Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed

Summary

Crime Writers On...

Episode: "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed"
Release Date: August 10, 2026
Panel: Rebecca Lavoie (Host), Kevin Flynn, Lara Bricker, Ronald Young Jr. (guest panelist)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Crime Writers On panel reviews the Apple TV comedy-thriller Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. The show blends crime, motherhood, and pop-culture, following a single mom who, after witnessing a cam worker’s kidnapping, is thrown into a web of violence, blackmail, and suburban soccer drama. The hosts dissect how (and if) the genre-mashing works, the writing, character development, and larger themes. With spoilers throughout, the panel is forthright in its critical takes—and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to the Panel and Guest

• Rebecca welcomes the regular panel: Laura Bricker and Kevin Flynn.
• Ronald Young Jr. appears as guest host, filling in for Toby Ball.
  • “Every time they show up and I'm out in the wild or I'm at a conference or something, someone will come up and be like, 'I heard you on Crime Writers On.' …This all started with a cold email. Fast-forward six years later, I’m still around and it feels good.” — Ronald (03:43)

The Premise of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed

• Show summary (05:22–06:16):
  • Paula, a single/divorced mom, witnesses her cam boy partner Trevor's on-screen abduction. Police believe it’s a scam. When Paula investigates, she finds Trevor murdered and herself in a spiraling crime plot—while trying to stay a “supermom” and retain custody of her daughter.
• Starring Tatiana Maslany (Paula) and Murray Bartlett.
• Warning: Heavy spoilers included throughout the review.

Genre-Blending: Does It Work?

Discussion kicks off at 06:54

• Lara:
  • Praises genre-blending in other shows (e.g., "Widow’s Bay") but calls the tone in this show “uneven.”
  • “We have crime thriller, mystery, comedy, fucked up desperate housewife situation…. in some places it shifts smoothly, but in other parts, it really doesn’t.” (06:56–08:20)
  • Scenes with violence (e.g., “saw, like, chopping somebody up”) feel out of place. (08:28)
• Ronald:
  • “If that lane is going into the garbage can... I hated this show.” (08:38)
  • Seriously considered quitting the review after a few episodes.
  • Criticizes wild pacing and unclear conflict: “It’s wildly paced. I don’t understand what the conflict is… I’m confused. I don’t know who’s good or bad.” (09:26)

Villains and Shifting Antagonists

Lead-up at 10:16

• Kevin:
  • Found the “musical chairs” approach to villains confusing: “...first it’s Trevor—he’s dead at the end of episode one. Then Dennis, then the assassin, then she’s gone… those didn’t feel like plot twists… it felt forced.” (10:26–11:25)
• Lara:
  • Annoyed at unresolved/abandoned plotlines, particularly around stepmom character Mallory. (11:25)
• Ronald:
  • Agrees: “I think she’s the one who sends the videotape at the end. 100%, that’s her.” (14:26)

Character Analysis: Mallory & Carl

Starts 12:10

• Panel generally loathes Mallory (the stepmom):
  • “Objectively, no offense… less attractive… meaner… has like, your kid is gonna be my kid agenda. What is the deal with this character?” — Rebecca (12:10)
  • “I hated her. Amen.” — Ronald & Lara (12:37-12:42)
• Carl (Jake Johnson):
  • Mixed feelings:
    • “Couldn’t quite get where he was coming from… maybe that’s the best thing I can say about the writing…” — Kevin (14:39)
  • Rebecca points out the show’s unclear sense of place; doesn’t feel like Brooklyn.
• Notable quote:
  • “Is he fighting because he wants to fight for Hazel, or is he fighting because he's doing Mallory’s fight now?” — Kevin (16:07)

Problems With Writing & World-Building

Timestamp 17:13

• Rebecca:
  • Compares the writing to an “exquisite corpse,” where each episode feels written without a plan.
  • “It felt like… one of those creative writing seminars where somebody writes a paragraph and the next person writes the next paragraph.” (18:33)
• Ronald:
  • Points out show’s lack of a clear perspective:
    “They chose everyone’s perspective here, which means we get all of this information about everyone. …It 100% feels like they’re making it up as they go.” (19:30)
• Panel describes Paula’s job as a “fact checker in a department of fact checkers at a failing magazine” as laughably unrealistic except for The New Yorker. (17:44–18:06)

Supporting Cast Critique

Around 20:58

• Panel:
  • Completely unimpressed with Paula’s coworkers.
  • “Those two characters didn’t even need to be there, really… they just didn’t really contribute to advancing the story in a way that felt like it had a purpose.” — Lara (21:12–22:22)
  • “They weren't clever, they were just smarmy.” — Kevin (23:02)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:54] — Genre-blending and tone problems
• [08:38] — Ronald’s impassioned “I hated this show” critique
• [10:26] — Shifting villains and confusion
• [14:26] — Stepmom and antagonist issues
• [17:13] — Critique of show’s narrative construction/writing (“exquisite corpse” structure)
• [19:30] — Lack of clear narrative perspective
• [21:12–22:22] — Coworkers: unnecessary characters

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

"If that lane is going into the garbage can, then I would say absolutely in this case… I hated this show."
— Ronald (08:38)

“We have crime thriller, mystery, comedy, fucked up desperate housewife situation… in some places it shifts smoothly, but in other parts, it really doesn’t.”
— Lara (07:10)

“This felt like it was being written as it was going on… like one of those creative writing seminars where somebody writes a paragraph and the next person writes the next paragraph and the next person. Yes. Oh, choose your own adventure.”
— Rebecca (18:33–19:01)

“They chose everyone’s perspective here, which means we get all of this information about everyone. …It 100% feels like they’re making it up as they go and writing it on the fly.”
— Ronald (19:30)

“Can we have a show about a woman who happens to be a mother at the center, but her being a mother isn’t her defining characteristic? …It’s so anti-feminist. I hate it so much.”
— Rebecca, on the “frazzled mother” trope (34:34)

“Corporation of it all… You might as well put Elon Musk on the golf course and say he did this… If you’re not going to point to it then it doesn’t matter who it is. …They literally call [the bad guys] E-core—Evil Core.”
— Ronald (37:40)

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The “Frazzled Mother” Trope & Corporate Villainy

34:34 — 38:36

• Lara and Rebecca righteously vent about “frazzled” mom characters
  • “Could we not have like the badass get-it-together mother?” — Lara
  • “Being a mother is not the thing that defines a woman... it’s so anti-feminist.” — Rebecca
• Ronald:
  • Compares Paula unfavorably to Winona Ryder in Stranger Things: that character was at least productive in her panic.
  • “They just made motherhood not just something that was hurting her, [but] something dragging her down.”
• On the last-minute corporate villain reveal:
  • Panel sees it as a lazy “mask-off” twist, unearned and unforeshadowed.
  • “It could just be amorphous. Blob it—Mr. Robot. They call it E-core… we know it’s the stand-in for Google, Apple, everything bad, right?” — Ronald

Violence & “Shocking” Moments (39:17)

• Kevin singles out “expanding spray foam in the mouth” as uniquely gnarly but complains even these moments cannot salvage the writing.

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Performances & Bright Spots

• Tatiana Maslany (Paula): Universally praised for her acting, even in a dispiriting role.
  • “She did what the script asked her to do… When you’re an actor and you do that, you should not be penalized for that.” — Ronald (19:21)
• Jake Johnson (Carl): More divisive, with Ronald specifically finding his performance irritating.

