A ‘Superman’ Preview and ‘The Eternaut’ Episodes 4-6

Chris and Andy talk about the news that ‘Slow Horses’ has been renewed for Seasons 6 and 7 before the fifth season has even aired, and the brilliance of the show's release strategy (8:01). Then they preview the new ‘Superman’ movie (15:58) before talking about Episodes 4-6 of ‘The Eternaut’ and the series of twists that shaped this show (29:30). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 01

  Observe. The North American dad. 50s. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.

• 1:30Speaker 02

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

• 1:36Chris 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 is HBO Max bumper sticker is back in style. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  I still had the original HBO Max tile, undeleted, but it doesn't...

• 1:55Chris Ryan?

  From that, from your Apple TV app?

• 1:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:58Andy Greenwald?

  But it hasn't come back in style, like that gum I like. The new one turned into the old one.

• 2:03Chris Ryan?

  I'm sorry to hear that. I can help you clean that stuff up.

• 2:06Andy Greenwald?

  Would you do that?

• 2:06Chris Ryan?

  Do you know how to do that? To clean up your Apple TV.

• 2:09Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 2:09Chris Ryan?

  Piles. Greenwald, it's great to see you today. We're gonna discuss the last three episodes of The Eternate. Uh, I have some Slow Horses news. I have some Superman questions for you.

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Chris Ryan?

  It's great to see you. You can email us at [email protected]. Please send in more emails. We love them. Uh, we are doing a Mailbag episode to be released either next week or the week after, but we will be recording it soon, so fire off some emails if you guys have any questions.

• 2:35Andy Greenwald?

  Isn't it funny the way email has become the like courtly, old fashioned polite way?

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  It's like Robert Lowell and Elizabeth What's-her-face.

• 2:43Andy Greenwald?

  Elizabeth What's-her-face. Dear Ms. What's-her-face at hotmail.co.uk.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  Can I be honest? I like, that's like the only reference I ever make to letters is Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop because it's like the only ones that I think I've ever read any of.

• 2:58Andy Greenwald?

  You know, you used to get a lot of mileage out of, like in the 2000s, you would dunk on me for my love of 18th century, 18th century epistolary novels.

• 3:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  Which was a great, actually it was a great double flex because you could dunk on me, but also use the word epistolary correctly. I feel like you really dined out on that.

• 3:14Chris Ryan?

  Do I not use the word epistolary?

• 3:15Andy Greenwald?

  How often does it come? No, you use it right, but how often does it come up? Until now, we have an epistolary relationship with our fans.

• 3:21Chris Ryan?

  That's true. Uh, they can also contact us and share their feelings about our content on Instagram.

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  On the watch pod underscore. Do you want to talk about that?

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  No. Well, here's what I wanted to talk about with you guys. I feel like this is, you know, we used to have like Lucy Goosey Thursdays or whatever. We never quite got the branding right. But, look, it's just us chickens in this dark room, you, me, Kaya in the shadows. And I wanted to check in with you guys because I feel like it's been about a year since we, like the rest of the internet and the New York Times, pivoted to video. And I wanted to get a sense from you guys how you feel like it's going. This is not a loaded question.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  First of all, it is not. It's not even been close to a year.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  It's been like three months.

• 4:00Speaker 05

  No, uh, it's actually, yeah, four, four to five.

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  So about two years in internet time.

• 4:06Chris Ryan?

  I've been on video for a while.

• 4:07Andy Greenwald?

  I've been admiring it. I've been loving it. I just want, you know, so no other thoughts, feedback right now? Like, I'm still waiting on the wardrobe budget to come in, but I feel like that's gonna-

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I just think you have like unrealistic expectations about what's gonna happen for us because of video. Like, we're not gonna get draped up in, in cool new clothes because of it.

• 4:24Andy Greenwald?

  Shut up, big, shut up, big brother. Brother, brother, I mean, sorry. Got the name wrong. Sorry, Gary. Shout out Big Brother, though, really, for making us pivot to video. I guess the reason why I came up, and I feel like you were leading me there, is that, you know, people, Kaya, you've been working with us for a while now, and we love it. We love her, don't we, folks? And I just think that pre-video, though, I thought of Kaya like the way Regis and Kelly thought of Gelman.

• 4:51Chris Ryan?

  It's definitely a reference, Kaya's.

• 4:52Andy Greenwald?

  Is that a reference people get? Do you get that reference, Kaya?

• 4:55Speaker 05

  Not in the slightest.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so, and I think he's still the producer of that The Kelly Show, whatever it is now. But like, The Kelly Ripa Show, for 25 years, has had the same executive producer, a mild-mannered fellow named Gelman, who's just always off-camera, but he's on-camera a lot, being like, "Oh, sorry about that, Kelly and Michael,"

• 5:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you know that he's a mild-mannered fellow named, like, what if it was, his name was Gelman, but he looked like Frank Grillo? You know?

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  He does not.

• 5:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:18Andy Greenwald?

  I researched this bit. Nothing else that we do on the podcast I researched. And so I thought that was kind of, you know, like, like you're there to support us, you chime in, you have your own opinions, which are great and always welcome here. However, when the raw footage of the podcast is, we leave it, and it's in Kaya's hands, she becomes that dude in the muscle tee from TMZ, just chopping it up, chopping it up for likes and for engagement. Because I walked out of the podcast on Monday being like, "Boy, it's fun to talk to my best friend about a rock group we've loved for 30 years, Oasis." Okay, maybe I feel like they haven't always been the best live band, but like, fuck, it's one of the greatest bands.

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  We, meaningful to us, sitting around minding my own business, when the latest reel from the WatchPod drops, from fucking the Bravo producer over here, and it's basically just-

• 6:14Chris Ryan?

  The landlord of Summer House.

• 6:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's just, it's just 50 seconds of me being like, essentially being like, "Fuck these guys."

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  And turns out, if you have to cross a fanbase, 50-year-old drunk Mancunians is not, not the one you want to cross.

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  People are real mad. But, Kaya-

• 6:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's working.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah, it's like, I post a clip of you guys being, okay, slightly negative about Oasis.

• 6:42Andy Greenwald?

  Look at this, look at this.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  And it gets, like, does really well, gets like 1,600 likes. Then I post a clip of you guys being like glowing about the each or not, it's crickets.

• 6:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, being thoughtful doesn't matter, being controversial does.

• 6:54Andy Greenwald?

  On the internet. So 180,000 people, their introduction to us presumably is me being like, Liam looks uncomfortable when he sings, that's stupid.

• 7:05Chris Ryan?

  These guys have never really been good at dialogue. Yeah, that's not how you talk, by the way.

• 7:10Andy Greenwald?

  Do more, do, stretch this out a little bit.

• 7:15Chris Ryan?

  Well, welcome to the internet, brother, you know, I don't know what to tell you.

• 7:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's tough.

• 7:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's tough out here. Do you think, though, the majority of the internet, look, I am not blameless here, the majority of the internet I consume is two British people standing with a microphone, you know, like, best pie in mash.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Andy Greenwald?

  Lay stones.

• 7:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, it's lovely, isn't it?

• 7:36Chris Ryan?

  Those guys somehow found success while being positive, I don't know why we can't, you know?

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that we would do better, though, if we had, you know, we had a guest and we just had one microphone for two, for all three of us in this, right? And we're like, um, I don't know, like, best long-form IP streaming on Netflix.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:58Andy Greenwald?

  And they're like, dark mate, we're like, yeah.

• 8:00Chris Ryan?

  It would do better if we got out of the cave from Descent here, like, you know, the descent.

