DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation — Transcript

Or she might have just been with very average men and slept with her first woman and then committed international crime. Who amongst us? Hi, I'm Mel Killingsworth.

I'm Stu Willis.

And I'm Chaz Fisher.

And welcome to Draft Zero, a podcast where three emerging screenwriters try to make out what makes great screenplays work. Jesus Christ. We make out a lot.

And in today's episode, we are continuing our deep dive into secrets and clues. And we're going to be talking about the films. The films. We're going to be talking about Side Effect by Scott Seaburns. And we're going to be talking about the pilot of Shrinking called Coin Flip by Bill Lawrence. Bill Lawrence.

Bill Lawrence, Jason Segal, and Brett Goldstein.

Yeah, by Bill Lawrence, Jason Segal, and Brett Goldstein. Part one looked up Wake Up Dead Man, and we started with the model, which I guess was really a springboard about landmarks, hidden and secret. We talked a little bit about narrative velocity and pointers and plants. So quick recap of that is the idea of a landmark as information, but, characters should know a secret in our vocabulary is that characters are aware there is something that they don't know right and that they have to do something in order to obtain that information and hidden is that the characters are completely unaware of the information which is that they don't know that they don't know it and their narrative velocity kind of talks about um how characters are pushed by, I guess, external forces through a story or they're pulled through the story because of something else, some other kind of often more internal factors. Would you agree with that kind of understanding, Mel?

Yeah, I think a lot of pushes are like external forces acting on them and pulled as like they almost have this invisible drag, like a heart string, maybe.

For me, push was being forced to do something, whereas pull is coming from like and internal character desire to do it.

I found a lot for me, a lot of my key learning takeaways are how this is a very almost visual way of working with these things. And so like the push and pull also helps me for that.

I think what I found from the previous episode was that in some ways, I think push and pull are more kind of just, even though it's simple binary, It's more directly useful as a writer, just going, hey, is this pushing the character or is this pulling them? And the kind of oscillation between them can create narrative drive.

Yeah, and I think my key learnings are also very visualization based. We talk about hidden secrets and clues, right? And in a lot of these things, in a lot of the scripts that we've been looking at, we know what the end game is. And then we're working backwards. So visualizing when something is secret, hidden, and where there's clues to them, we talk about, you know, putting this bit of knowledge right in a safe. And if you put the safe behind a picture on the wall, then it's hidden. And then there can be clues that point you, or the characters rather, or sometimes only one or the other towards that thing. And so in a lot of these scripts, mysteries, right, we talked about Knives Out in the last one. And in Side Effects, there's a twist. And then in Shrinking, there's this big character reveal. Well, the writers know. We know what we're working towards in all three of those cases. And then working backwards, making sure that those breadcrumbs, those secrets, those clues, having the visualization of that sort of rubric was very helpful for me.

Okay, but before we get into side effects and shrinking, shall we travel from the future back in time and give the summary of our key learnings from this exercise?

Yeah, okay, let's do it.

Okay, after now looking at four genres across three shows, my key learning is that writers will use narrative point of view, i.e. The audience's relationship to secrets and clues, way more than they use the characters' relationships to those same secrets and clues. That said, my key takeaway from both of these episodes, but particularly this one, is that there are moments of real dramatic and emotional power in either a character's discovery of a secret or in their revealing of a secret.

Okay. Go on.

Hi listeners, Chaz from the future. My key learnings in this episode are going to be around the power of asking the questions. Is this secret from the audience or is this secret between the characters? How is knowledge of this secret made aware to the characters? What special skills do the characters have to show to the audience in order to uncover the information? How does learning like achieving the thing that the character wants what is the cost of it what is what danger does it put them in, and ultimately i am going to really revel in the fact that there's no right or wrong answer to all this but that it will put the audience in a very different emotional situation when they, Characters are being pushed towards finding information versus being pulled towards it. And it's not good or bad, just different.

Mel from the future's key learnings are that in terms of writing for character, that you can set up a lot of landmarks and that some of them will have things hidden behind them and some of those hidden things will have secrets in them. And then how to use clues to point to one or two or all three of those things. And then in terms of audience, how you can write certain things in that might hint towards those clues for the audience that the characters may or may not be aware of. Short and short.

And Stu.

My key learning is that Chaz will take some of your key learnings and present them as his own if you give him the opportunity to speak first. The one, the only one.

Just edit it so that you speak first and it sounds like he's cribbing off of you.

It's fine. I would like people to go, oh, Chaz isn't smart. He just borrows from Stu. That's not true. He's not smart and fails to borrow from to redress this shortcoming, the short version of the key learnings from this is I think, the idea of the cost there's the cost of retrieving information right which in some ways secret and hidden we're talking about they got slightly different costs right that often hidden information is only revealed because you've paid a higher cost. And I think what shrinking kind of brought to that was the flip side, which is that there is a cost sharing information, which is, I think, more relevant to drama. And I kind of wish we dove into a little bit more, but that kind of tension, it kind of ties back to our subtext episode. There's, for some reason, I don't want to reveal this information. I don't want to reveal the secret. So the cost that you are paying by revealing the secret it versus maybe the reward of it. You know, why are you choosing to reveal this information? What do you get out of it is kind of a useful idea.

Yeah. And you may not know, you might not know what is behind that. You know, you want to see it, but you have to pay the cost before you can actually swing that safe door open.

And then you discovered that there was nothing behind that.

Womp womp. Actually, I don't want it anymore. But yes, Chaz and I had had a bit of a back and forth about vulnerability and safety. And I think in Trinking, that is that is the cost, right? That he does have to he has to pay this upfront cost for what he wants.

Okay, yes. Also, with the benefit of being from the future, I would just like to say that when you and I, Mel, were getting into it about vulnerability and I was almost losing my shit, I wish I had clarified what I meant by Jimmy giving over power. I wish I had said, Jimmy is risking losing his relationship with his daughter forever just to have a chance at healing it. And in fact, given I am editing this episode, I may drop this very line in there later. Shall we go back in time and get into side effects?

Yeah. So, in some ways, I think what's going to be interesting about side effects is that it's going to be more simple in this analysis than dead man.

So much more simple. Which leads us to.

I'm going to put you on some medication. We'll get you through this. She looks amazing. She's doing well. She's made me sick to my stomach. We'll find something else. I can get us back to where we were and I promise I can make that happen okay baby so you're feeling better yeah much better, 911 what's your emergency I need help someone's been murdered no sign of forced entry nobody else on the building security cameras made the 911 call herself where's her lawyer she doesn't have one just kept talking about you, I saw her four years ago. I'd be happy to see her have a different kind of experience. And what is going on? Somebody else did it and made it look like me. It's going to follow you around forever. The Oblixir was her idea. Whoever makes this drug go in rich. Either she's a murderer or she's the victim.

Side Effects is written by Scott Z. Burns, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and, is a movie in two parts the reason why i really pushed for it to be here is it's the most successful that i've been manipulated by a film the first half of the film follows emily taylor played by rooney mara who is someone who's suffering from depression as her husband is martin who's played by channing tatum so emily is suffering from depression as martin is reintegrating into society having been released from prison he was in prison for white collar crime uh insider trading and emily's depression and her self-harming is uh treated by a doctor played by jude law dr jonathan banks he prescribes her some medication that medication leads to some sleepwalking symptoms and emily ends up stabbing her husband to death seemingly in a trance Goddammit.

Em! Sleeping again and.

All of that first half of the film is played very much from emily's perspective you're often in her moments of trance and in her moments as she's building up to self-harm or losing focus, um, or in states of depression and sadness. And the second half of the film becomes a very wonder, to my mind, I mean, maybe I love this film because I love both genres very separately. Uh, but the first half plays very much as a, as a genre, uh, a drama about the ills of over-medication of treatment of mental health. And then the second half is a fucking 90s thriller where Dr. Jonathan Banks becomes suspicious, confirms his suspicions, and then must prove that Emily has staged this whole thing to not only get away with murder, but to profit from murdering her husband by short trading on the very drug that Dr. Banks has prescribed her.

It's what she said in her statement. She doesn't remember. She's lying. What is her falling asleep prove? All right, you got to destroy this. You're torturing the poor woman.

If they push just a little harder, just one or two more scenes, they could have made it an 80s erotic thriller instead of a 90s thriller, which I personally think they should have, but nobody asked me.

I could not agree more, Mel.

I really feel like maybe it's a 90s erotic thriller and a early 2000s.

It's not really an erotic thriller. The fact that two women kissed does not make it erotic. Like 80s erotic thriller, that meant something.

Oh, yeah.

You saw skin. You saw a lot of lead up.

I'm just doing the dream. I'm just doing the casting of the 80s, 90s erotic thriller. Like, is it Sharon Stone and Demi Moore? Is it Ashley Judd and who's opposite?

Well, Ashley Judd is your 90s Morgan Freeman-like thriller, not erotic.

Look, Basic Instinct was a 90s film, all right? It did not come out in the 80s.

Sure, you could argue that's a holdover of an 80s erotic thriller that happened to air in the 90s.

Yeah, yeah.

Kim Basinger? No, it would, yeah.

Still Rooney Mara for my money, but you know.

I'm the one who's complaining about your side quest, Mel, and I'm doing a full stew quest right here.

