Grammys Recap, 'Severance' S2E3, and What's Going on in 'Paradise'?

Chris and Andy give a brief recap of the Grammys (1:00) and talk about the trailer for the final season of 'The Righteous Gemstones' that was released last week (11:47). Then, they break down the latest episode of 'Severance' and how the show uses a slower pace to encourage sleuthing from its audience (14:17). Finally, they talk about the first two episodes of the new Hulu series 'Paradise' and why it seems as though creator Dan Fogelman got no notes from the network (38:36). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production: Chris Thomas and Stefano Sanchez 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

  Hi, I'm Joanna Robinson. Join us every week on the Prestige TV podcast feed as your favorite Ringer hosts like Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, Malley Rubin, Sean Fantasy, Chris Ryan, Julia Lindman, and many more cover the latest episodes of your favorite TV obsessions. From boardrooms to throne rooms to courtside and through the mushroom apocalypse, we'll be here throughout the week breaking it all down. Subscribe to the Prestige TV podcast feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 1:13Speaker 04

  I need support staff to clear the room.

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, the market is down, but his investment in the Stone Roses second coming is long. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:36Andy Greenwald?

  Is there Stone Roses back?

• 1:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, man. Didn't you watch Severance?

• 1:40Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yes, of course. Here's how out I am. I thought that like-

• 1:46Chris Ryan?

  Out on Severance or out on-

• 1:47Andy Greenwald?

  No!

• 1:48Chris Ryan?

  Life and remembering things.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  For some reason, I was like, wait, I watched the Grammys last night. Did I miss the long MasterCard commercial where the Stone Roses reformed? I got really excited. And I was like, I'm sorry, Chris, that I'm spending my weekend checking out what's going on at the border. So maybe I'm not up on Britpop Reformation news.

• 2:08Chris Ryan?

  Were you like literally up at the Canadian border like overseeing syrup coming in? Yeah.

• 2:13Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was just seeing if Sloan was reforming.

• 2:15Chris Ryan?

  It's great to see you.

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  Wow, you really threw me.

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  I'm a little worried about you because I was like, oh, we're gonna talk about, obviously talk about Severance. And you were like, ah, I watched that on Friday as if that was like in 1974 that you checked out the last episode of Severance.

• 2:28Andy Greenwald?

  I live hard and I live loud. You know what I mean? I'm ready.

• 2:31Chris Ryan?

  How are you doing, man? What a weekend for LA.

• 2:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm, man, I'm reeling from that.

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  From the Luka Doncic trade?

• 2:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I have, I'm, you know, I love, I know people on this podcast love hearing me be out on things, out on basketball.

• 2:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:45Andy Greenwald?

  Completely, but.

• 2:47Chris Ryan?

  But you reserve the right to get back in.

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  No, but genuine shock is kind of at a premium outside of page one of the New York Times these days. So that Luka trade was wild. Like I, how many people, don't flatter me and say it was just me. How many people texted you Saturday night and said, was Shams hacked?

• 3:05Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I gotta, I mean, I don't, I think there was like a brief like moment of like, this is a really crazy like, did something happen to his, to his Twitter? Yes, there was a brief second of that, but I actually found out about this. I was going to see the film Companion, which I recommend.

• 3:21Andy Greenwald?

  What you saw Saturday night?

• 3:22Chris Ryan?

  It was quite good. I went and saw it at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles. And I believe the last time I had gone to the Vista Theater was also to, uh, was, I went to go see Long Legs. And that was the day Trump got shot. So every time I go to the Vista.

• 3:37Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 3:37Chris Ryan?

  Something crazy happens.

• 3:39Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 3:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Andy Greenwald?

  That's, when are you gonna go next?

• 3:42Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 3:44Andy Greenwald?

  Is prior to the assassination attempt was prior to that, the weirdest thing that ever happened when you went to the Vista? The time one or both of us fell asleep watching Captain Marvel on a Sunday night before we were gonna podcast about it the next day?

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  I did not fall asleep, did I?

• 3:59Andy Greenwald?

  I don't remember. I feel like it was close.

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  It's great to see you. Do you want to talk a little bit about the Grammys? I was, I was just so delighted that you were watching that last night. I was not, but I-

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  Finger on the pulse over here.

• 4:11Chris Ryan?

  I want to hear everything about it, man.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  No, you don't. You know, I mean-

• 4:14Chris Ryan?

  I know who won. Yeah. But I, you know, like with the Grammys, I'm just like, I'm not, I'm just not the biggest pop music follower anymore, so.

• 4:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's really interesting as a cultural shift, and I don't feel like we need to get on here and be like, well, things used to be better, although come on, these things did used to be better. I mean, there were some nice, exciting moments.

• 4:32Chris Ryan?

  Kendrick?

• 4:32Andy Greenwald?

  I'm a big Dochi guy.

• 4:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  It was awesome.

• 4:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:35Andy Greenwald?

  I also didn't know, because I like her mixtape a lot, I didn't, had never seen her perform.

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 4:40Andy Greenwald?

  Did you check out any of this performance?

• 4:41Chris Ryan?

  I had seen, I'd seen some YouTube videos of her performing, so I got the vibe.

• 4:44Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know she was a theater kid, like everyone else.

• 4:47Chris Ryan?

  I saw her on Tiny Desk and I saw her do like other, other shows.

• 4:49Andy Greenwald?

  Theater kids are ascendant.

• 4:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that is just a thing. Like, everybody is, everything is theater now, and that's fine, as someone who trod the boards a bit in high school. Shout out Guys and Dolls circa March 95, but um, I thought she was awesome. Also, your other, I mean, the other reason for watching it is that my daughters love these pop stars of the present moment.

• 5:11Chris Ryan?

  You are a father of daughters.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  My, my, my older daughter was like, can I tell you some of my favorite musical artists the other day? And I was like, yeah, I'm really excited. Like, is Jan Decker gonna make the list? Like, where are we? And she was like, she's like, Taylor Swift. I was like, yeah, I know. And she's like, not in any order. I'm like, okay, cool. And she's like-

• 5:28Chris Ryan?

  Which daughter is this? The older or younger?

• 5:29Andy Greenwald?

  Older.

• 5:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:30Andy Greenwald?

  And the younger one's just nodding.

• 5:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 5:32Andy Greenwald?

  She's just big upping. She's the spliff star to my older daughter's Busta Rhymes. Um, she's like Olivia Rodrigo. I'm like-

• 5:38Chris Ryan?

  We've got a Jan Decker and a Busta Rhymes reference.

• 5:40Andy Greenwald?

  I'm having a coffee, did you notice? Um, Olivia Rodrigo. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like Sabrina Carpenter. I'm like, bet. She's like, Charli XCX. I'm like, that's, that's my, that's my gal. Yeah. Uh, Chapel Rohn. She's like, oh, and I like Kacey Musgraves now. And I'm like, have I got an award show for you?

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Was Kacey Musgraves on the Grammys?

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  She was also there.

• 6:00Chris Ryan?

  Good for her, man.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  Um, so, this is the world. I'm okay, marginally okay, living with it. I did think it was kind of interesting, just, like-

• 6:12Andy Greenwald?

  Everything was, and there were some nice moments within it too, like the best new artists all got a moment to perform, which I feel like historically hasn't been the case. And I thought that was a nice celebration of people who might not otherwise have the showcase. That said, it is this like very intense creeping awareness of just how algorithms are taste now. You know, so I feel like a number of the nominees are the artists that you would play if you put in Amy Winehouse radio on Spotify.

• 6:39Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 6:40Andy Greenwald?

  Like Teddy Swims and Ray. And I'm like, oh, those are the songs that come next.

• 6:44Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  And then get a billion streams.

• 6:46Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 6:46Andy Greenwald?

  You know, or this guy, there's this guy in a jumpsuit doing backflips. And I'm like, oh, okay.

• 6:50Chris Ryan?

  Wasn't that guy named Bone or something like that?

• 6:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's like, it's like Brendan Bonson or something, you know, it's, I don't need to know. We're old now. I don't, I don't care. But I was like, oh, I see. Like, this is what happens when you just plug Imagine Dragons into the algorithm. And then I Google the dude and he's just like, the billion streamed signee to Imagine Dragons' record label.

• 7:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 7:12Andy Greenwald?

