One Night Only and What’s Making Us Happy

One Night Only is set in an alternate universe where premarital sex has been outlawed, except for one 12-hour window a year. The film stars Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner as two beautiful New Yorkers looking to have sex when the mandate is temporarily lifted. But does the film deliver on its sexy premise, or is it more chaste than it seems? Looking for other conversations about rom-coms? Try these episodes: ‘Office Romance’ stars J. Lo as a CEO with a bad case of Brett Goldstein https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5848102/office-romance-stars-j-lo-as-a-ceo-with-a-bad-case-of-brett-goldstein ‘You, Me & Tuscany' has got us lost in the pasta sauce https://www.npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-s1-5779705/you-me-tuscany-has-got-us-lost-in-the-pasta-sauce Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Before we get to the show, hey, you. Yes, you with the impeccable taste in podcasts. If Pop With Your Happy Hour has ever helped you win a group chat debate, find a hit series before everyone else, or pretend you saw that movie you definitely didn't see--we've all done it--do us a solid and leave the show a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find us. It helps us make the show better for you, and we thank you.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  I guess I just decided that I like Monica Barbour so much that in this performance, I was like, I will just accept that somehow the American populace swallowed this hook, line, and sinker without question.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  One Night Only has been touted as a rom-com spin on The Purge movie franchise, and that's a pretty accurate description. In an alternate universe, the government has outlawed premarital sex with the exception of one time out of the year. Scary, right?

• 1:09Speaker 03

  Actually, it's a perfect scenario for a New York City meet-cute between a couple of hotties, played by Monica Barbour and Callum Turner. They're trying to get laid or something like it on the night the mandate is temporarily lifted, but the universe has other plans. I'm Linda Holmes.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  And I'm Aisha Harris. And joining us today on NPR's Pop With Your Happy Hour is the co-host of NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, Wayland Wong. Hey, Wayland.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Hi, Linda. Hi, Ayesha.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Great to have you here. I suspect we have a lot to talk about with this movie, so we'll just get right on into it. One Night Only begins three years into a nationwide chastity mandate imposed by the government. Basically, if you're unmarried, you're forbidden from having sex, save for one 12-hour window a year. Now, naturally, on this night in question, the unwitting people of New York City are horny as hell. And then there's Ally and Owen, played by Monica Barbour and Callum Turner. Ally's single, fed up with the dating scene, and vowing to be more intentional about finding someone special. Owen's got a girlfriend, but she surprises him by admitting that tonight she wants to hook up with someone else.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Ally and Owen are each on their own journeys tonight, but they meet, almost immediately share an awkward moment, and then keep bumping into each other. Are they fated to be mated? Well, they've only got 12 hours to figure that out. And yes, we will be discussing sex in this episode. One Night Only is in theaters now. Wayland, were you on board for The Sex Purge movie?

• 2:44Speaker 02

  The Sex Purge movie? Oh, my gosh. I have to say, this movie really surprised me on the upside. Like, I went in really anxious. I was worried that, for such a high-concept movie, that the premise was too high-concept to be executed at any kind of level that would be acceptable. And I was worried that I would get really bogged down in thinking about The Handmaid's Tale. Do you know what I mean? That I wouldn't be able to just give myself over to the premise of the movie and enjoy it. But then I was so charmed. I don't know. I thought it was so funny. I thought it was pretty cute. Really liked the two leads. And it's not a horny movie.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  It's actually very wholesome, and that surprised me, too, in a good way. So I liked it.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I will say the one thing this movie has going for it is that, unlike The Handmaid's Tale, everyone is suffering, or at least, like, both men and women are suffering from the lack of sex. It's not just the women who are being, quote-unquote, punished, I guess. So, yeah, there's that. Okay, okay. So, Wayland, you were on board. Linda, look, I'm not going to pretend that we haven't talked about this. Just go for it, Linda. Tell us how we feel.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  So, there's two things I would say about this. One is, if this had worked better for me as a romantic comedy, I would not care as much about what does it seem to be trying to say about sex? How does it do with its very high concept, as Wayland said? I am not against a high-concept rom-com. I am a well-known lover of The Movie While You Were Sleeping, which has maybe one of the more ridiculous high concepts of all time. But to me, this movie did not need its high concept at all and doesn't do anything with it at all. The entire purpose of the sex purge element of this movie exists to set up a situation where all the single people are out trying to get someone to have sex with them.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  And I don't necessarily know that you need a biosurveillance authoritarian sex-negative dystopia for that. You need, like, a bar and a Friday. You know what I mean? And I don't know that they do anything interesting with this idea once they set it up. You know, the director, Will Gluck, when kind of confronted about some of the weird things about world-building, like, I'm sorry, how is this supposed to have happened? And like, why is it that everybody seems to be getting their condoms 15 minutes before this? And my question was, like, if you know that the sex window is starting at 7 o'clock on a given day, and you're with the person that you want to have sex with, why are you on the subway? Why are you in a restaurant?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  All of this stuff would not matter to me if it had worked. I am like Wayland. I am 1,000% willing to put all of that kind of stuff aside if I liked how it worked better as a romantic comedy. I think Monica Barbour is really appealing in this. I think she's really cute in it. I sort of regret that she has to wear, like, the world's tiniest dress for, like, this whole movie, which always makes people look uncomfortable to me.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  You're always, like, hoiking it up and down.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Well, and like, he's fully dressed in, like, comfortable clothes, and she's in this incredibly short--

