#248 – Ralph Barbosa’s Cowabunga, Series finale recaps of FOUR DIFFERENT SHOWS!

Spun Today with Tony Ortiz

In this episode I speak about watching Ralph Barbosa’s latest comedy special, Cowabunga. I also speak about the series finale’s of; DAVE, Billions, Better Call Saul and The Chi.

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Links referenced in this episode:

Ralph Barbosa’s Comedy Special - Cowabunga: https://web.prod.ftl.netflix.com/title/81681458

DAVE: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8531222/

Billions: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4270492/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Better Call Saul: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3032476/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_6_nm_2_q_better%2520

The Chi: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6294706/

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] What up, what up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 248 of the Spun Today podcast, the Thanksgiving edition. Hopefully you're enjoying it with you and yours.

And if you're taking a break between stuffing your faces and watching football, I appreciate you taking the time to listen.

This episode might be on the shorter side, but didn't want to leave you all hanging.

And on a positive note, you can get back to your festivities that much sooner.

In this episode, I'll be speaking about Ralph Barboza's latest comedy special, Cowabunga.

And I'll be telling you about a couple of TV shows, series, that have come to an end. Shows that I've broken down seasons of in the past, done a deep dive on each.

And although their final seasons

were [00:01:00] enjoyable, they didn't really. Weren't, at least for me, the

like deep dive of the entire series, but I definitely wanted to give them honorable mentions nonetheless. So stick around for all that good stuff. But first I wanted to tell you guys about a quick way you can help support this show if you so choose. First off, if you're doing any Black Friday or early Christmas shopping, please don't forget to use all the affiliate links on my website spuntoday.

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or perhaps gift a box for the holidays, you'll find all those affiliate links there that will not only help support this podcast, but also. Give you some pretty cool [00:02:00] discounts. Spun today. com for slash support. Aside from that, here is another quick way you can help support the Spun Today podcast. And then we will jump right into the episode.

Ralph Barbosa's comedy special Cowabunga.

Ralph is a young

comedian. He is a Mexican American from Texas. I first saw him,

like, just by chance. I was watching something else on HBO and Like the app recommended

I forget exactly what it was I think it was like a Latino comedians like montage or like a

Like the finalists of some competition or something like that But it was essentially two half hour specials one of which was Ralph's and the other was a young lady Who's I don't remember unfortunately, but from that HBO half hour

I thought he was dope, super funny,

and I'm sure would have a great comedic career.[00:03:00]

He's in his mid twenties, I want to say, 26, 27, maybe 28,

but he was really funny. He had really good callbacks. I think I broke down that special, perhaps in the past year on, on the podcast. I'm not remembering offhand right now, but he had some great callbacks in it. Good joke writing.

Something about him, he has a like a very calm, laid back, kind of like seems high all the time, like that type of demeanor. But that demeanor helps hold your attention in an interesting way as an audience member.

And he has bits and you know like bigger chunks,

but I think of his comedy more, and I don't know if this is accurate to say, but at least this is like the What I think of when I think about his comedy he has more like non sequiturs, like one liners, one or two liners

that stand out more, at least for me from his bits and, and bigger chunks

that I really enjoy because [00:04:00] it highlights how much of an attention to detail he pays to Just mundane everyday situations and happenings that we all encounter and how he's able to take those and make them funny,

which is great. And I'll, I'm looking forward to

seeing how he continues to like evolve and grow within his craft. And he's again, already really, really good, super funny and enjoyable. He has this dope bit. On this new special, Cowabunga, available on Netflix, by the way, if I didn't mention that earlier.

Where he's talking about bottled water and

how it was like a big feat that he drank a water today because all he normally drinks is soda, which is definitely relatable, especially like when I was younger.

Definitely not anymore. That just catches up to you.

I could literally remember like my [00:05:00] teenage years drinking zero water and nothing but like soda and like iced tea That's how I would get technically h2o is by you know, make mixing my own Fucking brisk and s tea or something like that in a big jug of water, but

He parlays that into speaking about like fancy waters and you know in like Fiji bottles

And just had me dying cuz he he was like One of the shittiest waters that people, bottle of water that people judge you about is when you drink Dasani.

