This episode's title comes from the 1626 play by English dramatist John Ford, because we are very smart.

And turns out, it kinda fits for discussing SATC's apparent attitude toward Samantha Jones. We dive into Sam's key romantic relationships to explore how her attitude toward sex and dating was contrasted with that of the other three women, and what that says about how the show viewed women's sexuality.

We also discuss different iterations of the fan theory that Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are all really aspects of Carrie's personality. Are they fictional aliases for the women Carrie wrote about in her column? Are they figments of her imagination? Or do each of Carrie's friends represent her id, ego, and superego?

That's right, we're getting Freudian. Because we are very smart.

Is Sex and the City a feminist text?

That's the question we sort of attempt to answer in this episode, but ultimately we find it more interesting to talk about Sabrina Carpenter's 2025 album Man's Best Friend and the 2009 romcom film He's Just Not That Into You starring Ginnifer Goodwin.

Our rambles meander through discussions of how male characters are written on SATC, and how the show explores the assumed gender binary in general, before detouring through more current works of media that are often brought into feminist discourse, like the aforementioned Man's Best Friend, and the 2023 film Barbie.

Can a work of fiction BE inherently feminist? Or can it merely propose ideas or messages that the viewer must consume critically and form their own conclusions?

If you are still following us on Instagram, thank you for believing in us.

Heads' up that we had several forms of technical difficulties with recording this episode, so apologies in advance for any subpar sound quality!

Are we ever ready to talk about Sex and the City? Unclear, but we're going to.

In part 1 of our SATC series, we discuss some general thoughts on the HBO show, its origins, and its cultural impact. We also talk about our first experiences with the series before giving a preview of the topics we plan to discuss in more depth over the next four episodes.

We're talking about:

• Gender, Sexuality, and the Male Gaze
• Pop Feminism from SATC to our current Cultural Landscape (i.e. Barbie, Sabrina Carpenter, etc...)
• Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte as different aspects of Carrie's personality
• SATC and the genre of "Group of Single Women Takes on the World Together"
• The Pop Culture Afterlife of Sex and the City (The Carrie Diaries, He's Just Not that Into You, And Just Like That...)
• The lasting impact of "chick lit" screen adaptations

We'll be back next episode for some deep-diving discussions!

Follow us Instagram, I suppose.

Welcome to our slightly unhinged summer series, Millennial Falcon!

This three-part series is all about the fandoms we've never felt like we were truly a part of until the past few years, our Millennial Falcons, if you will. For Rhonda, that's romance novels, and for Erin it's Star Wars.

In our introductory episode, we discuss our histories with our respective Millennial Falcons, why we feel it took us so long to engage with them, and how we feel about those fandoms now. We also talk a little about what we are currently watching and reading.

Next time we will talk more broadly about fandom and culture, and the psychology and sociology of popular fandoms.

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In the finale of our The Office series and of our regular season, we look at the show's ties to popular media that came both before and after.

Erin did a deep dive into the history of the mockumentary, and you won't believe what the first one was!

We also discuss some well-known mockumentary films, like This is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, and works that use mockumentary elements, such as When Harry Met Sally and Arrested Development.

Then we explore the stylistic impact of The Office on subsequent American comedy, touching on shows like Parks and Recreation, Superstore, Abbott Elementary, and, somehow, Game of Thrones.

This episode also contains our final Finer Things Club meeting discussing Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, plus what we are currently watching/reading/listening to. For Rhonda, it was lots of Hunger Games.

Come back in May for a bonus episode and a couple rereleases of our Summer Theatre Program from 2021!

Follow on Instagram, but don't expect too much. :/

In part four of our discussion of The Office, we dive in to the various romance storylines the show featured, and how we feel about them!

From the classic sitcom "will-they-or-won't-they" tension between Jim and Pam, to Michael and Holly's second chance romance, to the hilariously toxic relationship between Kelly and Ryan, there's a little something for everyone. (Erin's personal favorite is, of course, Dwangela.)

Our exploration veers into a series of hot takes on romance novel tropes like enemies to lovers, mutual pining, and love triangles, and you know how Rhonda feels about love triangles (she thinks they're good, actually).

We also look at how the romances on The Office compare to love stories in other sitcoms, like New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Abbott Elementary, and Friends.

And this episode features our Finer Things Club discussion of the book Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

Our next episode is our last planned installment of our Office discussion, so be sure not to miss it! Follow us on Instagram, but don't expect too much.

“Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it's not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised.”

–Michael Scott

Likeability plays a huge role in how characters on The Office relate to one another, and how we as the audience perceive them. Discuss!

This episode also features our second Finer Things Club meeting, in which we talk about the novel The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Rhonda learns how effective her SEO was in her blog post about it.

Further Reading:

Isabel Allende's interview with the LA Times

The science behind our need to be liked from American Psychological Association

How wanting to be liked gets you rejected from Psychology Today

Rhonda's blog post about all the books mentioned on The Office

Despite its undercurrent of warmth and optimism, The Office (US) went to some pretty dystopian places in its explorations of the workplace--which were really just reflections of the boring dystopia of our reality.

In this episode, we look at how The Office fits within the context of Workplace Dystopian media, works such as Superstore, Office Space, Sorry to Bother You, and Silicon Valley. We also place The Office head-to-head with the most popular workplace dystopia on TV right now, Severance.

Our discussion delves into how corporate companies like Dunder Mifflin and Lumon, and those in other workplace dystopian media, use tactics like Diversity Day or "waffle parties" to present a veneer of benevolence to distract workers from how terrible their jobs actually are.

But, you know, in a fun way.

We also introduce our new segment for this series: The Finer Things Club! We discuss E. M. Forster's novel A Room with a View. It's very exclusive.

Further Reading:

Corporate Erin on TikTok

Defining a Boring Dystopia

Comparing the workplaces in The Office and Severance

If you've ever listened to us trade The Office references on the pod and thought, "why don't they just talk about The Office already?" this new series is for you!

In your orientation packet, you'll find an overview of our thoughts on the American series in comparison with the original British version, and a quiz to discover which characters we are. We also go over a preview of the topics we plan to discuss in the coming episodes, including, but not limited to:

• Race, gender, class, and the dystopia of capitalism in The Office, but, like, in a fun way
• The Office in the context of other workplace media such as Office Space, Superstore, and Sorry to Bother You
• The show's examination of success, achievement, and happiness as defined by individual characters
• Romantic relationships over the course of The Office's nine seasons, and how they compare to romances in other sitcoms
• The Office's afterlife in pop culture

Our yearly tradition of discussing our favorite movies and TV, plus a little music and books, is back!

We had every intention of talking about Wickiator/Glicked, but there's really no story there. There's Wicked, which we talked about for far longer than we intended because we had so many thoughts, and then there's Gladiator, which... was a movie.

We also talked about some common themes we noticed in the media we were drawn to in the past year, plus a few pieces that were just a little disappointing.

Things we loved but didn’t have time to talk about because we spent so long talking about Wicked:

Next time we will finally wrap up our A Song of Ice and Fire series, and beginning in February we'll have a shiny new mystery topic to discuss!

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Read Rhonda's Lisa Frankenstein essay!