Rooster

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Steve Carell is a hapless writing teacher at a small New England college in the New HBO

comedy series Rooster. His daughter teaches there too, and she's the subject of campus gossip,

because her husband, also a teacher, just dumped her for a student.

The show's got a great cast, including Danielle Deadweiler and John C. McGinley,

and one of its creators is Bill Lawrence of Scrubs, Shrinking, and Ted Lasso.

I'm Linda Holmes.

And I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Rooster on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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Joining us today is Kristen Meinser, she co-hosts the Nightly A Bedtime

Podcast for Pop Culture Lovers. Hey, Kristen, welcome back.

Hey, Glenn. Hey, Linda.

Great to have you. In Rooster, Steve Carell plays Greg,

a writer of pulpy crime novels who gets pressured into teaching at the college,

where his daughter Katie teaches art history, she's played by Charlie Clive.

She's just been dumped by her husband Archie, played by Phil Dunster.

He's a narcissistic historian who's having an affair with a student named Sonny.

She's played by Laurence I.

Daniel Deadweiler is Dylan, another writing teacher with whom Greg has lots of chemistry.

And John C. McGinley is the college president.

The show's co-created by Bill Laurence and Matt Tarsus.

I've already listed Laurence's history, but you should know that Tarsus was the showrunner on Alex

Inc. that show where Zach Reff was a podcaster. Remember that?

Linda, we've seen the first six episodes out of 10.

What'd you think of Rooster?

Yeah, I really liked this. It's not as good as shrinking, but it reminds me a lot of shrinking.

It is about a bunch of people most of whom do very foolish things at times, but are

basically decent and are basically trying.

You mentioned Matt Tarsus and made this sort of obligatory day at Alex Inc.

But I don't see Alex Inc. in this at all.

What I see is shrinking and I see the other, one of the other things that Matt Tarsus worked on

in the past, which is my very beloved sports night.

And there are people who get very impatient with shows where people are basically nice and

basically trying, but it is my sweet spot.

Shrinking is probably my favorite show right now as far as what I think it is trying not only to

do as a comedy, but also kind of do in the world.

I think I really welcome to this.

I was afraid at first, obviously you put something on a college campus.

You're going to get like the older, he's a novelist who's like a writer and resident.

So he's not a traditional college professor at all.

But you get that and you feel like, is this going to be like humorless feminists?

You don't want you to say mankind.

That is not what this is, right?

He does get himself in trouble a lot, but the show to me is very clear that those are his

missteps and it does not really villainize the students.

It recognizes, I think, the generation gap and some of the different expectations

without making the students bad or, you know, wrong to be challenging him on certain things.

I appreciated that a lot.

Basically, this really worked well for me.

Like I said, I'm not going to say it's as good as shrinking,

but that's an extremely high bar.

I did enjoy it quite a lot.

And I like Steve Crowell in this mode, so.

All right.

Crystal, what do you think?

I agree with a lot of what Linda is saying here.

It is like shrinking in a lot of ways.

We have a dad.

We have a daughter.

We have both of them doing the best they can.

Not many women get to be with their father while they watch their husband make out with someone.

Yeah, we're pretty lucky.

They screw up a lot.

In some ways, daughter is more evolved than dad.

In other ways, dad is kind of a kid figuring stuff out.

But I will disagree with Linda on one point where she is saying,

this is a show about nice people.

I'd say about half the show is about nice people.

We have Steve Crowell's character and his daughter's character.

And we have Danielle Deadwiler, who is fantastic in this.

Annie Momolo, who plays the assistant to the president of the college.

I also think is a delight when she shows up on screen.

I was so excited to see her in this show.

They are just a delight.

They are good people.

But I would say everybody else on the show is not a good person.

And they do terrible things and they're narcissistic and they're smug and they're flawed.

Crystal, can you send me a student file, Gracie Shaw?

She says she has ADHD.

But I think she's just lazy and a little dumb.

Or she's really struggling.

Let's all root for her.

They suffer from that malady that a lot of people in academia suffer from,

which is like, all these kids, they love me.

And they want to be my best friend.

And they want to sleep with me.

And I'm going to do all of the above.

