The Eagles Win! Plus, Super Bowl Trailers and ‘Severance’ S2E4.

Chris and Andy celebrate the Eagles winning the Super Bowl (1:58) and talk about some of the trailers that aired during the game, including those for ‘Thunderbolts*,’ ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,’ and ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ (22:12). Then they break down the latest episode of ‘Severance’ and discuss how a lot of their enjoyment of the show comes from reading and thinking about it (44:34). 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

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

• 0:06Chris 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, E-A-G-L-E-S, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 0:25Andy Greenwald?

  This is, a moment ago, you were like, I gotta modulate my voice.

• 0:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh my god, only one talking about Severance, dog. What's up, man? Uh, Andy, do you know what my favorite novel by Marilynne Robinson is?

• 0:36Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, tell me.

• 0:37Chris Ryan?

  Housekeeping. Let's just do a little bit of that. Uh, first of all, I just want to let everybody know, you can watch us on YouTube at Ringer-TV. You can also watch us now on Spotify. So at your Spotify feed where you listen to The Watch, you can also watch us on Spotify or on Spotify Video. Follow us on Instagram at the Watch Pod underscore. Email us and tell us everything you like and don't like about the show at thewatchatspotify.com. And I think that's it.

• 1:03Andy Greenwald?

  Listen to us on The Ringer's Philly special last week.

• 1:07Chris Ryan?

  Seriously, the crowning achievement of Andy's life. Uh, maybe Sheil will have us back for a reflective, uh, pod later in the week.

• 1:14Andy Greenwald?

  I texted Sheil yesterday.

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  Although Bill is now calling me the pod slut, so I may have to dial it back a little bit. Get into more of a scarcity, uh, kind of economy.

• 1:22Andy Greenwald?

  I texted Sheil, because I'm keeping receipts.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  Um, here's how the show's gonna go today. Andy and I are gonna talk, I don't know for how long, about the, the actual Super Bowl.

• 1:31Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, not sorry. Welcome to everyone on Spotify.

• 1:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we are gonna talk about the game, but we'll also talk a little bit about the trailers that were, uh, debuted or teased on, on the, the broadcast. Uh, and we'll talk a little bit about the TV aspect of it. And then Severance, episode four.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:50Chris Ryan?

  A walk in the woods there.

• 1:51Andy Greenwald?

  So that'll be like the last two minutes of the pod?

• 1:54Chris Ryan?

  Don't tip your hand, dog.

• 1:56Andy Greenwald?

  How can I steer this?

• 1:57Chris Ryan?

  Um, Greenwald.

• 1:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:59Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for having me over yesterday.

• 2:01Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks for coming over. A calming presence, a great guest as always.

• 2:04Chris Ryan?

  I, uh, I don't know if that's exactly true. I wanted to ask you about that, um, because...

• 2:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, stop you for one second.

• 2:10Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 2:11Andy Greenwald?

  We fucking won the Super Bowl.

• 2:14Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, sorry, go on.

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  I feel like, you know, like, I am very even keel on everything about this stuff. But, A, there was, you know how like, actual athletes talk about how you remember the losses more than you treasure the wins?

• 2:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's, sounds like Jalen Hurst.

• 2:31Chris Ryan?

  The losses haunt you more than you treasure the wins.

• 2:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:34Chris Ryan?

  Like, I kinda get that, because seventeen was such an electric feeling, where I, like, lost my mind and my face fell off.

• 2:43Andy Greenwald?

  You did.

• 2:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  You really got, you got up, up, up.

• 2:47Chris Ryan?

  The last time against the Chiefs, I had COVID, and I was by myself, so I was just kinda like, that sucked, and I turned it off, and then, like, didn't read a novel I was trying to read. And this time, I was like, this shit is over in twenty-five minutes, and now I have to, like, basically...

• 3:01Andy Greenwald?

  It was weird.

• 3:01Chris Ryan?

  I sat there for a while, being like, well, you know, I bet the Falcons fans were feeling this way against the Patriots a couple of years ago, but like...

• 3:07Andy Greenwald?

  We, we had a Falcon fan with us. We had Rembert with us.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  But yeah, I thought it was just like a comprehensively entertaining evening, and...

• 3:14Andy Greenwald?

  You liked the tacos.

• 3:16Chris Ryan?

  The chicken was appropriately moist.

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, great call on that, yeah.

• 3:21Chris Ryan?

  But not wet. And that Verde sauce you made was like, you know, like a little tip of your cap to the Eagles.

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you, yeah. Salsa Verde for the day. That's very nice of you to notice. We're also wearing a lot of green today.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  Thank you for your hospitality. Um, you were a great host. But yeah, I feel like I, I was like... I, I was almost like, vengeful against the Chiefs. Like, I was just sitting there, and I was just like, I want, I want this to hurt.

• 3:43Andy Greenwald?

  I did, first of all, you did, this is, this bit is getting older. Last, last week, you were like, something came out of me at the end of the Washington game, where I wanted them to be, to be placed on the physically unable to perform list. Doggone it.

• 3:55Chris Ryan?

  I'm not your dad.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  And then, no, but this is you trying to modulate your...

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  Patrick Mahomes is gonna feel that in the morning.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  My dad's a Lions fan, so let him, let's leave him out of it for a week. Um, yeah, I, I think that, first of all, you should be honest with our listeners.

• 4:12Andy Greenwald?

  You hate the Chiefs.

• 4:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I do. I like to call them pure evil.

• 4:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think they are evil, so there was an extra little bit of, a little bit of juice for you. I'll say that this was my dream football game.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  I know, it was kinda strange to watch it with you, because it was like, look, look at this kid getting everything he wants.

• 4:27Andy Greenwald?

  I was so happy. I, we grew up watching...

• 4:30Chris Ryan?

  Eight nights of Hanukkah. Like, bang, right there.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  We grew up watching Super Bowl blowouts. And that's what other teams would do, certainly never our team. It did leave us a little bit like energy confused, I would say, because the first half was so exciting. And then Kendrick did to Drake what the Eagles did to the Chiefs. And then we just kept doing it to the Chiefs after. And I've had a bunch of people ask me today, like, oh, are you hungover from celebrating? And I'm like, I'm 47. Like, I had to keep it measured, but also.

• 5:03Chris Ryan?

  West Coasters lament, you know?

• 5:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there's two parts to it. One is, we definitely have massive FOMO that we're not climbing greased poles in Philadelphia right now.

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  The people singing along to Meat Mill at 3:00 in the morning on Broad Street are my brothers for life.

• 5:20Andy Greenwald?

  The idea of like, let's go to a bar in Highland Park. Everyone would be like, oh, was there a game today?

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  I would definitely would have.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  I know, but the other thing that was weird was that because it was, I had so much nervous tension at the beginning of the game, even though I am on record as saying I thought they would win and maybe even have a blowout. I didn't want to drink too much at the beginning. And then usually the anxiety fuels, what do I do with my hands? I know I'll fill them with bottles of beer, which I will empty indiscriminately into my face. But weirdly, I was being kind of responsible. And then also, we had so much time to have.

• 5:56Chris Ryan?

  That was the other thing.

• 5:56Andy Greenwald?

  But we also had, I mean, yeah, but I was still like white knuckling from the beginning. But we also had opportunities to have conversations like we've never had before. You know, just like about like, what's the resistance really gonna do this time? And also, more specifically, you can't leave when this is over. We have to have a drink. And then you were like, I'm saving my bullets for when we have our celebratory drinks. So I was like, oh, I better crush water for the third quarter. So I was getting way too in my head, but.

• 6:23Chris Ryan?

  We did a shot.

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  We did do a shot.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Andy Greenwald?

  And I opened some champagne.

• 6:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  That you did not partake.

• 6:28Chris Ryan?

  I don't like champagne that much.

• 6:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's because you're not used to.

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Sours my stomach.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  You're not used to the taste, you know, because we don't win enough.

• 6:36Chris Ryan?

  We win plenty.

• 6:37Andy Greenwald?

  You need to.

• 6:37Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, and now it's starting to get a little bit weird because Philadelphia legend, you know, like typically an underdog chip on their shoulder city franchises. We're starting to get, get our beaks wet a little bit.

• 6:48Andy Greenwald?

  I don't mind it. I think you should begin to live like Ben Wishaw's character in Black Doves, which is champagne all the time and also be proficient with a shotgun. I feel so happy for this team because I love them as people.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm thrilled.

• 7:02Chris Ryan?

  I will say that I think I celebrated Milton Williams strip sack, Jalen Carter, full on shot to the face on, on Mahomes.

• 7:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:13Chris Ryan?

  I celebrated that more than the actual victory. Like, I think that was when my barbaric yop came out.

• 7:20Andy Greenwald?

  It did. It did. I mean, I, I, look.

• 7:24Chris Ryan?

  What was your favorite moment?

• 7:25Andy Greenwald?

  What I want from a quarterback, from my quarterback is just.

• 7:27Chris Ryan?

  You can, you can honestly, you can now lord this over me. If you want, do you want to do it now?

• 7:32Andy Greenwald?

  No moment is too big for him.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  He's a winner. I had no doubt that he was going to.

• 7:36Chris Ryan?

  I will never say another bad thing about him. He's in my cool book forever.

• 7:38Andy Greenwald?

  Also.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  He is not cool, but he is in my cool book.

• 7:41Andy Greenwald?

  What was wild was how quickly the America's darling team just looked like losers who had their hearts ripped out. Like, they looked real sad, starting like the first or second quarter.

• 7:51Chris Ryan?

  We can't beat them.

• 7:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's cool. That's awesome. I love that. It was, but it is also just to hearken back to those Super Bowls of yore that you and I grew up watching where San Francisco would score like 50 points before halftime.

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  This is how I remember them. There was always the refrain that Super Bowls were bad football, like a fun party day, good commercials, but a bad game.

• 8:13Chris Ryan?

  It was the inverse for us.

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  And we've gotten spoiled for the last few years with good games, even though we, we lost a heartbreaker two years ago.

• 8:19Chris Ryan?

  Who will forget that 7-3 Rams, Rams Patriots game?

• 8:23Andy Greenwald?

  But this year was the most unique thing for us, which is most of America probably thought this was a bad football game.

• 8:30Chris Ryan?

  I think so.

• 8:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is my platonic ideal of a football game. I loved all of it. Which in turn, like I wasn't really zeroed in on the other hoopla.

• 8:40Chris Ryan?

  Like our commander in chief being at the game?

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  Our commander in chief running scared when his.

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  His beloved Red Army.

• 8:48Andy Greenwald?

  Did not, did not make it through. I did appreciate that. Do you think, there's some other random observations about the game, not sports related. Do you think this is the worst day of Paul Rudd's life? And I say that because I feel like he has a wonderful life and I do not wish ill upon him. But the camera did find him a lot in his booth.

