The White Lotus – Kai next door

Full transcript of The White Lotus – Kai next door.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household, and we are starting off with not the first, one of many PSAs from KT, yours truly. Life can be art, but art is not life if you're white and your characters aren't, and you're talking about benefiting from privileges that you benefit from. I'm going to get into it. Don't worry. Strap in friends and lovers. Strap on if you're feeling nasty because as the cool kids say, I'm about to achieve my final form in this episode. Aloha,

1:02KT: friends and lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your host, KT.

1:02Oti: And Oti.

1:02KT: Buff out the cheek powder and prepare for landing as we check in to The White Lotus this week. Where the biggest crime is a disembodied voices, culture, and pain from the people they belong to. Oti. This will be fun, wouldn't it? As the Australian side of me would say, fuck me dead. Wow. You we've earned our explicit tag. We've earned our colonization tag, and we're about to get super nasty all over this series. We say spoiler spoiler spoiler.

1:42KT: In other case, white man, white man, white man, because this is created, written, and directed by Mike White. Most of the time, we just enjoy shows as they are, and I have so much to say, Oti. I'm sitting on it, I'm riding it, and I'm gonna snap it off.

1:42Oti: Yeah. You do have.

1:42KT: All over you, sir. If you're nasty. In regards to the cast, we have Murray Bartlett.

2:09KT: Love love an Aussie in the For Your Reference household. Love to see it. Also love to see Connie Britton. It's good to know she's not breaking young boys hearts like in 9-1-1. Yeah. Coolidge, obviously amazing, amazing shout out to Natasha Rothwell, as well as Oti's Plop. He's also in your vape as well, Jake Lacy. Mhmm. Alright. This series, a nice tight series if you're nasty of six episodes premiered on HBO in July 2021. Wherever you are in the clusterfuck of this space time continuum, this is a nice little tight show. There

2:51KT: there are some some issues with it, and we're definitely going to come with it. But Oti, this is not going to be just KT yelling for an hour. So start us off, my love. What did you feel about the show? What what were your first impressions, and how did you feel generally, and I guess coming to the end of the series season?

2:51Oti: You told me about Natasha Rothwell having a new show on HBO. Our sight, I was pumped.

2:51KT: Yes. Can we point out that we came across this show because of the ever eternal Natasha

3:25KT: Rothwell? Yes. More. Please. Thank you.

3:30Oti: We were psyched, pumped, and we went into this thinking that or I went into this thinking that, you know, I'm gonna love this regardless. Mhmm. On the first episode, I was like, Cole, I think I'm gonna get a whodunit from you.

3:30KT: Whodunit? Who's gonna get it? Who's white?

3:45KT: Sorry.

3:46Oti: I thought I was gonna get a whodunit, but as the episodes went on, it veered for it. My expectations lessened. I had qualms not as much as KT. And I think we'll get into some more interesting character discussions later on because we have very conflicting thoughts on those. But, wow, I I think at the end of it, I thought, you know what? It wasn't that great of a show. It was alright. I'm not really looking forward to season two, but there you go.

4:16KT: And I guess just speaking generally before we get into specific plot lines as well as characters, the first episode was one of the best pilots we've seen in a long time. It was exciting. Like you said, it was setting itself up to be not necessarily black noir, but definitely a mystery of a whodunit. Like we said, there is gonna be spoilers, lots of angsty KT yelling,

4:44KT: but we did say spoilers in this episode. But it initially and I'm I I think it might also be in the trailer, but there is a dead body. So there is some sort of tragedy, right, that happens, not Steps, but I always love to mention Steps when I mention a tragedy. So that's kind of what we're working towards in the series. And I think it was pretty cool. Like, I think the writing was strong enough in the first episode, even if it didn't have that sort of hook in it.

5:15KT: Interestingly enough, the second episode moved quite slowly. And I think that also kind of got in the way of any sort of enjoyment because we knew someone was gonna die. So any sort of character building, I guess, that they wanna do or like character learnings

5:31KT: kind of got in the way because all of that is to naught if they end up dying anyway or if they end up being the killer. Like, it's like, I guess it's cool because it's only six episodes, but the fact that it still felt like it dragged from the second episode where it was kinda like a filler and you can't have filler. You can't have Naruto ostrich filler in a six episode season. You can't. You cannot. And you know what?

5:56Oti: I went into this thinking, you know, once once I saw the dead body and I think it's gonna be a whodunit, I was excited because who doesn't love whodunnits? And then when I realized very quickly after the second episode that it's not, I started wondering, what the fuck do people use this as a fucking device in in in the storytelling? I do not need to know that. It did not play a part. It didn't play a significant part in in in us enjoying the show at all. Yeah. Or even

6:23Oti: getting us interested into thinking, oh, is this person gonna die? It it that had zero zero part in my mind.

