‘The Bear’ Season 4, Episodes 8-10 and the ‘Ironheart’ Finale

Chris and Andy talk about the negative reviews of ‘Ironheart’ before it was released and the exciting reveal of Chris’s highly anticipated Marvel character in the season finale (12:21). Next, they discuss the ending of Season 4 of ‘The Bear,’ including how the writers handle parent-child dynamics and the renewal of the show for a fifth season (30:11). Finally, they break down their annual Fourth of July barbecue playlist (01:03:29). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen and Olivia Crerie Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's walk-cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season,

• 0:45Speaker 00

  whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weathertech.com today.

• 0:56Speaker 01

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

• 1:02Chris 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 to smoke darts and talk about our moms, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:17Andy Greenwald?

  That's very true. I, I'm just taking it in. You know, I'm just getting used to your musk again. Been a minute.

• 1:23Chris Ryan?

  Tanned and toned by the Pacific Northwest, but I return to loser Angeles to deliver a prestige television podcast like none other. Greenwald, it's great to see you.

• 1:33Andy Greenwald?

  You do the work.

• 1:34Chris Ryan?

  A little bit of housekeeping.

• 1:35Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 1:36Chris Ryan?

  TheWatch at Spotify.com to email us. TheWatchPod underscore on Instagram to follow us.

• 1:41Andy Greenwald?

  Are we getting a lot of emails?

• 1:43Chris Ryan?

  No, not since the pit. Nobody, nobody writes us.

• 1:46Andy Greenwald?

  Not even.

• 1:46Chris Ryan?

  And it's actually kind of embarrassing. I hear all these other podcasts and they're like, you guys, the inbox is overflowing. Maybe my spam filter's on.

• 1:52Andy Greenwald?

  I signed us up for a lot of actual emails.

• 1:56Chris Ryan?

  We're sustaining donors.

• 1:58Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 1:58Chris Ryan?

  Um, eh, you can watch us, uh, the Ringer dash TV on YouTube or on Spotify where I hope you listen to us. A little bit of a programming note, you know, today, Andy and I are going to talk about the last three episodes of The Bear, season four, but not the last three episodes of The Bear.

• 2:12Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:13Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and then we're also going to chat a little bit about some news and, uh, some, we make a barbecue playlist every summer for July 4th, so we'll chat a little bit about that.

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  That, that, that'll be shared on my, uh, public, uh, Spotify.

• 2:26Chris Ryan?

  What about your private Spotify?

• 2:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's just for you, Doug. Those are just, those are just, those are just the little, little gems I uncover.

• 2:33Chris Ryan?

  It's just you crying to Holocene. Uh, and then on Monday, Andy and I are going to talk about the Apple TV show Smoke.

• 2:39Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:39Chris Ryan?

  And the Netflix show, The Eternot. I think that's how you pronounce it.

• 2:42Andy Greenwald?

  Eternot, isn't it?

• 2:43Chris Ryan?

  Eternot.

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think it's about being an eternal astronaut. I mean, it, it sounds different. I mean, in, in the Argentine accent, it's a little.

• 2:50Chris Ryan?

  The thing is that as a Boca Juniors fan, I was trying to honor them. Uh, you know, we, so those are the next two shows we'll be talking about a little bit. Uh, we'll see how far we go into them. You know, I haven't checked them out yet, but it's a long weekend.

• 3:01Andy Greenwald?

  What about, uh, did you mention that we're going to be fully spoiling the Disney plus series, Ironheart?

• 3:06Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  In the first 15 minutes of this podcast.

• 3:08Chris Ryan?

  If you have not watched Ironheart.

• 3:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  I don't know what to tell you, because.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  We're going to tell you something.

• 3:13Chris Ryan?

  Couldn't be me. Like, I, I definitely watched Ironheart.

• 3:16Andy Greenwald?

  You did some of the work.

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but first some news.

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Well, my first news is I did break your heart because I wanted to follow up on our conversation from our last podcast that maybe I took a little bit more seriously than you, which is that.

• 3:28Chris Ryan?

  The roommate thing?

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  That, yeah, a cou- a couple of things. Um.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  Even house hunting?

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  It wasn't so much, I think there was a moment in the podcast where I was like, we were, we were like, oh, later in life, they live together. I was like, that's us. I was like, I thought that if we ever, you know, God forbid, but if we were like.

• 3:42Chris Ryan?

  We were talking about Carrie and Miranda.

• 3:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we were retiring in the second season when we were rebooted on a sort of a lesser Spotify service. That's what we'll do. But I did, our dream took a blow today when I discovered, uh, first of all, I found out that one of the, the stalwart entertainments of our twenties, the Nintendo 64 game, Perfect Dark, I found out today, this is a real roller coaster, was being rebooted for Xbox and it looked sick AF. But unfortunately, I found out it was being rebooted in the news item that it was being canceled and pulped and never will be released.

• 4:14Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it was canceled because they found some bad tweets by the Perfect Dark characters from a while ago?

• 4:18Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think the star of Perfect Dark was Milkshake Ducks? What do you think her politics were? Democratic socialist? I don't.

• 4:26Chris Ryan?

  It's all up for grabs now.

• 4:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 4:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. She, you know what? You know what I can tell you for sure from my memories of Perfect Dark? That she favors a robust foreign policy.

• 4:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Yes, she does.

• 4:36Andy Greenwald?

  Her domestic agenda is unknown.

• 4:38Chris Ryan?

  She doesn't mind? Regime change.

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:40Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. Bespoke DIY regime change. Great game. Sorry about that. We'll have to find something else to do in our future.

• 4:45Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let's start with probably the biggest news out of television this week.

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  Non bear, non bear division.

• 4:51Chris Ryan?

  Non bear division. Um, and I read mostly about this in Leslie Goldberg's Anklar newsletter. That Neil Druckmann is stepping away from the television adaptation of the game that he created. Uh, Last of Us. Obviously, we had a little bit of a roller coaster with Last of Us this season. Um, some mixed responses from this, this jury of two. But, uh, a hung jury, you could say.

• 5:15Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think?

• 5:15Chris Ryan?

  Um, and then I found this pretty fascinating. You know, I mean, the level of involvement that Druckmann had was, goes way beyond an executive producer and consulting credit.

• 5:27Andy Greenwald?

  True.

• 5:27Chris Ryan?

  He, uh, directed several episodes, co-wrote many episodes, or at least more than a few episodes with Craig Mazin. Um, he, obviously, one of the sort of major selling points of The Last of Us as a video game is the cinematic cutscenes, the deep narrative, the deep sort of storytelling that the video game comes with. Some people have actually put together like assemblages of those cutscenes to basically be, you can watch a playthrough of the game by going through this. And this is an interesting story. Last of Us, uh, is essentially the flagship show of HBO at this point.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  Um.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  With Dragon?

• 6:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, I think those are their, those are certainly their.

• 6:10Chris Ryan?

  Biggest shows.

• 6:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Andy Greenwald?

  I think there's, there's one other really big show coming that I'm aware of.

• 6:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh. Yeah.

• 6:17Andy Greenwald?

  That's the only one I'm thinking of.

• 6:18Chris Ryan?

  Um, I hope that they don't have an end to the garbage strike in Philadelphia because I will podcast from a pile of trash.

• 6:26Andy Greenwald?

  I.

• 6:26Chris Ryan?

  For task.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like that's.

• 6:29Chris Ryan?

  I will be the rat king of Philadelphia.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's playing into the haters' hands, honestly. Like, the jokes write themselves.

• 6:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think the other thing that's worth noting about this news that makes it kind of surprising is, with the full caveat that we know nothing about anything that's gone on behind the scenes. We've never spoken to either of these guys, as far as I know, unless you have like a, remember the time you were like, "Yeah, I was just texting with my pal Tracy Letts."

• 6:51Chris Ryan?

  But I did, I have not had the honor to do that with Craig Mazin.

• 6:55Andy Greenwald?

  How do you communicate? Signal? DM?

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  We, we just leave Geiger counters outside of each other's houses.

• 7:01Andy Greenwald?

  Sweet. But the, the, the, the public facing relationship between Craig Mazin, who is an Emmy reward, did he win for Chernobyl? I believe he did.

• 7:10Chris Ryan?

  I believe so.

• 7:11Andy Greenwald?

  Emmy award-winning prestige television merchant and Neil Druckmann, who has made this prestige-level video game, was the, the, the warmth of the collaboration was part of the public-facing selling point of the show. Right? That like, this is the best-case scenario for the types of IP stories that, that HBO are developing, where it's like, we can put our best talent together with the medium's best talent and make something that is greater than the sum of its parts, potentially. And it does seem like, for all intents and purposes, that it was a robust back-and-forth, because there are a lot of things in the show that, that people have told me, yelled at me, or, you know, subtweeted me, are essential parts of the game.

• 7:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that for some people, whose investment in the show is based on the game, Druckmann's involvement is a deal-maker, right? Like, feeling good that there's someone minding the store. Because there is a restive segment of fandom that is particularly infuriated when anything that deviates from canon occurs in an adaptation of their beloved property. That, that, that's, that's kind of the, the engine that fuels a lot of anger at the Game of Thrones franchise.

• 8:22Chris Ryan?