All I needed to do was present a side quest with more boobs, apparently.

No, I mean, we could do the recasting as a queer.

I'm in.

Just keep Channing Tatum and Oscar Isaac.

Oh, Channing Tatum. Well, Channing Tatum has basically already done that if you just excerpt all of his scenes from Hail Caesar.

I mean, and also Magic Mike.

Oh, Magic Mike XXL, my beloved.

All right. Interestingly... The film opens with a cold open showing bloodstains, and there's no characters in that shot. That is purely the filmmakers communicating to the audience, there will be murder. Making us lean forward. There's no character secrets or anything like that. And then the question the whole first half of the movie is then posing is, how do we get to this murder? There's not, I mean, there are questions where we're experiencing them with the characters. Like there's the question being posed by Emily and Martin together in seeking Dr. Banks' help. They're going, how can we solve this?

I can't take the Zoloft anymore. I can't. I'm dizzy. I can't sleep. I have no sex drive. I understand that. This woman that i work with julia she she said she's on this other this new medication and that it's really helping her i thought maybe i could try that.

Right and the drug oblixa seemingly does solve it.

Whoever makes this drug is going to be fucking rich.

And then the murder happens and the question for a short period of the film across the middle of the film becomes who is responsible.

Well this goes one of two ways doesn't it see either she's a murderer or she's the victim of her medical treatment in which case you're the target of a big civil suit and it's either way someone gets punished her or you, You know, the state's enjoyed working with you in the past, Dr. Banks. I'd like to see you consulting with us on this one. This is... Is it?

Is it Emily? Is it Oblixer? And is it Jonathan Banks through his, you know, there is some wonderful social commentary around the sort of economics and the practices of big pharma in the US.

And the gendered application thereof.

But I think I've just felt so deliciously misled because none of that actually matters for the second half of the film. The second half of the film, then it leaves Emily's point of view to the point that she's like actively locked up and there's a shift in point of view and suddenly Dr. Banks is not being pushed by Emily's symptoms or what's happening in Emily's life. Dr. Banks is being pulled by his suspicions There is a discreet moment in the film where it turns He's packing up his office because he's been fired by his partners And he finds an obliquist brochure And he goes online and he finds a study that's been written by, Emily's former psychiatrist And, This was where I went to one of your questions, Stu, like, how does this reveal character? Only a doctor would start rooting around inside a website for the underlying medical studies, right, and then find the name of the psychiatrist on the medical studies. And that's what kicks off everything.

Yeah, I mean, my psychologist wife was like, hey, this is actually a pretty good representation of just like the mundanities of the profession. But that moment really bugged her because she's like, you didn't look up the papers before.

I mean, one of the reasons I guess- Well.

He was getting paid a lot of money. So, you know, I think that probably made him not care.

Yeah. I mean there is a bit of Soderbergh disconnect Emotionally from all these characters But Dr Banks as much as he's, Quote unquote sort of He's the patsy in the same way that Father Judd is the patsy in Waking Up Dead Man He is not a good Person.

Past behaviour is the best predictor Of future behaviour, That's what she said about you, And how long do you two Plan on keeping me here, Why would we ever let you leave? Because. Maybe there's a better deal.

Nobody in this movie is a good person. Arguably, the insider trader is the best person, which is not, you know.

Who committed conspiracy for murder as well.

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.

So I think this film is kind of interesting because the narrative point of view half and the midpoint is all about how you drive the second half of the film, right? So the first half of the film is about, you know, almost a melodrama, I guess, in that what is the effect of this, of these drugs on Emily?

I think the second half is more melodrama. Like, I think it ratchets the melodrama up.

Sue and I adhere to the Stephen Cleary definition of melodrama.

Oh, all right.

Where the key character lacks agency and it's all about the- The effect of something.

Okay, sure. Whereas I'm actually referring to it as a genre.

Have you not listened to our reality?

I have listened to it.

I simply find that he elides a great deal of its usage in classic filmmaking.

But Emily, which is the Rudy Murray character, and Martin, I would say the secret, such as it is, like the information they're trying to learn about is can Emily be made better?

Right.

Like it's a question. It is. Is it hidden? Is it secret? Yeah. Maybe what has happened to her is kind of both. It's more probably present in the audience's mind than banks i think what's interesting about this being banks being a psychologist is that his interest is probably more the way they present him as someone who's more interested in just prescribing the drugs as opposed to revealing the underlying psychology of emily but that's also i think in response to how emily presents which is you prescribe your drugs, right? And they even have Banks' girlfriend, wife? No, they're married, aren't they?

Yes.

He's got a stepson, and she describes him as the person who can write him prescriptions.

Oh, the advantages of having a husband who can write prescriptions. What are they calling him? It's a beta blocker.

So, and what the film is from the audience perspective is, is built around us waiting for the murder to happen from the character point of view, because we're with Emily, I really think the only question is really, yeah, can I, can I be better? Because we're put inside her experience. What is hidden to the audience and coming back to our discussion is the fact that she is faking. Right.

Yeah.

Women do be faking.

So there's no, there's no other than what you pointed out is what is the cure for me and how I'm feeling. There's no secret thing. The secrets are all in relation to the filmmakers and the audience because Emily knows what she's doing at that time. It is the filmmakers only showing us her performance and never showing us her faking.

Emily knows and only one other character knows, but we think no other character knows.

Yes, that is true. But just to come to the structure of the point of view, because I've just done a quick scan of the film, and I think this is interesting. The murder does happen at the first act turning point. It's about 30 minutes.

Yeah.

So, it is like, this is a pretty well-structured film. So, the first half of act two, so the midpoint of the film is Emily getting locked up, right? Right. And then him beginning to, we shift the character point of view and it's him, his practice, Banks' practice beginning to unravel.

Yeah.

Right. And so he's being pushed at that point.

Yeah.

And then it becomes a pull.

Yeah.

But what is interesting is there's still 15 to 20 minutes in that midpoint where it is, the question is, is Emily responsible for killing her husband?

Yeah.

And what makes this work is that is both an audience question and a character question. And I actually say, as much as we feel like the shift of point of view happens at the midpoint to Banks, I really think the point of view shift looking at it now is after the first act.

Yeah.

Right? That's when it's beginning to transition us to really this film is about Banks.

Yeah. You know, I fully agree with that because in asking who is responsible in that section And before Banks has any inkling that Emily's made it up, it becomes, we're asking who is responsible. Is it Emily? Is it the drugs? Or is it Banks? Yeah. It's Banks who has stakes there, right? Emily, I mean, Emily does have stakes. If she's found guilty of murder, she'll go away for the rest of her life. If she's found to be the victim of a drug trial gone wrong, then she won't. So it's not to say that she won't have stakes, but the film is very much focused in Banks' stakes.

Skeeter, where's the doctor in all this? What's his or her responsibility? Well, I'm sure people have a lot of questions for him.

And he ends up losing everything. I mean, not everything by the midpoint, but he certainly, his career is starting to tank. And then as he starts to suspect, Emily, and this is going back to your earlier points, Stu, this becomes a much more traditional detective story where he is pursuing information and every time he learns a piece of information, it does cost him something. At first it costs him his business partners, then it costs him his relationship.

Well, the information doesn't cost him his relationship. His obsession costs him his relationship and refusal to engage with.

Yeah, but the point is there is a cost to be paid in order to obtain the information.

Yes.

To stay on target, to stay on the mission.

He could do both. He has enough money, but we'll go for it.

And then he eventually loses the lucrative drug trial deal with Delatrix.

So, the reason I called. I mean, with all the attention in the paper on the Taylor case and with the ethics probe and such, I wanted to tell you that we need to ask you to step off the study. I'm sure it's all blown out of proportion, but we can't have you on the payroll now. I could be anonymous. Still do the work. I'm real sorry. I feel horrible about this. Maybe you can be part of another study when this is over. All right, then. You know, the funny thing is, Sadler Benelux in the toilet were up like 30%. What? I mean, the guys down on Wall Street are cashing in because of what happened with the Blixa. Worked out super well for us.

I think that it's similar to when his relationship breaks up. It's actually the exact order, the escalation of it may reflect his character to what's worse for him, losing his relationship, losing the drunk dial. But the fact is, he pays a cost at every point.

Yeah, yeah. But he perseveres, and ultimately he manages to, the up and comes to both the lesbian murderers.

How is this film not noir?

Okay, definitely not lesbian, at least one bisexual.

Sure.

Possibly both.

She was not having fun when they were having sex.

No, no, not the one time we saw, definitely not.

Actually, no, there's two sex scenes because they make a point of she gets her libido back.

Oh, sure. So technically three. We see one twice and then we see the other one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, definitely one bisexual and one person who may be bi or may have only just, you know, been head comp and figured out she was bi later in life. We're not sure. Or she might have just been with very average men and slept with her first woman and then committed international crime. Who amongst us?

I mean, there's a reason you're in Australia or never get back in the US now.

Maybe.

But I wanted to point out that with this genre shift, changes the characters' relationships to secrets and clues.

Is it a genre shift?

