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[rock music] Honey. It tastes just like it costs. I also, I graduated to having a storage unit when I, when we moved into this apartment. We used to be in a much bigger one- Yeah...

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with more storage and stuff, but then we had... So now it's like, okay, it's like you only really wanna go once a year. Bring in, like, bring in our camping stuff. Yep. Take out the winter jackets- Yeah... et cetera.

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Do they keep raising the prices on you? They do. Okay, so it was like- 'Cause they have you by the balls, right? I hate it. I hate it. Ours is up to almost $300 a month. Can you believe that shit?

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That's ins- So we, we just have one of the small ones, like- Mm-hmm... one of the smallest ones, but it was, like, 96 when we started, and now I think it's, like, 128.

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After three, uh, I think it was after three months it went up to that. Our place is in Beacon. Um, and you know, I keep being like, "Maybe we just bring this stuff up to Maine," but it's kind of like a, I don't know.

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Um- Well, you c- Yeah, you need it a little closer at hand. Yeah.

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I also, like, I'm kinda scared to go 'cause the last time I went was a long time ago, but I kind of remember, like, turning a rocking chair upside down and, like, pushing it in, and just kind of- Mm-hmm...

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like, closing the door. You have to deal with the consequences of your actions when you return. Yeah, I will be reaping. I sowed- [laughs]... last time I went. I'll be reaping this time.

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And I don't know, it's, it might be a bit of a Jenga situation in there. Mm-hmm. That's, I mean, that's kind of, [laughs] that's what I do too every time. It's kind of, you just, you just commit to spending.

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You're gonna spend half an hour there. Yeah. And this is kinda what you do. And this was, like, my childhood rocking chair that my mom used to rock us in, and she was like, "Here, for you.

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You know, we're t- moving houses and retiring, but this is for you when, you know, if you start your family, when and if you start your family." But you're not really ready to have a rocking chair in your home.

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No, I'm not ready to have a rocking chair in my apartment. [laughs] So whatever. Anyways, um, Dirt X Night Gallery today. Do you like it? I s- I showed you in advance, right? You did. You did. Mm-hmm.

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And I read the interview. Mm-hmm. I really like the interview. It's, it's funny, you talked about, like, the Sam Hynes merch being dead article. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know. I, uh...

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This is not s- There's not so much more to say on it, but- Well, I like the distinction that Josh made though about merch as a relic of a particular event and moment in time- Yeah... kind of being... Yeah.

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Well, I think the most cogent point from Sam's piece too, which, for the listener who doesn't know, is, like, uh, in GQ, I don't know, this was like three months ago now. Mm-hmm. He wrote this thing about how, like,

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the big merch wave of, like, online ceramics, et cetera, like, that's crested. It's gone. It's passed. But I think, like, his best point was that it's like, it's the pre-order merch that's dead.

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It's, 'cause the, the point of merch is- Mm-hmm... is what you're saying, where it's like, it's about the exclusivity, the moment. Mm-hmm. Like, the point of good merch is that there's only, like,

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50 of the T-shirt, you know? When there's, like, 10,000 of the T-shirt, that's not interesting because it's about exclusivity. I think Josh was making the opposite argument. How so? Well, I think that he was saying, um,

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like, concert merch as something that you just go... I don't know. I don't wanna put words in his mouth. Yeah. I do think there's, like, a distinction between a souvenir- Mm...

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and, and that it's, like, sort of a box that you're checking. Like, I was here, I was on Era's tour. Yeah. And a memory- Like taking a picture of a painting when you go to a museum...

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like, for Taylor Swift, I think their merch has almost been replaced by the bracelets people make- Mm-hmm... themselves, right? Um, because it's more, it's closer tied to the memory. I don't know. Yeah.

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Um, it's also like, oh, I don't know. I'm, maybe I, I might even be talking myself out of this as I'm talking. But merch as an idea has never been more powerful, I think- Mm-hmm...

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is what we landed on, and merch is forever. And, you know, he's creating these, um, vignettes and collages of references that never existed together. Yeah.

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So obviously can't represent a place or a moment in time, but could bring up a really strong reference.

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But, but they do re- they do represent a moment in time, 'cause they do represent, like, those, those confluences of taste coming together, like- Oh, taste... because of the internet. Ooh. Yep, yeah.

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But they're very specific to him. Yeah. And ours, I mean, I don't know how long we can go on about this. I guess we have more time. Um. We have a couple minutes.

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Yeah, I mean, we had this great article about the way advertising used to be super subversive in the '90s, and, like, now even though, like, there's porn all over the internet, advertising's more tame and puritanical.

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Mm. And, like, why is that? And then the central, you know, example was these, like, PlayStation ads. And- Yeah... so- Which were so great...

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the conversation with Josh originally started as, like, can we just, um, do something about these ads? But he's, he told me that he's done, um, shirts that do not have a relationship to music. Mm-hmm.

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But film and other stuff like that does not perform as well. And I think this got cut out of the interview, but the reason why is it's, like, harder to self-insert in, um- Mm... movies.

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And he used the, uh, he used the example of that phrase, it's like, music decorates time. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

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But movies are, you know, there's already that visual decoration, like- There's also, like, a parasocial personal re- Mm-hmm... you can have a personal relationship with movies, but, like- Mm-hmm...

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not as many people have as personal relationships with movies as they do musicians. Right, and he used the example of Heat. Like, there's so many different Heat bootlegs across the web- Yeah...

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but they use almost all the same references. Too much. And, like- Mm-hmm... when he would do stuff that was a TV show or a movie, he would get a lot of people being like, "Oh, I u- What if you used this scene?"

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Whereas with music, it's like there is no visual for the core medium. Mm-hmm.

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You bring the visual, and so it's a combination of him, uh, you know, he's assembling whatever the musician has put out there as representative of this thing.

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And so the Lana Del Rey stuff in the T-shirt were, like, really old stuff. Mm. Like, some of it might have even been, like-Like Lizzie era or like really early- Yeah... Lana era,

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combined with PlayStation, combined with stuff that feels like his own memory or an implanted memory, and my big contribution was the, uh, more powerful than God- Mm-hmm...

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'cause I was like, "Well, let's have like, uh, a beautiful woman, and then let's have the PlayStation more powerful to God." Um, and then that ended up in like a Sony screen on the back. And- Yeah...

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anyway, and, and he actually brought the idea of like making it look more like a magazine cover, which is an idea that I would typically happen to not have in this case. Mm-hmm. Um,

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but it's part of a drop that has four other shirts that have not been like formally released yet- Oh, okay... but he teased them. So it's Three 6 Mafia, Magic Styles, like the really early horrorcore 1995 album.

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Is that what it's called? I don't know. Now I'm questioning myself. Um, but, but wait, I think, I think our guests should be here soon. So okay, neither...

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W- we're not talking about video games today, though we just were. No. Uh, we're not talking about movies, though we just were. We are talking about television. Who are we talking to today?

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We're talking to Mickey and Konrad. They are the creators of Industry, and they read Dirt. Mm-hmm. So they are my homies. Dirt actually started with, um, a week of content about Industry. So- Really?...

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Industry is in the DNA of Dirt, and we are verified, uh, early supporters of the show even before it had that prime time. Yeah. Now, now everybody's calling it- That was so-... the best show on television.

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I was calling it the best show on television since season one. I, I don't, I don't think I started watching until between season one and season two, shamefully.

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Um- But now you and I have seen all of season three, so we're gonna have to like- Yes. It's gonna be hard to rein it in, 'cause I think- Yeah... w- on Sunday episode six came out, out of like nine.

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I forget the exact numbers. Mm. I think five. Um, it w- okay. Oh. Oh. Hi, Konz. How's it going? Fantastic. It's going good. How are you? Good. Nice to meet you, Daisy, in person. Nice to meet you in person. Hello.