  Like, oh, okay. So everyone's making nice moves, you know? But then I was really glad, like Charli XCX performed and her performance was like the only evidence. And by the way, if you thought I was weird about twisters, wait till you hear me about pop stars.

• 7:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 7:27Andy Greenwald?

  I'm like, the only like hint of sex or danger or risk taking.

• 7:32Chris Ryan?

  I saw that she had Julia Fox come through.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  In music. Yeah, that's, that's what I mean. And then she was also in an Uber Eater with Matthew McConaughey.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm like, okay. And then there was an ad for like Snoop and Dre's Gin and Juice branded cocktails. And there was a little bit of like, everybody exits with a gift shop. Like, let's all try to cash in before the shit comes crashing down.

• 7:51Chris Ryan?

  You were hoping for some integrity. Oh, you mean?

• 7:53Andy Greenwald?

  I, I just mean like.

• 7:54Chris Ryan?

  Everybody is getting a.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  Everybody's getting their, everybody's getting their bites in before the buffet closes. You know what I mean? Like Gaga's video debuted as a MasterCard commercial? I, I know these fights are over, but still it's a little bit jarring to me.

• 8:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I, I think we've probably, the horse has left the barn when it comes to people trying to make their money back from, from their record sales, right?

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Did you hear, spoken like a, no, did you hear who won best rock album?

• 8:22Chris Ryan?

  I did not.

• 8:23Andy Greenwald?

  The Rolling Stones.

• 8:25Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I saw that the Beatles were nominated. That was cool.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  The Beatles got shut out. What's up, Grammys?

• 8:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, I wanted to ask you about one thing I did see when I was watching, watching just some social media clips of it, which is that. Taylor Swift is kind of like half Jack Nicholson at the Oscars, but also half Taylor Swift with three glasses of Chardonnay in her.

• 8:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  Where she's, every song that's being performed, she knows all the words.

• 8:54Andy Greenwald?

  She has to make herself the story, yeah.

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't even know, I'm not saying that.

• 8:57Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 8:58Chris Ryan?

  I'm saying if you were an artist performing on stage and Taylor Swift was like, I don't know this one, wouldn't you be alarmed?

• 9:04Andy Greenwald?

  If she didn't know?

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, if she was just like, this isn't my jam.

• 9:08Andy Greenwald?

  If she just sat stone-faced through Krungbin? Krongbin?

• 9:12Chris Ryan?

  You know she loves some Krugbin.

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay, let's.

• 9:15Chris Ryan?

  I don't even know.

• 9:15Andy Greenwald?

  Fifth time's a charm.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Andy Greenwald?

  That shit, I don't get that. That's like cigarettes after sex for me. That's just like, I'll just let the algo decide what my taste is. It's groovy.

• 9:24Chris Ryan?

  I never do that, man. I'm always curating.

• 9:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, I know.

• 9:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's cause, that's why you don't know how to pronounce that boring-ass band's name.

• 9:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Andy Greenwald?

  Um, yeah, I mean, I think that the Grammy as a spectacle, as a show, which sometimes we talk about, got things really right. Like, doing, it was at the, the crypt, the crypto.com.

• 9:44Chris Ryan?

  It was, yeah.

• 9:45Andy Greenwald?

  Luka Doncic's home, or at least where he gets weighed before games. And concessions are great.

• 9:50Chris Ryan?

  I think we're gonna find out that Luka Doncic is capable of losing weight quite quickly.

• 9:54Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think, now that he?

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. My boy's about to hit the substance.

• 9:57Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think? Yeah. Big injectables are in his future?

• 10:00Chris Ryan?

  I think, like, shadow insulting his, his conditioning is the number one fastest route to getting a really pissed-off, skinny Luka Doncic.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  A skinny Slovenian.

• 10:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, skinnier.

• 10:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but haven't you been reading all the coverage on the, on the Athletic about dad bods?

• 10:16Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 10:16Andy Greenwald?

  I double-clicked that. It was just like how Patrick Mahomes isn't super ripped and neither is Jokic, but when they've tested their, like, maneuverability, they are like elite in many categories.

• 10:28Chris Ryan?

  And you put yourself in that category with Mahomes and Jokic?

• 10:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, in that I'm elite in surprising ways.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  And not ripped, yeah.

• 10:34Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you know, we work on it.

• 10:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:36Andy Greenwald?

  We do, we do, we do a lot of weight training. Jesus Christ, the West Coast offense over here.

• 10:42Chris Ryan?

  Matt Cortado is really doing the.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  It's hidden. Um, no, but the show, it, they did a smart job by having it at the crypto.com arena and then having kind of the Golden Globes tables in front.

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:52Andy Greenwald?

  It did feel more intimate, even though it was a gigantic space. And you do see the reactions. I guess your mileage may vary on whether you want to see Taylor singing every song or getting really excited. When Kendrick Posse, it's like sweep, does a sweeping motion and they cut to her being like, yes, sweep.

• 11:09Andy Greenwald?

  There was a moment when she toasted, did a champagne toast with Jay-Z and Jay-Z did the thing that he does better than anyone else in the world, which is a, okay, face.

• 11:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Andy Greenwald?

  He's like, that's fine. None of this matters to me. I'm good.

• 11:21Chris Ryan?

  That was the face he gave me when I heard Blueprint 2 in the studio.

• 11:24Andy Greenwald?

  That was the face he gave me when I had a phone interview with him about Fallout Boy. Do you remember, I, we talked about this in the pod recently, when I found the quotes where he's like, I went to Irving Plaza and the Rock fans really showed up and went wild. And I was like, are you reading from a document right now, Sean?

• 11:42Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, it was a good show. I was very dubious when I read that they were going to like, try to balance out the usual, um, you know, uh, excitement of a Grammy award show.

• 11:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  With a more somber tone because of the fires and fire recovery, but they actually turned it into a kind of a, Trevor Noah kind of turned into a charity fundraiser.

• 12:00Chris Ryan?

  Celebration of LA, right?

• 12:01Andy Greenwald?

  And the fire, the fire chiefs who came out to give out album of the year were awesome. Like they were just, they're just cool, cool folks. And are you happy that Beyonce's album of the year drought is finally over? I know that's been.

• 12:13Chris Ryan?

  I'm glad, I'm glad something worked out for her, you know?

• 12:16Andy Greenwald?

  There we go.

• 12:16Chris Ryan?

  I like Beyonce.

• 12:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I know.

• 12:19Chris Ryan?

  If I didn't like Beyonce, I certainly wouldn't say it on this podcast.

• 12:22Andy Greenwald?

  Where would you, which, was that a JMO take? When would you, when would you drop that one?

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Not my cowboy.

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  Why not? Now's the time. Why not?

• 12:32Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask if you had seen the trailer for the apparently final season of Riches Gemstones, which is coming in March.

• 12:38Andy Greenwald?

  God, well, yeah, what a bomb that was.

• 12:40Chris Ryan?

  I will miss this show.

• 12:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Chris Ryan?

  I'm excited to see what Danny McBride does next. I hope that we continue to get a constant stream of Danny McBride shows for as long as he is interested in doing that. I think HBO probably would be like, go for it.

• 12:53Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I, I, he may be, we don't think of him when we think about like the traditional HBO tenured position.

• 13:00Chris Ryan?

  I think he's like the new Larry David in some ways.

• 13:03Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think he's the new David Simon in some ways, just like.

• 13:07Andy Greenwald?

  Just let us know.

• 13:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Andy Greenwald?

  And we'll put it on the air.

• 13:10Chris Ryan?

  But yeah, I think, uh, gemstones, you could do gemstones forever. The interesting thing about gemstones is there's a lot, a lot of plot in gemstones.

• 13:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's very plot heavy.

• 13:19Chris Ryan?

  You know, and it's, I think it has shaded, or at least a lot of the writing about gemstones has been like, this is actually more of a family drama than it is a laugh out loud comedy. I would, I would say it's probably both, but there is one joke in, uh, this trailer that made me laugh out loud so hard that I watched the entire thing again immediately. And that was when they're like, you look just like Tom Hanks from that movie. And they're like, you mean Philadelphia? And he's like, no, the one where he's by himself.

• 13:50Andy Greenwald?

  But you keep saying himself?

• 13:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:53Andy Greenwald?

  It's a great show.

• 13:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so I can't wait for that to come back. We don't really cover that week to week. I don't know.

