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leverage-commentary · 8 years ago

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Leverage Season 1, Episode 3, The Wedding Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: I’m Dean Devlin, Executive Producer.

Chris: I’m Chris Downey, Executive Producer and Writer.

John: I’m John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Frakes: I’m Jonathan Frakes, Director of this particular episode, called The Wedding Job.

John: This is our farce with guns. Chris, why don’t you tell us where this episode came from?

Chris: I think we were taking a look at different settings where we could put the team. I don’t know exactly what the genesis was.

John: Oh, you know what I remember? Before the season started we put up a big list of cons and con references and crime references. And I put up Scandal in Bohemia, which is a Sherlock Holmes story. You said “what is Scandal in Bohemia?” because you have a life and hadn’t read Sherlock Holmes obsessively. And I said it’s when Sherlock Holmes pretends to be a minister at a wedding, starts a fire so he can see where somebody runs, like, where he’s hidden the document.

Frakes: Dan Lauria.

John: Dan Lauria. Fantastic actor. And he said, “I would like to see Nate as a minister.” And that’s how this episode was born.

Chris: Yeah. And, you know, we always look for things where they are easily identifiable roles where we can put people in and the wedding seemed like a very fun place for it.

John: Now Jonathan, that sequence was actually kind of cobbled together. How so?

Frakes: This sequence was cobbled together only because we had a concept that was not clear.

[John Laughs]

Frakes: We wanted to shoot it as a teaser that didn’t include all of this information.

John: Yeah.

Frakes: And when we watched the show, we realized that we were giving too little information, so without adding the cop car…

Chris: But, I mean, it plays out, we get everything -

John: Yeah, no, absolutely.

Frakes: I think it’s pretty clear.

Chris: It’s clear what happened

John: Although… But it’s interesting - we actually stole footage - the footage of the guy getting shot and everything is actually - the looks and stuff -

Frakes: Well we had the guy who got shot, but what we ended up stealing was the guy

[Unintelligible. They all talk over each other here.]

Frakes: Oh, here Tim is. That’s one of the signatures. Signature ninja zoom.

John: Signature ninja zoom, yeah.

Frakes: Mr. Hutton. Mr. Hodge.

John: Not this is - this is actually was supposed to be early in the season. Where did it wind up broadcast? Somewhere in the middle?

Chris: Somewhere in the middle, yeah.

John: And this is really still where the characters are working out their relationships and sort of, you know… You can see Nate, kind of, not being happy.

Frakes: Not thrilled that somebody else has brought in a, uh, a client in.

John: Exactly.

Dean: Yeah, originally this episode was supposed to air before The Bank Shot because it establishes the FBI characters, and for various reasons when it broadcast -

Frakes: Weren’t the FBI characters in the pilot, though, those same to?

John, Dean, and Chris: No.

Frakes: Oh, did they get written out?

Chris: They were actually created in this one, they were supposed to come back in The Bank Shot. But I mean, essentially, it plays the same way. People see the again and understand who they are.

John: Yeah. They feel like there’s a pay off.

Frakes: Nicole Sullivan, who’s connected to our dear friend, Mr. Downey.

Chris: Yeah. Oh boy, is she the best.

Frakes: Who walked in and took this show and walked off with it in her pocket. Did she not?

Chris: She’s fantastic.

John: In her beaded décolletage, she grabbed the show and disappeared with it.

Chris: MAD TV, King of Queens, countless shows. She’s really one of the most gifted comedic actresses I’ve ever worked with.

John: And this is also interesting because, Nate - we’re trying to establish, like, how they get their clients. Again, early in the season. And also, Nate’s character is a guy who’s used to being an insurance cop. He has a very distinct definition of what is right and wrong, and who’s been wronged and not wronged. And you see they have an argument about it - as far as he’s concerned, if the guy took criminal’s money, he’s not in the purview of innocent victim.

Frakes: And it’s also interesting that Nate’s character has people skill issues.

John: Yes.

Frakes: And that Gina’s character is there to soften those edges in this opening scene.

Dean: It’s a really nice dynamic.

John: Yeah, it’s one of the things where - it’s interesting, you know, we talk about this a lot - Nate Ford is not necessarily the most heroic guy in the world. He’s obssesive, he’s controlling; everything that makes him good at his job makes him not necessarily a great guy. And it was a real struggle to make sure - because Tim is so magnificently likeable as a human being, it was a real struggle during the season to make sure you know that he’s kind of a - jerk.

Chris: Yeah.

Frakes: He’s got that club in his bag!

John: Yeah. He’s - he drinks too much and he’s kind of a jerk and he’s super judgemental, and he’s very rigid, you know, emotionally.

Chris: I mean, those are the kind of modern characters that I think we respond to, are the flawed heroes, the guys that aren’t so nice, the Tony Sopranos.

Frakes: This is our 1st AD’s daughter.

John: Oh, that’s right!

Dean: In her screen debut.

John: This is one of my favorite little bits, actually, is Parker teaching the kid how to speed pick a lock.

Chris: Now by the way, that’s a lock. Sometimes you see people on the websites who aren’t exactly sure what it was, but that was a lock.

John: And that actually is one of the bits that we wound up not being able to ever do quite as much as we want - is Parker picks locks like other people knit. And if you watch carefully in the pilot, in the foreground when they’re back in the apartment, she has a giant box of locks she’s picking. That’s just kind of her hobby.

Dean: This scene sets up something very important in the series, which is: all of our characters made a fortune in the pilot.

Frakes: $30 million, or $35 million?

Dean: $32 million. And what’s very interesting in here is she wants to help, and the team doesn’t want to they say, “Why don’t you just write her a check?” And she says, “Well I will if I have to.” But that doesn’t give this woman what she needs. She wants revenge. She’s not asking for all the money in the world, she wants what’s owed her, and she wants it to come from him. And without that, there is no justice.

Chris: Which is an important thing to say, just for the series, I think. To establish that, if there’s ever a question in the audience’s mind - well why do they go to all these great lengths to steal a small amount of money when they made this much - this answers that question in this one scene.

John: Also, most of them have spent that money. They plainly in the pilot -

Frakes: They spent $32 million bucks?

John: Well Aldis spent an awful lot of money on something.

Frakes: On clothes.

John: Yeah. On clothes, on just those fly hats he wears, and she bought a couple different houses scattered around. No. I mean, they’re definitely comfortable. But yeah, the aspect of it’s not just money, it’s justice.

Frakes: She bought a regional theatre that she can stalk.

Chris: Exactly.

John: You know what, we actually address this - she would consider that cheating. She auditions; she still auditions. She would consider that cheating.

Dean: One of my favorite comic takes of Tim is actually right here (~5:47).

[All Laugh]

Chris: He’s got some great ones. We’ll point them out later.

John: Yeah, he’s got some great chops. (Pause) Is that the actual mansion? Is that the front of the building we used?

Frakes: Yeah! We actually found a location we could see out of the location from. We don’t usually - we’re not usually that logical on television.

John: Yeah. Usually this is behind a Best Buy.

Frakes: Exactly! ‘Pretend you’re looking at it.”

Chris: Somebody was there, like, looking for snakes before we got out there; rattlesnakes. And they were like, ‘You might wanna back away.’

Frakes: We had the snake wrangler!

Chris: Snake wrangler was there.

John: Everyone’s looking very spiffy.

Frakes: Actually, this is walking distance from Dean’s house as I remember.

John: Mhm. That’s good.

Frakes: That’s all the information we’ll give on where Dean lives.

[All Laugh]

John: If you figure out where this house is…

Chris: Put it together, if you can figure it out.

John: I also love the - again, it’s one of the ones where the fun of the show is taking classic crime tropes and making fun of them. And the plumber/florist van is really - that the feds are in. Even in good movies it shows up.

Frakes: Let alone bad TV!

Dean: On the web, some people got confused and thought we were making a reference to the plumbers in Watergate. But we were not. We were making reference to the fact that in that era, very often -

John: In classic 70s television…

Dean: - the FBI would be hanging out in a van marked ‘Plumber.’

