S04.E08: Coushatta

[shapeshifter]

8 hours ago, Tighthead said:

Somewhat less discussion on this episode than normal. I’m concluding that it was, in relative terms, a dud. 

Although the Mike plot seemed a bit uninteresting at times, I think the main reason for less discussion is that a lot of new shows premiered this week, so BCS viewers are commenting on those show's threads too and not obsessing over the finer points about this episode.

[Macbeth]

On September 26, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Bannon said:

 

I really don't see this con that way. I think it could work,  because it seems so pointless, in proportion to the work required, that I could see an overtaxed ADA, saying "The hell with this, let's go work on something important".

This is why the con was so fantastic - it acted like a computer virus. 

First it was the buckets of mail. Next it was the phone calls. And then it was the website. 

The ADA pushed the wrong buttons and instead of finding evidence of a fraud she kept digging herself deeper and deeper into the Huell love fest.  And she wanted out. 

[Gobi]

BTW, I loved Kim's technically true response to the Judge: "Do you mean did I ask the people of Coushatta to write those letters? Absolutely not."

[Clanstarling]

44 minutes ago, Gobi said:

BTW, I loved Kim's technically true response to the Judge: "Do you mean did I ask the people of Coushatta to write those letters? Absolutely not."

I know, right? I said to Mr. C - now there's some fine legal parsing of language.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Clanstarling

[gallimaufry]

An interesting episode.  Mike and the Germans... we'll see where this goes.  I will say that, for all the precautions they've taken, letting them loose in Albuquerque seems like an unusually stupid choice.  I didn't think they even knew before in which city the laundry was located.

The stuff with the court was a joy to watch but... I found Kim's behaviour change, especially at the end... a reach.  Yes, it's a twist and it's not unprecedented -- they've foreshadowed a darker side to Kim.  Still, it feels a big leap from where she was only relatively recently in the timeline.  When she found out about the squat cobbler and address change scams, she expressed displeasure but swallowed it and turned a blind eye.  Here, she is actively participating and now pursuing it.  What's changed?

She's certainly been through a lot.  She worked herself into the ground to gain and maintain the esteem of first HHM and now Mesa Verde.  In the end, she couldn't maintain the pace of Mesa Verde and she started getting her fix from the pro bono cases.  However, it doesn't seem to have moved her much further forward -- in her meetings with Mesa Verde, she still has to be the person to put a limit on ambition and colour within the lines and in her PD work, she's not really given much credit or respect.

I think Jimmy's superpower, to Kim, is that he doesn't care about any of that.  He torpedoed Davis & Main.  He took on Rich at the drinks party.  When Kim tries to find a sensible solution, he says he'll handle it his way.  No worries, no holding back.  When Kim comments at the end, "I saw your Esteem in the parking lot", I think it plays into the metaphor about Jimmy's Esteem.  He doesn't have the esteem of his brother, society or his clients but he does have a unique kind of self-esteem -- a conviction that he can step outside the law as needed.

That's my reading and my interpretation but I feel there's a lot to unpick next episode if the show's going to stick the landing on this twist.

[PeterPirate]

6 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

7 hours ago, Gobi said:

BTW, I loved Kim's technically true response to the Judge: "Do you mean did I ask the people of Coushatta to write those letters? Absolutely not."

I know, right? I said to Mr. C - now there's some fine legal parsing of language.

 

And leave it to Neelix, in his self-righteous naivete, to fall for it hook, line and sinker.  

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

7 hours ago, Gobi said:

BTW, I loved Kim's technically true response to the Judge: "Do you mean did I ask the people of Coushatta to write those letters? Absolutely not."

I know, right? I said to Mr. C - now there's some fine legal parsing of language.

Reading this here . . .

Spoiler

the day after the hearings on the news. Wow. Just sayin'. Life imitates art. In almost real time.

[maystone]

On 9/27/2018 at 2:07 AM, PrincessSteel said:

I am a bit baffled as to why everyone here thinks that the Germans are doomed. Gus kills when he has to but is businesslike about it. Killing off a gang of workers would be bad business...either they were trustworthy enough to hire in the first place (after a ton of vetting by Gus and/or Mike) or a crew that could be trusted would've been found. If there is a network of people prepared to do such work--and Mike didn't find Werner in a phone book--then there also has to be MUTUAL trust that the workers will STFU about the job in exchange for not being sent to Belieze once the job was done. Gus can't afford to get a name for being an unreliable employer. 

