I don’t even count the fake driving directions. But yes kinda lazy. Every movie and TV show wants that sexy Oak St LSD shot, who cares if they’re supposed to be headed east. Or west. Or whatever. Just show that shot. Chicago!
I can however 100% guarantee there has never been a gang of middle-aged “street toughs” congregating in front of the Green Door and Mr. Beef in the middle of the afternoon.
Fun Fact: Green Door is the only wooden structure still standing downtown. Built after the fire, but before they passed an ordinance banning wooden buildings.
Thank you for coming to my River North neighborhood history tour.
Loved the pod and love the show. Will need to go back for a rewatch to catch some of the stuff that was covered on the pod. Like DJ, I finished the season kind of wondering if I knew what happened, but kind of being ok with not being sure.
Great team for the pod. Love KVV’s input on storytelling, TC’s extensive hospitality experience and DJ’s kitchen background as well as creative expertise. DJ does a great job of geeking out on a level that I probably don’t fully grasp, but explaining it enough that I’m not lost. The music on Ep7, absolutely stressed me the fuck out, and it wasn’t until almost the end of the episode before I even noticed that it was there.
@Tron tell me this doesn’t replace the promised Perfect Club on Top Chef!
It’s been a while since I watched it, need to do a re-watch, but a couple half-thoughts after finishing the pod this morning, and the discussion about where the money came from and why is it in the tomato cans?
The money
Where is the money from? The restaurant? Some other activity? (Richie / drug dealers?) How did it get in the cans? It doesn’t seem like it’s Michael putting the money in the cans, but just hanging on to them? For Cicero, or someone else?
Cicero knows about the money
What if Cicero is KBL Electric? What if Cicero knows Michael has the money, but didn’t want it back just yet. And then Michael kills himself. Now I want my money. But he doesn’t know where it is? Or he knows it’s in the restaurant somewhere, but can’t just come out and ask for it?
Cicero knows about the money and the tomato cans
“Hey your brother was holding onto $300K in tomato cans for me.” Awkward!
“Hey, sell me the restaurant.” He gets his money back, and know one knows it was ever there, except Michael?
Cicero doesn’t know about the money
This causes all sorts of questions and conflict in Season 2, if Cicero is a “bad guy.”
There’s a lot of different ways they could go here…
I was born in calumet city and have spent ALOT of time in my childhood with family and friends in Dolton, South Holland and the like. Was the cousin a little extra? Yeah probably, but I knew and still know alot of guys like him and had them in my wedding. It was a pretty authentic representation of a certain type of southern chicago character
Edit: meant to say having Cousin call people “strokes” was so in character for a guy who grew up around there in the 90s. Had flashbacks to middle school
No, totally agree. Reminded me a lot of a few family friends growing up as well. I just need Ebon to dial it back like 20%. His performances feel a little “acting class” at times.
Just finished the 8 episodes last night so have to hop in and listen to the pod now.
I will say one thing that stood out to me was that there was no romantic relationship themes in the 8 episodes.
Carmy has no romantic relationship or interest. Sugar and her husband seem like roommates and there’s no connection fleshed out there.
Richies situation is very briefly touched on but just in the hey look at me I’m fucked up.
Outside of the scene in the final episode with Syd and Marcus at Syds house I don’t think there was a single scene that had any sort of a romantic tone to it. (I guess you argue that wasn’t romantic either but I felt it maybe very slightly especially at the end of the scene when she tries to take bite of the dish she made)
I felt like this was intentional as the show was definitely focusing on loss/grief over anything else. It also kind of speaks to the passion of cooking and how having relationships can be insanely difficult in that world because of how demanding working in a kitchen or owning a restaurant can be.
I grew up in the restaurant business. My parents owned a couple restaurants when I was a kid. I grew up in a kitchen. My dad is NY Times reviewed and has a bunch of high end awards for his cooking. They very much were in the cauldron of high end culinary and I saw what that did to them. A typical day would start after we went to school where they’d go to buy food and fresh ingredients from vendors with prep for dinner starting in the afternoon. From dinner rush to close they usually wouldn’t get home till after midnight and then Friday-Sunday would be even worse with lunch thrown into the mix. It was an unbelievable time commitment requiring you to be high energy and supremely focused the whole time.
I remember when they finally got out of the industry just how big of a burden was lifted from them and how much their relationship improved and their relationship with us.
My parents didn’t own a house until I was 12 and that was after they called it quits with the restaurant. My dad has cooked for some very famous people including privately and never had a pot to piss in(oddly enough Oliver Platt was a regular at their restaurant). The whole tone of that side of the show absolutely resonated with me.
This crazy passion of cooking coupled with this constant anxiety of everything coming crumbling down while being so tied to this passion that you have nothing else.
While watching this me and my wife just finished We Own This City and when Jon Bernthal popped up as the dead brother we were both thinking “good, fuck that guy”
Kinda wish this was a one and done thing. I have a feeling S2 is not going equal S1. Would love to be proven wrong.
An itch I can’t seem to scratch is the money in in the cans. There was even a comment that KBL was essentially the same amount that Mikey got from Cicero. Why would Mikey take money to just put it into cans? Doesn’t make any sense to me. I refuse to believe that there is some drugs/laundering scheme related to it if it’s ending up hidden anyways. They whole point of laundering is to have clean money accessible from a bank.
I’ve only watched the once and hope to go back and look for more clues, but the theory that I think I like the best is that Mikey had all of Cicero’s loan money canned so that 1) he couldn’t blow it on drugs (at least not without making a huge mess) and 2) every Sunday night he gets a shot of liquidity to get himself and the restaurant through the week. Basically an addict’s approach to Dave Ramsey’s envelopes system
And another thing! The music is so great in the show. Lots of subtle and not so subtle gems — you’ve gotta have Wilco’s Via Chicago and Sufjan’s Chicago. But you know what? They’re great songs.
The way I took it was that he took the loan money to leave for Carmy. Had he found the note right away, he would have been able to sell the restaurant to Cicero and take the money to open his own spot. I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned flat out but there were some references to the restaurant not being a happy place for their family.
I can only hope that the soundtrack to this season introduces some people to Sarengeti, and therefore to the actual greatest Chicago song of all time (only half joking here).
I am a huge Matty guy, but I think I top out at about 20 minutes before he is too much. Him and @Randy might level set each other a bit though, so maybe it works.
