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Hey there, fellow travelers! In a rare bit of good movie-watching, Pick Six Movies heads to the American Southwest with Ridley Scott and Thelma & Louise. It only took us until season 25, one we’re calling Holiday Road, to get to a legitimately great film. We have traded in the usual dumb voices for some genuine appreciation. We talk about why the movie works as well as it does, how great the lead performances are, and, of course, some talk about Harvey Keitel’s penis. Join us, won’t you?
Pick Six Movies is a movie podcast where each season we select six movies, all related to a single theme. We examine the history of the people in front of and behind the camera, try to make sense of how and why the movie was made, then discuss each one in way too much detail to see if they are any good.
Pick Six Movies is hosted by Bo Ransdell and Chad Cooper, two life-long friends with a shared passion for discussing things they barely understand in an attempt to make each other laugh.
Speaker 1: Well, hello there and welcome to a brand new episode of PICK 6 Movies.
Speaker 1: We're doing something a little different on this episode, but before we get into that, let's catch you up on what it is we do when we're doing something a little normal.
Speaker 1: See, this is a podcast on the internet, and that means two guys me, Bo Randsdal, and my oldest and best pal, jack Cooper are talking about a bunch of nonsense.
Speaker 1: The nonsense in question is a show about movies, six of them, to be precise, and we pick those six movies each season around a theme.
Speaker 1: The theme for this season season 25, is Holiday Road, where we are talking about a half dozen road trip movies.
Speaker 1: We do a little introduction about the movie and then come back together, all wonder, twin style, to discuss the movie in question, and this is where the unusual part comes in.
Speaker 1: We normally talk about a movie that is questionable at best and downright bad in most cases.
Speaker 1: This time, though, we are talking about a genuinely great movie Thelma and Louise, a story of friendship with a great script, great performances, great editing.
Speaker 1: So what the hell are we going to talk about?
Speaker 1: Well, since you're here already, how about you join us for the rest of this trip through a very good film.
Speaker 1: Chad, get in here and tell us how this really good movie got made already, will ya?
Speaker 2: It's time to record the intro.
Speaker 2: Hello, bethes the intern, not to be confused with Beth T the intern.
Speaker 2: We've never had two interns with the same name, let alone two interns both named Beth.
Speaker 2: Hey, bethes, don't tell Beth T, but I like you, bethes, the best, and it's not just because you're listed first in the alphabetical order in our staff roster here at Pick Six Movies.
Speaker 2: Bethes, let me ask you a question What do you know about Paducah Kentucky?
Speaker 2: Well, i'm about to take that absolutely nothing and turn it into absolutely something, bethes.
Speaker 2: Paducah Kentucky is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers on the western part of the great state of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: It's about halfway between Nashville, tennessee, to the southeast, and St Louis, missouri, to its northwest.
Speaker 2: And in 1991, the National Quilt Museum opened and it's unofficially known as Quilt City.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has a population of around 27,000 citizens and it's the location of the Dippin' Dots Ice Cream Empire Headquarters.
Speaker 2: Notable people from Paducah Kentucky include Weatherman Sam Champion, who you might know from ABC's Good Morning America, pga golfer Kenny Perry, professional WWE wrestler Ricochet.
Speaker 2: Never has it that rumor Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, was born there.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of her?
Speaker 2: Of course you haven't.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, bethes What do you know about Paducah, kentucky's beloved hometown rider, callie Corey?
Speaker 2: Well, let's say we turned that nothing at all into a whole lot of amazing at all.
Speaker 2: Callie Corey was raised in Paducah, kentucky, after her family relocated from San Antonio, texas, when she was very young.
Speaker 2: Callie grew up in the south of the 1960s, filled with segregated movie theaters and schools.
Speaker 2: As she grew into a young woman, she was acutely aware of the hypocrisy and prejudices that surrounded her.
Speaker 2: Her family was better off than others, with her mother, virginia, active in their church and local arts community, and her father, eli, was the head of the regional medical associates at a local hospital.
Speaker 2: Callie was close to both of her parents, citing her father's drive as an overachiever as a real driving influence for her later in life.
Speaker 2: When she was 16, her father complained of a headache and went to the hospital.
Speaker 2: Shortly after he suffered a cerebral aneurysm and he died within 24 hours and everything changed for Callie and her mother.
Speaker 2: Callie continued through high school.
Speaker 2: She was active in theater productions that brought her a sense of escapism, but later in life Callie reflected on this time and said the 10 years after her father's death was just a real fog.
Speaker 2: She began to read books and magazines and opened her eyes to the life of possibilities beyond her small hometown, especially for a young woman.
Speaker 2: Callie went to Purdue University for no real reason at all.
Speaker 2: It was a large university.
Speaker 2: It was a place where she said she could just intentionally get lost and maybe find her way to somewhere.
Speaker 2: She majored in landscape architecture because why not?
Speaker 2: She ultimately changed her major to theater, looking back on her high school years and the refuge that theater productions provided her.
Speaker 2: During a time of such deep sorrow for both her and her mother, callie dropped out of college just shy of getting her degree, describing her time in higher education as a wasted experience.
Speaker 2: She moved to Nashville, tennessee, at the age of 21.
Speaker 2: She picked up some work in theaters and wound up waiting tables at local music venues, including the exit in, and she surrounded herself with all types of creative forces, including musicians from genres ranging from rock to bluegrass, country and jazz.
Speaker 2: One night, a young country singer named Pam Tillis was performing on a stage and asked who she could have a Coca-Cola.
Speaker 2: Callie brought Pam the beverage and handed it over, and Pam looked at Callie and said you're not just a waitress.
Speaker 2: And Callie responded you're not just a singer, and this was the start of a lifelong friendship between Callie and Pam.
Speaker 2: They were two very different people, but together they complimented one another and they were a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 2: Pam was messy and scattered, callie was a methodical.
Speaker 2: Pam was naive, callie was jaded, pam was innocent, callie had a smart ass mouth Two different people that were also very much the same.
Speaker 2: After four years in Nashville, callie decided it was time to head west, so she moved to Los Angeles and got an apartment in West Hollywood in 1982.
Speaker 2: Callie studied at the Lee Strasburg Theater and Film Institute and she waited tables at the improv comedy club.
Speaker 2: In the mid 1980s, stand-up comedy was exploding.
Speaker 2: Overnight, comedians could go from standing behind a microphone in a smoke filled dark room at 2 am pitching jokes to sitting next to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show with multiple offers for a sitcom pilot deal with a show named after and starring them.
Speaker 2: Callie hung out with some of the funniest people of the time Jerry Seinfeld, jay Leno, paul Reiser, robin Williams And Callie fit in perfectly slinging comedic insults and jabs with the best of them.
Speaker 2: She was a smart, sassy Southern woman who let people know she would not be taken advantage of As much as she enjoyed her time with the comedians at the improv, callie never aspired to be a comedian.
Speaker 2: This may have been influenced by the perception that women didn't have the required aggression needed to be a stand-up comic at the time, or at least meet the expectations of what audiences wanted from a stand-up comic.
Speaker 2: At the time, roseanne Barr was really the only comedian who was able to deliver the comedic feminine hostility to break out as a superstar, the likes of which had not really occurred since Joan Rivers arrived on the scene years earlier.
Speaker 2: Callie continued pursuing acting, but after a while she realized it wasn't in her future.
Speaker 2: It was 1985, callie's career hit a wall.
Speaker 2: She was smarter than most of the men she worked with.
Speaker 2: Hell.
Speaker 2: She was funnier than most of the men she worked with, and this hurt.
Speaker 2: Plus, callie continued to feel the impact of her father's death while trying to find direction in her life.
Speaker 2: Throughout her 20s, callie left her job at the improv, moved to a new home near the beach in Santa Monica and took a job as a receptionist who helped to manage the logistics for music videos.
Speaker 2: Again, this was the 1980s.
Speaker 2: Mtv was huge and every band needed a music video to go with their hopefully hit song.
Speaker 2: Callie hired wannabe starlets and strippers to her spandex and dance around behind Alice Cooper or Winger or a list of bands you've probably never heard of.
Speaker 2: She swept sound stages.
Speaker 2: She did whatever was asked of her Well, almost everything.
Speaker 2: Callie had a front row seat to the misogyny and the subjugation of women in front of and behind the camera.
Speaker 2: She worked her way up from the reception desk into video production, all the time suppressing her outrage at what she saw all around her, often looking the other way, just to get her job done.
Speaker 2: Women in the film and video industry were not in a place to stand up to the male dominant power structure.
Speaker 2: Unless you were Jane Fonda or Barbara Streisand, you couldn't take the establishment head-on.
Speaker 2: In 1987, callie was working as a line producer, doing everything from delivering film to the labs, ordering lighting, scouting location and arranging casting All unsatisfying work.
Speaker 2: But it was a great place for her to learn.
Speaker 2: Up-and-coming film directors full of visual flair and no restraint got behind the camera to make music videos in the minor leagues of major motion pictures.
Speaker 2: Michael Bay, david Fincher and countless others cranked out music videos in hopes of getting the chance to make a feature film.
Speaker 2: Callie was underpaid compared to her male counterparts doing work that was often degrading to women, casting for Motley Crue and White Snake videos, providing women and bikinis to prance around behind guys with big hair and minimal talent.
Speaker 2: But bills had to be paid and Callie kept her head down to keep the lights on.
Speaker 2: Callie believed that you get what you settle for, and she was tired of settling for what she was getting.
Speaker 2: In the spring of 1988, callie Curry was 30 years old.
Speaker 2: She was driving home from work and, out of nowhere, inspiration struck.
Speaker 2: Two women go on a crime spree.
Speaker 2: That one sentence.
Speaker 2: She felt the characters and immediately saw the entire movie.
Speaker 2: Callie had never written a movie script before, but she had one to write now.
Speaker 2: She knew where the women started and where they would end.
Speaker 2: They would go from being invisible to being too big for the world to contain.
Speaker 2: They would stop cooperating and they would just be themselves.
Speaker 2: Over the next six months Callie wrote the draft of her screenplay.
Speaker 2: Two lower-class women in Arkansas leave to go on a fishing weekend.
Speaker 2: Things get out of control, turning an innocent weekend of fun into a mix of desperation, exhilaration and liberation.
Speaker 2: Callie's screenplay also found inspiration in some violent encounters that happened to her, one involving her and comedian Larry David being robbed by some young men outside of the improv.
Speaker 2: On a separate occasion, callie and her lifelong friend Pam Tillis were jumped and a thief tried to steal Callie's purse.
Speaker 2: Callie put up a struggle until Pam told her to just let the purse go.
Speaker 2: Callie listened to her friend and the assailants ran away safely.
Speaker 2: Callie later said to Pam if I'd had a gun I'd have killed him.
Speaker 2: Two friends, pam and Callie.
Speaker 2: One a lovable, compliant, sweet, free spirit.
Speaker 2: The other an orderly, wounded person with a quick wit and a smart mouth.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: Callie's goal was to make a low-budget indie film to hopefully get some broader distribution.
Speaker 2: This was a growing trend in the 1980s.
Speaker 2: Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing and Steven Soderbergh's Sex Lives In Video tape showed that independent movies could reach a broader audience and be commercially and critically successful films, leading to bigger and better things for aspiring writers and directors.
Speaker 2: Callie wanted the movie to star Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand.
Speaker 2: She worked her connections and the project was pitched to different production companies.
Speaker 2: But everybody said no, and by everybody.
Speaker 2: It was mostly men who read the script And they said no because they felt that the two lead characters were unsympathetic and they were women.
Speaker 2: Eventually, the script landed in the hands of a friend named Mimi Polk, who ran Ridley Scott's production company.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott had a few movies to his credit Alien starring Sigourney Weaver, blade Runner starring Harrison Ford, legend with Tom Cruise and Black Rain starring Michael Douglas.
Speaker 2: He was not the Ridley Scott we know today, because he had yet to direct Thelma and Louise or Gladiator or The Martian.
Speaker 2: Polk read the script and completely identified with the character's situations.
Speaker 2: She gave the script to Ridley Scott in hopes of his production company helping to get the movie made.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott loved the script, so much so that he bought the rights to the movie for $500,000, but he had no interest in directing the movie.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott initially considered his brother, tony Scott, who was fresh off his success directing Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2.
Speaker 2: The latter movie features a scene where the hero of that film, axel Foley, is saved when his partner, lieutenant Taggart, shoots the movie's villain, as played by Brigitte Nielsen, by shooting this woman offscreen, then stepping into frame and saying women, while Axel Foley laughs with that inhaled brain that he often did.
Speaker 2: Maybe Tony Scott was not the right choice to make Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott took the script to his brother to see if he would be interested in directing it, and Tony Scott declined because quote listen, dude, it's two bitches in a car, tony Scott.
Speaker 2: Definitely not the best choice to make.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: Tony Scott's next movie at the time was Days of Thunder, a movie about alpha males racing around in circles.
Speaker 2: You can go find that one on this podcast.
Speaker 2: We did it And it's exactly what you would expect.
Speaker 1: Let's move on.
Speaker 2: Other A-list directors were considered, including Richard Donner, who was fresh off of directing Lethal Weapons 1 and 2.
Speaker 2: Kevin Reynolds was considered.
Speaker 2: He would later go on to find great success with Robin Hood, prince of Thieves, and then his career would crash and burn with Waterworld.
Speaker 2: Bob Raefelsen, who directed five easy pieces, was considered, but everybody turned it down.
Speaker 2: They couldn't see in Callie's script what Ridley Scott saw.
Speaker 2: This movie was epic, set against a landscape that itself was a character in the movie, and the more Ridley Scott spent with Callie discussing their vision of the film, the more he realized that he was the right choice to direct the movie.
Speaker 2: After all, he was the one who decided Ripley and Alien should be cast as a woman and not a man.
Speaker 2: His production company was run by women.
Speaker 2: He recognized this movie was filled with male characters that were childish, dangerous, misguided and vulgar.
Speaker 2: She knew that the movie required a delicate touch to blend the weightiness of the film along with the humor that Callie wove into her characters in their dialogue.
Speaker 2: But this was show business.
Speaker 2: Callie wrote an incredible screenplay and turning it into a successful movie by not alienating half of your potential audience, men.
Speaker 2: A movie about two women on a road trip crime spree needed humor.
Speaker 2: This script was full of men behaving badly across the spectrum of bad male behavior.
Speaker 2: Scott felt that the movie would be a mirror held up for many men to see themselves, and humor would make this self-reflection easier to see.
Speaker 2: During the early stages of pre-production, the two leads were cast and the movie was going to start Jody Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer But, as you know, this is not how things ultimately turned out.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott went to his friend Alan Ladd Jr, who was the head of PATH Entertainment at the time.
Speaker 2: Ladd Jr was a studio executive at the time Blade Runner was made and he had a history of taking chances on innovative movies including Body Heat, the Right Stuff and Chariots of Fire.
Speaker 2: He also had a history of producing high quality movies about women, such as Julia, the Turning Point and An Unmarried Woman.
Speaker 2: Path Entertainment was financed by an unknown Italian investor named Giancarlo Peretti.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into the history of this production company or the state of its finances at the time in this introduction.
Speaker 2: Just know that their money troubles were only surpassed by their legal woes.
Speaker 2: It's a small miracle that Thelma Louise was ever made, released or had any dollars to help promote it.
Speaker 2: Alan Ladd Jr loved the project and was able to secure financial backing to get the movie off the ground.
Speaker 2: As pre-production drug on, michelle Pfeiffer was offered the lead role in Silence of the Lambs but opted instead to star in the movie Love Field, which you've probably never heard of.
Speaker 2: Jody Foster also dropped out of Thelma Louise to go famously fill the vacancy left by Michelle Pfeiffer starring as Clarice in the movie Silence of the Lambs.
Speaker 2: In any given year there were maybe 8-10 solid roles for leading actresses, and I'm being generous here.
Speaker 2: In 1991, the year Thelma and Louise was released, the top-grossing movie was Terminator 2, a movie that had a strong female character, sarah Connor, as played by Linda Hamilton.
Speaker 2: The fifth highest-grossing film that year was Silence of the Lambs, again also with a strong female lead, but everything else in the top 10, robin Hood, prince of Thieves, hook, jfk, the Naked Gun 2.5, the Addams Family, cape Fear, hot Shots these are all movies that were absent strong female lead characters.
Speaker 2: The point I'm trying to make is that for actresses in Hollywood, the options are shockingly limited and decisions to stay with a project or leave for another role are really based on what options are available at the time.