• 8:06Chris Ryan?

  I, I, I think that you'll survive this brush.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's fine, I just wonder if, because now

• 8:10Chris Ryan?

  Online fandom.

• 8:11Andy Greenwald?

  We are

• 8:12Chris Ryan?

  I think you've toughened up.

• 8:13Andy Greenwald?

  I'm doing great, but somehow

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  I still want to go to the show.

• 8:18Chris Ryan?

  Me too.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  I do think that

• 8:20Speaker 05

  Do you guys want to take like a solid minute, just like praising Oasis and then I can

• 8:24Andy Greenwald?

  It's just, it's just pain, because we spent solid two decades praising Oasis. It's also, it's worth noting, I just don't know how to read the room, because if I had been like, some of the later Blur albums don't hit as hard, all the Blur fans would have been like, yeah, it's kind of true, isn't it?

• 8:38Chris Ryan?

  I said as much on Bandplain when I did that, and people were just like, this guy's American, but he knows who he's talking about, it's not what they said.

• 8:44Andy Greenwald?

  That's what they say about everything you do.

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no.

• 8:47Andy Greenwald?

  You don't think the, the, the avatars are coming for you?

• 8:51Chris Ryan?

  I think we're finding out that maybe there are not as many Avatar fans as we, uh, as we thought there were.

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  I don't.

• 8:57Chris Ryan?

  Maybe, maybe.

• 8:58Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  Much like some political leaders in this country.

• 9:01Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 9:01Chris Ryan?

  A great majority was out there and they just needed their voices heard.

• 9:05Andy Greenwald?

  They needed their angry take king to finally give voice to them.

• 9:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, can we talk a little bit about the world of television?

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  Fine, but I do think we should continue this conversation. First of all, Kaya got off scot-free.

• 9:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 9:19Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible, just skating by again.

• 9:21Chris Ryan?

  She actually probably got a bonus this week for rating some like.

• 9:24Andy Greenwald?

  Engagement farming. I do think we should talk about ways we can iterate in this video age, you know, that's all.

• 9:29Chris Ryan?

  Okay, um, here's some ways that Apple TV is iterating.

• 9:33Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 9:34Chris Ryan?

  They just renewed Slow Horses for three seasons, more, for three more seasons. We completed the fourth season. I know that they already said that the fifth season was coming.

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  This is like one of those little extra extensions that you get to like get under the second apron.

• 9:48Chris Ryan?

  Devin Booker. We just sort of like, hey, but hey, here's.

• 9:50Andy Greenwald?

  This is the Devin Booker.

• 9:52Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so obviously big, big, big fans of Slow Horses. Uh, season four was last fall, I believe.

• 10:00Andy Greenwald?

  It's now switched to kind of a fall.

• 10:02Chris Ryan?

  Spring, fall thing.

• 10:03Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:03Chris Ryan?

  Um, and they are, season five is coming in September, I believe, is, is the date.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  That would be based on, if we're going by the books that McCarran wrote, uh, for Slough House, that would be, um, London Rules, which we can talk about in a second. But the, I guess, surprise is that, um, Apple also announced that they were renewing the show for season six and seven.

• 10:28Andy Greenwald?

  The five and six were already announced.

• 10:30Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 10:30Andy Greenwald?

  They've tacked on seven.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  Okay. All right. So it wasn't that significant or historically relevant.

• 10:35Andy Greenwald?

  What it is, is, and I feel like maybe this is hidden inside this probably not that interesting response to your point, is the secret sauce of what makes Slow Horses great, which is, this is just all reasonable. This is how these things should go. Um, they are so.

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  In a perfect world, you would just be, you would have something that was cost controlled to some extent.

• 10:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Chris Ryan?

  You know, they know how to make this relatively efficiently. I mean, obviously.

• 11:00Andy Greenwald?

  Seems like it.

• 11:01Chris Ryan?

  I mean, they must, you know, I think that the only thing where you can see some seams developing in these sort of mid-period Slow Horses seasons, and we talked about this for last season, was Jack Loudon's character was largely. In a field in France for most of the season and away from the rest of the Slow Horses. And that wasn't as fun, you know, and whether or not we're starting to see like this person's schedule, that person's schedule, how do you kind of make everything work? Gary Oldman obviously has said that he will play this character for as long as they want him to.

• 11:33Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I think that the, the main thing that they have been able to embrace, and we'll see how it goes, is that, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, if I read this wrong, but in the announcement for season seven, Will Smith, not that one, and not the other one, the Slow Horses one, is not-

• 11:50Chris Ryan?

  Will Smith, the, the rapper actor.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  Always a rapper first for us.

• 11:55Chris Ryan?

  Then Will Smith, the catcher.

• 11:57Andy Greenwald?

  Of the Dodgers, yeah.

• 11:58Chris Ryan?

  And now Will Smith, the writer of Slow Horses.

• 12:00Andy Greenwald?

  Only one of them's been on the podcast, so I feel like he should be Will Smith prime.

• 12:03Chris Ryan?

  Well, we were very into the Dodgers that summer.

• 12:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, you just wanted to talk to a fellow battery mate, you know, like just talk about like crouching.

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, get the Benito Santiago leg out.

• 12:15Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, do you feel like you still watch baseball games from the perspective of the catcher? Like, is that, are you thinking about how the catcher's calling the game?

• 12:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't think you can do that anymore. I feel like everything is like little in-roses and radios and, and-

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  And the second baseman has the radio too now.

• 12:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's crazy. And then Altuve has a radio too, because he knows where everybody-

• 12:34Andy Greenwald?

  He's just banging the trashcans. What I'm saying is, it appears that the Emmy-winning showrunner of Slow Horses, Will Smith, is not going to be showrunning season seven.

• 12:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, doesn't he go one on, one off, basically?

• 12:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I, we should, I should have been more prepared for this. I think the bigger point, though, is there was, there were decisions made early on at a high level to guarantee the consistency and fluidity of the show.

• 13:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:03Andy Greenwald?

  And those types of decisions are rarely made in advance in television, and they are rarely made with this, what appears to be very like- This peacefully, frankly. And when we think about a show that we loved this year that we immediately were like, oh, this could be Netflix's Slow Horses. This could run forever. There's plenty of books to base it on. It's Department Q. Department Q is still, for as wonderful as it is, is perched very firmly in a different model of TV making, which is Scott Frank's like, well, it took a lot out of me to make this entire show myself. I guess I gotta see if I can dig deep and do it again.

• 13:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 13:37Andy Greenwald?

  It has not yet been renewed. It doesn't mean they haven't had conversations. The decision may have been made. But if Department Q was going to be Netflix's Slow Horses, the next series would already be in, honestly, it would already be in-

• 13:49Chris Ryan?

  Done, yeah.

• 13:50Andy Greenwald?

  Done filming.

• 13:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Andy Greenwald?

  So I just shout out to Apple TV's UK operation.

• 13:56Chris Ryan?

  It's one of the great pleasures of the decade has been Slow Horses. And also the fact that we know there's more Slow Horses coming.

• 14:02Andy Greenwald?

  And I think there's a new book-

• 14:03Chris Ryan?

  There's so much hand wringing about cancellations, about whether we're gonna bring it back, what, how long it's gonna take to get back to the screens to have a show that's this reliably satisfying? And know that like, basically Gary Oldman is like, I'll just do this.

• 14:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  This is cool.

• 14:18Andy Greenwald?

  I'm good.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  I get to be in London and fart and smoke-

• 14:22Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 14:22Chris Ryan?

  And talk to Kristen Scott Thomas. It's a good job.