Chris: Now Dean, why don’t you talk a little bit about the actor here, who plays FBI Agent - Special Agent Taggert.

Dean: Well this is Rick Overton who’s done a few projects with me, including Eight Legged Freaks. He’s a phenomenally gifted comedian and he’s just terrific at improvisation, so he fit in perfectly with our cast.

John: So did Gerald, the guy who’s doing, um -

Chris: The guy, Gerald Downey, is wonderful.

John: - uh, Agent McSweeten. The two of them were fantastic. We really just rolled camera on that.

Frakes: We really did, and the stuff at the end, as is often the case, stuff that happens when the scene ends and before you say cut.

Chris: Well we ended up using -

Frakes: We used a lot of the stuff between Beth and Gerald.

John: And they wound up in Bank Shot and we’re actually developing a season 2 episode with them.

Chris: Yes.

Frakes: Oh, with more to do?

John: Yes.

Chris: We’re gonna put them on a date.

John: The idea - the thing in our head is because they wind up getting the benefits of our guys’ scams is they’re rising rapidly through the FBI. Because they keep getting handed these criminals on plates.

Frakes: handed - ‘This worked out great!’

Chris: We want to see them taking the oath in Congress. ‘I swear to uphold the Constitution’

Frakes: ‘I had no idea it was going to go this well!’

John: Young FBI agents are told, you know, ‘You’re no Taggert; slow down, my friend.’ Young FBI agents at the academy are, ‘You wanna be like Taggert or McSweeten when you get out?’

Dean: This is actually one of the first episodes where we establish her sniffing.

Chris: Yes.

John: She does. Which Beth established as a repeating character bit and it’s quite funny.

Frakes: She asks him if he has something to eat.

Chris: Yes.

Frakes: And he says pork rinds.

Chris: No, he says ‘I have a meat stick.’ That’s all improved between the two of them. My favorite was, ‘What do you do with rubber gloves?’ She was just reacting off of things she saw in there.

John: They’re really lovely together. And this is actually the fake van set that we built, and you shot through the side, if I remember correctly. It was 115 degrees.

Frakes: How small can we make this set?

John: Yep. And move a camera around in. There’s the infamous credit card -

[they repeat each other a lot for a bit here]

Frakes: Shoe swipe.

Chris: Those are real.

Frakes: Those have never been used before.

John: It’s called the MT600, and it’s… I have one on my desk.

Frakes: That’s stolen from Get Smart isn’t it?

John: No, no. That’s a real thing. That was one of the one’s where TNT’s like, ‘Do these things...?’

Frakes: ‘Is this real?’

John: Yeah, it’s on my desk!

Dean: This is where we had Elliot learning how to do photoshop.

Chris: That’s one of our little recurring themes in the show, is that we have Elliot teaching Hardison how to fight, and Hardison is teaching Elliot -

John: How to use computers.

Chris: - basic computer skills.

John: Now this is great actually because it’s one of the few times - one of the times too, that you establish that Beth really is kind of devastating when she gets up close to a guy like that. She can work it.

Chris: Some more improv here.

Dean: And again, two perfect improvers having some fun.

Frakes & Chris: Yep.

Frakes: ‘I gotcha.’

Chris: ‘I’m the coffee, you’re the cream.’ That’s him.

Frakes: The button’s an improv too. Boom.

John: “She smells like Jasmine.”

[All Laugh]

John: It’s great. Look at him. He’s so in love. Um, also, their aliases there are Thomas and Haggen, Agents Thomas and Haggen -

Chris: From The Godfather.

John: Which is from The Godfather. Aldis’s - we basically created a character beat where Aldis tends to create fake IDs around the movie we’re close to. And so that’s his little way of, in his head, keeping track of things.

Frakes: Chris, do you want to tell us how funny it is to reference Jersey Boys in this show?

Chris: [Laughs.] Oh, I knew this was going to come up. Oh, I’m ready for that.

Frakes: Well, we’re coming up on where we reference it for the first of three times. Jersey Boys-

Chris: That’s what we call a Nakamura. I can tell the story of Nakamura when we get there.

John: This is the hardest working office in show business. This scene didn’t exist. We came back and shot it later, right?

Frakes: Yep.

Dean: And many of you are going to notice he didn’t have eye glasses on in the hallway and he did in the room.

John: Oh stop with the continuity.

Dean: So we’ll just, We’ll just cop to it here.

Frakes: He put them on in the cut!

Chris: He had to look! He had to see them.

John: He had to put them on to read.

Dean: We’ll cop to it here and not have to read about it later.

John: By the way, this is - if you go online, you’ll find people actually made icons of this moment of Elliot banging the two things together. So that moment there of his anger -

Frakes, Chris, and Dean: That’s great.

John: - is uh - he does anger very well. And this - later on when he threatens to punch him is one of my favorite Chris beats.

Dean: Yes.

John: But this is great because it’s one of those, you know, we want to establish how we got the tapes -

Frakes: These two are great together.

John: Yeah - that’s it. That moment of, ‘ Oh, I’m gonna punch somebody.’ They are great. And it’s amazing - they’re great even when they’re not even in the same room.

Chris: I know! It makes me think, you know, it’s a good thing to think of for the future.

Frakes: Well they are in the same room - both these actors come to do each other’s off-camera.

John: Which is really sweet.

Frakes: Of course, it’s season one.

John: In season one, yeah.

[All Laugh]

John: Season three will be when we have the four other cast members. No, but, that’s uh - that corridor is just the swing corridor that we have, and that office is the office we use a million times. That wound of being a great little sequence that was crucial to the clue path.

Chris: Now, the Jersey Boys. I’ll tell you what the Jersey Boys is. There’s a term in comedy called a Nakamura. Do you know about this?

Frakes: I know the dance.

Chris: No. The Nakamura goes back to I believe The Dick Van Dyke Show, and the writers -

John: Depending on the origin, it is either Bob Newhart or Cheers. Bob Newhart’s the earliest reference.

Chris: Oh, alright. Well we’ve heard different versions. But essentially it goes like this. In a sitcom you have a table read, which is where the cast reads the script for the first time out loud and that’s where the writers get to gage which jokes work or not. And in this case, they had created a character called Mr. Nakamura, and in the writer’s room, every time someone said Mr. Nakamura when they were pitching it, everyone burst out laughing - it was hilarious. So they put not only a Mr. Nakamura joke in the beginning, but they put four more jokes in it throughout the episode. So then the table read comes up, and it’s the first time that someone says Nakamura, and it’s dead silence. And all the writers slunk down in their seats because they knew there’s four more coming coming up.

Frakes: And there’s four more coming! Oh, no!

John: There’s four more of these. And you can’t escape, and you can’t rewrite.

Frakes: You’re committed.

John: You’re committed. You’re gonna watch this fucker die.

Frakes: Yes you are.

Chris: So Jersey Boys is an example

Frakes: Is your Nakamura.

Chris: - where we had a call back to Jersey Boys later, and Jonathan said, ‘this jokes not gonna work.’ And I said, ‘No, we got a callback later!’

Frakes: No, I said it’s not gonna work, and I say it as one of the only straight musical comedy fans still living.

John: It is amazing.

Frakes: I say it having SEEN Jersey Boys. Understanding the reference -

Chris: Well it did make us laugh in the room, right?

John: Jersey Boys- it’s still one of my favorite jokes of the season. How good is Jersey Boys? Great. Just because of the anger and frustration he puts into that read. Just, not his type of thing at all. (Pause) Headband - I don’t think we do a lot of headband Parker.

Frakes: I like this though, I like this reference on her. Somewhat Muslim, and yet not.

John: Kind of, really a - not quite a hijab, but uh, kinda no. I don’t think we ever did the headband again.

Frakes: Really? I liked it. It was like she’s a felon - wrapped around her head.

Chris: Oh, I love this shot. Now this is a shot that was dictated by the location. We went to this location and saw this and wrote this scene to time down these -

John: To time the stairs, yeah.

Frakes: No you didn’t! The scene was written, and we timed the shot to -

Chris: No! I went down there! I wrote it with my -

John: No, no, he was on the set.