• 13:59Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe we should, maybe we should, you just said that it's a very plot heavy serialized show, maybe we should cover it.

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Andy Greenwald?

  As if it, as if it is.

• 14:06Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we can, we can.

• 14:08Andy Greenwald?

  How would we do that? Do you want to sketch it out now?

• 14:10Chris Ryan?

  Just like what Easter eggs are there? I guess there is an Easter egg there. It's Jesus Christ.

• 14:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's the original Easter egg. What a surprise. Look who's back. Am I getting the story right?

• 14:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, I'm waiting to see the resurrection of the Christ, Mel Gibson's next film, uh, before I really make any final decisions about how that worked out.

• 14:28Andy Greenwald?

  Isn't he too busy now that he's an ambassador to Hollywood?

• 14:31Chris Ryan?

  That came, that came as a surprise to Mel Gibson.

• 14:34Andy Greenwald?

  It did?

• 14:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Didn't you see, you see like, they were like, you're the ambassador of Hollywood? And he was like, does that come with a residence?

• 14:40Andy Greenwald?

  It's hard.

• 14:40Chris Ryan?

  Because his house had burned down?

• 14:41Andy Greenwald?

  To surprise Mel Gibson these days. Although he seemed, cause he didn't even seem surprised that ivermectin cured all of his friend's cancer.

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, you watched that clip?

• 14:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I saw.

• 14:50Chris Ryan?

  He was on Rogan talking about that.

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  But he said, didn't he say, all, like he had many friends?

• 14:56Chris Ryan?

  Is that ivermectin in that Cortado cup right there?

• 14:58Andy Greenwald?

  It tastes like it. I feel horsey.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones. Like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then sometimes you make great ones. Like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 15:47Chris Ryan?

  Want to talk about Severance?

• 15:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I feel like you set me up for failure here.

• 15:51Chris Ryan?

  Today we're talking about Severance and Paradise.

• 15:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Paradise is a new show on Hulu from Dan Fogelman, who did This Is Us and stars Sterling K. Brown. We're going to talk about the first episode. I watched two of them.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  I watched ahead a little bit.

• 16:03Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Do you want to talk? Which one do you want to talk about first?

• 16:05Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like Severance is the newsier one and I really would like to take some time with Paradise, if possible. I, I, I should just preview, like, for people who don't do, go timestamp hunting. Like, I'm very eager to talk to you about Paradise in a way that will spoil aspects of Paradise, but yet I really want people to listen to us talk about it.

• 16:21Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Uh, well, let's talk about Severance first and then we'll do our little...

• 16:25Andy Greenwald?

  I just like to prime the pump a little bit.

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  I hear you. Yeah, like if you want, you should go and get to the end of the Severance conversation and then just check out an episode of, of Paradise.

• 16:33Andy Greenwald?

  If you want more of the opinions, pop music opinions of 47-year-old men, just hit back.

• 16:39Chris Ryan?

  Including one guy who's like, I didn't watch.

• 16:41Andy Greenwald?

  Just hit back. It's, we're, what was the succession thing? We hear you?

• 16:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's us.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  We hear for you. Um, Who Is Alive? The third episode of the second season of Severance. I thought probably...

• 16:57Chris Ryan?

  I thought maybe the most entertaining, obviously opened up a lot more in terms of mysteries. There's, I, you know, there is a superstructure to this show, like an undergirding of it that I would, I'm like, oh, you could do this for a very long time if you wanted to. They could keep finding rooms in the Lumen building.

• 17:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 17:16Chris Ryan?

  That have whole other universes, whole other people, like groups of people who are assigned to do some other thing as they do in this episode with the goat farmers.

• 17:25Andy Greenwald?

  What are they called? Mamalian, uh, mamelions, nurturable.

• 17:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And they are nursing all the goats in there. Goat herders, I guess. Um, what'd you think of the episode?

• 17:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I want to circle back to your point about like things that could go on for a longer amount of time. So I'm curious what you feel has legs, maybe four legs, uh, in case the goats and doesn't. I also want to shout out this episode directed by Ben Stiller, who directed the season premiere, not episode two, and written by my good friend, Wei Ning Yu.

• 17:52Chris Ryan?

  There you go.

• 17:52Andy Greenwald?

  Which is awesome. She's a great person, great writer. Um, I really want to focus on two things.

• 17:59Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes I imagine like whether our pod would be more popular if I started acting more like Pat McAfee about, about TV.

• 18:06Andy Greenwald?

  Talk to.

• 18:06Chris Ryan?

  Way to go, Wei Ning. Way to go. You ever see how like whenever anybody gets like an offensive coordinator job?

• 18:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Chris Ryan?

  They're just like, way to go, Brian Grub, like.

• 18:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's.

• 18:16Chris Ryan?

  Brian Grub, yeah.

• 18:17Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's cool.

• 18:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:19Andy Greenwald?

  That would be a good lane for us.

• 18:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I have to wear a tank top every episode.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  That's mostly what I was thinking about. Wouldn't you have to stand a lot?

• 18:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Andy Greenwald?

  And then if you're ever freeze framed and put on the ESPN homepage, if you would have to look a little bit bewildered in the freeze frame.

• 18:32Chris Ryan?

  Like suspicious, but also excited by what I was hearing.

• 18:36Andy Greenwald?

  It's more like.

• 18:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:37Andy Greenwald?

  Someone is explaining something to you that you don't understand.

• 18:40Chris Ryan?

  That's actually how I look when I watch Severance.

• 18:42Andy Greenwald?

  It's sometimes how you look when I say, hey, but wait, one more thing I want to talk about.

• 18:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Andy Greenwald?

  There's a little.

• 18:47Chris Ryan?

  Whenever like, here's a dope way of getting out of this conversation.

• 18:49Andy Greenwald?

  There's a wrinkle. No, that, that's, you're just annoyed. There's a wrinkle of, there's like a little flavor of terror sometimes. Um, there's two things that I want to hit for this episode first. There were just two things that I thought were really, really positive. And then there are things that I have questions about. One, Merritt Weaver is on the show.

• 19:07Andy Greenwald?

  She is a reliable MVP, like off the bench MVP for a number of TV shows.

• 19:13Chris Ryan?

  Wouldn't that be a sixth man?

• 19:14Andy Greenwald?

  She's a sixth man of the year.

• 19:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, off the bench, usually, we've never seen an MVP come off the bench.

• 19:20Andy Greenwald?

  What I wanted to do was thread the needle by making a sports analogy, because I'm still a Grantland guy.

• 19:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Andy Greenwald?

  But also, I didn't want to invalidate my previous claim that I was out on basketball. So I was trying to thread that needle.

• 19:31Chris Ryan?

  I think you validated it.

• 19:32Andy Greenwald?

  Did I nail it?

• 19:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 19:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Awesome. She's always great, and it's always interesting to see what great actors can bring, especially in a guest role, where the degree of difficulty of this whole premise, right? That Dylan is going to be allowed a social visit with his outies spouse.

• 19:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, emotional, like an emotionally conjugal visit.

• 19:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and it's like a reward.

• 19:58Chris Ryan?

  Because I looked it up, conjugal does not explicitly mean sexual.

• 20:02Andy Greenwald?

  Is that what they told you when you visited someone in prison?

• 20:05Chris Ryan?

  I went to doge.com.

• 20:06Andy Greenwald?

  You just went, no, I imagine you showing up for your visit, and the person's just like, just so to be clear.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  This isn't necessarily.

• 20:14Andy Greenwald?

  I see that you're wearing a bathrobe, Chris. Thank you.

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  And that was actually the prequel to Escape at Dannemora.

• 20:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Andy Greenwald?

  That's incredible. Shout out Ben Stiller. That it was, that is a tough thing to pull off.

• 20:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Andy Greenwald?

  Because basically, you're asking an actor to come in cold, off the bench, and be able to project familiarity and intimacy with a character who is not going to know them, or a different version of them. That is, that is high-stake shit. She was excellent, and immediately grounded that scene, and made me feel like this is someone who loves this man that's in front of her, but she doesn't recognize him.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  Did you find, because like, when she first appeared, I think her voice is heard the previous episode, right?

• 20:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it is.

• 20:59Chris Ryan?

  When she first appeared, and I'd seen like, oh, Merritt Weaver's on this season.

• 21:05Chris Ryan?

  I was kind of like. I was dubious. I was like, what, like, is this really his wife?