49
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Hey, Mickey. Hey, hey. How are you? Very good. Good. I don't know. So I started watching the show between season one and season two, like I think in the, in the hype cycle lead up to season two. Um, and I...

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Maybe it's because, I mean, we're talking now, so I was reading. I read like, I don't know, probably 15 to a dozen like articles yesterday.

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I feel like there wasn't as much press- I don't know why you have to flex on me like that. I only read about five. [laughs] Well, that's your problem.

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[laughs] Um, but, but, but I, I also know that like it seems like you guys have been also reading a lot of this press. I saw on... You're like retweeting it all on Twitter. Um- [laughs] Of course. Yeah...

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I don't know, you s- like I, I feel like people are always like, "Oh, I don't read the comments, I don't read the reviews," et cetera. Mm. I don't think that's the case for you guys. How's that been?

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Oh, we read pretty much everything. Most people are lying, I mean. Yeah. Uh, everyone, uh, uh... Whenever anyone says they don't read the comments or- Lying... if they have a phone, they r- they read the comments.

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If they have Twitter, they read the comments. If they have Instagram, they read the comments. I, I like reading the comments. Mm. I mean, even if they're, even if they're nasty.

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I mean, if it's provoking reaction is what we're trying to do. [laughs] Do you have a Reddit alt? Are you in there like sowing chaos in the, uh, Reddit threads?

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[laughs] Yeah, I occasionally reply being like, "No, that's completely wrong." No, no, I don't. [laughs] I don't, I, I don't think I've ever posted in there before. I just think... I do like reading it. Yeah.

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I, I have a ha- I have a hard no post. Look, but not, not post. It's like- I try not to... I, I'm on Twitter a lot and, and I'm, I've, I retweet stuff a lot. Mm.

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But I, I'm kind of I think putting your opinions out, uh, you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot if you start to, uh, procla- you know, make proclamations about stuff on there. Yeah.

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There's kind of a cute- If you're not, if you're in opposition, I mean. If you're in opposition... Like if you...

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I find like people who work in movies and TV at, at, you know, at a high level and then go on Twitter and talk about movies and TV, especially in a negative way, I find that kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

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I don't think you tweeted at all between like the last two seasons either. You're kind of only like fanning the hype. Definitely not. No, I'm a huge self pr- self promo- huge self-promoter, and that's it.

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Are either of you gamblers, casual gamblers? Do a little game of poker with the friends? Uh, I was during the pandemic in a really like, uh, unsophisticated way. Just online roulette, um- Yeah... a lot. Mm.

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Online roulette? A lot. Online roulette, yeah. But I mean, I, I'm not... I don't like losing money. I don't... no one does. Yeah. [laughs] Uh, although that's actually, I mean, I, I actually- I love losing money.

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That's crazy. I mean, some people do like losing money. I mean, I mean, degenerate gamblers do like losing money 'cause it's the same, it's, you know, it's basically the same dopamine hit as winning money. Um- Mm.

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So like I, I, I like, I, you know, I, I don't invest in stocks. I don't really check the market. Like I, I, you know, I know Kon- Konrad's like...

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Konrad's got a very good attitude to that, in that like he invests in things, but then he is able to just put his phone away and not check it, and I would like be like a day trader. I'd be checking it every 10 seconds.

68
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Yeah. [laughs] Which means I... so there's no point in me doing it. Uh, but in the... during the pandemic, I basically... And it's sort of a, a kind of, Rishi was a slight nod to this.

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Like I wasn't even going to, to a casino. I was like just like hitting roulette and just always putting it all on black. And that made money- Yeah... every single time, to the point where I lost quite a lot of money.

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[laughs] And losing a good amount of money as well. [laughs] Yes. Yeah, to the point where, the point where the, the app was like, "You can't use this anymore legally." Like telling you to stop. [laughs] Yeah.

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'Cause you- Yeah. And I, I ended up betting- 'Cause you were losing like a lot? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, exactly. Where it was just like, "You've put too much money on this and, and you've lost it all." Yeah.

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"And like we have, we have like a, we have a duty of care as, um, as a betting company. So like, uh, you're not allowed to use it anymore." But I, I...

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The only time I have a bet is against England in football now, uh, as an emotional- Oh, against it? Yeah. Well, that's a good bet... as an emotional hedge. Yeah. [laughs] That's it.

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Um, so there was something that Jesse Bloom, Jay Duplass's character in season two said, uh, about it all being like a cycle of victory and defeat. Uh, and when I was...

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Before I found that, I was thinking how like to me the show is like about the cycle of like cruelty and hope.

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Um, and-For me, this season, like Lumi felt like such a vessel for that, where like H-Henry Muck, right, Kit Harington's character, he, he seems to have this like, I don't know, r-rich boy naive hope that like, yes, he could change the world and his startup like could, you know, fight climate change, et cetera.

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Uh, but then that on the other hand, like if he fails, it, it doesn't really matter at all. He has like so much that he has nothing to lose. Um, but obviously then it does have an effect on normal people.

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Uh, but besides the whole cruelty and hope thing, I thought the, like the Lumi-- the ESG storyline in general was like very funny. Um, I don't know, it's, it's like so on the nose.

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[laughs] And then Lumi in particular like, I don't know, this like, yeah, just this kind of like fluffed natural gas, green energy startup. Um, to me that was the funniest thing this season. How did you arrive at Lumi?

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Like why was it Lumi and not like some other company that's like some other ESG angle? Good question. What was the... What was-- It was-- May, we wanted to write about the intersection of tech and energy, right?

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So we were thinking about writing about a tech company as much as we were writing about an energy company. Is that right? Yeah.

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We had a kind of antecedent or, or precedent in the real world that we were thinking about a little bit, which we obviously won't mention on the record. But we-- Yeah. Well, what else?

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I mean, what, what, what-- The ESG thing was a sort of really natural... You know, we always thought of the show as

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what happens to people with best intentions when the profit incentive is very clearly there, and when human-- when whatever you, whatever you, whatever you build any kind of system, even i-in an altruistic way, the human fallibility is like intrinsically baked into whatever you're doing.

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So that the long arc t-of anything, even when it starts out good, is it tends towards corruption. Right. And that was just like as...

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That was our thesis with the show, and I think that's very true, and I think it's true of ESG in the world, which is like, you know, more and more money was put into it as like an investment strategy- Mm-hmm...

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and more and more money has been taken out of it as, as sort of bad actors. Like anything, like any human system, bad actors get in there and they exploit weaknesses and they think, "How can we make money?"

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That's just how humans are wired. Mm. Whether they think of themselves as bad or good, that's kind of h-how it was.

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And we, we always think, me and Mickey were like in Season One and Season Two, but especially Season Two, we didn't think the show...

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Because it was made in the specter of COVID, we went back and re-watched it and we're like, "Wow, this is quite dour." It's really dark. Like nobody's having a good time.

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We wanted this third season to be technicolor and entertaining and relentless. Mm. But we also just wanted it to be much funnier than the previous two seasons, and we were just thinking, "Where is the humor in this?"

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Well, you know, it's gonna be in, in some in the dialogue, some in the character int-interactions, but a lot of it will be in a kind of high, what we think is like a kind of elevated form of satire.

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And like of course some of it's really on the nose, but we thought anything where we could come at it from all angles and basically poke fun at everybody's hypocrisy, we were just trying to do that as much as we could in the show.

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I mean, we love, we love building these characters up, showing them as three-dimensional, and part of their three-dimensionality is the fact they're contradictory and moment to moment they're not the same person and they're constantly hypocritical.

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Yeah. I think...

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Well, one thing I was thinking about when I was prepping for this was, um, you know, Harper names her fund Leviathan, and I was thinking about Leviathan in like the Hobbesian sense where like Leviathan was basically an argument against the state of nature.

