You Were Right About... Beef

WEBVTT

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

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So anytime I watch something good,
I talk about it on the show.

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This way, you'll never have the
same problem I do. I watch this

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tonight, there's always something good to
watch. Let's get started. Today in

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the show, we were talking about
beef. I'm titling this. You were

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right about beef because every human being
on planet Earth has told me to watch

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this show. And I don't know
about you. You know, maybe I'm

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just a contrarian asshole. But when
everyone tells me to watch something, I

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don't know. I think it's like
this human nature where you kind of hold

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back a little you know. I
don't know why. It doesn't make logical

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sense if anything you think could be
the opposite, But for some reason,

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when everyone is telling me the show
is so good you have to watch it,

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I just kind of hold back a
little bit. And I don't know

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why. I can't even explain it
to myself why I do that, But

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I do think it is part of
a human nature thing and so here's an

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example of that from another person.
I saw someone post in some movie group

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that I'm part of on Facebook saying
that the show Beef is meh m e

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h meh oh, it's just okay, you know, overrated. And I

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think again, this is a backlash
that happens when everyone says something is good

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because you know, we all want
to be I think a lot of people

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want to be independent thinkers and you
know, have your own opinions and that

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kind of thing. And and let
me just tell you this show is awesome.

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Everyone was right. I there,
it's great. It really is that

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good, you know. I this
happens. You know, sometimes things come

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out everyone likes them, and there's
a reason everybody likes it because it's awesome.

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And that the situation with Beef.
So everyone who told me I watched

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this, you're right, Beef is
a great show. What I love most

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about it is how it taps into
this kind of thread of anger and you

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know, this idea of most men
lead lives of quiet desperation, that kind

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of thing. That's a big part
of what Beef is tapping into. I

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was thinking about it in regards to
you know, my daughter does taekwondo and

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maybe sparring. Most of the time, when they do sparring, these are

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little kids. They just kind of
kick the air near each other and you

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know, or maybe they connect,
but it's like sort of, you know,

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pretty light. It's not really like
a fight. And then she had

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in her last class a girl was
like ready to like fucking roll. Like

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she like came at her and actually
did spying, which was what they're supposed

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to do. And my daughter freaked
out and cried, and then she went

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back and she you know, she
got a point, she managed to get

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a kick in. But I was
watching it thinking to myself. When I

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was younger, I was a pretty
gentle dude, and you know, I

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wouldn't I would probably be similarly hesitant
to like engage anyone physically. Now that

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I'm older, I have so much
pent up aggression. I would love to

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spar with somebody. I would do
let's go. So that kind of thing

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is what beef is sort of about, is that we're all carrying around this

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odjita and there's nowhere for it to
come out in our civilized society. And

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what if you point that energy and
another person and actually release it. What

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happens, and that's not a healthy
way to cope with your problems. And

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obviously we see that play out in
Beef. Episode one is basically impossible to

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spoil. So I don't really think
you need to worry about spoilers here,

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Like, if you kind of just
want to know a bit about the show,

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I can tell you about episode one, and I don't think it's going

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to affect your viewing. The opening
sequence, we know basically nothing about Steven

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as he's you know, he's coming
out of part a lot. There's a

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Ali Wong gets behind him, honks
at him, and then he chases her

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down, which is like a very
overreaction to being honked at in a parking

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lot. But what's great about the
opening sequence and the first indication that the

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show is operating at a higher level
than most shows. You know, most

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shows would execute the same premise.
Ali Wong is just as crazy as him.

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She reverses like she's going to smash
into him just to mess with him.

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If you've seen Ali Wong stand up, she has this gear, you

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know, much like Adam Sandler has
an element of his personality that has rage.

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Ali Wong totally has that gear and
we gradually understand that her and Steve

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und are very similar like they they're
they're they're in different places in life.