• 21:11Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 21:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 21:12Andy Greenwald?

  Is it a, yeah.

• 21:13Chris Ryan?

  Like, is this some sort of Lumen ploy to get Dylan to do that? And I think that's like a symptom of you never know exactly where you stand with Severance, for better or for worse. But obviously, we see her in the home, like, later. Yeah.

• 21:28Andy Greenwald?

  But that's actually something I want to, I'm glad you framed it that way because it is, like, the show wants to preserve mystery for as long as possible. And we spent maybe too much time talking about that delicate balancing act. But at a certain point, you have to put something, you have to put some cards down on the table and commit to this is the structure of what we're working within, and this is true. And then everything else can.

• 21:46Chris Ryan?

  Or you at least have to establish a baseline so that you can upend it. Like, you can't keep flipping the table if there's no table, right?

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, you saw me in Atlantic City once. And I think that I maybe, but yes, generally, that's true. And so I thought that that was a good sign of story and emotional commitment of the show of like, we've crafted this really cool scene. Art directed the shit out of it, of course, Mrs. Wong being creepy around the edges. The great joke about like, the old time family photo. Do we live in a, what does he say? Like, do we live in a saloon or something? Like, that's awesome. But that scene is made so much more resonant because of exactly what you pointed out, that it is confirmed.

• 22:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 22:27Andy Greenwald?

  Right? And that this is a different relationship and she keeps some things from him and she's protective of him and that line of like, I always rooting for you, respect you. I forget the language that she uses. I thought that was a great scene. I also really, really liked the end of the episode. Because in the same spirit of like, let's, let's be about something.

• 22:46Chris Ryan?

  The Mark burning his retinas thing and.

• 22:49Andy Greenwald?

  Well, not that. Like, I thought we were, I really appreciated this. The retina burning thing is writer's room cute. Like, that's a clever idea. It's cool. It's a good visual. I did think, and this is my pessimism coming into play, as it often does, like, that that was going to be like a two-episode arc.

• 23:06Chris Ryan?

  Of him trying to get this, like.

• 23:08Andy Greenwald?

  Message.

• 23:08Chris Ryan?

  Remembering into the, into the, into the.

• 23:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And that like a Breaking Bad-esque. Element of the show's storytelling language, which was, there was some Breaking Bad-esque flavor to the beginning of the episode, which we can circle back to, I thought, with Mrs. Cobell.

• 23:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Andy Greenwald?

  Or at least hinted in that direction. That it was the kind of thing where it's like, again, like a writer's room dare, like, we'll do this. And then someone's like, well, how does he get, how does any get a message back? Well, that's next week's problem.

• 23:33Chris Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 23:34Andy Greenwald?

  I love that they establish it and then they have someone show up being like, this is a terrible idea.

• 23:38Chris Ryan?

  This is stupid, yeah.

• 23:39Andy Greenwald?

  Let's move this forward.

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  What's really a good idea is if I do unlicensed surgery on your brain.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  A hundred percent. Some sort of like backroom, the kind of surgery they do when you're leaving Dallas and going to Los Angeles.

• 23:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Andy Greenwald?

  That was an escalation. And it was, to my mind, like, kind of an earlier escalation than I would have expected. Because we remember what happened to Petey in season one, the shape he was in when we meet him at the beginning of the series. So I was like, I felt much more optimistic and confident because of those storytelling choices. That it, like, you have to, you have to go, like, you at a certain point, you know? And I liked that those two planks of the episode suggested a desire for momentum. Like, I, those things are much more compelling to me than goats. And maybe that's a good way to go into the rest of the episode, and I'd love to know your temperature on it.

• 24:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I have a couple of things that I really enjoyed. As Brian Grub mentioned on Vulture.

• 24:37Andy Greenwald?

  And he's the offensive coordinator of-

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  No, I think that's Ryan Grub. Brian Grub is a great blogger who writes for Vulture. And the diegetic use of the Stone Roses in so much as, like, she puts on a cassette-

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  That plays the second Stone Roses album. Is that, this lead single was Love Spreads, or was that, was Ten Story Love Song the first?

• 24:58Andy Greenwald?

  That was not, that was the second single. Goddamn, that's a good song. That just, that just hit me like James and the Giant Peach hits my guy in episode one of Paradise. Real heads know. Real doll heads know.

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  Um, he, he basically teases out the idea, like, are the Stone Roses a real band in the world of Severance?

• 25:19Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. It's a great question.

• 25:21Chris Ryan?

  And I will take it a step further and say that I am still, we're still monitoring, like, when this is.

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:29Chris Ryan?

  Like, I can't remember now how much internet usage there's been in this show.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  I mean-

• 25:34Chris Ryan?

  How much, like, I'm getting on the laptop to read about stuff. I can't remember, but I'm like-

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to see your experience mirrored in the show more, you mean?

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  No, I want to know, like, how close to Madchester we are.

• 25:44Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, wait, so is there, I gotta read, you gotta, first of all, you gotta send me-

• 25:47Chris Ryan?

  All the cars in Severance are, you know, 80s, 90s cars. Early aughts, maybe, I don't know, but like, there are all these like little boxy Chryslers and hatchbacks and stuff like that. So, there is this lack of-

• 26:01Andy Greenwald?

  Modernity?

• 26:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, on the outside world. Now, I still subscribe to the idea that I don't even know if the outside world isn't yet another layer of severing, because, um, it just seems so odd.

• 26:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yes, well, it didn't occur to me that there would be like temporal displacement. Maybe, again, this is my pessimistic skeptical brain approach to the show.

• 26:26Chris Ryan?

  Or that it's some sort of period piece.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  It never occurred to me. I just have always thought that it was deeply stylized intentionally, and that there was a intentional surreality to the reality portion of the show that then may result in some-

• 26:39Chris Ryan?

  Now, I may be doing the worst kind of watching of Severance as you could possibly do, which is 75% checking for stuff like that. Whereas I think you need to be all in and really dialing in, like, I should know whether or not they've used Google, or-

• 26:53Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  Just watch it as a TV show and just sort of enjoy it as an entertainment.

• 26:57Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that if the Stone Roses exist, like, so you're saying Stone Roses exist, but Ian Brown's solo career hasn't happened yet?

• 27:05Chris Ryan?

  No, I don't even know, but all the other music, or for the most part, a lot of the other music in this show, like Eminence Front by The Who gets played.

• 27:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that was the other thing I liked about the episode. Great episode ending needle drop.

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  But that's just a exterior needle drop.

• 27:17Andy Greenwald?

  That, right, it's not diegetic, as we say in the business.

• 27:19Chris Ryan?

  She's not, they're not putting in a CD of The Who.

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 27:23Chris Ryan?

  She puts in a cassette that plays Love Spreads from the much maligned second Stone Roses album.

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  Second coming.

• 27:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm just saying, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means for Harmony. I don't know what it means for this world. I don't know what year it is.

• 27:36Andy Greenwald?

  And I don't want to give the impression that I'd rather talk about a different show, but President Wildcat in paradise does find a Phil Collins CD, which is a little suspicious. Do you know what I mean?

• 27:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:49Andy Greenwald?

  In the Hulu series Paradise. Did I mention that?

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Andy Greenwald?

  But wait, so, but are you really watching Severance? 75, 25, gotcha?

• 27:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, unfortunately.

• 28:01Andy Greenwald?

  Are you enjoying that? Or so are you doing that because you are the more responsible one of us, which is true? And you're trying to keep track of the conversation? Are you doing it because you find that portion of the show more engaging? And that's what you're latching on to? Or do you just really want to know what's up with the Stone Roses? What is your?

• 28:18Chris Ryan?

  I think it's because I find that portion of the show more engaging. I think I it. I think so. Take something. I don't find the dialogue so dazzling on this show or the, um, you know, the momentum so propulsive or there, there's not a thing on this show that I'm like, I'm, I'm, I've, I've got my like, I'm gripping my armrests. I'm so excited by what's happening. It's not that I don't mean that as an insult. I think that it's actually engineered to like encourage this kind of sleuthing, this kind of speculation. Yeah. It actually gives space to that rather than you, you can't miss a thing. You have to just be constant. Like there are shows where like industry and or whatever like I'm like, I'm, I have to like be so locked in on this.

• 29:02Chris Ryan?

  I want to hear every like Rishi line from off screen.