• 14:24Andy Greenwald?

  This is why we both wanna just move there, right? You just pretty much nailed it. And there's another book coming out this fall. So there's still more-

• 14:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think this will be the 10th, right?

• 14:33Andy Greenwald?

  9th officially. 9th. It's called Clown Town. It's a good name.

• 14:38Chris Ryan?

  You wanna talk a little bit about Superman? Before we see it? We haven't seen it.

• 14:42Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 14:43Chris Ryan?

  I just wanted to get a tech check.

• 14:45Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, can I do one other TV thing?

• 14:47Chris Ryan?

  By all means.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  What a weird, this is buried because I don't think anyone was checking for it. And it was buried, you know, obviously in the huge, exciting headline news of HBO Max becoming HBO Max again. But speaking of Max programming, did you follow this week's, as in Monday until this morning, Duster news cycle?

• 15:05Chris Ryan?

  I did.

• 15:06Andy Greenwald?

  So Duster was a show that we checked out and we said, thank you, but no thank you. I, my assumption was that so did many of the viewers, but I don't know that. It seems to have a high Rotten Tomato score, which as we know from our coverage of Ironheart, is always a true indicator of fandom.

• 15:23Chris Ryan?

  I love that you called it coverage.

• 15:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, right. Well- I sort of tried to get my arms around it.

• 15:29Chris Ryan?

  We've come back from our time overseas at the Ironheart desk. Yeah, go ahead.

• 15:33Andy Greenwald?

  I still feel bad. I didn't, I didn't actually, one of the things I liked about that show, no one's gonna be hearing me say this, but the title, the title screens, when it like formed the name of the show out of like the food on the table, I was like, that was clever. It was stylish.

• 15:46Chris Ryan?

  I thought that there were lots of things that were clever about the limited amount of Ironheart that I saw.

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there's more out there for you. I don't mean there's new seasons. I just mean you didn't actually watch more of it.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Andy Greenwald?

  So on Monday, it was a mini story that Josh Holloway was like, you know what I'd love for Duster season two is Walton Goggins to be in it. And that generated a little bit of like, oh damn, my internet boyfriends is gonna be riding around in the seventies together. And today came the news that there will not in fact be a Duster season two. I kind of respected the move, the hope casting of like, if we did it.

• 16:23Chris Ryan?

  I don't think it was a move. Here's what I think is happening now.

• 16:25Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 16:25Chris Ryan?

  Is that people do junkets and the only questions they are getting asked is.

• 16:30Andy Greenwald?

  About Walton Goggins and Amy Lee Wood?

• 16:32Chris Ryan?

  No, it's like, what's your top four Letterboxd movies? What did you think of like the end of Lost? And if I was Josh Holloway, any Tom Cruise stories from Mission Impossible? Like it's only what can I turn into a former Lost star says Tom Cruise was a dick.

• 16:48Andy Greenwald?

  Best curry in London.

• 16:49Chris Ryan?

  And best curry.

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  Best fry up.

• 16:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And do you think Oasis get along?

• 16:53Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Oasis are a good live band?

• 16:55Chris Ryan?

  Um, so I bet what happened was.

• 16:57Andy Greenwald?

  Kind of sharpening her knives over there. She's like, this is gonna, this is gonna cook.

• 17:00Chris Ryan?

  But I thought somebody was like, who would you love to see on Duster season two? And he was like, I don't fucking know Walton Goggins. And it turned into like Josh Holloway bets it all on Walton Goggins coming on to season two.

• 17:11Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 17:11Chris Ryan?

  You got, you got played by big media.

• 17:14Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. How did you get so media savvy about stuff?

• 17:17Chris Ryan?

  I haven't been wasting my time underwater with the Na'vi, you know? I've been seeing things for, I've been seeing things for what they are.

• 17:26Andy Greenwald?

  It's impressive.

• 17:26Speaker 06

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• 18:11Speaker 06

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• 18:47Speaker 07

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• 19:15Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you about Superman because I'm all over the place on this movie.

• 19:18Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, yeah, I think I'm with you.

• 19:20Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 19:21Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry, Kaia. I disagree, Chris. I'm in one place with Superman. It's called fucking Krypton.

• 19:30Andy Greenwald?

  Now, some might say this planet is unstable. It is some sort of environmental crisis. I don't.

• 19:38Andy Greenwald?

  You can get in your little baby pod and flee. But those of us who love Krypton, who put Krypton first,

• 19:46Andy Greenwald?

  we're staying right here. Okay? Have fun, Kal-El.

• 19:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, is that your daily Planet editorial?

• 19:55Andy Greenwald?

  Except, Daily Planet about to blow up editorial, yeah.

• 19:58Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 20:00Chris Ryan?

  Have you found that this has been the movie that broke whether or not, like, how to anticipate films a little bit?

• 20:07Andy Greenwald?

  This is a great framing.

• 20:08Chris Ryan?

  It's not, it's not even that solid of a framing, but I'm gonna go with it anyway.

• 20:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  I feel like if you're an engaged online movie fan, and I mean that in like lowercase f, like, yeah, I'm a fan of movies and I read about them before they come out. It's like, this is the movie that either it is the woke mind virus become, become manifest, or, like, something that captures the total essence of Superman as a character and returns us to the wonder and glory of the 1940s. Or, is a two and a half hour mess, or like a tight, cool, new movie from James Gunn. Like, the reactions to this film have been so varied that it actually, I would say this makes me wanna see it even more, even though I was probably like professionally obligated and

• 20:56Chris Ryan?

  and curious enough to wanna go check it out anyway. Where are you at with this and have you been paying much attention to the lead up?

• 21:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, I've gone through some permutations myself because I have been, ever since he got the gig, I have been on this microphone being like, I think this is gonna be great. I think this is the right person for the job. I think it's the right take on the character. Very much based on the-

• 21:18Chris Ryan?

  The right city for the actor who plays Superman to be from?

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, if we had, I'm just, I'm not saying we had to cast a Jewish kid from the main line as Superman. But once we did- Where do I report for duty? How many tickets can I buy in advance?

• 21:36Andy Greenwald?

  I, you know, I think it's very much, this has been in the ether as well, that like, it was very much visually inspired by the Grant Morrison, Frank Whiteley, All-Star Superman. All in. And then, as we got closer to the actual movie existing, it's a lot of dog content, and also a lot of busyness, right? That like, I thought that the appeal of that comic book, The All-Star Superman, was that it was really reduced to its essence of what Superman is. And then you could sort of build up from there. What it seemed like we were getting, and we still may have gotten, is like, we are just drop kicking you into the deep end of a brightly colored meta-human world.

• 22:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  Where it's very busy and all the stuff is going on, and thankfully, not an origin story, but a very, very like, in media res kind of, kind of thing. I started to back off a little bit. Then there's that very accidental leak embargo break of a guy being like, fuck this, only Zack Snyder understood the raw physical power.

• 22:36Chris Ryan?

  That was what was so funny about that.

• 22:38Andy Greenwald?

  That, meaning?

• 22:39Chris Ryan?

  The leak was from The Daily Beast.

• 22:41Andy Greenwald?

  And do you think it's funny because The Daily Beast has long been like, anti-Snyder and this was a zag for them?

• 22:45Chris Ryan?

  Historically where they stand on the Snyder Cut, but I bet, like, generally speaking, I find The Daily Beast to be like, whoa, that's cool.

• 22:54Andy Greenwald?

  How is that different than my imitation of me you just did? What would I sound like writing for The Daily Beast? Be honest.

• 23:03Chris Ryan?

