401: A conversation about the Netflix hit 'Baby Reindeer' (With Candice Frederick Senior Culture Reporter Huffpost)

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[00:00:29] This is Pop Culture Confidential and I'm Kristina Yerling Biru.

[00:00:33] Hey everyone, welcome to the show. So people can't stop talking about the new Netflix series Baby Reindeer.

[00:00:52] It's based on the Scottish comedian Richard Gad's real-life experience being stalked by an obsessed woman.

[00:00:59] It's a harrowing account which unfolds in many layers, including Gad's experience being sexually assaulted by a comedy writer and mentor.

[00:01:08] It's also a story about trauma and healing.

[00:01:44] There's so much to unpack here, so I'm so happy to have with me Senior Culture Reporter at HuffPost, Candice Frederick. Thank you so much for being with me.

[00:02:19] Hey Kristina, thank you for having me.

[00:02:21] For everyone, we're going to get into spoiler territory here so I suggest that you watch the show before we get into it.

[00:02:29] Candice, let's just start with the show in general. What did you think of it at a first watch?

[00:02:36] You know, I watched it, I want to say Wednesday or Thursday, and I watched it in two different sittings.

[00:02:45] And it's an experience. It's kind of one of those things where it's just like, okay, kind of let go of any type of preconceived ideologies that you might have about all the various themes in the show.

[00:02:59] And also this particular character, and just let the story unfold.

[00:03:05] There isn't really, it's not, it's constantly in progress and constantly kind of, what I find very interesting about the show is that he's consistently in progress of understanding what happened to him and who he is and his own actions and how he relates romantically with people.

[00:03:27] And so I am too, as a result, still processing it. But I like that feeling. I like that it's not something that, it's not a show that you can have an instant reaction to.

[00:03:41] It's something that really forces you to sit with your own thoughts.

[00:03:47] Yeah, it definitely doesn't hold your hand. You really get thrown in every direction.

[00:03:52] No, I agree. It was a challenging but really intriguing watch.

[00:03:58] For me, probably the most powerful part of it was the realization that we hear mostly from women like, why didn't you come out with this sooner? Why didn't you report this sooner to the police?

[00:04:14] And understanding and unpacking why he didn't do that and the shame and doubt that you go through after being put through what he's been put through.

[00:04:25] I also appreciate that he's not the easiest character to love.

[00:04:29] And before you understand a bunch of things, I felt myself saying, why are you doing this? Please stop.

[00:04:36] It also had incredible performances at its center, particularly Jessica Gunning is her name, right?

[00:04:43] Who plays Martha, who adds a really complex layering of this character because she is horrific, scary and can lash out at any moment.

[00:04:57] But also you find empathy for her.

[00:05:02] Yeah, it's so interesting when you talk about Martha, who I do credit a lot of the actor for really bringing out these various layers because I don't think, especially as somebody who,

[00:05:15] for both the star and creator and the person who actually lived this real life experience, it would probably be more difficult for him to kind of excavate those layers.

[00:05:29] It would probably need a third party to bring those out.

[00:05:34] That said, I also think that what's so interesting about pretty much all the characters across the board is that I do still identify Martha as certainly a villain.

[00:05:50] Interesting villain and a very complex villain, but a villain nonetheless.

[00:05:56] I also think that she's also, as the show very much describes, that she's also mentally ill.

[00:06:02] Both things. I think what often ends up happening as her story progresses and we learn a little bit more about her psyche,

[00:06:13] audiences try to kind of, what I was seeing a lot of people were just like, oh no, she's not a villain. She's mentally ill.

[00:06:21] What kind of bothered me about that statement is that you can be both mentally ill and a villain.

[00:06:29] True.

[00:06:31] And it doesn't lesser, one thing doesn't lessen the other thing, but you can be both things at the same time.

[00:06:39] And I want us to remember that what she did was awful.

[00:06:43] Also, her own state of being is awful, I'm sure very torturous. It doesn't make her actions any, and her actions just continue to spiral.