And he was like, but I don't mind Dasani, it reminds me of my childhood because it tastes like Manguera.

Which for my hispanically challenged folks out there, Manguera is a hose of water. So it tastes like the water from the hose that you used to drink when you were a kid.

He has another one that's super funny about like being religious like we're all growing up, you know with religious family members and Not going to church

he's like folks like that like him, you know have like the same kind of mentality where it's like you feel [00:06:00] like if you're good enough, you'll get into heaven and That God is kind of like the police chief in the movies that at the end he tell he he's scolding the detective and he's like, you don't play by the book, but you're a damn good detective.

Get in here. And that that's essentially like how God's going to be when you get to the pearly gates.

And he's done a lot of pods and interviews where I've been able to see more into, into his personality

and how he is like offstage as he's promoting this latest special. So if you're into that kind of stuff, definitely. Check him out. He's done Neil Brennan's blocks. He's on flagrant with Andrew Schultz. He's in camp with Mark Agnon, Felipe Esparza's podcast, did a big boy interview, and I'm sure there's a bunch more.

So definitely check those out if you're interested and definitely, absolutely check out his latest comedy special, Ralph Barbosa [00:07:00] Cowabunga available now on Netflix.

So, like I mentioned in the intro, there's a bunch of TV shows that

have had their series finales have come to an end. Some of which, by the way, happened months ago.

And all of these shows, I've broken down previous seasons of

by taking deep dives into each one and giving them their own little segment here, but

I'm not doing so for their finale, ironically. Take care.

For a few reasons.

Their final seasons didn't resonate with me as much as their previous seasons. Not that they were bad, just that they didn't resonate as much. You know, they weren't bangers like I thought each of the previous seasons were. Some were better than others. But that's one reason. Another reason is, some of these ended months ago, maybe even a year ago.

I'm just late to catching up and actually watching them.

But just from a historical look back perspective [00:08:00] of this podcast, you know being that I did break them down in the past For previous seasons wanted to at least mention their their finales here and the shows are Dave Billions better call Saul and the shy

So start off with Dave the first third or 25 percent of This season started off great, I thought, like right on, on pace with previous seasons. That first episode when, you know, in this season he's like uber famous and this is one episode, the first episode where this girl is pretending not to know who he is all night.

Claims to be from this small town and you know, he has a big artist where he's always being recognized. Kind of gets pulled towards that. Oh, let me, you know, hang out with the quote unquote common folk and he kind of likes the girl,

but she and her friends knew exactly who he was and we're we're all [00:09:00] like plotting on him the entire time. So like blew up in his face. That was a dope episode.

Then the second episode, which was all about a video shoot.

Was a cool episode. I especially liked it. The way it was shot, the way it was directed.

They did a lot of hectic looking camera angles. The camera would change from like frame to frame to frame and

all the shots weren't centered and it was like sporadic and all over the place. And I felt that that was an interesting way to film it because it lined up with How

randomly Dave, the character, thinks. How he could be speaking about one thing, then goes off on a tangent, then from that tangent, splits off into three other tangents, then circles back to the original thing he was talking about.

And I felt that that's what the, the director of that episode was intending to show.

And it was a funny episode. There was a scene where,

reminded me a bit of like a, [00:10:00] Kerr, Kirby Enthusiasm. type of scene

where he's at a Starbucks and

the barista says, a coffee for Jew, Jew. Are you Jew? Coffee for Jew? And he's like getting offended. He's like, Oh my God, you really just like, because I'm Jewish and

the coffee happens to be for a Korean guy named the Jew. So that was funny. But yeah, that episode kind of reminded me of the way, like, Birdman, the movie was shot. Kind of like, with the camera angles jumping all over the place,

and I thought it was interesting. But from there on out, and the rest of the season was good, it just fell off for me. And

I felt like it was trying to be Atlanta ish, if that makes sense. I feel like Atlanta was so... Such a seminal showing that it kind of invented its own way of doing TV, [00:11:00] like its own genre, if you will. And I felt like the second half, or the second, you know,

half to three quarters of the final season of Dave was trying to emulate that. And it didn't do it as well, in my opinion, as Atlanta, for example. But it was definitely a... Good season, a great series in general that I highly recommend for folks to check out.

