16 - Castaways

December 31, 2020·55 min·4 clips

Holmes Osborne learned a three-page West Wing monologue overnight, had it completely rewritten by Aaron Sorkin by call time, and secretly wired himself with a hidden ear-prompt device to survive the scene.

So, a box arrives. The host starts with the plain weirdness of making a show that began in January and then got dragged into quarantine. February did not cooperate. A tour that should have complicated an episode or two turned into seven months at his parents' house in Missouri. Queens went quiet. Then the episode drifts to a desert island, where Federal Express boxes wash up with cassette tapes inside. Wilson gets a consultation, because of course he does. The bit is a clip show, but the host keeps pointing out that the clips are new, which gives the whole stranded setup a sheepish little defense. The tapes bring in familiar voices. Ira Glass shows up in a Treme conversation. Amy Mann sits near memories of impeachment hearings from last January, which already feels weirdly far away. The best section moves from the island joke into a tiny acting job on a beach. Nobody makes it bigger than it was. The host and guest pick through who was there, what the lines were, and why a few teenagers mattered. Amanda Zafried gets named. Michael B. Jordan is remembered as present, cool-looking, and not yet past The Wire. All My Children turns into a place: youth storylines, public beaches, friend groups, under-five roles. A throwaway line like "come on, let's go" becomes a little relic, handled with exactly the seriousness Dead Eyes gives to minor professional bruises. By the end, Castaway loops back to Tom Hanks, a song credit, thanks, and a masked New Year goodbye.

As heard by us

A clip show that feels like recovered scraps rather than simple recycling.

Dead Eyes works less like a clip package and more like a small, odd performance piece. A desert island, FedEx boxes washing up, and a cassette player handing over fragments of conversations give it a rummaging, half-found quality.

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Why you'd press play

Play this for the deleted scenes, not the usual recap.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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