I'm Stephen McHoff, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest organized crime edition.

It's Wednesday, April 21st, 2021. On today's show, Collective is an astonishing documentary

that begins with a fire in a

Romanian nightclub, but takes us deep into a society defined by its political corruption.

It's very deservedly up for two Oscars. And then the character, Elliot Stabler, is played by

Christopher Maloney, returns to the Law and Order franchise. This time, it's law and order organized crime.

We'll be joined by June Thomas to discuss.

And finally, Substack is the subscription newsletter platform that threatens to do to journalism

what Uber has done for the taxi business, i.e. destroy it.

We will discuss.

Joining me today is Julia Turner, the deputy managing editor of the LA Times. Julia, hey, how are you?

Hello, hello. I can't wait to talk all of these topics with you, but especially substack. Just so curious what an editor makes of it.

And of course, Dana Stevens is the film critic of Slate. Hey, Dana.

Hello, Stephen. Are we ready to dig in?

Yeah, let's do it. Cool. Let's do it. On October 30th, 2015, a fire broke out in a popular Bucharest nightclub in the cell phone video of the event. The band, it's a punk metal band, has to tell the audience

that the fire is not part of their show.

The words have barely escaped his mouth when the rafters above the crowd are a wash and flame.

And what follows is utter mayhem.

27 died in the fire that night.

But what happened next really shook Romanian society to the core or should have.

I mean, that's an interesting question at the heart of this documentary, whether it really did shake Romanians to the core.

Another 37 victims died in the months that followed.

...