Is Beef Season 2 A Prime Cut?

Dave 00:11 This is the Extra Hot Rate Podcast, episode 611 for the week of April 20th, 2026. I am free tennis lesson just for you, David T. Cole, and I'm here with Whale Experiencing Mental Illness, Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah 00:30 I'm blue Dave 00:31 Twisted Ovary Tara Ariano. Tara 00:33 Hey, hey, hey. Dave 00:34 Wiener Dog in a Puffer Vest, Phillip Maciak Phillip 00:37 Listening to a podcast near your little shed isn't working on shit. Sarah 00:44 Hey Tara 00:45 It's true. Welcome to Extra Hot Great for another week before we get into the episode. A little podcast business. Dave is sick or dying or something, so you're going to hear Clip 00:55 He's doped up or dying or something Tara 00:58 Yep, z doped up on Pepto Bismol and Tums Chews. Sarah 01:00 Oh, I'm not going to be able to do that. Tara 01:03 He will be here, sort of But he was not able to pull together game time, so there will not be one this week. Otherwise, this should be the same extra hot grate you know and love, including with a wonderful guest. Joining us, he is a TV critic. You've heard with us before many times. It's Phillip Basiak. Welcome back, Phillip. Phillip 01:22 Thank you for having me. Tara 01:24 We are here to talk about season two of Beef, in which Josh, Oscar Isaac, is the general manager at a Montecito, California country club An environment where members flatter his desire to see himself as their equal even though he can't afford to keep up with their lavish spending. His wife Lindsay, Carrie Mulligan, is an interior designer who's increasingly resentful of the club wives who treat her like the help. Both are anxious about the imminent arrival of Chairman Park Yoon Yuzung, a Korean billionaire who has just bought the club and who may decide not to renew Josh's soon-to-expire contract. Engaged club employees Austin and Ashley happened not only to witness a screaming fight between Lindsay and Josh, but to film its violent climax. Initially they decide not to get involved, but when Ashley gets a serious medical diagnosis for a condition she basically can't treat without health insurance, the younger couple decides They have no choice but to use their new leverage. The show is created by Lee Sung jin, who has also written on shows including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Tuca and Birdie. All eight episodes dropped on Netflix April sixteenth. We may talk about events from any of them. Let's do the chen check-in. Phillip, should our listeners watch Beef Season 2? Phillip 02:43 Sure Tara 02:44 Sarah. Sarah 02:45 I'm gonna say no, but Tara 02:48 Okay? It's a maybe for me. After three episodes, I decided this is a bright daylight show. I can't watch it at night. It is too depressing and stressful. Sarah 02:59 Yeah, huh? Tara 03:00 Let's get into it. Well, I mean, let's start with the butt. What's your butt, Sarah? Sarah 03:04 I mean, my butt sort of is Oscar Isaac's butt. Tara 03:08 Hmm Sarah 03:08 I mean, these are excellent performances. It's sharply observed, but I feel like my issue with it is the same issue that I have with White Lotus, which is these are outstanding performances of people I Can't spend time with right now here in 2026. Like not everything has to be a laugh riot, but it's like It is really stressful, like you said. And as well done as it is, as much as I love these performers, I had completely forgotten the William Fickner of it all. But even he is a one percenter dick ball and it's like, you know what? I'm not there emotionally. Tara 03:49 Mm-hmm. Sarah 03:49 Bright daylight, like you said. Tara 03:50 Yeah. Phillip, you were nodding. You agree with this. Phillip 03:53 Yeah, I think so. I mean I said sure, but it's also I don't think it's a show I would have sought after watching. If I we weren't gonna talk about it today or if I wasn't writing a review of it, um, I feel a lot of fatigue around shows like this. Sarah 04:01 Yeah. Phillip 04:08 The thing I would say that led me towards a sure on the spectrum up from a yes but The thing that was interesting to me about this season was the degree to which it felt, in comparison especially to White Lotus, which is its obvious sort of analog, it felt somehow meaner than White Lotus. Tara 04:26 Mm-hmm. Phillip 04:27 but also less sneering in a sort of conventional or expected way. And I think the reason for that is it's a lot more interested or it's a lot less interested in extremely wealthy people and their problems than it is in people who are not extremely wealthy, but are like religious believers in the ideology of wealth. Tara 04:46 Mm-hmm. Yeah Phillip 04:51 So it's it's about these characters who all believe or come to believe that making money, rising to the top is this kind of like value, this this kind of like goodness that they could achieve. Sarah 05:03 Mm-hmm. Phillip 05:05 The thing that's interesting about the show is that it it lands sort of slightly less expected punches. because it's thinking about people who are devotees to this idea rather than just people who have a lot of money and behave like snobs and and shitheads because of it. Sarah 05:25 I I think that's a really good distinction, and I think that there is a noir set of values in the production. Even if I can't with it right now, I respect it because it thinks and believes that everybody is compromised, both the people who have benefited from late-stage capitalism and the people who are like converted belatedly, like Austin, who's like, you know. his updates from, you know, his text updates to his girl his fiance are like, a bee died in the house, I cried. Tara 06:01 Yeah Sarah 06:02 And um, you know, all we need is each other and the beach. And the show Phillip is right, has contempt for uh all of them, all almost especially the ones who start out being like Let's just do as much hustle economy as we need to to get by, but then decide they have no choice but to participate, which I think is true, but you're not talking about real people, so Uh anyway, I appreciate that distinction. Good, good note Tara 06:30 Yeah, the feeling watching the White Lotus, and I like it more than Sarah does, but a lot of the times with the storylines, you're like, you know, some people have real problems. And in this show, everyone has real problems. Phillip 06:42 Yeah. Tara 06:42 Including the billionaire, as we find out in around