Alice, Darling

WEBVTT

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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, An Bettimore.

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I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

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And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

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anytime I watched something good, I
talk about it on the show. This

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way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watched this tonight.

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There's always something good to watch.
Let's get started, all right.

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Today on the show, we are
doing Alice Darling. Alice Darling is currently

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available on Amazon Prime. I read
an article about how this was super personal

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for Anna Kendrick because apparently she was
in a relationship very much like the one

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in this movie, and that is
partially why I watched it on a plane

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yesterday. This is the ultimate your
friends significant other, boyfriend or girlfriend sucks

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and you want to tell your friend
break up with this person, but you

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don't want to say anything because they
might be pissed off at you. That's

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what this movie is tough position to
be in. I've had to totally line

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on some situations like that. Sometimes
you're right and sometimes they work it out

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and you're like, man, think
God didn't say anything because then they would

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hate you forever, right, So
first fifteen minutes you're just trying to untangle

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what the hell is going on.
Anna Kendrick is clearly terrified of her douchebag

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artist boyfriend, but he doesn't seem
particularly awful to her. She does all

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these little things in private moments that
suggests she is racked with anxiety because of

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him. So you're sort of watching
it as the viewer, You're like,

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what is he like? What am
I not seeing? She's afraid enough of

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him that she lies to him about
going on a totally benign girl's birthday trip.

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This is there is nothing wild about
this trip whatsoever. This is a

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trip that sixty year old women could
have taken. Like they just go to

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a cottage, they play scrabble at
one point, some cinnamon rolls. It's

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like, there's nothing going on that
it's inappropriate of this trip. And she

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pretends for work, and again,
as always here I'll warn you before I

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get into any major spoilers. This
is a movie that I think there's a

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certain tipping point where spoilers come into
play, and I'll stop before that talking

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about the plot. So she basically
pretends that she's going on a work trip

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goes to their girlfriends to go to
this cottage. He texts her saying he

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misses her and saying can she come
home early? And she tells her friends,

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one of whom it's like a birthday
outing, that she needs to leave

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early. And again, it's this
weird thing where he's not doing anything overtly

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wrong, but she is clearly living
in a psychological prison of this relationship.

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So we have to assume that all
the stuff that's going on is stuff that

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we haven't totally been privy too.
It was a little bit hard for me

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to relate, only because I've always
been with women who are extremely outspoken.

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And we tell this guy to go
fund himself immediately five minutes of the movie.

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But that's not to dismiss this.
This could and does happen to a

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lot of people. If anything,
I'm probably more likely as a guy to

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be the type of people please or
the person that I would end up in

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a situation like this. We're watching
her on this girl's trip. She is

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so consumed with anxiety that she is
the worst friend ever. She won't participate

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in any activities. She's constantly like
mean and lashing out to her friends,

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she's making excuses to not spend time
with them even though she's with them,

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and then he finds out that she
lied to him. Obviously, right,

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that's not a huge surprise. She
tries to leave, but her friend hides

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her wall in her phone, and
then she loses earrings that this guy Simon

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gave her in the water near the
cottage and has a full on mental breakdown.

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Eventually, we get some glimpses,
right we see a little flash where

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he calls her the C word,
but it's very insidious because you know,

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for example, she does lie to
him right about going on this trip,

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and then he's upset that she lied
to him, which is not unreasonable,

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and she says he has every right
to be mad at lie to him,

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which is kind of true. But
again, it's that it's dancing this fine

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line because her friends are like,
this guy has erased your entire personality,

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like you are the worst, You're
the worst version of yourself when you're with

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this guy. Even though Anna Kendrick
is being a terrible friend on this birthday

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outing, her friends keep refusing to
abandon her, and so that's kind of

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what you realize as the movie goes
along. This is the tension and the

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cleverness of the film. Anna Kendrick
is literally pulling her hair out and like

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NonStop because she's so consumed with doing
anything she possibly can do to please this

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guy. By contrast, she's awful
to her friends, like she sucks,

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but they won't give up on her. So you see that with him,

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it's clearly a conditional relationship. If
she behaves perfectly, maybe he'll be satisfied

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with her. But with her friends
it's unconditional. Even if she's a total

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jerk to them, they're not going
anywhere. At one point when of her

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friends says, I made you a
sandwich in case you're hungry, but don't

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want to admit it, and we
start to understand Anakendrick is very thinnest movie

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that she's also not eating because she's
afraid this guy's going to punish her in

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some way if she gains weight.
And again it starts to come out slowly,

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slowly, and you sort of realize, Oh, this guy, it's

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just like little comments, right,
he's doing things where he's like kind of

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racking her self esteem. I knew
a guy who will not be named here,

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and he told me a story one
time about how whenever his wife was

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gaining weight, he would try to
bring up exercising, and then if she

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lost weight, he would go overboard
on complimenting her, so basically psychologically manipulating

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her and obviously like super effed up. Right Again, maybe I just for

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whatever reason, I've never met or
been with a woman who would let something

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like that slide. But you know, I know there are plenty of women

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who fall into relationships like this,
and by the way, men too,

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I think. And then there's a
really key moment. Annakendricks says, I