And I am not qualified for this job,

but I am going to take great pride in not letting anyone else have this job.

There's a lot of that in the show, too, which as somebody who used to work in academia,

I used to be an adjunct professor.

I used to be an admin.

In more than one department in a university,

I really enjoyed how the show depicted all of that nonsense,

which just when I worked on it,

made me shake my fist at the sky constantly.

But in how it's depicted on the show,

it made me laugh and laugh and feel such cathartic joy.

Okay.

Well, I'm vibing with you, Kristen.

But I came down very differently than you did.

Because I really didn't like this.

And I kept wondering why I mean, I like this cast.

Daniel deadwathers on my TV.

That doesn't happen enough.

That's great.

I even like the characters in isolation.

And sometimes when they get paired off,

you know, I think they bounce off each other well.

What I didn't like was the show,

the sensibility of the show,

the organizing principle, the approach the show is taking.

Because I expected Linda given the setting

that there would be some boomer.

Academia is woke jokes.

And there are a few where the students and faculty,

as you mentioned, they correct Greg.

And the message there is that these are tiny infractions

that don't matter.

The running gag is that he often gets called

before the world's most toothless academic disciplinary

panel for telling his understandings.

And I think if those jokes were better or fresher,

but they just came at me as like the most basic lazy jokes

that could have been made 40 years ago

before we called it woke,

what back when we called it PC.

And the show keeps devoting some energy to that.

It sincerely believes that that's a comedy vein

worth mining in 2026.

Meanwhile, and here's my issue,

these characters have no professional boundaries,

whatsoever that they do six really stupid things

in episode that would get a teacher

in the world so very, very fired.

And they just, here's the issue.

They just skate by.

And I'm coming at this because I taught writing

the high school level and the college level back in the day,

back in the late Jurassic.

And watching this show did not make me laugh.

It gave me low-key panic attacks.

And in a later episode, Greg tries to encourage his daughter

to, quote unquote, connect with students the way he does.

And at that moment, I had to get up off the couch

and walk it off because I get that it's a comedy.

And I get that people make bad choices in comedy,

but there is no accountability here.

There are no consequences.

It becomes, and I don't think it's doing this intentionally,

it becomes kind of a satire of privilege.

The idea here is to create a frictionless environment

where the characters can be human and mess up

and have foibles like you guys were talking about,

and have it be funny and heartwarming.

But the notion that arson can happen and have people shrug it off,

that a teacher can hook up with a student

and everybody's like, oh, that rascal,

a thing happens involving a live Zoom interview

that would ruin careers forever,

but there's not even a toothless,

disciplinary panel about it.

I have to disagree with you, Glenn.

I feel like academia is filled with stories

of people getting away with murder

for as long as academia has existed,

including in the stay-in-age, unfortunately.

Yes, there are infractions that are called out now

that didn't used to be called out,

but a lot of this stuff is just part of this world.

And the show, like I said, at least laughs at how horrible that is.

And it does call out people for being narcissistic.

Sure, come on.

What is this happening to me?

Is that rhetorical?

Do you want an actual answer?

I can take it.

I think it's because some people see

as a narcissist with a punchable face, case in point.

Do people see me that way?

Some people do.

Do you see me that way?

No, not all the time.

I don't think the show is saying this is easy.

This is a good thing.

I don't think it's saying that.

I just think it's showing how ridiculous

the system of privilege is for a lot of the people

who get to benefit from it.

I'll give you this much.

Then the great Rory Skolval would come on as the cop

and I'd be like, I'd watch his show.

No, don't do that.

Don't tell me how to do my police work.

I don't tell you how to write your rooster books, do I?

Okay.

But I'll tell you what if I did,

I would have the guy do karate.

Maybe.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Why can't I be watching his show?

Robbie Hoffman as Sonny's roommate, same deal.

More of them, less of literally everything else

about this show, per me.

I think one of the reasons why I saw this

so differently than you did is that I felt like

the Steve Carell character was presented as less like,

oh, these are meaningless infractions

than he gets dragged in front of this disciplinary committee.

It's more that like that is partly what accountability

for him is, is that when he says something

that is poorly thought out, right?

He's a novelist and a writer in residence.