season three, or sorry, episode three, you know, you start to butt up against the limits of like what can my money actually buy my way out of, cause Sarah 06:43 Yeah Tara 06:56 there there there may be a line past which you can't get. The stakes are higher for everybody and that makes their terrible decision making all the more tragic. And there there does come a point in episode two when Lindsay, the least likely person I would think to say it, is the one who is like Just don't bother, don't engage, don't do anything. Quit your job. Let's sell this house. We, you know, we hate it. It's killing us. And let's go do something else. And then he's like She's like, yeah, you're right. And so they just make have to make the affirmative decision to keep descending into, you know, madness and venality and um pure evil basically. Given that the first season competed for awards in the limited series category and won a bunch, I don't think anyone was necessarily expecting there to be more of this. But Phillip, do you think the second season overall like makes a strong case for its existence? Phillip 07:49 Again, I feel like I liked it slightly more than average in the in this Zoom room, but feels already that the premise is stretched pretty thin as an anthology concept. Tara 07:58 Right. Phillip 07:58 I like this writer, and I like uh the the casting choices, I like the directing choices, I like the look of both of these seasons, but it feels to me like like one of those things where fifteen years ago somebody would have just let this person make a TV show that would last several seasons. And there's a sort of like backdoor shoehorning of several undercooked ideas into an anthology concept. I just love to see this person make a show, like a regular show, rather than continue to try to figure out Tara 08:27 Mm-hmm. Phillip 08:31 New beeves to to uh I assume that's how the plural works. Sarah 08:34 Beeves, bless you for that. Phillip 08:38 Be beef after beef. Tara 08:40 Mm-hmm. Phillip 08:40 um until the heat death of the universe. So I I don't know. I mean I I like what they've what the this this group has been doing, but it it even this season feels like, is that really a beef? Tara 08:52 It's sad that Dave is not fully with us because I know one of his peeves, not his beeves, is uh when you see a lot of texting and stuff on screen and there is quite a bit of this, we also see you know, Lindsay on her phone, flipping between the various apps where she's sort of keeping, you know, men on a string to see if she may need to use them in the future. Sarah, did you feel like the tech integration here was clumsy or did it feel artful to you? Sarah 09:17 No, I didn't really notice it. And, you know, like the umpire in baseball, like you just kind of don't want to notice it. I think Dave tends to be a little more primed than the rest of us to be Tara 09:23 Right Sarah 09:28 um peeved but by that. I'm someone who just turned off the like keyboard clacking noise on her phone like last year, so I'm the wrong person Tara 09:38 Welcome. Sarah 09:40 To to ask. I think I only did it initially because it bugged one of your dogs. Tara 09:45 Oh, okay Sarah 09:45 Not gonna not gonna lie. That is sort of an interesting rubric to judge shows by here. In the 2020s, is in order for it to feel real and organic, you have to have a lot of communication by a text, you have to have a lot of DMs and the apps, but like how do you make that dynamic on television or on screen? And you just have to figure out some way. And if it doesn't exactly work, to of titty Tara 10:13 Mm-hmm. Sarah 10:14 Like when Sherlock first started doing it, like 15 years ago, it felt really not daring, but like that they had risen to a challenge. Now it's just one of those things you have to fit in if if you're in the same timeline that we are watching. Tara 10:29 Right. Sarah 10:29 So mm-hmm. Tara 10:29 Well, especially when two of the characters are millennials. And I did think it w it reveals a lot about c character, the way they use the medium or the various media, like when Ashley is in her all hands meeting and she's like getting more and more paranoid about Josh noticing her on a phone, but not to the degree that she's Sarah 10:38 Is it Tara 10:47 stops texting. Sarah 10:49 Mm-hmm Tara 10:50 What what did you think about um her character who's sort of at the the bottom of the totem pole in terms of doesn't have a high school education. She's the one with this medical diagnosis. Uh Phillip, what were your feelings about Ashley? Phillip 11:03 First of all, Cain Sbaney's really good in this. Sarah 11:05 Mm-hmm. Phillip 11:06 They're all good. Everybody's quite good, I think, including Oscar Isaac's mullet. Sarah 11:07 Yeah. Phillip 11:12 But the I thought K-Spaney in particular is is very good about the way that her performance choices start to seem both Tara 11:12 Yep. Phillip 11:22 extremely like intentional and uh scheming and also kind of a little bit outside of her control. I think the scene where she's talking to the chairwoman and starts making up the story about her fiance being a physical therapist, it you can kind of watch her not exactly decide to m to do that lie, but just sort of catch up to the fact that she's doing it. Sarah 11:46 Mm-hmm. Phillip 11:46 And I I liked the way that uh both her performance and also the way that that character is written, to see the kind of like almost like compulsive ease with which she starts to sort of break the kinds of vows of social life that she had been talking about in the previous episode. And I think it's it's a clever thing to have her wearing the the thrift store Brooks Brothers shirt that she's wearing because it feels both like an accident and also on purpose. Tara 12:11 mhm Phillip 12:14 That to me was the most interesting sort of thread throughout this was watching her specifically kind of turn into that kind of a person and and the kind of person who would do those things, uh almost like catching up with herself. Tara 12:28 Mm-hmm. Sarah 12:28 Yeah. I think also that that character and she does a good job of not hanging a light on this aspect of it necessarily, but just illustrating it and not and letting the writing do or not do what it's gonna do is that As uh my esteemed colleague Tara is always pointing out, there is a difference between broke and poor. Phillip 12:49 Yeah. Sarah 12:50 And this character