The Merit of ‘Mountainhead’ and ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ Season 1 Finale

Chris and Andy discuss Jesse Armstrong’s recent HBO movie 'Mountainhead,' chatting about why they found it so enjoyable despite some mixed reviews and how exactly the film's message suited our current cultural moment (8:01). Then they discuss the Season 1 finale of Apple TV+’s 'Your Friends and Neighbors,' the show’s back-end turn to a crime show, and where it can improve in Season 2 (54:22). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Devon Baroldi Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Chris Ryan?

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit mddallies.com to watch my story.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 2:01Speaker 04

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

• 2:07Chris 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, my favorite fungible human asset, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:21Andy Greenwald?

  Great to be here with you. Just alone in a room, the end of the world.

• 2:24Chris Ryan?

  What's up, brother? How are you?

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  Great. I'm great.

• 2:26Chris Ryan?

  Today on the pod, a little news at the top, Mountain Head in the middle.

• 2:30Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 2:31Chris Ryan?

  And the end of your friends and neighbors at the end of the pod.

• 2:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 2:35Chris Ryan?

  A nice little run through television. Later in the week, we'll be hitting Department Q, I hope.

• 2:40Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 2:41Andy Greenwald?

  We like Department Q.

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  Scott Frank's Department Q. Let's see if any programming reminders or housekeeping. Obviously, you can always hit us up at the watch at spotify.com. Follow us on Instagram, the watch pod underscore. And you can watch us on YouTube, ringer-tv is the channel. Please watch us on Spotify where you listen to us, the watch feed.

• 3:00Andy Greenwald?

  You're the best. Do you wake up ready to podcast? Like, how much time do you think you honestly would need from the moment your eyes open to being here in front of a mic?

• 3:07Chris Ryan?

  I went to bed thinking about Mountain Head.

• 3:09Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 3:09Chris Ryan?

  Woke up thinking about Mountain Head.

• 3:10Andy Greenwald?

  Nice.

• 3:11Chris Ryan?

  So I think I could probably just start talking about Mountain Head after my second cup of coffee.

• 3:15Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 3:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know, you know me.

• 3:17Andy Greenwald?

  I do.

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  It's all one conversation. It's all one hang. How are you doing?

• 3:21Andy Greenwald?

  I'm great. I'm a little, you know, I'm a little melancholy today because, you know, my other favorite long-term podcaster with a serious zen addiction is hanging up, hanging up the Spurs. I woke up this morning excited to see John Mulaney on Marc Maron, a clash of two of my favorite Titans, only to learn that WTF is ending.

• 3:41Chris Ryan?

  I know, man.

• 3:42Andy Greenwald?

  That cuts my pod intake by half.

• 3:44Chris Ryan?

  So he's 16 years?

• 3:46Andy Greenwald?

  16 years in the game.

• 3:46Chris Ryan?

  And we're 13?

• 3:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So you think we can make it?

• 3:50Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to make, do you want to try and outlast Maron? I don't think we'll ever catch Bill.

• 3:54Andy Greenwald?

  Uh.

• 3:55Chris Ryan?

  Bill's like 20, almost 20.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  Does he count Eye of the Sports Guy as like the same show?

• 4:00Chris Ryan?

  Was that a pod?

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  Or that was a cartoon, I think.

• 4:02Chris Ryan?

  Okay, yeah, no, I don't think so.

• 4:03Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 4:04Chris Ryan?

  Um, but I'll, I'll keep doing this with you for as long as you want.

• 4:07Andy Greenwald?

  So you haven't listened.

• 4:08Chris Ryan?

  For as long as TV is so great.

• 4:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. That's right. I, he, he was like, you know, there's something to be said about ending on your own terms, so.

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, um, I love Maren. I think it makes sense to me that he goes out, um, I bet like for him, when it's an interview based show. He's like, if I had to guess, like, talked to a lot of these people, some, some of them several times, uh, you know, like I do these 10 minute monologues. I, it was funny when I listened to him talk to Scott Frank a couple of weeks ago, he was like, I like writing the monologues because it's, it's like therapeutic and it keeps the muscle tight to, to, to just get some long form, you know, prose down and then perform it. But, uh, yeah, he's got a lot of acting gigs coming up. He's in the Bruce Springsteen movie. He's in the Owen Wilson show.

• 4:53Andy Greenwald?

  Next, this comes up this week, I believe.

• 4:55Chris Ryan?

  Does it?

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Is that, is that on your list?

• 4:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know what?

• 4:58Andy Greenwald?

  It combines both of our interests, golf and Marc Maron.

• 5:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, it's on my list.

• 5:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Chris Ryan?

  And I, huge cup, fan of Tin Cup, which this reminds me a lot of.

• 5:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's a good movie.

• 5:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, if there's a lot of lone wolf and cubbing it around the golf course of him.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  Because there's a kid.

• 5:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Oh, you don't like the kid? I like kids, but I think we're overdoing it.

• 5:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:18Chris Ryan?

  They're a little overrepresented.

• 5:20Andy Greenwald?

  Do you often find young, young, young boys on the course?

• 5:24Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yeah, they're often way better than I am at golf.

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  For sure.

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  Because if you learn your golf stroke at a young age, it's like learning French, you know, you're a sponge.

• 5:31Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 5:32Chris Ryan?

  What? Try teaching yourself golf at 35. It's not easy.

• 5:35Andy Greenwald?

  If you could do it all again, would you just be a young, French speaking linksman?

• 5:41Chris Ryan?

  No, because neither of those things were cool when we were in high school. It wasn't like, if I was like, I speak French and play golf, I would not have ever gotten laid. You know, like, this was not, it wasn't like this in 1994.

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  I appreciate your honesty here about just like.

• 5:58Chris Ryan?

  Nothing I'm into now was cool back then.

• 6:02Andy Greenwald?

  Smoking.

• 6:03Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I didn't start smoking until I was 20.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  I know, I know. Who's listening? The cops? You said that real fast.

• 6:08Chris Ryan?

  I know. My parents.

• 6:10Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, I'm just saying that was something that you're into that, oh, you're saying you weren't into it when you were 14?

• 6:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was into Wu-Tang Clan.

• 6:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay, well, same.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know, thinking about getting my own car. I don't know. I was just like, I had a quotidian childlike interests.

• 6:29Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  There's no shame in it. Look at you now.

• 6:33Chris Ryan?

  I want to talk to you a little bit about other childlike interests.

• 6:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 6:36Chris Ryan?

  Um, which is Stranger Things. Um, I wanted to ask you a little bit about this release strategy that Netflix has unveiled.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  Did you watch the T-?

• 6:45Chris Ryan?

  Tadum? No, I was, I was, I was busy this weekend, but I did, um.

• 6:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yep. Savage. I hope your parents don't hear that.

• 6:56Chris Ryan?

  Sorry.

• 6:56Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  Um, Netflix season five is going to release across three dates, uh, this holiday season.

• 7:03Andy Greenwald?

  Talk to me about it. This, you're dropping this news on me. I did not know any of this.

• 7:06Chris Ryan?

  Thanksgiving Eve, there will be several episodes.

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, of four episodes on November 26th.

• 7:12Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:12Chris Ryan?

  Three episodes on Christmas and the finale episode on New Year's Eve. Each volume releases at 5:00 PM Pacific time.

• 7:21Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 7:22Chris Ryan?

  According to Netflix. Now, I note the last thing with interest.

• 7:25Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  Because in the seemingly endless amount of years since season four.

• 7:31Andy Greenwald?

  How many years has it been?

• 7:32Chris Ryan?

  I think it's been three.

• 7:33Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  Um, perhaps four. I can't remember. Um, but in the amount of time since then, Netflix has dialed in a little bit more of an appointment viewing strategy, whether it's with their wrestling, whether it's with, um, comedy specials or, you know, the Tyson fight.

• 7:51Andy Greenwald?

  Or the Tadum Gala, which they made a live event out of on Saturday.

• 7:55Chris Ryan?

  We've been talking about Mulaney over the course of the last couple of weeks. So clearly something that they are toying around with where it's like, maybe we won't do episodic releases of television shows, but I think.

• 8:08Chris Ryan?