I agree completely. Everyone in the criminal world of BB runs on their reputation. Their survival both personally and financially depends on their ability to get the job done and to maintain discretion. Gus is running a business that has and will continue to have a complex web of contractors and direct hires; he'd be cut off from both in a hot second when word got out that he killed all of a professional crew because one member slipped. I think that even Kai is going to make it out alive. He might never get hired by anyone again because he's an asshole, but he doesn't seem to be the type that would run his mouth off about the job in NM just because he and Mike didn't get along. If anything, I would think that the two civilians Werner was hanging with in the bar might be goners, if not for the fact that the investigation into their deaths would lead back to the bar and their conversation with the chatty German engineer.

[isiscloud]

If it were just the letters and calls, that might create suspicion; however, because Kim & her $400/hour team showed up (who said this was pro bono) and the donations on the website seemed legit, the ADA decided it wasn't worth her time and resources to pursue further.

Kim would definitely have faced mucho consequences from her actions.

The whole Nacho scene at the end had me very tense.

[Macnyc]

The ADA was thorough in that she called the phone numbers. But why didn't she and her staff google the names and addresses of the letter writers? Were those names made up, or were they actual names of Coushatta residents? My impression is that the names were made up. OR were the people on the bus using their own names?

[Clanstarling]

49 minutes ago, Macnyc said:

The ADA was thorough in that she called the phone numbers. But why didn't she and her staff google the names and addresses of the letter writers? Were those names made up, or were they actual names of Coushatta residents? My impression is that the names were made up. OR were the people on the bus using their own names?

The bus was going to Coushatta, as I recall, which may mean that they were indeed Coushatta residents. On the other hand, I think it's more likely Jimmy did the research and had the names and addresses of the real residents. You don't see them much anymore, but I think in 2004 you could still get names and addresses from the white pages in the local phone book (at least for those who didn't opt out and only had initials and last names). And big city libraries had copies of phone books from all over the US. Of course, the actual phone numbers weren't of any interest to Jimmy (unless he had a way to spoof them so they'd come to his bank of drop phones - but I think that 2004 is too early for that technology).

Edited September 30, 2018 by Clanstarling

[PeterPirate]

I did a quick look at a map, and one would have to take at least three different buses to travel from Albuquerque NM to Choushatta LA:  one bus from Albuquerque to Dallas, one from Dallas to Shreveport, and the third from Shreveport to New Orleans down I-49, with the assumption that the last bus made a 10 mile side trip from the interstate to Coushatta.  A bus going from directly Albuquerque to New Orleans would go through Houston whether or not it went through Dallas and would not end up on I-49.    

I find it fantastical that such a bus route exists.  But hey, it's TV. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by PeterPirate

[Gemma Violet]

I'm way behind, so this may have already been mentioned, but Jimmy was way off speaking in a Cajun accent since Coushatta is in north Louisiana.  The Cajuns settled in the southern part of the state, all along the coast, with a smattering in the Baton Rouge (eastern) area.  I'd be willing to bet there's not one person with a Cajun accent in Coushatta.  

[Clanstarling]

1 minute ago, Gemma Violet said:

I'm way behind, so this may have already been mentioned, but Jimmy was way off speaking in a Cajun accent since Coushatta is in north Louisiana.  The Cajuns settled in the southern part of the state, all along the coast, with a smattering in the Baton Rouge (eastern) area.  I'd be willing to bet there's not one person with a Cajun accent in Coushatta.  

Well that just makes the accent doubly terrible, doesn't it?

[scenario]

56 minutes ago, Gemma Violet said:

I'm way behind, so this may have already been mentioned, but Jimmy was way off speaking in a Cajun accent since Coushatta is in north Louisiana.  The Cajuns settled in the southern part of the state, all along the coast, with a smattering in the Baton Rouge (eastern) area.  I'd be willing to bet there's not one person with a Cajun accent in Coushatta.  

People do move. He could always say that he was born in the southern part of the state and moved. Also, if your not familiar with the accent and hear it over the phone, you might not know the accent was bad. 