and her fiancee, I think, sort of straddled that line as a household as a couple, like choices that drive a character are different in each case, I would say, and I think that the the writing is like knows more than it necessarily tells us about those fine gradations or not so fine gradations and Phillip 13:15 Yeah, Sarah 13:16 That's one of the things that recommends the show to me is that there are a lot of things that you know the show knows about life. that it doesn't feel like it necessarily has to dump in dialogue. It does it another way. The only issue is, like I said before, like these people are all miserable and can't get out of their own ways and we're we're doing that here on the ground in Brooklyn. I don't need to watch it happening in Montecito. Tara 13:40 Yeah. Sarah 13:42 So that it's nothing against the show. It's just like You gotta be in a certain headspace that I'm not sure anybody in America's in right now. Tara 13:50 Mm hmm. Sarah 13:51 So that's that's where I'm coming from with that Tara 13:53 Well, especially too that it's it all revolves around this country club where it's like in the first episode Josh and Lindsay are leaving this fundraiser. They're both in a terrible mood. They're already starting to fight. And he gets a call and and says, you know, she wouldn't call if it wasn't an emergency. And Lindsay's like, it's a country club. And she's right But, you know, that this is the setting it sort of reminded me of like based on a true story where Christmasine is playing a tennis pro who's also not poor, is broke, has a owns a house that's just not good enough for him and his wife Sarah 14:13 Mm-hmm. Tara 14:27 Or, you know, curb your enthusiasm where every time we see the country club, someone is having some idiotic fight about some tiny piece of protocol that has been violated or something. Sarah 14:27 Mm-hmm Tara 14:37 And so I I do think it's interesting to see the country club is locus of desperate climbers and horrible rich assholes and all of this stuff. That this is where it's playing out and is also like this, you know, portal to hell for everyone who's there. Thought felt Sarah 14:52 Yeah. Tara 14:52 Very appropriate. Sarah 14:52 And like the expectations of the country club versus what it can actually deliver emotionally, like the William Fickner character complaining that the food was lukewarm. I was like, if that's your only complaint about country club food, bless. Tara 15:09 Mm-hmm. Sarah 15:10 Go with God, my son. Tara 15:12 Yeah Phillip 15:13 having it set in a country club felt like a choice that the show justifies, but also a choice that maybe you would have rethought at the stage of of its premise, right? To to sort of put yourself in a position as a show to have to differentiate yourself from this very popular anthology series within the same that appeals to exactly the same demographic and It felt like an interesting sort of microcosm. I liked Michael Phelps showing up and a couple of little celebrity cameos and things like that. Tara 15:39 Yep. Phillip 15:42 Um, I don't know, it felt a little bit to me like I both was too familiar with this setting and also the show was taking a lot of liberties or not liberties, but assuming that I knew a lot about the appeal of a place like this, um, in a way that maybe I didn't. And and I think it foregoes that kind of like detailed anthropological, like here's what all of the different rich people are like. kind of a thing. I think in a good way because it's focusing on, to my mind at least, the right characters to be focusing on. But but also you miss that a little bit. Like what is what exactly is this ecosystem? for someone who is paying $300,000 to be in it, right? Sarah 16:22 Right. Tara 16:22 Yeah. Sarah 16:23 So like processy, but for rich gits. Phillip 16:25 Yeah. Sarah 16:26 Yeah. Tara 16:28 Yeah. And when they show it from the front, I'm like, it's not even that nice. Like, it's fine, but it doesn't seem like it's worth a $300,000 initiation fee plus whatever they're paying a month to go play golf and have Phillip 16:32 No. Sarah 16:41 That oh god. Tara 16:41 Flirty tennis lessons and whatnot. Sarah 16:42 And they never are though. Like remember that exterior they used to show it was B roll, but on Melrose for like Tara 16:48 Mm-hmm Sarah 16:49 Every single country club across California had the same B-roll from based on the Benzes out front, 1981. And we're like, her? Tara 16:58 But Michael Phillips Sarah 16:59 I don't know. Tara 17:00 I mean, he did a great job when they just call him Michael at first. And the show was so dark at night too that I was like, is that? Phillip 17:04 Yeah. Tara 17:07 And then it was him being a complete asshole. And good for him. Sarah 17:12 Yeah, why not? Clip 17:19 Got a lot of shows. It's a great time for shows. Dave 17:24 It's time to go around the dial first off with Tara. Tara 17:28 The boys season five is something I held off on starting because I knew it was about a supposedly charismatic figure dragging America into fascism, even more than other seasons. And speaking of things we don't want to watch right now, that but it is the final season, and I guess I do want to know how the series ends. So we caught up this weekend. The only three episodes have dropped as of this. recording. Now in the world of the boys there are freedom camps where suspected starlighters, including Huey, MM, and Frenchie, have been interned. In the first moments of the premiere, Starlight humiliates Homelander at a VOT shareholders meeting by hacking the video system and playing the leaked recording of Homelander From the first season, letting a plane full of civilians crash and die. The VOT machinery spins it as a deep fake, but Homelander decides the boys all need to be executed, so Billy brings Kamiko back from hiding in the Phillippines, so the two of them plus Starlight A train and an ex-vot TV show writer with worm powers, including tunneling, join forces to bust out their loved ones. The worm lost his job because Vaught replaced all of their writers with AI, but he has either got another job or is definitely about to with this incredible spec script he's working on. Let's hear the clip. Clip 18:39 Reacher massive enters the motel woman. You're a huge reacher. Know what they say about huge guys They have huge cocks. Tara 18:59 From there, the season turns into a race to weaponize the