Picking Nits
Mike McD taunting Teddy KGB after taking his money; the Oreo tell going unnoticed for 20 hours; Teddy's tell being so basic; Mike telling Teddy he knows the tell and showing his laid-down hand; Worm not smoking; Petrovsky's 10 grand loan; how 10 grand becomes 60; KGB's fold in the opening hand; Grandma's (as transcribed) arrangement with Teddy; Worm not playing
In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 01:01:22Read transcript
- 'You feeling satisfied now, Teddy, because I can go on busting you up all night' is said after taking 60K off a man who may head the Russian mafia; Mike McD would be killed immediately and never leave the Chesterfield for taunting the warlord whose hand he just stole; a heat check in itself.
- Two questions about the Oreo tell, a controversial moment: Mike McD reads every judge's hand in 14 seconds yet plays Teddy for 20 hours without the tell clicking, which has no defense and is the biggest flaw; and Teddy, cleaning out basements for years, has the most basic tell imaginable, eating the cookie only when he likes his hand.
- In a less sophisticated poker movie, like Casino Royale where everyone has five kings, the tell would not stand out, but this film is so nuanced about table tics at the Taj that one glaring tell in the villain nags; still, it was made for audiences who do not know poker, and one host did not notice it until his fourth viewing while the other caught it at once.
- Why does Mike tell Teddy he knows the tell? One host long considered it a problem, since with the tell he could take the money in ten hands, like Belichick telling the other coach what he has figured out; the counter, credited as what the writers intended, is that it is a mind game that rattles KGB so his aggressive game falls apart.
- Showing a hand when laying it down is a real strategic question; whenever someone does that at a Vegas table the host thinks he is an idiot without security in his game, unless it is after ten hours to prove he actually laid one down; the 'laying this down, Teddy, top two pair' line is great.
- How is Worm not a smoker, the most likely smoker of any movie character? Research saved for here: Ed Norton is anti-smoking and did not want Worm to smoke; it also fits the plot that he plays for cigarettes in prison without smoking himself; still called the biggest reach in the movie.
- Mike McD's law professor lending him 10 grand to set up the finale, at the cost of another yeshiva story, draws a joke that the host would rather rob a liquor store than sit through it; the defense is an admittedly bullshitty theory of an underdog bond between Irish and Jewish people, with Italians thrown in, which makes the Petrovsky storyline make sense.
- Both like the old guy Petrovsky; Martin Landau's return as Bob Evans on a creatively dormant Entourage had a splash of Petrovsky in it, and Crimes and Misdemeanors, a favorite of both, is called incredible though unlikely to get an episode before season 19.
- How does Mike McD go from 10 grand to 60 against Teddy rather than 40? Koppelman and Levine told one host that Teddy reloads, visible in the chip changes, and that they fought for reload scenes but could only go so far into poker minutiae before it got boring; it is still weird that Teddy rebuys into his own game instead of calling it a day at 40K.
- Raised early and told it belongs in picking nits: KGB folding and walking away in the opening hand without seeing whether Mike McD had four nines; the reply is that he read Mike's face.
- Grandma (as transcribed) is a weird character whose arrangement with Teddy KGB is unclear; how the money works at the end is confusing, since Grandma got paid yet is upset, and the juice on Worm's debt, suddenly 15K, seems arbitrary with the numbers shifting; parked for nitpicks.
- Forgotten in nitpicking: why Worm, clearly good at poker, does not play with Mike to double their chances; the answer is that Mike does not trust him, and his instincts prove right when Worm sits down at the cop game and cheats.