  Eventizing the release of things and picking a pretty normal, frankly, prime time time to drop

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 8:16Chris Ryan?

  This stuff because on that's 8pm on the east coast.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  You know, people are going to be captive audiences with their families of the holidays. This is a show that appeals to multiple generations of people. You know, they've done this before with Stranger Things where they've released it on a July 4th weekend or Halloween weekend or whatever. Like they they pick these points, but I think this is while not groundbreaking and genius by them.

• 8:40Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's really smart and I think it's adaptive also, right? I think that there's an enormous chance to own a weekend. People are home, people are with their families. As you said, this is a rare thing that people do seem to watch with their families or across age groups. I appreciate it, not just from like a podcasting brain or someone who is who doesn't have enough time to watch stuff as it is brain, but I appreciate when they show flexibility with their mandate of how to deliver their content that does at least seem to be considering how people might actually consume it as opposed to just saying, well, the algorithm says it's ultimately better if we just dump it. I just think it's I think it's it's it's better when they are more flexible, responsive and fluid in what they do.

• 9:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I think that kind of having an intuitive idea about what what people will be doing during the time that they release it is, I mean, prime time is prime time for a reason. It's after dinner, you know what I mean? People are kind of like ready to watch television and then wind down for the evening.

• 9:40Andy Greenwald?

  Not in Spain.

• 9:40Chris Ryan?

  No, you know, and and not when I was in high school, you know?

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, when you're doing all that cool stuff like not eating until when? When did you when did you have dinner in high school?

• 9:49Chris Ryan?

  No, actually, I had dinner at like 7:30 in high school.

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 9:51Chris Ryan?

  Which now I have dinner at like 5:15.

• 9:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 9:54Chris Ryan?

  That's the only time I can get reservations.

• 9:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's fair.

• 9:58Chris Ryan?

  Um, so Marion gone, Stranger Things back. Let's get into Mountain Head.

• 10:03Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, great. I want to talk about, by the way, my one transition into into Mountain Head.

• 10:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so excited to talk about this film with you. I really, really, really, really enjoyed it.

• 10:15Andy Greenwald?

  Because we just talked a little industry release stuff with Netflix.

• 10:17Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to, this is just a small little pre-note about why maybe it's good that Max is becoming HBO Max again. Because maybe it's an opportunity to reexamine their UI.

• 10:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 10:29Andy Greenwald?

  Because.

• 10:30Chris Ryan?

  You know I'm a UI guy.

• 10:31Andy Greenwald?

  So I thought you'd appreciate this. I just wanted to note this. I don't know if you had a similar experience. Maybe it's just my personal algorithm. But I did fire up Max to watch Mountain Head.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you watched, you watched the official?

• 10:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I did not watch the screener.

• 10:43Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  And so I was, you know, excited to watch the latest project, project from the creator of Succession, Jesse Armstrong. Fired up, there it is on the screen, there's the four boys. And I actually brought some visual evidence because I want to get this right. So I have photos that I'm going to refer to you. You may also like, first row, the Superman trailer, The Brutalist, Brett Goldstein's comedy special. Okay, I'm sure Succession is on the next page. No, the franchise, Seth Meyers comedy special, something called User Zero, the film Barbie. And I was like, certainly will recommend Succession, which I truly believe you may also like on the third page. And that's where I found The Zone of Interest.

• 11:28Chris Ryan?

  Quick cue, though.

• 11:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 11:32Chris Ryan?

  Maybe it knows you've already watched Succession.

• 11:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's the question I'm putting out into the universe. Now, it probably also knows that I've seen the Superman trailer.

• 11:41Chris Ryan?

  And that you haven't watched Zone of Interest.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  I watched Zone of Interest where it belongs, on a plane. Okay. That's much more normal. Anyway, I just feel like, I feel like.

• 11:52Chris Ryan?

  Did you like it?

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  They should do better. Zone of Interest?

• 11:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I laughed a lot, but, you know, I was looking for something a little more, you know? No? Too soon?

• 12:03Chris Ryan?

  Not for me.

• 12:04Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 12:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:06Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so, Mountain Head.

• 12:08Chris Ryan?

  Mountain Head. This is Jesse Armstrong's feature directorial debut. Had he directed any Succession before?

• 12:15Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not familiar with it.

• 12:16Chris Ryan?

  This might be his directorial debut, another classic CR and Andy fact-check. Came, it was coming two years after the end of Succession. This is the kind of project that gets me really jazzed because I like productivity. I like grabbing the moment. This is something where I almost wonder, I'd love to ask Jesse about this if we get a chance to talk to him, whether or not this is almost a. Nod to or inspired by or a product of him coming up through the British TV system. And I would describe for me at least, it's kind of fascinating. The British TV system can be much more responsive and quick turn.

• 12:55Chris Ryan?

  They'll there something will happen in England and there will be a a mini series about it like nine months later somehow. Uh, 15 months later, so this feels very much of the moment. Uh, we'll discuss why in a second. It was born out of Jesse Armstrong, uh, doing a book review for the Times Literary Summit about Michael Lewis's most recent book on Sam Bankman Fried. Um, and I recommend anybody who's listening to check out Katie Baker's article on The Ringer about the genesis for this project. Cause I thought it was really thoughtful and Katie, who was at the Sam Bankman Fried, um, trial and did a lot of work on it. It is probably the smartest person to be talking about this.

• 13:34Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Mountain Head is about four tech titans of industry having a, uh, summit in Utah at a mountain retreat. Um, called Mountain Head ironically or not ironically, funnily enough.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Intentionally.

• 13:48Chris Ryan?

  Intentionally, uh, Steve Carell stars as Randall, um, who's sort of the Peter Thiel Papa Bear, uh, character.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  The money guy.

• 13:56Chris Ryan?

  Um, Jason Schwartzman, it's his house. He's referred to as Supes or Superman. He is kind of the low, low man on the totem pole financially and possibly also power wise. And then you have these two central performances of Corey Michael Smith as a guy named Venice, who is the richest man in the world and running a Twitter-esque. Uh, social media company that is now also utilizing AI tools as content creation tools. And Rami Youssef plays Jeff, who has made a, an AI, a super AI that, um, it, you know, is, is able, if, if, were, were they to merge their two companies. His AI would be able to, um, edit out some of the nightmares being broadcast on tram, the social media company.

• 14:40Andy Greenwald?

  The word they use is guardrails.

• 14:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:42Andy Greenwald?

  So it's basically like, yeah, he. Uh, Venice has built the egg and Jeff has built the shell.

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:48Andy Greenwald?

  But they're not working together.

• 14:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:50Andy Greenwald?

  Any longer. They had worked together.

• 14:51Chris Ryan?

  As they are holed up in this Utah mountain escape, uh, their technological achievements and economic engineering bring about a societal collapse. Um, both in the U S and around the world and as more and more countries experience financial crisis and rioting. Uh, the force and consider whether their first principles and self-serving tech futurist ideology can actually be the cure as well as the cause.

• 15:15Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 15:16Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 15:16Andy Greenwald?

  They, what do they say about coup?

• 15:18Chris Ryan?

  Coup, coup.

• 15:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Chris Ryan?

  Coup it out. Coup out the U S.

• 15:21Andy Greenwald?

  Coup out the U S.

• 15:22Chris Ryan?

  Um, what did you think?

• 15:23Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I loved it. I loved that we had it. I love that we had it now. I was thrilled and delighted by it. And I'm happy to talk, I mean, I'm very happy to talk about this film. Um, I'd like to ask you, do you want to talk about like the creative choices? How pleasurable it is to have Jesse's writing back in our life? Um, the, the pluses and minuses of having new performers doing it, uh, doing his language, doing his thing. Um, the, uh, differences, which I think are quite apparent and quite intentional between television and film.

• 16:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, or we could just talk big picture conceptually, why this movie made me super fucking jazz, which is almost less to do with any of that. And more to do with what it said, even more than its plot.

• 16:13Chris Ryan?

  You mean the, the sort of political, social viewpoints of it?

• 16:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because.

• 16:19Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to do that first?

• 16:20Andy Greenwald?

