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leverage-commentary · 4 years ago

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Leverage Season 2, Episode 11, The Bottle Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Johnathan: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Johnathan Frakes.

John: He’s the Director of this episode. My name is John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Christine: My name is Christine Boylan, I'm the writer on this episode.

John: Drinking left to right you have a screwdriver- a screwdriver, which is just a fistful of vodka with an orange in it.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: It qualifies as a screwdriver! Look where we are, we’re at a wake!

John: I've got a Guinness, and Boylan’s having a little baby Guinness. Boylan what is a bottle show?

Christine: A bottle show is a show that tries to save a lot of money by shooting on standing sets. And not adding too many bells and whistles that can get expensive.

John: Not very easy on a con show, but we managed to pull it off, and by far, this is one of my favorite episodes of the two years. Nicely done, both of you.

Johnathan: And the irony of this being a bottle show about a bottle is not lost-

John: Yeah it's- the puns were running thick and furious because we wrote it in 72 hours. Love this- now this is actually a room in the bar we have not seen before.

Christine: Yes, this is the back room.

John: The back room we built. And it was a great little idea. It's an Irish bar, it's an Irish wake, we built the con up from there.

Christine: Creepy storage area.

Johnathan: Oh Alan Smyth, the wonderful and talented-

John: Mr. Frakes, why don't you tell us about this villain? Cause this is a really interesting- it's an interesting reveal, interesting villain. It's not our usual type of guy. How'd you approach this?

Johnathan: Delightful guy, this guy’s been sent to Boston by his father from Dublin to check on his family's money, and how things are going. Decides to take things into his own hand, doesn’t know he’s gonna run into the Leverage team. He thinks he can muscle this poor girl at her own wake- her father's wake and-

John: Yeah, boy that's an asshole. We hate that guy.

Christine: I hate this guy.

John: This guy totally passes the ‘we hate that guy’. Now I'm gonna ask where this scene can run a bunch of different ways. It can run really creepy, it can run kind of light. Like, how do you design this when you're gonna shoot this?

Johnathan: This was as simple and clean as it can be. Here’s a set up, here's the teaser: he wants the money, you see where they are, we have the like this chick, which I think we do. This is Odessa Rae.

John: Yeah, she was fantastic for a character.

Christine: Lovely girl.

Johnathan: And a real redhead, clearly.

John: And it's really- we really kinda dig in on the Boson heritage in this one.

Christine: Yes, and it was important that she fight back, to me, that was a big one, just take that swing.

John: She didn't want to be a schlub. And Liam and Liam’s brother is my favorite bit. How did- Boylan, how did you wind up with the money borrowing aspect of this?

Christine: The money borrowing- I had watched a really fantastic documentary by...oh god, what's his name?

John: The Ascent of Money?

Christine: The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson, yes. The Ascent of Money talked about how loan sharks are alive and well all over the UK and in certain pockets of the US, allegedly. So I thought well let's do that, let’s take a little- let’s take the loan sharking and move it over. And also talk about the grand tradition of bookmaking as well, so we have all kinds of neighborhood cottage industries.

John: Yeah, and this is where we really dig into- this was important to do in the second half of the season, because we're really set-

Johnathan: We see every inch of this bar.

[Laughter]

Christine: Yes we do.

John: We see every inch of this bar. You shot the hell out of this, man.

Johnathan: Here's a standing set, and snow! Check out those windows. That's what makes you think you're outside.

John: And by the way, this was the hottest week in Portland on record.

Johnathan: Unbelievable.

Christine: 107 degrees.

John: 107 degrees.

Johnathan: Everybody in layers.

John: This is our Life on Mars flashback.

Johnathan: There we go.

Christine: Jimmy Ford.

John: This is Jimmy Ford and young Nate. And this was interesting, this was- we really need to establish just how close Nate Ford was to a criminal life, for us to do the season finale.

Christine: Yup.

John: And it was interesting for a show that really came out and just came out of the ether, you came back from shooting another episode with this idea, this actually wound up doing an awful lot of work for us for the season.

Christine: I really like to dig in on Nate, his backstory, his troubles, because he's a wonderful shade of gray for us, so I was-

Johnathan: This also the beginning of his fall off the wagon.

John: Absolutely.

Christine: Yes, oh yeah. A nice swan dive off the wagon, actually.

[Laughter]

Christine: With a graceful landing. I was up doing episode eight, The Ice Man Job, and I thought, you know, in between takes you’re sitting there, you're thinking how do- the challenge was, how do you do a bottle show? And I really wanted to do The Wire and we haven't been able to do the wire yet, so-

John: The wire is the classic con in the opening of this episode, where using a delay in sports knowledge, you're able to con somebody. It's the big con in The Sting.

Christine: Yes.

John: It is the big con that everyone uses when they are ripping off The Sting, and they're not telling you. And so we actually made a point of making it text that we’re doing the wire and we’re doing it in this amount of time.

Johnathan: And you can't do it in less than 4 weeks, or 2 weeks.

John: No, no it's a long con.

Christine: A lot of preparation.

Johnathan: It's a long con and we do it in-

John: Yeah. This was the fun of this episode was basically taking everything that was possible-

Johnathan: We do it in 17 minutes.

John: The fun of this episode was taking everything that is impossible in a con and heist show, and making it text that's impossible for the team to do.

Christine: It’s super meta because the Leverage team does what we did, which is do this really, really quickly.

John: Yeah. Really, really quickly. We broke and wrote this episode in 72 hours.

Christine: Yup, I flew up here right before my birthday. 107 degrees at the end of July, and we had a blast. We had a really great time.

Johnathan: Liam and Liam's brother.

John: It was also good to kind of nail down Nate’s- why Nate chose this bar, why Nate- and we kinda touched on it, but the idea that he's got some sort of family history. And it was a big deal too, when we were talking about this bar. Tim Hutton as they were building the set talked about the bar that his dad used to drink in, in Boston. And talked about, like, remembering the pictures of the Irish rebels up in the men's room, and a lot of that stuff we used when we were designing the bar.

Johnathan: Tim Hutton himself owns a bar.

John: Tim Hutton himself owns a bar in New York, that's right.

Christine: He does indeed.

John: And this is our classic vic scene, just a little bit later.

Christine: Yeah, she gave an amazing performance here, every take. Do you remember that? Unbelievable.

Johnathan: Fascinating girl, too; very interesting girl and a wonderful actress.

Christine: Yeah, truly a riot.

John: And you shot the hell out of the apartment. The apartment looks nice in this light. Actually, this was the one that made me want to shoot the apartment in this light on a regular basis.

Johnathan: Well this was Connell saying, if this is night and we can- if we can play the snow, we’ll turn the shutters down a little bit so we can see the snow. It’s- it feels like there's a fire lighting in here.

John: Yeah, it actually affected the way we shot a couple of the following episodes, because in the day, this- the great light wood gives you a lot of space, but it can feel a little too airy. This really made sections of the apartment look intimate.

Christine: The warmth is great.

Johnathan: Yeah, but also I think all of us have learned by this time if we isolate a section - like if we play a scene in the kitchen, it works, but keep everybody up in the kitchen. If you're gonna go down to the television room, we've gotta play that. Once we spread everybody out, you can't make your day.

John: Well Marc Roskin did something interesting in 213 where he used Nate as the hinge to follow people as they entered. But what he did was basically broke it up into mini scenes of that, as Nates starts the TV he's talking to Hardison, comes up at Jeri on the table, and then Parker and Eliot arrive, like on the fly, to land the move.

Christine: That's great.

John: But that- it’s the only time we've really pulled it off really, really well.

Christine: I will say that we did use the staircase a lot in this episode as well.

[Laughter]

Christine: A lot of running up and down the stairs.

John: A lot of running up and down the stairs.

Johnathan: There happens to be an interior staircase in the building that is very convenient for us.

Christine: Yes.

John: Yeah. And that was a great design idea, actually. I remember when we originally stuck that in there, like, we don't know when we’re gonna use it or how, but it's always good to have some circular stairs. No, this is a lot of- this is a lot of fun.

Johnathan: Are you talking about the staircase we see? I was talking about the staircase we feel.

[Laughter]

Christine: Oh.

Johnathan: Between the bar and the bar is literally downstairs in the building.

John: Oh of course, upstairs. That was a big deal was trying to figure out the geography of, like, how this bar’s connected to upstairs.

Christine: Oh here we go.

John: This is my favorite- damn.

Johnathan: And give it to- props to Jeri Ryan, unafraid to play it, fully committed.

John: And then-

Johnathan: Takes the shooter, goes to work.

John: ‘My name’s Trish and I'm lonely.’

Christine: ‘I’m Trish and I’m lonely.’

Johnathan: And I get the girls up and out and here we go.

John: Yeah. She-

Christine: We were all distracted by the way Jeri looked this entire episode.

John: I love Jeri for doing that. I love Jeri for doing that.

Johnathan: She was comfortable with it, embraced it, knows what she was there to play.

John: And it was- also says something about the character which is - you have given her precisely this much information; she is in a bar, she knows exactly how to run this con.

Johnathan: ‘Let me run with it, I got it, I got this one.’

Christine: What a gift the chemistry between Jeri and Alan was here. Fantastic.

John: Yeah, it's hard work flirting with Jeri Ryan. It’s all uphill.

Christine: Oh his days were terrible.

Johnathan: Poor thing.

Christine: He had the worst job ever.

John: I love also- again, we try to differentiate between the jobs everyone has. Parker always does the lift. You know, Chris can do a drop if he needs to - Eliot can do a drop, but you have to make sure when you've got a five-hander, everyone’s got their jobs.

Christine: I like the lifts in this one; we see some of them, and some of them are magic tricks. So it works out well.

John: And now we’re using the phone to scan which is something that you can do. They actually just created a food scanner for the iPhone.

Christine: Really?

Johnathan: A food scanner?

John: You take the iPhone, you run it over the UPC symbol on the outside of food, and all the nutritional information comes up - the calories, that sort of thing.

Christine: As if I'm not neurotic enough. I totally need that app. Yeah, that’s great.

John: There you go. Also I love the choice- and again, it was a virtue of us writing this really fast, and also wanting to do a bottle show which is so constrained, which is - he's just going to tell her he's a loan shark. We’re just gonna- we’re gonna try to take all the pipe, all the stuff you usually try to hide, and sell it.

Christine: He owns it.

Johnathan: Lay it out there, put it into the scene in act one.

Christine: There's something great about putting it forward like that.

John: It just moves. It just flies. And also, whenever you can give Hardison a recurring series of impossible tasks, it is inherently amusing.

Christine: Aldis is adorable in this.

Johnathan: Especially in a limited amount of time.

John: Well that's really what we've talked about on a couple of the commentaries; when you have the super team, it gets really, really hard to constantly challenge them. So it got more and more - how do we constrain them in time and space? And this is the ultimate example. You know, this episode runs essentially in real time.

