‘House of the Dragon’ Is Back. Was It Worth the Wait? Plus, ‘Star City’ Episode 5.

Chris and Andy talk about their feelings around ‘Toy Story 5’ (7:44) and the somewhat surprising cancellation of Netflix’s ‘The Boroughs’ (13:59). Then they break down the ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 premiere (28:36). Later, they discuss ‘Star City’ Episode 5 (55:43). Finally, The Watch: After Dark (01:05:11). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jamie Yukich 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.

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• 1:05Speaker 01

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

• 1:11Chris 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, he came here on Sheepstealer, but he's leaving in Moondancer, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:25Andy Greenwald?

  Those are dragons.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  Those are dragons. They are not brands of Ford explorers.

• 1:29Andy Greenwald?

  Electric vehicles.

• 1:32Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, great to see you. TheWatchWithSpotify.com, TheWatch_Pod on Instagram if you want to follow us. You can watch us on The Ringer, Dash TV YouTube channel, and on Spotify, where I hope you listen to us, but you can listen to us anywhere. CB Radio, I hear. UK pirate radio DJs are playing us.

• 1:53Andy Greenwald?

  Is that... Do you think Keir Starmer is going to go directly from Downing Street to the pirate radio boat?

• 1:58Chris Ryan?

  Mandem.

• 2:00Chris Ryan?

  Mandem hour? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, this is a new one from burial. Oh, tune.

• 2:06Andy Greenwald?

  This really takes me back. 2014.

• 2:10Andy Greenwald?

  We have a lot of television to talk about today.

• 2:12Chris Ryan?

  We had two shows to talk about, yeah. We got House of the Dragon today, we got Star City today. I also want to talk to you about some cancellations.

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  Some people?

• 2:20Chris Ryan?

  No, although they tried to cancel Olivia Rodrigo because she likes Pinkerton. Did you see that?

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 2:25Chris Ryan?

  Damn, you gotta get online, brother.

• 2:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, I do not. I do want to, speaking of online, I do want to just prove that we are responsive. Because for people who watch our podcast.

• 2:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Andy Greenwald?

  They, some noted that last week before we were joined by Hero Marai and Katie Dippold of Widows Bay.

• 2:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  We were seated much like Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger in Batman. We have now perhaps overcorrected. We are now sitting at a-

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  Big table for the big show.

• 2:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  Small table for a smaller show.

• 2:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's intimate today.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  I noticed like you were regulating your volume a little bit.

• 2:58Chris Ryan?

  I'm also trying to save my voice. I have several pods this week and also-

• 3:03Andy Greenwald?

  Far be it for me to get in the way of that.

• 3:05Chris Ryan?

  I want to be less didactic. I want to listen more.

• 3:07Andy Greenwald?

  Really?

• 3:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Andy Greenwald?

  You're going on a listening tour?

• 3:11Chris Ryan?

  Like Andy Burnham on his march south.

• 3:14Andy Greenwald?

  Guys, he's running. He's running. I think you also want to protect your voice because in the latest update of Living in an Apocalyptic Hellscape, we have been breathing pure burnt ammonia fumes all weekend here in Los Angeles.

• 3:27Chris Ryan?

  We can't confirm or deny that.

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, Karen Bass.

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  I think the fire department is like, it's not, it's not toxic.

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. When has a fire department ever alighted the truth? It was pretty gnarly here this weekend, but also we did, at least I did, lose, lose a little bit of voice celebrating this weekend, which was nice. Thank you for attending.

• 3:46Chris Ryan?

  You were celebrating Iran's draw yesterday?

• 3:49Andy Greenwald?

  Both.

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Andy Greenwald?

  Both equally, you know, that's the thing.

• 3:53Chris Ryan?

  I feel like Adam is starting to rub off on me.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, we keep them guessing culturally.

• 3:58Chris Ryan?

  A little, little parent corner here for a second.

• 4:00Andy Greenwald?

  It was, it was, it was a great weekend. We, we celebrated, we shouted a little bit, we got you and Phoebe on the dance floor eventually.

• 4:09Chris Ryan?

  For your daughter's bar mitzvah, right?

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  I said it, but you were talking about Iran over it, which I, which was noted. But it's actually kind of beautiful that we could still sit down at a small table despite our clear geographic divide.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  We're not so different.

• 4:24Andy Greenwald?

  We're not so different.

• 4:25Chris Ryan?

  It was a wonderful, wonderful night. Have not been to a bat mitzvah in 35 years.

• 4:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you still think you have the same riz that you did then? Because you talk a big game about the old days.

• 4:36Chris Ryan?

  Well, this one was more, there was more activities in terms of like, I mean, I thought you guys did a lovely job with photo booth, soft serve machine, I mean, such, such luxuries were not afforded.

• 4:47Andy Greenwald?

  You're definitely making it sound a lot.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  The Jewish women in Philadelphia when I was coming up.

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  Bigger than it was, but yeah.

• 4:53Chris Ryan?

  And I just remember there was a lot more like ceremony to the first dance, you know?

• 4:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 5:00Chris Ryan?

  And that's where I came in. That's where, that's where I stepped up.

• 5:02Andy Greenwald?

  So, so briefly, I'm sure the House of Dragon fans are loving this, but like.

• 5:07Chris Ryan?

  They're not gonna love what we're gonna say about this.

• 5:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, set the scene, because I do.

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  In my memory, and this could be, this could be me, like, you know, this could be apocryphal, this could be me, like, telling myself a story in order to live.

• 5:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't believe that.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  I think that there was like a first dance usually at these bat mitzvahs.

• 5:25Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 5:25Chris Ryan?

  And it was like, girl's choice, like the celebrated woman's choice, young woman's choice.

• 5:31Andy Greenwald?

  The newly, not christened, newly anointed Jewish adult.

• 5:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes, got to choose who she was gonna dance with, and I felt like I got, I went like two for three on bat mitzvahs where I was picked first.

• 5:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's an incredible batting average.

• 5:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, much like Cooper Flag.

• 5:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's a different sport.

• 5:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and, you know, I mean, it did not augur like insane amounts of success with women in middle school, but it was still like, you know, I thought it was, it was a learning experience for both of us.

• 5:57Andy Greenwald?

  I would say two things. One, you're not wrong, I don't remember any particular ceremony, but I do remember the intense awkwardness of slow dancing at the age of 13 when all women were two feet taller than us.

• 6:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Andy Greenwald?

  In fact, some still remain that way. I'm not saying much has changed, but at that time, that was quite intense. I would say that at least in my now limited observations, the politics and culture of teen dancing have changed in that it is now much more of a, like, group.

• 6:27Chris Ryan?

  Shouting along to lyrics.

• 6:28Andy Greenwald?

  Swarming the dance floor and then immediately retreating. When the more viral hits are not being played. And interestingly, the number one, people who have kids in that range now, I think will understand this. But, but the number one like dance floor filler of 2026 is Ikon, Ikonah pops.

• 6:46Chris Ryan?

  Charli XCX.

• 6:47Andy Greenwald?

  Collab, I don't care, I love it.

• 6:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's the one.

• 6:50Chris Ryan?

  Where, like, do you think that that is purely from TikTok? Or was it featured in something that they are into?

• 6:56Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I think what they are into is TikTok.

• 6:59Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it was, it was crazy to watch that song blow up bigger than any Taylor song he played.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Chris Ryan?

  Any. Didn't you curate the playlist?

• 7:07Andy Greenwald?

  I was not the DJ. No, there was some.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  Kier Starmer was the DJ.

• 7:11Andy Greenwald?

  Unfortunately, he has been, he has submitted his resignation.

• 7:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no, I was not allowed to, to touch the, the core playlist. I was allowed to offer an alternative slate, much like the Green Party.

• 7:24Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 7:25Andy Greenwald?

  And, and the, the DJ who did show up to set up wearing a Talking Heads T-shirt. I was like, my brother, this will be a long, frustrating night for both of us. I was, I, I, I offered a slate of alternate electors is what I'm saying. And he did pull from that sometimes, but primarily it was my daughter's, as it should be.

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, it was her night. It was great.

• 7:48Andy Greenwald?

  Were, were you there when this, when the ceremony ended and we, everyone went outside? And the playlist I was told to make for the, like, the wine hour hit? And immediately, deep cuts from Wes Anderson movies started playing.

• 8:02Chris Ryan?

  You were going into like Mirage era Fleetwood Mac and stuff.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  And, and my, my daughter ran up to me and I was like, this is going to be a beautiful moment. And she said, what is this? You have to stop this immediately.

• 8:15Chris Ryan?

  Wait, what did you put on? I didn't even hear it.

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  It was, it was that. It was like, I was like, these are things that have.

• 8:19Chris Ryan?

  You're trying to explain backrooms to like 13 people there.

• 8:23Andy Greenwald?

  You're never off the clock.

