Jennifer Garner is promoting season two of The Last Thing He Told Me, which premieres on February 20th on Apple TV+. I saw that she was trending for looking gorgeous in last night’s appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The photos here are from outside The Late Show and from a joint event for TLTHTM and Reese Witherspoon’s book club on Friday. Garner spoke with Colbert about the fact that they go way back – they first met during their one-off guest appearances on Spin City in the 90s. Garner actually babysat Colbert and his wife Evie’s oldest child, daughter Madeline, who is 30 now. When Colbert mentioned that Madeline is 30 Garner seemed personally offended.

Colbert brought up that the business Garner co-founded in 2015, baby food company Once Upon a Farm, went public recently. Colbert didn’t say it but Garner is rich rich now. The company’s valuation was $724 million. She’s splitting that three ways and valuation doesn’t necessarily translate to real money but it’s still a massive success story.

I wanted to talk about something Garner mentioned about her character on TLTHTM, Hannah Hall. She used the term “competency p-rn,” where we love to watch people good at their jobs. This term is new to me and makes me think of one of my favorites, Jason Statham, who plays the same superhero badass in every movie that I will pay to watch every time. Garner used the example of The Pitt, another highly watchable show. Here’s what she said:

Jennifer: It’s fun to play a character who’s good at things because I kind of fumble through.

Stephen: Sydney was very good at things.

Jennifer: That is a really nice feeling to be someone… It’s like what they call competency p-rn where we all love characters who are excellent at their jobs. Like you, Stephen. Or like The Pitt.

Stephen: The Pitt is competency p-rn?

Jennifer: that’s classic competency p-rn. At the beginning of season two you see that my character has been preparing five years for the danger that will inevitably come her way and she is going to protect her daughter at all costs. Angourie rice. As it catches up to them it’s just like watching locks falling into place it was very satisfying for me to play. It’s really fun to play and it’s a great season. My character learned to fight, go figure. Sometimes I have to throw down.

Stephen: I want to warn everyone at home do not use your work computer to look up competency p-rn.

[From The Late Show via YouTube]

I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this. It’s in so many workplace-based shows, where there’s someone excellent at their job but typically with a fatal flaw. Right now I’m watching Best Medicine and it’s got a curmudgeon village doctor who figures out medical mysteries yet has zero people skills. It’s cheesy but I like it. I’m also of course watching The Pitt, where they rarely mess up a diagnosis or treatment but still deal with death and burnout.

Competency p-rn has a whole Wikipedia article and was coined in 2009. Garner may have learned about it from this recent article about The Pitt in The Guardian. Other shows considered competency p-rn, according to Lifehacker, include Hidden Figures, John Wick and The Martian. Now I know the name for my favorite type of show!

Here’s that part of Garner’s interview, you can see the first part here.

photos credit: T. Jackson/Backgrid, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon