SHOW NOTES: S02E13, "The Last Time"
Friends! We made it to the end of season two! Thanks so much for sticking with us—we hope you enjoy listening to this show as much as we love making it.
Our special guest this week is producer Alison Cherry! (Me, it's me! I write the show notes too! I'm going to write in first person to avoid existential confusion.) You already know a lot about me from our "about us" page and the notes for the season one finale, but here are a few more random, unimportant facts about me:
- If I could only eat food beginning with one letter from now on, I'd choose the letter P.
- I used to live in the same building as Mayor Pete. (I only knew him well enough to say hi, though.)
- For my day job, I work as a freelance editor—if you've got a manuscript you need edited, contact me through my website!
This week, let's begin as the episode does: with a truly terrible song. If you'd like to hear "Got 2 B Luv" by Bottlefly in its entirety—and how could you not, really—we've got it for you right here. Enjoy. (I'm sure Caroline will.)
Claire has a truly delightful fantasy sequence in this episode that's a shot-for-shot recreation of the audition scene at the end of Flashdance. If you've never seen Flashdance—or if you have, and you just need some Jennifer Beals in your life today—you can watch the original scene here. The song is "What a Feeling" by Irene Cara.
Caroline raves about Didi O'Connell and says that she's currently performing in the play Dana H. It's currently running at the Vineyard Theater (until March 22, 2020), and you can get tickets here. Here's a description of the play from Center Theater Group, where the show ran last year: "Dana (Deirdre O’Connell) was a psych ward chaplain. Jim was a patient, an ex-convict who told her he was searching for redemption. Dana H. recounts the harrowing true story of the five months Dana was held captive—trapped in a series of Florida motels, disoriented, terrified, and with her life in Jim's hands. Told in Dana's own words and reconstructed for the stage by her son, award-winning playwright Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House, Part 2, The Christians), this innovative work of theatre shatters the boundaries of the form and of our understanding of good and evil."
Here's a beautiful production still by Craig Schwartz:
We've got two more excellent guest stars this week: Daniel Roebuck, who plays the monologuing man at the sex addiction meeting Brenda attends, and Grant Show, who plays Scott. You may recognize Roebuck from his role as Dr. Leslie Artz on Lost, and Show is best known for playing Jake Hanson on Melrose Place. Here they are in their former incarnations for your viewing pleasure.
Jenna tells a truly terrifying story in this episode about the Tri-State Crematory, which in 2002 was found to have been dumping bodies on its grounds for years rather than incinerating them. She quotes from a New York Times article, which you can read in its entirety here. It's wild, you guys.
I also thoroughly creeped out Jenna and Caroline by talking about how dental X-rays of children show both the baby teeth that are already in and the adult teeth that are waiting to grow in. They both vehemently declined to look at a photo, but if you're feeling brave and you'd like to see one, you can click here. I think it's kind of fascinating.
Jenna compared Ruth to the "This is fine" dog when she's in the kitchen talking about the logistics of Claire's graduation. In case you have somehow avoided seeing this meme, here it is. The artist is KC Green. (Also, if you haven't seen this meme, congratulations on staying off the internet since the 2016 election.)
We learned in this episode that Nikolai's flower shop used to be a gas station in real life and that James Dean stopped there to fill up his Porsche Spyder on the day he died. Later in the day, he crashed the car while driving down a darkening highway on the way to a road race. This is the photo that was taken of him and his car that fateful day. (We found the photo in Time, but we're not sure where it was published originally.)
Jenna mentions a fascinating interview that Karamo Brown did on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah regarding domestic abuse in LGBTQ+ relationships. You can watch that conversation here. The relevant part of the discussion starts around 2:20, but the whole interview is quite interesting. He also talks about some similar topics in his interview with Sam Sanders on the It's Been a Minute podcast—you can listen here.
We've got two songs to play you out this week. Firstly, if you're looking for some background music while you moodily peruse a brochure about the arts facilities at a community college, try "Humankind" by Grant Lee Philips. If you're in more of a "smoke some weed in your commencement robes" kind of mood, we (and Claire) recommend "Fight Test" by the Flaming Lips.
That's all for now, listeners—we'll be back in your feed with season three as soon as we can! Feel free to hit us up on Twitter or Instagram (@notoversfu) in the meantime, or you can write us an email at notoversfu@gmail.com. We love hearing your thoughts about these wonderful, complicated characters.