Well, hello there. I am Dave Holmes. Welcome to Troubled Waters. The show that treats popular culture is the most important kind of culture because as we were talking about before we started rolling, it is the one that is keeping us tethered to the earth.

Now, back in the before times, Troubled Waters would pit two teams of comedians against one another in a pop culture battle royale. We'll get back there, I swear we will.

But for now, teaming up with another person who's not in your quarantine pod is possibly lethal.

It is definitely more frowned upon than pouring yourself a big old plastic bag full of gasoline.

So for now, it is one comic against another.

And to win this battle, each comic will be called upon to use

their smarts, their rhetorical skills, the great comebacks they've been keeping a little tiny

notebook in their notes app all throughout this pandemic. To earn the coveted troubled waters title,

Pundit Emeritus, that title automatically gives a person's opinion on

the Friends reunion, the teaser of which just dropped moments ago, more weight than a civilians.

Yeah, we're going to talk about it. You're listening to Troubled Waters. Now let's meet our teams.

Our first contestant is Head Rider on Deezus and Mero on Showtime, a fabulous show.

He's a favorite here on Troubled Waters.

He is an American treasure.

I've never heard his name come up in public without everybody going, oh, I love that guy.

And he's here. It's Josh Gondelman. Hello, Josh.

Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's so nice to see you, Dave.

It's so good to see you. How are you? How is your late pandemic?

I'm doing okay. I've been starting to go outside.

It is fitting that the Friends reunion trailer just came up because I would say a defining

characteristic of this past year is no one told me life was going to be this way. Oh, I know that's

right. I know that's right. But it's been good.

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