  I, I kind of just want to say, watching this movie two days after learning that Elon Musk is tripping his balls off on, uh, a mixture, a potent cocktail. I can only imagine of ketamine, Adderall and MDMA while, uh, slashing all the protections that once actually did make this country great.

• 16:40Andy Greenwald?

  A feeling that I had sort of crystallized a little bit within me, and I think that the film really helped solidify it, which is, all of these people are fucking losers. And I love that this movie is absolutely feral about ripping them to shreds. I do think, and people are like, oh, you know, keyboard warriors, whether you're on tram or Twitter or, you know, in your home that your overall deal at HBO bought you, might say like, well, what does it really matter? Somehow, without us really realizing, and this is a much bigger conversation that I think we sometimes have in like an aggregate, and I would like to have in a larger sense, everything shifted, and it's funny that you said what used to be cool in the 90s. Nothing is cool anymore.

• 17:23Andy Greenwald?

  Everyone just has sort of this inbuilt obedience to money and power and this assumption that, well, people must know what they're doing.

• 17:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Andy Greenwald?

  No, they don't. And these guys are fucking dorks. And they shouldn't be allowed to have any of this.

• 17:36Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 17:37Andy Greenwald?

  The billions, the access, the ideas, the fucking philosophy books that they don't understand. And this idea that like, oh, well, maybe there's some humanity in there due to their elevated stature in society. Fuck that.

• 17:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, I think that the last couple of months have really put a lot of that.

• 17:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I not, I do want to talk about this in terms of the craftsmanship. I do have some criticisms or quibbles and things, but I think broadly, the ferocity of the project and of the tone and of the absolute evisceration of what shouldn't be sacred cows on display by taking these four very recognizable types, both in our lives, on our screens, in our offices of power, and just laughing at them, I think was cathartic for me. I really, really appreciated that. Now, that is not necessarily a sign that it's good art. We could talk about it. I think it was, but I did have kind of a primal yawn response to this.

• 18:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Andy Greenwald?

  That filled me with joy, honestly.

• 18:42Chris Ryan?

  I have a similar but slightly different response.

• 18:44Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 18:45Chris Ryan?

  Which had nothing to do really with Mountain Head, but if you want to just talk about our current moment, I, I find myself kind of, um...

• 18:54Chris Ryan?

  Weirdly hesitant to join in with your like enthusiastic like yes, double fingers up.

• 18:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Chris Ryan?

  These guys are fucking idiots and we should call them that. And I, you know, it's not because-

• 19:04Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, because of Tim Walz.

• 19:05Chris Ryan?

  No, it has nothing to do with that. I think that, and this, this movie kind of, it suggests this a couple of times in a couple of different moments, especially the introduction to the Venice character when he's sitting in the SUV, launching a new version of tram. And he's like, how should I, how should, how many U's should I put in fuck? And a lot of these guys are engagement farming.

• 19:30Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, and they are trying to stir up the very kind of like liberal tears that we're having right now.

• 19:39Andy Greenwald?

  So I don't, I'm not, I'm not crying though.

• 19:40Chris Ryan?

  I can, I know you're not crying. You're, you're actually laughing.

• 19:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. I promise.

• 19:44Chris Ryan?

  I'm not mad.

• 19:45Andy Greenwald?

  All my friends are with me too. They're just out of frame.

• 19:47Chris Ryan?

  I almost just feel like the most powerful thing we could do is just like not have our phones with us all the time. You know, like, and I, I know that, that I don't mean like ignore it or ignore what the consequences of these technologies are. But I'm starting to almost be like, I don't know, short of like an actual revolution in this country, like how much like, this is not normal or like these guys are weird does anything, I guess.

• 20:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I, well, okay. Well, let's unpack that. I don't know what this does other than fill me with a very strong emotion. It didn't make me think, I, I don't think anything that the mountain head will accomplish during its life streaming, um, next to the zone of interest on HBO Max will do anything at all to shift public opinion.

• 20:29Chris Ryan?

  This has nothing to do with mountain head. It's more just about like-

• 20:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I, I, I agree. I do think though, what's missing, and, and look, this goes back, Dec, remember Pop-optimism?

• 20:41Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:41Andy Greenwald?

  Like I, there was, this seems like a digression. I don't mean it, but I'm, I am thinking about these things all the time. And by the way, the headline thing that I was thinking about after I felt those things, watching this movie was, you know what an honorable life would be? Just finding a nice town by the water somewhere and living there. You know what I mean?

• 20:58Chris Ryan?

  You don't want to do that.

• 21:00Andy Greenwald?

  Don't I though? I don't know.

• 21:01Chris Ryan?

  You don't.

• 21:02Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. But, okay, so the pop optimism thing was like 20 years ago, a guy we're friendly with, Kellif Asana, wrote this piece for the New York Times that kind of encapsulated a lot of thinking, this sounds ridiculous when I say it, but thinking, controversial thinking within the pop critic, rock critic establishment, that pop music is good actually. Cause there'd been a big swing.

• 21:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and that the sort of rock criticism tendency towards rewarding traditional rock bands.

• 21:31Andy Greenwald?

  Musicianship and whatever.

• 21:33Chris Ryan?

  Who, you know, had their songwriting authorship was on their sleeve and everything was actually like pop music, and the pop music that was on the radio at the time, had just as much artistic depth as what we ascribed to Radiohead or whatever.

• 21:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I think, look, I was listening to a great Ariana Grande song today that my daughter put me on. So I'm not saying that pop music is bad actually, but I'm saying that there is a, there's a movement over the last 20 years from saying like, well, pop music is actually, all things are good. Kind of like the line about the Venice is just like, it's all funny, right? Comic book culture taking over everything. Now, I'm someone who is like worriedly clicking on like the rumors of the test screening of Fantastic Four, that it's not going great, you know what I mean? So I'm, I am also the problem. I'm not saying I'm removing myself from society, but this larger sweep towards, we don't have, cool isn't a thing anymore.

• 22:29Andy Greenwald?

  And pointing and laughing like Nelson and the Simpsons at these fucking dorks tweaking on drugs, ripping away social services, doesn't seem like a thing that people even think to do anymore. There's an obesance, there's like a, oh, well, they have money, they have power, they have yachts, and people seem to want that, and it's all geared in that direction. And I wish more. Art, whether it's pop music or rock music or American TV shows, actually had the balls to be like, actually, no, actually, these are clowns. Actually, let's use the power of the pen, which is not nearly as powerful as the power of the tweet or whatever else, the Truth Social post. But like, let's actually use these things in this direction. I found it to be.

• 23:12Chris Ryan?

  It's invigorating.

• 23:13Andy Greenwald?

  I found the movie to be invigorating and clarifying, and I wish more art was like that. And this is an unfair, not exactly straw man, but an unfair comparison. We're going to be talking about Your Friends and Neighbors later, and Your Friends and Neighbors, starting place. Not all things should be the same.

• 23:27Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:28Andy Greenwald?

  But it's interesting to be talking about them the same show. The starting point seems to be, you know those titans of industry who live in these giant houses? They're more interesting than they seem, and they're more worthy of our empathy. And I'm not sure that they are. I don't know if the show makes the case that they are.

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  I think that it is no accident that the four shows that we've reacted to the most strongly this year, not shows, but things that we've talked about, whether it's Mountain Head, Atalessen's, The Pit, and Andor, all are.

• 23:53Andy Greenwald?

  The language of revolution, brother?

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  No, no, they're just, they're, they're in their own ways, whether they're speculative, like, you know, Star Wars fiction or docudrama, are kind of meeting the moment head on in some ways. Like, in the little ways that pop culture and entertainment paid for by technology companies can, they're doing that. And I think that, without it being, sounding too corny, I think that it's obviously something that we're responding to on a variety of levels. It doesn't hurt that those are also the four best-made things I've seen this year.

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I just think that anything that can do, we're inundated by screens and images all the time, and all of it is narrative, even if it's, you know, a Des Mois post or something. All of it is sculpted, it's all content that is considered and presented to us. And one thing that I don't think we do enough of is like, oh, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez look great coming out of this restaurant. It seems like sitting together with those two people would be fucking boring. You know, like, I think that would be a boring dinner to be in, you know, in the same way that in

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  But do you wanna like tweet that at the pop?