• 8:24Chris Ryan?

  No clipping. You don't understand. It's liminal.

• 8:26Andy Greenwald?

  Never off the clock.

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, it was like exactly what you think. I'm like, these are songs that are not unfamiliar to her during her life and thus I hope would not be unappealing. Yeah, like Love Goes to Buildings on Fire was playing when she was getting her third Diet Coke and was like, this has to end.

• 8:44Chris Ryan?

  Where do I want to start today in earnest? You know what? Why don't we?

• 8:48Andy Greenwald?

  I did have movie corner too.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  I was gonna say parent corner continues and I'm just, like I said, I'm listening.

• 8:54Andy Greenwald?

  Then, then are we gonna talk British politics?

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  If you want to.

• 8:57Andy Greenwald?

  Of course I want to.

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  You want to do Burnham Mentum first or Toy Story 5?

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  Give me Burnham.

• 9:02Chris Ryan?

  No, you do Toy Story 5 because I feel like that it kind of ties into the weekend that you had of.

• 9:07Andy Greenwald?

  And it ties, and then the Burnham stuff ties into the kind of like high level geopolitical maneuvering of House of the Dragon.

• 9:15Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, we got it. No, I went to the cinema yesterday. It was, it was, it was an emotional weekend having this event and then, and then Father's Day and then.

• 9:24Chris Ryan?

  Did you take both kids to it?

• 9:25Andy Greenwald?

  Of course, yeah.

• 9:26Chris Ryan?

  Did your older child express any interest in seeing Backrooms or Obsession instead? Like, are they, they're not starting to be, be curious about, you know, the more like.

• 9:36Andy Greenwald?

  No, she doesn't. I, I offered her, I invited her to.

• 9:39Chris Ryan?

  The edgier cinema.

• 9:40Andy Greenwald?

  I invited her to join me to watch Widows Bay and she was like, I don't, I don't want to be scared.

• 9:44Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 9:45Andy Greenwald?

  So, no, we, we did see Toy Story 5 and it was excellent. That's my take. I was really, really surprised and impressed by it.

• 9:54Chris Ryan?

  Trying to think if I've seen one of them. I like know what happens in them kind of.

• 9:58Andy Greenwald?

  Do you though? What's your take? You probably saw Toy Story 30 years ago.

• 10:02Chris Ryan?

  Astronaut and the cowboy.

• 10:02Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, boy.

• 10:03Chris Ryan?

  Right? And the little boy gets these toys when he moves to a new house and they're like his friends, right? No, he moves to a new house and they leave the toys behind at the old house and they have to get to him, right?

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  This is the early Toy Story, yeah.

• 10:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 10:16Chris Ryan?

  And they got five, four more movies out of this.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:19Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 10:20Chris Ryan?

  And then there's a Chris Evans like spinoff.

• 10:22Andy Greenwald?

  So, so Toy Story 2. Uh, went woke.

• 10:25Chris Ryan?

  I'm not trying to be nasty.

• 10:26Andy Greenwald?

  Introduced Jesse.

• 10:28Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:28Andy Greenwald?

  Played by Joan Cusack, who is essentially the star of this fifth film.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:32Andy Greenwald?

  And then Toy Story 3 is held up by like A. O. Scott of the New York Times. It's like the pinnacle of Daddington cinema. Because Toy Story 3 is both brilliant and funny, but also has one of the most metal endings of any children's movie ever.

• 10:50Chris Ryan?

  Metal like dark?

• 10:51Andy Greenwald?

  It is so. Kai, are you familiar with these movies?

• 10:54Speaker 04

  You know, I watched like the first two, I think, when I was a kid and I haven't kept up with the franchise.

• 11:00Andy Greenwald?

  Chris nodding. Chris understands his voting base so well. I'm so out of step with the times. So Toy Story 3, not to spoil too much, but Toy Story 3, uh, crescendos with all of our toy friends on a conveyor belt to an incinerator to be destroyed.

• 11:18Chris Ryan?

  That is like, that's the last.

• 11:19Andy Greenwald?

  And they're like scrabbling up the incinerator belt. They're like, how will we save ourselves through our various toy mechanisms, like the slinky is stretching or whatever?

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 11:27Andy Greenwald?

  And then silently, they all share a look and then just hold hands, accepting their fate that they will all burn. And this moment is held to a degree that I do believe people generationally who watch this at a young age will have a different response, response to mortality.

• 11:45Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 11:46Andy Greenwald?

  It is so intense, they, they, they don't burn.

• 11:48Chris Ryan?

  And I take it that they made two more movies that those guys are okay?

• 11:51Andy Greenwald?

  They were okay. Four was kinda like deep Chapek, straight to streaming era. Like, like, it's fine.

• 11:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's about Tom Hanks's Woody character going off the reservation in pursuit of Annie, the Annie Potts voiced Little Bo Peep statue.

• 12:07Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:08Andy Greenwald?

  Great Annie Potts performance, but I would say an inessential entry into the franchise. And so I was shocked that.

• 12:14Chris Ryan?

  So you've seen all of these?

• 12:15Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I, this, this, yeah, the children. You gotta, you gotta feed the children.

• 12:20Andy Greenwald?

  The, the most recent one, I did think with my cynical jaded mind, would be another one of the like, we just gotta.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Cash-ins.

• 12:26Andy Greenwald?

  We just gotta keep pumping this for cash, because Pixar is not doing so great with the original content. Andrew Stanton, who directed the first one, directed this one. And the headline is that it was like, ah, the age of toys is over. It's like streaming in devices and it's gonna get them.

• 12:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Andy Greenwald?

  And it introduces a, a, like an early, like, childhood tablet voiced by Greta Lee. But the movie itself was both. It was very surprising. It was very formally clever in ways that I was very impressed with. And it was very funny, and it is also, more than anything, it is about connection and friendship. And it's a Joan Cusack victory lap. And also, and I know this is gonna matter to you and your, honestly, fragile voting coalition, this movie is justice for Tim Allen.

• 13:12Chris Ryan?

  I, uh, I saw some Tim Allen image rehabilitation stuff start this weekend.

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  So the-

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  When I say I saw it, I just-

• 13:19Andy Greenwald?

  I do think you'll be interested-

• 13:20Chris Ryan?

  I looked at Twitter during the World Cup and somebody was like, "Tim Allen really was goaded for this."

• 13:24Andy Greenwald?

  Dude, so I do think this was part of the thinking, and I'm okay with it, because, you know, despite your recent maneuverings, I've always been a big tent guy. And there was, I don't think it was entirely incorrect that the, um, like, COVID-era Toy Story 4 stuff did two things. One was Toy Story 4, in which Buzz Lightyear is just like, "Have a good adventure, Woody." And that's that. And then they made that really bizarre Lightyear movie-

• 13:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Andy Greenwald?

  Which is a pre-

• 13:54Chris Ryan?

  It's a prequel.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Origin story not to the toy. An origin story-

• 13:58Chris Ryan?

  About the character that the toy is based on, right?

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  So it's, in fact, it's an animated movie that suggests that this is the movie that the kid in the, that Andy, the fictional Toy Story kid, saw and then bought the toy from. In which Tim Allen is voiced by, uh, I think it's Chris Evans, does the voice of the real-

• 14:14Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 14:14Andy Greenwald?

  Buzz Lightyear.

• 14:15Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 14:16Andy Greenwald?

  Not a, not a terrible movie, because it has a lot of, like, time loop stuff that's actually kind of relevant to-

• 14:21Chris Ryan?

  You love that.

• 14:22Andy Greenwald?

  Some of the stuff that we cover. But, anyway, this movie really rectifies that, because Buzz Lightyear is charming and funny and throughout the movie, and there's a runner of, like, a, a cargo vessel. Fans of The Wire, season two, would call them cans. Has crashed, or like, come, fallen off a ship, and 50 Buzz Lightyear toys, like, wake up on an island, and then they have to do something. And so there's a lot of Tim Allen-

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 14:49Andy Greenwald?

  Coming.

• 14:49Chris Ryan?

  Tim Allen playing 50 different parts?

• 14:51Andy Greenwald?

  Plus the, plus Buzz Lightyear Prime.

• 14:54Chris Ryan?

  Do you think they were trying to get like some of that Deadpool juice where it's like?

• 14:57Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, do you think Toy Story exists in the multiverse?

• 14:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I wanted to mention to you that The Burrows got canceled, which is sure that you'd been like, maybe we should talk about that. I was like, I did talk about that with Joe, but we could always hit it if you would like to. Was by all accounts and even Netflix's own public facing metrics, uh, something of a success? I mean, it was in the top 10. I think it was, I pe- it may have peaked at number one, but it was definitely in their top 10 for a while. Sort of shockingly canceled. Now, since then, there have been a bunch of pieces that have, uh, tried to explain the real reason behind Netflix canceling The Burrows. It sounds like it was expensive.