• 29:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Or like when Stellan Skarsgård like just does the wind up and you know, he's going to unleash a speech. You're like, right. I will take pleasure.

• 29:12Chris Ryan?

  So far, that hasn't really been the case with Severance, which isn't a knock against Severance so much as I think it's how they're like, it's no accident that Ben Stiller is responding to people's theories.

• 29:22Andy Greenwald?

  But.

• 29:23Chris Ryan?

  That Dan Erickson is like, that's an interesting theory, like all that stuff. Like that is part of what they're trying to pull off here.

• 29:30Andy Greenwald?

  Without question, and they know where their bread is buttered. And that is a smart play by them. But I will say, I don't give.

• 29:38Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I'm trying to be self reflective on occasion, especially when highly caffeinated. I do feel like I, I haven't given.

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  And full of the music of Benson Bone.

• 29:48Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. Just, I mean, it was, it was really.

• 29:51Chris Ryan?

  The first signee of Imagine Dragons is in print.

• 29:54Andy Greenwald?

  I'm like, oh, this is a song I heard at Gelson's versus, you know, Teddy Swims, which I heard in Von's. Yeah. Like, oh, I get it. Great stuff.

• 30:01Chris Ryan?

  They're two Americas.

• 30:02Andy Greenwald?

  We're doing, and I, I bestride them both like a colossus.

• 30:08Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think I give Ben Stiller enough credit for one major thing, which is that he is, he's a movie guy, not just because he's in movies, but because that is his language. I think that is what he privileges and prioritizes in storytelling. And one of the reasons why I've had a hard time getting my arms around season two is that I've sort of had an amnesia moment, I think, about how, what it took for me to get my arms around season one. And in season one, I think I had a lot of the same, like, I'm not sure where this is going. I'm not sure if I'm interested in X, Y, or Z. And then the finale was like, let's take this entire mixing console and push everything up to 10 or even 11. It felt a little

• 30:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the first two episodes, bring it back down to five.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  But the willingness to be like, the willingness to go all in early with the most interesting thing you could do in season one, which is bring the innies out, is notable and important, I think, to adjusting to the storytelling rhythms of the show. And that they are, and it's just a reminder that like, I don't think, despite the fact that the show may run for multiple seasons, I do think Stiller's heart is in pushing things forward, in having big crescendo crises things. And I think that's the spirit that I was enjoying at the end of this, at the end of this episode. So that maybe it's almost like the rhythm feels off because more veteran TV people

• 31:30Andy Greenwald?

  have a more like familiar rhythm of give and take of like, we'll dole out some mystery and we'll give you some taste of a high, but then we'll pull back. Whereas I think the show is a little bit more in the weeds and loving the quirk that I find, and maybe that's movie-like too, like quirk for an hour is great, quirk for eight hours is harder to swallow.

• 31:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like the, we talked about this, I think, with Hudsucker Proxy as an example, but Coen Brothers are masters of mood and masters of vibe and atmosphere and tone. And I don't know if that tone can necessarily be stretched out, although Noah Hawley did a successful job taking parts of that tone and stretching it out across Fargo. I just think, yeah, there's certain things that film does better than television. I'll go through a couple of the other things that I really liked in this episode. The Natalie and Milchick scene with the portraits redone to show him as, as a

• 32:21Andy Greenwald?

  As Keir.

• 32:21Chris Ryan?

  As Keir was one of the

• 32:26Chris Ryan?

  My favorite moments of the show so far, just because there was so much ambiguity, incredible performances in that scene, and also just like, what the hell? And I honestly, it also introduces this whole idea of like, what's race in this world? You know, like, what is the sort of relationship that this guy has to this company?

• 32:46Andy Greenwald?

  And later, when Cobell is like, he's not up for this?

• 32:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Andy Greenwald?

  It adds a little extra to that. Sidney Cole Alexander plays Natalie, I think. Welcome presence.

• 32:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  Good performance.

• 32:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Andy Greenwald?

  What's Milchick's first name?

• 33:00Chris Ryan?

  Seth.

• 33:01Andy Greenwald?

  It's said a couple of times, yeah.

• 33:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I liked the goat discovery primarily because I thought it was notable that Gwendolyn Christie's character Lorne speaks with the kind of anachronistic vocabulary that I associated with Helly's father, Helen's father. So when he's like, fetid moppet.

• 33:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Chris Ryan?

  Weird thing to say to your daughter, weird thing to say.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Well, listen, as a girl dad, things are said.

• 33:31Chris Ryan?

  I thought, "We don't abide such fripperies" was similar, similar time zone as that. What do you think?

• 33:38Andy Greenwald?

  Or timeline.

• 33:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. What do you think of that?

• 33:40Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I think you're on-

• 33:40Chris Ryan?

  How long has she been down there?

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  I think you're on the case. I think that, I mean, again, that's the type of-

• 33:46Chris Ryan?

  Thing that you're like, let me know what happens there.

• 33:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, like, I think it's the type of mystery that the show is overly indexed in, in the sense that like, all of the nurturing mammalions all look like Game of Thrones extras. Intentionally. But I'm like, okay. You know, that whole scene, for me, is, what's the, I think the signal to noise ratio is off for me.

• 34:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:09Andy Greenwald?

  For whatever else it accomplishes in mood and texture and oddity and surprise.

• 34:16Andy Greenwald?

  All it takes to remove the threat or get what they want is Mark to say, just imagine you lost a goat. And they're all like, oh, okay, we'll help you.

• 34:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that didn't feel, that juice didn't seem worth the squeeze to me, but that is the atmosphere and that is the-

• 34:33Chris Ryan?

  And it's also about like, making sure like, that stuff has connective tissue to the rest of it. I thought they did a good job getting everybody on their own mission. You know, this is a tried and true TV story engine thing where it's like, we have to split up and do stuff, you know?

• 34:47Andy Greenwald?

  Were you up on the hall pass idea? Did you remember that introduction of that from the season premiere?

• 34:53Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of stuff from season one that I'm just like, I-

• 34:54Andy Greenwald?

  So this was a, this was introduced in the Keanu Reeves, uh, video.

• 34:58Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right. Like, we've given you hall passes.

• 35:00Andy Greenwald?

  You've earned it.

• 35:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Andy Greenwald?

  We didn't see them earn it, but they have it.

• 35:02Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Uh, the Turturro Earth stuff happening, I think is something that's gonna pay off later in the season. I've not watched ahead. I'm just saying, right now, I find, you know, a bit confusing, like, the dreams that the Audi is having and drawing.

• 35:17Andy Greenwald?

  And what it means.

• 35:18Chris Ryan?

  And what it means and the, all the like, sort of language about the export floor and the hallway and the elevator and-

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  I do, I do really like Turturro's performance.

• 35:27Chris Ryan?

  But he's just, this is sort of what this show is able to do. They throw something so complicated at you, or something's kind of opaque as, as what he's dealing with, but he's such an incredible performer and has chosen this channel to be locked in on, that you're kind of like, I, I don't know, this feels good watching this.

• 35:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's, it's, he is more mannered and stylized like the show, but he, but it's a similar thing that I was trying to articulate about Merritt Weaver. I'm like, I believe you.

• 35:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:53Andy Greenwald?

  I just believe you. So it doesn't matter what you're saying.

• 35:56Chris Ryan?

  You want to talk about the ending? Cause since that, that jazzed you up?

• 35:59Andy Greenwald?

  Before we get to the ending, I, I have to take your temperature on Patricia Arquette's performance, Mrs. Cobell. That, you know, people have heard me ding various elements of the show. That's still the thing that I'm most outy on across the board. I was saying Breaking Bad-ish, like, her driving through the snow towards a place called like- Neck Salt or Salt's Neck.

• 36:20Chris Ryan?

  Great Neck, I think.

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, it was weirder than that, because Great Neck would have implied.

• 36:24Chris Ryan?

  Salt Neck.

• 36:24Andy Greenwald?

  New York, yeah.

• 36:25Chris Ryan?

  Salt Neck, yeah.

• 36:27Andy Greenwald?

  Suggested some sort of backstory for the character that we're not going to get yet. But it is, it, it, to me, it just, that is the best example of the show at its worst.

• 36:38Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 36:38Andy Greenwald?