  Hey, just not to digress here, but can you think of a single piece of, uh, adaptation of a video game property? Or really, honestly, like?

• 8:34Chris Ryan?

  Maybe in the last five or six years at Comic Book Property, where the fandom is like, "Great job, guys."

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  You nailed it?

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. That's really everything I thought it could be.

• 8:42Andy Greenwald?

  I, that's a tough one. That's a great question. I mean, I, I think one of the problems is that the discourse has shifted so strongly that like, everybody is catering to the, the noisiest voices.

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  Well, they would.

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  And seeking out and like proving their, proving, you know, proving their stripes, proving their fidelity to the source material. Even, you know, as part of the welcoming that, welcoming those voices and eyeballs and Reddit profiles in on the development process. I think like the response to Superman is going to be interesting too, in that regard.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  But, um, anyway, I don't know what to make of this. I think that, you know, it was presented as this is the perfect time for me to step back.

• 9:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he wants to go back and, and he's running a very successful video game company.

• 9:32Andy Greenwald?

  I have to say this, and look, I was just saying how much back in the day we loved Perfect Dark. So I think I've proved my video game bona fides here. With work, I'm just gonna read his quote because there's a part in here that does sound absolutely made up to me. "With work completed on season two, and before any meaningful work starts on season three, get ready to see that season in 2028, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet."

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  Isn't that the movie they were making in the HBO show The Franchise? Like, that shit sounds so lame, no offense. It's probably beautiful and cool and soul stirring, you know, and will make an incredible movie or television series someday, but dorks.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  I was watching something.

• 10:20Andy Greenwald?

  Why are you calling it that?

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:22Andy Greenwald?

  Come on.

• 10:23Chris Ryan?

  Well, you could just call it The Heretic Prophet.

• 10:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes!

• 10:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but I don't know, is there a previous Intergalactic? Is this the first in a, in a, in a, like a long-running?

• 10:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is it in the Beastie Boys Expanded Universe?

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  Probably, that's what he's got.

• 10:33Andy Greenwald?

  Now.

• 10:33Chris Ryan?

  He's like, you know?

• 10:34Andy Greenwald?

  Now I'm into it. Anyway.

• 10:36Chris Ryan?

  In some ways, I still live in the Beastie Boys inter, you know.

• 10:40Andy Greenwald?

  We're clinging to it.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  Universe.

• 10:41Andy Greenwald?

  We're trying to. I definitely saw some dudes trying to reenact Sabotage on the bridge on the way into work today.

• 10:49Andy Greenwald?

  There is a way to take this news, though, that is not based on any fact, but it is a fair inference.

• 10:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Andy Greenwald?

  That someone had to take the fall for season two. Now, I'm not saying that's what happened. I do not know that's what happened. But there is, I think it is a reasonable.

• 11:05Chris Ryan?

  I don't think that's true.

• 11:07Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know how you remove the co-creator of the show and banish him back to his incredibly lucrative and successful video game business. I don't think that's necessarily what happened. I would, I feel confident saying that after the, I think it's fair to say like shortcomings of season two. I'm not even coming into this saying like, this sucks.

• 11:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:28Andy Greenwald?

  But in terms of like what the show accomplished, what it did with its time on our screens after a long absence and where it has to go next. There were probably some very serious creative conversations. And I don't mean like Casey Boy is being like, get these guys in a room until they fix it.

• 11:44Chris Ryan?

  Make funnier, yeah.

• 11:45Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that would have been my note, but more intergalactic heretics, please.

• 11:50Chris Ryan?

  You guys tried playing perfect dark.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  So cool. No, just that Craig Mason and probably Neil Druckman were like, something, what can we do to get in front of some things? Particularly like how we use the real estate that we have. We are on this, on this path. And also I think, you know, I do know just, you know, just from the, being adjacent to the fandom of the game. That like, season three is a pretty radical, it's like, it's the, it's the Dever season.

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's gonna be from Abby's perspective. I think it's gonna recap some of the events of the second season.

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  Look, also, there's a, there's a time spent element. Obviously, these seasons seem to take two to three years to make.

• 12:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 12:37Chris Ryan?

  So that's not nothing if he also has a thriving business that he wants to keep his eye on. So I, I think that there's probably some.

• 12:44Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, is that why for video viewers, we're doing this in the rewatchable studio? You just couldn't step away from the.

• 12:49Chris Ryan?

  I'm just gonna rotate you out and Bill's gonna rotate right in.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  You just need to keep an eye on your successful business.

• 12:55Andy Greenwald?

  Look, there's, obviously it is flattering to my opinion about the show to think, ah, finally, the master builder can do what he wants with this franchise. That is definitely not what happened behind the scenes, but it will be interesting to see how the show proceeds and also how it's received with Mazen as the sole face of the decision-making of the franchise. That's it.

• 13:17Chris Ryan?

  What else do we have for news? Well, there's a big headline. There is a big, big, big headline. Avid listeners of The Watch know that I've spent some time on the wall, you know?

• 13:32Andy Greenwald?

  Like Jon Snow?

• 13:33Chris Ryan?

  Watching from the wall, you know, a watcher on the wall, waiting patiently for a character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to appear.

• 13:42Andy Greenwald?

  You've been very patient.

• 13:44Chris Ryan?

  I have been hoodwinked. I've been bamboozled.

• 13:50Andy Greenwald?

  Misled.

• 13:50Chris Ryan?

  I've been led astray.

• 13:53Chris Ryan?

  And then finally, out of nowhere, this character made an appearance at the end of Ironheart. So if you have not watched Ironheart, which just recently concluded its first season.

• 14:03Andy Greenwald?

  It also recently debuted its first season.

• 14:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a six-episode first season, executive produced by Ryan Coogler. I'll let Andy get into like sort of the details of the character.

• 14:12Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 14:13Chris Ryan?

  I'm going to be completely honest with you and say that I had not watched Ironheart. I watched the last episode of Ironheart.

• 14:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's it?

• 14:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:20Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 14:20Chris Ryan?

  I watched because I knew what I was getting. I had read spoilers about what was going to happen in this episode, and he arrived.

• 14:29Andy Greenwald?

  He came.

• 14:30Chris Ryan?

  He, he...

• 14:31Andy Greenwald?

  He has risen, or fallen.

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  He has fallen.

• 14:34Andy Greenwald?

  He's fallen.

• 14:35Chris Ryan?

  Spoiler, spoiler, blah, blah, Mephisto. And I now pronounce his name correctly because I heard it from the horse's mouth.

• 14:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, so you just wanted to do your own research on it? Also, what's really funny is I was talking yesterday, I was like trying to explain the situation, which goes over great, when I'm like, here's a sentence you want to hear from me right now. Marvel TV is at it again. But I was explaining how fucking Chris couldn't even say his name right. And everyone I was saying this to was like, he comes off as the cool one in this conversation.

• 15:06Chris Ryan?

  Cause I'm not like, I don't.

• 15:08Andy Greenwald?

  Actually, it's Mephisto. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some intergalactic space heresy to study.

• 15:14Chris Ryan?

  He has many names. He goes by many names.

• 15:16Andy Greenwald?

  He does.

• 15:17Chris Ryan?

  One, I thought was, it sounded suspiciously like the goalkeeper for PSG, Donnarumma, but I know it wasn't that. In any case, Mephisto, the Satan character of the MCU, is played by Sacha Baron Cohen.

• 15:30Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible.

• 15:32Chris Ryan?

  If you had given me 300 guesses in 2021.

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 15:37Chris Ryan?

  I don't know that I would have come up with Sacha Baron Cohen.

• 15:39Andy Greenwald?

  Is that because as a superfan of the anthropomorphized devil in the Marvel Universe, you were expecting a incredibly tall, long-haired, red person with Drake's fake abs on him? Like, that's.

• 15:55Chris Ryan?

  We don't know what Drake's workout routine is. Is the idea that Drake, that that's CGI or AI abs or something, or that he did not actually get himself into shape like that, or that he got plastic surgery?

• 16:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think the assumption is that he, he, he made a little international trip and got something, he could probably afford to get it done with Canadian healthcare.

• 16:14Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know you could do that.

• 16:15Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't know that?

• 16:16Chris Ryan?

  You can get your abs done?

• 16:18Andy Greenwald?

  You can get fake anything, man.

• 16:19Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 16:20Andy Greenwald?

  Look at my whole shit. This whole attitude is fake.

• 16:24Chris Ryan?

  What do you, how do you really feel?

• 16:25Andy Greenwald?

  I don't believe anything.

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 16:27Andy Greenwald?

  I just bought these ideas.

• 16:28Chris Ryan?

  You actually just have Hakeem Jeffries on in the background.

• 16:31Andy Greenwald?

  Have you ever heard of the marketplace of ideas? That's where I just direct deposit.

• 16:34Chris Ryan?

  Um, here's a funny thing that happened on the way to finding out who played Mephisto.

• 16:39Andy Greenwald?

  This podcast is my favorite.

• 16:41Chris Ryan?

  I fucking liked this Ironheart episode.

• 16:42Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, all right.

• 16:45Andy Greenwald?

  We maybe came in at the end.

• 16:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Andy Greenwald?

  But I have a lot, I actually have a lot of thoughts.

• 16:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not here to, I'm not making any critical appraisal of this show.

