Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Sicily, Alaska, a Northern Exposure podcast. I'm Anne Flynn Terrell. I'm a cabaret performer and MC. I'm Caleb Kohart. I'm a documentary and commercial filmmaker.
Speaker: I'm Amy Gerlich. I own and run a improv and sketch comedy theater in Denver, Colorado. This is a podcast where we talk about Northern Exposure and how it's affected our lives. And we have some amazing special guests.
Speaker: Season six, episode 19, Balls.
Speaker: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Yeah, I read the title of this episode and i knew there was going to be something else that was fun. Here we go. It's time to go bowling, Sicily.
Speaker: Let's go. i again, feel like Our intelligence is being insulted once more with every introduction of different things and different elements. And now we are in a bowling league.
Speaker: Yeah. And now we are defending championships. And now this is apparently something that has happened again and again and again before. With Joel. yeah And we've never learned about it.
Speaker: Yeah. So it – am I correct here? Oh, yes. Okay. So we're back at the theater, though. We start at the theater. Ed is doing grossly. start in – not the actual theater. We start in Heather's house. Sorry. Dad's entertainment room. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. So this entertainment room is perfect.
Speaker: fact Yeah. It's the perfect late 80s, early 90s kind of grays and pinks and overstuffed sofas and a tube, a giant tube screen. and Maurice is touring the house and they're making out like they aren't both like 30 years old. Yeah, like it's gross.
Speaker: They're too old to be doing this. They're not young. How old was Ed in this episode? Like probably 20. Yeah, but his character 24, 25. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah But it felt like they were also trying to make like sex sell this. Like it was supposed to get real sexy. Like we don't need silk stockings. yeah This is northern exposure. This is not what we're trying to do here.
Speaker: I didn't have much on this early makeout scene, although I did like how uncomfortable Maurice was. ah Yeah, I like that they were watching North by Northwest, which is one of my favorite Cary Grant Hitchcock joints. Yeah, that was cool. How many Cary Grant Hitchcock joints are there?
Speaker: Three. And they are? ah To Catch a Thief. ah Isn't it Rear Window? is He's also in that? No, that's that's that's um jimmy Jimmy Stewart. Oh, that's right. It is Jimmy Stewart.
Speaker: North by Northwest, and then he was in an earlier black and white one. I can't recall the name. Oh, Ann is already Googling. No, was Googling. Maybe it's only two, but it's definitely, I know to catch a thief in this.
Speaker: But I appreciated your confidence with which you said three. Yeah, me too. feel like there's three, though. I feel like there's three. I'll buy it. Maybe you'll think of a third buy that dollar. Mm-hmm. All right, back to the notes, back to the notes. It's bowling season is what I said. And now there's a bowling alley we've never heard of. It would be one thing if they like made a joke of it and they were like, just like lightly touch on the fact that they only go there once every six years or something. Like it would be funny to me if they touched on the fact that they've never once mentioned this in an episode. They've never once shown a bowling trophy, but it's annoying when in every episode there's something new and Yeah, Maggie said she and Joel were on a team when? Why would this have not been a part of the seasons before this? You know, and it's cool when you introduce new things in the sixth season of a series, but you have to do it organically and not just...
Speaker: um, busted out like, Oh, Hey audience, you're idiots. Didn't you realize this was happening? Yeah. It could have just as easily been like a new thing, a new bowling alley. And we are doing this thing now. That's all right.
Speaker: say that it was something you had always wanted to do. Yeah. And now you were all doing it. Like it doesn't, you don't have to have a fake backstory that you didn't let us, the audience members into.
Speaker: Oh my God, guys, I was wrong. Four movies. Wow. What are the other two? Suspicion, Suspicion, 1941. Notorious, Notorious. yes That's right. To Catch a Thief, 1955. And North by Northwest, 1959. I remember Notorious, yeah. Incredible costumes in To Catch a Thief. Unreal costumes.
Speaker: So I do like where we jump to after this, which is really the reason that Ed, well, not really the reason that Ed is there, but of course, and it's Haynes is his last name, right? Lester Haynes. Yes. Lester Haynes. So Lester and Ed are hunting, and then I love this full catered meal with a tent out in the middle of a field. Yeah. I i like the, i love the ideal, the early ideals of glamping. This is very early glamping. Now it's been kind of bastardized and turned into a whole bunch of things. But I love the idea of being like out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker: And people hear me? Yeah. Okay. My headset just died. um out in the middle of nowhere. And then you have the all of the luxuries of home.