• 15:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Chris Ryan?

  It sounds like, um, Netflix felt like the investment wasn't, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze in some way. I don't really understand how it costs $13 million an episode to make it. It's like a New Mexico set, uh, story with Alfred Molina and Alfred Woodard and, and Bill Pullman and, and Gina Davis. And it's, I'm sure they make some money, but I don't know if they make $13 million an episode. Um, were you gonna tell me some, and there's, I know that there are aliens in it, so.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  Alfred Woodard quote. Talking about aliens, out of this world. Keep going.

• 16:07Chris Ryan?

  So the, the conventional wisdom is that this is somehow payback for the Duffer Brothers leaving Netflix and going to Paramount Plus. This comes on the heels of Paramount announcing a untitled Duffer Brothers movie, theatrical event, coming in, I believe, 27. Um, and that this is somehow Netflix clearing all the business off the books that they have with the Duffer Brothers. Possibly. I, I don't see them wiping the slate of their Stranger Things, uh, IP, but I, I think that that's like an element of it. Um, what, what did you make of this story?

• 16:42Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I think it just sort of starts and ends there. I mean, I, I think that knowing, knowing the, the cost of genre television generally, and knowing the way that Netflix will spend on shows, I think that if they canceled almost anything on their slate, maybe with the exception of Free Burt, they could be like, you haven't, you guys have no idea how expensive this was.

• 17:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and you could claim that that's the reason. Um, you don't. Not even, I mean Netflix can do whatever it wants, but generally if you have a show that is critically working and more importantly is connecting with an audience and beyond that, I feel like the whole logline, at least in terms of pitching it internally, was we'll do Stranger Things for olds. That's good business for them. So you don't cancel shows like that unless there are political machinations behind the scenes and I don't even mean it in a Machiavellian sense. I mean, fully like this was part of the Duffer Brothers' next big role building that they were doing as partners, longtime partners with Netflix and then they left.

• 17:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Andy Greenwald?

  And so I would imagine all the people who worked really hard on the show felt quite nervous this whole year.

• 17:54Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that it sounded like they had gotten the writers' room together. It sounded like the cast options were up. This was, it's worth noting, not a Duffer Brothers-created show. It's created by Jeffrey Addis and Will Matthews and the Duffers executive produced it. Not unlike their relationship to something very bad is going to happen, which also I believe has been canceled or is not coming back.

• 18:17Andy Greenwald?

  How is that official?

• 18:18Chris Ryan?

  You could make the argument that that was a one and done show, but it certainly had like a doorway into future seasons. I've been fascinated recently just reading about The Town and you know, seems like now every week we get a, is Hollywood gonna turn into Detroit article? Like Detroit auto make article? I started to actually wonder like, A, obviously like people are clicking on those stories, so that's why they keep writing them, but who's like, how can we keep manufacturing these? Like, at what point is there like, nothing new to say about this whole storyline?

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, I think part of it was built around the mayoral election and the governor election, the campaigns for those offices here in California and tax rebates and what they're doing, what various candidates are gonna do for the movie industry is always up for debate or, you know, in the news. But I, I've started to become kind of cynical about it where I'm like, who benefits from these stories? Often when I'm reading them and there's a lot of stuff about like, you know, these goddamn politicians just don't make it easy enough for us to shoot here or these labor unions here are just way too expensive, so we have to shoot in England. I'm like, how come we're never talking about like? Why does, why does the CEO of this company make $57 million a year?

• 19:38Andy Greenwald?

  Preach.

• 19:39Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I, I don't know that, like, if you, if David Zaslove got paid $5 a year, would they be able to, like, make shows affordably in, in this town? I don't, I have no idea. Like, it costs a lot of money to do stuff in America because there's lots of

• 19:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Chris Ryan?

  rules and there's lots of protections against, like, exploiting people for better, you know, I think for better. So, I was about to, both sides.

• 20:00Andy Greenwald?

  I noticed. I think you're, you're doing a very delicate dance right now between populism and socialism. It's working.

• 20:07Chris Ryan?

  It's interesting that, like, we, we get to this point where, like, say, the boroughs, where you're like, God, just, you know, you just can't make it work for the price point. It's like, you guys invented the price point.

• 20:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you can do anything. I mean, this is actually, Chris, you are so close to, like, a foundational problem with, capitalism, and American capitalism particularly, which is, both things, both things are true. Like, it, it is ruinous not to be able to film things here, and we need to create incentives, and we need to create a structure where the business that more or less built this town can continue to exist. But the terms of how that business is done needs also to be examined. And we, we are existing in a moment, and this is certainly not just in, in Hollywood, that CEOs of these companies believe that in order to have that position, they merit hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

• 21:03Andy Greenwald?

  And that trickles down slightly, you know, among the executive offices. And that is just sacrosanct, and that part of the business cannot be touched.

• 21:08Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 21:09Andy Greenwald?

  But whether we employ, you know, a lighting team or an in-house design team, well, that's all fungible. Sure, that can go.

• 21:17Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 21:17Andy Greenwald?

  But God forbid we lose the, we lose the stock options and bonuses.

• 21:21Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm totally open to hearing about what, what's difficult about shooting in LA, aside from the cost. And I, I think that there's probably a lot of nuance to the story. I just was like, why do we keep getting these stories? And I was tying it to the boroughs thing, where I was just like, it just seems like a lot of the economic models.

• 21:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  Since so much of it is tied to, um, share price, you know, with these technology companies owning a lot of these platforms. It's like, no, we have to keep this thing around the 300, 500, whatever my share price is. It just winds up kind of getting away from like, I don't really even know how much money these shows are supposed to be able to make.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we also don't know what the return on the investment is.

• 21:55Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 21:55Andy Greenwald?

  We don't really understand what's of value to them and how they monetize it. Especially with something like Netflix, it is so, at least to the layperson, it's totally opaque. They could spend $10 million an episode of The Burrows, $1 million an episode on The Burrows, $1, $100 million. I have no idea what that translates to in terms of international subscriber base. And it is, you know, the less cynical version of it is that the show, however successful it was, they have a number that says, or a chart that shows it's not worth the spend in terms of what it's bringing in because the deep, deep, deep Alfred Molina fans either already have Netflix or are never signing up. So that, the other thing though, that I think is kind of intrinsic to Netflix's business,

• 22:40Andy Greenwald?

  and I think this might be a conversation for our eventual crossover episode with The Town, because I don't really know the nuts and bolts of this. But a few years ago Netflix, Netflix has a pattern of mimicking the old way of doing things up to a moment, up to a point when it no longer works for their model and then they move on. And what I mean by that is like, when the House of Cards era, when they were like, we are going to-

• 23:05Chris Ryan?

  Out HBO, HBO.

• 23:06Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly, and plant a flag and win all the Emmys and show what we can do. And then, you could also call that the master of none era. And then when that, then that gave way to the Floor is Lava era, when they were just like, we're gonna make whatever. And it's gonna work for us, because we are going to become all of TV, not just prestige TV. Five years ago, they got really, really, five, six years ago, they got really, really into the overall business. And they learned Shonda Rhimes, and they learned Ryan Murphy, and Kenya Barris, and they created a whole new division that was going to service these deals and get as much of these deals as you, as he possibly can. Duffer Brothers were recipients of that largess. Benioff and Weiss, coming off of Game of Thrones, were recipients of that. It seems that that shifted slightly. They still do give out rich overall deals.

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  And Ryan Coogler, whose deal with Disney just ended.

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just got one, right?

• 23:54Andy Greenwald?

  Just got one. He's someone that they want to be in business with. Sonny, Lee Johnson, who made Beef and was a guest on our show. He has an overall deal coming off of the success of Beef. Molly Metzler, who made Maid and Sirens, has an overall deal with them. So they do make deals that make sense for them.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  But I'm, but there's an element of the Duffer Brothers thing that strikes me as a as a more significant shift in the we made you, you don't make us.

• 24:20Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's interesting too because

• 24:22Andy Greenwald?

  We are bigger than any one or two.

• 24:23Chris Ryan?

  It almost would benefit the Duffers to have kind of set up their theatrical business or sold this movie to Paramount and then sign a Netflix deal because Netflix seems fairly kind about Ryan Murphy has plenty of things that are still on terrestrial television.

• 24:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think Ryan Murphy is out of the deal and back to FX and Disney.

• 24:40Chris Ryan?

  I think you're right, but even while he was at Netflix, he was still working on all of the shows that he had going on.

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  Right, and Grey's Anatomy is still on the air.

• 24:46Chris Ryan?

  Right, so it's, it's an interesting gambit. From the, from the network that brought us The Queen's Gambit. How about that?

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  Look at the way you did that.

• 24:56Chris Ryan?

  It's a button. Your silence is deafening this week.

• 24:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, great.

• 25:00Chris Ryan?