I would say yes, because I think the film, I came into the film expecting a Soderbergh thriller, and then I was like, oh, I think I'm in a drama, and then it becomes a thriller. The fact that we are so much in Emily's point of view and in her performance and look, whether we think it's a genre shift or not, there's a change of point of view and there's a change in relationship to the characters and the secrets, right? In the first act and possibly even the first half of the film, there is only pushing and it's pushing and all the characters are aware of all the secrets. The only people being played is the audience versus the film.

The characters are aware of the secrets that they're holding.

Yes. But Dr. Banks is not trying to figure anything out.

He doesn't know there is anything to be figured out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though it's right in front of him.

The landmark is there but.

He doesn't realize that it's hiding anything.

But neither did the audience and this is what i mean about the genre no one is being in the first half of the film is being prompted to ask the the questions unlike dead man uh wake up dead man i keep wanting to say dead man walking but other than wake up dead man like that is a murder mystery where we know that there is going to be a murder this has a cold open saying there's going to be uh blood but by By the time that murder rolls around-

We don't even think it's a murder at first.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we're being actively encouraged to buy the filmmaking to- you know question that and go is this doctor at fault what's going to happen to this doctor like all the the film is trying to ask us different questions and it's only when dr banks is kind of tweaked as to is emily faking it and then there's a series of steps that he must first prove to himself that she's faking it and then he must try and prove to others that he that she's faking it And there's this incredible scene that I think goes to your example, Stu, of what could only this character do to pursue the information.

To discover.

Yeah.

That's the word. Discover is such a powerful verb, I think, idea.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel that Dr. Banks is fairly confident at that point that Emily is faking it and he wants evidence. And so he convinces her to take truth serum and and he tells her what all the side effects of truth serum are like what it what it feels like what she's going to do he gives her the truth serum and then she doesn't reveal anything she continues her story he then shows that the video of that interview to the prosecutor and the prosecutor's like what the fuck's going on And then Dr. Banks says, I didn't give her truth serum. I gave her saline. She is faking it.

You don't put in a performance like that on salt water. Call the hospital, order a blood test. You won't find any ametol in her system. She's been lying this whole time. Destroy that, Call the hospital order a blood test. Not a chance. We have her arrest her. Dr. Banks I want my life back! Destroy it before it destroys you. No She knew the safety features of the car before she drove into the wall. You don't want to be saying that to me or to anyone. There's another thing. Stop talking Dr. Banks. Stop! It's too late! Millions of dollars were made somewhere. No, you could have worked with us. I asked. The verdict's in. It's too fucking late for whatever that circus is that you just showed me. You see we can't just start over. We have double jeopardy laws in this country. Check her bank account. We did. We always do. Nothing. No insurance policy, no stock holdings, no inheritance from Martin. She's not depressed. Yeah, and you didn't catch it and someone died. And I didn't catch it. And someone didn't go to jail. We failed. See, that's what your little stunt proves. If it proves anything, it proves we got beat. And that you lied to a woman who's not guilty about what you were putting in her arm no i don't know how you feel about that but i would rather it stayed between you and me.

And that's when dr banks's suspicions are confirmed the audience's suspicions are confirmed and only a doctor could have pulled off that that piece of discovery.

And i actually have to say em love that scene because she felt the dubious ethics of it were very well represented she's like what you're doing is so wrong and then the guy is like this is so wrong let's never talk about it again get out and she was like i applaud them for acknowledging the dubious uh ethics of it.

Well they're both it's, They're both on it. It's very unethical for him to have given her truth serum and filmed it. And then it's unethical for him to have, like, it's all, it's great. It's really very sticky.

Yeah, yeah. And look, I think, what are the landmarks? What is the information that the characters and the audience, because I think thinking of, as much as I'm talking about this is about character, I hate to acknowledge that you may be partly right, Mel, just a little bit.

Just cut off a baby Jesus' arm.

The thinking about landmark secrets and hidden is, it's also useful in terms of audience, right? What is landmark? What does the audience just know? What do they have to, the secret is, what do we kind of have to do? Two plus two equals four to solve. What are we kind of being proactive about? And Sötenberg is one of the great directors of making you work for it, right? I think his absolute ability as an editor, like he's a phenomenal editor. And that's because I think he's so good at juggling the audience's ability to fill in gaps. And then what is hidden?

Well, the opening scene shows that it's all about the audience. Not like the opening scene showing us the boat and the blood and the overturned chair in a room that we come back to before we even see all of those things. And so we can say, oh, this is the room I saw before. It's only for the audience because there's no characters in it.

Yes. But Emily's pre-planned this. so it's actually it's a landmark for the audience it's a secret for her and it's completely hidden i mean this is all narrative point of view stuff and it's completely hidden for banks like banks has no reason to know that even exists as a thing right but i do think that's kind of interesting in terms of character motivation because look i've only seen this twice so i think and it's been a It's probably been a decade since I saw it. I probably saw it not long. Came out and chas was like this film changed my life.

I don't think he said that but.

You very much liked it and i think you you and i have like long admired films that have done genre shifts or character view point of view shifts and i think this is a good example.

I admired how successfully manipulated i was that it was only when it revealed i thought it was about dr banks losing his mind at the beginning of the second half and it was only when the film started confirming that he was right that i'm like oh i'm in a totally fucking different movie now right so that's what i admired is how successfully manipulated i was so.

I mean here's the interesting thing what are the clues you know like i think the film even more than dead man dead man knives out dead man waking oh gosh this is terrible hopefully amusing though like this is actually clearer with like this is a clue right like you look back and you're like she's doing rudy mara is doing a really interesting performance in that when you know what she's doing you're.

Like oh.

Yeah this feels somewhat performative.

I mean just to give an example of that like as i was re-watching through this lens there's a moment in the first act or the first third where rudy mara is waiting for a subway train and she's in a sort of trance-like state in seemingly induced by the drugs at least that's what the filmmaking is telling us like the the sound changes it kind of gets sort of slow motion it kind of gets blurry the film is leading us to believe that she is considering killing herself and she's like putting herself near the edge of the train and thinking about throwing herself in front of it. And a police officer grabs her. And it's one of the few moments in the first third where it tilts, it tips its hand to the reveals that are going to happen in the end of the film. Is there is a close up of her clocking the name of the police officer.

Sheehan or something. Yeah.

And there is no reason for her to do that if she wasn't faking. And it's this it's very incongruous yeah right and it's the one point where the filmmakers i feel are are tipping their hand in that first third to the fakery and it's interesting from an editorial decision because they often go and reveal that stuff later you know they recontextualize all these scenes that they've shown us in the first third and that was because i was looking for it this time around having known how it ends that it that i noticed it.

Yeah you've read this script male.

Well i mean obviously this.

Script the script i actually i didn't give up reading the script but it actually started confusing the issue because it is wildly different than the film it is different in the fact that it either takes the exact same scene maybe cut some lines and juggle some lines around but the exact same state and puts them in a completely different order or it takes the very kernel of the scene and changes every single detail about it. So there's, for example, the first scene where we meet Banks in the script, he's talking to a quote unquote gangbanger who has swallowed batteries and is like getting violent. And then in the movie, he's talking to, he's talking French to a Haitian immigrant who is seeing apparitions of his dead father. And he's explaining the cultural significance of that. Like the scenes, the basics of here's this doctor and he knows a thing and he's dealing with a patient who is having mental issues are the same. Every single detail around it, every bit of his dialogue, every way he talks to the guard, every thing that he is touching in the scene has changed. So it was difficult to try to analyze any of the clues and things from that aspect.

So I jumped quickly to the subway scene in the script. I just did it then. And they do write Emily clocks the cop's badge. She calls out his name. And then it just goes out, right? Whereas there's a version of this, which is the kind of version that I would write, which would be like Emily clocks the cops badge, a moment of lucidity or like you kind of want to underline that it's slightly unsettling, which is something that I think the dead, uh, dead men knives wake script does really well. If anything, I would say, if you're going to spend an hour, don't listen to the hour you've just listened to with us. Don't spend an hour listening to us talking about Dead Man Knives Out. I'm getting it wrong unintentionally now. Wake up, Dead Man. Read the script. The script is so good at playing the levels of what it wants us to pay attention to and what it doesn't. It's actually a masterclass in the revelation of information on the page. The least of 40 pages I read of it. Oh, this is really good. To the point where they actually include diagrams and pictures in the script to help communicate ideas. Because you know what? Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. Don't waste my time trying to write a page describing things when you can just go, here's the fucking illustration of how the church is laid out.

Especially when it is so important how it looks is such a key detail of the character's discovery. Yeah.

Can I make some observations on side effects just in relation to two different halves vis-a-vis the questions that you alluded to in the opening of this? So, I think the first half, the relationship between the secrets is between the audience and the filmmakers and not between the characters. There's really only one question to resolve and it's not a secret between anyone.

Though, I think it is worth knowing, Emily knows what she's planning to do. Oh, yeah. And she's acting in order to keep that a secret. So, I think the filmic representation of that is somewhat consistent with her character. She is deceiving the world, so the filmmaking is deceiving us.

Yes. and then only when dr banks has kind of has things at stake when there's danger for him to not act, does he start pulling rather than being pushed is it danger or.

Is it greed because he is certainly motivated by greed by the end.

Oh definitely but but there's stakes for him sure there's no stakes for him in the first half of the film.

No, but I think he's pulled in that, I think the observation, which I think kind of which character makes that he's attracted to the wounded bird.