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But the state of nature is like constantly rearing its head in this, in this show because it's like these characters have essentially...

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or the bank essentially substitutes capitalism or the market for the social contract. And there's all these characters- Yeah...

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that are like, "Well, this is great for me because I just need to learn how to play the game." You know, Harper, Rishi, Eric. Especially the American characters- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm...

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because like money has like one vector in America, and because there's not that class system as well, and it's like I think the American characters on "Industry" seem to be more single-minded about- Yeah...

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making money because it's not really about making the right kind of money, and so they're just so hyper-focused on it. And I feel the same way about "Succession" being a more American show.

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Like you're probably sick of the comparisons. I was trying to figure out why "Succession" feels so much more one-dimensional to me than "Industry" and why is "Industry" so much richer. Um, and I think it's that like

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the characters on "Succession" all want the love of the same person who's actually visible- Mm. Mm... on the show. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And they have this more of American capitalist mindset, which is money, not class.

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Or if they have class anxiety, it's not as visible.

105
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But in "Industry," every character wants the love of like both some absent figure that's not even on the show and like the love of the, the market or peer point sort of in the abstract, which means it's not just this one vector, it's always like radiating out in all these different directions.

106
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I think it's a really good point. Yes. I think a really good point. I think actually... I mean, look, we always say that the show really is about class. Um, and that's- Mm... why it can only really be set in the UK.

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I think that's kind of what makes it distinct from "Succession" as well, in that

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Harper as a character coming in in the first episode and saying that she believes peer point to be a true meritocracy and believes that literally she says there's gonna be no glass ceiling for her there, and then realizing over three seasons that she just runs into a glass ceiling constantly, but is continually trying to smash through it because she's always got her foot on the accelerator, not really realizing that actually there's systems of power in place, especially in England, which mean that she'll never be suc-the success s-story that she's trying to be.

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And I think that's actually what we've explored in this season.

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And you were saying before about the idea of Henry Muck actually having a kind of semi altruistic, uh, way in to this energy startup and believing he actually can make a change for the better and not actually being totally motivated by money.

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I think that's where the nuance in the character lies, and that nuance comes out of the fact that he is totally insulated by his class. Mm. Like he's able to, he's able to have that viewpoint because for...

112
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Honestly, like-The money is one thing, it's a great byproduct of the success here, but really it's the validation of the people that he surrounds himself with.

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It's the idea that, yes, he was build, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he's actually made something for himself.

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He can actually talk to pe- to people at dinner parties about the fact that he's doing this really quite cool, um, this really quite cool thing in energy. And it's like he-- [sighs]

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and that's just something that Harper's never thinking about.

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I think Harper's constantly thinking about, "If I make money, it will be-- provide an ocean between me and my past, and actually people will take me seriously."

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When in actuality she doesn't really realize that there's all sorts of markers that she's just never gonna be able to get. A lot of the show is about, uh, uniform and about performance of identity.

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So like we always, you know, Rob comes in, he's dressed the wrong way. Does he-- Is he gonna learn to dress the right way and be accepted? And then someone like Henry, you know,

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I-- like, there's this whole concept of, of being able to move, being a bit of a chameleon, right? Inside of either playing up or playing down to where you perceive your social standing to be.

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I think the show in Season 3 is saying that like sometimes Henry, you know, he can cosplay as the, a tech founder, and he can, he can say, you know, he can do his Harvard MBA, and he can dress a certain way, and he can have his Apple Watch.

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But actually when you get to the end of the season, you realize that the, the boundaries between all these characters is actually totally insoluble. Mm-hmm.

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And they're only ever like the-- They're, they're insoluble, but the, the guys at the very top can sort of play down if they want to. Mm.

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But the guys at the very bottom, the ve-very bottom can, can play up but will actually ne-never be able to fully transcend where they come from. Yeah.

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I think that's like me and Mi- me and Mickey, it, it doesn't feel like a modern idea, so people bump up against it.

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But I think me and Mickey really believe in our conversations about the show, and, you know, we're best friends, we talk about this, we still talk about this all the time.

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Like we, we don't think that has changed really in Britain, ever. Mm-hmm. We were talking about the idea of like Ri- a, a Ripley figure in the UK never working, because that figure would be seen through instantly.

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Like you would be a- You'd ask him several questions about where he went to school or went to university or where, where, like who his family are, and like immediately I'd be able to tell that he w- he isn't, he isn't-- he's, he's a, he's a construction.

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Like- Mm-hmm.... that's why I feel in America, I don't know, maybe I'm naive about this, guys.

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But like I feel like you can kind of like generalize your accent in America to the point where people don't really know where you're from. Whereas like in the UK, your accent is your immediate giveaway.

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It's why Robert comes into Peerpoint and he, he tries to have the markers of, you know, a well-to-do, you know, public schoolboy who's gone to Oxford.

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But there's things that people just see straight away, and the first thing being his accent. It's like- Yeah...

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you know, some, you know, northerners, northerners hear that accent and say, "Oh, he's a posh guy from the south, the south." Posh guy from the south would be like, "That is a very strong northern accent."

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And it's, it's something that actually is really, really lost on people in, in, um, American audience.

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And like I think when people get it explained to them, the show becomes richer because, uh, because it's just like the stuff that me and Connor thinks about, think about all the time. Yeah. I think- We don't...

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Sorry, go on, Daisy. No, no, Daisy, sorry, go on. Well, I mean, you're the one who has the insight.

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But like, you know, I think a fundamental cornerstone of like American literature and American stories, whether it's like The Great Gatsby or Mad Men, is like in America, your story begins when you start telling it.

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Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is not the case in the UK. And, um, I think I've met a lot of people. I have a startup.

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I've met a lot of other startup founders, and the idea, there really is no, um, corollary for like a Sir Henry in the American startup ecosystem. I mean, sort of. Like, you can have a figure like an Elon Musk.

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But, um, most of the startup founders that I've met that are my age are, they might come from some money, but they do not come from an amount of money where the outcome of their startup does not matter. Mm-hmm.

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Um, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. I think the psychological stakes of a startup are, um,

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the outcome has to very much matter to the founder in order to make it worthwhile, um, increasingly like in this economy because, um, you know, sort of post-zero interest rate, so the money is not as easy to come by.

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Um, so I like, I mean, I love the line of the show. It's like, you're one of us, you're one of the bandits. Like somebody like a Sir Henry is not, they're not a bandit. You know, they're not, um,

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they're not motivated by the stakes. They don't have skin in the game. Mm-hmm. And even like Yaz, I think in this environment, like I'm sure you kind of want the viewer to be like, "Why even have... Why have a job?

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Why have this job," right? You have no- Mm-hmm. There's no stakes for you. Of course, you're bad at it.

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Um, but then, you know, I kind of realized like she's, she's kind of seeking out, she's seeking out family and validation. She doesn't need the class validation. She doesn't need the money validation.

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She's seeking out like a sense of family belonging and validation that she has real abilities, um, just, you know, constantly. It's like her only, her only beat. It's her only note. [chuckles] Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure.

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We conceived of her as someone who really wanted to... I mean, when she came, when she, when we first wrote the character and her first few episodes of someone, you know, desperate to be taken seriously- Mm-hmm...

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quote unquote. And, and someone, someone who's, you know, c- someone who could be rewarded for their competency, which is something that like maybe she never, she definitely never got from her parents.

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You know, there's, there's a line coming up in next week's episode about the fact that she speaks so many languages, and her dad still thinks of her as an intellectual pygmy and, and, uh, and can't see past the, her exterior, because she has no inner life to him whatsoever.

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And so for...

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It was always, a- again, like the show is obviously on some level about peopleSelf-actualizing or going into something because it's gonna ful- it's gonna make them fulfill something that they're trying to express in themselves.