Speaker 2: And at the time it was unsure if Thelma and Louise would ever be made.
Speaker 2: With Michelle Pfeiffer and Jody Foster out.
Speaker 2: There was a need to recast the leads, peter Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn.
Speaker 2: This was very close to happening.
Speaker 2: Streep loved the script but did not love the ending of the movie.
Speaker 2: She really wanted at least Thelma or Louise to meet a different outcome than the one in the original story.
Speaker 2: Now, if you haven't seen Thelma and Louise or forgot how it ends, thelma and Louise both die.
Speaker 2: This wasn't just a concern by Streep.
Speaker 2: The film producers were concerned audiences wouldn't react positively to such a tragic ending.
Speaker 2: However, callie was immovable on this point.
Speaker 2: From the moment inspiration struck, she knew how this movie would start and, more importantly, how it would end.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott agreed, but he was open to shooting an alternate ending where one or both of the women survive, based on early screenings and how audiences react.
Speaker 2: Meryl Streep ultimately dropped out due to a conflict with another movie and Goldie Hawn was deemed just not right for the part.
Speaker 2: During this entire pre-production time, one actress showed determination to be cast in the movie Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: That was Gina Davis.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis had her agent called Ridley Scott's production company every week for the better part of a year, inquiring as to how she could get cast in this movie.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis had just won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in the Accidental Tourist.
Speaker 2: She was a known actress and was on the rise, appearing alongside Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, her renowned asshole, chevy Chase in the movie Fletch, jeff Goldblum in The Fly and Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott met with Gina Davis and she came prepared with an hour's worth of arguments as to why she should play Louise, the headstrong more grounded of the two female leads.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott listened to her argument and then said so you wouldn't play Thelma.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis stopped, thought about it and realized, yeah, i should be playing Thelma, and she got the part contingent on who would be playing Louise.
Speaker 2: Susan Sarandon at the time was 44 years old.
Speaker 2: She was not only an established actress but also a political activist going after President Bush for portraying people of color.
Speaker 2: Now this is Herbert Walker Bush.
Speaker 2: It would be a few years later where Kanye West went after Dubya for not caring about black people, next to a stunned Mike Myers on live TV.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott met with Susan Sarandon and felt that her poise, authority and sensibility to play Louise was a perfect fit for Gina Davis as Thelma.
Speaker 2: Now let's turn to the casting of the men in this movie, and there are a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott felt that the lead detective, hal Slokum, who follows the crime spree of the movie's heroines, was key to the film's success.
Speaker 2: Slokum was a man who felt that the two women were victims of bad luck and bad decisions.
Speaker 2: He was sympathetic and he really just wants to do what's right by the law and right by these two people.
Speaker 2: Harvey Keitel was known for playing hard, rough characters, like his appearance in Taxi Driver, and Keitel also appeared in Ridley Scott's first film, the Duelist.
Speaker 2: It was almost against height for Keitel to play a good guy but after some convincing by Ridley Scott, keitel agreed to take the part and he fell into the role of a Southern lawman sympathetic to the film's female leads.
Speaker 2: Because husband Daryl arguably the movie's comedic relief was a described in Callie's screenplay as a man for whom polyester was made.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis recommended her ex-boyfriend, christopher McDonald, who would later go on to gain fame as shooter McGavin in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 2: Mcdonald and Davis were dating.
Speaker 2: At the time Davis was making the fly with Jeff Goldblum.
Speaker 2: The making of that film broke up the previous romance and it led to Gina Davis marrying Jeff Goldblum, her second of four marriages.
Speaker 2: Whoa good for her.
Speaker 2: The role of Jimmy Louise's boyfriend was filled by Michael Madsen, who was friends with Harvey Keitel at the time, and he would later go on to play the guy who tortured that cop and cut off his ear with a straight razor.
Speaker 2: As Steeler Wheels stuck in the middle with you played in Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs, ridley Scott originally wanted Madsen to play the role of Harlan, the man who assaults Thelma, but Madsen didn't want to risk being known as a rapist for the rest of his career.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott couldn't see Madsen and Sarandon as a couple and asked for the two to go to lunch, and they did, and it went very well.
Speaker 2: Madsen got the part and he delivered a performance of a man who was complicated, troubled and at the same time principled.
Speaker 2: Lastly, there was the casting of JD, the hitchhiker, cowboy, hustler.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott auditioned a lot of good looking young actors.
Speaker 2: His number one choice was Billy Baldwin.
Speaker 2: Fresh off his performance in Flatliners, however, baldwin ended up taking a role in the Ron Howard ensemble firefighter movie Backdraft, a film that starred Kurt Russell, robert De Niro, donald Sutherland, jennifer Jason Lee, scott Glenn, rebecca DeMorne, jt Walsh and, of course, clint Howard.
Speaker 2: That's a hell of a cast and it's a pretty good movie if you've never seen it.
Speaker 2: Other actors were considered and offered the role, but conflicts prevented the perfect match from appearing.
Speaker 2: Throughout this whole audition process, a young, handsome let's be honest gorgeous, sculpted movie star to be was auditioning for the role of JD.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking, of course, about Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: As the movie got closer to starting production, four finalists were brought in to read for the part alongside Gina Davis.
Speaker 2: Davis was so smitten with Pitt's acting, good looks and just movie star quality.
Speaker 2: She flubbed her lines As Ridley Scott and the casting directors wrestled over which one of the four finalists to pick.
Speaker 2: It was Gina Davis who said the blonde one duh, and Brad Pitt got the part.
Speaker 2: Brad Pitt gave this small role a big personality.
Speaker 2: He was good looking, white trash.
Speaker 2: He was polite, charming, seductive and funny.
Speaker 2: Pitt's performance added to Ridley Scott's vision of the movie, balancing heavy drama with comedic undertones.
Speaker 2: Reportedly, one of the other finalists who auditioned but was not selected was an actor with work on sitcoms and a few small budget films at the time, an actor by the name of George Clooney, maybe a herd of him, who went on to luckily find success elsewhere in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott, who is British, also had a senior production team that was from the UK, including production designer Nora Spencer and Thomm Noble, and their awe of the American West helped the movie to reintroduce the majestic landscapes of the film to American filmgoers.
Speaker 2: Composer Hans Zimmer provided the music to deliver a score that reflected the characters, tone and majesty of Ridley Scott's vision.
Speaker 2: Now there is so much more that I could discuss regarding this movie's production, and I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Becky Aikman's book Off the Cliff, which chronicles how Thelma and Louise got made.
Speaker 2: It is fantastic.
Speaker 2: It is a wonderful read.
Speaker 2: For anyone interested in the messy, misogynistic manner in which movies get made, please go by it, read it.
Speaker 2: You will not be disappointed.
Speaker 2: Let's jump to the end of production, where it turns out that the company that's funding this entire movie well, guess what?
Speaker 2: they ran out of money.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott delivered Alan Ladd a pretty damn good movie and the production company didn't have money to pay for the processing of the film Post-production drug on.
Speaker 2: Due to this lack of funding, there was no money for marketing because the people behind path entertainment were constantly lying.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, their finances were a complete shit show Coretty, the guy behind the company.
Speaker 2: He eventually got arrested and was found guilty of multiple crimes, including misuse of corporate funds and fraud.
Speaker 2: What did this mean for Thelma and Louise?
Speaker 2: Well, the film got a delayed release until May of 1991, and they only had about 40% of their expected marketing dollars to promote the film.
Speaker 2: But something unexpected happened.
Speaker 2: The culture in America was primed to embrace Thelma and Louise in a way that nobody could really see coming.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise was advertised as a lighthearted female buddy action film.
Speaker 2: Nowhere in the trailer or poster did the film hint at the darker tones of the movie.
Speaker 2: Audiences had no idea that the movie would directly address social issues and tell the truth about the lives of women living in America.
Speaker 2: Audiences at early screenings gassed, clapped and at times cheered.
Speaker 2: After Louise shoots Harlan in the parking lot, audiences were on board.
Speaker 2: They laughed, they were emotionally invested.
Speaker 2: But in the original screening of the film, ridley Scott added an ending that varied from Callie's original script.
Speaker 2: Just a few short seconds of footage were added where you see the car with Thelma and Louise in it continuing to drive in the desert.
Speaker 2: It was intended to be a metaphorical survival, or so thought Ridley Scott, but instead audiences hated it.
Speaker 2: You can go find the clip online and see it for yourself.
Speaker 2: It's totally inconsistent with the lead up to the finale of this film, especially with the accompaniment of BB King's song Better Not Look Down playing in the background.
Speaker 2: The audience response was abysmal.
Speaker 2: They hated the ending.
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott and his crew scrambled.
Speaker 2: They cut off the last few seconds of the film as included in the original screening.
Speaker 2: They screened the movie again without that ending and everything changed.
Speaker 2: Audiences were on board from start to finish.
Speaker 2: Well, some audiences were on board.
Speaker 2: The movie was released on May 24th 1991, and guess what?
Speaker 2: the number one movie that weekend was Backdraft.
Speaker 2: You heard that cast earlier.
Speaker 2: Clint Howard puts asses in seats, people.
Speaker 2: Number two at the box office was the Richard Dryfuss Bill Murray cringe comedy What About Bob?
Speaker 2: followed by Bruce Willis and Hudson Haunt, and then came Thelma and Louise in fourth place.
Speaker 2: But the next week it stayed in fourth place and it remained in the top 10 grossing movies for six straight weeks.
Speaker 2: Not too bad, considering it had some stiff competition from Terminator 2, boys in the Hood City, slickers, the Rocketeer, point Break, robin Hood, prince of Thieves.
Speaker 2: The movie was a success because people were talking about it to one another and in the media and people wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Speaker 2: Women gave the movie high praise as a representation of all the bullshit that they have to put up from idiot men.
Speaker 2: There were others who saw the movie as transformative violence, calling the heroine's thoughtless people who committed aggressive actions to justify robbery and manslaughter.
Speaker 2: But let's be honest here.
Speaker 2: It was mostly conservative right-wingers who bashed the movie, and not surprisingly.
Speaker 2: The movie did not perform well with male audiences, especially those south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise was, as the New York Times Janet Maslin called it, unfamiliar in the best possible way, and that the movie sees something other movies have not seen, because the men in this story don't really matter.
Speaker 2: Men found the film to be empowering, whereas some men criticized the movie for glamorizing the killing of men.
Speaker 2: Screenwriter Callie Curry later told the Observer that "bad guys get killed in every goddamn movie that ever gets made.
Speaker 2: That guy was a bad guy and he got killed.
Speaker 2: It was only because a woman did it that there was any controversy at all".
Speaker 2: When it came time for Oscar season, Thelma and Louise received six Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Ridley Scott, best Cinematography, best Editing, a Best Actress nomination for both Gina Davis and Susan Sarandon and a Best Screenplay nomination for Callie Curry.
Speaker 2: Filmmakers felt the fact that both Davis and Sarandon were nominated worked against the film, as they may have split their votes And the winner that year turned out to be Jodie Foster for her performance in The Silence of the Lambs.
Speaker 2: However, callie Curry won an Oscar for her very first screenplay.
Speaker 2: The movie led to academics writing articles examining its place in the history of cinema, pairing it to Easy Rider, butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 2: The movie-inspired singer-songwriter Tori Amos to write and record Me and a Gun, a song about her survival of rape years earlier, jessica Inneville's essay, the Daughters of Thelma and Louise, argues that the film attacks controversial patterns of chauvinist male behavior, while exposing the stereotypes of male-female relationships and flipping the script on gender roles of the road-tripped genre of film.
Speaker 2: And in 2011, rihanna Lipsitz called it the last great film about women, noting that women-themed movies have been losing ground.
Speaker 2: As for screenwriter Callie Curry, well, she went on to write the romantic comedy Something to Talk About, which received mixed reviews.
Speaker 2: She directed the film Divine Secrets of the Yahya Sisterhood, which was incredibly well-received, and later in her career she developed the ABC country music series Nashville Very well done.
Speaker 2: The Bechtel Test is named after cartoonist Allison Bechtel.
Speaker 2: It's a measure of how women are represented in film and other fiction.
Speaker 2: Passing the test requires a movie to meet three criteria.
Speaker 2: The first is that there must be at least two women in it.
Speaker 2: The second is that the women must talk to each other.
Speaker 2: And third, they must talk about something other than a man or a man, and you get bonus points given if the women in the movie have names.
Speaker 2: It seems like a low bar, but a study from 2022 published in the Psychology of Popular Media, the Bechtel test results of the 1,200 most popular movies worldwide from 1980 to 2019 were presented.
Speaker 2: 49.6% passed the Bechtel test, but the 2010 share of movies passing were somewhat higher, at 63%, compared to previous decades.
Speaker 2: So some progress is being made.
Speaker 2: Some, you know what?
Speaker 2: Let's say, we get Mr Bo Ransdell in here, another middle-aged white guy, to talk about a movie we have no real justification to share our thoughts on, to see if this movie is any good, because it is very, very good.
Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Something's changed on Pick Six Movies.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 2: Let's get this show on the road.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, pam's and Callie's Pick Six Movies proudly presents the 1991 groundbreaking film Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: And welcome to Pick Six Movies.
Speaker 2: I'm Chad Cooper and I'm joined by the man who always drives me crazy, mr Will Ranslow Bo.
Speaker 2: How are you doing?
Speaker 1: today I almost started singing that fine young cannibal song and then I realized I can't sing.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a very different discussion, because I think that this may be the best movie we've ever reviewed on Pick Six Movies.
Speaker 1: I think that's easily true.
Speaker 1: I would argue we've done a handful of fun movies that we really got behind, like Invasion USA has been sort of the high watermark for me because that's just a great time in watching a movie.
Speaker 1: This is the first movie that we've done that feels like well, all right, now we've got a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had had a steady diet of just pure garbage and this was a pick for me and I was like you know what?
Speaker 2: I'm going to order a salad for once.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do something nutritious.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting movie to do.
Speaker 1: Like you said in the introduction, having two middle-aged white guys discuss one of the more prominent feminist films of the 20th century is probably slightly inappropriate.
Speaker 1: But it's also a very good movie.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that just because it's a feminist movie that somehow drains how good a movie it is.
Speaker 1: You know that the ideology of the movie sits very nicely alongside the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sort of that perfect symmetry of the movie has something to say and it says it in a way that is really entertaining and compelling and emotional.
Speaker 2: It's a terrific movie.
Speaker 1: You know it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars.
Speaker 1: It deserved to be nominated for a bunch of Oscars.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful to look at It's.
Speaker 1: yeah, I had such a good time watching this.
Speaker 1: It was such a different note experience of going through this movie a couple of times and really seeping myself in it in a way that I'm used to doing with, like your masters of the universe.
Speaker 2: Most of your notes didn't begin with the words why, how what the right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I really only have one problem with this movie.
Speaker 1: There's one scene in this movie that I'm like.
Speaker 1: I don't like this at all.
Speaker 2: I have one, and it may be the same one.
Speaker 2: We'll see if we align on that, because we have not discussed this movie at all.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: And this is the first time that Bo and I have ever met.
Speaker 2: So it is a pleasure meeting you, sir.
Speaker 1: It is nice to meet you as well.
Speaker 1: I have heard good things.
Speaker 2: Let's start this movie off with some opening credits.
Speaker 2: We see that Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis get top billing above the movie's title, as they should.
Speaker 2: Then a parade of supporting actors male actors Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Steven Tobolowski Tobol, Yeah, I didn't mention him in the intro.
Speaker 2: The intro was pretty long.
Speaker 1: I was like we can talk about it as we get through the film and Brad Pitt, after Tobol, by the way, which is the only time that has probably ever happened where Stephen Tobolowski is name above Brad Pitt in the credits And also right off the bat, Chad, I know you're not a big fan of credit sequences like this, where it's just names and some scenery, but thematically it's on point because you start off with a black and white look at the landscape that slowly fades into color.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I like that these opening credits, they don't stick around too terribly long.
Speaker 2: Lead actresses title the supporting actors in the film.
Speaker 2: You get a handful of people who did music and editing and then they go on like you don't get a whole bunch of this bullshit of executive, executive producer and this other person and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2: Like you know that their contract said that they had to have their names before the movie actually starts.
Speaker 2: So yeah, i agree.
Speaker 2: This feels like a wonderful opening to this movie.
Speaker 2: The movie kicks off proper and we see Louise working as a waitress in a diner.
Speaker 2: It's all very busy.