• 16:55Andy Greenwald?

  I'm, I'm willing to.

• 16:56Chris Ryan?

  I did a stupid thing where I watched the last episode of a show that I have not heard like a peep about.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  Let's, let's, let's take another step back here. Because there was a time when any entry into the Marvel Cinematic Television Universe was greeted with, at the very minimum, attention.

• 17:14Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 17:14Andy Greenwald?

  Especially by a ten, by, you know, a content star podcast like ours or other podcasts. Like, it felt, whether it was significant, if we still believe that these were all important stories for the larger movie franchises, or there was just a passing interest, like, are they going to be creative with this one? Is it, is there another Wandavision in the offing or a Loki, you know? It's not fair to Ironheart that it arrived as it did as basically the last gasp, like, light from a dying star of a completely different era of Marvel's engagement in TV.

• 17:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 17:49Andy Greenwald?

  This show was announced and greenlit in 2020. This show went into production.

• 17:55Chris Ryan?

  2022, right?

• 17:56Andy Greenwald?

  In 2022. It has been on the shelf, I guess they did some reshoots potentially last year, but it's been on the shelf for almost three years. It was then unceremoniously dumped in two, three-episode blocks and everybody moved away from it. And very, very little coverage, very, very little press.

• 18:15Andy Greenwald?

  And to add to the unfairness, because this is a Marvel show with a person of color at the lead, it was review bombed almost to dust before it even came out. None of this is fair to anyone who spends all this time making a creative enterprise. But what's crazy about this is I don't think it's fair to this show, which is pretty good.

• 18:34Chris Ryan?

  Did you, oh, look, I mean, again, I'm not, we can't extrapolate too much from watching the last episode.

• 18:40Andy Greenwald?

  I watched the first one.

• 18:40Chris Ryan?

  And I really wasn't.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Look at the big brain arm.

• 18:46Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah. Well, once I heard the devil was in it.

• 18:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, OK.

• 18:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Andy Greenwald?

  Let's go.

• 18:51Chris Ryan?

  OK. So you bookended. You watched the first and the last.

• 18:54Andy Greenwald?

  And I and I and I jumped around a little bit.

• 18:56Chris Ryan?

  OK.

• 18:57Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm not here. Clearly, I have not done the work to be like, this is an exceptional television show, or talk in the weeds about what it did right or didn't do right.

• 19:05Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 19:06Andy Greenwald?

  But I'll say that it has a more more style, more creativity, and more specificity than 80% of Marvel's television shows. It is definitely on a tier with Ms. Marvel, a show we didn't really deal with that much, that seems to have a keen understanding of the character.

• 19:27Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:27Andy Greenwald?

  And also a sense of place. And I think this is kind of crucial. It's pitched for a slightly younger viewer, which I like.

• 19:35Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 19:36Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not saying it's a kids' show, but in the same way that Ms. Marvel has a younger protagonist, like, I think that this is a show that.

• 19:42Chris Ryan?

  I I found it.

• 19:43Andy Greenwald?

  Kids and teens could be into.

• 19:44Chris Ryan?

  Fairly adult, you know, in terms of its.

• 19:46Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of the devil at the end.

• 19:47Chris Ryan?

  And in terms of the consequences. I was quite surprised to see the end of this series.

• 19:52Andy Greenwald?

  It gets dark.

• 19:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Andy Greenwald?

  So I think there are a couple other. So again, the full the full picture of this is the character of Ironheart, Riri Williams, a tech genius from Chicago, was introduced. This is in terms of the Marvel.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  There's nothing fucking cooler than when you go off book.

• 20:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:08Chris Ryan?

  And you're just like, I am now recapping Ironheart.

• 20:10Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna tell you who created the character.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  But don't ever break eye contact with me. If you look at the computer, I'll know you're you're.

• 20:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Is this?

• 20:17Chris Ryan?

  Go off. Do it.

• 20:18Andy Greenwald?

  This is.

• 20:19Chris Ryan?

  Do it.

• 20:21Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of Marvel comic characters.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 20:24Andy Greenwald?

  She is one of the more recent to make it to the screen. This character was created in 2016.

• 20:30Chris Ryan?

  Oh, OK.

• 20:30Andy Greenwald?

  By Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Diodato. And it was created at a time, I think, Tony Stark was no longer alive in the comics. And she directly received his legacy, or like, his AI, or like, some whatever. So it was it was really like an Iron Man replacement in the Marvel Universe.

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  She gets Jarvis. But in the show, it's Natalie. She changes the.

• 20:50Andy Greenwald?

  Well, so there's there's.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  Her AI thing is Natalie.

• 20:52Andy Greenwald?

  There's a more direct.

• 20:53Chris Ryan?

  And she has, like, the mesh, right?

• 20:55Andy Greenwald?

  See, now I'm not. What are you? Now you're just throwing stuff at me. This is like dodgeball. I can't keep up.

• 20:59Chris Ryan?

  I had to clear my glasses because I want to see this, so.

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  Because the spittle of my, like, intensity here. In the.

• 21:07Andy Greenwald?

  MCU, Dominique Thorne was cast in this, basically, she auditioned for Shuri in the first Black Panther movie.

• 21:13Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 21:13Andy Greenwald?

  And then they were like, we like you. We're basically putting a hold on you. We're getting your bird rights or whatever. And they put her in Black Panther 2.

• 21:20Chris Ryan?

  And you might've seen her in Beale Street, you might've seen her.

• 21:22Andy Greenwald?

  As an actress, yeah.

• 21:23Chris Ryan?

  She was in The Black Messiah.

• 21:24Andy Greenwald?

  But this is a character that was introduced.

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  Dominique Thorne.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  In Wakanda Forever.

• 21:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Andy Greenwald?

  And didn't make a ton of sense in that movie and kind of doesn't really make sense in terms of, like, it does feel like something that was just sort of sandwiched into something else.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:37Andy Greenwald?

  Again, part of the old Marvel strategy of like, we're gonna flood the zone and stuff, and we're just gonna keep making it with the assumption that every time we throw a noodle at the wall, it's gonna stick. That hasn't been the case. What's strange to me about the series is maybe the boldest thing about it, which is, the framing is really good. Chinaka Hodges, who adapted and sort of created the show for television, I think for these types of series, does a really good job just getting us going. The first 10 minutes of the first episode, brings us through what happened in Wakanda. She gets kicked out of MIT and then has to go back to Chicago and crash lands in the street in Chicago. And you feel, shout out to Chris Storer, but like, you do feel like, oh, you're Chicago again.

• 22:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Andy Greenwald?

  And here's some people, characters in a world and a vibrancy of like, south side of Chicago, people being like, why are you wearing this half-metal suit?

• 22:25Chris Ryan?

  Is.

• 22:25Andy Greenwald?

  And that's charming.

• 22:26Chris Ryan?

  There's no Chicago roots, like, because there is some crossover with some Iron Man stuff.

• 22:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:33Chris Ryan?

  But Iron Man is not a Chicago character historically, right?

• 22:37Andy Greenwald?

  Historically, he is not a Chicago character.

• 22:38Chris Ryan?

  He's not an industrialist from the great Midwest, is what I mean.

• 22:41Andy Greenwald?

  He is not. Did you, did you think that like, he came up in the improv scene there?

• 22:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, can I just say something?

• 22:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:46Chris Ryan?

  So we're just talking freely about Ironheart now.

• 22:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Chris Ryan?

  Obadiah Stane.

• 22:50Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 22:50Chris Ryan?

  Was played by Jeff Bridges in the first Iron Man. His kid is in this show, played by Alden Ehrenreich, which I had no idea whatsoever that he was in this show. And, uh, he's pretty good. You know, like, he's pretty good. And I, but I just didn't know if there was like.

• 23:09Andy Greenwald?

  That connective tissue.

• 23:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Had the stains gone, gone to the Midwest? Because they were just, their name was Mud in California?

• 23:15Andy Greenwald?

  So the stain spread?

• 23:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Andy Greenwald?

  The sidebar here, Alden Ehrenreich seems like a good actor. Like, he was amazing in the Coen Brothers movie, Hill Caesar.

• 23:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:25Andy Greenwald?

  He did his best in Solo. That was a cursed ship from the beginning, but. I have to say with all love and respect that like showing up as the fourth lead of an abandoned Marvel property from three years ago does feel like a glow down of historic proportions.

• 23:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I hear you.

• 23:41Andy Greenwald?

  That said, nowhere to go but up in terms of like, oh, I'm just a working character actor now. And that's probably a better lane for him to begin with.

• 23:50Andy Greenwald?

  I think that one of the problems of the show probably would have been more clear if I'd watched all of them was just like, this clearly became a clearinghouse of ideas of many, many cooks in the old Marvel TV method. Because remember this year, we were talking about Daredevil Born Again, and that's the first show they've ever done for television where they've admitted someone is a showrunner here. It's not just the collective of like producers who are in the writers' room and also Kevin Feige being like-

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  I wouldn't use Daredevil Born Again as an example of like coherence of vision, but sure, I understand what you're saying.

• 24:18Andy Greenwald?

  But it was pretty good.

• 24:19Chris Ryan?

  Did you watch it?

• 24:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we watched it. We talked about it.

• 24:21Chris Ryan?