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Final Verdicts (Thumbs Up or Down)

Starts at [44:35]

• Lara Bricker:
  • Mild thumbs down; praises some performances, but plot and pacing kill the show.
• Ronald Young Jr.:
  • Strong full thumbs down; “disorienting,” “poorly written and executed,” bright spot solely being Maslany.
• Kevin Flynn:
  • Full thumbs down; “didn’t care about it,” feels “forced,” only acting prevents it from being worse.
• Rebecca Lavoie:
  • Emphatic thumbs down; “I hated this… should have been on Peacock,” lampoons show as “white people fantasy police story.”

“This should have been on Peacock. This was a Peacock, bad quality show.”
— Rebecca (50:10)

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Funniest/Most Memorable Digressions

• Jokes about real New York vs. TV New York:
  "They never eat a pretzel off the street," etc. (50:29)
• Extended riff on “conducting marital relations” with kids (41:36), with Ronald playfully protesting: “Don’t drag us in there with you. We don’t want to be in there.”

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“Crime of the Week” (53:01)

• Titanic-themed wedding described with much delight and panel jokes:
  • “I think it was when the bridesmaid caught the bouquet and yelled, ‘I'll never let go.’” — Lara (53:18)
  • “Tense moment of method acting between immigrants and first class passengers as they battled for lifeboat cake.” — Ronald (53:21)
  • “It was everybody getting to be drawn like the French girls.” — Kevin (53:36)

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Listener Segment Highlights

• Cat of the Week: Katie Nelson’s dog named Quince, sitting on his Quince quilt.
• Panel’s signature banter, recurring inside jokes, and commercial banter throughout.

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Takeaways

• The review is a rare full sweep of thumbs down, with the panel largely united in their dislike of the show’s writing, tone, pacing, and character logic—but acknowledging the “good try” by its talented actors.
• The panel lays out in detail why genre-mashing in this case does not work, offers sharp feminist critique, and skewers muddled plotting.
• Notable for the passionate, funny take-downs—and the utter lack of ambiguity.
• If you're looking for a witty breakdown of what not to do in a crime-pop TV dramedy, or a full list of “what’s wrong with current TV mother tropes,” this episode is for you.

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For Your Reference:

• [06:54] Genre and tone criticism starts
• [10:26] Antagonist/villain discussion
• [17:13] Writing as “exquisite corpse”
• [34:34] Feminist critique of the “frazzled mom” trope
• [44:35] Thumbs up/thumbs down reviews

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"Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed" on Apple TV: Panel verdict—maximum thumbs down, minimal pleasure guaranteed.

Transcript

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[A]

I'm Rebecca LaVoy and this is Crime Writers On. Crime Writers on is the original True Crime Review podcast that digs into true crime, pop culture, other podcasts and on this episode, when she witnesses an online sex worker get kidnapped, a single mom is thrust into a world of blackmail, murder and girls soccer. We'll review the Apple TV comedy thriller, Maximum pleasure guaranteed. Joining me to get that done and more is true crime author, TV journalist and host of these Are Their Stories podcast. My husband and love of my life, it's Kevin Flynn. Hello, Kevin.

[D]

Hello, Rebecca.

[A]

Also with us, private investigator, certified pet detective, resident cat lady, and author of the Final Curtain, it's Laura Bricker. Hi, Laura. Hey, Rebecca. And finally sitting in for our captain of all things cynical is the host of Wait for it, our all around favorite podcaster, Ronald Young Jr. Hey, Ronald.

[C]

Hello, Rebecca, Kevin, Laura, it is me, Ronald Ball.

[A]

Ronald Ball, how would you classify or talk about the experience of guesting on this show and being part of the crime writers on universe in general? Cause you're also on these are their stories quite a bit.

[C]

You know, your audience is so kind and every time they show up and I'm out in the wild or I'm at a conference or something, someone will come up invariably and be like, I heard you on Crime Writers on really? Which is always. Yes. It's one of my, it's one of the fun ways that I realized that, like, me getting to talk about pop culture is out in the world. And as I always say to y', all, like, this all started with a cold email from a guy that was just like, hey, can I be on these are their stories. I'd be talking about pop culture. And y' all were like, heck, sure, we could give this guy a shot. And you know, fast forward six years later, I'm still around and it feels good. So I love being a part of this. This is one of my favorite, favorite emails to get from you, Kevin.

[A]

And as I say all the time, first time I heard you talk, I was like, that guy's a star and he's going to be huge in podcasting. I knew it immediately.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

And I was happy to be right. So, Kevin, what's coming up on future episodes of Crime Writers on on Thursday,

[D]

we're doing our classic rewind and we're gon talking about we're going back to our reviews of Murdoch murders.

[A]

What?

[D]

Yes. And if you tuned into the after show last week, you know, Rebecca has thoughts about the latest with Mandy Matney. But a week from today, brand new fresh episode of Crime writers on we will be reviewing a toxic love story from Netflix.

[A]

Looking forward to that when everyone's talking about it. All right, should we talk about the TV show we are here to discuss?

[D]

Let's do that. Leading off, you are so Smart and

[C]

funny and sexy as hell. Oh, coming.

[D]

Hold on one second. Wait.

[A]

Who's somebody?

[D]

I don't know.

[B]

Daughter.

[A]

Paula's cybersex session with Camboy Trevor is interrupted when he's abducted. On screen. Police believe the kidnapping is a scam, but when the divorced mom tracks him down, Paula finds Trevor's been murdered by a ruthless assassin who's now looking for her.

[B]

Yeah, it'll be fine.

[E]

Will it?

[D]

A guy who clearly rouges his neps, by the way, wants to meet in person at an abandoned murder motel. It'll be okay.

[B]

It's the daytime, right? Because no one gets killed in the daytime.

[A]

As Paula looks into the Camboy and his associates, she gets pulled deeper into a web of blackmail and violence, all while trying to be a supermom and maintain custody of her daughter. All the while, she tries to stay one step ahead of the killer, the police, her ex husband, and the ghosts of her past.

[D]

I had motive.

[B]

Like, they think I'm a real suspect.

[A]

I could lose everything.

[B]

I could go to jail. I could lose my kid. Need to figure out what the fuck

[D]

happened, and I don't.

[A]

I don't know what to do. What do I do? Emmy award winners Tatiana Maslany and Murray Bartlett star in Apple TV's Maximum pleasure guaranteed. In a mix of murder, motherhood, and mayhem, the comedy thriller follows the struggling mom as she deals with a spiraling crime plot, an unrelenting assassin, and the challenges of coaching soccer. Spoiler alert. We're going to be talking about plot points from Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. So if you want to remain spoiler free, go to the estimated time code in our show notes for our thumbs up or thumbs down reviews. So there's a lot of genre blending going on here, Lara. Mm, Sometimes we like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do we like it here?

[B]

So Widow's Bay did a great job with genre blending. Here we have crime thriller, mystery comedy, fucked up, desperate housewife situation. And I think, you know, in some places it shifts smoothly, but in other parts, it really doesn't. It's like you have this little short detective lady, and she's really funny.

[A]

Your ex sounds like a real jerk.

[B]

Not always, but yeah, lately, yeah.

