Episode 940: It’s Like Tenet, But It Works

On the Overthinking It Podcast, three old friends tackle the recent Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Merrily,” streaming on Netflix.

by Matthew Wrather
July 13th, 2026

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Hey, old friends. Who’s like Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather? Damn few. The crew overthink Merrily We Roll Along, and Mark offers one piece of advice: budget the full two and a half hours in one sitting, and do not, as he did, watch it on your phone in four segments while doing the dishes.

Matt posits that the backwards structure inverts the basic grammar of musical theater, where reprise should follow song. The cut frame story from 1981, a high school graduation, would maybe have hit this note a little too hard, but it does show something about how our youthful experiments calcify into something bombastic and blaring when you sell out. Pete is not convinced, insisting that Frank does not “sell out” so much as get talked into things by people he admires and then punish them for it. This is not Aristotle; there is no unity of action. It only feels like there is because you see the consequences before you see the confusion.

In the end, the characters’ real problem is that they never once stop and have the conversation they need to have. They roll along. So think about the choices you’ve made, and go see Merrily at any high school in America, where production is mandatory and what’s more is approriate, since the “mature” themes are mature in the boring sense, not the sexy sense.