The Emmys Mostly Got It Right and ‘Task’ Episode 2

Chris and Andy talk about the Emmys, what 'The Pitt' winning over 'Severance' says about the state of the industry, and the night’s biggest winners and losers (1:21). Later, they discuss the second episode of ‘Task’ and break down why it’s even better than the pilot (32:15). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 2:06Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, who'll take those crab fries to go, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:21Andy Greenwald?

  So excited to talk about our Emmy winner for most disappointing drama, Kevin Patullo's offense.

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  You had it. You got it. And you got the first Eagles reference in before me, Greenwald. Today, we're talking about the Emmys, which were last night, and we're also talking about the second episode of Task. By the way, you can always email the watch at the watch at spotify.com. You can follow us on Instagram at the watch pod underscore on Instagram, where you'll find that Kai is just doing amazing stuff with vertical content, vertical framed video.

• 2:50Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 2:51Speaker 07

  And now I have Kai helping. He's been doing some fancy, he's doing fancy graphics now.

• 2:56Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 2:56Speaker 07

  We're really, we're leveling up on the Instagram.

• 2:58Andy Greenwald?

  I also have to say, I feel like since you returned from Italy, Kai, you're bringing a certain European sensibility to the aesthetics of the framing.

• 3:08Andy Greenwald?

  You smoking? I don't know.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  A lot of bank holidays.

• 3:13Chris Ryan?

  And also, you can watch us on YouTube, ringer-tv is the channel, or you should watch us on Spotify, where you're hopefully also listening to us.

• 3:20Andy Greenwald?

  Comment on YouTube, Chris reads them.

• 3:21Chris Ryan?

  The Emmys.

• 3:24Chris Ryan?

  An event and a

• 3:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I'm ready.

• 3:25Chris Ryan?

  And a tradition unlike any other.

• 3:29Andy Greenwald?

  Similar to many others.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  It's similar to all the other award shows. I wanted to go to you first, Andy, because I could tell you're chomping at the bit.

• 3:36Andy Greenwald?

  I am.

• 3:36Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, I don't even have a question. The Emmys... and you say what?

• 3:40Andy Greenwald?

  I say, everyone here, all three of us, know that I am a big Nate Bargatze fan.

• 3:46Chris Ryan?

  Oh, shit.

• 3:47Andy Greenwald?

  I think his comedy is awesome.

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  Are you abandoning your child?

• 3:50Andy Greenwald?

  I have watched that last Netflix special multiple times, and I would love to see him in person one day doing his clean comedy. I think he's fantastic. I think he delivered one of the all time worst hosting performances last night. And I think the most charitable thing you could say about it is that it is a epic heat check in that he clearly thought that he could just show up and be like, well, I don't know stuff and host an award show. You can't do that. You especially can't do that with the Emmys, which is maybe even more than any of the other major award shows, notoriously unwieldy and long and jumps tonally from, you know, Jeff Probst to adolescence. Sure. You have to. Very similar things, actually, if you think about it, both about survival.

• 4:35Andy Greenwald?

  God, you're... What did you have? What was your, what was your diet this morning? Did you have a lot of caffeine? I actually did. This is sharp work. I thought it was incredibly dispiriting and it really had the vibe of a guy who on Instagram was like, thanks LA for the rehearsal. I'm off to Denver for two sold out shows. See you Sunday. It doesn't work. It not only does it not work to be like, I have one joke that sucked about money and costing money, which, you know, which he acknowledged in the beginning. This is the Boys and Girls Club timer. This is a funny bit that punishes. Explain the bit, just for anybody who maybe. So people who didn't watch it. Watching J.J. McCarthy. Yeah, go ahead. Is it, did you want to watch J.J. McCarthy? Yes. That guy lost more than Mike White last night.

• 5:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's crazy. So the bit was that Nate Bargatze was like, I have, I will donate $100,000, which by the way, for a guy who is making millions every year, that seemed a little weird. Yeah. And he, you know, this is the CBS Network, which was just purchased for what, like, how many billions in cash? We're gonna get to that, yeah. It was not just, well, the CBS was purchased, yes. My, my point is $100,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of America, but for every speech that goes over 45 seconds, we will begin a countdown where every second is $1,000 away from the donation. Yes. But every second you don't use is, puts it back in the plus column. This. Was a dumb bit from the beginning that always was going to end up with them being like,

• 6:04Andy Greenwald?

  "Oh, our good friends at CBS are gonna make this hole anyway and make a nice donation." It punished the people who won awards, who maybe will never do this again, and made it about their love of children and charity.

• 6:17Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:17Andy Greenwald?

  As opposed to their shining moment. It also weirdly did, what's the reverse of rewarding? Oh, I mean of punishing. It rewarded presenters for talking too long.

• 6:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, the Brad Garrett, Ray Romano bit that went on seemingly for like seven minutes.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  Jennifer Coolidge is still talking.

• 6:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Andy Greenwald?

  That was just, it was bad when it was suggested. It was bad throughout. That was his only contribution to the humor of the evening. He didn't have any other jokes. He didn't have any material. And his bit that he's not really familiar with how television works or the industry was especially poorly timed when, I have to say, looking at the list of winners, a remarkably good story could have been told about the health of the industry.

• 6:55Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:55Andy Greenwald?

  And about the health of television.

• 6:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Andy Greenwald?

  In general.

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Andy Greenwald?

  And it was a wild generational bag fumble for the TV industry not to take advantage of that. Every year, we talk about how the Oscars do something that I kind of hate, but now I do understand why they do it, which is movies, am I right?

• 7:10Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 7:10Andy Greenwald?

  Remember movies with horses called westerns? Remember space movies? We laugh at movies. And the whole subtext of the night is, "Watch movies. You like them, remember?" Last night's whole thing of like, "Reba McEntire singing the Golden Girls theme song, but God forbid, the ascendant star of adolescence, this 15-year-old kid, can talk for more than 40 seconds while charming the room?" Fuck out of here.

• 7:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  That sucked.

• 7:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yes.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  A good night for television, but an awful broadcast.

• 7:40Chris Ryan?

  Um, how much did you feel like this was a, uh, I don't know, like, almost like an end of an era, a fin de ciclo, if you will?

• 7:50Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I might.

• 7:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, where I was thinking about how this is now, this was, and these were broadcast on CBS, which is recently purchased by Skydance.

• 7:59Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 8:00Chris Ryan?

  Um, it, uh, one of the big shows of the night was The Pit, which is on HBO Max, which might get recently purchased by Skydance.

• 8:08Andy Greenwald?

  That is end time stuff.

• 8:09Chris Ryan?

  You know, there was this strange, uh, kind of like, um, huge ups, you know, swelling of appreciation for Stephen Colbert, obviously.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was nice.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  And he won for Best Variety Show, I believe, at the end, or towards the end of the-

• 8:23Andy Greenwald?

  The talk show, yeah, yeah.

• 8:23Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Best Talk Show. And gives this rousing speech and I love this country now more than ever and everybody's standing and shouting Steven, Steven. And I just, I felt like Carrie Bradshaw voice, I couldn't help but wonder if we were really saying goodbye more than we were saying hello to. Like, maybe, even if it's just a construction of television, even if it's just like, there won't be as many, you know, platforms next year or two years from now or whatever. There seemed to be something in the air. But, you know, by that same token, like you said, I do think it was a really good night for the health of the industry and the swath of projects that get recognized.

• 9:04Andy Greenwald?

  And, you know, White Lotus was wildly shut out, although I think it was slightly predictable with a combination of show fatigue. It was not necessarily the most popular season.

• 9:13Chris Ryan?

  Well, they had to go against tougher competition, too.

• 9:15Andy Greenwald?

  And they all get nominated, so they cancel each other out. Like, that happened category after category.

• 9:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Andy Greenwald?

  And which led to some nice surprises.

• 9:23Chris Ryan?

  It was strange how by the end, it was like, oh, it has no chance. You know what I mean? Like, by the end of the broadcast, it was like, this is going to be the pit.

• 9:30Andy Greenwald?

  That seemed, I mean, first of all, kudos to us. I think we did get any prediction we made, I think we got right, including our dream, dream heave from midcourt for Catherine Lanasa because of the White Lotus cancellation effect, which is awesome. By the way, what a fascinating life. There was a profile of her in the New York Times a week or two ago that was really cool. But can you name, like, I don't, maybe you know because you've been paying attention, but I think an incredible game would be, can you name her three spouses?

• 10:01Chris Ryan?

  Dennis Hopper.

• 10:02Andy Greenwald?

  All of whom are actors.

• 10:03Chris Ryan?

  Grant Snow.

• 10:04Andy Greenwald?

  Show.

• 10:05Chris Ryan?

  Show.

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  He was not a bastard from the north. He was on Melrose Place. Let's all, let's, let's ratchet it down.