Frakes: The scene was written!

John: The scene was written, but we changed the dialogue to fit the length.

Chris: We changed the whole thing!

Frakes: Oh, we changed the location, yeah.

Chris: Yeah!

John: But actually, one time -

Frakes: The actors made it work.

Chris: No! I said you! I’m giving you the credit!

John: Really? Really? You’re gonna do that?

Chris: We timed it out!

Frakes: You’re really gonna do that with two writers in the room?

John: I will say it was fairly funny when we were writing a speech and I actually had Lauren Crasco with me - who is our production designer - a fantastic production designer - but we were trying to time a speech and I walked with her down that corridor to figure out how long the speech had to be and I was like, writers write - like, we measure walk and talks by foot length. Like, we actually see how long the set is and then figure it out.

Chris: Here’s our introduction.

Frakes: At least you’re a writer - Well here we go, here’s the shot that is the premise of the whole show.

Chris: This is it.

John: There you go. The promise of the premise right there.

Chris: Promise of the premise right there. And then, Nicole Sullivan.

Frakes: And also, what about the glasses?

John: Yeah the glasses are great. The bajita ved glasses. Um and this is one of the ones where we try to establish exactly the puzzle, you know - they’ve come into this thinking they have one relationship, and over the course of even the first two episodes… Uh, Snow Jobs supposed to be Homecoming, and there’s a moment in that episode where he goes, ‘You know me’ and she says, ‘I knew you two years ago.’ And this is one of the episodes where we deal with the fact that she’s realizing, the person she fell in love with a couple years ago, is not him anymore.

Chris: This is the funny version of that.

John: This is the funny version of that.

Dean: It’s also the first time when our actress, Gina Bellman, channeled the character of Jane that she played in Coupling.

John: She’s really doing Jane from Coupling.

Dean: Which was fabulous.

John: Also it’s funny because this entire sequence is Tim not getting the answer he wants.

Frakes: Yeah. Well as he says when he enters here.

John: Yeah. Just really frustrated.

Dean: And a great, great character spin where you find out that Elliot is a phenomenal cook.

Chris: Right. And we wrote it not just because - what would be a funny thing to undermine his tough guy image? - we made him the chef and then found out that he actually is a chef.

Frakes: Well not only that, Christian brings - I mean he’s got so many tools in his toolbox. The idea that not only is he a good cook - we know how good he is with knives, we know how good of a fighter he is. Who knew he was such a good comedian?

Chris: Yes!

John: Absolutely.

Chris: And, you know, I told him - Nicole Sullivan came up to me and said, ‘Boy, who’s that guy? Christian Kane? He’s funny.’ And I told him, and he was like, ‘Oh, that - for her to say that to me, makes me feel so good.’

Frakes: Look at him with the knife.

John: The little spins, the little - he integrates the physical humor really well -

Frakes: Here’s one of the great - This is all - this whole Soprano’s steal right here.

Dean: Look at that look, god, she just makes you laugh just from the look on her face.

Chris: Look at that staging! Who staged that? Boom.

[All Laugh]

John: There you go. And then the little way his face falls, yeah - the frustration.

Dean & Chris: That’s the line!

John: High-end!

[All Laugh]

John: Yeah - there you go. And that little bit where he does the how to kill people grip. His frustration. When Elliot’s angry, it’s just - it’s inherent. But, angry’s not right - frustrated.

Frakes: But you’re right. Tim in the monkey suit - it says volumes.

John: Yep. It tells you what the episode is. There’s very little work that needs to be done.

Frakes: These guys. They have one bug and it’s done in by a sprinkler?

Dean: One bug in the entire -

[All Laugh]

John: Yeah. Really awful. Just not good FBI agents. And that’s the thing - we really wanted to find, like runners - it amuses us that the two most incompetent FBI agents in the world will eventually rise to become the heads of the agency because of us.

Frakes: I remember the uh - in prep there was an incredible amount of dialogue whether the fact that Aldis’s character would have two different outfits: one for the DJ, and one to be the flower boy.

Chris: Did we have arguments about that?

Frakes: I don’t know that they were arguments.

John: Discussions. Endless discussions.

Frakes: The Edith Head glasses had to go.

Dean: The woman who plays the bridesmaid here is so fabulous. To get someone for such a small part like this to just knock it out of the park like she did.

John: And the girl who played the bride - my wife actually really liked her. She’s like, ‘She’s really sympathetic, you really get the frustration’ - I mean, I think everyone has hit that frustration with their mother in that situation. And these, by the way - big compliments to our costume designer. These are the perfect blend of hideous and believable. The bridesmaids dresses really are - they’re somehow - she took really beautifully designed dresses and made them ugly, subtly.

Chris: “Suck it up, Cindy,” there - makes me laugh every time I hear it. Also another adlib of hers.

Dean: And I just love again Parker not understanding the words that are coming out of her mouth.

Frakes: ‘I just said the truth. Is there something wrong with the truth? What I said is the truth.’

John: Yeah, the button here: ‘What are you like a buck fifty?’ She’s trying to make conversation! She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Frakes: Marc Roskin with the safety pin in the mouth idea. Gotta give credit where credit’s due.

John: Really? A little bit? You’re gonna -?

Dean: One of my favorite ACDC takes of Tim’s is right here with the whole alcohol bit.

Frakes: Oh, you love this one.

Dean: This is one where I saw it in dailies and I just fell over.

Frakes: Yeah. And this bit of casting too.

John: Yeah, he’s terrific. He’s sweet. You totally like him and understand why this father would hate him. He’s just absolutely the sweetest dude you could imagine your daughter marrying.

Frakes: Right there!

Chris: That’s comic timing.

Frakes: You can’t teach that!

John: You can’t teach that. But I mean that was kinda the pleasure of going into the show too - finding out, like, everybody’s little comedy chops. Particularly this episode was always meant to be our big comedy episode, and it was great -

Frakes: Was this episode too funny?

John: It was a little too funny. What was great though, was it let everybody run and that way we knew a lot of their tools for future episodes.

Dean: And by the way, just looking at it again, kudos to our DP, Dave Connell. ‘Cause it’s just such a beautiful looking show.

John: Now when you, uh, as a director, Jonathan - when you go into a big location like this, like the house, I mean, what’s sort of your process when you get to a location like this, when you have to shoot in a location that’s big and complicated like this?

Frakes: We gotta figure out where we’re gonna do each scene. How many scenes we can get away with in one lighting direction. And then stage them accordingly. We do the same thing you do with the walk and talk. How much ‘space’ do we have to fill? With this much room do a half a page? Will it do a whole page? No. We can get a half a page done here if we move the camera. It’s one of those deals. And then you save the good rooms for the long scenes, like this. This scene had two or three beats in it, so. And it had two beautiful looks: the look of the bar and then a look out into the entrance of the house. So you use the best spaces for the longest scenes.

John: Cool.

Chris: And I mean, the give and take between being on-location and being on a soundstage, obviously you gotta deal with, you know, you’re in somebody else’s house. That’s a challenge.

Frakes: You’re in somebody else’s house, and you’ve got to schlep all that stuff in. But generally you look at it - no matter, whether you use it - Dean, you know, he knows - use an exterior or interior, it’s all a set. You look at it all as a big set. If you shoot in the Patriot, it’s still a set. Or if you’re shooting inside that little van. And then, how do you maximize the amount of space you’ve got?

Chris: This cast is never afraid to eat.

Dean: No. [Laughs.]

John: No, they eat. And that’s one of the recurring things, by the way, is sort of the way we made them become a family over the course of season, was showing them share meals on the cons and stuff, and the fact that they have to live with each other on the cons. That’s also a great burn by Gina there. Just as Tim - Tim brought a real -

Dean: Well, setting up that she has this different expectation.

John: And also -

Frakes: I used to play it all on Gina, but because it was TV.

John: No, you gotta go to Tim a little bit.

Frakes: Cooler minds thought we better cut to the guy who’s talking. Here’s an add. This scene was a wonderful add. Remember we came up short and you guys wrote this scene?