Johnathan: It is; it plays in real time.

[Silence]

John: That's me drinking, pardon.

[Laughter]

Christine: A lift.

John: A little lift.

Christine: Lift and replacement.

Johnathan: That was the replace. Yeah, the great chemistry between these two actors.

Christine: Alan’s worst day ever.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: All day. All day with Jeri.

Christine: All day.

John: Sitting at a bar.

Johnathan: Sitting at a bar.

Christine: Could be worse.

John: It's interesting because we had episodes with bigger Tara Cole roles; this is actually my favorite one of the Tara- of Jeri doing Tara. Because you- this is one of the few times we cut her loose and let her do what she's supposed to do and really put her insolation.

Christine: And she’s really fearless, just fearless, which is great.

Johnathan: She’s a pro, pro from Dover and-

Christine: Seriously.

John: What does that mean?

Johnathan: She knows this character-

John: I'm disturbed. I like, by the way, the bar thing of like, ‘Yeah, we’ll miss our flight.’ They look over, it’s Jeri Ryan, ‘Yeah, ok. We’ll blow it off.’

Christine: Yeah, seriously.

Johnathan: ‘Ooh, ooh!’

Christine: Because this guy, not only is he gonna own it, he’s gonna brag about it.

John: What I love is we actually had a discussion in the room, for some people who didn't use to drink professionally, about the viability of some of the gambling and the money and everything in a bar. And I was like, I was a stand up comic-

Johnathan: That would never happen.

John: I was a stand up comic in a mob bar for a long time. Trust me - this was a Tuesday night.

Johnathan: This happens.

John: Yeah. I saw 20-30 grand go away at the bar several times on sporting events; just poorly thought out ideas. And this was a challenge for you, by the way, you were establishing geography that didn't exist.

Johnathan: Well that's what we just did by going out the back door. We all bought- we all drank the kool aid and said there will be a back staircase, otherwise this story’s gonna be dull as dirt.

Christine: Yeah, there’s gotta be-

Johnathan: Trying to get in and out the front door.

John: It's kind of Noises Off.

Christine: Yeah.

John: Yeah, we're kinda doing-

Christine: Everything I write is a little stagey.

John: Everything you write is a little stagey.

Christine: A little farce-y.

Johnathan: Here's more of our traditional 360, well used.

Christine: This is beautiful here, yeah.

Johnathan: Standing them up. Keep them standing. Always good advice.

John: The actors?

Johnathan: Yeah.

John: The actors’ energy is part of the energy, right, yeah.

Christine: Yeah this- I just got a thrill off of this, watching this being shot.

John: It's also- it’s fun because it was one of the purest versions. Again, because we’re in so fast of Nate Ford like ‘I am a genius. I am playing chess. I am playing speed chess.’

Christine: Yeah, right.

Johnathan: This is a great bit coming up this is- we come off this and we go back to Christian with the dart. He kept saying to me, ‘No, no, Frakes, I can do this; I can actually throw it.’ I said, ‘No no, you don’t understand Christain, it has to look like magic.’ ‘No, give me half an hour and I’ll make some- I'll make some bullseyes for you.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, I can do it as a special effect. It’s gonna look great; you're gonna look cool.’ I fought with him and fought with him. He said, ‘No, let me just look.’ I said, ‘The point is you don't look! You dont look when the dart goes in the wall!’

[Laughter]

Christine: Christians tough, because he's good at everything.

John: Well that's the trick. There’s- in a previous episode he jacks the slight on a gun and without looking catches the shell in midair as he’s doing dialogue. And it’s like- it’s hard to say no to him when he really wants to dig in in something, but yeah. This is also- I love- this is pure- this is pure threesome goodness. The kids are upstairs ripping apart dad’s apartment.

Christine: Triangles.

Johnathan: It also tees up the ending which is great.

Christine: And this- I, you know, this is for the fans.

John: The idea that they have utterly co-opted-

Johnathan: Nate’s house? Yeah.

John: His house, yes.

Christine: Oh, the cereal boxes.

Johnathan: They’ve all got stashed money.

John: And this, by the way, is a callback, this is why Parker’s always eating cereal; she's planting money in there on a regular basis and hiding it.

Christine: I think she likes the sugar as well.

John: She likes the sugar.

Johnathan: For anyone who’s watching closely.

John: And of course we finally solve the mystery of the picture.

[Laughter]

Christine: Her look right there is great.

Johnathan: ‘Are you kidding me?’

John: I love the idea that she- for once, cause we often play Hardison as the kind of emotional one, and for once we remind everyone, no he's a thief. Yeah. This is just his gig. He will even upset Parker, occasionally.

Johnathan: Woo he got down there fast, didn't he?

Christine: Oh yeah, that staircase is magical. Well he's very fit; he’s taking them three at a time.

John: Here's the thing: I don't think Eliot took the staircase; I'm thinking Eliot probably just went out the window.

Johnathan: He jumped.

Christine: He just jumped.

John: Went out the window, landed in the snow bank. I think that's probably the best way to play that particular transition.

[Laughter]

John: We don't- who cares about transitions? America is not sitting on their couch-

Johnathan: Great extras, look at these-

Christine: Look at these extras, they’re killing me.

John: Look at these extras. They’re great. This was a really- you know, it's tricky because we usually shoot the-

Johnathan: Comedy. Sight gags.

John: Big comedy. I'm not afraid of the comedy. You know what? No one has ever stopped watching a TV show because it made them laugh.

Christine: Look at all these wires.

John: Yup, you have no idea what they're doing.

Christine: Comedy wires.

John: By the way, that's roughly what the inside of my wall looks like; that's actually not bad.

[Laughter]

John: I like that you had him play the whole way through with the helmet, by the way.

Johnathan: Yeah keep the helmet- once you got the helmet-

John: But we actually-

Johnathan: How about the amount of wires? Come on, I’ve seen The Three Stooges!

[Laughter]

John: It’s perfect, there's nothing like a pulling wire gag.

Christine: Look at all the ends, that's great.

John: It was interesting, breaking this up we eventually wound up in little strike teams like, ‘OK, you figure out how the wire works; you'll figure out how the Tivo- this part of the Tivo delivery system works; you'll figure out what the crime scene is.’ Yeah.

Johnathan: Was this the writers room?

John: Yeah, this was basically, everyone got a piece of the script, come back in a day and tell me how it works.

Christine: We’re our own super team.

Johnathan: And you know what? It's one of the great things about this episode is the train leaves the station and there is no- there’s not much room for coming back and expositioning.

Christine: It's the express train.

John: I love when he-

Johnathan: It is the express train.

John: And that's the idea is, again- and this could've been a nice passing episode, the ability to set up everything in this. This might be the most important episode before the finale, because you really see who this guy is.

Johnathan: It's also nice to see this guy go toe-to-toe with Tim.

Christian: Yeah.

John: Yeah, it’s was like with Riegert with 210; it's great when you get an actor who's not intimidated by Tim, because Tim, you know, he's a very gifted actor. He's very famous and-

Johnathan: Yeah, he's fabulous. And this guy could carry a show and he was so happy to be here.

John: Yeah.

Johnathan: And Tim liked him, and it worked out and it was a-

Christine: They had a great time.

Johnathan: It was a win, win, win.

Christine: They had a great time, we had a great time.

John: No, this was actually born from the fact that in an old apartment building I was in, people used to pirate off the main satellite feed.

Christine: Like you do.

Johnathan: Yeah.

John: So- as one does. The idea is you do it backwards.

Johnathan: As you do. We'd never do that in college.

John: No, no. Of course not.

Christine: Never.

John: Well satellite, I mean, back when we were in college were those giant sputnik things that we used to battle the Russians in space.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: This is meant to be the Celtics, but what are- we found footage from the Canadian-

John: The Canadian basketball-

Christine: We went back and forth, we made up names.

John: You do not want to buy the rights from the NBA; it is very, very, expensive.

Christine: And that's not the point. The point is the betting.

John: The point is the betting.

Christine: The point is the characters.

John: Exactly, is the idea. And the only thing I'm kinda sad is, we run at 42 minutes and 30 seconds. There's an awful lot of stuff you would love to do, you just don't have time for. We had a great bit that we researched about the neuroscience of gambling, and how you can create-

Christine: Oh yes.

John: Remember? You can create feedback cycles with addictive behavior that- it’s very specific intervals of winning that hooks an addict in, in a way that they can't escape. And we were going to use that at the bar and it just, it just-

Johnathan: There was no room.

Christine: It's like the random praise you give the writers.

John: Yes, it's like the random- the writers- writers were distressed-

Johnathan: Boom.

Christine: Oh, look at that.

John: Yes, the writers were distressed to find out that I was using neuroscience on them. It turns out that you should never praise constantly or never, you should praise randomly.

Christine: Praise randomly.

Johnathan: There are not many physicists that are showrunners.

Christine: It’s true, it’s true.

John: I was explaining the random praise thing to them one day, and suddenly they realized ‘...wait that's what you do.’ ‘Well yeah, it's how you train a rat, so why wouldn't it be how you train a writer?

[Laughter]

John: And it’s great- also the big challenge in the episode to keep the vic alive, to keep it emotionally anchored, and because we’re where she works, we can cut to her a lot and-

Johnathan: We can cut to her a lot, and we put her in a lot of scenes that she wasn't originally in.

Christine: Yeah, just having her around.

John: It really just worked out. Cause you had her there, and you had the writer on set, makes a big difference.

Christine: So this is Brad Farwell and George Burich as Liam and Liam's brother, and George-

Johnathan: Not bad Irish accents for a couple of guys from the great northwest.

Christine: Pretty good. And I just had a drink with George in New York last week and he said, ‘Mention the toothpick! Don't forget to mention the toothpick.’

John: It's nice; it's a nice touch.

Christine: He's in love with that prop; adorable.

John: I remember how Liam's brother- Liam and Liam's brother was born, because we actually were trying to think of a name; it just hung in the room so long we were like, ‘Oh wait, that's the joke. This is Liam and Liam's brother.’

Christine: ‘That’s totally it.’

Johnathan: Worked on [unintelligible] for three years.

John: And beat, beat, beat. There you go.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: Eric Bates, our prop man, said, ‘Frakes, should I get out the good money for this show?’ I said yeah.

Christine: The good, good money.

John: There's gonna be a lot of close ups.

Johnathan: He's got two qualities of money. Yeah I said, ‘Tonight would be a night for the good money.’

John: We’re a heist show. We have an awful lot of briefcases of money, and sometimes you just need the tops and sometimes you need to count it, yeah.

Christine: A lot of cash.

John: And this was a nice beat and Tim really didn’t over play this. He really did a great job.

Christine: It's very subtle this episode.

John: He was really great and subtle.

Johnathan: Well, he's comfortable in a bar.

John: Yeah and-

Johnathan: And I think a lot of us are, and I think that's one of the reasons-

Christine: I don't know what you're talking about.