  Or, or it's like, it's, it's, it, the tendencies that I like least, which is just a lot of business of behaving a certain way that's extravagant and mysterious and driving to a place but not getting there and then coming back and demanding things and having leverage and cold harbor. And then, okay, but why? Like, like, we need, no, I, I won't presume to speak for everyone, but as my version of an audience member of the show, I need a glimpse of Dylan with his kids, but the Mrs. Kobell, Mrs. Helvig, Selvig version.

• 37:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Andy Greenwald?

  Um, to ground it.

• 37:11Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  I need a table. Right now, there's no table.

• 37:13Chris Ryan?

  There's just the Stone Roses.

• 37:14Andy Greenwald?

  There's, well, how you're making me like it. Um, do you have any kind of differing opinion about that? Or is that when you choose to look at Wikipedia during those?

• 37:25Chris Ryan?

  No, I, you know, I thought that the, the scene where she gets basically spooked by Helena was effective.

• 37:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was her version of the, yeah, yeah, keep going.

• 37:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Andy Greenwald?

  Karen.

• 37:35Chris Ryan?

  In Goodfellas.

• 37:36Andy Greenwald?

  Karen, where are you going?

• 37:37Chris Ryan?

  But, you know, there's certain things on, in this episode and in this show that I feel like, feel a little cut and paste. Not cut and paste like, like maybe they happened in a different point and it got moved up or moved back. And I, I have no knowledge of that. I just, there's something odd about her whole arc so far this season. And she, to me.

• 37:58Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, intentionally.

• 37:59Chris Ryan?

  Is the one that I'm like, what's her shrine? What's her deal? She's not supposed to talk to Mark, she talks to Mark. You know, like, she seems to be like an independent rogue state in this whole system that's supposed to be us versus them. And I, I guess that's a cool thing. She's like the, the thing that can change the temperature on the show. But on the other hand, like, I just, I'm like, why is she driving? Why is she doing this? Why is she doing that?

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  There's also a, not to just grab a title from, um, the headlines, but there's something low-key conclave-y about the show in that there's a version of it that is a religious show. And there's different levels of belief.

• 38:36Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:36Andy Greenwald?

  Right? And, and, and different definitions of heresy. And the idea that. Mrs. Kobel is, at least, again, I don't, none of us know what she's doing, which I think long, long term is a problem, but I don't think that that's going to be left unresolved for long. But she appears to be more of a true believer than even the heir to the great man himself. Right? In, in terms of

• 38:58Chris Ryan?

  Apparently, yeah.

• 39:00Andy Greenwald?

  And that, that she deems her successor, or her acolyte Milchek, as not worthy. But again, what, what are they worshiping and what are they doing?

• 39:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Andy Greenwald?

  And the question for the season, for the people who are super invested in the plot of the show, the stakes of the season are self-evident. For the people who are mystery hunters, like you, I think the stakes are like

• 39:21Chris Ryan?

  Part-time.

• 39:22Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you're an amateur sleuth.

• 39:23Chris Ryan?

  I'm sort of a, like a, sort of Uber driver of mystery hunting.

• 39:28Andy Greenwald?

  An Uber, oh, oh, oh.

• 39:29Chris Ryan?

  I work my own hours.

• 39:30Andy Greenwald?

  Gig economy.

• 39:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Andy Greenwald?

  That, you know, the, the return on investment for the season is like, how, what, like, how deep this goes, or how interesting the connections are. I guess the meta-viewer version of this is, um, what ratio do they, do they ultimately choose for revealing things, grounding things, structuring things, and, you know, shout out Leftovers, letting the mystery be. And that is a judgment that one cannot make till the end of the season. But of course, I will not stop making these judgments. I'm sorry. We do a podcast twice

• 40:01Chris Ryan?

  Good episode, though. Cool, cool episode.

• 40:03Andy Greenwald?

  Best episode of the season so far.

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• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  Now let's talk about a show that is a lot like Severance.

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 40:55Chris Ryan?

  If you've had a lobotomy.

• 40:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yo, I'm so excited to talk about Paradise on Hulu.

• 41:01Chris Ryan?

  I've seen chatter about like, goddamn, like Paradise, like, I didn't know you had that as part of your game. And I, so I was like, let's check out an episode. I asked Andy to watch what I'd see. I watched it and then I was like, you're gonna have to watch this. And I got the classic 15 minutes in Andy text of like.

• 41:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was, I've had fun. I was never not gonna finish it. You were worried about me.

• 41:22Chris Ryan?

  You were like, did ChatGPT write, write this show like a couple of minutes into it, right?

• 41:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, I said, I said, my first take on Paradise is that the show was written by ChatGPT on Klonopin.

• 41:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And then I was like, you have to finish it though. And there are, there's a reason for that. So if you have not watched Paradise,

• 41:40Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 41:41Chris Ryan?

  Please watch it and then come listen to us.

• 41:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 41:44Chris Ryan?

  The first episode.

• 41:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Or, or, and I mean this sincerely. If you are one of the, from what I gather anecdotally, many people.

• 41:55Chris Ryan?

  Who just listen to us talk about shows that they don't watch.

• 41:58Andy Greenwald?

  Specifically.

• 41:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:59Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I'm gonna talk about Landman a lot in relation to Paradise. If you are someone who's just like, what's my favorite thing that I never get right, which is the, you know, the, I happy for you or sorry that happened. I ain't reading all that. Like if that is your engagement with this podcast,

• 42:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Andy Greenwald?

  Especially with Landman, do us a solid and just stick around.

• 42:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 42:18Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I think this is a similarly rich text for us to unpack. I was not spoiled. I knew nothing about what the show is about, which was great. I knew, I didn't even know the premise. So deep is my admiration and affection for you that I would just fired it up.

• 42:31Chris Ryan?

  Here is the premise.

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  Give us the log line, but, but this is the spoiler free log line.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  This is just the premise.

• 42:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 42:36Chris Ryan?

  Dan Fogelman, parentheses, this is us.

• 42:41Chris Ryan?

  New drama about a secret service agent guarding an ex-president.

• 42:46Andy Greenwald?

  And not just new drama, new drama with Sterling K. Brown, who was the breakout Emmy award winning star of This Is Us.

• 42:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:53Andy Greenwald?

  Sterling eager to work with Dan again. He's a producer on the show as well. And the, I guess, I will say the one thing that I heard was that he wanted to do something different.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  Well.

• 43:01Andy Greenwald?

  Than this is us.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  I think he did.

• 43:02Andy Greenwald?

  I think he did, and I think we should commend that.

• 43:05Chris Ryan?

  The show also stars James Marsden as said ex-president.

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  He's awesome.

• 43:09Chris Ryan?

  Julianne Nicholson as the most powerful woman in the world.

• 43:12Andy Greenwald?

  Unclear, thought that was his wife, but now figured it out.

• 43:14Chris Ryan?

  Larry Hagman as the president's father.

• 43:18Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, Gerald McCraney.

• 43:20Chris Ryan?

  Gerald McCraney.

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  Larry Hagman from Beyond the Grave.

• 43:24Andy Greenwald?

  They've done incredible things with AI.

• 43:26Chris Ryan?

  Maybe I need the coffee.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to finish this for me?

• 43:28Chris Ryan?

  Gerald McCraney. I was like, that's Larry Hagman.

• 43:30Andy Greenwald?

  Can I also just give, like, in the spirit of what I just said about the previous episode of Severance, big shout out to John Beavers, Briar Patch's own. He plays Billy.

• 43:38Chris Ryan?

  Billy.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  So awesome. The nicest guy, great guy. So happy to see him.

• 43:41Chris Ryan?

  Another Secret Service agent. And then my most notable casting is Cassidy Freeman, who people may know as Jesse Gemstones's wife on Righteous Gemstones. She plays the current, uh, the ex-wife of the ex-president.

• 43:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, the ex-first lady.

• 43:58Chris Ryan?

  You start the first episode, and it frankly just looks like a network drama. It is taking place in an anonymous sort of world where Sterling K. Brown's character, who's a Secret Service agent, is able to easily like sidle up to the ex-president's house. It looks like they're in California somewhere.

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's also just like Anytown, America, Ville, USA.

• 44:21Chris Ryan?

  Anytime, America, Ville, USA. Just feel, but you're like, oh, this is like a backlot ABC show.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  It also does feel like, as like to do it in SAT question form, like as Mastercard is to Lady Gaga, the Ford Mustang is to Paradise because the one recurring feature, before you have time to be like, is that the White House? You're just like, that is a rakish tilt to the parking job of that Ford.

