Episode 357 - All-time great performances by a female actor plus Jon Beavers from “Paradise."

·1 hr 6 min·5 clips

Are we more than the worst thing we've ever done? This actor found the answer playing a character in an underground bunker.

Steve Mason and Sue Kalinske open with Sue's latest triathlon. They joke about the age-group field and how few people were in it, and they wonder how many triathlons someone can rack up after 65. Sue says the hardest part is not any one discipline anymore, and she says she beat her own record. The conversation then pivots to Paradise. John Beavers, who plays Billy Pace, talks through how the show told him enough to know his character would go down without giving away the exact route, and the hosts stay right with him through the shock and sadness of it. The music gets a long look. They break down the poison-scene cover, and Beavers keeps coming back to Dan's ear for songs, irony, and emotional placement. A familiar song lands differently. The point is that the show uses something people already know and shifts it just enough that it hits harder, which is why the hosts keep reacting like they are hearing it fresh. They make the same case for the dialogue. Instead of sounding neatly written, the lines feel like relationships and phrases the audience has heard before, only nudged into a new shape. The back half turns more scene specific. Beavers points to the Xavier and father scene as an extra layer on Xavier's moral compass, and the hosts treat that beat like proof of how much the show is carrying. They also single out Julianne Nicholson. The scene they mention with her is called titanic, and the conversation around it makes the show sound dense, emotional, and built for people who like to pick apart what they just watched. The recommendation is direct. The hosts say Paradise is strong because there is so much to talk about, from the layered structure to the little turns in performance and music. They close with a simple nudge. Paradise is streaming on Hulu now, and they want listeners to go check it out.

As heard by us

A meandering chat that finds its footing once Paradise takes over.

Culture Pop spends most of its time on Paradise, with Steve Mason and Sue Kalinske talking with John Beavers, who plays Billy Pace on the show.

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Why you'd press play

A loose Paradise chat that pays off in scene and music talk.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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