0:00

So, you open Google Chrome on your phone, you're

0:02

rushing to buy tickets to a concert that all your friends

0:04

are going to. Picture yourself now, crowd

0:07

surfing to the front, being invited onto the

0:09

stage, backstage the world tour, and

0:11

before you know it, you're dancing in Tokyo.

0:14

Wait, what?

0:16

Three tickets left? It's

0:19

a good thing your saved payment details

0:21

auto-fill quickly and securely. There's

0:24

no place like Chrome. Download Google

0:26

Chrome on your phone.

0:34

Hey, what's happening? It's Ben Bailey-Smith and Sasha

0:36

Bates. And we're about to launch into more episodes

0:38

of STB. So, while we do some intense

0:41

and detailed TV watching, I

0:43

know it's a hard job, someone's got to do it. We

0:46

thought it only right and fair

0:48

to answer some of your emails, because we've had such an

0:50

incredible response. You know, I'm always saying, oh,

0:52

post-bag is bulging. We've got

0:54

all these things and you probably think it's nonsense,

0:56

but we do. And we started

0:59

whittling it down. And here's the

1:01

proof. So, we're going to get into your thoughts

1:04

on

1:04

the show, on the characters we're talking

1:06

about, the psychotherapy around them, and

1:08

of course, some of your suggestions

1:11

for the future. Welcome

1:13

to Shrink the Box.

1:21

Here's one, Sasha, on the WandaVision

1:23

episode. Great, great episode. Yeah.

1:25

You were just phenomenal in that. As

1:28

were you. Yeah, no, I was.

1:30

You're right. This is from H. Stuart

1:33

Trostle, who says, Hello to Ben, Sasha and the

1:35

production team. Just listen to the episode

1:37

on Wanda. First of all, my

1:40

condolences to both of you, Ben and Sasha,

1:42

for your losses. Mine was fresh and

1:44

yours was...

1:45

Not so fresh, but feels it at times.

1:48

Thanks, H. He says, I really appreciate

1:50

this episode and its discussion of the processing and

1:52

internalisation of grief, as I had

1:54

a death in my family last year. It

1:56

was not sudden, and I thought I had adjusted

1:59

to the concept of their...

1:59

passing in advance, but then there are

2:02

times, just yesterday, during a film

2:04

in fact, where I suddenly viscerally

2:06

remember they are gone and

2:08

it knocks me out. Thank you for diving

2:10

into models of grieving that address that non-linearity,

2:13

it's very helpful, and I also really

2:16

loved the discussion of Wanda's grief made manifest

2:18

in the world of the show, and it reminded me

2:20

of another character I love, Dr. Walter

2:22

Bishop, played by John Noble on Fringe.

2:25

And he's right when he talked about how it hit him

2:27

suddenly watching telly because we

2:45

are

2:50

constantly getting new triggers,

2:53

and you don't know what's going to trigger you, it can be a

2:55

scene on a television show, it can be going into a certain

2:57

restaurant, it can be hearing a song,

3:00

you kind of never really fully relax

3:02

after you've had a big loss because you can

3:05

be slightly ambushed at any time. But

3:07

hopefully you get slightly better at managing the ambushes

3:10

and they don't kind of take the rug out from under you quite

3:12

so dramatically as in the early days.

3:14

But yeah, hang

3:15

on in there, H. Stuart

3:17

Trostle, and thanks for letting us know. And

3:20

again, you know, I'm constantly banging on about

3:22

great writing, but don't you think like great writing

3:24

in a movie or a TV show?

3:27

That's what it will do, whether

3:29

you like it or not, like not even just

3:31

about grief, but like it will make you

3:34

feel something to the point where you

3:36

want to call a loved one. Or you think, oh, you know, I should

3:38

spend more time with someone. Yeah,

3:41

that gets

3:41

to you on an emotional level. Exactly,

3:43

exactly that. Nice one. H. All

3:46

right, here's another one on Wanda. This is from Sam Gonzalez.