  I wish Oasis would talk more.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Where's the banter? Why can't Oasis be more like?

• 23:10Chris Ryan?

  I didn't pay $400 to hear these songs. I want to hear you guys chat.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Do you know which siblings really make me smile in concert? Tegan and Sara.

• 23:19Chris Ryan?

  She's fucking loving us today. This is great.

• 23:21Andy Greenwald?

  That's because she's just thinking about all the clips she's gonna make.

• 23:24Chris Ryan?

  She's gonna have to make a supercut of all the times we do your voice. Your Daily Beast voice.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Hey, guys.

• 23:34Andy Greenwald?

  If I address it, I address the whole thing to Alan in Leeds. You know, just like my straw man always is.

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  Alan, I've spent a lot of time in your country.

• 23:45Andy Greenwald?

  Alan, put down the Fullers for a second. What are we saying?

• 23:50Chris Ryan?

  So I was just curious whether you were pumped for this movie. Well, also like, haven't you found it a bit confusing? Like, I mean, like, I guess like.

• 23:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's confusing. I also think it's, well, you could look at it this two ways. I think broadly, this is a bummer and it's a much larger topic that we've touched on in different ways. And obviously Sean and Amanda talk about frequently. Movies can't just be movies anymore. They have to be cultural events. And in order to be a cultural event, you have to have the valence of cultural events today, which as we were just talking about is content. It's teams. It's this versus that. It's like this movie represents my side. And whether it's my side about movies, about politics, about culture, whatever, it has to represent that. So then you have to literally, in this case, cape up to support it. So the division of this movie into like, you know, Snyder fans versus, what's the word?

• 24:41Andy Greenwald?

  People with taste or, see, I'm trying. This is, I think it's going great.

• 24:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Andy Greenwald?

  No, but it's like, which side of this movie are you on? I think all of that obscures the fact that very likely we will come in here on Monday and do the thing that Kyle will hate most, which is, this is pretty good. And it's kind of messy and it's not a great movie, but it might be a good experience and it might have things to build on or things that we found repellent. But regardless, we're talking about it. But to get people in the theaters, it has to be much, much, much more than that. I do think that the lead up is confusing for people who are paying attention to it because it is hard to separate the idea of this movie as James Gunn, the filmmaker's expression of what is true and great about both Superman and comic books generally versus James Gunn, the partner of Peter Safran, the architect of the next 10 years of the DCU.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  Who's like tweeting out like, I have spoken to Ryan Coogler. And, you know, we may be cooking something up.

• 25:37Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 25:37Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 25:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Which is, I mean, is a way of engaging with and driving interest in your project. So I get it.

• 25:43Andy Greenwald?

  But that said.

• 25:46Andy Greenwald?

  I can't pretend I didn't bring my Dave Sushi hat, so I cannot pretend to be the voice of the people, you know, of like, middle America today. But I did have some delicious mushrooms for breakfast.

• 25:56Chris Ryan?

  This is a very reflexive episode we're recording here today.

• 26:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think we have to cultivate our base.

• 26:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I think that works in America. I get the sense, and I feel like the early tracking of how the movie's going to do supports this, that the rollout has been successful.

• 26:16Chris Ryan?

  It's gonna be a big hit, I think.

• 26:17Andy Greenwald?

  That the images, like, just the still images, the poster, the billboards, just like, of a handsome Jewish guy from the main line of Philadelphia's face, and like, just look up, and like, the colors, and the way that it is playing nostalgia, the way Gunn is really good at this, it's using the rainbow font, it's using the John Williams score, but it doesn't feel like the Gus Van Sant version of Psycho. It's not like a frame-for-frame tribute to something. It feels like something relatively new, and there's a lot of bright colors and stuff, and that seems like it's gonna work.

• 26:50Chris Ryan?

  Fucking movies, man. I went to go see F1 last night, because I wanted to get it.

• 26:54Andy Greenwald?

  So jealous.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  In IMAX before Superman took over IMAX screens, which I assume is gonna happen. Dude, like, packed house for a Wednesday, 6:15. And Bill went and saw it the other night, and he was like, "It's a packed house for a Tuesday at 10:15." It's like, people are just like, going to the movies.

• 27:14Andy Greenwald?

  So as the third chair of the big picture, where's the disconnect still? Because it's not just anecdotal, that like, we've thrown this out a bunch of times, like, "Oh, you know, the Newbev and America Cinematech and Vidiet's and local places here in LA are always filled for whatever they're doing in an exciting way." It's like, Criterion Collection goes viral. Like, Criterion has a million followers on Instagram. I don't, I can't imagine a world-

• 27:40Chris Ryan?

  Is that because Liam and Noel went in the closet?

• 27:44Chris Ryan?

  Eh.

• 27:45Andy Greenwald?

  Do it. I fucking dare you.

• 27:48Chris Ryan?

  Our kid made this movie. I don't know how to do Manchester.

• 27:52Andy Greenwald?

  Manchester is really hard.

• 27:53Chris Ryan?

  I can do, I can in my private time do Liverpool, but I would not share it with people. I can do Kerry Condon from F1.

• 28:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you want to talk about that? Kerry Condon, you've, listen, not to get, make everything a financial thing, but you have had Kerry Condon stocks since,

• 28:09Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:09Andy Greenwald?

  since Leo was peddling them.

• 28:11Chris Ryan?

  Kesinski saw the vision, Pitt saw the vision.

• 28:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Chris Ryan?

  CR saw the vision. You saw the vision.

• 28:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but like, this is someone who is a working actor, who is just like, ah, luck would be me big break. And it was not.

• 28:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:22Andy Greenwald?

  Broke a bunch of horses instead. And then,

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I don't know.

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  She's in Better Call Saul, like, constantly, but not particularly, uh, forcefully, right?

• 28:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:32Andy Greenwald?

  She, she, she plays Mike's, uh, essentially,

• 28:36Chris Ryan?

  Estranged daughter-in-law.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Daughter-in-law.

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. But here she is.

• 28:42Chris Ryan?

  Fixing cars.

• 28:43Andy Greenwald?

  Do it.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. No, I mean, like, she, she is awesome in that movie. Um.

• 28:47Andy Greenwald?

  But wait, what's my, answer my question though. What, are, movies are so bad, but why can't we make them?

• 28:52Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, I know this is a stupid answer. I honestly think it's like quality and it's word of mouth. I think it's like people coming out of sinners. It's people coming out of 28 years later. It's people even coming out of materialists and be like, I loved this, or I thought this was really provocative, or I thought that you, you gotta go see it. You gotta, you gotta see it till we can talk about it.

• 29:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  That urgency and that feeling that like movies are some sort of like currency that you can, you know, this is something to talk about at dinner. It's something to talk about at the office. It's something to chat about with friends. And I think that, um, there was like, I think the event overtook the movie, an event movie for a while. And now it's like, no, you can make a really good movie and that can in itself be an event. And I think they also, honestly, like, the IMAX experience is really, really powerful.

• 29:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:41Chris Ryan?

  To go to see that movie and it be that loud and it's Hans Zimmer synths for like two and a half hours. You're like, my, I feel like I went to a rock concert. It was incredible.