Speaker: I love that. It's very 1950s. Like we went on a safari and this is our meal. Like it did it definitely reminded me of something you would you would appreciate.
Speaker: I love it. um So they're all sitting, they're sitting down to their like lovely charcuterie plates and Lester wants to produce Ed's script for the shaman about the shaman choosing between his calling and the big city. And we're already starting to get vibes up of, a I don't know, did you all ever see Crimson Peak?
Speaker: ah I love Crimson Peak. But basically, ah people pay a man off to not woo their daughters because they know he's not a kind man. but sure It's a tale as all this time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'm sure that this has to have older analogs.
Speaker: What is like what is one of the older ones than this? Like paying off the the lover who is not the ideal suitor so that the young man or woman can be betrothed to somebody of their stature.
Speaker: My dad said my real dad said that my grandpa offered him a check for fifteen hundred dollars on their wedding day to not marry my mom. Wow.
Speaker: And my dad did not take it, but I feel like. How much was $1,500 then? Yeah, that in like nineteen sixty five The movie theater I worked at that I told you guys about earlier um in college was part of a huge criminal organization ah that was investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. And the concessionists who perpetrated that paid me and another usher off to not say anything. So I took money not to snitch.
Speaker: Holy cow. I hope we're past the statute of limitations. Do you know why they don't sell plastic cups and buckets, popcorn buckets in movie theaters anymore? Why?
Speaker: Because of two movie theaters in Lawrence, Kansas in the late 90s. Wow. All the concessionists would go down, pick them up, wash them, resell them, and pocket the money.
Speaker: And as ushers, they would pay us to not say anything because we were the ones throwing them all away. Ew. Yeah. And it went know it it ended up that it had spread across all three theaters in Lawrence. And it was like a huge investigation. And the reason they got caught is because the ringleader...
Speaker: um started pissing off the underlings. And so they started doing it on their own. And instead of the registers coming up short every night, the registers were coming in over by like hundreds of dollars every night for weeks straight. Whoa. Because they were these were all high school kids and they were all so dumb that they were putting too much money back in the till. But like they were making... Thousands. And as a college kid, they were paying me like a couple of hundred bucks a week just to stay shut. Okay.
Speaker: As long as you wash them good. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. ah So that's the money I took. I'm sure the statute of limitations is that was like 30 years ago. Stories like that at all.
Speaker: Yeah. Sorry. We got to fluff up this podcast, you know? It's okay. i It's okay. Turns out the whole town is in the same bowling league.
Speaker: Getting back to the episode, except for, i will note, none of the residents of Little Italy that we met in the last episode. Yeah. They're gone again. They killed each other in a gang war. They're gone again.
Speaker: Yeah. um Who is the woman that Chris is chatting with? ah We've seen her before. She was, so she was the model. Remember when he was like creating the bug? Yeah, the rush or the bug. Yeah. yeah But like, a ah this is, I feel like we're trying to make fetch happen by bringing her back only as a foil to Chris's true desire for Maggie, which is still wrong.
Speaker: They're pushing it.
Speaker: This whole episode is very interesting relationship-wise, and I know, Caleb, you will have some thoughts about this. I did find Maurice's talk with Ed very interesting and initially unsettling.
Speaker: i did Yeah, i feel like maurice so Maurice has a lot of prejudice against, this time, economic prejudice. He basically tells Ed that, like yeah, this is a fun little fling, but you'll you can never be with Heather because you're not good enough, essentially. can't rise above your your state. Yeah, you can't rise above your state. Heather is out of your league, and Ed takes it understandably Yeah.
Speaker: I would. At this point, I would have just walked off and said, f you. And that's the way that usually things get done is somebody tells somebody that it can't be done. And that is the, that is enough fuel in the engine to actually get the thing done. but Yeah. Oftentimes the greatest things on earth have been done out of spite.
Speaker: I mean, I feel like it's like every conversation I had with my mom when I was a teenager, where it's like, I had to learn every lesson the absolute hard way. And it's like, ah You know, now I know to listen to people's advice, but I remember that attitude. You can't tell anyone something they truly can't see, you know, the future.
