because having going through actually going through the divorce process inside of these last two episodes, we find them in such a different emotional space that it kind of worked for me, if that makes sense. I mean, they're just kind of worn down and somewhat softened emotionally by the process, which like that's a reaction a lot of people have when working through things like that. One thing they did in these last in the finale is they had a elaborate action piece, one or action shot where among other things, Ava got slashed in the face, etc. I thought this was wildly unnecessary and not even terribly well executed, honestly. So, you know, like the temptation to do a one or is often there for people. And I'm just sort of like, just pause and think, do I need this? Is this going to be interesting thematically or technically exciting? And like, I'm sure it was very hard to execute that. I'm sure, you know, Charles Melton and Carrie Mulligan and Kaley Spanning are like, how dare you do you know how like how many times I had to like slash that scalpel or wheel that tray or whatever. So it looked difficult to pull off, but I was no I was not impressed by it, honestly, at the same time. I was somewhat impressed, but yeah, it has no real need in this show whatsoever. But like the choreography, even just things like Carrie Mulligan, like Lindsay heaving and thus bending over to vomit and dodging an attack unintentionally or the way that like they're picking up scraps of flesh off of the trays as they throw. It's just disgusting. And it is funny, but it's just kind of like why I think it's leaning into the cartoonish aspects of the show. Like maybe a little too much for my taste. And it's just a really difficult thing to calibrate. Like how much is too much for a show like beef? Let's talk about, you know, we're going to do our standard categories, but I thought maybe we should dedicate some time here at the top for like the code that the eight years later, Coda that we get. And this idea of like, I guess, quote unquote, justice on beef. You know, like what are the what's the comeuppance for someone inside the show? What sentence, you know, are you sentenced to a lifetime in the English countryside? Are you sentenced to become the people that you disdain at the beginning of the show? Are you literally sentenced to time in prison? So like let's talk about Ashley and Austin. They're in the Josh and Lindsay roles. They're saving the bees, not the frogs, but you know, they're in those roles. They have a kid, had a burberry. I'm sorry. Yeah, Ashton. Yeah. Just want to get the naming scheme right. Combination of Ashley and Austin. It's Ashton. They really nailed it. Yeah. And that was like one of the dream names that they came up with earlier in the season. They seem happy ish, but also not. Oh, they don't seem happy at all. Well, I think they seem happier than Lindsay and Josh did. I think it's like, is it not just straight mirror? It's close, but they don't get in like the argument that Lindsay and Josh get into in the car. Yes. It seemed like, yeah. Well, they're younger. No, I just even mean like you play that scene out for two more hours and I think they do get into a version of that argument. This is what Charles Melton said about it, right? He says, quote, it's all, this is on the Netflix official site, right? It's all our perceptions. Someone can be tired and everyone thinks they hate their life. It's OK for Austin to not feel like he wants to read a book to his kid because he's so tired. Does that mean he's unhappy with his whole life? And when they started that scene, it was like very clear that they're rolling back the first scene of the season, except we've swapped our couples as to who's taking out. My expectation was, OK, they're as unhappy as Josh and Lindsay were. But I don't know, there was something about their interaction with like Troy and Eva where it didn't seem like they were as upset to have dinner with Troy and Eva and, you know, as upset with each other when they got in the car. And again, they're younger. Yeah. And I think if you have a kid in your relationship, you can you can not necessarily sometimes it exacerbates it, but you can ignore some of the tensions inside of this. Like people talk about this all the time. You have this massive project that you're undertaking and you're just sort of like devoting a lot of your attention and your emotional well-being and all that sort of stuff into raising this kiddo. You know, and if Austin is like very nourished by this role as dad, which I can see him being, I think that might delay some of the more explosive unhappiness that might come when young Ashton goes off to college or something like that. And the nest is empty. That was just what I thought I had. Obviously it can go the opposite way when a kid is introduced in inside of a relationship, but I think it was just ever so slightly different, not completely the same. I think that's a totally fair call. Yeah. And maybe it is just as simple as being earlier in the cycle. Right. The number of times that Josh and Lindsay had some version of like the host, the event, oh, we're going to make their dinner reservations with Troy and Eva like, oh, looking forward to it. Just that dialogue cycle. I feel like they've been in so many times in their lives. And maybe this is just like it hasn't quite worn out its welcome yet. It's still just new enough that you're not noticing the ants crawling all over the dining room. Right. I'm bought in on that. I think part of what colors my read on it is when we first see Josh and Lindsay go through this, their version of this, we're kind of catching up to what their relationship is. Right. This is our introduction to these characters through the fight and kind of trying to get a sense of what the baggage of their marriages in the process, but we've seen so much with Austin and Ashley in particular. Like it's hard to watch everything that transpires in these two episodes and not feel like both of these people have kind of like trapped themselves in a life and in a relationship that they really don't want and certainly don't need. I don't think there's a happy ending for either of them, but but also at the same time, I'm slightly compelled by Ashley's argument, which was at least we know each other's shit and you don't know what Eunice's shit is. And it might be worse than my shit. You know what I mean? Like we had radically different reads on these episodes. I got to say, I'm not saying this is a happy ending, but there's something