• 29:51Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, I feel like I, it's the only IMAX movie I've ever actually seen in IMAX, I think, was when we saw Oppenheimer together. Yeah. The other thing about Superman that, we'll talk about it more on Monday, that I think is interesting, and I don't know if it's interesting to many people, I don't know how much of a, how, how much this, this story has penetrated, but like, to the degree to which people who work for or around the Warner Brothers Discovery Corporation, who are, who will say, not like on the record, but just casually say, um, yeah, if this movie doesn't work, like, the studio, like, the lot is gonna get sold. Like, that, they're not being serious, I'm not, I'm not trying to be aggregated, but like, it's kind of this big shrug and be like, well, Superman and the Harry Potter show, like, they better

• 30:34Andy Greenwald?

  work, or else this whole thing collapses. No pressure. No pressure, I feel great. Um. I think that's interesting. To the comic book point, which is also kind of a segue into Eternaut, Eternaut. Yeah. Um, one of the things that I love about the show, and we're not spoiling it yet, is the fact that it is a hundred percent, I mean, a hundred percent based on a comic book, and is a comic book story, but whether it's due to, um, budgetary limitations, production limitations, or creative vision, it is not over the top, even though the story is enormous. And it is often a question of scale. And I thought that one of the more interesting Superman reviews I read was by Owen Gliberman, who we've been reading since he was the critic in Entertainment Weekly in the 90s.

• 31:19Andy Greenwald?

  Where's he now, Variety? He's at Variety. And he, his review's really, really good, um, and interesting, and, and positive. But his point, his lead, is basically that we know, we know what the worst parts of comic book movies, but the most, I'm quoting him here, "The most ironic aspect of comic book movies is that most of them aren't actually very much like comic books. They tend to be rooted in the hero's awesome prowess, the ability to zip through universes, smash objects, etc."

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  About blah, blah, blah, but how like physical and big these stories are.

• 31:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  What's interesting about comic books is because there are no limits to the, there's no budget as long as you draw it. It almost naturally, especially over the last few years, has refocused the storytelling eye on the more human stories happening in the midst of the enormity. Like, they can do things, like have a character who was, I mean, this character was in the movies in the Doctor Strange sequel, but like America Chavez, whose power is she can punch holes in universes. But that's in some ways the least interesting thing about her.

• 32:18Chris Ryan?

  I mean, you watched the Spider-Man, Last Spider-Man movie and it's like everybody was like, Marisa Tomei. You know, like, it's like, people are still responding to the more human aspects of these movies.

• 32:27Andy Greenwald?

  But movies often are like, well, we can do this. So we have the budget to do it. So we're going to be incredibly noisy first and we're going to make a movie. I mean, with, with each or not, like, is, is the appeal that it is about an alien invasion or is it, is the appeal? I mean, for the developers, for the executives.

• 32:43Chris Ryan?

  I think it's like a selling point. I think they're like, great. But it's also, we can start to talk about the series a little bit and I, I, I want to be mindful of the fact that people may have heard us talk about this show on Monday and have not watched the entire thing. So we'll try to keep our conversation.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know how you kept it.

• 32:58Chris Ryan?

  Fairly general.

• 33:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Chris Ryan?

  How I kept what?

• 33:01Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know how, if you started it on Monday, I feel like odds are you're close to finishing it.

• 33:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes, but I still don't want to spoil it for anybody until it's a certain point. So I, what I will say, and this is, this is a, I would say that there are three or four big twists that happened in the back half of the season, right? Uh, and we can get into those, uh, cause that's a really good way to talk about what happens in the series. But the remaining, like, if, if somebody was like, why did you like the show? Those twists and those aspects of science fiction would be very far down the list. It would be about the physical, like the personal interactions between these people who are not quite all family, you know, but are forced to come together.

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 33:42Chris Ryan?

  I think it would be the depiction of Buenos Aires in this state of ecological or environmental disaster. It would be the procedural aspect. Of like, okay, so if you can't go outside, how do you go outside? Or if you can't, how do you eat? What are you eating? What are you doing to pass the time? And then, you know, as they start to realize that older electrical devices that aren't probably run by computers will work.

• 34:09Chris Ryan?

  That's fascinating just to see all the old tech come into play. And that also probably ties in to the actual time when the comic book was written. You know, it's a very, I don't know if that's the case, but it's a very ingenious fix.

• 34:19Andy Greenwald?

  I'm really curious about that since the comic was made in the 50s when people didn't have cell phones and cars didn't have automated computer systems.

• 34:27Chris Ryan?

  I guess broadly speaking, there's no real way to talk about the second half of these episodes this season without getting into it.

• 34:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I think the last broad things I would say, the non spoiler-y things are.

• 34:39Andy Greenwald?

  I was dazzled by how true to the show's aesthetic vision and thematic point of view. It's, it stayed even with wild swings into more excessive genre elements. I thought that Bruno Stagnaro, who directed it, is a phenomenal director of, of restraint and style. Visual storytelling, you know, in a monochromatic field of like making something feel so, making you feel anchored in with people that you may only have just met. When you're talking about a visual field that is gray, sooty, covered in poisoned snow. And everyone is wearing essentially hazmat suits.

• 35:18Chris Ryan?

  Dude, it's really difficult. They meet over the course of the season, like the main characters come across something like a dozen, two dozen different people that it's not unincumbent. Like you're, it's incumbent on you to kind of be like, okay, that's this guy.

• 35:34Andy Greenwald?

  Inga wears that jacket.

• 35:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like there's these two old dudes at this church or whatever. And you gotta keep that straight. Many people are wearing gas masks for most of the movie. And then it gets even more confusing as it gets deeper into the story, which we can talk about now. I mean, I would, this is one of my favorite shows of the year. I would highly recommend it to anyone who's.

• 35:53Andy Greenwald?

  Last thing, it's been renewed.

• 35:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Andy Greenwald?

  So I think there probably are a bunch of people even who listen to us who are like, I'm not, I'm not sure. I'm ready to invest my chips in or whatever. Like they're going to tell the whole story. There's a second season, it's been renewed. I think it's going to be eight episodes to finish it out.

• 36:06Chris Ryan?

  Cool.

• 36:06Andy Greenwald?

  So. Trust, trust this one.

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Um, alright, so there are a couple of, uh, plot turns to address.

• 36:15Andy Greenwald?

  Let's talk, let's talk the big one.

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so then the number one is that the ecological disaster that you assume is some sort of like, are the poles reversing? Is this finally, we've melted, melted some iceberg somewhere? It is in fact an alien invasion.

• 36:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Chris Ryan?

  And the aliens are, at least initially, a kind of beetle-like extraterrestrial who are predatory and when they attack people, um, wrap them up in a kind of spider web and drag them into a hovel that they've created. All of that stuff is very coolly-

• 36:51Andy Greenwald?

  What do they do with them there?

• 36:53Chris Ryan?

  Well, I was gonna get to that.

• 36:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 36:55Chris Ryan?

  Um, the victims of that process then come back as body-snatched versions of themselves.

• 36:59Andy Greenwald?

  So wait, so that is true? That's what happened, like?

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:03Andy Greenwald?

  They're not eating them?

• 37:04Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 37:05Andy Greenwald?

  They eat each other, did you notice that?

• 37:06Chris Ryan?

  I did, I did.

• 37:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's rough.

• 37:08Chris Ryan?

  The game is the game.

• 37:09Andy Greenwald?

  Is that your feeling?

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  That's what happens, man. I think that, that moment where the one beetle gets killed and all the other beetles feast on it.

• 37:16Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, sick food.

• 37:17Chris Ryan?

  This is what's up. This is, get, get used to it.

• 37:20Andy Greenwald?

  Genuinely, did you feel like, like in that moment, did you know Trump was gonna win again? In the sense where you're like, this is what we're up against?

• 37:29Chris Ryan?

  This is the discipline?

• 37:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, this is the MAGA discipline?

• 37:32Chris Ryan?

  So yes, the victims then come back from their encasement.