[A]

Marriage is a marathon. Sometimes you puke.

[B]

She would be really funny in that New Zealand show on Amazon. I can't remember the name of it, but the one where they're like the two detectives and they're out, and it's kind of a quirky, offbeat, humorous mystery. It doesn't match the rest of the tone here. The way she keeps showing up like she's in the wrong show, but she's doing an okay job. And we've got the actress playing Paula. She's in like a thriller show and she's just like super frustrating. But I think what's hard for me is that this felt uneven, the way that it was shifting between these different genres in this. And I was like, okay, this thriller thing is stressing me out. Okay, now they're trying to be funny, but does this really match? So it just, it didn't flow in the way that would have had me embracing this approach.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't help that the crimes that we see on screen are quite gory. A lot of gore and violence in this show, which feels a little out of step.

[B]

Very much the fricking saw, like chopping somebody up. I'm like, what the fuck?

[A]

Okay, Ronald, what do you think? Do you think this show should have picked Elaine?

[C]

Yeah. I mean, if that lane is going into the garbage can, then I would say that it absolutely in this case. I know that you asked me a question and that is leading me in a direction, but I just want to go on the record and say I hated this show. And it was one of the few times in which I and I have this happen a couple times. If I'm ever a guest on something, I have to watch something for the show that I then regret the invitation because I have to watch the show. And probably about maybe episode two or three, I almost started texting you, Kevin. Like, Kevin, I'm sick. I'm sick of this show. I can't participate in this anymore. It's wildly paced. I don't understand the pacing of this show. I don't understand what the conflict is. Because when you get to the point of saying, I'm a busy woman, sometimes I be on campsites. I was like, that's something that should have been stated in episode one, not in the dramatic conclusion of episode nine or whatever it was we got to towards the end. There's just several times in which I was just looking at this and saying, it's not right. What's happening. I'm confused. I don't know who's good or bad. And Laura, unlike you, I hated those cops. I hated those cops.

[B]

I hated them in this show. Yeah.

[C]

Yes, in the show. Well, I hate them in life. Also in the show. I hated those cops. I almost went on a these are their stories style anti cop rant about the incompetence of these cops and how they're basically setting this woman up for failure. The entire time, which I didn't understand to be bad writing or if I'm just experiencing it. Terrible. That's all I have to say. I didn't like it.

[E]

Laura.

[C]

Yes. It should have picked the lane. It did not.

[A]

Oh, my goodness. Kevin. One of the things that happens in this show is there's a lot of climaxes and villains and bad guys.

[D]

Yeah, that was a problem for me with these shifts in bad guys, because it's kind of hard to. Because who the bad guy is is central to whatever the conflict and the eventual resolution is. Basically, it's the whole plot. And then we kind of move around. Like, first it's Trevor who's the bad guy, you know, the scammer. Right. And then he's dead at the end of episode one. Okay. So then it's Dennis. And then they kill off Dennis, or we think they kill him off at the end of episode six of ten, which got to. Which felt really weird. And then there's, like, this female assassin, and then she goes. And then there's.

[A]

You know, she's not scary at all.

[D]

And she's not scary at all. And then there's this other thing there. And it just felt like those didn't feel like plot twists, right? In other shows, to be like, oh, damn plot twist. It felt really forced. Instead, it felt like they were trying to like, oh, the audience is not gonna believe it when we spin them this way. And all of a sudden, it's that. And it's. To me, it just felt really. It felt forced, Lara.

[B]

It did. And they dropped the ball, like, the whole thing. I'm waiting for the new stepmom to be responsible for this. And then this stupid fucking cliffhanger, and I'm like, that stepmore.

[D]

Last week, you thought the mother. You thought the mother from. From Deep Cover was dead and buried in the backyard.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yes. But in this. Didn't you not think the way that she kept sitting there and she was feeding information to the attorney, and she was always there, and she was driving the bus, and I was like, is she a red herring? Is she actually involved?

[A]

Yeah, she's just a c. No, I

[C]

think she was bad. She was a bad person.

[B]

I think she's the one who's behind it, and that's what you're gonna find out in season two. But it really pissed me off because I felt like they left, and then they didn't even resolve that plot line. And it really frustrated me.

[A]

Let's talk about Mallory for a second, Ronald, because here we have a Woman who is objectively, no offense to her, objectively less attractive than Tatiana Maslany. Right?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Objectively meaner, objectively less funny, and clearly has, like, your kid is gonna be my kid agenda. What is the deal with this? How are we supposed to feel about this character?

[C]

I hated her.

[B]

Yes. Amen.

[C]

And they didn't make it clear. I felt like the show was uncertain about where she stood. But for me, it wasn't just, this is my child's father's new partner friction happening here.

[B]

Sometimes if I've had too much wine the night before, I can get really foggy the next day, forget my keys or my phone. I mean, had you been drinking, maybe? Or is that why, like, you have a fun night the night before? No. You know, I had Hazel last night. Oh, yes.

[C]

If that had been the case, then, yes, we could probably could have dealt with. It would have been a different interaction between the two of them. But it just seemed like she was a malevolent force in all of their lives. In the child's life, in the. In. In Jake Johnson's life. In. In. In whatever her name is, the main character in her life. You know, like. Yes. In Paula's life, she was just a malevolent force in all of their lives. And Laura, to be honest, it would have been a better show.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

If it turned out that she was the villain, when it just turns out, oh, you just suck. And then at one point, I'm starting to be worried about Jake Johnson, where I'm like, yo, Jake, like, she's not good. You're sitting in the courtroom, and obviously they wrote it into the script that you don't like her or like, you don't like what she's doing to Paula. And you still have inside jokes with Paula. You still like hanging out with her. How have you been convinced that she's so irresponsible and terrible of a partner? Like, y' all gotta write that, because otherwise we just see this horrible person that's the antagonist to the show, but somehow she's not one of the assassins. Like, what are we talking about here? Get her out of here.

[B]

I think she's the one who got the videotape. She's the one who sends the videotape at the end.

[C]

100%, that's her that did that. Who else would have done it?

[A]

Yeah, she sucked. She absolutely sucked. And then we have Carl, Jake Johnson, who people know probably mostly from the new girl. What did you think about his character, Kevin?

[D]

Well, I liked his performance. I liked that actor. I Liked Tatiana Maslany. As far as the performance that they gave, I liked Jake Johnson in this role, too. Carl himself. I couldn't quite get where he was coming from, which may be maybe the best thing I can say about the writing is that if that's on purpose, where I'm a little unsure about whether he has Paula's best interests in mind.

[C]

We'll make everything so easy for you, Paula, because I know this isn't what you want, and that's why I appreciate you, but I think this could be amazing.

[B]

Do you think I could get a dog?

[C]

I mean, everybody up there has dogs.

[E]

Yeah, get two dogs.

[B]

What about a pony? Would you get me a pretty pony?

[E]

Okay.

[B]

With a mane and a tail that I could brush. You could sleep in my room.

[D]

I think he's doing good by Hazel, but I think he feels more for Paula than Mallory would want him to. Like trying to be a co parent, you know, Even though you'd say, yeah, he left her, so he's shitty in that way. He's going along with some of the shitty.

[C]

And he probably cheated on her.

[B]

Yeah, he did. Mallory had the magical vagina.

[C]

Yes, we know that he cheated on her. Sorry, go ahead, Kevin.