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  The bastard Grant Snow. Oh, who's the third?

• 10:17Andy Greenwald?

  You will never guess. He was a, he's a popular television actor of the 90s.

• 10:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:25Andy Greenwald?

  And you will never guess, so we shouldn't even do this.

• 10:27Chris Ryan?

  Tell me.

• 10:28Andy Greenwald?

  French Stewart.

• 10:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right? Really?

• 10:31Andy Greenwald?

  I made that same face for the same reason.

• 10:35Chris Ryan?

  Good for him!

• 10:36Andy Greenwald?

  I know!

• 10:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I know. Boy, she's just like-

• 10:40Andy Greenwald?

  What a life!

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  A Zelig.

• 10:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. She's awesome on this show. And like, you almost don't want to lead with the bad broadcast because Catherine Lannasa winning for this show, six months ago, this is an impossibility, a year ago, it was an impossibility. Jeff Hiller winning for Somebody Somewhere, a show that we-

• 10:59Chris Ryan?

  Shocking.

• 10:59Andy Greenwald?

  Like admire, kinda didn't cover, I didn't watch the last season. He's wonderful in it. And like, that's what these award shows ought to be. It should be a, you know, unlike the Eagles, a share of the wealth offense where lots of people get touches. And him winning that award means a lot more, I think, for him, for his career, for that show, than the wonderful and everything he does, Coleman Domingo. You know, I would love it if Coleman Domingo won, but I feel like Jeff Hiller winning is more significant.

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  It's also pretty awesome, I don't want to take anything away from Severance, which is so that I think I have more time for than you do, but like, obviously is a beloved and, and, you know, scrutinized and, and hotly anticipated show. Britt Lauer won for Drama Actress and-

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  Tramell Tillman.

• 11:45Chris Ryan?

  Tramell Tillman won Supporting Actor, so it did go away with some awards and I think it did win some at the Creative Arts Emmys. But I think that the, giving it to The Pit, even though there's not like a Borg hive mind decision to do this because of this reason, with The Pit coming back in January-

• 12:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 12:04Chris Ryan?

  And now The Pit can run a promotional campaign that says, "The Emmy Decorated Show of the Year Returns Again in January."

• 12:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  Whereas like, you give it to Severance and then it's like, "See you in 28, brother."

• 12:16Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe.

• 12:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Andy Greenwald?

  Look, take my own opinions about the show out of it. Tramell Tillman is awesome.

• 12:22Chris Ryan?

  He is.

• 12:22Andy Greenwald?

  It was a great win, well deserved, beautiful speech, great suit. Britt Lauer is also really, really good on the show. That was, that was a surprise. I think people thought Kathy Bates was gonna win, but I-

• 12:32Chris Ryan?

  Did you see that Britt had the, the piece of paper that said, "Let Me Out" on the back when she was reading her-

• 12:37Andy Greenwald?

  She got all excited, you fire up Reddit?

• 12:38Chris Ryan?

  I did.

• 12:38Andy Greenwald?

  You saw that?

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  I did.

• 12:39Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think she meant, "Please get me out of this show hell because I'd like to do something else before 2037"? No, I don't think that's what it meant either. I thought them winning was fantastic and deserved.

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  The reason why Severance didn't, I don't, we were very confident that The Pit was going to win. You could write that off to our bias about what we preferred. That's not why I thought it was gonna win. You've already, you can already see some post broadcast commentary of like, oh, well, the, the relationship that the audience or the voters have with the pit is a, that's a hot show in terms of like, I actively love these people and want to watch it.

• 13:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  And Severance is a cold show, I mean, in many ways, but specifically like, I admire it, but I don't love it. And sometimes it takes a little bit of stretching before I can really sit down and commit to it. That's part of it. But I genuinely believe what it comes down to is the fact that the industry is always going to vote for a show that employs hundreds of people on a soundstage in Los Angeles that gives them yearly work over a show that films

• 13:42Chris Ryan?

  Is that why you think that-

• 13:43Andy Greenwald?

  sometimes in New York every three years or so.

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  Do you, is that why you think that traditionally, like, there have been more rubber stamp winners over the course of like, it's just like-

• 13:52Andy Greenwald?

  I think you could make that argument, that there's a crew, I mean, like Colbert was making that point when he was saying like, about, about being unemployed, he wasn't really thinking about himself. He was talking about his crew have had the 10 year gig. These things don't exist anymore, especially, you know, they're getting more and more rare. I think that that is an industry vote as much as it is a critical vote for the pit over Severance. And I was, I was not surprised that it won. But I think there is a reason to be like, holy shit, because when the show premiered, there was some, remember, we, we talked about it, well, Netflix has its ER coming too.

• 14:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 14:26Andy Greenwald?

  Like, nobody really knew what it was. But then when you see it play out like this, I mean, Noah Wiley had never won an Emmy.

• 14:32Chris Ryan?

  It was a great moment for him.

• 14:33Andy Greenwald?

  Until he appeared on the Watch Podcast.

• 14:34Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 14:35Andy Greenwald?

  It was a great moment for him. He was fantastic. He was a fantastic speech. It was great.

• 14:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh, for the comedy stuff, I wanted to just ask whether you felt like the studio won because of a exhaustion, an exhaustion with Bear versus Hacks is the bear comedy stuff?

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 14:53Chris Ryan?

  Or did the studio win because, kind of like what you're saying, Hollywood loves to see a, either reflection or affirmation of its mission, and that this was just a show that everybody got behind because of a, a kind of, what it said about the town and what it said about like, the people who live here?

• 15:09Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's more that. And the reason why is because Hacks still swept the acting categories. Jean Smart and, and apparently, Birds fan Anna Einbinder won.

• 15:18Chris Ryan?

  Oh, notorious Birds fan.

• 15:19Andy Greenwald?

  But I, I didn't know. She has many interests, as she expressed on the broadcast. So it's hard to pin her down.

• 15:26Andy Greenwald?

  Clearly, there is a lot of love for that show still in the industry.

• 15:33Andy Greenwald?

  The Bear, I don't think was part of the conversation. I just, not just because it was shut out last night, but this was, you know, there was confusion because the show is yearly. And so I like, um, Liza Colanzias winning, Zayas Cologne winning last year.

• 15:49Andy Greenwald?

  For a season in which she wasn't as featured as she was in the season that had premiered by then.

• 15:53Chris Ryan?

  Where she had had her takeout episode in, right?

• 15:56Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, it's Liza Colanzias, I apologize. She, uh, she, last night was the, she was nominated for the season that had the episode Napkins that she was amazing in. And it did not even seem like she was gonna, it was clear that she was not gonna win that award.

• 16:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the, the, the, the version of the debate that we've had about The Bear, not as a comedy or not in relation to other shows, has settled into the industry, which is, this was, this was two seasons, this is not a full season of show, spread out over two seasons and it's not funny. And the, the, the trauma drama that was alluded to in the actually kind of funny Philo Farnsworth opening bit, is not really worth the squeeze at this time. I don't think it was even considered.

• 16:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Couple, oh, I want to talk about Adolescence because on the flip side of the pit, which does in a lot of ways, a very traditional thing where especially the length of the season, it's quick turnaround for another season. It's a Holly, it's a hospital procedural, which is a sort of a procedural. Well, I guess it is very much a procedural. It's just not like the way we usually approach those things. It is very traditional in some ways. Adolescence is the kind of like form breaking, uh, highly cinematic, incredibly creative act that I think got us fired up about this era of television in the first place.

• 17:16Chris Ryan?

  And I gotta admit, man, like, I still could, I could not be fucking happier for a group of people than like the people who made Adolescence winning for that.

• 17:24Andy Greenwald?

  Aaron Dockley, Stephen Graham.

• 17:25Chris Ryan?

  Obvious that they, I, I, I know that it's stupid to judge things off of people's reactions to winning.

• 17:32Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 17:32Chris Ryan?

  But when you make something like that, I think it's a testament to the power of the thing that you made when everybody else around you and everybody who worked on it is so fucking pumped up that it won. So to see when Stephen Graham won, you know, Ashley Walters just like basically climbing over three rows to like hug him is really cool.

• 17:52Andy Greenwald?

  I think, first of all, he's incredible. What a creative dynamo.

• 17:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Andy Greenwald?

  That show is art. That show is important.

• 18:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  That show is astonishing, jaw dropping, moves the medium forward and deserves everything.

• 18:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Andy Greenwald?

  And again, like, it's worth taking a moment to say, like, we said last week, like, did the viewers watch it? Is it a tough watch? No, people understood the brief, that you watch something and you recognize greatness. And that was fantastic to see. One of my favorite moments of the night was watching Colin Farrell react to Stephen Graham winning. He seemed happier than Stephen Graham, which is really sweet, you know? And some people thought that Colin Farrell was the favorite in that. It's like, it did just feel like one of those-

• 18:36Chris Ryan?