• 9:06Chris Ryan?

  That's a great question. Um, I mean, I, I saw, I wondered whether, how they sussed out that Ham was gonna lead the Chiefs out.

• 9:15Andy Greenwald?

  Like how he got the nod over Rudd?

• 9:17Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it's just straight landman? It's like, it's like-

• 9:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's not landman, it's your friends and neighbors in the Apple halftime show.

• 9:23Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 9:24Andy Greenwald?

  He has a show coming up on Apple, so that's why it's his turn. I also, did you hear, I didn't know this, that Bill said that Ham grew up a St. Louis Rams fan, because he's from St. Louis.

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  And then switched allegiances because the Rams moved?

• 9:35Andy Greenwald?

  Switched allegiances when the Rams left, even though he himself came to Los Angeles.

• 9:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:39Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying.

• 9:40Chris Ryan?

  Physician, heal thyself.

• 9:41Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying.

• 9:41Chris Ryan?

  While you still can, yeah.

• 9:43Andy Greenwald?

  Bradley Cooper and, and son led, led our team, the victorious team.

• 9:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 9:49Andy Greenwald?

  How do you feel about the, honestly, surprise revelation that Annie Hathaway is gangrene?

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  I, I love you, you using Annie as if we get drinks with her every Wednesday. I-

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  I met her once. Other people called her Annie, not me.

• 10:03Chris Ryan?

  I did not know that she had that in the bag. I didn't know that she was, honestly, an Eagles fan, but she seemed delighted.

• 10:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Chris Ryan?

  It, it all kinda shook out on the right side yesterday. I mean, even, I'm not trying to, just saying it was pretty fun watching Taylor get booed a little bit.

• 10:20Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, careful.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Wasn't it?

• 10:22Andy Greenwald?

  Careful. You know, I made a passing comment about how, how the way she stands up at award shows the other day, and I saw that our listenership took umbrage at my unfair characterization of her, just by saying that she certainly does seem to find the camera to stand up. So I, I would be careful. Especially in my household. My older daughter was just texting me Chiefs images.

• 10:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I just didn't, I wasn't into that.

• 10:50Andy Greenwald?

  What it's worth, on the record, did not watch the game.

• 10:53Chris Ryan?

  I feel like I tried, I, I was suggesting some trash talk, perhaps inappropriate, yeah.

• 10:58Andy Greenwald?

  Perhaps.

• 10:59Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay, what else? I mean, did you have a favorite moment, aside from that strip sack? Was it the Smithy touchdown?

• 11:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the touchdown to Devontae Smith.

• 11:08Chris Ryan?

  We don't have to do actual team watching here.

• 11:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, we'll, we'll go on Philly special, I think, to do this, but I, one of the greatest- Well, speaking of my children, I did say like, this is the greatest day of my life. And there wasn't, the pause was too long before I said, the third greatest day?

• 11:24Chris Ryan?

  Like, the first two being 2017.

• 11:27Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. And the Phillies World Series. I did let that linger.

• 11:32Chris Ryan?

  Iverson, game one of the NBA Finals.

• 11:35Andy Greenwald?

  That was actually my favorite. I do, I'm taking off one of my green layers, by the way. I do regret that. No, I liked it when, when we sacked my homes once, then we sacked him again. And on third and 16, Cooper Dejean picked him off and returned it for a touchdown.

• 11:47Chris Ryan?

  That was good.

• 11:48Andy Greenwald?

  That was a great.

• 11:48Chris Ryan?

  On his birthday.

• 11:49Andy Greenwald?

  That was a great moment for me.

• 11:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, as an exciting white.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  And all the exciting whites. What a, what a great time.

• 11:56Chris Ryan?

  It was awesome. Did you want to talk at all about Kendrick? I enjoyed it, but also felt like the supercomputer was processing other data while it was happening. Do you know what I mean?

• 12:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, let's talk about the character that you were threatening to debut yesterday. You, you showed up and you said, what if I raw dogged the Super Bowl? Now, some people listening may have, are aware that there's a, there was like a trend piece that people are like raw dogging long flights.

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes, you just, just look at the back of the seat or the map.

• 12:26Andy Greenwald?

  You just sit there like.

• 12:27Chris Ryan?

  They made Danny Kelly, when they, the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, that Danny Kelly came in last place in like some playoff pick 'em thing. And so he had to raw dog the flight from New Orleans to Los Angeles.

• 12:37Andy Greenwald?

  Did he? How'd he do?

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  It seems like he did fine.

• 12:40Andy Greenwald?

  You just sit there like Idris Elba in the first episode of Hijack, right? And you do nothing.

• 12:44Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 12:44Andy Greenwald?

  Um, except for however long the flight is. So your idea was that you would come to my Super Bowl party, consume nothing.

• 12:52Chris Ryan?

  Consume nothing, maybe water, and not make any conversation.

• 12:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, and then at halftime, instead of watching Kendrick, you said that you would retreat to a, a back bedroom.

• 13:01Chris Ryan?

  To watch tape.

• 13:02Andy Greenwald?

  And just crush tape. I think this is, I think this character has legs.

• 13:07Chris Ryan?

  Oh, God, the world's most popular Super Bowl party guest.

• 13:11Andy Greenwald?

  Just staring.

• 13:12Chris Ryan?

  The ball knower.

• 13:16Andy Greenwald?

  So, oh, so you felt like the, were you really wondering whether like Andy Reid would like unlock Fangio's too high safety system in the second act? That's second act, second half?

• 13:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, there, there was no lead big enough in the, in the first half for me not to be like, they're gonna go in the, in the locker room at halftime and come up with some, they're gonna be like, this is what they're doing, so we have to do this.

• 13:39Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 13:40Chris Ryan?

  And then just come out and score like two, two quick touchdowns.

• 13:42Andy Greenwald?

  And then it all starts to get a little tight.

• 13:44Chris Ryan?

  And I just honestly like, I can't imagine being in a room with you while that was happening.

• 13:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, wait, by the way.

• 13:51Andy Greenwald?

  Savvy listeners are noticing you were more nervous than I was, but you're turning it back on me.

• 13:56Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know where to put the emotion because it went.

• 13:59Andy Greenwald?

  Right, right here, brother.

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  Everything went to the right way. So like when everything is breaking your way.

• 14:03Andy Greenwald?

  You're not used to that.

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was used to like, I was just really anticipating, sure, in a, in the dream world of dream worlds, Kenny Pickett is in the game at the end, like taking snaps.

• 14:15Andy Greenwald?

  The second Kung-Fu Kenny of the day. Yeah, he was.

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  But instead, I, I was like, oh, it'll be close, it's Mahomes and it's the refs, and who knows? And it's like weird neutral, didn't matter, didn't matter.

• 14:25Andy Greenwald?

  I thought Kendrick was amazing. I thought the theatricality of it was wild. I thought, like, I, I just remembered as it was starting, I remembered some, it was probably Hollywood Reporter or something article, now almost 10 years ago, being like, what is the next generation of Super Bowl halftime shows going to look like? Because we've pretty much exhausted the baby boomer classic rock generation of, of.

• 14:49Chris Ryan?

  Springsteen.

• 14:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, Springsteen, Prince, like, who, that, that well is pretty much tap dry. So other than having Chris Martin from Coldplay on, on, on standby, like, what will these shows look like? And I think one of the, the gist of the argument was.

• 15:04Chris Ryan?

  Get Jawbreaker back together from the last time.

• 15:07Andy Greenwald?

  So that would have been everything going right for you.

• 15:09Chris Ryan?

  Imagine the Smiths.

• 15:11Andy Greenwald?

  The Smiths and Jawbreaker were the special guests, not Serena Williams crip walking? Like, everything is for you today, Chris.

• 15:21Andy Greenwald?

  And one of the, one of the questions asked by this piece was like, would, like, can a straight up hip hop artist have the halftime show? Or does it need to be mitigated with like, an artist who has pop songs or a hip hop artist is a guest on someone else's whatever?

• 15:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Andy Greenwald?

  Does it need to be like a traditional four quadrant entertainer? And I was thinking about that while Kendrick Lamar just called Drake a pedophile and.

• 15:44Andy Greenwald?

  Has no radio hits, really, other than like Humble and maybe the Black Panther song, and then Not Like Us, which just conquered radio.

• 15:51Chris Ryan?

  Is like the biggest hit, yeah.

• 15:52Andy Greenwald?

  But what is in no way is a traditional

• 15:55Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 15:55Andy Greenwald?

  radio play. Like Jay-Z had to make Empire State of Mind. Kendrick does not do that.

• 15:59Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 16:00Andy Greenwald?

  So that was wild to see.

• 16:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  And then the theatricality of it, in the sense of like the choreography, the imagery, Samuel L. Jackson, the way that it used the length of the field in a way that I'm not used to seeing. And maybe I'm not used to seeing it because so much of it is filmed for the camera, designed, choreographed for the camera.

• 16:18Chris Ryan?

  See, that was actually-

• 16:18Andy Greenwald?

  They were going from like platform to platform, but this looked long.

• 16:22Chris Ryan?

  This was my big takeaway, was that it felt very much like a piece of a performance design, especially for TV.

• 16:30Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:30Chris Ryan?

  And I wonder whether or not that's because Kendrick's music is so intricate and also like his catalog for his fans and for like a lot of people are very familiar with Kendrick's music, but it isn't like Born to Run or Poker Face, you know, or whatever. It's gonna be like something that you really want to see the performer performing the actual music, rather than like this elaborate like fireworks going off as they come in from like-

• 16:55Andy Greenwald?

  He's also not a showman. He's, I mean, he's a showman in terms of how he entertains in his career, like in terms of like Gladiator style.

• 17:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Andy Greenwald?

  But he's, and he's charismatic and he's magnetic, but he's not like a big bombastic showman. Everything is small, concentrated and precise, including his just smile to camera.

• 17:13Chris Ryan?

  I guess if I was trying to think, if I was really building out this character that I have of raw dogging the Super Bowl.

• 17:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 17:21Chris Ryan?

  Zagging to Drake at that very moment would have been a cool wrinkle if I was just like, I'm gonna go back.

• 17:26Andy Greenwald?

  Amazing.

• 17:27Chris Ryan?

  And listen to the early mixtapes.

• 17:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, just go, just take your laptop back to-

• 17:33Chris Ryan?

  When I'm not watching tape, I'm doing a chronological Drake re-listen.

• 17:37Andy Greenwald?

  You'd take your laptop back to Marvin's room and really crush the tape there. I think that would have been an amazing move by you. I thought it was really surprising and really good. And-

• 17:49Andy Greenwald?

  I thought, uh, was it Nor- someone on The Ringer today wrote a piece about how this was the Super Bowl for the victory of haters. I like that. I like that.

