Loi Dunk

Privilege and Party Poopers

• Barbara & Teja Arboleda • Episode 91

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Spending summers doing nothing would be awesome...until it's not. Barbara and Teja peel away at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as expected in the series We Were Liars, but uncover some shock and awe that would put any super-privileged debutante in the worry box. 


#wewereliars #tvreview #humor

SPEAKER_00:

You look like Iron Man.

SPEAKER_02:

A little like a beautifully, really tiny iron man. More like aluminum.

SPEAKER_00:

Copper.

SPEAKER_02:

Copper man.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, copper. Yeah, you know, nickel.

SPEAKER_02:

Nickel man.

SPEAKER_00:

We were liars. The show. Oh, we were it took place on Martha's Vineyard.

SPEAKER_02:

We were liars.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. That's what we're talking about today. And at first, I thought we should watch it. I was like, I'm gonna watch this show because I'm taking this class on how to pitch your music for sync, you know. And one of the music supervisors that um was, you know, I was gonna be able to interact with in this class was the music supervisor for We Were Liars. And I was like, well, I'm you know, I need to check this out. So I started watching it, and you were there. And you just loved it from the word go.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I did not, actually, because this is what it looked like.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, but it was great. Can I tell you in the end? It was great. It was, it was it was, it was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02:

Because I I this is what I saw. I saw a bunch of what looked like very, very privileged people. And they were complaining about everything everything, and there are so many things going on in the world right now that to me was so unnecessary. Now, see, that's what I saw, right? Yes, like why would I want to see very wealthy, privileged people complaining about little things and doing nothing, and literally doing nothing, like they're like all the long time. They're just hanging out all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Hanging out, going, oh my life is terrible.

SPEAKER_02:

And so I hadn't I I I I refused to watch.

SPEAKER_00:

At first.

SPEAKER_02:

At first until you I think you were doing bills one night.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So when I do bills, when it's bills night, I get full control of the remote. Yes. I get to decide what we watch, and I was like, we're watching, we are liars.

SPEAKER_02:

And I was determined to suffer something.

SPEAKER_00:

You were doing the next determined to hate it to support her as she does the bills.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not allowed to do the bills.

SPEAKER_00:

And for good reasons. Yes, I'm not good with bills.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm not a liar about that.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, exactly. But you got sucked in. We both got sucked in. Well, because it's still. Sometimes I'd like be in the middle of something and be like, oh, right, I've got to keep doing this.

SPEAKER_02:

I just showrunner, oh, really had me going there.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my. It just gradually, like it started out with this whole Martha's Vineyard. Oh, we're just laying around. Oh, it's summer. Oh, look at us.

SPEAKER_02:

We're s and then it's like a lazy summer that just goes on.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, and it was like three generations of lazy people. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02:

Just like all I could think was the minute that I was able to work legally as a kid, as a child.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh well, as a young teen.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, even yeah, very young. Well, no, before that, because I was doing voiceover when I was very, very little.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay. But I guess your parents were in charge of that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, true.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But I was working.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. I was working. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I got a little bit of paid here, paid there, you know. I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

I couldn't imagine spending a whole summer doing absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

I sold Avon when I was 14.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't even, well, it was the 80s, so I wore makeup. I was a 14-year-old wearing makeup in the 80s and all that that entails.

SPEAKER_02:

But you were working.

SPEAKER_00:

But I started selling Avon. I was terrible at it. I am not a salesperson. And I discovered that. And you learn things about yourself through the different jobs you have. I learned I am not a salesperson.

SPEAKER_02:

But ever. In this show, they didn't do any of that.

SPEAKER_00:

No, they did not do that.

SPEAKER_02:

They probably had makeup put on them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You never saw them getting ready for anything.

SPEAKER_00:

No, you did. Because there were things that they did. They had to wear the dressing dress, and you know, and isn't this. You see my eyes rolling? Yes. And they were all blonde.

SPEAKER_02:

Like all of them, except for one character. And that friend.

SPEAKER_00:

So right.

SPEAKER_02:

That friend at dark-skinned Indian American. I believe it was Indian American. And it that was part of the focus. So I'm thinking, okay, not only is this like blonde, all blonde privilege, but then you have this dark-seen kid.

SPEAKER_00:

One person that you're like, how'd you get here? Although no, you were thinking that. You were thinking that.

SPEAKER_02:

No, but even his father, or his uncle, I think it is, was the one who said, I am I'm here to serve. You have to step back. You have to serve. You have to.