  I watched like an episode or two. Yeah.

• 24:23Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 24:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we didn't talk about Daredevil as like a project, right?

• 24:27Andy Greenwald?

  We didn't? Run the tape. I have different memories of the early part of the year, but-

• 24:31Chris Ryan?

  We did literally like, I was like, it's cool when that guy gets hit with a million knives and then it changes.

• 24:36Andy Greenwald?

  That was the first episode.

• 24:36Chris Ryan?

  And then the whole show changes and I'm out.

• 24:39Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Andy Greenwald?

  Well, then it became more of a character study and now I was more interested. So, there you go. Can't wait for season two.

• 24:48Andy Greenwald?

  What I mean by that is Chinaka Hajis seemed locked into this character and into a world. And then someone, and apparently it was Kevin Feige, was like,

• 24:58Andy Greenwald?

  "What about magic?" Which is kind of insane. Now, as someone who-

• 25:02Chris Ryan?

  Is that not in the comics?

• 25:03Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. I've never read these comics. I'm just, I'm not actively reading Marvel Comics in 2016, you know?

• 25:09Chris Ryan?

  Then how do you have a fucking insight into-

• 25:10Andy Greenwald?

  I was canvassing for Hillary, bro. I was busy, okay?

• 25:15Chris Ryan?

  That didn't work out.

• 25:16Andy Greenwald?

  Defending democracy.

• 25:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Andy Greenwald?

  No, actually, it's relevant in the sense that the character doesn't really have much of a-

• 25:24Chris Ryan?

  Were you who she was writing from her personal email account? Yes.

• 25:29Andy Greenwald?

  I was advising on all areas.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  gmail.com, Andy Greenwald.

• 25:34Andy Greenwald?

  Makes sense.

• 25:35Chris Ryan?

  Heard your take on, um, season four of The Americans.

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  So, you know what? She didn't hear it because I wasn't given opportunity to voice it on the podcast.

• 25:44Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt.

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  I was silenced, but I'm glad. Thank you for giving me the chance to litigate this.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  I know you're blaming me for that. If you want to do an Americans rewatch project with me, I'd be happy to do it.

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  You mean a watch project with you? You're like, this show's pretty cool. Anyway, the character does not have a deep bench of history and a rogues' gallery, so it is kind of a malleable, malleable clay to go in any direction. And I'm not saying that, like, off the dome, I'm like, oh, well, here's a great rogues' gallery for the world's greatest computer genius who's also broke and living in Chicago to come up against. I have no... That doesn't really write itself. And as someone who likes comic book insanity, the idea of like magic and tech working in the same world, like, that's kind of what makes Marvel and comics in general fun. All of that said, the fact that she's up against a established canonical villain in the hood, played by Anthony Ramos from Hamilton and in the Heights and Twisters,

• 26:39Andy Greenwald?

  whose powers derive from some kind of supernatural stuff, as we're getting to. And then, like, the show actually being about her choosing to ally herself with the devil because she's been overlooked and disrespected and wants her deceased friend back to life.

• 26:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 26:54Andy Greenwald?

  It was pretty wild.

• 26:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and that's how it ends, is like her getting, uh, becoming like possessed by the devil, right?

• 27:01Andy Greenwald?

  I know I'm the guy.

• 27:01Chris Ryan?

  I think there's a cutscene, but yeah.

• 27:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm reading the quotes a lot today, but this was, I think this is one of the all-time quotes of, like, when someone, maybe Joanna will write, like, the actual, like, we have the footage tapes of what went on during this era of, like, of IP storytelling. This is one of the greatest quotes of all time. This is not, usually when we bring up Marvel peoples, we're like, well, that's why we made the Parallax view, you know? No, this is my new favorite quote. Entertainment Weekly asked Chinaka Hodge, who has spent five years of her adult life shepherding this six-episode series to the screens, about the decision to end the show with Riri Williams selling her soul to the physical manifestation of the devil was a longstanding choice she had made when she came on the project.

• 27:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's a really great question, Hodge says. I wish I could answer it more plainly. It was not my decision alone. I was empowered by Marvel to make that decision. I don't know what will happen next, but I, as a fan, I'm really hoping to see him make a lot of appearances. Now, this has the same tenor as George Cheeks turning to the Paramount shareholders and being like, "I was empowered by Sherri Redstone to pay a bribe to the President of the United States, so David Ellison can buy our company. I didn't make this decision alone, but I'm excited to see what the president does next."

• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna start empowering you to do more things.

• 28:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I appreciate that. That is a wild quote that tells us everything.

• 28:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure, and I also got the feeling like, Mephisto, Sacha Baron Cohen does Sacha Baron Cohen. It's almost a perfect role for him because he gets to do seven accents in one scene.

• 28:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  If I had to guess.

• 28:40Andy Greenwald?

  Please, yeah.

• 28:42Chris Ryan?

  That feels like an expiring contract move.

• 28:44Andy Greenwald?

  I, I.

• 28:45Chris Ryan?

  That feels like, uh, we had this, it didn't get into, uh, Agatha, it wasn't in WandaVision, it's not gonna be in the Doom Chronicles.

• 28:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's like, it's like Dame on the Bucks.

• 28:57Chris Ryan?

  They stretched him.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  They stretched him and they waved him.

• 29:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Andy Greenwald?

  I, again, like, we don't spend too much time on like, the deal-making side of Hollywood, but I would love to know that entire wooing signing process, like what he was told. Because this thing of he's just like, thrilled to finally be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in hour six of a two-night dump of a show we've forgotten about. Crazy.

• 29:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Andy Greenwald?

  Crazy, but, maybe we're just burying the lead here. He's, he's really good, and it's kind of fun.

• 29:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Andy Greenwald?

  And it's campy, and it, it's not bad. It's lively in a very strange way. The only thing that's truly devilish is the pizza that he serves Anthony Ramos, which I was like, that's the tell. That looks so bad.

• 29:41Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was like, kind of like John's New York-style, like, kind of over, like, overheated, no?

• 29:47Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's.

• 29:47Chris Ryan?

  It's like melting, it's, it's in Chicago, though, so.

• 29:50Andy Greenwald?

  That looked like DiGiorno, you know what I mean? If you're in Chicago, have him serve the devil's pizza, AKA deep dish. You know what I mean? Like really have you like this soupy casserole.

• 29:59Chris Ryan?

  Come on in, Ironheart. It's fork and knife time.

• 30:01Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. That would have been fine.

• 30:05Chris Ryan?

  Well, this was an unexpectedly in-depth discussion about a show that we only sort of watched. But I'm glad that I'm glad that some bets pay off in this country, you know?

• 30:15Andy Greenwald?

  Are you happy about this? I mean, this month, well, basically, yeah, this month alone, you get Mephisto and you get Mr. Fantastic. You're finally. Your long position in the MCU is finally bearing fruit.

• 30:28Chris Ryan?

  It hit.

• 30:29Andy Greenwald?

  I'm thrilled for you.

• 30:30Chris Ryan?

  There was one other piece of news from this week.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 30:33Chris Ryan?

  That goes into the rest of our conversation, which is that the bear was renewed. Now, this is something, you know, no Windhorst, but Andy and I had heard that this was a possibility.

• 30:45Andy Greenwald?

  Members of.

• 30:46Chris Ryan?

  That this was likely.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  Members of the extended bear family were being very loose about future plans for this show in public settings. I'll leave it at that.

• 30:55Chris Ryan?

  Not that you were present for.

• 30:56Andy Greenwald?

  I was not.

• 30:57Chris Ryan?

  Secondhand, you heard about it.

• 30:58Andy Greenwald?

  But I got a lot of texts from people who were. What does Windhorst do? They were just like.

• 31:02Chris Ryan?

  Why is that?

• 31:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So.

• 31:04Chris Ryan?

  Why is that?

• 31:04Andy Greenwald?

  That seemed like it was in the cards.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh, yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late night, half-priced appetizers are here at Applebee's. Saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings, crispy cheesy mozzarella sticks, creamy spinach and artichoke dip.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Your favorite apps, half price, available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more. Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright 2026 Applebee's Restaurant LLC.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Introducing new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with 100 mile an hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine. Shift your flavor to high gear with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at carvana.com.

• 32:56Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so The Bear has been renewed. This is a good way to start talking about The Bear. Now, in our last two conversations, Andy and I sort of went episode by episode. But what I thought we could do, if you would like, is to kind of start at the end. Since the news and the last episode of The Bear this season are conjoined.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Um, very much so.

• 33:18Chris Ryan?

  Despite whatever misgivings, I think, you know, or ups and downs we've had with this season. I found myself, uh, pretty charged up by the end in terms of what could happen next. And excited that there is going to be a fifth season.

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  I guess what's, what's the best way to talk about this?

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think we should start at the end.

• 33:37Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 33:37Andy Greenwald?

  I do, I mean.

• 33:39Chris Ryan?

  So at the end of the, at the end of the 10th episode of the fourth season of The Bear.

• 33:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the entire episode is just in one. This is a bottle episode, guys. It doesn't change locations.

• 33:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's essentially a one act play with three characters.

• 33:50Andy Greenwald?

  A fourth at the end.

• 33:51Chris Ryan?