Chris: Nice little moment between these two guys.

Frakes: Two hander with these two again. Character beats.

John: Early in their friendship.

Dean: Again, though, since this episode was supposed to be earlier in the season, he’s referencing a character that we meet in Two Horse that’s actually supposed to play after this.

John: The girl he’s talking about here is actually Amy in Two Horse. For the continuity freaks out there. No, it’s a nice character bit and they don’t really like each other, but Aldis is trying to make an effort here, and Elliot’s not gonna go with him. No, it’s - you can definitely track the - I’ll never say they arrive at a friendship even by the end of the season, but you can track the relationship.

Chris: Oh, I don’t know, by Juror they seem like - they needle each other like brothers.

John: Right, well I was saying, they’re either like brotherly/rivalry rather than friendship friendship. I don’t think they like sharing a lot, but they enjoy being with each other.

Dean: One of our few little semi-sexy moments.

Chris: Yes.

Frakes: Well here’s a relationship we can try to develop.

John: Beth’s back we get a lot of work out of. And, by the way, this evolves in a really lovely way across the course of the season.

Chris: And it’s a testament to how beautiful she is that - while you keep watching the episode with her in this dress, she makes it work. You start to think this is a good looking dress.

John, Frakes, & Dean: Yes.

Frakes: Well that’s what his character says to her. He says, ‘Somehow you looking as great in this dress is gonna make her feel better.

John: It’s great. It’s a lovely little scene, and really sets up a lot of what come along later. Particularly when she teases him later because it helps establish that she’s not really so clueless as just ill-equipped. [pause] And this a clue path. And whenever you can hide a clue in a comedy beat, that’s always your friend.

Chris: Yes.

John: You know, you’re supposed to be just, ‘Oh, not now.’ Establishing that she’s a bitch, and there’s actually a big clue for the rest of the episode in there. And there’s Tim noticing it. Thank you, Tim in the deep background noticing the clue for later, and establishing that. Yeah, she’s really angry in this. [pause] And, uh, bug - this is bug porn.

Chris: Lotta bugs.

John: Lot of bugs yeah. And again -

Dean: And shoutout to Joe LoDuca here because we wanted this kind of Italian wedding music song here, and he just came up with such a winner.

John: Yeah. And I love the idea that, you know, that he’s able to surveille the whole house while doing his fake job. He’s integrated it that tightly.

Dean: He’s doing what the FBI can’t.

Frakes: Look at how this location paid off.

John: Yeah. It’s well worth - but it’s interesting where a lot of - when we finally dug up the footage, it was like we’d realized we missed that shot. We had everything of Tim but shooting that way, down - we ended up stealing that from -

Dean: It was from a much wider shot, but because we’re shooting digitally, we were able to blow that up into…

John: Exactly. Well we saw that we didn’t miss it -

Frakes: Oh, his point of view of them coming in.

John: We had it in the master. You didn’t miss it, we had it in the master. We realized you couldn’t tell those were the people he was looking at. So we were actually, because we’re shooting digitally, were able to blow it up be some ungodly amount.

Dean: And then it worked perfect.

Chris: And one of our costume people - one of the jokes there was that Nicole Sullivan’s character is the stepmother of the bride, and yet she’s wearing white because she wants it to be all about her.

John: Which apparently I didn’t know, but amongst women is kind of like stabbing the Pope.

Chris: Right.

John: I was just unaware that wearing white at a wedding…

Dean: Now our guest star is phenomenal here in this scene.

John: Yeah. She melts down. And Gina does resentment very well here. It’s really, you know, you realize that Sophie…

Frakes: The show stops so they can both dish men, basically.

John: Yeah. Exactly.

Chris: It’s something a little bit different.

John: Also this is interesting because the tone of the scene was originally much more sympathetic and when Gina came to me she was like, ‘You know, I just think Sophie’s a little more wrapped up in herself here.’ Very few actors are willing to make themselves themselves unlikable.

Frakes: Willing to make the - Exactly!

Chris: She wants to be - she wanted to play selfish. And, you know, that’s kind of like how in Coupling she played her comedic character.

John: Right. Well that’s the difference between British sitcom and American sitcom. It’s the British sitcom is a lot more about the unlikable character and how you still have affection.

Dean: Tim’s reaction here is priceless.

Frakes: Oh, it’s just great. This is great. She forgets that he can hear everything she’s saying.

John: Exactly, it’s all over the headphones.

Frakes: ‘And, by the way, here’s the tissues. I know this was supposed to be your scene, and I just took it.’

Chris: And now she felt sad again.

John: Exactly.

Dean: A wonderful use of the 360 in this scene.

John: I love the use of the 360. Not excessive, might I add.

Dean: OK. Point taken.

Frakes: Oooh. Nice one Sentori.

John: Oh this is one of my favorite flashbacks! It’s just: ‘You think he’ll recognize you?’ ‘Oh yeah, he’ll recognize me.’ Great work by the visual effects guys to get us the burning barn.

Frakes: Wait a minute. That was a Dean Devlin unit shooting that whole scene.

John: Yeah.

Chris: What’s in the background? Fire. It’s hell. That was the note.

Dean: Digital fire...

John: Everything is burning!

Frakes: We’ll put it in in post.

John: And yeah - that’s what we did. We wound up putting everything in in post.

Frakes: Too much to take with the little binoculars? I don’t think so.

[All Laugh]

John: You know what, Frakes? You can never have too much comedy.

Chris: Now a little funny thing here was that they kept staying out too long, and Jonathan kept yelling, ‘Get back in the van!’

Frakes: “Get back in the van!”

Chris: And that became kind of the running joke of the show.

John: Jonathan Frakes directing is always - it’s basically just - occasionally actors talk between him yelling at people.

[All Laugh]

John: It really is! Occasionally you allow the yelling to be interrupted by acting.

Chris: Bursting into song - it’s - you get a lot.

John: It’s a very vibrant set.

Dean: My favorite line of the episode.

John: ‘The Cakemaker of Kiev could kick all our asses.’

[All Laugh]

John: We actually had in the writers room a long list of sissy occupations. The Poet of Prague, The Songmaker of….

Chris: Cakemaker was really good.

John: Yeah. The Cakemaker really landed it. Because you know why? K sounds. And when you say, by the way -

Frakes: Nakamura?

John: Two binoculars, too funny? Nobody ever turned off a TV show for being too funny. Nobody in the history of television.

Chris: No. Never.

Frakes: No. That was my point when certain people thought this episode was too funny.

Chris: No. Never. No one’s ever -

Frakes: First thing I said to Donny was: ‘Is there such a thing?’

Chris: No. No one ever stopped watching a show because it unexpectedly made them laugh out loud.

[All Laugh]

Chris: I defy anyone to show me that.

John: OK. Once during that Holocaust miniseries. I have to admit, I thought it may be in poor taste and I should turn it off.

Dean: Again, kudos to our production designer for this set.

John: This is on the set. We have moved from in the backyard to on our set with the entirely inbuilt tent.

Frakes: Never big enough soundstage. Inside a tent. AND kudos to the writers for padding this scene out so we could add the front end in post with ADR with Tim.

John: But this is -

Chris: He had some great fun with this.

Dean: This completely feels like exterior. Great job by our -

John: Yeah. Especially that glow behind her where you feel like the light is coming from a different source. It’s really lovely. They did a great job. But yeah, this was another - this scene, both Chris and I’s wives were like, ‘Who wrote this scene about how hard marriage is?’ ‘Uh the other guy did!’

‘Must have been the other guy!’

Chris: ‘Oh no - certainly not me!’

John: “No - I had nothing to do with that.’

Chris: That was really my bread and butter - martial stuff on King of Queens. That was really going back to the old toolbox.

John: Well you were on King of Queens for like, years. So really the resentful, angry marriage you were able to pull out of the toolbox.

Chris: I love these two - their annoyance too.

Frakes: Yeah. Boom.

Chris: This is very brother-sister, too.

Frakes: ‘Yeah I get that, watch this!’

Dean: The Emeril line is great here.

All: “Bam!”