• 17:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you want to talk a little bit about some of the trailers? Or is there any more game stuff you wanted to talk about?

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we can talk trailers. Like, do you think, I, we, we're not the ones to wonder what Ice Spice and Heim felt? Like, as, as the third quarter-

• 18:11Chris Ryan?

  Straight up, man. What the fuck? How is Heim wearing fucking Chiefs gear? Like, you don't have, is that like a requirement to get into the box?

• 18:18Andy Greenwald?

  I would think so. I mean-

• 18:19Chris Ryan?

  That's corny.

• 18:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's super corny.

• 18:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I like Heim.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  But like, stay in your lane. Like, like, show up with some Chargers gear, that's fine, but like-

• 18:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:29Chris Ryan?

  Dog, that's not cool. You guys are from the valley.

• 18:31Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I respect? Like, when they did the thing where they show the international fanbase watching the Super Bowl and they cut to like Istanbul and there's a kid just pointing to his Raiders jersey?

• 18:39Chris Ryan?

  He's got a hair transplant.

• 18:40Andy Greenwald?

  He's got Travis Kelsey's old scalp, but is wearing a Raiders jersey? I respect, but I respect it.

• 18:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:48Andy Greenwald?

  Um, yeah, you just have to, our queen Kylie Kelsey did this last year where she's like, "I want Trav to be happy."

• 18:57Chris Ryan?

  But I will never wear another team shit.

• 18:59Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah.

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  And that's, I'm not saying Alana, I think Alana was just chilling. I think Esti and Danielle were wearing Chiefs stuff.

• 19:08Andy Greenwald?

  Look at you, look at you self-selecting out your preferred Heim sister. You're like, "The one that's down with PTA is cool. Fuck the other two."

• 19:16Chris Ryan?

  Hey! I mean, she's, she is in the next movie.

• 19:20Andy Greenwald?

  She's the one? That's where you're pushing your chips?

• 19:23Chris Ryan?

  I like Alana, yeah.

• 19:25Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I like all of them, probably, but this was corny. I agree.

• 19:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:30Andy Greenwald?

  We were also not paying total attention to commercials, but-

• 19:33Chris Ryan?

  Oh, we were.

• 19:34Andy Greenwald?

  Well, generally-

• 19:35Chris Ryan?

  Multiple trailers about body dysmorphia?

• 19:37Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I wanted to say.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, where it's just like mustaches flying off and eyebrows flying off-

• 19:41Andy Greenwald?

  And tongues flying off?

• 19:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. They were, it's fucking bizarre, it's like watching The Substance.

• 19:45Andy Greenwald?

  Keep that shit in Istanbul. If you're swapping that stuff out- Go cross an ocean. Don't put it on my screen.

• 19:53Chris Ryan?

  Keep it on the download.

• 19:54Andy Greenwald?

  Like, we used to be a society.

• 19:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking, I mean, it did seem like our country is deeply sick. From this commercial.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Andy Greenwald?

  It, it really, I continue.

• 20:05Chris Ryan?

  Powered by Christ in the oil industry. We are.

• 20:08Andy Greenwald?

  Do you like your Landman commercial?

• 20:09Chris Ryan?

  It was fucking incredible.

• 20:10Andy Greenwald?

  You wanna have a baby? You better thank Papa Petroleum for these chairs.

• 20:15Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of talk on the streets about how these electric cars.

• 20:18Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. Streets. The streets of the 366's, 466's ranch.

• 20:22Chris Ryan?

  Permian Basin.

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  Uh-huh. Go on.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  Never mind.

• 20:26Andy Greenwald?

  I, I was surprised to see.

• 20:28Chris Ryan?

  That guy being like, the reason why this EKG meter like works is because of the oil and gas industry was awesome. That was incredible.

• 20:36Andy Greenwald?

  And yet, Harrison Ford, his, I believe, 18-minute commercial for Jeep that did feature some kind of woke shots of him plugging one of them in. I was surprised that made it through.

• 20:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I was just bummed that they didn't cut to him being Red Hulk at one point.

• 20:53Andy Greenwald?

  In that commercial?

• 20:54Chris Ryan?

  They're like, what kind of Jeep does Red Hulk like to drive?

• 20:56Andy Greenwald?

  A big fucking big one.

• 20:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Cherokee with the top off, so he can get his shoulders up in there.

• 21:02Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have the same vibe that I do coming, I mean, I've said this, I said this the other week, but like, I just have a, there is like a Last Call at the Money Bar vibe to all of this stuff right now with just like.

• 21:12Chris Ryan?

  We've been saying that for like 15 years.

• 21:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I mean. When I say stuff like that, are you like, everybody's always in everything now? Commercials are no longer taboo.

• 21:18Chris Ryan?

  I was happy to see a decent Nike commercial, honestly.

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see the Jalen one?

• 21:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Jalen one and, and the Sabrina and Caitlin one.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  That was good.

• 21:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Andy Greenwald?

  There's a certain tier of performer or celebrity where it's like Willem Dafoe and Catherine O'Hara for, um, the, the Landman beer.

• 21:36Chris Ryan?

  Difference between when we were kids and now is like, the, the actors just do ads now all the time.

• 21:40Andy Greenwald?

  That, that is, but I, that's totally different.

• 21:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Andy Greenwald?

  But I also don't mind them getting a paycheck to maybe get a country house or something.

• 21:49Chris Ryan?

  Did you think Jeremy Strong really, uh, like unwound his reputation as a difficult method actor?

• 21:55Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's been accepted back?

• 21:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Andy Greenwald?

  There's a certain level of, it has gone too far for me with the sense that like, brands pay $4 million for like a half spot and the spot is go online and watch our commercial.

• 22:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Andy Greenwald?

  You make donuts.

• 22:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, speaking of which.

• 22:11Andy Greenwald?

  Relax, I'm not gonna watch your commercial.

• 22:13Chris Ryan?

  They did that with the Thunderbolts ad.

• 22:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I watched that.

• 22:15Chris Ryan?

  The Thunderbolts trailer.

• 22:16Andy Greenwald?

  I am the problem.

• 22:17Chris Ryan?

  The trailer is out now, so let's talk about some of these trailers.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  I came away after watching all of this stuff from last night, way more excited about Thunderbolts than I thought it was gonna be.

• 22:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, yes.

• 22:28Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was a cool trailer.

• 22:29Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 22:30Chris Ryan?

  I did some research on this film.

• 22:33Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I'm ready to step in at any time if you need some.

• 22:35Chris Ryan?

  It's not that kind of research. I found out that, uh, Watch Rookie of the Year, Louis Pullman is the.

• 22:44Andy Greenwald?

  Sentry.

• 22:44Chris Ryan?

  Antagonist in this film.

• 22:46Andy Greenwald?

  The Sentry in this trailer revealed as the villain.

• 22:48Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, that he is currently dating Kaia Gerber, one of the world's great readers.

• 22:53Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't learn that from your research.

• 22:54Chris Ryan?

  No, I learned that from.

• 22:55Andy Greenwald?

  Watch superfan Amanda Dobbins, I believe, texted us that.

• 22:58Chris Ryan?

  So shout out to him. What does the Sentry do?

• 23:02Andy Greenwald?

  So Sentry, and by the way, this is an interesting part, because Steven Yeun was supposed to play the part.

• 23:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 23:08Andy Greenwald?

  And then dropped out of the film and Louis Pullman jumped in. Sentry is, like many good, relatively recent comic book creations, the product of a rare moment when people could just fuck around a little bit. So, um, 20 plus years ago, when Marvel was in pre-movies, pre-MCU, the comic book line was in a deep state of flux and, um, a guy named Joe Casada, who is an artist, uh, had run, he ran sort of like a little shadow fiefdom within the company briefly called Marvel Knights that led to a rebirth in Daredevil that, a lot of the TV original Netflix show was pulling from that run. He greenlit, uh, a writer named Paul Jenkins' idea, which was, I would like to create a Marvel character

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  who is hugely important and woven into the fabric of the, at that point, 40 plus years of Marvel continuity, but no one remembers him.

• 23:58Chris Ryan?

  Ah, that's pretty funny.

• 23:59Andy Greenwald?

  And the character is like a Superman-like figure.

• 24:03Chris Ryan?

  Why does nobody remember him?

• 24:05Andy Greenwald?

  I don't wanna spoil the comic, but it was basically, uh, in order to defeat his supervillain, he had to be forgotten. And so he went into, so in this mini-series.

• 24:16Chris Ryan?

  It's like Severance.

• 24:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's just like Severance.

• 24:20Andy Greenwald?

  And it was very cool. It was a very cool idea and it led to like, it led to people having fun with like, oh, this is when the Sentry and Captain America teamed up and this is when Captain America and the Hulk, uh, Sentry and the Hulk teamed up in the past in key moments of these characters' development.

• 24:35Chris Ryan?

  Zelig action.

• 24:37Andy Greenwald?

  It is, that's the reference I'm looking for. You're like Severance, no, no, no, that's not it. It's like Zelig. That's why people tune into this podcast and not the other ones. Anyway, future, other iterations of the character have made him more um, Shutter Island-y and kind of insane. And more trending, more villain, um, mainly because just again, like his power set and what he looks like seems more DC-like. He is more like a Superman figure in the MCU.

• 25:05Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:05Andy Greenwald?

  And so introducing him with this version that is a little bit villainous, or at least crazy, is A, interesting and B, a nice counterpoint to what the movie's strong suit seems to be as voiced in the trailer, which is we're a group of people who just punch and shoot and we actually don't have a lot of superpowers.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  They make reference to, they're like, so all we can do is punch and shoot. So there, when the shadow is over the city.

• 25:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Chris Ryan?

  Is that Sentry somehow?

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  Or his alter ego, The Void.

• 25:30Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay. Cause I was wondering if maybe that was like when Sokovia got lifted and if somebody had like flown Sokovia over.

• 25:37Andy Greenwald?

  What if they're, it's interesting. Do you respect the singularity of the Sokovia event or would you, would you?

• 25:44Chris Ryan?

  Would I like to see it happen again?

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Do you think that other villains could be like, the way to defeat cities is to lift them up?

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  It's like winning the Super Bowl in 2017 is a singular experience, but I do enjoy seeing it happen more than once.

• 25:56Andy Greenwald?

  You've done it again?

• 25:57Chris Ryan?

  According to Wikipedia, Sebastian Stan has described Bucky Barnes's role within the film as akin to that of Jack Nicholson's character, Randall McMurphy, in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, an individual coming into a chaotic and degenerate group whose members he finds a way to unite.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  This is, that's king shit. That's amazing. Was he coached up by the Russo brothers to say that? I respect it. Also, again, it does seem to be the theme for our coverage of the MCU this year that they seem to.

• 26:26Chris Ryan?