  Um, and a fourth at the end. Who come to the realization that Karmie has adjusted the partnership agreement for The Bear Restaurant. That Uncle Jimmy gets 50%, which has always been because he put the money in. And that the rest of the 50% was The Bear. And it was always under the assumption that The Bear was going to be Karmie, Natalie, and to some extent Sid.

• 34:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Chris Ryan?

  It turns out that he has gone to Natalie's husband Pete, who is very, very, very clear that he honors attorney-client privilege. So he did not tell his wife about this.

• 34:24Andy Greenwald?

  Nope.

• 34:25Chris Ryan?

  Pete adjusted the partnership agreement and Carmy has been diluted out. Like, you know.

• 34:32Andy Greenwald?

  To zero.

• 34:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes. He is no longer a partner in The Bear. And Sid, when she finds out about this at the end of nine and into 10, when she begins talking about Carmy, immediately sees it for what it is, which is you're quitting. Now, I think we get to a place where the gesture, Carmy's gesture can be read as more benevolent than that. But he does not run away from the fact that he is trying to get out of being a chef at a restaurant. And he says that he thinks he is gonna be, he's done with restaurants.

• 35:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Chris Ryan?

  I thought that the last two episodes of this season were generally extraordinary. Part of it is to, is because I think it pays off some lingering debts that the show had.

• 35:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yes.

• 35:17Chris Ryan?

  Thematically, narratively, emotionally. And it puts the show in a place that I think is pretty exciting for a show in its fifth season.

• 35:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 35:27Chris Ryan?

  And the thing I kept thinking about, because it was, these are two shows that we've been talking about a lot over the last five years of this podcast, is this is the inflection point where Jesse Armstrong said, "I'm done telling the story of Succession." And the people behind The Bear have decided they still have more story to tell. And, but they are at similar moments where the major character of the show, a major character of the show, in the case of Succession, we know who that is, and in the case of The Bear, Carmy are at least stepping back, if not exiting. So give me, give me some thoughts about the end and the where it goes.

• 36:04Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'll start at the very end. I loved the finale. I thought it was, I'll use your word, I thought it was extraordinary. I thought it was The Bear at its best in that Chris Stor has empowered these actors to be their fullest, most present, most emotionally intense selves. And he has given us characters that are worthy of the performers and put them all into the position to say every single thing that had not been said for the previous three seasons, 3.9 seasons.

• 36:43Andy Greenwald?

  That glorious release was, it's hard to discuss without the larger context of Jesus fucking Christ. That took way too long for characters to say things to each other that were unspoken.

• 37:00Andy Greenwald?

  The episode itself and the confrontation itself was spectacular. It was so violently overdue that it actually took me longer than I expected in such, in the face of such a strong episode to relax into it.

• 37:16Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'm just going to assume now that this is gospel because of how we saw these seasons play out. This episode, this conversation, these conversations, these screaming match, turning into hugging, which is what Bear is, absolutely is where the show was always intending to go and to end. The story that the, that the series embarked on was always pointing to this moment. And there aren't a lot of shows that, that, that do that. And if I may, stick that landing.

• 37:47Andy Greenwald?

  This should have happened a year ago. I think there's just no possible way to say otherwise because if you just look at the totality of these two seasons, I mean, there's a couple of different ways to talk about it. There's, I can't think of a single great television show that has ever done less with more. In terms of how much 20 episodes of television to tell what was a relatively modest story. There were digressions that were worth it, like I think the Sid episode in 404. And there were episodes that weren't worth it, like 408, which takes all of the goodwill and momentum built up in Bears at the wedding, and just slams it into a brick wall.

• 38:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, with a dream sequence, among other things. It's just like, what are we, what are we doing here?

• 38:36Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's, I think that was wild. But. The emotions expressed in this episode and like what, what these people said to each other and what they were to each other was worth it. I mean, I, I wrote down like it's, it's actually pretty wild how good Carmy is at talking. Once he starts having never ever.

• 38:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think that he gets emotionally and maybe verbally unblocked after, after his lunch with his mother.

• 39:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I, I, again, I think that there is a.

• 39:05Chris Ryan?

  I think he sees that if Dee Dee can make a step towards making amends and like repair, then like, why can't I?

• 39:13Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think that there is a, I, I'll say this and then I'll leave it alone because I want to talk about the, the merits and the, the substance of this episode. But like, there's just such a clear case to be made, I think, that that journey would have been so much sharper and clearer if it had been told with more economy. Um, this might be the most me example I could ever give you, but you know that there's a Fleetwood Mac reunion album from 2002 called Say You Will?

• 39:38Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 39:38Andy Greenwald?

  That is generally not beloved. The reason it's generally not beloved is because it is, I think, 18 tracks and has things like Stevie Nicks's witchy thoughts about nine 11 in one song and Lindsey Buckingham's song, uh, Murrow turning over in his grave.

• 39:52Chris Ryan?

  Just out of curiosity, does she have any, uh, outside of the mainstream theories about that?

• 39:57Andy Greenwald?

  There's a beautiful lyric about Alice in Wonderland and how jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams. But my, my reason for bringing this up is that I believe, and I have done this, and I'll put it next to our barbecue playlist, that there is a masterpiece in that album. If you take six songs out.

• 40:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Andy Greenwald?

  Everything is brought into focus. It's a phenomenal record. You could do that and maybe someone will do that with this, these two seasons of The Bear and it's all there. Everything that I love about the show is there on the page, but the experience of like dipping and weaving was frustrating at times.

• 40:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:30Andy Greenwald?

  But where it ended up is really kind of profound and exciting. And as I was watching it, I was thinking, this show really, really is the difficult man series for the therapy age. Because we've had.

• 40:46Andy Greenwald?

  Many, we had a whole generation of shows, right? Where like, use Mad Men as the example, where we see Don Draper's excesses and we see his flaws, but we also see him be so brilliant that we understand why everyone around him goes along with it.

• 41:01Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:02Andy Greenwald?

  I would argue that we've never actually seen Carmy be brilliant. We see him be a dickhead. We see him-

• 41:07Chris Ryan?

  I think Carmy, I mean, I think some of it is tell versus show. So, yes, Sidney emphasizing that Carmy's food is the best that she tasted in New York, that he is one of the world's best, that he's better than Luca, and that he's Chef Terry's sort of star protege, that he's worked for Balud and Keller and-

• 41:24Andy Greenwald?

  But what we see is really the cost of it, on himself, on the wreckage of the family that he returns to, on the way he treats people. And honestly, as he verbalizes really well in this episode, how he responds to opportunity and success and self-sabotage. So, it's kind of, I was, I kept thinking about Mad Men in the sense that where, and I'm sorry, I'm gonna spoil the end of Mad Men, so hit the 10-second advance if you haven't really engaged with one of the greatest shows of all time yet. But it ends with him stripped down to basically nothing, the bone, at a hippie retreat on the edge of America, finally, potentially at peace and in the Lotus position. And in that moment of release, he dreams up the most successful commercial of all time.

• 42:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, in this version, it would be like if Carmy was like, walked out of the, that back lot of the bear and then like opened a restaurant down the street called Mikey's, like-

• 42:16Andy Greenwald?

  Literally that.

• 42:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Andy Greenwald?

  The fact that the show is all about the reckoning of the self as separate from achievement makes it extremely, I think, relevant, relatable, interesting, and a real divergence from the previous generation's shows. I was really affected by that. And I thought that that project came into view in a really intense way in this finale. And it was, I think, bringing it all the way full circle to your initial question. Incredibly freeing, not just for Karmie, but for the future of a show that has been held hostage, not just by the please keep it stretched out whims of a network, but also by the difficult man tantrum, essentially, and repression of its lead.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm trying to be better about being like, it should have been this, like, and I'm, and be just like, okay, what's, what did we get? We don't actually ever, we never really got a three and four were a compromise made with FX that wanted more episodes and we were working around Fantastic Four and Deliver Me From.

• 43:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we don't know that.

• 43:20Chris Ryan?

  We don't know that.

• 43:20Andy Greenwald?

  It honestly could be that Chris was like, I want a little more space here. I want a little more room to experiment.

• 43:26Chris Ryan?

  And I want to like, kind of mess with the form. And, you know, I think the first episode of the third season, which is a very divisive episode that I continue, I rewatched it in the intervening days since the last podcast. And I was like, it's still an extraordinary piece of filmmaking that actually has way more narrative in it that I remember.

• 43:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Chris Ryan?

  So you get these moments of the, like, him seeing Claire outside of his mom's house, the night of fishes, or him, I believe it's 301 that he, you see that he goes to the funeral and can't bring himself to actually participate.

• 44:00Andy Greenwald?

  And that, and that's obviously a huge revelation.

• 44:02Chris Ryan?

  And that's a huge part of the last two episodes of, of the season. So I'm trying not to like, what, what we could have had versus what we had. I think that for me, the nine and 10 stretch, Joanna Callen, Kristora wrote the, the ninth one, Kristora wrote and directed the last one.

• 44:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you've been waiting the entire time for Karmie and Richie to have this conversation. It seems absurd, maybe, that Sid has not opened her email and Karmie has not found another moment to talk to Sid in the intervening moments between whenever her dad has the heart attack. I think it's in 405 or 6.

• 44:38Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the picking nits about timing is a self-inflicted wound. I mean, there are.