[Mommycpa]

10 hours ago, Gemma Violet said:

I'm way behind, so this may have already been mentioned, but Jimmy was way off speaking in a Cajun accent since Coushatta is in north Louisiana.  The Cajuns settled in the southern part of the state, all along the coast, with a smattering in the Baton Rouge (eastern) area.  I'd be willing to bet there's not one person with a Cajun accent in Coushatta.  

This is what I’ve been thinking the whole time. I grew up 20 miles from Coushatta. They got so much wrong!  It’s not a Cajun name at all. It’s an Indian one. It’s named after the Coushatta Indian tribe. The town is pronounced Cu-shat-a. There’s an Indian casino in S La, near Lafayette and an actual Indian tribe in east Tx near Livingston that are both pronounced Cu- shat-a. None are pronounced with Cou as the first syllable.

Coushatta is small, but not like they portrayed it. Also, you’d be hard pressed to find a post office anywhere in La. that’s on a dirt or gravel road. Coushatta has multiple red lights, a handful of places to eat, big gas stations, etc. The post about the bus going there is correct. It’s possible to get there by bus. It’s not easy!  

You are not going to find many, if any (I don’t know any from my tiny town 20 miles down the road) people who speak with a true Cajun accent there. You could find people sounding almost like the bad accent used way out in the country, south of Lafayette in very tiny towns or even outside of actual towns. People who live there don’t have names ending in eaux.  They are named Williams, Jefferson, Washington, Wimberly, etc. 

I grew up Southern Baptist and it’s not “free will” Baptist. We used communion and Lord’s Supper fairly interchangeably in conversation. It was actually called the Lord’s Supper. You would not find a preacher in a white Baptist Church wearing a robe and there’s no such thing as a communion robe, only a choir robe and a robe you wear to be baptized. Baptist churches don’t have parishioners. We have members. It’s possible that some black Baptist churches have ministers who wear robes. Although there might be a handful of people (literally 2-3) who might attend the other race’s church, for the most part, churches in those tiny towns are so not have many members from different races. Oh, also, we do have grape juice and little tiny crackers that are very tiny and unleavened  

I cant wait to find out if they get caught or if the producers were lazy. I’m glad that at least they mentioned the Red River as that’s the most notable thing about Coushatta. There’s a bridge across the river there. Before I-49 was built, you often crossed the river there. 

I couldn’t believe it, paused my recording, and got up to look closely at that post office when they showed that it was Coushatta!  I have been there hundreds of times.

[Pike Ludwell]

31 minutes ago, Mommycpa said:

Coushatta is small, but not like they portrayed it. Also, you’d be hard pressed to find a post office anywhere in La. that’s on a dirt or gravel road. Coushatta has multiple red lights, a handful of places to eat, big gas stations, etc. The post about the bus going there is correct. It’s possible to get there by bus. It’s not easy!  

 

And here I was thinking they took the camera crew over to Coushatta and filmed the scenes, including an actual Post Office building there. That would have been pretty elegant! So that was in fact some old building in CA that they slapped a Coshatta post office sign onto?

Edited October 1, 2018 by Pat Hoolihan

[Eulipian 5k]

On 9/30/2018 at 4:46 AM, maystone said:

I would think that the two civilians Werner was hanging with in the bar might be goners, if not for the fact that the investigation into their deaths would lead back to the bar and their conversation with the chatty German engineer.

Killing these two would be murder, the same, to Mike, as when Hector killed the Good Samaritan after Mike hijacked the cartel's truck. He was going to punish Hector for that and it  changed his whole relationships with Nacho, Hector,, & Gus.

[Pike Ludwell]

Extra long episode tonight and Vince Gilligan directs it! I'm hoping they show a little flashback explaining how and why Nacho got involved in the cartel drug business. He doesn't seem like the type and in the sort of circumstances that he would get involved, so explanation would be helpful - but keep it brief.

[Bryce Lynch]

23 hours ago, Macnyc said:

The ADA was thorough in that she called the phone numbers. But why didn't she and her staff google the names and addresses of the letter writers? Were those names made up, or were they actual names of Coushatta residents? My impression is that the names were made up. OR were the people on the bus using their own names?

