Rob Mahoney

And I think we need to acknowledge, for some people, the entire premise of making a show like this is disgusting.

Like taking real life tragedy, dramatizing it to a degree that for me personally, like I don't mind a fictional, like a lightly to medium fictionalized version of a person to create a different portrayal of a character of a real life person.

I'm totally cool with it.

I think even for someone like me, taking us into the cockpit and having them say anything big or important in what would be the final moments of their lives would feel like really distasteful.

And so then you're, again, caught in this conundrum of like, are we going to show this at all?

Which I do think in the experience of watching it, the sort of like meta tension of, are they actually going to show this plane go down?

Are they actually going to show a collision, an explosion?

Are we going to see these people die on screen?

I think it puts viewers in a really odd spot and not necessarily a bad one, but one that also might contribute to them withholding just to make sure no one knows going in what they're walking into with this episode.

Right.

And then once you have that meta tension, how do you resolve it in a way that doesn't feel gross?

I really don't know what they were supposed to do there.

But the disorientation, I do feel like not only telling us that it's like going under a wave, but feeling and seeing the lack of visibility from the plane.

I do think it really does kind of anchor you in that sort of panic.

But then when the characters aren't responding with panic, I think that's where you're getting that sort of dissociation you're mentioning.

Do you know what I mean?

I completely agree with you.

I think a lot of those moments in the plane feel so tepid in a way that, yeah, you're waiting for some reaction, some response in either direction, whether it's misplaced certainty or outright panic, but you never really get to any of those notes.

I do just think this is one of those areas, though, where I wonder if they got a little squeamish about putting thoughts into those characters' heads in that moment.

And it is as simple as that, of like...