The Secure Area of “Good Cling with Amy Poehler”

Amy Poehler stands out as the most-liked lady in Hollywood. Her newest venture, the mega-popular podcast “Good Cling with Amy Poehler,” definitely encourages that impression. It’s maybe her greatest platform for the reason that hit sequence “Parks and Recreation,” through which 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 deal with feminine friendship and uncomplicated feminist values. These qualities are amply evident in “Good Cling,” 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 Cling,” 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 pals is an plain 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.” Sometimes, she holds a visitor’s hand. There’s little question that “Good Cling” is curated, however the shared historical past between Poehler and lots of of her topics helps the conversations really feel actual—and may 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 whole skilled life, dropped her common witchy persona and talked candidly concerning the “big ocean of awfulness” of widowhood. Andy Samberg, too, was unguarded about his grief following the dying of his “Brooklyn 9-9” co-star Andre Braugher. Poehler is so disarming, in truth, 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 gentle by design, and the look of the present displays her need to set her visitors comfy. The studio is embellished with cozy, millennial-coded touches: pretend crops, neon indicators, pastel accents. It resembles the sort of startup house the place staff are invited to convey their canines—even when Poehler, who believes that “guidelines are what make issues enjoyable,” is adamantly in opposition to 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 through the pandemic—a improvement 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 development, and on “Good Cling,” stars are inclined 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 rejoice the ladies in her life, and every episode opens with Poehler calling up a visitor’s family members to “discuss nicely” behind their again. Ostensibly, the train is about serving to her to generate questions; largely, it’s a possibility to rhapsodize concerning the lady 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 perfect pal.”) All this flattery seems to be honest—a model of the hyper-specific, borderline-surreal reward that Leslie piled on her bestie, Ann. However the unrelentingly optimistic power, just like the inflated praise tradition of Hollywood as an entire, begins to grate.

“Good Cling” is conscious of its personal insubstantiality. Within the introductory episode, Poehler mounts a feminist case for her lightheartedness: ladies, she says, are anticipated to be selfless and smart and converse out about points like menopause, whereas males—presumably the hosts of different celebrity-on-celebrity interview podcasts, similar to “Conan O’Brien Wants a Pal,” 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 reality is each the present’s energy and its weak spot. Her trade connections and insights can play to her benefit; essentially the most compelling episodes characteristic kindred spirits like Quinta Brunson, with whom Poehler discusses, for instance, the unfair strain on feminine writers and actors to signify their communities in methods which are by some means each grounded and aspirational. She additionally lands lengthy chats with usually 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 a number of weeks after a narrative about her generative-A.I. studio sparked important backlash; Poehler, who routinely chats with visitors about new initiatives, doesn’t point out the enterprise.)

A lot has been fabricated from the way in which conventional late-night TV could quickly be supplanted by podcasts and gimmick-based sequence similar to “Sizzling Ones” and “Hen Store Date,” which have been lauded for getting “genuine” responses from media-trained celebrities. On Poehler’s present, nonetheless, there’s a transparent divide between the celebs she already is aware of and people she doesn’t. Her “sure, and . . .” gameness, honed by way of many years as a sketch comic, makes her a versatile conversationalist, however it isn’t at all times sufficient to attract out actors who’re merely going by way of the motions of promotional responsibility. The enforced levity means a few of these discussions by no means progress past nice small discuss. I might 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 Cling”—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 secure house is the only real technique to glimpse them in a extra naturalistic mode, that appears to be a trade-off that thousands and thousands are keen to make. ♦