• 44:42Chris Ryan?

  But in any case, none of that can happen until.

• 44:48Chris Ryan?

  Carmen and Dee Dee talk like ultimately like he needs to be told that he has some value by the only person he's ever wanted to please aside from Mikey and then he can go forward and like be there in a presence like a present moment with other people like that shit did make sense to me and I have to say for as up and down as I've been on Jamie Lee Curtis for this entire run of the show every moment was worth it for that scene.

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I agree. I think that there's something that I wish other people would study and it is it's probably specific to the caliber performer or the type of performer that that gets hired for the show but the intimacy of the scene work again and again but particularly that scene with the two of them and then everyone involved in the finale it's really rare it's it's theatrical it makes you feel like you are in the room with them and

• 45:45Chris Ryan?

  I mean everything is such intense close up but it's so present like I I'm so riveted I mean I think Evan Moss Backrack is an incredible actor it's an all time TV character performance regardless of the episodes of the season that he's in when he when he when the blow lands

• 46:02Andy Greenwald?

  on him when Carmy says I was at the funeral and he turns and he comes in like a heat seeking missile.

• 46:08Chris Ryan?

  Like between us right now? Yeah.

• 46:11Andy Greenwald?

  I can't take my eyes off it. It is absolutely

• 46:14Chris Ryan?

  That's Harvey Keitel shit. That's that's like the stuff.

• 46:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's electric. It's electric. He is living the emotional truth of the character in that moment and Chris Doris hit record, you know, it's it's wild but you can't do that and he'd say that any actor would say that you can't do that without your scene partner or without trusting your crew or that trusting your director and that is such a gift and I totally agree that it came down to that kind of intimacy and you know that the only person he wants to impress and he doesn't let her into the restaurant he cooks from her own kitchen and that frees him from the burden of restaurant cooking.

• 46:48Chris Ryan?

  But even the conversation that they have where Dee Dee is clearly like following the program and making a try to make amends with Carmen in a very structured way.

• 46:58Chris Ryan?

  I felt like just even around that conversation and like the way Jeremy Allen White projects discomfort in the very same moment of being like, I can't believe everything I've ever wanted is about to happen, which is my mom's going to apologize to me.

• 47:14Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:16Chris Ryan?

  And says and say that she loves me and that I'm special to her. It's like to be able to do both of those things like pretty much at the same time is extraordinary. And it really reminded me of that very significant moment that I referenced earlier on Succession, where Andy and I had a conversation about how the detail of the writing and performance in that episode was such that you were like, somebody in this writer's room or multiple people in this writer's room have experienced the sudden loss of a parent.

• 47:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  The writing on nine and then writing between Carm and Dee Dee is like, this is, this is like what you talk about with parents as they go older. And you get uncomfortable when you're like, I don't want to be in this moment with you right now. And then, but then it breaks through to something else.

• 48:03Andy Greenwald?

  I think even separate from the parent relationship, because I, I said, I said the previous podcast that, you know, I think the bear works best as a fantasy. And again, I do not mean that in a pejorative way.

• 48:12Chris Ryan?

  No, I know. It's the table and the cans of money and yeah.

• 48:15Andy Greenwald?

  Or that your, your, your troubled mother, when you finally are basically forced to sit in the room with her, has 30 pages of handwritten notes that she will just vulnerably share with you about how she feels about things and open herself up and be vulnerable so you can be vulnerable too.

• 48:33Andy Greenwald?

  But separate apart from the, the specifics of that relationship, that one thing that I think a lot of drama writing, let alone best comedy writing, I think a lot of the writing fails to capture is that when someone that you are in conflict with says the thing you most want them to say. The real challenge is letting it in. And that's Richie's entire thing. And I mean, that's why the yelling between Sydney and Carmen, where they don't speak to each other, feels cathartic and messy, but not unpleasant or not untrue. Because the real work always is on yourself, right? You have to let the words in because the armor that you've built for yourself

• 49:17Andy Greenwald?

  can start to feel comfortable and familiar and righteous. And to break down not just the Sydney Carmen one, but the Carmen Richie one, and then have Sugar come in and just melt it all like freshly fallen snow is like, that's very, very complicated and elegant writing, even though it's messy and yelling. It's the thing about this that I just find confounding because look what they are capable of doing. Look what Chris Stor is capable of doing with these actors in 28 minutes. You know?

• 49:49Chris Ryan?

  The way that the show is shot, for the most part, there was a lot of very, very tight close-ups. I don't know what lens choice he made, but often the faces fill the screen. They're enormous. The Dee Dee Carm scene, Sugar getting the news about the food and wine review. There's just like a lot of very intimate, at times claustrophobic, close-ups. And I wondered whether or not you read the choice visually to shoot that last episode, almost like a play, and let these guys exist in a kind of physical space and move around and interact and hand each other cigarettes and pull them away and all that stuff.

• 50:32Andy Greenwald?

  Sydney smoking a cigarette like I did the one time I was depressed and tried.

• 50:35Chris Ryan?

  Well, it was ironically a breath of fresh air to me, to see this kind of like physical movement in a show that I think had tightened it up a little bit, maybe more than I expected it to over the course of the last season or two.

• 50:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that that was a validation of the bet that the creative team made, was that this was always the show. This was always the journey. This was always what interested them, was the emotional journey of a blocked guy returning to his hometown and struggling with his genius and struggling with the opportunity to be better.

• 51:11Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it was... I would imagine that everyone involved in the show would feel extremely validated and extremely proud that for a show that got so much attention for the T-shirts characters were wearing, or the real-life culinary heroes who were making appearances, or any of the stuff that came from the kitchen setting, "Oh, it's so tense in there," I had no idea, whatever the coverage was, that they could earn this. And I would imagine even the biggest skeptic who made it to this episode was like, "That's my show."

• 51:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's The Bear. And that's what it always was. I think it's amazing. And I'm happy where we got. And also, it is a thing where like, so I learned, I didn't finish the season until the news broke, right?

• 52:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 52:03Andy Greenwald?

  That the show had been renewed.

• 52:04Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 52:04Andy Greenwald?

  We'd, I definitely was approaching it with some skepticism.

• 52:07Chris Ryan?

  I was doing a great job being like, "You'll see when you get to the end." Yeah.

• 52:11Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 52:11Chris Ryan?

  Also, the last episode's called "Goodbye."

• 52:13Andy Greenwald?

  But the, but would I have been satisfied if this is a finale? Yes. Because I do think that, as has been apocryphally told and retold, this was the final beat of the three-season structure, and maybe even the original shorter-length feature that The Bear began as in Chris Stor's mind or in his laptop. Like, this was where it was ending.

• 52:34Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:35Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that there is enough power in "That's actually the show" to leave it there. But, and I'm really curious if we could get some clarity, or maybe we'll get to have some creative conversations with the people involved, when they got, when they opened themselves up to the idea of doing more. So, a couple things about that. We said in passing before we reached the end that like, is Carmi the block on the show? Is the show better or more interesting without him?

• 53:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I had a thing I wanted to ask you about, because I, it's, it's pretty rare.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, this happened more, typically happens more in music.

• 53:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 53:14Chris Ryan?

  But it's pretty rare to be experiencing a TV show where it's, it's about what it's about, which is, you know, making a restaurant work in 2020s. And this guy who's traumatized by loss and emotional abuse, trying to heal himself. But it's also about the TV show The Bear. And, you know, there's a moment in Eight where, so actually a scene I really loved between Koppelman as the computer and Sugar. And they have this conversation about the numbers and that's just like, okay, so what are you telling me? What are you telling me? And he's like, well, what do you want this to be? And she's like, we can make, we can make our, our big.

• 53:55Andy Greenwald?

  We can do it.

• 53:55Chris Ryan?

  We can basically stay afloat. And then everything we do here is like, that's a little bit of profit. And I think he says, that's a pocket umbrella that the rain just goes around when you use it. And she's like, but it, we can keep going. And he was like, yes, but the question is, why would you want to?

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 54:14Chris Ryan?

  Which I don't think is necessarily, I don't apply it to The Bear as a show. I apply it to doing anything. Like, is it enough for it just to be enough? And then you have to basically decide, are you in it for the people you're doing it with? Or are you in it for the other stuff?

• 54:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's the story of this podcast, right?

• 54:34Chris Ryan?

  No. I mean, that's why.

• 54:36Andy Greenwald?

  That's why it's the big rewatchable sign. Well, our, the name of our, in, in defense, the name of our podcast is there.

• 54:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, why didn't we just use electrical tape when we're in here?

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  Just, I don't want to damage Bill's sign.

• 54:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's right. He would probably know who did it.

• 54:52Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of Mad Men, this is a.

• 54:54Chris Ryan?

  Do you see what I'm saying though? Like the, the idea of like, The Bear also being about making a TV show.

• 54:59Andy Greenwald?

  So the reason I want to go back to Mad Men is because Mad Men was also quite meta and you could, you could do a one to one on some actual things behind the scenes of what was happening on screen. And famously, the, you know, the, the agreed upon consensus best episode of the series is the suitcase. That's what the money's for scene is Matt Weiner, the creator. But in his telling of it, his understanding of it, or at least other people's psychological read of it, he's Peggy and Don is David Chase.