  Your silence is deafening on Amazon dumping Luca Guadagnino's artificial due to its AI, OpenAI partnership. Discuss.

• 25:10Andy Greenwald?

  I have a lot of feelings.

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you really?

• 25:12Andy Greenwald?

  But I also, you know, I don't know if you know that, you know, I now have to buy cat food regularly and, and the delivery options provided by the Prime Video's parent company are pretty good. So I don't want to imperil those.

• 25:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Andy Greenwald?

  What a Gordian knot we're all tied into these days, aren't we? Okay, so let, talk me through this. This movie has been made, right?

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  It is, I think, finished.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  And who's playing?

• 25:34Chris Ryan?

  Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman.

• 25:36Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 25:36Chris Ryan?

  And it is about, I think, the earlier days of OpenAI. Maybe when it was going from nonprofit to for-profit, maybe when there had been some upheaval about whether Altman was going to stay in charge of it. I believe he was briefly relieved of his duties and then raced back in. And I can't remember who, oh, Simon Rich wrote this movie.

• 25:58Andy Greenwald?

  I started just laughing. Do you remember the news stories of that time when like New Yorker, the deeply sourced thing where people were like, the only person who should be in charge of the most disruptive and destructive technology in the history of mankind needs to be the most thoughtful, considerate, fair and balanced moral person. And Sam Altman is the opposite of every one of these categories. And we're all like, oh, wow. And we turn the page and we're like, what did Hilton Als enjoy at the theater this week? It's gonna be fine.

• 26:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. This reminded me a little bit of the story a long time ago on a probably much lower scale in terms of like the, I mean, like certainly the level of investment was when Apple had purchased a Gawker show.

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, they, they wrote the show.

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  And they were like, we're gonna, we're gonna make a show about Gawker and we're gonna tell the real story of like.

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Cord Jefferson was writing it, former Gawker.

• 26:49Chris Ryan?

  The outlaw journalism of, of, of the 2000s. And then it finally got to like Tim Cook and he was like, absolutely not. Like, what the fuck were you guys thinking?

• 26:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 26:59Chris Ryan?

  There's a little bit of that to, of this. Like it finally got to like, so what are you guys putting out in the movie theaters this year?

• 27:06Andy Greenwald?

  Let's huddle up.

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  Funny, you should say, we've got this crazy little piece of satire and that whoever at the top of Amazon was like, no.

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  Which is, it's, it's an easy no.

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so it's now up for sale. And I think the, the sort of second leg of this story has been like, who's passing on it?

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, who's been passing?

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  I think many people have passed. Many, many, many, many, many companies have passed. I appreciate the fact that you need, you need cat food.

• 27:33Andy Greenwald?

  Cat food and toilet paper. So, sorry.

• 27:35Chris Ryan?

  I like going to the store personally.

• 27:37Andy Greenwald?

  Do you? You support small businesses in your neighborhood? Like Target and CVS and all these mom and pops?

• 27:43Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let's, we've, we've, we've been around the bush too long.

• 27:46Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to say one thing.

• 27:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Andy Greenwald?

  It is not about Andy Burnham, though. I am.

• 27:49Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna save that for After Dark.

• 27:51Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I can't wait. Okay. It, it is just that. I think you and I were both caught slightly off guard by, not by the fact that the agency returned this weekend, a show that we both love.

• 28:00Chris Ryan?

  This is housekeeping. This is good.

• 28:01Andy Greenwald?

  This is housekeeping. But that Paramount decided to just drop the entire season.

• 28:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:05Andy Greenwald?

  Which is just wild. So, we were planning to.

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  Dive into what we thought would be one or two episodes later this week. But now it's actually going to make a nice little binge suite on Thursday because all of the agency and all of the bear will be up.

• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:21Andy Greenwald?

  We won't discuss all of them because we are but mortal men, but we will talk about the beginnings of both the seasons and maybe the larger.

• 28:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I'm, I'm, it was funny. I was at this aforementioned bat mitzvah this, this weekend and I had a conversation with another adult bat mitzvah goer about the agency. He was like, you know, I just started watching it and I was like, lucky for you.

• 28:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Chris Ryan?

  Whole damn season just came out. The second season just dropped.

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  It was Ted, it was Ted Sarandos, you could say.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  But the look in his face, it was actually Sam Altman. It's like, I brought your cat food. We're all good. The look on his face was, was just so informative about like the moment we find ourselves in, which was at once a degree of like, oh, I'm glad it didn't get canceled or anything, but also like shit. So now I have.

• 29:10Andy Greenwald?

  There we go.

• 29:11Chris Ryan?

  18 hours of television to watch. And I was like, well, at your leisure, you know, like whatever, next time you're on a flight. But the, the reverse of it is I've waited two years to get the House of the Dragon episode that feels like it should have been the finale for season.

• 29:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Chris Ryan?

  Two, and there's no right way anymore, except for the pit. It's just like.

• 29:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 29:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. There really is just no right way to do it.

• 29:34Andy Greenwald?

  The only one.

• 29:36Chris Ryan?

  So let's talk about House of the Dragon, which returned after two years off the air. It doesn't feel that way in some ways because the Game of Thrones content machine always spins and we had Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which we both adored. I talked about this episode of House of the Dragon and I will talk about the rest of them with Mal and Joe. And it's always a joy to talk about this whole like creative world with them because they're so knowledgeable and also so emotionally connected to so many characters and so many events. So.

• 30:05Andy Greenwald?

  I also loved walking in the hallways here in the studio. They're the animal pelts and candles that you use are lining.

• 30:12Chris Ryan?

  The set deck, everything about it. So I, I want to throw the ball to you and find out, you know, whether you came back to Westeros with any trepidation. I've, I have opened up the door.

• 30:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:22Chris Ryan?

  We do not need to do this every week. I think you're at your best when you're happy about your work.

• 30:26Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks, man.

• 30:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that was what they said to Keir Starmer over the weekend?

• 30:31Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, you don't lead with joy anymore.

• 30:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we're gonna see that guy fucking DJing at Primavera next year and we're gonna be like, man.

• 30:38Andy Greenwald?

  He's gonna be so happy. We didn't know how good we had it. It'll be like the Fred again set and he brings out Mike Skinner, brings out Underworld and brings out Keir Starmer. And then the whole vibe just kinda shifts. I don't wanna lead with faint praise, but this is genuine praise in that they've really figured out how to make this show. And the production values and the visual inventiveness and the, just the power of the images and, and frankly, yes, praising the post and the vis effects of the water and the dragons and the intensity of the performances are exceptional.

• 31:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Andy Greenwald?

  And I also appreciate, I feel like I need to come up with a word maybe in its native German to, to talk about the way that we've been talking about shows, which is talking about like the bones and the heart of them.

• 31:28Andy Greenwald?

  The bones of the show, what Ryan Condal and his writing team have finally reached after, you know, I think, I think even they would say like a challenging growth process, is a storytelling rhythm that both works for the show and is very specific to the show. So you get, you get a few of the backroom scenes, you get the, you get, I mean, the way that they do exposition, where it's just like, I will introduce a character briefly, but he must have one interesting aspect of him, such as sniffing perfume as James Norgan does. Or we'll give Corliss one minute to uncork an old, old bottle of whiskey called Live Forever.

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 32:06Andy Greenwald?

  In order to, you know, but fighting for real estate isn't just something we do here in Los Angeles, Chris. It's something you gotta do.

• 32:14Chris Ryan?

  It's not just something Sam Levinson believes in.

• 32:17Andy Greenwald?

  Truly, deeply. It's something that you have to do when you're adapting something this big. So I appreciated the machinery of the show and I think that, but I remain frustrated by things that I have, you know, that I honestly am at peace with and I, we can get to them. And I'm sure we will, because I think we should probably talk more about the larger sway of it. But I do want to say that hidden in this show, and very much in this episode, are two strands that I deeply believe are two of the most interesting stories that I have ever heard in the world of Westeros. And it is glass half full, glass half empty, if you want to look at them as how great that we have them here.

• 32:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  Or half empty in the sense of, man, I wish that the show was one of these things specifically, and not just this larger. One is the Aegon and Laris road trip, which I both love for the performers, but also because those characters' arcs within this show have had a breadth of storytelling movement that make them more compelling than Rhaenyra, who basically is angry in this room and then angry in that room. Not, and that's no shade on the character or the actor. That's just the limitations of what the character has to do, much like Matt Smith spent all of last season talking to a magic tree. The Aegon and Tom, what's, I'm gonna get his name wrong.

• 33:36Chris Ryan?

  Glynn Carney.

• 33:36Andy Greenwald?

  Tom Glynn Carney, who is one of the best actors on the show. The idea of a spoiled princeling king who is brought so low and then wandering in the world is a really cool and interesting story for a show that places so much emphasis on the, unusually, the reverse trajectory of the-

• 33:56Chris Ryan?