• 6:01Speaker 01

  We get at least one scene where he's topless, for the ladies and the gays.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yes, but he's like, for the most part, when they're running around. She's in an incredibly short dress that is also very open in the front and cut down to practically her belly button. But I think as a character, she has some charm and she has some appeal. I will say that the male lead in this, and I don't know how much of it is writing and how much of it is performance, I just found completely devoid of any sort of appeal. I didn't understand why she enjoyed his company. I didn't understand why anybody would enjoy his company. I feel like doing an enemies-to-lovers story over the course of a few hours is very, very hard to do effectively.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  And it's not that it can't be done. I'm sure there are people out there who are like, but Linda, you love X, and it's exactly like that. I'm sure. I'm sure. I don't think they manage it well here. So, like, Ayesha, you and I have talked about some, about, like, the sexual politics of this movie, which I think are also quite weird. But I just didn't think it worked. I thought they kind of tacked on this kind of unnecessarily complicated premise when it could have just been a two horny people are out all night trying to have sex--

• 7:18Speaker 02

  And keep running into each other.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  And you don't need any of this. You don't need the dystopia, which kind of lingers in the background. Like, we're not going to talk about that, I guess.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  I mean, to the dystopian part of that, you mentioned the biosurveillance authoritarian stuff that's going on here. Specifically, the government has basically--can track you with these little, like, tattoos, I guess, or sort of like--

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like a wrist tattoo, and you apparently get to pick the little picture you get--

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Which they talk about.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I mean, there's so many things politically and historically that you can sort of, like, map onto this movie, which, like, I want to talk about that. This movie does not want to talk about that. And I found myself, while watching this movie, imagining what this premise, which I think is actually quite interesting, and I was fully on board for, and even on board for in a rom-com sense, like, I found myself imagining what would it be like if, like, Boots Riley, Gregor Rocky, Jenexa Bravo, Rachel Bloom, like, any number of people--

• 8:19Speaker 03

  A weirder person.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  A weirder person had made this film, and perhaps more someone with a little bit more bites, a little bit more critique or commentary, had made this film. And look, you might say, Ayesha, good cultural criticism isn't about judging something for what it's not or what you wish it could be. And to that, I say boo. Like, you're completely wrong. Like-- I know people try to make this point and sometimes I agree with you, but I think oftentimes what is conspicuously missing from whatever art that is, including this movie, like what a creator deliberately chooses to leave out, that says so much about what did wind up in the final product and the message that this movie is ultimately trying to convey.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  What I came away from this was like, this is a dystopian sex rom-com with like, no real bites, very little sex, but like with a lot of very obvious hangups about sex that are not ultimately resolved, or they're resolved in a very regressive way. You see a little bit of resistance to this mandate, like, and there's a little bit of pushback from the Monica Barbaro character where she's like, I don't think she says Gilead, but she's like basically implying like, this is authoritarian, this is awful. I don't think you can make a movie like this in the current climate we are in. And also to Linda's point, at least for me, not really have the juice when it comes to the actual rom-com of it all. Like, I don't really think these two characters had any real chemistry. And