• 37:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but we don't know that yet. I mean, in the, when we first see that.

• 37:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, first we see it and we're like, they're fucking killing these guys and wrapping them up in webs. Now, I, as a person who's seen Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, know being webbed up is not the end. You know what I mean?

• 37:52Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 37:53Chris Ryan?

  You can, you can make it through that, but-

• 37:55Andy Greenwald?

  Also, Game of Thrones, my guy, the one-eyed raven, wasn't he all webbed up and stuff for a long time?

• 38:00Chris Ryan?

  That's right. Well, he was part of a tree, wasn't he?

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, it's been years.

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the victims of that process then come back as body-snatch versions of themselves with almost the same personality.

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, shades of it.

• 38:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I would say that they present as themselves, but then there are little elements, whether it's a personality characteristic change or lapses in memory that are noticeable to people who are close to them.

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  I think I've been webbed up, honestly.

• 38:25Chris Ryan?

  Difference is especially, uh, acute in Clara, who is-

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  But before we start, you're recapping all this show.

• 38:32Chris Ryan?

  I'm trying, I said I was gonna go through all the twists.

• 38:34Andy Greenwald?

  I wanna talk about a twist at a time.

• 38:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay. All right. I love it when you, when you take the wheel. Go ahead.

• 38:39Andy Greenwald?

  I appreciate it, but I want to pause for a second because we left off with the show after three episodes and we were loving it.

• 38:47Andy Greenwald?

  And then the fourth episode tips it into a, a, a different thing. And the fourth episode is when, at the end of the third episode, oh no, the bad, these, these not nice couple, they get got by something. So we know something's out there. The way that the fourth episode is structured is so impressive. Like it is definitely the standout episode, just in terms of direction and action. And I can't get over the, the way that it builds its pace from Juan walking solo again, Tutanos showing up in the car and being like, we're not throwing away 40 years of friendship. And then he's like, it's actually 38 years, which made me feel like that's our vibe when the world ends.

• 39:27Andy Greenwald?

  Cause pedants gotta be pedants, you know? And then they encounter the military. There's a big barricade on the bridge made by something.

• 39:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 39:36Andy Greenwald?

  And they're like, let's follow the military. They've seen us. They start shooting. Wait, they're not shooting at us. And the way this is shot is super like Children of Men style.

• 39:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 39:47Andy Greenwald?

  Which I also think of as Halo style, like video game style.

• 39:50Chris Ryan?

  Your POV, yeah.

• 39:51Andy Greenwald?

  When the camera swings and what we, the first time we see these bugs.

• 39:55Chris Ryan?

  Children of Men or Halo?

• 39:56Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of my heart rankings?

• 39:57Chris Ryan?

  No, in terms of like, what came out first?

• 39:59Andy Greenwald?

  Halo.

• 40:00Chris Ryan?

  So you think the, you think Corone was like?

• 40:04Andy Greenwald?

  What is this alo?

• 40:05Chris Ryan?

  Master Chief, yeah. Why, why does he sound like that?

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I was trying to make him sound cool. You do your imitation of Alfonso Corone writing an op-ed for the Daily Beast about the Xbox being better than.

• 40:19Chris Ryan?

  What was the, who were the bad guys in Halo? The Horde?

• 40:22Andy Greenwald?

  No, the, uh, oh, that was one of the bad guys. But there was also the, um, there was like the big dog aliens, right?

• 40:27Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:27Andy Greenwald?

  Big dog aliens. Big dog's gotta eat. The Covenant? Is that it?

• 40:33Chris Ryan?

  Come on!

• 40:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 40:34Chris Ryan?

  Let's go! Come on!

• 40:37Andy Greenwald?

  You know, there was a TV show about Halo. Did you know that?

• 40:39Chris Ryan?

  I did, I did.

• 40:40Andy Greenwald?

  You want to talk about it?

• 40:41Chris Ryan?

  No, it was just like, that's not how I want to experience Halo.

• 40:44Andy Greenwald?

  You want to experience it?

• 40:44Chris Ryan?

  I don't want to drive F1 cars, but I want to watch F1.

• 40:47Andy Greenwald?

  You-

• 40:48Chris Ryan?

  I don't want to be, like, tell me a lot, a long story about Halo. I want to fucking shoot at the horse.

• 40:53Andy Greenwald?

  You want to have, you want to be four Yinglings deep with Wu-Tang's the W playing, watching me play up to the part where the horse comes being like, "It's a little scary right here," and you being like, "Actually, I can handle it." And then you writing an op-ed in my voice, talking about how video games are too scary now.

• 41:11Chris Ryan?

  The POV shots of the Beatles.

• 41:12Andy Greenwald?

  And so, because then when we actually see the bugs, I did, it took me a second. I was like, oh-

• 41:19Chris Ryan?

  I received that text message.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:21Andy Greenwald?

  Uh-huh. Okay, we're doing this. And all respect to my Argentine brothers in the, uh, VizFX department, but like, this was, it's okay. The design is cool and scary, but like, in terms of perfectly integrating CGI creatures into the world, it was a little, a little less, uh, smooth than some of the more expensive shows we were seeing. But what I really appreciated over the course of the episode was the, again, I've used this word like three times, the restraint that they use in giving us bug content, that I think budgetarily, they couldn't just keep having hordes of bugs dance across the screen. So instead, seeing them in passing on top of the bridge, hearing them, um, you know, seeing the after-effects of them, being afraid of them-

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:06Andy Greenwald?

  -benefited the story so much and kept the focus where it always should be, which is on these very, very normal, um, I miss, I feel like I didn't articulate this well the other day, when I was like, "This show isn't woke in its casting." What I mean is, everyone in the show is old and unsexy.

• 42:21Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:22Andy Greenwald?

  And that is, makes a very, it makes a massive visual difference from the types of shows that, that, that we usually watch.

• 42:29Chris Ryan?

  Um-

• 42:29Andy Greenwald?

  On Spike TV.

• 42:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and then I, I, there are so many little inventions, I'm sure of the comic, but used to great- To great effect in the show of like, you were mentioning like hiding the bugs a little bit. I think that they ripped the Band-Aid off and they're like, it's gonna be what it's gonna be.

• 42:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 42:45Chris Ryan?

  These bugs need to be running around. You have to see them. They have to be afraid of them.

• 42:48Andy Greenwald?

  And they're physically scary.

• 42:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And then they, the bugs, build that fucking like wall of cars to wall off the city. And that's, that's where you were talking about like, oh, the noises, like you can see like a car like moving a little bit. There's the Santa Claus balloon that kind of floats above the.

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  I believe I sent you the butterfly is the cinema.

• 43:10Chris Ryan?

  It is.

• 43:11Andy Greenwald?

  JPG. It's beautiful.

• 43:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay. So then one of the ways that they kind of, uh, not allied, but like they get around like, okay, how, how often are we gonna show a swarm of bugs running at people? Some of it happens at night, so it looks cooler. And then we start to get the people coming out of the, their, their imprisonment, their webbed up imprisonment, and they are different. And they are now working in some sort of concert with.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the people.

• 43:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Andy Greenwald?

  I, I wanted to ask you about people coming out of their other kind of imprisonment.

• 43:44Chris Ryan?

  Of the woke mind virus?

• 43:45Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's a long time coming. There were people, like, I think I stopped wearing a mask when we started doing video on this podcast. I think that was when I stopped wearing a mask. No, but there are people who are washing their mail, like deep into 2021 and into 2022.

