Closing Riff: Prigozhin's Midnight and the Cinderella Metaphor

• 1:06:56Tim's mother died the same time Prigozhin died, a weird temporal coincidence.
• 1:07:06Prigozhin's fatal flaw was thinking he was Taylor Swift in America, but in Russia there is no Taylor Swift.
• 1:07:18You could see the joy and brush with fame in Prigozhin, thinking he was going on the Eras Tour.
• 1:07:39Tim compares life-changing moments to David Carr smoking crack, looking at his kids, and deciding to change on a dime.
• 1:08:27The Cinderella metaphor: at the stroke of midnight the carriage becomes a pumpkin and everything reverts to what it was.
• 1:09:07Prigozhin's midnight was in the plane in Moscow when the bomb went off.
• 1:09:21Tim imagines Putin and the Kremlin in St. Petersburg watching this show with translators, occasionally gesturing at the screen.
• 1:09:37Prigozhin in the air with all his guys, still thinking he's this important figure, then the bomb goes off and he realizes nothing has changed—he's bigger than ever.
• 1:10:09When the bomb detonates and the wing of the plane is no longer visible, Prigozhin gets a split second before the g-forces take over to know exactly what's happening.
• 1:10:37At that moment he remembered what he really is, not Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour but in Russia, where the carriage becomes a missile hurtling to the ground.

Taylor SwiftYevgeny PrigozhinDavid CarrVladimir PutinCinderella