3:48

Hi, Ben, Sasha and the STB

3:50

team. I'm absolutely loving the show. I

3:53

just listened to Wanda Maximoff episode

3:55

and thought your sympathetic review of her actions in

3:57

the show was great. When I watched the show, I

3:59

was more pretty. occupied by her grief manifested

4:02

in the accidental or thoughtless injury to others

4:05

and honestly miss much sympathy with her situation

4:07

overall. So I really enjoyed your views. I've

4:10

got two character suggestions. I grew

4:12

up as an avid fan of Buffy, the vampire

4:14

slayer, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on her, a

4:16

young teenage girl with the responsibility of

4:19

saving the world. Additionally, I'd love

4:21

to hear you get under the skin of Idris Elba's

4:23

morally ambiguous Luther. Yes.

4:25

Yeah, he's an interesting character. He is. I

4:29

think they're both interesting. Shouts. Did you ever watch Buffy

4:31

back in the day? I never watched it. I never watched

4:33

it like from beginning to end. I sort of saw odd

4:35

episodes here and there. So yeah, I quite

4:37

like to really engage because so many people

4:40

talk about

4:40

it. Yeah, my sister's obsessed with it. My

4:42

eldest daughter has watched it all and

4:45

says it's like superb. I

4:47

don't know what it was. It must have been my age at the time.

4:49

Yeah, me too. I think. Just the wrong

4:52

side of whatever, whoever it was aimed at. I

4:54

can't think. All right. Alex Smeed

4:57

in Balfour and says, Hey, Ben and Sasha,

4:59

ever since I heard that the podcast was starting, I've had this

5:01

question in my mind about the premise of

5:04

the show. I'd be interested to know Sasha's

5:06

comment on how far we can

5:08

go in psychologically analyzing

5:10

a fictional character. The psychological

5:13

models are based presumably on research

5:15

and experimentation with real people, but the characters

5:18

in the shows discussed are deliberately

5:20

created by a writer.

5:21

Does this mean that the characters might show

5:24

several psychological patterns they're

5:26

never seen in real life because they

5:28

are by virtue of the genre fictional

5:31

to the writers have to be deliberate in

5:34

adding psychological elements to the characters? And

5:36

if not, does that mean we're actually

5:38

unpacking the psychological makeup of the

5:40

writer rather than the character in

5:42

shrink the box?

5:44

I'm finding the show compelling and thoroughly enjoying

5:46

it. Alex, that is such

5:50

a head spinning question, but I genuinely,

5:52

I really get what you're saying because

5:55

I think I had that question in my mind before we even

5:57

recorded the first episode.

6:00

But the more I consume

6:03

content, and I'll let you speak on this in detail,

6:05

Sash, but I just want to say this.

6:07

I think there's

6:09

things that are said and there's things

6:12

that are unsaid. And you can watch the

6:14

worst TV show in

6:16

the world, terribly written, two-dimensional

6:20

characters,

6:21

awful performances,

6:23

shoddily shot, bad sound design.

6:27

But you could still

6:28

analyze, psychologically

6:31

perhaps, where the

6:34

idea for this is from. Have you ever watched something

6:36

that

6:39

is not ostensibly

6:42

about sexism or misogyny,

6:45

but it's misogynist? And you can't put your finger on why, but you

6:47

can just... There's a nastiness

6:50

to the show that isn't implied. Then

6:52

you watch another show that's smart enough to

6:55

have really nasty content around

6:57

sexism and misogyny. But you can tell

6:59

the writers know that it's a bad thing,

7:02

you know, they're making a point. But

7:04

then the other side of it, for me, just because

7:06

this is all from a layman's point of view, I think

7:09

it's fun to speculate. And I think

7:11

that's the essence of the show,

7:13

speculating around

7:16

this character and what we can

7:18

take from it. But, I mean, Alex is

7:21

absolutely right. The writer is good here

7:24

and they're making the decisions and

7:26

they could be completely misguided in their decisions.

7:29

We always have to be aware that there is the writer's

7:31

voice in there and we are being given a view

7:33

of the world that comes from the

7:36

writer's own. I think maybe

7:38

the reason why so many of the shows

7:41

we look at that have endured are really

7:43

good is because they're American, whether

7:45

it's more common to have a writer's room

7:47

where you have more than one writer's viewpoint,

7:51

which I suppose helps keep it a bit broader

7:54

so it's not quite so one

7:56

person subconscious letting

7:59

their own views.