[00:06:53] And so it's not, and it's not even just the main character. It's all the relationships that he has as well.

[00:07:01] I think that's a really interesting point, particularly with his girlfriend who comes in, who he meets after the situation with Martha.

[00:07:09] Who also is an incredible performance. The woman plays Terry.

[00:07:15] I was kind of wondering when we first meet, his name is Donnie on the show, Donnie and Terry on that first date,

[00:07:23] I was wondering why this incredibly smart funny person wanted to be with him to begin with, because taking her to these dark bars and she was so smart that she could obviously feel that he had some sort of shame towards this and a little question mark for me.

[00:07:40] I think we don't get a ton more layers about Terry.

[00:07:44] I can only infer and I only kind of infer from what I've heard from other trans women is that, and not even just trans women, I think this is this happens to women across the board where we're bad guys and we continue with that guy.

[00:08:03] So that could be that type of situation. It could be also the type of thing where women, I think in general have this innate sense like this can be like, he'll turn around.

[00:08:19] You know what I mean? Like, this is going to get better or I can make him better.

[00:08:23] There's that female instinct that I think is very, very gendered and I don't think it would be something that would happen on the other end.

[00:08:32] I think if Terry was a guy and Donnie was a woman, I think that Terry wouldn't even give her any opportunity.

[00:08:44] Terry would probably just say, oh, I'm not dealing with this person at all.

[00:08:50] But I think if you look at it through a gendered lens, I feel like that happens a lot.

[00:08:59] And it can also be like, we don't know a whole lot about Terry, but I feel like it could also be her own maybe self-hatred that he has long buried.

[00:09:09] So things like that. And this is all me inferring because we don't get a lot of that.

[00:09:14] I even think we get a lot of her self blame when she ultimately does dump him.

[00:09:20] She doesn't really blame herself. She really is blaming, you got to work on all of your shit.

[00:09:27] Basically, all of the stuff.

[00:09:29] Which is so true.

[00:09:31] Yeah, and I can't be a part of it.

[00:09:33] How did you feel about the pacing and editing of the show?

[00:09:39] They give us information, you know, one thing up until episode three, and then you find out about the sexual assault by the writer, mentor figure.

[00:09:51] Did that work for you?

[00:09:53] It's interesting. I wonder if this has anything to do with just the way in which he was processing and the chronology, the chronological way in which he was processing what was going on with him.

[00:10:04] I can believe that he jumped into this relationship or this situation with Martha as well without actually having even acknowledged everything that preceded that.

[00:10:19] And then as he's in these situationships with both of these two women, he starts to kind of go back and reconsider all of what he had experience with the sexual assault.

[00:10:33] It starts coming up for him the whole time.

[00:10:35] Yeah. And so I think that really worked for me because I do think that that is often how that happens.

[00:10:41] I don't think that people process or even acknowledge or even want to reflect on.

[00:10:46] And again, also think that this could be gendered as well between like if something like this happened to a man versus a woman, I think that's something that societally and gender wise they kind of move about their life.

[00:11:04] And then something kind of causes them or triggers them to really think about, oh, why am I like this?

[00:11:12] And I also think that Donnie is still, even as we get to the end of the series, I think he's actually still in process of trying to figure himself out, which I think is kind of part of the brilliance of it.

[00:11:28] I think humanity and people are consistently in process.

[00:11:33] And there's not like, okay, I'm fixed or oh, I've identified the problem now I can move on with my life.

[00:11:41] It's like, no, we don't get that by the end.

[00:11:44] The way in which the events unfold and the back and forth in time to me kind of illuminated that this is kind of a process that he's still kind of putting the pieces together, not in real time.

[00:11:58] The brilliance of the show for me as well is the fact that there are no easy answers.

[00:12:04] The questions of why would you continue going back to him or why are you dealing with her in this way?

[00:12:11] That I think is something you can take from this if you think that there are any sort of easy answers when you've been in a traumatic situation or an abusive relationship or what have you.

[00:12:21] That person's way of dealing with it is only that person's way of dealing with it and that's what we're seeing here.