Speaker 2: She's wearing a traditional like diner waitress uniform with the apron and the tiny white hat.
Speaker 2: It's all very put together.
Speaker 2: And Louise walks over to two younger women who are both smoking cigarettes, as you did in movies in the early 90s.
Speaker 2: And she feels like coffee cups and Louise says you two are too young to be smoking.
Speaker 2: It'll ruin your sex life.
Speaker 2: Immediate cut to Louise in the back of this diner smoking a cigarette in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: It is a wonderful visual joke to kick things off.
Speaker 2: It's the whole do as I say, not as I do.
Speaker 2: And I also love the fact she's the kind of waitress who go in the back of a diner and openly smoking the kitchen.
Speaker 1: It gives her a little bit of saltiness right off the bat.
Speaker 1: Like you said, that she's the kind of person who is going to be somewhat maternal and sort of warrant these young women that they shouldn't be smoking.
Speaker 1: But, like you said, it's a do as I say, not as I do, but it gives her that little bit of protectiveness that will pay off later in the movie.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine audiences who went in to see this film thinking it was going to be a traditional buddy comedy, but with two female leads?
Speaker 2: I mean, right here it's lulling you into a false sense of we're all going to have a good time.
Speaker 1: The next thing Louise does is call film of, as played by Gina Davis, and we establish the premise which is, hey, we're going on a road trip And Louise is asking like well, what, dare I say, thelma is like?
Speaker 1: well, you know, haven't talked to Darrell yet.
Speaker 2: When it cuts to Thelma.
Speaker 2: This movie is so good at showing and not telling because in her house, like in the first 10 seconds of seeing Thelma, you know everything about her.
Speaker 2: Her home is chaotic and disorganized.
Speaker 2: She's in the kitchen, the counters are covered with everything imaginable, there are multiple pages of store coupons tacked up to cork boards.
Speaker 2: She's like fresh out of bed, wearing a bedrobe, and when she runs to answer the phone, she gives it the old school I got it.
Speaker 2: I got it Like that scream that you did when you didn't want anyone else in the house to pick up the phone.
Speaker 2: It was completely suspect when you did that.
Speaker 2: Here, when Thelma says she has not asked her husband Darrell if she can go on this trip, it's Louise who says you haven't asked him.
Speaker 2: Is he your husband or your father?
Speaker 2: It's two days, for Christ's sake, right.
Speaker 2: The script is so tight.
Speaker 2: There is not a line of dialogue or a tiny detail that is unnecessary.
Speaker 2: It is all on point and it helps to either grow the characters or move the plot forward.
Speaker 2: Aspiring screenwriters, take note Those are the two things your script should be doing, not dicking around having a montage of wacky nonsense.
Speaker 1: Louise has to go back to work, thelma hangs up and in walks, as you pointed out, shooter McGavin, her husband Darrell, she shouts out for him.
Speaker 2: She's like Darrell And when he comes in he is easily the goofiest man in this movie.
Speaker 2: When he marches into the scene in their house, which is under construction, you see on the counter a proudly displayed bowling trophy and Darrell says God damn it, Thelma.
Speaker 2: I can't stand you when you holler like that And all the while, thelma is helping him to fasten what you can assume is fake gold jewelry around his wrist, like this oversized watch and this big gaudy bracelet.
Speaker 1: Well, interestingly, it's not as if he is her father.
Speaker 1: It's more like she is the mother that she is just constantly taking care of this guy.
Speaker 2: I love in the scene.
Speaker 2: there are two moments that Thelma tries to muster up the courage to ask Darrell if she can go on this trip.
Speaker 2: I mean, you see her wind up and then backs off, and winds up and backs off, And the second time she just pivots and she's like Han, is there anything special you want for dinner?
Speaker 2: And Darrell says No, I don't care what we have for dinner.
Speaker 2: I may not be home for dinner.
Speaker 2: You know how Friday nights are.
Speaker 1: And she makes the point of.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it sure is weird that people want to buy carpets on a Friday night.
Speaker 1: Usually, that's something they won't worry about in the weekend.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I'm the regional manager.
Speaker 2: And he spins his keys that are attached to his hip on one of those little zip lines Like he's a gunslinger.
Speaker 2: He's so proud of it It's so good.
Speaker 2: Darrell is a character that everyone has met in real life, and if you've never met Darrell before, you're probably Darrell.
Speaker 1: He is completely full of himself.
Speaker 1: He's the typical Southern big fish in a small pond.
Speaker 2: He wears a gold chain around his neck with the guy number sign and a one like he's number one.
Speaker 2: When he walks out of his house he gets in his red Corvette that has like an open tea top and his Arkansas license plate says the and then number one.
Speaker 2: So it's the one, and on his way out Darrell slips and just falls ass, first on some loose construction board.
Speaker 2: And he recovers enough to tell the two workers like I want you all out of here by five no three And you know he gets in his car and he speeds off And because I read that book on the making of this film, this was.
Speaker 2: It was an accident that he fell And for Christopher McDonald, he does such a good job of taking his real life slip and just spinning it into comedic gold.
Speaker 2: It's so wonderfully done.
Speaker 2: He's such a buffoon.
Speaker 1: Once he's out of the picture, at least temporarily, thelma calls Louise back and, by the way, we're not missing it in the scene She never asks him for permission or anything, she just calls Louise back and says we're going to the mountains.
Speaker 2: I'll be right about two thirds, as she's talking to Louise here.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this was just great direction or if this was an acting choice by Gina Davis, but as they're having this conversation, thelma is eating a candy bar, one bite at a time, but every time she takes a bite she puts it back into the freezer.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I noticed that That's wonderful.
Speaker 2: It just adds to her being this quirky, unorthodox, superficially scatterbrained person that would do something this unusual.
Speaker 2: Thelma asks Louise, what should I bring?
Speaker 2: And Louise says bring warm stuff.
Speaker 2: It's the mountains.
Speaker 2: And then she says steal Daryl's fishing stuff.
Speaker 2: And Thelma says but I don't know how to fish.
Speaker 2: To which Louise responds I don't either, but Daryl does it.
Speaker 2: How hard can it be?
Speaker 2: And I want?
Speaker 2: it's a great joke, uh-huh.
Speaker 2: But, I also like that Louise says steal his fishing stuff, not grab his fishing stuff or take or pack or borrow or any other word.
Speaker 2: She says steal his fishing stuff.
Speaker 2: It's again one of those little details.
Speaker 2: when looked at it as part of a whole It's like oh, this all makes sense.
Speaker 2: And it also shows that she thinks that Thelma's Opa of a husband is just a complete Claude which he is.
Speaker 1: Louise has very definite opinions about Daryl, and none of them are good.
Speaker 1: There's a scene we'll get to later where they're talking to Brad Pitt, and her description of Daryl is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Louise leaves her job at the diner and she hops into this sea foam green 1966 T-bird convertible Not a car that is easy to forget.
Speaker 2: We see each of our film's protagonists start to pack for this trip.
Speaker 2: Thelma is literally just dumping things into her suitcase from her chest of drawers, whereas Louise is literally putting pairs of shoes inside plastic bags, almost alphabetizing her clothes as she packs.
Speaker 1: This is the montage of them packing that I really like, where it tells you everything about their personalities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, louise is also wearing this black short waisted coat and it has this bold white stitching on the lapels.
Speaker 2: This is important because, as these two women go through let's call it like a metamorphosis or just the change over the next few days, there's a moment where this jacket is worn by Thelma and not Louise, and it's one of those small details that this movie is filled with.
Speaker 1: One other significant moment in this is that Thelma takes a gun from a drawer and puts it in her purse.
Speaker 2: You say takes.
Speaker 2: She uses her index finger and her thumb and pinches it like a claw machine, you know, and then drops it in her bag Again, showing that her decisions may not be the best or her being overly naive.
Speaker 2: We also do see Louise calling someone named Jimmy and she gets his answering machine, which is how we know his name's Jimmy.
Speaker 2: But we also see her very subtly turn over a photo of a man that we are assuming is Jimmy as she gets the answering machine message Again, building up to so much more that's coming throughout the rest of the film.
Speaker 2: Louise eventually pulls up to Thelma's house and Thelma comes out and loads multiple pieces of luggage and all kinds of fishing equipment.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's real scatterbrained what she's bringing out.
Speaker 2: And before the two hit the road they snap a Polaroid of themselves smiling and happy Yes, which is now a very iconic moment in this film's history because of how it ends, and you know the two of them, where they start and where they ultimately end up When they get in the car.
Speaker 1: once they're taking off on the trip, thelma hands over the gun to Louise, who's like what the fuck do you want me to do with this thing?
Speaker 2: She says come on, louise, there might be psycho killers or bears or snakes.
Speaker 2: Another thing I love about this moment when she tells Louise hey, I brought this gun to protect us from these crazy things.
Speaker 2: Louise says just put it in my purse.
Speaker 2: So now we, the audience, know that Louise is aware of a gun and has easy access to the gun.
Speaker 1: We know that they're headed to some fishing cabin that's owned by Louise's boss, who's going through a divorce.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 2: her boss, a man, is going through a divorce But to screw over his soon to be ex-wife, he's letting everyone who works at the diner just go up to this place in hopes that they will burn it down, no doubt or just whatever before he has to turn the keys over.
Speaker 2: I think it's how she says it.
Speaker 2: It's another like not even a background character.
Speaker 2: It's a character that's being talked about of just being a shitheaded guy doing shitheaded guy things.
Speaker 1: There's two good guys in this movie.
Speaker 2: There are two men who display honorable behavior.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yes And the rest are shitheads to one degree or another, and I don't think that is reverse sexism or whatever you want to say.
Speaker 1: Most of the guys in this movie behave like most guys.
Speaker 1: They're genuinely idiots, yeah, but I think that counts.
Speaker 1: I think most guys are kind of idiots and you have two of 10 in this movie, two of 10 that at least operate with honorable intentions, even if that doesn't necessarily always go well, but to that point.
Speaker 1: This is where we get Thelma's reveal of like oh, i never asked, i left him a note and you know his dinner in the microwave.
Speaker 2: She also says I ain't never been out of town without Darrell, and Louise asked her like how'd you get him to let you go?
Speaker 2: Well, i didn't ask you.
Speaker 2: At least here Thelma is breaking free from this role of being a dutiful housewife.
Speaker 2: Louise laughs with approval and says well, you get what you settle for, which was a line that in the introduction that the film screenwriter Cali Curry used.
Speaker 2: you know regularly, and I don't know that I can necessarily disagree with that.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely true And Thelma of the two characters has the bigger arc through the film.
Speaker 1: Louise definitely does have an arc, but hers is sort of down and then up again, whereas Thelma is very much the character that's the more dynamic metamorphosis through the movie and says some really interesting stuff that we'll talk about later on.
Speaker 2: But I think that just how their relationship changes.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't feel forced or heavy handed for as much that happens in this movie.
Speaker 2: I don't know that allegorical is the right word or that it's, you know being presented in a unrealistic way.
Speaker 1: There's a very symbolic quality to this and we'll get deeper into that.
Speaker 1: But there's a really funny moment here, i think again to illustrate Louise's character where Gina Davis just throws her feet up on the dash and Louise is like what do you do?
Speaker 1: Put your feet down.
Speaker 2: I think it's that she puts her feet up, but she also she's wearing this long white dress.
Speaker 2: Thelma is, and she raises up her dress a little bit because they're in this convertible Like, let's the breeze go up her dress as well, and it's not in a sexual way, i'm just more of letting loose and you see this, i don't know if it's mother, daughter, dynamic, or bigger sister, little sister or just someone who has a little more experience and maturity with someone who lacks that.
Speaker 1: Thelma is very naive in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Again, getting to a conversation later, you know she talks about how, like not only has she never been out of town without her husband before she hasn't really been with anybody but her husband, it's like she's, she's very sheltered.
Speaker 1: I like that she pretends to smoke, like Louise, which again later in the movie changes Like at first it's just her, almost like a child, mimicking the actions.
Speaker 2: The cigarette she pulls out.
Speaker 2: She doesn't light it, she just puts it in her lips and looks at herself in the side mirror and, imitating Louise, she's like look, i'm Louise Smoking a cigarette and.
Speaker 2: Louise just laughs at her as they drive along.
Speaker 2: Thelma begs for Louise to stop off so that they can have some fun at this roadside bar in Arkansas, and Louise objects but gives in because Thelma never gets to do anything like this And they pulled off at this place called the Silver Bullet as the sun is going down, and this is not the last time that Louise gives into Thelma's seemingly innocent request for fun during their trip.
Speaker 2: That ends at inside the bar.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise take a seat at a table in the waitress Her name is Lena.
Speaker 2: She asks if they want a drink and Louise says no, thank you, but Thelma says I'll have a wild turkey straight up with a Coke back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Louise, who's kind of shocked by this, like I've never seen you drink or you know it's been so long.
Speaker 1: And Louise then goes along within, orders a margarita with a shot of Cuervo on the side.
Speaker 2: That's how she one ups her.
Speaker 2: But then Thelma immediately raises the stakes because when they bring over that first shot she throws it back and orders another wild turkey shot.
Speaker 2: We've all had those friends.
Speaker 2: You know those people that don't get out very often And when they do, they go from zero to 60 immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again.
Speaker 1: She's sheltered.
Speaker 1: She hasn't been able to do any of this, Like she went from high school to marriage.
Speaker 2: I think she went from middle school to high school, to marriage, as they break it all out.
Speaker 1: I mean her, like you said, being that friend.
Speaker 1: That's just like.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody bent down the hatches.
Speaker 1: This doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's like the husband that goes to the conference and gets loaded and everybody's like can you believe that Terry fell asleep in the lobby?
Speaker 1: He woke up while somebody was checking in the next morning.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that stirred him.
Speaker 1: And it's that kind of thing of just like we're all going to party tonight.
Speaker 1: You know who's with me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Who's with me?
Speaker 2: So into our movie, harlan, who is this tall, arguably good looking guy that you would find in a place like this, hitting on any woman and every woman.
Speaker 2: Harlan comes over and he says what are a couple of Cupid dolls like you doing in a place like this?
Speaker 2: And Thelma immediately spills the details of their trip.
Speaker 2: And Louise just shuts this down with a cross look.
Speaker 2: And again.
Speaker 2: This will not be the last time Thelma spills the details of their plans to a handsome man.
Speaker 1: He's very redneck, charming, because Thelma is like oh, i got a uncle named Harlan.
Speaker 1: Harlan says, oh, is he funny If he does, and we got something in common.
Speaker 1: And you're like, this guy's just gross.
Speaker 2: Louise eyes this immediately.
Speaker 2: One he's sitting backward on a chair Like he's about to have a real heart to heart with some youth, but the dangers of doing drugs or something I like that Louise you know, having seen this particular routine multiple times in her life just blows two full lungs of cigarette smoke into Harlan's face As this act of defying.
Speaker 2: She's like I think you need to leave because I need to talk about something real important with my friend Harlan.
Speaker 2: Before exiting, he says to Thelma you better dance with me before you leave or I'm never going to forgive you.
Speaker 2: And, like you said, he's charming, but you get bad vibes from this dude.
Speaker 1: Thelma, again being the innocent here, is trying to convince Louise like I just want to have some fun, i want to do some dancing.
Speaker 1: This is vacation.
Speaker 1: I never get to go on vacation.
Speaker 1: Let me have a good time.
Speaker 1: Harlan is sending drinks over to the table.
Speaker 1: Finally, they decide to do some dancing.
Speaker 1: So Harlan and Thelma pair off and Louise dances with some other dude who seems really bugged out when she leaves the dance later, which I really enjoyed, whereas like oh shucks.
Speaker 2: There's more dancing and drinking, and dancing and drinking.
Speaker 2: And finally Louise comes over to Thelma and Harlan, who are still dancing, and she says, hey, i'm going to go to little girl's room.
Speaker 2: Then we're leaving And Thelma says, ok, she's, you know, ready to go.
Speaker 2: But Harlan is just spinning her around and around and around, to the point to where she says stop.
Speaker 2: And Harlan says, well, let's get you some fresh air, little lady, because you know she's sweaty.
Speaker 2: We've all well, i can't say we've all been in bars like this.
Speaker 2: But even a place where it's loud and it's hot and it's filled with cigarettes, it's smoking, it's just like you're drunk and it's like I got to get out of this.
Speaker 2: So when Louise returns, she sees that Thelma is gone.
Speaker 2: She pays the bar tab with Lena, the waitress, and then outside in the parking lot is where we see Thelma, who was just thrown up.