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And her, I- I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but hers was a kind of yearning for, uh, to, to not be seen as just a product of her class, her money, her upbringing, all that sort of stuff.

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Speaking of self-actualization, did both of you have to take ayahuasca to write that episode? I've never done it. No. Nor have I. Uh, no, no, n-no, I've never done ayahuasca. I've taken DMT quite a few times. Okay.

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Uh, but, um, I've never had that experience. Never had that experience.

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I mean, like we, we t- we spoke to people, and like I don't think that actually that's a representation of what it feels like to do, uh, to do ayahuasca.

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I think the setting, the scenario is very true to life, but I don't think... I mean, that w- that was a, a way of us basically jump-starting a s- a, a process of realization that Robert had to have, like in- Mm...

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this episode, as well as doing something we thought was quite visually interesting.

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I'll say, well, so this, this like psychedelics thing and then just like the Lumi Henry Mutt character, like, made me think a lot about, um, about like what if you guys took this to America in, I don't know, may- season four, season five, season six, whatever.

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I- you were just saying that, like, like you don't think you could tell, like this lens, this, you're like the way you tell the stories in an American setting, um, which, I don't know, maybe that's like too far ahead in the future to ask, but I'm really, I'm really curious to see like what your guys' like take and like style would look like, where it's like, I don't know, maybe in the future there's some like episode where there's, they go to the Bay Area

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startup funding, fundrais- something like that. I don't know. Do, is, have you like worked on any kind of stories like this or too soon to say? Um, it's not too soon to say. I mean, like,

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we, we've, we discussed about what the show would look like if, we took one or several of the characters to the US, and honestly, I don't, I don't think it would be quite the show.

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I mean, for all the reasons we said before, which is like it's dealing, especially in this season, it's dealing with quite precise, minute, uh, version of, or like, or like a precise, I think, or hopefully authentic version of London.

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Um- Mm... and that's, and, and we actually talked about this the other day, the idea that we could probably do more...

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I, I would like to see more of like the American perspective bumping up against London a little bit more. Like, and like- Mm...

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what you were talking about, Daisy, about the idea of assigned money being the, you know, the great motivator in all of these, on the, in the American characters' lives and how that actually comes into, into opposition to the class motivator in the British characters.

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I mean, like I, like we, we conceived this show as an American in London, and because the stakes were so low in season one, relatively, it could be more about that.

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It could be more about a Black, young, a young Black American woman moving through London.

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But like the stakes are so high in season three, and beyond hopefully, that it kind of lost a little bit of that, and I think maybe that's something we should, we should look at.

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I mean, Americans that end up in London and Londoners or people from the UK that end up in the US is a very specific form of self-selection. Like, you know- Mm...

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peop- there are so many elite schools in the US that people who got dead set on going to Cambridge or Oxford from America, especially if you went to public high school here, like you have to be a bit of a fetishist for- Angle five...

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doing that because it's really hard, and it's so much easier to just say like Common App, Amherst, Williams, Cornell, whatever. Like why did you do that? And- Totally.

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I to- I totally believe that, and like the people I know that, you know, expat Americans live in L- in UK, they love being expat Americans, but you really buy into the sort of Anglo thing massively.

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Totally, and like, you know- [laughs]... the Americans like show up as these sort of chaos agents.

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There's also like a really big difference between the work environment here, like work-life balance perspective is totally different, but our media system and media as an industry has a horrible work-life balance.

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Our media industry here is run by British expats. Mm. Like top to bottom, Washington Post, Ana Winter- Wall Street Journal. Um- Yeah... yeah, exactly.

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[laughs] So, and they have self-selected to come here and be part of the relentless American work culture, so of course they end up leading the industry.

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[laughs] Um, but I am always in- I'm so interested in that exchange 'cause I think there's like- Is that about opportunity though? Is that about...

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Because I, I would say the people I know that have moved from the UK to America have been sniffing out opportunity or they've been like, they've been offered jobs or they want to make a big change.

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Whereas like, to your point, is the reverse true? I mean, obviously you're looking to, if you're coming to the country you want obviously, but is it like, "I'm running away from something"?

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'Cause there's a lot of opportunity for Am- of opportunity in America. Like, I think it's the, it's the epicenter of many industries. Um, I do- I don't know.

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I think, I don't know, maybe other than just like, "I want to become like an English country gentleman," why is the reason that... And this is a rhetorical question, like why would anyone move to England?

182
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I mean, for the cricket pavilions, obviously. Yeah. [laughs] Well, I feel like, I feel like going, going either way, like

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wh- whatever country it is, it's like about like, I don't know, wanting to like feel different, wanting to like have that like outsider perspective, right? It's like that's a motivator.

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Like I, I mean, it did, it is for me. Like I grew up in a small town on the West Coast, now I live in like New York, right?

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It's like I wanted to go somewhere where like I felt like I was different as like a way of, I don't know, building my identity on that. You know what I mean? Harper wouldn't stand out in New York. Yeah.

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There are thousands of Harpers- Yeah... in New York, and I think she must know that on some level. Mm-hmm. That's interesting.

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We, yeah, we, I mean, me and Mickey was thinking that if we'd got a fourth season, it would be quite interesting to do a little bit more on the American, uh, A- the alien American experience in London because I think some of those cultural things we maybe just didn't, haven't hit hard enough to be personal.

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Mm-hmm. I mean, I would love to see Harper go home and show up on her mother's doorstep. You know what I mean? Like that's, I think it's an image that looms large because there's usually some sort of...

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episode like that in any prestige- Sure... series, whether it comes really late or not, you know, going back to Mad Men.

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And I was thinking about like what makes a series prestige other than just being really good television, and I think it does not come- Mm.

191
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I think it comes from the experience of the rewatch and how emotionally profound rewatching does. I don't think you can tell if something's prestige on the first watch because with-- Yeah. I think that's right.

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Really good point. Yeah. Just about the density of it as well. 100%.

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I will say, I didn't, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Daisy, but it was just 'cause I was thinking about the whole notion of going home because we're getting into, you know, we get to do a season four, the parental aspect of obviously the characters is such a concern of the show, and the kind of surrogacy of parenthood when you have the work parent and the work mentor and all that, and the work family.

194
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But like, I have to say that like I, I re-watch The Sopranos and Mad Men quite often,

195
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and I-- even when the show's operating at their very best, and this is just a personal preference, I do find the episodes where we cut back and see Tony young, like the one where we've-- I mean, it's a very clever bit of writing.

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They do like his pan-- they link his panic attacks to, you know, cold meats because he saw, you know, his, his, his dad whack the butcher or like cut the fingers off the butcher. It's a really neat bit of writing.

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Or like, you go back and you see Dick Whitman as a boy in the whorehouse.

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I, I-- just a personal thing, when I watch those episodes, I really admire the artistry and I sometimes think, "God, that's a neat bit of retrofitting, and it's making me understand the character and stuff."

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But I, I'm always a bit like, "I don't wanna be here." Mm. Like, I don't care how well you render it. Like, I don't care how artistic it is. I don't...

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I actually don't, I don't, I don't like how neatly it shades something in for me in the present story. And I'm always like, "This is great. It's awful."

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I'm always like, "Get me into the, you know, get me into the present tense again as soon as you can." It feels-- to me it feels like a digression that I could not... I could, I could do without.

202
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Not to say that I don't admire it from a personal- I feel the same. I, I feel definitely the same way in The Sopranos.

203
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I find those-- and I totally agree about it, about it being a neat bit of writing, but I find those episodes where he becomes a young boy, like, they're the most boring stuff in the show. In probably the same- Meh.

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Yeah... the same, the way, the same way some people find that the end, the um, the dream sequences are boring. I, they're my favorite episodes, those probably episodes. I adore those as well.