6:29KT: Yeah. And yeah. I I absolutely agree. And Family Guy has a nice episode of a And Then There Were None sort of scenario, which sadly, beautifully enough, Seth dedicated to his mother. That was a very nice fun episode. I think it's like there was no point to grapple our hooks with a mysterious death when they really didn't reference it at all

6:55KT: until the end. Like, was even trying to remember whether it was a woman or a man. You're very convinced it was a woman. And I was like, yeah, really don't care. I think it just because we saw Plop. Sorry. We saw Shane. We saw Shane and, you know, I guess I just in my head, I assumed it was wife. But in any case, we will come to the finale, so I don't wanna talk too much about it right now, but it definitely did not deliver. Like, I like that we're seeing American produced miniseries,

7:26KT: I guess if that's what you wanna call it or like limited series, where it's kind of following and I guess it would be nice to see if we ever get to like Sherlock Cumberbatch level, even like Taboo level, where it's like they are short, but they're succinct and they're delicious and they're they're tasty Bretonnian morsels. Still colonizing,

7:46KT: but they're nice morsels to have. And this was a six episode season, but I still feel like it dragged in a lot of places.

7:46Oti: Yeah. You're saying that I was thinking at the back of my mind, didn't they give us Undoing? I was like, oh, man. It it was like

7:46KT: I do believe that's American Bridges even though it's got Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman?

7:46Oti: Yeah. It's American, definitely.

8:08Oti: That felt like the longest, longest, longest season I've ever watched. That is like, what, four or five episodes?

8:14KT: Yeah. And we're we're going to come through with characters. And I feel like in the six episodes, we had already learned something about a character, and then they just kept reinforcing it. And it's like, we get it. They're they're either shitbags with dimension or they're just one dimensional shitbags. Like, that's kind of the variety that we have in this show. But that's generally how we feel about this show. Friends and lovers of the For Your Reference podcast, for those that have perused at least a handful, a nice, oaty, great ass handful,

8:55KT: you would know that we talk a lot about frame of reference. And my frame of reference, I guess, denotes to my foundational qualms with this show, which I wanna talk about a little bit because it's part of the reason that got me frustrated with this show, and it was a major obstacle in order for me to enjoy it, I guess, on surface level for people that don't have my frame of reference. So I am Australian born, but I am Tongan. And this covers, I guess, if that's what you wanna call it, it touches on

9:33KT: native Hawaiian people and the land culture being leached out of them. And I I guess the the the sort of touch points that you will have. Mike White does quite an in-depth interview on Vulture. If you Google it, you'll see it straight away. Oti had to experience the article because I was angrily shouting and putting my phone down and continuing to read it. The fucking interview starts off with him talking about wallpaper and how he went to Sri Lanka and he realized it looked like his wallpaper.

10:07KT: Oh, wow. How quaint that you can distill colonization into your fucking wallpaper. Fuck off. I I thought I I could be cordial. And I guess if people are like, what the fuck? You're Australian and Tongan. What do you have to say on behalf of native Hawaiians? What the fuck did he have to say? Apparently, nothing.

10:27Oti: Well, to be fair, he said more in the interview about it than in the show. So

10:27KT: Yeah. He's like, it's a white guy. If I was to dabble into that, that's not my story to tell. Then don't fucking do it, you asshole. I'm going to you keep fueling me, sir. I'm trying to have an intelligible discussion about this, but this is what's frustrating, friends and lovers. We covered Mystery Road this year, so go and check that out. Regrettably, unfortunately, the first instance of a black indigenous aboriginal man on Australian screens.

11:00KT: Mhmm. Again, hashtag Oscars so Mike White. Oh. Wow. Reservation Dogs recently has come out with Sterlin Harjo as well as Taika Waititi. There's so much satisfaction in seeing stories be told when they are from your experience. Don't use someone else's culture as a backdrop to your white drama.

11:26Oti: I agree with that.

11:29KT: I feel like at this point, have no choice to agree. There's no other room aside from agreement. But let me let me just come to this so we can come to the show. There's so much complexity to colonization and even even talking about Mark Mossbacher. Right? He has

11:47KT: a very interesting sort of sentiment, which I'm sure Mike also shares as well. Because like we learned from Malcolm and Marie, the creators like to use their characters as a vessel for whatever they wanna say, as a mouthpiece. Right? But Mark did say something, and I did agree with it because, you know, a a lot of sentiment in regards to colonization and those that benefit from colonization, particularly wealthy, rich, white people, is that, okay, so it's disgusting what happened to native Hawaiians,

12:20KT: but what now? Like, what do you what do you expect? Because then you also have the daughter Olivia as well as Paula, you know, saying this is wrong, this is wrong. And Mark's like, well, what do you wanna do? You wanna give all of the riches that and the privileges that you're so used to? You wanna give it back? And no. But that's exactly it. Because we we talk generally, collectively, we, we talk about the right a lot, but there's also the left as well, which isn't very helpful.

12:47KT: Like, what's the point of you saying that if there's really going to be no tangible, you know, sort of change that's going to come out with that? You know? And I even feel the guilt of as well. Like, even when we're in Fiji, seeing my fellow brown people be subservient to me, I felt a way about it. Right? I felt a way about it. And I I you know, we talk about race, we talk about class, we talk about ethnicity. Those are all different intricacies to the human experience.