Johnathan: Well, I mean, you can tell people who spend time in there. Even the shooters behind the camera, everybody was comfortable in there, everybody knew the way it should look, everybody knew the dynamic, everybody knew what the stuff would be like. I mean, there's something about being in a familiar place with a crew that makes you move faster and move with it as a team.

John: And also we've lived in this set a bit more. We set decked a little bit more, and again, it was like usually we meet the clients during the day, and looking at this was like, we should be there at night all the time.

Christine: Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Johnathan: There's a lot to be said for night.

John: Night is cheap rain. Or rain is cheap night. I can never keep that straight.

[Laughter]

John: More great work by Derek, our visual effects guy. There's- it's really hard we do a life of computer gackery and it's really hard to make sure people understand.

Johnathan: Are we gonna go over the split screen again on the TV?

John: I don't know. No, no we're not gonna split-screen.

Johnathan: The big screen is- I've been watching a lot of these NCIS things-

John: The big screen, I think we're gonna go the big screen next year.

Johnathan: That, I think, is the difference.

John: You know what? We just didn't have the tech.

Johnathan: Yeah I know, that's what I'm saying. That’s what I’m saying, we do now.

John: Yeah this was really- although it worked well for this, because it's one of the few times we pop up a bunch of different windows.

Christine: They're multitasking almost.

John: I think next year we’re gonna- and again there's an awful lot of stuff we’re kind of inventing on the fly. Yeah.

Christine: The hell you say?

[Laughter]

Johnathan: It’s a TV show.

John: Yeah, it's like shooting a movie in 7 days, or 6 ½ occasionally.

Christine: 6 ½ in 107 degrees.

Johnathan: Don’t bring it up; don’t rub it in.

John: Now when you get two actors like this, you know, what's your job as a director? You go in, do you have a specific ‘I want to end this scene here’? Do you give them guidelines? Do you shoot-? What's your approach?

Johnathan: Well these guys both decided with our permission, your permission, that, you know, they would adlib. Here’s what needs to happen in the scene. If you have two good actors and you have the intention of the scene clear and you're at a bar and they're having a drink, and they're gambling, and they're watching, it’s safe.

Christine: It's nice to have actors who care about the rhythm of the dialogue. How it's said is as important as what's being said, and they will work with me every- the regular cast and the guest stars were happy to like grab me at any time. ‘Rewrite this. Can I say this? Can we do it that way?’ I love that.

John: Yeah, I know.

Christine: Woo, there's a lot of grabbing going on; very grabby.

John: Yeah we’re setting up Boylan; she's pretty open to it without all those lawyers getting involved.

[Laughter]

John: But here's the thing, there's a lot of showrunners, and a lot of writers, and everything it's like ‘say the words, say the words, say the words.’ And you know what? At the end of the day it's a television show with actors and it's gotta-

Johnathan: It's really- in the defense of both sides, you really have to use it judiciously.

John: Yes.

Johnathan: I think that you have to know- Timothy Hutton can adlib. Alan Smith, I'd done four shows with, I knew he could. But you don't want to turn everybody loose, because everybody thinks they're funny, and only some people are.

Christine: Exactly.

John: You have to be open to it.

Johnathan: You have to be open to it enough to judiciously use whats good and what's-

John: And just not- and I'm just saying, I'm not one of those writers where it's like, you know what? If you wind up with the better rhythm, the better line, that's what matters. Because TV is radio with pictures.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: You know, people listen to voices, people listen- they got their heads down, they're reading while they're listening to TV, you know, that's what drives television. It's nice when television is well shot, but well-spoken television works just as well.

Christine: Oh for me it works better.

Johnathan: They remember what happened.

John: Yes. It'd be nice if every now and then you thought about the fact that actors have to deliver your lines.

Christine: They love it.

John: Yes, they adore you.

Christine: I do think a good section of the writing process occurs on set, honestly. And it's something that I was lucky to learn in rehearsals doing theater: it’s gonna change every day and that's ok. Everybody’s gonna roll with it, it's gonna get better, and it has to be easy to say; it has to be easy for the audience to process and remember.

Johnathan: And also each character speaks differently. That's what happened in the second season in this show, is the characters have found their voices, the writers have found the characters’ voices-

John: Honestly we got lucky. They found their voices early, early, first season. They all had found their rhythms. Because we tend to pair them, and you tend to- and that's what happens is they find the rhythms of each other. That moment of celebration from Hardison is not just him, it's us for having pulled off the wire. Doing a con that most shows take an entire episode to do-

Johnathan: We do it in less than half.

John: And labor the freaking point about it. That's right, in Leverage you get 3 or 4 episodes of television per episode.

[Laughter]

John: And we've won, at this point- and again, this is a hook on Nate’s illness this year. At this point he should walk away.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: There is no reason for him to do this.

Johnathan: But now it's a bigger deal.

John: And it's not just justice, it’s obsession, you know, and it’s vengeance, and it’s control and it's- you know, he's starting to see himself as his father.

Johnathan: And it’s alcohol.

John: It’s alcohol.

Christine: Is it hubris or moxie?

John: Well what the alcohol has done is kind of- hubris or moxie. As we say in the writers room all the time.

Christine: That’s it; it’s very important.

John: Is it hubris or moxie? And with him it’s hubris.

Christine: Totally.

John: But we’re really- what the alcohol has done here is loosened up the reins he's had on what is a really- and what I love is Tim’s not afraid to play this is - Nate Ford is an unpleasant human being. He's condescending, he's sarcastic, he’s vengeful, he's judgmental. You know, I love the- and again Jeri-

Johnathan: And he's not afraid of that.

Christine: No he's not.

John: Yeah, and the fact that when he sort of loosens up, a lot of other shows have ‘Oh he's loosened up, I like him more.’ When Nate Ford loosens up you actually see him see an uglier side of him. The professional thieves are much more likeable on this show than the protagonist, which is one of the reasons I think it kinda works. I love that, that is a great beat. ‘I’m claustrophobic.’

[Laughter]

Christine: Liam's brother is claustrophobic.

Johnathan: What an absurd beat.

John: Well you know what? I'd just come back from Boston, I'd driven the Ted Williams tunnel to go to Logan.

Christine: It’s awful.

John: It's awful; you're underground forever.

Christine: It’s awful.

John: It's like, alright- that's one of the advantages of knowing the city you're actually writing about. Like, you know what, there's no other way to get to the airport.

Johnathan: But it's a wonderful thing to say about a character that has virtually nothing else.

John: Nothing to say. And that actor landed that look.

Johnathan: Exactly.

Christine: That's lovely.

John: Yes, and now we're giving Hardison yet another insanely impossible thing to do.

Johnathan: And we’re taking the leap that the audience knows what a green screen can do.

Christine: Yes.

John: You know what? I think everyone does now.

Johnathan: I think they do.

John: It really is- it’s always interesting to try to figure out, what do people know and not know and not know? And now a little something for the ladies.

Christine: Ahem, you're welcome.

[Laughter]

Christine: This was a fun day on set.

John: Yeah I can imagine. ‘Why are all the PA’s here?’

Johnathan: He's been waiting.

John: He's been waiting for a while. Dude should not have to work out that much and not be-

Johnathan: Exactly. I said, ‘Will you take your shirt off?’ He said, ‘On camera?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. ‘Watch me.’

[Laughter]

John: As opposed to usually where you're with actors ‘Will you take your shirt off?’ ‘Alright Mr. Frakes, if you want.’

Johnathan: ‘Can you really ride that motorcycle?’ ‘I said I could!’

[Laughter]

John: Oh god! Oh this is unspeakable, oh man, this is why we drink during these! I love Parker’s little beat there of, ‘Yeah, like there’s a safe I can't pick, c’mon’.

Christine: Seriously.

John: This is one of my favorites- and again, the second half of the season, we started pairing Eliot and Parker together.

Christine: It's a great pairing.

Johnathan: Yeah, and it changes the rhythm, but they are great together.

John: They're great together. And Chris and Beth are also getting to work together a lot and they- really whole cast really likes each other, so it was fun to watch.

Johnathan: Here's some comedy.

John: You know what, big comedy, half-dressed comedy.

Christine: Sexy comedy.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: Weatherman comedy.

Christine: Weatherman comedy.

Johnathan: Clothes are a little small because they're Nate’s clothes. Did we get that part?

John: Yeah, I noticed that. And also the whole idea that he could be pantless, you don't know.

Christine: He could be, they don't know.

John: No, this was an enormous amount of fun. This is just really one where we kicked back and put every con trope we can into this thing.

[Laughter]

Christine: And we got a lot of pleasure in the writers room of doing the ‘other side’ bit before it ended up in the script.

John: Other side.

Christine: ‘Seattle’. ‘Other side’

John: No this is- and again, it was a matter of controlling information. In theory, the bar- and it's tricky, cause, you know, much like earbuds have changed the way you write these shows in communication. When mobile phones start doing news better, we're gonna have to learn to write different stuff.

Johnathan: Yeah.

John: The ubiquity of information is something that all con and heist shows- controlling information is what that depends on, and you can control information less and less and less. But again, because we were in one location, that was the benefit; it forced us to do something that makes our lives easier.

Christine: I'm a fan of putting constraints on them as much as possible.

John: Yeah. It’s- otherwise they need obstacles.

Christine: Now forget the weather, he’s gonna do whatever she tells him. Look at her, please.

John: Pretty much I think he would probably kill Liam and Liam's brother at this point.

Christine: In full view of everyone.

Johnathan: ‘I don't care if they are claustrophobic!’

John: ‘Put them in a goddamn tunnel!’ No. No it's what - we're watching this with the sound off by the way - and it’s one of my favorite bits about watching these scenes, is you can actually-

Johnathan: You remember what happened.

John: You remembered what happened, but also I like watching- without the dialogue it's easier to see the emotional moments, the choices the actors are making. You can see the swing moments in the scene.

Christine: Oh yeah.

John: The acting- I actually enjoy it more with the sound off. Because you know what's going on here. With the sound off, you know how she’s reining him in, she's shutting him down, and then he’s pulling her in; she’s feeding his ego.

Johnathan: Look at how unafraid of her he is, which was nice.

John: That's also a big thing this year, is coming up with bad guys who were a little more physically confident, you know. It was a little too easy to have, like, old white dudes who were threatened by stuff.

Christine: See no tie. He's not wearing a tie.

John: No tie, he's not wearing a tie. We’ll have to remember that.

Christine: Leather jacket, no tie.

John: And then the stall almost works. And what I love is- Johnathan, you created an entire back to this bar between that drink room and the back room.

Johnathan: The drink room and the poker room.

John: And the magic area. There's no-

Johnathan: It’s huge back there!

John: It did not exist.

Christine: It’s so huge.

Johnathan: There's the whole first floor of that building.

John: Those sets aren't there!