• 24:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't give a shit.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  Like Just Jared account?

• 24:59Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, why are we constantly buying that this is somehow compelling content? And similarly, what I like-

• 25:05Chris Ryan?

  Because modern life is pretty empty.

• 25:06Andy Greenwald?

  Another thing I like about Mountain Head is these supposed people who have everything-

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Andy Greenwald?

  Are in this hideous house, wearing stupid clothes with nothing to talk about except themselves, eating bullshit. Like, they have no taste, they have no, they have no humanity.

• 25:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Andy Greenwald?

  And I am super, super into that. Like, this is a zombie show to me.

• 25:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  In a very, very compelling way.

• 25:29Chris Ryan?

  So how do you feel when they get midway into this film, and obviously spoilers for what happens in Mountain Head if you haven't seen it yet, but midway into this movie and they start planning a coup of the United States?

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  How do I feel about it?

• 25:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, I mean, like, you're like, I, like, they're, they're, they're characters that encourage your mockery, but like, does it terrify you to watch-

• 25:46Andy Greenwald?

  Of course.

• 25:47Chris Ryan?

  A very plausible scenario play out?

• 25:49Andy Greenwald?

  Of course. And I think that one of the things that is, you know, again, I, I appreciate anything that understands the medium it chooses. And, you know, what I mean is Succession, remember when Succession started? I, I'm worried, I don't, I hope it's okay that we're talking about this, coming at it from different angles. But when Succession started, um, I among, I was among the people who was like, okay, I'm not sure. I was on the fence until I think episode four or five. And one of the larger complaints about the show, and look, we say this week to week, shows take a minute to find their voice, to find their footing, not just comedies, all shows generally, except for the very, very special and very, very rare.

• 26:32Andy Greenwald?

  But one of the complaints that was kind of in the ether about the show was, where's my POV here? Where's my safe spot? Who do I like? Who do I care about in these people? They're all monsters, right? They're all bad people. That was actually, that was both true and untrue.

• 26:46Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  Succession was about monsters, but it was, what it was about was the sort of raging, needy, squalling humanity located inside of these people, that they kind of wanted love and approval.

• 26:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 26:58Andy Greenwald?

  And over time, we couldn't help but love them and feel for them because we were embedded with them.

• 27:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:03Andy Greenwald?

  And we lived with their struggles.

• 27:04Chris Ryan?

  The likability of those characters was probably the dominant conversation over the course of the run of Succession.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  And so when, when, um, when Roman blows up a satellite, what we remember from that is his face. You know what I mean? It's like, ooh, yai. The outside world, uh, was kind of like what Venice says, is it even real? We're embedded with these people over time and their very, very human foibles kept them a little bit softer and a little bit more, they were, and, and a little bit more, not relatable, but a little bit more empathy, worthy of empathy. And then also, they were, up until the very end, when it started to get a little political in an interesting way, they were kind of clownish, right? A movie does not have to do that emotional hand-holding and labor over time.

• 27:48Andy Greenwald?

  A movie can make its point very, uh, almost didactically and directly in a relatively compact amount of time.

• 27:55Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 27:55Andy Greenwald?

  And this suited these characters, this suited this idea, and I feel like it suits the moment. Um, I'm not interested in whatever humanity exists in these four people because I don't think there is any.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, that's, that's a really good point. I did not feel at all, I mean, I never really felt this with Succession. I don't actually, I, I, I don't actually need people who I'm watching on television to be likable or for me to like them or anything like that.

• 28:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, but we were saying the other day, I mean, it is an empathy machine, though. Like, it, just the more time you spend with them, you get a little soft towards them.

• 28:25Chris Ryan?

  Sure, yeah. It doesn't, but it, there's a difference between being soft and being interested and liking them and thinking they're good people, actually, you know?

• 28:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, defending them, sure, sure.

• 28:34Chris Ryan?

  I think sometimes, and this is an interesting segue, so I think what happens is the language of talking on social media and the kind of, the way we reduce everything to, the way things can be reduced to, "I'm rooting for Roman," or "I'm rooting for Kendall," or "Kendall's my guy," which I engaged in plenty of that, like, just in shorthand. I think, uh, it kind of simplifies our relationship to art. So the thing I wanted to bring up about, um, that really leapt out, I watched this movie twice, so once like about a week or so ago, and then once the last night when I got home. And I love the fact that two, two things happen in it. These guys have created tools that distort reality for the rest of the world.

• 29:17Chris Ryan?

  And over the course of a day, their own reality becomes distorted as it gets reflected back to them. As they start to get worried about the incursion of societal collapse, of rioting, of, you know, at one point, they turn on the water, they try to turn on the water to boil an egg and the water, nothing comes out of the tap, and they start, you know, becoming paranoid that the Iranian National Republican Guard are coming for them.

• 29:42Andy Greenwald?

  Outside the windows.

• 29:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and they want to get away from the glass, so they have to go down into a windowless part of the house. And the way in which paranoia that they allowed to run amok has now come back to them, even though, because all they do in this movie is look at their phones and go, uh, are you guys seeing this? And that's why I love that. And then the other thing that I really loved is, obviously Armstrong has now kind of moved into, um, like, the high art phase of his language. Like, he is using the jargon of technology and the tech industry and is deploying it at like his usual level of incredible profane comedy. But what I really picked up

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  on in this one was, these guys using, and I think if you listen to some of the podcasts that I think Jesse was listening to, these guys use language to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions.

• 30:39Andy Greenwald?

  A million, million percent. The weakest thing you can do, right? There's a line in the movie, uh, "He was in big trouble when he tried to take it human." That's weakness.

• 30:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. So I, those were the two things that leapt out at me outside from like, a lot of the hilarious lines or incredible performances.

• 30:53Andy Greenwald?

  But also that everything always, and I appreciate this about, about everything Jesse does, there really is only, there really are only like one or two stories. And one of the stories is, nothing matters until it becomes about you. And in terms of just the clever construction of it, there's the extra little decisions that make it more rich and more resonant. Steve Carell's character can spend the movie quoting Plato and giving historical precedent and browning out Belgium, but every single thing he does is because he doesn't want to die.

• 31:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 31:29Andy Greenwald?

  And he is willing to burn down the world if it means that he could upload his brain into Venice's body cloud.

• 31:37Chris Ryan?

  That was the only part of the film that I tripped over.

• 31:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Chris Ryan?

  Because I was like, the problem is that the guys who are doing this, not because they're about to die. You know what I mean? The real problem isn't people who are actually worried about whether they're going to live forever, whether they're going to live before they get to see transhumanism or get on Mars or something. It's the guys who are in their mid 40s and are fine.

• 32:02Andy Greenwald?

  And are fine with it. Well, no, but they're the ones who want to leave Earth.

• 32:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's the thing, I mean, there's so many things about this that rang, that were resonant, that rang true and that are so profoundly existentially horrifying to me that it's almost impossible to put into words. But the biggest one is the Elon and Bezos ethos, which Venice says, which is just like, we're going to get off this planet anyway.

• 32:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Andy Greenwald?

  There's got to be a better place. I mean, it's, I was joking about this recently, that like the way that when I rewatched The Good Place, I don't know if you remember this part of the show at all, but like when they're challenged again to try to make people who were bound for hell better and they can't with like this toxic dude, they realize the only way to do it is to whisper that there's a better place. That like people will ultimately do anything for an upgrade, you know?

• 32:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Andy Greenwald?

  And that that's the, my approach to flying Delta is the same approach that these monsters have for living on the only planet that can support human life. Like the beauty of it, and I do think, and I mean this sincerely, I think this is-

• 33:11Chris Ryan?

  But that was a tacit endorsement of Delta, I understand.

• 33:15Andy Greenwald?

  It was.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  They did just, did we discuss this? They just, now there's no longer like cabins, you buy experiences.

• 33:23Chris Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 33:23Andy Greenwald?

  The basic experience, your seat doesn't recline, but you've bought an experience.

• 33:27Chris Ryan?

  That's pretty, actually, I'm pretty anti seat reclining.

• 33:31Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 33:32Chris Ryan?

  As like, if they're gonna make the road that small, I'm pretty anti seat reclining.

