Class Of 09 (Hulu)

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on the show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started today. In the show, we are talking about Class of OZ nine, which is a new series on Hulu. I actually graduated from college in two thousand and nine myself, so you know right away they having just on the title. I love any story where it's like we're gonna tell you what happened to these people, you know, at a certain age, then at another time years in the future, and then at another time us in the future after that. Anything like that, I'm always really interested in, you know, I always think about me, like, if you took me right now, I'm thirty six, I think, and if you like showed me my own life at twenty five, it's like night and day different. And then if you took me back to like me at like sixteen and again drastically different. So I just think you learned so much about people by seeing where they are in different stages of life. Barry has just done this hilariously by the way, no spoilers,

1:33 but yeah, Barry just did this recently in the last episode a way. It was so funny. So yeah, I always am interested in this thematically. This is an interesting one. So we're following an FBI class in three different timelines. In the past, we're seeing them when they're first going to Quantico. In the present, we're seeing them when there's some sort of issue with like there's an internal investigation in the FBI. And then in the future we're seeing them when one of them has become the director of the FBI. And it seems to all be correlated with this like chant GPT minority Report kind of policing. So kind of interesting premise, right, Um. The question is, you know, is it any good at it? And I have to say, for whatever reason, I was a little worried that this might be like a Gong show. That was my fear. I have a buddy who listens to the show who will not be named in case he's working with anyone affiliated with this, but he had some criticisms for this, and I don't feel like I've heard, you know, any significant hype around it or anything like that. It just sort of appeared one day on my Hulu.

2:42 You know, FX is a pretty good track record, so I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt. So I watched it, and let's find out if it's worth you're watching it. We opened in the future with Brian Tybee Henry in the room for Minority Report. I mean, that's what it is, you know, minus the It really feels like that all this data that they're looked, they're looking at the screens with all this data floating around, and they've identified a guy who is a threat, and Kate Mara and another agent go to this house where this guy supposedly is That guy also has the Minority Report room set up with the million monitors and stuff, and he's got like a TikTok loop of Brian Tyree Henry talking about how America has become one of the safest countries on Earth. So that's the future, right. Then we jumped back to the past and we're at the initial entry to Quantico. So we're with Kate Mara and Brian Tyree Henry and they're having a classic Quantico training stuff and there's something that happens in this show eighteen minutes in that really made me feel good about the show, and I, you know, I have mixed feelings about it, which I'll talk about throughout this episode, but this little vignette I thought was very effective. So everyone's in so almost like the orientation session, like if you get a new job, like I spread session. They're asking people to stand up and talk about themselves. It feels like the first day a kindergarten or something. And a bird flies into the window and dies, and one of the FBI recruits says, can we bury the bird? And the trainer people are like sure,

4:14 and then they go bury the bird. Everyone stands around and they asked, like, what do you think about us burying this bird? They asked the other recruits and the other creature like yeah, it's really nice. And then as everyone is walking away from the burial of this bird, Kate Mara asked Brian Tybree Henry, Hey, what do you really think, Like, what do you really think about the fact that we did this? And he says, I think that guy's bags will be packed before we get back to the dorm, and he's right, like, they don't even let he tells Kamara later, they didn't even let him pack his own bags. They had people pack them for him, because he's too nice to be in the FBI. I bought that. I thought that that, you know, obviously I don't think anything, you know, I don't know that that's scessarily realistic. But I bought it in the context of the story, like meaning that I really felt that made a strong statement about what kind of FBI we're going to be shown in this television series. That this guy who was kind enough to want to bury a bird, that's like, we gotta get this guy the hell out of here. This guy said, there's no fucking way we could let this guy stay in the FBI. I feel like that moment. You know, there's certain moments when you're reading a script if you're an executive, and you're like, all right, this is a cool concept, let's see if they can pull it off. You're reading the script and then there's like a great early scene that really sells it. And I feel like that was this for me. Like there's some stuff in the early going. There's a very Network TV. You know, it's from the dialogue and just certain things about it just felt a little weird, and that moment really kind of pulled me in. So that's the past, right. Then in the present day narrative, Kate Mara is like Donnie Brasco, like she's undercover with a corrupt group

5:46 of Philadelphia cops and the FBI. Once she completes that case, they assign her to investigate her own friend who has some sort of new criminal database. Again the Minority Report program chat GPT of crime solving that she's involved with, and we know in the future that's gonna be really important. Then in the future, Brian Tyree Henry testifies before a congressional committee. Again, all of this, the comparisons to Minority Report, I feel like they slept on in the marketing of the show, and it might as well. They could have called this Minority Report, and I think people would have been would have gone along with it. It does feel very prescient, meaning it in order for this show to come out right now, I'm sure it was written years ago and was produced at least, you know, six months to a year ago, and it feels very much like, Wow, this is probably where we're going with all this chat Gpta I stuff. And then Kate Mara is also in this future timeline and she is visited by the guy that they were looking for at the beginning of the episode at the end of the episode, and it's this classic thing where he's basically like, hey, this organization, there's something wrong here. You know, it's dangerous for you, like that kind of thing. And then she is interrogated afterwards and they asked her what did he say, and she says, nothing I could make any sense of, which, honestly, you could kind of say that about the pilot meeting, that it's the pilot does not show its cards. You have a vague sense of like what's going on here. It was not a surprise to me to see that Hulu released the first two episodes simultaneously, so I probably will watch

7:18 the second episode. It feels like it's almost like a two parter premiere kind of thing. But honestly, for me, it's not the plot that I really care that much about. What I care about is the thematic ideas of the show. So there's an example that in the past timeline, Kate Mara has a budding romance with a classmate and her friend encourages her to pursue this romance. That is the same friend who in the present timeline. Now it didn't work out with that guy, and he is Katemara's superior, and he assigns her to investigate that same friend. So it's like how much these people have changed over time. That's interesting to me. And I think the show has helped greatly by having Brian Tyree Henry and Kate Mara because they're both actors who are very naturalistic. They don't overdo it, they don't overact. They really always play down, less simple, real like, so especially the future stuff, there's some elements everything can feel a little silly, like Kate Mara has like some sort of bionic eye or something, but they keep you grounded into it and they help kind of sell the whole thing. So I would say, look, for me, the jury is somewhat still out. I'm not one hundred percent sure about this show yet, but there was enough that I liked in the first episode that I'm going to watch more. And if you're concerned in watching this is like, is this going to be like just goofy and you know, some sort of like high concept thing that doesn't work at all, that's not the case. It's well made, actors are good, the anatic stuff is interesting. It's very timely, so, you know,

8:50 I think they made a good pilot. Whether or not it will be a good show for the duration of the season, I think it is still an open question for me. But I definitely want to see more. So, um, let me know. Let me know if you you know, watch this and you find it interesting. Let me know if you're on my friends side who didn't like it. You know, FX in general, I'm always going to give them, you know, the benefit of the doubt. So that is the show for today. As always, Thank you so much for listening and you can reach out to me at any time at dan voyagemedia dot com. Watch This Tonight on Instagram, Ben Mordayn on Twitter, and you can join our Facebook group Watch This Tonight on Facebook. If you join the show, please leave us a rating or review. And I have a podcast. It's the best way to support the show, and I'm always open to suggestions of stuff you would be interested in me covering on the show.

9:37 That is the podcast for today. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. Bye,