Speaker: So, yeah. No matter how bluntly or how carefully you put it, people have to come to it on their own. Yeah. yeah Yeah. yeah You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
Speaker: um So Ed dreams of going out with Heather and not being able to treat her as well as she's used to in this weird, like I don't know, pretty woman kind of scenario. thought that was like legit. I thought they really went on a shopping trip.
Speaker: Oh, in my mind, it was a dream. Where were they shopping? no. Yeah, me too. It was shopping? Yeah. Yeah. But Ed mentioned like when he was Maurice's cleaning that he had to pick Heather up so they could go shopping.
Speaker: Well, then where were they shopping? I don't know. Maybe they flew to Anchorage. Or it was that mystery town where they had that really big theater. It was the mall in Little Italy.
Speaker: It was the mall in Little Italy. Okay. I know we have used this set before though in dream sequences. And I think that's where my brain went because when for sure like when Maurice had the dream about like loving shoes, when everybody was dream swapping, yeah that was the very same set. So this set has been used did i almost exclusively in dream sequences. So my mind was like, here we go. Another dream sequence. Yeah. It was little shopping, little shopping area.
Speaker: okay um and okay so he couldn't he couldn't treat her as well as she's used to for some truly amazing outfits they went deep into the closets of alaska yeah and they got some great outfits out um so have you all ever been on a bowling league yes yeah okay both of you have do you have tryouts for who your new partner is gonna be No, but I found this tryout very fun. Yeah, me too.
Speaker: Yeah. Why? I've never had a bowling partner, so I don't know what tryouts are like. I don't think there are tryouts. I think like that's what's funny about it. So like Chris is trying to get Maggie a new partner so that she'll actually play because since Joel's left, no longer has a partner, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: He's trying out people in the brick where there's no bowling lane, literally just watching their form as they take their four-step approach and then asking them all all kinds of existential questions. Well, it's a lot like when, um, oh my God. Um, it's when, why can't I think Elaine Miles, um,
Speaker: Oh, yeah. She's trying for the dancing. yeah Her dance partner. For Marilyn, yeah. Marilyn, thank you. When she has them walk across the floor. walk, yeah. She's like, just walk, and then I'll tell you if you're my new partner. i mean, it's the equivalent of like, imagine the Broncos head coach auditioning Bo Nix by asking him if he'd ever had any out-of-body experiences. Like, that's what's happening here. It's so ridiculous. You know what? That's ah that's exactly what I thought of. I was like, imagine if Bo Nix. Ha! Well, also bowling leagues aren't usually duos.
Speaker: Like I was on one that was a team. Yeah, I was on want with a team of people. So that's why it was like this implication that it was like a coupley thing, know? and I mean, clearly we all know Chris was just avoiding, like he likes someone. So it's like that thing where you like someone. so you try to set them up with somebody else. to get them away, but also to test the boundaries and see if they actually like you. It's like, i feel like it's classic. It's classic.
Speaker: Oh, no, this is some serious high school stuff. yeah This is the, like, get closer by, you know, by kindness. It's real nice guy nonsense is what it is. It's like, well, I was so nice to you, and I did so many nice things for you. Well, now you owe me.
Speaker: It feels real creepy nice guy thing. Huh, interesting. I didn't see it that way, but i get I can see how you could see that. I am so anti-Chris and Maggie that I will view anything in this light.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I feel like this episode was a good way to kind of bridge that thing they were trying to do with them, I guess, because I don't remember any of the episodes after this episode.
Speaker: because you've chosen to wipe them from your memory or you just don't remember them on your watch I don't think I watched them when I was looking at the time period this was when I was on like I was going on fish tour so I don't i don't think I watched but I was what didn't watch tv in general for a solid year but Well, welcome back to the world of all this TV, because this episode particularly did a lot of bouncing back and forth because there were just the two relationship plot points. Yeah.
Speaker: The Ed plot point and then the Chris plot point and bouncing back Ed being pissed off and then just quitting. i was pretty proud of him. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. But also you're forgetting another relationship that they touched on the Capris. No, I'm not forgetting. I just choose not to mention it.