SPEAKER_00:

But that was later. True. In the beginning of the show, I thought, and I'm looking it up here as we do. I was so prepared today, I completely forgot to uh charge my iPads, so I've got my little charger here. Um okay. So at first, I thought he was just another rich kid, just from another. I knew he was from another family, but I thought he was just another rich kid. Honestly, I truly did. And then it started getting dark. I mean, this kind of this show got get out dark. Like if you've ever seen get out from Jordan Peele. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Or us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it does get very dark. It just and it keeps and the final episode, it it gets darker. It's very different.

SPEAKER_00:

Especially the final two episodes. You just like, you've gotta know, you've just gotta watch the final two episodes like in one sitting. Just forget trying to say, I'm gonna watch an episode and then go to sleep.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, you're just about to go get your ice cream. Don't because you're watching the past two episodes.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't do that. Get a nice shot of whiskey. Leave the bottle next to you.

SPEAKER_02:

Right next to you. You left your iron on. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00:

Watch the last two episodes. Leave it just in a row. Let your house burn down.

SPEAKER_02:

Which actually.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, don't. See, we're kind of we try to be spoiler free because it's brand new. It's it's 2025, and we're recording this in 2025. So for those of you who haven't seen it, we don't want to spoiler averse. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I am spoiler averse. I don't like spoilers.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. So it that last episode, there were like three misdirects.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, yeah, because you think you know what you know, and then you don't you realize that you actually you didn't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And then there's something else pops up. And you're like, well, I thought, okay, well, I didn't know that what else do I not know?

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Right. It's like you know part of it, and then you're like, wow, that must be the big reveal. And then something else comes up. And you're like, well, that must be the big reveal. But alas, no. They yet there's more. Like this, man, it was a good show. It was a good show.

SPEAKER_02:

The the demographics on purpose got you thinking in one direction.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Because of the all the political posturing that these days sucked you in.

SPEAKER_00:

They absolutely fooled you about that show.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I almost didn't watch it though.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the unfortunate thing. I hadn't seen it.

SPEAKER_02:

If I had seen the preview.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, the trailer.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, or the trailer. If I had seen the trailer, I would have been like, you know what? I I think I know where this is gonna go. But I never, all I saw was the first you watching the first episode. I'm like, what are you watching? What are you watching?

SPEAKER_00:

And that's all rich people be rich people, you know. I mean, that's that's what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't need that. No, but I think the world needs that. I had a trailer, especially it being Martha's Vineyard. There are all these assumptions about exactly the world of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Remember like the lemon party or something? Like it was this, everything was all tradition. Like it was all this family comes together for the summer. And and you know, there's this every single summer, and there was this tradition of like the lemon ball or the lemon gala or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

And you have to like find all these lemons that you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's like a whole bunch of lemons and one lime, and one lime. And like you win prizes or something based on how many you find, and it was like the grand favorite thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's like a it's uh an Easter egg hunt, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah, and that's how they're yes, exactly, exactly. But it had a really good cast. Um near the end you learn something about the parents. I I mean, you learn a lot about a lot of people. You learn stuff, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so the first thing that happens, like again, they really mislead you for a while because at first you just think, oh, this girl, the main character, oops, why am I forgetting the main character? Cadence, who they called Katie. At first you think, oh, she had just had an accident last summer, and she had some kind of major injury that resulted in some kind of a brain injury. So, yes, and so you realize that she's going through something, but then at the same time, you're like, oh, but here we are, we're we're we're back, and oh, her friends are trying to make her feel better and all this stuff. And the first thing that they give us is like all that nitpicking behind the scenes, like like so there's the grandfather, right? And then there's the generation that's like her parents and like the the sisters, and none of the sisters get along, and yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And again, you're like, oh, here's just a bunch of blonde people arguing. Like no offense to our blonde viewers, really, but it's just like this stereotyping and our blonde family on Martha's Vineyard.

SPEAKER_02:

It's it's it's targeting.

SPEAKER_00:

And they did it on purpose. They did it on purpose, yes. So what are you looking up?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm I'm trying I'm not good with names. I never remember anyone's names.

SPEAKER_00:

Never, never good with names.

SPEAKER_02:

So, and both of us aren't.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So when I'm trying to talk about a an actor, you know, the one who was in the movie that's uh the with the with the and it had the thing, right? And then they did the you know the stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then an axolotl came along. I have to take the big tag off. I have to button.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh David Morse, by the way, plays the grandfather. He's sort of the patriarch of the family.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Sort of he is the patriarch of the whole family. And there are so many assumptions that you have about him. And then and then it just it just it becomes something very, very different. And hence the title. I I've been thinking a lot about why it's called Yeah, uh uh We Were Liars. We were liars.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Right?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they called themselves the liars, right? There was all the cousins.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, but it also has a double entendre. Or not uh it has like a double meaning, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Potentially, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

But he is uh he's he's a phenomenal. I just love I just love the way he carried himself as this as this patriarch. It was um very patronizing.