7:59

filter out. Not that I think that's necessarily

8:02

a bad thing because I think it can be also quite

8:04

therapeutic for a writer to explore

8:06

and for many

8:07

people. Absolutely and sometimes specificity

8:09

is the thing rather than the universal.

8:11

Absolutely. So I think there probably

8:14

is a lot of every writer in every

8:16

character or every scenario and

8:18

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing

8:20

as long as we know that whatever we sort of watch,

8:22

read, hear is always somebody's

8:24

coming via somebody's lens. We

8:27

pick the shows we do because there

8:29

is an inherent truthfulness in

8:31

there.

8:32

I was just about to say exactly the same thing.

8:34

We recognise these people. They are

8:36

internally consistent. So even

8:38

if they do contradictory things,

8:41

there is still, you can understand

8:43

where those contradictions have come about from.

8:46

So I don't think

8:48

it matters that they're fictional. I mean,

8:51

being fictional enables us to talk about them in a way

8:53

that we never could ethically about real people.

8:56

And there might be some anachronisms in

8:58

there or some incongruities,

9:01

but I think most shows that are good have

9:03

an internal consistency.

9:04

Absolutely. And the reason

9:07

that they work so well is

9:09

because there's a truth in there

9:12

that we all sort of get,

9:14

we recognise it. We recognise a

9:16

person who's a bit like that, or we think

9:19

that rings true to me. And

9:21

like you're you're spot on about American writers rooms.

9:24

If you got six, seven, eight people there,

9:26

and one throws out a

9:29

cod bit of psychology, oh, this happened

9:31

when he was a kid. So now he's like that. There's seven

9:33

people there going, nah,

9:34

don't buy that. Yeah,

9:36

you could have one fictional character like say,

9:39

I don't know, for instance, Omar Little, who he looked at

9:41

in The Wire, who has nothing,

9:43

he's born into poverty. And we

9:46

speculated from how he is that probably

9:48

he either had an absent or a neglectful or an abusive

9:51

parent. And that enables him

9:53

to learn how to control his emotions and

9:55

become very calm, cool and collected

9:57

and plan not get carried

10:00

away by temper. Then we saw Shiv Roy

10:02

born into absolute wealth and

10:04

privilege, but similarly

10:07

neglected and abused and learnt to

10:09

control herself in the same way that Omar has.

10:11

So it makes sense. So it doesn't matter

10:14

what the background is or what their reaction

10:17

to it is, if it makes sense within the

10:19

world that they live

10:20

in. I can sort of accept that Omar is

10:22

a murderer who

10:24

I find warmer presence

10:27

than say Conneroy. Alex

10:29

talks about psychological models, but

10:31

I don't really understand what he means by that

10:33

because I think each one of us is individual. We

10:36

can look at theories that you can apply to

10:38

different people, but that doesn't make them, oh, they are

10:40

this model, therefore they will act

10:41

in this way. To be fair to him, I think that's

10:44

what he means. I think he means

10:46

theories that you have things that

10:48

we've all heard about and then things that you've

10:51

taught us on this show. We've looked at several

10:53

siblings and we've seen how they've grown up in the same

10:56

household. They are treated

10:58

differently by their parents, but

11:01

there is a similarity there and yet each one has

11:03

very different coping mechanisms. I mean,

11:05

again, the Roy family siblings,

11:09

one goes off into addiction, one

11:11

goes off into sort of delusions of becoming

11:13

president, one becomes sort

11:15

of a sexual fetishist who

11:18

can't grow up. So just

11:20

because the same thing happens to somebody

11:22

doesn't mean they are going to respond in the same way. We're

11:24

in Bloodline, a very brilliant

11:26

example of that too with another set

11:29

of four siblings, each very,

11:31

very different with exactly the

11:33

same set

11:34

of parents, all treated differently,

11:37

all suffering because of it. So guys, I should

11:39

say, our wall of

11:41

names with the pushpins and bits of string,

11:44

suggestions of characters to do is

11:46

stretching down the shrink the box corridor

11:49

now. I mean, it's nearly out on the street, but

11:52

we still want to hear more ideas and here's

11:55

a few suggestions that have come in just

11:57

recently. Mark Woodruff says, would love

11:59

to see you die.