Do you think I screwed up? I don't know. I noticed the Taylor woman in the waiting room. She was very attractive and a wounded bird. Fragile. Would you have treated her differently if she was a man? Gene, that's not what happened. Maybe it's time for you to slow down. Your client load is down. Get some cheaper space. Focus on what's going on with you. Unbelievable.

I think he is attracted to Emily, whether it's a sexual attraction, a need to be a savior. He wants to learn the secret of her, which is, can I make her better?

Yeah. And then once- So, basically what I'm trying to get to is there's no right or wrong. It's just these two halves of this movie have very different narrative effects because of how the characters are acting in relation to secrets and clues. And in the second half as soon as dr banks is being actively pulled to find out for himself whether emily is lying and then prove to others that emily is lying with each step then it starts doing the there must be higher stakes for there's an escalation at each point because i don't think it would be narratively satisfying if the stakes weren't escalating with the information there's there's a difference between the first half as to what keeps the audience engaged where these characters are being pushed seemingly by external forces versus being pulled into agency to try and unravel a mystery and i think you know the costs and stakes are about that and then, Dr. Banks is, they very much lean into not only the stakes that he has, but his skills as a character are what leads him to unravel, not only unravel the mystery, but then also deliver to his perspective justice, right? Because the big ending of it.

Yeah, the denimate.

Is that Dr. Banks, the audience is led to believe that Emily will actually get away with this. Emily will throw her co-conspirator, played by Catherine Cedar Jones, Dr. Seabert, under the bus. And she will have actually gotten away with it. She will have gotten away with murder. She'll get away with the money and the she's played as a psychopath essentially at that ending she will give up whatever it is that she needs to get what she wants and because she's already been found not or guilty by insanity by a jury and she's done the deal with the prosecutor to get to give up her co-conspirator we think she's gotten away with it but what dr banks knows is that she is released under his care and he then threatens to drug her out of her mind for the rest of her life as his revenge on her like he's not a good guy no one in this film is a good person they've.

Done a good job of that journey.

In terms of.

Our understanding of the character he comes off he speaks Haitian he.

Seems very.

Understanding and then by the end of it you're like he's a prick.

Yeah. Who treats women abysmally.

Yeah. I mean, and I think part of that one is there's a secret that he's never answered, which is, did he abuse one of his patients? And the film just doesn't answer that. Right. And I think that is a deliberate choice from the filmmakers. And it's a secret. It's not hidden. It's a secret in terms of the audience's experience, because we know it's an active question about his character.

It seems no one really knows for sure other than the patient and him.

Yeah. But it doesn't answer.

He was prosecuted. There was stuff in the news. Other people know that there is suspicion, but he vehemently denies it, etc. And they clearly couldn't prove it. So it remains a secret.

You just have to move countries.

But I think that's a choice.

I agree. It absolutely is a choice from the storytellers.

It's great. I think it's a great choice, actually, in terms of the power of secrets. It's like, let's create a secret about a character, but actually just leave it as a secret.

And, Mel, you were talking earlier about landmarks and secrets that everyone knows, like the difference. And Stu was talking about, well, maybe narrative point of view and the audience relationship to these secrets is potentially as important. And there is a different narrative effect for that, which is very much shown in Shrinking, where in the Shrinking pilot, everyone but one character is aware of a crucial piece of information that the audience is not aware of.

What's on your mind today? Like, I want to change, but I'm not particularly open to make those changes. I'm trying. Every time I get rid of one compulsion, another compulsion comes up. Are you yawning right now? Spoiler alert, I feel like I'm stuck. How does that make you feel? Jimmy! Liz! Hey! It's three in the morning. I'm sorry. What's in that bowl? Pretzels! The other bowl. Maybe some painkillers. Maybe? There's painkillers in there, yeah. I have to ask, is this you forever? I don't know. Oh, hey. Paul. I'm worried about you, kid. I've been grieving her. You've been nooming. Stop. You're doing sad face. This is just face. I have resting dead wife face. He just kept on going on and on about how dumb I am. But he loves me. Your husband is emotionally abusive. He's not working on it. He doesn't intend to. Just leave him. Okay.

Yes. So shrinking. And shrinking is very interesting. Interesting because unlike the other two where it's a closed loop right like in side effects at the end it will always remain a mystery whether banks did this or not it's a secret that they use where this is a pilot so it's setting up a world it's setting up characters but it's also setting up a lot of things that will play out down the track uh and so we don't know necessarily what things may be secrets here will come to light later um but.

Well i mean what are psychologists but detectives of the mind, which is why we should talk about The Cell instead.

Wait, the Jennifer Lopez one or the- Yes.

Correct.

Yeah, great. Just checking.

I love that you reach for that. Is it 1990-something? 2001, I think.

That's a very specific poll. I'm going to let you Google that.

I saw it at the cinemas, so- That is-

I was not in cinemas at the time.

I was in the womb.

So shrinking the pilot is we meet Jimmy, who is a therapist and a neighbor and a dad who is absolutely not even a little bit OK. He is severely fucked up. And the pilot is introducing us to this world and this character. It also Jimmy gets a new patient. we meet jimmy's co-workers we meet his neighbors and the plot as it were is he's trying to mentor his relationship with his daughter and as he's navigating his friends and co-workers and new patients finally his frustration boils over and he tells two of his patients exactly what to do he he kind of has this backroom thing of uh telling his boss he's like i'm so tired i know what they should do why don't we just tell them and then so breaking a lot of therapy rules he tells two of his patients this is what you should do with your life you should break up with your partner it's never going anywhere he's a he's a drag he's emotionally abusive he's a piece of shit leave him or i'm not going to be your therapist anymore and he tells his other uh patient who's who's quite new to him you know this is exactly what you need to do and then they start hanging out outside of therapy and and doing some other things that are uh questionable ethically and both of these things come to backfire uh so that's the summary of the pilot uh now the thing that is a mystery in this is not exactly... The mystery isn't what happened so much as how it happened. So we know that Jimmy is really depressed and upset and that his wife, Tia, is no longer in the picture. We find that out quite early. But we don't know, did she have cancer? Did she divorce him? Are they, quote unquote, on a break? What is happening here? Is she a figment of his imagination? And he's really spiraling. Like, all of these things are potential to us within the first, you know, five minutes. and then the episode eventually makes clear exactly what has happened to put Jimmy in this mental state.

I think what's interesting about this film, and I know I was kind of pushing you in the Discord to talk us more about character, but I think the interesting thing about secrets is a very simple concept for relationship with the audience is pilots are usually very good at saying, this character has a secret. We don't have all the information about what's happened to them in the past. This could be a wound. It could be, uh, it's usually a character wound or a ghost. There's lots of terminology about that. And Jimmy's one of those characters, right? And they do that with a number of characters. What is interesting about what shrinking being detectives of the mind is there's a couple of secondary characters.

Psychological vigilante, psychological.

Yeah. you can you're welcome to call Emma a psychological vigilante and see how that part that's.

What they refer to themselves in.

The pilot.

It's a gag in the pilot.

Look we know what they should do you know why because it's pretty fucking simple I get sad when I do this thing maybe don't do that fucking thing, We know the answer. Don't you ever want to just make them do it? Great idea. We just rob them of their autonomy. Any chance they have to help themselves, right? And we become what? Psychological vigilantes? Oh, my God. I'm, like, sensing the sarcasm, but that sounds kind of badass.

Yes. They are. So, yeah, he calls himself a psychological vigilante. But they've got... So that's in terms of, like, there's a lot of shows that will, you know, I'm thinking Six Feet Under, right, is all about a show that's all about the characters' secrets and the secret lives of people, right? This film, in a way, is about sharing our secrets with each other, right?

Yeah. Audience, imagine me cracking my knuckles because, boy, am I ready to answer the question that Stu's about to ask.

No, I'm just saying that it's got, like, specifically Grace and Sean are two key characters. Like, they introduced about five or six characters in a montage sequence that are Jimmy's patients.

This time it was my fault. I left my sunglasses at the store and he was like so mad we had to go back. Fucking barista, don't ask me to spell Dan. Turns out they weren't at the store. They were just on my head. Am I just going to be alone? Am I just going to be like a very successful man on my own? I can't not bite my nails if they're uneven. And how are they never gonna be even all the way? That's insane. Who's kind, someone who's smart. When I was growing up.

And they all have shit going on. And over the course of the season, we're going to learn that, right? Like what, why they behave in particular ways, what they're talking about. So it's in that montage is actually creating secrets, which is what the fuck is actually going on, both for the audience and Jimmy. We're in Jimmy's point of view, they're his patients, but that's a pull for the audience and for Jimmy. But in particular, that is Sean. His motivation is Sean is a veteran. He's prone to kind of violent outbursts. He's been in a quote unquote bar fight, which turns out where he basically nearly beat someone to death. And it's like, why is he like this?

I'd like you to give me another shot. Okay, look, I'm on a level with you. Last time you were here, I was probably a little high and drunk from the night before. I'm going to go and do some shit. But look, Sean, you and I, we have to talk about this. This is not somebody who got into a no-big-deal bar fight with you. This is somebody you kept hitting over and over, even after they were unconscious. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Well, what sets you off? Anything. Everything. Somebody bumping me. Somebody saying some shit. Somebody breathing wrong. When it happens, I just snap, and then everything goes white. I don't even know what the fuck happened until it's all over. Can you make a stop?