• 33:38Andy Greenwald?

  See, I'm anti everyone else doing it, but I would like to do it.

• 33:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes, well, that's the problem.

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's not true. I just mean that like, what else can they squeeze from us past our dignity?

• 33:47Chris Ryan?

  You gotta read about Ryanair. Like, Delta is still like the love boat compared to like-

• 33:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 33:52Chris Ryan?

  Some Europeans are like, like, standing as they fly to Ibiza.

• 33:56Andy Greenwald?

  Are you willing to admit now that that's your biggest, your biggest ownership group?

• 34:01Chris Ryan?

  That my mother's maiden name was Aquafina.

• 34:03Andy Greenwald?

  Aquafina Ryanair?

• 34:06Andy Greenwald?

  That's, the family fortune is in good hands.

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• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, the thing I want to say that I think is Jesse's great, great, great attribute, other than his super funny dialogue. Yeah. He is able to, I mean, I'm going to say this. This is going to sound like ultra glazing, but there's a tradition of this, right? Of like, humanizing Titans, monsters. Like, and it is Shakespeare does this, right? Like, there's a play called, of course, there's a play called Julius Caesar. Ever heard of it? But like, it takes someone who was already like the most famous legend in, you know, thousands of years of worldly empire building, and made it human, made it a human story. And I think that I appreciate that in this, you know? For what it's worth, I think, I keep talking about how the knives are out

• 37:54Andy Greenwald?

  and the teeth are sharp in this, but he, and again, I think we'll talk to him about this, but... I don't think he can write this if he hates these people. I think he finds them fascinating.

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  I think he definitely thinks that they can do things that he can't do. I mean, he's talked about that with Bloomberg. He's talked about that. I mean, like, that he is, it's regardless, I think he's trying to avoid having the same, like, is Kendall a good guy?

• 38:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I don't care about that.

• 38:18Chris Ryan?

  But I think he's like, yes, like, I can't, Tesla and Starlink could be good things.

• 38:25Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:25Chris Ryan?

  You know, like, electric cars and internet service for millions of people could be good things. If they're being used as cudgels against, like, cultural diversity and humanity, it's pretty, it's pretty ugly.

• 38:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's just such a, I just found it to be such like an amazing, and again, horrifying, but very, very, I think, accurate depiction of what happens when the idea of galaxy braining becomes normalized.

• 38:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  Like, anything can be, anything is game theory. Anything can be, can be wriggled out of.

• 38:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, you could just be like, I'm, you can be happy about all the people who aren't killing each other. You know, which is a line in the movie.

• 39:07Andy Greenwald?

  You're, you're more impressed by the people who aren't killing each other?

• 39:09Chris Ryan?

  Um, what did you make of the tonal shifts that happened throughout the film?

• 39:13Andy Greenwald?

  So, I, so, okay, so what you're talking about is the, the guys show up and there's this, like, unpleasant backdrop. Then they're looking at their phones and I think at one point, Supes is like, can you mute that, please?

• 39:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:24Andy Greenwald?

  And they're arguing whether their heads actually explode like that or not.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:26Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, then there is kind of a, a dark night of the soul. And I think that where some people, certainly people who weren't aware that they filmed this movie in 10 days, two months ago, might think like, oh, is the, is the outside world going to physically breach the borders? Is it going to crash? Is the world going to end? And they're, you know, the, the barbarians will be at the gate. Uh, what happens instead is much more subtle and I think much more clever, which is the toxicity that they're putting out into the world is rooted within them and metastasizes into this.

• 39:58Andy Greenwald?

  You know, weirdly bloodless, attempt to have a bloodless coup that is actually murder.

• 40:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Andy Greenwald?

  So Jeff, who, and I want to talk specifically about Rami's performance and also the role that character plays throughout, because it's more complicated, I think, than I realized at first pass, confesses to Randall that he's not really going to.

• 40:19Chris Ryan?

  He has no intention of selling his AI to Venice.

• 40:21Andy Greenwald?

  And in fact, he, maybe he thinks this is, this has reached a point where morals might come into play and he might give this software to the government, right, to actually just de, would de-accelerate, right? But by the way, D cell was new to me also, I think, in order to make things active, what was the phrase he uses, like de-intermediate?

• 40:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I liked when he talked about, I'm completely bifurcated right now, I'm either spending time on work or on my son, but I need to give him space.

• 40:52Andy Greenwald?

  Need to give him space right now. The shot of the baby with the chess pieces on the dirty ground was phenomenal.

• 40:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think people who are like, we couldn't possibly make up a new pronoun, language is fixed, need to watch Jesse Armstrong shows for a while and realize how beautiful language still can be.

• 41:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, so he confesses this to Randall and he's, he's gone soft and so Randall then starts to float the idea of de-accelerating Jeff's.

• 41:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 41:19Andy Greenwald?

  Heartbeat.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of flatlining him into death.

• 41:22Chris Ryan?

  All these different sort of, you know, like effective altruist-esque, like reasoning games of why it would be best for the world if Jeff were removed from the world.

• 41:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I found it, see, I didn't find it to be a tonal shift. I didn't find it to be a comp in which there is a more of a shift might be like, and Mark Myllet is the producer of this, as a longtime collaborator with Jesse, Mark Myllet's film, The Menu, which has a, okay, what's going on? Okay, we're making fun of fine dining. Oh, okay, we're doing this now.

• 41:55Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 41:57Andy Greenwald?

  What happens in Mountain Head isn't that to me. It's just kind of more of the same and the stakes are just getting noisier. I, I was laughing more than I was feeling dread.

• 42:07Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:08Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't think, and I think this is also part of the purpose, that these physically inept clowns.

• 42:15Andy Greenwald?

  Could figure out how to kill someone. Like, I didn't think that was going to happen, but I was kind of thrilled that it was pushing us towards that place.

• 42:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's also, uh, there is an element of like, this is the inevitability of like, if you are playing a zero-sum game where at the end of the day, only so many people can hold, hold money, hold power, hold whatever, then even within that circle, it's like Survivor, right? Somebody's got to get voted off before you get to final three, you know, like.

• 42:46Andy Greenwald?

  And it's in its own way, it's a nice little reminder about how far we've, quote The Wire, how far we've done fell from actually doing things in the world.

• 42:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Andy Greenwald?

  And thus, understanding the consequence of our actions. Um, there's plenty of studies and both lived, and also tons of lived experience that, you know, people say absolutely heinous shit to each other, um, just routinely through the, through the shield of their screens and phones, that even people who, with whom you would have profound disagreements with would never say to your face.

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  And, and that has, um, what's the word? Ruined the world. But, um, but I love the subtlety, and look, I don't think this movie, this movie isn't necessarily subtle. That might not be the right word for it.

• 43:35Chris Ryan?

  So then you're disavowing all your tweets at Dak Prescott, then? This is, that's what you're doing?

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  That, look, that, that account has never been, never, ever been tied to me.

• 43:44Chris Ryan?

  Find a new slant.

• 43:45Andy Greenwald?

  Find a new slant. Um, that, uh, um, yeah, I don't think there's anything particularly subtle about this movie, but I do think there's something, there's something elegant about the way that these profound truths about our broken world found physical form in the movie in ways that aren't even, it's not even, that isn't even what the movie was necessarily quote unquote about.

• 44:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 44:07Andy Greenwald?

  But the, the wild, wild, wild, um, distinction and disassociation from being able to, you know. Can co-conspire with revolutionaries in Argentina over FaceTime.

• 44:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Andy Greenwald?

  But then also maybe you can't push your friend over a balcony.

• 44:26Chris Ryan?

  But like, I mean, even when they try to do the Argentina coup and they send Supes down there to be president via via Zoom. And he can't stop pitching his wellness deck, you know, like that he has.

• 44:40Chris Ryan?

  The total shifts I was talking about were like my experience with this film was almost like an experience of succession in miniature. When it first started, you're like, oh, okay, like I have to get back in this kind of fighting way. Like this is how people talk. This is how people react to the way people talk. I think there were moments where I felt like the Correll character was not quite geolocated. Like it's in the beginning, it's almost like he talks with like a Brahmin accent. And it seems like he's kind of like this very elegant guy, but then it starts to like devolve over the course of the movie.