superhero killing virus against Homelander, but also against all superpowered individuals, and since that includes our heroes, emotions are running high There are a lot of elements that make the boys hard to watch, from the depressingly recognizable media landscape to a government entirely captured by a corporation to social media misinformation cooking users' brains. The ultraviolence is still worth seeing, in my opinion, but when even the show's creator is out here saying reality has taken all the bite out of what was formerly a satire, it is an even less fun watch than when it premiered. We also Did not keep up with Gen V uh through season two, but I think resetting the storyline of the franchise to World War II Times with the upcoming prequel series is a good move. Interested to see how that changes. For my plug, it's not up yet, but I will have a piece on Defector this week about the Rockrid files, so you know keep refreshing Defector until you see it. Dave 20:00 Uh Phillip, what do you got for us? Phillip 20:02 So, I'm uh like many people a longtime viewer watcher of Saturday Night Live. It was very important to me when I was a kid. And I have over the past maybe decade or so taken a very like well I'll watch a a sketch if it comes across the transom or pops up on YouTube or something, but I haven't been paying Super close attention to it. But my daughter, who is 10, has recently over the past year gotten very interested in learning about Saturday Night Live. And so every night I'll hand select one or two sketches uh to show her. Uh you know, I started with classic and and things that you might uh associate really closely with the show. She has really, to my mind, idiosyncratic taste in what she likes. On Saturday Night Live, she uh did not think Debbie Downer was that funny. Sarah 20:46 Oh Tara 20:50 Oh Phillip 20:50 Uh she thinks Target Lady is hilarious. She's a big Kristen Wig doing a voice fan. She hates the Lonely Island. Tara 20:58 What? Oh my God. Sarah 20:59 Huh! Phillip 21:00 I've shown her so many she can't stand them. Tara 21:02 Oh God. Sarah 21:02 Is she a collared Quinn guy? Cause we're gonna have to talk to her. Phillip 21:06 I was asking her about it and recently, this is this week, she said, I think I might like some of them if it were different guys doing that. So not a quaid in the language of that podcast. Tara 21:16 Wow. No Sarah 21:19 Yeah. Phillip 21:19 Anyway, she um she doesn't like Lonely Island. Um she really liked Please don't destroy the recent like lonelier island replacement group. Tara 21:28 Mm-hmm. Phillip 21:30 The thing that I'm I'm really starting to realize is the sort of generational slant of what she likes. And the thing that I wanted to talk about The thing that she's been really getting into is the this sort of new to this season pairing of two relatively new cast members, Jane Wickline and Veronica Sloakowska. Both of whom are TikTok comedians. They're not the first TikTok SNL cast members, but they are in that sort of first grouping. And May has never seen a TikTok video before. She doesn't have any social media at all. But she has a sort of like affinity to their style of comedy writing that I find really interesting. And I like it too. I've been I've I've been really interested. Jane Wickline's been doing sort of weekend update keyboard joke songs for the past couple of years. But this season, the two of them have been pairing up on on sort of music videos, both of which I think are pretty good. The first one is from the Melissa McCarthy episode. It's called Cousin Planet. It's about what happens to your cousins after holidays. The universe of Cousin Planet is that they only eat leftover ham Which I thought was good. Tara 22:33 Sure. Phillip 22:33 There's a a more recent one from the Connor Story episode uh called Car Door, that is basically just a very long, heavily produced music video about how hard it is to open new car doors. Tara 22:45 Mm-hmm. Phillip 22:45 and find the button. I feel like I'm watching the show through new eyes now and uh and it's been a pretty fun experience and I recommend those two those two sketches as uh particular standouts Tara 22:54 Nice. And for your plug Phillip 22:57 Oh yeah, my plug uh I have this week up at New Republic, a review of DTF St. Louis that does not focus on any of the many aspects of St. Louis life that it gets wrong or doesn't even try to get right. Dave 23:10 The Kevin Klein uh bathhouse or whatever that was. Phillip 23:14 The Kevin Clyde. Well that I mean that one's right. That's my local pool, but anyway, it's I uh there's uh my reviews up this week. Sarah 23:17 The arch is square. What the fuck? Hello! I am not made at the latest chapter of Untold, which is called Jailblazers. It's about the turn of the millennium Portland Trailblazers. NBA franchise and their I guess troubles with the law and the town and fans turning on them, but Which was the chicken and which was the uh egg there is really the question, but at the same time it's not really a question. This, like all other episodes of Untold pretty much, is well enough made Eminently watchable. But at just over an hour it's like a little to surface a treatment of several distinct cases I had this issue with the Brett Favre episode. I had this issue with the Washington Wizards episode that I talked about about a year ago on this very podcast. I was writing my review, which I'll link in the show notes for bestevidence. And I was trying to hack like, what is it about these that like there's nothing exactly wrong with it, but if you go into it expecting a more traditional true crime documentary approach, not in the oxygen sense, but it more in la like HBO prestige. Sense why does it feel unsatisfying on both that level and compared to a 30 for 30 And I realized I had already cracked this code last year when I talked about the Washington Wizards episode 30 for 30s tend to have this like Pretty strong filmmaker point of view, more of a commentary framework. It's more traditional but untold, picks a story gets access to most of the people at the center of it and then just lets them talk and lets the viewer put it together vis a vis the bigger issues. I think that's definitely what happened. here. The director in this case, Sasha Gardner, was uh has not directed before this, but was a producer on the Captain, which was the Derek Jeter. series and may have figured