These are the things that are kind of secrets. They're questions, but they're secrets. What has happened to Sean? He's not very forthcoming in this episode. And Matt pulls Jimmy along. And honestly, at least from, I've only seen the first season in the beginning of season two so far. But Sean's story is absolutely what kept me hooked. You know, Jimmy wanting to be a better man, which is kind of the other thing, the other plot question. The character question is, can Jimmy be a better person? But I don't think that's a secret.

Define better. Do you mean by healed or do you mean by goodness?

I mean by not doing bad things.

Okay.

I'm with Mel in that it's healed.

I mean, this is an interesting question. This is a very philosophical.

And I've also seen I'm completely current with this show as well.

Yeah, me too.

So this is a very interesting, like, seeing where you're asking.

I would say I'm a materialist in many ways, right? I'm more interested in the material good in the world and the spiritual.

Sure. To me, the pilot specifically is really setting up that he may be a good person and be incapable of actioning that because of how damaged he is by losing his wife. And how he lost his wife is a big part of why he's broken the way that he is broken.

Yeah. But he is causing harm to particularly his relationship with his child.

Certainly.

Is where we're seeing he's causing harm to his child, and he may or may not be causing harm to his patients by jimmying them.

And that is still a major question in season three, which is great.

So, yeah, to timestamp this episode, we are, I think, is it seven episodes into season three?

Yeah.

So, I'm also current in season three. And part of our thinking in choosing a TV pilot is to go, well, how do these setups and payoffs and reversals, how do these secrets play out over a series or multiple seasons of a show? But I actually, I'm more than happy to just discuss how they use it just within the context of this one 40 minute episode of TV. And again, there's, there's lots of, so everyone in the show, all the major characters, because, okay, so a pilot, they're not trying to keep you hooked using the mystery that's going to be played out at the end. They're trying to engage you in the characters and the relationships and the fuel that that is going to generate and in the situation.

They want you to pull you into watching the second episode. They're not going to be ever going to be able to push you into episode two.

I think that's separate from them. It's setting up mystery for the characters, but it's also answering the mystery of what happened to Jimmy's wife. Essentially, that is.

Yeah, yeah.

So it answers one and sets up several more.

You're absolutely right. I just want to say, the reason why I'm making the observation is that they've chosen different tools because of their intent.

Right?

So, in this show, everyone except Sean, the veteran with PTSD, knows that Jimmy's wife is dead. Everyone except Sean. Right? And they withhold that information despite every character knowing it from the audience until Jimmy confesses it to Sean.

Yeah, not how you feel. Fuck you. My wife died. Yeah, she got killed in a car accident. Last time I saw her, we were in a fight, so it was pretty brutal. Sometimes a really great memory of her will just sneak up on me. It's usually like a dumb little thing, you know? And when I come out of it, it's just so awful here without her. But I hope that someday I can remember her and I'll feel that way. You supposed to be telling me this shit? Definitely not.

So that's the mystery and the secret that you're talking about, Mel, but it is a mystery and a secret from the audience.

Yes, but there are so many landmarks and clues and hidden, about what did happen to her along the way to the audience. The characters probably don't even notice it because they've been living with this for a year, which is why it's perfectly natural that they're not saying it to each other.

I mean, here's the interesting thing, and it's hard to fully see this in isolation, because at least, you know, I've seen the first season. Are the characters around Jimmy aware that he had a fight with his wife and that's why she was driving off.

Right?

At that point in time. I'm not sure they're aware of how he emotionally, his guilt that he's feeling. About driving her away and therefore his sense of responsibility.

Do you mean during the pilot or do you mean when the event in the pilot it's a year later yeah.

I don't think he's i don't think he's offered that up yet i can't remember i'd have to re-watch it.

I actually can't it's been a while since i believe that um so jessica williams who plays his wife's best friend gabby i believe she knew um but i at this point in time and then that the relationship slowly or that that information slowly gets trickled out to everyone else through the season i could be wrong can.

I can i i'm i just i i'm gonna this is gonna burst out of me i need to lead with my key observation that in this storytelling approach where the key that everyone in the audience, sorry all of the characters have all the information they need and that the mystery is in relation to the audience, the moments of power that come, are not when the audience learns the information, it's when the characters reveal truth. Okay, and I've got a few moments of those. Stu, you've already talked about the montage of Jimmy's patients and there's a certain bit of the montage where all of his patients say, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck. And it's clearly a metaphor for Jimmy being stuck. We have seen, we are being introduced to how his life is stuck in the grief.

I mean, I'm not sure that's a metaphor. It's quite direct. A metaphor would be that his patients are like their car is stuck in the mud, right? And he's trying to help them pull it out.

Sure. Okay. Sorry.

It's a literary device.

Yeah. But Jimmy actually acknowledges that it is, that he is also stuck later when he's telling Paul, his co-worker, his mentor, his boss, the owner of the practice, he's telling Paul that he would like to tell his patients what to do. The secret that Jimmy is keeping at that point, the only secrets that kind of happen is that Jimmy starts, as you've said, Stu, starts behaving differently in relation to his patients, right? He starts telling them what to do rather than trying to encourage them to change by themselves. He keeps that secret from his co-workers. And then when they find out about that, that's a moment of truth.

Listen, why aren't you answering my question? Because the shit with Sean is so unethical that I feel like an accomplice just listening to you. So I'm going to focus on my shit and not on whatever the fuck that is. I need you to be excited for me.

There's when Liz, his neighbor, who's been raising his daughter for a year, when she says, in the same conversation, is this you forever?

Jimmy, Alice is amazing. And before you know it, she's going to be gone to college and you're going to wish you hadn't screwed it up so bad that she never wants to come home. I think I may have already done that. Ah, well, fuck it then. Get back in the game, dude.

Right. Then there's when Jimmy actually tells Sean what happens to his wife Then there's Jimmy trying to get back into his daughter's life And his daughter saying to him, this isn't enough Hey.

Have you seen my jersey? I have, I washed it for you, This isn't enough What you're doing You've been walking around for so long acting like it only happened to you but it happened to us it happened to me and i've been dealing with it on my own because i had to so please don't think that blueberries and washing a shirt is enough to make me forgive you for all of that.

Right is when these when these characters are saying what they're aware of but haven't shared with the other characters that is when the power is coming out of this uh jimmy says, because he's not at his daughter's game i'm awful he's volunteering the truth of his of who he is as a dad and one of the most painful ones is near the end his daughter thanks him from showing up at the at the football game and there's kind of a sort of inferred conversation like why haven't you been here all year and he says you look so much like your mom thanks.

For coming to my game, I would have come sooner, you know. It's just... Yeah, you look so much like your mom.

And they've done it. They're casting. It's amazing, I have to say. She totally looks like her mom.

But that's right near the end of the episode. And it's basically Jimmy saying, I have reneged on my parenting of you because being around you is too painful.

So here's my hand grenade. There's always a hand grenade at the end of every episode. So in Wake Up Deadman, we've been talking about the cost of information and we saw that with side effects. What we're seeing here isn't the cost of finding out information. It is the cost of sharing information. So it's kind of this inversion of like, well, this is a duh. Right. It feels like a kind of obvious thing. But if we're talking about secrets, right? People, characters having secrets... Which is in some, you know, they've got secrets in Knives Out. They've got, clearly you've got secrets in side effects. Right. And they've got secrets here, which is revealing the secrets come at a cost. What is that cost of that? I mean, it's not just, like, you know, sharing part of us has vulnerability, but vulnerability speaks to weaknesses. And what do we see as our areas of weakness and how will that make us feel? And I think that is an interesting thing that I hadn't actually considered, but I think if we think back to it and we should do it in our wrap-up with Knives Out, I actually think there is vulnerability with Jot.

Yeah, definitely.

Particularly in a way that there isn't with Blanc. Blanc feels bulletproof, except the road to Damascus speech, right? Where we begin to go, oh, maybe this character isn't the fucking Terminator of solving crimes.

But this is something that Stephen Cleary said to us when we were back at film school and it stayed with me forever is when a character says something that's actually true, they lose power. And I think that's why it's so powerful in this show. When these characters are saying things, they're not revealing a secret per se. They're not necessarily telling people, the characters that they're talking to, something that that other character doesn't know. What they're doing is actually acknowledging that they're aware of it. And by doing that, every time that they do that, they relinquish power.

Jamie doesn't lose any power with that. In fact, he gains his power through that acknowledgement to his daughter.

By by saying i mean could you imagine how hurtful that would be.

Yeah i don't think.

He gains power from it.

That she knows she knows that that that he has been withholding from her and he has she is so frustrated and that finally him being willing to humble himself and admit that is the first step because all these other things that he's been trying oh i made you breakfast she doesn't give a shit about that she wants him to tell her the truth even if it's hurtful she wants that and he that is his first step towards gaining power and gaining her trust back okay.

I'm gonna just be slightly semantic i agree with you on gaining trust back i agree with you on healing it does not he is ceding power to her in that moment he is giving her what she wants how.

In In that moment, maybe, but long-term, absolutely not. Like, he only gains power through that. I think it's a misunderstanding of emotional vulnerability.