SPEAKER_00:

Like it just had that it just again they start out with that stereotype, right? Right the patriarch who's going to who is you know saying how everything's gonna be in the family, but then like you learn these little things about how he is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I I am I love storytelling, and what I don't like is are the stories that are very easily deciphered or are or unboxed, or so totally predictable or totally stereotypical, and I am so turned on by by good acting and good storytelling.

SPEAKER_00:

Nothing turned on I was literally oh I didn't realize you must have had a pillow in your lap. I um what are we tin con where we crack ourselves up?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I I I and so the by the third episode I'm I'm I'm bought in.

SPEAKER_00:

I just I'm because there were only eight episodes. It just got sucked up.

SPEAKER_02:

Everyone was exceptionally perfect for the role.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you had they went back and forth in time a lot, and they had the main character, Katie, they had her um, because she was feeling a little dark after the whole brain injury thing. So they had her dye her hair black, right? So another like issue of now she's separate from the family somehow, it's all blonde. She dyes her hair black. Although that really helps us because they did a lot of back and forth last summer, this summer, last summer, this summer. And the only way that you can keep track of that is like, is she blonde right now? Yeah. Okay, that's last summer. Dark hair, okay, that's this summer. So it was actually very handy. Very handy.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, good storytelling.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

We were liars.

SPEAKER_00:

We were liars. We were liars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Really good.

SPEAKER_00:

And you just you and I'm trying so hard not to give spoilers.

SPEAKER_02:

But it only has a 6.7 out of 10. Oh, really? Has a 6.7 out of 10 on IMDb. Why? Now I am not a big supporter of ratings uh or movie reviewers in sort of the traditional sense, like, don't go see this. Go see this because so-and-so.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And I I I don't I don't want those numbers to um affect the way I'm going to feel or influence the way I'm gonna feel about uh a movie or a TV show. Um, so I'm looking at the numbers and I think, you know, whatever. Yeah, I liked it. It does that doesn't matter to me. If it's really bad, I will rate it really bad because it doesn't belong on IMDB. In other words, if it's what?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I mean we've seen things like we've seen things with 1.7 stars on IMDbs and still watched it just because we like to you know unbox things. But here's one here's one reviewer who clearly lost the plot because they're because they're saying that it left the the show viewers are left wondering if there was foul play about the accident. No. They totally answer that question of what happened. They they answer that question. I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Well, are there replies to that? Uh no, it just says 26 out of 33 found this helpful.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is that, and then and then someone else was here says like whatever top review saying that like the middle that there was, you know, that they didn't like the middle episodes. They're like, watch episodes one, seven, and eight. I disagree because I like the slow reveal.

unknown:

Right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so clearly it's like, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

It's fun to watch the slow reveal.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, you get these little pieces of the story in each episode. I totally disagree with you, whatever your name is that I'm not gonna say here because you know, I'm unless they're responding to you. No, yeah. No, I totally disagree.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well because I like it's like breadcrumb, breadcrumb, breadcrumb, breadcrumb. And then finally you get the big stuff. It I will admit though that yes, it goes from like breadcrumb, bread crumb, bread crumb to whole loaf of bread. Like all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_02:

And then donut.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because there's a hole in the middle, yeah, and it floats like a life life preserver. Oh okay. So Octo says smile. Octo likes We Were Liars, and so does Lottie.

SPEAKER_02:

Good show.

SPEAKER_00:

It was very good. There is this one scene that's gorgeous. I just want to say the cinematography at the end. What do you mean? The cinematography at the end.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

There was this one scene. I won't tell you like the context, but the main character, Katie, is running across a field in this dress, and the dress kind of is flowing out behind her as she's running across this grassy area. And for reasons that I won't tell you, there's like embers on the end of her dress, and you see from above, and the coloration is all this like blue, yeah, and then the dress also has kind of these blue and light hues, and then the bright orange embers outlining the edge of the dress was absolutely gorgeous. What an image! And it fit like what was going on in her mind. A lot of symbolism and like oh yeah, you should watch the show just for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, just the end of it.

SPEAKER_00:

And then make that a screensaver and just like oh, cool idea. That's a good idea. Wow, ooh, yeah, or like a desktop or something.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe the sequel will be called We Are Fibers.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh they could do that? Or we now tell the truth, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Or we're punners.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's that's more like the Jim Carrey kind of you know spin-off of this. Yeah. Watch it!

SPEAKER_02:

Watch it.

SPEAKER_00:

I say, what do you say? What do you give it?

SPEAKER_02:

I say because you yourself have the whole summer just to hang out and do nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah. Like watch this show. Don't we all, don't we all.