Speaker 2: She has a handkerchief and she's wiping off her nose and her mouth and her eyes And she says I'm starting to feel a little bit better now.
Speaker 2: And Harlan says you're starting to look a little better, to me too.
Speaker 2: This is off.
Speaker 1: Right, this is where things start to head south, because he's getting handsy with her.
Speaker 1: Thelma is like I was just sick, you let me go.
Speaker 1: He's very like, don't be that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of shed.
Speaker 1: Thelma pushes him off.
Speaker 2: He sits her down on the trunk of a car.
Speaker 2: He was like I'm not going to hurt you, i just want to kiss you.
Speaker 2: And he leans in and he kisses her neck and she tells him that she's married and he's like well, i'm married too.
Speaker 2: This is when she hits him and then he slaps her across the face and threatens Look, i'm not going to hurt you.
Speaker 2: This is where the movie takes its darkest turn from what started out as just this fun road trip into something that is way more violent and terrifying because he's spinning her around, pushing her over the hood, pulling her underwear down.
Speaker 2: He spreads her legs with his feet and she's just begging and saying you're hurting me.
Speaker 1: This is where Louie shows up to save the day.
Speaker 1: She puts the gun that was in her purse Again, great screenplay, because we knew this gun was in the car.
Speaker 1: We knew it was in her purse.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, louise is there with that gun.
Speaker 2: Well, at first she says, let her go.
Speaker 2: And Harlan responds Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: Then she puts the gun up to his neck and says let her go.
Speaker 2: You fucking asshole, i'm going to splatter your ugly face all over this nice car which.
Speaker 2: I love this dialogue because she's dressing down this monster and also showing her appreciation for finer automobiles, which we know she has because of the car she drives.
Speaker 1: It's so good Phelma gets free because Harlan stops with the gun in his face.
Speaker 2: He says calm down, we were just having a little fun right.
Speaker 2: To which Louise says looks like you got a real fucked up idea of fun.
Speaker 2: And she says in the future, when a woman is crying like that, she isn't having any fun.
Speaker 2: and Susan Sarandon's delivery of this line is so powerful, you immediately know this isn't just about Thelma being attacked by Harlan.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean Susan Sarandon, because we haven't said so yet a remarkable actress.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: I love Gina Davis in this.
Speaker 1: I have had a longstanding crush on Gina Davis.
Speaker 1: It is in full effect in this movie as well, because I think she's like fun and vulnerable and sexy and all those things.
Speaker 1: But, susan Sarandon, like you said, this delivery of this line of when a woman is crying like that she didn't have any fun.
Speaker 1: It's like you say it, just it speaks volumes.
Speaker 2: Like you almost don't need all the other backstory about the text stuff to know exactly what's going on here, thelma and Louise start to walk away and Harlan says bitch, i should have gone ahead and fucked her.
Speaker 2: And Louise says what did you say?
Speaker 2: And Harlan responds I said suck my cock.
Speaker 2: And Louise pulls the trigger and shoots Harlan in his chest, in his heart.
Speaker 2: We are 21 minutes into this movie that runs just a few minutes north of two hours, And for those audiences expecting a good time, female buddy road trip, buckle up.
Speaker 2: We took a totally different turn than you were anticipating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean shoots him dead.
Speaker 1: He slumps against the car.
Speaker 2: After she shoots him.
Speaker 2: One important detail is that, yes, Louise says go get the car.
Speaker 2: So Thelma runs to get their car and comes back And Louise is staring at Harlan's body, sitting arguably lifeless on the ground.
Speaker 2: And Louise says to him you watch your mouth, buddy.
Speaker 2: I only bring this up because Susan Sarandon was the one who chose to add this line, because she did not want this to be a movie about violent revenge or vengeance.
Speaker 2: And the decision to have her say this line to Harlan as you know, he lays lifeless on the ground You watch your mouth, buddy.
Speaker 2: In her performance as Louise, it implies that Louise may not 100% be fully aware that he's dead.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, she shot him, but she did not intend to kill him And by still talking to him, there could be some inference that she thinks he may still be alive.
Speaker 1: Or if not, that's not what it was about, like she had no intention of killing him.
Speaker 1: It's just that this circumstance led her to a place where the rage and anger took over.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: They hop in their car and they drive off quite dangerously, weaving in and out traffic because Thelma was driving.
Speaker 2: Thelma has blood on her face from Harlan repeatedly hitting her.
Speaker 2: She's panicked and she says, Louise, where are we going?
Speaker 2: And Louise just quietly stares at the gun in her hands and she says I don't know, just shut up.
Speaker 2: So I can think.
Speaker 2: Thelma suggests that they call the cops, but Louise shuts that down immediately because she says the cops won't believe him because you spent all night dancing with Harlan at the club And particularly says that we don't live in that kind of a world.
Speaker 1: Again, one of the larger themes of the movie is that just because Gina Davis was dancing with this guy and drinking with this guy, it was somehow implicit permission for him to assault her, or that she was asking for it or whatever Like, however you want to phrase that, but that she would be seen as culpable, not Harlan.
Speaker 2: They pull the car over and, panicked, it is now Louise who is outside of the car vomiting for very different reasons.
Speaker 2: Thelma moves back into the passenger seat.
Speaker 2: Louise is now driving again.
Speaker 2: It's such a tight script but because she's kind of got her wits about her, as much as they can be gotten, thelma starts to brush her hair, doing something to bring normalcy to this chaos.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just.
Speaker 2: You can just see her like what are we going to do?
Speaker 2: And Louise says Thelma, i'm going to stop for a cup of coffee and get it together and figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: Everything's going to be all right.
Speaker 2: And just Thelma looks on, believing Louise who reaches over and takes a scarf and just wipes the blood off of Thelma's face the way a parent would clean the face of a child.
Speaker 2: And I know that I'm pointing out the obvious and hearing us describe this and give descriptions to actions.
Speaker 2: It doesn't communicate the same way, but it's so wonderfully done and it can easily go unnoticed, i think, if you're not really paying attention to what's going on Yes And this movie.
Speaker 1: It has a number of these nice subtle moments where the movie is not drawing attention to it's the communication of its themes.
Speaker 1: Again, it's that perfect weaving of this movie is always saying something, but it does it in a number of different ways that aren't didactic.
Speaker 1: That's a problem with movies like this.
Speaker 1: Like, another Susan Sarandon movie that I dearly love, mostly because of her performance, is a movie like Deadman Walking, which definitely crosses the line into being didactic at times, yeah, but it's a beautiful performance and a beautiful movie, i think.
Speaker 1: But this movie the reason that people talk about Thelma and Louise still and less so Deadman Walking is because Thelma and Louise never forgets that it's a movie that's supposed to be entertaining you too.
Speaker 2: And I think that Ridley Scott really got that that if you come in and you really have a message movie, you may not be as effective as if you can put that into a narrative or, you know, a package that is, to use your word, entertaining or funny as much as it can be and still make a very serious point.
Speaker 2: It's the anti-soul man, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, you can be a message movie or you can be a movie with a message, and this is the latter where it is a movie first and foremost, but the message that it has is so powerful that it just speaks volumes.
Speaker 1: So they go to this diner and Louise is kind of going through this and say like well, no one saw it, we're going to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: They kind of blame each other here at the coffee shop, because Thelma is like this sure is some vacation, It's a lot of fun, you know, because Louise was the one who invited Thelma.
Speaker 2: And Louise says you know, if you weren't concerned with having so much fun, none of this would have happened.
Speaker 2: And Thelma's like this is my fault.
Speaker 2: Yeah, The conversation stops because they're both aware of what each other is saying, The circumstances creating this heightened sense of response to the situation in which they find themselves.
Speaker 2: And Thelma goes to the restroom and on her exit from the coffee shop booth, like her departure, the napkin pulls a coffee cup off the table and it falls and shatters on the ground.
Speaker 2: And Thelma's again, just in a hasty she's like I have to go to the bathroom, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: And it's so powerful because it's something else that has gone wrong.
Speaker 1: It captures that sense of like chaos and destruction and the sound of it crashing and reflects sort of what their relationship is in the moment, which is fractured.
Speaker 1: They're not connecting at this point And to that point Thelma calls home, she goes to the phone, calls home to call Darryl who, by the way, has not been there on this Friday night, and as evidence, because we get a shot of the phone ringing in her house and there's the open microwave with a note still, like on a beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a small stuffed teddy bear sitting on top of the Miller genuine draft and food in the microwave for him to eat up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so then we go to our one of two decent guys in this movie.
Speaker 1: Harvey Kytel makes an appearance in the movie.
Speaker 2: First we see Harlan being zipped up in a body bag.
Speaker 2: So we know he's.
Speaker 2: he's dead, dead, sure, and it's yeah.
Speaker 2: Detective Slokum has played by Harvey Kytel and not his penis.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad to not see Harvey Kytel's penis in a Harvey Kytel movie.
Speaker 1: Much like me, though, i feel pretty confident that his penis is dressed up like a detective, as he is working on the detectives.
Speaker 2: Penis is like his quatto, you know he consults it for saying goodbye.
Speaker 2: For sure It's got a little face like Hey, what are you?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about doing this movie, Thelma and Louise, there Penis.
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: You think it's playing against type.
Speaker 1: I do, but I think it's gonna be very successful.
Speaker 1: All right, no arguing with you, little P.
Speaker 2: Detective Slokum.
Speaker 2: He is talking with Lena, the waitress, and she says I could identify him, but neither of them were capable of this.
Speaker 2: I could have told you Harlan Puckett would buy it in a parking lot.
Speaker 2: I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Speaker 2: And Detective Slokum asked Lena if she had any idea who might have killed Harlan and she says have you asked his wife?
Speaker 2: I hope she's the one who did it.
Speaker 2: Like again, this guy's a piece of shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she actually says it was either some old gal or some old gal's husband.
Speaker 1: This character of Lena the waitress has so much more depth than a character like this in any other movie, any other character in almost any movie we've ever done And she's in it for two and a half seconds And it's just like kind of hitting on Kytel like well, you gonna take me for a cup of coffee when you talk about this more.
Speaker 1: you just gotta keep me up all night and ask me questions.
Speaker 2: Lena says that, the shorter one, louise, with the tight hair.
Speaker 2: You know she paid the bill and she left a huge tip.
Speaker 2: Of course she would.
Speaker 2: She's a waitress.
Speaker 2: And then Lena and Detective Slokum.
Speaker 2: they have this playful goodbye, as you say, like like it's in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: a guy's been killed in the parking lot And Lena says neither of these two were the murder in type how and she's defending them.
Speaker 2: But there's almost an element of they might have done it And I also like the fact that she calls him how.
Speaker 2: she knows him.
Speaker 2: This is a small town.
Speaker 1: Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2: Louise is calling Jimmy and gets the answering machine.
Speaker 1: So she goes to the bathroom and it's just her in there and Gina Davis is into stall.
Speaker 2: And we know this because we see her purse sitting up on top of it's a cement block wall.
Speaker 2: It's not like a stall you would see in a restaurant, like a thin divider.
Speaker 2: These are cinder blocks stacked in pan.
Speaker 2: This is that kind of an establishment.
Speaker 2: But I like that.
Speaker 2: when Louise walks in she knows Thelma's there because she sees her purse.
Speaker 2: But then out loud she says, thelma, you in there, so that now Thelma knows Louise is in there.
Speaker 2: Right, those little details.
Speaker 2: I was just in awe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Louise is cleaning herself in the mirror.
Speaker 1: Another great moment of like.
Speaker 1: They're both trying to compose themselves and establish some kind of normalcy.
Speaker 1: And while Louise is straightening herself in the mirror, there's a little spot of blood on her face that she finds, yeah, and she kind of wipes it away and freaks out a little about, a little bit quietly She's not losing her mind.
Speaker 1: But clearly is the reality of this kind of comes crashing down again And they just they hit the road.
Speaker 2: The sun's coming up and Thelma is letting the breeze of the open windows brush up her legs again, with her feet on the dash, and she's just in shock.
Speaker 2: Louise says we need money.
Speaker 2: How much do you have?
Speaker 2: She says we can stop at a hotel room and I'll figure out what to do next.
Speaker 2: And Thelma fishes around in the pockets of her dress and she pulls out some crumpled up bills and she counts them out And she's like we have $61.
Speaker 2: Shit, $41.
Speaker 2: Because the wind snatches a 20 and blows it out the window It is so funny.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those what else could possibly go wrong moments?
Speaker 1: And it also foreshadows what happens later that Thelma can't keep money, so they go to a motel.
Speaker 1: Louise is in a towel, like coming out of the shower.
Speaker 2: Of course she would bow.
Speaker 2: She just found a tiny speck of this guy's blood on her face.
Speaker 2: I've got to get clean.
Speaker 1: Thelma is having a good old fashioned meltdown because she's like I want to go to the cops.
Speaker 1: We don't have any plan.
Speaker 1: What are we going to do, Louise?
Speaker 1: And Louise is like I don't want to go to jail, And that's.
Speaker 1: that's what's in front of us right now.
Speaker 1: Why don't you go down to the pool?
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to figure something out.
Speaker 1: And so that's what Thelma does.
Speaker 1: Should Thelma goes to the pool, louise calls Jimmy, as played by Michael Madsen.
Speaker 2: How good is he in this.
Speaker 1: It's shocking how good he is.
Speaker 2: He's been good in other roles, But there's something about this role and the chemistry that he has with Susan Sarandon that is just tragically beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yes there's something I think you use the word vulnerable in the introduction with him and that's kind of that character.
Speaker 1: We don't know a lot about him, but we kind of know everything we need to know and and there's a lot of depth there.
Speaker 1: You know, she basically says like hey, i've got $6,700 in the bank.
Speaker 1: I can't get to that.
Speaker 1: Can you wire that to me?
Speaker 1: And I can't tell you why.
Speaker 2: He asked her.
Speaker 2: He's like what's going on?
Speaker 2: You know, she says I'm in deep shit, I'm in deep shit, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: And he, you know, he kind of escalates his questions as to what's going on and she just says look, something happened.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you what, just that I did it.
Speaker 1: And I can undo it Yeah we help me please?
Speaker 2: and her performance on the phone.
Speaker 2: This is Oscar nomination just right here, because she is fighting back so many emotions, fear and sadness and, you know, like everything that comes with her relationship with this boyfriend, slash ex boyfriend.
Speaker 1: He greased to send her the money.
Speaker 1: He doesn't demand to know anything else.
Speaker 1: He says, okay, I'll take care of this.
Speaker 2: When you see Jimmy in this scene, he's wearing one of those sleeveless undershirts and he's in this apartment.
Speaker 2: That's pretty run down, but in the background there is a speed bag that boxers use, mounted on the wall.
Speaker 2: There's a guitar sitting on the floor, leaning up on the other side of the wall during this conversation.
Speaker 2: As you said, you don't know a whole lot about this character, but the movie is so masterful in giving these brushstrokes of either their history with one another, these physical representations of who this character is.
Speaker 1: We learn a little bit about him later, but not again, not a ton.
Speaker 1: And Louise just asked him, like, do you love me?
Speaker 1: And he kind of bulks for a second and then he says yeah.
Speaker 2: And she says, never mind, just wire me the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she needs help, she needs someone, she needs Jimmy.
Speaker 2: And then she just immediately shuts his nose like just give me the money.
Speaker 1: But he comes through.
Speaker 1: You know that's.
Speaker 1: The thing is that most of the men in this movie disappoint the women around them to no end.
Speaker 1: Jimmy is the one guy that at least comes through and wants to help.
Speaker 2: I like when Thelma goes down to the swimming pool.
Speaker 2: You see her walking down there and she's pulling her suitcase behind her by the strap.
Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
Speaker 2: And by the time Louise goes to pick her up, Thelma is full on sunbathing by the pool with headphones on Let me also say that this swimming pool has about a 10 foot chain link fence around it and in the background you can see 18 wheelers barreling down the interstate.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's really fun about this movie is every motel, every gas station is just some run down place along the side of the road.
Speaker 1: It like it is southwestern kind of white trash living.
Speaker 2: Louise jumps out of the car, runs over, removes Thelma's headphones and she's like we gotta go.
Speaker 2: So Thelma just jumps up in her bikini, grabs her heavily overpacked suitcase, chunks it in the back seat of the car.
Speaker 2: Boom, they're all.
Speaker 1: Which apparently this was sort of not unscripted.