like slightly. I don't think I mean, when we get to biggest mistakes, I would say Austin staying with Ashley is his biggest mistake. Like that's not great. That's not great. So we're mostly on the same page, OK, with that. But I was slightly compelled by that argument. I don't think it's a reason to stay, but like obviously Austin saying, I love Eunice and Ashley saying it's too soon for you to know that she's right. Obviously true. She is right. And when she says, in the Josh and Lindsay vein, there is something about Josh and Lindsay know each other. Yeah. You know, when Phineas, who cameos inside of this episode, when he talks about Lindsay's sense of humor, how caustic it is. And Josh is like, actually, it's kind of charming. Once you get to know her, that's how she is. You know, there's something to be said about knowing someone else's shit. And I don't think that Ashley and Austin do know the extent of each other's shit, because even though they've been put through this intense situation that brought out the worst of them, they've still only been together two years, whereas Lindsay and Josh have been together much longer. And so I think really did know the scope and depth of each other's shit inside of an argument. So I don't know, like it's I think it's not as clean cut as Ashley and Austin find themselves in the exact same spot as Josh and Lindsay. But of course, you know, we're running back the tape to make the parallel quite obvious. And about like, what are the lies that you kind of tell yourself to justify reaching for that thing, settling for this, accepting this kind of life? And for Josh and Lindsay, a lot of it was like, oh, we're going to create this bed and breakfast out of our home with this long term vision that justifies a lifestyle that we don't exactly love right now. Right. And seeing like a version of that form for Austin and Ashley is like heartbreaking in its own way. It's just. So you're saying Ashton is the is the B and B, the B, B and B. Kind of. There is a third B. Tough. I like, I was wondering when they when they fired up their car to go home, I was like, well, maybe maybe maybe hope it's brings eternal for me. Like maybe if they decided this is this is it, like we want the country club and the generous Detroit Ava, which sound not delightful to me, but sure, whatever, and are not reaching for that other thing, then maybe their life isn't as fraught as Josh and Lindsay's wound up being because they were in such a dissatisfied state. I really hope for their sake that that's the case. I actually seemed like a real piece of work by the end of all of this. So like I am not happy that anyone here is together. I hope they've all done a lot of therapy. I worry about that kid, but here we are. I want to get back to Ashley's pitch to Austin that you mentioned in some of other categories, but I do feel like that bit. I think you're spot on that there are bits of truth in it about what if you repeat the cycle about knowing each other's bullshit? Like there is there's stuff in there that tracks and makes sense to me. It felt like the germ of truth within like the supervillain monologue, where it's like, oh, they're making some points. She gets very tough to root for these last couple episodes. All right, Lindsay winds up in a terrible wig in the Bloom-Skully-esque country with her very colonial wallpaper, an adorable child and a husband who makes sausage rolls. I will have to reserve judgment on whether or not this is a happy ending until I know whether or not her husband made those sausage rolls from scratch or if he's just reheating some grigs. Those are two different scenarios, but if she landed herself a nice English gentleman who can make sausage rolls from scratch. A proper home cook. I mean, good job, Lindsay. That's what I have to say. But obviously she's watching this interview with Josh. We'll get to Josh in a second. There's obviously, you know, some point, plenty of poignancy to that for her. She's hiding away to watch this, you know, all is not rosy. Right. But it does seem like a relatively happy ending for Lindsay. How do you feel about that after everything Lindsay has done in this season? I mean, I think it's happy, but there's certainly better sweetness. And some of that is kind of bringing their two narratives together. Right? This idea that she says she's going to wait for him. Obviously they're in contact. I believed her. I think she believed her in that moment. And then, yeah, the phone calls start becoming less frequent. The camera believed her for sure. The score believed her. All that I think any of us want is someone, specifically a Carrie Mulligan, to hurdle over a barricade, sprint to us as we are being put away for our great and noble sacrifice to give us one last kiss before we go. The Phineas score swells. I mean, Jake Shire's camera has just been around us. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty great. They really did it in that moment. But then, yeah, as time like unspools on, she's not going to wait around forever. Of course she wasn't going to wait for him. I don't know why in the moment I was like, maybe she will. And their relationship is not necessarily built to last that. It's not even necessarily built to reconcile from the divorce that they were going through. Like, this does feel like a healthier outcome for them both. And I say that for Lindsay, getting the life in the country that she talks about in these episodes and clearly has like a kind of appeal for her, if not a holistic appeal. And for Josh, like, doing something genuinely selfless. And I think having to realize and accept what he gave up in the process, but he seems like he's in a much healthier place as a result. Running the prison like the country club, still the guy with the hookup, eat your heart out, read from Shawshank Redemption, gets out, gives this fairly zen interview saying he's happy for them. He's hoping that the people he loves, you know, he's talking directly to Lindsay down the camera. Hope people love her happy. So Josh and Lindsay wind up in a sort of psychologically healthier, emotionally healthier space. And Ashley and Austin, even though I think it's not quite where we find Josh and Lindsay at the beginning, an unhealthy. They're on a bad path on healthy space. So is the message of the beef, of both divorce, it's good, actually. Maybe so. Try divorce. Yeah. I mean, I do think clearly the show is engaging with this idea of the cyclical nature of all sorts of relationships, specifically romantic ones. Was it the