• 44:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 44:06Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe it's for purposes of, of drama. Maybe they're just made of heartier stuff in South America. But like, they went from everything outside is instantly killing everyone to, I guess if I break out this old Helly Hansen parka, I should be fine. That was real fast.

• 44:25Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I know that the, for the production purposes, they shot this kind of right after the restrictions in Buenos Aires lifted. And so that was one of the reasons why they were able to get so many empty streets.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  This was shot like still.

• 44:37Chris Ryan?

  Twenty-three, I think.

• 44:38Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 44:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Andy Greenwald?

  How long did it take to draw them bugs?

• 44:42Chris Ryan?

  I mean.

• 44:43Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 44:43Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but are you asking me like, how long would it take for me to decide?

• 44:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, like-

• 44:49Chris Ryan?

  To go outside?

• 44:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and be like, okay. I mean-

• 44:53Chris Ryan?

  You'd be the mayor of inside, indoors?

• 44:55Andy Greenwald?

  I'm the king of everything I see. Maybe I'll read Budenbrooks and continue my Thomas Mann survey. I was so fun in early COVID.

• 45:04Chris Ryan?

  Um, I think that the thing that would be the biggest leap of faith for me happens, uh, I believe in episode five.

• 45:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Chris Ryan?

  When-

• 45:13Andy Greenwald?

  It stopped snowing?

• 45:13Chris Ryan?

  It stopped snowing. And the, the, I don't know if I have the courage to be the first homie to step out into the world without my mask on.

• 45:21Andy Greenwald?

  That's the thing.

• 45:22Chris Ryan?

  I'll, I'll be second.

• 45:23Andy Greenwald?

  And also, I want to be respectful of everyone else, you know, like, I'm a community, I'm in a community of the world, so that like, even in like, 22, when I would go running, wearing like, a little like, neck gait or whatever, if I pass someone, I'd be like, you never know, you know?

• 45:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 45:36Andy Greenwald?

  They were just like, I guess, it's better now. It just happened real fast.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:41Andy Greenwald?

  I respect it.

• 45:42Chris Ryan?

  Um-

• 45:43Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, yeah, so people, so then we start to get the sense that, but let's, okay, so you're talking about Clara. So much of the first half of the season is-

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Looking for Clara.

• 45:51Andy Greenwald?

  Looking for Clara. And we know from the very opening moments, the cold open essentially of the show, that Clara was not where she said she was gonna be. She was actually on her godfather Tano's boat, which she had taken out with two friends to, to party, basically.

• 46:02Chris Ryan?

  Smoke cigs.

• 46:03Andy Greenwald?

  Just, just lead, lead a very CR-coded existence. The sea, the darts, the preparedness.

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:11Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and her sudden appearance feels completely disorienting, as it is to Juan, right? He says later to, to Lucas that like, "I felt like you were all putting me on," that this is somehow some sort of staged performance. And again, the thing I admire most about the show was the way the, um, the behind-the-scenes structure and the story itself, uh, complemented each other. That-

• 46:40Andy Greenwald?

  With a six-episode season, another episode of Juan and his ex-wife just walking through this hellscape in an absolutely pyrrhic attempt to find one person who is probably not alive would have been diminishing returns. They yada-yada'd the story in a way that, and maybe this is how it happens in the comic, we don't know, but they yada-yada'd the story in a way that then pivoted the story itself. Like, wow, this is too good to be true. It's a miracle, they say.

• 47:08Chris Ryan?

  It is too good to be true.

• 47:09Andy Greenwald?

  It is too good to be true. It's a wonderful example of the creators leaning into whatever limitations they may have had in terms of budget or time or space.

• 47:17Chris Ryan?

  You're absolutely right. That's a really good observation about that. I mean, like, I hadn't really thought about the way that that actually hinges the entire story to being more suspicious of people like Clara or Lukey or whoever.

• 47:29Andy Greenwald?

  When he wanders off. But there's also the other piece of it, which I don't know if you shared as well, which was a little bit of audience relief, that we didn't have to show everything. That if it really was Clara, if she really remembered that he played cards and went there, it's a little convenient, but it's better for the real estate we have of six hours to get moving and get to the other place. And there were a bunch of examples of that, where I realized like five episodes in that Juan and Nantano have left their spouses or ex-spouses and friends multiple times, without any very American scenes of, "You are my rock. I will be back for you, mi vida." Like, they just left.

• 48:07Chris Ryan?

  I kind of took it to be like, these are middle-aged men who finally have like some adventure in their life. I'm being completely serious. I feel like that guy Tano is like, "I get lost in my devices. I get lost in my little Mr. Fix-It stuff and my reading and my science. And now, all of a sudden, everything that I've been studying has kind of become real and I can actually apply some of my passions and obsessions to the real world." And he's like, "I don't really want to go home and argue about who gets the soup. I want to be out here in the world."

• 48:34Andy Greenwald?

  And it benefits us. Like, by the time you get to the sixth episode, there is a feeling that we get very, very rarely, I think, especially in this particular age of television, where a little bit of a, "Wait, did the needle jump the groove? Did I skip an episode? Did I miss something?" And what you're actually experiencing is just economical storytelling. Like, the way that in the journey to Campo de Mayo, which is the big military installation where they had, apparently being manipulated to head by the end of the season... There's just, without paying much attention to it, the younger people in this found family have really gravitated to each other.

• 49:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 49:11Andy Greenwald?

  Inga and Pablo, and then also the Boy Scouts from the church, like, they are now basically their own clan.

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:18Andy Greenwald?

  And we didn't need to see that forming. We've met them, we get it, and we move on. And I found that to be so, so refreshing. Even when they go on their big mission in the sixth episode.

• 49:29Chris Ryan?

  To the, the train.

• 49:30Andy Greenwald?

  To the train, to the radio, to whatever. I, I'm not saying the show didn't explain what they were doing. I'm saying that when caught up in my first viewing of it, I missed a couple of details. And so by the time they-

• 49:39Chris Ryan?

  That was, that was a little bit, because it's dark, and I think because of the speed with which they move through it, there seems to be, like, Tano is resistant. They asked Tano to go downtown, which is infested with bugs, to send out a distress signal-

• 49:54Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 49:54Chris Ryan?

  -using a radio tower that they have there. And, like, he's the only one who understands this sort of more, uh, classic vintage radio technology.

• 50:02Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 50:02Chris Ryan?

  They're gonna send, like, a bunch of soldiers with him. They do an awesome, like, train busting through the wall of cars-

• 50:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's really cool.

• 50:10Chris Ryan?

  -move, but then suspiciously, like, the bugs are not chasing them at all. And I thought that there was some elements of that, like, the train conductor who was like, "You didn't trust me, but now you can trust me because I'm the train conductor." And he's like, "Okay, I guess I trust you."

• 50:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:23Chris Ryan?

  I was a little confused. That was where, whoa, there's been a lot of people at different-

• 50:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:27Chris Ryan?

  -like, meetups at various points that are now showing up here.

• 50:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I didn't mind it.

• 50:31Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, it-

• 50:32Andy Greenwald?

  Because I was enjoying the experience. And then Stagnara does a really good job of, like, walking us through his visual story.

• 50:39Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 50:39Andy Greenwald?

  Like, the, the, the way that it's revealed to us that we have seen a blank-faced girl at the end. We have seen her before.

• 50:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Andy Greenwald?

  That she's the woman on the train who writes Ayuda in, I'm sorry, for my friends and boy outsiders, Ayuda, in lipstick.

• 50:58Andy Greenwald?

  Are you, are you crying or laughing?

• 51:00Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 51:00Andy Greenwald?

  Um-

• 51:01Chris Ryan?

