- Michael: For months, you and I have been debating "Are people good or bad?" But as I watched those three people pick themselves up and dust themselves off, I realized we've been asking the wrong question. What matters isn't if people are good or bad. What matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday. You asked me where my hope comes from. That's your answer.
- Bad Janet: Middle-aged American male fragility. You know why they're called baby boomers, right? Because the tiniest little pinprick to their ego, and boom: They become babies.
- Bad Janet: Can you just skip to the end?
- Michael: No. I need to tell you the whole story.
- Bad Janet: Why? Every story about humans ends the same way. Just tell me how they screwed up and put me out of my misery.
- Michael: You're judging them too quickly. Trust me, I've spent a lot more time with people than you have.
- Bad Janet: And I know literally everything that every one of them has ever done. Do you know what's happening right now on Earth? Wars, murders, women in $400 yoga pants are refusing to vaccinate their children. Vindictive nerds at Apple are changing the charging cable shape again.
- Brent Norwalk: Oh, hey, ski bunnies! So, great news. I wrote a book. And since you're my nerdiest friends, you get to be the first to read it.
- Chidi Anagonye: [seeing the title] "Six Feet Under Par: A Chip Driver Mystery".
- Brent Norwalk: Yeah, it's half spy novel, half murder mystery. It's also half submarine adventure, half erotic memoir, and half political thriller. It's also half golf tutorial and half commentary on society.
- Simone Garnett: So it's 3 1/2 books in one?
- Brent Norwalk: At least.
- Simone Garnett: Tahani, cancel your plans. We're gonna split a bottle of wine and read Brent's terrible novel out loud.
- Tahani Al-Jamil: Oh, dear. Perhaps we shouldn't make fun. He did seem nicer on the ski trip. He made us all s'mores. Though, to be fair, he did also claim to have invented them.
- Simone Garnett: [reading from Brent's novel] "Chip Driver pulled up to the murder site in his 1968 Cadillac. 'Keep it close,' he growled to the valet, Luis. 'Of course, Señor,' said Luis, who secretly admired Chip more than even his own father."
- Tahani Al-Jamil: "Chip gazed at the sexy outline of the murder victim on the floor. 'What a waste of curves,' he growled. He checked his Rolex watch, which was real. It was almost golf o'clock, so the case would have to wait. Good thing he'd already solved it. The killer was Luis, the valet."
- Simone Garnett: He solves the murder on page ten. What is the rest of this book about?
- Tahani Al-Jamil: Perhaps I can convince Simone to handle this the British way. Smile bravely, bury your feelings, and allow a steady drizzle to slowly wash away your sadness over 50 years.
- Tahani Al-Jamil: Okay, well, let's reset. I'll do something mildly iffy, and let John make a small, good decision to help. I could tell him I'm going to get ombré highlights and let him talk me out of it.
- Eleanor Shellstrop: What's wrong with ombré highlights?
- Tahani Al-Jamil: Eleanor, please. This week has been hard enough.
- Eleanor Shellstrop: They're all kind of killing it, but Brent has definitely made the most progress.
- Jason Mendoza: Yeah, when Simone beat him at cards, he didn't flip the table and storm off. He just stormed off. That's big!
- Tahani Al-Jamil: I've been through worse. Once, at Elon Musk's birthday party, I was seated between Silvio Berlusconi and Elon Musk.
- Bad Janet: Where does this hope come from, man? This insane hope that people are worth the trouble. To quote a terrible song by a terrible musician that people love so much they constantly put it in terrible movie trailers, humans are "b-b-b-b-bad to the bone".
- Michael: Well, I think that they're g-g-g-good sometimes. And you should give them the b-b-b-benefit of the d-d-d-doubt.
- Brent Norwalk: So did you finish the book? What did you think?
- Tahani Al-Jamil: Well, very interesting word choices. I've definitely never seen the word "pants-tent" used so many times.
- Brent Norwalk: Yeah, I kind of just felt like, in that moment, that that's what the Surgeon General would say.
- Tahani Al-Jamil: You want a complo? I'll give you a complo. I didn't think it was possible to write a book as awful as yours. I literally didn't think human beings were capable of such racist, sexist poppycock! Also, Chip Driver is either a private eye or the quarterback for the Chicago Bears, or the "world's strongest president." He cannot be all three!