[D]

No, I was just saying, like, we all agree that Mallory. Mallory gives off bad vibes, right?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

She sucks.

[D]

She sucks.

[A]

I wish he killed her when he kidnapped her.

[D]

So how much of Carl is actually Carl and his personality and his motivations and how much of it is he being manipulated?

[A]

He's an adult.

[D]

By his ex wife. Right? He's an adult. Right. Is he fighting because he wants to fight for Hazel, or is he fighting because he's doing Mallory's fight now? It was a really interesting scene at the end, once Paula gets her groove back, where she tells Carl that, like, hey, I'm Hazel's mother, I'm not your mother. It throws the words back to him about like, lock your shit down or whatever it was. And I think that was probably the truest thing said to that character and that I was like, oh, okay, yeah, he's a little different. But I think all these characters, every one of them, it felt to me like they did episode one as a pilot and then came back to episode two through ten like a year later and then just sort of reverse engineered who everybody was and what the whole mystery plotline was. It felt sort of like plugged in backwards. You know, we don't even see Mallory in the first episode. Right? So, like, is Jake supposed to be the bad guy? Like 100% bad guy. And then we get to the rest of the series. I don't know. I thought he was an interesting character because I didn't quite know where he was coming from.

[A]

All right. I felt like they were writing this as they went along. I felt like it was like that horrible, shocking, heartbreaking, transformative podcast where it was like, let's just see what happens if I put some fuckery together and have people fuck with other people and then make this character make the worst choices character could possibly make at every turn, including putting 10 million band aids on a thing that she will definitely get tetanus from.

[E]

Yes.

[A]

And giving her the stupid, non existent these days job of being a fact checker in a department of fact checkers at a failing magazine. I'm sorry, if you don't work at the New Yorker, you are not working as the head of a department of full time fact checkers. That is not a thing unless you work for a good profitable magazine that is not about to go unnoticed.

[D]

Just buying all those red pencils though.

[A]

Also, there's a weird thing where it takes place in Brooklyn and it has no sense of place at all. Like the whole time I was like, this has got to be filmed like in Vancouver or some shit. Right? Because that's what it looked like. It was very bland, like, we're somewhere who knows where. And they just kept throwing in names of like New York streets.

[D]

And like, they kept CGI and like airplanes.

[A]

Yeah. And it was like, near the airport. I'm like, near whatever. I guess they're talking about jfk. Like, this is weird.

[D]

Queens.

[A]

Is it? No, they were in Brooklyn.

[D]

Oh, Brooklyn.

[A]

They were in. They were in Kings County. Remember when you're court in Kings county, it's like. So they just kept throwing stuff at it. And I'm like, these people do not feel like New Yorkers. That school does not feel like a New York school. That apartment is not a New York apartment. She works at a magazine that's failing. It has a department of like. It's just. It really felt like it was being written as it was going on. I felt like it was being written like, as one of those creative writing seminars where like somebody writes a paragraph and the next person writes the next paragraph and the next person. Yes.

[B]

Oh, choose your own adventure.

[A]

Yes. And it's a bummer, Ronald, because there are, as Kevin hinted, like, decent performances in this. Murray Bartlett is brilliant actor and he's scary when he's in this.

[B]

Fucking scary.

[A]

And Tatiana Maslany, we know her from Orphan Black in which she played like 7,000 characters. Like, she's really good, right?

[C]

Yes. She did what they asked her to do. She did what the script asked her to do. And I feel like when you're an actor and you do that, you should not be penalized for that.

[A]

Do you think she's going to win an Oscar for tv?

[C]

No. Okay. I don't like that. This keeps coming back. This is my least favorite recurring. No, no, no. I will say one other thing, though, is the. About the writing it as they go. I feel like when you got to episodes two, three, four, whatever, there's characters that I did not like that were becoming overdeveloped, meaning that we were spending way too much time with them. There were periods of time where I'm just wondering why I'm still spending time with the cops. I'm wondering why I'm still spending time with the coworkers. And then I realized it's because the show doesn't really have a perspective. Meaning that normally when a show like this happens, it's from one person's perspective. But they chose everyone's perspective here, which means we get all of this information, information about everyone. And I'm like, oh, I shouldn't know anything about this serial killer. I shouldn't know anything about the cops. I should only know what they're doing when they show up to be cops and how it's ruining one person's lives. But because they didn't make that choice, it 100% feels like they're making it up as they go and writing it on the fly.

[A]

That's an excellent observation about the perspective. Because stuff happening to Paula is weird, but we see this stuff happening off camera for her, which makes her choices look even worse and make less sense. Because it's like, you don't understand why she doesn't tell anybody that she shot the guy. He literally threw her in a trunk. She would not be arrested for that crime. Right. Yes.

[C]

Call the cops.

[A]

I know. And also the colleague is secretly writing an article about her. Like, I don't care about that. But if that was a reveal that happened to Paula, like, those two characters, what do you think of those colleagues? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Those two characters didn't even need to be there, really, because they were kind of there. And you're like, okay, is something going to happen? They're there to sort of help advance Paula's storyline.

[A]

Were you trying to be sarcastic or, like, kiss her ass?

[C]

Neither of them worked, by the way.

[B]

No.

[A]

Because if you want to kiss her ass, you would hide your Anger better.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, we really hope you become our boss.

[A]

We really hope that you become our boss.

[C]

And then if you would be sarcastic,

[A]

you would, like, change your inflection a bit more.

[C]

We really hope you would be.

[E]

You have to change.

[B]

And then they have this sort of pseudo romance plotline that may or may not materialize, and then it doesn't. And the guy has the LSAT that he's. None of it really contributes to the suspense or the momentum of the arc of the story at this point. But we're waiting to see. Maybe there's gonna be a big shifteroo at the end and there's gonna be some connection to these people. And I was like, okay, the guy's a shithead. Because after he goes through all this and he has this girl that he works with, he's like, yeah, I'm going back to my girlfriend. And I'm like, what was the point of that except to make me irritated? So I felt like they just didn't really contribute to advancing the story in a way that felt like it had a purpose.

[A]

No.

[D]

Yeah. I agree with you two guys that I hated those two coworker characters. And I think part of the problem was, again, in the first episode, they weren't likable. Right. They're trying to be foils and whatever. And, you know, you can't have everybody be friends. That doesn't make for good plotting. It doesn't make for good conflict. But they weren't clever, you know, they were just smarmy. And I think they'd lightened up a little bit more when they started to write them out. But again, it just was just sort of too much effort. I just. I still didn't really. I still didn't like them. I still didn't think, like, they were motivated by anything redeemable. I liked the guy maybe a little more than the girl.

[A]

Because you did?

[D]

Well, she's like.

[A]

She's sexist.

[D]

No, she's actively backstabbing.

[B]

Yeah, she's the one who's like, let's hack into Paula's computer.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. The other guy's just kind of dopey and wants to do the LSATs. And I don't know, you know, he's just. He has probably some better lines, but I never, like, really ha haed at any of it there, you know, so it just didn't feel like you wanted Paula to be friends with them. You don't get the sense of, like, real friendship like you do when you join us on Patreon.

[A]

Oh, business Section.

[D]

Yeah, well played. Yeah, you could, you can check us out at Patreon, but I would suggest first you go to patreon.com oh, it's big Ron, because if you join Ronald Young Jr's Patreon, you get all sorts of great podcasts, including leaving the theater on the couch, get discounts and more to Ronald Young Jr events.