Speaker 1: But Gina Davis was not prepared for Susan Serendit who come rip those headphones off of her in the scene, and so her reaction of like being startled is is genuine.
Speaker 2: Cut to Detective Slocum talking with one of his superiors who says even if they didn't commit the murder, they may have seen something.
Speaker 2: Put it on an ABP for their car, see what we can get back.
Speaker 2: They left a state we may need to bring in the bureau on this.
Speaker 2: We cut to Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: They're driving and Louise tells Thelma that they're going to Oklahoma City to get money from Jimmy and Thelma tells Louise that she tried to call Daryl at 4 AM the night before and quote that asshole wasn't even at home.
Speaker 2: He has no reason to be mad at me.
Speaker 2: I should be the one who's mad.
Speaker 2: and, as you mentioned earlier, this is where you begin to see this blossoming of her, once she has been removed from the only world in which she has ever known, despite the fact that the world she is now entering into is rife with temptation and danger and now consequence.
Speaker 1: When Louise says I'm going to Mexico, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: And Thelma doesn't answer, like she is unwilling to commit to any course of action right now, which is understandable, right?
Speaker 1: Like if you just showed up on my doorstep and we're like look, some shit went down.
Speaker 1: I got to go to Mexico, are you in?
Speaker 2: Well, what she says in this state of confusion is I don't know what you're asking of me.
Speaker 2: And Louise says God damn it, thelma, don't do this.
Speaker 2: Every time we get in trouble you go blank or you plead insanity or some such shit.
Speaker 2: Not this time.
Speaker 2: Things have changed.
Speaker 2: But I'm going to Mexico and what I loved about this dialogue was every time we get in trouble, you go blank or plead insanity or some such shit.
Speaker 2: Again, giving the backstory of these two characters conceptually that they have history together.
Speaker 1: Because they've known each other all their lives or, you know, since they were teenagers for sure, like she knew Daryl back in the day.
Speaker 2: Again, i don't know if the the script explicitly says this, that she's, however, many years older than her, but I do like that.
Speaker 2: They have history and you know that she pulls over at a hotel and she calls Yeah, and he says that the money will be at this other hotel and the password to pick up the money is the word peaches.
Speaker 1: And she kind of laughs at that and he says I miss you peaches.
Speaker 1: And she kind of gives him a great like he seems like an alright guy.
Speaker 2: He ultimately is.
Speaker 2: He doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2: That's well.
Speaker 2: He's a little bit violent.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, He's violent, but not towards her, not towards her.
Speaker 2: He just can't control himself in certain circumstances.
Speaker 1: He's really frustrated by some of the stuff she says.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so so we've got money.
Speaker 1: on the way.
Speaker 1: He kind of tells her like hey, it was kind of difficult to get the money, but I got it for you, it's, it's going to be at this place.
Speaker 1: Go, go pick it up.
Speaker 2: Thelma's inside this roadside store buying multiple tiny bottles of some smugglers, yeah, and the store owner's like Ma'am, wouldn't you rather have you know the economy size, referring to a normal bottle of booze, and Thelma's like no, that's alright, money's tight.
Speaker 2: Thelma, Again, she is not good with money and she just continues to make decisions that are just thoroughly not thought out.
Speaker 2: So Louise walks back and she passes this shirtless man wearing this red, white and blue like handkerchief around his neck who's staring at her, and Louise asks what are you looking at?
Speaker 2: There is a real defiance in this moment that is more proactive than reactive toward men behaving badly in this movie.
Speaker 2: It's the first time you really see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Louise has Thelma called Daryl, while Louise is going to go inside to get a newspaper because she wants to see if there's any reports.
Speaker 1: And she says, just tell them you won't be home tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: And Thelma says, well, will I be?
Speaker 2: And Louise says, well, i don't know She says I won't Right, You still got to make that decision.
Speaker 2: So she calls Daryl, who is watching a football game surrounded by multiple sports trophies that are proudly on display in their home and a bunch of empty beer bottles.
Speaker 2: The phone rings and the operator says collect call from Thelma, while you accept and there is a pause and he says well, yes, i will accept operator Thelma where in the Sam?
Speaker 1: Hill, are you?
Speaker 1: And she starts explaining what's going on, not the shooting.
Speaker 2: We're at a fishing trip and we're going up here just for a couple of days and then dude, he can't focus even this long.
Speaker 1: The attention drifts away from whatever she's saying.
Speaker 1: Back to the game.
Speaker 2: He covers the mouthpiece on the phone to scream his displeasure of a call in the football game, rather than listen to his wife.
Speaker 2: He finally gets back and he's like Thelma, you get your butt back here now, god damn it.
Speaker 2: He says, daryl, you are my husband and not my father Again echoing Louise's comment earlier.
Speaker 2: And Daryl says that Louise is a bad influence on you If you're not back here by tonight.
Speaker 2: Again, another pause.
Speaker 2: Then I just don't.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say Right.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to be any, because he's just full of shit right Like he has.
Speaker 1: He's just completely impotent in every way.
Speaker 2: And well that Thelma says go fuck yourself, daryl.
Speaker 2: He's just left holding the receiver.
Speaker 2: He's like that's just great.
Speaker 1: Coming out of this phone booth she runs into the fucking Adonis that is a young Brad Pitt literally trips over.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's really like something, a sculpture, you would see in a museum.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the seat later where he's got his shirt off, but you know what else is great about this?
Speaker 2: You can see those trademark Brad Pitt effects in this early performance.
Speaker 2: Just that easy go and charm where he's like.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, darling, He's like did I cause that, Are you okay?
Speaker 2: He's charming white trash in this.
Speaker 1: It's a very quick encounter at first, but then Thelma gets in the car and is kind of doing her makeup in the rear view mirror and she is totally checking Brad Pitt out as he's trying to hit your ride behind her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he's wearing like a.
Speaker 2: Canadian tuxedo blue jeans a blue jeans jacket, a white t-shirt.
Speaker 2: Canadian tuxedo and a cowboy hat.
Speaker 2: He's dressed like Rosdauer from MST 3000 episode, but it's a pretty all American Midwestern look, and is she just her mirror?
Speaker 2: to look back at Brad Pitt, he walks over to her sitting in the car and he's like excuse me, ma'am, i was wondering which way you were headed.
Speaker 2: See, i'm headed back to school and my ride fell through, and if you're going my way, or if I'm going your way, maybe I could get a ride with you.
Speaker 2: It's a hundred percent, grade A bullshit.
Speaker 2: Absolutely Naive Thelma.
Speaker 2: She's like I think we're going to Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: It's like well, wouldn't you know if that's where Brad Pitt's headed?
Speaker 1: Of course it is.
Speaker 1: She's totally bought it.
Speaker 1: Louise rolls up and is like I don't think this is a good idea.
Speaker 2: She's seen this shit before with Thelma just the day before.
Speaker 1: Like Thelma is just like.
Speaker 1: All it takes is a pretty face and she's.
Speaker 1: God bless her.
Speaker 1: Thelma is just kindhearted and naive and also a little horn.
Speaker 2: I think that those are all true, but again, kind of the way that I said you know we've all known Adarel.
Speaker 2: I think we've all known people like Thelma, men and women alike just people that expect the best in other people.
Speaker 2: You know that they always default that this person has good intentions, which I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, except for the fact that there are people that do not have good intentions and will take advantage of you, but she has not been outside of her very small world to be able to have a good bullshit detector.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: And so Louise gets in the driver's seat, hits the pedal to hit reverse on this goes backward, drives like a stunt woman backwards to the gas station, tells someone to fill up the tank at this run down wide dress gas station and then asks Thelma about the conversation she had with Darryl, while Thelma is sipping on one of the smugglers that she bought.
Speaker 2: She says that she called Darryl and that Darryl said hey, how are you?
Speaker 2: Are you having fun?
Speaker 2: You sure deserve this vacation.
Speaker 2: and she's yeah, she's just pouring down this, so they drive on.
Speaker 2: Thelma starts commenting on Brad Pitt's cute butt which I think everybody has done that a time or two and how Darryl has a butt so big you could park a car in its shadow.
Speaker 1: Are you right?
Speaker 2: Louise asks Thelma to find all the secondary roads from Oklahoma City to Mexico on a large map and Thelma says hey, we can take 81 down through Texas.
Speaker 2: And Louise immediately says no, i'm not going through Texas, find another route.
Speaker 2: In a tight script like this You know this has a greater meeting and Thelma points out the border between Texas and Mexico is huge and Louise just demands she find another way.
Speaker 2: She's not going to go through Texas.
Speaker 2: And this whole exchange happens as a train rumbles by adding noise and motion and at the same time kind of representing the large obstacles that present themselves in their final destination.
Speaker 1: Thelma is also asking like what happened in Texas?
Speaker 1: I know something happened there and Louise kind of deflects by saying shooting a guy with his pants down and getting caught for it in Texas is not the place to do it.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of other little things here are actually one of them, not so little, but part of this is when they first get in the car.
Speaker 1: After Thelma gets the smugglers and has run into Brad Pitt, that's the first time where she says how long before we're in Mexico, to sort of suggest that she's bought in now.
Speaker 1: And there's also a very quick cutaway where we see Harvey Keitel going through registered car owners.
Speaker 1: So you know that he is still on the hunt, but it's a scene that lasts for like three seconds.
Speaker 2: We've had this happen on other episodes, where you just forget a character's in the movie because this is such a well made film.
Speaker 2: even having just a six to twelve second clip of him going through those cars, it reminds you where he is in his place in in this sort of parallel investigation that's going on, as opposed to just having him show up and and sort of advancing.
Speaker 1: The idea, too, that he's looking for the pursuit is on.
Speaker 1: We also see him breaking into Louise's place with a credit card.
Speaker 2: Well, Slocum shows up, Harvey Keitel.
Speaker 2: He shows up, He kind of peeks in the window and sees that the apartment is empty and then he does that Hollywood trademark you know slide the credit card in and in you go.
Speaker 2: He looks over and he's examining the photos and one of the things that he says that I almost felt a little out of place or I thought it was going to maybe come up later is he looks at a photo of Louise and he says happy birthday, lady.
Speaker 2: I initially took that as an implication that is today her birthday, or was it just that the photo was of her as a child at a birthday party?
Speaker 1: I think that's the case.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise are driving along and they're singing at the top of their lungs the way you do the things you do.
Speaker 2: This is really the first moment in the film where we went from kind of this drab dust covered beginning of the film, you know it was like grapes of wrath or something and here you start to see the lush greens, start to appear as part of the foreground and background of the the landscape that they're traversing.
Speaker 1: Keitel's talks to the manager of Louise's diner.
Speaker 1: It's just another of those quick scenes of letting you know he's on the trail of Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: I like when the detective is in this diner.
Speaker 2: He says that he's looking for Louise and the assistant manager turns around and screams out.
Speaker 2: Marion there's police officer here and everyone in this place stares at the detective.
Speaker 2: It's a funny scene which, again, is necessary to balance out the heavy themes in this movie.
Speaker 1: Speaking of, one of the funnier moments for via this movie is Thelma and Louise on the road.
Speaker 1: Somehow or another, brad Pitt has gotten ahead of them in his hitching rides.
Speaker 2: Well, they're taking back roads.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And he's traversing the main highways and byways of these United States.
Speaker 1: As they see him.
Speaker 1: Thelma gives this like puppy whimper, Yeah, And Louise gives in again and says all right.
Speaker 1: And then when she does, Thelma pants like said dog, like oh, I'm about to give me some love.
Speaker 2: And sure enough they pull over.
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt gets in and they, they take off.
Speaker 2: We cut back to Detective Slocum and he is now talking to Darrell at Darrell's house.
Speaker 2: And Slocum says a man was shot at the silver bullet last night.
Speaker 2: Two men left in a 1966 Teebur convertible from the scene of the crime.
Speaker 2: That car is registered to one, louise Sawyer, and we believe that your wife Thelma was the passenger in the vehicle.
Speaker 2: And Darrell's response is what, what?
Speaker 1: It's very good.
Speaker 1: Christopher McDonald has good comic chops and he's really hamming it up in this movie.
Speaker 2: It's crazy because I only know him from this and Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's been in many other things.
Speaker 2: I mentioned in the intro that he and Gina Davis were dating.
Speaker 2: They were a couple.
Speaker 2: Then she left to go have a relationship with Jeff Goldblum and when she recommended him for this part, when the scene occurs where he crosses paths with Brad Pitt, that it was almost cathartic for him screaming at Brad Pitt being the guy who had sex with Gina Davis in this movie.
Speaker 2: You can see it, man, He's about to explode in that scene.
Speaker 2: We'll get to it in a minute, but it's just tying together preexisting relationship with what's happening on the camera and you can see I don't know glimmers of it here and there, if you know what to look for.
Speaker 1: Also, Kytel ends the scene by laughing at him rightfully.
Speaker 2: And he also says you're standing on your pizza box standing in your pizza, which is exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of scenes in this movie where Harvey Kytel and Chris McDonald, and later Stephen Tobolowski, they're laughing at each other because they're genuinely making each other laugh.
Speaker 1: I think that's true.
Speaker 2: I think he is what What You're definitely seeing Harvey Kytel laugh at him, then delivering the line You're standing in your pizza.
Speaker 2: I remember correctly there's like multiple pizza boxes that he's just been ordering out, while his wife isn't there, completely helpless.
Speaker 1: Like he cannot cook his own food or clean the house or anything like that.
Speaker 1: There are beer bottles all over the place.
Speaker 1: It's right, it's like you leave me alone for a weekend with no supervision.
Speaker 2: So we come back to Thalma and Louise and Brad Pitt, and he is playing Thalma like a violin.
Speaker 2: He says to her tell me, Miss Thalma, how is it You don't have any kids?
Speaker 2: I can give you something special.
Speaker 2: You should pass it on.
Speaker 1: Thalma, of course, is like well, you know, darryl didn't want any.
Speaker 1: He said he kind of prides himself on being a little childish.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Louise is like, oh yeah, yes, That guy is terrible.
Speaker 1: And Thalma says well, i think it's because Louise thinks he's a little bit of a pig.
Speaker 1: Louise says oh, i know he's a pig.
Speaker 2: Thalma does say that they were married at 18 and then it comes out that she was dating him four years prior to that marriage.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And so I said earlier, it's middle school to high school, to where her life is now.
Speaker 2: And then JD, who, he and Louise they've got a lot more worldly wisdom than Thalma does.
Speaker 2: Jd says you better slow down, miss Louise.
Speaker 2: There's a cop up ahead and Louise not only slows down but she pulls off onto a side road to avoid being seen by the cops all together And as they drive by, louise kind of comes around and gets back on the main road and Brad Pitt looks at her and he says maybe you got a few too many parking tickets.
Speaker 1: Uh, huh, and it's like he totally knows.
Speaker 1: Louise responds.
Speaker 1: You know what, When we get to Oklahoma city, you should probably be on your way.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of like game knows game kind of recognition which I ideally love.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile Kitell calls up Tobo our FBI.
Speaker 2: We have one detective and one FBI agent, right.
Speaker 1: And Stephen Tobolowski, aka Tobo, is our FBI agent.
Speaker 1: Kitell says well, the prints on the back of that car match Thalmas.
Speaker 1: Darryl, the husband, has said that a gun is missing too, and Darryl doesn't believe that Thelma would ever touch that gun.
Speaker 1: She never wanted to take any lessons or go to the shooting range, but they never showed up at the cabin they were supposed to go to either.
Speaker 1: So things are looking pretty criminal when it comes to the actions of Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: Yes, we cut to Louise entering the motel to pick up the money that Jimmy wired to her at this Western Union location and she gives the code name Peaches, but there's no money there.
Speaker 2: But surprise, surprise, jimmy is there, hiding behind a newspaper.
Speaker 2: That's how you hide in a movie, bo, you get a newspaper and you hide behind it.
Speaker 2: Louise is happy, dismayed, surprised that he's there.
Speaker 2: And then Jimmy immediately asks for a second room.
Speaker 2: He says put it on my credit card.
Speaker 2: So Louise and Jimmy go outside to Louise's car and Thelma and Brad Pitt are in the backseat of this car just talking.
Speaker 2: And Thelma looks up and sees Jimmy and she goes oh shit, it's Jimmy, what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: Because Jimmy says ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.
Speaker 2: And Thelma's response is good answer.
Speaker 2: Same goes, double, for me.
Speaker 1: And Brad Pitt said to me like I should probably get while the getting's good decides to take off.
Speaker 2: Well, i think that Jimmy is the jealous type, because he's immediately like who's the cowboy?