13:18KT: And I would never try and tell someone what to do, and that's in regards to Paula. But we'll come to Paula in a second. But going back to Mark's sentiments, it is very interesting because at least he is a step further than a lot of other people that don't even wanna acknowledge the pain and the suffering. But what I would implore, if if I can even extend this reference olive branch, if if watching this series or if you can understand that living and holidaying in Hawaii drastically disadvantages native Hawaiians

13:56KT: to the benefits that they might get economically or however you wanna equate it, should also be acknowledged to Native American people. And also indigenous Australians as well. And we've we've talked about that in the Mystery Road episode. We also talked about that here. Welcome, friends and lovers. If you have not watched The White Lotus, you've gotten more complexity in regards to colonization

14:20KT: in this fucking podcast episode than you're going to get in this show. You you might even think that this is very heavy in what I'm saying, but the gravity of it was not founded in this show. And that's part of the qualm that I have. We love Succession. I would never want to encounter people from Succession, but I enjoy them on my screens because they're not here with a bleeding heart looking at minorities or people of a lower class or in this example,

14:51KT: native Americans and being like, oh, it really sucks. Right? Like, because what's the what's the point of that? It's it's that disingenuous sort of nature that doesn't bring anything to the table. If you wanna live your life in a succession way, it is much better to do that than try to I don't know. It's it's it's this faux sort of activism that doesn't even exist anywhere. Right? Yeah. And I don't know. Maybe he will have a show coming up about Sri Lanka soon. Who knows? And it all spawned off a fucking wallpaper. It's frustrating.

15:24KT: If if stories are going to be told that aren't about or from the voices of the people, then leave it the fuck alone. And don't stand in the way saying how important it is while you're taking the space for those people. Like, how fucking hard is that? Again, Mystery Road, Reservation Dogs, Succession on a completely different tangent, the Boy, Taika Waititi, addressing child poverty in New Zealand, addressing child homelessness

15:57KT: in Hunt for the Wilderpeople. It can be done and complexity can be done as well. Stop putting on other people's skin just because you want your story to be interesting. Yeah. Wow.

16:08Oti: No outrageous like you,

16:11KT: They call me Al KT Sharpton. Alright. Let's get into the show. Let's get into the show. Shout out to Lani. I was hoping that we're going to get her back at least in some sort of instance. Let's get into the show, but be prepared because I'm pretty sure, you know, my tenterhooks are going to come back again. Yeah. Do you wanna start with the staff or do you wanna start with the Mossbachers?

16:43Oti: Let's start with the Mossbachers.

16:45KT: Mossbachers motherfuckers.

16:47Oti: Nicole. So she is super wealthy. She knows her position in society and she's unapologetic about that. And I like how she advocates for white men. That's nice. Yes. Because we know they're suffering.

17:01KT: Yeah. They can write shows too.

17:05Oti: Wow. Yeah. We get to see her here that she is super successful. She's having a rough time with her husband. He cheated on her. I think she sort of felt away about it. Yeah. And the fact that had a connection is so long. So this sort of holiday Yeah. Was a way to reinvigorate their relationship, their bond as a family, and that came in pretty much full circle. Yeah, absolutely.

17:35KT: Something that I and I know I've gone on a real honest sort of tangent, but I do have a not necessarily a qualm, but there was something that was bothering me about Nicole's character. I don't think it was laid out enough that she loved her family. Like, I know by default was supposed to say that we love our family, but it seemed like it was more that she was just busy with work and the itinerary because she had a breakdown. And, you know, I think

18:10KT: Mike likes to speak on behalf of brown people. So I'm gonna speak on behalf of all women. So at least it's in my quadrant. Right? I think as women, you know, we feel like we need to be and cater to everyone. So when she got upset at at the boat trip and she decided not to be there anymore, as a woman, I was able to resonate with that. But I don't think the groundwork was done to get to that point. Like, did you think that she emotionally

18:40KT: cared enough to storm off of the boat?

18:40Oti: No. It didn't feel like that. It felt very unannounced. It felt a bit left field. So I think the sort of argument sort of stemmed from Mark telling his son that he cheated, had an And

18:56Oti: I think that's sort of with Nicole. She wants to be in control of everything. Yeah. And everything has to be in her terms. So when she lost that, I think it just created a spiral effect. And I understood that from that point of view. But when it got to the boat, it just felt it didn't feel like it had built up enough. I absolutely Nothing done enough for us to believe that Nicole would care that much Yeah. To storm off.

19:20KT: It was something that she did care about a lot that I thought was very effective was very early in this show. And it was when she met Rachel or rather when Rachel met her for the first time. And they were having a very lovely exchange until Nicole finds out that Rachel was the one that wrote the article. Rachel, we're going to come to because she is very complex. I think you can easily just describe her as passive, but she's actually very complex

19:49KT: as a character. So I guess just focusing from Nicole's point of view, it was interesting to see her grab Rachel by the cojones and call her a bitch pretty much. And and that was quite interesting because from that point of view, Rachel didn't see it that way. So as an audience, we didn't see it that way. So I think it was well established that Nicole was very successful and she took a lot of pride in her career. I think that was, you know, peppered out very well throughout the six episodes.