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You know, he's working class and
single, she's married and seemingly well off,

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but they're stressed in similar ways.
They're they're they're carrying a lot and

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trying to sort of you know,
they're not able to cope with the stresses

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of their lives. Steven has a
cousin who's just come out of jail,

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who's played by David cho who was
great. The supporting cast is so good

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at this show. The writing of
the characters is really good, and the

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actors were really good. Ali Wonk's
husband is this guy who seems so nice

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but then also like clearly takes his
mom's side over his wife in a you

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know, in a domestic conversation.
And then um c N's out of jail

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cousin played by David Chow. He
is such a fun presence. Um there's

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some sort of backstory where the family
had a motel and he was selling illegal

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goods out of it and then the
matel got closed. He was in um

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the Anthony Bourdain documentary. If you've
seen that, he's the guy who defaces

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Bourdain's mural at the end because he
knows that's where Bourdane would have wanted,

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and has this really beautiful moment in
that documentary. In the pilot, David

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Cho gives CBN twenty grand. He
says, he I feel bad about the

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motel. Here's twenty grand. Cfun
invested all in the stock market and loses

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it, and then he says,
there's always something. So this is a

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guy whose problems are of his own
making, but he blames the world.

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It just really stuck out to me
watching the show that it reminded me a

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lot of Israel and Palestine. Strange
to say, but Israelis and Palestinians have

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so much in common culturally, and
you know, so many similarities, but

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they are in this kind of senseless, long running conflict. And similarly,

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Ali Wong and Cfun, they're the
things that they don't like about their lives

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are similar Like Cfuen has to trim
a tree that doesn't want to trim.

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Ali has to go to this networking
Dinners doesn't want to go to. He's

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quasi suicidal. She is incredibly repressed
sexually, and at one point takes a

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gun out of her safe and doesn't
like this bizarre sexual thing with it,

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and they take the unhappiness that they
have in their own lives and they kind

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of funnel it at each other.
He looks up her address comes from her

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home. Under a pretense, he
assumes that this other driver that upset him

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was male, and she doesn't realize
that he was the other driver either,

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And so when they first meet,
there actually is a charge between them,

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like they are attracted to each other, and they get along, and it's

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only until they realize that the other
person is in the driver that he goes

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back in right and he pees in
her bathroom and she finds out that he

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did it. Chases of the creator
of the show, Lisangjin, he worked

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on another show called Undone, which
was on Amazon and was very profound and

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really excellent, and then he also
worked on Always Sunning in Philadelphia, And

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this show is almost like a fusion
of those different elements. It has at

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times the sort of outlandishness and comedy
of Always Sunning Philadelphia, but it also

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has I think the profundity of Undone
and things of that nature. So it's

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a really great combination. The character
work, especially is sensationally good. I

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ended up watching four episodes of this
show last night. I really love half

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hour dramas or sort of becoming more
in vogue, and I really love that

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format. I think it works really
well. So now I am going to

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get into spoilers. So if you
don't want to know about episodes two through

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four, you should probably stop listening. If you have seen episodes two through

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four, then hang out. So
at the start of episode two, Ali

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Wong's husband, as he's cleaning up
Steve UN's piss in their bathroom, says,

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you never know what someone is going
through in life, and I was

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like, wow, that's This is
basically the theme of the show. Like,

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if if Ali Wong and Stvun had
that sense of perspective, this would

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all have been resolved ready. They
also have the husband wearing a great sweater

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in episode two. He's wearing this
like soft grandpa sweater. I was sort

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of back in on the husband the
beginning of episode two. But what's great

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about the show and the writing is
that I keep going back and forth about

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him as we learn more things about
the husband. Meanwhile, Steven has this

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seemingly goofy brother that seems like he's
just like a du fist right, but

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he's actually kind of wise, and
over the course of the show we see

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that he has the depth and of
vulnerability to him. He tells Steven like

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Steven is like, hey, man, you know you shouldn't basically, you

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shouldn't date white girls. You know, eventually you're gonna want a good Korean

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girl to bring home to mom and
dad. And he says and the brother

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tells him, you care too much
about these arbitrary rules, like you should

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just live your life, which is
you know, it's you don't expect that

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from the goofy brother character. At
the end of episode two, things are

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just escalating, escalating. Ali Wong
defaces Steven's car. He shows up at

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her house with a hammer. At
the end of episode two, the fact

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that this show has been really popular
to me reinforces the idea that we're all

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pissed off. We're all carrying a
lot of you know, anxious, upset

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energy. And I think that the
success of the show, you know,

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really reinforces for me that I think
that's pretty common. And then episode three,

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some really interesting stuff happens. I
was wondering, how are you going