  The guy, Henry IV's rise to becoming, yeah.

• 33:58Andy Greenwald?

  So that alone would be an interesting TV show. The other one, and again, I'm not speaking about how it's been executed on House of the Dragon, because we haven't seen that much of it yet. But the low-born dragon rider storyline is such a sick story. And I wish, I'm sorry, I promise I won't do this for an entire season, I wish that was a show. I wish there was a show about more complicated, more, frankly, to me, more interesting, but also more narratively flexible characters-

• 34:28Chris Ryan?

  Do you think-

• 34:28Andy Greenwald?

  -who are written in the history books, becoming major players in a world.

• 34:32Chris Ryan?

  Do you think that specific take, and maybe both of them in some ways, because you know, both of the- Both of those ideas that you're talking about feel very naturally like they could have happened in Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

• 34:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, right.

• 34:46Chris Ryan?

  Like, a group of low-born guys who are bequeathed great power out of like, this random, you know, birthright that they have. Or a sadistic prince who then is like, castrated and defaced and is like, left to wander the countryside with his, um, kind of richer-than-third, uh, you know, compatriot. Like, both of those things feel like they could be things that happened in the Ira Parker version of this universe.

• 35:21Chris Ryan?

  I don't knock them for, for making the show about Rhaenyra and Alicent. I think that that is a powerful central relationship, but I do wonder, you know, because this is such a strange adaptation, it's an adaptation of the Game of Thrones version of like Wikipedia, kind of, or like a history book.

• 35:43Andy Greenwald?

  It's a history book.

• 35:43Chris Ryan?

  So, I think that there's been some embellishment and there's been, obviously, like, I don't know that they have as much dialogue to work from, a lot of the scenes are like, two people say this happened, but one person say it didn't, you know? But, it's interesting that you're getting some light electric charges from like, these side plots and not from this, what I think Condole and company would say is the central conflict.

• 36:10Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's the thing, like, I think there's been growing pains, certainly for me, and maybe for some aspect of the audience, in the transition of Game of Thrones from a show into a universe, into an IP universe.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  And, it's not, we're not used to yet talking about Westerosi content the way we are with Star Wars content, where we can say Andor is one of the greatest television shows of our lifetime, and also Obi-Wan happened. You know, you can say that one is for you and one is maybe for other, and charitably, one is for other people, and that's fine, they both can exist on the same streaming platform. We are maybe heading towards that faster than I realized, like... When I was watching this episode, and I am admittedly not a deep, deep student of this game, and I have not been re-watching it, or like even remembering a great deal of it, to be frank. This is not for me at this point.

• 37:03Andy Greenwald?

  The amount of factual depth that is required to follow the show and to be invested in a show where, what's her name, Lothar?

• 37:14Chris Ryan?

  Lothar.

• 37:15Andy Greenwald?

  Lothar, who is awesome, and an awesome character, and I certainly remembered her, and I certainly remembered that performance, but her fury and animus towards Corliss is entirely a footnote on the Wikipedia of the show. I am going to disrupt all of these plans and hunt down the one man who has been ruling the seas cruelly.

• 37:36Chris Ryan?

  Because he killed the crab feeder, or whatever.

• 37:38Andy Greenwald?

  So there is a, I'm not saying it wasn't on-screen, but I'm saying the emotional drive for it, and it's played in the performance, but I would, that's not the storytelling I want to watch. And I think that the thing that I have continued to struggle with, and then I do want to open it up, but I finally think I understood more of this episode, is that House of the Dragon is a limited series. And what I mean by that is it is, in the same way, this is grandiose, but like Chernobyl was about a historical event with rich dramatization and good production values and direction, and it focused in and told us a story that had some narrative flexibility within some

• 38:20Andy Greenwald?

  creation and what it chose to show us, but it couldn't change what happened in Building Six, or whatever it was. Our reception of Chernobyl would have been quite different if it had been, instead of six episodes over six weeks, if it had been four seasons over six years.

• 38:34Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 38:35Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the relationship that I have, and that maybe some people have with TV over time, is that, well, we're going to live and grow with these characters and maybe be surprised by them, and... The nature of the show is it's telling us a story. And I do think that I would feel differently about it if I was binging it three years from now in total, or if they had been able to, and this is not their fault, shorten the production window so you could understand that they're telling us a wild tale of some monstrous kings and queens and their dragons.

• 39:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, obviously, I think because of the strikes and COVID or whatever, the sort of delay was, and then some budgetary concerns about season two, and whatever the reason was, they were not able to end season two with what this first episode of season three was.

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  Which clearly was meant to be part of.

• 39:20Chris Ryan?

  And now I will get explicit about spoilers for this episode, and so obviously, I can't imagine you're listening to us if you haven't watched this, but this episode ends with Jace Targaryen, Rhaenyra's son, locking his mother in a room, taking her place on a mission to go save the fleet against the Triarchy, and gets killed. He gets killed in the process. The image of his body sinking into the ocean would have been an incredible way to end that second season.

• 39:52Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm, and the dragon sinking.

• 39:54Chris Ryan?

  And I think it actually would have both put a bow on the second season and set up the third season in a really good way, because one of the things that's been sort of, you know, I admittedly haven't really watched ahead, nor do I really plan to, on this, but one of the things that's been interesting about reading, the TV critics hit this show, and they're largely very positive, or at least saying like, this is, kind of echoing you, and saying, this is the best version of this show.

• 40:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I would agree with that.

• 40:22Chris Ryan?

  Is that there's a lot of thematic stuff that I think is fairly obvious, I guess, in the show, but it doesn't feel earned sometimes, for me, and that is, I've talked about this before, but like, you know, there's a lot of stuff about what war leaves behind in its wake, what would happen if these kinds of nuclear weapons were flying around in the skies, and some of them were wild and untrainable, and some of them were being ridden by people who maybe had mixed loyalties, or were only loyal to themselves. And, you know, the idea that...

• 40:59Chris Ryan?

  These flights of fancy about who should sit in what is, I think, one of the best sort of creations of the show is just how lonely, uncomfortable, and undesirable the Iron Throne is.

• 41:12Andy Greenwald?

  I don't see, it's not worth anything.

• 41:13Chris Ryan?

  But it's kind of great. Like, it's like even, you know, the idea that, like, who wants to sit on this thing? Like, who would want the responsibility? I do think that the flaw of the show is because it has so much heavy lifting to do with these families and with these sides of an argument, or an argument, a conflict. There's not as much 360 feel for the world of Westeros that makes you feel like, oh, the guys on this battlefield, or the person on that boat who just got burned alive, like, mattered in this world. Like, there is a little bit of inevitable, you have to have red shirts, you have to have people who are just gonna be cannon fodder.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  And so sometimes I feel like the themes or the ideas of the show don't quite connect with me emotionally, if that makes sense.

• 42:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 42:03Chris Ryan?

  That's my major criticism of it. I think I'm pretty pot-committed to, like, watching them play this out, but I see a line, like, you know, both of your, you're sort of like, these are the things I like, are both things that I like too.

• 42:17Andy Greenwald?

  And they're on the show. So I also think that the unquestionable success of Night of the Seven Kingdoms proves the, it's proof of concept of the argument that Casey Bloys and his development team probably litigated intensely internally and then had to explain to the, you know, the revolving doors of corporate leadership they've had over the last few years, that we can be able stewards of this incredibly valuable franchise that we have because we can tell different shaded stories. And I think that the, I think part of the reaction to this new season of House of the Dragon is unquestionably, they know how to do a good version of the show now. And like, Ryan Condal, but also Lonnie Peristair, who got started on, not started, but did

• 42:59Andy Greenwald?

  great work on Banshee years ago, a show that I love, which has turned out to be like a real breeding ground, not just for talent like Jonathan Tropper, but Greg Yatanes, who directed on the show on- Dragon as well, I mean, did an incredible job with it. The, the point being that House of the Dragon was unfairly, uh, bearing the heavy weight of the crown as the only version of Game of Thrones, post Game of Thrones. And now that they've proven that we can see a lighter version, a more humane version, a more whimsical, um, version of the story at the same time, it feels like a more balanced presentation. Um, what this episode specifically did, I was watching with some amusement because

• 43:43Andy Greenwald?

  if you, like, I, I, I wish we could be a fly on the wall of the conversations that Michael Lombardo and the, and, and the previous regime of HBO were having when Game of Thrones premiered and they were agonizing over the pilot and they were agonizing over whether this is an even HBO show at all. And I imagine a lot of their direction was, oh my God, we gotta tone down the dork shit to keep the Boardwalk Empire fans happy. We gotta convince them. And really they were appealing to the, you know, the fucking, the Clark Kent version of the HBO fan like me, who's like, well, I don't know if this is worth my time. And so they downplayed a lot of the, um, I mean, they made reference to things, but there weren't dragons yet.

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 44:22Andy Greenwald?

