Welcome To The Party Pal celebrates one of 2024’s most underrated miniseries, The Sympathizer, an action-packed comedic thriller that features a quintuple-dose of Robert Downey Jr…
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This episode of Welcome To The Party Pal features a deep dive into HBO’s The Sympathizer, the historical black comedy drama miniseries based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. The series was created by co-showrunners Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, with Park directing the first three episodes. The series is based on the story of the Captain, a North Vietnam plant in the South Vietnam army. He is forced to flee to the United States with his general near the end of the Vietnam War. While living within a community of South Vietnamese refugees, he continues to secretly spy on the community and report back to the Viet Cong, struggling between his original loyalties and his new life. Join in as hosts Michael Shields and Douglas Grant take you on a journey to Saigon, then to Los Angeles, and back again!
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Douglas Grant is an author whose first novel, Preemptive, was published in 2010. Preemptive is an examination of the lives intertwined by the cause and effect relationship the U.S. had with Afghanistan in the 1980s. Imaginary Lines explores socioeconomic influences in the strained relations between an Irish-American and a Latino family. His works are usually narratives in which he comments on the human condition or on social inequity, narratives that often pay tribute to some of the most banal of literature and film genres.