20:19KT: She she definitely cared about her kids and wanted to make sure they had a good time. But in the intricacies of her marriage, I don't necessarily think that that was necessarily paved out as well as it could be. Let's go to Mark. How do you feel about Mark? Yeah.

20:37Oti: Apple and tree falling somewhere in the vicinity,

20:37KT: Is that a Kenyan proverb?

20:42Oti: Yep.

20:42KT: Watch out Mike White might use that in a TV show.

20:47Oti: Yeah. He's sort of struggling with his own sort of, I wouldn't say identity, would you?

20:53KT: I don't think it was necessarily his identity. I think it was more his dad's identity and what that meant for him. And I said it in the Legally Blonde episode and it was nice to see Jennifer Coolidge again. There's no excuse for homophobia. Like fuck Mark. There was no excuse for him to be so homophobic about learning about his dad. He the way he was reacting was absolutely disgusting.

21:18KT: That's all. Yeah.

21:18Oti: But then he struggled to find as if he'd lived a lie all this time.

21:18KT: Yeah. But there's a difference between finding out your dad stepped out and had another lady on the side and actually your father was with men. The way he was acting was very homophobic and I was not here for it. He was. He was.

21:37Oti: But we get him to see he he he comes up with this mini resolutions where he's never gonna lie again and he's just super truthful, like and it comes off as something only white parents would do because I don't think

21:54KT: Welcome to the colored side.

21:57Oti: There's I can't imagine a situation where my parent would say anything similar to what Mark said to his kid. Yeah. While talking about sex or even while or even talking with Rachel on the beach. That was super awkward. Yeah. The baby might have your eyes, your nose, your mouth. You deny that baby.

22:19KT: Mark was an interesting character because I think, you know, when the show first started, it felt like there was an uneven dynamic in regards to their marriage. Yep. And it it it just seemed like, you know, Nicole was the power boss

22:35KT: and Mark was also there. But it definitely feel like they were on an uneven keel. And because of the cheating, I guess that makes sense as well. Or at least it might have created a further divide in that dynamic.

22:35Oti: No. He felt like he was just happy to take a seat back, not complain, not do anything just because of the affair.

22:35KT: Yeah. Not just because. Because of the affair. The Affair. With Dominic West and Ruth Wilson.

22:35Oti: And we see him struggle with that throughout.

23:00Oti: He feels like his kids don't respect him because of that. Yeah. And you know, he tries to bond with Quinn more. Yeah. There were definitely some nice moments

23:12KT: there, but you could see they literally had nothing in common. Like, it was like, I don't know. Who who are the two characters on Friends that never interact?

23:12Oti: Yeah. Probably Ross and Phoebe.

23:12KT: And for once, your Friends knowledge isn't the most shameful thing about our podcast episode. Let's move on to the kids. Let's talk about Quinn.

23:35KT: How did what did you think about his overall story arc?

23:35Oti: I think that was the second most interesting thing about the show. Which says a Yeah. And it wasn't that great. It was just a kid finding his way and feeling as if he needed to disconnect from everything.

23:49KT: Or wanking according to Olivia. Oh, wanking. Yeah. Every single scene was her mentioning her brother jacking off. That's some weird kinks, surely. Yeah. It is weird. Don't worry about Quinn's history. Okay. Well, I think that's as much to say about Quinn. I do think that they that Mike was trying to say something more than what he was saying.

24:13KT: Oh, you know, you want kids these days to detach from their screens. Be careful what you wish for. By the way. Oh, so be careful what you wish for because they'll join our royal in Fiji. Cuddled Fiji. Yeah. Oh. And and by the way, Mike wrote this all by himself. I don't know why he flexes like that because it's very clear that no. Really. Really, Quinn and Armond probably have the most dimension in this show. And he saw himself in those? He saw himself in both of them. Yes. Okay. So

24:46KT: I I guess it's detached in reality because you wouldn't really let a 16 year old kid just go paddling off. You know what, Oti? You know what? People talk a lot of shit about South Park, but their whole Happanoa and Butters going to his Happanoa and the Mahalo rewards card did more to explain the incredulousness of white Americans in Hawaii than this show fucking did without the fucking pretension. Mhmm. Can we talk about it? Let's move on to, I guess, the the the drama devices in this show. I wanna talk about Olivia

25:24KT: and I wanna talk about Paula. I have a lot to say about Paula, but let's talk about Olivia just to give her character some attention.

25:32Oti: To me, kept Paula just to feel good about herself. Agree. It was one of those things that you have a token black friend you elevate yourself that way. You make yourself feel good about that. So I never really bought into the Olivia being, oh, she's way better than Paula. That's all nonsense. At least Paula had intentions of doing some good.