[Laughter]

John: It was nicely done. And especially since you bombed in on short notice too right? Was I supposed to do this one? I was supposed to do this one.

Christine: This all came together very quickly.

Johnathan: Yeah, I think this was yours.

John: This was mine, and I wound up writing another episode, so I couldn’t direct.

Christine: What you missed the 107 degrees in Portland?

John: Yeah, I don’t know if I could’ve- there's no way in hell I could have pulled this off.

Christine: I don't think you would have made it.

John: No..

Christine: I'm just kidding.

John: No, no, no Johnathan has a lot of experience, he's really confident and really great with actors.

Johnathan: Oh please, John.

John: No this- a bottle show is the hardest show you can do on television. Period. The end. And it's the simplest looking one, they are- go find the bottle shows to your favorite television shows and watch how much they suck.

Christine: They're often audience favorites, because you get to play character-

Johnathan: They've often been sidled with flashbacks.

Christine: Oh, that’s true.

Johnathan: And pieces of other shows because they are short as well as bottled.

Christine: No clip show here.

John: No clip show here.

Christine: Just that special Life on Mars flashback to Nate's dad.

John: Nate’s brutally corrupt father.

Christine: Look at these guys.

Johnathan: Joe Ivy, Hank Cartwright, Ted Rooney.

Christine: Fantastic. Fantastic gentleman. Lovely, hilarious.

John: And this one keeps picking up on the entrances too. This really does run in real time, doesn't it? You think- there's a time dash in act four where we do the poker game, but that's it. Now I love- these guys were great. Oh my god, these guys were great.

Johnathan: Local again.

Christine: Local?

Johnathan: God bless the Portland hires.

John: Again Portland, we thought we'd be flying up 3 or 4 actors a week, we flew up one on average.

Christine: Yup, it's that Portland, and then access to Seattle; it's two cities just full of terrific actors.

John: Now they're scheming, now they are working together. These two guys were great, they were really telling their own story back there.

Johnathan: Well it’s again, once they were cast and they started to hang together, and you hang together for a week, and you're on location together, and you're in a show. I've done this, I've been that actor; there's nothing better, there's nothing better than being number 7, 8, 9 in the call sheet.

John: You've got their moments.

Johnathan: On hold. You get your per diem. You've got your moments, you're in the family for a week, it's a great thrill.

Christine: And everybody got really close. You know, it was a heat wave, we’re all in it together, everybody’s going out for drinks, everybody hanging out afterwards. It was nice.

Johnathan: I went home and worked.

[Laughter]

John: You did. You go home every night.

Christine: I think I saw you out once or twice, Mr. Frakes.

John: You went home to prep your shot list for the next day. Of course, you're brutally devoted sir, you are brutally devoted. I like the mislead here, this actually wound up- again, we jumped through so many hoops. ‘How do we put his poker game together? Where do we find it?’ ‘Oh wait, we’ll just establish it early and use all the available resources.’

Christine: And this is where the improv-ing really came into play during the poker game, it was kind of terrific.

John: Well also because this was based on bars where I used to hang out in Montreal where the cops- cause the place-

Johnathan: The cops were in the back.

John: Well, you know, where I hung out at- Montreal, that part was controlled by the Irish mob. So, it was a lot of Irish bars, a lot of cops, a lot of Irish mob guys hanging out in the same place.

Christine: Sort of neutral ground.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Christine: Or a neutral zone.

Johnathan: Newspaper recycling plant right here, ladies and gentlemen.

John: Don't do that.

Christine: Don't say neutral zone?

Johnathan: Right there that's all newspaper.

John: That's all newspaper? That's cool, where'd you find this?

Johnathan: In Portland.

John: No, I meant the-

Christine: Portland warehouse.

Johnathan: Portland warehouse. And that is a sugar, what they cut- What's it called?

Christine: Sugar cane?

Johnathan: They used to cut cocaine with it, it’s-

Christine: Oh.

Johnathan: Baby laxative.

John: Oh wow.

Johnathan: It’s put into-

John: Now I know. How do you know- wow it's almost like you were an actor in the 80s. How do you know so much about cocaine, Johnathan?

Johnathan: I'm just telling you what I learned on the location scout, they told me all these things.

John: All these things you pick up along the way in your long career.

[Laughter]

John: Things happen. And the fact that he is- and again, interestingly, if you go back and rewatch the back six episodes, just Jeri’s role, you can actually track her coherent decision points.

Johnathan: This is a good shot. Aaand boom.

John: And through the door.

Johnathan: We wanted to see the shots cause we know, it’s not really about the shots, it's about the story.

Christine: The shots support the story.

John: No, no, the episodes where Dean does commentary it’s all about the shots. With you, we hammer you with a story.

Johnathan: If you see the shots there’s a problem really, isn't there?

John: If you notice a shot, that means you're not paying attention to the story. But I love that. By doing that push in, you connected that door to a room that is actually on the other soundstage.

Christine: Far away.

John: You have to walk another 150 yards.

Johnathan: Another part of the world! It’s another day!

John: This room actually sold us.

Johnathan: Look at this stage, it’s setting you up for something this season. Look at that stage.

Christine: We got- seriously I got a couple pictures from that stage.

John: I’m sure you do.

Christine: Oh baby, do I.

Johnathan: Does it involve comedy? Cause John Rogers has not made it-

John: Oh no.

Christine: It involves musical comedy.

John: Musical comedy.

Johnathan: What about stand up?

John: Yeah, well I’ve worked that room.

Johnathan: That’s what I’m saying!

[Laughter]

John: Fairly sure I’ve worked in that room.

Christine: There's a flashback episode coming up.

John: Yeah- yeah, we do the writer's flashback, the audience would love that.

Johnathan: Nothing indulgent in here.

Christine: No one wants to see that.

John: No, I don’t think I'm going to go the Steve Cannell playing poker at the table route just quite yet.

Johnathan: Castle.

John: And I say that and the man is a walking god of writing, but no I'm not gonna go there.

Johnathan: And James Patterson as well.

John: James Patterson was there, too. We actually like those show- it's interesting it’s- you know, a lot of commentaries go out of their way to not talk about other shows.

Christine: We like other shows.

John: You have to be a fan of the genre to write the genre.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: You know you have to be. Otherwise you won't know when you're crossing the streams, won't necessarily have the toolbox.

Johnathan: Here's an example of what we were talking about earlier. We gave the three local cops, Alan, Tim, the poker game. Here's what has to happen, we have to have two cons that are positive, and a con that's negative. And we played- we played 6, 7, 8, 9, minute takes.

Christine: Oh yeah, we sat back and laughed our asses off afterwards, they were great.

Johnathan: Sat back and laughed, and cut it together and you go where we see it in the scene.

Christine: Some brilliant cutting here, actually.

John: It’s a really nicely shot poker game, actually. I'm watching it now, this is really really nice.

Johnathan: It’s because we had all the time in the world because we had- we finished the scene and what I needed was the poker game, and what we needed was the story points in the poker game. Instead of trying to find them I said, ‘Why don't we just play hands out?’ And so the camera men, to their credit, Connell and Camp-

John: And again, I love Beth bringing a creepy sexual vibe.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: A creepy sexual vibe to a safe.

Christine: It’s great.

John: Yeah, that's really nice. And she does the same thing- it's interesting. It’s kind of another beat that she played with Eliot in the Lost Heir Job where she knows violence is about to happen, and she gets a little buzzed by it.

Christine: A little excited about it. I don't know anybody like that.

John: Yeah that's not, not at all.

Christine: Not at all.

Johnathan: Isn’t that what you write? That's your strongest suit?

John: Creepy sexual violence, that's what Boylan-

Christine: I don't know what you're talking about.

Johnathan: That's the Boylan way.

John: No the-

Johnathan: By this time Nate is fully into the [unintelligible].

Christine: I mean he's just-

John: Boom boom boom.

Johnathan: He made the decision early, which actually we glanced over. That was a wonderful beat, which he did not overplay.

John: When he goes and gets the booze and brings it over? Yeah.

Johnathan: No no, in the bar when he decides to have the first drink.

Christine: The first drink.

John: Yeah. Well you know, I don’t think it’s in the script to look to Odessa? Just having Tim glimpse over.

Christine: That was all Tim.

John: That was- looking over he was like ‘Oh man, I have watched this little girl since she was 5 years old. I'm not gonna let her down now.’

Christine: Beautiful note.

John: Good fight here, too.

Johnathan: Good fight.

Christine: Great fight. Look at this guy. Oh my god

John: Yeah this is a nice- this is like a toe to toe. We don't do a lot of these.

Christine: This was the first day shooting I think?

Johnathan: Not only first day of shooting, this is-

Christine: Morning right?

Johnathan: This is doubled up with- weren’t we doubled up?

John: Yeah, another show was shooting.

Christine: Oh god we were. I blocked that out.

John: You guys overlapped.

Johnathan: We overlapped, and the crew was on its way to do another thing.

John: Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Johnathan: Remember that?

Christine: That's right we lost some of the crew.

John: Oh wow, nice snap. I don't remember seeing this version of the cut; this is great. Oh both good spins.

Johnathan: This is, what’s his name? This is Paul Bernard’s stunt buddy from New York; he did a great job.

Christine: He’s fantastic.

John: Yeah and Kevin, our stunt coordinator, did a fantastic job.

Christine: Great job, look at that.

John: That is a great fight. That might be one of- that's my favorite stick fight, and the fact that they're both very good-

Christine: Look at this guy, this guy’s the best.

Johnathan: Look at this guy. ‘Oh, oh no. Ahhh!’

Johnathan: Moe, Larry, Curly

Christine: Fantastic. Comedy, Frakes, comedy.

Johnathan: Second Three Stooges reference.

John: Yeah.

Christine: Oh boy.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, and just Parker’s building frustration here.

Johnathan: Like, ‘Can you guys shut up?’

Christine: She does a great job. Beth is terrific.

John: As Chris just takes him apart.

Johnathan: This is exactly the tone of this show.

Christine: Oh.

Johnathan: Right here.

[Laughter]

John: Did she kick him?

Christine: The flick of the ponytail.

Johnathan: Yeah, she worked the heel.

John: Yeah, just fantastic. And- I'm- wow, this is a great sequence. This is the first time I've seen that fight cut. That was wonderful.

Christine: It's good cutting in there, too.

Johnathan: The good money.

Christine: The good money, the good, good money.

John: Brian Gonosey right? Brian cut the hell out of this.

Christine: Brian, yes. My friend Brian.

Johnathan: Repeat on the snow.

John: Yeah. You only have so much- so much snow.

Johnathan: I know we need to get some more Boston shots for next year.

John: Totally legally, of course.

[Laughter]

Christine: I don't know what you're talking about.

Johnathan: It takes place in Boston, right? Shot in Portland.

John: Yes it does. Shot in Portland.

Christine: Look at the look on her face.

Johnathan: How convenient is this? ‘She'll be here in a minute.’ Door opens, she comes in, she’s got a bag of money.

