Normal angle to view a group of four.
Photo: Friends Keep Secrets via YouTube
If you didn’t like seeing Benny Blanco’s dirty feet making the rounds on social media last week, you’ll definitely want to steer clear of the second episode of Friends Keep Secrets, his new not-quite podcast, not-quite chat show. He hosts the “interview series” with his BFF Dave Burd (a.k.a. Lil Dicky) and Burd’s wife, Kristin Batalucco, and yes, Selena Gomez is the guest this week. Yes, she talks about Taylor Swift. But more notable: There’s a lot of foot stuff in this episode, perhaps almost spitefully so given the outsize reaction to Blanco’s dogs hanging out in last week’s introductory episode. At one point, Gomez kisses the toes of her now-husband as if to reiterate that those dirty feet belong to her. It’s all … well, a lot.
If this is the overall vibe of Friends Keep Secrets, then the show — the first acquisition for #inspo podcaster Jay Shetty’s production company — is a must-watch in the most derogatory sense of the word. Friends Keep Secrets is figuring out its deal, both in its setup and its execution. Burd and Batalucco have essentially ruined their home by placing cameras everywhere so Friends Keep Secrets can always be capturing whoever is wherever. That means if Gomez wants to lie on the floor during their conversation, she can lie on the floor and we’ll still see her. And the title, Friends Keep Secrets? It’s unclear what that means. There aren’t any big secrets being revealed. The juiciest bit of gossip is when the group goads Gomez into perusing her Instagram DMs for a message from … who? Well, we have no idea. Someone slid in at one point and sent her a message, but the show won’t tell us who it is. Context clues don’t indicate much either, so it seems as though friends keep secrets after all.
The attempts at feigned casualness make for an awkward frisson. Gomez is ostensibly too famous to be doing this, something everyone in the room seems to know, yet that doesn’t stop them from behaving insanely. A semi-exhaustive list of stuff that happens in this episode: Gomez and Blanco smooch (both on the lips, repeatedly, and the aforementioned toes), Blanco sits on the floor, Gomez sits on the floor, Gomez stops the conversation until Blanco cracks her back, they all eat pickles, the pickles almost make Burd gag, Blanco asks Gomez about being bipolar, Blanco appears with a basketball for no reason, Blanco and Burd bond over how girls “dribble basketballs” in a weird way, Batalucco admits she couldn’t see anything at Blanco and Gomez’s wedding because she was sitting behind a pole (later Batalucco says she would take a bullet to the head for everyone in that room), Gomez describes a painting she once received from Swift as Blanco’s toes hover in the shot, and then eventually the whole thing ends in the girls arm wrestling and then the boys arm wrestling, to say nothing of when Gomez says she wants four kids because of The Family Stone.
Ostensibly a test run for future interviews, this episode sets up an interesting dynamic between the two couples, in part because one of these people is both way more famous and way more aware of how they have to come off in a public setting. While Gomez bemoans how complicated it is to balance authenticity with a kind of self-censorship, Burd — unbothered that it will do something to his reputation — can simply posit his grand theory on how to make women come. There is clear, obvious intimacy between Burd and Blanco, longtime friends, and while Batalucco can hang, there’s something Brittany Mahomes–ian about her appearance alongside Gomez. These two have clearly spent a fair amount of time together, but they don’t exactly have the kind of intimacy their partners have.
There’s no real metric by which we can yet judge Friends Keep Secrets. Is it informative? Um, kind of, but in a TMI type of way. Is it funny? Again maybe, but not necessarily on purpose. Does Blanco announce he has a question by going “I have a question!” loudly until someone pays attention to him? Well, certainly. That’s how you do an interview (journalist’s POV). Friends Keep Secrets will have more guests down the line, including but not limited to Ed Sheeran, Lizzo, and Paul Rudd. Will everyone have to take their shoes off? We’ll just have to watch and find out.