[All Laugh]

John: So angry. This again - it’s - when you’re doing a TV show and you have an ensemble, you’re trying to find the pairings that work. And unlike a lot of ensemble show with a lead and the sidekicks who go and question witnesses and you never hear from them again, we’re an actual five-hander so we had to develop all of these goddamn relationships.

Frakes: Here she is. Bing. Zoom. Zap. Zoom.

Chris: This is a great - this is a beautiful shot. This is a very iconic image from the show, too.

Dean: She checks her watch. That’s what I like.

John: Yeah - she’s a little slow. She did it in 3 seconds; that’s slow.

Chris: That’s a beautiful shot.

Frakes: That’s in a lot of the trailers, this part.

John & Chris: Yeah.

John: Well it’s the costume, plus it’s the outfit. She’s a little annoyed. She’s off her game today. Dan Lauria working hard. Yeah that’s great.

Frakes: What a pro, lordy.

John: This is a great cast in this one.

Frakes: Is he in Independence Day? Dan Lauria?

Dean & John: He is in Independence Day.

John: Cuz that was on - that opened - that was on the other night.

Dean: That’s right. Before our show. It was all Dean Devlin all night long.

John: Here’s the big turn. There’s Gina, just, really upset.

Dean: She’s such an amazing actor. She just -

John: He laughs, he makes marriage sound not so horrible.

Dean: She can turn from comedy to drama on a dime. So few can do that.

Frakes: She plays the instrument well.

Dean: And I love this little connection between the two of them here. The promise that at some point it may get better.

John: Yeah, I mean that’s the thing - we really had -

Frakes: Yeah, well, it was also teed up nicely in that thing inside the house. Where he pretended or he really didn’t know what she was talking about. Here he’s saying I did know what you were talking about.

John: And that’s - we also - you’re trying to establish - there’s a very funky bit of math with - OK, so he had a son, but he was married, they were kind of hot for each other. What exactly - was he cheating on her? We spent like the first three or four episodes defining that relationship. And him sort of having to say, you know, this is a damaged dude, he’s not gonna pop back on the horse right away. And this screening room is supposed to be a winery originally. This is when you shoot on location -

Chris: Yeah. It was supposed to a wine cellar.

Frakes: It was gonna be a wine cellar, not a winery. Which she was going to mount herself on top of the roof, remember?

Chris: Right?

Frakes: Suspend herself above the scene.

John: Yes, like, uh, one does.

Chris: You take - you see what one has on the location and.

John: As one does! You press your feet and hands against the sides of the walls.

Chris: Kind of like in Stork.

Frakes: The phone call! What if that scene in the wine cellar takes place in a screening room. Why’s that? There is no wine cellar on the set.

John: There is no wine cellar.

Chris: That’s what you learn in season one of your TV show.

John: Yeah. That maybe, sometimes, big houses don’t have wine cellars.

Frakes: Sometimes you write to the location.

John: Yeah, you write to locations. And that works fine.

Frakes: I called Dave from Africa and said, ‘Can we move that to a Maasai village?’ ‘Why?’ ‘We’ve got a Maasai Village. Can we move it? Is that OK?

Chris: ‘I’m actually here right now.’

Frakes: ‘I’m standing here.’ Remember that dialogue?

Chris: ‘I’ve got cameras on the truck. Just saying.’

John: ‘As a matter of fact, I’m about to call action, so I’m just checking now, whether it’s OK we shoot this.’

Frakes: ‘Just checking it’s OK with you.’

[Pause]

John: Searching. Looking for it. Yeah. And, uh, the entrance - it was tricky cuz we got in the room and suddenly realized: where the hell do we hide her? There’s no actual place to put her. And then, you know, almost a classic 1930’s mystery beat here

Chris: Oh, that’s great.

Frakes: That. The toes was a good call.

John: Helps establish - And then her smooshed up against the glass - always amusing. That’s a great - that scene popped up in a bunch of trailers too.

Frakes: Looks like A Clockwork Orange. Steal from everything.

John: Really. Great, uh...you’re saying as a director…

Frakes: You steal from everything.

Dean: Homage. Homage.

All: Homage.

Chris: This actor - Andrew Divoff. [Note: Chris misremembers/pronounces it as Davinoff]

Dean: Terrific villain.

Chris: Fantastic.

John: Very subtle.

Frakes: He speaks SIX languages, this guy.

John: Yep.

Chris: I love this too.

Frakes: Well Beth is unafraid. She really is unafraid.

John: She will really do anything. Well yeah -

Frakes: Well, all these actors actually will do anything you ask them to do.

John: Yep. No, it was a very collegiate - I mean, again, we shot the pilot in Chicago and I think it really made a difference, because they were kind of on their own, they were away from their support systems. The show itself was particularly unlike anything they’d ever done - it’s not template-y, it’s not a hospital show or a lawyer show, so they really had to really on each other. And there’s a fair amount of trust built up. [Pause] Wow, that dress is awful. That’s really magnificent. Yeah, they really had a lot of trust built up from being sort of on their own with these crazy producers and writers who had them hanging of 40-story buildings, you know, in Chicago.

Dean: Here’s him getting the clue.

Chris: This is him putting it all together.

Frakes: This is the police bypass effect on the clue.

John: And that’s really, you know, again.

Frakes: It’s become a signature look.

John: It IS a signature and really a part of it is - a lot of times we’ll write the episode all the way through, figuring out what the solution is, and then go back and plant the scenes we’re going to flash back to later.

Chris: And it’s interesting John, because you talked before about this being our farce with guns and one of the things that coming from a comedy background, that I learned looking at heist shows and farces is that they do share similar traits. Which is: the end of a farce and the end of a heist take place in real time, generally, and should have ever escalating complications involving -

John: And revelations.

Chris: And revelations. And people walking into doors where they’re not supposed to be. And that’s what this - that’s how this plays out from this point on.

John: That’s also great, kudos to the set designer for putting the sparkles on the cell phone.

Frakes: Props, props.

Dean: This particular flashback - when the effects artist first gave it back to us, he had the man’s head entirely in flames, and we went: ‘You know, I don’t think we can have that on television.’

John: Actually on fire.

Dean: It was actually on fire in that shot. Yeah. So we just put the smoke on and took the burning face off.

Frakes: Now this actor - stuntman, with the scar on his face is the one who trained Christian.

John: He trained Christian. He’s, uh, Anthony -

Frakes: Davin - his name’s Davinoff, isn’t it?

John: No, it’s uh Long - oh, shoot. You can find it the web, really easily. [Transcriber note: the actor is Anthony De Longis]. He was the swordmaster on Highlander, he trained Harrison Ford to use his whip for Indiana Jones; he doubled some of the whip work. He’s one of the best fight guys on the planet.

Dean: And this is probably our most complicated fight.

John: Yes.

Dean: And we’ve had longer fights. And maybe more brutal fights. But as far as all the moves that had to be memorized this was our most complicated.

Frakes: The other thing is about Christian is he’s a quick study, and he works hard, and he’s not afraid to rehearse it ‘til it’s right. A lot of actors lose interest in doing their own stunts.

Chris: Now John, you wanna take us through this fight? Because this is really one of our…

John: Yeah, this is great. What’s great is - it’s crucially important during the fights to set up your axis of the fight. And so really you’ve pulled out both of those guys and you know this is gonna be your axis. So if you watch, all the action always moves back and forth along one line, and that’s - it’s brutally important during fights to track geography.

Dean: Here’s one of my favorite cuts, though, in the show. Knife to the throat. Gun to the throat. It’s such a -

John: It’s really sweet.

Frakes: Well it was shot as one fight, remember? We shot it and then broke the fight up and the fight works now as three fights instead of one.

Chris: Do you remember - how long did it take?

Frakes: We did a half day of shooting on that.

Chris: Half day on the fight?

Frakes: We started the fight, and we shot the principles and we left as usual [John talks over the rest of his comment].

John: The guys rehearsed the crap out of it.

Frakes: They rehearsed two or three days straight before we got ‘em on.