  And there wasn't this sense of like, you, to watch the show, you need to understand, not just on an emotional level, but on a factual level, who represent what and where they're coming from. To the point where you introduce, uh, James Norton as a Hightower and I'm like, right. Okay. Let me just sort of dig deep and remember. And I do remember that there's the Alicent and her father, who's now the chief, chief designer on Star City.

• 44:46Chris Ryan?

  That's right, Re-Savens.

• 44:47Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but that it is now, this version of Game of Thrones is completely the version that they were worried about 15 years ago. And there's room for it. They've earned that and the fans, that the hardcore, hardcore fans love it. And the people who aren't watching TV necessarily the way I am, but are like, to add to my diet, it would be nice to have a burnt slab of mutton dropped on my lap every Sunday.

• 45:12Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 45:13Andy Greenwald?

  In dragon fire, and here you go. It, it is, it is, it is an excellently made thing that I feel fine about.

• 45:19Chris Ryan?

  You made a reference to the Star Wars universe a little while ago, that this thing can't leave my head now, where I kind of do wonder whether in...

• 45:29Chris Ryan?

  In some ways, the Targaryens have become the Jedis of Game of Thrones.

• 45:33Andy Greenwald?

  I love this. Go. Cook.

• 45:35Chris Ryan?

  Both of those franchises refuse to go past a certain point, right? Like, after the sequels got rid of all of the legacy characters in some shape or form, you kind of end it. I kind of, I completely, I honestly don't really remember how Rise of Skywalker ends, but, you know, we end Game of Thrones.

• 45:53Andy Greenwald?

  Did you hear that somehow Palpatine returned?

• 45:54Chris Ryan?

  I do remember that part, but I just don't remember where, like, various characters went off, like, did reign.

• 45:59Andy Greenwald?

  You remember Chewbacca lived.

• 46:01Chris Ryan?

  I sure fucking did. But, we, you know, Game of Thrones, Jon's beyond the wall. What's gonna happen next? And it's like...

• 46:08Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, let's tell that story, yeah.

• 46:09Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's not even that, but I'm just sort of like, I don't remember who's king in that, oh, uh, what's his face?

• 46:15Andy Greenwald?

  Bran the Broken. Who has a better story than that?

• 46:18Chris Ryan?

  Now, I know that George has to finish these novels first before he tells us what might happen next. But I think it's interesting that the Game of Thrones TV world is, you know, looking backwards. And using the text that George has provided. And in some ways, Star Wars is doing the same thing, where it's like, let's use the established canon and continue to tell stories that are adjacent to the Force, with the exception of Andor. You know, let's tell stories that are about, um, this, like, almost mystical religion that, you know, controls the universe. And for the Game of Thrones world, like, the emphasis on the Targaryens in this show is not unlike their emphasis on dragons.

• 46:59Chris Ryan?

  Because dragons were something that pop up in the first and last episode of the first season and are very, selectively, you know...

• 47:08Andy Greenwald?

  In which, uh, in which show?

• 47:09Chris Ryan?

  Of Game of Thrones.

• 47:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Chris Ryan?

  They're very selectively shown.

• 47:13Andy Greenwald?

  Up until the very end.

• 47:14Chris Ryan?

  Now, you could say that might be because of the technology, or it might be because dragons had been, you know, extinct, seemingly, and Daenerys brought them back, kind of like Olivia Rodrigo bringing back Pinkerton, you know?

• 47:24Andy Greenwald?

  I, that's after Dark Two, because I really, you gotta drop this one on me.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  Um, my point being is that they are making, like, the show about the thing that is not always like my, the thing I was most interested in.

• 47:36Andy Greenwald?

  This is, it is not Game of Thrones fault, it is not Star Wars fault, that... Hollywood, America, all of us are seemingly deeply afraid of peeking into the future and of telling something new. And that the richest vein that we have found creatively to frack, whatever resources we have left, is multiversal storytelling.

• 48:00Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 48:00Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and that will be a conversation for us through the end of the year, in the sense that even like Marvel couldn't move the ball forward past a tie point and is now going to try to basically restart itself by devouring its own history tale.

• 48:14Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 48:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think the other thing, just a tonal thing, and then can we, then I do want to just go through a couple of the characters and plot points, because I do want to hear your take on them. But your mileage as a TV viewer may differ. For me, I will always, always prefer the open-ended, holy shit, guys, where are we? Storytelling of Lost, for example, in which it is entirely about the, like, the heady excitement of asking questions. Questions that the people who are creating the show don't necessarily know the answers for, they just know what they're interested in chasing and pursuing, and it might be a bumpy path along the way. There is a version of fandom that does not like uncertainty and wants resolution and wants to know, at least know that the creators know the answers, and that they can also

• 48:58Andy Greenwald?

  peek ahead maybe to pre-existing texts or the internet to find out the answers to. And I think my ultimate ongoing and probably unending frustration with House of the Dragon is that it is a show about answers. It was a, it is a locked historical document that they're playing around in the margins in, but I, when I watch the show, feel the frustration of characters on tracks like

• 49:20Chris Ryan?

  Rhaenyra.

• 49:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but also like metaphorically, like, like rides at a amusement park.

• 49:25Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 49:26Andy Greenwald?

  They're going to go through these motions to get to a place that they were destined to go. And the challenge, and it is a challenge, is for the creators, is to making the audience feel the weight of every decision that leads them to their ruin, but it is, it is a much more locked and fixed document, which is why I go back to that idea that if it was, if they had been able to tell this story in like two super tight seasons or whatever that came out closely together, I think we'd have a different relationship to it. And, and maybe the joke's on me, because people like Mal and Joe are like, I can't wait to see this story that we know brought to life.

• 49:57Chris Ryan?

  In some ways, it's a very ambitious show.

• 49:59Andy Greenwald?

  It is.

• 50:00Chris Ryan?

  In some ways, like, their decision to do this entire sort of preamble of the, the two women when they were children.

• 50:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 50:07Chris Ryan?

  Uh, their decision to...

• 50:10Chris Ryan?

  Really try to like, show the political machinations behind the various rebellions. Is like, pretty brave, you know what I mean? And, and

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredibly challenging.

• 50:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's an incredibly challenging. Like, let's talk a little bit about this first episode briefly. Like, I just thought, you know, to my, to my point about the Targaryens as, as the Jedis of, I, I, I didn't even really like, get that much. I was not scandalized by Aemon kissing his mom. I was kinda like, that's just the Targaryen way.

• 50:39Andy Greenwald?

  Did you do the, the Ed Rooney? I feel like we should, we should bring that gift back every time I talk about this show.

• 50:45Chris Ryan?

  That's how they do things in the family, yes.

• 50:47Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:48Chris Ryan?

  Um, what were some of your favorite moments in the episode?

• 50:50Andy Greenwald?

  Look, you know, I love a naval battle. Master and Commander rewatchables when?

• 50:54Chris Ryan?

  Did you think that that was, uh, decipherable?

• 50:57Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I thought they did the, I think it's incredibly challenging. I mean, I could not, I was watching it, just marveling over the, the work, the labor of, uh, storyboarding that and understanding it and then communicating it to us. On multiple scales, there's the large scale of there are many boats here. And then there is the medium scale of there are boats here and here, and also a dragon here. And then it all crushes and possibly close when the boats are ramming into each other and people are boarding the boats and it's hand-to-hand combat. Um, my favorite visual storytelling in it was the dragons touching the water and then being dragged into the water. And like, the, the, the feeling of something that is meant to fly being weighed down

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  was really beautifully communicated and incredibly gripping to watch. Um, as always, I'm always like, but what about that guy? What does he think? As he's getting roasted alive, you know, with an oar in his hand. Um, but it was an action episode and I, I do think that it was challenging that this was, as you said, most likely meant to be a conclusion and is instead a very rhythmically, tonally odd place to begin. Now, to go all the way back to my first comment. I love that Ryan Condal's instincts are to start small.

• 52:13Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 52:13Andy Greenwald?

  Just to start with, oh, what's her name, chasing after what's his name, the big dragon that eats meat.

• 52:18Chris Ryan?

  Reyna.

• 52:18Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. First of all, I just want to say in front of you and Kaya and all of our listeners, I've been wondering what was up with Reyna for years. You know, I've been-

• 52:26Chris Ryan?

  Literally two years.

• 52:27Andy Greenwald?

  Two years. I've been like, that's a character that I've been tracking. I know who she's related to and what she's doing.

• 52:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Andy Greenwald?

  So it felt really good as a superfan to understand her relationship also to that dragon.

• 52:37Chris Ryan?

  If there was a couple, what were the things that you were like, I don't know what this is or who this is?

• 52:43Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want, should we cover the show that way? Because do you remember when we did the after show for Game of Thrones?

• 52:48Chris Ryan?

  I do.

• 52:48Andy Greenwald?