  I don't even know if I noticed that. What did he do?

• 18:38Andy Greenwald?

  He was thrilled.

• 18:39Chris Ryan?

  That's great.

• 18:39Andy Greenwald?

  He's the best. He was just so happy for a guy that he clearly has known for a long time and feels like he deserved it. And it wasn't really, this was one of those categories where I don't think you could get into the like, oh, did people prefer this or was there gamesmanship or, you know, strong-arming for Netflix's power in the marketplace? Look, these other shows were good, but they were up against a creative and critical juggernaut.

• 19:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Andy Greenwald?

  Which absolutely, absolutely deserved to win. And by the way, I understood what Elizabeth Banks was saying about it was remarkable that that 80% of the category of directing for limited series, the nominees were women. But I felt, that felt almost unfair to Philip Barantini, who, I mean, he did something that no one has ever done. Beat a field of four women. No, he, I apologize. But he directed a series that was all oners.

• 19:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Andy Greenwald?

  And made it artful and not show-offy. And he deserved, he deserved to win. Now, there's a secondary argument about like, why really good directors like Jennifer Getzinger or Helen Shaver are directing episodic penguins, which was fine, as opposed to having incredible revera opportunities.

• 19:51Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 19:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's not an argument that's going to be litigated last night. I did want to, we skipped over the comedy thing. I did just want to say about the studio. The studio was great. The studio won not just because of industry naval gazing. I think, I think it also won because it was a comedy that was fully ambitious in its aims of being a comedy. I think a lot of the other shows that separate themselves from the pack, like the reason why Hacks has won many times, or the Bear won before that, whereas a more joke-driven show like What We Do in the Shadows hasn't, is because ambition is coded as being a little more dramatic. And the studio takes the ambition and the budget and the opportunity and goes all in on being comedy.

• 20:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Andy Greenwald?

  Which I think matters and it's nice to have a little differentiation between the categories in that regard.

• 20:38Chris Ryan?

  I, I think when I first saw the studio pilot, which was back in March, I was like, it is also going to be-

• 20:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, we did think that.

• 20:45Chris Ryan?

  A show that tips towards the dramatic, that satire is sometimes so black, it's not funny.

• 20:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's melancholic.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right. Uh, but instead it became much more gag-oriented, kind of, you know, very smart gags.

• 21:00Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, tons of falls.

• 21:01Chris Ryan?

  But like, this parking space bit is gonna go on, and it was closer maybe to Curb than it was to The Player, you know?

• 21:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Chris Ryan?

  But I think it's fine, and I think it's also sustainable.

• 21:12Andy Greenwald?

  And a smart reflection of, yeah, exactly, the material. Like, that's, that's an ongoing comedy series, what they did. The first episode, which was the one that was the most nominated, was a statement. And then they lived in the wreckage, basically, of that statement-

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 21:25Andy Greenwald?

  -going forward. I also want to say, like, I do not, we've, I've never crossed paths with Seth Rogen. I'm a huge fan. I don't know his work process. This is all anecdotal, but people say he's a wonderful guy to work with, and it's like a really good creative vibe with him and Evan Goldberg. Frida Perez, who won, um, so we talked about this when we were talking about the show, right? That, that it seemed notable and rare that all of the executive producers of the show, everyone who wrote episodes-

• 21:52Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 21:52Andy Greenwald?

  -were all credited as co-creators.

• 21:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 21:54Andy Greenwald?

  That seems very democratic and generous. You saw that on stage last night, where the five of them, or six of them, all got up there. They made a moment of Frida Perez, one of the creators, being the first Latina to win as a producer in that category. I didn't know her story, that she started as Seth Rogen's assistant.

• 22:11Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know that either.

• 22:12Andy Greenwald?

  And then was promoted to writer, and then contributed to the movies that he's made, and is now a co-creator. And I was like, that is how this is supposed to go.

• 22:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  That is what the industry, that is what the, that is a good relic of the industry that the studio mourns, that he is trying to pay forward. And I thought that was really nice. Like, a lot of the internal industry drama, and the strikes and things, one of the inciting incidents is that lack of institutional support and growth opportunities and all that. So I thought it was really cool.

• 22:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there was just an article, I think it was in Hollywood Reporter, about the state of product PAs.

• 22:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 22:48Chris Ryan?

  In town, and how it used to be this first rung of the ladder that you would sort of start to climb up. And if you were gonna do, you know, you could obviously shadow a bunch of people and just decide, like, am I gonna be a P A and go towards production? Or am I gonna go towards working in a studio? Or am I gonna go try and work for this director's production company, or whatever? And now it's kind of like, it's just a carousel that goes round and round and round. And work is so hard to come by, especially in L.A., and it's hard to live in L.A. anyway, that it's just become like an almost impossible job.

• 23:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And so it was nice to see him practice, not even what he preaches, just practicing good behavior in the industry, and good, and giving opportunities.

• 23:26Chris Ryan?

  The one thing I wanted to ask you is, do you think that Dan Gillroy is gonna lord his Emmy over Tony Gillroy?

• 23:32Andy Greenwald?

  This is exactly what I have up. So, set this up.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  Andor won writing, which was very much like, like, there is, it was nice to know that any of the people in that crowd had, like, watched Andor, basically.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  And like, as you like to say, the ball knowers knew.

• 23:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:47Andy Greenwald?

  That was classic, like, Tarantino has won Emmys but for writing.

• 23:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:50Andy Greenwald?

  Because that's the category that they'll reward the thing that's a little bit outside of the box.

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  Oscars, yeah.

• 23:55Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, Oscars, yes.

• 23:55Chris Ryan?

  I was like, did he win an Emmy for writing on CSI?

• 23:59Andy Greenwald?

  For his appearance on Golden Girls.

• 24:00Chris Ryan?

  That's right. They, Andor won best writing in a drama series, right, for Welcome to the Rebellion.

• 24:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 24:09Chris Ryan?

  And Dan Gillroy is the writer of that episode.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  The credited writer.

• 24:13Chris Ryan?

  Credited writer of that episode. I would imagine that Tony Gillroy had some input on that episode.

• 24:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's fair to say.

• 24:19Chris Ryan?

  And it stays in the family, and I'm sure at Thanksgiving, they'll just put it in the middle and be like, it's for everybody.

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like the vibe I get from the Gilroy's is that they will not do that. And that will be the conversation.

• 24:30Chris Ryan?

  Tony, let us know. You know what I mean? Like, come on the watch and tell me about, uh, tell us all about visitation rights for that Emmy.

• 24:35Andy Greenwald?

  It was good Big Brother behavior. Like, that is, it is genuinely Tony modeling good showrunner behavior. Even though this was his first time being a showrunner. He is, everybody understands, he is the creator, he is the showrunner, he is the last one to touch the pages that go out. He's the last one in the edit. He was messing, he was co-composing the score, like, that's his baby. Both seasons, he divvied up the writing among his writers.

• 25:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Where he took credit for three episodes only of each season, and the rest were farmed out, and everyone basically wrote an arc this season. It just so happened that his brother Dan, who is an accomplished screenwriter and director in his own right, uh, wrote what is pretty much uniformly agreed upon as the best episode of the series.

• 25:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 25:19Andy Greenwald?

  Which was, which won.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Andy Greenwald?

  Um, so that was very cool and very gracious. He won, he thanked his brother. Um, he thanked Genevieve O'Reilly, who should have been nominated.

• 25:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:27Andy Greenwald?

  Which I thought was cool. But again, like, it's hard to nitpick when Andor did win. We, on Thursday, I was like, you know, the, the nomination was the reward.

• 25:36Chris Ryan?

  I just, I'm not gonna get upset about this stuff. It's not, like, when we talk about television twice a week for the last decade plus, we do not talk about, like, Emmy winners. We just don't. And I don't ever hear anywhere else besides in Los Angeles is people being like, "Well, I know that that won an Emmy," you know, and it, it's just not a barometer of what people are watching and what's important about television.

• 25:59Andy Greenwald?

  No, but it does, if you are a fan of TV that might not be mainstream or even Matlock, like, there's, there is an argument to be made that Hacks being a glorified, celebrated show that will wrap up in style after its fifth season, which I think Hannah Einbinder confirmed last night.

• 26:18Andy Greenwald?

  There's no guarantee that it would have had that opportunity had it not started winning Emmys from its first season.

• 26:23Chris Ryan?

  I totally agree.

• 26:25Andy Greenwald?

  It does matter in terms of the lifespan of shows. It can give them a second chance. And I do think in terms of the pit-

• 26:31Chris Ryan?

  I just think about the discourse around like what people say when they're talking about how great Andor is, or how great Severance is. It's not like, well, I liked Severance, but it didn't win any Emmys.