Speaker 2: and Louise jumps in.
Speaker 2: He's like he's gone.
Speaker 2: And that's where JD is like yeah, i'm out of here.
Speaker 1: But as they're driving through the parking lot to the room and Brad Pitt's walking away, thelma looks back at him through the back window of this convertible, just like pressed against the glass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she says I love to watch him leave.
Speaker 1: She's got it bad for Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: And understandably so.
Speaker 2: It's Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, brad Pitt, jeans walking away in the rain.
Speaker 2: I mean, it looks like an early 90s Levi's commercial.
Speaker 2: So in the hotel room, louise gives Thelma the envelope containing the $6,700 and she says it's our future.
Speaker 2: And Thelma and Louise have this back and forth about what Louise is or isn't going to tell Jimmy.
Speaker 2: As Louise changes clothes And she puts on this white tank top, somewhat similar to what Jimmy was wearing earlier, but she is very stripped down from the waitress uniform that she was wearing And Louise tells Thelma guard this money, if anything happens, call me in room 211.
Speaker 2: So Louise heads over to room 211 and Jimmy answers the door and he's holding a single red rose.
Speaker 2: She comes in, he offers her a drink, she declines.
Speaker 2: Jimmy asks what's going on And she just says I'll tell you someday, but not now.
Speaker 2: And then Jimmy leaps to the question does this have to do with another man?
Speaker 2: And in his frustration as she is holding back, he just knocks over some items on the table and he says what you're going to leave for fucking ever?
Speaker 2: What did you kill somebody?
Speaker 2: And she says you start this shit and I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: And then, jimmy, he just puts his hand on the door and he tells her that he's sorry And Jimmy is a character that is not unfamiliar with violent behavior And you really see that he cares about her, but there's nothing that he's going to be able to do or say to not, you know, to prevent her from leaving.
Speaker 1: Yes, he just feels frustrated at this point, like you can see it in his actions and on his face, and he just says hey, can you at least sit down?
Speaker 1: I just want to give you something.
Speaker 1: And Louise is like no, i'm going to stand.
Speaker 1: He's like, okay, i mean whatever, whatever you want to do, and hands over an engagement ring And she says well, why now?
Speaker 1: He says because I was afraid I was going to lose you and I thought it's what you wanted.
Speaker 1: At this point, she does sit down with him and she says this is what I want.
Speaker 1: I do want this, but not like this.
Speaker 1: While this is going on, this kind of human drama is happening between Jimmy and Louise.
Speaker 1: Thelma gets a knock at her door because Brad Pitt has shown up to come sniffing around again.
Speaker 2: He's like you know, miss Thelma.
Speaker 1: I'm just not having luck getting a ride in that rain.
Speaker 1: And she's like well, you better come in.
Speaker 1: And he's like well, if you don't mind, i don't want to interrupt you or anything.
Speaker 2: They start playing that hand slap game where you put both of your hands out and someone puts their hands under yours, face up, and you try to whip it around, slap them as they pull away Again, being like children.
Speaker 2: And at one point Brad Pitt says you know, you got an unfair advantage, you got too much weight on this hand.
Speaker 2: And he just slowly pulls her wedding ring off and he drops it in a plastic cup half full of booze And he says ain't that better?
Speaker 2: And I was like man.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen something like this smooth since Nicholas Cage had his wedding ring removed by that prostitutes teeth and leaving Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: Right He ends up hopping in bed with her.
Speaker 2: Literally jumping up and down on the bed like a couple of 10 year olds.
Speaker 1: This is where Thelma kind of sniffs out, like the one moment where she's at least a little bit savvy, where she says, like you're not a student, are you?
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, ma'am, not exactly, and it comes out that he's a rob.
Speaker 2: He says I'm probably just some guy whose parole officer is having a shit fit right now.
Speaker 2: I robbed a gas station and a liquor store and some convenient stores.
Speaker 2: And she says how did you do it?
Speaker 2: And he, reluctantly, stands up wearing nothing but jeans.
Speaker 1: Holy shit dude.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 2: And he puts a hairdryer in his waistband, kind of like a gun, and Brad Pitt just stands up and he gives this speech where he's a.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, let's see who wins the prize or keeping their cool, simon says.
Speaker 2: Everybody down on the floor, nobody loses their head.
Speaker 2: Nobody loses their head.
Speaker 2: You, sir, you do the honors of putting that money in the bag.
Speaker 2: You'll have an amazing story to tell your friends or a tag on your toe, you decide.
Speaker 2: And it's this very playful carnival barker type of entertaining robbery.
Speaker 2: And Thelma is just sitting on the bed grinning ear to ear, spellbound by his performance, and just drinking it all in.
Speaker 1: And it's a romantic way to put it.
Speaker 1: I've been recently rereading still life with Woodpecker, so the word is sort of fresh on my mind.
Speaker 1: But she says oh, you're an outlaw, aren't you?
Speaker 1: Which is a romantic way to describe someone who knocks over gas stations.
Speaker 1: But he jumps back in a bed with her and says I may be an outlaw, but you're the one stealing my heart right now, miss Thelma.
Speaker 1: And you're like God damn dude.
Speaker 1: I like I want to fuck you now.
Speaker 2: Better yet, just looking at him.
Speaker 2: Like you don't need to say anything, right?
Speaker 2: Like you don't need to be this charming to seal the deal.
Speaker 1: Yes, And she kind of teases him about it and they kind of laugh about how much of a line it is, but she's still totally charmed by it.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile the other room we'll get back to them in just a second.
Speaker 1: But Louise and Jimmy are kind of having this heart to heart where Louise tells Jimmy like I love you, but we got to start letting go of old mistakes.
Speaker 2: There's a juxtaposition of a relationship coming to a close and one that's beginning.
Speaker 1: Yes, And there's this wonderful moment Man, i love this moment so much because it's the two kinds of love, it's that urgent, like we're just horny for each other kind of relationship going on in the next room And there's this very mature, human, adult relationship happening between Louise and Jimmy And she says do you remember what you said to me the first time we met?
Speaker 1: And he says I do.
Speaker 1: I said you have a great pair of eyes.
Speaker 1: And she says you remember what happened after that?
Speaker 1: And he says, yeah, you close them and ask me what color they were.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so she puts her hand over his eyes and says what color are my eyes?
Speaker 2: And he pauses Yeah, and in the audience you're like he doesn't know, but he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says he says brown, and then she kisses him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Susan Sarandon's delivery, when she just gently puts her hand over his eyes and she says Jimmy, what color are my eyes?
Speaker 2: She's asking everything.
Speaker 2: Yes, with this one question.
Speaker 1: And he knows he does, He cares about her.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile in the other room, Chad, there is some good old fashion urgent hotel fucking happening.
Speaker 2: Well, JD is seducing her in every way possible, And Thelma is completely into it.
Speaker 1: And it does proceed into some bouncing off the wall sex which is fantastic, again, as someone who has a deep crush on Gina Davis that moment where he's pulling her down the bed, which is, you know, pushing up her shirt and everything.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 1: This is sexy.
Speaker 1: This movie got sexy all of a sudden.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: It does not veer into the gratuitous scenes of movies of this era.
Speaker 2: I think about the sex scene in Top Gun, where you know you're just playing the love theme from that movie and it's a bunch of silhouetted tongues and mouths.
Speaker 2: Or you know you're seeing people topless for no reason other than just to see a naked woman or something like that.
Speaker 2: This is much more purposefully done.
Speaker 1: Daryl has never done this in his life.
Speaker 1: This is Thelma getting seduced properly by a man for the first time ever.
Speaker 2: And it's Brad Pitt.
Speaker 1: And it's.
Speaker 1: It's a young, chiseled Brad Pitt made out of marble and charm.
Speaker 1: Right, it's.
Speaker 1: It's just like how on earth would you resist this?
Speaker 1: as you know, again, a woman who has spent her whole life being unfulfilled and trying to take care of a guy, that's kind of an asshole to her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sure enough, the next morning, louise wakes up.
Speaker 1: Jimmy still asleep, louise is kind of staring out the window.
Speaker 2: She's about to leave for good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is it.
Speaker 1: And there's just looking at like a dude across the way skimming the pool of this shitty motel.
Speaker 1: She and Jimmy go down to breakfast.
Speaker 1: Finally He says look, i don't know what you did, but I'm not going to tell anybody.
Speaker 1: Why don't you hold on to that ring for a little while for me?
Speaker 1: You can tell that she wants to tell him but also is kind of trying to protect him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this taxi shows up to take him away And he says how about you give all Jimmy a kiss?
Speaker 1: She leans across the table and lays one on him.
Speaker 1: It is not the crazy passion of what was going on with the Gina Davis and Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: It's a kiss goodbye.
Speaker 1: But it's a kiss that lets you know like she loves this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he leaves.
Speaker 1: She is very emotional, like she doesn't cry, but you can see the emotion on her face.
Speaker 2: She's got a lot on her plate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to say the least.
Speaker 1: and a waitress comes over, drops off the bill and says it's good thing he left when he did.
Speaker 1: We were about to have to call the fire department.
Speaker 2: Given the same kind of sassy remark that you could have heard coming from Louise at the start of this movie.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Thelma shows up.
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
Speaker 1: Her hair is messed up She is walking on air.
Speaker 1: The afterglow that surrounds her.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis is so great in this moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean just ear to ear, and she's like do I look like something happened?
Speaker 2: She's like ask me, ask me what happened.
Speaker 1: I've got to tell somebody, yeah, and Louise is of course very pleased that her friend and tells her, says like I'm glad that somebody finally got you laid right, yeah.
Speaker 1: She says, wait a second, where is he right now?
Speaker 1: And Thelma is like oh, i left him alone take a shower.
Speaker 1: And then Louise is like you did what.
Speaker 2: You left him with the money in our room and they go there.
Speaker 2: Brad Pitt's gone, as is the money.
Speaker 1: And this is the point where the roles really start to reverse in this film because Louise breaks down.
Speaker 2: She's lost everything, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, she has nothing.
Speaker 1: Not just the money She's lost, jimmy.
Speaker 1: She's not sure what they're going to do now.
Speaker 1: Thelma kind of recognizes in this moment like I have to be the strong one now.
Speaker 2: Well, at first she says I'm sorry, Louise, it's OK, It's going to be OK.
Speaker 2: And Louise is like no, Thelma, it's not OK, None of this is OK.
Speaker 2: And Louise is like on the verge of crying and laughing.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's just having a breakdown.
Speaker 1: Thelma just gets her up and drags her to the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real drill sergeant.
Speaker 2: She's like get up, it's going to be OK, let's go.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's the first time you see her proactive control of the situation.
Speaker 2: It will not be the last.
Speaker 2: We come back to Daryl's house and it's raining outside.
Speaker 2: They use rain machines a lot in this movie.
Speaker 2: I really didn't put a whole lot of thought as to why they use rain machines, other than it makes movies look a little bit better, but they use them quite a bit.
Speaker 2: They show up at Daryl's house and it's a detective.
Speaker 1: So I think it might be just the contrast between here is the world of these men and their machinations and then the world of Thelma and Louise, which is bright and sunny and vibrant.
Speaker 2: It certainly could be.
Speaker 2: They get to Daryl's house and detective Slocum's there and FBI agent Tobolowski and a few other men, and as they're going up to Daryl's house, slocum and Tobolowski, they are racing each other like little boys.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are.
Speaker 1: As they're talking to, Daryl, Tobol is like look, we've tapped your phone, We're going to have someone at your house And Daryl's like what You're going to do what?
Speaker 2: Is that going to cost me extra?
Speaker 1: You know and I tell us like, listen, when Thelma calls you got to let on like you don't know anything And Tobol was like, yeah, you're going to want to be gentle and act like you care.
Speaker 1: when your wife calls Women, love that shit.
Speaker 1: And then they all kind of have a laugh about women love that shit, to let you know that these, like.
Speaker 1: as good as Kitell is, he's also still kind of a dirtbag.
Speaker 2: The movie cuts to Thelma driving the Thunderbird and she is now smoking a lit cigarette, taking on many of the characteristics that we saw earlier with Louise.
Speaker 2: Louise is now in the passenger seat.
Speaker 2: She's all but comatose.
Speaker 2: Thelma pulls over in front of this roadside country store.
Speaker 2: She puts on Louise's sunglasses and hands her cigarette over to Louise as Thelma runs inside this you know rural convenience store.
Speaker 2: Outside it simply just says market.
Speaker 2: Louise tosses the cigarette out So she's no longer smoking, and she looks over and sees these two elderly women staring back at her from a nearby building And one of them just smiles at Louise.
Speaker 2: I think this is a moment that can be interpreted countless ways And the way I interpreted it, the way you interpreted, i think the way women interpret this is is all going to be very different of having these older women looking at these younger women in this convertible on the road and what Louise makes of them and what they make of her.
Speaker 2: And it's a very quiet moment.
Speaker 2: And then Louise pivots and she reaches into a purse to put on her lipstick and she leans up into the rearview mirror and then she just stops And, just like the cigarette, she tosses the lipstick away.
Speaker 1: Not hard to read that metaphor.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: But what I also really like about this scene is that you see the progression of her character, but it is also spanning enough time to what is going on in the background that we do not have visibility into, because this incredibly intimate moment of Louise continuing to grow and evolve as a person is interrupted by Thelma running from this general store screaming drive, louise, drive, start the car.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Indiana Jones yelling at Jock you know, to get the plane moving with all the natives behind him, and it's clear that what's happened here is that Thelma has robbed this store.
Speaker 1: Yes, and as they're pulling away, louise is like what did you even say?
Speaker 2: Thelma says I just waltzed in there and said cut to the security camera footage where Thelma is repeating word for word the speech that Brad Pitt gave earlier when he detailed his armed robberies.
Speaker 2: And again, i love the way the security footage bridges Thelma telling Louise the story And then the fact that we see our FBI agent, our detective and Darryl watching this security footage.
Speaker 1: I like at the end of it too, like after giving this speech and getting the money, thelma says, oh, and throw in some of those wild turkey bottles too.
Speaker 2: And as they watch this, all the guys react with one blasphemy or after another where one of them says Jesus Christ, and another says good God, and the other one says my Lord we got the Thelma and Louise in their car right down the highway and they are just screaming in exoneration, They've got some money, They still may be able to make it to Mexico.
Speaker 2: Then they get behind this 18 wheeler that is pulling like a long chrome gas tanker And as they pass it's got the naked lady mud flaps on them And as they go past the driver, he like sticks out his tongue and flicks it at them.
Speaker 2: He also has a naked lady air freshener on his rear view mirror And Thelma and Louise are rightfully disgusted by his actions.
Speaker 1: One thing about the scene I love just before they get to the trucker and his vile behavior, louise is really laying down the pedal And Thelma is like why are you driving so fast?
Speaker 1: And Louise says, well, we got to put some distance between us in the scene of our last goddamn crime.
Speaker 2: It's such a great line.
Speaker 1: So they're blow past this vile trucker.
Speaker 1: We see that Jimmy is getting home in the rain as well, and Arkansas State Police are waiting for him outside.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise end up at a gas station, kind of off the beaten path, And Louise walks over and sees this very old man It's like he's like 108.
Speaker 2: And she exchanges her jewelry, including her earrings, for this weathered cowboy hat that this old man was wearing At this point.
Speaker 2: Thelma is now wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt that she has kind of tied up around her mid-drift And Louise is wearing the white tank top she had on earlier And she's not wearing anything underneath it.
Speaker 2: And they have both really undergone this I don't know physical metamorphosis, but like their costumes have changed so dramatically from where they started to where they are in so many visible ways.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And here they're also parked next to train tracks again, which I took as an important visual cue because they bring up the subject of Texas.
Speaker 2: Because Louise says I want you to call Darrell And if he sounds suspicious his phone is tapped And she says we're wanted for murder and robbery And Thelma says we'll just tell him that Harlan was going to rape me And that's why you shot him in.
Speaker 2: Louise explains the impossibility of this without evidence and cites how the law is not working in their favor.
Speaker 2: And Thelma asks how do you know so much about all of this?
Speaker 2: Again, you know we have the train tracks and this visual about Texas and her bringing up this past that she has in Texas that she does not want to talk about.
Speaker 2: And then Thelma asked Louise, where did you get that cowboy hat?
Speaker 2: And Louise says I stole it, yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is a big man scene coming up where we have Brad Pitt being holed in by the cops.
Speaker 2: They haul him past Darrell, so at least Darrell knows who he is, kitell and Tobbo sit him down in a questioning room.