• 9:47Speaker 01

  I don't think the comedy was quite up to it. There's moments that I chuckled, but like, I don't know, I feel like this could have taken like two or three more passes to like, bump up the jokes here and there. I'm gonna step off my soapbox now. Waylon, I'm curious.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this movie definitely does not want to be satire and in fact, seems actively afraid of making any kind of pointed critique around the times we live in, sexual politics, the rollback of rights and bodily autonomy in society. I think that a lot of people's enjoyment of the movie will hinge not just on whether the central chemistry works, which for me it did, for you two it didn't, but also this sense of like, can you suspend your disbelief? And how much can you suspend your disbelief for?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  And I liked a lot of the world building, actually, because there was a lot of, I think, small kind of subtle things that are happening that I really enjoyed. For example, you see ads on the subway for Duolingo and Red Bull that are geared towards the 12-hour window that, um, single people have to have sex. And so all the marketing is about, you know, like, do this for one night only. And Monica Barbaro's character, her job is singing jingles for pharmaceutical ads that are all takeoffs of, um, famous pop songs.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  That I enjoyed.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  That was funny. I liked that.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  And some of these are sprung on you in a surprise way. And it's so funny. And so there is kind of an interesting capitalist kind of critique, the idea that people, of course, corporations would be cashing in on the idea of this mandate. That I enjoyed. But I do take your point that like, this movie is really not prepared to address the huge kind of elephants that it introduces into the room. And for me, I was able, again, to give myself over to the premise and just kind of accept that, okay, I guess all of American society would have been so complacent about the idea of not only this extremely restrictive law that somehow got passed by Congress, but that you would accept it, you

• 12:00Speaker 02

  would accept having a biosensor placed on your wrist, you know, that you would just line up and get this done, and that there wouldn't be just kind of riots in the street every day over this. I guess I just decided that I liked Monica Barbaro so much that in this performance, I was like, I will just accept that somehow the American populace swallowed this hook, line and sinker without question.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's totally fair. That's totally fair. Linda, yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  It is fair. There is one moment in this movie where I was like, this is really cute rom-com chemistry. And it happens when Monica Barbaro meets a different guy who you know is not gonna be the guy. And he sits down at a piano with her and they start playing piano together. And I was like, this is cute and funny. And this guy, to me, has some charm. And you know, the whole time, this is gonna blow up in her face, it's gonna turn out, something is gonna be wrong with him. Cause obviously, she's gonna end up with the lead of the movie, right? But that was the moment where I was like, this feels like the beginning of people meeting in a romantic comedy. The problem I had was, once you get

• 13:08Speaker 03

  past that point, it's like, okay, but she doesn't have as much chemistry with this guy as she had with the piano guy. So now I feel weird about it. And again, this is all stuff where if it had worked for me as a romantic comedy, I know myself well enough to know, I'd be like, doesn't make any sense, has like a weirdly square approach to sex, to be honest, a weirdly like, as I think Aisha said, regressive kind of approach to sex, honestly. I think you can read this movie as saying like, you know, maybe the authoritarian sex negative government has a point, you know?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  A character actually says that in this movie at one point.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and so it's like, I would have overcome all of that stuff if I'd been more into it. And there's, there's other things, like, there's sort of an old people having sex is funny thing that I don't love. There's very weird stuff around queer people that feels very unresolved to me.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Well, okay, can we talk about that for a second? Because that's another part of this like role building aspect that didn't quite work for me, because this movie has a actual queer fairy godmother who's played by Quintessa Swindell. She is Ally's roommate. She's just kind of there to be the queer person who gives her all the pep talks and the outfits to wear.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  The queer fairy godmother of color, right?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yes. We gotta add that on there, too. Like, she's, she's checking all the boxes. And so she has like, one moment in the movie where she kind of explains what I was already thinking in the back of my mind, which is like, how do queer people factor into this? Because it seems like this is all geared toward like, you're married and then you're gonna start a family. And this idea that the only way to start a family is the quote unquote, natural way. So we're already like, in like, okay, very whatever territory. But then at one point, she says like, oh, I'm not going out. Tonight is for the straights. And she says something, and I didn't quite catch this while I was writing it down fast, so I might have misheard it. But she said something that sounded like, you know, we've been working around your rules for a minute.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  That's what she says, something like that.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that. And so I was just like, uh, and then, then they don't really talk about it afterwards.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  It's like, that's interesting. Like, let's hear, like, tell me about that, right? Cause it's a good thing to acknowledge, cause it's true, right? In the world, it's very true. But once you establish like the censors and everything, it's like, how does this not appeal to you? How, do you not have the censors? Do you have the censors? Or are we gonna get into the most uncomfortable conversation about this movie that I really don't want to get into, but found myself wanting to get into anyway? Which is, what exactly is the definition of sex that is illegal?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  I thought about that, too. Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  There are some posters that kind of jokingly suggest, but it's mostly positional, I would say, right? And there's not a lot of detail about like, what exactly is illegal? And is that part of why this doesn't apply to why this friend feels it doesn't affect her?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Right. And there's a lot of montages and moments where you see couples going at it. And by going at it, it's like mostly making out. And I'm like, okay, I thought we were all sexually, like, we were waiting and now, look, foreplay, isn't that what you're doing the rest of the year? I don't know what's going on here. But like,