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But then like- I adore those... for some reason I love the, the um, the period, well not sort of period, but the, the sort of flashback business in the, in Mad Men because I love the way it's rendered. Yeah.

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I love the costumes. I love- Yeah... the Depression era United States. Like, I think it's just done so well. Um, and also it's more- It is...

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it's more of a timeline in that show than in The Sopranos, where it feels just like a little bit of a, like we, let's, we, like we have to go back and see Tony as a child now because we've done everything else.

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That is my favorite show by the way. For sure. Another thing, like talking about like, uh, these hallmarks of like prestige television, these like standalone episodes, like the Rishi episode.

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I don't think there's any other episode exactly like that this season. Um, and it makes me think of like- That's the only bottle. Yeah. Another one- Yeah...

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that people like really, you know, talked about in another show, like the, if you watch The Bear, like the Christmas dinner episode there, both of these things are like, you know, a standalone movie in and of itself.

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Um, and with, with both of these things, it's like, while I was watching them, I enjoyed the... I, I, I enjoyed them, but I was like also having a terrible time.

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Like, I watched it before bed, like on a Sunday night, and I felt, I felt I slept terribly, honestly. [laughing] You had like a hangover? Yeah. Yeah. And looking back, it's like, it's like funny.

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But no, like, and people are like comparing it, you know, to Uncut Gems on Twitter and such. Like, for me, it's more of like, if you've seen Good Time, like the other Safdie Brothers movie- Mm... like that's one of...

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I've seen Uncut Gems like five times. Un- Good Time I'll never- Okay, stop. [laughs]... never wanna watch it again. Um, and this to me was like that where it's like, I just felt bad watching it. Um, but I don't know.

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It's, it, it also seems like it's maybe so far the episode that's gotten the most like tweets about it and such. I think so. Yeah. This is the, the nature of like- I think it would be- Sorry, go on, Tom. Go on.

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No, no, I was just gonna say, HBO would be delighted to hear it made you feel bad. [laughs] Um, maybe that's one of the...

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In, in a show that keeps everybody arm's length at all times, like, oh, midpoint episode, everybody's tweeting about how much they hated watching it. [laughs] Well, I'm still thinking about it though, you know?

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Well, okay, so you talked about dream sequences, but there's something about the hyper-financialization of the floor that makes each episode feel a little bit like a dream. And I'm probably reading too much into this.

219
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I don't know if you, how you guys feel about Mark Fisher. I'm like a huge Fish Head, um, [chuckles] Fisher head.

220
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And, you know, there's-- and I also watched Margin Call recently, and there's like, when he's looking out over the city in Margin Call, I forget the character's name, but he says basically like, "We've been sleeping, like we've been dreaming and we're about to wake up."

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Like Mark Fisher's whole thing is like capitalism is this dream that we can't wake up from. And so in a way it's like

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every episode, I mean, this is just like your ability to make something so propulsive, but there are elements of every single episode that do sort of feel like a dream sequence.

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And I do think it's the weirdness of having this reality that's dictated by the market, which is a thing that is completely abstract, invisible, um, you know, like a god, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

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Some bloke, some guy wrote, uh, used a phrase to describe it, which was a ghost ship- Mm-hmm... which I loved. I thought that was really good.

225
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But it was kinda like that they said that the characters are all sort of like, like captain or like mini captains on a ghost ship, and like they didn't really understand what they were piloting or whether it was piloting them.

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The whole thing's kind of invisible. Everything is just dictated by whether you're in the green or the red and the, your, your happiness is kind of inextricably linked to all that stuff. I think it's true. I mean, we...

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I know it's cart before the horse or whatever, but we always wanted to get that ayahuasca sequence in somewhere.

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And then I think it was a kinda happy accident th-that it was also the children's charity day, which gave it that kind of, just on the board in the writer's room- Yeah...

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it gave it that sort of hype- yeah, really dreamlike kind of what the fuck is going on?

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Why is everyone playing this so straight, even though they're dressed as Henry VIII and Po- and Ginger Spice?Um, anyway, sorry, go on.

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That wasn't, that wasn't really a point, but I was just thinking about it I saw someone say that the, the thesis of the show is that nobody knows anything.

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[laughs] And, and people are constantly trying to go and get control in a, in an ecosystem where literally there is no control, and they're being buffeted along by abstract forces, like the ones we talked about today earlier, the market, and literally they have no idea what's going on.

233
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And like that is... That kind of is the thesis of episode five, which is like this thing has grown to such a big level, there's such...

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Th-the, you know, Abbi says our balance sheet is so unwieldy that actually no one knows how this company operates. No one knows actually how the company is gonna make money in the future.

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No one knows if there's a s- there's a hole in the middle of it which is gonna, is gonna, is gonna sink the ship. And like- For sure...

236
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I ki- and it's also like, I always think about these th- and this is a bit of a separate point, but like when we're trying to think of st- when we're in the writer's room and we were thinking about like what is the bit, what is the thing that's gonna like harm Peerpoint?

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Like, will this actually ever happen? Mm-hmm.

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Like, the amount of stories of like huge conglomerates and corporations that are lying to everyone or, or being sort of dodgy with their accounting and like you'd always think, "Oh, surely someone's looked at this.

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Surely someone knows that this is like, this is a, a, you know, a, a, a ticking time bomb." A company of this size, with this many employees, surely there's someone that knows what they're doing.

240
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And I think actually that thesis of like the fact that no one knows what they're doing is pretty strong. Like, it's just like people- Yeah...

241
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are so laser focused on what's in front of them, they're actually not really thinking about anything else. Mm-hmm. So I wonder- I think part of it as well- Yeah...

242
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the Ro- the Rob story was really a function of th- that, that thing in micro 'cause it was like that is a guy who is effectively like a leaf on a river or whatever in that episode. He has no control.

243
00:38:10.752 --> 00:38:21.612
He's, he's placed on a s- he's placed in a boat and shu-shunted out, you know, shunted out to sea. Goes to the select committee, none of that is his control. Forced to this ayahuasca retreat, forced to this members club.

244
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Henry says, "Do you even have a choice? You're here now." Like, we were very conscious of the fact that he was, that we were trying to tell that institutional story of someone who's, you know,

245
00:38:31.032 --> 00:38:36.732
th-that has no agency effectively. Mm-hmm. Right. And I feel like a lot of the characters, a l- a lot of the characters feel...

246
00:38:36.931 --> 00:38:49.212
Well, to go back to Mickey's point he made two minutes ago, it's like they're craving the sense that they're the cr- they, they are the agents of their own life, and that they have will and choice and all of this stuff, and they have some semblance of control over what they're doing, and in fact, none of them really do.

247
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I think, well, I think- And I think that's what-...

248
00:38:50.512 --> 00:38:56.712
the one character that to me does, like everything we're talking about here, like she does, she figures out what's going on, she seems to have a lot of agency, is Sweetpea.

249
00:38:57.052 --> 00:39:05.472
And like Sweetpea is so fascinating when she comes in at the very beginning, right, and she's like doing her like day in the life TikTok and it's so jarring. You're like, "Who is this character? Where did she come from?"

250
00:39:05.482 --> 00:39:15.212
[laughs] Um, and I love that it's like, you know, you have this thing where you can bring in the new grads as like new characters every year. Uh, but like to me she actually has like a lot of agency. She has like...

251
00:39:15.732 --> 00:39:25.712
She's like less morally bankrupt than your average character in the show. Like, she seems to be like, I don't know, really... Uh, maybe we... it's 'cause we don't like go so deep on her.

252
00:39:25.752 --> 00:39:37.652
There's no like very like, you know, long who is Sweetpea type of episode. But to me she's like unique in that she's like kind of unsullied by a lot of this and like seems to navigate it really well.