Speaker 1: Kitell is like where'd you get the $6,600?
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt is like oh, i just got from a friend you know, which means also it was originally $6,700.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a hundred is already gone.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it turns out Jimmy has already filled in the cops on the money that he gave them.
Speaker 1: Finally, he asked Tobolowski And he's like can you give us the room a second?
Speaker 1: And so Tobbo is like sure, i'll be right outside.
Speaker 1: Kitell gets up close on Brad Pitt and is like so I just want to ask you one question Do you think that Thelma would have robbed that gas station if you hadn't stolen all their money?
Speaker 1: And he's like well, wait a second now.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything like that.
Speaker 1: And Kitell is like shut up, shut up, yeah.
Speaker 1: And he grabs Brad Pitt's hat and just starts beating him with his own hat.
Speaker 1: And he says look, i will make your misery my mission in life if you don't give me something that might do those girls some good Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a really nice moment where you know it's Kitell, like look, they're in trouble Everywhere they've turned, somebody has done something fucked up to disappoint them, and I'm not going to be one of those people.
Speaker 2: Afterwards Kitell says like I want a word with Thelma's husband.
Speaker 1: And when Brad Pitt passes by, he goes.
Speaker 1: I like your wife, This is where.
Speaker 2: Daryl loses his shit wanting to kill Brad Pitt, who is at the bottom of like a half flight of stairs, And he just like pumps his hips in the air like he's fucking her.
Speaker 1: Daryl is straining to get away from these cops to have at this guy Harvey.
Speaker 2: Kitell said during the filming of this scene that it was like four dudes could barely hold Christopher McDonald back in this.
Speaker 2: I think he was working out some shit here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Thelma and Louise stopped for some gas at night.
Speaker 2: Well, at a place that literally has two horses tied up out in front of it.
Speaker 2: We are way off the beaten path.
Speaker 2: They are not taking the main roads at all.
Speaker 2: Thelma goes to call Daryl and Louise reminds her hang up if you think anything suspicious is going off.
Speaker 2: Thelma's like OK, and so she dials and Daryl picks up the phone and he goes hello, and Thelma says hey, daryl, to which he says hello, thelma Click, he knows Right.
Speaker 1: It's.
Speaker 1: It is a terrific gag.
Speaker 1: Louise calls back and Daryl answers and she's like I want to talk to the police And he's like what, What do you mean?
Speaker 1: And she's like, Daryl, cut the shit, Just put the police on the phone.
Speaker 2: There's no police, just me and my trophies here and all the detectives around.
Speaker 2: They can hear all of this.
Speaker 1: Right, cytel finally just takes away, like he and Louise have this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like these two characters that you've kind of been wanting to connect in some way, or at least for me, watching It was like I'm looking forward to the two of them because she needs help.
Speaker 1: He wants to help.
Speaker 1: Let's see what this is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what he says.
Speaker 1: He's like look, i want to help you.
Speaker 1: She's like I don't know that you can help me at this point.
Speaker 1: And he says I'm not, i don't think you're going to get to Mexico.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she hangs up and Louise storms out and starts yelling at Thelma about like how did?
Speaker 1: how?
Speaker 1: did he know about us going to Mexico?
Speaker 1: Did you tell the honky bread pit about that?
Speaker 1: And she's like well, i did say that you know, if he was ever in Mexico he could look it up.
Speaker 1: And she's like God damn it, thelma.
Speaker 1: And they get in the car and she says you know, thelma, we're fugitives now.
Speaker 1: It's about time we start acting like it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of that change in the movie where there is the idea that there is no going back from this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know that there is never going to be a solution to this that involves them going to the authorities or depending on Harvey Keitel, or depending on Jimmy or Daryl or anything.
Speaker 1: The only people they can count on is each other.
Speaker 2: This is also the scene where Thelma is wearing Louise's black jacket from earlier, yeah, and you kind of see them becoming more equals, even though they're still maintaining their core characteristics and principles.
Speaker 2: But you see that growth that's happening as well.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise, they are now in Utah And Thelma says that she always wanted to travel but she never got the opportunity.
Speaker 2: And the camera then shifts back and forth between Thelma driving and Louise driving, again to show the passage of time, and then ultimately it's night and Louise stops the car and she gets out and she just stares out into the expanse of the West, and then Thelma joins her and she says what's going on?
Speaker 2: And Louise says nothing.
Speaker 2: To me it harken back to her watching the guy skim the pool.
Speaker 2: Just, you know those moments where you're dealing with a lot.
Speaker 2: You know you're kind of looking at everything and nothing all at the same time.
Speaker 1: There's a nice moment during the course of this where they cut back to Daryl's house, where all the men are sitting around watching a movie And Daryl is stuck in the back of his own living room without a seat, yeah, and he tries to turn it to like a football game or something And all of the men just kind of look back at him.
Speaker 1: He's like oh sorry, and turns it back to this movie that they're all watching.
Speaker 1: Daryl has been sidelined even in his own home, yeah, but back on the road during the day they pass by this filthy trucker again who honks and waggles his tongue again and just generally acts like an ass.
Speaker 2: He says I'm your captain muff diver Classy.
Speaker 1: While the sun is coming up, though, thelma starts kind of cry, laughing.
Speaker 2: She's drinking more wild turkey in the AM.
Speaker 1: Like you do, on vacation.
Speaker 2: And committed multiple crimes.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Louise asked what she's laughing about or what she's reacting to.
Speaker 1: And she says that look on Harlan's face.
Speaker 1: when he said suck my dick, he sure wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1: And Louise is like it's not funny, we don't need to think about this.
Speaker 1: And that's where she says again like what happened to you in Texas.
Speaker 1: And Louise pulls the car over, stops the car and is like you need to drop this.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened back then is whatever happened back then.
Speaker 1: We are not talking about this.
Speaker 1: So then she finally drives on after once again shutting it down.
Speaker 2: Thelma says to her she says that's what happened to you back in Texas, isn't it?
Speaker 2: You was raped, Yeah, And that's the first time she really confronts Louise With what happened in Texas.
Speaker 2: When Louise says you know, drop it, I'm not talking about it, You know.
Speaker 2: Do you understand?
Speaker 2: And Thelma backs off And she says it's OK.
Speaker 1: And I think it's OK.
Speaker 1: There isn't just.
Speaker 1: It's OK that you don't want to talk about it, it's like I understand you Yeah it's OK if you're angry about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's because because, again, i mean like, the bond that they have at this point is unshakable, like from the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1: This is truly them acting as a partnership.
Speaker 1: Yeah, up to and including this moment where there's a cop that pulls up behind her and flashes the blues.
Speaker 2: Is this young?
Speaker 2: good looking dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah he takes Louise, the driver and asked for, like her driver's license, and then he escorts her back to the patrol car.
Speaker 2: He puts Louise in the front seat passenger seat while he's in the front seat calling in her license, which again is really good, because I don't think a cop would ever really do that, but he does it, showing that he does not see her as a threat.
Speaker 2: You would not put a potential dangerous criminal riding shotgun in your patrol car.
Speaker 1: And he's not a terrible guy or anything.
Speaker 1: He's like you know they were doing 110 miles an hour, right, and he is not acting inappropriately or anything.
Speaker 1: But Phelma shows up at the driver's side window with the gun And it's like.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry about this, but I need you to get out of the car because if you run that driver's license, you're going to find out.
Speaker 1: We're wanted in two states.
Speaker 2: She commands Louise to take his gun.
Speaker 1: Right And then shoots two holes in his tires And even Louise is like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: And she's like tires.
Speaker 2: And then she tells her she says shoot the radio.
Speaker 2: And then Louise shoots the car radio And she's like, no, louise, shoot the police radio And she, you know, shoots the police radio.
Speaker 2: And this is really the first time in the movie where Louise's behavior is less focused, like she's doing something that isn't clearly thought out and veers into the you know, are you a dummy kind of category?
Speaker 2: Why would I have you shoot the radio that plays music?
Speaker 2: Shoot the police radio so he can't communicate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i think there was a part of Louise that was like, ok, we're, this is over now, because soon as he runs this I'm done.
Speaker 2: I could see that She's in a different state of shock of like what's coming next.
Speaker 1: Right, like her mind is on, i'm going to, because when, when they go to the car, she asks him do you want me to get in the back or the front?
Speaker 2: They shoot out the radio and then Thelma walks into the back and shoots a couple of holes in the trunk of the police car.
Speaker 2: They open the trunk of the police car and this officer is begging them to like don't do this, because I'm sure he's thinking he's going to be executed or at least roasted alive in the trunk of his car in the middle of the desert.
Speaker 2: As they put him in the trunk of this car, one detail that I like is that Louise reaches in there and there is a six pack of Miller beer in the truck of this officer's car.
Speaker 2: They put him in the truck.
Speaker 2: The officer says I've got a wife and kids.
Speaker 2: and Thelma says will you be sweet to your wife?
Speaker 2: My husband wouldn't sweet to me.
Speaker 2: Look how I turned out Right.
Speaker 1: Louise has the presence of mind to get his belt, So she's like extra ammo And I was like, oh yeah, good idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she takes his sunglasses.
Speaker 2: She trades her sunglasses for his because I guess his looked better.
Speaker 1: But they're really polite about like I'm real sorry about this And they put him in the trunk.
Speaker 1: There's a moment that happens later where Thelma is like you know, i think I'm really getting the hang of this.
Speaker 1: Louise is like you are good at this.
Speaker 2: And this is really the scene that solidifies Thelma as being more aggressive and taking command of situations earlier with robbing the market.
Speaker 2: That could have been a one off here to your point of referencing her dialogue.
Speaker 2: She's pretty good at this.
Speaker 1: Not only has a knack, for it enjoys it like, enjoys living this life where she's outside the bounds of society, you know, like they both are.
Speaker 1: And we get a moment where Tobolowski and Kytel are talking about them going on this crime spree.
Speaker 1: Tobol is like I can't figure out if they're real smarter, real lucky.
Speaker 1: And Kytel says it doesn't matter, smart only gets you so far and luck always runs out.
Speaker 1: Good line.
Speaker 1: It's terrific.
Speaker 1: And it also starts because we're coming to the end of this movie now, yeah, and it's starting to build to that point of like, how do they get out of this?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: To that point, as we cut back to Thelma and Louise, they're driving along, they get stuck behind this cattle drive in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: Louise says look, i got us into something that's going to get us killed And I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2: She even owns up to.
Speaker 2: She says I don't know why I didn't go to the police in the first place.
Speaker 2: And Thelma says you already said it, nobody would have believed us.
Speaker 2: She says that guy was hurting me And if you hadn't come out he would have hurt me a lot worse and nothing would have happened, because everybody saw me dancing with him that night and they would have made out like I was asking for.
Speaker 2: And then she takes it one step further and she says you know, my life would have been a whole lot worse than it is now.
Speaker 2: At least now I'm having some fun And I'm not sorry that that son of a bitch is dead, i'm just sorry it was you that killed him and not me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they get through this cattle drive.
Speaker 1: They get to another gas station and Louise calls Daryl's house to talk to Kytel, who again is like Louise, i want to help you, but you got to stop running.
Speaker 1: This is where he says like I know what's making you run.
Speaker 1: I know what happened to you in Texas.
Speaker 2: Well, she says to him she's like I keep thinking about words like life imprisonment and execution and death by electrocution And they have this drawn out conversation And in the background, as she's saying all this, thelma's there hearing these words from Louise.
Speaker 2: The conversation between she and Harvey Kytel continues long enough that they can trace the call And now the feds know where they are and they can go after.
Speaker 1: Kytel is the one who demands, like you have to take me with you so nothing happens to them because this could get out of hand.
Speaker 2: It's also important to note the way the call ends is right after Kytel says to Louise look, i know what's making you run.
Speaker 2: I know what happened to you in Texas.
Speaker 2: Louise kind of goes cold.
Speaker 2: This really hits her hard And it's Thelma who takes the phone receiver from her hand at this payphone and hangs up the phone.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Louise does not do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 2: They go outside and Thelma talks to Louise about how Louise may be making a deal with the feds to get out of trouble.
Speaker 2: But Thelma, she says I've kind of crossed over something like she's different and she cannot go back to the life she had before with Daryl as a housewife.
Speaker 2: She's like I, just I couldn't live.
Speaker 1: I mean, the exact line is that something's crossed over in me and I can't go back.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's her whole character, right Is that she has tasted freedom and liberation and being able to be her authentic self, And there is no way she can ever compromise again.
Speaker 1: It's the whole idea of you get what you settle for.
Speaker 1: and she is now unwilling to settle for anything other than her own authentic life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so good.
Speaker 2: Can you believe this was her first screenplay?
Speaker 2: I mean, awe is how good and tight this movie became.
Speaker 2: So Thelma and Louise continue their journey in their car.
Speaker 2: The sky is now this beautiful, bright blue, The landscape is flush with green.
Speaker 2: And Thelma says to Louise are you awake?
Speaker 2: Because I feel awake.
Speaker 2: I don't ever remember feeling this awake, Like everything looks different.
Speaker 2: I feel like we have something to look forward to.
Speaker 2: And she says I want to get a job.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: There's a look on Louise's face when she's like, oh yeah, you're going to work for Club Med.
Speaker 1: You know, get her, We'll get ourselves a Hacienda.
Speaker 1: But there's something in Louise that feels because earlier in that conversation, when they were talking about, like, what did Harvey Kytel say?
Speaker 1: Louise tells Thelma like oh, we're going to be charged with murder And we have to decide whether we're going to come in dead or alive.
Speaker 1: And Thelma says, well, didn't he have anything good to say?
Speaker 1: You know, which is a good joke.
Speaker 1: But it's also again this sense that at least, like where Thelma is now blossoming and feeling herself, Louise is the one who's starting to realize like this probably isn't going to have a good ending, Like us getting to Mexico probably isn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: I think it mirrors the two scenes in the hotel room, with the start of a relationship and the end of a relationship.
Speaker 2: You know that she's seeing the beginning of a life that she could have, thelma's seeing the beginning of a life that she could have, whereas Louise is seeing the end of the life she does have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the big finale, there is one more moment where we run across this truck driver again.
Speaker 2: He asks him.
Speaker 2: He says hey, baby, you ready for a big?
Speaker 1: dick, that's right.
Speaker 1: And they're like you know what?
Speaker 1: How about you come with us?
Speaker 2: He's like yo yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 1: This is the most clueless individual of the movie because he follows them often to just some random part of the desert, gets out of his truck, come strolling over to them, who, thelma and Louise, are sort of sitting up in the seats in the convertible.
Speaker 1: He's like all right, i'm so glad you pre-lays decided to come on over.
Speaker 1: They say you need to apologize to us And he's like what?
Speaker 1: And they're like, yeah, making all those blue gestures point to your lap.
Speaker 1: What exactly do you think was going to happen there?
Speaker 1: What if somebody?
Speaker 2: behaved like that to your mom or your sister or your wife.
Speaker 2: They just like dressed down this dummy.
Speaker 1: Right, And he's just like what, What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Thelma says did you call us beavers on the CB?
Speaker 1: I hate that.
Speaker 1: He just seems confused by everything that's going on here.
Speaker 1: Finally, they pull guns on him.
Speaker 1: And they want an apology And he's like fuck you, but instead of shooting him because you know what he did is vile, but it's not a murderous offense And they're not murderers.
Speaker 1: This is not a movie about two women going on a crime spree that involves murder.
Speaker 2: It's not natural born, kill Right.
Speaker 1: So they shoot the tires of his truck And when they ask him to apologize again and he gets, fuck you.
Speaker 1: They just shoot the truck which explodes.
Speaker 1: As this thing explodes, they kind of do donuts around him in the desert.
Speaker 1: Thelma leans out and snags his dirty baseball cap off the ground as they pull away And as they're leaving, thelma says where'd you learn to shoot like that, louise?
Speaker 1: And she's like I learned in Texas.
Speaker 1: Where'd you learn to shoot like that?
Speaker 1: And she's like oh, just off TV.
Speaker 2: A couple of things about this.
Speaker 2: You know the moron truck driver.
Speaker 2: It's such a nineties moment from a film to see a tanker truck explode for really no good reason And I think this was something that was pushed by the studio.
Speaker 2: I know that this scene did not play out the way the original script you know was written, but I'm not going to get into that.
Speaker 2: You can go read the book that I recommended if you want to get more details on that.
Speaker 2: But I felt like, just as a film, this scene feels a little out of place.