Okay, but that's what this show is about, right?

How does he lose power?

Okay.

On a narrative level.

On a narrative level, he is holding himself together by self-medicating, sleeping with hookers, avoiding his daughter.

Escorts. Thank you. It's also not a correction.

Sex workers, Liz uses the term hookers.

Yeah, yeah, and then he corrects her escorts.

Who are these girls, Jimmy? Those are my friends. Are they hookers? I don't think so. Did you pay the money? Not yet.

Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. Apologies. But he relinquishes power because he's giving away a defense, right? Yes, I agree with you, Mel, that it is about, that is a necessary step to healing.

But the defense is holding him back.

Yes, we all know that.

That was such actually, I'm with Mel. The reason I'm drilling you on this is because I think in a way his whole thing about jimmying, right, is that he tells people truth and it seems to be successful. He tells the truth that Grace, he's one of those people that I'm going to be radically honest that weaponizes the language of therapy, right? That's what he comes across. Grace, you should leave your husband. He's a piece of shit. So she leaves her husband. Sean, you're, you know, you want to punch people up. You should go and punch people. Right. Like he's seemingly gaining, seemingly makes ground by telling the truth. And that is kind of why he goes on his, he is seemingly rewarded in the short term.

Well, we're talking within a 40 minute story that by the end of that, His two patients that he has Jimmy, the two patients that he has broken his ethical code with, it goes horribly wrong.

That's actually true.

He's told Grace to leave her husband. Her husband comes and beats the shit out of him in front of his daughter at her game. And then his other patient that he's told to embrace his physicality to exercise his need to beat the shit out of people starts beating the shit out of the husband.

That's true.

Okay, but Sean has previously used that to actually not beat the shit out of the first person who confronted him on it. Also, we're way off track about this specific moment.

No, no, we're not off track. This is exactly what we're talking about.

So Sean won one lost one, which is still 50% better than he had done before, or 100%, depending on how Stu wants to count that. Whereas, yes, Sean beats the shit out of somebody. But he beat the shit out of one less person than he would have before Jimmy's intervention. That's still a win.

Yes! Yes! Two for two, bitches! What the fuck are you doing, man? I'm celebrating. Sean, this is a victory. You didn't kill a random douchebag. That is progress. Look, hey, it is fine to be mad. I am mad all the time. You did it! Come on, let's celebrate. You want to jump up and down? Or do you want to chest bump? Nah, I'm good.

He ends up arrested. like let's I'm just saying how the narrative they're presenting the story right so Jimmy is progressing they the first 15 minutes are Jimmy's status quo which is in the middle of grief we don't know why he's in grief we don't know why he's self-medicating that is the mystery right then Jimmy starts to change something right and he changes it in his treatment of his patients he's trying to change with his daughter but failing right and then, Initially, that yields him success. He starts dancing. He's like, I'm two from two. I'm having a benefit. This is working, right? And then within the pilot, the negative consequences of what he's doing start coming back and being revisited upon him. And when I'm talking about power, I think we're all in agreement. I'm just using it in slightly different terms, right? But Jimmy, within the context of this pilot, he only feels emotionally safe around by avoiding his daughter. Let's just talk about his relationship with Alice. He feels emotionally safe while avoiding her. And yes, a necessary step towards him regaining that relationship is going to be emotional vulnerability. But he has to give up safety.

I still think he gave. I still think that is a powerful for both of them. That that moment there's no loss of power it's only gaining.

You you don't think he he's see you don't think giving up safety so like i want to be specific.

Here because i think you're right it's giving up safety right but what is the danger he intangible.

Psychological safety like these are there are big sex nothing.

In this pilot is him being psychologically sound it might.

Be comfortable ball.

But what those barriers have put up are actually holding him back.

For sure. But that's us externally looking at the character. That's not us in Jimmy's experience.

He's giving up comfort and safety are not the same. He feels safe, but he is not safe. Those are two very different things.

Sure. But from his point of view, he is... Giving, like, you don't feel that, you don't think that his vulnerability, like, we're using the word vulnerable. Do you think that he is being vulnerable by sharing that with, with Alice?

I think he's being lots of things, including vulnerable.

Can you define vulnerable for me?

Uncomfortable. But being vulnerable can be safe.

Vulnerable? No.

Yes.

The very definition of vulnerable means you are not safe. You are giving over your safety.

No, no, no, no, no.

You are vulnerable. I'm going to fucking Google the word vulnerable right now.

Do not do the wedding speech. Miriam's dictionary defines love as...

Susceptible to emotional injury.

Susceptible does not mean harm.

Susceptible to attack.

He's opening himself up to his daughter who is not going to use this against him. And he knows that. It's not the same as...

No, she absolutely does. She is attacking him the whole episode.

Until he becomes vulnerable.

Whoever puts up with their hand last, you guys have to edit this so you guys are not talking over each other.

No, because it will only entertainably work if we're talking over each other.

Just, I'm just going to edit it and it's just going to get faster and faster and higher, higher pitched.

I've raised both my digital hand and my actual hand, which means I do not have to do the editing. I, however, must agree with Chaz, it only works if we're both talking at the same time.

No, it is funny. No, I think what you're getting to, right, is ultimately he's able to be vulnerable because he feels safe. Right. Like it comes back to, I mean, I don't, I assume Chaz, you share stuff with your wife that makes you vulnerable because you feel safe with her. but maybe you don't.

And does not give up power.

No, but it's scary to do that. Jimmy is risking losing his relationship with his daughter forever just to have a chance at healing it.

And I think this is the paradox of vulnerability and safety that Mel and I are talking about, which is if Jimmy truly believes that his relationship with his daughter was at considerable risk, he wouldn't do it.

Yes.

Yes, it's a risk, but he feels safe enough with her that he exposes himself to the risk. That is the paradox.

Scary does not mean unsafe.

Can we Google the word scary?

I mean, I'm sure you will if you can.

If you're feeling, if you're feeling fear, You don't feel safe.

No. You don't feel safe. Feel is not objective.

This whole show is called shrinking. This whole show is about emotions. This whole show.

Of course it is. And how emotions are not necessarily reality.

No, it's about getting small.

But emotion, like I, okay, I was just telling you guys that you needed to go watch this movie that I saw in theaters because I have never, I have not in recent memory, felt so wrong. Unsafe and and manipulated and horrible and all these other things and it was a great experience but i was completely objectively fine and 100 safe both physically and psychologically so feeling something does not make it real.

I i i don't disagree with that but but i'm trying to not talk about being outside of jimmy i'm trying to talk about jimmy's relationship like we're trying to discuss how the relationship between secrets clues landmarks being pushed or versus pulled are going to, put the audience, you know, what is the, create a character journey.

And I think he feels uncomfortable, but I do think that he feels safe.

Are we talking physically safe?

No, I think he feels emotionally uncomfortable, but he, if he felt unsafe acknowledging that to his daughter emotionally, I think that's the whole point is that he wouldn't have done it. He finally gets to the point where he goes, I know this is uncomfortable, but I know it's a good thing to, and I will do it because I feel safe with her.

I i think he does it in the face of feeling unsafe like it is a step beyond what he's been able to do for the whole past year and it's because he's finally starting to try he's been challenged by liz you know is this you forever get back in the game dude he's tried other things and he's failed at all his other tactics and this is what's left to him you know he's he's been told by Liz like she's going to go to college do you ever want her to want to come back like the stakes are so clear I mean one of one of the the really great things that this pilot does I'm in season three and Brian is one of my favorite characters Brian is Jimmy's best friend from college he was very close to Jimmy's wife Tia he's a wonderful character you.

Just like him because he's a lawyer is not evil.

He's very evil he's very evil oh yeah he's he's stereotypical.

Gay evil the parentheses complimentary.

No it's not the it's not.

The lawyer is that what you're saying, but when they they they introduce brian for five seconds silently brian is filling up his car with petrol while sean and and jimmy are watching he's.

Filling it up with gas they're in america.

Chas okay, And I almost said gas, but then I felt like it would be wrong for me to say that. But Jimmy's like, get up, we've got to hide from that guy. And she was like, who's that? And Jimmy says, it's my best friend, right? And from a pilot perspective, that is all set up for future payoffs, right? But it is a, again, Jimmy is being honest and the power in this pilot where I want to get to, there are story. Thank you. Paradigms where all the characters are aware of all the information and then the power in that situation where it's the audience being behind all the characters is that the power comes from those moments where the audience catches up because the characters are being honest and it's about in this instance where the show is called shrinking and it's based around three psychologists and those three psychologists coming to terms with their own mental health as well as treating their patients and their friends and family around them, the whole show, the stakes are all mental health stakes. And it's those moments of insight and truth where everyone else around them knows what they're saying. It's not a secret to them, But the power comes from the characters being able to acknowledge their own weaknesses or their own shortcomings or their own moments of insight and letting their dishonesty go, letting their safety nets go, becoming vulnerable. End of rant.

I think all of that's true, right? So here's the interesting thing in terms of coming back to is any of this useful for plotting. I'm not sure we've given an answer that's anything but that meh.