• 44:43Chris Ryan?

  Now, I'm gonna get confused a couple of times because as is the way with Dan Fogelman, but especially with Paradise, there are like 37 nesting dolls of flashbacks happening on 14 different timelines here.

• 44:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we got five years ago before we even get going.

• 44:56Chris Ryan?

  But it's like five years ago, but then it's like 12 years ago, but then it's like six weeks ago and five hours ago.

• 45:00Andy Greenwald?

  And everyone looks the same.

• 45:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and everybody looks the same. So basically what happens at the beginning of this episode is you're just alerted to the fact that Sterling K. Brown was James Marsden's head security, Secret Service guard during his presidency, during the second term of his presidency. James Marsden was an incredibly young, incredibly successful president, young, and he's gonna be in his early 50s as he is out of the presidency.

• 45:27Andy Greenwald?

  He likes to drink?

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  Sterling K. Brown has followed Marsden out of the White House to his post-president life, presidency life.

• 45:34Andy Greenwald?

  Which we are led to believe is just a life of leisure and vacationing.

• 45:37Chris Ryan?

  Sitting around, uh, like, sitting on a pool floaty and drinking all day. And, okay, I get it. I'm curious. And I thought that the mystery or whatever is gonna be, uh, how he got this scar, why his wife isn't lying next to him, even though he's got these two kids.

• 45:54Andy Greenwald?

  And my mystery, if I may contribute, is why does he go fucking mental when his child is reading James and the Giant Peach? I'm like, was he shot by a fruit? Like, what is his trauma here? I was like, oh, or are they living in a world with talking bugs? What's the relevance here?

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  So you continue to go through the first episode. It seems a little off, but this is kind of a testament to like, if you're watching, say, like FBI/CIA on CBS, you're like, that's kind of what this looks like visually. So I didn't necessarily think anything was to amiss. I thought that the mysteries were gonna be like how he sort of is wound up as this person versus when he started with the president.

• 46:34Andy Greenwald?

  Why is he humorless now when he was humorless then?

• 46:37Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 46:37Andy Greenwald?

  Is your question.

• 46:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, not a lot to note about the president. I think his name is Cal.

• 46:42Andy Greenwald?

  His nickname is Wildcat.

• 46:43Chris Ryan?

  Wildcat.

• 46:43Andy Greenwald?

  Marsden, just give him his flowers.

• 46:45Chris Ryan?

  Chewing it up. And he's, and he's making a lot of Kentucky basketball references, which I appreciated, although that is called, uh, called out at a certain point.

• 46:55Chris Ryan?

  As the show goes on, there are these mentions of something happening in Colorado.

• 46:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, there's some, some, some tumult in his presidency.

• 47:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes. There is an assassination attempt in the past that we were witness to.

• 47:06Andy Greenwald?

  So presumably in the Paradise timeline, you were at the Vista seeing what? Can you, can you put it Avengers Endgame?

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  Odyssey.

• 47:14Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the Odyssey.

• 47:14Chris Ryan?

  The Odyssey.

• 47:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's the future.

• 47:17Chris Ryan?

  Yada, yada. It keeps going forward. And what it, you, you eventually realize, this is revealed in the first scene of the show, but in multiple flashbacks, that this ex-president Cal has been murdered. In his ex-presidency life.

• 47:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and Special Agent Xavier Collins is weirdly chill about it.

• 47:35Chris Ryan?

  Well, he had chill, but he immediately is like, I can't trust anyone before we call it in. Like, we have to sort of do an assessment of the grounds.

• 47:45Andy Greenwald?

  And this assessment is so important. Billy needs to leave his me time on the toilet.

• 47:51Chris Ryan?

  His ivory throne, yeah.

• 47:52Andy Greenwald?

  To attend to him.

• 47:53Chris Ryan?

  His marble throne, yeah.

• 47:55Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I don't really want to know, but I was really hung up on the fact that Billy's like, "I cannot be there." And then he's like, "You need to be here," and he's like, "I'll be there." And I'm like, "What shortcuts were taken, Billy?"

• 48:05Chris Ryan?

  For him to be able to get it together.

• 48:06Andy Greenwald?

  To get you there.

• 48:08Chris Ryan?

  It is revealed that...

• 48:10Andy Greenwald?

  You doing it? Do it.

• 48:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:11Andy Greenwald?

  Rip the Band-Aids.

• 48:12Chris Ryan?

  This show...

• 48:12Andy Greenwald?

  Do it.

• 48:13Chris Ryan?

  Is taking place, the present time is taking place in an under, a mountain underground community that was salvaged in the wake of what appears to be some sort of nuclear apocalypse above ground.

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  It's a silo!

• 48:28Chris Ryan?

  It's a silo.

• 48:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah!

• 48:30Chris Ryan?

  And it's essentially The Truman Show. Uh, the reason why it looks so weird is...

• 48:35Andy Greenwald?

  Cause it is.

• 48:35Chris Ryan?

  Is cause it is. And, uh, he was still the president, right? Of this underground community.

• 48:43Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I think the implication is that he, his presidency, he was president when the world ended, cutting a little close to home.

• 48:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Andy Greenwald?

  And thus then stayed president in fake mountain presidency.

• 48:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes, so they are underground in a, in a Colorado mountain.

• 48:59Andy Greenwald?

  Where everything is like meticulously, uh, curated.

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  It's like Disney, yeah. Which is actually a good synergy for Hulu. They got the Imagineers on that.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  Great point.

• 49:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:09Andy Greenwald?

  Great point. Should we end there?

• 49:10Chris Ryan?

  Um, there's some creepy dystopian stuff where everybody has to pay for everything using their like Fitbit that they have.

• 49:17Andy Greenwald?

  Does that give you Gattaca vibes?

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  A little bit. Uh, and, yeah, the first episode ends with one of those hugest what the fuck twists? And the second episode, I'll just say, keeps them coming.

• 49:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, the amount of flashbacks...

• 49:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's so wild.

• 49:35Chris Ryan?

  Is so crazy in this show. I, I don't even, but I, I, I have to admit, I was completely like entertained and gripped. It's, it's really stupid, but also such an amazing piece of engineering because you're just like, people will get bored after seven minutes? We need to then change the entire reality of the show every 10 minutes.

• 49:57Andy Greenwald?

  But also... Every minor character's decision making needs to be fleshed out with a very involved, faux, folksy, colloquial flashback where they just-

• 50:10Chris Ryan?

  It's like taking a gravity bong hit of Lost. It's like every, every episode of like, Lost was like, here's a character's flashback. That happens six times in one episode of Paradise.

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  In one act.

• 50:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, nobody is not connected to one another. It's like, oh, these two Secret Service agents is, ah, they touched hands.

• 50:27Andy Greenwald?

  Ah, there you go. Well, it's also just the, that is the broadcast thing that we are out of the habit of, which is like when Sterling K. Brown wakes up in the first scene and the camera lingers on the pillow next to him. And we're like, oh, oh, someone used to be there.

• 50:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. A head used to lay on that pillow.

• 50:41Andy Greenwald?

  Just like when the people fire up this podcast after the Super Bowl and it's just an empty chair next to you.

• 50:46Chris Ryan?

  Like, is you gonna be dead?

• 50:47Andy Greenwald?

  I'll be at the parade.

• 50:48Chris Ryan?

  One way or the other, yeah.

• 50:49Andy Greenwald?

  One way or another. Um, yeah. So the reason I wanted to talk about this show in the framing of Landman is because both are batshit crazy and have a lot of opportunities for us to have a good time.

• 51:02Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:02Andy Greenwald?

  The other reason is, you know, maybe I am, maybe I'm only coming down from my ivory tower occasionally. So this is happening a lot and thus my opinion is not special or invalidated. But when we were talking about Landman, I was like, the best thing going for the show, other than the way it convinced me that my electric car is foolishness-

• 51:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Andy Greenwald?

  Is that we are really seeing what it means for one person to be unnoted, to just do whatever he wants.

• 51:31Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you don't think Fogelman got any notes?

• 51:33Andy Greenwald?

  I-

• 51:34Chris Ryan?

  I think they were like, no notes, because this is such, so exactly what we wanted.

• 51:38Andy Greenwald?