  We seem very pro.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  I'm, I am pivoting back. Like this all seems promising. They've got some of their mojo back and the timing is working out.

• 26:33Chris Ryan?

  Watch out, Ringer verse.

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  Where, I'm coming for your corner. That Philly special, any pod but this one. Put me on.

• 26:40Andy Greenwald?

  You know, when this movie was announced, I think we probably disparagingly said like, this is a collection of actors who can't lead a movie. Like, these are not movie star actors. These are a B-team, and maybe they'll steer into that, being a B-team. But I was lumping it into the same run of post-Endgame Marvel projects where they, it seemed to have ego to it, that they could just put anything together and make it a movie.

• 27:01Chris Ryan?

  I think that there was also like, was this gonna be a TV show? That it was gonna be a movie? It's had reshoots. It's like, you know.

• 27:07Andy Greenwald?

  But one of the things that's broken their way is that Sebastian Stan is now an Oscar-nominated actor.

• 27:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:12Andy Greenwald?

  Obviously, he was famous and popular because he's been in the biggest movies of the last 15 years, thanks to Bucky Barnes. But him being suddenly like, oh, oh, yeah, that guy. He is a, he is a bigger star, is a big deal. And then the ace in the hole being Florence Pugh, being awesome, and being awesome at this part,

• 27:32Andy Greenwald?

  makes it seem kind of fun. And it's a similar thing, where like, Captain America: Brave New World. Like, its trailer, its trailer during the Super Bowl was like, you should see this shit in IMAX. There's a hole. Like.

• 27:43Chris Ryan?

  They seem to be operating from a little bit of a position of confidence.

• 27:46Andy Greenwald?

  They have the swagger back.

• 27:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they're like, they're like Vic Fangio heading into this game. No, I think that they actually know people are gonna come see that Brave New World, and that they have like, a little bit of breathing room.

• 27:56Andy Greenwald?

  Can I, one last thing on Thunderbolts?

• 27:58Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 27:59Andy Greenwald?

  This, I can't decide whether this really should be an overt part of the podcast going forward, but like, my daughter's getting into the MCU now, and me rewatching some of this stuff, is going on.

• 28:09Chris Ryan?

  You want this to be like, you're rewatching with your kids is like, a big part of our pod?

• 28:14Andy Greenwald?

  I'm saying, it's a big part regardless, cuz I only watch like, four hours of things.

• 28:18Chris Ryan?

  I think if you wanna do an MCU rewatch anthology series with me, as we get to Thunderbolts or something, I don't know if I could do it by Friday.

• 28:27Andy Greenwald?

  MCU comma ICU, that could be our, right?

• 28:32Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and that would be the pit and MCU movies every, every episode.

• 28:36Andy Greenwald?

  On it, that's fine. No, just that, we rewatched, I rewatched, they watched Guardians of the Galaxy.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Andy Greenwald?

  And I think those movies are great, and they work really well, but.

• 28:47Chris Ryan?

  But they have not seen the third one.

• 28:49Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Cuz the overt animal torture.

• 28:51Andy Greenwald?

  Also, because, as you know, Chris, I don't wanna insult you, but I'll just say it for our listeners, the third one takes place after the events of Infinity War and Endgame.

• 28:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Andy Greenwald?

  So, they're suddenly now invested in this project.

• 29:02Chris Ryan?

  Right, so they have to keep it on the right timeline here.

• 29:04Andy Greenwald?

  They have to keep it on the sacred timeline. But I bring it up to say. Guardians of the Galaxy was such a wild swing and investment on characters that people didn't care about or know about. All these Thunderbolts characters have been introduced previously, but if they leaned into that muscle that's been kind of dormant and be like, we're going to make a team of lovable outlaws found family and like, that's what they're doing, there is a track record of that.

• 29:28Chris Ryan?

  The, yeah, the Eternals.

• 29:31Andy Greenwald?

  I want to-

• 29:31Chris Ryan?

  Outlaw gods finding a family.

• 29:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I'm, I'm, I'm, first of all, I welcome this.

• 29:38Chris Ryan?

  I can't wait till you get to the Eternals part of your rewatch, because like, your kids are definitely gonna like it.

• 29:42Andy Greenwald?

  This is, first of all, this, you'll be like, it like has history in it.

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Andy Greenwald?

  You bringing up the Eternals is like Spags doing cover zero. You're just, just bringing it and I can pivot.

• 29:54Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 29:54Andy Greenwald?

  The Eternals came from, Eternals was in the Imperial era where they're like, we can do anything and we don't actually have to make this fun. We can just tell you which characters to care about and they are not in that position anymore.

• 30:06Chris Ryan?

  A couple of other trailers that dropped, Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning, which they are really leaning into the more emo vibes of this, where it's like our, our connection to Ethan Hunt over the decades.

• 30:18Andy Greenwald?

  Can I ask you about this?

• 30:19Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 30:20Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, do you think Tom Cruise has really signed off on the ad campaign being like one swan's final swan song for Ethan?

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  Yes, because I think that worked so well for Top Gun Maverick. And I think realistically, like, he has done seven of these, so I think he's, or however many, so he's, he is starting to work with other directors, he started to work on a, like, start doing other projects, he's got an Inari two movie coming out probably next

• 30:44Andy Greenwald?

  He's admitting that this might-

• 30:44Chris Ryan?

  year. It's not admitting defeat, but I think, you know, I think it got to the point beyond parody where, is he just gonna do these until he dies?

• 30:54Andy Greenwald?

  On set, making one of these.

• 30:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so-

• 30:56Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Ethan Hunt survives this movie?

• 30:58Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, they will never close the door, just like they didn't close the door on Maverick.

• 31:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Chris Ryan?

  But I think that the marketing of Maverick being like, I'm here to salute you and say goodbye to the legacy of this character was very effective, as was just fucking fighter jets flying around.

• 31:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, there were, there were a bunch of factors at play here, but I, I'm very excited for this movie.

• 31:17Chris Ryan?

  Did you see Miles Teller in the post-game stuff?

• 31:20Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 31:20Chris Ryan?

  Miles Teller was at the game and he has like a homie with him who's like another actor, I forgot his name, but it was like, they were interviewing Miles Teller and his friend was definitely getting his like, his ball knowerness on.

• 31:33Chris Ryan?

  It was so cool. I would definitely, if Miles, if I was friends with Miles Teller and he was like, yeah, come, come down to the field with me, NFL Network's gonna interview me, I'd be like, I'm definitely getting some Fangio takes off.

• 31:45Andy Greenwald?

  You'd get some takes off?

• 31:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Chris Ryan?

  Mission Impossible, so I, I, I'm very excited for Final Reckoning. It is just, it's been a stunt spectacular and that's how it's been sort of perceived for such a long time that it's interesting to be like, ah, yes, Ethan.

• 32:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, I've never engaged with these movies for plot. I cannot tell you the plot of any of them.

• 32:05Chris Ryan?

  And Macquarie has been talking about how this is the culmination of like this 30 year story and I'm like, this story is pretty jagged, but we'll, we'll, we'll see.

• 32:13Andy Greenwald?

  He, he, that does seem to be his thing, though. He does like, Macquarie does like doing that. He does seem to enjoy the puzzle piecing together of like Henry Turney showing up in that last movie, like as if this was all one thing. I don't care, just, just be on the outside of an airplane again.

• 32:28Chris Ryan?

  Jurassic World Rebirth? I, I've, I've spoken at length about this, so I was curious what you thought.

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  Can you, can you give me your tight, tight 30 on why you're in on this? Because I know that you, that you are on Front Street being like, you're in on this movie, you're in on the dynos.

• 32:42Chris Ryan?

  I think that started with Behind the Camera and I'm a Gareth Edwards fan.

• 32:47Andy Greenwald?

  You always have been.

• 32:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, some Monsters and The Creator and, and obviously he did, you know, Rogue One until he didn't, uh, but there's some really cool stuff in Rogue One that I assume is him. And then I have a hard time believing Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali would do a shit blockbuster, they just don't need to. So I hope that there's like a reason why, I, I just want to believe that there's like a reason why they were drawn to this, even though on the surface, it is basically like the same as every Jurassic Park or World movie.

• 33:24Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's an interesting point and one that I'm sure Sean and Amanda have and will continue to dive into.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  And David Cap wrote it, so I'm just like, David Cap's a really good screenwriter, I hope, I, I hope he nailed it.

• 33:33Andy Greenwald?

  No, they went, they invested in quality, you know, they, they got good coordinators on both sides of the ball, you know, and that's usually a recipe for success.

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  I mean Scarlett Johansson, the economics of the world are that Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali do need a blockbuster. They need to be affiliated with something to do whatever they want to do, whether it's the art house movies they're interested in, or the extension on their Hampton's House, whatever it is, they need to be affiliated with these movies.

• 33:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 33:59Andy Greenwald?

  And Scarlett is out of the MCU, although we'll see when Secret War comes around.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure she will be back for the Secret War stuff.

• 34:06Andy Greenwald?

  And is Mahershala Ali ever gonna play Blade? Do you care? I don't. So, I'm not sure if it's entirely art-driven. I guess, I'll be honest, you know, I've been living the lie too long on the mic.

• 34:23Chris Ryan?

  You don't care about dinosaurs?

• 34:25Andy Greenwald?

  I have never engaged with any Jurassic content since the second Spielberg movie.

• 34:30Chris Ryan?

  Did you, do you ever re-watch the first one?

• 34:33Andy Greenwald?

  I have re-watched it. My kids are too scared to watch it, so I haven't.

• 34:36Chris Ryan?

  But not like every two years or anything like that?

• 34:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, so it's been years.

• 34:38Chris Ryan?

  It's one of my favorite blockbusters ever made. I watch it very frequently.

• 34:41Andy Greenwald?

  I loved it. I mean, I was a big, I know it's not cool, but I was a big Crichton kid, you know? I was reading those books. I remember getting the hardcover of Rising Sun, being like, oh, maybe, maybe Japan is a little more...

• 34:52Chris Ryan?

  Disclosure, huh?

• 34:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Wow, it goes both ways, everyone. But I read those books because of Jurassic Park and the Andromeda Strain. Like, I was, I was deep in that stuff, and I liked that movie a lot.

• 35:03Chris Ryan?

  Andromeda Strain is a outbreak, a viral outbreak?

• 35:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was like, that could never happen.

• 35:07Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 35:08Andy Greenwald?

  Mikey C. Vision, the vision. That said, like, I, when the, so they went to the island of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park lost world, right? Dinosaurs come to us.

• 35:22Chris Ryan?

  To San Diego, I think, yeah.

• 35:23Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, what more stories are there to tell, truly?

• 35:26Chris Ryan?

  Plenty.

• 35:27Andy Greenwald?

  About dinosaurs?