turning gyre of the seasons at the end of the show that it might have taken me off? Clued you into that. Yeah. OK. I really want to appreciate that. And I really don't. I'm sorry. I just could not get there. But I kept coming back to this line that we get from Lindsay and Ava when they're talking about their various troubles with their guys of this idea that like men only try when they absolutely need to or when it's too late. And there's so much of that in these episodes, not just with Ben, but like every one of these relationships. And it's like you recognize things way, way too late and you're willing to try to reconcile or just feel differently about what was ultimately like a really difficult part of your life because it's in retrospect, because it has all that charm. Yeah. Drift in acid in terms of the commentary, but like you just kind of remember the charm. The way that Lindsay looks at Austin after he when he shows up after she said that is just like really funny to me. One of the great acting feats of this show. Yeah. Carrie Mullig, I have no idea how to describe what she does with her face. It's incredible. It's as if she's eaten something both disgusting and sour. And then we end with Chairwoman Park and then that sort of big tableau, which we can talk about a little bit more. But Chairwoman Park at her first husband's grave site. You know, talking about the nature of love. One another monologue that you were like, where's the cowboy hat? I can't, I can't relate. This ain't Texas. Anything else you want to say about that? Only that I'm usually quite open to Koreans giving big monologues in these sorts of movies and shows. And yeah, for some reason, this one just did not quite work for me. All right. Anything else you want to say before we get into sort of our like super little categories? OK. If you want to save a few quid, British gas have a way. You get half price lecky and it's called peak save. On every Sunday, it's the smart thing to do if you're regular folk or furry and blue. 11 till four. Let the good times begin. You could charge up the car or take the dryer for a spin. Half price electricity. What joy that brings with British gas peak save. We're taking care of things. Teas and seas apply eligible tariffs and smart meter required. So each character's worst decision. Starting with Josh. I think for Josh, it's unfortunately thinking that Troy is actually his friend, which sucks. And especially they sure they do suck. I don't know that they ever. I was going to say they didn't misrepresent themselves, but I guess they are overly familiar for people who see this as a very transactional thing. Well, I think saying like a me go and like, oh, you're hearing poorly. Let me let me get hot chip on the line and like fly you out to Park City and stuff like that. Like I think that's a we're actually friends. And then Ava saying it was just his. Job to do things for us. What are you talking about? That was absolutely brutal. But yeah, the transactional relationships around Josh are really transacting in these episodes. And yeah, I get why he would misread where he stands with Troy after the hot chip situation, but also showing up and being like, hey, can you do me a solid? By the way, the solid is firing up your private jet to fly us to Seoul. Yeah. I don't think so. I think the possibility Troy might have done it if he hadn't already been tipped off about the embezzlement. Maybe. It's a possibility. Yeah. For me, it's not going to Cuba. I think Josh is just going to Cuba. What's one person tries to kill you? You have to just leave. Just go to Cuba. Extricate yourself from the situation. And even like they say that when he when he gets to Seoul and he's, you know, Lindsay's like, we should have just gone to Cuba, man. He really fucked us. But again, he's one of the few characters in these episodes who's doing like genuinely selfless things like he goes to Seoul out of concern for Lindsay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, I actually got, I got really emotional in their sort of back to back scene. I think it's by far the strongest part of these two episodes. Turning around and sort of like leaning his head and the hand and all of that. It really got to me. Oscar Isaac and Kerry Mulligan turns out they're great at acting. Okay. Lindsay, worst decision. It's got to be fleshing the phone. I have fleshing the phone. Why? Or that wig at the end. That's not her fault. The wig is not her fault. The shorter hair definitely suits her. Oh, it looks great. Kerry Mulligan's been doing it for years for a reason, like let it happen. Yeah. You don't have to grow it out just because you moved to the country side. You also don't have to flush this phone for any reason other than we need to accelerate and intensify the plot. Also, I guess I've, have I ever been on a flight as long as the flight to Seoul from California? I don't think so. But I've just never seen an airplane toilet that disgusting. It was vile. On like a luxury, you know, she went to like the not first class cabin, but like that's, that was bizarre. That's not what toilets are like on. I mean, occasionally you will catch one where somebody has just used it and not cleaned it very thoroughly, I suppose. And this whole secret is really disgusting. It's really tough. It's very gross. I felt like you could smell it. It was very tough. Yeah. And yet she just wants to judge up that Shirley Temple a little bit. Okay. Austin, worst decision. I think it's just buying into this life that he doesn't even seem to want. And or swallowing the USB, even though Ashley was like, that was a good move. I'm like, what's that was not a good move? Just there's no way it still works. Right. I don't know how substance resistant, stomach acid resistant USB drives are. But I would say it wouldn't work. I guess maybe it works as a piece of leverage. Maybe as a concept. Does it actually have any data on it anymore? This USB has a lot of info on it. It could be dangerous, but I would say honorable, honorable mention for Austin is just completely bungling the unit situation as far as reading anything happening in the room. So this is what Charles Melton says about Austin's decision. Right. He says, I didn't know during filming because I wasn't a father then, but I am one now. When you see parts of yourself in your baby, it's the best thing in the world. Austin is just so sweet and kind. He has these dreams and hopes of those things Ashley is saying. And he really wants that he's trying to grasp at that. So it's Ashley saying there