The scene then cuts to Ben and Q walking outside and talking. The dialogue is interesting. Q talks about his love of Andy Warhol (the artist that liked painting tomato cans as realistic as possible) showing his knowledge of art, eveals he's not from there and he went to school in New Haven (Yale?), and that he thought about staying there but "This is a place that needs something like this."

The problem isn't that people aren't smart. The problem is that they are. If the landscape is like this, and people were just boring, you wouldn't have this problem. the problem is, you get all these bright, creative lights and nowhere to plug in their energy. And so it gets channeled into conspiracy theories, and drugs and violence. Can I ask who your favorite artist is? Can I guess? I'm guessing you're a playlist guy. When some computer recommends you a bunch of songs based on your favorites, and a bunch more, based on your favorites of those. So you're listening to a bunch of music that, I mean, you genuinely like...but you have no idea who sings it. Now, these playlists, it's like the dating app for music. You're not hearing other people's voices. You're just hearing your voice get played back at you. How are you supposed to fall in love? Art used to be in charge of us. You used to buy a whole album not even knowing what songs would be on it. Now we have everything on demand. At your fingertips. In pieces. You think half the poeple who are posting quotes from Oscar Wilde have every actually read one of his plays? Or posting photos of Audrey Hepburn have actually seen the film that it's from? It's the same in culture as in archaeology. When a civilization collapses, only fragments remain. But we can build it back again (build back better?).

Ben asks how. Q says "Make recordings. Real people. Not what people think that they already know and want to hear. Real people. Not some generic stereotype or generic song. Real people."

He then asks Ben what his podcast is about. Ben says it's about America. About the myths that we tell ourselves. To which Q responds:

WHO is it about? Every story we tell is ultimately about a person.

To which Ben responds that the podcast is about Abilene. Q looks surprised by this. And Ben, apparently fearing he's just lost some face with a man he's now in awe of starts to walk it back "Well, it's a little about Abilene. I mean I'm trying to make it more about..."

No. It's about Abilene. The person. That's all you need.

Then Ben asks him for some advice about his writing and his podcast. To which Q responds:

I'd probably say that nobody writes anything. All we do is translate. So if you ever get stuck and you don't know what to say...just listen...even to the silences. Listen as hard as you can to the world around you and...repeat back what you hear. That translation. That's your voice.

Now....right as Q is giving this speech, it's impossible not to notice the placement of what appears to be just a large wall hanging on the overhang in front of the front door of his recording studio in the background behind him but is situated just to the side of his head so you can't really ignore it. Practically looks like it's poking out of the left side of his cowboy hat. Then the camera cuts back to Ben, and then back to Q, but moved slightly to the left so now the star looks like it's jutting out of the right side of his cowboy hat.

Now there are three things here that fascinate me about this. One is the movement from left to right from our perspective (right to left from Q's--think mirror?), the other is that, that star is five sided. Yes, that's the Texas star, but it's still technically a pentagram, and as we learn more about this Q character later in the movie this feels more like a deliberate tell about the smooth talking character we're dealing with.

But the other was something I read about here a while back, something about a bunch of 8kun autists thinking they had found something that human traffickers were using to help each other identify safe houses to help them move their victims across the country, and it was that five sided Texas star on the front of rundown, apparently vacant houses, all across the country, not at all limited to the state of Texas. And given Ashton Kutcher's efforts in that area, and the mysterious illness he came down with that he took so long to reveal to the public, and the fact that, as we'll see later on, this Q character he's playing is clearly supposed to be the Devil who sees no point in trying to nab souls back in the big city, and has come down to "God's country" to hunt for souls instead, and knows how to sell a lie by weaving it together with beautiful truths, as any good liar would do...I find that telling.

Now, I realize it's confusing that Q and the Devil are the same person in this movie, but based on BJ Novak's other miniseries, "The Premise" that deals with politics as well, I think you'll see that he doesn't ever like to be too obvious about what he's saying. Honestly I think it's what makes him an excellent writer. He knows how to force his audience to really think, and he doesn't make it easy on you. Watch this movie and his miniseries "The Premise" and you'll see what I mean.