the audience would make certain assumptions about racial profiling at the turn of the millennium in very white Portland, Oregon, and certain ways of commenting on things in the media that was also rather pale, and that they didn't have to belabor the point But then at the same time, the documentary is also not getting all that granular with the actual basketball. So I think Untold is just like a Vibes documentary series and letting Rashid Wallace talk is never a bad choice. Like these are very charismatic dudes. They know how to tell their stories. And that's a legit approach, but I think I now have finally learned like this is how Untold does what it does. And if you're not in the mood for like a more hands-off approach to the true crime genre, then you just should not watch that for that reason. So it's out right now on Netflix. I think a new episode actually just dropped as we're recording this today But this is a more recent one. It's called Jailblazers and it's, you know, it's fine. It's good. It's interesting. Rashid Wallace pretending to heckle sports writers uh was a big smile. To me and along with my review Listed a whole bunch of other basketball and true crime contiguous projects, long reads, documentaries, docudramas. Some of them were great, some of them are not. But that's all in bundled with my review at bestevidence. fyi. And like I said, I'll link it in the show notes. Go whatever your team is in the NBA playoffs. Dave 27:14 It is time for the Extra Hot Great canon. Presenting this week is our guest Phillip. Phillip, take it away. Phillip 27:20 Uh thank you very much. I want to begin by acknowledging what an honor it is to submit now my third candidate to the Extra Hot Great Canon. This is a huge event in my life. I put arguably too much work into this. Tara 27:34 Not possible Phillip 27:35 Today I put before you the 20th episode of the first season of New Girl. When New Girl first debuted in twenty eleven, it was widely covered as part of a wave of new sitcoms written and produced by women, alongside Emily Spivey's Up All Night, Whitney Cummings' Two Broke Girls, and Cummings' Other Eponymous Star Vehicle, all which debuted that season. Created by screenwriter and playwright Elizabeth Merriweather, New Girl was a strange entrant in this company. It centered on Jess, an aggressively quirky, ultra-twee teacher who gets broken up with by her boyfriend. and ends up moving in with three dudes in a shabby chic loft apartment in Los Angeles. The show's first handful of episodes just sort of recite this premise over and over again. What if this zany, sexually confused, hot glue gun wielding muppet had to cohabitate with three ordinary guys? It was not especially compelling TV at first. Not least because it put Star Zoe Dechanal in the position of having to play a gender-swapped alf. It was it was It was simultaneously a lot to ask Deschanel to do, and also not nearly enough to ask her to do. One manic pixie dream girl to three straight, straight men. But, midway through that first season, the show's writers discovered something. Rather than have Jess be the odd one out, it was way more interesting for Deschanel to play the straight man to a loft full of weirdos. Jess kept her signature felted personality and narnia wardrobe full of statement pattern clashing T-length dresses, but the show worked harder to flesh out what made each of her three roommates even stranger. If the show created and then mocked Jess's stomp clap hipster femininity, it went way harder on these dudes' alternate visions of scramble-brained masculinity. There's Max Greenfield's finance bro, Metrosexual Schmidt. There's Lamarin Morris's failed athlete Winston, and then there's Jake Johnson's addled, angry, lost Nick Miller, the show's true breakout star. Normal, the episode that I'm talking about today, is a showcase for this evolved version of the show, a series that relies on the balance and chemistry of its bespoke ensemble. The catalyst for this, somehow, is Dermot Mulroney Muloney had debuted a few episodes beforehand as Russell, the disapproving parent of one of Jess's students. The two begin as antagonists, but soon Russell, a wealthy businessman has charmed her with his looks, his wit, and his seemingly miraculously bottomless wallet. After attending a lavish party at his house, Jess falls into a whirlwind relationship with the man that she and all the boys take to calling Fancy Man At the start of this episode, Jess is in that familiar early relationship stage where she's been happily ensconced in her new boyfriend's bubble. That bubble, in this particular relationship, means that she's been attending loads of shishi cocktail parties and spending every night at Fancy Man's palatial home. Having run out of clean underwear and their over in her overnight bag, though, Jess returns to the loft. While there she's pressured by her friend Cece to make Fancy Man come and spend the night in their bubble. Before she does that, though, Jess takes a moment to talk through her expectations with the boy. All of whom tend to behave very badly around Fancy Man. For Schmidt, this means being brusquely competitive with Russell, checking the tags of his suits, bragging about his knowledge of the LA sushi scene. In the parlance of our times, Schmidt is anxious that he is being both frame mogged and status mogged by the looks-maxing, money-maxing Russell. Winston likes that took a little risk on that one. Winston likes to play on Russell's racial discomfort, pranking him into scenarios where he becomes self conscious about his own whiteness, and Nick, who has something between a romantic crush and a father complex with Russell, just can't pull it together enough to seem anything better than off putting. He greets Fancy Man with a cheese plate upon his arrival and the adventure begins. If we could get clip number one, please. Clip 31:17 Russell, hey. I can show you around, I can show you our world. Way up here, it's crystal clear. Nick, you're doing Aladdin. Okay. Do you like cheeses, Russell? Nick. It's for Russell. Phillip 31:35 Things go downhill from there. Russell is visibly uncomfortable as Jess prepares the loft's favorite meal, a meal from a box that they lovingly referred to as ethnic noodles. and the whole company has to do battle with the kitchen's catastrophically broken garbage disposal. Jess, looking for a way to salvage the visit, suggests that they play a made-up drinking game native to the loft called True American. In all honesty, True American is why I've decided to submit this episode to the canon. In the realm of invented games and popular fiction, True American easily bests Parks and Recreations Cones of Dunshire. It tops Ren and Stimpy's Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence. It makes Quidditch sound like shitty nonsense. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Quidditch already sounds like shitty nonsense Tara 32:16 Yes Phillip 32:17 In all seriousness, this show's creation of the true American drinking game is a perfect in-world object of fascination. We learn just enough to sort of get it, but not enough for it to bear the brunt of any real scrutiny. It's a drinking game that has the look and feel of a genuine in-joke friend group tradition, even as it doesn't make any sense to us at home. I'll let the gang explain it. If I could hear it in, please, clip two Clip 32:40 Hey Who wants to play uh true American? Amen. Amen. That sounds a great idea. So it's 50% drinking game, 50% life-size candy lane. Well, it's more like 75 drinking, 20 candy land and by the way the the floor is melting lava. It's actually 90% drinking and then it's kind of Loose candyland like structure to it. But with stakes. Hey guys, we doin' teams? Yeah, call out shabby. Ready? One, two, three, go Two, two, four. Wow, I'm with Russell. Perfect. What you don't want to be on my team? Well I just copied you. You haven't given me any information yet. Oh, okay. So it starts off there. Four zones An alternate zone is a crazy. There's a trail of chairs, but the floor is lava. These are the pawns. They're the soldiers of the secret order. This is the king of the castle. And remember everything you hear in true American is a lie, knock on wood. And it starts with a shotgun tip-up, okay? Oh that I can do Shotgun. Sure. Oh, yes! Yes! Yeah, there's no going back now. One, two, three, four, JFK! Okay! Oh, oh, oh, oh! Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go! Abe Lincoln, George Washington. Phillip 33:53 A loose candy land like structure. True American works almost too well. Soon, Fancy Man and the boys are drunk as skunks, and rather than bringing Jess and Russell closer together, the game has pushed her to the margins of her own home. Soon, Fancy Man is blearily offering alpha male business advice to Winston, who's having a whole B-plot about his new job working for a sadistic sports radio host. and humoring Nick about his insane ideas journal. The next morning, our millennial heroes, used to all this late-night binge drinking, wake up enlivened by their evening with Russell, but Fancy Man himself wakes up hungover. All the same, Nick and Schmidt prepare to dazzle him with their pitch for one of the crown jewels of Nick's ideas journal, Real Apps, which is basically a Swiss Army knife in the shape of an iPhone. If I could hear clip three, please. Clip 34:38 As my financial business partner, I appreciate you taking the time. Alright, Russell said we need a prototype. So Mr. Schmidt, I now present you Real apps. The phone obviously goes back here where the phone goes and then these are all the apps. You've got a zippo, you've got a fork, you've got a spoon. That's a corn holder It's also a gentleman's shiv. Nick, it's a prototype of a prototype at best. Let me see it. No, don't be mean about it. Let me see it. You got a uh bottle opener. Come on. Yeah. Look at this. There's no brush steel, no nickel. I mean it's got none of the ball or metals. Phillip 35:11 Despite lacking any of the baller medals, the boys show off their prototype to the queasy fancy man, accidentally stabbing him in the hand with the exposed corn holder. When Jess tries to bandage his wound with diner napkins and scotch tape instead of band-aids, Russell flees. When Jess tracks him down later in the day, the two have their first fight, an eventuality Jess had been working hard to avoid. And could I hear the last clip, please? Clip 35:33 I have something to say to you. You don't have to apologize. Well I'm not here to apologize. I'm here to fight with you and I don't care if you want to f fight or not. All right, let's fight. Well I was prepared to have a perfectly nice weekend with you and you just give up and you come home. Because I was bleeding from my hand. I had to go to the ER. I had to get a stitch. Ooh stitches. I'm too fancy for a band-aid I'm actually I'm actually really sorry about that. Jess. I haven't played a drinking game in ten years. The only reason I did is cause you asked me to. I If I want to have a drink, I don't really have to play a game while I'm doing it. Well, that's my world. Garbage disposals don't work. Elevators don't pass inspection. Wait, I didn't know about the elevators. Yeah, it was like the c Cables were really thin. We signed a waiver. They took a hundred bucks off our ride. That's really not safe. Well, that's where I live, and those are my friends. And that wasn't even the first stabbing this month And Russell, my life is just as important as your life. And if you want to get with me, you're gonna have to get with my friends. And that is the Spice Girl song. You just had a fight. I won. Phillip 36:39 There you have it. The achievement of this show isn't in figuring out the balance of who's weirdest, it's in turning a one-note premise into a hangout comedy with real live energy to it. If you want to get with her, you gotta get with her friends. I said already the main reason I chose this episode was to honor the debut of True American, which reappears multiple times throughout the series, but there are two other reasons. First, I think this episode belongs in the canon because it's an example of a phenomenon that seems almost impossible in the current TV production ecosystem. It's a show that got better in season. With so many sitcoms now turning in short seasons, written in advance by a small writer's room, or no writer's room at all, there's very little room for the kind of trial and error that turn New Girl from a one-off gag concept into one of the more sustaining hangout sitcoms of its era. The show's writers worked over time, to figure out which dynamics on the show worked and why, to figure out the kinds of jokes each ensemble member could carry, which kinds of guest stars would catalyze their