John: Because that sort of knife work, by the way, we’re not adding, we’re not juicing that foley [relating to or concerned with the addition of recorded sound effects after the shooting of a film] a lot; it’s not like we’re getting close with the blocking. Chris is blocking him. That’s a full on sword fight, except Chris happens to have a pot in his hand. And also the fact that -

Frakes: Also, this 45 degree shot would work better here, I mean not that it wouldn’t anywhere else, but it’s a perfect example of how…

John: Do we usually do 90 or 45 on these fights?

Dean: Uh, 90.

John: We usually do 90. We did 45 here. And it looks great. And, yeah, this is a brutal fight. And it’s always tough because we established -

Frakes: It’s brutal, it’s close quarters, it’s not a set that we were allowed to destroy because it was a practical house.

Chris: I know! This is somebody’s kitchen, folks.

Frakes: It also helps that Christian trusted that other guy.

John: Yeah. A lot. Because even with the fake knives, you get hurt bad. I mean those knives are designed - will not utterly collapse. I’ve seen guys get hurt. Also, this is a very Jackie Chan oriented fight really - the kitchen, using the whisks, using the pots, using the found objects.

Frakes: Here’s, we had to cobble together - This was a set, we had another piece that was the outside of the house -

John & Dean: At another location.

Frakes: We had the exterior of the house.

John: We - the two shots jumped from shot to shot actually - that ‘s now an entirely different location, this reverse.

Chris: Yeah, and it came out great.

Dean: But by having that little bit of doorway of the tent, it tied it together.

John: It helps sell it.

Chris: Here’s some great ad libs here.

John: I do kind of miss the fact that we gave the bridesmaid an arc in the original version of the script, we just didn’t think we would have time for her. But she actually - cuz if you notice she’s called fat in the dress, her speech gets interrupted -

Chris: She had a win at the end.

Frakes: And then Aldis gives her some props at the end, and says, ‘By the way - that dress? You’re working it.’

John: Yeah, but no - we actually had a character profile.

Chris: I love this shot right here. This is one of my favorite shots - of the crime lord.

Frakes: I had to dig and dig and dig to find that - I remembered it from the dailies.

John: Yeah, it’s just great, because, you know what? It’s also great because when you have really good actors doing your day player stuff, they’re not absent; they’re very present in the moment and that’s exactly the right moment for them to give.

Frakes: Gives you a place to go.

Dean: Yeah, I love that he doesn’t use the rolling pin - he uses the mushroom caps.

John & Chris: He uses the mushroom caps!

Frakes: Well, it tees up this wonderful line at the end, the tail end.

John: It burns, the it burns callback. And then he just beats him to unconsciousness with a tray.

Chris: We want everything to pay off.

Dean: It’s the lemon juice.

Frakes: It’s the lemon juice, but also the -

John & Chris: ‘Did you just kill a guy with an appetizer?’

John: I forgot where that came from. That was a room pitch. That was actually, uh -

Chris: No! That was in the draft.

John: No, no, but I mean in the room.

Dean: You had it in the room.

John: Cuz it was - ‘Did you just kill a guy…?’ ‘Cause we were trying to come up with - What’s the proper reaction to walking into that room?

Frakes: Here it is.

John: This is a great -

Dean: A great Aldis reaction.

John: And by the way, classic comedy shot. Comedy works in the two shot.

Frakes: So I was told.

John: Yep. There you go.

Chris: Look at that.

John: Great take.

Chris: Here’s one of our many, many sacks of money. We really love gym bags full of money on this show.

John: And it’s hard because on the show - as you develop season 2, you realize that yes, when you do complicated financial scams, with stuff happening with stocks off screen, it’s good, but it’s not as satisfying as: there’s a sack full of money. Who’s got it? How do we get it? Yeah, you really want a physical manifestation.

Frakes: I saw the pyramid of money in Dark Knight. I finally watched Dark Knight.

John: See? Pyramid of money.

Chris: This is - Jonathan this is just a beautiful one-shot.

Frakes: Well this is, you know, here we go. This is props to Gary Camp. This is a huge, beautiful steadicam shot.

Dean: The whole scene, really, in one shot.

Chris: In one shot.

Dean: Covering all kinds of different things.

John: Did they just pop focus back to her for a second? Yes they did. Very, very good work. ‘Excuse me, pardon me!’

Dean: And now you come all the way around.

Frakes: Yep. This is well staged.

John: You know what? I never noticed this is a one-shot isn’t it? This entire sequence.

Chris: Yeah, this is all one shot.

Dean: It’s a beautiful shot.

John: It’s very Scorsese of you, my friend. That was.

Frakes: That’s, uh, stolen, from the front end of Goodfellas. Not Goodfellas. Where did they go into that club?

All: Yeah. Goodfellas.

Chris: Goodfellas is a long…

Dean: And then we call all the way around again.

John: So when you’re looking up to directing techniques, is that - you just steal?

Frakes: Steal from Spielberg. Steal from Scorsese.

John: Really, that’s it? There’s not like a long, big book of the Frakes technique?

Frakes: No. My technique is: Shoot fast. Make the schedule.

John: [Laughs] Shoot the show.

Frakes: Shoot the show. Make sure you make your story points.

Chris: I love that look.

John: We shot this in six and a half days?

Frakes: Yes. We shot this is six and a half days!

John: That’s very impressive.

Chris: Six and a half is actually less than normal.

Frakes: How about it, Dean?

Dean: The only other show other than mine to go under seven.

Frakes: Never to be done again!

John: Did we never go…? It was yours at six and his at six and a half?

Frakes: He did his at six.

Dean: Yep. And this was six and a half. Everything else was done at seven and then one went seven and a half.

John: I love Nicole toddling away with that luggage. So uncomfortably running away in those heels.

Frakes: Not afraid to use the shoes.

John: Note Nate drinking. Having a little drink. Taking the edge off. It’s been a long day.

Frakes: He is a priest.

Dean: In every episode, somewhere you’ll find that little…

Frakes: We slowed that down a bit.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Yeah, that did look a little… Well, we’re watching on a 40-foot screen; you’re not going to notice that at home, but you know. (Pause) This is one of those times where, again, we use this intermittently in the series - where Nate, one of his plan H’s he hasn’t told -

Frakes: My kid loves that line. ‘Wait for it.’

Chris: ‘Wait for it.’

Frakes: That’s something that should that can be called back. Do we use it a couple times?

John: No.

Chris: Yeah, I thought we were going to.

Dean: We have it in the pilot.

John: We have it in the pilot. We have it here. I mean, it was one of those things-

Dean: Oh! And we have it in the season finale.

John: In the season finale.

Frakes: My kid uses that line. It’s part of his, uh, slang.

John: His repertoire.

Frakes: Yeah.

John: ‘Wait for it.’

Frakes: ‘Wait for it.’

John: Uh, yeah, I mean, he. It’s interesting because a lot of times we were trying to find the balance of how much you needed the crew to know and how much you needed the audience to understand, and figuring out when you did the exposition. Because there are times when we do these sort of - there’s like five flashbacks here. You know, there is moments where an audience could legitimately get lost in understanding what the con was. (Pause) And that’s on set - that shot -

Frakes: Yeah, no. That’s shot is. We pick up against the door.

John: Yep. It’s the magic of filmmaking. And she’s so uncomfortable in that dress, can’t wait to get out.

Frakes: She’s so working that dress, still.

John: Yeah, she does look gorgeous. And yeah, a little celebratory scotch for Nate there.

Dean: And then a callback to -

Frakes: The callback to the good chef.

John: Yeah. There you go.

Dean: And, the lemon juice.

John: Yeah. And Chris throws it away. I mean, really -

Frakes: Both of them fighting for the button, though.

[All Laugh]

John: Yeah, I know it’s -

Chris: Yeah, it’s like working with [Bob] Newhart.

John: Yeah - both of them fighting for the button. Like which one of us is going to get the last shot, the last line in the scene.

Frakes: This scene shot over by the church when you guys were shooting -

John: Miracle Job.

Chris: Miracle Job.

John: So we threw up the outside of the tent which you never see in the rest of the episode, and then put this together.