Christine: Only got so much time.

Johnathan: Exactly.

John: Hey 42 minutes. 42 minutes, kids.

Johnathan: 42 minutes.

[Laughter]

John: We’re moving.

Johnathan: It would've been cut anyway.

John: I know! It would've been cut.

Christine: I love how Alan just let the panic kind of- when we cut back to him, he just lets the panic kind of rise from his chest up to his face, essentially.

John: This was a big thing, too, figuring out exactly what the mark was, how-

Christine: Every mark I pitched was the most elaborate, most flirtily designed-

Johnathan: I know, in real life it should be the subtlest mark of all.

Christine: I was all over that.

Johnathan: It should be the most subtle mark of all.

John: Look at that, look at that.

Johnathan: This is a wonderful beat. This, and what Tim does after this, is fabulous.

John: And- but I love- just the way he just wipes his mouth as he gets up, he's like, ‘Alright, we're gonna have to do some violence.’

Christine: ‘We’re doing this. We're doing this.’

John: ‘Don't want to do this, but we have to do this’. And then the-

Johnathan: ‘Ok fine, let me talk my way out of it, if not-’

John: This is a man with a back up plan. Yeah, and Alan really dug in here, sort of just the rage of having his beautiful little plan taken away.

Johnathan: He's a stage boy. This is Eugene O'Neill stuff coming up.

John: Yeah exactly, park your cameras and let the people talk. And these guys were great.

Christine: These guys-

John: Also, great physical casting on these guys.

Christine: Second time he admits he's a loan shark right there, it's great.

John: They look like cops. I mean, it was really brilliant casting- they look like both cops and thugs, it was really nicely done.

Christine: They look like guys from the neighborhood. It worked out really well.

John: And again, one of the themes of the show is the bad guy is always hung by his own sin. You know, it's whatever sin you see him commit early has gotta be what shows up. Yeah, and this guy is fearless, I love this guy. I love them all.

[Laughter]

Christine: He's hilarious, look at that.

John: We have to bring these guys back.

Christine: We should.

Johnathan: They live there, they could easily-

Christine: I really think we should.

John: Actually, that was a problem, Odessa was from LA, and we want to recur the character and getting her up was impossible.

Johnathan: She wasn't from LA.

John: She was from LA.

Christine: Um, I don't know.

John: Pretty sure, yeah.

Johnathan: No no, she came in-

John: And I love he kind of drops the- he’s got that -

Johnathan: He’s like Muldoon.

John: He's got that long Dublin face. He's got the long, yeah.

Christine: He does, he's like a Joyce character, he's terrific.

John: He is.

Johnathan: No, she's a local who had moved to LA after.

John: That's right, that's right.

Christine: Oh that's what that was.

John: Yeah, he's got the Flanner O'Connell thing going on.

Johnathan: All three of these guys could easily come back.

John: Yeah.

Christine: Oh yeah.

Johnathan: It’s like Fred Guinn on the right, look at that.

John: Wow, you found the Portland Fred Guinn, amazing. This is one of the longer explanations- this is actually one of the longer flashbacks we do.

Christine: I love doing these flashes, and they- we always have to cut a whole bunch every time I write.

John: I know, I know.

Johnathan: This is a bleached bypass.

Christine: The first draft of this outline had so many flashes in it.

John: There was-

Christine: The handwritten one that I did-

[Laughter]

John: To be fair, Boylan, sometimes you will write an episode which is mostly flashes, with only two or three things happening in modern times.

Christine: I don't know what you're talking about. I'm trying to screw with your perception of time.

John: The theater thing sometimes gets a little out of control.

Johnathan: Well you milked that Guinness, didn't you?

Christine: What? It was a tiny Guinness.

John: It was a tiny Guinness. She is a tiny girl, it was a tiny Guinness.

Christine: It was a baby Guinness.

John: And this is- this is great. I love the fact that Nate becomes physically violent here.

Christine: Oh man.

Johnathan: Yeah.

John: This is- and I'm trying to remember where that came up in the room.

Christine: I forgot who pitched the finger breaking thing.

John: Cause it was originally the cops.

Johnathan: Tim got really involved in this. Tim was very excited about this part of the character, and this moment that's about- that we're all about to see.

John: I think I was the finger breaking, just because of the various times I'd seen it done.

Johnathan: Well no, it's a call back to the finger breaking, a callback-

John: No right, that's why we put it in the old days. But I was trying to remember exactly how we- we had multiple ways to get him out of this room. And then it was like, you know, we really- you really can't just chase him out.

Christine: Yeah.

John: You need somebody to lay the hurt on him.

Christine: He’s gotta have some damage.

John: And the person who has to do it has to be Nate. And that's great. Again, it backed into the whole- there's a seething angry vicious criminal under Nate Ford at all times.

Johnathan: Here it is- bam and bam!

Christine: Look at that.

John: He so digs in on the-

Christine: Look at Alan.

John: And Alan is so- cause I’ll tell you, and that was the advice I got back when I was in Montreal. A guy was in the mob, he was a bouncer, told me ‘You know what, all you gotta do is break a man's finger to get his attention for 5 minutes.’ I was like, wow.

Christine: That's good advice.

John: Really good advice. There's no pain like-

Johnathan: And ooh lights out.

Christine: He let loose with so many unholy screams during-

John: And there's something- actually important here, he breaks his finger at the end of the conversation.

Christine: Yeah.

John: That's an unpleasant thing to do. And the great bit, ‘You're exactly like your father.’ Ahh, that's so great.

Christine: Great breath there.

Johnathan: ‘None of us- I was at the ball game. Were you guys at the ball game?’

John: Huh? No.

Johnathan: That's what they're saying.

John: Oh!

Christine: Yeah ‘I was at the movies. Oh I was at the ball game’

John: ‘I was at the ball game.’ Oh, that's right

Christine: So the families can get the money back.

Johnathan: And then we tried desperately to get the snow to blow into the door on the exit. I’m not sure that we got it.

John: I don't think we got it. Why? ‘Cause it was 107 degrees in a warehouse!

Johnathan: It's 107, where are you guys going?

Christine: The backdoor to the alley, we covered it.

John: And the book, the ledger. And that was again, it's one of those things where you do research, how do loan sharks keep their records? They keep them in stupid coded legers!

Christine: Coded leger. It’s written in stupid pen and ink.

Johnathan: And here's the one of our regulars.

John: Yeah.

Johnathan: She's so reluctant to give up the money, it's brilliant.

Christine: It’s great.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: Here's a callback to the people in the beginning who have been ripped off.

John: He’s one of our regulars- if you watch, every episode he's at the bar. He's great; he's a local extra who kinda became the- mascot’s not the right word, but he really became, kind of, the extra heart, you know. And booze. Booze for everyone.

Johnathan: Shooters for everybody.

Christine: Hey, you know, end with booze we do get to [] here.

John: Somebody actually asked who drinks, who doesn't drink. Eliot drinks, Hardison doesn't drink well, Parker drinks but it doesn't affect her, Tara drinks a lot, and Nate of course is an alcoholic, just if you're keeping score.

Johnathan: What about Odessa?

Christine: Sophie?

John: Oh Sophie drinks but she only drinks girly- socially.

Christine: Socially. That's my girl.

Johnathan: You think?

John: Well when she's- yeah. She can put it away, but she prefers-

Christine: But she doesn't need to.

Johnathan: But she drinks neat booze.

John: She drinks neat booze. But you know, she's a woman who's trying to escape her past. You know, whatever she used to drink she doesn't drink anymore. I just- ‘No, no, I'm not gonna sleep with your niece at all.’ That was actually- in the original version was, she wandered off, you know, what you need to close up this beat. Yeah.

Johnathan: Ok let's sit down, we've-

Christine: Here we go.

John: She's great, she really is great. And the whole fathers thing here.

Johnathan: We even milked it with the look to the empty father’s seat.

Christine: Oh yeah, look to the chair.

Johnathan: Hopefully it stayed in the cut, let’s see.

John: I don’t know.

Christine: I believe it did.

John: They don't listen to you Frakes.

Christine: I don't know, we were both adamant about that.

Johnathan: Still doesn't matter.

Christine: Doesn’t matter.

John: We’re just puking up raw material for the brilliance of the editors.

Christine: The director was here and that chirpy girl, I don't know what they were saying. I think she was drunk, I'm not sure.

John: There's a lot about fathers in this season. Sort of looking at it there's a lot of- there’s Lost Heir, there's the season opener...

Christine: Every good show has daddy issues.

John: Wow that was a really weird voice you said that in; that’s a little disturbing.

Johnathan: My fathers the reason I'm here.

Christine: Aww.

John: Yeah, there you go.

Johnathan: Chair.

John: Chair, there you go you got the chair.

Christine: Cut to the stool. Dad’s office.

John: And he's gonna drink to it, yup.

Johnathan: Cause he hasn't had enough to drink today.

John: No he has not. Well once you start, really-

Christine: Really, what's the point of stopping?

John: Oh that's nice, they've cleaned up behind them, while they're talking.

Johnathan: High and wide.

John: High and wide.

Christine: Times out really nicely.

John: Nicely done.

Christine: Real time.

John: Anything you wanna say to the nice folks?

Johnathan: See you next season.

Christine: See you next season.

John: Thank you Mr. Frakes, that was wonderful. Thank you Boylan, that was wonderful.

Christine: Thanks guys.

John: And again an almost impossible show to do. Usually an impossible job on any show and- on any series and you guys made it one of the best of the 2 years, congratulations.

Johnathan: You're a gentleman and a scholar and a physicist.

[Laughter]

Christine: And a bit of a comedian as well.

John: Every now and then.

Johnathan: I can see you on that stage in the back room.

John: I'm not doing it.

Johnathan: What do you mean?

Christine: You are doing it.

Johnathan: John.

John: You know what? This screams for a Gilligan cut, ‘I’m not doing it!’

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 2 #Episode 11 #Season 2 Episode 11 #The Bottle Job

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malcolmbrights-archive · 4 years ago

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ford darling

character inspirations: matilda, #5, villanelle, a tweet i read where a girl’s mom kicks her out of the house and the girl’s friend’s mom takes her in (god i wish I could find it, it’s somewhere in my likes)

Ford Darling’s beginnings were somewhat lonely. His mother only kept him out of obligation and his father left her when he figured out she was pregnant. She didn’t treat him awful per-say, but she did treat him as though he wasn’t there most of the time. As a child, he longed for the warmth of his mother and her love. And this longing only intensified when he started preschool and he saw how loving and affectionate other mothers were when it came to their children. He tried to convince his mother to love him by attempting to impress her with grades and positive behavior but he ended up growing farther apart from her as time went on. Instead, he gained the attention of his teachers and the owner of a bookstore and bakery.