11:59

dissect Jackson Lamb, Gary

12:02

Oldman's character from Slow Horses, the

12:04

unhealthy, sweary, brilliant spy who

12:06

seemingly never washes and only eats

12:09

junk food. He's an anti-hero for modern times

12:11

and part of TV folklore now surely.

12:14

That sounds like a good shout. Everybody keeps

12:16

talking to me about Slow Horses. I've

12:18

actually read all of the Jackson Lamb

12:20

novels. I think it was about eight or nine. Yeah,

12:22

they are fabulous. And so I was predisposed

12:25

to not like the series, but

12:28

I loved it.

12:29

Helen in Leeds has said Marie

12:32

Finchley from National Treasure and

12:34

Ted from Line of Duty. What's National

12:36

Treasure?

12:36

Oh, that was the thing with Robbie Coltrane as

12:39

the pedophile. A pedophile. Right,

12:41

yeah. Chilling as well. That did look chilling. Line

12:44

of Duty, of course, yeah. And Dave Willen

12:47

says, I would love to know what you think

12:49

about Jack Bauer,

12:50

a character who on the surface is just all about

12:53

the shouty, whispery carnage. But

12:55

deep down he has trouble with his past and family

12:57

trauma and in the later series, issues with exes

12:59

and trust. Dave says, keep

13:01

up the good work. 24, wow. That

13:04

was one of the first sort of

13:06

DVD box sets I remember

13:08

getting like obsessed with

13:11

in a real kind of boy's own way. It was just

13:13

like, he's solving the thing. He's running

13:15

and doing the punching. I knew it didn't have

13:18

the emotional depth that

13:20

I really craved. I could just

13:22

watch it and watch it and watch it and like go

13:24

out for beers with the boys. And yet another guy

13:27

would have the, bloop, bloop, bloop, you know, the little

13:29

sound for his ringtone. I was like, oh, this

13:31

really is like, it's that kind of

13:33

TV. I can't say I ever really stopped

13:35

to think about

13:36

Jack's trouble pass. I'm

13:38

not sure we've got enough to go on really to

13:40

know about his trouble pass. Cause he just

13:43

was such a man of action. We have to watch 24 episodes

13:45

for the size hash. And we've got a lot to get through.

13:48

No, thanks Dave. So listen, after

13:50

the break, we discussed what it'd be like to

13:52

have a werewolf as a client and a listener finally

13:55

takes me to task. It's

13:57

about time. Let's be honest. We're going to be back straight

13:59

after these messages.

13:59

Unless you're a subscriber to The Take, in which case

14:02

we'll be back straight after a shout out to Catherine

14:04

K. Wood, DCI John Luther

14:06

and Wendy Bird.

14:17

Shrink the Box is brought to you in

14:19

part by BetterHelp. It's

14:22

Ben here. I've experienced first hand the beauty

14:24

and the challenges inherent in committing

14:26

to therapy, especially with my current

14:28

therapist who I found

14:30

through, you guessed it,

14:32

BetterHelp.com.

14:35

Now trust me getting to know yourself. It can be

14:37

a lifelong process, especially because

14:39

we're always growing and changing, you know,

14:42

and if I shrink the box characters or anything to go by, there

14:44

really is always more work to

14:47

do. So whether you need to understand

14:49

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14:51

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14:53

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14:58

You're going to get connected with a licensed therapist. It's

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15:03

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Now I feel like a sucker. Oh well, that's BetterHelp.

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H-E-L-P dot com slash

15:18

shrink the box.

15:28

And we're back.

15:29

This one's from Esther Freeman in reference

15:31

to our Mad Men, Don Draper episode.