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never know what's going to make him
angry, so I spend all this time

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trying to purify my thoughts. And
then she says, but he doesn't hurt

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me or anything. So again,
this is a really key element of the

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movie. Is this guy's not physically
abusive, but he's so psychologically broken her

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mind that she's like a like an
occult, like she has to be like

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deprogrammed. And so again, without
spoiling anything, I'll just say that there's

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a real arc to Anna's character and
performance, and it's very satisfying. This

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is basically an entire movie based around
when is someone going to tell this guy

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to fuck off, and eventually in
the third act it becomes kind of almost

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like a horror movie, but it's
all psychological. I think depending on what

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your family background is and how you
deal with conflict, you'll relate to this

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movie in different ways. I come
from a Moroccan immigrant family, and then

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I married into a Mexican family,
and on both sides of the family,

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if this guy actually existed, at
some point, some cousin or uncle or

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something would be like, hey,
man, get the fuck out of here.

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I'll put your head through a window
like that would happen, and eventually,

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and so yeah, it just was
interesting to see how it all tracked.

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But I think a very good character
study movie. I really like these

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sort of movies. You see these
movies every couple of years, right where

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it's small, limited castic characters condensed. We're just kind of with one person

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and their performance pieces. They're about
real life, there's nothing magical happening.

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And it's also a short movie.
I think it's like eighty five minutes.

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So if you like these sorts of
movies, these kind of you know,

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movies that are in the real world. If you're again, if you're just

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in the mood for that, right, Sometimes you're in the mood for something

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that's actually real that you can relate
to. That's definitely this. If you

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have ever had a situation where a
friend of yours is in a relationship that

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you think is a terrible idea,
you will relate to this movie. So

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I would encourage you to seek it
out. I thought it was definitely worth

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watching. And now I'm going to
get into spoilers. So if you haven't

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seen the movie, stop listening.
Or if you want to know what happens

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and you know that you're not going
to see the movie, keep listening.

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In that case, So Simon appears
at this isolated cabin and at this point

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is basically becomes a shining Right.
There's a whole subplot for the whole movie

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about there's a missing girl, and
you're like, what does this have to

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do with the main plot, And
gradually you realize that the movie is telling

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you this is Anna's future if she
stays with this guy. At some point

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he's going to flip and like,
you know, put her in the trunk

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of his car. And the second
he shows up. Because Anna Kendrick had

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been arching towards like regaining her personality
and being joyful. The second he shows

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up, she reverts to the way
she was before, this joyless, anxious

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person. And they have this extremely
tense dinner, which really is like Hannibal

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Elector came to dinner, like he
might as well have a shotgun on the

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table. That's the way that it
feels. And then there's a scene that

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is the most interesting scene in the
whole movie. I still don't know what

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to make of it. I was
just very curious with the intention of it.

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Was they go into a bedroom and
she like dry humps him, and

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she seems to climax, but she
also sears me having a nervous breakdown,

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and then he just sort of laughs. And I don't know what the what

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they were going for there, but
it was very confusing, but in an

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interesting way, like I like that
it confused me, and I'm not sure

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what it's trying to say about the
characters of their relationship, but I liked

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it forcing me to think about it. And then she's going to leave with

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him, and all this tension that's
been building up and building up the whole

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movie, it's all psychological, becomes
physical and her friends, one of her

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friends takes this they call it a
mall. I guess it's it's a it's

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a different kind of acts. She
takes this thing that's been established earlier in

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the movie, and she breaks his
rear windshield and forces Anna to choose.

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She's either choosing between her friends or
this jerk boyfriend. And her friends physically

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surround her and step between her.
One of her friends steps between her and

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him, and the other friend just
stares in her eyes and you really feel

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them come together. You really feel
the way to that. Wouldn't me.

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Mosaku, who's in We Own This
City, is in this movie. She's

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really great in it. She just
has a great I don't know how to

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describe it. She has a really
kind of warmth to her as a performer

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that makes her Your eye goes to
her. She's very effective. I feel

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like this is a great movie to
watch, not a great couple movie.

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Great movie to watch with friends,
not a great movie to watch with significant

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other. This is not a good
date movie. I would say that's all

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you need is you start Mike Randall
as like your relationship, like, oh

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you said that to me one time. But I think a good movie watch

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with friends or Goode watched by yourself. Short movie, like I said,

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eighty five minutes and I think pretty
well done. So one of one of

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the better sort of character seti indie
movies that I've seen in last year or

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so. That is the show for
today. I am continuing to watch The

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Night Agent and we're really getting into
guilty pleasure territory, pretty hardcore. So

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I think that I have no choice
but to do a debate episode with somebody.

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Might be a one friend of mine
in the industry, you might be,

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it might be somebody else. But
that's I'm teasing that if you finished

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the entire season of The Night Agent
and you want to talk about both the

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things that are great about it and
the things that are just straight up kind

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of silly about it, that episode
is for sure going to come up.

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So that is a show for today. As always, you can reach me

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at Dan Advoyagemedia dot com, Betty
Moore Dan on Twitter, watch This Tonight

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on Instagram, or watch This Tonight
podcast on TikTok. Thank you for listening.

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Until next time, Bye bye.