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Well, now we're back to why are you on the subway for me, too?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Why are you on the subway? Like, anyway, I was looking, I was like actively looking to see what kind of couples were being shown in these positions. And like, for the most part, I only saw either what looked like woman, man, whatever. But then occasionally you'd see like maybe a throuple, but it'd be of course, two women and one man. And I think I saw like one gay male couple, like in the background.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  But they were like sitting and eating. They weren't like making out, the one I saw. I did see what appeared to be a pair of women making out on a dance floor.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  I saw that, too. I think that was the only queer couple that I clocked.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Same.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  I think they're the only ones I saw. But like, again, what are they doing? Are they part of this? Are they not part of this? And if they are part of this, why does the friend say they're not part of this? Like, this is all valid. This is all more interesting to me than the story that they end up telling. And those are the people I kind of want to know about. If this had been about like, how does a queer couple navigate this very strange and not built for them system? That might have caught my interest more. But like, again, if I believe that the great big world of straight couples typically is at midnight

• 17:49Speaker 03

  on New Year's Eve going, five, four, three, two, one, kiss. I don't think they're at a restaurant when they're gonna be able to have sex for the first time in a year. You know what I mean? They are exactly where they intend to be going, five, four, three, two, one. At least as much as they are on New Year's Eve, I feel.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Waiting for their sensors to glow green so they can, they get the signal. The movie is conservative in ways that you might not realize at first because of the way it's marketed as like the sex purge movie, and you think it's gonna be the sex romp. And actually, at its heart, it's extremely old fashioned.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Chased, chased, chased. Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  And I think that's really reinforced by the ending, which is probably, to me, the weakest part of the movie for me. So I, I was left with like a tiny bit of, you know, cognitive dissonance, but not enough to dampen my overall enjoyment of this film.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. I want to see Monica Barbaro in a rom-com that I like better, because I think she is built for that. I don't think he's built for that. And what you mentioned about the business where she's like a jingle singer for pharmaceuticals, I think they kind of go a little bit too far with that at the very end of the movie, but the early stuff about it is really funny. I laughed, I enjoyed it. She, I think, is super charming. And I will watch her next romantic comedy, which I hope will be just a little bit more up my alley, maybe with a male lead who feels a little bit more rom-com to me.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  So sex purge, too.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  And a little bit less like, doesn't he remind you of Channing Tatum? He does not.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  No, definitely not. Sorry, Callum Turner.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  He does not.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  AKA Mr. Dua Lipa. Well, look, we're all rom-com fans here, so whatever we felt about this, it's coming from a place of love for the genre. And I also love dystopian movies, so I-

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Just not this dystopian.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Just not this dystopian movie.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  But it sounds like your mileage may vary. Check it out. And, um, up next, we're gonna be talking about what makes us happy this week. So we'll be right back.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at g o o dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. This message comes from the Sierra Club. Fighting to ensure America's public lands are protected and accessible for everyone. The Sierra Club protects places like national parks and forests through legal action, advocacy,

• 21:14Speaker 04

  and nationwide grassroots organizing, because the future of public lands is worth fighting for. Join the fight to keep public lands protected and accessible for everyone. Donate at sierraclub.org/NPR.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  And now it's time for our favorite segment of this week. And every week, what's making us happy. Wayland, what's making you happy?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  OK, I have been really enjoying this podcast from ESPN 30 for 30 called The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Oh, Linda was just telling me about this.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Are you listening to this too, Linda?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I am not a baseball person like Linda. Sometimes I get FOMO reading Linda's social media posts. I'm like, I should get into baseball like Linda. But I'm really not a sports person. But this podcast has really sucked me in. This is a podcast by the investigative reporter at ESPN who covered the story of how baseball player Shohei Ohtani was swindled many, many millions of dollars by his interpreter, who is gambling away all of this money. And it is so well done. And it's such a great peek into the investigative reporting process. And you hear incredible audio of the reporter's interview with the interpreter. He actually gives her like a lot of time. So you hear his voice talking about his story.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  And then it's kind of like inverted because you realize like, he duped her and he was lying. And then the fourth episode is a big interview with the bookie, who's kind of this like scary guy who explains his operation in the most chilling matter-of-fact way ever. They learned a lot about money laundering. So it's very educational for me. I cannot wait to see how it all wraps up because I remember reading some news stories about this when it broke and when the investigation and then like the trial was happening, when the sentencing. But I wasn't steeped in the details. So now I'm getting really into the details. And it's just a really great crime story and it's very well-produced. So that is The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani. This is a podcast from ESPN.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thanks so much for that recommendation. And yeah, Linda was telling me about this recently. So it sounds very fascinating. Linda, what is making you happy this week?