Billions Season 7.

So this one out of all the,

the series to me had the best ending. And by best I mean the most satisfying.

It was like every single thing that I was rooting for as a viewer. So I'm sure many of you.

Every single thing tied out in the positive note that you wanted it to. Even to the very unlikely

teaming up and friendship, if you will, of Chuck Rhodes and Bobby Axelrod kind of joining [00:12:00] forces

to defeat their mutual enemy in Mike Prince.

And it did so in a way that was

contrary, I feel, to like the formula of like the external want and the internal wants having to be. opposites in order to, like, satisfy the viewer or consumer of the story. I feel like at the end here, at least for all the main characters, they all got what they wanted. They got closure in relationships, like with Chuck and his dad.

Wendy with Chuck, and it seemed like they were on path to putting their family back together. Wendy with her career, Wendy with Bobby, Axelrod.

You know, blazing her own path and kind of, they both kind of turned their backs on that idea of them hooking up and getting together, which was, I just felt gross when that happened. Wendy's relationship with Taylor Mason, Taylor's relationship to remain independent, but with the full blessing of Bobby and running her [00:13:00] philanthropic arm,

all the secondary characters, it was dope. It was, it was. Satisfying for like each, each character arc was just like ended in a high note it felt. And that was like the main takeaway of, of that final season.

And I did like, like the lead in for the, for the series, how like the very first scene was

the very first scene of the first episode was a flashback scene in, well actually a flash forward scene. So it showed you how the series was going to end. Then it flashed back. To present day and then every episode after that was like leading up to that moment. So you're kind of like anticipating what the fuck was that blow up about?

So made it kind of like Ocean's 11 ask and in that way.

And there were a couple lines of dialogue that I really enjoyed here that I jotted down. So let me read those to you. First up is control is often an expression of fear. Next one is. [00:14:00] Those words just fell out of your mouth like a meth head's teeth.

And I like this one. Whatever happened way before memory, that's what drives us.

So yeah, definitely a dope season. Sorry, a dope series. Very good season. Love the ending. Very satisfying. And that's Billions Season 7.

Better Call Saul Season 6, if I'm not mistaken, was the series finale, which ended over a year ago, and I just finished up probably a few weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago.

Very late, so I think that probably has a lot to do with

the series feeling to me as a bit of a letdown the series finale rather,

just because I've been disconnected from it for, for so long. But. Better Call Saul, which is the prequel to Breaking Bad, which is arguably, you know, top three series all time.

I thought [00:15:00] Better Call Saul, which again is the prequel after the success of Better Call Saul, it was the prequel that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould were, you know, able to make and wanted to.

Center around one of the secondary characters of Breaking Bad.

Which was Saul Goodman, a. k. a. Jimmy McGill. And the series itself could be its own standalone series. If you didn't never watch Breaking Bad, you could watch Better Call Saul. And there's some like Easter eggs and stuff like that from Breaking Bad that you obviously won't get. But it's definitely not necessary to follow.

And the series itself is very interesting and Just seeing how all those characters tie into the Breaking Bad story and obviously, you know, it's kind of like reverse engineering because Better Call Saul was made after Breaking Bad, so it's easier in a sense because you know where all the characters, just from a creative perspective, I'm thinking it's easier[00:16:00] from a creative perspective because you know where each character needs to end up, but it's also confining in a sense because you know You can find to certain things that you can or cannot do based on where those characters have to end up.

You know what I mean? Very interesting creative exercise to do there. To do like a prequel to to an existing story.

But this series is definitely a master class on that. You know, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould were able to do theirs. Really, really dope.

Now the final season itself, it was... a bit anticlimactic for me. It was kind of fitting in how it ended

just with Jimmy and, and Kim and how

self sabotage prone they always were.