  This, okay, let me, let me start from like a place of somewhat reality and then we can-

• 51:42Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  Like the show itself, then we can kind of unpack. The one constant in every single notes call that I've been on for scripts that I have written, or development that I've had, or meeting, general meetings that I've gone on in the last year, year plus. It's it's consistent. It's if you don't hook the reader. Well, they mean they say audience, but they really mean the reader in terms of the script. In the first scene, in the first three to five pages, it's a no.

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 52:10Andy Greenwald?

  That attention, the attention economy is so competitive right now. That that basically it's the note that people used to say, like, people were bemoaning 20 years ago with movies, like, if you can't sell it on the poster, we won't green light the movie. So that is where we are with scripts. So the fact that Fogelman wrote this incredibly packed, but weirdly narcotized and sleepy hour of television, in which the reason for it being a show is revealed in the last second and got it to air struck me as noteworthy.

• 52:39Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 52:39Andy Greenwald?

  Because it's not just that it's kind of like lulling you into a false sense of security that this is normal. It's that when Sterling K. Brown delivers his like, what did he say to President Cal before, you know, is this last conversation?

• 52:52Chris Ryan?

  I wish you were dead, right?

• 52:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but that's, you remember that. What maybe you don't remember is that for six minutes before that, he's like, my wife and I took a lot of time planning the names of our children.

• 53:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:03Andy Greenwald?

  Presley was determined because she's from Memphis, something I mentioned to you in a previous scene. But we were really puzzled about what we should name our son.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Andy Greenwald?

  Should it be, should it be Jack? Should it be Dave? Should it be Dave with a B and just be creative? David?

• 53:18Chris Ryan?

  Dave.

• 53:18Andy Greenwald?

  Call him Dave. We didn't know what to name him until one day we walked into a-

• 53:22Chris Ryan?

  Name him after Brian Dable?

• 53:23Andy Greenwald?

  Bookstore. And it's OC Ryan Grubb. And in the bookstore, we saw a book, maybe you've heard of it, James and the Giant Peach. And that's when we knew. And I, on the couch, I was like, you named your son Giant Peach? Because where's the zag here, buddy? Like, what are you telling us? And it's like, we named him James. And then I read that Roald Dahl considered naming it James and the Giant Cherry. I was like, are you fucking high right now? Is medic, are mushrooms so mainstreamed and microdosing so mainstreamed that Dan Fogelman and the covering exec were both peaking at the same time? And they were like, this is fascinating. Tell me more about Roald Dahl's relationship to squishy fruit.

• 54:02Chris Ryan?

  Stone fruits are in season and you know what? They're grown right here in America.

• 54:06Andy Greenwald?

  And maybe if you squint, you could be like, oh, Dan, you're telling us something because James is inside of a fruit dome.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Andy Greenwald?

  Much like they, these characters are. And it's foreshadowing something that we're going to reveal in six minutes anyway. But really, you're just like, this is a really long speech. Just like when Sterling K. Brown's character Xavier meets the president for the first time. And the president's like, want a drink? No, you don't. Want a drink? That's a test. Let me tell you about being president. You laugh a lot, X-Man? I'm like, what, what is happening? Why is this scene still going?

• 54:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I always love scenes where it seems to be a job interview and the, uh, the person being interviewed.

• 54:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:40Chris Ryan?

  Gives nothing and the, the interviewer is like, I love the cut of your gym.

• 54:45Andy Greenwald?

  You got everything that I want, X-Man. You've given me nothing. I would like to now spend the rest of my life with you.

• 54:52Chris Ryan?

  So.

• 54:53Andy Greenwald?

  So my, my, that's, the fact that he, this is why I think this is a fascinating text, that Dan Fogelman was just like, no one believed in me when, well, he wrote Crazy Stupid Love and like got a big, uh, spec paycheck for that. Then This Is Us, NBC was high on it, but they weren't like, this is going to save broadcast television for six or seven years. Or that like a show built on what happened to dad could extend that mystery for multiple years.

• 55:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:21Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm not saying he hasn't earned the right, but it was shocking to so soon after covering Landman and being like, we may never see an uncut gem like this again, getting another one.

• 55:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:32Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's an insane television show.

• 55:35Chris Ryan?

  So we still don't know what happened to the world.

• 55:37Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 55:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we do not know yet, at least after two episodes, I don't think, why Julianne Nicholson's Sinatra was her code name.

• 55:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 55:47Chris Ryan?

  Character who seems to be Elon, but a woman has like.

• 55:52Andy Greenwald?

  Boy, you just fucking blew my mind.

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  But is like.

• 55:53Andy Greenwald?

  Crazy.

• 55:54Chris Ryan?

  Running the government essentially. Uh, but man, like, I kinda want to find out.

• 56:01Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think it's a feature or a bug that the world, as like the actual world is still functioning world? Like the flashbacks to Earth Prime? You know, where you're just watching movies of the Vista, not aware of the looming extinction level event? That that world also seems to only have less than the population of Toledo in it?

• 56:23Chris Ryan?

  Well, that exactly the population of Toledo.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's that's later. I'm just saying like the scenes when it's presumably still the world before they go into the mountain. And like there's the media scrum and there's like six reporters and a president.

• 56:35Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of funny.

• 56:36Andy Greenwald?

  And then and then Sterling K. Brown takes a bullet for him and then.

• 56:38Chris Ryan?

  It's also like you only had six reporters, you couldn't bat these guys down.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  You could probably run him through a metal detector, but then when he wakes up in the hospital, it's just alone in a room with the president.

• 56:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe there's some other dominoes to fall.

• 56:51Chris Ryan?

  So you now you're watching Paradise with the same magnifying glass that I watched Severance.

• 56:55Andy Greenwald?

  I'm watching like I do have a physical reaction when I see writing that I'm just like, I cannot believe they let go because generally I want to be like, you know, I'm a player's coach. You know what I mean? Like I want writers to be able to write what they want and flex a little bit and pirouette and do donuts on people's narrative lawns with clever dialogue or whatever. But shows like this make me be like, you know, the exec probably had some points like like a red pencil wouldn't have been that out of place here for some of it. Cause there's also just a, again, I think this is Fogelman's style. I think this worked for This Is Us, but like in the second episode, early in the second episode, and I don't think this is a spoiler if you've only watched the first, but there is a Julian Nicholson flashback.

• 57:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 57:41Andy Greenwald?

  And she introduces herself the way characters do in shit like this where she's like.

• 57:46Chris Ryan?

  I'm a CEO of a tech company that just sold its first patent or whatever.

• 57:51Andy Greenwald?

  No, but she's also like, thank you for coming here under great secrecy and sorry about the shitty coffee. And everyone's like, ha, ha, ha. And then on a plane, she's like, my husband's a bad flyer. We met at a bar six years ago. And then I almost wish they flashback to that and they do.

• 58:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, this is just like-

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  It's good stuff, man.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Sterling K. Brown is a great actor? And he's a great television lead? Generally, I just, I'm, he's one of those people. I'm like, always happy to see him always bringing some gravitas to this. When he got his sides, or he saw the script and he was just like, do you think that he circled the day when he would be giving the James and the Giant Peach monologue? And he was just like, this is my-

• 58:28Chris Ryan?

  The thing is that I feel like this is only the first layer of how crazy the show is gonna get.

• 58:33Andy Greenwald?

  That's so fun for us!

• 58:34Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 58:35Andy Greenwald?

  We need a paradise in our life.

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  We'll do intermittent check-ins on this.

• 58:38Andy Greenwald?

  Intermittent? This is a paradise podcast now.

• 58:42Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Greenwald, thanks to Kaya, thanks to CT. We'll be back on Thursday, probably talking, I don't know if we're gonna delay our release like pit time, but, you know, we'll have some stuff to chat about.

• 58:51Andy Greenwald?

  We'd love to pit. There's other stuff to check out coming soon. And, um, we shouldn't leave it to the end of this podcast, but we hope we see some people tonight.

• 58:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, at the, uh, at the Mina-

• 59:00Andy Greenwald?

  At the live Mina Kimes event. I think maybe tickets, last minute tickets might be available.

• 59:04Chris Ryan?

  I think there's still some available, it's at the Blasco, so if you can hear this come on through.

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  I think a lot of great money's been raised for needy charities. Um, we're looking forward to it.

• 59:12Chris Ryan?

  Talk to you guys on Thursday.