15:33

She says, you mentioned that your sister

15:36

says the past is a different country. I'm

15:38

afraid this quotation cannot be attributed to

15:40

her. The past is a different country. In

15:42

quotes, they do things differently there. Close

15:45

quote is the opening line of L.P. Hartley's 1935

15:49

novel, The Go Between, the best opening

15:51

to a novel ever written in my honest

15:53

opinion. It was made into a film in 2015 with Jim

15:56

Broadbent and Leslie Manville. And should

15:58

you expand into film,

15:59

it would be a world- worthy of analysis as it's full

16:01

of emotionally complex moments,

16:03

including love, loss, adolescence and class.

16:06

However, if I was to suggest a character from a TV

16:08

show, it would have to be Jimmy McGill, better

16:11

call Saul. Never found him that interesting

16:13

as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. I agree actually,

16:15

they've dug way more into him. But

16:18

seeing his metamorphosis from Jimmy to Saul

16:20

in the spinoff was fascinating. Shrink the Box

16:22

has become one of the shows I really look forward to popping

16:24

up into my feed each week, so keep up the good work. Thanks

16:27

Esther. And in defense of my sister,

16:29

it's probably the way I must have said it on

16:31

the pod. It's actually from

16:34

an essay that she wrote

16:36

in recognition of exactly this.

16:39

So yeah, you're spot on Esther and so is my

16:41

sister and as usual, I am, I am wrong.

16:43

Yeah, that

16:45

is interesting what she says about Saul because I

16:47

rewatched Breaking Bad for

16:50

a Walter White episode

16:52

and I couldn't wait for the Saul Goodman

16:55

moments and I was like, Oh, he's more of a sort of comic

16:58

aside. He doesn't get

17:00

developed. He's like a huggy

17:03

bear or something like that. Jimmy and Stasi

17:05

and Hutch. I also remember thinking

17:07

when they were going to do a spinoff, I was like really? Yeah.

17:10

With that guy? Yeah. But he absolutely

17:13

comes into his own and Bob Odenkirk

17:15

just plays him so well.

17:17

Beautifully. He is phenomenal. And you know, Bob

17:19

in the States is primarily

17:22

known as a comedian and yeah,

17:24

yeah. And an aficionado of comedy and he

17:26

was part of this sort of the

17:29

figurehead and writer on this show,

17:31

Mr. Show, which never came over here, but

17:33

you know, really in that tradition of like

17:36

knock about or sometimes surrealist

17:39

comedy. He's real comedy

17:41

royalty over there. So he hadn't really

17:43

done like a massive amount of drama.

17:45

Oh my God. I would never have known that.

17:47

He was more associated mainstream

17:50

wise. He probably would have been more closely associated with things

17:52

like The Simpsons. Wow. He's a bit writer

17:54

on there and a lot of voice stuff.

17:57

But yeah, he's a proper comedian. I

18:00

think even more kudos to him and

18:02

to Vince Gilligan and the

18:05

writers on the show because

18:07

I think a lot of us expected it to be this explosive,

18:10

you know, sequel slash prequel, you know, whatever

18:13

reboot, and actually is so

18:15

patient and joyfully

18:18

cautious in its storytelling.

18:19

It slowly uncovers the

18:21

layers and I'm going to confess something which I'm

18:24

sure will get a lot of people cross. I prefer it

18:26

to Breaking Bad. Oh do I? Oh do you?