He's not accustomed to academia.

He's not accustomed to these sort of systems.

And so when he gets called in

and he has this experience of them saying basically,

you can't do that.

And he says, essentially, you're right.

It was an accident, but you're right.

And then the question becomes, is what you crave

in that situation for that person, punishment,

punishment, punishment, or is it more meaningful to see

that this is somebody who's trying not

to make the same mistake twice?

And one of the scenes that I thought was most important

for me and for how I received the show

was a moment where he's asking the students

about their favorite writers, somebody names a writer

who it's clear he doesn't, whose work he doesn't know.

That is sort of embarrassing for him.

He is embarrassed by that.

There's no like these kids with their woke, whatever.

And in a later episode with zero kind of attention called

to it, zero like hanging a lamp on it,

he has started reading a book by that writer.

And I think for me, they are signalling to you.

It is his job to get better at all the stuff

that he is getting told he's doing wrong.

And I will say, I probably was more prepared

for some of the things that are bothering, especially Glenn,

but perhaps bothering both of you because of shrinking,

because the way that shrinking started involved

Jason Seagull also observing no professional boundaries,

whatsoever as a therapist, right?

He did a bunch of things where it's like,

you can't ask a patient to move in with you.

You can't do any of this stuff.

You can't go along with somebody who's getting

in a physical fight.

I mean, just a lot of stuff that you can't do that.

But for me, it all turned out to be going

somewhere interesting and good.

We have not talked that much about the Danielle

Dadwiler character.

I think because it happens so early, I feel fine saying,

they go out and have drinks together.

They really like each other.

They kind of hit it off.

At that point, he's just a visiting writer.

He's just doing a short visit and whatever.

She sort of invites him to come in.

I go back to her house and she says,

do you want to come in?

And for once in the freaking history of this kind of scene,

when a man who is much older than a very beautiful,

much younger woman has her saying, like,

do you want to come in?

He's like, do you know how old I am?

He treats that like, what are you talking about?

Not, no.

Do you know how old I am?

She's like a day, Grandpa.

Oh, oh, oh, Dylan, you are gorgeous and funny and so,

so smart that I feel even dumber than usual.

The fact that they seemed to recognize

that the logical response from him

is to find that something that he questions

because why would that be the case rather than the sort of,

well, everybody obviously wants to sleep with me.

It's also not true that everyone wants to sleep with him, right?

You know, he has this sort of semi-flortation with her

and he has somebody else who he meets, right?

But it is not a thing where like every single person

who he bumps into and every student

and all those people are like, oh, you're so dreamy.

Like, they don't, they, I don't know.

I felt that what it was doing was a little bit more subtle

than he does whatever he wants

and nothing, there's never any kind of building.

Yeah, I feel like the people who don't get accountability

are the characters I can't stand on the show.

Although I enjoy the people I can't stand in my anger at them.

Steve Correll's son-in-law, who cheated on his daughter.

He's insufferable and terrible

and yet he's a good character for the show

and Steve Correll's boss is, they're terrible people

but I enjoy watching them on the show.

Steve Correll's ex-wife who's terrible

and yet a delight when she's on screen, she's so fun

but I would say that I agree with Linda

in that Steve Correll's character actually,

even when he's screwing up badly,

we can see he's trying to do the right thing.

Whereas the other characters, like, you know,

the villains of the show, I don't ever see them

actually trying to do the right thing in a convincing way.

Almost every time they do the right thing,

it seems more self-serving than trying to do what's right.

Yeah, I guess I don't really have a sense of who Greg is

and this is main character syndrome, right?

Because, I mean, he loves his daughter,

he writes pulpy books, the writing advice he gives

happens to be really crappy.

Is that a character?

I think if you feel any good will towards him,

it's because it's drafting off the fact

that he's played by Steve Correll.

And one of the takes I've seen from,

I think the Hollywood reporter maybe

is that Greg wants to be more like the character

he writes about rooster and if that's a thread in this show,

I did not pick up on that at all.

Did you guys get any of that?

It comes along eventually.

I agree with you, Glenn.

I think that this is a guy who wishes he was more like rooster

isn't really the point so much as he's the outsider.