• 45:14Chris Ryan?

  You know, I think that Armstrong's dialogue is one that is like learned over time rather than immediately grasped.

• 45:20Andy Greenwald?

  And the rhythms too.

• 45:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, maybe Kieran Culkin is this preeminent sayer of those words because they are the closest to the way he seems to actually talk.

• 45:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Chris Ryan?

  The middle of this film, like the middle hour or so absolutely sings like the four of them moving from room to room. As the world falls apart, trying to decide like who is going to take what role and whether or not like Jeff's going to sell. But just the interpersonal relationships are so fascinating. And then the last 30 minutes or so is kind of a slapstick, you know, fully black comedy. Like, well, what if this happened? I loved it all. I'm just saying, I think that that might be how the tone, it's the tonal shifts are are are difficult to pull off, I would say. And I think he does do it.

• 46:10Andy Greenwald?

  I'm interested, I guess I see what you're saying, that there is a journey through the night. I found the tone pretty consistent, but I I do agree with you about Randall. And I also wonder if that that has to do with Correll baggage. He.

• 46:29Andy Greenwald?

  You know, there's a shorthand that we have with certain actors, particularly TV actors. And recently, we talked about how some creators have smartly taken advantage of that.

• 46:42Andy Greenwald?

  The best example being Noah Wiley in the pit. We didn't need to learn anything really about Dr. Robbie. We already had deep wells of empathy for him and believe that he was doing his best and on the right side of things. A different example of that might be the pluses and minuses of Jon Hamm in Your Friends and Neighbors with what we carry over from Don Draper. With Correll, we're pretty used to just believing that he means well despite being socially awkward.

• 47:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Andy Greenwald?

  Or despite making a bad first impression, despite maybe not being suited to a leadership role. He is a good actor and a good performer and has done a lot to try and combat that. But there are some things that you can't fight, right? So I do think that maybe more than the other. With Rami, I think you also have empathy for him because also, you know, if you've, if viewers have seen him at all, it's being comedic for the most part. Or even in Poor Things, he's sweet natured and you kind of feel for him.

• 47:37Andy Greenwald?

  So Correll shows up and you're like, well, okay, well, there's a voice of reason here at least. Or there's a buffoon and the fact that he is in some ways the darkest character is probably what drew him to it. But I can see that that may have been a bumpier path through the, through the movie.

• 47:50Chris Ryan?

  I just wanted to say, I think Corey Michael Smith is incredible. He has done a couple of Todd Haynes movies. He kind of, I think a lot of people saw him, you may have seen him in Gotham. I think he played the Riddler, but he really kind of came to light during Jason Reiten's probably underseen Saturday Night movie. He's a revelation in this movie. He obviously knows this dialogue inside and out, but it's the physical performance.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:18Chris Ryan?

  It's the constant like kind of power breathing and exploding. And this guy who's, you know, probably doing like full body blood transfusions and everything else. And like, I, he had the edge that I was really looking for in this film and I thought he was incredible in it.

• 48:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think he's the breakout of it. I think his performance is the best and it's the most crucial because basically he's the villain, but he's also in some ways the protagonist.

• 48:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 48:44Andy Greenwald?

  He's also.

• 48:44Chris Ryan?

  He's also the court jester in some ways, even though I know that Supes is there to kind of be the comic.

• 48:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think it's an interesting thing, like you can feel.

• 48:53Andy Greenwald?

  Part of, this is also part of it, and I think as we talk about the direction of it, this will come up more.

• 48:59Andy Greenwald?

  Creators don't want to just do the same thing. And so it's almost possible to mind read, maybe not fairly, Jesse being like, I want to do, I want to find similar synergy that I found with my cast in Succession. And I just feel like Corey Michael Smith, like if he was making Succession today, Corey Michael Smith would be in it. Like, he would be someone that he would cast in it. He would be in the running to play Kendall, you know, like he would be in the mix. Maybe he already was and he remembered him. Similarly, Jason Schwartzman can do this. You know, the thing that Jason Schwartzman does, and I really, as someone who likes him and has liked him for a long time, I've really enjoyed filmmakers kind of figuring him out and knowing how and when to deploy him.

• 49:41Andy Greenwald?

  And there's certain filmmakers like Alex Ross Perry or Wes Anderson that just know what to do with him. And he's exceptional in those things. He exists in a Jesse Armstrong Succession universe. Like, there's another version of this where he gets, you know, in Earth 615, he's cast as Roman.

• 50:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, or Fisher Stevens.

• 50:03Andy Greenwald?

  Or he could play Happy, exactly.

• 50:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Andy Greenwald?

  So those fit, whereas I think Rami and Steve Carell were more outside of the Armstrong box. And I think there were advantages to that, and then maybe some, I don't know. I'm not saying it's a disadvantage, but I do think that some people's bumping, if it exists with this movie, might come from those performances more.

• 50:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Anything else you wanted to hit on with this?

• 50:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, so much. It's so good. I'll say that

• 50:34Andy Greenwald?

  I found the direction at times to be slightly, not lacking, but

• 50:43Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was practical.

• 50:44Andy Greenwald?

  Practical, yeah. Again, not all writers need to direct, not all things need to be super-directed. I think that this was well-chosen to be a debut because it is essentially a staged play across a large set. There were a couple moments, and I'm rarely this guy, but there were a couple moments when I felt like cuts didn't really match, or didn't really, or kind of broke momentum. And I don't say that to criticize the editors. That also might be that there certainly were no reshoots. They did this so fast, they had to make do with what they got.

• 51:14Chris Ryan?

  So I believe like, three of the actors signed on before there was even really a script. They just signed on to the idea. And then, because of the moment, Jesse Armstrong decided like, it would be great if we could just shoot this and then get it up. And this is one of the, you hear about things going into the HBO pipeline of like, yep, it's on the

• 51:33Andy Greenwald?

  It's a slow development pipeline.

• 51:34Chris Ryan?

  It's in line, you know, like, it'll come out when it comes out. And this obviously went from green light to uploaded to the servers in a record time.

• 51:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yep, absolutely. Do you think, well, game it out, if this had been more stylishly directed, and I say that intentionally, like, with a more established, or more, or a noisier directorial point of view, do you think there would have been pluses to that, minuses to that? Did you notice the direction at all?

• 52:07Chris Ryan?

  I guess I didn't. And I guess I didn't in the way that you would maybe notice, I don't know, I mean, I guess, one of the great things about Sidney Lumet is that you don't notice the direction. You know, if there's a huge school directing, that's like, if I don't notice what's happening, it means it's doing the right thing.

• 52:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's generally my preferred style.

• 52:29Chris Ryan?

  Jesse writes his stuff, I think he probably is emphasizing what these people are doing, making it coherent where they're sitting in relationship to one another. And then, yes, like, I guess if I went back and looked at it from a visual standpoint, I think one thing that he's talked about that I think is useful is that outside of the windows are these giant mountains. So there's like, there is an inherent, like, pleasing visual landscape, but it's kind of funny because You know, you walk into this house and it's kind of great to have the characters be like, this is a piece of shit. You know what I mean?

• 53:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 53:03Chris Ryan?

  I hate this house.

• 53:04Andy Greenwald?

  And no one looks at anything anymore. They're only looking at their phones.

• 53:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Andy Greenwald?

  And no one believes what they see.

• 53:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Andy Greenwald?

  The scene where they go on, um, what are those, you know, the snow, the snow cats?

• 53:14Chris Ryan?

  Snowmobiles, yeah.

• 53:14Andy Greenwald?

  Or whatever, snowmobiles, and then they, they rip their shirts and yell and like-

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  And put their net worth on their skin.

• 53:19Andy Greenwald?

  That was visually more dynamic.

• 53:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Andy Greenwald?

  Both because the colors and the outfits and it's popping and it was visual. Um, that's also the one time, you know, it was to happen in succession all the time where we'd be like, this is written by a British person. Like, like I don't, I, I, I believe that there is this kind of like,

• 53:35Andy Greenwald?

  you know, I'm, I'm, I'm smarter than you because I have read Hegel kind of-

• 53:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:40Andy Greenwald?