18:27

I like it. But there are even elements to Breaking

18:29

Bad where I think Vince wasn't sure where

18:31

the story was going and I think he's actually

18:34

publicly, you know, spoken about that and he had

18:36

to find it and with Betacal Saw

18:38

it just feels like I know what

18:40

the fuck I'm doing now. Yeah. The

18:42

confidence to give you these

18:45

time leaps and still

18:47

have mystery and intrigue,

18:49

the sense of a life lived as well

18:52

and mistakes made and regrets

18:54

is beautifully observed in

18:57

Betacal

18:57

Saw and I agree with you Sasha, I think it's the better show

18:59

and I don't think that's an insult really because they're both

19:01

great shows. They are. So Vince

19:04

really doesn't have to worry. The man's a genius. He

19:06

is. So you know we've had some people sending

19:09

long lists of characters like just

19:11

like 20, 30, just names

19:14

that they'd like to see in the therapist's chair and that

19:16

is a lot of TV for us to watch but we

19:18

really do appreciate you taking the

19:20

time. So here's a few more before

19:23

we mosey off into the sunset. Chloe Selby

19:25

says, hello team, I've had a run of ideas for potential

19:27

subjects for Sasha to analyze that

19:29

feel a bit obvious but then

19:32

I had a thought about a character

19:34

who really impacted me as a young person might

19:36

feel a bit left field. Oh this is what we like

19:39

Chloe. This is what we like. George from

19:41

Being Human,

19:42

BBC3, I've forgotten about Being

19:44

Human. Haven't seen it. That's great with Russell

19:46

Tovey. Oh yeah oh no look

19:48

she references Russell Tovey here yeah. She said, George

19:51

is a werewolf and struggles with who he becomes

19:53

by the light of the moon. With his two friends

19:56

who are a vampire and ghost they wrestle with

19:58

what it means to really pursue being a

19:59

a person. It's been such a long

20:02

time since I watched it. Same Chloe, same.

20:04

But I remember that Russell Tovey is something of a genius

20:06

in the role, agree. And I'd love to hear Ben

20:08

and Sasha unpick what is going on for him, especially

20:11

as he has a complicated relationship with

20:13

his alter ego when he falls for Nina,

20:16

who I think is the ghost. It's a good one, I think.

20:19

Really enjoy him shirking the box. So thanks for all your work.

20:22

Nice one, Chloe. What is a great left

20:24

field suggestion. And I

20:26

am with you, Chloe. I remember being human

20:29

and I've mentioned it to

20:29

friends and they don't know what the hell I'm talking about. They

20:32

give me the same face that they give me

20:34

when I start waxing lyrical

20:36

about 15 stories high. It's just blank.

20:38

What are you talking about? BBC.

20:40

Brilliant BBC two or, you know,

20:46

alternative BBC

20:48

channel comedies and dramas that just

20:50

never got the right push.

20:53

IMO. My friend Sharon Horgens

20:56

show pulling. Do you remember that? Again,

20:58

just get shunted around style.

21:00

The snookers on it'll be on at 11. You

21:03

know, next week is on at nine o'clock.

21:05

People just don't know how to follow these shows and then they disappear.

21:07

Yeah. And that was a great one. I do remember

21:10

that one. It was brilliant. 15 stories high was Sean

21:12

Lock, much missed Sean Locks,

21:15

a comedy that he wrote and starred in that

21:18

I think is worthy of a shrinker

21:20

box. Actually, it's him and Benedict Wong sharing

21:23

a flat. And Sean

21:25

is this miserly lifeguard at

21:27

swimming pool, basically. But

21:30

there's a lot

21:31

going on in it. Sometimes

21:33

slightly surreal. Set in a block of flats

21:35

in South London, big tall

21:37

high rise. So you get glimpses of these other working

21:39

class lives quite a bit. And it's this

21:42

one of the last sort of

21:43

working class comedies that

21:45

I think I really, really loved.

21:48

You're talking about that. I just had an image

21:51

of the tower block in East London. It made me think

21:53

of chewing gum, which of course is Michaela

21:55

Cole's first series before

21:57

she did the incredible I May Destroy You, which we talked

21:59

about.

21:59

a couple of weeks ago, chewing gum might

22:02

be worth us having another look at. She's

22:04

had a bit of a Vince Gilligan trajectory, hasn't she? Yes.

22:06

Because chewing gum was great, but

22:08

you know, I mean, wow.

22:10

Yeah, it was a hell of a leap from chewing gum to... I

22:12

may destroy you. I may destroy

22:15

you was so powerful and so disturbing

22:17

that when I listened back to our I may destroy you

22:19

episode, the episode disturbed me. Yes. It's

22:22

like, jeez Louise. I know, just

22:24

remembering. The tentacles of this show. Yeah.

22:27

Oh man. You know, I just thought it

22:30

being human, if you did have a werewolf

22:33

as a client, you'd never

22:35

know unless it was like a door knock moment.