[00:12:29] This is his way.

[00:12:32] Glenn Weldon of NPR, he wrote an article.

[00:12:36] His feeling is that this sort of bungles the depiction of queerness that after Johnny's sexually assaulted, he has sex with men, women.

[00:12:47] He's very self-destructive.

[00:12:49] There's a lot of drugs.

[00:12:50] He, Weldon had this feeling that really didn't sit all that well with him.

[00:12:55] Do you have any feeling about that?

[00:12:57] I was really trying to grapple with that as well.

[00:13:01] Something that we constantly hear is that sexuality is constantly on a spectrum.

[00:13:11] People figure it out or realize it kind of as things happen or don't happen, as just time happens.

[00:13:23] I know Glenn also in that same piece on NPR said that he made a point to say that this is also very specifically Donnie's story.

[00:13:35] About him, exactly.

[00:13:37] Yeah, that it's not something that is just like, oh, this is what happens when such and such happens.

[00:13:43] I think a few things are happening.

[00:13:47] I think that we don't really get stories like this.

[00:13:50] So when it happens, it tends to define queerness when it's actually strictly Donnie's story and a very, very specific story, very specifically told.

[00:14:01] And not in a way that he is making any apologies for it or anything.

[00:14:09] It's really just like, this is how my mind and my being has worked thus far.

[00:14:15] This is why I am to understand of myself with all the things that I have now kind of processed thus far.

[00:14:23] And that's what I got from it, and that's what I've come to accept from it.

[00:14:27] But yeah, when I first was kind of grappling with that, I was just like, is that something that can happen?

[00:14:36] And I'm not negating that maybe that can happen.

[00:14:40] But I also think that what we don't really see the way in which the story unfolds in Baby Reindeer,

[00:14:49] we don't really see that Donnie actually could have been grappling with this far earlier than that.

[00:14:57] And we only see him process and understand and maybe kind of realize his sexuality after that.

[00:15:05] But that's not to me that didn't really infer that this is the first time he's really thought about it.

[00:15:12] I mean, you think about any of his sexual or romantic interactions, they're all fraud.

[00:15:21] And that's not to suggest or even conflate that, you know, queerness is fraud.

[00:15:27] It can be sometimes for some people.

[00:15:29] But when it came to Donnie was just like, you're not able to really have mature interactions on a romantic level with anybody.

[00:15:42] And what does that mean?

[00:15:44] And, you know, what does that mean for you?

[00:15:48] And this is what it meant for him.

[00:15:50] I didn't really, you know, make a definitive assumption that this is something that could happen to anyone who's experienced sexual abuse.

[00:16:01] But it's when he seemed to have processed it or came to a realization that he actually still seems to be working through it.

[00:16:10] I don't even know if that's still like definitive even at this point in the by the end of the series.

[00:16:15] I don't I still don't know if that's definitive.

[00:16:17] I think it could evolve again, you know.

[00:16:23] Watching it, I didn't feel that at all towards the end when he's talking to his parents, when he says I'm bisexual.

[00:16:31] I didn't take that to mean I am this now.

[00:16:33] I took it to mean that I could have told you this also a long time ago.

[00:16:38] After reading Glenn and respect to his way of seeing it, and I thought it was a very measured article,

[00:16:45] I was thinking, was there something the creators could have done to make that clear?

[00:16:50] Or if people are feeling that, I don't know.

[00:16:53] But I didn't get that feeling either that this was some sort of reaction to trauma would suddenly make you queer.

[00:17:01] I saw it much more as self-destruction of how he has his relationship with Terry.

[00:17:08] There's all these things he's doing to himself and how he's dealing with Martha that is more of a pattern of just not being able to do anything, really.

[00:17:18] Yeah.

[00:17:19] Yeah.

[00:17:20] And with respect to even what Glenn was saying about that in the piece is that this sense of his queer interactions were, I guess, portrayed in a negative sense is what I got from what Glenn was saying.