Speaker: I just choose not to mention it. I feel like Ed needed to quit anyway to make some space because he still works at Ruthann's. He still manages the movie theater. He's still a shaman. He's still filmmaker. He's overemployed. He's doing too much. Yeah. And you can tell he's lost a lot of weight. He's looking pretty sickly this last little bit. I don't think he's looking too healthy at the moment. I mean, I feel like there had to have been so much stress going on. If you know that the greatest thing in your life is ending soon, I'd be stressed out. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um I noticed that his hair care, like whoever was doing his hair also wasn't taking as good care of it to like keep the roots touched up consistently in this last season. and i was like, guys. Yeah. That does not take that much. Like just proper root care.
Speaker: Did you guys notice that kettle chips are back and they are back hard? Mm-mm. Pulling out all the stops? They're in all the episodes, but this one particularly, they're everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker: i so i did I don't know. this is kind of the look We did a little bit of this, I guess, with Chris's... Who is it? Heather? No, not Heather. um What is Chris's ah bowling buddy? April.
Speaker: April, thank you. um How they bring back Bob, the guy that Joel brought out, to see the missing mammoth. Yes. He didn't look the same to His dreads were gone.
Speaker: Yeah. He's cleaned up. I like a strange extra callback, which I'm sure all of these people were just local to the area. So they're like, just bring them back. We just need somebody else. We need more people to fill out this town. and Everybody's leaving because the show's ending.
Speaker: Yeah. Or your agent is calling being like, they could do a they could do another couple lines. The rate is low. Yep. So do do you all want to talk about the Capras? I'm fine talking about the Capras.
Speaker: I mean, Michelle's really good bowling. Michelle? Yeah. Yeah. yeah they Sorry, I was about to start the a sentence, but it did sound like I was questioning you. Michelle? Oh. Michelle?
Speaker: Yeah. um But she's like really good at bowling and they want her on the league. Right. And Phil sucks at bowling because Phil sucks in general. And so they get in a fight, but like this fight blows up to the point where we've all had fights with our significant others, but, yeah and Phil is being a baby, but Michelle just straight up moves out. Like I i dig that move.
Speaker: I dig that move. Wow. I was like, Holy shit. That's a lot. I feel like there's a very different breaking point for men and women in relationships. And I feel like most women keep receipts or they have one particular triggering thing that they push down.
Speaker: They push down and then it gets blown out of proportion because of one little event, but it's a mountain of this thing happening.
Speaker: i can see Phil being a mountain of selfishness and insecurity. And yeah, I, so I, yeah, I could see that Michelle has hit her limit. Yeah, I mean, to me, it was like, yeah, she moved all the way to Alaska for his career.
Speaker: She's always serving him. Like, look at the Italian episode. She's going dealing with all of this. She finally finds bowling, which she's good at and part of the community. And poor Phil doesn't want play because he can't hit a pin. He's not good. So he doesn't want to do It is very Joel of him.
Speaker: It very Joel of him to find something that his partner likes and is good at and then immediately wants to remove everyone from the situation. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. All right. I dig the move you've You've won me over. I dig the move. ah Yeah. Well, if we can if we can liken it to anything. But it is a pretty bold move because like – I guess, well, I was about to say, like, there's not a lot of places to live, but I guess, sure, why not? Like, is she finds a place pretty easily at the back.
Speaker: Well, think about my friend we interviewed when he lived up in Telkina wherever that place is. He that was the first place he went. Right. They had no place to live.
Speaker: So he literally lived in an apartment above the bar and then also worked in the bar. It's like it made sense, you know. I was performing at the Silver Dollar Saloon this past weekend, and so the guy who owns the bar, the saloon, lives above the saloon. like there's And his mother lived up there. There's a full residence. It's not like the Ed room situation, but it's incredible. yeah and like it's My mom used to live in the apartment above a funeral home because her my grandfather was a funeral director.
Speaker: I know this one lady who lives above a theater. but what what ho what Guys, we all live above hell. True.
Speaker: Facts. Facts. yeah I don't want to be the bearer bad news, but I don't think we're going to get to the fourth episode. Well, then let's finish this one up. Yeah, let's let's wrap it up.
Speaker: Let's wrap it up. um Ruthann and Maurice talk about his talk with Ed, and Ruthann is like, listen, I kind of get it, but you're being a jerk, Maurice. You're being a real doo-doo head.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Yep. And i I mean, I love Ruthann. She has to feel at this point like she is just trying to be the voice of sanity in all of these episodes.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, maurice does Maurice kind of gets it, but Maurice also doesn't get it. um One thing I noticed as we're getting back to Phil, do you all think that like Botox wasn't a thing then, right?