I'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna soliloquy my observation real quick which is it may be helpful for a writer and is much more audience-based much more hidden uh but i think in the shrinking pilot is is quite interesting because it is a lot of visuals it's not in the dialogue but it is all written in the script so it's all written for it to be visual clues to the audience and i think the two things that, constantly repeat throughout this pilot are, there's two things. There's water, which is symbolic, and there are cars, which is very literally referencing how Tia died, because we don't know that yet, right? In terms of cars... It starts with Alice getting a ride from Liz, Jimmy's car not starting, so he has to ride a bike, but that's probably for the best because we find out he's definitely still both drunk and high from the night before, so suggesting that he was going to drunk drive until his car didn't start. Then the car lights as Liz and Alice get back from soccer practice is what snaps Jimmy out of his reverie of remembering Tia, so he's remembering his wife and then this car interrupts him. There are cars in the montage. Jimmy drives to get Sean after this random accident. And then Sean makes Jimmy drive them both to Alice's soccer game and stuck in traffic.

We're not going to make it. It starts in town. Why is there so much traffic? Is this because of the game? Yes, this is because of the high school girls' soccer game. Oh, right. Excuse me. Excuse me. Sean, brace yourself. It's only two miles away, let's just hope it. You just gonna leave your car here? I'm a white guy in Pasadena. The cops will probably just take it back to my house for me. Come on. It must be nice.

And then there's a moment when the escorts are leaving where they get in a car and the cars drive another road and we see this coyote run across the road and the car kind of swerves. That one is just they're shooting in L.A. and it happens because we see them leave in the script, but there's no coyote. That just happens in L.A. but the other really interesting symbolic thing right is jimmy breaks the rules to like he jimmies he parks on the sidewalk so that he can run to the game which is symbolic of the same way he breaks therapy rules to get to where he needs to go and it's just kind of forgiven because as he says i'm a white guy what are they gonna do um and then the cars and ambulances that arrive at the end like the the end the very end shot when he is making that confession alice has the ambulance and the police cars there and a lot of things that would have been at the site of the drunk driving accident right that we find out so there's all these physical memories of this worst event of his life that are constantly visually popping up then the symbolic thing that i find really interesting and again every single one of these things is written in the script and is very clear so like the opening scene happens with jimmy and the escorts at a pool then jimmy gets hit by the sprinklers turning on as the escorts drive away alice's first interaction with jimmy is to hand him a glass of water and it's in the script it says he hands jimmy a glass of water by rote because she's so used to having to do this and take care of him we see jimmy dousing his head in the sink to try to you know uh bring himself to because he's drunk and trying to practice medicine um we see gabby filling her giant water bottle which becomes a runner she has this giant water bottle and then paul before he walks out says you know virginia wolf tried to drown herself too and then it becomes a runner where she has like i found a baby water bottle and i'm going to fill it up and I'm going to put it on Paul's desk and I'm going to make him hydrate. And it's this whole thing when Jimmy talks about taking a bath and that he's moved the TV into the bathroom to make this easier. And then later in the montage, we see him taking the bath. So he references it. And then several minutes later, we see it. And Paul shaving in the morning. So running water when he's being called. And the whole thing later... The sprinkler thing comes back, except Jimmy sidesteps them because he's actually doing a little bit better at life at this point.

Morning, Derek. How's it going? Just walking the dog I didn't want. My patient moved into her sister's house. Sounds like the day's off to a great start for both of us. Too slow.

And then he washes Alice's jersey as an attempt at making restitution with her, etc. And all of this is it's all the way that it's used is all very symbolic because jimmy's always constantly getting wet he's in over his head he's literally drowning right whereas gabby is trying to do better she's mostly doing okay she's telling everyone she's doing fine and paul has life perfectly handled and it's like i'm just straight like i'm using water to my bed and it's actually very very intentional in how this uses both of these things visually and i think it'll be a subconscious thing right especially the water um for the characters and the car is is just a visual representation of again the most terrible thing to have happened in his life that's kind of set off this entire chain of events has led us to where we are but the fact that they are seeding it throughout um to constantly yes to hint things to the audience but i think the way that jimmy interacts with cars is a i think depending on how he's interacting it with different things it's it's a landmark as well for him are.

These all great underpants examples.

Yeah i mean i do think you this is a good example of clues right like what is the difference between a secret and clue i think these feel clue-ish.

I think they're clue-ish i think i don't think any of them are secrets uh but but they're they're very cluey but.

Then none of them are drawing attention to themselves for the audience or for the characters.

I think the jimmy's car not starting really draws its attention but i think the rest of them don't.

But okay so i just like okay literally re-watched the pilot i guess it's like four hours ago now but before recording this two.

Hours for me.

Um it's.

We're two and a half hours then he's.

Drunk it doesn't start he gets frustrated which is why he has to take a bike.

He hasn't filled it in it comes across as his incompetence yeah.

My my read of that was just his life is sucking and he's not taking responsibility and can't do things right and it's only when you've listed out all those things i'm like holy fuck yeah right so me as a film literate viewer did not pick up on that nor for the characters right but it makes it feel of a whole that they've got these vision systems that they've got these referencing systems that that it all that when i what i'm unaware of is the craft that has got into gone into when they tell us that Tia died in a car accident, that so many other things feel of a piece, of a whole.

And I think once you know what has happened to Jimmy's wife, and I think you realize that he, when he goes out and his car doesn't start, and then he goes, Jesus, I'm still so high. Because he says that later.

He acknowledges.

I think I'm actually still drunk like he oh i'm not hung over i'm still drunk um but it would have hit him oh i almost did that thing as well.

Yeah oh i mean they i'm not sure if they mentioned in the pilot that it was a drunk driver that that killed tier it becomes a big reveal later on but i hadn't picked up on that like just how much of a betrayal of his own self drunk driving would have been for him when his wife was killed by a drunk driver.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible observation, Mel.

So- I don't know if there's an easy way to bring it all together, because we've actually covered a lot about secrets and clues. I do think what is interesting, coming back to your observations about vulnerability and all that stuff, is what is the cost of learning information has the flip side of what is the cost of sharing information. And if we have two characters in the scene, where one of them is learning something that someone else is sharing, thinking about what is the cost for both of them is actually a really interesting question. And it comes back to some of the stuff we're talking about in our subtext episode. What is it that people don't want to reveal? What is it that they don't want to reveal? And how that then connects to push and pull. right because if you're sharing information are you sharing this information because you're pushed are you sharing this information because you're pulled yeah.

Which which boils down to like even that conversation with sean why is he sharing it yeah.

Why is he sharing what why is he sharing, my funny thing is he's like he's a little bit pushed and he's a little bit pulled yeah right Like, he's pulled because he wants to, I think it's more pulled because he, like, he wants to solve Sean.

Yeah.

Right? He wants to feel like he's helping these people. He is solving their lives. And so, by sharing part of himself, he feels like he can solve what's going on with them. Right? So, I think it's a pull.

I mean, Gabby even says at a certain point. She, she's talking about the ethics of, of what he's doing and doesn't want him to do it, but does acknowledge it's good to see you've got your spark back.

Yeah. Right. So push and pull. I think what I, you know, someone criticized them as being vague, but I like, I like the vagueness. Right. Like, I think in the end, I like a lot of this stuff that we use is as much as we try to be precise, the imprecision is where the interesting stuff comes. Right. It's like, because you're just grabbing an idea and going, this is what, works for me right as.

Much as this has felt messy i i feel like i've gotten really clear like the the first half of dead man wake up dead man and the first half of side effects and like their relationships between when characters are just being pushed versus when they're being pulled.

But i think they're the opposite yeah i i think what's interesting is wake up dead man he's being pulled to solve the murder and can no longer solve the murder so judd is pushed at that point like he's literally sees the dead man waking up is, incriminated in that and i think that's all push yeah and the opposite for side effects is the midpoint oh.

I would say i would say in side effects the whole first half is push.

Yeah exactly it's the opposite so what's interesting is the if we just think of push and pull as a dynamic is the the midpoint actually shifts what's going on right yeah yeah and does that happen in shrinking i think it kind of does i'll have to look at it again when sean when does sean turn up.

Well gabby like when we meet gabby she says oh i'm gonna give you this patient but i don't think so we hear about him but i don't think we see him right away so.

I needed to refer on you okay this is easy peasy Young soldier, worked overseas, was discharged six months ago. He does keep getting busted for assault and his parents are very worried. That's not easy peasy. Come on, I saw like a thousand patients today and I cover for you all the time. I'm really pretty psyched for my bath movie. I've never seen the original Home Alone. You're just going to keep staring at me until I do the right thing? Fine. Yeah.

Not immediately. That is just a call to adventure and a refusal of the call. Hilarious. Hilarious. There's no reason for him to refuse it other than it to be like, oh, this is a refusal of the call. I'm sure there's other reasons.

Just taking away a tool from this, how do I want people to feel? Do I want them to feel like they're in a drama, at which point maybe I'm going to focus more on my characters being pushed by external events, but I'm going to make sure that there's still tension or compulsion through the, the secrets and the reveals to the audience as against there's going to be a very different feel when my character is driving towards the thing that they're trying to uncover or trying to achieve and there's cost to it and that those costs are escalating those are two very different feelings as against i'm coming into a situation where everyone knows everything but i don't know anything i'm as the audience member i'm behind where do my moments of power and engagement come from, it's when I get caught up. So I, I, I don't know, I, I relished this exercise because I got clear paradigms to lead to an audience feeling by just talking about the characters, interactions with secrets and clues.