[C]

Yes, you should. You should join. You absolutely should. Especially because, because I'm working on a new podcast. There are more extras coming to Patreon. I have not been great at Patreon, to be honest with you. I do have a podcast that's on there. I have extras that. But they are not regular enough sometimes for me to really, really enthuse folks. So the folks who are in my Patreon, they're there because they really support my work. But if you are joining the Patreon, know that extras are always starting to come out more, especially when I put out new work. So I'm excited. That's patreon.com. oh, it's big Ron, Rebecca. What else do we have for him today?

[D]

Well, if you go to patreon.com BartersinCrimedia you seem really happy with with yourself.

[A]

Yes, you do.

[D]

You seem really happy with yourself, Ronald.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

All right. Self satisfied. Okay, Carl, you can get exclusive content at the leading off level with us. You get the crime writers on after show, Toby Ball's Deep Dive Book Club podcast, our advice podcast, Married with podcast, and Rebecca and Mel's True Crime podcast. Some things off. If you join us as a Bricker scaler, you get all that. And Laura Bricker's Leave it to Bricker podcast, in which Laura solves mysteries, or at least mysteries to her. In her quaint AF town of Exeter, New Hampshire, Lara had a whole bunch of. Speaking of bonus episodes, Lara did part one of Chaos the condo board, and then we had a Fourth of July episode, and then we had a bonus episode for her Run to home where she raised money for veterans and their families. And now we got episode two, part two of Chaos at the Condo Board. Lara Bricker, is there anything about your life that we don't know?

[B]

Well, I mean, you don't know about my OnlyFans account yet.

[A]

No.

[D]

Oh, all right.

[B]

I'm just kidding.

[D]

Super.

[C]

I'm sorry.

[D]

Well, I don't know. Just don't get kidnapped in the middle of it. Or maybe. Maybe you could. Yeah.

[B]

And I want to tell you, on that last episode on my prep for home base, I took a really quite a dramatic tumble through the air landing and skidding through the air on my breasts and I survived. And you will hear a dramatic reenactment of that scene in Leave it to Bricker.

[D]

Well, that's why everyone's gotta have airbags in their car. If you join us at the let's do what we do level, you get episodes of Crime Writers on early and ad free. And if you're a deep diver, you will get all of that and be an exclusive sponsor of Toby Ball's Deep Dive Book Club podcast. They are recording tomorrow. Toby and his guests. We'll be discussing the book the Tragedy of True Crime, Four Guilty Men and the stories that define us. Now. I also ask you one other thing you can do is you can sign up for our newsletter@crimewriters on.com, put your email address in. You'll get every week you'll get crime writers on behind the scenes. You'll get summaries of our reviews. You'll get the Cat of the Week, the crime of the week, the post of the week, and new merch included in our new merch. Got something new, new design. This is a shout out to all those armchair detectives who think they know everything about a true crime case by looking it up online. It's a new T shirt that says another case solved by Wikipedia Brown.

[A]

Yeah, it is.

[D]

We also have an Amazon storefront where you can see some of our favorite things. Rebecca, what are this week's Amazon recommendations?

[A]

Well, Kevin, I just got a pair of Dr. Dingus tiny hands and I'm really enjoying them. I'm using them a lot on my YouTube show.

[D]

Little plastic tiny hands.

[B]

I love them.

[A]

I like them to scratch my face with the tiny hands. I like to make little prayer hands with the tiny hands. I like to do a little praise emoji with the tiny hands. I just love them.

[D]

All right, Denise, Fantastic.

[A]

I love them. I'm channeling my inner Denise.

[D]

Ronald, I don't know if you can top little tiny hands, but can you tell us while Toby's away, what are your listener inspired deep cut recommendations?

[C]

Well, I have two for you and I hope you're ready. The first one is the deeper, better inflatable duck pool float with lights. Solar pool inflatables. Duck floaties for adults 42 inches large animal swim tube ring pool float with fast valve. Summer peach pool beach pool lounge, one pack. It's a big duck. Floaty.

[D]

Kevin, it's a big duck.

[A]

Is it one of those giant ones?

[D]

You said it lights up huge.

[C]

42 inches. Yes, it lights up it has lights, all kinds. It's only $26. I don't know how good this is gonna be, but it looks brilliant to me. Matter of fact, I think you should set your expectations on the photo. And don't even prepare for disappointment. It has to look exactly as fun as it does in the picture.

[D]

Oh, man. All right, what else you got for us?

[C]

Okay. Kevin, do you ever go to cvs?

[D]

Sure. Sure do. Who doesn't?

[E]

Yep.

[C]

You ever get one of those long receipts?

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Do they have any other kind?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

What if I told you you could turn that receipt into a towel? The CVS receipt. Receipt. Beach towel. Funny gag gift for pharmacists and beach lovers. Oversized novelty receipts for pharmacists.

[A]

That's a good gift for literally anyone. Literally.

[C]

For pharmacists and beach lovers. 28 by 67 inches, soft absorbent pool and bath towel that could be yours, Kevin.

[D]

I didn't know pharmacists and beach lovers had so much in common.

[A]

Do you know that they make this? A guy who makes these custom, like, runner rugs that are 20ft long that are made of your CVS receipts. It's very fun.

[C]

I love it.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Yeah, me too.

[D]

All right, we'll get all that by shopping us first. When you go to Amazon. It's Amazon.comshop crimewriterson. We earn commissions on qualified purchases.

[A]

Kevin, before we end the business section, do we have any Patreon patron Saints of the week?

[D]

Our Patreon patron Saints are Lori Arnold and Aaron Mahoney. Bless you.

[A]

Bless you, Laurie. Bless you. Aaron, thank you so much for supporting the show. We couldn't do what we do without you. I really, really, really, really mean it. All right, Kevin, Thus ends the business section. Can you fade that music out?

[D]

Let's fade it out.

[A]

So, Kevin.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Did you think this was a high quality true crime show?

[D]

Yeah. But not as high a quality as our items from Quint's that we always get.

[A]

Nothing is.

[D]

I want to start by just thanking. Thanking Quince for supporting us for many, many years. We were with you when people called you Quince.

[A]

Yes. Or we never did Quince. That was a real thing.

[D]

Yeah. Well, we have been great partners with Quince for so long. As a matter of fact, because Rebecca loves the items that Quince has so much, we are net negative with our relationship with Quince because Rebecca continues to buy all of these quality items. Rebecca, right now, as a matter of fact, you are clothed head to toe.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

In quints. What do you got on?

[A]

I'm wearing this like cotton chunky cardigan from Quints that's like this cobalt blue color or cerulean as they would say in Delaware's Prada.

[D]

We're supposed to.

[A]

But one of my favorite things I have bought from Quint in the last like eight months are these super soft fleece cropped wide leg pants. I have a white pair and a black pair and every time I wear them, especially the white pair. Great.

[D]

They feel like, like.

[A]

Guess how much these incredible pants cost.

[D]

No idea.

[A]

$42. Oh my God, I love these.

[D]

That's Quint's for you.

[A]

They're incredible.

[D]

Everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands and they work directly with ethical factories. But cut out the middle man. So you're paying for high quality, not brand markup.