chemistry best. It's an impressive feat even in a period of time when these things could happen regularly, and it feels like a miracle from the distant past now. And lastly, I want to take this opportunity to say a word for Elizabeth Merriweather, who's become over the past few years, with her writing partner Kim Rosenstock one of the most indispensable purveyors of grown up dramedy on T V. After the success of New Girl, Meriwether launched two mostly OK sitcoms, Single Parents and Bless This Mess, but she's followed that up with, to my mind, two of the most tonally impressive limited series of recent years. In Dropout, Meriwether turned what could easily have been a cookie cutter ripped from the headlines True Crime recitation into a weird and woolly showcase for an incredible Amanda Safe read. And just last year, she turned the podcast Dying for Sex into a show that was simultaneously the saddest and funniest show of the year. I thus submit normal in honor of Elizabeth Merriweather, in honor of growing up, as both a person and as a TV show and in honor of JFK, FDR, Dermot Mulroney, and all the other true Americans. Tara 38:29 Thank you, Phillip. Sarah, you've watched the least of this show, so you should go first. Sarah 38:34 Well, who is more of an American institution, I ask you, than Mr. Kareem Abdul Jabbar? I don't know how ExtraHot Great turned into a fucking basketball podcast, but I guess that's what's happening. Give yourselves up to it, people. Phillip 38:47 The best I I didn't talk about this, but the when he when he slips the note to Winston, Karim Abdul Javar, and he signs his name with his um with his n with his jersey number on it. Sarah 38:56 I know. Phillip 38:57 It's such a good little detail. Tara 38:58 You will die here in all caps. Yes, so good Sarah 39:02 I know. Uh and then later he flicks the post-it off his forehead. Uh it's it's so good I love that. I really enjoyed this, and True American is definitely at the heart of this, that it's both absolutely authentic as to these like metastasizing drinking rule games. that are opaque to those outside them, but then also that moment in the friend group where like the fancy man outsider just like rips a hole in the bottom of a can and starts shotgunning and you're like, okay Tara 39:35 Yeah Sarah 39:36 I was not familiar with your game, fancy man. I just felt that the vibe of that was absolutely true. There's also always that one guy who's like, Would you like to hear about a dream I had last night? And it's like, no, no, sir, we wouldn't And the show is also very smart about writing it in a realistic way, that it's not just being like, um, and trying to be diplomatic. She's like, no, not at all. You're not allowed to do that. Very, very many good Schmidt lines describing the kid as a tiny little owl in a shirt because he never blinks. I thought was very funny. None of the baller medals, obviously. The idea when he rolls out in like a towel into the middle of a different conversation. during a sexathon with CeCe and is just like we're on a water break and everyone just sort of accepts that that's a thing. That they're on a water break. Given that I think the first thing most people who didn't really or haven't really watched the show are gonna say about it is like, oh, Adorcabal. You're not necessarily expecting these like granular and familiar moments of friendship portrayed with Such accuracy, but also like very warmly, but also scathingly at the same time. And I thought that was one of the things Dying for Sex did extremely well. Phillip 40:51 True. Tara 40:53 Mm-hmm. Sarah 40:53 was understand how that friendship was lived, like just on the ground. And I would say the same about this episode. And also that Zoe Deshnell like really sells adorable. Like it's an eye roll sort of in theory, but in practice, like felted personality is brilliant and I'm fucking stealing it, but it's like, you know, people like the Muppets. So I don't know. Like she she makes it work. This episode I think is an excellent sales pitch for the show, and that's definitely something that makes it canon worthy, is that you're like, even if you're resistant to certain ways in which it is sitcom-y, in other ways you're like Okay, fine. Like Adorcable worked on me that I also didn't realize real apps and relaps. Tara 41:44 Yep. Sarah 41:44 Like it just D I did not get there until like minute nineteen and then I was like, oh Jesus, we'll flee. Tara 41:51 Mm-hmm. Sarah 41:52 And again, Kareem, an institution who That tag at the end where after the balls had been dipped in the shakes, the shake is just being pushed back and forth across the radio desk. And it's like, oh, mm, seems that this was not the first time someone was told to do that to show dominance to this uh to this host. So excellent presentation. Tara 42:13 Uh-huh. Sarah 42:15 I laughed many times. Of an excellent episode, I laughed many times. And this is one of those canon axes that I think we don't always see, but it's always refreshing. Like If you're trying to sell somebody on the show, is this the episode you're going to use? Phillip 42:27 Yeah. Sarah 42:29 And I would argue, yeah. Come in right around here in season one and see how you go. Tara 42:31 Mm-hmm. I'll go next. I agree, this is a great entry point episode, but I think the one a few before this That sets up the disposal moment in this one where we find out how Nick fixes things or doesn't around the apartment and that he is suspicious of what he calls a fancy fix, meaning one done by a professional in the field of, let's say, electricity. This is why everything in the place is falling apart because Schmidt sorta lets him get away with half ass fixing shit because it's very important to Nick and his self-image that he do it this way. And the result of that is the moment where the disposal goes crazy because Russell doesn't know you're not supposed to use it. And then we get Nick yelling, Brace me! and the three guys going behind him like they're in a bobsled, like switching back and f Sarah 43:16 I know. Oh God, so good Tara 43:19 Fourth behind him. It's so good. And you know, the a lot of this could have been just a retread of Richard, the Tom Salak character, and Monica on Friends when she also started dating an older fancy man, and you know, there was a big discrepancy between what life was like for her and for him. But this is feels completely