  Thinking within this, this class, but I don't know if they would say diadem or, and refer to a poor person as soups because of, you know, the soup ladle.

• 53:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 53:48Andy Greenwald?

  That felt a little like, uh, public school.

• 53:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:51Andy Greenwald?

  But I did think it was interesting. I think it suited the material, but I did think it was interesting that Jesse himself isn't necessarily picking up, uh, Mark Mylott's like succession style, which is not Mark Mylott's style.

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Andy Greenwald?

  It's this style he found for succession, which is very, very handheld, kind of moving with the dialogue and around the people, giving it a different sort of dynamism.

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  Again, I think there's an intention there and hopefully we'll talk to him about it. I, I just want to be, there were moments when I felt that it, it seemed a little inert or flat. But I'm watching it as a TV show, honestly, even though it is a movie.

• 54:25Chris Ryan?

  Zoller Sights wrote an article for Vulture-

• 54:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Chris Ryan?

  Where he visited and, uh, I think he visited the set. And Jesse mentioned to him that at one point he considered having the guys watching ATN.

• 54:36Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, to put it in the same universe.

• 54:38Chris Ryan?

  Um, but that he felt like that would be too cute. I think even if Mylott had directed this and it had been successioned out.

• 54:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  I probably would have bumped against that.

• 54:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think it was intention. I think it's, and it's also as in our conversation about showrunners and what they do next last week, like- This is part of his growth, his career growth. This isn't his next definitive statement. He plans to make other statements. I think there's something that I'm trying to articulate that I think we can table, because I'm just looking for it, which is how you use the space and how you comment on the, what did you refer to modern life as? Existentially empty?

• 55:10Chris Ryan?

  Empty, yeah.

• 55:12Andy Greenwald?

  There's a scene in the, and there are a few of these unfortunately, but in the Your Friends and Neighbors finale when, and this is not a spoiler for people who haven't watched that show or are still hoping to watch the finale, where Jon Hamm meets with an attorney in the attorney's office. And it is a glass box and the attorney is wearing a like double-breasted suit with gold buttons. And the table is strewn with papers.

• 55:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Andy Greenwald?

  And the papers are like law case papers. And I'm watching this, as I have a couple of other times when I'm watching that show, where I'm like, who's making the decisions here? This doesn't seem like a real law office. It seems like a room with windows with papers on the table. Conversely, in Mountain Head, everything is intentionally kind of shitty.

• 55:52Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:52Andy Greenwald?

  But that's a very fine line to walk, right? And so maybe that's the role of the mountains themselves or the natural landscape and everything to counterbalance with the like, the perfect little slices of fruit. But like, one of the hardest laughs in Mountain Head is when, you know, they're talking about murder and then it cuts to, it cuts to the characters sitting at a table and there's just a tray of little sliders on pretzel buns.

• 56:13Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, I can't believe you skipped the actual funniest part of Mountain Head, which is-

• 56:17Andy Greenwald?

  Smoothies?

• 56:18Chris Ryan?

  When Supes is like, I got, I got this turbot and they're like-

• 56:21Andy Greenwald?

  Haven't we talked about the turbot?

• 56:23Chris Ryan?

  They're like, we're here to eat chicken buckets or whatever. He's like-

• 56:26Andy Greenwald?

  Say it.

• 56:27Chris Ryan?

  He's like, it's a picking fish.

• 56:29Andy Greenwald?

  It's a picking fish.

• 56:32Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna put this bottom feeder on the steamer. I don't really like turbot.

• 56:38Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I feel often with like, light fish-

• 56:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  It's less your opinions on the fish and more the preparation. You know? Like, you've just had, maybe you've been burned by turbot.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I've never seen a piece of burned turbot, but maybe it would prove-

• 56:53Andy Greenwald?

  You've been tormented by turbot?

• 56:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, so, any, any other thoughts on this? Like, I, I'm, I'm very fired up on it. I was very excited about it. But it is a different experience because this is a, this is a one shot.

• 57:08Chris Ryan?

  I was just thrilled. I was thrilled to feel like, uh, TV was alive and TV was reactive and TV was present in a moment. And that a great writer was like, this is really interesting to me. I'm going to try and do this quickly. That is like, to me, a dream situation. If we got three of these a year, or four of these a year, where a really interesting filmmaker or writer was like, I read something, I'm really, that just got my engine going. And I put together a small cast and we did like a fun little thing. Like, independent cinema is dying, or is being swallowed up and regurgitated as like prestige franchise movies and stuff. Like, we need stuff like this.

• 57:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 57:47Chris Ryan?

  Where, I'm, yeah, I'm sure this, this probably costs several million dollars to make. And it's not cheap. But, the way that they made it, the way that it feels and the fact that it was able to get to screens now, although I would say probably with not a ton of fanfare, um, I think is, I think is awesome. And I, I'd love to see more of it.

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  But people watching Barbie on Max will be like, you may also like this. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm not saying that the people who made this film are brave, but I am saying that they're not scared.

• 58:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 58:16Andy Greenwald?

  Which I love, I love.

• 58:18Chris Ryan?

  Or maybe they're really scared and that's why they made it.

• 58:20Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. They're not scared to say how they're feeling about things.

• 58:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:23Andy Greenwald?

  And they ran right at it. And people who listen to me on this mic for weeks or months know that like, I'm just kind of over the, the back patting certainty that yes, we're doomed, but it's going to be mushroom fungus and heroes will emerge in the darkness. Like, actually, we're probably already fucked in 10,000 ways we don't realize because we're all complicit in it and there's nothing we can do. And it's going to be stupid. Because if this one thing the last 10 years have taught us is that there is no bottom for stupid. And the fact that this movie walks us to the brink, and then at the end, nothing is really fixed.

• 58:57Chris Ryan?

  It's not like it's better. They've just decided they're going to go behind Randall's back, cut him out. Do the AI and presumably life will go on.

• 59:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  But much worse.

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  And presumably then somewhere along the line, thanks to this gift they've given the world, a Palestinian kid will see something an Israeli kid made.

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  Some sick content.

• 59:14Andy Greenwald?

  Some sick content and say, we, do you want to say the quote and say, what's he gonna say?

• 59:18Chris Ryan?

  Hey, okay.

• 59:20Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, okay.

• 59:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's talk a little bit about your friends and neighbors. I'm sorry. I have to rush us a little bit on this one. Uh, so we hadn't really talked about this for the second half of the season.

• 59:30Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 59:31Chris Ryan?

  And I would say during that second half of the season, friends and neighbors made a relatively unexpected turn for me.

• 59:37Andy Greenwald?

  Me too.

• 59:37Chris Ryan?

  Into being more of a crime show.

• 59:39Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 59:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think it had all the, uh, all the stuff about suburban life and malaise and perhaps, I wanted to put it to you this way.

• 59:49Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  We've talked a little bit about the Coop characters, voiceover, his monologue and the pluses and minuses of that.

• 59:58Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  Is there a world in which this show could have shown us rather than telling us all that stuff over the course of a season? And kind of depicted the inner life of this protagonist, but it turns out almost everybody he comes into contact with in, in his life.

• 1:00:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:00:17Chris Ryan?

  Is feeling this sense of displacement, is feeling the sense of sort of malaise. And even I think for as ridiculous as the Agatha Christie-esque ending of this, uh, of this season was.

• 1:00:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:00:29Chris Ryan?

  The whole idea is like the Olivia Munn character is having a parallel experience to Coop.

• 1:00:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:00:35Chris Ryan?

  Um, Sam is, is got her own monologue, has her own analysis. And Coop is like, you have no idea. Like I also do long voiceovers of my, of my empty life. But there was a way in which I was kind of like, oh, like maybe this was the show. Now maybe it's not as exciting as who framed Coop.

• 1:00:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:54Chris Ryan?

  You know, and, and is Elena gonna get her brother out of Hock to the, to the gangster?

• 1:00:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Chris Ryan?

  But

• 1:01:01Andy Greenwald?

  The show's a strong argument for only children because the siblings are dragging the show down. But go on.