He's our entry point into this messed up world

of privileged academia.

He's the guy who number went to college.

He's the guy who writes page turning pulp paperbacks

and he doesn't belong in this world in a lot of ways

and he's going to grow as a student of life,

as a student of academia by being here in some ways

actually by hanging with the students

and being part of their world.

And so even though he's there to save his daughter

in some ways, he's the one who's the student

who's going to grow.

The thing that makes him most like that,

and this is where maybe I would disagree

that any goodwill toward him comes from a being Steve Carell,

I think there's also goodwill generated by the fact

that he is fiercely, fiercely devoted to his daughter.

Very much wants to stick up for her when he feels

she's being unfairly treated.

There are a couple of moments where he's just overwhelmed

with anger on her behalf,

and I think that does happen to parents sometimes.

But I think at the same time, he also,

there are also some scenes, I think his early scenes

with Danielle deadwiler, I think he's funny,

I think he's kind of self-deprecating

in certain situations and has some self-awareness.

And I think, I think he sort of, as Kristen,

I think said very well, he doesn't really belong

in this setting, but I think he is somebody

who is willing to work toward being better

at what he's being asked to do both as a parent,

because he's still really smarting

from his divorce, from his daughter's mom,

and that's still really kind of pushing down on him

in some serious ways.

So I don't know, I guess I felt like there were other reasons

to like him besides just that it's Steve Carell.

One thing I will add though, just to be,

on the same page as Glenn here,

the way you felt Glenn like, what is the show about

and how it's kind of unfocused, it is a little chaotic.

I will own up to that, but I did feel the same way

at the beginning of shrinking as well,

and I felt the same way with Bad Monkey,

it was a little chaotic, but I still enjoyed it

quite a bit, despite the chaos.

Yeah, Bad Monkey is another show

that the show owners worked on.

What did you think of the John C. McGinley character?

He plays the president of the college.

I kind of thought that character was at least

supposed to have a sharper edge, maybe a political edge

to him or something, because right now,

he's just kind of stuck with his old,

doesn't understand green initiatives.

He's playing that guy.

I thought that was the character

who was supposed to have maybe a sharper point of view.

Was that just me?

I did not read him that way.

I read his story as being partly about how difficult

and ultimately they come around

to having some more explicit conversations about this

that he, I mean, certainly he engages

in a lot of very silly behavior,

right, very John C. McGinley kind of behavior.

But I think eventually they come around to him kind of,

his point of view is that he is exhausted

from having to say no and disappoint people

in all the ways that an administrator

of any large institution constantly has to.

And so I think you get a lot of him kind of triangulating,

I'm gonna kind of try to make this deal

and move this situation around in this way

because I have these things that I'm expected to do

and take care of that are unpleasant and difficult.

And he wants to do the green initiative,

but he also wants to do other things

and he also wants to kind of get rooster to stay and teach

because he thinks it's gonna be good for sort of the school.

But at the same time, to me, I ultimately found him

to be much more sympathetic than he was at the beginning.

He ultimately gets involved in mentoring somebody,

which is something he seems to take really seriously

and really care about.

I think I felt more of a character there,

maybe than you did.

I'm taking this too seriously, I think.

I just, like, it's just given me flashbacks, two things.

It's a world I'm glad I'm out of.

I don't.

Yeah.

I do think there would be repercussions

in the real world, but this isn't the real world.

I'm looking forward to seeing where it's gonna go.

I haven't finished the show yet

and I really, I'm cheering for several of the characters.

I want all to go well with Steve Carell's character,

his daughter, Danielle Deadwile, or an Emmy and wallow.

I just, I want everything to go well for them.

The rest of them.

Yeah.

All right, well, tell us what you think about Rooster.

Find us on Facebook and Facebook.com slash PCHH

that brings us to the end of our show,

Christen Mines or Linda Holmes.

Thanks for being here.

You gave me some stuff to think about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just reminded that signing up for pop culture happy

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sponsor free so please go find out more at plus.npr.org

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This episode was produced by Liz Metzger,

HuffSafathema and Mike Katsof,

and edited by our show under Jessica Reedy.

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Thank you for listening to pop culture happy hour from NPR.

I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next time.

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