22:38

There he goes, by the way, I was

22:41

just as he's leaving and the full moon shines

22:43

through your...

22:44

Yeah, I'd have to be very careful when I scheduled

22:47

their session for... But even if I

22:49

knew, I wouldn't be able to tell you Ben, because obviously

22:51

confidentiality is sacrosanct.

22:53

So what

22:54

are those marks on your arm? I'm afraid

22:56

you can't get into it. Yeah, no,

22:59

exactly. Guys, I'm really worried about sash. Okay,

23:01

we have one here from someone

23:03

who shows us to be anonymous for good reason. They

23:06

say, hello there, I'm really enjoying your pod.

23:09

If you do choose to mention me, please don't say my name

23:11

as I'm a practicing psych therapist. Karen,

23:14

we will not mention it. In addition

23:16

to the relationships you covered and very

23:18

well too, I thought it important

23:20

to include Don's relationship with Anna

23:22

Draper, mad men, because that seemed

23:25

to be the only time he had a relationship with a woman where

23:27

he could be himself, i.e.

23:29

Dick. It was a true friendship and

23:31

not an affair of any sort. She's easy to

23:33

miss. She was the widow of the real Don,

23:36

an unglamorous but authentic woman. She didn't

23:38

feature my... I'll be honest, thank

23:40

you very much anonymous. I completely

23:43

forgot about that.

23:43

Well, we only did series

23:46

one. Oh, that's why, okay. And I think

23:48

she popped up in season two.

23:51

I'm sorry, I'm using series and season interchangeably

23:53

because I'm bilingual

23:56

in English and American. I mean, you're absolutely

23:58

right.

23:59

It was his only authentic relationship,

24:02

I think, from memory, but I haven't, I didn't rewatch

24:05

season two and I had forgotten about her, but

24:07

yeah, if we get a chance to get onto season

24:09

two, I'd love to talk more about her. Maybe

24:12

it was a guilt thing on his part.

24:14

Maybe we'll mention it if we ever do Peggy.

24:17

I'd quite like to do Peggy one day. Oh yes,

24:19

Peggy. She was a great guy too. Yeah, the only

24:22

woman in Sterling Cooper who was allowed

24:24

to actually move on from being a

24:26

receptionist and secretary. She got to actually

24:28

be an ad woman.

24:29

Okay, we've

24:31

got one more for now. It's Paul from

24:34

Nottingham who just says, how

24:35

about Joshua Lyman

24:37

from the West Wing? I love Josh.

24:39

I mean, it's really interesting to think

24:41

back to West Wing having just so recently

24:43

watched Succession because West

24:46

Wing shows these people, they are incredibly

24:49

smart and they've really earned their place in

24:51

the White House and into

24:54

power in a way that the

24:56

Roy kids were just born into

24:58

a sort of powerful family and don't

25:00

really have the skills or the talent to have enough

25:03

to work at it.

25:04

And also I think another time

25:06

that might come might be Succession related. I don't know.

25:09

I don't think we're done with Succession. That's all I

25:11

can say at this point. Sash,

25:13

I always worry when I get excited about all these

25:15

characters because I just think you've

25:19

got your actual real life clients and

25:21

then I just keep throwing shit

25:23

loads of new characters

25:26

on you like every week. How are you feeling?

25:28

Oh, well, now I love it. I love the excuse

25:31

to go back and watch these great shows and some

25:33

seeing them for the first time thanks to your brilliant

25:35

suggestions and to our listeners, brilliant

25:37

suggestions. But yes, of course,

25:40

my real clients absolutely

25:42

come first and always well. Werewolves

25:44

or otherwise? Well, werewolves or otherwise,

25:47

I will never tell. But I love

25:49

the fictional ones because I can talk about the fictional

25:51

ones. And have fun. And have fun.

25:53

You can even laugh at them. You can even laugh at them in a

25:55

way that I would never do with my real

25:58

clients.

25:58

They, I think when they're

26:01

fictional, they're fair game really. We can be a bit more,

26:03

play a bit more free and loose with our

26:05

attitudes and opinions. Don't have

26:07

to be quite so invested in that.