[A]

So be like me. Upgrade your everyday go to quince.com crime crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too.

[D]

You speak English there.

[A]

That's Q-I-N-C-E.com crime crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com crime crime

[D]

the snack wrap plus Caesar sauce equals extra crispy chicken Caesary greatness sounds delicious. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time.

[A]

A beautyrest mattress gives you unparalleled motion separation, isolating movement with our pocketed coil technology while providing individualized support for every sleeping position. People at their best get their beauty rest for 100 years.

[E]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie and one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fitness fix, update and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter, from plumbing to electrical roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust, find a pro for your [e-mail] Laura.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You're a mother. I'm a mother. How fucking sick are you of the frazzled mother trope?

[B]

Fucking sick of it. And honestly, this is the thing. I'm like, Tatiana Maslany does a fantastic job portraying Paula. But I had such angst watching Paula in the role of this frazzled, disheveled, disaster ridden mother. I'm like, like, it's like there's a whole genre of shows that make this Your protagonist.

[A]

Are you okay, Paula?

[D]

Uh, yeah.

[B]

No, no. Fuck. Fuck me in the fucking face.

[A]

You're on speakerphone, Paul.

[C]

Mom, do you have my new cleats?

[B]

Could we not have like the badass get it together mother who finds herself in the middle of something and badasses her way out? No, we have this like it's, it's just like her hair's disheveled. Everything's disheveled.

[D]

It's just honestly like she keeps taking showers. I mean, very angsty showers.

[B]

Oh, we're in the shower. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. Like it was frustrating because it's, you know, she, she does a good job. And that's the thing is that it's like when I watch these shows, like I remember how stressed out I was in like season one of Stranger Things with Winona Ryder because she was like so stressed out and so frazzled and I was like, I can't take this. But you know, in this character, Paula, she's, she's panicked, she's vulnerable, she's emotionally exhausted. She's kind of like, I'm kind of. She was really the character that anchored this show. But I felt like, could we have had a different type of mom? I agree. A different type of mom in that role because, you know, I feel like we're relying upon a certain stereotype that's getting used quite a bit.

[A]

How about this? I have an idea.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

How about if you make a show where there's a woman who happens to be at the mother at the center of it, you don't make her being the mother her defining characteristic. I am so, so sick of it. I am so sick of this idea that being somebody's mother is the most difficult thing in the world. No, working in a factory in Laos is the most difficult thing in the world. Like being a mother is a normal experience that millions of billions of us share. And it is not the thing that defines a woman who's also supposed to be interesting enough to be the main character of a television program. And I'm so tired of it. I'm so tired of all the angst being around. I'm not perfect enough as a mother. I have to get this snack together and go to like it's some sort of high plot point that she's gonna be the frickin assistant soccer coach for her kids school. That's who cares? It's so boring.

[B]

That's how she's gonna get together.

[A]

I'm sorry for the mothers out there who I used to host a Parenting podcast for Slate. And I would say the same thing all the time. Like thinking, making your whole personality or drawing a whole character around the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Unless you're talking about health, unless you're talking about something that's distinctive about motherhood, that's different than what everybody else experiences, it should not be the main facet of a character in a fiction plot that's supposed to be so exciting that it has guns, heads exploding, arrests, corporate villains. The fact that that becomes a central focus and theme makes me crazy. It's so anti feminist. I hate it so much. Ronald, what do you think about the fact that a corporation turned out to be the evildoer here, like, at the last minute, without any nodding to that in any way throughout the whole series?

[C]

Okay, so I'm gonna. I wanna address that, but I wanna say one last thing about motherhood, even though I'm not a mob.

[D]

All right, Careful. Wait for it.

[A]

Nope.

[C]

See, that's why I was like, no,

[D]

it's not what you think.

[C]

It's. What do you think, Laura? I like that you said the thing about Winona Ryder's character in Stranger Things because I think the chief difference between these two characters is that she cracked something in season one of Stranger Things because of her focus of getting her child was so important that she did something crazy wild in order to actually find her child, which was paint those lights and figure out how to do it, which means she figured something out. I think this would have worked if they would have let Paula be really, really good at something. And they. She kind of was. She was really good at fact checking. And if that part of it would have come into the. Come into focus much earlier and been such a recurring theme that we're like, wow, she's really busy, but she's really good at her job. And this is what's actually going to save her in the end. I think it would have worked a lot better. But instead, they just made motherhood as almost not just something that was hurting her, something that was dragging her down in a way that I was like, this is. I don't wanna watch this. I wanna watch her be good at this and be a good mom. The corporation of it all. When we get to the end of it, what are we doing here, y'?

[B]

All?

[C]

Of course the corporation's the bad guy. We know that this isn't new. Why are you standing on a golf course talking to an executive? And that's the main villain. That's like you pull the mask off and there's no pointing to it whatsoever, as you said, Rebecca, no pointing to it at all. They didn't tell us this. It just shows up and we're supposed to accept it. And I'm like, well, duh. But if that's the case, that could have been Elon Musk. You might as well just put Elon Musk on the golf course and say he did this. And I would have been like, yep, okay, great. If you're not going to point to it, then it doesn't matter who it is. It could just be amorphous. Blob it, Mr. Robot. They literally call E core.

[D]

Evil Core.

[C]

And that's it. We know it's the stand in for Google, for Apple, for everything that's bad, Right? So like, you get to this and they say that that's the bad guy. I'm like, duh, I'm only watching this cause Kevin made me, so why would you.

[A]

That's right. That's right. I agree with what you said about she had a superpower. And the superpower. We don't know it's a superpower until like episode nine. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. And what you said about Winona, superpower is competence. Her superpower is competent competence. Porn is hot competence. We need confidence.

[D]

And also she, by the way, Rob, remember, she's better at that job than those other two fuckheads.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

Correct. Yeah.

[A]

Shuffleheads.

[D]

Yeah, correct.

[A]

For some reason, this magazine has three fucking fact checkers who are sitting around writing books on their spare time.

[D]

Someone's gotta get up and go get the coffee.

[A]

It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. We don't need all of you. Yeah, there's some jarring scenes in this, especially some jarring scenes around violence and death, are there not?

[D]

Well, I thought that the idea of getting rid of somebody by putting that expanding spray foam in their mouth, that was gnarly.

[B]

That was awful.

[D]

It was definitely the most original screen killing I've seen in a long time. Horrible nightmare. Points for coming up with at least one original thing here. But, you know, it just. I don't know, does it save the whole thing? No, it doesn't. You know, I don't know what more I can say about that.

[A]

Do you want to add something to our feminist rant about motherhood? Oh, well, I mean, you watch out.

[D]

Yeah. No. Oh, here we go. I wrote down something about. I did think that the scene when she was on the stand and she gave that speech, I thought that was well done. Again, we keep saying that, you know, for elite actress here, who's an award winner and does an okay job with the script that she's given, it's. She's unable to elevate the whole show.

[B]

We were one person.

[A]

We shared blood. We shared oxygen.

[B]

We were totally connected in every way. So I know. I know what she needs.