could be a kid with like my eyes, your smile, your kindness, blah, blah, blah. And like from the very beginning, when we first meet Austin and Ashley, they're looking at a family with kids and he's saying this could be us soon. You know, so like Austin is dad. And I think Austin's probably like a great dad, but like the like very end of the graduate moment he has in the back of the taxi when Eunice is like, love you. And he's like, I made a huge mistake. It's not Charles Malton's most subtle acting. No. Like, you know, it was a very nice like hold the camera on the face as he makes the realization of it, you know. So and then Ashley, I wrote God, everything. Seriously. Question mark. Like what is she thinking for most of this? I do want to shout out the kids though, further innovation, because like our older couple, as both couples are on either side of this wall, trying to figure out, you know, do we throw the other pair under the bus? What do we do? Blah, blah, blah. Ashley and Austin have figured out that the ceiling is scalable. And I think they are the ones who have pushed the outlet dislodged it dislodged it on the wall. So they have like a way to pass the USB back and forth. I'm just sort of like innovating and to communicate without the echo of the room. I imagine too. It's just they're really doing it or not. So the olds have given up. Yeah, they're just trying to go noodle through the wall. That's all they can hope for. It's very Dr. Who. It's honestly very Dr. Who. Yeah, I think for Ashley, just the larger tripling down on having a baby with a guy who wants to leave you. And I think genuinely doesn't really love you anymore. Oh, he definitely doesn't. So like what is in it for her other than grasping at and avoiding the sort of abandonment issues that Austin highlights? What do you think of the move of putting the hand sanitizer in the fertility sample? I thought it was going to work. I'm surprised it didn't work, honestly. Learning a lot about fertility. I guess so. All right. Whiteest, white nonsense. Actually, I mean, this is quite a Korean view episodes. So I would say we're kind of leaning away from some of the whitest of the white nonsense, but in a shocking turn of events, I think Austin's white side, courtesy of his dad really comes through when they get the very fancy Korean dinner, courtesy of the chef, where he just wants like, can you bring me a big bowl of white rice, please? Very white person. I thought that was so he could shit. Oh, I didn't even think about it. I guess it makes sense in context. You're absolutely right. But it is a very like, I'm a white person and I don't feel comfortable eating this food. Can you bring me rice? I thought I was asking for things that would help him move the USB alone. You know what? I really wasn't thinking about his cycles and I should have been. All right. I have Phineas saying you'd get along with her. She's Latina, right? Yep. And then Ashley saying, come here, you glass-faced whore, which was really funny and complimentary to Unisus' skin care routine, but also a fairly white nonsense, I think. The whole encounter when Ashley finds Unis and Austin scheming, trying to figure out what to do with the flash drive, I did find to be very funny. It was funny. All right. 824iest moment. It's got to be the winner. It's got to be this unhinged fight sequence for good and for ill. I think we have a lot of great things to say about a lot of 824 movies, but there is a certain subgenre of them that are just like, oh, you just did all this extra shit for absolutely no reason. Oh, you included this exorbitance at peace that doesn't need to be here at all. And we dove right into that particular ditch on this one. Sort of like a Jurassic Park. You were too busy wondering if you could. This is the perpetual problem. If you should. I think it's the tableau at the end. You said you wanted to talk about that elsewhere. I mean, I prefer not to talk about it. But it's just. So this is originally the ending. So according to the showrunner, originally the ending of the season was supposed to be just Chairwoman Park at the grave site. But he's like, turns out it wasn't great to end with a billionaire who gets away with everything, just sort of like meditating on love. We didn't think that was really the note we wanted to end the season on. Okay, fair. So the image is inspired by a samsara painting, the Buddhist and Hindu belief in the continuous cycle of quote, eternal love and death and life and suffering. The paintings are presided over by the gods of death and have this quote circle with these vignettes of life. And so we see all the characters, you know, Josh and Lindsay, Troy and Eva, Ashley and Austin as the camera spins above and Phoenix plays over the score here. This to me is a 24 nonsense. It just really, it really does not work. Yeah, I appreciate and I'm interested in the idea of, oh, we don't want to end on this very particular billionaire oriented note. Yeah. I didn't really have a problem with that speech. And I think it could have been a fine ending, especially for a show that to me is kind of cynical and is kind of dark. And about the way that wealth inoculates you from consequences. I mean, that's very much part of the text of these episodes. And so skirting, like shying away from that feels disingenuous to what the show is doing. And again, I think there are elements of the tableau as far as, oh, when you're young and especially when you're in love, eventually you kind of do become something that you resented or despised or were scared of ever becoming. I think we all have our own versions of that thing. I think the idea of putting all of these couples on a cycle, not only symbolically doesn't work, like Troy and Eva don't really fit. I was going to say, what are Troy and Eva doing there? That was like the real independent. Like, again, we're given a very clear visual aid of what they are. It's very different from what everyone else in this show is. And so I'm open to the relationship analysis of how all of these couples interact. I just don't think we ever really got the work as far as doing that thing. Other than some big speeches right at the end, right before the finish line. And then like, here's our big showy visual that I guess is supposed to bring it all home. The this visual and the Phoenix on the soundtrack is what mostly closes out the season. But over the very end of the credits, we get the sound of bugs. And so I would just like like to return once again to the bug motif. And here is a quote about how