25:32KT: Alright. Well, let's talk about it because

25:58KT: ideally in a egalitarian sort of society, everyone shouldn't be shitbags and we all shouldn't have to be fighting for scraps ideally. Right? Mhmm. But the way that this capitalistic colonized fucking western world is, it's set up for billionaires to build dick ships. That's exactly what this world is set up to be. And the reason why I bring that point home is we have different expectations of people. Right? When you encounter people that haven't necessarily had a lot of life experience

26:31KT: or at least they've only really grown up around people that look like them and they haven't really interacted with different classes, different races, different sexualities, you don't really expect a lot from those people. Right? Someone like Paula, who apparently with her proverbial fist understands the struggle, she can fuck right off the fuck bus. That's what she can do. Olivia had a lot of privilege and she was aware of the privilege that she had. Paula also benefited from some of those privileges. She didn't have the exact life,

27:04KT: but she was also on the same island that she was so disgusted to see Kai and the native Hawaiians doing these dances for. Doing this ceremony, piecing bits of their culture that is palatable for a dinner performance. She was disgusted by that, but she was still benefiting from the privileges of her friend. So in regards to Olivia, she shit. She's a terrible friend. She she

27:30KT: I think Paula also mentioned that, like, she she thinks everything is hers. So it's not stealing because she thinks everything is hers and the world falls at her feet. And again, the way that this world is set up, she is going to do very well. The same way Shane continues to do very well in this world. But that's not necessarily a penalty

27:50KT: because why why should she care? Why would she get any better? That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying she doesn't have any faults. I'm just saying I don't really expect a lot from her.

27:50Oti: And you you don't expect anything from Paula?

27:50KT: It's it's the self righteousness.

28:05Oti: It's not self righteousness when you see, I can guarantee you, we don't get to see their backstory, but in her society, she's probably the only black kid, you know, and she has to put up with a lot of shit because of that, a lot of fucking racist comments because of that, and she takes it in because what the fuck else would she do? And then she comes into the island of Hawaii

28:29Oti: with with the Mahalo gift to Wodka's people, then what do you expect her to do when it all comes bursting down because she meets someone that she connects with and gets to hear all these stories? It'll I I guarantee it'll blow anyone's fucking mind off. And for her to react the way she did, I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.

28:50KT: Friends and lovers, I've just done a quick Google search and no, Oti isn't credited for this TV show, but he seemed to have a lot of background knowledge that wasn't provided in this fucking show. Otherwise otherwise known as Oti's black tax because what the fuck was that, man? What the fuck?

29:10Oti: That's a whole lot of bull honking, I think Mike White would write. You you you keep on telling us that's the way the world is. You you've referenced dick planes. Mate, I'm telling you how the fucking world is as well with Paula.

29:24KT: Okay. Okay. So let's go back to the expectation that we have of certain people. I'm speaking from the point of view that I'm a brown woman. Right? If we if we talk from Paula's point of view, she understands what Kai's going through. I would never say

29:24Oti: Not understand.

29:24KT: That I

29:24Oti: She can fucking empathize with it.

29:24KT: I would never say that I succinctly understand the life experience

29:46KT: of a native Hawaiian person. Right? If the stars were to align differently and Tonga was a bigger island, who knows? Who knows if there was going to be a continued presence in Tonga? I would never say that I fully understand what native Hawaiian people are going through. So how the fuck Paula Dickard thinks that she can resonate in any sort of way? She was saying, get your reparations where you can without understanding that the land was stolen and laws were upheld that didn't speak harmoniously

30:22KT: to the land or the people that came before them.

30:22Oti: No. She understands all that. That's why she did it. Come on, bro. And I think alright. Let me pull it back to the show. I think the moment Paula

30:22KT: Kai went to jail, dude.

30:22Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just wait. I think the moment where the veil broke with Paula is at the dinner where they had a conversation about race. I think this is the first time they've ever done it because it was quite shocking to hear all the responses.

30:45Oti: And you could see the expressions on their faces, including Olivia of just how fucked up it was. Nicole, Mark, they're just like, yeah, you know, rich. Yeah. It's all good. But you know what? What can we do about it? It's the way the world is. And, you know, it's not right. You know, and looking at Paula and having probably you don't know, we don't know her backstory.

31:06KT: Yeah. So why are you giving her so many graces? That makes no sense. Because at that moment,

31:12Oti: she was like, fuck it, mate. Reparations time for Kai. And I wasn't I wasn't gonna sit here and think that, you know what? That's not a good way of going for it because I can understand where she was coming from at the very least.

31:12KT: Paula is a fucking reason that slum tourism exists.

31:12Oti: No. She's not.

31:12KT: Yes. Because she wasn't sure didn't indulge that. But she's the reason why it exists because there's that there's that virtuoso

31:36KT: western sort of ideal. In order for me to help the world, I need to go to a developing country. How about you help your fucking neighbors? And can we just say, answer this, sir, in the For Your Reference court with barrister KT on a dick plane if you're nasty. Was she forced to come on this fucking trip? She's gonna say no. Fuck off.

31:59KT: I I I don't know where you'll find Fuck Off Island, but it belongs to you, sir. You're a teenager. You're you're a teenager invited to an all paid vacation in Hawaii. Who wouldn't go? I wouldn't.