[00:17:41] I think they came at a time when he was already in a negative space, but I would say that about all of the relationships that he was.

[00:17:51] I think because we don't, there is no reference to his queerness or we don't see any hint of queerness or he doesn't really talk about this queer sexuality that he might have earlier in the series.

[00:18:08] And we only hear about it afterwards.

[00:18:10] Afterwards, I think that's really just an indication of where he is as a human.

[00:18:14] I didn't really take it as like this is as Glenn said, there's a cause and effect of the abuse.

[00:18:25] I think it's really just because we haven't seen it.

[00:18:28] We have to really kind of wrestle with the fact that we don't hear about it until afterwards, because he doesn't realize it until afterward.

[00:18:37] Yeah, I guess it's also because he mentions shame. He's ashamed of what's happened to him.

[00:18:44] He's ashamed of what he's how he's not handling or handling Martha or everybody want to say that.

[00:18:50] There's, I mean the whole thing is just an orgy and shame really.

[00:18:55] So is I mean like this isn't.

[00:18:58] I think when I hear some of these reactions, I'm just like one.

[00:19:04] Are we projecting this onto the story or is this what is actually being said in the story? So there's that.

[00:19:10] And then also, like, I think people often, particularly when it comes to more marginalized experiences, people come to see them as prescriptive when especially something that is this deeply personal and also involves both both the survivors.

[00:19:27] And is like his story as he's also the star in the right.

[00:19:32] Like he's so embroiled in every inch of the storytelling practically it.

[00:19:39] That should give you kind of a sense of just like this is extremely specific story that's not prescriptive and not and somebody who's kind of a storyteller who's brave enough to talk about something, talk about his own experiences, talk about himself in a way that is never flattering.

[00:19:55] Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Neglia and I am the host of the Next Best Picture podcast part of the Film Entertainment Awards website nextbestpicture.com on our show.

[00:20:07] We explore all year long what is possibly going to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

[00:20:12] We do this by conducting interviews with people within the film industry, holding weekly reviews of the latest theatrical releases and on our main show where we dive into various different topics answer your fan questions and also do our best to explore Oscar history's past in hopes that it will tell us something new for this upcoming award season race.

[00:20:33] We hope that you will join us on all the various podcasting networks.

[00:20:37] We look forward to seeing you over at nextbestpicture.com.

[00:20:51] And I think that the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive and very emotional and sort of with a sense of gratitude that someone is speaking out about this in and not putting himself in the best light either but really putting warts and all what trauma and in on screen.

[00:21:13] What has happened, there's of course been a bunch of sleuthing going on where audiences have looked up the real people who who is the real Martha.

[00:21:25] They've been trying to find who the writer that abused sexually assaulted him was and that some wrong person has been

[00:21:36] gotten a whole bunch of death threats and everything as a result.

[00:21:40] I'm a bit surprised at that they are surprised that this would happen because they saw it seems sort of caught off guard and they did really be up there very upfront with that it's true while Richard Goud is trying to say that it's not all true it's emotionally true and I'm a bit surprised with the real

[00:22:04] difficulty of the subject matter that this wasn't something that was talked about six months every single day before this came out that it would happen.

[00:22:13] Yeah.

[00:22:16] I, I will never not find it really disturbing that people go after people who they've learned about even tangentially on a TV show.

[00:22:31] That's actually really especially in the true crime era it's like people think they're going to solve everything and doing lots to harm people's privacy and so I just think that we've learned that people will do this.

[00:22:46] So one should have known that this would happen here as well.

[00:22:50] I mean, and like you said that that's across all true crime and really not even all true crimes sometimes it's fictional crime where folks are just like and even like it's stand up calm is just.

[00:23:02] Oh, I mean, Taylor Swift to she referring to in that song and who's that one referred I mean this is this is the whole thing.

[00:23:11] And I mean I really think that's the really disturbing issue of stand up though and even the disturbing issue of like the way in which audiences engage with TV and film and music apparently, I think.

[00:23:24] I think that's really disturbing. I don't think that that should affect how and why people create art. I think that we need to be like, really unpacking why people are having these really.