Dean: It was an important scene to have, because one of the things we’ve learned, is it’s not enough for the villain to lose, you gotta have the gloat.

John: The gloat. It’s become shorthand in the writer’s room. It’s like, alright - and now, the gloat.

Dean: You need the moment where Tim gets to enjoy the fact that he just took down the bad guy.

John: Or has let the bad guy… See, wait, this is what’s unusual - the bad guy doesn’t know that he’s been taken down until we’re offscreen. Really, usually -

Dean: Although he gives a look at the end, like something doesn’t smell right.

John: A big part, even more satisfying than the gloat, is the ‘LEVERAGE!’ moment when the guy sort of screams to the sky and the horrible realization -

Frakes: ‘I hate those guys!’

John: You know what?

Dean: ‘And I would have gotten away with it if not for those crazy kids!’

Chris: That’s a Scooby Doo line.

John: You know what really does a great one? Is in Juror. Who’s the - who was in Juror? The girl.

Chris: Oh, um, Lauren Holly!

John: Lauren Holly does a great moment of that.

Frakes: She’s so pissed off that she got taken.

John: Yeah, it’s, uh…

Dean: There’s that look, right there. Something’s not right.

John: There’s something over that railroad track.

Frakes: Luckily we’ve got the cigar to button this scene with.

Dean: The bookend.

Frakes: Happy ending.

John: Yep. Happy ending. The same images from the opening.

Dean: I really love this ending.

John: Yeah. It’s a sweet ending. They allow themselves to be a family because they’re rewarding the family.

Dean: And getting invested in not just the money.

Frakes: It’s hard to miss with Italian food.

Chris: It really is. People, characters sitting around the table.

Frakes: And LoDuca recalls the song back here.

John: Yep. And the kid getting on Parker’s lap. It’s funny because Beth has a really great son, Pilot, he’s a really sweet kid, and she’s really great with kids, and it was hard for her to hide the fact that she was good with kids.

Chris: Yeah, I mean you kind of see that there. She doesn’t really play awkard.

Frakes: Cassandra Bernard, making her second scene. (Pause) And the handheld TV work.

John: And by the way, thank you.

Frakes: Shot outside the Glendale Studios.

John: And by the way, thank you, thank you internet news for allowing us to portray the arrest of the bad guys on any medium we care to use. Anything we wanna use, we got.

Chris: Boy, we do have a lot of reveals in this one.

John: This was a big one.

Chris: This is a lot of reveals.

John: Cuz remember the original reveal - this reveal was right outside the van. We did the walk away because we didn’t originally in the script have the restaurant scene. The restaurant scene we came up with later to lock it in. Here’s Chris working the guns for the fans.

Chris: Working the guns.

John: A little something for the ladies there.

Chris: He’s shirtless.

Frakes: ‘And don’t forget I don’t just do hors d'oeuvres.’ I do family style as well.

John: Working the gun show here.

Dean: And one of the few shows where we kind of went with emotional music at the end instead of the fun, jazzy music. Which I thought was very nice.

John: It was very sweet.

Frakes: Dean Devlin, taking that nice credit.

John: There you go.

Dean: Jonathan, thank you so much for being part of our show.

Frakes: My pleasure.

John: We really appreciate it.

Chris: As fun as this episode was to watch -

Frakes: It was too funny.

Chris: - it was even more fun to make thanks to you.

John: Yes, it’s a real pleasure to have you on the show.

Chris: I only wish the audience could have been there with us.

Frakes: You are too nice by half.

John: Precisely half. It’s almost the right amount of nice, actually. Gentlemen if there’s something you want to say during the credits, you know, we can wrap it up and.

Frakes: Thank you, and good night.

[All Laugh]

Dean: Well done.

Chris: God Bless America.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 1 #Episode 3 #Season 1 Episode 3 #The Wedding Job

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smoothshift · 5 years ago

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Tesla Model 3 AWD vs C7 Grand Sport Road Trip Review via /r/cars

Tesla Model 3 AWD vs C7 Grand Sport Road Trip Review

I recently took a trip from Los Angeles up to San Francisco in my Tesla Model 3 AWD. It was my first time road tripping in an electric vehicle and I did a similar trip in my old C7 Corvette Grand Sport so I figured it would be worth sharing my experiences.

Routes:

My trip in the Model 3 was straight up I-5 from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

On the C7 I took a more scenic PCH/101 route up to San Francisco and then took the I-5 home.

Though not exactly an apples to apples comparison on the way up, I think each route played to the car’s strengths.

The C7 route was made more for of an enjoyable/scenic driving experience, whereas the Model 3 route was made to be very safe with Tesla supercharger infrastructure in mind.

Driving Experience:

C7: To be honest my road trip experience in the C7 left a little to be desired. On the way up I picked a fairly enjoyable route along the California coast with enough beautiful views to make for a memorable experience, and with enough fun road for the car to stretch its legs. Here’s what I ran into.

-It was a little harsh. Though my car did have magnetic ride shocks and we traveled primarily in “tour” mode the C7 did beat me up after a little while. For reference I’m a 27 year old so it’s not like this is some old guy complaining who’s expecting Cadillac ride quality in his track-focused sports car. This also isn’t to say that the car is too stiff to be enjoyable on road trips…it’s just that the sporty setup does wear on you after a few hours.

-The car was a little hard to enjoy in the spirited sections of the trip. This isn’t to say that the C7 handled bad, wasn’t fast in delivering power, etc. It’s just that the C7 Grand Sports’ limits are so high that street legal and street safe speeds don’t really excite it. So driving some of the spirited sections on this trip was a bit of let down because it felt like I was only using a fraction of the car’s potential.

-The car and the people around you edge you to go over the speedlimit on the highway. As noted above the C7 does have really high limits. When you’re cruising at 80mph the cars is always speaking to you “come-on you can be doing 90…100…you’re in a Corvette! Live a little! I was built to do at least 180” Like-wise, on a two lane high way you get Honda Civics and Priuses coming up on you at 90-100mph because they think you’ll get ticketed first if you’re going over the speedlimit. Of course the second they pass you though they start going safe speeds because there’s no sports car to blame for being reckless. Needless to say there’s a lot of pressure to speed in the C7 and it’s not a good formula for 6 hour road trip!

-The C7 felt like it was falling apart a bit. On my way back the car developed some super funky exhaust drone at around 2.5K RPM that I had never heard in my years of ownership. I played around with the exhaust settings, when stopped took a look to make sure everything was okay and there was no plausible explanation for it. After the trip was done the drone never really appeared again, but it was a very strange occurrence. Likewise the C7 inherently has some creaks and rattles due to its targa roof. The targa roof is a Corvette thing and the creaks and rattles are to be expected, but they also start to wear on you after several hours. It is kind of a hard feeling to describe but in general…the more I drove the C7 on this trip the more it felt like I was breaking it or wearing it down.

-It’s a bit stressful in the rain. There were some portions of the trip where it was rainy and a bit damp and a lot of portions that were sunny and beautiful. In the damp portions you do have to give the C7 a lot of respect with the throttle. GM does do a good job torque managing the vehicle, and the car is 10X better to drive in the rain than say an old C5 Corvette. Just knowing that you’re in a light weight rear wheel drive vehicle with tons of torque and a really twisty road in front of you, makes you more nervous than excited to be driving.

Tesla: I’ve been enjoying daily driving my Tesla and felt like it would make for a good road-trip car. Though my route wasn’t nearly the handpicked driving experience that my C7 route offered, I actually had a really great time going up and down I-5 in the Tesla. Here are my thoughts:

-Autopilot is great for long distances. I don’t have the advanced full self-driving auto pilot functionality on my Model 3 but I do have basic, single lane-keeping autopilot and it worked incredibly well. I drove for several hours without really having to intervene for the vehicle. Being able to take your hands off the wheel for a few seconds, adjust your foot position, etc. without fear of the car losing control was just awesome. It also made it very easy to travel at safe speeds. If cars were driving aggressively it just didn’t matter to me, my car would adjust itself based on whatever they were doing. Likewise traffic jams, though annoying, were completely tolerable because of the car auto starting and stopping itself. In any other vehicles traffic jams would make a trip completely miserable. The only thing that is annoying with the basic autopilot is that you do have to dis-engage and re-engage every time you want to change lanes. Right now the full self driving functionality offers that…but it’s seriously not worth an extra $6,000 at the moment.