It wasn't clear whether Jimmy and Kim made up the names or used real names of Coushatta residents.  Either way, a minimal amount of digging online and on the phone would reveal that the letters were not genuine.  If they do get away with it, it will only be because the suspicious ADA chose to follow up by calling the numbers in the letters (not suspecting there would be a fake phone for each one of them), rather than researching online or in the phone directory.

This seems like a huge risk for Jimmy and Kim to take.  Why would they assume she wouldn't do the basic research, and would only call the numbers in the letters?  

If Jimmy and Kim do get away with this, I'm going to consider this to be shaky writing.  Even if they get busted, I'm not sure the writing is that good.  Would the two seasoned con artists leave so many huge loose ends?  

Edited October 1, 2018 by Bryce Lynch

[Pike Ludwell]

13 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

It wasn't clear whether Jimmy and Kim made up the names or used real names of Coushatta residents.  Either way, a minimal amount of digging online and on the phone would reveal that the letters were not genuine.  If they do get away with it, it will only be because the suspicious ADA chose to follow up by calling the numbers in the letters (not suspecting there would be a fake phone for each one of them), rather than researching online or in the phone directory.

This seems like a huge risk for Jimmy and Kim to take.  Why would they assume she wouldn't do the basic research, and would only call the numbers in the letters?  

If Jimmy and Kim do get away with this, I'm going to consider this to be shaky writing.  Even if they get busted, I'm not sure the writing is that good.  Would the two seasoned con artists leave so many huge loose ends?  

It could be taken as an absolute genius sizing up of the thinking of the ADA. She would have no reason to believe the presence of the absolutely insane, extreme efforts of Jimmy and Kim on such a "minor" case. And they sized that up and weighed it against her extreme obsessiveness on the matter. On the other hand, maybe they miscalculated her obsessiveness.

[ShadowFacts]

2 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

It wasn't clear whether Jimmy and Kim made up the names or used real names of Coushatta residents.  Either way, a minimal amount of digging online and on the phone would reveal that the letters were not genuine.  If they do get away with it, it will only be because the suspicious ADA chose to follow up by calling the numbers in the letters (not suspecting there would be a fake phone for each one of them), rather than researching online or in the phone directory.

This seems like a huge risk for Jimmy and Kim to take.  Why would they assume she wouldn't do the basic research, and would only call the numbers in the letters?  

If Jimmy and Kim do get away with this, I'm going to consider this to be shaky writing.  Even if they get busted, I'm not sure the writing is that good.  Would the two seasoned con artists leave so many huge loose ends?  

Totally agree.  This thing didn't even pass the smell test.  It places Kim in so much ethical jeopardy.  Her previous Giselle stunts, not so much, but this is really shaky ground for her.  The only way I'm buying this writing is if Kim herself is on her own self-destruct path.  It's too much unseemly crap for a Schweikert partner to be pulling.  She's an officer of the court.  I was really put off by it. 

[Bryce Lynch]

8 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

Totally agree.  This thing didn't even pass the smell test.  It places Kim in so much ethical jeopardy.  Her previous Giselle stunts, not so much, but this is really shaky ground for her.  The only way I'm buying this writing is if Kim herself is on her own self-destruct path.  It's too much unseemly crap for a Schweikert partner to be pulling.  She's an officer of the court.  I was really put off by it. 

The only saving grace for Kim could be that there doesn't seem to be much directly connecting her to it.  The fact that her boyfriend (Jimmy's fingerprints on the letters and records that he bought the burner phones from the wholesaler) and her client (Huell's photos on the fake church website) could be proven to be involved would put suspicion on Kim.  But, I can't think of any hard evidence proving Kim was involved.  

I wasn't really put off by it, though I probably should have  been.  I just think they left behind way too much evidence.  

I was more put off by the fact that Kim got off in it so much.  I could understand her going overboard to help a client she thought was being treated unfairly. But, her love for petty scam artistry is beneath her, or should be. 

Edited October 1, 2018 by Bryce Lynch

[Bryce Lynch]

2 hours ago, Pat Hoolihan said:

It could be taken as an absolute genius sizing up of the thinking of the ADA. She would have no reason to believe the presence of the absolutely insane, extreme efforts of Jimmy and Kim on such a "minor" case. And they sized that up and weighed it against her extreme obsessiveness on the matter. On the other hand, maybe they miscalculated her obsessiveness.