And Jimmy's like main character trait, at least to me, is kind, he is kind of like a, like a gambling addict. Like he, like the risk of like getting away with shit and being a con man and

giving up a good [00:17:00] thing. Just to start from the bottom and like try to make his way back up and then giving that up and cutting corners, living on the edge in that way and trying to get

criminals off of crimes by finding loopholes and tricks within the law and legal system.

Like the momentum of those kinds of traits and instincts,

a lot of which Kim's character also exhibited and obviously partook in.

Kind of led them to like the inevitable ending that they had, which again, when it ended, I was kind of like, that's it. That's how it's going to end. But it definitely was fitting. It was crazy how

Howard Hamlin got got by fucking Lalo. That was unexpected.

And how Mike's character as always trusty, trusty old Mike, part of the cleanup crew, just made all that shit go away.

And you see Salamanca's rise

[00:18:00] and it was pretty cool from all those aspects to to see

Again, similar to like a few of the others Good season not great Anticlimactic Didn't love the ending at all. Not a not a big fan of the ending, but it was fitting for those characters

but the series itself and again the

The fact that it's a prequel to one of the greatest Series of all time and that it could stand on its own is definitely definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen the Better Call Saul series.

And the last thing I'll say about it is that I still think that it was a missed opportunity, a missed creative opportunity.

And I'm saying this completely selfishly, by the way, because it's an idea that I had that didn't really pan out. But early on in Better Call Saul. There was a point where they started showing the black and white jean flashbacks or flashbacks, flash [00:19:00] forwards, you know, like what it was, it would just show Jimmy's character, AKA Saul Goodman, who was also known as Jean at one point in time when he went into like witness protection or something,

showing scenes of him at working at a Cinnabon or not in witness protection, actually, he was like, just in like self hiding, With a vacuum cleaner salesman that like makes people like disappear and shit. He just, again, couldn't help himself and his nature was just to be who he was and got himself caught again.

But before it was revealed, like the, the order of that, how that was, who Saul Goodman wanted to be coming. I thought it would have been

a good idea if that Jean character was like in between. The Saul Goodman that we knew from Breaking Bad and Jimmy McGill and that something occurred to make him have to go into either witness protection or something where he had to be that Gene character and then he invented the Saul Goodman character to get out of that [00:20:00] like Gene character world or whatever, but I digress anyway, better call Saul.

Check it out.

The Shai Has also come to an end much more recently, and I'm actually still not completely finished watching it. I have like an episode or two to go bUt definitely thought it deserved an honorable mention here.

There's actually a bunch more that I like from this series than I believe the previous one, but it could also be, you know, recency, recency bias. I

mean, the three main characters in Kevin, Jake, and Papa. We started when The Chi started, they were all like children, like elementary school kids, and now they're, at least in the series, graduated from high school, you know, grown up in that sense, you know, before our eyes, before, you know, over the several seasons that the show's been on, five, I believe, [00:21:00] maybe six,

and with this

season, final season as well, is that it shows a lot of like flashback scenes. Like, Kevin, for example, he graduated high school, he's still into gaming, he's taking it professional, he got, like, sponsored by, like, a gaming team, he wound up moving out and getting his own place, and then from there, parlaying that into being able to move to California in pursuit of this untraditional,

untraditional job or, like, passion of his, which is gaming.

And there's scenes with him on the train, which are really cool, where he's like, as he's on the train, going through different neighborhoods, remembering like, oh, that's where we used to ride our bikes. And it shows like a flashback scene of them through riding bikes. Or like running through the school, or like getting kissed by, by Miesha the first time.

And sad things like when Kookie died and his brother, et cetera, et cetera.

And as it shows, like those flashback scenes, you're like, Oh [00:22:00] shit, they were really little, like they look mad little and you see them now, like in this final season was like, damn, these kids, I really did fucking grow up. You know, time flies. That's crazy.