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to get ten episodes out of this? Because but you know, if at

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the end episode two he's at the
house with an hammer, you know,

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you would think they're gonna run out
of a road before ten episodes. But

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what they did, which is really
smart, is they did almost like a

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reset. So Steve un gets scared
off by Ali wong security system, goes

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to church, chries fixes the church
sign for free. It almost seems like,

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man, maybe he's gonna find purpose
in his life and not sort of

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fixate on this stupid feud he's having
Alli Wong. But then there's this really

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nice guy at the church whose wife
was Steve Yuen's ex girlfriend. And when

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he starts coming around and she's I
think she's pregnant, like you know,

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the she starts acting really enamored of
him, and suddenly the husband who's been

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really nice starts very subtly being a
dick to see win. And in the

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same episode, Ali Wong's husband,
this sweet sweater wearying guy, clearly indicates

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that he's been sexually obsessed with the
instagram of her co worker. At one

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point later we see him like jerking
off looking at the instagram of Value Wong's

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co worker. And in both cases, these characters who previously were almost like

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comically saintly are revealed to be flawed, petty, and considerate, cruel,

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selfish. And another theme of the
show is that when you do something toxic,

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it's like poisonous to others. There's
like a contagient effect. So all

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it takes is that one guy being
a dickt to CVUN and he decides he's

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going to try to scam the church
out of one hundred thousand dollars. Later

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in a later episode, I think
it is his brother says, I don't

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need that kind of energy around me, which continues this theme that when you

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behave this way, it poisons the
people around you. Towards the end of

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the third episode, I think it
is so Stephen's brother has been catfished by

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Ali Wong. They've been direct messaging
and they talk on the phone, and

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then he goes to her workplace because
he thinks that she is her co worker.

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She's used her co workers pictures,
she was using it to try to

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somehow spy on CVN or something,
and then he kisses her like they kiss

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even after he finds out who she
is, So he's really emotionally connected to

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her and totally accepts her even though
she was catfishing him. I was again,

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I'm so humbled by the character worked
with the show because I think most

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writers, you know, you set
up a character and you're like, all

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right, cool, here's my one
big subversion of the character, my one

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big thing I'm gonna do that shows
you the characters not who you think they

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are. But this show has like
six gears like that, and that's really

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hard to do. And then I'll
just touch on episode four. So an

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episode four, they go to Vegas. The brother takes Steve UN's car and

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runs off to Vegas to see Ali
Wong. And there's this moment where she

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speaks at this conference and it feels
like it's the pinnacle of her life,

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like she's so confident, she's so
in her element. Everything's going great.

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This big business deal she's been obsessing
about looks like it's definitely gonna close.

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And then Steve Un and his cousin
take the microphone and just start yelling at

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her, and it's this moment that
it's ruined kind of and she sort of

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steers out of it. But again, it's karma, right, like you

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can't behave this way and have not
have a repercussion of it, and it

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has one of my favorite parts of
the whole show, which is as they're

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getting dragged away, David Show goes
last stand is the best X Men Wolverine

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cannot be circumcised. And then Steve
you N and his brother or his cousin

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played by David Show get arrested and
Ali sees them and sort of waves a

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finger at ctvun and there's this great
music hit that takes us out, and

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he's just really satisfying, and you
sort of know, you know, obviously

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this is going to continue to reverberate
in their relationship. But the half hour

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format works really great. It is
very hard to stop watching this show.

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You know, you're you're so engaged
by the kind of end of episode moments

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are so strong. It's a half
hour each episode, is I like,

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I want to go back and keep
watching it right now. So could not

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recommend Beef more highly. Everyone who
told me watch this, you're absolutely right.

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Go watch Beef. It's great.
I don't think twice about it.

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I would love to know what you
think. It's almost like, is there

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anybody who does it like this show? Maybe that one guy on Facebook?

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I gotta interview him. Thank you
so much for listening. As always,

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that is the show for today.
If you're enjoying the show, please leave

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me a five star rating on Apple
Podcasts and or a written review if you're

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feeling extra generous. That is the
best way you can support the podcast,

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and you can always reach me at
Benamore Dan on Twitter, Watch This Night

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on Instagram, watch This Tonight podcast
on TikTok, or you can join our

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Facebook group. Until next time,
Bye bye,