[00:23:37] Really disturbing relationships with what they're seeing on TV or who they think they know or who they think they can find out and expose things like that.

[00:23:47] It's a very dangerous space but like to your earlier question about like, you know, Netflix is on preparation for it.

[00:23:59] I don't know. I mean, like, it could be one of those things like, yeah, this might happen but also should that should what can we actually do about that?

[00:24:10] I mean, also, you know, should raise a raise a raise a flag like for people who are engaging in work like that and why they're responding in that way and why they are thinking that that's a totally reasonable response to what they're watching on TV.

[00:24:31] Yeah, I think of all of those things. Yeah.

[00:24:34] I mean, there's going to be things that aren't the same in the show like he said in the time that she had she didn't go to jail and things like that, which I'm just hoping will not sort of make the conversation go in the wrong direction if you that that's what I worry about when this type of sleuthing begins and instead of talking about the issues that are really interesting and that we should all be talking about.

[00:25:01] And I also think that when I said they weren't prepared in a way, I guess they were since this was a stand up a one man show and he had already performed this and for whatever his audience was before the huge Netflix audience was a lots of people were already aware of this story.

[00:25:17] Yeah, I mean, and that's really kind of a larger issue around the way in which people talk about art. I feel like people are a lot more reactionary and more one dimensional when it comes to their art that it really leapfrogs over like very complex themes within the art.

[00:25:39] And it written those things that are really essential to our conversation or becoming just completely lost in it. It creates a really, it creates a really mind numbing conversation.

[00:25:51] And when we really could be having a really deeply complicated and necessary conversation around a variety of themes, you know what I mean? It's really such a indicator of where we are in terms of how people talk about art.

[00:26:05] But at the same time that we have a difficult time talking about art, there's been some really interesting types of confessional particularly British ones if we talk about like Fleabag and the incredible I May Destroy You and this one.

[00:26:21] Well, Alan Seppenwald is calling this tortured poet show this particular sort of types of shows. So there is some bravery as to really stepping up and telling your own story and in front of the world. What do you make of that?

[00:26:38] Yeah, I mean, I think all three of those examples are incredible. Incredible TV and also all of them are all very, very short series and I think they were all half hours, half hour episodes.

[00:26:51] Very interesting to say and all of them straddle between comedy and drama. All of these things are very, very specific and very similar in those ways. I immediately thought of I May Destroy You after watching Baby Reindeer in so many different ways.

[00:27:07] You know, the very, what's the word? Like not undesirable but like imperfect victim. Somebody who's kind of unlikable victim and kind of spirals in between Arabella in I May Destroy You and Donnie and in Baby Reindeer.

[00:27:32] Neither of them, or maybe Arabella does and I can't recall. I know Donnie does not actually, he doesn't go to therapy throughout this particular story. I think Arabella does actually.

[00:27:45] But just like this sense of just like, you know, we're talking about two pretty otherwise strong characters that are struggling with talking about their mental health experience or their lapses in mental health and all of that.

[00:28:05] And so I think what's also interesting when it comes to I May Destroy You, I May Destroy You notoriously did not get the awards attention that it definitely deserved. I see a lot of folks talking about Baby Reindeer in a very, very different light.

[00:28:21] Oh, it's already gotten all the Emmys if you look at them.

[00:28:25] And so that kind of bothered me too because I was just like, I know there were definitely people who were just like, oh, you know, I May Destroy You should definitely get all of these awards but largely I'm seeing that more for Baby Reindeer and I have to, you know, like think about just the way in which that conversation is gendered.

[00:28:44] And I think that's a really interesting way in which it is white centered as well. And it's just like, okay, well, if Baby Reindeer does go on to get and garner all this awards attention as it deserves, I think that'll raise questions for me why I May Destroy You, which preceded it and did kind of the same thing.

[00:29:03] And I think that's really interesting because I was just like, I think it's interesting to see people talking about like a culture of Black women and Black women in the UK that do not talk about things like this.