it was used this season. Quote, season one, we had the crows. I didn't remember that there was a crow's motif in season one. But OK, season two, I think there are a lot of context clues about the ants. They're hive mind bugs. My favorite part is hearing what people interpret about the show. I have my own interpretation, but I'm excited to hear what people think. The fact that the ants are hive mind bugs didn't really occur to me. Does it do you do you have a way to thematically apply that to this season of B? I'm suddenly becoming more and more appreciative of filmmakers who don't explain the simplest involved in their work. What is the hive mind relevance? Just that we're all human and we're all prone to the same like programming error. We're all in a little loop to quote Westworld season one. Are we all wildly strong, proportional to our body weight? Oh, stronger than we think. Let's set that as our interpretation. And last but not least, we had a couple more instances of like the seeing yourself and someone else, right? So like Ashley in the flight attendant or Austin in the sort of like browbeaten guy inside of the spa. Did we get a Lindsay version of that? I know we got a couple of Josh's. Great question. I feel like we must have at some point, but I'm blanking on it. She thinks of herself as the younger version of herself when she's like walking through the club, but I can't remember if we saw someone else turn into Lindsay. There must have been one at some point. Yeah. Anyway, did you have a favorite one of those in the season? I didn't. I came to like them less and less. Yeah. Like again, I think this is part of the issue with the show is as we're first one was really good. Right. And honestly, I think I would have appreciated it more if it was unique to one of these four characters. Josh. And not just like we're all projecting ourselves into other people or like contrasting the growth of our circumstances or whatever. But you just don't need to hammer it that much. Ashley, turning into someone who like demands a certain temperature and softness of a cookie on a flight. She's very insistent in these episodes. Really tough. All right. Most diabolical manipulation. See, to me, this is Ashley. Not everything with the kid. Everything with the kid. And let's just zoom out. Not only wanting to cover up a murder, help cover up a murder in terms of what happened at the clinic, but be responsible. I have to assume for Eunice's dead. Like she's either in the wind underground or more likely dead. Maybe Eunice went to Cuba. I hope that she's fine. I don't have those high hopes for her, but then also manipulating Austin to want it too. And this is where I wanted to kind of revisit the conversation we brought up earlier about specifically this idea that if he were to leave her, he would only enter into a new relationship and go through the same cycle of like infatuation and then eventually drifting out of love and boredom and then break up and then therefore because he is prone to that cycle, that he should just stay here with her in this relationship he doesn't want to be. Right. Largely bullshit. I agree with you. Almost entirely bullshit. But I think this idea of like being attracted to something new and unknown. Yep. Eunice in his mind is like just this perfect unknown creature and like who's to say what Eunice might do? Eunice is capable of some things. This is not an argument that he should live happily ever after with Eunice. Eunice clearly doesn't want to be with him. Well, not only that, but like, you know, Eunice knowing that he has a girlfriend and being like, you know, come work me out anytime you want, you know, like stuff like that. So like I, on the one hand, I agree. I don't know. I see many points of view on this. Here's the thing. It's all one turning, you know, sense or if you know. And Eunice is clearly manipulative in her own way out of desperation. Granted, like she doesn't have allies or people she can trust. She's like looking around every corner. But there is a kernel of something altruistic there because she could also take that information and just, you know, get the Ashley Austin deal out of it. But she wants to turn over to the authorities. She wants to do the right thing. Yeah. And in doing so, Austin is clearly interested in doing it because he also is someone that we've seen over this, of the course of the season, like has a soft heart and wants to do good, generally speaking, but also wants Eunice or thinks he wants Eunice. And she like indulges it just enough to like keep him in her corner. I can't say it, but you know how I feel. So that's, it's pretty, it is fucked up, but it's nowhere near the fucked up that Ashley is reaching. Well, but I would just say, I don't know if Eunice is responsible for killing someone's dog. We don't know these things. I think Ashley is a Eunice. You know what I mean? So, okay. Yeah, I would say, especially I think the part with the, with the viable embryo and that whole conversation felt very manipulative and shitty to me. So, okay. Ashley. Realistic shot fired during an argument. Every single action in your life is driven by the fact that your mom and dad divorced when you were a baby and started completely new lives without you. Yeah. I don't know where that line came from. You don't want me, Ashley, you just don't want to be left by me. I mean, like Austin getting this like complete makeover of therapy speak is wild, but also probably true. I mean, he cuts right to the core. Yeah. All right. Himbouillus moment. This is usually Austin's category to lose, but I actually have other folks in this category. Who do you have? I would say Josh screaming Lindsay's name. He doesn't know. He doesn't know that they're being chased through the streets. He's being literally chased through the streets. He just was chased through the streets. Yeah, but he was nabbed at the airport. Like how is he to know that they're in the exact same circumstance? He should be stealthy. If anything, you know what I mean? You're telling me. If you just got, you just jumped out of like basically a moving van where you were being held captive by the grace of one of your captors. You've sprinted through the streets in a massive city and you're looking for one person and you see them. What should he have done? As they are like hiding behind the radishes and then make their break for it. It's your father. Yeah, some code, I think would have been better there. Yeah, Lindsay was not the most. And then I would say the whole Gospacho exchange from