His teachers would take care of him by paying for his lunch when his mother forgot to give him money for it, or they’d find him clothes when he grew out of them. They’d praise him whenever he came in for tutoring or during lunch to study. He appreciated this quite a lot because it was the attention he longed for from his mother but never really received. Then, from the bakery-bookshop owner, he became friends with her son and she became something of a Miss Honey-Type for him, which ended in him visiting the bakery for free pastries - because she gave them to him - or nights where he spent the night at her place and hung out with her son.

He basically stayed there quite a lot, and it got to the point where people saw him as her son. She never argued against these statements, which always made him feel really good. However, one day, his biological mother got a boyfriend and he didn’t like him very much. He told him to his face as much one day, and asked Ford’s mother to choose him or Ford, and his mother chose the boyfriend. Without even blinking an eye, his mother kicked him out of the house. And not knowing where else to go, he rode the bus to the bookstore-bakery owner’s house and told her the story.

The woman, Claudia, was furious and drove over to his mother’s house and angry smacked her as soon as she opened the door, telling her that she should be lucky to have Ford as a son. Ford was shocked by this and was even more shocked when his mother said she’d give the owner guardianship over him because she just couldn’t handle him anymore and just wanted to be with her boyfriend. Ford gathered his things after that, and then he set off to live with Claudia who continued to treat him as a son - only this time she was his actual mother now.

Ford went to private school on scholarship and knew Claudia’s son, Rory, before he began to visit her bookstore-bakery a lot for food and drink. Rory had told him about it one day made a point to tell him about how he hung out there a lot with his mom and how he could hang out with him, too. The two of them hung out a lot there and frequently played scrabble, connect four, and chess together. They formed a strong bond and might as well have been brothers before they became actual brothers.

Ford’s been called a sassy little shit and this description of him has been stated even throughout his adulthood. He’s also very deadpan and serious, and his emotions are there but due to his upbringing, he’s somewhat lowkey about showing how he feels. He also has to keep his emotions in check since in verses where he has superpowers he’s telekentic and when his temper acts up shit floats or explodes and occasionally people get hurt. He prefers that not to happen and sees a therapist to find coping mechanisms to control his anger and upset, and so far this keeps his feelings and powers in check. It should also be noted that another power that Ford has is healing, and when he’s hurt or someone else is hurt, he can’t heal if he’s angry. Anger only manages to make things worse. In verses where he doesn’t have superpowers, he did get into fights while attending school because at his private school talked shit about him being on scholarship and because he was a bit of a teacher’s pet. He kind started to not give in after he moved in with the Darlings.

When it comes to love his love language receiving gifts. He likes making playlists with songs that remind him of friends, family members, and romantic partners and gives them to them discreetly - usually on CD, but sometimes through Spotify. He can be playful despite being serious, so at times he’ll leave little messages through the Spotify song titles. On the subject of musis an adult, he can play guitar so he sometimes plays guitar in small bars. Usually with music that isn’t written by him and that’s written by other people. He has a good voice though and makes habit of teaching himself to get better at using his voice and playing his guitar. This originally was something he did to distract himself while in law school, but now as a criminal defense attorney, like Claudia’s wife Beth, he just does it for fun and gets a lot of joy from it.

When he wants to get away from everyone he goes to the local aquarium. As a child, he’d sneak out of his new mother’s house and when he lived with his biological mother, her house, to go to the aquarium. He’d stay there for hours and just think about everything and nothing particular. It kept him occupied because he enjoyed watching sealife and learning the names of the fish and plants. As an adult, he’ll go to the aquarium with his tablet and go over notes for his cases while people around him chatted and communicated amongst each other.

Knows a lot of useless facts but can’t retain information for anything super important. You ask him what people’s names mean or how licks it does take to get to the center of tootsie pop and he’ll tell yah, but when asked what he had for breakfast what he wore the day before he won’t recall the information at all. However, when it comes to the details of other people - specifically friends and family - he’ll remember everything from their favorite color to how quickly it usually takes them to eat a bowl or top ramen.

Isn’t much of a reader or writer but he loves to watch movies and can quote lines verbatim without so much as a pause. He’s been obsessed with films - specifically old Hollywood films and musicals - since he was a child and took comfort in movies like “some like it hot” , “how to marry a millionair” and “the big sleep” by watching them repetitively. They hold a special place in his heart and if he really cares for you he’ll tell you about his favorite movies and watch all of your favorites and least favorites because that’s how he thinks he’ll get to know you. He also enjoys watching Shakesphere adaptions and ballets. Was in awe of the first play and ballet he’s ever seen and as an adult will go to them for fun and just to get his mind off things.

As a criminal defense attorney he is BRUTAL in the courtroom and takes no prisoners whatsoever. He is loyal to his client and does his job so good that people or horrified to be on the other end of the courtroom against him. He thinks it’s fun because he gets to argue for free and to /help/ somebody and it’s honestly his dream job because of that. A lot of people at the courthouse hate him though since he’s so goddamn full of himself when it comes to work and he doesn’t try to get on anyone’s good side, minus his ex-wife, who he is close to even after their divorce.

For someone who can come off as an ego-centric asshole, he’s loyal and caring towards his friends. He doesn’t show it through words or through acts of service, but he does give gifts - like I said above - and he does listen and give great advice. He can be easy-going company with the right person and not a complete and utter jerk. People like that are rare though since he puts up that personality so people avoid that side of him and the vulnerability that comes with it.

friendship

“talk less, smile” or “nod” more, is a very specific ford thing to do. he’s not the most chatty person in the world and is more likely to shower you with gifts than anything else -- like he’ll sing you a song or make you a playlist or an origami bird -- when it comes to meeting new acquaintances and friends. he’s a cool person to be around because he’s mello and isn’t much for starting drama unless people piss him off and start it. he’s the type of friend who will chill with you indoors, outdoors, whatever - as long as he gets some you time. he is something of a trouble-maker though, so some of his friends are probably gonna be troublemakers too. and his friends who aren’t troublemakers are probably goody-two-shoes who go to columbia law that he either tries to make troublemakers, or tries to learn from. it all depends on where he’s at and his mindset. but he is an alright friend. just not super well-behaved and he kinda is in love with himself. so i doubt he’d be friends with anyone is constantly talking shit about or judging him.

antagonistic

ford has a temper on him when he’s pressed or when he feels like someone can’t defend themselves. he is calm for the most part, but if you call him names or egg him on by pushing him, there’s a one-hundred percent chance you are getting decked in the face. he’s also gotten into trouble at random bars and clubs for getting into fights with men who just won’t leave women alone. and when he gets into trouble for it, he doesn’t apologize because he thinks he’s doing the right thing. Which is another thing, the fact that he’s so goddamn self-assured could be something that bothered people. Oh, and his mouth.

#( elliesfinishedbios )#i know his tag is ford roscoe darling but like......i'm just gonna have it ford darling #( ford darling | bio )#( ford darling )#long post

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according-to-the-laura · 3 years ago

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StackedNatural Day 99: 4x13

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

January 29, 2022

4x13: After School Special

Written by: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin

Directed by: Adam Kane

Original air date: January 29, 2009

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean investigate a haunting at one of their old high schools where we will see what school was like for the brothers back in 1997.

Features:

Slutshaming high school students, young Winchester flashbacks, John Winchester’s A+ parenting, your one good high school English teacher, every high school trope you can think of, nerds vs bullies, Sam’s photographic memory for middle school.

My Thoughts:

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen this episode and I was NOT prepared for it to hit me so much emotionally. It makes me remember that in the early seasons I was as much a Samgirl as I was Deangirl, and you know I love any episode that shows us what a piece of shit parent John Winchester was.

Out of the Young-Dean actors Dylan Everett tends to be my favourite, but Brock Kelly also does a great job. His first line expecially, his voice sounded a lot like Jensen’s. Colin Ford I like to imagine being cast as Stanford-Era Sam in a prequel because he’s always been great.

This is way more a Samgirl episode than a Deangirl episode, so I’ll talk about the Deangirl stuff first. Dean is in 12th Grade here so this is right before he drops out of high school. We know he gets his GED later, but he doesn’t graduate at 17/18. Adult Dean has also seen Dead Poets Society enough to quote it off the cuff, which I appreciate because it is one of the movies that is a guaranteed cry session for me if I need one and can’t get there on my own. Among other things he also references Heathers, which I know is probably about the movie and not the musical, but I love the musical and I just recently saw this amv which gave me oodles of psychic damage, so now you all need to see it too.

At this point I’m fully on board with the Queer Sam Theory, which I previously linked on a couple other posts including 11x08 Just My Imagination. There is so much Queer Kid subtext in always feeling like a freak, like you don’t fit in anywhere no matter where you go, and that’s Sam’s entire childhood. Dean’s too, to an extent, but he’s better at faking it as a kid so it isn’t as obvious. At the end of the episode he literally says “it gets better”! (Although take that with a grain of salt because that charity wasn’t founded until after this episode had aired.) Poor Sam is so tiny compared to his classmates (Dean is really skinny too), he obviously doesn’t get enough food.

In terms of the actual hunt, it kind of buys into the Columbine Myth a bit, that bullied kids will snap and commit murder, which really isn’t what happened during the Columbine shooting. There’s a great podcast episode talking about that whole thing on You’re Wrong About. You could make this complaint about any episode of Supernatural but you really can’t just walk into a high school and get a job. You have to do background checks to work with kids (unless that’s just a Canada thing?). It’s kind of embarrassing that they both think the hunt is over just because it isn’t demons when they know that ghost possession is a thing.

This episode made me super sad, so I love it.

Notable Lines:

“Don’t you miss your dad?”

“I don't want to be the freak for once, Dean. I want to be normal.”

“Well, your brother is quite a character. And your father -- he seems, uh, driven.”

“Do you want to go into the family business, Sam?” “No one's ever asked me that before.” “Well?” “More than anything, no.”

“You spend so much time trying to convince people that you're cool, but it's just an act. We both know that you're just a sad, lonely little kid.”

“Are you happy, Sam?”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.5

IMdB Rating: 8.7

In Conclusion:

<< Previous Day | Next Day >>

#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #4x13 #After School Special #we love a link-heavy review post

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damnthatnoise · 5 years ago

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Darko The Super | Of Dogs & Devils | An Interview

Hip Hop has long been about bravado, skill, and how your personality can capture and pull the listener in even further than just your skillset. There have been many an MC who’s personality sometimes outshined the lyrical prowess for better or worse, but when I sit back and think of some of my favorite MC’s growing up (Redman, Slick Rick, Kool Keith, E-40, and Del to name a few) the personality often was near cartoonish with no real effort from the MC to make it appear that way. Enter MC Darko The Super who since first coming across his music via Already Dead Tapes has oozed oddball personality, and ever evolving skills as an MC. Darko is no joke rapper though, instead he is adept at delivering some stark reality raps littered with glints of humor we often use to cope with the pain of existence.