• 35:27Chris Ryan?

  The only critique I have of this is that we are not so far from the last Jurassic World that we need a rebirth. You know, like, I think that we could have let it cook for a little while, see what... What we could do with like technological upgrades on dinosaurs, maybe even reimagine like which dinosaurs were showing preferential treatment to. Are we

• 35:49Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 35:49Chris Ryan?

  A little bit too enamored with raptors?

• 35:52Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 35:53Chris Ryan?

  You know, like, I just think that there's a lot of species out there that we could have fucked with.

• 35:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I thought you were suggesting a revisionist history, kind of like what Benioff and Weiss were gonna do with Confederate.

• 36:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right.

• 36:03Andy Greenwald?

  Like a world where like the dinosaurs won, and maybe, you know, they were misunderstood.

• 36:07Chris Ryan?

  The dinosaurs did win their six movies. They still have it. They're still not extinct.

• 36:11Andy Greenwald?

  But, so why can't we do what meteors did? What's our problem?

• 36:16Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  What is our innate weakness? But I guess I was surprised by the-

• 36:20Chris Ryan?

  Also, do you know that there's like a crypto right wing thing about how dinosaurs don't exist? And I don't think that these movies are helping combat that.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  Huh.

• 36:29Chris Ryan?

  Because it's all about like engineering them.

• 36:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 36:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:33Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, as if they never were real.

• 36:34Chris Ryan?

  Well, I, there are dudes out there like flat-earther types who are like dinosaurs aren't real, like there was not, this, the, this didn't happen.

• 36:44Andy Greenwald?

  Tell me, what's the, what's the upside of that argument? Like, how do you monetize that?

• 36:48Chris Ryan?

  It's the upside of the argument is the same as for all the arguments is just to be like, I know better.

• 36:52Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 36:53Chris Ryan?

  You know?

• 36:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's everybody.

• 36:54Chris Ryan?

  I don't know what, how it makes you feel differently going through your life to be like dinosaurs never walked this earth. Who gives a shit?

• 37:01Andy Greenwald?

  Profoundly what you just said.

• 37:05Andy Greenwald?

  No part of my existence, except a diorama I made in first grade would have been affected by the lack of dinosaurs.

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  It would be one less place fun to take your kids if there were never dinosaurs.

• 37:14Andy Greenwald?

  You mean Jurassic Park wouldn't exist?

• 37:15Chris Ryan?

  No, like the natural history museums that are around the world that are fun.

• 37:20Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were making the argument that children couldn't experience, because the other thing I'm noticing from this trailer is that it does seem to be a prerequisite of a Jurassic protagonist to bring a child. Like, that is the one nod to the Spielbergian-

• 37:35Chris Ryan?

  Well, uh, in most of, the kids in this Jurassic universe are mad sneaky. They often are stowaways.

• 37:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, because they just want to get closer.

• 37:45Chris Ryan?

  They're like, oh no, I want to see it.

• 37:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is this, is this your kid impression? Keep going.

• 37:51Chris Ryan?

  That's how kids sound, right? You ever notice kids be talking like this?

• 37:54Andy Greenwald?

  Kids have real high voices.

• 37:55Chris Ryan?

  When they're stowing away on boats to go to a little Jurassic.

• 37:59Andy Greenwald?

  Eastland New, what new, what's the name?

• 38:00Chris Ryan?

  Eastland Newbar, Newblar.

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  Is, um.

• 38:03Chris Ryan?

  It's back.

• 38:03Andy Greenwald?

  I guess I was just sort of surprised that the vibe, all of this makes sense, like from a entertainment perspective.

• 38:08Chris Ryan?

  I'm spending way more time on this than I thought we would.

• 38:09Andy Greenwald?

  But it's just, it's like they just hunt the dinosaurs. There are no like good dinosaurs.

• 38:12Chris Ryan?

  They're not hunting them. They're trying to get their, they're trying to extract DNA from them to cure cancer or whatever.

• 38:18Andy Greenwald?

  Or whatever.

• 38:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I also don't buy, my right wing thing, not, it's not right wing.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  Go, yeah, let's go.

• 38:26Chris Ryan?

  I am suspicious that there is like a cure for Alzheimer's to be found inside of like sharks or dinosaurs.

• 38:35Andy Greenwald?

  But the whole.

• 38:36Chris Ryan?

  Which is frequently like, if we could just get this bone marrow out of this velociraptor.

• 38:41Andy Greenwald?

  But it just wants.

• 38:41Chris Ryan?

  No one would ever suffer again. Like, why?

• 38:43Andy Greenwald?

  It just, it just wants to eat us.

• 38:46Chris Ryan?

  But like, when you look at velociraptors, like, how do we know they don't have Alzheimer's? You know?

• 38:50Andy Greenwald?

  What if you were cured of Alzheimer's, but kind of acted a little, a little raptor-y?

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 38:59Chris Ryan?

  I honestly, quick twitch ability, you know, I would love to.

• 39:02Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 39:02Chris Ryan?

  Maybe at, at 48, I could join the Eagles.

• 39:05Andy Greenwald?

  I guess this is the last thing on the subject, but I think that.

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  Guys, I know I'm 5'7", but I am 1/16th raptor.

• 39:13Andy Greenwald?

  And yes, I did have a touch of Alzheimer's previously, but that.

• 39:16Chris Ryan?

  It's been cured.

• 39:17Andy Greenwald?

  That medication.

• 39:17Chris Ryan?

  By Scarlett Johansson.

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  I do think that sometimes, I don't know if this has any value for our listeners, because I do think many of our listeners are our contemporaries and peers. But certain things when we talk about, like when I tell my children about VCRs, for example, and they're like just dazzled and confused. I don't think it can be overstated what a big deal it was when Jurassic Park came out, not just because of what a huge movie it was, but because it basically made a new, like Babe Wake Up, new dino just dropped. Like, we weren't really up on velociraptors. We grew up in an era with tyrann.

• 39:48Chris Ryan?

  Stegosaurus is a brontosaurus.

• 39:50Andy Greenwald?

  Triceratops, everyone's super into and like T-Rex.

• 39:52Chris Ryan?

  Most of them eat plants.

• 39:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, these crunched around omnivores at best.

• 39:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Andy Greenwald?

  And then they're like, no, there's a cool, fast one.

• 39:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:59Andy Greenwald?

  So cool. Fast that they named an NBA expansion team after it.

• 40:03Chris Ryan?

  In Canada.

• 40:03Andy Greenwald?

  Within like two years.

• 40:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Andy Greenwald?

  It was huge.

• 40:06Chris Ryan?

  And is that historically like they found raptor bones in Canada or they just thought it was cool?

• 40:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think they just thought it was cool. I think they were just, I mean, weird.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  Everybody in T dot, let us know. Why did you guys name your team the Raptors?

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  No disrespect, but we're just coming off of a night that kind of pointed out the way maybe one Canadian hijacked something that was cool and made it his own. I'm just noticing something.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  Stole some dinosaur valor?

• 40:29Chris Ryan?

  The only last one I have was Sinners. I didn't know if you'd watched the full trailer for this.

• 40:32Andy Greenwald?

  I did.

• 40:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 40:34Andy Greenwald?

  I.

• 40:36Andy Greenwald?

  This definitely, so this is the new Ryan Coogler movie that, uh, you're waiting for me to say something back.

• 40:43Chris Ryan?

  I, I just wanted, I want to watch it cook.

• 40:45Andy Greenwald?

  Are you on the record with this movie?

• 40:46Chris Ryan?

  I'm very excited for this film.

• 40:48Andy Greenwald?

  I, I just was shocked at how double stuffed it was.

• 40:52Chris Ryan?

  The trailer or?

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the trailer is like three minutes long. It seems to give away much of the movie.

• 40:57Chris Ryan?

  I did not watch the second trailer. I started it and then put it, put it away because I was like, you won't companion me again. Like companion is the most. They, they put the whole movie in the trailer, which is fine. It was a great movie, but it was just like, I'm sick of having all of my movies spoiled for me by marketing.

• 41:13Andy Greenwald?

  I just didn't know that we had two Michael Bs in this movie.

• 41:17Chris Ryan?

  It's a, it's a, it's a red flag. It's a red flag.

• 41:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's worrisome.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  It's, it's one of my major, like I, I just can't handle it. I, maybe it's, it's, it's just me, but one actor playing two parts. Playing the twins, I hate.

• 41:31Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't like Dead Ringers?

• 41:33Chris Ryan?

  It, it was fine. It's, you're always just like, that's two Jeremy Irons is.

• 41:38Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I, the more the merrier. A lot of irons in the fire.

• 41:41Chris Ryan?

  The deuce was always a problem for me.

• 41:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Chris Ryan?

  Pre, pre, it's like, like putting aside everything about James Franco is just like, I just, I don't like twins. I don't like watching twins.

• 41:51Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. So you don't like?

• 41:52Chris Ryan?

  Identical twins.

• 41:53Andy Greenwald?

  Canadians. You don't like identical twins.

• 41:55Chris Ryan?

  And I.

• 41:56Andy Greenwald?

  You don't like curing Alzheimer's.

• 41:57Chris Ryan?

  I don't believe in the medical benefits of dinosaur DNA.

• 42:00Andy Greenwald?

  I thought, I mean, the movie looks super sick. It also has your guy, Jack O'Connell in it.

• 42:04Chris Ryan?

  My guy is eating right now.

• 42:06Andy Greenwald?

  He's definitely eating this.

• 42:07Chris Ryan?

  He's so good in Rogue Heroes this season.

• 42:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm.

• 42:10Chris Ryan?

  I may, I just may have to have Mansukas come in because we have Shorzy coming in two weeks. And Rogue Heroes is cooking.

• 42:20Andy Greenwald?

  He needs to come in, but also because he bridges the gap between us. Because last week, you recommended a novel.

• 42:25Chris Ryan?

  But you have to watch those shows, though.

• 42:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, but I'm just saying, last week, you recommended.

• 42:29Chris Ryan?

  Playworld.

• 42:29Andy Greenwald?

  Playworld, and I recommended a Transformers comic book.

• 42:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  Nensuka texted us.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  And showed copies of both.

• 42:35Andy Greenwald?

  He had both. He is our demographic. Speaking of James Franco, I did want to ask you, where are you? We're a week away from SNL 50, and I bring it up because I'm kind of interested and excited about this special.

• 42:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:51Andy Greenwald?

  My kids are, my older daughter especially is kind of into SNL now and like watching clips and older episodes. And so I was like, you know, we should watch ahead of this, because the anniversary episode is coming. We should watch SNL 40, which was, I think people know, 10 years ago.

• 43:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 43:05Andy Greenwald?