Lindsay and Ashley and Austin, the whole trio talking about Gospacho, I would say. A lot of Gospacho talk is some himbo. Shit. What do you have here in this category? I'm here to represent Austin even still. Okay, thank you. I mean, for one, just the long Dr. Kim monologue that Austin cannot understand. Well, that's related to the Gospacho moment. I mean, true. Yeah. But I mean, feeding into the Gospacho moment and like the longer play of the. Like you said, wife and cold and soup. Soup. Also, I want to give him credit for this one because this is like a himbo moment that I think becomes something productive when Eunice first shows up on his front front door, panicked and trying to figure out what to do with the chairwoman's phone. He gives her the like, wait, give me a second to catch up classic himbo stuff. Yeah. Just needs to like just let the man process, but then he formulates the like backup plan of actually backing up the phone onto a hard drive, taking it to the police. Something that Eunice is like a little too frazzled to put together in that moment. So the himbo comes through sometimes. Something I feel like they could have done on the way to the airport. They sure could. On the way to LAX or wherever we're flying out of, you know, I know it took them a while to get there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The whole sequence with Eunice in coach, like feeling like everyone is watching her was very unsettling. I thought really well done. All right. Name drop slash celebrity cameo. I think it's mining specifically the special features from the mocking J part one blu-ray for plastic surgery reference photos. I had that in public. That's very good. I think Phineas who composed the music for the season shows up mentioned like so Phineas is a celebrity cameo and inside that celebrity cameo, he name drops Billy Eilish. This is why I had my pop culture reference. Yeah. And and also again, not just name dropping Billy Eilish, but Billy hates Lindsey. Yeah, Billy hates Lindsey. And also a Billy Eilish Phineas song is playing while Phineas is working out. If you were an artist on par with the Phineas or Billy Eilish, would you ever listen to slash work out to your own music? Not like in that, like maybe I would sometimes while I'm working. Listen back to work that I had done to be like, was that good? Yeah. You know, can is there inspo I can draw from it, but I'm not like. Well, you famously did this with all our pit pods. You just roll them as you're working out, you know. No, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't like I would do that while I'm working. But if I'm like working out or doing dishes or whatever it is when you're listening to something, I am not playing our podcast for a while. I hate to tell you that. No, I really hope not. Dear God. All right. Most cutting critique of Gen Z. I actually thought we got away from a lot of the generational commentary in these episodes. I think your I was going to give you credit here, Rob, as a gift to you. Wow. My gift to you. Your season long sort of Gen Z is avoidant observation is made explicit here when Austin's mom says this, right? You know, so I think that that is interesting. And then also I just think the comment a coyote is a coyote and Ashley is an Ashley. There's something. That's transcendent stuff. There's something generational about that, I think. I mean, we apparently needed more of Austin's mom than I even thought I ever knew. This is because I hit you when you were a kid. And we never we never got any follow up on on Ashley's mom. I know. I'm kind of surprised by that. Well, you know, the abandonment by her parents is why she is the way she is. Fair. All right. Elder millennials. Yes. I think same category for me. I just really didn't find. I thought they moved away from a lot of the generational commentary, even on the millennial side. They did. I have a few. Oh, wow. For the boomers, Troy saying, I don't go to therapy. I golf. Well, sure. Great. But that's not millennials. For the millennials, I'm giving it to Josh's going out shirt that he wears on his date. Okay. Very. Yep. Peter Sarskar. Yeah. And presumed innocent. You know what? Direct hit. And then crushing the Viagra, I'm rubbing it on his gums. Okay. I'm glad you brought this up. What was the entire point of the double Raya catfish, like moment where he ends up crushing the Viagra and rubbing it on his gums? Is it just literally so that the assassin can get Josh to open the door? Was that what that was? Or was it just like, or was it just that JB, the assassin shows up coincidentally right around when you thought it was a Raya catfish? Cause why do it? I just thought JB showed up coincidentally when Josh was expecting a Raya date. I just, I'm seeing too many dangling ends here. And I say that in part because we've got like a lot of Viagra. I was, I was kind of waiting for, I was like, is Molly Rubin here on this podcast? What's happening? There was just like a boner joke to be made that was never made. Even if it was just like the side gag of you zoom out when he's being strung up to be like posed for suicide and he has like a gigantic boner at that moment. I think it could have been very funny. Like a fear boner. I mean, well, a medicinal boner in this case. So, is that the most effective way to take Viagra though? Rub in an on your gum. This is news to me, but it's a very funny way to take Viagra. That's for sure. That's why I thought it was like very elder, Molly. It's like treating Viagra like a party drug. It's pretty great. So are we to accept then that some woman who just, I mean, in her words, just really needed to be fucked. It's Oscar Isaac Robb. No, I, I'm not saying I don't understand what happened here, but she just, she just like showed up to Josh's house and Josh, burying a Korean in the mulch. Okay. You know what? Maybe this is not the vibe tonight. And she's like, I'm gone. I just want to post credit scene where she's just like sitting there waiting on the stoop, just like, is this going to show up or what? Speaking of, we talked about a lot of the character wrap up. Are you comfortable with Burberry the second being with Josh's sister? Like, is that a happy enough ending for Burberry too? I'm happy about it. To Burry. I don't think Josh is a very good dog dad at this point in the story. Plus he's going to prison anyway. So, you know, we got, we got to take care of Burberry to Michael Kors, whatever you prefer. I'm very glad that dog does not share the quality of running out of every open door