• 55:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 55:27Andy Greenwald?

  And

• 55:28Chris Ryan?

  That'd be funny if Matt Winer's telling it was like a really nice thing to say like, well, that is what the money is for.

• 55:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and he's just like, while they're at the dealership buying something.

• 55:35Chris Ryan?

  I wonder if there was like another Jon Hamm reading of that, like a different take. That's what the money is for?

• 55:41Andy Greenwald?

  If they did an Apatow just for us take of every scene of Mad Men.

• 55:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think it would tell us a lot. And if season five of The Bear was announced with Iowa Debris as the star and Joanna Kallo as the showrunner.

• 55:58Andy Greenwald?

  This is just psychological fan casting now. I'm not saying that's what's happening. I do think that the renewal announcement was interesting because it didn't confirm or deny the anyone's involvement in it. I imagine that has to do with the fact that they wanted to put the word up, but also that all the deals weren't closed. And that maybe there are going to be some surprises. Now, that said, the most impressive thing in many ways about the Bears' run up to this point is the large sense of community and community theater that Chris Stor has created, where it seems like anyone will not only show up whenever, they'd be thrilled to do so, to be a part of it. And so it actually feels absolutely natural.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  Again, this is not based on any knowledge, but if season five is announced and Jeremy Allen White is a special guest star, or he's only in the first and last episode, or he's haunting it the way Claire Bear haunted season three, and he can shoot all that in a week before going to do, you know, Springsteen 2, like that, the Tunnel of Love years, which I am actively pitching.

• 57:07Andy Greenwald?

  That is still the show. That is not after MASH. You know what I mean? Like, that actually still is the show and in keeping with the spirit of it. And it's not unintentional that the one line that kind of didn't clunk, but it was just like, oh, okay, in the finale is when he says, Sidney, you are the bear.

• 57:25Chris Ryan?

  I didn't think that that clunked at all. I know that some people are like, I didn't like that, but I don't. It's actually interesting. Carm's nickname is Bear. It's not the bear. He's not like, you're me or anything. Like, she's the restaurant.

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, no, I get it.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  It turns out that that she embodies the spirit of this restaurant that I don't know that the carmy character ever could get his head or hands around.

• 57:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's completely true. So that's why, that's why, you know, I don't note it. Like, I'm not, I let that one, I'm the executive, they shoot it. But it is also a little bit of like, that's the trade, like, next season, the season four recap.

• 58:01Chris Ryan?

  It'll have the voiceover, yeah.

• 58:03Andy Greenwald?

  That line is in there.

• 58:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Andy Greenwald?

  But the idea of Richie being a full partner in something for the full first time in his life. Sidney, who has just, you know, an episode or two ago, is is shooting free throws to determine whether the universe thinks she's a trash person or not.

• 58:22Andy Greenwald?

  Can they do more than just tread water? Will they be supported, like, you know, like, like Momofuku restaurants, but also selling sauces and noodles, and in this case, Italian sandwiches? Like, what, what, what kind of a company will it be? And where will the finances come from to balance the larger thing?

• 58:40Chris Ryan?

  Because it's like the, it sounds like the, the takeaway kitchen, the to-go kitchen is going to be like a going concern.

• 58:46Andy Greenwald?

  And honestly, just the thought of these people, these creative people, not just the writers and directors and the actors, but like everyone involved in it being like, what else could we do here? What else can we make the show about? Could there be a, not a villain, but like a heavy introduced to the show?

• 59:05Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 59:05Andy Greenwald?

  An antagonist? Could there be something with customers? Could there be something, you know, could it be about something other than the Brizzotto family psychodrama? I find exciting because I think unlike with a lot of other shows that had the opportunity to continue, this episode really, really resolved a lot of shit in a way that felt earned and touching. And I think that the show has made a lot of brave creative choices over its time. And I think whether it's because Jeremy Allen White wants to do movies, or this is just what we're imagining is the case.

• 59:36Chris Ryan?

  I think it's probably, if I had to guess, I think it's like not an easy character to play. And it's like, it's not like he gets, you know. He has to be in a very emotionally damaged mindset, or pretend to be, you know, for the entirety of this series. He only really gets some light in his life in these last few episodes. Although, that being said, like, you can go back to two, season two. And, and there's more, kind of, not humor, but I would say that he's a more functional, like...

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  Person.

• 1:00:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  Human.

• 1:00:10Chris Ryan?

  A little bit, yeah. I think it's, I think it's the breakup with Claire and some other things that happen in two.

• 1:00:16Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the extra season here did him no favors. Because his arc was the show's arc, and he just had to carry the burden of a lack of movement for a very, very long time. And what I was saying before about like that movement stuff, that timing stuff, generally in filmed entertainment, we are not sitting there with a stopwatch or like putting it together, you know, like, uh, like Carrie Matheson's crazy board being like, when did this happen in the timeline? But because the show made itself so much about stretching and then also about how every second counts, it's asking for it, so that every scene in the back half of the season between Jess and Richie, where it's just like, oh, today they're going to have another move the ball forward profound conversation based on a question that anyone who started working at a place would have asked three months ago, felt weird.

• 1:01:01Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:01Andy Greenwald?

  Did I love those scenes? Yes, Sarah Ramos is awesome. Like, that's another storyline of them, their flirtation, whatever it is, like, let's go, I'm here for it. And the most, the most basic bitch TV fan way possible. I am shipping them.

• 1:01:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay? Shipping them like Odysseus was shipping the whatever it was called. I didn't research it ahead of time. But that's me.

• 1:01:19Chris Ryan?

  What does that mean? You didn't read it? You didn't read the Odyssey?

• 1:01:23Andy Greenwald?

  I, I've glanced at it, like I glanced at Ironheart. I feel like they're both cultural, they're content for me to consume. Wind horse fingers. My point is, uh, I enjoyed those scenes.

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  But it was tough for me to watch them for what they were as opposed to like, did they just shoot these all in the same day and then just sprinkle it throughout the season?

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  I know, that's the thing is like, I think, I think it's good for us too, and it's good for the viewers because I, I don't think viewers are maybe as addicted to figuring this shit out as you and I are, but like, we need a break from like, did they shoot all of this in the weeks before he left to go do Bruce Springsteen?

• 1:01:58Andy Greenwald?

  But I want to be clear, it's not just that I'm trying to do the forensic analysis, the timeline, it's just, it's also how it felt within the three months of this season, right? This season takes, that's what the clock is set for at the beginning of the season of how much, how much rope they have.

• 1:02:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I believe the, because then they, they basically do an echo of the second season premiere where Carm is really bad at math or keeping time.

• 1:02:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Chris Ryan?

  And keeps adding or subtracting money in months to the clock.

• 1:02:25Andy Greenwald?

  Do you feel, as someone who, you know, still goes home to his childhood home in Philadelphia, do you feel that Claire's sweatshirt being in his closet strained credulity? Like, did you, you bought that?

• 1:02:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:41Andy Greenwald?

  Have you found equally specific things?

• 1:02:44Chris Ryan?

  I got rid of a bunch of stuff, but I still have some very important baseball memorabilia from 40 years of service to the game.

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  Very important baseball memorabilia? Can we, can we get a little?

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  I still have trophies, still have my, my jacket from travel baseball. Um, it doesn't fit.

• 1:03:01Andy Greenwald?

  I, not recently, because my parents moved 15 years ago, but like, when they were moving out of my childhood home, like, I did find things like a baseball that my grandfather had given me that was signed by Mike Schmidt. And I was like, I brought it to my parents and I was like, this is pretty cool.

• 1:03:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I can't say that Pop Pop was the friendliest fella, but he did get this for me. And my mom was like, that's his handwriting, you know that, right?

• 1:03:27Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, wow, any other dreams you want a machine gun? Right now?

• 1:03:34Chris Ryan?

  Alden Ehrenreich plays Obadiah Stain, by the way, or his son, Zeke.

• 1:03:40Chris Ryan?

  Not to, not to blow the, your mind there.

• 1:03:44Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were fan casting Alden Ehrenreich as a young Henry Greenwald.

• 1:03:47Chris Ryan?

  What would you do if Bear Season Five, Episode One is Carmy and Claire in Barcelona, wandering around, looking at architecture and eating?

• 1:03:59Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:04:00Chris Ryan?

  Like, what if it is still a Carmy show?

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'm not saying it shouldn't be, but I'm saying him saying, and, and also, we're, we're making it seem cut and dry. One of the other things that that-

• 1:04:09Chris Ryan?

  What's the new El Buie restaurant called?

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well-

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  Didn't they, they closed El Buie, right?

• 1:04:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, Ferdinand closed it, but Albert, his brother, has like tickets or something.

• 1:04:17Chris Ryan?

  Tickets. That's where they got the popcorn machine when you walk in. Well, that's what it was on Bourdain. I've never-

• 1:04:22Andy Greenwald?

  That's what you heard about. It's like-

• 1:04:23Chris Ryan?

  I've never been to Spain.

• 1:04:24Andy Greenwald?

  We're, that's secretly what you were doing last week. You were just location scouting for Bear S5.