• 1:01:05Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes, there that is. I think if you did the no sibling cut of of this show, it probably is like forty two minutes an episode and much fleeter.

• 1:01:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:01:15Chris Ryan?

  Of it. Um, but what I I got that's what that's what I arrived at was that at the end, one of the main selling points of the show was this acerbic, you know, interior monologue that this guy had, which actually I thought gave the game up way too early.

• 1:01:29Andy Greenwald?

  I completely agree with you. Um, instead of answering by doubling down a negative, I want to respond with a positive that I think proves that yours, I think your your supposition is correct. And and that also, on a positive note, proves that there's room to grow.

• 1:01:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Andy Greenwald?

  Because as we've said from the beginning, the show got a second season before this even premiered. They're filming it now. Um, there is a sequence in the penultimate episode, the eighth episode, When Did We Become These People, where, you know, modeling behavior that I don't think I would do, while facing, um, lifelong incarceration for a murder he didn't commit, um, Jon Hamm's character Coop, uh, grabs his best friend slash accountant Barney and his, uh, cuckolding, basketball-playing neighbor, Nick, and they go clubbing. And the sequence is directed and shot with real verve and lift and light. Stephanie Lang

• 1:02:26Andy Greenwald?

  directed the episode. And Hamm dances. And it's funny and it's fun. And the entire, and then they go to a golf course to sort of work on the beginnings of their hangover together. And there's a little bit of like heart to heart briefly before Barney passes out. That sequence showed us, that sequence did not have any voiceover. That sequence showed boy men struggling with their roles in themselves and friendship and letting go and holding back and what they're holding in a way that felt, I'm not going to say it felt like exhilarating or or groundbreaking, but it felt entertaining and it felt compelling. And it was just blessedly free of the show telling us about the importance of these moments.

• 1:03:10Andy Greenwald?

  I think through the first season, what what I struggled with was the show was pitched, or appeared to be pitched as, what if this guy broke a little bit bad? And there's a lot of fun in that.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  Devilish fun of the idea of Jon Hamm stealing from pricks and doing it in stylish ways. The degree to which the show turned into presumed innocent. Really surprised me.

• 1:03:31Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:31Andy Greenwald?

  And it really disappointed me because it felt like there's a lot more fun still to be had. And again, there's a second season coming. But one of the things that I think the show founded on was the idea of behind the facades of these mansions, people are more interesting than you think. And so far, it hasn't made that case.

• 1:03:47Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:03:47Andy Greenwald?

  So far, no one is very interesting or more interesting, I think.

• 1:03:50Chris Ryan?

  They all have like complex emotional lives.

• 1:03:52Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe, and they have good actors performing them.

• 1:03:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:56Andy Greenwald?

  And there's potential there. But if you pull back, not 10,000 feet, 500 feet, the people that Coop is dunking on in the last two episodes for their pettiness and their vindictiveness and their backstabbingness and their judgment really aren't any different from him. He just has a voiceover.

• 1:04:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Andy Greenwald?

  So, and yet the show carries with it a very heavy moral compass that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Like you should, you should still be in love with your ex-wife this way. You should take advantage of your friends and neighbors this way. It's okay to steal from them, just don't steal the SATs at the expense of your daughter getting into an Ivy League college. The morality meter for a show like this, I think, should be thrown out the window because everybody is shoveling the same shit. But with it, it kind of has this metronomic like, but you know, your crazy sister still should sing whole songs and not be shamed by her ex. It's like, sure, I don't think anyone's arguing that.

• 1:04:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just sort of struggling to understand why that's there to make me feel a certain way about something else that it has nothing to do with.

• 1:04:59Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the sister stuff, I just wanted to throw out one other observation.

• 1:05:03Andy Greenwald?

  Just stop there. I wanted to throw it out too.

• 1:05:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I had this weird sensation as I was watching this season, especially later in the run, knowing that it had been renewed, knowing that there was a lot of enthusiasm for it, that it felt like at once they were wrapping up the series. And also on season five, where we're like, oh yeah, now the sister's got a plot, huh? You know, and like Elena's got a plot and we've got this whole thing with Barney and whether or not his wife is spending too much money and.

• 1:05:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:05:30Chris Ryan?

  Like, we were. If you were gonna try and recap everything that happened on this season, we would be here for like 20 minutes. We're like, oh yeah, and then there's also this lawsuit that may or may not happen between Coop and Corbin Burnson's fucking him over and all this stuff. And you're like, oh yeah, and then also, like, there's this whole thing with Ally and Bruce, and is Bruce's wife gonna find out about it?

• 1:05:49Andy Greenwald?

  And all the kids have relationships, and they're getting their first love.

• 1:05:52Chris Ryan?

  That's deep, I mean, like, that's, I guess, good writing in the sense that all these people are really well thought out. There's nobody in the background, but like, there was a, there was a strange rush to get everybody's five minutes of court time.

• 1:06:05Andy Greenwald?

  And it dilutes things, because one of the things, again, the show has an opportunity to continue, so I think things can be addressed. One season of a large ensemble show later, is there any character or pairing that you're excited to spend time with? And I, honestly, for me, the answer from one season is no, which is surprising. Usually, there's, like, I think Hoon Lee's performance as Barney is maybe the most, it pops the most, I was the most excited about that, I'd like to see more about that, I like them together, that works, so you can write towards that. I love Amanda Peet, I like when she's on the show, but I'm not finding her particularly compelling enough on her own, or when she's paired with other people, do you know what I mean?

• 1:06:44Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:06:44Andy Greenwald?

  When certain things, certain things, kind of, even in the early going of a show, you start to see the roots that are gonna come together. And also, it is sort of surprising. I think the end of the season suggests, right, that he's, he's not ready to go back to his old life, he's going to continue to rob and steal things.

• 1:07:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:07:02Andy Greenwald?

  I have some questions about that, just in terms of, like, I guess he's gonna still have income in the second season, and how is he going to explain it?

• 1:07:08Chris Ryan?

  Does he get his back pay?

• 1:07:10Andy Greenwald?

  It's just a couple of things where it's like, it casts a very, very wide net, and I think maybe, as Keith McNally writes in his memoir, which I'm loving, by the way...

• 1:07:21Chris Ryan?

  Please, let's wrap on this.

• 1:07:22Andy Greenwald?

  He says that, you know, now that he's in his 70s, he really wishes he had spent his entire life learning about one thing, instead of being a dilettante at many things. Jack of all trades, master of none, kind of thing, and, you know, for the show to be like, okay, here's how he's going to become a thief, is one thing, for then the show to be like, also, here's how police work works, also, now it's a legal drama. A rich hedge fund guy is accused of killing the husband of the hot neighbor he was having an affair with, but the press seems wildly uninterested in this.

• 1:07:55Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and then he just walks back into his job and then rejects it and all the spotlight. I mean, his life would be changed forever.

• 1:08:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:01Andy Greenwald?

  Right? Now, I'm not saying all shows need to be documentaries, but I'm saying I would rather that the show was.

• 1:08:07Chris Ryan?

  Pick a reality.

• 1:08:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and sew your patch.

• 1:08:11Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:08:13Andy Greenwald?

  But everything that we're saying, and I'm not just saying this to like end on a positive note, the genuinely, the beauty of television, why I like it for ongoing shows, everything we said is fixable.

• 1:08:24Chris Ryan?

  They get another at bat.

• 1:08:25Andy Greenwald?

  They get another at bat, yes. And as far as we know, I mean, maybe it all has been fixed. These could be old conversations that Apple and Jonathan Tropper and his team have had, and there's something else to build on. I'm glad we finished the season, but I was surprised and confounded by some of it.

• 1:08:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Andy Greenwald?

  But then there's the moment in the club. And it's like, okay, they should go to more. The lesson is go to more clubs.

• 1:08:49Chris Ryan?

  We can wrap it up there. We'll be back later in the week. Thursday, we'll talk a little bit about Department Q. It's great to see you.

• 1:08:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's great to see you.

• 1:08:55Chris Ryan?

  And thanks to Devin and John for producing today. We'll be back on Thursday.

• 1:08:59Andy Greenwald?

  Do you like our new revolutionary tone? I think it's gonna be good for us in the coming months, brother.

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