  Just thinking about Kerry Condon fixing cars.

• 51:03Andy Greenwald?

  You just want in on it!

• 51:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  Aw. Um, like, that was a really nice little, little detail, little anchoring detail.

• 51:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and the-

• 51:14Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I also just like that it ran right at some stuff. Now, we haven't, I'm really looking forward to reading the comic for people who are interested in it. The great publisher, indie publisher Fantographics, has published an English version of it in the past. And if you go to their website, you can preorder it because they are very, with good reason, they are reprinting it. So it will be out again soon. But there are clearly elements from the story in this that were non-negotiable. It's also very fun to actually think about the history of Argentina and the history of the author of this comic and think about why he might find his friends and neighbors coming back slightly changed or afraid to talk about things or unable to remember things. Scary and relevant.

• 51:57Andy Greenwald?

  And then there's just some stuff that it's like, well, this is the story we're telling. And what's the best version of it that makes sense with our visual and tonal language? And to me, the best expression of that is the hand of the master alien, the puppeteer alien, which is revealed so subtly and revealed in a shot that makes it look like a blue hand.

• 52:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and that was actually quite Lynchian.

• 52:17Andy Greenwald?

  It was super Lynchian, and then the hand sort of turns and flicks, and it, there's many fingers. And it was unsettling. It wasn't like, oh, sick, or whoa, the aliens are coming. It was disturbing.

• 52:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Andy Greenwald?

  And haunting and subtle. And it didn't leave me, the show, the season left me being like, man, Juan's really in it. Maybe not for the first time, it's a little bit confusing where we're headed next.

• 52:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that would be the last twist, which is that Juan seems convinced now that he has actually, not just having flashes or visions, he has done this before.

• 52:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's déjà vu.

• 52:52Chris Ryan?

  This has happened before. Which is another, like, history repeating itself, kind of.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  He's had to do this before.

• 52:58Chris Ryan?

  Indication of it, like, or of its, of its actual real world ties and influence of the, of the comic to the actual history of Argentina.

• 53:07Andy Greenwald?

  And also, just the decisions that seem subtle but are so appropriate to this. And I think there's something to be studied here. It's like, it doesn't leave us with an army of bugs massing on the horizon or encircling Camp de Mayo, or the reveal of the eight-fingered space fish god or whatever.

• 53:23Chris Ryan?

  I don't even think they actually get into the River Stadium, right?

• 53:25Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 53:26Chris Ryan?

  The, the.

• 53:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, we don't even, we don't even know. It ends with our very human hero being like, what?

• 53:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:34Andy Greenwald?

  Frankly, how we all feel every day as middle aged men in 2025.

• 53:38Chris Ryan?

  I cannot recommend this show highly enough. I hope people check it out. I can't wait for the second season. Wonder if they shot it pretty much as a big block and are working on like, where did we do season one, season two? Because I wish like this was like what Three Body Problem had done. You know, like I wish they had.

• 53:57Andy Greenwald?

  I really agree. Do you mean in terms of like?

• 54:00Chris Ryan?

  I think, I think in terms of the release schedule, certainly, but also there's parts of this that I wish Three Body had kind of adapted. Now, Three Body Problem has major leaps of time and yeah, reality within the show itself. But there was, I was thinking about Dark and I was thinking about other shows like Ravenol you brought up, but I was, I was thinking about shows that might could learn something from the way Eat or Not did.

• 54:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, I'm also curious, and maybe this is a conversation we could have with creators of some of this, these types of shows is like, what is the skill set that you bring to it? And what is the passion that you bring to it? And for all the flaws of Three Body Problem, of which there are many,

• 54:42Andy Greenwald?

  a lot of the fondness I have for the show was that I understood why DB Weiss and David Benioff did it. Like why they were the ones to do it because from as someone who has started and not finished the novel, it's unfilmable, not because it's set in China, but because it is so omniscient, jumping from place to place and time and time. And they were like, we're going to.

• 55:04Chris Ryan?

  By eons, right? Like, yeah.

• 55:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, we're going to make this show about a couple of mates in London, which first of all, I was in on that. But, but we're going to focus the whole story in these characters and then build the story outward from that. That is a choice and that is a skill that they brought to it.

• 55:19Andy Greenwald?

  Stagnaro has a different skill set and a different interest in the material. But it, and, and, and he is helped by the fact that I think the mandate was tell the story of this comic book and we'll, you know, if all works out, we'll give you this many hours to do it in 14 hours. Whereas the, the balancing act, and this goes to our slow horses conversation, which is like, the more critical production decisions and vision decisions you can have early, the better. Three Body Problem seems like it was. Conceived of, hired, put into motion as one thing, which is, this is gonna be our Game of Thrones. This is gonna be for Netflix.

• 55:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this will be on for five or six years.

• 55:52Andy Greenwald?

  This is gonna be on five, six, seven, eight years. And we're gonna just, you know, entrance and entertain the planet with this next great saga. And then somewhere between that announcement and the very weird muted, okay, we'll make a second season. It became like, we'll let these guys play out the string and we'll, we'll negotiate over the, we'll give them 200 million more dollars to make, what would that be for them, three episodes?

• 56:13Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 56:14Andy Greenwald?

  But jokes aside. They changed what it was.

• 56:17Chris Ryan?

  You wonder whether going back and being like, hey, Stranger Things, you're gonna be on for six seasons, changes how they make Stranger Things. Cause they kept trying to top themselves with special effects, which I think is why it takes so long to finish these seasons now. So, very, very interesting to see whether, once we get through like the Paramount merger, post, you know, Superman, Warner Brothers, like HBO Max is back, Disney, all these places as they go into 26, if they go into 27, do they maybe make bets that are like, I think this could be easily a double. And if we do it right, it's like a homer. But let's not start thinking like, every night has to be a sellout. Like, we can, we can kind of pace ourselves into this a little bit.

• 57:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that, that kind of thinking.

• 57:02Chris Ryan?

  But we're committed. We're here for a couple of seasons.

• 57:05Andy Greenwald?

  We're not really, this industry has never been particularly good at that. But especially now when, you know, the things are commissioned for one service and then are released on a service that didn't exist when the thing was commissioned. But I will also say that looking internationally for this sort of thing is, it's not just viable, it's viable creatively, clearly, but it's.

• 57:24Chris Ryan?

  Obviously economically.

• 57:24Andy Greenwald?

  But economically, because this might not be true, but the reported budget for season one of Eater Not on Netflix that we loved, that I'm, my one budget thing is like, the first appearance of the bugs maybe go, huh, that's it?

• 57:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Andy Greenwald?

  The budget apparently was 15 million dollars US for the series. That is considerably less-

• 57:45Chris Ryan?

  That's like an episode of Shrinking.

• 57:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, essentially. Uh, Last of Us episodes, I think, I don't know if this is officially or unofficially, are 20 to 25 million dollars each.

• 57:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:56Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 57:57Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Uh, make your stuff in Argentina. That's what we're saying.

• 58:01Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should make our stuff in Argentina.

• 58:03Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Andy, lovely to see you. We'll be back on Monday. Only one show next week, because this is Spotify Wellness Week next week, so get well. Uh, to you.

• 58:12Andy Greenwald?

  Is it for everyone, or is it just me because of my corrosive takes?

• 58:17Chris Ryan?

  Because of your toxic social media?

• 58:19Andy Greenwald?

  Is that the problem?

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  Thank you to Kaia, thank you to John. We'll be back on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend.

• 58:23Andy Greenwald?

  I noticed you thanked Kaia. My thanks, uh, we'll see.

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