• 1:04:32Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should give the show also some, uh, some credit for the way the, the argument broke down where two things could be true at once, that he was taking, doing, doing something kind, that also doing something selfish, that tracked with how he had behaved previously. I think it went right at that. The show isn't necessarily better without him and that character in it. It would not make any sense if he was just written off, like, like, uh, when Valerie became the Hogan family. You know what I mean?

• 1:05:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:01Andy Greenwald?

  It's not, it's not that, but give him different light, different energy, different frequency of usage, and I think it becomes a different, more naturally evolving thing. That said, I have been watching some really, really good travel reels, uh, in Lisbon recently, and I, and I feel like maybe that's where he and Claire should go.

• 1:05:20Chris Ryan?

  It's interesting.

• 1:05:20Andy Greenwald?

  Just for like the, the seafood and beer, like very low key, or like the, the bifana stand, you know, you just get your little pork sandwich.

• 1:05:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  Have you?

• 1:05:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Andy Greenwald?

  Must be nice.

• 1:05:30Chris Ryan?

  I preferred porno personally.

• 1:05:32Andy Greenwald?

  Did you?

• 1:05:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm a little bit more of a northern industrial guy, you know, rather than.

• 1:05:37Andy Greenwald?

  Do you? If I had access to your Google history, like, how many times have you searched, what is the Manchester of blank? For like every place you go?

• 1:05:48Chris Ryan?

  Pretty much.

• 1:05:48Andy Greenwald?

  So you can walk the streets.

• 1:05:49Chris Ryan?

  I just, I, you know what? Porno was a little bit more temperate. That when I was there and, you know, it's got the, the wine country right outside of the city.

• 1:05:58Andy Greenwald?

  Like, like Portland does.

• 1:06:00Chris Ryan?

  And I found like the architecture of porno to be gorgeous. Lisbon's, no. It's, it's easy to look at. You know what I mean?

• 1:06:09Andy Greenwald?

  But real heads know, huh?

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  Real heads do know.

• 1:06:11Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I'm just looking at my phone, just trying to pay these bills, you know?

• 1:06:15Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to talk a little bit about?

• 1:06:19Chris Ryan?

  Our playlist before we get out of here?

• 1:06:20Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah. How are you feeling about it this year? Well, let me, let me introduce this concept just to say that like a couple of years ago, we decided we would, because we don't really talk about music on the pod anymore, but we.

• 1:06:29Chris Ryan?

  It's been a while.

• 1:06:29Andy Greenwald?

  Or professionally, really, like we used to, but we did want to, we did want to bless the people with something and. I, I remember in the first year when I was like, we're, we're making songs that we like, not necessarily new songs. But songs that we are really digging that we think would be really good.

• 1:06:48Chris Ryan?

  You're the executive producer of this project.

• 1:06:50Andy Greenwald?

  For sure, but I appreciate that. But in the beginning, it really was like, this is for your barbecue playlist.

• 1:06:54Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:06:54Andy Greenwald?

  And I believe the first edition of this, I had like a DJ Khalid song on it. In recent years, personal tastes have really started to drive the narrative where I'm like, Chris.

• 1:07:03Chris Ryan?

  Get it off your chest.

• 1:07:03Andy Greenwald?

  I'm like, Chris, can you send me like eight tracks that you're really feeling right now? What I don't say, what I leave unsaid is could some of them not be 10 minute shoegaze drones? And you're like.

• 1:07:13Chris Ryan?

  Gouge Away. Yeah, right.

• 1:07:15Andy Greenwald?

  And you're like, at your age, you like what you like. So now it's really more of a back and forth.

• 1:07:20Chris Ryan?

  I've curated my picks for this year. These could feasibly play during a barbecue.

• 1:07:25Andy Greenwald?

  What else is happening during this barbecue? Is just everyone talking about the big, beautiful bill? And what it's going to do to all of our lives and the future of this country? Like, is that the kind of intended? I actually really like, jokes aside, I do love doing this because you introduced me to really.

• 1:07:40Chris Ryan?

  You introduced me to really good stuff, too.

• 1:07:42Andy Greenwald?

  And I feel I feel very good about this one.

• 1:07:44Chris Ryan?

  I thought we were sticking to more current stuff, but the first track you picked is a Joe Walsh song from But Seriously, Folks.

• 1:07:51Andy Greenwald?

  But then the rest of it is new, but that I had been listening to that.

• 1:07:53Chris Ryan?

  His 1978 solo record?

• 1:07:55Andy Greenwald?

  Because theme from Boat Weirdos rules.

• 1:07:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, this is setting the mood.

• 1:07:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's it's a good, like, opening gambit.

• 1:08:01Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like the last few years, I've put one old song at the end. For the heads, but this year you dropped the live version of Nobody by Knife Play. And I was like, well, we know, we know the set closer Ugly Light song for this year.

• 1:08:13Chris Ryan?

  That's a good song.

• 1:08:14Andy Greenwald?

  It fucking rules.

• 1:08:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Andy Greenwald?

  But I just.

• 1:08:17Chris Ryan?

  That's more like on the Crazy Horse meets Spiritualized meets Shoe Gaze.

• 1:08:21Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to say, I don't want to like, make things all about me, but like 90% about me. I just feel like I really relate now to the line producer of The Bear trying to juggle everyone's schedules so that everyone can make Avengers Doomsday, but also make a season of television. That's what I'm like trying to make a West Side Gun remix get along with Dean Blunt.

• 1:08:42Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, my boy from Ice Age.

• 1:08:44Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:08:44Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:08:46Andy Greenwald?

  But yeah, we got we. I think it would be fun to see if like the real heads can tell.

• 1:08:51Chris Ryan?

  Who picked what?

• 1:08:52Andy Greenwald?

  Who did what on this? Yeah, you did eight, I did 10 songs, just to assert my dominance a little bit more while you were vacationing in Portugal.

• 1:09:01Andy Greenwald?

  But I think everything else on here.

• 1:09:02Chris Ryan?

  Only the industrial parts.

• 1:09:03Andy Greenwald?

  Other than the first track, every other song on here, I think, is a new song from 2025.

• 1:09:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I tried to make it that way. Maybe there's a 24 in there or something like that. I think you're right. I think people should be able to listen to it and then and then check it out and guess who picked what.

• 1:09:18Andy Greenwald?

  I will say that I did a 180 on Yule because we saw Yule perform live on Mulaney. And I came back absolutely shook up like William F Buckley being like, what's up with the kids?

• 1:09:29Chris Ryan?

  That was kind of your Barbie, you know, where you were like, you saw five seconds of Yule and you were like, not at all.

• 1:09:33Andy Greenwald?

  And then I heard the other songs on the record. I'm like, it's pretty good.

• 1:09:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It is always a fun exercise. There's lots of really good stuff on here. Dark Glacier, Sorry, They Are Gutting a Body of Water.

• 1:09:44Andy Greenwald?

  We both love that song.

• 1:09:44Chris Ryan?

  Hotline TNT's new album is awesome. It's on there.

• 1:09:47Andy Greenwald?

  New Preoccupations album is great.

• 1:09:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Andy Greenwald?

  Had you heard X Void before? Because that's that's that's my guy from the tubs.

• 1:09:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Andy Greenwald?

  What what's that like? Oh, I was about to say, what's it like having two things, projects simultaneously that are both really good? And then I remembered that we're in the Rewatchable Studio. And this is just how you wake up every morning.

• 1:10:06Chris Ryan?

  This is my side project.

• 1:10:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's unbelievable.

• 1:10:09Chris Ryan?

  This is my lo-fi bedroom pop thing.

• 1:10:12Andy Greenwald?

  Just for the heads?

• 1:10:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  Happy July 4th to you.

• 1:10:17Andy Greenwald?

  I hope people have a great weekend celebrating.

• 1:10:19Chris Ryan?

  To John, to Olivia, to our listeners, to Kaia, wherever she is.

• 1:10:22Andy Greenwald?

  She's celebrating already.

• 1:10:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we'll be back on Monday talking about some TV that we've missed over the last couple of months. Smoke is relatively recent. I think it'll already have four episodes out. I doubt we'll be talking about all of them, but we'll generally speak about that. That's on Apple TV.

• 1:10:37Chris Ryan?

  The Eater Not.

• 1:10:38Andy Greenwald?

  Eternot?

• 1:10:39Chris Ryan?

  Eternot? We'll find out. Is on Netflix and has just kind of come recommended from a couple of different sources. People being like, you guys check this out? Would you check this out? And we're due an international sci-fi Netflix banger since Dark.

• 1:10:52Andy Greenwald?

  And I. That always feels good to find that.

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  It does. I'm sure we'll have some other observations from a, will no doubt be an eventless weekend in America.

• 1:11:02Andy Greenwald?

  They all are these days.

• 1:11:03Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for listening and happy July 4th. We'll talk to you guys on Monday.

• 1:11:15Speaker 05

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.

• 1:11:45Speaker 06

  As a small business owner, I don't have time for downtime. Luckily, AT&T Business Wireless doesn't take breaks. When my business takes me on the go, my wireless stays reliable. Or when I'm taking my pitch on the road, my bandwidth is faster than rush hour traffic. And when I'm working from home, my network is as fast as this touchdown drive! What? I'm multitasking. Keep your business connected with AT&T Business Wireless. Visit att.com/5GNetwork. When the connection matters, it has to be AT&T.