The scene then cuts to Ben and Q walking outside and talking. The dialogue is interesting. Q talks about his love of Andy Warhol (the artist that liked painting tomato cans as realistic as possible) showing his knowledge of art, eveals he's not from there and he went to school in New Haven (Yale?), and that he thought about staying there but "This is a place that needs something like this."

The problem isn't that people aren't smart. The problem is that they are. If the landscape is like this, and people were just boring, you wouldn't have this problem. the problem is, you get all these bright, creative lights and nowhere to plug in their energy. And so it gets channeled into conspiracy theories, and drugs and violence. Can I ask who your favorite artist is? Can I guess? I'm guessing you're a playlist guy. When some computer recommends you a bunch of songs based on your favorites, and a bunch more, based on your favorites of those. So you're listening to a bunch of music that, I mean, you genuinely like...but you have no idea who sings it. Now, these playlists, it's like the dating app for music. You're not hearing other people's voices. You're just hearing your voice get played back at you. How are you supposed to fall in love? Art used to be in charge of us. You used to buy a whole album not even knowing what songs would be on it. Now we have everything on demand. At your fingertips. In pieces. You think half the poeple who are posting quotes from Oscar Wilde have every actually read one of his plays? Or posting photos of Audrey Hepburn have actually seen the film that it's from? It's the same in culture as in archaeology. When a civilization collapses, only fragments remain. But we can build it back again (build back better?).

Ben asks how. Q says "Make recordings. Real people. Not what people think that they already know and want to hear. Real people. Not some generic stereotype or generic song. Real people."

He then asks Ben what his podcast is about. Ben says it's about America. About the myths that we tell ourselves. To which Q responds:

WHO is it about? Every story we tell is ultimately about a person.

To which Ben responds that the podcast is about Abilene. Q looks surprised by this. And Ben, apparently fearing he's just lost some face with a man he's now in awe of starts to walk it back "Well, it's a little about Abilene. I mean I'm trying to make it more about..."

No. It's about Abilene. The person. That's all you need.

Then Ben asks him for some advice about his writing and his podcast. To which Q responds:

I'd probably say that nobody writes anything. All we do is translate. So if you ever get stuck and you don't know what to say...just listen...even to the silences. Listen as hard as you can to the world around you and...repeat back what you hear. That translation. That's your voice.

Now....right as Q is giving this speech, it's impossible not to notice the placement of what appears to be just a large wall hanging on the overhang in front of the front door of his recording studio in the background behind him but is situated just to the side of his head so you can't really ignore it. Practically looks like it's poking out of the left side of his cowboy hat. Then it the camera cuts back to Ben, and then back to Q, but moved slightly to the left so now the star looks like it's jutting out of the right side of his cowboy hat.

Now there are three things here that fascinate me about this. One is the movement from left to right from our perspective (right to left from Q's--think mirror?), the other is that, that start is five sided. Yes, that's the Texas start, but it's still technically a pentagram, and as we learn more about this Q character later in the movie this feels more like a deliberate tell about the smooth talking character we're dealing with.

But the other was something I read about here a while back, something about a bunch of 8kun autists thinking they had found something that human traffickers were using to help each other identify safe houses to help them move their victims across the country, and it was that five sided Texas star on the front of rundown, apparently vacant houses, all across the country, not at all limited to the state of Texas. And given Ashton Kutcher's efforts in that area, and the mysterious illness he came down with that he took so long to reveal to the public, and the fact that, as we'll see later on, this Q character he's playing is clearly supposed to be the Devil who sees no point in trying to nab souls back in the big city, and has come down to "God's country" to hunt for souls instead, I find that telling.

Now, I realize it's confusing that Q and the Devil are the same person in this movie, but based on BJ Novak's other miniseries that deals with politics as well, I think you'll agree that he doesn't ever like to be too obvious about what he's saying. Honestly I think it's what makes him an excellent writer. He knows how to force his audience to really think, and he doesn't make it easy on you. Watch this movie and his miniseries "The Premise" and you'll see what I mean