  On HBO and we had, which is-

• 52:51Chris Ryan?

  Short-lived.

• 52:52Andy Greenwald?

  Still funny. We had a category called Who the Fuck Was That?

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  Should we kind of broaden that category and bring it back for me just saying, what the fuck?

• 53:02Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 53:03Andy Greenwald?

  Because I-

• 53:03Chris Ryan?

  Ask away. I feel like now I'm pretty well informed about it.

• 53:05Andy Greenwald?

  I, yeah, I definitely did not remember who she was, why she was there, and what was up with the dragon that didn't have a saddle. I have no memory of that. I thought that she was going-

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  She had been sent out to the Vale with like her brothers, I think.

• 53:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Chris Ryan?

  And it's like, was pretty bummed because she hadn't claimed a dragon yet. Believe Aemond took her dragon or took the, to like, jumped on Vagar and was like, that's my dragon now.

• 53:34Andy Greenwald?

  That's my guy.

• 53:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:36Andy Greenwald?

  I remember that.

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  And, yeah, and the Lady Jane of the Vale was kind of like, you can like get, you can walk through here, but keep walking, like, I don't want you to stay here.

• 53:49Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 53:49Chris Ryan?

  And I think she breaks off from her party at the end of season two and finds-

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  A wild dragon.

• 53:55Chris Ryan?

  Sheepstealer, I want to say. I feel like that's a, he's giving Sheepstealer, not Moondancer.

• 54:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, like, this is the part of the George R.R. Martin verse that they didn't show to, um, to Plepler in New York, in the HBO office in 2012. Because if they had walked in and they were like, "We got Moon Dancer, we got Sheepstealer, we have the Battle of the Gullet," he would have been like, first of all, he would have been like, "Boy, the age of the expense lunch in New York will never end. I love it here at the Four Seasons." I'm sure that'll stay unchanged, but you know what I mean? Like, this is, this is deep lore, Doug.

• 54:34Chris Ryan?

  I'm just trying to help you out.

• 54:35Andy Greenwald?

  I appreciate it.

• 54:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I thought that the Battle of the Gullet was cool. Um, Reyna getting involved, probably the wrong move.

• 54:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that seems that way.

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  It seems that way. I appreciate it, like, again, as a kind of a noob to this, like, I like that Sheepstealer was like, "What are we doing? We burning, folks?"

• 54:55Chris Ryan?

  I would do two things: steal sheep and light guys on fire.

• 54:59Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm all out of sheep. You know what I mean? Like, I appreciated that, because I have forever been a little bit, I've forever struggled with the fact that the dragons are, like, wild, ferocious, mythical, carnivorous beasts, but if you whisper made-up Latin in their ears, they're suddenly, like, tactical howitzers, you know?

• 55:17Chris Ryan?

  The one that I did not know, that I would have done, "Who the fuck is that?", and I did do that on Talk of the Thrones, was the Stark, who is the dude who threw the head to Daemon.

• 55:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I had no idea who that was. And apparently, we knew who that head was.

• 55:30Chris Ryan?

  That's the Lannister twin. One twin was on the boat, one twin was in...

• 55:33Andy Greenwald?

  Bad day to be a Lannister.

• 55:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Andy Greenwald?

  We'd met the, I mean, I remember the one on the boat. I enjoyed him. R.I.P.

• 55:40Chris Ryan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 55:41Andy Greenwald?

  But the one whose head we saw had a speaking part on the show last year?

• 55:46Chris Ryan?

  I want to say yes.

• 55:47Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think the actor got his episodic fee for his latex head being thrown to Matt Smith?

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  That's a great question. In this day and age of Hollywood cost-cutting, I can't say.

• 55:57Andy Greenwald?

  I imagine we'll be hearing from Casey at HBO after this segment, and I wonder if he could just weigh in specifically on that.

• 56:02Chris Ryan?

  I think he's gonna be like, "Just wanted to let you guys know I'm never listening."

• 56:05Andy Greenwald?

  You're done, you're cut off.

• 56:07Chris Ryan?

  Anything else you wanted to hit on Dragon? I guess, I guess, where do you stand? Is this gonna be a weekly watch for you?

• 56:12Andy Greenwald?

  You tell me, Doug. I'm, I live to serve. Um, I just, I definitely don't want to, and nor do our listeners, I don't want to keep circling the same thing.

• 56:20Chris Ryan?

  I think that there's, like, when it's Euphoria, uh... There's something perversely like fun about like watching you lose your mind, but also be like, I can't look away. With this, it's like you've done your time, man. And I think that you will continue to to join us for Night of the Seven Kingdom, season two and all these things. I just don't, I just don't think TV should be a homework assignment.

• 56:43Andy Greenwald?

  We'll keep, we'll keep him guessing.

• 56:44Chris Ryan?

  Let's go to Star City again. We can just hit this relatively quickly, although I, I will echo my sentiments from last week. If you were watching television and you were not watching this show, you are not watching the best show on television. To me, it is, is the, my, my favorite thing that's on currently. Obviously, what has Bay just concluded?

• 57:01Andy Greenwald?

  And you haven't watched season two of Sugar yet.

• 57:03Chris Ryan?

  I have.

• 57:06Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I assume.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Did you fire up the first episode?

• 57:08Andy Greenwald?

  It's up. It, it, it is up. I've not fired it up.

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 57:12Andy Greenwald?

  I, I read, I read with like real affection, um, Mike Hale's review of it in New York Times where he's like, isn't it great to have the show back?

• 57:20Chris Ryan?

  Every once in a while, you just, you're just like, I, I read with real affection, Mike Hale's.

• 57:23Andy Greenwald?

  His review of it, I was like, man, maybe we are too cooked here. Cause he was just like, Colin Farrell's back as a detective in LA and it's classy and it's fun to watch. And there was a fun twist in season one. And I was like, man, maybe I gotta chill out. You know?

• 57:38Chris Ryan?

  For Sugar, not for dragons, though.

• 57:40Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm right about that.

• 57:41Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, I, I continue to, uh, I will sing Star City's praises from the mountaintops. Uh, this was the fifth episode. It was called Bite Your Elbow. Uh, and it is, um, I would probably say like the culmination of some of the, um, espionage mole hunt storylines of the, the first part of the season. And, you know, I, I guess I wanted to hit how, I, I don't want to keep saying the same thing about these shows, but what it does is play hits in a, in a way that sounds really good to me. Multiple scenes in this, in this episode, I'm like, I've, I have seen this before.

• 58:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Chris Ryan?

  I have seen the mole get told by his significant other or someone very close to him that everybody is on to them and it's time to run. And yet I thought the Valya Tanya scene outside of the training center was fucking incredible. Now, like, is it goofy how Valya like kidnaps a guy and gets himself onto this space rocket launch?

• 58:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 58:46Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I push back on that. Shows create their own narrative reality. And as soon as Star City puts in play that whoever gets on to this secret mission inside of a bathysphere will be gone for nine months and thus protected from the environments at home and abroad, I knew where the episode was going. The question was-

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  That Valia was going to get on the ship?

• 59:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. The question is how is it going to get there? And I agree with you completely about the familiarity of some of the storytelling. What's delightful is the way that it's deployed.

• 59:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:17Andy Greenwald?

  For example, I did not know that this episode would begin one second after the revelation of the previous episode. I did not know that the moment in which Irina holds all of the information and Valia and Tanya and everyone else do not, many shows would have milked one, two, or three episodes out of that and seen how that plays out. This Star City chose to do the opposite.

• 59:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:42Andy Greenwald?

  And here's a name I'm going to throw out for you. And it is, might not be familiar if it's not written in Cyrillic.

• 59:50Andy Greenwald?

  Zack Wheeler.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  From the Phillies?

• 59:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And Chris, what I often hear when veteran Zack Wheeler takes the hill is that there's a difference between throwing and pitching.

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:01Andy Greenwald?

  And you can throw, like your boy that you saw in Milwaukee, Mizerowski, who-

• 1:00:05Chris Ryan?

  He was fucking pitching, man.

• 1:00:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, that's fair. But that dude could throw 104 mile per hour anytime he wants. Zack Wheeler not only has lost a few mph on his fastball, he's also lost a rib to thoracic outlet syndrome and is still painting the corners because he knows what to do with it. And I think part of the joy of watching Star City is seeing how this creative team is pitching.

• 1:00:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Andy Greenwald?

  And is keeping us on our toes and surprising us with timing and placement. And more than anything else, as they also say in the non-moneyball versions of baseball, like, kid's got good stuff.

• 1:00:42Chris Ryan?

  It really does. The scene between Irina and Tanya in the beginning of the episode, the scene where Irina gets, Irina gets caught by her-

• 1:00:55Chris Ryan?

  Annoying coworker and then flips it on her.

• 1:01:01Chris Ryan?