  And I remembered watching it being like, this is such a fun party. Like, it had a lot of SNL feelings of watching something live and chaos, slightly chaotic, but also everyone in the room was a big comedic celebrity and had their moment, had their shine. And it was really fun. And I fired it up to rewatch with her, and there were a couple of things that I bumped on. One was the opening, you know, and they're like announcing who's, you know, it's like, Steve Martin, James Franco, Louis CK. It was just like a list of people who won't be invited back.

• 43:38Chris Ryan?

  Fallen soldiers.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  So let's just say, like, those we, it was like an in memoriam segment, but at the wrong time of the show. I also didn't remember that it began with about a seven-minute rap medley from Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake, which is something we used to really do.

• 43:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Andy Greenwald?

  In America.

• 43:53Chris Ryan?

  Late period Obama-ten.

• 43:55Andy Greenwald?

  God, it was, really felt like a billion years ago. And then the other problem was, most of the show was just like montage, montage tributes to Eddie Murphy's Gumby sketch. And I was like, pause. Okay, so, and then I was like, there's enough, there's no version of me explaining this to you.

• 44:12Chris Ryan?

  So is that on Saturday, that, this coming Saturday?

• 44:14Andy Greenwald?

  I believe so.

• 44:15Chris Ryan?

  We're doing tonight's rewatchables is Blues Brothers.

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  Nice. Are you allowed to spoil that?

• 44:20Chris Ryan?

  He spoiled it at the end of the Bill Simmons pod last night.

• 44:23Andy Greenwald?

  Because I saw Bill take shots at Sean for his Criterion.

• 44:26Chris Ryan?

  That was very funny.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  That was very good.

• 44:29Andy Greenwald?

  It was very good. Not Criterion, yeah, Letterboxd. He does it on Letterboxd.

• 44:34Chris Ryan?

  All right, let's talk about Severance.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  I have a couple of positive things to say. And then I would like to have a conversation with you about what we're doing here.

• 44:43Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 44:44Andy Greenwald?

  With the show.

• 44:45Chris Ryan?

  This episode crystallized everything I like and don't like about the show.

• 44:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, that's fair.

• 44:49Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was the crowning achievement of the series so far in terms of of style.

• 44:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 44:56Chris Ryan?

  In my opinion, you know, I thought it's Ben Stiller's tour de force. I thought it was so creative, such a great use of setting. I actually realized I greatly, I mean, I don't know if preferred, but was very engaged by the fact that it looked like it was shot on film. A lot of the camera work was very handheld and and and close up and very inventive in that way. Not inventive, but just like a different visual language. And I felt like that suited the already the fish out of water experience of these people who are separated from their own identities while at work. It just exacerbated that.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  It made me feel like their their alienation, that how strange it must be to wake up in a winter tundra like this. It just, I just enjoyed that aspect of it so much.

• 45:53Andy Greenwald?

  Can I jump on the positive train for a second?

• 45:56Chris Ryan?

  Join me.

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible. Well, how much track is left here?

• 46:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay.

• 46:02Andy Greenwald?

  Incredibly beautiful hour of television. Like, I totally agree with you. And it's not just the wildly striking images. It's that for the purpose of what we can only presume to be a one off of this season, although, of course, we don't know anything. Stiller, it's not just reinvented the visual language of the show. It's almost as if he translated it into a different

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 46:26Andy Greenwald?

  Look into a different language, in different setting, a different opportunity. Because much has been made of, and I think deservedly so, the way he shoots the severed floor and what the walls, the purpose the walls serve and the way the lenses he used. Makes everything feel labyrinthine and confusing. The endless white, the dropdown harsh lighting. The way everyone's faces appear with the sort of the almost like malignant banality. Of their existence. And then to take those same characters who we have only seen in.

• 47:02Chris Ryan?

  This is almost highly artificial way.

• 47:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Andy Greenwald?

  And put them into absolutely brutalist nature.

• 47:12Andy Greenwald?

  Still very white. But with endless, potentially endless vistas, or at least you want to feel that they are remote. That they are not safe in the way that they might be in the cocoon like nature of the MDR room, or even the floor, or whatever the case may be.

• 47:27Andy Greenwald?

  I was blown away by it.

• 47:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that people who want to make films or television would probably study this episode. They might want to do it on mute, but we'll get to that.

• 47:38Chris Ryan?

  I'll keep, I'll keep going on positive.

• 47:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:40Chris Ryan?

  Positive tracks. Totoro was incredible in this episode. It was kind of his takeout. I thought he grounded it with like an emotional realism where otherwise it would have been easy to just find, find the show like spinning off into the atmosphere. It's pretty interesting to me, like this season rarely do you, do I, as I would like to think pretty seasoned TV watcher and honestly, pretty active consumer of severance intel. Like in terms of like theories about the show, breakdowns of, of episodes. I often start episodes just being like, what the fuck is going on? Like where are we?

• 48:19Andy Greenwald?

  As do the characters.

• 48:20Chris Ryan?

  What time is it? Like what, when are we? And so Totoro, I think opening with Totoro was intentional. I think closing with Totoro was intentional. It was his arc. I think he is by far become the most compelling character to me. I love Zach Cherry. But I think watching Dylan constantly walk into scenes and say, what's going on? What the shit is happening? What the fuck? Where the fuck are we? Is kind of like, I want him to actually have. More shit to say, more, more stuff to do. And I think even if there requires like some leaps of faith or suspension of disbelief to understand like Irving as the Sherlock of this entire conspiracy around,

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  around this, like, I still really enjoyed it. It was a real Legend of Zelda ass episode. Like, there's just like, a lot of what is the mechanics of this show rely on, kind of like, of this episode at least, like, real video gamey, kind of like, you must go to the cave where you will find the book, and that through the book, you will go and have meets, and then-

• 49:28Andy Greenwald?

  A prophecy will emerge.

• 49:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like, I, I think that my reading, like, when I read about the show, and when I, like, think about the show, I enjoy it way more than when I just watch it. And I don't know necessarily that that's a bad thing. You know, like, when I read about what the seal was, like, the dead animal in the forest, or, you know, if you don't, I, I, listen to me and don't listen to me, I don't really care. It's like, there's like a theory online that some of the stuff that's happening with Severance is related to the Montauk Project conspiracy theory of like, they, that the US Army was trying to invent time travel at this base on Montauk.

• 50:07Andy Greenwald?

  Cool.

• 50:07Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, there was the Montauk Seal a couple of years ago, where like, some weird animal washed up on shore. Irving, uh, when he's doing the computing in his dream, it says Montauk in the upper left-hand corner. So like, I really enjoy piecing that stuff together. There's something that's a little bit arm distance for me, because even something that's cool and weird and honestly, like, for the people in the episode, the scene, emotional as Mark being seduced by, or not seduced by, but having sex with Helena, thinking it's Helly, but seeing his- Wife who may or may not be dead.

• 50:44Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm. But also wasn't his wife because he's a different person.

• 50:47Chris Ryan?

  Right. That stuff just doesn't like rise to the level of of it. And and on on the whole, I saw I've seen some people and I really don't want to like make my reaction based on how positive other people are being. But I've seen people compare it to like fishes from the bear.

• 51:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Chris Ryan?

  Or pine barons or.

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Chris Ryan?

  International assassin and shit like that. And it's just like those episodes to me were the culmination of things that had been happening in those series that led to this divergence.

• 51:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 51:13Chris Ryan?

  Being like, oh, my God, what's happening? We're getting a whole episode that's a flashback and a dinner. And it's not apple, it's apples and oranges, but I kind of feel like every episode of Severance is sort of this weird. Has this happened before or is will this ever happen again?

• 51:28Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's.

• 51:28Chris Ryan?

  But I don't know if that's a criticism.

• 51:29Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's really well articulated because I think what you're saying is those episodes, and I'd like to get more into the reaction, why we why we make comparisons like that generally, but those episodes were ort bows for goat series.

• 51:41Chris Ryan?

  There you go.

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  Those episodes were the reward, the offsite for the time you spent in the kitchen or in the pork store or the bata bing or whatever, like the times you spent learning the contours of who these people were so that when you then remove them from what their comfort zones or our comfort zones as audiences, we are all disoriented but grounded in one shared thing, which is their humanity.

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Andy Greenwald?

  And who they are. This show, again, I'm not, I'm not even starting criticisms yet, but this show does not seem interested in that. It is more, it is invested in disorientation and in constant waves of disorientation. There is no one version of it. At the end, after season three, four or five, who knows? That disorientation now may prove to be a boon. If this show is building towards something where these people must literally kill one other half of themselves or one version of themselves, not necessarily knowing who to root for from an omniscient audience point of view, might be an incredible, incredible opportunity.

• 52:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:45Andy Greenwald?

  As a viewer, that might not be something we've ever seen before. We don't know that and we're not there yet. So I can't presume to say. All I can do is experience this episode to episode, much like Irving did. I just wake up and now we're doing this and.

• 52:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, Irving's the only one who's just like, I. There's something wrong here.

• 53:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 53:02Chris Ryan?

  And that was, I think that's, for as interesting and cool as parts of this episode were, I kept waiting for a character to be like, "What the fuck?" And I guess that is what Dylan does too.

• 53:12Andy Greenwald?

  That's Dylan.

• 53:13Chris Ryan?

  But he isn't, not to the point where he's like, "Let's stop what we're doing here."

• 53:17Andy Greenwald?

  Because there is no clear dividing line, and we've said this before, like, there's whimsy downstairs and there's whimsy upstairs. There's a character who can say, "What the fuck? Wait, he died because he jerked off?" And then another character banishes someone to death by saying "forthwith."

• 53:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Andy Greenwald?

  Like, it's whimsy all the way down. And so it's very, very hard to kind of understand what the, where the walls are, what the stakes are. Not just, I don't just blink my eyes open at the start of the episodes like a newborn every time, because, you know, that's what the episodes are doing. It's because I'm not doing any of what you are in terms of research or supplemental reading. Everything you tell me is interesting to me.

• 53:57Chris Ryan?

  I did my own research.

• 53:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible. What's that blue stuff you've started drinking? I'm gonna try it. It sounds amazing. But genuinely, like, I mean, I will say this every week, I guess, until people stop, it gets boring. But like, I, I lost vital years of my twenties and thirties chasing down rabbit holes of theories about Lost. Like, I am not immune from this. I love that stuff. And everything you bring up from your mining expeditions sounds really cool to me. What you just said about Montauk is awesome. If that's what the show is, wow, how interesting. But I'm, I'm not tracking that already. And so similarly, the rewards, and I, and I want, wait, let me just, before we even get into that, it's not just that Turturro was good all episode.

• 54:42Andy Greenwald?

  Turturro in the last 12 minutes of the episode is god-tier. He's amazing. He's an amazing actor. And like we were saying with Merritt Weaver last week, amazing actors can make me believe in anything.