Speaker 2: This was the scene that didn't seem to fit quite right.
Speaker 2: He refers to them as bitches from hell.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: Richard Lewis, and it feels very gratuitous.
Speaker 2: I will say that as I thought back on watching this movie.
Speaker 2: It does serve purpose in that it escalates their crimes.
Speaker 2: I mean, on top of armed robbery, and then you've got the murder, and then you've also got now, whatever, this is going to be a willful destruction of you know big oil or something like that, but also the net is the next scene where we get the guy in the desert with the police car.
Speaker 2: It is right We can just talk about it.
Speaker 2: So we cut back to the desert where the police car is with the officer in the trunk And this guy rides up on the bike.
Speaker 2: He looks like a Rastafarian And he comes up on the cop in the trunk and he hears him inside and he walks over, you know, with this big joint and just blows marijuana smoke into the bullet hole that they shot into the trunk.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like a weed joke.
Speaker 2: It feels woefully out of place in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's like there's this weird thing where, both with the trucker scene and this biker scene, it feels like we're trying to lighten the movie up between these heavy moments of Louise and Thelma talking about their ultimate fates and where they are in life, to the ending of this movie, which is coming right up, yes.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh well, let's lighten the mood before we get to something that's even heavier, and I think it's.
Speaker 1: I have one real complaint with this movie, and this isn't it, Although I do think this feels we're kind of wedging in a little bit of levity so that it's not just a total downer of an ending.
Speaker 2: I go back and forth on it.
Speaker 2: I think that the movie would be better served by not having this scene the way this, but I think that the scene also serves purpose in showing that the cop didn't die in the trunk of the car.
Speaker 1: That they're not murderers.
Speaker 2: You and I've certainly had this, as we've discussed countless films on this podcast.
Speaker 2: We're like what happened to this character?
Speaker 2: How?
Speaker 2: did this tie up.
Speaker 2: They've tied up every loose end in this film.
Speaker 2: If you take it out, that's not the case.
Speaker 1: And speaking of wrapping up characters, like, we get a shot of like a police shopper circling this burning truck.
Speaker 1: There's a shot of Daryl looking miserable at home.
Speaker 1: There's Tobo and Kytel loading up for the last ride.
Speaker 1: Like all these characters are, we get kind of glimpses of them.
Speaker 2: I think that last shot of Daryl is actually more sympathetic to his character, because as much as he took his wife for granted, like at this point, he's kind of lost everything.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It feels like there's a moment of realization.
Speaker 2: Everything I know is been turned upside down.
Speaker 1: And I'm largely responsible for this.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: And then we get to kind of I mean, this is really it It's.
Speaker 1: We're back on the road with Elman Louise.
Speaker 1: They see some cops pass by.
Speaker 2: They arrive at the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They seem a little surprised, or I guess, because they've never seen it.
Speaker 2: Right, You know just how big it is and you know just in all of its magistrate, And this movie is so beautifully shot.
Speaker 2: If you've never seen it, even having heard the entire plot, it does not do this film justice one bit of just how gorgeous it is When some cops pass by him.
Speaker 1: you know it doesn't look like they're pursuing them.
Speaker 1: And, thelma and Louise, you know, Louise, driving of course, says, like you know, we're not going to take a chance on them turning around, so we're going to kind of cut through the desert, but the cops do in fact spin around and start to pursue them.
Speaker 1: Then we see more cops headed their way And they essentially are playing chicken with these cops who are driving at them And they win because they just don't swerve Right And the cops do as they're driving through the desert, not on desert roads.
Speaker 1: Through the desert there are these like crazy cannonball run, as crashes in their wake, as police cars are flipping over and they're being pursued across this desert flat.
Speaker 1: They go under this little bridge and it looks like they're going to get away for a second because one of the cops tries to follow them through the bridge and gets stuck because the car is too big, which bottlenecks all the other cops.
Speaker 1: There's this great moment where in a different movie, that would be the moment of like, oh, we showed them.
Speaker 1: But it's like Louise's hands are shaking, she's trying to smoke a cigarette but she's barely holding it together.
Speaker 1: It's this really sweet moment where Thelma kind of says you know, you're my best friend, and Louise says the same, kind of reiterating at this point no matter what happens, they're in it together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, louise says to her.
Speaker 2: she says, louise, i know this is all my fault, but I'm glad I came with you on this fishing trip.
Speaker 2: And Louise says this isn't your fault, you know that they're having this conversation And you're right.
Speaker 2: You know just that they acknowledge their friendship.
Speaker 2: And I also love the fact that when Louise, when she says to her, you know, after Thelma, says you know you're a good friend.
Speaker 2: Louise says you're the best.
Speaker 2: And she says how do you like the vacation so far?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're still cracking jokes, even though, like, the intensity of this finale is unmistakable.
Speaker 1: They almost drive off a cliff and there's a great shot of the car on this cliff And you see Tobos chopper swinging around in the same shot.
Speaker 1: It's really well composed, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they almost go over the side and that's where Thelma is like.
Speaker 1: What is this?
Speaker 1: I guess it's the goddamn Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as they're looking over the edge like, the chopper rises over the lip of the canyon facing them.
Speaker 2: And you see a lot of snipers loading their guns.
Speaker 1: They turn around to go back and there's a whole line of police cars there with cops, like you said, sniper rifle scopes ready to shoot them And Kytel, like bus, ass out of this helicopter when it lands and is telling everybody not to shoot.
Speaker 2: He says don't shoot those girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Is what he calls.
Speaker 1: So Thelma and Louise are in their car.
Speaker 1: There's a cliff in front of them.
Speaker 1: They're the cops behind them.
Speaker 2: The officer shout out for them to raise their hands.
Speaker 1: Anything that they do that is not in compliance with the direct order will be considered a threat.
Speaker 2: A direct order from all of these men.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: They're all men, yes.
Speaker 1: And Thelma says Louise, let's not get caught, let's keep going, yeah.
Speaker 2: And she says just go.
Speaker 2: And Louise says are you sure?
Speaker 2: And Thelma says yeah, and then they laugh slightly And at the same time they're holding back tears.
Speaker 1: They kiss, which you know.
Speaker 1: Like there is an argument to be made that there are some lesbian undertone to this movie.
Speaker 1: That's not how I read it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i don't get that at all.
Speaker 1: I think it's a very platonic like we're sisters.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And, but they kiss, louise hits the pedal.
Speaker 1: The photograph they took, that Polaroid, spins up out of the car to kind of flutter away.
Speaker 1: Kytel is chasing after them, which kind of gets in the way of a direct shot of either of them, right, so in a way there is an argument to be made that he protects them, kind of.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that's not what it's about, and this is the part of the movie that I like the least, which is the car goes over the edge of the canyon, it fades to white, and then we just get this montage of them like having fun, like what a great adventure this was, and that always feels like a bizarre way to end this movie.
Speaker 1: The car going over the edge of the cliff and the fade to white, i totally get The montage.
Speaker 1: I'm like totally out of place to me.
Speaker 2: I think what they struggle with was how do you end a movie like this in the year 1991?
Speaker 2: Without it just being a total downer?
Speaker 2: You know, you fade to white and then roll credits.
Speaker 2: The audience is going to be like what was that?
Speaker 2: It's an ending that runs counter to almost every single movie that's released in there.
Speaker 1: It's an indie movie kind of ending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it works for an indie, but as a major studio release with legit big stars and an incredibly talented director and crew and everything else.
Speaker 2: One version of the ending that they talked about was they wanted to take the Polaroid and have it fade from the color photo back into its original state.
Speaker 2: That seemed a little bit too confusing.
Speaker 2: And then there's the other ending that I mentioned in the intro, where for a brief moment the car lands and it keeps going.
Speaker 2: That was never the original.
Speaker 2: They were going to die, like Cali Curry knew that from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with your critique of the ending with the montages of seeing them in a happier state.
Speaker 2: But I just don't know how unless this is an indie film and you fade to white and they are dead and then roll credits and you're dealing with something that's like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Invasion of the Body Statues, like this is a very down movie and they just didn't want to end that.
Speaker 2: I think that by having those images of them it shows you kind of see that journey and the love and the friendship that these two women had.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know that they could find that perfect way to align with audience expectations and yet not undermine the intent of the film.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's definitely tricky.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that for me, the ending is just the fate to white, yeah, and have you ever seen the ending with them driving off?
Speaker 1: No, dude, I knew of it and I never want to see that.
Speaker 1: That seems terrible.
Speaker 2: Go find it on YouTube.
Speaker 2: If you'd seen this in the theater, you would have taken off your shoe and thrown it at the screen.
Speaker 2: I mean it's because it's got BB King singing.
Speaker 2: It's some song like you know, you're gonna land on your feet.
Speaker 2: You're gonna land, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's insulting.
Speaker 2: How bad it is.
Speaker 1: The only way that could be OK is if the implication was that they had died and they were driving in heaven.
Speaker 2: Like the end of Greece, like that's right.
Speaker 2: The car flew off into the sky, and it's you're the one that I love.
Speaker 2: You are the one.
Speaker 1: Another ending.
Speaker 1: I detest, yes, that is like 20.
Speaker 1: However many seconds.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's that montage at the end, 20 seconds on.
Speaker 1: I mean it is that minor a complaint?
Speaker 1: a couple of like atonal moments with the truck and the guy blowing pot smoke into the trunk.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Those are the biggest complaints that I can find with a movie that is over two hours long, And there is probably I don't know one total minute of the movie that I'm not totally wild about, But it is so chock full of just good performances and tight dialogue, incredible cinematography and just the set decoration and the way that it's framed.
Speaker 2: It's just man, it really holds up.
Speaker 1: I mean it still feels like relevant and important, Right?
Speaker 1: Because?
Speaker 2: men are awful.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: None of this has changed.
Speaker 2: I think some of the discussion around this movie, like when it came out that the fact that they didn't have the marketing budget that they needed, that there was controversy around the movie, got people to go see it I think that there was some thought that this may herald in an era of women themed films, which did not happen, i mean if only Yeah.
Speaker 2: You've certainly seen just growth in cinema and the types of stories that are being shown.
Speaker 2: But I mean, if you look at what goes to theaters now, even post COVID, it's superheroes and animated films and horror movies.
Speaker 2: I don't know where a movie like this finds a home in present day cinema, if it would even get made Right.
Speaker 1: It's a streaming movie that 14 people saw Right, and yeah.
Speaker 1: And then it's.
Speaker 1: One of the unfortunate things about the loss of the monoculture is that we don't really have a way for this to become a thing that engages popular discussion in a big, broad way.
Speaker 1: It's just not the world we live in anymore.
Speaker 2: Or you have movies like everything everywhere all at once.
Speaker 2: that gets a huge amount of attention, but you don't have situations where there are movies like this in any given year.
Speaker 2: There would have been you know six to 15 indie films with varying degrees of production value and star power that could have been made And now you, just you don't see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, You know, we talked about Harvey Keitel and his penis.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the piano is a movie, Like, how would would that get made today?
Speaker 2: Would it find an audience?
Speaker 1: Would it get made today?
Speaker 1: Maybe Would it find an audience?
Speaker 1: almost assuredly not.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's really rare.
Speaker 1: I think the everything everywhere all at once is a good example of a movie that sort of despite itself is incredibly popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a world in which that movie came out and disappeared pretty quickly, even though I mean it got a lot of awards, attention and so forth, and you know, and I love that movie, but there are other movies that come out.
Speaker 1: You know, to use another sort of female centric film as an example, Last year that movie, Women Talking, came out And that would be a movie like a Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 1: That is like oh, this is actually this really interesting, well-directed, well-performed movie that is just chock full of good script, good performances, really well shot, a really interesting director with Sarah Pauley behind it And, yeah, it got some award recognition.
Speaker 1: But how many people have seen that movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Thelma and Louise wasn't a box office hit.
Speaker 1: The way that they could go two and a half was, but whatever, you know it's.
Speaker 2: One other thing that again, i didn't touch on because there's so much richness behind the history of this particular film.
Speaker 2: It did not make as much money at the box office as a lot of the big action films of that era did, but what really helped it was the at home market, you know.
Speaker 2: So movies used to have the theatrical release, then you would have the release in Blockbuster and Hollywood Video or Knockoff Joint you had in your town And then you had its run on HBO or other pay TV services.
Speaker 2: So there were those three waves.
Speaker 2: And for people looking for something to watch, you know, on a Friday night when Thelma and Louise was released, it was incredibly popular.
Speaker 2: It sold very well.
Speaker 2: The audience found the movie and was able to share that with others.
Speaker 2: So again, that's something else.
Speaker 2: As far as reaching that broader audience, yeah, you can pipe it into your house, but you're competing with this insurmountable wave of other media that is vying for your attention And sadly, what I think a lot of people do is, in the face of here's something new and different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or I could just watch something that I've seen before that I'm comfortable with.
Speaker 2: I'll watch reruns of friends or the office, or, you know, the Simpsons or whatever else, rather than spending two hours trying something that isn't going to bring me comfort in a time where it seems like everything around us is falling.
Speaker 2: But that's a conversation for another day.
Speaker 1: Like you said, terrific movie.
Speaker 1: It's probably the best, most successful movie we've ever discussed on this show.
Speaker 1: It's nice to deep dive on a movie like this every now and again.
Speaker 1: Don't I mean don't worry, folks, we're getting back to crap, but it is nice every now and again on the show to deep dive on a movie that we're not necessarily just like getting the knives out for, but just to appreciate, like this is such a well made, well crafted, exciting movie.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear what listeners think of an episode like this.
Speaker 1: That isn't just hey, we're going to do goofy voices and talk about how shitty a movie is.
Speaker 1: And instead go through a movie that's like this movie is really good and kind of hears why and hears the things that you may not have noticed about this movie and the way that it moves and the parallels in it and things like that, like it feels like we were doing honest to goodness, like movie discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i'll be curious.
Speaker 1: So, listeners, drop us a line, let us know what you think And if you would like to see more of this.
Speaker 1: Spoilers you were going to see more of this, although the other one.
Speaker 2: We're going to do this season.
Speaker 1: That is arguably a good movie.
Speaker 1: Quote unquote a good movie is fucking bananas.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what's that?
Speaker 2: fucking bananas.
Speaker 2: Our next episode which we're going back into the trash heap for this one.
Speaker 2: No, you can't introduce what's coming up in two weeks time.
Speaker 1: Hitchhiking Chad.
Speaker 1: Everybody's doing it.
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt was doing it in this movie.
Speaker 2: No one has done it in a more frightening way than perhaps even cowgirls get the blues.
Speaker 1: That movie, speaking of Tom Robbins.
Speaker 1: Yes, Rucker Hauer was in a really tense, well crafted thriller in the 80s called The Hitcher.
Speaker 2: Yes, See, thomas Howe was in that, not wearing blackface, not pretending to be a black man.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Jason Lee was in that movie.
Speaker 1: Was she naked in that movie?
Speaker 1: I don't recall her being naked.
Speaker 1: I recall her being pulled apart by a semi, which is unpleasant Her biological father.
Speaker 1: Was that guy who died in the Twilight Zone movies which also had a very famous hitchhiker episode, and you know I can't go into any more of this without absolutely spoiling the introduction for the next episode.
Speaker 1: But I don't want listeners to think like oh, that sounds like a good movie too, because it kind of is the Hitcher kind of rocks.
Speaker 1: But they did a much shittier remake of the movie, and that's the one we're going to talk about with Sean Bean and a bunch of people you never heard of.
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds like a delightfully bad time.
Speaker 1: It's going to be difficult to watch.
Speaker 1: All right, unlike this movie, which is an absolute fucking treat from the opening to the end.
Speaker 2: We finished our salad.
Speaker 2: for the next course We're going to have an entire can of frosting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is very much like peel back the foil on the duck and hines buttercream frosting.
Speaker 1: Get out your spoon.
Speaker 1: Turn out the lights because no one needs to see you like that Spoon.
Speaker 2: Fingers.
Speaker 1: Oh, they call that the DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Drop us a line.
Speaker 2: You can email us at picksixmovies at gmail.com
Speaker 2: We're around here there in social diss and whatever that So, but any final thoughts that you have on Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 1: Let me just check with Harvey Keitel's penis.
Speaker 1: Was this the best movie we've ever done?
Speaker 2: You got that right.
Speaker 1: OK, best movie we ever did.
Speaker 2: Thanks Harvey Keitel's penis.
Speaker 2: We'll see everyone in two weeks time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for everybody.