31:59Oti: Maybe not this version of KT, but maybe KT would be there.

31:59KT: Wait. Who what am I? John David KT Washington or what? You want me to slick my bullets in there?

31:59Oti: Yep.

32:19KT: I'm just saying, your point of slum tourism, I can see it's more from Olivia and Nicole's point of view. Is she gonna stop the slum tourism? No. She's not. No. She's gonna do it. She's gonna go there and take selfies and make you know? All you had to do all you had to do was look at who wrote this show and then blame it there. All you had to do was do that. You didn't need to defend Paula cause it makes no sense and it's fucking disgusting. No. It is. It's fucking disgusting.

32:46KT: I have been brought up in Australia, so there are certain things that, you know, my fellow Pasifika family that are still in in in their their homeland have experienced that I will never experience. And there are privileges that I have and continue to experience that they never have.

32:46Oti: I think I think I I fully agree with that.

32:46KT: Wait until Mike White comes for Kenya, and then we'll have this conversation.

33:13Oti: I agree with her. I agree with her. And I think to me, I understood Paula's actions just because

33:13KT: But she wasn't tangibly helping. She wasn't helping. Wasn't tangibly

33:25KT: good. She wasn't tangibly helping. She tried to do a shortcut and it ended badly.

33:32Oti: And I told you it was going to end badly. Mate, you're 15 years old. You meet a guy and he's like, I'm kicked out. Because this is what Kai said. My brothers kicked me out because I'm working for these guys. And I'm only doing this so I can pay for a lawyer, but I don't even know how long I need to work here to save to get a half a decent lawyer.

33:49KT: I didn't think that this would give me flashbacks to Passions of the Christ, but it is. You need to acknowledge the writer in all of this, my love. You need to acknowledge the writer. If Mel Gibson wrote this, then tell me that. You know? I'd I'd I'd take a step back.

33:49Oti: Well, I'll tell I'll tell you. There'll be a lot more direct direction. That's for sure.

33:49KT: But Paula is a problem because I expected more from her. She understands how the world works and how unfucking fair it is.

34:22Oti: She's naive. That's a problem. She she had an idea of helping, which is good.

34:22KT: I'll tell you this much. If she was white, you would not defend her.

34:22Oti: I wouldn't.

34:32Oti: Exactly. I'm not pretending. It's worse. I'm not pretending. It's worse to me. But the fact that she's black, I think, adds an extra layer of nuance to it.

34:32KT: Yeah. The same layer of nuance that made her come to Hawaii and judge everyone. Fuck off. No. No. Fuck off completely, mate. Go go and meet your best mate, Mike White, and you can talk about the white big five. You can do that.

34:55KT: You go on safari together and write a fucking show and see how that turns out for you. The only instance that one person writing alone has worked is Archer. Adam Reed is a fucking genius. And Archer continues to stan even with with characters that are of different races, classes, all of the nonsense. Right? But that's because he's not trying to capture the African American experience or native American experience.

35:25Oti: That's the problem. Have you met Conway Stern?

35:28KT: Exactly. Egg fucking zactly. I think it's I think it's the fact that he thinks it's more than what it is. Because I I guess if if if people were conservative or even in the sense that they don't wanna have this discussion, like Mark, for example, then no one wants to hear what he has to say. Right? But if it's further to being progressive,

35:56KT: then they do wanna hear what Mike White has to say, but he's not saying it to any sort of substantial layer. You see what I'm saying, bruv? That's the problem we have here, my fam.

35:56Oti: Yeah. It's a problem, and I see it, but the level of scrutiny and criticism you put on Paula's plate is so wrong and unjustified.

36:17Oti: Yeah. But I don't expect anything from these rich white people. I don't. But neither do I. But I expected Paula to at least empathize her. She's the only person in this show that fucking showed empathy. And that's a fact. You can take that to the bank. You can take us off to the bin. How about that?

36:33KT: Friends and lovers, if you're not scared, feel free to chime in. And I will filter the tweets accordingly. But I I just have a foundational problem with Paula's character.

36:46Oti: Fair enough, man. I'm not gonna change your mind here. I know that we've had this argument a million times When when you see black people doing Terry Crews shit, it pisses you off. Right?

36:46KT: It does.

36:46Oti: Yeah. Mate, don't compare her to Terry Crews. That's that's that's

37:04KT: Every every people has their Chicken George. Wow. I'm just saying, honestly, some in in regards to what I've gone through and my struggles, I'm not expecting someone that's completely opposite to me to completely understand or even care about what I have to say. And that's absolutely fine because to pretend is disingenuous. Right? But if if there are some sort of, you know, resonating overlapping circles, then I do have extra expectations, and that's Paula.

37:41Oti: Fair enough. Fair enough.

37:44KT: Let's move on. Let's move on. Let's talk about Tanya McQuoid with two syllables.

37:50Oti: Man, she's a bloody problem. I think no one annoyed me more than her because she epitomized everything that's fucking wrong when.

37:50KT: No. We just talked about that character.