Fresh off delivering one of my personal favorites last year in the form of Card Tricks For Dogs, he returns with his friend Steel Tipped Dove to give us The Devil Defeated, and makes a claim as one of the indie hiphop scenes freshest, most colorful, and promising voices making music.

You can order the digital, cassette and SUPER vinyl copies of The Devil Defeated here, as well as all Darko The Super Items.

The Devil Defeated by Darko The Super & steel tipped dove

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Damn That Noise: Darko The Super. What’s the origin of that name and what’s it come to mean to you now?

Darko: I think Darko The Super was my gamertag on Xbox Live before it was my official artist alias. I did two albums as Evan Darko after I seen Donnie Darko in high school. It had a big impact on adolescent me. The Super comes from another big influence on me at the time, MF Doom. My favorite song my senior year was "Dead Bent". I thought the ending of Operation Doomsday was really cool. The way it let you decide between hero or villain. I was big into vigilante justice at the time. I wanted to be like my favorite superheroes. So that's where the name came from. Nowadays it's just a name. More people know me as Darko than my real name these days, so it'd be silly to change it. Name's don't define you. It doesn't matter much to me. Though I like it.

DTN: You’ve had a pretty prolific young career given that you’ve dropped 10+ projects since 2011, but when we were taking recently you said you’ve just now started to feel like you now know your voice. What’s changed in the last couple of years to get you to that place?

Darko: Since 2011 I may have done nearly 100 albums. Most haven't lasted. I've deleted and erased most of my material pre 2014 from the face of the internet. (If anyone has a Loser CD, please destroy it.) I put out 10 albums in 2018 alone. All better than the previous. "Watered Down Demon Fuzz" from 2017 is the album I truly found my voice on. I listened back to "Oh, No! It's Darko" for nostalgic purposes and it seems more like a comedy album than anything, and not that good of a comedy album either. I was 18 when I made the first album I put on cd and gave to everyone at shows when I was starting to go out and perform. It was called Loser, inspired by Beck. Next cd I made was a compilation, also terrible, but somehow it's going for $75 on Discogs. I personally don't like anything prior to 2016. "Carve a Happy Face on my Tombstone" had a few good songs. Those were transformative years. My perspective on life has changed severely. It's hard to be happy with things you create when you're not even happy with who you are. I think in finding myself, I found my voice too. Life will always be a mystery. But at least I'm more comfortable in my own skin at the moment. Therefore more comfortable in my art.

DTN: Why erase the evidence of growth though? If anything that could show folks the rapid progression of Darko?

Darko: I'd prefer to leave a better first impression. Maybe I'm too insecure to show people my progression. It's also just a matter of that not being the way I feel anymore as far as the way I wrote back then.

DTN: Your style is a bit unorthodox in that you kind of dance all over the pocket of the beats, and your inflections seem to change at the drop of a hat. I know E-40 and DOOM are a couple favorites of yours but who else’s impressed a young Darko and helped give us the man we have now? Who made you say “I think this is something I want to do!!”?

Darko: Murdoc and MyGrane McNastee from Orlando, Florida were a couple of the first independent rappers I got into from watching the Wake Up Show freestyles on Youtube. They were big influences on me. From there I got into MF Doom, Madlib, and J Dilla. During the datpiff era, I got really into Charles Hamilton's mixtapes. I was a big fan of a web series around that time called Internet Celebrities. Through them I found out about Das Racist. I remember listening to them for the first time on MySpace. I saw Big Baby Gandhi in a video with them. Later on his Debut would become one of my favorite albums. I was really into going on hip hop blogs. I remember watching Open Mike Eagle rap "Qualifiers" in a laundromat and having my mind blown. He told me Serengeti was his favorite rapper which had me watching every Kenny Dennis video I could find. Dennehy became my favorite album. I got into Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire from seeing the Last Huzzah video with Das Racist, El-P, Despot, and Danny Brown. That's still my favorite posse cut. From checking out rap battles I got into Soul Khan who I remember posting about Homeboy Sandman's album The Good Sun. Blogs also got me listening to every Blu song. Her Favorite Color was something special to me. All those artists were huge in developing my approach. Nowadays my favorite rappers of all time are E-40, Serengeti, and Kool Keith

DTN: Card Tricks for Dogs feels like your most fully formed artistic statement yet and The Devil Defeated feels like the exclamation point showing folks you’re a real force. What helped bring those two records to life?

Darko: Both albums took a long time to come together, which usually isn't the case for me. I remember writing some of those Card Tricks for Dogs tracks while on vacation with my girlfriend and her family. I had tons of beats from my good friend and longtime collaborator Phil Ford aka BLKrKRT (Blacker Karat) loaded on my phone for those trips. I started it shortly after meeting Steel Tipped Dove for the first time. I released an album of his on my label and he offered to mix and master some tracks for me. So this was the first solo album of mine I let someone else do all the mixing for. I took my time with it and let it come together naturally. I believe everything happens at it's own time. As for The Devil Defeated, that album started out as a project called Contemplating Lonely Stuff, inspired by a Serengeti lyric. It was for the most part produced by Height Keech and Steel Tipped Dove. Eventually I decided to do albums with each of them separately. The album with Dove was pretty far along in the process and originally I wanted to call it "Playing Skee-Ball With Zev Love X" but we both agreed that was kinda corny and not many people would get what we were referencing. Then I heard the news of Daniel Johnston passing away, who is a hero of mine. I listened to nothing but Daniel for a few days straight and a few lyrics in particular stuck out to me. The one that landed was "The Devil Defeated" another possibility was My Yolk is Heavy. Me and Dove made over 20 songs for this album and eventually narrowed it down to the most cohesive project we could. We'll be doing a follow up of course. That's in the works now. I'm very proud of this album. My favorite track is a story I wrote based on a song called "Suzy's Face" by my favorite punk band, The Spits. I had to convince Dove on that one. There's another track I tried to convince him about too, but that will never see the light of day since I ended up agreeing with him.

DTN: You’ve has a chance to work with a lot of interesting and well loved folks. How the hell did the tracks with Lil’B, Charles Hamilton, Denmark Vessey and others come about?

Darko: I did an album called “Thank You BasedGod” dedicated to Lil B. I produced a track for him way back in 2014. He reached out to me after TYBG and offered to do a track together. So I sent him a couple Steel Tipped Dove beats and he chose the one that ended up on the album. Later I saw Charles Hamilton posting about doing features. I sent him the Lil B track since that’s a dream collaboration of mine. Lil B is a big Charles Hamilton fan, and they’re both internet gurus of their eras. Charles conquered the blog era by releasing tons of free albums on his own blog, landing on all the mixtape sites. Lil B mastered social media and became a marketing genius, even transpiring music. I’m proud to say the first time they worked together was with me. As for getting Denmark Vessey on the album, he had already worked with Dove and toured with my good friends, The Difference Machine. I was the one who showed them his album Buy Muy Drugs while I was out in Atlanta for a week. That album’s my favorite of the decade. He had posted about doing features so I sent him an email and made it happen.

DTN: You’ve released a lot of projects via Already Dead Tapes as well as starting UDDTBA. What is the connection with ADT and why start your own label? What have you learned from ADT and how has the played into how you run your label?

Darko: Already Dead Tapes taught me everything I need to know about running a record label. I met them in 2014 when I sent over my latest at the time “Oh, No! It’s Darko.” They were nice enough to release that on cassette. Soon after they invited me to play their weekend long festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I brought along ialive and we booked our first tour. Staying in Kalamazoo at the Knights Inn we recorded an album together and formed the now infamous duo The Hell Hole Store. From there we’ve played the Already Dead fest every year and I’ve released quite a few albums on Already Dead Tapes. U Don’t Deserve This Beautiful Art was grown out of wanting to support my friends and artists I admire. I brought on my best buds Steel Tipped Dove and Harvey Cliff to help me run things. Now the sky’s the limit.

DTN: “Suzy” is life a very interesting record as is “lo-fi princess” off of The Devil Defeated. You mentioned the influence for “Suzy” came from another artists song...how’d this end up on your record and why? Also what’s the idea behind “Lo-Fi..”?

Darko: During my commute one day I listened to The Spits first self titled album. I hadn’t played it in a while and instantly remembered why they’re the best. One song in particular stuck with me throughout that ride, “Suzy’s Face”. I decided to write a song building off of their track. Almost like taking a short story and creating a movie. I tried to describe in detail about why someone would shoot Suzy in the face at a high school dance. So that’s what I came up with. Lo-fi princess 2 is a sequel to the original from “Watered Down Demon Fuzz” both love songs to my girlfriend, Alora. I liked the phrase cos it reminded me of “Bow-tie Daddy” by Frank Zappa. Now that I think of it, an actual Lo-fi princess would be an anime babe trapped in the track art of a SoundCloud beat. We’d have to defeat the chill hop brigade to save her.

DTN: You and iAlive have a really dope chemistry and have two very different styles but similar energies that work so well off of each other. What makes that partnership work and why’d you guys want to keep it going after the one hotel infused brainstorming session?

Card Tricks For Dogs by Darko The Super & BLKrKRT

Darko: We kept it going cos there were more hotel sessions to be had. On tour you’re on the highway with a lot of time on your hands. That’s where most of our songs and ideas come from. We set up shop where ever we’re staying and start to bring these ideas to life. The people seem to like us and we enjoy performing together. That’s what keeps the hell hole going. We survive off friendship and fun times.

DTN: Okay sir Darko. You can only eat at two fast food places for the next year because you lost a bet. Where you going??

Darko: Obviously Taco Bell is numero uno, I’m a big Taco Bell enthusiast. Next would be Wendy’s, best fast food burgers by me, and they got those spicy nuggets. Plus I heard their salads are good too, which I would need a salad every now and then. I don’t think this is too far off from my normal diet. Worst thing that could happen is I have a heart attack. But I’m on that path anyway. Maybe I’ll start exercising. Maybe.

DTN: What are you picking if you only have Thor and Spider-Man as costumes for Halloween?!

Darko: Spider-Man of course. I could pull off a husky Spider-Man. Family Guy made it look good. I’d need the fake muscles for Thor. Fake muscles never look good. I don’t have the luxurious hair either.

DTN: What’s the writing process like for you?! Do you let the beat decide the direction? Do you have an idea or some lyrics written and you locate a beat that fits?

Darko: Either or. Writing always comes to me. It’s second nature. If it doesn’t come to me, I don’t write. That’s all there is to it. I only write when I’m inspired. That’s an easy way to go about it. My number one thing is creativity, I don’t wanna be complex or even an intellectual. I want my lyrics to be universally understood.

DTN: So what’s next on the horizon for Darko The Super?