[00:29:18] There was like this sense of kind of, I don't want to say exposing but just like talking about and experiencing taboo topics in a way and also unraveling them in a way that is considered taboo.

[00:29:31] Really kind of talking about the unlikeable victim people don't want to consider victims are unlikeable you don't want to consider the victims are also perpetrators which both shows are doing.

[00:29:41] But Michaela Cole did that first.

[00:29:47] And what Donnie has experienced, what Richard Gad experienced and what he's showing us through Donnie is no better or worse.

[00:29:58] It's like it's very much kind of following a line that I hope gets the acclaim that I May Destroy You definitely should have already.

[00:30:09] Do you see any of these type of shows there's less of them coming out stateside I have to say, do you see a reason for that or is it just happens to be that this is a format that's been done more in the UK or?

[00:30:24] No, I think my only my only assumption is,

[00:30:30] I think most American audiences are ill prepared to have those conversations.

[00:30:35] And if you I mean you only need to stay on social media for like 20 minutes to realize the type of ways in which people actually talk about art and it's often way too one dimensional.

[00:30:48] I think I've seen about two or even three shows with Fleabag but I'll stay specifically with I May Destroy You and yeah where they are really forcing the audience to grapple with things that are deeply uncomfortable.

[00:31:04] People see a victim and it's just like no you just have this you have the story is that she's a victim or that he's a victim and it's just like no this is actually a lot of different things and the way we.

[00:31:15] We think you should be reacting that's like there's not too there's a policing of people's are there's like oh this is a better reaction to the art or this is you know it's there's like this one way of thinking which both of these shows are really kind of expressing multiple and conflicting ways of being and thinking.

[00:31:38] I think I.

[00:31:42] It's interesting that they're all kind of this like UK experience or coming from UK artists.

[00:31:51] I can't speak to UK artists or UK audiences, but I can speak to American audiences and I feel like that is why we're not seeing a lot of that here.

[00:32:04] Whereas there's this sense of from what I understand from what I've been seeing even from these three shows and I if I think about it through a UK lens it seems like they are more willing to have a more.

[00:32:20] I want to say controlled or sobering conversation around all of these complex and conflicting ideologies and really looking at people's flaws and their in their pain.

[00:32:37] We America is not a country that really deals with mental health properly deal with multiple truths properly. We are we can barely you know deal with one truth at a time you know like and that's we just engage with arts in such a strange way that I that I think when it comes to perhaps UK audiences I think they are more prepared to be.

[00:33:06] Prepared they could be more prepared for those or at least more willing to engage with our as.

[00:33:16] Have more complicated conversations about complicated art and treat it in a way that is as complex as it is and not just like complete the whole thing down to one pithy line that really capture the full experience of the art.

[00:33:31] I also think that there's another bravery with the people with the money I mean there's a more of a public service aspect to you know British or in the states that there is a lot of that people are more wary of doing things that will challenge that I think that there's less of a willingness to take that type of risk.

[00:33:51] Yeah it's true I mean I think a lot more American art.

[00:33:55] Careers to the audience whereas these these all three of these three examples they actually don't cater to the audience they just they challenge the audience almost every single term I also would say that.

[00:34:10] In each of those three examples that they are all I think written created some in some cases directed all by the person who's also experienced.

[00:34:19] The one experienced.

[00:34:21] Yeah, that is very specific and I'm I mean I'm sure it's happened I'm just like forgetting it but.

[00:34:29] I don't know if someone like Gerard Carmichael I'm not I haven't seen the reality show yet but thinking maybe he's someone who I know with at least with rothaniel that he really came out with an honesty that again I haven't seen his latest show but someone like that.

[00:34:49] Yeah, that's actually an excellent example I haven't seen his reality show but my friend gives me week to week updates.

[00:34:59] What I find very my friend said she wasn't sure if it was a reality show how staged it was really but again.

[00:35:07] Well that's exactly also something that my friend said that it was just like it's kind of because she doesn't like real I don't watch reality TV and she despises reality TV but she's like this is the anti reality television show that that's her way of trying to get me to watch it.