253
00:39:37.752 --> 00:39:46.952
Um, and in some other press you guys were talking about how it's this like Gen Z thing where it's like, how quickly can you pay me to be who I am? And like her like being online, monetizing every bit of her...

254
00:39:47.032 --> 00:39:52.032
I don't know. I, I just found her to be more interesting. That's a really good point. No, no, that's a really good point. Really good point. Actually what we...

255
00:39:52.072 --> 00:40:02.042
the way we conceived her in the writer's room was that she was, she was sort of unfazed by the, the need to be a Peerpoint person. Mm-hmm.

256
00:40:02.052 --> 00:40:06.092
We always considered like for her, Peerpoint as a stepping stone to st- other stuff. She was like...

257
00:40:06.352 --> 00:40:17.772
We always talked, you know, there were scenes that we wrote or conceived that we never put in the show where she was saying like, "This is an opportunity for me to like build a brand, have some money, do a job for maybe three years, and then jump into something else."

258
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Whereas everyone else is like racked by this like need to like let the, the institution mold their identities. Mm-hmm. Sweetpea was always just like, "You know, I've got loads of other things going on. I'm very smart.

259
00:40:28.252 --> 00:40:34.522
This is the thing for now. I'll get the s- the skill set that I need, and I'll move on." And like actually that's why she's actually kind of...

260
00:40:34.552 --> 00:40:43.472
obviously she becomes the center of a quite big story, but that's the way she's able to like move through with a little bit more, I don't know, ease. Like, uh, Gus was a bit like that as well.

261
00:40:43.512 --> 00:40:50.892
Like G- we always conceived Gus as being like, "I'm gonna do three years of Peerpoint, then I'm gonna go to politics," or, "I'm gonna do three years of Peerpoint, then I'm gonna go to a PE fund."

262
00:40:50.972 --> 00:41:02.512
It's like Peerpoint is not the be all and end all, whereas everyone else is just like Peerpoint is everything, and they allow themselves to, as I said, for their identities to be molded in that image, and also then to be corrupted by it because they care so much about it.

263
00:41:02.572 --> 00:41:10.122
Guys, I did not know her name was Sweetpea for the entire first episode. [laughs] I thought everyone was just sexually harassing her- [laughs] Yeah... um, by calling her that.

264
00:41:10.712 --> 00:41:21.092
Um, but I wanted to go back to this idea of agency, because I think it's like Mickey and I sort of had a side convo off the record, but you were...

265
00:41:21.132 --> 00:41:29.832
I'll say that you used the word evil, which, you know, it's funny 'cause we talk about this season as like more fun and more funny, but it's also the darkest, really dark. And I...

266
00:41:29.992 --> 00:41:44.522
it took me basically 36 hours after I finished the show to actually... I literally sat up straight in bed, put something together, and was like, "Oh," you know? Like, "Uh-oh." [laughs] Uh, so- [laughs]...

267
00:41:44.532 --> 00:41:53.782
I mean, if there's, if there's no agency, there can be no responsibility, and if there's no responsibility- Mm... there's no real adults in the room. And if there's no real adults- Yeah...

268
00:41:53.832 --> 00:42:04.092
or there's no real adulthood, there's no moment where you confront the cruelty that's been done to you and the way it impacts the cruelty that you do to others.

269
00:42:04.172 --> 00:42:15.532
And I think you talked about this like ghost ship, everyone's sort of this cog in the bank as this market that no one person understands, and I think there's another level that it's operating on.

270
00:42:15.552 --> 00:42:26.792
And Walden wrote about industry for Dirt, and I tried to have him get at this, that Rob's on the ayahuasca trip, he's on the trading floor as sort of the command center of his subconscious, which is trauma, right?

271
00:42:27.232 --> 00:42:27.342
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

272
00:42:27.352 --> 00:42:41.295
That it's operating on the level of the invisible hand of the market, but there's this invisible hand of trauma-Piloting each of these characters into these darker and darker and darker situations, and it does not...

273
00:42:41.316 --> 00:42:50.816
It did not completely come together until I finished watching the finale, and then, like, 36 hours later. But when it did come together for me, I was, like, almost...

274
00:42:52.296 --> 00:43:03.996
I felt almost, like, a sense of grief for, for the characters. Yeah. You know? Yeah. That's brilliant. I've never... The invisible hand of trauma is really good. I love that. I think that's- Free idea...

275
00:43:04.036 --> 00:43:09.465
that's, that's... It's definitely s- no, it's really good. It's really, really good. That, that's... It's a very good way of justifi- to justify...

276
00:43:09.636 --> 00:43:17.256
What you said, Daisy, is a very good way of justifying terrible action, isn't it? I mean, [chuckles] like, and maybe in some level the characters are, like... And they are a bit like,

277
00:43:18.196 --> 00:43:26.496
"If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else. So I've gotta-" Mm "... just be as awful as possible and be as, uh, self-advancing as possible, because this is what...

278
00:43:26.636 --> 00:43:35.036
This is the world I'm in, and actually I have no free will, because otherwise, uh, I wouldn't be in this at all." And I... It's... And what is that called? Absence theory? It's like- Right...

279
00:43:35.056 --> 00:43:40.296
there's no ev- there's an absence of free will, so actually there is no evil. Well- So I can behave exactly how I want.

280
00:43:40.326 --> 00:43:46.056
[chuckles] Eric says at one point, and I don't think this is giving anything, anything away, "We don't have to sell our souls just because we have a gun to our head."

281
00:43:46.096 --> 00:43:56.926
And it's like, "Brother, you sold your soul when you didn't have a gun to your head." [laughing] Like- Yeah. [laughing]... like, what are you talking about, man? Like... [laughing] Yeah. I mean, he does...

282
00:43:57.036 --> 00:44:06.796
I mean, that... We, we put that in there because that... In that, in that episode, whatever you thought he was capable of, he went further than that. Mm-hmm. I mean, like- Yeah...

283
00:44:06.956 --> 00:44:16.836
w- when we, when we, when we had that betrayal in the writers' room, we were, like, actually almost scared to write it 'cause we thought it was so m- uh, that we thought it was mo- so morally reprehensible.

284
00:44:16.866 --> 00:44:21.906
We were like, "Christ, do we even wanna do this?" And we were like, "Yeah, I mean, I guess that's, I guess that's where he's landed." You had to go there. And that it.

285
00:44:21.906 --> 00:44:23.796
You have to go there to show- I feel like everything- Yeah...

286
00:44:23.836 --> 00:44:33.176
everything I've read, uh, uh, all the stuff I read the other day, you, you guys kept talking about how, like, HBO kept pushing you to, like, go further, to take that leap, to, like, be more cruel. Show the penis.

287
00:44:33.746 --> 00:44:43.045
[laughing] Not, not to be more cruel, but just be- Show the penis. That was all, that was all us. Sorry. [laughing] [chuckles] They always push us to be more, uh, psycho- Yeah...

288
00:44:43.045 --> 00:44:53.416
sexually strange and d- delve deeper and, you know, their notes are always about how can this be truer, which is often, like, how can it be more the underbelly? [chuckles] You know, how...

289
00:44:53.426 --> 00:45:01.596
What are you actually driving at here? And, and that, that's kind of just... I think that's just a good, that's just a good creative mode for the show because, like, we're, we're only excited to...

290
00:45:01.956 --> 00:45:11.316
We basically, you know, our, our, our kind of, our modus operandi with the show is, like, you go... You have... You can be, you can be a screenwriter all your life or whatever. You won't, you... very...

291
00:45:11.576 --> 00:45:19.396
Even if you're very successful, you very rarely get to have the theater. And at the moment we have the theater. We have a wr- a show that's been running three seasons, people finally paying attention to it.