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Well, in addition to that podcast, which I also could have chosen because it is excellent, there is a movie on Netflix called The Last House. And it is a thriller, which stars Greta Lee and Wagner Mora as a couple with two children, who one day they are just like in their house. It's in the wintertime. They're getting ready to go out and they realize they can't open their front door. Their front door is like sealed shut. And they're like, that's weird. And they go to the back door, back door sealed shut. And then they're like, maybe we have to climb out the window. You probably know where this is going. All the windows sealed shut. You can't break the glass. You're stuck in your house. And they realize at some point that this is affecting more people than just them.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  They don't know what's going on. But weirdly, they, with their children, essentially decide, we just have to live like this for however long this continues. So they settle into this routine of being like stuck in the, inside their house. They can't see anyone. They can't go outside. So there are obviously all of these risks of like running out of food and not having medicine that you need and things like that. I think when you get to the very end of this movie, and maybe there's a little bit of commonality between One Night Only and The Last House in this regard, when you get to the very end of the movie, I think they blow it a little bit. I think the landing is not quite stuck here.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  But first of all, Greta Lee, Wagner Mora, that's a very good pair of leads. But combined with this kind of sci-fi, mystery, horror stuff, and even though I didn't love the ending, it's a pretty effective locked inside the house thriller. It's pretty smart. It doesn't rely on everybody doing incredibly foolish things that nobody would ever do.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  So I do recommend it. It is on Netflix. Again, it's called The Last House. Like, perfect for like an evening at home. Just absolutely perfect.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you so much, Linda. Well, ring the alarm because this might be a piece H H first for me, which is that I am going to talk about a video game that I

• 25:36Speaker 03

  What?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  have enjoyed playing recently.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  What?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. So I recently started playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, which is for the Nintendo Switch. Perhaps my millennials are saying, Tamagotchi's back? What? No, it is not Tamagotchi. I definitely thought that that was what it was.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  I thought, and I'm not a millennial.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  When you downloaded it, you thought it was Tamagotchi?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  No, I knew before I downloaded, but when I heard it, I was like, Tamagotchi's are back. Oh, man, I can't wait to like clean up my little alien poop and all that stuff. No, no, no. This is Tomodachi Life. It's the third iteration of Nintendo's Tomodachi Life series, which was released this spring. And I haven't played the earlier versions of Tomodachi Life, but I'm diving in now. It's very fun. So it's kind of like The Sims, but a lot more chaste and a lot more like Nintendo. It's like very kind of like

• 26:26Speaker 03

  It's more kid-friendly.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's definitely more kid-friendly. You have a world, you have an island, actually. You get to name the island and you create me's. That's M with two I's. It's a little weird that they all have British accents. And then it's like, everyone has a British accent. You can adjust their voices, but like they all kind of sound like some variation of like, hello, hi, boss, welcome. And like, you're kind of playing God. Like, they address you as like, hey, boss, I'm hungry. It's, it's a little weird, but I'm enjoying it. It's fun.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Have you ever played Animal Crossing?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  I love Animal Crossing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Is that what Animal Crossing was like? I've heard of it.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  No, not exactly. But it sounds like when you talk about like a sort of a world-building thing, that's kind of a little bit more kid-friendly. It's an island, you know, softer. It doesn't have all the stuff that you're talking about at all, but I just was, it made me wonder whether you'd enjoy Animal Crossing.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. But yeah, I've enjoyed this. I've enjoyed making me's out of my friends. So like my husband and some of my close friends are all like me's.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, cute.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  And we're all falling for each, like I, my character fell for my husband in the world. And it's, it's just fun. And yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  So like your husband could fall for one of your friends.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  That's also possible. It hasn't happened yet, but it's possible. I highly recommend if you're looking for something fun, a distraction. And so, yeah, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. It's on Nintendo Switch. That's what's making me happy this week. That brings us to the end of our show. Wayland Wong, Linda Holmes, thanks so much for being here. And I hope we never find ourselves in a sex purge scenario ever.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Me too. Thanks, this is fun.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Mike Katsev, Habsa Fathema, Liz Metzger, and Lennon Sherburne, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, coming in provides our theme music. And thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next week.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more. Try it free for 14 days at g o o dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. This message comes from Angie. Angie has been helping homeowners find skilled pros to get their home projects done well for over 30 years. For everything from minor repairs to major remodels, find reviews, pricing, and booking at angie.com or on the Angie app.