• 26:43Andy Greenwald?

  Um, no, but I wonder if in the more, more stratified streaming era, do you think it means more or matters more to the creators? Because like-

• 26:56Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure it does.

• 26:57Andy Greenwald?

  Like 20 years ago, like-

• 26:58Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure it matters to some creators and for some it's just like, I don't give a shit.

• 27:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, but what I mean is like, it felt like, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just hindsight, but like, so The Wire never won any major awards, but it was an immediate ecosystem where it was almost punk that it didn't win the awards.

• 27:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like-

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  That like David Simon was like-

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  When The Wire was on, for the first two seasons of The Wire, it definitely felt like the people who loved The Wire were like, keep keeping it on life support.

• 27:24Andy Greenwald?

  You.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  No, but like-

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  It was you.

• 27:26Chris Ryan?

  There was two or three, is The Wire coming back?

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 27:30Chris Ryan?

  Runs.

• 27:30Andy Greenwald?

  For sure.

• 27:31Chris Ryan?

  I think through season three.

• 27:32Andy Greenwald?

  Through season three.

• 27:32Chris Ryan?

  It was like, I don't know if they're gonna bring it back. I don't know if they're gonna bring it back. And then obviously it kind of entered into a more of a like Peabody Award winning, the best television has to offer kind of zone.

• 27:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which used to be an argument you could make for survival.

• 27:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and then that got it to its fourth and fifth season.

• 27:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 27:48Chris Ryan?

  I wonder whether or not that is even a thing anymore. But I mean, I know that HBO thinks it's a thing.

• 27:54Andy Greenwald?

  But do you think of any shows?

• 27:55Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure FX thinks it's a thing.

• 27:57Andy Greenwald?

  Are there any shows that you can think of that fall into the Charles Barkley zone? Of like uniformly recognized as one of the best ever, but never won the title? Because if you go back through like all the shows that we-

• 28:08Chris Ryan?

  Other than The Wire?

• 28:09Andy Greenwald?

  Other than The Wire. Because if you go through, you know, the sort of consensus greatest shows, they all won, whether it's ER, The West Wing, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Sopranos. They all had their turn. Even Game of Thrones had its, had its chance.

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  Friday Night Lights won anything?

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I feel like that's not ever in, it's in the most beloved conversation, but the like, and so the reason I bring it up is because for something like Severance, which has a case to be made that it is the inheritor-

• 28:36Chris Ryan?

  The 000'er one?

• 28:38Andy Greenwald?

  Let me check on that. Maybe we can Google that while I finish this thought. That there's a case to be made that Severance is the inheritor of that legacy right now in terms of a prestige, watercooler, mystery box show that is driving conversation, that is making stars noticeable again, that like when we talked about the show coming on the air, we were using like salary cap analogies that like if you have Stiller and Christopher Walken and Turturro and Patricia Arquette in your cast, you're gonna need to fill out your Young Defense with your Tramell Tillmans and your Brett Lowers.

• 29:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Andy Greenwald?

  They won.

• 29:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  So that was, much like we won the Super Bowl last year with the Young Defense, that worked out.

• 29:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? But so if this is, if this show is the inheritor of that mantle, in such a bifurcated what is really popular world, having the, having the proof, historical proof, that the industry agreed that this was the best drama, might be more significant for a Severance than at any other time in history for a show.

• 29:36Chris Ryan?

  You could be right, and I think I would feel more strongly about it if I thought it was coming back within any like, within this Trump administration, you know?

• 29:43Andy Greenwald?

  Well, this one could be ongoing.

• 29:44Chris Ryan?

  No, that's what I meant, like this particular one, the third one, maybe not.

• 29:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, so you think that we're gonna recognize it as the beginning of the third term as opposed to just rolling through?

• 29:52Chris Ryan?

  Instead of just an era, you know, it's like an emperorship.

• 29:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's so cute, you think there's gonna be an election? Sweetie. But anyway, that argument is almost moot because one thing I feel confident saying is that there will be as many seasons of, I mean, there will be a third season of Severance, there will probably be a fourth season of Severance. That's just the way Apple works, where they, it's working for them, they like it, they like the prestige, they like, they had a big party, Tim Cook was there at the Emmys last night. It's not, it's not living season to season, or like, oh, did we get a Peabody? Okay, we'll greenlight it.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 30:25Andy Greenwald?

  So who knows what the argument is?

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break here, unless you had any final Emmy's thoughts?

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  Who should host next year?

• 30:35Andy Greenwald?

  I just, just-

• 30:36Chris Ryan?

  Very funny of Stephen Colbert hosting.

• 30:39Andy Greenwald?

  Sure, he's free. Like, I just wanna say that like, the hosting- I feel like it's just crazy we're still having these arguments. Hosting matters.

• 30:48Chris Ryan?

  It matters, but does it matter for the first seven minutes? Is it really just about the opening monologue? Do you think a host has any responsibility of like, time of show and like, run of show?

• 30:58Andy Greenwald?

  Time of show, no. But how you feel about the time of show, or the run of show, or there have been moments-

• 31:03Chris Ryan?

  But there's this hard thing, like, there is a world in which Tramel Tillman would be a very good host, but not enough people know who that is. That's not somebody you can put on advertisements and be like, "The guy from Severance is hosting." Or something like that, where I'm just like, trying to think of like, someone who's like, "I actually have benefited directly from the Emmys recognizing talent." "I am a lovely man who can, apparently a Five Tool player, who can both run a submarine and also a marching band."

• 31:30Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were pitching to the Jeff Hiller hosting.

• 31:31Chris Ryan?

  No, I just mean like, or the idea that there is no host, but it's like, you know, groups of actors. But like, I honestly think like, every time you pick a stand-up to do it, you're just tossing a coin. Mulaney could have hosted and had similarly like-

• 31:47Andy Greenwald?

  But Mulaney has a different relationship. He loves show business. His whole career is a love letter to the different facets of show business.

• 31:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes, but he loves like, Weird Conan and Letterman and like, public access television. And like, does he like like, song and dance, like, Sing For Your Supper shit?

• 32:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, he loves musical theater. Did you watch the documentary Now or His Sack Lunch Bunch?

• 32:07Chris Ryan?

  I'm not getting into a debate about whether or not, I just think that like-

• 32:11Andy Greenwald?

  This is the most spirited argument we've had in three and a half years. Don't tap out now.

• 32:14Chris Ryan?

  Who do you wanna host the Emmys?

• 32:15Andy Greenwald?

  I just wanna say that the biggest example, evidence of what I'm trying to express here is-

• 32:21Chris Ryan?

  I think he's just so mad that Nate didn't crush.

• 32:24Andy Greenwald?

  I'm furious! I love that kid, that underdog. I did put a lot of stock in it. He is funny.

• 32:30Chris Ryan?

  He's fine, yeah.

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  He's wow.

• 32:31Chris Ryan?

  He's fine, he's good.

• 32:33Andy Greenwald?

  You're gonna lord this over me, huh? One of the nominees for variety special was the Oscars, as it often is. But it was the Oscars that Conan hosted, and I feel like that is an exact, that's a comparison point to make. Conan announced as the Oscar host, there's a little bit like, well, why is he hosting the Oscars? He hasn't really been in any movies, what is his relationship to this industry? Is it just gonna be like when Letterman did it, you know, 20 plus years ago? Conan did the work and delivered a very, very memorable job hosting, so much so that he's already hosting next year's. Like, you gotta work to do that job, not just bring your job that you're very good at to a room full of people who are like, "What are you doing here?" And I think that, like, or when Kimmel's hosted the Oscars, when it,

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  when there was the crazy La La Land thing that happened and it cuts to him, he's ready to meet the moment.

• 33:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, would Nate Bargatze have been able to handle that?

• 33:25Andy Greenwald?

  No. He said, he, he-

• 33:27Chris Ryan?

  If they were like Severance, "Wait, the pit," what would Nate do?

• 33:31Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, he's like, "I'm just, I just got here. This is so weird. Y'all invited me here. I gotta go." Like, I don't, you know what I mean? Like, that bit didn't translate to this. Now, I don't know if he cares about that particularly, but it just, I'm, I'm offended because what I like to see, Chris, in podcasts or in award shows is effort. And I think he tanked it. And I think he's waking up today-

• 33:52Chris Ryan?

  That's why you love the tush push.

• 33:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you mean in football games or just like, as this is just like, "Good job out there in the studio today?" Like, Bill's out there just slapping everybody on the way out the door?

• 34:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Some of your favorite Hell's Kitchen bars.

• 34:08Andy Greenwald?

  All right. Well, a good night for TV, but a, a bad broadcast.

• 34:12Chris Ryan?

  All right. Uh, let's take a break and we'll come back and do task.

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• 36:43Chris Ryan?