different. When Nick opens the door and he has that tray of what he calls cheese. I'm having watched this twice, I'm not sure that's not just butter. Like I it never gets said, but it that's what it looks like. And everything everything that happens after that is great. I'm not copying him. I love him. We're Bull brothers now. Sarah 43:59 I'm not copying him, I love him, was really good. Tara 43:59 Like You know, I I didn't grow up around frat culture, so seeing Russell shotgun that beer is still very sexy to me in a weird way. Sarah 44:03 Such good delivery. Tara 44:10 I can't really put my finger on. And when they start setting up for True American, like we just saw them th the guys playing it without her when she was out at the fundraiser. And they still have so much beer. How much beer do they just keep in the apartment just in case? Sarah 44:25 Is there a fridge in every room? Tara 44:28 Yeah or is some of it warm? Sarah 44:28 I also wondered that. Yeah. Tara 44:31 I don't know, it doesn't matter. This is the you know, we're playing make-believe here, and it's delightful. Sarah 44:36 Mm-hmm. Tara 44:37 Calling the iPhone the slippery germ brick. I mean that speaking of things that hit close to home me and my filthy iPhone. You nailed all of the things that make this so smart. And I do agree that it evolves a huge amount over the first season. We just re-watched the show. We bailed a few episodes into the final season, which is Not great. But it does figure itself out in such an interesting way. And this is like for a network sitcom of twenty two or twenty four episodes a season, like this is quite late to be locked in, yet early at the same time. I mean it's It's a delight to watch. Dermot Mulroney wouldn't necessarily think in a Michael Phelpssian way that he could fit into this ensemble and he totally does and is great in the part. So there's a ton to love here. And I loved it all. Thank you for letting us watch it again. Dave. Dave 45:26 Phillip, have you ever watched the TV show Primo? Phillip 45:30 Mm, I see the pot, yeah. Sarah 45:30 Oh, yeah Dave 45:30 Okay, first of all, you gotta watch Primo. Tara 45:32 Yes. Dave 45:33 Yeah, it's really good. But there is a game in Primo that I would say holds up to True American. Sarah 45:36 Oh, yeah, it's so good. Phillip 45:37 Oh, I think that's a good idea. Dave 45:40 It is called Game Champ. Sarah 45:41 Oh, yes Dave 45:41 So once you get to the Game Champ episode, you'll know that you're in for another uh lots of people playing a stupid game treat. Tara 45:48 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm Dave 45:48 All right, let's make this official seribunting what say you? Sarah 45:51 Oh my god, well how far can we drag an unconscious man? Pretty as far as the canon. Yes, for me, for sure. Tara 45:59 Yes, for me as well. Dave 46:00 All right, me too. So That means that New Girls Season 1 Episode 20 Normal. You are hereby inducted into the extra hot Graken Clip 46:21 Americans love a winner. Yeah. And will not tolerate a loser. Nope. Dave 46:26 Alright everybody, it's time for winner and loser of the week. Tara has this week's winner. Tara 46:31 I do. It's Matt LeBlanc, speaking of friends, who is uh going to be the star, if it gets picked up, of a new show called Flint. that's being developed for him to star in at CBS. And hilariously, the Hollywood Reporter story about this is very vague for the first few uh paragraphs about what nature of show this is, because It's from Evan Katz, who was a showrunner of 24. And so I kept reading okay, he's about a he's playing a cop. Okay, is this a drama? And then it until we get to LeBlanc's statement where he's like, no, I love the hours of a multicam. And it's like, okay, phew. But here's the premise. The show is about a burnt-out LAPD detective on the verge of retirement who's blindsided when the city extends his service by five years. Determined to get fired, he breaks rules and disobeys orders, which to his dismay makes him an even better cop, which sounds, I mean, pretty kind of perfect for Matt LeBlanc. But I also when I read it thought, oh, I really want to see the British version of the show where it makes him a worse cop and like things just keep going wronger and wronger and no one is happy and he's not learning anything. Sarah 47:27 Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Tara 47:40 But Nevertheless, uh, I'm interested. I I will give this one a shot if it gets picked up, and I have to think it's CBS plus MatleBlanc. There's no way it won't be. So good luck to him and them. Dave 47:52 Uh Sarah, who is our loser of the week? Sarah 47:54 Speaking of cop shows, it's Law and Order Colon Organized Crime, which has been canceled after five seasons, but that could make SBU watchers uh winners because that could mean that Olivia shippers are in for a treat. Perhaps stabler will head back to slash recur on Tara 48:11 Uh-huh Sarah 48:14 His original show, cause that just got renewed for season two hundred and twenty-five. Tara 48:19 Literally twenty-eight, which is almost as hilarious as the fake number you said. Sarah 48:22 Yeah. And SBU signature moment monkey in a basketball. Tara 48:28 That's right. Sarah 48:30 It's all happening at the zoo. Dave 48:33 Well, speaking about something that you're used to having in the schedule but suddenly it's not there, do you know what time it is? Tara 48:41 Not in game time. Sarah 48:41 Outro time Dave 48:42 It's time to end the episode. Well guys, that is it for another episode of Extra Hot Great. We chewed the fat on whether the new season of beef was select choice or prime beef before going around the dial with stops at The Boys, Saturday Night Live, and Untold Jailblazers. Who's that canon guy? Who's that canon guy? It's Phil. Thanks. That's my that's my big contribution to the show. Tara 49:11 Good job, Dave. Dave 49:12 Thank you. Sarah 49:12 He's exhausted, people. Dave 49:13 Uh finally we crowned winners and losers of the week because Dave, as we said, is doped up or dying or something. Remember! Clip 49:22 We're listening. Dave 49:26 I am David T. Cole, and on behalf of Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting. Tara 49:29 Anchor me Sarah 49:31 Typing is not a special skill. Dave 49:33 And Phillip Maciak. Phillip 49:35 Beaves Dave 49:40 Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time right here on Extra Hot Great.