Amy Poehler stands out as the most-liked girl in Hollywood. Her newest mission, the mega-popular podcast “Good Hold with Amy Poehler,” definitely encourages that impression. It’s maybe her greatest platform for the reason that hit sequence “Parks and Recreation,” wherein she performed the idealistic bureaucrat Leslie Knope, went off the air a decade in the past. And whereas a lot of her former co-stars have branched out into new territory—Aziz Ansari by reinventing himself as a melancholy romantic in “Grasp of None,” Adam Scott by proving his dramatic chops as a person at warfare with himself in “Severance”—Poehler has leaned into Leslie’s vibes: sunniness, earnestness, a give attention to feminine friendship and uncomplicated feminist values. These qualities are amply evident in “Good Hold,” which launched in March and shot to the highest of the charts even in a totally saturated market. At one level, it dethroned “The Joe Rogan Expertise” because the No. 1 present on Spotify.
“Good Hold,” like “Rogan,” is a video podcast; every week, Poehler sits throughout a blond-wood desk from a star or two. The informal intimacy of her interactions with well-known buddies is an simple a part of the present’s enchantment. She makes use of nicknames for her longtime friends: Tina Fey is “Betty,” Kathryn Hahn is “Hahnsy,” Rashida Jones is “Bones.” Often, she holds a visitor’s hand. There’s little doubt that “Good Hold” is curated, however the shared historical past between Poehler and plenty of of her topics helps the conversations really feel actual—and might yield genuinely poignant exchanges. After Aubrey Plaza’s husband died by suicide, she spoke publicly concerning the loss for the primary time by way of the podcast. Plaza, who has recognized Poehler for virtually her complete skilled life, dropped her regular witchy persona and talked candidly concerning the “big ocean of awfulness” of widowhood. Andy Samberg, too, was unguarded about his grief following the demise of his “Brooklyn 9-9” co-star Andre Braugher. Poehler is so disarming, in actual fact, that a number of interviewees—Seth Meyers, the “Broad Metropolis” creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson—have teared up whereas expressing what her assist has meant to them.
Such emotional moments apart, Poehler retains the temper mild by design, and the look of the present displays her need to set her friends comfortable. The studio is embellished with cozy, millennial-coded touches: pretend vegetation, neon indicators, pastel accents. It resembles the sort of startup area the place workers are invited to deliver their canines—even when Poehler, who believes that “guidelines are what make issues enjoyable,” is adamantly towards pets within the office. (Dakota Johnson and Plaza introduced theirs anyway.)
Poehler appears to have been impressed by audiences rediscovering “Parks and Rec” as a consolation watch throughout the pandemic—a growth she mentions greater than as soon as—and it’s straightforward to see the connective tissue between the sequence and the podcast. “Parks” was an workplace comedy outlined by its optimism about individuals’s capability for progress, and on “Good Hold,” stars are likely to reminisce about their early—and thus most relatable—experiences. There are fixed, if generic, paeans to feminine solidarity, within the spirit of Galentine’s Day, the vacation that Leslie invented to have a good time the ladies in her life, and every episode opens with Poehler calling up a visitor’s family members to “speak effectively” behind their again. Ostensibly, the train is about serving to her to generate questions; largely, it’s a chance to rhapsodize concerning the girl or man of the hour. (Jeremy O. Harris on Natasha Lyonne: “This, like, wild intelligence and wild generosity mixed into this atomic bomb of the best buddy.”) All this flattery seems to be honest—a model of the hyper-specific, borderline-surreal praise that Leslie piled on her bestie, Ann. However the unrelentingly optimistic vitality, just like the inflated praise tradition of Hollywood as an entire, begins to grate.
“Good Hold” is conscious of its personal insubstantiality. Within the introductory episode, Poehler mounts a feminist case for her lightheartedness: girls, she says, are anticipated to be selfless and clever and communicate out about points like menopause, whereas males—presumably the hosts of different celebrity-on-celebrity interview podcasts, corresponding to “Conan O’Brien Wants a Good friend,” Dax Shepherd’s “Armchair Skilled,” and Will Arnett, Sean Hayes, and Jason Bateman’s “Smartless”—are extolled for simply capturing the shit. Poehler isn’t a journalist, and that truth is each the present’s energy and its weak spot. Her business connections and insights can play to her benefit; probably the most compelling episodes function kindred spirits like Quinta Brunson, with whom Poehler discusses, for instance, the unfair stress on feminine writers and actors to symbolize their communities in methods which are by some means each grounded and aspirational. She additionally lands lengthy chats with typically press-shy stars, together with Fey and Kristen Wiig. However, in contrast to a reporter, she’ll keep away from sensitive topics with somebody who’d somewhat not go there. (Lyonne got here on the present just a few weeks after a story about her generative-A.I. studio sparked important backlash; Poehler, who routinely chats with friends about new tasks, doesn’t point out the enterprise.)
A lot has been manufactured from the best way conventional late-night TV could quickly be supplanted by podcasts and gimmick-based sequence corresponding to “Scorching Ones” and “Hen Store Date,” which have been lauded for getting “genuine” responses from media-trained celebrities. On Poehler’s present, nevertheless, there’s a transparent divide between the celebrities she already is aware of and people she doesn’t. Her “sure, and . . .” gameness, honed via many years as a sketch comic, makes her a versatile conversationalist, nevertheless it isn’t at all times sufficient to attract out actors who’re merely going via the motions of promotional obligation. The enforced levity means a few of these discussions by no means progress past nice small speak. I may go the remainder of my life with out listening to Poehler ask one other visitor about their sleeping habits, not to mention posing such queries to Michelle Obama.
Nonetheless, the hour-long format of “Good Hold”—a stark distinction to the seven or eight minutes allotted to celebrities on a late-night sofa between industrial breaks—gives a reminder that even A-listers want time to open up. There’s one thing comforting concerning the spectacle of their consolation. And if a risk-free, stars-only protected area is the only real strategy to glimpse them in a extra naturalistic mode, that appears to be a trade-off that thousands and thousands are keen to make. ♦