  Task talk. Let's go.

• 36:45Andy Greenwald?

  Week two.

• 36:46Chris Ryan?

  Right here. You were all fired up about Nate Bargatze. I need that same energy when it comes to crab fries.

• 36:51Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that Casey Ploy's famous Pennsylvanian that he is intentionally scheduled task to run week with week with the Eagles season? So week two of task is week two of the season?

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  This is an incredible point.

• 37:04Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he did that on purpose?

• 37:05Chris Ryan?

  Where's the bye week?

• 37:06Andy Greenwald?

  I would. Oh boy, it's a really good question. I think that-

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  What if Taz took a week off of the Eagles?

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  What if Taz ends, right? The only reason I know and I feel comfortable saying this is that if we had Casey on the podcast right now and asked him this point blank, he would say Eagles or football, right? Like, that is what Casey would say.

• 37:24Chris Ryan?

  That's not what he would say.

• 37:25Andy Greenwald?

  100%.

• 37:26Chris Ryan?

  He would say, "Go Birds!" Come on!

• 37:27Andy Greenwald?

  He would say, he would be for us, but we've discussed Philly sports with him and that's not, you know, he likes jumping in quarries.

• 37:33Chris Ryan?

  Um, I know that you watched this episode, uh, during the daytime.

• 37:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I don't recommend that.

• 37:40Chris Ryan?

  Early morning and that, that affected your maybe mindset while watching it.

• 37:45Andy Greenwald?

  Slightly.

• 37:45Chris Ryan?

  I thought that this was even better than the pilot.

• 37:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, this one's called Family Statements. It's written by Inglesby and directed by Jeremiah Zagar. Uh, again, it's written by Brad Inglesby and directed by Jeremiah Zagar.

• 37:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Chris Ryan?

  I gotta write this time.

• 38:00Andy Greenwald?

  Hit it hard.

• 38:00Chris Ryan?

  Sorry, Jeremiah. And, uh, I don't know, like, I feel like you write the checks of the character moments so that when you cash them on the set pieces or tension, like, they just hit harder.

• 38:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Chris Ryan?

  And that's, that's what Inglesby does for me up there with the best, where it's like, I'm gonna make you care about 14 people almost. I mean, we have so many groups now, like, all these, like, good little cliques within the show. And even if you fucking hate the guys in the dark hearts, you're like, well, seems like Jay and Perry are an intense duo and I am now, like, pretty locked in.

• 38:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. They practice politics the right way.

• 38:45Chris Ryan?

  Um, what'd you think of the episode?

• 38:47Andy Greenwald?

  I, I loved it. I, you were right, and I appreciate you pointing out that it is challenging to, we, we have screeners, we're lucky to have them. I watched the show early before the Eagles game.

• 39:00Andy Greenwald?

  A bad episode of a show in the wrong context could really set me off.

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Andy Greenwald?

  This was so good that I was drawn in and I actually found myself wishing I had like blackout curtains.

• 39:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Andy Greenwald?

  Because it just did not meet the moment of the show, but I was still completely riveted. I like a lot what you're saying about how you, if you, if you, this show is so much about tone and art direction and vibe and it's sunken in and the cigarettes and the beer and you feel it. But there is a lot of technique involved here and I'm glad, I'm glad that you started with that because I was thinking about, one of the things that does separate, Brad Inglesby from other writers on TV at the moment is that he seems to have a genuine curiosity and interest in every puzzle piece that adds up for the larger trauma picture.

• 39:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Andy Greenwald?

  I did not know we were going to get the backstory of the plastic Phillies cup that has vodka in it now, for example. I did not know that we would spend time discussing where the imprisoned brother ran after his ill-fated attempt to play, was it lacrosse or was it field, it's lacrosse, right?

• 40:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes, when he was, nobody passed him the ball during a lacrosse game and then he had just like stormed off, broke a car window and vanished for several hours only to turn up like in the dugout of a field.

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  Which then becomes a, which becomes plot later.

• 40:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 40:19Andy Greenwald?

  When Tom knows where to find his daughter. Even the small, almost tiny moment like how Sam likes his pancakes is just a question. When Robbie asks him that, that's just not a question you're used to hearing. Now, I think there's a side argument to be made that the way most big ticket TV shows are constructed and made these days, there just simply isn't real estate for that kind of small emotional character beat because you're too busy establishing why Rhaenyra has the right to the throne or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I don't even mean it as a drive-by. I mean that these shows have different purposes.

• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  She's on a dragon, you're not really gonna get her with a drive-by.

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. She's gonna win.

• 40:56Chris Ryan?

  You're driving by in a little electric car being like, bing, bing.

• 40:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, down to 48%. Better pull over and charge. I'll never make it to King's Landing this way and no more federal credit for my good work.

• 41:07Chris Ryan?

  Sorry, man.

• 41:07Andy Greenwald?

  Can you believe it? I did things the right way.

• 41:09Chris Ryan?

  Should've watched Landman a little bit more attentively.

• 41:12Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, I just feel like his interest and curiosity in those details is what makes this so much more than the sum of its already impressive parts.

• 41:22Chris Ryan?

  Obviously, there's a lot of things from this episode to break down. Ruffalo's a really gorgeous moment talking about what happened to his family. Not gorgeous, maybe isn't the right word, but-

• 41:34Andy Greenwald?

  Easier to talk about forgiveness when it's not your loss.

• 41:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a very emotionally trenchant and, you know, the introduction and really like immersion into the world of the Motorcycle Club, the Dark Hearts, who are kind of outside of, you know, this sort of two sides of a coin, Robbie, Tom thing going on. They are the overarching villains of the series. And I think it's really cool to get like an insight into the internal dynamics of it, like that there's like a national mother club or network that runs these local chapters and that Perry's helped Jay usurp someone to take over. But now Jay's like hot-headedness or lack of attention to detail and they cost them.

• 42:16Andy Greenwald?

  Can I ask you just sidebar question here? How did you feel about the break in storytelling aesthetics for that sequence?

• 42:22Chris Ryan?

  To go away from one of the two people, you mean?

• 42:24Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's actually another good question that I should have asked you. But specifically when we were getting the download on how the Dark Hearts operate-

• 42:31Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and like all the pictures and stuff?

• 42:33Andy Greenwald?

  Footage, photos, like narrating it through-

• 42:36Chris Ryan?

  I thought that was good. I feel like-

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  It was helpful.

• 42:38Chris Ryan?

  And I think that it's good to see the show not be done trying stuff after one hour.

• 42:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's a good point.

• 42:46Chris Ryan?

  And I think a lot of things, because you wind up having like a producing director who sets the tone and kind of makes the rules for the visual language of a show. Often you'll get, kind of wrote like, hey, I gotta follow the playbook from what we have, you know? And it was cool to see, I mean, obviously, Zagar is directed both of those episodes. So maybe we'll get more of that stuff to follow. But I thought it was neat to have like, it's a pretty darkly lit show. To have like, this is this guy and this is what he does is a little bit, is pretty effective.

• 43:23Andy Greenwald?

  Especially because, again, this is something I want to check in with you if you had the same experience that I did. But Jason is the, the, the, the middle manager of the Dark Hearts who may be in a bit of a pickle here.

• 43:34Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 43:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right? Is that who he is? He's, he's the guy who wakes up in bed and gets the call and then- The other guys, like I put you in, the guy who's giving me Greg from White Lotus vibes, but isn't him.

• 43:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's, so that-

• 43:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's Perry.

• 43:48Chris Ryan?

  That's Perry.

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  And Perry says, put Jason in this position, right? Jason.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Jason.

• 43:52Andy Greenwald?

  So Jason is an, the casting is just unreal in this, and we have to talk about that. But this guy is an Irish actor, I don't have his name in front of me, we can look it up.

• 43:59Chris Ryan?

  Sam Keely.

• 43:59Andy Greenwald?

  Sam Keely. Another, just like, task is, I'm not just saying this because most of the people in the cast seem to be from Ireland and the United Kingdom.

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Andy Greenwald?

  It is cast like a British show, in the sense that you just feel like these are the best people for the job, and they are unrecognizable if we've ever seen them before. And they are pouring themselves into it, and it is star-making rather than star-affirming.

• 44:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Andy Greenwald?

  But, anyway, that actor, Sam Keely, has Robbie sad eyes, and he looks kind of like Tom Pelfrey.

• 44:29Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 44:29Andy Greenwald?

  And so I, at first, was like, is this his brother who we've been talking about? And then I believe the television show informed us that Jason actually beat Robbie's brother to death.

• 44:39Chris Ryan?

  It's implied, yeah.

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  And that Maeve knows about this, right? But, did you have a similar confusion momentarily, or do you feel like there's intention in the fact that these broken men all look related in some way?

• 44:51Chris Ryan?

  I think that it's probably more about the idea that, like, that's just the way that guys look who do stuff like that.

• 44:58Andy Greenwald?

  Not like, not like us?

• 45:00Chris Ryan?

  Uh, no, I mean, I just, but they're built, they have tats, like, they have-

• 45:04Andy Greenwald?

  Go on, you don't-

• 45:05Chris Ryan?

  They have-

• 45:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'm wearing shirts, you don't know-

• 45:06Chris Ryan?

  They work with their, like, hands all day, or whatever, like-

• 45:09Andy Greenwald?

  If I took my shirt off, it would just say, "The Watch", but with the same illustration we have, but just your half of your face.

• 45:16Chris Ryan?

  And then you'd be covering up a Nate Bargatze tattoo on your chest.

• 45:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's gonna take years.

• 45:22Chris Ryan?

  Can I, can I say Mulaney instead of Bargatze?

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  It didn't bother me. I, I think in the trailer, in the teaser especially, there's a shot of, of Jason, and it looks like, in the shot of him on the motorcycle, you're like, is that Pelfrey?

• 45:41Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 45:41Chris Ryan?

  But I didn't have the problem in the show, sorry. Um, what was I gonna say about that?

• 45:46Andy Greenwald?

  I completely took you off-guard, you were talking about Perry, and you were sort of giving us the background, I think, of some of the Dark Heart stuff.

• 45:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and then that was a good question about, like, the, um-

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  I asked, I interrupted you twice.

• 45:56Chris Ryan?

  We were really just like, let's break down what we just said.

• 46:01Andy Greenwald?

  Let's diagram it. Can we get the whiteboard up?

• 46:03Chris Ryan?

  Because Chris said this, then Annie made a joke, but then Chris made a joke inside that joke.

• 46:08Andy Greenwald?

  And then it was 3:15 and we hand it off for no reason.

• 46:10Chris Ryan?

  We were like, field position, baby. Um, oh, I remember what I was gonna say.

• 46:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, thank you. Good.

• 46:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Margarita LaViva.

• 46:18Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  That's Jason's girlfriend in the show.

• 46:22Andy Greenwald?

  Damn. See? Not recognizing people that I genuinely like all the time.

• 46:26Chris Ryan?

  Turn the brightness up.

• 46:28Andy Greenwald?

  In my defense, I watched the screener, which is notoriously, like, where should I look? HBO's screeners are so dark.

• 46:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 46:37Andy Greenwald?

  Do you remember watching the screeners? This is a rich problem, but like, like the, uh, the episode of Game of Thrones where the Night King comes to like Winterfell and it's, the entire thing is dark?

• 46:47Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 46:48Andy Greenwald?

  I basically just guessed.

• 46:49Chris Ryan?

  You were like, is that the guy from The Dark Arts?

• 46:51Andy Greenwald?

  I had no idea what was going on.

• 46:54Chris Ryan?

  Bargatze?

• 46:54Andy Greenwald?

  I was just riffing at that point. Okay.

• 46:56Chris Ryan?

  Um, I thought that just getting like, a little peek into that was fantastic. And then what I was gonna say about those character moments, just to kind of loop back to that, was we didn't get much action, but the way you spend time with people, and many, many, many, many people have reached out to us to discuss DJ Grasanova.

• 47:18Andy Greenwald?

  Already?

• 47:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I will, I will read a note from, uh, an email from our listener, Patrick. "Shocking development with Hurricane Lizzie this week. There's this phenomenon called the Fujiwara effect, where two tropical storms that get close together begin rotating around each other. Usually this ends in the two storms either merging or one dying off and making the other storm stronger. I think we've got a Fujiwara situation developing between Hurricane Lizzie and Hurricane Grasanova. Can't wait to see how this develops."

• 47:51Andy Greenwald?

  This guy's got it.

• 47:53Chris Ryan?

  And I, I, I just felt it between Fabian Frankel and Alison Oliver in that room, talking about DJ Grasanova touring the Catholic school mixer.

• 48:01Andy Greenwald?

  Playing Flo Rida.

• 48:02Chris Ryan?

  Playing Flo Rida. Really freaked me out that that was, if it's Flo Rida's whistle,

• 48:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Chris Ryan?

  that means this character was in high school in 2012.

• 48:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, well, she says her Yahoo name is from 2012.

• 48:15Chris Ryan?

  That's fucked up. We're so old.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  Look, aren't you happy to see a government-run group that's not a gerontocracy? Like, you have to let the young people cook.

• 48:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes, that's true.

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  We have to do it.

• 48:27Chris Ryan?

  That's true. My point is, like, that moment is just so funny and it's so endearing. You just immediately feel closer

• 48:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 48:35Chris Ryan?

  to both of those characters, even though they don't get a lot of screen time, even though they haven't done a lot of stuff. Obviously, Lizzie has, like, got a little bit of a touch with this stuff, even though she's clearly distracted by her music and her life. Uh, and Grasso is, is, you know, probably thinking about ascending some sort of ladder here. I mean, this seems like what he wants to do. But their connection is gonna make whatever happens over the next couple of episodes, and I have not watched ahead, but you can see in the trailers, there's shootouts, there's people being upset. Like, I'm gonna be there emotionally with them.

• 49:09Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to do your McBane Live Forever rankings on the task force?

• 49:11Chris Ryan?

  I don't. I really, really don't. Who's number one?

• 49:13Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not, let's not say it. We just might be blasting some Florida, I feel like, in memoriam sooner rather than later. That's my, that's my guess.

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't like that.

• 49:23Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm not watching the head. But, first of all, what a redemption tour for Sir Criston Cole. He's really good in this episode. Not just in that scene, but the scene where he's talking about religion with Tom and like, what never made sense to him about, you know, eating, was it eating meat on Fridays? I thought that was a great scene.

• 49:41Chris Ryan?

  Why can't I have a slice of pepperoni?

• 49:42Andy Greenwald?

  I also just, what, like, I actually got excited about what went on behind the scenes when, whether it was Jeremiah Zagar or Brett Inglesby, like, pulled Fabian aside and explained high school DJ, like, how important the DJs who played high school dances were to people growing up on the main line or Delaware County, or maybe anywhere in America. And I'm sure it's true in the UK as well, so it's not like some foreign concept. But like,

• 50:08Chris Ryan?

  I think the UK understands DJ culture.

• 50:13Chris Ryan?

  They were doing ecstasy way before us.

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think they have something to learn from Larry, the guy that ended every middle school dance by playing Panic by The Smiths. And I was like, this song says hang the DJ, but he's the DJ.

• 50:26Andy Greenwald?

  But like, these guys were gods.

• 50:27Chris Ryan?

  This is the Paul Oakenfold remix of Left Field's Open.

• 50:32Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I saw the Paul Oakenfold of Villanova play. No, but like, these guys were celebrities, because they came into your school and like, for two hours, like, it was not school. So I thought that whole scene was fantastic.

• 50:44Chris Ryan?

  Another fantastic moment for me was the last, I don't know, five or six minutes of the... Actually, it's quite a bit longer than that. The sequence of Maeve taking Sam back in.

• 50:56Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, let's zero in on this, on the Sam Maeve stuff, because I have some...

• 50:59Chris Ryan?

  By that same token of what I'm talking about, where you lay the groundwork with a fun moment or a touching moment, so that when that character is put in the fucking shit, you are right there with them. Everything you've seen Maeve do, her struggle with, "I gotta get out of here, but I cannot leave these kids", and at once, half of her wants to be young and hook up with guys, and she works in a friggin' arcade. Like, there's a suspended childhood to her, like, a suspended youth to her, and just old way too fast, on the other hand. It's like, watching her sort through the moral calculus of what Robbie's done,

• 51:42Chris Ryan?

  who this kid is, what his parents may have done to her family.

• 51:46Andy Greenwald?

  Which she, yes, which she is aware of.

• 51:48Chris Ryan?

  Which she seems to be aware of, and then furthermore, like,

• 51:54Chris Ryan?

  her, like, wanting to do the right thing, but not knowing what the right thing is until, like, she's put in, like, these incredibly extreme circumstances.

• 52:05Chris Ryan?

  Emilia Jones was fantastic in this sequence.

• 52:08Andy Greenwald?

  She's unbelievable on this show.

• 52:09Chris Ryan?

  You also get such a sense, I know, guys, this is stupid. We could do this about every single thing. Everybody's got shopping plazas and like, that was so real to me. The arcade next to the supermarket, next to the whatever. Talk to me about how you felt about that sequence.

• 52:24Andy Greenwald?

  It was a beautiful expression of what the show's core conceit is, is that there's authority, there's criminality, and then there's humanity. And which side are you ultimately gonna end up on? Before we even get into the specifics of what time of night was this where most children are completely asleep, but some children are still playing skee ball at KJ's?

