Notes for Episode 10: Drive

Hi there! Hannah here with another set of episode notes for our $1 patrons and above. These ones are definitely more whimsical than other recent sets, since we genuinely enjoyed our time watching Drive. There's also one joke that only works in the PDF version of these notes, since idk how to include in-line images in these Patreon text posts. If you want to know the punchline of that joke, you'll have to download a PDF and open it up in the PDF reader of your choice. Seems like a fair deal to me!

PATREON NOTES: DRIVE

• Plot / Structure Stuff:
  • Y’know as we were watching Persons Unknown I was thinking about how much I missed when these shows were bad but at least they were badly ABOUT something, e.g. Invasion and divorce. This is laying on themes of familial criminal violence really thick in the first three scenes… does this have the juice to be at least on Invasion’s level?
    • As it turns out, sort of, but not really. The themes mostly congeal into boilerplate “How far would you go? How fast would you drive your car?” stuff, so it never gets as oddly personal as Invasion, but the show is still a total hoot
  • When Tully is about to throw the cellphone but it mysteriously rings… they ALL mysteriously ring… this show might have juice? This might be a 3 star banger?
  • See this show has tasks and games. Why didn’t Persons Unknown have tasks and games. Why did Persons Unknown get twice as many episodes as this
  • This just immediately has so much more verve with the same “you must kill one of the others” concept compared to Persons Unknown’s fortune cookie
  • Episode 2 opening with “The Race….27 Years Ago” OWNS OWNS OWNS
  • If there’s one thing that’s not hitting for me it’s that the stakes still feel pretty low. It feels like every leg so far has been a prep leg where the terrifying race consequences are just around the corner but not here yet
  • The race is so all powerful that they can do anything except eliminate the team in last place. Whenever they try to do that the team just says nah and keeps driving
  • I feel like they’ve explained the Corinna fake capture plan like six times now but I still have like. 70% of what I need to get it

• Character / Performance Stuff:
  • Esther saying “look at all these fake actors” about the opening credits and then IMMEDIATELY Emma Stone appears
  • Emma Stone’s dad, played by Dylan Baker, has powerful William H. Macy vibes
  • The annoying race organization bureaucrat (Mr. Brightside) is just exactly what they thought the Night Manager was gonna be
  • Seemingly every minor character they encounter being in on the race is so fun. They have entered a world of cars and morality plays
  • Melanie Lynskey’s general instability making her more immediately able to grasp the bizarre rules of this race is such a good decision. Something that tends to kill these shows is characters just refusing to accept their circumstances. And like you can’t do that for very long, because we know this is a TV show!
  • Weak point in the two part pilot is the “Can I trust you? Well I’m sure yelling at you” stuff between Alex and Corinna. Few cool moments but just not at the level of some of these other plotlines
  • The white Latino brothers are a very compelling duo. These guys could be on Reunion and that’s high praise
    • The criminal one is a Watch_Dogs 1 character
    • Sometimes you look at a guy and you just know he has a questline
  • The Emma Stone plotline: [This is a bonus joke only available in PDF form]
  • There’s a lot of topical backstories in these shows but nobody’s had the courage to do White Katrina Looter before this show

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff:
  • So much of this show is about the last generation of non-smartphone cellphones
    • Another instance of “buzzer beater TV” … if you made this show even a year later so much of its aesthetic conceit would have to change
  • Bro why did they put so much drop shadow on the credits
  • The Google Earth establishing zooms are so funny. Look at my blurry roof dog
  • INSANE CRASH STUNT WHAT THE FUCK
    • SHE FLEW OUT THE BACK OF THE CAR
  • This scene of Ivy talking shit to Richard on the phone is wild… why’s it so magic hour? Why’s it so frenetically edited?
  • Final episode is… very blue
  • Episode 6 was edited with a pirated copy of Final Cut that puts a random filter over every scene. They have no control

• Notable Quotes:
  • Opening narration should be mentioned, about 500 million cars and the next time someone cuts you off. That’s golden stupid guy writing
  • “Waterboard me, fine, but you FIND MY WIFE”
  • “It is essential that you DRIVE. If you’re not on the road in the next 15 minutes, we will know”
  • “This isn’t just a race of speed. It’s a game of strategy.”
  • “It’s good karma for me to help” “You’re not helping”
    • “And you said you’re doing this for a guy?” “A little guy”
  • “Those thugs are very nice boys…”
  • “Turn around. We’re going to surrender America.”
  • “Where you going?” “Appomattox” “Where Lee surrendered” “Not this time”
  • “I’ll tell you this, I’m about to rack up some serious minutes!”
  • “WHOA THERE MOMMA!”

• Cute Things We Said:
  • It feels like this show should have a tie-in ARG where we learn about the DRIVEWAY system
  • EMMA STONE IPOD NANO
    • Esther yelled this out… it’s the name of a mid-tier vaporwave project
  • The cast list on Wikipedia has blue links for every single character but if you click them they just direct back to the page you’re already on
  • Space shuttle blasting off while a The Fray style song plays… there will never be a housing bubble, we’re safe in here
  • In a way, driving a car is WORSE than committing murder! Because when you do that, you have WHEELS!
  • The soldier’s wife planning to use the 32 mil to create new soldiers to befriend her husband and replace his dead friends
  • Imagine finding out the reason this got canceled is that in the last episode they blew all their budget on having Baby You Can Drive My Car playing every second
  • They’re going to Cleveland… willingly going to Cleveland… Lebron was right, it’s a fun city for the whole family
  • The race organizers just want cars delivered to their HQ
    • That has to be a bit, let’s play it out on the episode
  • At some point one of us wrote “Segment: would Spider-Man like this?” and it’s not clear who wrote that or what exactly she meant by it