Darko: Next up I’m working on an album with skits from a comedian friend of mine. He does tons of great characters and videos as Hot Talent Buffet. I think he’s a comedic genius. I’m also working on an album sampling nothing but my favorite band 10cc, titled “Strawberry Studios Jam ‘72” and another album sampling one of my favorite songwriters, Dean Friedman. The Dean and I have a 7” record on the way with my remix of his classic “McDonald’s Girl” on the B side with the original on the A side. I have a couple other collaborative albums coming along. The artist they’re with wants me to hold off announcing it until they’re ready, but I will say it’s a dream collaboration and I’m very excited for it.

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jodiwalker · 7 years ago

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These Are the Best Things Happening on ‘Game of Thrones’ Right Now, Part II

Hey y'all, something bad is coming on Game of Thrones, so just real quick, let's remember the good times in episodes 3 and 4, when teenage assassins were reuniniting with their teenage ruler sisters and teenage psychic brothers. When Littlefinger was getting ragged on so hard. When Jon and Davos had nothing better to do than chalk up the cave walls of Dragonstone with little bitty zombie drawings to prove a point and flirt with Missandei, respectively.

There were Catspaw Dagger references for the most careful of watchers, Jon saying "I'm not a Stark" as a Targaryen dragon flies overhead for the mildly observant viewer, and there's Jon and Dany touching each other's wrists in caves for everyone else who's just like, I don't understand what's happening here, I've never understood what's happening here, I don't care what's happening here, but I will be here until it's all over and Dany has married her nephew, SO HELP ME R'HLLOR.

So, once again, this is not a recap, not a review, just a simple, definitive, and all-encompassing list of The Best Things Happening on Game of Thrones right now (which is to say last week and the week before):

Almost Everyone Playing the Game of Thrones Is a Baby-Child

It suddenly became clear in episode 3 that while the lead characters in Game of Thrones don't seem particularly young when they are commanding their armies and large, magic animals—when they come face to face in a throne room, they suddenly seem like two particularly formidable and hormonal teenagers facing off at a Model United Nations simulation. Except, y'know, one of them recently died and was resurrected by a thousand year old sexy priestess, and the other has a bunch of giant toddler dragons and, like, ended slavery, I think.

I'm, of course, speaking of Dany and Jon, the two most popular rulers at Westeros High. Now, since Kit Harrington and Emelia Clarke are each 30, you wouldn’t think they would seem that young…but they're also both, like, 5'1 if they're an inch, so when they first came face-to-face in episode 3, they more often resembled a couple of adorable Shiba Unus tussling over a Kong ball and sniffing each other's butts, instead of two rulers arguing over getting to save the world in the specific way they want to.

In that sense, their first meeting was a particularly precious reminder of how young they still are. Yes, all the GoT kids were aged up three or four years from the books at the start of the series, but Dany and Jon are still only 22 or 23 as they fight to save the world from heretofore unknown evils—and by that, I of course mean Queen Cersei making ever woman get her goofy pageboy haircut.

When Missandei announces Dany like one of Blair Waldorf's be-headbanded lackeys, Game of Thrones briefly turned into a Disney Channel Original movie, bringing along all the clashing dynamics of darkness and precociousness a DCOM denotes. You can practically hear Missy saying, "You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn, President of the Student Council, rightful member of the A/B Honor Roll, rightful owner of a used Ford Prius she got as a reward for said A/B Honor Roll, Haver of an Afterschool Volunteer Internship at a Veterinary Office, Breaker of Bullies, the Sister of a College Sophomore Who Lets Her Wear His Old Fraternity Formal Shirts So People Think She's Cool, Voted Most Likely to Play with Fire and Like It a Little Too Much, and the Survivor of a Particularly Bad Case of Strep Throat Last Year.

You scared yet Jon Snow, you creepy-loner-who-doesn't-know-he's-hot-and-smokes-cigarettes-behind-the-school-but-secretly-makes-all-As-and-has-a-heart-of-gold-Patrick-Verona-lookin'-ass, you?

If Dany hasn't stood up on the Iron Throne and tearfully choked her way through a rendition of the "10 Things I Hate About Jon Snow" by the end of all this, I will be shocked. Because, as we will discuss later, Dany doesn't hate King Jon (King Snow? No, that doesn't sound right, does it Davos)…not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

The Stark Children Are Happy…Well, As Happy As a Live Stark Child Can Be

Of course that's not even mentioning the actual children roaming around Winterfell with severe PTSD and a recently developed case of the huggies. Sansa's running the Stark show at Winterfell while Jon is away at Dragostone giving up all his weapons and doing arts and crafts in the underground caves, and in her time as a prisoner of various evil families, she seems to have picked up quite a knack for organizing grain supplies and commanding that leather be added to armor because the dipshits apparently haven't heard that WINTER HAS COME.

I thought Sansa would be cool for like an episode or two and then go back to being dreadful, but her recent transition from Little Sister to Big Sister inside the walls of Winterfell seems to be suiting her well. When Meera finally brings Brann back home and after dragging his 6'4 ass all over the North, she gets exactly zero sibling hugs because her brother died protecting Brann—justice (and a warm shower) for Meera—but the newly minted Three Eyed Raven gets a sweet embrace from big sister Sansa.

He returns the love by informing Sansa that now he can see everything that's ever happened in the world, including the worst night of her life when she was forced to marry Ramsay and he raped her.

Hey Brann, I know it's not your fault that Jaime Lannister pushed you out of a window, and your dad got beheaded, and Theon fake-torched you, all setting you on a fan-least-favorite path toward becoming the Three Eyed Raven but—you totally suck! Someone else can tell Jon he's a Targaryen if it means you having to be all weird to your sisters now that you're finally, gloriously, wonderfully reunited. In this extended high school analogy I've been drawing, Brann is the kid who took one philosophy class at the community college for extra credit and thinks he knows everything now. You don't know shit, Brann!

Okay, fine, Brann knows some shit, and is obviously intended for some higher purpose in this game of thrones or he surely wouldn't have been—quite literally—dragged through all seven seasons. I just wish that purpose was being a nice supportive brother to his super-survivor sisters, which brings us to…

ARYA IS BACK AT WINTERFELL AND SHE SPARRED WITH BRIENNE AND MAYBE THEY CAN GO LADY-ARMOR SHOPPING TOGETHER NOW, WHAT'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD?!

As it turns out, the already disparate Stark children have become even more contrasted with time and (grueling, awful, traumatic, painful, oftentimes unbelievable) circumstances. Sansa, who was a pretty girl who wanted to marry a prince, is now the Wardeness of Westeros' largest region with a keen political mind and a dude who would fucking love to marry her that she's constantly mocking. Arya was a tomboy who had a real good time at her afterschool swordsmanship lessons, and has since grown into a stone-cold assassin who cuts people's faces off and magic-pastes them onto her own face, then feeds those recipient of the face-cutting to his own family, and then also kills that entire family. Brann has turned from a boy who liked to ride horses into Westeros' creepy Miss Cleo, and also, he no longer goes by Brann, and also, is a pretty constant dick to the women in his life.

That all kind of made me love their reunions even more though. Arya saying, "Do I have to call you Lady Stark?" as her first greeting to Sansa was incredible. Sansa replying, "Yes," very much in the way of Old Sansa, but then turning around and hugging Arya and bonding with her about how much pain they've lived through and how everything they used to know is dead except for each other was even better. And Sansa telling Arya that "Brann has visions," in the same tone of voice you might warn a guest that your little brother has recently gotten really into making his own chainmail was EVEN BETTER. There was also Jon all the way over at Dragonstone being all "She's startin' to let on" when Tyrion says that Sansa is smarter than she lets on—love those two, sure hope Littlefinger doesn't turn them against each other and shatter my heart into a million pieces!

But simply the best was watching those three rough and tumble Starks wheel and walk their way back from the Weirwood tree and into their home at Winterfell, down a couple family members, not really sure of who they've become, and probably on the brink of being murdered by ice zombies, sure…but they're also together—three lone wolves restored to a pack—and, for now, they're alive.

Of course, it is hard to ignore all that side eye Sansa was giving Arya as she sorted that out that Lil' Sis super-duper was not kidding about having a murder list. But Sansa isn't on said murder list, and hey, she also once fed a dude to his (canine) children, so maybe this girl gets it. Maybe everything will be fine and once Jon and Dany save the world, they can all go in on a family beach house together and parasail on dragons. Speaking of…

THAS-A-MUTHAFUGGIN-LOOT-TRAAAAAAAIN

I've always thought of Weiss and Benioff as kind of cool young dudes who were surprisingly hot and surprisingly married to Amanda Peet (which I would want to brag about in Emmy speeches too, no shade). But for some reason, recently, they've started to seem more and more to me like kind of clueless dads who, were we ever to see their legs in the after-show interviews, would be wearing pristine New Balances with loosely fitted light-wash jeans.

I don't know if it's because I recently fell into a deep dark YouTube black hole where I watched clips of a panel where Sophie Tuner and Maisie Williams interviewed B&W and just keep making fun of them for being old (of note, Sophie Turner is really funny). Or if it's because they're quite literally getting older and making this show where they have to spend three million dollars to light 20 real people on fire in order to make it look like 1,000 fake people are being lit on fire has probably aged them an extra decade.

But mostly I think it's because now that they're out from under the shadow of GRRM they can stop pretending they're dead inside and let their TV pathos flags fly, and that alone makes them seem a lot less hard than they used to. Them talking about how Dany and Jon it's so obvious Jon and Dany have developed feelings for each in the cave scene was just adorable. Guys! They've had like, two conversations, and neither one has made a single inappropriate "bend the knee" joke which they obviously would if they were two real life 19-year olds falling in luv in a cave.

All this is to say that, I am so thankful to them for bringing GoT to my television, but truly, only two dumb dads could have taken this insane, explosive, dragon-fueled battle and called it…"The Loot Train Attack." Or as I prefer to call it: the mutha fuckin' LOOOOOT TRAAAAAAIN!!!

There is nothing that I can personally write that would make the battle where Dany brought dragons to a sword fight at the counsel of Jon any better than it already was, so I'll be brief: It is in episode 4 of season 7, at the end of the Loot Train—LOOT TRAAAAAAAIN!—battle, as Jaime charges Daenerys with a giant spear, that it became clear just how impossibly complex this web of character has become. It used to be impossible to root for anyone because they were all either evil or definitely going to die in the next episode exactly because they weren't evil. No more.

I had no idea who I would choose to live and die between Jaime and Dany. And that is perhaps unique to me because in this game of thrones, everyone can choose their own winner and we can all be simultaneously right and wrong. Just as the people of Westeros are born into certain houses, we all have our allegiances. But the time is coming for us to also make important choices, because things can only be happy reunions and convenient river dives and spare Sand Snake killings and flirty-cave-fun-times for so long. Sides will be chosen, alliances will be made, and main characters will start getting their heads chopped off again. Weiss and Bennioff might be out dads, but if TV has taught me anything—and it has taught me literally everything—it's that tough love is the most rewarding form of parenting.

And also that women always keep their bra on during sex—except for right here on H-B-O!

#game of thrones #game of thrones recap #loot train attack

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