292
00:45:19.536 --> 00:45:27.996
W- our kind of modus, like, while we have the stage- Mm... we should do all of the stuff that scares us, that intimidates us, that we fi... Like, the dream sequences, all this stuff that we find, like,

293
00:45:28.996 --> 00:45:36.616
a little bit at the edge of, like, "Oh, should we be pulling this off?" We kind of think, "Why don't we just b- do the most daring version of the show?" Because eventually the lights will go off and we'll go on to...

294
00:45:36.656 --> 00:45:41.116
We might not, you know, we might not e- ever get an opportunity like this again, so why not just do it? Yeah.

295
00:45:41.176 --> 00:45:52.656
You said something in another interview too about, like, how when you started, um, like, you had to get your writing up to the standard of the actors, and then how it's like now, uh, y- you know, you're, you're there.

296
00:45:52.696 --> 00:45:56.776
You're at the standard and, like, now you're, like, you know, so... I forget the word you used, but, like, you're just...

297
00:45:56.796 --> 00:46:04.636
You're pushing them so much in the, on the set and now, I don't know, they've got, like, a lot of these actors now are getting bigger and bigger roles. Um, I don't know.

298
00:46:04.696 --> 00:46:14.476
I'm curious, like, how, what it's been like to, like, kind of grow up and foster these people. You're, you've, like, fostered each other. I'm interested in, like, this community you've made. 100%.

299
00:46:14.596 --> 00:46:31.356
I feel like the show throws a place for experimentation, and Marisa, who plays Yasmin, said that, and I thought it was a really profound point, which is like they've done all these other big things, but I think it's because of the, hopefully, the atmosphere that me and Konrad create, and the way that we are, and that I...

300
00:46:31.445 --> 00:46:37.356
hopefully how, how experimental we are, and the fact that we like to take risks, it means they can as well.

301
00:46:37.816 --> 00:46:45.676
But that's only because we feel like we can take risks in writing because we know we have the bedrock of their performances. Mm-hmm. Like, we wouldn't write stuff for them if we didn't think they would do it.

302
00:46:46.236 --> 00:46:55.056
Um, but yeah. I mean, it is, it means, it means that we can really take swings because we can, like, we know that, like, the actors will just make everything feel so grounded.

303
00:46:55.096 --> 00:47:01.036
And, like, if we do things that feel a little more high stakes, especially in this season, and feel quite big, um- Mm-hmm...

304
00:47:01.076 --> 00:47:10.516
we know that the actors will basically bring it back down to earth and make it feel like it's happening to just any old person or, you know, a real person. But yeah, that was not an answer to your question.

305
00:47:10.556 --> 00:47:17.916
No, that's okay. [laughing] But yeah, we love, we love... I know. We are- Yeah. I feel like we've grown up with them as well. I feel like they're just, like, they're... Konrad and...

306
00:47:17.976 --> 00:47:23.136
Like, I think they've got better as actors 'cause they know their characters. I think just because, you know, they've honed their craft.

307
00:47:23.416 --> 00:47:33.556
They've got better, like, maybe an inch, but we've got better, like, like, I think, like, feet because- [laughs]... and we're probably at the same, around about the same point now. They were always really good.

308
00:47:33.636 --> 00:47:40.346
We had to get good. Yeah. They keep, they keep saying on Reddit, like, that they must have fired the industry writers and hired- [laughing]... Succession writers. Like, what the fuck happened?

309
00:47:40.456 --> 00:47:49.516
[laughing] And it's like, and, and they're like... And so, there's so many comments like, "What the hell changed?" It's like, dude, we just improved. Like, if you- [laughing]... and the nature of, you...

310
00:47:49.596 --> 00:47:57.496
The na- the nature of any enterprise is if you do it more- Yeah... if you do it more and think about it more, you get better at it. Yeah. If you don't, there's something fundamentally wrong.

311
00:47:57.636 --> 00:48:05.506
[laughing] Just like any skill. If you... If it, if it doesn't, if it doesn't improve with time, fucking give it up. Yeah. You know? The... So you, you compared it... So you, you said Success- Succession again.

312
00:48:05.556 --> 00:48:14.576
We've, like, said it in a few other comparisons over the course of this. When I was reading all these articles, I, I feel like I've never seen one show compared to, like... And so many other shows used to describe it.

313
00:48:14.616 --> 00:48:23.816
It's like I, I wrote down the list of, like, everything I found. Succession, The Bear, Hacks- [laughs]... Grey's Anatomy, Entourage- [laughs]... Mad Men, If Michael Mann directed Gossip Girl.

314
00:48:24.096 --> 00:48:30.396
And I, I don't know why that- [laughing] Like, and when I, you know, when I first started watching it and I was, like, pitching it to my friends like, "You gotta watch this show."

315
00:48:30.816 --> 00:48:41.624
I'm like, "Oh, it's like, it's like Skins, but they're bankers." Or, you know, that's like my, my ultimate shorthand. [laughs] Um, but I don't know why-Why do people like feel such a need to describe it in comparison?

316
00:48:41.684 --> 00:48:49.744
I feel like it's extreme. I, I think it's 'cause it's not-- there's no IP. It's an original show. Mm-hmm. And it's about a world that people don't really understand and aren't really that interested in.

317
00:48:50.044 --> 00:48:58.054
So people have to basically compare it to something else in order to, in order to, like, in order to get people to watch it. Like- Yeah... and it's, it's, I, I...

318
00:48:58.084 --> 00:49:11.574
It's not like I say, "Oh, it's Iron Man or it's Batman or it's Harry Potter spin-off." It's like, it's a esoteric show about young finance and, um, people in the UK, which doesn't really have any, like, motivating goal.

319
00:49:11.644 --> 00:49:19.804
There's no, like, big thing that's gonna happen at the end, at, at the end of the season. There's nothing that they're walking to-- working towards. Yeah. There was in Season One a bit, but we lost that kind of conceit.

320
00:49:20.184 --> 00:49:31.034
So like, and like, so people have to kind of... People have to, like, mishmash different references in order to sort of work out what it is. And I... It's also, it's kind of a marketing ploy as well because- Mm-hmm...

321
00:49:31.054 --> 00:49:40.884
again, it's like how do you explain the show- For sure... what the show is like, like, on the face of it, and how it actually feels without comparing it to stuff? Like, it's, "Oh, it's a- Yeah...

322
00:49:40.904 --> 00:49:43.124
it's young people in finance." That sounds fucking boring.

323
00:49:43.564 --> 00:49:53.304
[laughs] I also think, I, I think it is actually g- it, it is obviously a workplace drama, but I think it's also a very sweet, generous show in the sense that it's like, it's not...

324
00:49:54.464 --> 00:49:58.394
It dr- Me and Mickey are very happy to, like, talk about what our influences are- Mm...

325
00:49:58.404 --> 00:50:07.314
and then draw on those influences, and then make a kind of pastiche of all of those influences and, like, we- sometimes we're very happy not to hide them. Yeah. Like- Come in, close the door... nothing is original.

326
00:50:07.314 --> 00:50:13.784
No, like- Yeah. Yeah... 'cause yeah, noth-nothing is orig- nothing's original. Like, that's a really overrated concept in our...

327
00:50:14.264 --> 00:50:23.404
A-a-any, anything that you think is original, if you look deep enough, it's, it's ripped off or has many other antecedents. Like, we're just trying to make it our own, and I think, I think people are just...

328
00:50:23.464 --> 00:50:27.664
I think moment to moment as well, it's very hard to categorize the show because it doesn't really have a genre element.

329
00:50:27.984 --> 00:50:37.004
It's, it's part like, it's part financial thriller in Season Three, it's part soapy, soapy love story, it's part comedy. Mm-hmm. You know, there are moments of real darkness.