• 54:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 54:53Andy Greenwald?

  And his anguish, and what he was doing, and what he was doing it for, and what it meant to him, knowing there was a sacrifice, he communicated that with his performance. Similarly, if you were someone who has been cleverly sussing out that Helly wasn't Helly, that...

• 55:11Chris Ryan?

  You were sussing that out, weren't you?

• 55:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that was a guess that we made, that we, you know, many people, many, many people were saying, "Sir, sir, that's, that's not Helly R."

• 55:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:21Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's interesting and cool. And the way it was revealed and what it means about what she just did to Mark, or why she did it, or who she is and what she want. Like, that's all incredible grist for the story mill. And if you've been reading supplemental materials, or posting about it on Reddit, or wondering, like, this would be very gratifying. My thing is, I don't know who Helly is, and I don't know who Helena is, and I'm not sure if I'm ever going to care.

• 55:48Chris Ryan?

  Well-

• 55:48Andy Greenwald?

  So, the distinction between them, in terms of, like, that's the big reveal, it leaves me, it leaves me as cold as they were at their campsite before Mr. Milchick introduced fire to them, like, some sort of white-clad Prometheus. So, that, your mileage may absolutely-

• 56:03Chris Ryan?

  I see, I see you cooking on those lines, dog. You still want to get, get in the blogs.

• 56:08Andy Greenwald?

  I want to mix it up. Do you know how many hyperlinks I put in there?

• 56:11Chris Ryan?

  You want to do 2,200 words on-

• 56:12Andy Greenwald?

  Some footnotes on a Tuesday. I would be eating on this, without question. I'm, it's very hard, and I don't think we'll do this week to week, I hope we won't, like, to sort of say, it's just not working for me. Because, on the level that I like to engage with TV shows, it's not working for me. I see the most beautiful, most considered, most labored over, Vulture has a really long piece about how this was like a 20-plus day shoot-

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Cool article, yeah.

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  How they made this. I mean, things don't look like this, and it takes work, and it takes effort, and it takes an incredible production team. My personal, subjective reaction is like when I see a Faberge egg, where I'm like, that is incredibly intricate and beautiful, and it's kind of hollow on the inside. That's how I continually feel at the end of these episodes.

• 56:54Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think part of it is that, maybe there's a disproportionate amount of, we've had a disproportionate amount of dialogue about this show. A, compared to how much you may, may or may not like it.

• 57:05Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 57:06Chris Ryan?

  But B, you know, we're only four episodes into this season, but it, it feels like it, something as like a question of the season should have emerged by now. You know, and I guess part of that is, can Mark successfully reintegrate? Although, maybe he has. Part of it might be, just what is Lumen doing? And what is this computer program called Harbor that they're working on? And what is, why is Mark so essential to this work? But so much of it is happening- In the, in the world of like, just, it's, it's all theory. It's all speculation rather than the drama of the show kind of posing a question about like, what would you do if X? I think the first season actually had that, that engine revving where it was like,

• 57:50Chris Ryan?

  you know, why are these people, have they chosen more or less to separate themselves from their identities? I do find Britt Lauer's performance quite good and I, I think her character is by far the most fascinating to me just because she is the inverse of the other people. Like the other people have left a life of heartache or loneliness or maybe dead endness to kind of feel something else when they're at work. Where she went from being the heir to this corporate behemoth and came into the office damaged, you know, and is kind of like the rebel that sort of, to some extent, starts this fire in the first place is her behavior. So I, I, I am most focused on her, but when it comes to that hollow feeling, I, I think

• 58:34Chris Ryan?

  part of it is that the show is, still hasn't put its wares out on the table and said, okay, this is what we're talking about.

• 58:41Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's not fair to call it a mystery box because a mystery box has one mystery inside of it presumably like this.

• 58:46Chris Ryan?

  Who killed Laura Palmer?

• 58:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, this is a, it's like a, it's an incredibly, incredibly expensive ornate restaurant serving food that's like at the top of a building that spins at the same time, but also the city's built on a fault line and also maybe it's not a city. Like there's no stable place to rest.

• 59:06Chris Ryan?

  So like the Rainbow Room, but was on the San Andreas.

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Remember the spinning restaurants?

• 59:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, of course. I mean, I never went there. I don't like spinning.

• 59:12Andy Greenwald?

  No, exactly. I don't like spinning. That's, that's everything. I totally, that, yes, like that.

• 59:18Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 59:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's my metaphor. That's the metaphorical hill, uh, I'm, I'm choosing to die on here. Also, what is your? I mean, just what is your interest level in Egan mythology? It just seems like everybody's funnin'. Like, I'm sure they're having a great time coming up with this stuff. And sometimes it is funny.

• 59:36Chris Ryan?

  Well, you know, you do-

• 59:37Andy Greenwald?

  And the woe thing was creepy.

• 59:39Chris Ryan?

  Woe is mad creepy.

• 59:40Andy Greenwald?

  I liked it. I liked the dream sequence a lot.

• 59:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:42Andy Greenwald?

  That was cool.

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. If I had to guess, and if I had to sort of synthesize a lot of other people's kind of scholarship on this, it seems like it's about preserving consciousness in these computer programs to be uploaded to eternity or to another person or whatever, that they're working on cloning, that they're working on eternal life in some way.

• 1:00:07Chris Ryan?

  And that, I guess that's interesting, but like, that is interesting. But the sort of issue is, is like, at a certain point, I almost wonder whether or not the answer to what you're asking is going to be sufficient for the amount of mystery surrounding it.

• 1:00:23Andy Greenwald?

  And the mysteries surrounding everything. It's mysteries top to bottom.

• 1:00:28Chris Ryan?

  But that being said, I guess I'm still enjoying the ride enough to not worry about that that much, or to just read, you know, Montauk Project.

• 1:00:36Andy Greenwald?

  Could you do-

• 1:00:37Chris Ryan?

  Red Threads.

• 1:00:38Andy Greenwald?

  Could you do like a newsletter that just summarizes other people's? I like the way you used the word scholarship on this, and just kind of send it to me?

• 1:00:46Chris Ryan?

  I mean, isn't that what this podcast is becoming?

• 1:00:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I'd like a little more time to like, do some sink-ins, you know, like, think about it, like, maybe I could ruminate on some of these things.

• 1:00:54Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I'll start sending you my favorite, my favorite theory of the week.

• 1:00:57Andy Greenwald?

  I just, like, because if you pull back, this is an episode about a place where a guy killed his twin, which was a setup for-

• 1:01:07Chris Ryan?

  For Cranking It.

• 1:01:08Andy Greenwald?

  By Cranking It.

• 1:01:09Chris Ryan?

  No, yeah.

• 1:01:10Andy Greenwald?

  For doing, yes.

• 1:01:11Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:01:11Andy Greenwald?

  He didn't kill him.

• 1:01:12Chris Ryan?

  The forest killed him. Forest swallowed him for his self-pleasure.

• 1:01:15Andy Greenwald?

  For his seeds.

• 1:01:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Andy Greenwald?

  Right. He didn't die by Cranking It.

• 1:01:19Chris Ryan?

  No. What a legend if he had, my guy Dieter.

• 1:01:22Andy Greenwald?

  Go out what you do, go out doing what you love. Respect it.

• 1:01:28Andy Greenwald?

  Like Brandon Graham harassing a quarterback. What a way to go. Like Kellen Moore dialing up movement. Legend, retire a legend. Um, no, but, but that's the, the over story of the episode. And then it is the end of Irving's twin.

• 1:01:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, can I ask you a couple of follow ups here? And you, you can say,

• 1:01:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:48Chris Ryan?

  You can say pass if you're like, I don't care, but like engage with me or don't.

• 1:01:53Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, nice. Okay.

• 1:01:54Chris Ryan?

  Um, eat with me or eat a box of bullets, as Hellrel once said.

• 1:01:57Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:58Chris Ryan?

  Right?

• 1:01:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's the third time we've quoted Hellrel today, but we didn't identify the other two. So eagle eye listeners will know.

• 1:02:05Chris Ryan?

  Like, do you feel like you're tracking how Irv is?

• 1:02:10Chris Ryan?

  Got the fucking drop on everybody here. Cause I guess Irv's outie life.

• 1:02:16Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm. Which we know nothing about really.

• 1:02:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think there's some in the first season a little bit, but like all we've really seen is that phone call he makes at the payphone in the first episode of the second season. And that he seems to be having a little bit more of a porous, like remembering things.

• 1:02:34Andy Greenwald?

  The drawings are going back and forth.

• 1:02:36Chris Ryan?

  Um, and he's just like all over Helly. Um, now I guess in the dream, when he sees Egan and he sees the eye and he sees whoa, that's where it becomes clear to him that Helly isn't Egan.

• 1:02:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And the, the numbers sort of spell out Egan.

• 1:02:51Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:53Chris Ryan?

  That, but that's, I guess Irv's like, I mean, Irv, Irv's skepticism and his sort of depth of knowledge about like what's going on. Is surprising since like everybody else, well, the other two guys are kind of blind.

• 1:03:08Andy Greenwald?

  There's a little bit of a jump for me. Like, I really like, and again, so much this is Turturro's performance. But if you track the character from season one, this is someone who, um, loves.

• 1:03:19Chris Ryan?

  His job.

• 1:03:19Andy Greenwald?

  He loves his job and he loves.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  If you love your work, you never work a day in your life.

• 1:03:23Andy Greenwald?

  If your job is cranking it in a forest.

• 1:03:26Chris Ryan?

  We're cranking in a podcast studio.

• 1:03:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, literally. He likes the guardrails of this very mitigated existence and is thus very invested in everything. Not just, he's very invested in the rules and in the reward system when we first meet him, which I think is an easy jump then to he's very invested in these people and invested in their behavior and in them also being consistent. And he's very watchful and he's observant and he appreciates details like the paintings and things. So all of this on a character level absolutely makes sense that he would suss out something different in his coworker.

• 1:03:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Andy Greenwald?

  That she's an Egan seems like a pretty wild leap unless it is directly connected to the dream.

• 1:04:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, the idea is like, who could have the power

• 1:04:08Andy Greenwald?

  To do that.

• 1:04:08Chris Ryan?

  To make it down there as in their

• 1:04:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and then I guess you could say, I mean, there could have been a much longer scene where he's like, she might be a friend of the Egans. She is a longtime work colleague of Egans. They're in a fantasy football league together. But instead, they edited that for time and he just says he's an Egan. I'm OK with.

• 1:04:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's so good when he's just like, yeah, Seth.

• 1:04:29Andy Greenwald?

  I did like that.

• 1:04:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that was cool.

• 1:04:31Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the show could turn it on.

• 1:04:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Andy Greenwald?

  It can flip the switch. It can engage the Glasgow protocols or whatever and

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  The Glasgow block.