And I follow a lot of them online, a lot of like the characters and the writers of the series. And when they were filming the. The final series and like wrapping up for certain characters that, you know, they had shot all their scenes so that they weren't going to return to set there while they're crying and like happy, sad, bittersweet about that happening, obviously, but I can just imagine how much like tighter of a, of a relationship they all have on set, like the, the folks that were there for years and years, not just the actors, but like all the cast and crew and Writers, directors, must be a pretty special relationship.

But yeah, also in this series, Duda is in full force as usual. He's fucking like the devil reincarnate. Which is like taking over the city.

[00:23:00] And a lot of the characters are grappling with Duda to one degree or another. Emmett winds up getting tied up with him. Well, feeling like pressure pressures to give his family a better life and

kind of get ahead of himself and you know, he's doing well. He said he started the business or took over the Smokies business beginning to do well. He's with Keisha trying to do the family thing as well. But he he's like a little overambitious in, you know, wanting the house, wanting the car, wanting to buy his baby mama car, wanting to.

Expand the business, except wanting to get to where you'd think he'd inevitably inevitably get to anyway, but much sooner. And then that allowed Duda,

the little wiggle room that he needed to entice Emmett and then get them like roped up in his bullshit. And

that's a storyline throughout the throughout this final series.[00:24:00]

The folks like Papa's father, The minister, he speaks out against Duda and evil and stuff like that. He, well, you know, he went to prison in previous seasons for allowing Duda to wash his money, like through the church and repented for it and, and kind of pushed back on Duda when he wanted to do it again, then Duda winds up killing him, which was fucking sad.

Prior to that happening though I thought it was pretty cool, Papa had Papa's Pulpit, his podcast, he had his father. He met his father to it and, you know, they spoke about differences that they were having and differences of opinion and just like growth and what it's like to be a father, Papa's perspective of what it's like to be his son.

And it was a dope heart to heart that they had there on a podcast, which is always pretty cool to see.

And when Papa was giving the eulogy for his father, I thought it was interesting, he, like, he mentions how [00:25:00] he, his father, is who he wanted to be proud of him. I think a lot of us sons feel that way.

And his father is who he always wanted to impress. And then also had the realization that we have to write our own moral code to live by for ourselves. And not only live... Someone else's. Even if it's our own father's. I thought that was a good coming of age moment. If you will, for for Papa's character.

What I also thought was pretty dope in the series, like they have a like this emphasis on mental health and therapy. Like there's a scene with Keisha and her mom and them going to therapy to work on their bullshit. Not, you know, diminishing their issues, but I'm saying like their, their shit, their shit within their relationship.

And Victor who won a city council, he started this like group therapy session type of thing where a [00:26:00] bunch of the men in the community could go to and speak about their feelings, speak about their stresses, had just have some place to.

speak on shit that's bothering them.

And I think those were good, very good things to show and depict in a series like this. You know, it's a,

a way to help normalize those could be very helpful tools

within the community.

And yeah, it's a really good season so far. I'm excited to see how it ends and wraps up. But yeah, it's had its ups and downs. There was like one or two seasons ago, I think is the one that I was just like, all right, this is just the way they, everybody was fucking. Everybody was just like, what, how does that, huh?

How does that even, I don't know. It just tried to do like the mental math of it just didn't add up.

So it kind of lost me for a bit, but you know, obviously I stuck with the series, want to see it through and I'm [00:27:00] glad

to see where it's at. Where it's headed

and appreciative of Lena Waithe, the creator and the other writers over there at the shy for putting together a really great series. And that is the shy series finale available on show time.

And that folks was episode 248 of the sponsored a podcast.

Thank you very much for taking the time to listen. I appreciate each and every one of you for doing so.

If you're listening to this on Thanksgiving, when the episode releases or around it, I hope you had a good one. Hope you enjoyed yourselves, your families, your friends.

And I hope you found time for yourself, for your creative craft.

Please stick around for just a couple more minutes so you can listen to a few different ways that you can help support this show, if you so choose. And remember, if you're doing any early holiday shopping, [00:28:00] please visit spuntoday. com forward slash support where you can use a bunch of my affiliate links

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