-Autopilot needs help in windy roads. Northern California has roads that are twistier than the ones found in Southern California and I felt like autopilot really struggled in these environments. It’s not so much that it couldn’t hold a lane or keep the speed properly, but the car would go a little too far to the left edge of the lane making you feel like it might mess up and run into the shoulder at any moment. Likewise the car just always feels a little too slow to react. Things that I would do when driving to keep things safe, the car seems to do a second or two too late. In reality the way the car is driving is probably perfectly safe…but to the driver it feels very close to the edge and that causes some anxiety. So on straight highways, autopilot is great. When things get more technical autopilot can work but it can also cause more worry.

-Great ride quality. I don’t know what Tesla did with the Model 3 suspension but its ride quality is phenomenal. It feels sporty and communicative when you get on it a little bit, but is very comfortable and compliant the rest of the time. The car never beats you up and it absorbs bumps and road imperfections much better than the C7 Corvette’s suspension does. This made for a very comfy road trip all things considered.

-Perfect throttle control. The car does have a lot of precision with the throttle input thanks to its electric motors and the regen braking. I had no problem comfortably navigating the tight roads and congestion of San Francisco. Not only was the car’s speed very easy to manage, but it also has an excellent “hold” function where if you press down on the brake a bit at a stop the car will engage a “hold” and it will not inch forward or backward. This was especially helpful for holding position on San Francisco’s steep hills. Of course on the highway the car surges immediately into open slots thanks to the instantaneous response of the electric motors. The big point to make here is that the C7 can sometimes feel like a bull in a china shop in city driving, and even on the highway it sometimes feels like it would rather be on a track. The C7 is still very dayliable around town and such…but you just get a much broader and more precise power characteristic with an electric motor for each driving situation you can find yourself in.

-The car felt solid afterwards. With all of the Tesla build quality woes I was kind of expecting something to go wrong or for some random rattle to develop that would make me regret the trip to no end. However the car was completely solid after the 700-mile or so round trip. If anything my C7 felt a little tired after its road-trip and the Tesla feels like nothing has happened to it at all.

-The silence makes for a zen-like experience. I’m not going to complain that the C7 makes noise and the Tesla doesn’t. But what I will say is that the whole trip did feel very peaceful in the Tesla thanks to how quiet it was. It felt very easy to take in the surroundings and just appreciate being in the moment. Likewise it made for better clarity when listening to podcasts and music on the ride.

-It was nice being undercover. When in the C7 it’s all eyes on you all the time. There were portions of this ride where I was admittedly going faster in the Tesla than I maybe would have been going in the C7 and that’s simply because the C7 draws a lot of attention to it, while the Tesla is just another sedan. This also made it less of an ordeal when going to eat in the small towns along I-5 (where a C7 would draw a bit of attention) and I had no worries about the car in San Francisco. Ironically…despite how common Teslas are nowadays the car does feel very exciting, unique, and compelling to be in. It’s not going to draw sports car attention, but it’s not like you feel like you’re in some soulless Camry either, the Model 3 just has kind of a delightful, fun personality to it.

Here are my thoughts on some things inherent to having an electric vehicle on a road-trip.

-Range Anxiety: I didn’t really have any with the Model 3. There was a supercharger at pretty much every exit on I-5 between LA and San Francisco so where I would have had to stop for gas I could stop to charge if I wanted to. This obviously isn’t the case along every route or anything like that, but it was great along this very common trip for people who live in California.

One thing that I thought was interesting was that the Tesla navigation system seemed to prioritize travel time over “range safety” So for instance along my route the nav system would read “Charge at supercharger X for 15 minutes” and then it would have me arriving at my destination with like a 4% charge left, whereas if I charged for 40 minutes, I would arrive with a much safer 30% left. I guess for a computer algorithm prioritizing travel time like this makes complete sense, but when traveling with an electric vehicle you obviously always want some more margin for error. Fortunately all I did was nav to each of the superchargers I wanted to hit along the route, charged as long as I thought I needed to, and then I punched in my final destination after I hit my last super charger. So this wasn’t anything that couldn’t be figured out or defeated easily.

Superchargers VS. Gas Stations: Without being an electric or Tesla fanboy…I think superchargers are way better to stop at than gas stations.

First off, most superchargers are in “nicer” areas along a given route. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten off of an exit in an ICE car only to find out that I got off on the crappy exit with the creepy town and the “good” one is up a few more miles. With superchargers you have less of a chance of that.

I also found that my car charged way faster than I expected it to. On this trip, we stopped to eat when charging, and each time the car was done charging well before we were done eating. In general I was rolling into the superchargers with around 100 miles of range left and it seemed like I could get to a decent range level within 20 minutes if I wanted to move on in a bit more of a hurry.

On the way back down to Los Angeles we stopped at the Kettleman City supercharger…which is kind of Tesla’s flagship supercharger. It has 24 stalls (the largest in the world currently) and a nice Tesla only lounge that has a super nice design to it and is complete with barista, super clean bathrooms, wifi, and vending machines. It was so much nicer hanging out in that lounge for a few minutes than the alternative of running into a gas station convenience store.

I might just have bad luck, but in the Vette I would always get people coming up to me asking me for money at a gas station or trying to have me buy them a tank of gas. I’m usually very gracious in such situations and help those folks out…but it was always kind of annoying seeing them target me primarily because of the Vette. With superchargers all you’re interacting with is other Tesla owners.

Now I will say there are some problems with the superchargers.

For one…there are a lot of Tesla owners who are hipster douchebags who think that having a handlebar moustache, a cup of Americano and a Tesla makes them an artisan. Likewise there are also a lot of folks who have a “hoard” mentality. They’re the people who did the math and realized that owning a Tesla would save them X amount of dollars over 10 years compared to say their old Prius. So there are some weird overtones at the superchargers due to how extreme some of the owners can be. If I solely supercharged my car I wouldn’t enjoy Tesla ownership because both mentalities annoy the crap out of me. That being said they are…still better than dealing with folks asking for money at the gas station.

I also find that there are always one or two superchargers that tend to be broken at given locations. On the way out of LA I charged at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, which also houses the Tesla Design center, and they ironically had a stall that was down and was causing a bit of a backup at the supercharger there because of it. So the maintenance can be better…and if you’re on the last few miles of a charge and the only stall open is broken I can see that being a very frustrating experience while you wait 20+minutes for other folks to finish up.

Cost (round trip):

Tesla: $45

Corvette: $200.

To be honest… with how cheap it is to get the Tesla to and from San Francisco it’s almost not even worth buying plane tickets to get to San Francisco from LA. This trip in the Tesla is something that my wife and I are looking forward to doing more frequently because of how cheap and easy it is.

Final Thoughts (TLDR):

I will forever argue that if you are going to take a road trip in a sports car that you’re not going to find a better one to do it in than a Corvette. There’s ample luggage space, the cabin is roomy, and the car is fun to drive. I was just expecting the trip in the Corvette to very much be a “ah yes…this is why I own a Corvette” type of experience and instead I walked away worrying about the car a bit more than I wanted to, got a little bit too fatigued for a car claiming to be a Grand Tourer, and the fun level was about two notches below what I was hoping it would be.

The Tesla on the other hand felt like a revelation. It was fun, comfortable, and just absolutely delightful to be in. I felt like I had fewer things to worry about and the whole trip was done for less than the cost of a tank of gas in the C7. It honestly felt like I stumbled across some new found freedom where one can travel in a car for long hours and not feel uncomfortable, or overly tired, or beat up. If you’re someone who likes to road-trip and adventure drives a Tesla might honestly be your best car yet. It heightens all of the things that make a trip fun and enjoyable, while minimizing a lot of the things that could cause discomfort or issue.

#reddit #autonews #auto #cars

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