• 1:04:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, that can, that can work. I like that.

• 1:04:41Chris Ryan?

  OK. Do you ever find yourself wondering like,

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  how, where does it, like, what can Inis remember about life?

• 1:04:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, this was, I wanted to ask you about this.

• 1:04:52Chris Ryan?

  Versus like when they're like, I've never, because they've never seen this sky.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's

• 1:04:56Chris Ryan?

  And they're like, I don't think they actually ever let these fucking guys sleep.

• 1:05:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I wanted to bring up. The show, again, there's not enough real estate for some of the things that clearly it also is intrigued by. But the idea that they've never been outside before, but they kind of know the drill, except about some things that they're mystified by, but they're also not afraid.

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  Like, have they ever been that cold in their life?

• 1:05:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, did they know what?

• 1:05:21Chris Ryan?

  Because I would be cold. I would be like, where the fuck am I? It's freezing outside. I've been in like, temperature controlled room.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Wouldn't you just like, run around touching everything? Shout out Dieter. You know what I mean? Like, isn't that how you would live your life? Like

• 1:05:37Chris Ryan?

  Shout out Young King Dieter.

• 1:05:38Andy Greenwald?

  That's my guy. He's burying me a G, man. He's like, here I am in the woods.

• 1:05:44Chris Ryan?

  The vines have taken me.

• 1:05:47Andy Greenwald?

  You sound like someone, someone who's too online in 2011. The vines have taken me.

• 1:05:53Chris Ryan?

  The band The Vines?

• 1:05:54Andy Greenwald?

  No, these short-form videos that I'm being serviced.

• 1:05:56Chris Ryan?

  They did take me.

• 1:05:56Andy Greenwald?

  They're funny.

• 1:05:57Chris Ryan?

  They took me down.

• 1:05:59Andy Greenwald?

  But, but like, they've never slept before, let alone slept with other people before, like, and I'm sure there were spirited conversations in the writers' room being like, yes, this is interesting, but we are also a propulsive serialized television show and we can't just have them look like 15-year-olds on ecstasy being like, whoa. So, that makes sense, but, but, but what they've experienced and why they are the way they are is curious to me, as well as, is any of that pre-selected? Like, is the technology of the Severing so much that they, clearly, they know words and language?

• 1:06:30Chris Ryan?

  They can dial it in, yeah, right. I, I've made this comment before about like, there's, there's not a lot of signifiers of outside life, other than Rick in being a not-successful author on the outside, or not really, and now he's, but he's like a legend on the inside.

• 1:06:47Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think-

• 1:06:47Chris Ryan?

  I kind of was like, because I, I wondered whether or not the thing that freaked Turturro or Irving out in the beginning of the episode is this thing that's been freaking me out or bothering me, which is, wouldn't they notice? But I guess now it's, wouldn't they have to have noticed when they woke up out there that it's still winter? And that Milk Chick was like, you were gone for five months?

• 1:07:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, but they don't know what seasons are.

• 1:07:11Chris Ryan?

  But-

• 1:07:12Andy Greenwald?

  Or do they? Yeah.

• 1:07:14Chris Ryan?

  Okay. I guess so. I guess you're right. I guess that's why they come across a fucking monster seal and they're just like, what's that? I don't know.

• 1:07:21Andy Greenwald?

  I, I also think that, that one of the things that is very, very, very hard to-

• 1:07:25Chris Ryan?

  Because I would be like, you pay me to fucking data process. Like, why are we here?

• 1:07:30Andy Greenwald?

  But also, why are, and then maybe, again, I've learned my lesson with this. So maybe the next episode, we'll do the A-side to this B-side.

• 1:07:37Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:07:38Andy Greenwald?

  Meaning, we will actually see what they said to the three outies of these people, being like, you need to lend us your bodies for longer than your workday, or, you know, like an overnight.

• 1:07:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:49Andy Greenwald?

  You need to be out of your lives and here's what we'll pay you, or here's why it's worthwhile. Because, again, I'm not Dieter. I'm not sacrificing my body to the woods.

• 1:07:59Chris Ryan?

  Is Dieter your favorite Severance character?

• 1:08:01Andy Greenwald?

  In, in, over the last 90 seconds, it's starting to seem like he is. I respect it. You know what I mean?

• 1:08:10Chris Ryan?

  Just a young king.

• 1:08:12Andy Greenwald?

  Like the Eagles, he leaves it all out on the field, quite literally.

• 1:08:18Andy Greenwald?

  Like those comments, like it's not.

• 1:08:22Andy Greenwald?

  One of the things that I, you know, that I, that I circle back to this often is talking about how the show was a brilliant pilot. When you write a pilot, you're writing checks that you will never have to cash. And one of the most essential ones to this brilliant idea is why would anyone do this? And the first season, and even into the second season, has done a solid job of showing us people who are trapped in their lives, although I think this season's instances would get, need, I think there needs to be more Irving, honestly, to see that as well. But generally, why they would need this job over others. But there's still more layers to that question, including why would you actually sacrifice your bodily autonomy and put your life at risk if this company is taking your body somewhere?

• 1:09:06Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:09:06Andy Greenwald?

  That is a weird.

• 1:09:07Chris Ryan?

  Mark, I, Mark has a mission. Mark wants to figure out what's going on with his dead wife. Dylan is like, I guess, the person I am in the inside world has more dignity or like is of greater, a greater object of respect for my wife than the person I am on the outside world.

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 1:09:26Chris Ryan?

  Irving seems incredibly lonely on the outside world.

• 1:09:30Andy Greenwald?

  And that hurt him.

• 1:09:31Chris Ryan?

  And found love in the inside world.

• 1:09:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Chris Ryan?

  Now it's like brokenhearted again.

• 1:09:34Andy Greenwald?

  And as you're saying this, there are things like.

• 1:09:36Chris Ryan?

  And Elaine is just a narc.

• 1:09:37Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, do you remember one of the scenes, one of the more memorable scenes from the first season was Irving's conversation with Mrs. Casey, where she just says platitudes to him about his, he enjoys music and things and what that meant to him. So the idea that that that there was some sort of consistent loneliness, or like, you know, consistent meaning across both versions, something that is just essential to who these people are. That's an interesting observation. I think it's also an interesting thread for them to be playing with going forward.

• 1:10:07Chris Ryan?

  How would you feel if you came into this office and you just didn't know the Eagles, what they were?

• 1:10:13Andy Greenwald?

  I would hate it.

• 1:10:14Chris Ryan?

  What you wouldn't know?

• 1:10:16Andy Greenwald?

  I would feel an enormous lack and I would also have all this time.

• 1:10:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Andy Greenwald?

  To like, parent and think about, maybe read books. And that's a bummer. I, I do have a feeling that the, the, the desire to proclaim things the best, or the best since, or to compare this to Pine Barrens or something.

• 1:10:36Chris Ryan?

  Discourse, discourse.

• 1:10:37Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's just that I, I think that there's an essential, there, there is a unmet desire for A, things to always be as good as they used to be, in music and everything, like to, we have to keep the balloon in the air, that like, everything is always gonna keep pushing boundaries and being great and greater and amazing. I feel like America is a living case study and that's not true. But also, that the way that we collectively, as TV fans, or as culture fans, loved our engagement, as much as we loved the, the show. So Pine Barrens is a unequivocally brilliant hour of television. It is, it is a psychological study above all else. It stands apart from what is, you know, inarguably, one of the

• 1:11:20Andy Greenwald?

  greatest TV shows of all time. And then there's also a discourse around it. And there was a, a fan of The Sopranos who legitimately, good faith, loves the show, who was like, in the finale, is Tony gonna get whacked by the Russian they left?

• 1:11:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Andy Greenwald?

  You know, in a way, the two endings of Breaking Bad kinda went right at that too. There's two kinds of fan. Emily Nussbaum wrote about that, saying there was a bad fan, that's specifically in the case of Breaking Bad, who wanted the villain to succeed. So that's not the best comparison to make. I just mean generally, and I, I am certainly a fall victim to this too, where like, you're a fan of the way things made us feel and the way it made our mind race with excitement. And I do feel some of that lifting up this show and pulling it apart, even though, the, what is it called? Like the, what kind of meats?

• 1:12:05Chris Ryan?

  Fine meats.

• 1:12:06Andy Greenwald?

  Whatever. Like, that I'm not sure if this particular carcass that they brought with them is worthy of this level of dissection.

• 1:12:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Andy Greenwald?

  There's a fandom for fandom, that might be a play a little bit here. But that's also just maybe me saying like, back off my Pine Barrens.

• 1:12:24Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna imitate Tom Brady by going, "Time will tell, KB."

• 1:12:27Andy Greenwald?

  Literally, this is, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. Maybe all of my mood today is influenced by the fact that there's been, there was a lot of rush to anoint someone, the goat.

• 1:12:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, also, I, I wonder whether watching Severance after the Super Bowl was... The proper.

• 1:12:44Andy Greenwald?

  Are you outing me?

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  Well, what's wrong with watching it after the Super Bowl? You can watch it before, you can watch it after. It's not a timer on it.

• 1:12:51Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I definitely.

• 1:12:52Chris Ryan?

  I'm saying like, everything is context.

• 1:12:54Andy Greenwald?

  I could have fired up, I'll just say this. If I had fired up Pine Barrens and fishes after the Super Bowl, I would have been like, these don't make me feel as good as the last five hours of my life.

• 1:13:02Chris Ryan?

  There's nothing that would have matched our timelines last night.

• 1:13:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:13:09Chris Ryan?

  It's been great talking to you today. I feel like we've been here for three hours, but maybe it's just the cumulation of time spent.

• 1:13:14Andy Greenwald?

  Is Kaya still here? Does she, did she know she signed up for a football podcast?

• 1:13:17Chris Ryan?

  Um, we're gonna be back on Thursday. What are we gonna talk about? Um, we'll see, probably the pit.

• 1:13:22Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I think we gotta, we promised paradise. We promised paradise.

• 1:13:25Chris Ryan?

  We'll catch up on paradise. And then White Lotus is back, uh, on Sunday. We're gonna probably drop our recap episode Sunday night. So maybe we'll take a week off Severance.

• 1:13:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool.

• 1:13:35Chris Ryan?

  Let us just go back into the forest and replenish ourselves.

• 1:13:40Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he was repl-? I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to unpack this metaphor, because in this, are you picking up what he was putting down? What are you doing?

• 1:13:48Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no. Uh, thanks to Kaya, thanks to CT. We will be back on Thursday. Greenwald, great to see you, man.

• 1:13:53Andy Greenwald?

  Will I see you at the parade on Friday?

• 1:13:56Chris Ryan?

  Dude, don't, don't tempt me with a good time.

• 1:13:57Andy Greenwald?

  I wish. Go Birds.