[00:35:21] But I think this all to say that I think that there's.

[00:35:26] There's to you know to your point with Gerard Carmichael versus all the reaction to all the other three aforementioned shows that you mentioned, I feel like.

[00:35:37] You see like what's actually what the how folks are responding to draw Carmichael, which is mostly negative and most of the.

[00:35:46] I'm not not across the board but I would say like 75% of the reactions that I've seen week to week every single episode has been like, I don't.

[00:35:57] It's very deeply uncomfortable.

[00:36:00] Yeah, and so I think to my point where it's just like, I think American audiences really expect certain things from their art these days that UK audiences don't really have the same might not have the same hang ups about.

[00:36:13] But audiences are embracing this baby reindeer. It'll be interesting if it brings more, you know, people want to be exposed more to challenging stories and TV and ask questions and.

[00:36:25] I hope so. I mean, you know, with the draw Carmichael example I'm just like, people don't want to be uncomfortable. Oh my goodness was like they don't want their art to be uncomfortable they want their art to deep to very specifically reflect each of their ideologies and not like the actual creators ideologies.

[00:36:46] And so that's really funny to me. It's just like, you know, the responses to the three shows and then direct Carmichael show is extremely distinct and very different.

[00:36:58] It's like, oh no, he's not saying or acting in ways that are likable or that are understandable or that are familiar.

[00:37:10] Yeah, interesting. Thank you so much. I was really interesting to talk through it and I still think I think we're kind of in agreement that there's this pretty much a brilliant show and the stuff that we don't understand we're kind of happy for getting the chance to really think about and marinate in, I would say.

[00:37:30] Absolutely. I mean that's the that's the whole kind of gist of baby reindeer is just like, you're, you're marinating it is kind of forcing you to marinate it in kind of a similar way as the star.

[00:37:42] The lead character is marinating it and really processing it and really just like saying that I'm still in progress. Like, I don't really have any answers and I'm still going to make more mistakes type of thing. There isn't a promise like this person's healed at the end.

[00:37:58] I hear a couple people saying like, oh, it's about healing. I'm just like, I don't even know. I don't even I don't think anybody actually is healed.

[00:38:05] Not in this not yet. Right? Yeah, in one aspect I would say yes and that's between him and his parents. I felt that that was they had an experience there where they found at least between him and his father a common understanding and that both of them had been through something that had sort of changed them.

[00:38:25] Yeah, there is that really great exchange that they have and I love that they don't dwell on it.

[00:38:31] If you understand it, you understand it. If you don't, you don't.

[00:38:36] Yeah, yeah. That is just like, you know, especially again, we're talking about two guys. Like this isn't something that like, and I don't even say women don't openly talk about, don't often openly talk about like mental health and certainly not sexual abuse, certainly not sexual abuse within the church.

[00:38:55] You know, things like that. It's really if we're talking about it, it's so often like not regarding us but like we hear about those things type of things, but it's not like we're not bringing it close to home.

[00:39:05] And I think, I think there's a mutual understanding that I think we don't see anywhere else in the show and so that's like this sense like, oh, okay, he gets at least this part of it.

[00:39:20] You know what I mean? That's really essential. Is that healing? I think it's, I think it's on the highway toward it.

[00:39:28] We're getting there, the right path.

[00:39:31] One more question I was curious about now, what you think. What do you think this is going to mean? Will Richard Gatt, will he be able to have a comedy career going forward? I mean, will people see him acting in roles that aren't himself?

[00:39:47] I mean, this is a very powerful thing to come running out with as your first major international success.

[00:39:55] Yeah. That's a good question because I even think about with all of the people that we just said, Gerard, for my, yeah, like small, like there's nothing on this level of just like, you know, being central storyteller, central lead, all of that.

[00:40:12] Where I wonder if it's kind of one of those things where it's just like, I need to like, I need to now process the response to this show and that might take time.