By the way, the midpoint is when he declares that he's a psychological vigilante. And the button on the scene is him about to take him to MMA. And what is interesting is that's danger. He's learning information about Sean, but he's putting both him and himself in danger, right? And danger is such an interesting term because it's all relative to the story. We talked about this with stakes, right? Like my whole personal opinion about stakes, it's all about relationships, right? The you know if if we value stuff then there's stakes so he values his career so therefore it's on stake sean values you know.

I'm i'm i'm gonna interrupt you and possibly side with mel a little bit here i think that at that point when jimmy's being a psychological vigilante he thinks he's rock bottom, he thinks he has nothing to lose by shifting, right? And both Paul and Gabby- No, I think Paul's warned him. Yeah, they both pull him up for it afterwards.

Oh, yeah.

Right? But they let him- Keep doing it.

You forced a young black man to fight a bunch of people in this cultural atmosphere. I understand that this is crazy, but he's starting to trust me. So what do you think? Oh, my God. I think that this water bottle looks like my water bottle's baby.

Paul says, just tell me you're not being reckless with them, right?

If you could just let me keep going. Are you even trying? Do you be careful? Huh? Or are you just going to burn your career and take me down with you? Coin flip. Sorry, Paul, that was a stupid joke.

Paul literally says, you know, tells him the stakes. They're not personal stakes for him. They're the stakes for his patience. And I don't think that Jimmy is yet in a position where, like from his own ego, he thinks that what he knows best for them is what's best for them. And it also helps him and it feeds his ego.

So I guess the cost of, what is the cost of learning the information? Like the danger is actually for Sean.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's actually, uh, what am I, I'm learning the secret about myself and that's, and me learning that information is putting me in danger.

And for Grace, like, you know, it's not in the pilot, but Grace boops her husband off a cliff.

He deserves to be yeeted off a cliff though.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe she should have done it more sneakily, but, uh, yeah, totally.

All right. So are we into key learnings?

I feel that that kind of happened for me. I feel like I've staged my key learnings.

You've expended, you've, uh, laid some ropes.

Cables, cables.

Ropes is from a different orifice.

I was going to say, ropes is a different thing altogether. And that Ropes come out of the pipe.

I assumed this is I assumed this is.

What you were all Talking about Alright guys we gotta stop here We need to have a birds and the bees discussion With Stu Ropes versus cables What is the difference Between a.

Rope and a cable I don't know.

Well one is made out of natural fibers.

One is thrown and the other is laid.

Mm-hmm. All right what.

Are your key learnings mel from this exercise.

In terms of key learnings uh really did like the fact that we chose there was one very explicit mystery there was one sort of close-ended twisty story and then the pilot which is open-ended right because we're going to move on past that. And all three of them still use similar tools throughout the script, even though, they're not all aiming at the exact same thing, or they're not hiding all the same things behind the doors. If you were, you know, you have a solution to a mystery versus the answer to this narrative driving question versus this emotional crux of a character. And so I think a key learning is how you can still use all of these tools, but apply them in slightly different scenarios.

I've learned, because I've taken a break, I've learned that keeping us on topic is really difficult. So I think the one thing I'm going to add is I'm going to come back to the key questions I asked, which Chaz remembered for me, which is, you know, these are questions you can kind of use when looking at your own screenplay And thinking through narrative POV in relationship to structure, I guess, which is, is the character, are the characters aware of the secret or not? When is the information revealed to the character and when does it create danger? What are the particular skills of a character that allow them to obtain the information? And then what is the cost of learning the information? And then I'll also do for the characters with a secret, because often we're kind of talking about characters with a secret, which I will add two versions of this. What are the particular skills of a character that allow them to keep the secret? And what is then the cost of them revealing the information? So we haven't really tapped into it as much as we perhaps could have, but there is the flip side of not just characters being pulled in order to... Obtain and learn information, but there's also characters that are pulled and motivated in order to conceal information. And I feel like if we ever do a follow-up, some random point in the future, keeping secrets is kind of the framework I would do. It's that whole idea of some actors just pick a secret and they don't tell anyone else. But I think that are now discussions around vulnerability yeah.

And again that question kind of works very slightly differently in all three of these right where in a mystery there's a lot of characters keeping secrets for one reason and then in a you know interpersonal drama there's characters keeping secrets for another reason and then in this sort of drama comedy exploration of the heart there's a character keeping reason uh secrets for a third reason and and how do they keep them and why do they keep them but that they're all doing the same thing.

Yeah and then yeah and then something you get the interesting interplay of the skills of the character trying to learn the secret that the other character is trying to keep concealed creates interesting kind of conflict but again, unexplored as much as we could have but uh you know hey that's what we do this as a podcast series and not a crash course and i could i i think maybe the learning for me is the difference between a video game or a role-playing game, and what we're talking about here is, But games broadly are more external, right? It's going to be about learning about the conspiracy, right? Or learning where the key is to unlock the safe. And the kind of stuff we're interested in here is more in the psychological domain, right? So it's kind of useful, but it's not actually about plotting in the way that I expected, at least in terms of how we talked about it.

It's more about how the characters interact with the plot and each other.

Yeah, I mean, maybe there is a version of how, like, maybe there is a version of this episode where we'll be like, how does Blanc actually solve the crime? And how does Banks solve the crime? But maybe that's just not that interesting. Right?

I think it is interesting because... In that particular genre of film, everyone comes into it knowing there will be a murder and Blanc is going to solve the murder, right? That's how those films work. That's the promise of the premise. So, there's no surprise or payoff or reversal in that. And so, that audience reward has to be delivered through different mechanisms.

And which is different from side effects though. Because that is we don't expect him to become.

Yeah. Like, we don't expect it to become basic instinct light.

Very light.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's not even a detective, right? So we have to activate that character into a detective. What's interesting about Trinkin, because we didn't ask the question, but it seems obvious, but it's only obvious because we're seeing the finished version of the product, which is what is about the character that leads to the discovery of the secret of the clue, like the revelation of the secret or the clue right what is about the character, he's a psychologist yeah right so it's going to be about vulnerability it's going to be about creating spaces in which people can be vulnerable and what he's actually learned is that by him being vulnerable he allows other people to be vulnerable right that's him sharing the experience of what he went through with his wife which is not something that he should share actually allows him to build a connection with Sean.

Yeah. I mean, the glorious thing about that show is it's not a secret to anyone. It's not a secret to the characters, not a secret to the other characters. But everyone values you acknowledging it and you saying it out loud. Jimmy knows he's stuck. Jimmy knows what he has to do to get better. It's scary and he doesn't want to do it. And everyone else knows what he has to do, right? But they're trying to be there for him. One of the biggest things that I noticed on this rewatch of Shrinking, having known where it got to, is Liz, who's played by Krista Miller. In that very first scene, Jimmy is with the unpaid sex workers at 3 a.m. Listening to Billy Joel, yet to be paid sex workers. And she's angry with him, like, you know, please turn off the music, please go to bed. But right at the end of that interaction, Jimmy says, i'm sorry and liz says i know.

We're gonna we're gonna pack it up okay hey let's pack it up liz wants us to pack it up, good night kiara good night sarah good night jimmy hey liz, I'm sorry. I know.

What I noticed in this one is that I didn't notice upon the first watch is that Liz is accepting of this behavior. She needs to go to sleep. She needs Jimmy to stop doing it. But it's because she knows that he's grieving that she's not like fuck you jimmy as she's leaving, right and and that is something that is totally in character and it's something that the audience isn't aware of is why she's doing it but it's a character driven pointer or it's not a pointer It's a plant to us as to why she is like, you know, Liz's character is comedically set up to be tough love, right? She's rude and abrasive, but all of her actions stem from trying to help others. She doesn't want to be gentle with them, but she wants them all to be better. And it was just that how that scene ended up i was like oh wow that is doing so much work and reflection of these characters and who they are without me having noticed it at the beginning because at the beginning i was like i'm being introduced to liz and derrick are the first people we see we don't see jimmy that doesn't it opens on liz and derrick and jimmy's being an asshole and we have no idea why jimmy's being an asshole and at the end of that interaction liz Accepts his apology, And I didn't realize At the first watch just how powerful An ending to that scene that was Hmm. I know that, Stu, that you feel that this possibly went off the rails. Maybe it does. But some of my favorite Draft Zero episodes have been ones like this where we meander through.

Name three.

Of my favorite Draft Zero episodes where we meander.

Go off the rails.

I mean, interweaving timelines. Yeah.

You're like, that's the three episodes.

The value for me is when I learn something new in the process of talking it through. And I think that's what our listeners tune into as well.

Our Oscar-nominated listeners.

Yeah. Thank you, Stu, for making this episode happen. Thank you, Mel, for joining us. And I very much enjoyed our argument. I hope listeners also enjoy it. Mel, are you okay?

Oh, that's my favorite form of learning. To the chagrin of all of my college professors.

And special thanks also to all of our patrons who make more Draft Zero happen more often. In particular, our top tier patrons, Krob, Thies, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paolo, Thomas, Jen, Millay, Alexandre, and Lily, thank you so much.

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