330
00:50:37.064 --> 00:50:45.364
It's like, I think, I think anything that's kind of... Anything with range, hopefully, and depth and density is very, I think, I think it's, it's really hard to categorize as just simply one thing.

331
00:50:45.424 --> 00:50:48.464
I think it's a huge compliment when people have trouble categorizing you.

332
00:50:48.543 --> 00:50:57.664
Like, Dirt was in The New York Times recently, and you know, for weeks I would get texts from friends being like, "I just talked to The New York Times about you." And I would be like, "You know, was it okay?

333
00:50:57.704 --> 00:51:08.104
Did, did they ask you anything that felt like a fishing question?" And all of them said, "No, the hardest question was they, they asked what else I would compare Dirt to, and I had trouble answering."

334
00:51:08.134 --> 00:51:16.404
And I don't think it even made the article 'cause everyone said something different, like Paris Review meets Gawker, or this meets that, or the... You know? [laughs] And I think- For sure...

335
00:51:16.444 --> 00:51:22.994
nobody wanna just be like, "It's not like anything else. It's singular." But like sometimes things are singular, and to me, Industry- Mm...

336
00:51:23.024 --> 00:51:33.314
you have built something singular, and I think it's a high compliment, and of course it'll have to be marketed with familiar things in the same way that every book is like some variation of Normal People, right? Mm-hmm.

337
00:51:33.314 --> 00:51:44.644
Like poor Sally Rooney- [laughs]... getting trotted out to market every millennial novel in America. Um, but I think you should- They should pair it with visuals... be very proud that you're defying categories.

338
00:51:44.704 --> 00:51:47.454
[laughs] You know? I kind of love... I mean, look- Sure...

339
00:51:47.464 --> 00:51:58.564
my friend, my friend has sent me, and this is, a few people have sent like me stuff like this where like an agent or an executive is saying, "We need something that feels a little like Industry slash this."

340
00:51:58.613 --> 00:52:05.284
And like now we've got to the point [laughs] where we're being referenced. Yeah, that's- And like I don't know what... I, I don't... But that always means something else. That, that...

341
00:52:05.444 --> 00:52:16.584
To one person that means like sex and drugs, and to that mean- Mm... another person it means like intense workplace story. Like, I do think it's singular. Um, I think that's just because me and Konrad... I don't know.

342
00:52:16.764 --> 00:52:25.544
We like, we had no... There was no- we didn't work on anything before. It's not like, you know, Matt, Matt Weiner like worked on The Sopranos and had that kind of...

343
00:52:25.584 --> 00:52:33.784
I know I'm not saying The Sopranos and Mad Men are the same, but like you could feel they kind of came from the same want in terms of like what they wanted to explore and how deep they wanted to go.

344
00:52:33.804 --> 00:52:41.124
And like I imagine maybe if me and Konrad worked on, you know, Laura Norder S for U for eight years, we would write something a bit more like that. But like we hadn't, we had...

345
00:52:41.164 --> 00:52:51.344
We just wanted to write about what we wanted to see and like our experience at the time, and what we created was something I feel, feels very odd. [laughs] Um, but hopefully it's just- [laughs]... singular.

346
00:52:51.504 --> 00:53:03.624
Well, I guess we have to wrap up, but the soundtrack of Industry is incredible, and I mean, I love that Minnie Riperton needle drop while Rishi's destroying the cricket pavilion. I like wanted to stand up and applaud.

347
00:53:03.844 --> 00:53:16.964
Um- [laughs] But you know, an ongoing thing we've been talking about on this podcast is the worst song ever. So I thought maybe we could end by asking you both [laughs] what is the worst song ever? Jesus.

348
00:53:17.024 --> 00:53:28.344
God, that's a really good question. Um- "Barbie Girl" by Aqua would be pretty high up there. Okay. That's, that's a great, that's a great song. [laughs] I, I really, I... It's a real, it's a real, it's a...

349
00:53:28.364 --> 00:53:35.804
It has a kind of radio play thing from my childhood where, uh, where I just, I just remember it was just constantly on when I was going to school, and it became like this horrendous...

350
00:53:35.844 --> 00:53:42.444
It is a great song because it's such a good earworm, but I'm personally sick of it. You're the only person that's said that so far. So that would be my choice. I bet Sweet Pea lines her lips to that in the morning.

351
00:53:42.924 --> 00:53:46.764
[laughs] I'm sure. I'm sure. I, I actually- It is funny. But what I mean is I agree with Mickey.

352
00:53:46.804 --> 00:53:58.784
I, I, it, it is, it is a great song, but it's such a g- it's a great song in the sense that like it, it sears itself into your brain, and therefore I hate it. Mickey? Um, God, it's a really hard question.

353
00:53:59.084 --> 00:54:09.744
Uh, I mean, like bad as in like I've heard it too many times and it's awful and I used to like it, or bad as in like this is just like really just [laughs] this, this makes me feel ill? Yes. Like coming...

354
00:54:09.784 --> 00:54:16.324
I mean, "Barbie Girl" I guess is a, is an example of that. It's something that started off feeling quite interesting and fun and then becoming like the worst thing you've ever heard in your life.

355
00:54:16.584 --> 00:54:26.484
I think probably Crazy Frog. Like- Yeah. [laughs] Crazy Frog, uh, whatever it's called. Axel F by Crazy Frog. I mean, like, it's just like... Again,

356
00:54:27.484 --> 00:54:37.264
it, it took, it took, you know, the Beverly Hills Cop thing, which I loved, and made it [laughs] out of the mouth of a, like, disgusting, like, horrible alien-like frog.

357
00:54:37.304 --> 00:54:45.424
[laughs] And then it was like, in the same way for Konrad, it was, it was like number... Was it number one for like eight weeks in the UK? [laughs] Yeah, it was. It was. Top of the Pops. It definitely was.

358
00:54:45.644 --> 00:54:52.304
We used to have this thing called Top of the Pops, and it used to be like, you know, it was the top 40. Oh, yeah. And it would end with... Yeah, it would end with like the person who was top of the pops, i.e.

359
00:54:52.344 --> 00:54:59.164
the top of the charts, performing live. And I remember when Crazy Frog was top of the pops, like [laughs] they didn't know what to do.

360
00:54:59.564 --> 00:55:09.084
It was just like loads of dancers doing like breakdancing or Crazy Frog playing, probably because my, my daughter has a toy that plays it, and she was gi- Oh, no... she was given it, she was given it like...

361
00:55:09.124 --> 00:55:18.564
She's almost four. She was given it when she was first born, and the fucking thing has not run out of batteries, and it's just like ingrained in my head. [laughs] It's just like- You need to, you need to deactivate it...

362
00:55:18.574 --> 00:55:29.384
it, it, it, it's so fucking annoying. It, it spins as well like that and plays the Crazy Frog. Um, but yeah, that. I'll go Crazy Frog. I, I really, I, I really fucking hate, uh, "Imagine" by John Lennon.

363
00:55:29.644 --> 00:55:40.394
I really hate it. H- not, not through overplay, but it's just the worst song ever. There was that, that COVID moment too. Clo-cloying, cloying fucking nonsense. Rubbish. [laughs] Start to finish, I hate that.

364
00:55:40.394 --> 00:55:51.394
It made the list. That made the list. All right. Well, let's wrap it up. It's so bad. Um, Industry currently airing on HBO at 9:00 PM Sunday nights, right? And about to start airing in the UK? Mm-hmm.

365
00:55:51.394 --> 00:56:05.924
October 1st on the BBC. Yeah, October 1st. October 1st. Watch it. Yeah. This has been Tasteland. This has been Mickey Down and Konrad Kay. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. [upbeat music] It tastes just like it costs.

366
00:56:05.944 --> 00:56:11.724
Ooh, honey.