• 52:44Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 52:45Andy Greenwald?

  I do have a question about that. The thing that I want to start with in terms of how this whole thread unraveled was in relation to a conversation we've been having about Alien Earth. Now, I'm not spoiling it.

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  Good.

• 52:56Andy Greenwald?

  If you're one of those people who skips around, don't worry. We've been talking about the level of plausibility and believability in terms of a horror show where characters have to be dumb enough to like, open the specimen jar or walk to the basement in order for the story to happen. But how many times, and how do you, how many times do they do it? And how do you hide the ball in terms of what they're aware of and what they're not aware of? And what is driving it? Is it ultimately is it character behavior? Or is it the story has to go this way to tell the story I want to tell? And I thought of that when Maeve is told that this is the son of one of Robbie's colleagues, and he's gonna be staying with them for a while, and she nods.

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  Not a very convincing story by Robbie, but yes.

• 53:39Andy Greenwald?

  And then, you know, relatively short amount of screen time later, she takes out her phone and Googles everything about what she has seen and learns everything.

• 53:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Andy Greenwald?

  This doesn't make her Sherlock Holmes, or let alone Dr. House, but it does make her human, and it is an example of a writer being like... What are the challenges, but how are those challenges opportunities if I push things towards plausibility?

• 54:04Chris Ryan?

  Well.

• 54:05Andy Greenwald?

  These people are smart.

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  For 20 minutes of that episode and probably in between Sunday to Sunday, what most people are thinking is how much longer can Robbie get away with essentially taking a child from a crime scene?

• 54:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:19Chris Ryan?

  Before that kid is all over the news, before there are people who are like, have you seen this boy? There's posters everywhere and he's not going to be able to leave the house.

• 54:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Chris Ryan?

  And the kid is himself is old enough to see the television and to be like, something's fucked up here.

• 54:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Chris Ryan?

  Like, I like the fact that he's starting to become a little bit suspicious of his circumstances. You're absolutely right. Like, it's like a perfect little, like, everybody is like, no, get phones out of TV and movies because it's so annoying that anybody could just Google anything, but that is exactly the kind of thing somebody would be like, what the fuck?

• 54:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:50Chris Ryan?

  And would Google it.

• 54:50Andy Greenwald?

  And it forced him to come up with a elegant way to extend the status quo.

• 54:57Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 54:57Andy Greenwald?

  The, is it, look, you could be a very cynical watcher of TV and be like, nothing changed in that moment, except now Maeve is in on it. But the moment when she got back in the car after believing to have done what she thought was the right thing and the kid's in the backseat was a legitimate, it's not a jump scare, but it was like, oh. And then the tension ratchets up because it's well-directed and it's well-conceived. And that is, that's what we're looking for in dramatic storytelling. It's always about hiding the ball. It's always about manipulating the audience, but what can you gain from the ways in which you do the manipulation?

• 55:27Chris Ryan?

  Well, she's also a person who's obviously, like, done whatever she can to help these other, these people in her family and has a job, like, she just seems like somebody who's like, I'm, I'm just trying to get through my life without massively fucking it up.

• 55:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Chris Ryan?

  And now look what, and that's what she says in the very last line of this episode, which is, what have you done to us? You know, and she is, means those kids too. She means everybody around them because it's not just Robbie, it's going to affect everybody in that house.

• 55:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 55:58Chris Ryan?

  And she doesn't even know about the fentanyl, which is... Really dangerous to have in your trunk.

• 56:03Andy Greenwald?

  Seems like a lot of fentanyl, too.

• 56:05Chris Ryan?

  I think that the one beat I wanted to talk to you about in the episode before we talk about like kind of where this stuff is going.

• 56:12Andy Greenwald?

  Just the Lasting the Maeve thing? It was cool that Maeve and Tom crossed.

• 56:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:16Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you said a moment ago how many different factions there are. Cool to see it just in small ways starting to overlap already.

• 56:22Chris Ryan?

  Kind of goes back. You know, you could say Tom maybe not the most, uh, like he was not scrutinizing the situation with the utmost like eye of Sauron level of, you know, detail. If you had had his knight, you might not either.

• 56:38Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. And speaking of like storytelling choices, like the cut when Perry and Jason are discussing who their antagonist is, who they're up against. And they cut to him like eating a hoagie.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Andy Greenwald?

  And just slopping everywhere and just like, we don't have much to worry about there. That told us a story.

• 56:55Chris Ryan?

  There's two, there's, there's some problems going on because we've got obviously someone within the dark hearts is communicating with Cliff and Robbie about where the houses are gonna be.

• 57:05Andy Greenwald?

  I've got a guest, do you?

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, so do you think it's the guy who was like that kid six feet deep?

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. The guy who was just like, I was eating that.

• 57:13Chris Ryan?

  I wonder if that's a...

• 57:13Andy Greenwald?

  He's real nervous.

• 57:15Chris Ryan?

  All right, Herring, and it's gonna be the other guy, but I'm not, you're probably right.

• 57:19Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 57:19Chris Ryan?

  You're probably right.

• 57:20Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 57:21Chris Ryan?

  And then there's a mole inside of the task force or inside of law enforcement. Who's, and that's another place where I'm kind of, I'm grasping over and just knew a lot about motorcycle gangs.

• 57:34Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he was DJing some, some dance nights?

• 57:37Chris Ryan?

  At Lefty's Tap Room?

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  Lefty's Tap Room.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  Can you imagine if, uh, we happened upon Lefty's Tap Room?

• 57:43Andy Greenwald?

  I had this exact journey.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  Guys, I know it's late, but could we throw the Emmys on? I just want to see what story Hollywood's telling about itself.

• 57:53Andy Greenwald?

  This guy doesn't work blue. Do you like him? I, I had the exact same thought. I feel like, you know, during our, our wayward youths or twenties, like, we would stop into various taverns.

• 58:03Chris Ryan?

  I would be fine at Lefty's Tap Room.

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  I know you, I knew you would say that too.

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  First of all, inside smoking, I would love that.

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:10Chris Ryan?

  Um, I did not know that was still legal. I suppose that's just an indication of, of the cops looking the other way there.

• 58:18Andy Greenwald?

  No, there was, as I learned, um, earlier in the year.

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  It's like social clubs, right?

• 58:21Andy Greenwald?

  Like, like the, the great McGlinchies in Philadelphia. I was like, whoa, I've stumbled in here on one night and we've traveled back to 2006. And then there's a story in the Inquirer being like, "You could still smoke at one bar and this is it? And why did you go there? Because you had to burn your clothes." I just, I do think it would have been good comedy if we had walked into Lefty's Tap Room and you would just immediately become the, the intramural football player that you were in eighth grade. And I'm like, "Do you guys have any Japanese rice lagers?" Like...

• 58:47Chris Ryan?

  What's, any, anything NA?

• 58:49Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think-

• 58:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I try not to drink on Sundays. It just gives me the scaries.

• 58:52Andy Greenwald?

  The vibes would have been Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne, like, standing on stage.

• 58:57Chris Ryan?

  I don't think it, look at me. I look a lot more like Jack Thorne than I do Stephen Graham.

• 59:01Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying-

• 59:02Chris Ryan?

  I just think I would, I can-

• 59:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not saying height-wise, I'm saying energy-wise.

• 59:05Chris Ryan?

  The American experiment is, men-

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 59:09Chris Ryan?

  From all over, can sit down right next to each other and just say, "That guy needs to, he needs to make that pass. He's gotta make that pass."

• 59:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's true, but this, the game was not on at Lefty's.

• 59:20Chris Ryan?

  It fucking wasn't.

• 59:21Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? It was a lot of people going about the hard work of drinking.

• 59:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Andy Greenwald?

  It was a business bar.

• 59:27Chris Ryan?

  But, you know, they, they still have their manners. When that guy Bishop walks in, he's like, "Go greet him."

• 59:31Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. That is, that's like me talking to my children when they see their grandparents.

• 59:36Chris Ryan?

  Greet him.

• 59:37Andy Greenwald?

  Greet him.

• 59:37Chris Ryan?

  Um, I want to talk to you a little bit about, uh, the, the sort of Brandis family reunion that happened.

• 59:45Andy Greenwald?

  Wild scene.

• 59:46Chris Ryan?

  We get that all explained to us, yes. So, um- Tom and his wife had a biological daughter named Sarah, who is back in town. She lives in Chicago, I think now, and is back in town with her. Sarah? Karen? Go on. And then they adopted a pair of siblings, Emily and Ethan.

• 1:00:07Chris Ryan?