Speaker: well Sure it was. Was it? Yeah, low 90s. Yeah. Phil's face doesn't move. A lot at all. yeah When he's talking with Michelle, his face doesn't move. And maybe it's like he thinks that maybe that was an acting choice, but his face doesn't move when he's trying to cajole her back into moving in.
Speaker: That is giving this actor a lot of credit that he is able to make an acting choice in general.
Speaker: I'm not a fan. I don't know if we've established this. I think we have. I'm a fan. think we have. I mean, i feel like we've had a big drop off in listeners for our podcast in these past five episodes. So I think people ah don't think we like the show anymore and are like, I'm done.
Speaker: Oh, we liked the show. I liked the show. I like the show. And I've said this already. There are several episodes I definitely didn't see. And it felt like fan fiction.
Speaker: It was fun. i mean, i ah yeah, they're not. that Is season six great? Absolutely not. But there's definitely some whimsy. It's got moments or scenes or stuff I like about it. I wouldn't call it a complete disaster, but we know a lot of behind-the-scenes shit and we know that someone was trying to kill the show. and it's like I specifically don't like the character Phil Capra and the actor playing it either. Because I thought there were some good things out of this. like I loved the metaphor of
Speaker: Mr. Haynes, Lester Haynes, is producing The Shaman, and his only note is the shaman can't end up with the girl at the end. And so it's just all an allegory for, hey, buddy, you're the shaman. You can't have my daughter. I'm paying you off by producing your entire movie. Also...
Speaker: He can produce an entire movie. He's going to fund a 25-day independent film shoot on film because they didn't have video back then that you could shoot film. I mean, they had video but not film quality. um For $400,000, my God, that's amazing. I'd also like to remind you guys his original script.
Speaker: Ed doesn't get the girl. And remember the Hollywood dude that came up and got mauled by those ah wild dogs.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah He told him that he had to change it to the guy does get the girl. we wanted the happy ending for it to be sellable right so it's like ed went ahead and made that change and then someone was like here's a bunch of money make it how you originally wrote it and it was so odd to me that it was this battle right because ultimately ed had to decide on do i want my original script to be made or do i want this woman
Speaker: Because this man is telling me I can't have both. So it's like, yeah who am I? Am I my script? Or am I now Heather's boyfriend? It was like very complex in my mind, but like maybe it wasn't as as deep as that.
Speaker: No, I thought that was a cool storyline. we're We're not leaning into these cool, heavy storylines, though. no that That could have been a lot of fun to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. But i don't know. i feel like, again, this is just an old trope and we're just kind of making it fit so we can get to these final episodes. We just need things to move the plot along and to get Ed free again so he can be his dreamy filmmaker and so we can start wrapping up ah Chris and Maggie getting together. Yeah.
Speaker: Like, all of these are just necessary movements and pushing pushing them towards the inevitability of the cliff that is the end of season six. They make Heather a real toddler in this episode.
Speaker: yeah They make her very undesirable, throwing a fit. I mean, well, she's been kind of undesirable this whole season. they' They're making her out to not want to do work. The movie theater was gross.
Speaker: They investigated her earlier or when she's the one that left the rake out. So what's-his-face got injured. Yeah. She's always been terrible.
Speaker: Yeah, she's ah she's a terrible. In this episode, actually, Ed has some really great acting moments. Yeah. um Like you can hear the buzzing in his ears of like when you have one of those stressful moments it's where your brain just totally phases out and you can only hear that high pitch, like you aren't intaking any information. It's just survival. i was like, oh, I know that moment.
Speaker: yeah and the moment between him and maurice when he starts crying and he comes back to maurice and like the vulnerability and like the way that maurice folds him in it was just like ah i started crying it like yeah it touched the heart yeah well like this whole time i think maurice was Maurice, as we have learned, is not good with expressing his emotions well. Common theme amongst the men here in Sicily. But he, ah I think he sees Ed as his son in a lot of ways. Like his son, he's been taking care of him since he was 12.
Speaker: He's very hard about it. He's very brash about it. But, you know, he was hurt. But neither one of them is, they're too proud to actually express how they really feel.
Speaker: So this was kind of that moment where we finally got to see Maurice getting to be that father that he has felt that he was.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