For me the flaw, is that it is not so much the intensity of the investigation, but the direction that will determine if they get caught.  If she simply Googled a few names and addresses, first, instead of going to the trouble to call the numbers in the letters, she would have discovered the fraud quickly. 

[Eulipian 5k]

2 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

The fact that her boyfriend (Jimmy's fingerprints on the letters and records that he bought the burner phones from the wholesaler) and her client (Huell's photos on the fake church website) could be proven to be involved would put suspicion on Kim.  But, I can't think of any hard evidence proving Kim was involved.  

That Jimmy's prints were on all letters only shows that he organized a letter campaign in support of his friend. It's obviously some one did ; the people of Coushatta didn't do it out of the blue. Aren't letter campaigns done like:

• "Huell's in jail!"
• "Let's meet at the church to write letters!"
• "Jimmy will collect the letters and mail them from the Post Office"

The only trap is if the ADA would do forensic analysis on letters sent for an assault on an officer, who had not presented any badge or ID as a police officer when he was struck. That would be far-fetched and a waste of resources. They have rape kits that are waiting for forensic analysis.

[ShadowFacts]

38 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I was more put off by the fact that Kim got off in it so much.  I could understand her going overboard to help a client she thought was being treated unfairly. But, her love for petty scam artistry is beneath her, or should be. 

It's really unseemly.  Were I a partner at Schweikert, I would not cotton to one of my peers involved in any scheming like that.  I think one of the canons of ethics is not to offer evidence that is fraudulent, or just generally prohibiting conduct unbecoming a member of the bar, and that applies not just to if you can be caught, you are held to these principles when you are sworn in.  It's obvious she shouldn't be doing this. 

[Bryce Lynch]

21 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

It's really unseemly.  Were I a partner at Schweikert, I would not cotton to one of my peers involved in any scheming like that.  I think one of the canons of ethics is not to offer evidence that is fraudulent, or just generally prohibiting conduct unbecoming a member of the bar, and that applies not just to if you can be caught, you are held to these principles when you are sworn in.  It's obvious she shouldn't be doing this. 

Season 2 Kim would find her behavior unseemly.  Remember how upset she was when Jimmy produced the Squat Cobbler video?  "Fabricating evidence", is what she called it, I believe.   

[smartymarty]

6 hours ago, Pat Hoolihan said:

So that was in fact some old building in CA that they slapped a Coshatta post office sign onto?

First off, they film in Albuquerque, not California. And on the insider podcast, they said they hired some crew to make a Coushatta church into a post office.

[Bannon]

6 minutes ago, smartymarty said:

First off, they film in Albuquerque, not California. And on the insider podcast, they said they hired some crew to make a Coushatta church into a post office.

Yeah, the vegetation was definitely not either New Mexican or Californian. I really appreciate that they went to Louisiana (although they halfway credibly faked New Hampshire in the final episodes of BB in the snowy mountains of New Mexico) to do that one scene. I really liked "Justified", but it used to bug me that they had the hills of California pretending to be Harlan County, KY, because the show was very rooted in the culture of that place, but the light and vegetation never looked right. 

[Pike Ludwell]

Just listened to the Podcast and in fact they did not film that in Louisiana. It was in NM. The trees were digital effects. VG seemed to have just learned that and gasped at how good that was done. They wanted to go to Louisiana but it was all too much. Yes the bldg was a church and they had to physically adapt it to a PO/general store thing.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Pat Hoolihan

[Bannon]

49 minutes ago, Pat Hoolihan said:

Just listened to the Podcast and in fact they did not film that in Louisiana. It was in NM. The trees were digital effects. VG seemed to have just learned that and gasped at how good that was done. They wanted to go to Louisiana but it was all too much. Yes the bldg was a church and they had to physically adapt it to a PO/hardware store thing.

It is amazing how seamlessly digital images can be inserted now. I had no sense at all that those were digital trees. I've read they have done the same thing with snowy scenes in Game of Thrones.

[Benji]

So, where did the associates come from that accompanied Kim to the meeting with the ADA ? Schwiekert ? Would they have authorized and paid for that ? Or is that part of Kim's partnership deal ? That they are supposed to support her in her public defender cases ?