though. It's true. The heart could not have taken it again. So mercifully, just likes to lounge. Neel drop. It's got to be the Phoenix, right? Love like a sunset part one. And maybe that, maybe that in itself is a millennial skewering of a kind. But in the official Netflix, right up on this episode, what have they said? It's in the first sentence. It's like millennial fave. Yeah. Phoenix plays over the closing of the episode. I think they used to Billie Eilish bad guy while Phineas is working out. And Phineas gave an interview to Variety where he talked about playing a really douchey version of himself. And the fact that he's like, he, it was, I think it was put in post that they put the Billie Eilish over him working out. And he's like, I thought it was really funny. So. Also, I can't say I'm like super familiar with Phineas and his whole deal, but. I would never have known that this is like turned up the dial on douchey. I mean, I don't know Phineas in real life, so I can't say what he's really like, but he does not give off. He gives up good energy in his interview. Okay, that's good. He doesn't give off. You would hit it off because she's Latino. Okay. No, there are some people where I'm like, you're just playing yourself, bro. But Phineas seems pretty chill, actually. Pop culture reference. Yeah. I mean, for me, this is just the Phineas Billie Eilish exchange that we talked about earlier. So it seems like we kind of just swapped our mocking J's and our Phineas's. Well, I would also say this is where I would put the second after sun shout out. Really going for it. That we get here. And so a question I primed you for, right? This is the exchange. Ooh, fun. They have after sun you want to watch. And Austin's like, I got to go do this, blah, blah. And then later we're going to get our mescal on is what he says, which is something I've definitely been known to say. We got to get our mescal on. So after we get double after sun, so after sun on a plane, that's inherently hilarious. It's a choice. If you've never seen after sun, that's a hot bummer of a movie, a great movie that I love, but that's a hot bummer of a movie. And so the question I posed to you before we started recording is, what's the worst A24 movie that one could watch on a plane? See, there are so many different kinds of worst, which is what makes us a wonderful question. I think if you were going in the after sun range, I would say, come on, come on, is a similar like you will be in pieces by the end of this movie experience. That to me is like there are a lot of people who cry on planes. There's some people who just feel physically predisposed to cry on planes because of the atmospheric conditions. I do. Yeah. So that part doesn't feel singular to me. I think the worst thing to watch on a plane by far is baby girl. Is it not? Just because you're embarrassed. Here's the thing. It's both raunchy and very identifiable. Like if you know, you know, and you'll be, you'll realize what it is very quickly. And if you don't know, your teammate is going to be watching over your shoulder the entire time and making some pretty big assumptions about you, I would say. Do you, will you like if you start watching a movie and there's some sexual content on the plane, do you like stop watching? Do you sort of like try to put a barrier up or do you like know what it, you know where you like you frequent Mr. Skin and you know where all the like. I am not frequenting nor am I Mr. Skin. They used to do plane edits of movies. They don't do it anymore. And they're just like kids on planes. We'll see you like live and let live. I'm shocked and desensitized to a lot of it because it's like if it's a movie, you know, like for example, the nice guys, a movie I love, I've pulled it up on the in flight entertainment and I forget that there's. Yeah, almost full front nudity to open that movie. I'm like, oh, I just forgot this was here. But of course, if it's coming up on my fast forwarded, this reminds me, I did have an occasion like this earlier where I was trying to catch up on some TV shows while I took my car in for maintenance. So I like brought my laptop. I was going to like watch in the little waiting room at the time I was watching next to the Keurig machine. Literally right next to it. I was watching the HBO series looking and I'm like, oh, this would be a great time to catch up on looking among the most gratuitous sexual experiences that HBO has ever put on screen was not ready for it. And let me tell you, the fine people of Dallas, Texas were also not ready for it. Did you get a comment? I got some eyes. They're definitely, you know, some, some heads craning both toward and away. Wow. Okay. I love Come On, Come On, by the way, that is a great way. It's such a great movie. It's such a good movie. I'm going to give it to First Reformed, which is just like some of the, I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but it's some of like the worst vibes I've ever had watching the movie. Tremendously horrid vibes. Just like rancid vibes. And I'm just like, you're trapped on an airplane, just like marinating in that, that energy. Tough. I have also considered watching the zone of interest many times on a plane because I haven't seen it. And I was like, oh, it's on the queue. It's on my iPad. Like, should I watch it? And I'm like, I can't do it. No. And so to this day, I haven't seen it because I refused to watch it on a plane. That's the only place you could watch it. Famously the only place. So the next category is Ether Rich, which is, I think, an opportunity to talk about Eva and Troy's whole deal, which we can talk about. Before we get into that, I didn't prime you for this, but like Eva has this whole, anyone want three Xanax, this whole get up on the plane. Right. It's a really good Eva episode, series of episodes. Absolutely. The mask, she, you know, she's just got all her Kutramon for the flight. Obviously you're a watcher of, you know, racy films on flights, but like. Ending garages, apparently. What's your in-flight procedure? Like, are you, do you sleep well on a plane? Do you need like a pillow or an eye shade or what's your flight vibe? I sleep incredibly well on a plane. Me too. Have we talked about this? We have talked about it before, but I mean, I would say despite our stature, like in theory, people is hollow. Yeah, we have talked about being really tall on planes. It's tough kind of contorting yourself into those seats. It's a pluribus conversation. This is the cross that we bear, Joe. This is our struggle. It's