37:50Oti: She dangles her money knowing people would, yo, go for it. And she knows her power. She knows what she's doing. She can play a mark and cry and do what, but underneath it all She doesn't care. She doesn't fucking care. Yeah. And what Belinda, Natasha Rothwell's character Yeah. That was just some sick gay man. Yeah. But it but did it surprise you? It did not. Exactly.

38:27Oti: It surprised me that Paula was that way. It surprised me Belinda fell for that shit. Because in as much as he's saying Paula should know better, I'm like Belinda girl. Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. You see a tire you know.

38:27KT: Is it wrong for Belinda to hope though?

38:27Oti: Man, hope, but don't put your No. Everything in there. No.

39:01KT: Because if if the UN comes into your country to step in and help, you think they're going to do something. Then you know you're fucked. It's the Chinese UN. It's the ID. It's the ID. Their presence means something's going to happen.

39:18Oti: No, man. UN comes down, you know you're fucked because they're not gonna do anything. They're gonna safeguard all only whatever they think they deem they deem valuable, and that's fucking it. All the locals are gonna get shit all. It's like we care about you until something happens, and then we leave and out. Yeah. You know, so so don't even bring that. I I just felt for all the the faults you said Paula should have known better. She should, you know, learn all these things. I'm like, Belinda, come on, girl.

39:46KT: But she's also in a customer service role, so it is quite passive, the treatment that gets given to her. Paula is actively trying to incite a revolution. Don't bring Paula up because I'm going to effectively smother it. My dear Oti Desdemona, I will smother it. Wow. Did I Shakespeare on this bitch? I sure fucking did. Cloak and dagger shit. Leave Paula alone. Let's keep going. Let's talk about Tanya. I made she made no illusions of who she was. She was flighty. She was unpredictable.

40:25KT: I don't know if it's a kink thing, but it kind of felt a bit gross when near the end of the show, she was like, oh, being on the brink of death is something I haven't experienced. Like, what the fuck is that shit? Like, are you are you collecting are you collecting people for your experiences? Like, super rich people hunting exotic game is disgusting, but I don't expect anything better. There you go. Look at how much real world examples we're bringing into this poignant discussion. It wasn't fucking in this show,

40:56KT: but we're bringing it here. We talked about the UN, we talked about hunting, we talked about everything, mate.

41:01Oti: Yeah. No redeeming qualities about Tanya at all. No. She was the worst in this, man.

41:01KT: Alright. Well, this

41:01Oti: Because she pretended to be something different, know. She pretended to be something,

41:11KT: oh.

41:12Oti: Not convincingly though. Convincing enough for Belinda to buy in. Well, just shows how starved she was for hope. Yeah. And I guess the biggest part of it was Belinda talking to her son and the son being like, you know what? Do something for yourself. You've always been in the background. This is your time. So I think he bought into that. More from this son than than Tanya. Yeah. Yeah. It gets sad.

41:12KT: Let's let's move on to the

41:38KT: newlyweds. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Let's talk about Shane and Rachel. Choose which one you wanna pick first. Oh, man. Let's let's get let's start with Rachel.

41:49KT: I

41:51KT: am in love with the way that I've chosen to live my life and how I love to live my life. And I do understand that there are complexities to other people's experiences, but I don't appreciate people that aren't forthright about what they want and how they want their life to be and how they continue to struggle, and somehow they don't see how they're a part of that or lack thereof. And and Rachel is a perfect example of that. We find out later in the in the season

42:26KT: that she she was attracted to the allure of the Great Gatsby-ness of it all. The doors she she said as soon as she got with Shane, all the all of the doors opened for her. Mhmm. And I don't appreciate how she somehow felt that she was better than him at some point. Mhmm. Because, you know, if you follow us on the socials, we have been

42:50KT: tweeting that we've been watching and we have watched the first season of Kevin Can Fuck Himself. Right? Mhmm. It's not a spoiler. I don't necessarily agree that Kevin is that terrible of a person. I just think they're not compatible. Yeah. If he was to find someone of his equivalent, they would be living their their best dorky life.

42:50Oti: Shane and Kevin don't pretend to be anything else other than who they are.

42:50KT: Exactly. And and that's exactly it. If Shane was to Shane is an asshole and he's a dickhead, he's inconsiderate,

43:18KT: the world falls at his feet, but we have established friends and lovers. That's kind of how the world is set up. And if he was to find someone like him, he would be living his best life too. Yeah. He's he's crude, he's mean, he's condescending, but he's not malicious in the sense that, like he's awful to her. He's not Terrence Howard up in this bitch. So that so I guess that's what that's what I mean like everything reflects off of Rachel and there wasn't really a lot of introspection

43:50KT: And what pissed me off is she ended up going back to him anyway. Like, she it's like she she left Pan's Labyrinth and she she looked at the world of possibilities. And because I guess her self respect didn't mean anything or it was too scary to venture out to be her own person, she crawled back into the cave of of dependency. Right? So if that's it, then own it. Right? Yeah. Don't think you're better than Shane just because you have perceived,

44:18KT: you know, morals or wanting to be able to help. And let's talk about the ever eternal Molly Shannon playing Kitty. She makes a very interesting sentiment, which I do agree with. You know, Rachel was talking about how she wanted to do grassroots volunteering. And it's it's weird because even now Portia, Lindsay, and Arrested Development understands how grassroots volunteering works. It's all about the wining and the dining and the boozing and the smoothie. Right? And the fact that Rachel didn't understand

44:52KT: that appealing to rich people is way more beneficial than the grassroots sort of volunteering she was talking about, It just showed how naive she was. It is unfortunate that you need to have a fancy black tie event to get people to shell out their millions, but it is about networking and it is about the people you know. It sounded very transactional, but that's really where the big bucks come in. True. Right?