  Ethan had some psychological, some emotional problems, was off his meds during COVID because it was difficult to access them, and threw his mother down the stairs and killed her. Yeah. And is in prison for that. And this crucial, this titular from the episode title, Family Statement, is coming up, where Emily is thinking about maybe making a statement on Ethan's behalf, or asking for mercy from the judge, and the judge is apparently taking that very seriously. And it really just pulls apart the family, like, right at a dinner table. And who is the other guy? I think that's their lawyer, who is also a family friend. Okay. Yes, so he was in the first episode. Right. And explains to Tom. Oh, right, that was him. Like, here's how this is gonna work.

• 1:00:52Chris Ryan?

  I thought, it was so early, I thought he was a colleague, but now I see that. You really have to get a better laptop, because it seems like a lot of these things. But I love it.

• 1:01:04Chris Ryan?

  Look, there's not too many new ways to skin a cat, and we're gonna come across things in this show, and lots of shows like this, that are like, you know what works? Traumatized detectives, experiencing loss and trying to rebuild their lives, probably through their work. Like, it's just something that people respond to. The question is whether or not you can either think of a new way to present it visually, or performance-wise, or do you have somebody like Ruffalo, who is so fucking good? He's so good in this episode. That he can just break through the wall. And even though it's the same thing that detectives have been talking about, more or less, for the last 15 years on television, where you're just like, uh, and then a thing

• 1:01:47Chris Ryan?

  happened, and I lost my faith in humanity, and I don't know, I drink out of a cup now. That's good. He bursts through, and...

• 1:01:57Chris Ryan?

  You may find it to be like too cute by half that he is also a fallen priest.

• 1:02:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Chris Ryan?

  But now you know why he fell.

• 1:02:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Chris Ryan?

  Like, you know, like now.

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  Why he's still falling.

• 1:02:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, now you know why, you know, and he's grappling with things from a religious questing kind of perspective.

• 1:02:15Andy Greenwald?

  There's a sense that you get from him that he has the patience of a saint. And now you understand more deeply why he is modeling his patience on the patience of saints. But also why someone locked in a spiritual struggle internally could look very much like someone who is paralyzed or drowning from the outside. And I think the moment, the way that he plays that scene was so masterful because he doesn't really, that's the moment where a lesser actor in a lesser production, like I don't think anybody would have allowed this. That's the moment where you go big.

• 1:02:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Andy Greenwald?

  And he seemed to collapse inward under the weight of it in a way that was as effective. It was an implosion versus an explosion and it was incredibly memorable for it. I also love the way that all the little details and choices that we celebrate when we watch the show pay dividends. Like I, you know, I said this last week, I'm so thrilled that one of the greatest errors of Mayor of Easttown, the Rolling Rock sponsorship was corrected in this episode where they are just pouring Yingling lagers out like it's, like it's Philly tap water.

• 1:03:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Andy Greenwald?

  When you have every character drinking from the same long neck bottle and then his daughter shows up and is just swishing a real oaky cab sov after a long day of travel, you're like, I understand.

• 1:03:33Chris Ryan?

  But I also really, really liked if it was intended or not, you know, obviously Tom has a drinking problem.

• 1:03:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Chris Ryan?

  And it could have been inherited by his daughter. You know what I mean? Like where she's like clearly on a night away from the husband.

• 1:03:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Chris Ryan?

  Tucking in to some oaky bread.

• 1:03:52Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, she didn't have like a novelty glass that said mommy's little helper on it. You know what I mean? Like, we're not there yet.

• 1:03:58Chris Ryan?

  Do you?

• 1:03:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. It's from my Japanese rice lagers. Mm, mm, mm.

• 1:04:05Andy Greenwald?

  All day I put the edge on and then at night that helps take the edge off.

• 1:04:08Chris Ryan?

  I have to say, I recently specialty ordered a case of Japanese rice lagers. And you would think that they were coming from like Yokohama for what I paid for them, but they're like Occidental brewing. They're like down the street.

• 1:04:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you got like a, like one of the local microbrews that's in the style of an Asahi.

• 1:04:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:27Andy Greenwald?

  But you paid forty five dollars for it.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  Let's, let's say it was forty five.

• 1:04:31Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 1:04:32Chris Ryan?

  Wow. Well, it's twenty four of them.

• 1:04:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, how many, how many are left after that episode of Task?

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  Twelve.

• 1:04:40Chris Ryan?

  I have my own Lefties taproom going.

• 1:04:42Andy Greenwald?

  I get it. I get it. No judgment.

• 1:04:44Chris Ryan?

  I would say that just for next week, I did not watch scenes from next week, nor have I watched the episode, but it sure feels like we're going into Philly.

• 1:04:52Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, yeah, because we have to talk to the, is it the Dominicans who run Philly? Did you know that? I, I do wish that, that the, the time I spent watching the later lesser episodes of Dope Thief counted as research. Like, I do wish that they were walking into kind of the same shadowy criminal hierarchy.

• 1:05:10Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:05:11Andy Greenwald?

  That would just have helped. Um, a couple of other observations, we can, just one I wanted to make in particular, like, I don't think that the, the quants will emerge from this episode with this take, but I think it bears mentioning on the podcast that, um, Peach's fiance's dad wasn't wrong about Peaches. Now, did he pick the right moment to tell his daughter that he always thought that guy she met online was a lowlife? No. I think that in that moment, that's not what she needed emotionally.

• 1:05:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Andy Greenwald?

  But, big picture, considering that Peach's bad behavior led to the Dark Hearts entering his home and likely beating him to death.

• 1:05:51Chris Ryan?

  I think that they are dead.

• 1:05:53Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like he should have trusted his, his spidey sense there.

• 1:05:57Chris Ryan?

  But also, might be a wrong move by Jay because obviously the cops have already been to Peach's, his fam, like girlfriend's family's house.

• 1:06:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Chris Ryan?

  So like, that's gonna put them on the scent of the Dark Hearts, more so than they even already are.

• 1:06:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think, again, the, the, the cool thing about the show. Is just some decisions that are made in the construction beforehand, such as, we know the crime. We know who did it. We are increasingly seeing the connections as to why Robbie is aware of these drop houses, why he's targeting the Dark Hearts. There's a personal element to it. But just that the teams are drawn and the only wild card is Robbie and Cliff. Like, how quickly will they be discovered, which the way that the show is going, which I appreciate, which is they're not, not stalling for stalling sake, um, will be soon. That's the only variable. The task force is there looking at Dark Hearts and trying to stop people. It's, it's, it's not even, it's less about stopping the Dark Hearts, right? Than it is about stopping the people who are antagonizing the Dark Hearts,

• 1:06:54Andy Greenwald?

  which could spill over into a gang war in Montgomery County.

• 1:06:57Chris Ryan?

  Did you hear how you just did over?

• 1:06:58Andy Greenwald?

  Which, did I say spill over?

• 1:07:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Andy Greenwald?

  God, this show's really taking me back, isn't it? It's because I was starting to talk about Monco and I was worried about, you know, bus routes to my stomping grounds.

• 1:07:09Chris Ryan?

  If you have task questions, please hit us up, thewatchatspotify.com. We'll wrap it up there. Thanks to Kayakai and John for helping us this week.

• 1:07:16Andy Greenwald?

  How do you like your pancakes?

• 1:07:18Chris Ryan?

  Not crispy.

• 1:07:18Andy Greenwald?

  Offered you crispy pancakes? Have you ever heard that? Has anyone ever offered you crispy pancakes? I've heard crispy bacon, but crispy or fluffy pancakes is an option that is.

• 1:07:27Speaker 07

  I feel like then we'd be kind of getting into like a Crepe territory.

• 1:07:30Chris Ryan?

  That's goddamn right.

• 1:07:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's the European perspective that we want.

• 1:07:33Chris Ryan?

  I saw in a TV show to be named later, someone ordered a steak crispy with a one sauce. And I have to say, and an ice cold Pilsner.

• 1:07:42Andy Greenwald?

  Is that like a, were you watching, I Think You Should Leave?

• 1:07:46Andy Greenwald?

  It's like a crispy steak with water poured all over it?

• 1:07:49Chris Ryan?

  Some early, early season three Severance pre-vis stuff. But I've never, I don't think I've ever had a crispy steak.

• 1:07:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's not usually how, you know, maybe if you go into Lefty's Tap Room, you don't get an option.

• 1:08:02Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 1:08:04Andy Greenwald?

  I get that, like a medium rare, like a pink, but.

• 1:08:08Chris Ryan?

  Great talking to you today.

• 1:08:08Andy Greenwald?

  Is that grass fed?

• 1:08:09Chris Ryan?

  You did great today.

• 1:08:10Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think?

• 1:08:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Andy Greenwald?

  That's because, you know what? I came in, I came in with a game plan.

• 1:08:14Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you're so passionate.

• 1:08:15Andy Greenwald?

  Like Vic Fangio.

• 1:08:16Chris Ryan?

  We'll talk to you on Thursday.

• 1:08:17Andy Greenwald?

  I can't wait.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

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• 1:09:20Speaker 10

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