hard being so tall. It's very hard. Genuinely, like you really got to find your way to be comfortable, but I am known to like pass out before we've even taken off and sometimes wake up as we're touching down. So, you know, it's, it's not a bad way to fly if you get away with it. I remember we talked about this during pluribus, but yeah, I have like some sort of biological response where like no matter what, I fall asleep during takeoff. Like my body just shuts down during takeoff and sometimes I wake up immediately after takeoff. It is like a Joanna Robinson attuned EMP. Yeah, it's just really boom. You are out. I'm done. Yeah, absolutely. And it's my preference to sleep through the whole flight if I can. So yeah. Okay. But usually when I do sleep on a flight, I look a lot like AFA. I've got like full neck pillow, sunglasses or eye shade of some kind. Headphones in like I am sensory deprivation. Mallory and I are going to talk about this week on House of Art. We're going to talk about insomnia. And Mallory's point was like the entire movie is null and void if Al Pacino just packed an eye mask on his trip to Alaska. And I was telling her, I was like, yeah, but once and you and I have had this conversation, once you start with an eye mask, you cannot go back. It's a four life arrangement that you make with the eye mask. Strong dependence. All right. Ava and Troy. Troy's delivery of Victor. Victor is completely innocent, I would say, in these final two episodes. I think he's great in them. But when he says, I met Ava after my first marriage ended, the way he like. Very clear. The way he emphasized after was so funny. That delivery was so funny. And then too soon I got my vasectomy too soon. I thought was also like a really good delivery. And then Ava saying, I don't know what I can do to help. So please stop knocking like was very eat the rich moment. And that's like his job. But anything else you want to mention in the eat the rich or Ava and Troy's whole deal? I mean, I would say not just Ava and Troy, but Chairwoman Park, I would lump into this category as well. I mean, I think her big speech. The most tenderest cut of rich that one could eat. Seriously. Yeah. Her big explanation of like. Wagyu rich. I'm not averse to it. I'm very open to it if it's available. But justifying basically all of capitalism as not just like a human system, but one that is fundamentally a state of nature. I'm like, come on. Like ants. Like I guess, but like on a cellular level, this idea that we're like designed to satisfy ourselves via capitalism as a system of self. I miss me with a lot of it, but also just a very funny speech for her to have. Last but not least, living out with the people living out with. Yep. The buff, if you prefer. I do. What do you have? If we can. What do you have? I think this is the counterpoint speech. Like the, the Dr. Kim speech you were talking about, about the way that privilege allows people to court and embrace life as like a constant accommodation, right? That is not something that to deal with. It's not something that the manager's like, how, how happy do you want to be? And how would you like to do it? Uh, I found his speech to be really compelling. Like again, like song can't hope being on this show is crazy. Uh, probably, I mean, definitely underserved by character and just like his role in it, but not mad to have him around. I mean, his delivery of like, you made it seem like you were fluent in Korean, like his whole frustration with them was pretty good. It did seem like quite telegraphed. This character is about to be shot in the head moment right before he goes down. The departed it is not. Yeah. Oh my God. Spoilers for the departure. Sorry. I would say the protest that we say we see in Korea and this like conversation about the illusion of democracy is necessary though. That felt very living out with the live of, um, anything else that we haven't mentioned. I'm trying to think if there's anything really, I mean, I do think on like a line by line level, I was laughing a lot with these episodes and specifically Lindsay's read about Ashley. Have you seen my friend short cute, but sort of want to scold her? Yes. Uh, does I think capture Kayleigh Spani's whole deal in a lot of different ways? I think also her delivery of yes, my love when she wanted to throttle Ashley was incredibly good. It's very good. Um, calling Austin and utter toss pot. Like it's just a great Lindsay sequence on the plane. When they're like, you haven't changed your clothes. She's like, we're not going to the spa. It's wrong with you. All right. Well, this has been beef season two. We did it. I'm still, I have no regrets about watching this. I don't know. I don't know. I like overall net positive. I think my thing with beef, if there's another season, my thing with beef is always going to be, this is going to go off at the rails at the end in a way that I don't love, but I enjoyed the ride there. So had a great time. I hope more people check it out. Like we're seeing, uh, it's in the top 10 in Netflix. Like people are watching it, despite the negative reviews. We're seeing sort of like a massive like creep up on the podcast as people are sort of like getting through their binge and watching and listening to the podcast. But I just like, I think it deserves a good word of mouth, not a stay away from this because the ending is kind of hanky old mouth. So that's where I am. The cast is so great. Like again, the star power, the chemistry of all of these leads, I thought it was really dynamite. And the formula itself, as far as what these first two seasons are, it is very replicable. If you want to turn the cast over, I, yeah, I would like a little less dramatic flair at the end in part because I already love the elevated humanity of the first part of the story. And so it's like, can we just stick to that and find a way to conclude that in a way that is, yeah, big and flashy and theatrical, but maybe not like giant actions that piece. Maybe not like people getting slashed in the face with scalpels theatrical. Do you think part of it was like that sort of Mike White, White Lotus thing where it's like, you guys want to go to Seoul? We're just, Netflix is going to fly us to Seoul. Why would you turn it down? Who says no? Yes. All right. Thank you to everyone who worked on the pod today. CT is here. Devereun Aldo is here. I don't know if Kai is helping us with this, but Kai, great. Shout out. And thanks to you, Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Joe. We'll see you soon. Bye.