[Bryce Lynch]

14 minutes ago, Benji said:

So, where did the associates come from that accompanied Kim to the meeting with the ADA ? Schwiekert ? Would they have authorized and paid for that ? Or is that part of Kim's partnership deal ? That they are supposed to support her in her public defender cases ?

The were from S&C.  Two of them were the "famous Gary and the famous-er Stef", who Jimmy met at the S&C office party.  Whether or not using them for her PD work is one of her privileges as a partner at S&C is not clear.  

[Mommycpa]

2 hours ago, smartymarty said:

First off, they film in Albuquerque, not California. And on the insider podcast, they said they hired some crew to make a Coushatta church into a post office.

The church they used was not in Louisiana. It was in Albuquerque. 

Those trees are way too scruffy. We have huge oaks and pines.  Y’all should google Coushatta. Red River Parish is one of the poorest in the state. If you’ve never been to the rural south, you’d probably be shocked. It’s pretty depressing on one hand, but quite cute in other ways with older homes built 100 years or more ago that have been kept up with beautiful yards. 

[heisenberg]

On 25/09/2018 at 10:16 PM, Eulipian 5k said:

Heh, Francine's old employer? And I still say it's DMV dammit! (Mesa Verde is a bank, BTW)

Sorry, my bad.

[PeterPirate]

The real Coushatta Post Office.  

 

And the BCS version:

[Captanne]

Don't forget BCS is set in the 1980s.  Is the photo from the Post Office now set in the 21st Century?

[PeterPirate]

I typed "Coushatta Post Office" into my browser and that's what came up.  I don't know how old the building is.   Btw, BCS is circa 2003-2004. 

[LoneHaranguer]

On 10/1/2018 at 1:40 PM, Bryce Lynch said:

For me the flaw, is that it is not so much the intensity of the investigation, but the direction that will determine if they get caught.  If she simply Googled a few names and addresses, first, instead of going to the trouble to call the numbers in the letters, she would have discovered the fraud quickly. 

The ADA may not have known how to use the internet. Even a decade later, you saw folks like that every week on Catfish. I'm willing to presume that Kim knew her well enough to know what she and Jimmy could get away with.

[shapeshifter]

53 minutes ago, rohitpandey said:

In the flashforward scene when Jimmy was disappearing, he took all the money he had, obviously a lot would go to the vacuum man, but I don't think they'd show us something like that unless it had later importance. I think Gene is probably sitting on a lot of money, and that will come into play as the Gene scenes escalate. I'm reminded of all the money Walt gave for Walter jr when he left new hampshire, I'm thinking something different but along the same theme will happen with Gene. The question is where the money goes.

That's an intriguing speculation. Can we be sure it was more money than he'd need to get vacuumed/disappear?

[Totale]

On 9/26/2018 at 11:57 AM, LoneHaranguer said:

Some strippers are prostitutes, but any strip club that doesn't have local law enforcement willing to look the other way will have a strict no-touching (i.e. take it elsewhere) policy. We don't know what services were received by the guys who followed the policy.

Sorry to be so late, I delayed the gratification of watching this season for several months and am just getting to it now.

I am charmed by the apparent innocence of several of the commenters upthread on this issue.  It was not a Baptist church Mike brought the boys to for R&R, and it seems to me clearly intended that the boys should leave there relieved, not just stimulated.  I am given to understand that sometimes in such situations, even on site, ladies who have chosen to be "tipped" (Kai: "I paid") may be as handsy as they find necessary, but that the recipient of their attentions is expected to be strictly "hands off".  Kai broke the rules and paid the price - some of the other guys may also have paid for "private dances" but were no trouble.

[Ohwell]

1 hour ago, Totale said:

I am charmed by the apparent innocence of several of the commenters upthread on this issue.

I am somewhat amused that you would think that any of us are innocent.

[Totale]

17 hours ago, Ohwell said:

I am somewhat amused that you would think that any of us are innocent.

Well, there were all those posters wondering why Mike didn't bring the boys where prostitution exists :)

[Clanstarling]

20 hours ago, Totale said:

Well, there were all those posters wondering why Mike didn't bring the boys where prostitution exists :)

I don't know about the others, but my problem with it was more a security issue than being naive. For a super secret project, they weren't as careful as I would have expected.