James Poniewozik

I don't have you hooked on mushroom.

You have my attention.

There's a mushroom in the rainforest that is discovered by this kind of kooky, amateur scientist, holistic healer.

Yes, an amateur my color.

That's 10 points for Gryffindor.

The dream, the goal.

It's amazing.

Thank you.

And it can cure anything, which sounds fantastic, except, and here the conspiracy element comes in, except for pharmaceutical companies who see a tremendous threat to their business and decide to shut this down.

That's the animating plot of the thriller.

What gets me into it is it is simultaneously

realistic and sort of hallucinatory.

It also has kind of a quirky, offbeat sense of humor, which, you know, I think series like this really sort of need to avoid getting too stuffed up in their self-seriousness.

And also, I think, had a lot of relevant, seemingly timely ideas about how sick our society is and what...

the condition of modern life has done to us, and should we all in some way be getting back to the garden?

Like, it's really kind of a show that, like, you know, sort of had a little bit for Luigi Mangione and a little bit for RFK Jr.

Yeah.

There was this kind of element of, you know, the sickness of society that I also thought made it intellectually interesting.

How could you not?

I think we all did.