[00:40:23] But also, you know, when it comes to Richard Gatt, we, I mean, I know I've never heard of him before.

[00:40:34] And from what he told us on the show, it doesn't look like his standups were all that great. They look like they were well received.

[00:40:42] So I don't know if he could possibly go back to, you know, doing more standup.

[00:40:48] I honestly when Gerard Carmichael came out with the reality show and not just like a sitcom or another standup special, that really shocked me because I'm just like, well, do you want to continue this path of kind of excavating your own feelings and engaging these really uncomfortable feelings with your audience?

[00:41:07] Or do you want to kind of continue doing the comedy thing? And from what I've been seeing, I haven't, you know, if we use the past examples like Gerard and all these others, it doesn't seem likely to go back to what audiences understood them as.

[00:41:26] Or the role they were playing with audiences through their art. I think, I don't know, I'd be so, I would actually watch a standup from Richard Gatt. I've never seen one before.

[00:41:39] I know that he did have the standup show or the, I don't know if you'd call it a standup show, the one man show that he did that was about the sexual assault. It's called Monkey See Monkey Do. That won the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

[00:41:54] I mean, he established performance artist, I would say rather than standup in the UK in that circle. So I think he was much more successful or at least critically successful than he seems to be as Donnie on the show.

[00:42:10] I don't really know why they have chosen to make him be so, but I think that in this point in his life when he was really spiraling, he probably felt like he wasn't doing what he wanted to be doing. But the shows that were actually built around his trauma were very successful.

[00:42:30] I remember that this is probably late in the series where he has a huge audience. I mean, an actual audience and like a big one looked like it was a, it looked like a, not a gymnasium, what do you call those things? It looked like a big room.

[00:42:47] Yeah, theater. Oh my gosh. I was like, what are the big rooms called? But yes, it looked like it was pretty much sold out. And that was the moment where he's actually delving into this traumatic experience or this traumatic relationship really. And so yeah, it did look like, okay, that was a pretty successful event.

[00:43:12] It's not, he sort of combined it on the show because the sort of confessional that he did in front of the audience on the show where he spontaneously tells his whole story. That never happened. What happened was that he did these one man shows that were actually scripted and produced.

[00:43:33] Oh, interesting. Very much dramatic flair. But I appreciate that. Does that change anything for you? No, not for me either. But in a way it's the same thing. I mean, he did tell his story in front of an audience that probably wasn't expecting that to be the story.

[00:43:52] Yeah, no, that's really good to know. I wonder what he will do after this and what he will want to do from this. And I wonder if it's kind of going in the vein of Gerard Carmichael in the sense like let me dig into this more. But I think I was also reading that he will never talk about this again.

[00:44:14] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or meaning like he will never talk about it in detail in which he goes into in the series as well as he's gone into on stage. But if we kind of look to see what Gerard Carmichael has been doing, I wonder if Richard could in that same vein kind of talk about it.

[00:44:44] Maybe not talk very specifically about his experiences in that way, but talk more broadly about just queer identity, queer experiences or more about the way in which people interact with comedy and stand up comedy.

[00:45:04] I think that's kind of spiraling out of the conversations that hopefully are coming out of this series where it's not just talking about him and what happened to him. That could be actually really interesting. I don't know if I would I would not watch a reality show, but I could see him hopefully doing something scripted and having that like dramatic layer to it that is kind of strong both comedy and drama, but also in a very

[00:45:34] sobering and really complex way.

[00:45:38] Well, it's going to be really interesting to follow him. It's going to be really interesting to continue following in the reactions to this show because I think my prediction is that there's going to be a whole bunch of backlashes and back and forths and ups and downs and what's true and what's not true.

[00:45:54] And all these kind of things I think will be coming, but hopefully they'll be at the center of it. A really good conversation from this piece of art that they have made. So thank you so much, Candice, for joining me again. It's always so great to talk to you about these subjects and pop culture in general.

[00:46:14] Yeah, same. Thank you so much. Thank you for helping me kind of process my own feelings and reactions to it. So that's been very helpful.

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