45:16KT: I just, I didn't care for her naivety. I think she has a very distorted sense of not necessarily her self worth, but what she contributes to her marriage, to society.

45:27Oti: I think she genuinely thought that she wrote a great article. She did. That's why it came as a shock. Yeah. When Nicole was like, hey, it made it sound as if I was given a leg up.

45:38KT: Yeah. I just I didn't like the way it ended, but maybe it is predictable to real life. Maybe some people are scared of their own potential and and having to go out and do it alone, that that comfortability is more appealing to them. I don't know.

45:50Oti: And to me, I never really thought that should leave. I think the conflict to me was just more of a of a of her trying to come to terms with what she is now. Because I knew at the back of my mind that she was never and she knew herself. She was never gonna live that life. She was not gonna live all those privileges that she experienced, that she loved.

46:11KT: But like, she went all the way to getting married. Like, I don't get it. Like, not even the rom com at the altar deciding that you don't wanna do it. Like, she she got married and then later on decided that she didn't want this life. I don't understand it. Because we're not in the nineteen fifties. We're at a point where she can earn a living. She can be independent. And I guess she chose not to. And if she's gonna relinquish her independence for comfortability and for fortune,

46:39KT: then she needs to fucking suck it up. Because why do you want people to feel sorry for you? And that's coming back to Belinda's subservient by default because of her role in this show, nature. Right? She's just sitting here eating this fucking garbage that isn't even a fucking problem relative to what Belinda just went through. Right? I just love it. She's like, do you want my advice? I'm all out. Yeah. I love that. And she took a big ass bag and she left.

47:07Oti: I think that was improvised by Natasha. Absolutely.

47:12KT: I think Rachel just likes to be indulged. I think that's exactly the crux of it. Yeah. She knew she wanted someone to be like, oh,

47:20Oti: all the money, you know, or or or even better. Yeah. She just needed someone to tell her that, yeah, you can do it on your own. When she knew herself, she didn't want that. Yeah. So

47:29KT: Exactly. Anything else you wanna say about Shane?

47:29Oti: Nah, we knew who he was.

47:29KT: He was a killer though. He was a killer. He was a dick. But again, even even coming to the point where he stabs Armond, for what? Like, we already got through the show.

47:44Oti: I think the best thing that happened in that episode was Armond taking a shit in his luggage. I maintain that those were CGI poops. Yeah. Kids, don't do coke. It'll make your shit dark.

48:01KT: Or you need to see a doctor or maybe not because we get to the end. Let's talk about Armond because I really like him. I think he's a great character. He brought a lot to the show. I don't know. I may be biased because he has an Australian accent, but he definitely does his best and he takes a lot of pride in what he does. And we see that at the start of the show and we're only living a snippet.

48:26KT: Imagine constantly having to deal with someone that's like Shane. Yeah. Because, you know, you can have dickheads from all classes, but when they're rich, you need to indulge them. Mhmm. And I that was part of the problem that we had. And I guess that was obviously the crescendo that they were hoping to build to, which kind of fizzled out anyway. Yeah. I don't know. I I thought it was great. Even though the episodes were dragging every time Armond was in the scene, I felt like we were going to have a good time.

48:57KT: That was a lot, Oti. It was. It could have been a lot because it was presented in the show. However, this is what it sounds like when you bring complexities of colonization and the ramifications that continue to be felt today by native Hawaiians Mhmm. Through voice of me, not Mike White. Alright. Let's finish off in a segment we call, For Your Reference, Oti.

49:21Oti: Oh, I like to reference Reservation Dogs.

49:25KT: Woo hoo.

49:26Oti: Yeah. It's it's on Hulu. Yeah. And it's I think it's about time that we get to see the stories told and I'm loving it. It is high time. High time, man. Absolutely.

49:39KT: I have one reference. Mystery Road. Mhmm.

49:44Oti: So good. Too good.

49:47KT: Also, while we're here, there is a show from New Zealand called The Panthers, which is based on the Polynesian Panther Party. But it's only exclusively in New Zealand. So hopefully, we can watch it soon. But that is also another example of people writing their own stories. Mhmm. If you would like to choose your photo, KT or Oti

50:09KT: on Twitter and Instagram, we're at foryourrefpod. Write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com. We're also on stop writing stories that aren't yours podcast, if you'd like to leave a rating and review. And we'll see you guys next week. See you. Bye.