[D]

She needs to be here by herself, giving that speech. That's probably the best part, is there's no other. These chuckleheads around her character that she needs to interact with. She gets a monologue, and I thought she did great with it. I thought it was well written, you know, because like you said, the whole trials of motherhood with the judgment and everything, I mean, she's literally trying to come up with letters to show the judge. Right? And trying and doing whatever she can. Okay, I'll coach the soccer team just so that these other basic bitches will write me a letter to the judge or what. You know, that seems to be a theme, and I don't know if they played it really well or whatever. I mean, I guess it was just something there. They came up with a lot of sort of different pieces, and they said, this would be good in it and this would be good in it. And this theme and this kind of character and put this kind of twist in it. They've never seen anything like it, and none of it sort of really gelled.

[A]

Yeah. The only thing good about that scene, to me, was that she normalized going on the Internet for sex. Now, that's interesting. That's an interesting thing to watch.

[C]

And I think it should have happened earlier. Rebecca. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes.

[A]

Like, the lack. She had a lack of shame around it. She normalized it. And her lack of shame was the most interesting thing about her character in the early episodes, I thought. And I'm like.

[D]

I love when the lawyer is like, you masturbate. You know, you masturbated while your daughter was asleep in the other room. And the other lawyer jumps up and says, couples have sex while their children are asleep in the other room. Like, damn, you're right.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

We gotta put these kids to bed.

[A]

We do disgusting things when our kids.

[D]

We're just waiting for them to go to bed.

[C]

Okay, all right.

[B]

Right.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Mom and Dad, I don't want to know. I don't want to visualize that right now.

[C]

All right? I don't even mind that y' all do it. I just. Y', all, like, emphasized it in a way that I didn't like that's what I didn't like. Do it. Have fun. Like the marriage is sacred, the bed undefiled. But don't drag us. You like, drug us in there with you. We don't want to be in there with you.

[D]

Kids are gone. I don't care if they're up or not. It's the dogs that are the problem.

[B]

Cats always get in the way.

[D]

Cats always get in the way.

[C]

Yeah, they'll watch. They'll still watch.

[A]

And now, the next chapter of the Serta Counting sheep. Hey, uncle number one, why aren't we counting anymore?

[D]

Let me tell you a story. Long ago, Cert invented the perfect sleeper mattress.

[C]

Oh, no. Oh, yes.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

It says the all new Serta Perfect sleeper with a Q4 support system has

[C]

four in one, perfectly interlinked coils that help relieve aches and back pain for perfect sleep night after night.

[A]

We'll never get counted again.

[D]

Uh, nope.

[A]

Certa.

[D]

We make the world's best mattress.

[E]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie and one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your [e-mail].

[B]

you know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it?

[A]

It?

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

So do we.

[B]

Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse. We'll give you something to brag about. Like the latest styles from brands you love or the trends everyone's obsessing over, or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you.

[C]

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing Odoo, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for [e-mail]. that's o d o o dot com.

[A]

All right, let's do what we do. Let's let our listeners know should they check out Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on Apple tv. Laura Bricker, thumbs up or thumbs down for maximum pleasure guaranteed.

[B]

Okay, so I think I know how Ronald Young Jr. Is going on this, but I'm going to go.

[C]

It surprised you.

[B]

I'm going to go mild thumbs down instead of full thumbs down. And there's a couple reasons for this. The actors in this did a very good job with what they were given. Tatiana Maslany really carried the show. Marie Bartlett was a very creepy, really, really creepy villain. And there was a sort of life lesson in this that if you are somebody that's going on a cam site and you are having a relationship with someone and you see them get assaulted and possibly killed, do not send them money. This is a PSA right now. Do not. It's like when you get that email from a friend that says, hey, Rebecca, it's me, Laura, I'm trapped in Scotland and I lost all my cards and I need you to wire me money right now. No. So this raised some awareness of that. So, you know, I think it was interesting that we just reviewed only fantasy and then, you know, we have now a fictionalized sex work storyline coming in. I hadn't even thought about the fake assault angle. But the problem is as this went along, the plot twists, really, they weren't even like not credible. They were just so hard to believe that it just, I lost my ability to focus on this show, the pacing and some of the characters. It couldn't really decide what it wanted to be. Did it want to be a comedy, a thriller, a mystery? I don't know. But at the same time I can't go full thumbs down because there were some really good performances by the people that were in this show. And I watched it and there were parts that I watched and I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. But I didn't love it. So I am mild. Thumbs down.

[A]

Ronald Young Jr. Your thoughts and your review of Maximum Pleasure guaranteed. Thumbs up or thumbs down.

[C]

I have a cross examination question for Laura. Okay, Laura, if you did not have to watch Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed for this show, would you have kept watching it?

[B]

Maybe when I was going to sleep at night.

[C]

That's a full thumbs down. And also that's a full thumbs down. So that's two full thumbs down from Laura and Ryj here. This is not a good Show. Show. It's poorly written and poorly executed. Tatiana is probably the bright spot in this show. This made me like Jake Johnson a little bit less. Kevin, I know you liked his performance here. I did not. He irritated me in a way that I just thought he does so much goodwill in being kind of a guy that we all like. And he showed up here, and I wanted to hit him every single time because of the words coming out of his face and the ways in which they were writing him in this very. Like, they just pick a lane. Is he bad or is he good? What is this? I know it's supposed to be nuanced, but you're not writing nuance. You're writing something that is very disorienting. This is a very disorienting show. Generally, there's a lot of whiplash that's happening. And honestly, it felt hard to get through it when I realized I was only on episode five and I had more to go. I, like, legit got upset. Like, I got hurt. I was mad at y' all for this, not me.

[A]

I don't produce the show.

[C]

You got hurt mad at Kevin.

[B]

You should be mad at Stephen King because he's the one that started this, telling people it was his favorite show of the summer.

[C]

Okay, first of all, I love Stephen King. Come on. Come on, man. Does he listen to this show? I love you. I love a lot of your work. Come on, man. What are you doing?

[A]

He's wrong.

[C]

Full thumbs down. I would not watch this again. I would not recommend it to people. This is one of those shows that when Apple makes it, you could tell they're aiming for prestige and they're missing it entirely. This should have died. Other people have better shows. Make something else. I hated it. Two thumbs down from both Laura And Ronald Young Jr. Full thumbs down, not mild. I'm co opting Laura's response.

[A]

Kevin Flynn.

[D]

It's funny because I was gonna be a mild thumbs down. And then you posed the question about if I didn't have to watch the show. I'll tell you, I watched the first episode and then said, I don't wanna watch this show. And I was never gonna. We were gonna do a whole other thing. And Rebecca was like, stephen King just came on and said it was the best show of the season. I'm like, and maybe it's getting better talking about it. Okay? It's our job. God damn it. Like, this could have been cake fear,

[A]

but no cake fear apparently is worse. Apparently, that's worse.

[D]

Okay, fine. It's no for Me dog. What can I say? Look, I just didn't care about it. I mean, other than the inciting incident, which plot wise was kind of interesting, it really didn't draw me in in any way. It did feel like we had episode one was the pilot and nobody thought really it was gonna get picked up. And like, you know, we gotta reverse engineer this whole mystery and the whole bible of the series just felt very forced. They were things that were trying to be huge twists that just felt forced. And then they've left a bunch of plot points unresolved so they can be a season two, but they just feel more like it was left incomplete as opposed to intentionally being left that way. It just felt like they just didn't want to tie up something. A lot of it just felt forced is what I think. I think what I'm trying to say is this felt forced, right? It wasn't great. You know, why was I mild thumbs down? Because the performances themselves weren't bad qualify it. But you can only do so much with a bad script and they were only able to do as much as they could with a bad script here. So I will just have to go from a mild thumbs down to I guess I'm all the way thumbs down.

