The H&H Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob and I finally conclude our discussion of Dostoevsky’s Demons . (spoilers below) I’m fascinated by what the author ended up doing to Shatov. He had the worst outcome of any major character. But from his politics and background, Shatov appears to be a stand-in for Dostoevsky. So Dostoevsky has himself get cucked...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson is back to discuss Part II of Demons . In this conversation, we focus on how “on the nose” the novel seems when you think of it as predicting the future course of events in Russia. Dostoevsky told us that many of his fellow countrymen were demons who just wanted to destroy. The twentieth century seem...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joins me to discuss Part I of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872). The book is conveniently divided into three parts, and so we are doing a three-part podcast series on it. The other two parts will be released over the next few weeks. We decided to begin Demons after I came across this review by John P...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joins me to discuss Sinners, which critics and viewers are both raving about. Substack has a new screen share feature, which we tried out. I wanted us to play parts of the movie and react to it, but Amazon prevents you from being able to do that. We do use screen share though to read and react to rev...

Chris Nicholson joins me to talk about Season 1 of Pluribus . This is a completely different conversation than the one I just had with Rob. Chris keeps pointing out, and I agree with him, that the show is probably not going to go that deep philosophically or in terms of the origins of the virus. He mentions his “oh no” moment when Vince Gilligan noted to the interviewer he was talking to that the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com I’ve done two previous podcasts on Pluribus : one with Rob Henderson , and one with Chris Nicholson . I didn’t want to choose between them for discussing the end of the season, so I decided to do an episode with each. I’m releasing Rob today, and Chris will be later this week. As you will see, these are vastly dif...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Chris Nicholson returns after almost two years to discuss Pluribus , up to episode six. He raises some good questions about the direction of the show. Chris says that thus far, it is mostly a character study of Carol, and he has no reason to care about her yet. I say fair enough, but the reason that most of us beg...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Tyler Tone joins me to discuss There Will Be Blood (2007), as part of my Paul Thomas Anderson series, which has thus far included One Battle After Another (2025) and Boogie Nights (1997). I absolutely loved this film. Daniel Plainview was one of those characters who become incorporated into my psyche for a substan...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me to discuss the first three episodes of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus , which is now on Apple TV. I started watching because I trust Gilligan based on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul both being among my favorite shows. The fact that he brings Rhea Seehorn along as the lead actress added to the appeal. If...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Fresh off watching One Battle After Another , I did a livestream review of Boogie Nights with Tyler Tone as part of a series on Paul Thomas Anderson films. We begin with a discussion about the movie playing to nostalgia. This was a film made in 1997 set in the 1970s and 1980s. It is impossible to imagine us today...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Lily Zuckerman joins me again to discuss the new Paul Thomas Anderson film One Battle After Another . The movie consciously goes out of its way to separate itself from circa-2020 era wokeness. Lily calls it representative of Chapo Trap House liberalism. I enjoyed Lockjaw as an amalgamation of rightoid characters....

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joins me to talk about Look Who’s Back (2015) ( watch on YouTube ), a German film with the premise that Hitler returns to life and becomes a successful entertainer. We talk about the over-the-top antifascist messaging of the movie, as on the surface we see Germans indulging their racism, and (spoiler...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Lily Zuckerman is a student at UATX. She suggested we watch Materialists (2025), in which a high-end matchmaker named Lucy Mason (Dakota Jackson) goes around setting people up while also being involved in a love triangle of her own. I think this film perfectly encapsulates the post-MeToo era. Sure, there’s still a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Anora (2024) was hailed by critics as a movie about the empowering nature of sex work (spoilers below and in the episode). Rob Henderson and Tyler Tone join me to discuss. We just don’t see it. This seems to be one of those films where there’s a politically correct interpretation that is divorced from the actual c...

Twin Peaks originally ran for two seasons on ABC from 1990 to 1991. A running joke on the show was that FBI agent Dale Cooper, the protagonist, really liked coffee and cherry pie. He was always complimenting establishments on their coffee and cherry pie, while recommending them to other people. To an audience in the early 1990s, this must have been very funny. But the humor of a guy really liking...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me to talk about the last two episodes of Season 3 of The White Lotus . Overall, I found the ending mostly satisfying. But the plot holes. There were so many! Among them (spoilers below): * Tim assuming that his family would be permanently poor * Tim acting like a lost doofus unable to handle any pressur...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joins me to discuss The White Lotus , Season 3, up to episode six. There are spoilers in this conversation, as well as the rest of these show notes. We start out by discussing the latest in the Ratliff family incest dynamics. Sophie called it last month. She was right and I was wrong. We spend quite...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob joins me this week to talk about the first four episodes of Season 3 of The White Lotus . We start off by discussing the Ratliff family and whether the incest dynamics are actually there or that was kind of a head fake at the beginning of the season. Other topics addressed are whether Mook is too perfect, the...

I’m joined by my new friend “PhiloSophie” ( Substack , X ) to discuss the first two episodes of Season 3 of The White Lotus . In previous seasons, I’ve been discussing the show with Rob Henderson. He is traveling this week, but we plan to talk about future episodes together going forward. For now, let me know what you think of Sophie. We debate incest dynamics within the Ratliff family, the concep...

David Lynch recently passed away, so Rob and I decided to honor the legendary director by watching two of his movies, Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2008), and discussing them. We liked the first film, and debated various interpretations of it, including the standard one and other possible theories. I’m motivated to have a contrarian take here, perhaps because of the overwhelming beaut...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joined me last night on a live stream to discuss the question that has roiled right-wing twitter: should American men work at Panda Express? For background, see Rob’s coverage here. See also friend of the Substack Scott Greer, whose article we reference. Rob is amused by the Greerhead Pledge, which y...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joined me on a livestream today to talk about The Penguin , the miniseries that ended last night. See here for our discussion of episodes 1-4, and point eight here on the racial demographics of crime in Gotham. I talk about my theory of the general message of the miniseries, which is that leftist rev...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Last night I had an AMA with Rob Henderson. The way I’m going to do these from now on is that the livestream is open to everyone in the moment, but only paid subscribers can listen to the whole thing. To join us for future episodes, you need to have the Substack app downloaded on your phone or tablet. Announcement...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Rob Henderson joins me to talk about the first four episodes of The Penguin miniseries on HBO. We discuss how it reminds us of and pays homage to other shows. To me, it seemed like HBO was trying to recreate the magic of Tony Soprano and using the DC Comics universe as a hook. We go over the similarities and diffe...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com Some months ago, I had a tweet that went viral on what it means for a woman to say “I’m not going to sleep with you.” I followed this up with an article about the video, and Rob later responded to both. Rob and I decided we needed to talk about this. It turned out to be a fascinating discussion, and one that provi...