[A]

Yeah, me too. I hated this. I hated it so much. This should have been on Peacock. This was a Peacock.

[C]

Is that bad quality show as bad as Mia?

[A]

Yes, this is. What was that thing we watched on Peacock with Sarah Snook that was so bad for which she has been nominated for an Emmy, which I predicted?

[D]

The river. What was the bright river thingy or.

[A]

Yeah, that one thing. Horrible. Peacock shows are terrible. What this has in common with the Peacock show is I. Kevin showed me when we were taping. This was actually filmed in Brooklyn, but doesn't even feel like it. There's like nothing New Yorky or Brooklyn Y about it. Like, they never eat a fucking pretzel off the street. They never. They never pass any garbage. They okay the idea that somebody who lives in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn and has a dead end job would turn down the opportunity to live for free with a pool and a backyard in Idaho. I'm like, what is that? Are you one of these New Yorkers who's like, there's just no culture anywhere else. I bet you are. I bet you are also. I'm sorry. I don't care if I'm spoiling plot because this is so bad. I don't want you to watch it. How fucking white is it that she was arrested for two murders and they let her walk out of that fucking police.

[D]

They don't do that. You don't get. You don't make bail.

[A]

That is some real.

[C]

We've watched a lot of Law and Order. We know how it works.

[A]

This was a white people fantasy police story, okay? This is how white people.

[C]

Why were all the cops black or of color?

[A]

Or listen like. Or listen like. They'll believe you when you tell them something's off. They'll believe. They don't fucking believe you. They don't believe you. They don't let you walk out. There's so much wrong with this. There were commercials for this where Jake Johnson is gonna be in a really stupid looking show about pickleball. I would watch the hell out of that show compared to the stupid thing

[C]

I'm gonna watch Link after this.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

Huge, huge. I want a palate cleanser after this. Huge, huge, huge. Thumbs down for me for maximum pleasure. Guaranteed. I could barely tolerate it. All right, now it's time for my favorite part of the podcast, a little something called the crime of the Week. The crime of the week for this New York couple. Their hearts will go on after celebrating their Titanic themed wedding. Billy Hiller and Deanna director both grew up obsessed with James Cameron's movie. They say their nuptials are based on the love story in cassette one of the VHS set, not the disaster. On cassette two guests dressed as both first and third class passengers, including one elderly Rose in her nightgown. The officiant was costumed as ship's captain Edward Smith, with the bride and groom dressed like Jack and Rose. During their vows, the couple stood on a door proving there was enough room for both of them if they needed to float on it. The wedding included lifeboat shaped place cards, a Celine Dion inspired serenade from the yacht Rock acapella choir, a Titanic wedding cake, and of course, plenty of ice. Leonardo DiCaprio was invited, but he was a no show. And if one wedding theme weren't enough, the couple also celebrated National Slurpee Day by offering frozen slush drinks and hors d' oeuvres donated by 7 11. So all aboard panel. What was the highlight of this Titanic themed wedding? What do you think, Laura Bricker?

[B]

I think it was when the bridesmaid caught the bouquet and yelled, I'll never let go.

[A]

What about you, Rona? What's the highlight of this Titanic themed wedding?

[C]

I don't know if I would call it a highlight, but there was a pretty tense moment of method acting between some of the Immigrants and non English speaking guests and the first class passengers as they were battling it out for the lifeboat cake.

[A]

Yes. There were the lipo cake. What do you think, Kevin?

[D]

It was everybody getting to be drawn like the French girls.

[A]

Oh, I thought you were gonna say it was the car sex.

[D]

I was thinking about that.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

You're like, oh, what happened in the backseat of my Model T. Ew.

[A]

All right, Lara.

[C]

Better wait for the kids to go to bed for that one.

[D]

Oh, no.

[A]

Laura Pricker, before we end the show, do we have a cat of the week this week?

[B]

Our cat of the week is from Katie Nelson, who sent it in the official crime writers on podcast discussion group. And it's her very cute little dog. I know, Rebecca, and it's a dog that's living and it's a dog that's not dying of cancer or any other ailment. And Katie says, I want to share a picture of my dog. He's named Quince, sitting on his new Quince bamboo quilt. Yes, I made sure to choose CWO during checkout. Thanks, Katie.

[A]

Nice. We appreciate that. All right, Larbricker, folks want to reach out to you and tell us what other promo codes they've used from the show. How can they find you on social media?

[B]

You can find me at OnlyFans. No, I'm just kidding. You can find me Laura Bricker. You can find me where? You can find me Aarabricker on Instagram and Blue Sky.

[A]

What about you, Ronald? How can you be found and heard on the Internet?

[C]

You could find and hear me watching and listening to Laura's only fans.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And also when I'm done with that, you can come find me on Instagram, TikTok thread heads and Letterboxd @ot's Bigron. That's at O H I T S B I G R O N. Stay tuned to all of my feeds, all of my channels. I'm working on something new. I'm about to announce it. It is coming any day now. I'm very pumped to tell you about it. Stay tuned especially to the wait for it feed, but more soon. I'm very excited.

[A]

All right. What about you, Kevin? How can you be found?

[D]

Yeah, I'm a Kevin P. Flynn and the P stands for maximum pleasure, Guaranteed.

[A]

It doesn't. I can attest to that. All right, I'm. I'm Reb Lavoy and you can find me everywhere.

[D]

Oh, my goodness. That one right by me.

[B]

So unselfish all the time.

[A]

Sorry, Kevin. He's so unselfish.

[D]

I'm a giver.

[A]

He's a giver all right.

[C]

My God.

[A]

You can find me everywhere at Reb Lavoy. You can follow the show everywhere at Crime Writers On. You should join our Facebook discussion group and you should sign up for our newsletter. It's awesome. Get everything we [e-mail] partnersincrime. There's a lot of value there. More than a thousand podcasts, guest episodes, and lots of other stuff, too. Our theme song was composed and performed by Ty Gibbons, and the editor is Kevin Flynn. He's the producer, too. This show was recorded in the Caitlyn Rogers project studio, also known as Studio C, the closet in our New Hampshire basement where we also bring a box of donuts to soccer practice.

[D]

Going to glaze that donut.

[A]

All the crime writers, thanks so much for listening. We will catch you. So, Laura.

[B]

Yes. Oh, no.

[A]

Lots of static.

[D]

Do you hear that? Too long.

[B]

I hear it. Yeah. I don't know.

[D]

Okay, okay, okay. There you go.

[A]

You just. Whatever you did, just fix.

[D]

It's again. It's some cable.

[B]

I think one of the cables might be loose or something.

[C]

Is your phone close to it?

[B]

My. Oh, yes.

[C]

Move it from the cord.

[A]

It could also be like an LED light bulb. It could be so many things.

[B]

You never know.

[D]

Be that giant duck.

[B]

It could be anything. In my house. God only knows. Okay.

[A]

All right.

[D]

Partners in Crime Media.

[E]

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[D]

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[D]

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[C]

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[D]

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[B]

there's a break in every 26 seconds. But when intruders step near Simplisafe home security steps up.

[C]

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[B]

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