  All the stuff with Sasha and Anastasio is quite lovely. Like, these are all scenes that I feel like, you know, have been kind of echoed throughout time in history. Uh, I did want to ask you about one of the last moments of the episode. Did you recognize who's in the photo that Tanya grabs there?

• 1:01:19Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, was that Brezhnev?

• 1:01:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Andy Greenwald?

  Is that my guy Leonid?

• 1:01:24Chris Ryan?

  Is he the father?

• 1:01:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Yeah, we're get, we're, we're playing now.

• 1:01:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this is crazy. I mean, it's not crazy. It's just it's it's that was the Russian premier. Yeah.

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Apple, the network executives were like, could we just get an ADR of her going, my god?

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  That's Leonid.

• 1:01:45Andy Greenwald?

  Somehow Brezhnev's returned. I, I love that. I also want to shout out just again, in the spirit of it's like, it's really how you deploy the story that you have. The direction of the show is beautiful. This is, Kasia Adamik directed this. I'm not familiar with her, but you know, as part of my fully tongue in cheek now nepo watch, she is Agnieszka Holland's daughter.

• 1:02:04Chris Ryan?

  I have to say.

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  Polish director.

• 1:02:05Chris Ryan?

  She directed the shit out of this and it's like largely handheld.

• 1:02:10Andy Greenwald?

  There is a shot. Here's my pure cinema award of the day, but there's the moment when Irina is deleting the tapes that have her saying that she's going to help Tanya escape. Uh, and she has this whole plan to get her a day pass and everything and, um, her office, uh, mate. I guess not mate, like not friend at all, um, played by, who's, uh, Yegorovka is her name, played by Elliot Salt. She, she's watching, but the way that, the, the way that the camera notifies us of this is it tracks. And this is like the long secretarial pool essentially of building 12. Irina leaves and then the camera stays and then it slowly tracks back up to see who did or didn't notice her leaves.

• 1:02:53Andy Greenwald?

  And it is such a beautiful, natural example of visual storytelling of a paranoid state.

• 1:02:59Chris Ryan?

  But even in that, that case, it's like, yeah, if she's done this once, she's not going to get away with it the second time, but like. The fact that she built a file on Valia, that she was willing to sacrifice Valia for Tanya's escape. Why is she so enamored with Tanya? Does she have romantic feelings for her? Is it just infatuation with her free spirit? What is it that we're gonna find out about her? But it's an exciting moment because I don't, for as much as I'm like, well, I've seen that before and I've seen that before, but it's done very well. I don't really remember a moment where a American mole is in a spaceship that's not really a spaceship with two new Russian, well, one Russian cosmonaut and then a woman who's never been in space before.

• 1:03:42Chris Ryan?

  And they're gonna be up in space for nine months. The chief designer is okay with part of that plan, but does not know that's an American mole. Then Irina knows like everything, but is only telling her superior some of it. Just a lot of like moving pieces and it's a very exciting setup for the second half of the season.

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  And all of this is in service of a plotline that involves sending people to Venus, which did not know was a cool goal to have. Have done a little light Googling. Does not seem particularly hospitable to human life.

• 1:04:19Chris Ryan?

  We can't say though.

• 1:04:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think we can definitively say.

• 1:04:23Chris Ryan?

  We can't say because we haven't been, right?

• 1:04:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I don't think it's the same as me being like, I've heard Southern Italy is nice, but hot.

• 1:04:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Andy Greenwald?

  I've yet to prove it. I mean, I, there is the line when the dude's like, "I shall be the one to plant the Soviet flag."

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  Like you would explode.

• 1:04:39Andy Greenwald?

  Your body would explode in flames.

• 1:04:44Andy Greenwald?

  It is a, I mean, what is the most off-book thing that you've ever done when in the employ of someone else? Because whatever it is, I don't think it equals sending three cosmonauts to fucking Venus at the expense of like three billion rubles.

• 1:04:59Chris Ryan?

  Like?

• 1:05:00Andy Greenwald?

  Because the point is, they're launching this vessel and then at some point in the nine months, chief designer is gonna say to old Leonid or his, you know, his close proxies.

• 1:05:10Chris Ryan?

  He's gonna say, like, "I had a secret mission to Venus that I had to do so secretly because the Americans were surrounding us and starting to get information about Star City." So to take this great next leap for the Soviet space program. I alone did this, don't blame anybody else. And then, what's gonna happen when they find out actually an American spy is on that ship?

• 1:05:32Andy Greenwald?

  What is the equivalent movie that you and I would do for the rewatchables in a pirate recording and then put up when Bill is on vacation?

• 1:05:40Chris Ryan?

  I mean, we did it with kicking and screaming.

• 1:05:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm well aware, but I'm just like, that was a sanctioned mission.

• 1:05:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:05:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is there something that you and I would, I mean, would it just be Bourne Legacy? Like, what is the most-

• 1:05:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it would probably be Bourne Legacy at this point.

• 1:05:53Andy Greenwald?

  Or what if it was like, can you imagine doing the rewatchables categories on the early filmography of Hal Hartley?

• 1:06:00Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, from Hell Month, we're not that far away. From Hal Month? Wow.

• 1:06:07Andy Greenwald?

  You do your best work at the end of the podcast.

• 1:06:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about England having its, uh, the United Kingdom having its sixth prime minister in seven years or seven-

• 1:06:16Andy Greenwald?

  Seventh in 10 years. What was our other After Dark segment that we were gonna do?

• 1:06:20Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Olivia Rodrigo, liking Pinkerton.

• 1:06:23Andy Greenwald?

  You explain that to me?

• 1:06:24Chris Ryan?

  Well, she, I guess she did an interview with Anthony Fantano and people were like, music journalism is dead because she-

• 1:06:29Andy Greenwald?

  Look at us, we agree.

• 1:06:30Chris Ryan?

  I mean, she's done lots of interviews, I don't know really what the problem is, but-

• 1:06:34Andy Greenwald?

  Is this a written interview or a-

• 1:06:35Chris Ryan?

  Video interview, where she's just like, "I love Pinkerton," and he was like, "Oh, you're a Pinkerton fan." And people are like, "This is-"

• 1:06:42Andy Greenwald?

  Is Pinkerton still canceled?

• 1:06:45Andy Greenwald?

  So this is for those who are still listening-

• 1:06:47Chris Ryan?

  Why was Pinkerton canceled? Because it was about-

• 1:06:49Andy Greenwald?

  It's a creeper record, so Weezer-

• 1:06:51Chris Ryan?

  But I think he knows that, right?

• 1:06:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I, but so, I don't understand, is this scandal that she's, that the fans are like, Olivia, by publicly sanctioning and supporting Rivers Cuomo's 30-year-old creepy raincoat lust for young Asian women in record form, you have thus perpetuated the patriarchy?

• 1:07:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know, I mean, that's like, for me, it just sounds really good.

• 1:07:17Andy Greenwald?

  The record?

• 1:07:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's a fucking good record, I'm sorry. Am I not allowed to say that it's a good record?

• 1:07:22Chris Ryan?

  It sounds really good.

• 1:07:24Andy Greenwald?

  It's set, listen, Kyle, look at the politics. You can't comment on the content of the man's character.

• 1:07:30Chris Ryan?

  Tired of sex, not me.

• 1:07:31Andy Greenwald?

  Could be, dog.

• 1:07:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's just interesting because Weezer is, not inexplicably, like, much like the "I Love It, I Don't Care" song, Weezer's 2015-

• 1:07:42Chris Ryan?

  Isn't there some song on that record where it's like, "You come from Japan"? Like, isn't it, it's like, kinda like-

• 1:07:48Andy Greenwald?

  That's all the songs, my guy.

• 1:07:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. But, but much like that "I Don't Care, I Love It" song, Weezer's otherwise unremarkable 2015 or 2016 duet with Bethany from Best Coast, the song "Go Away",

• 1:08:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:04Andy Greenwald?

  Is their num- it's like what happened with Pavement with, you know, the, a random, relatively random song suddenly gets resurfaced-

• 1:08:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, when "Harness-"

• 1:08:13Andy Greenwald?

  "Harness Your Hopes".

• 1:08:14Chris Ryan?

  "Harness Your Hopes", yeah.

• 1:08:15Andy Greenwald?

  So "Go Away", so that was-

• 1:08:17Chris Ryan?

  Blew up?

• 1:08:17Andy Greenwald?

  It is a huge TikTok song. It is on my daughter's, like, core playlist.

• 1:08:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:08:22Andy Greenwald?

  And they're savvy enough that on their new record, they have a very, very similar duet-

• 1:08:27Chris Ryan?

  With Carly, right?

• 1:08:28Andy Greenwald?

  With Carly from Wednesday.

• 1:08:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Andy Greenwald?

  And I, of course, I am just fucking every cartoon character with a yard full of rakes.

• 1:08:36Chris Ryan?

  You were like, "Actually..."

• 1:08:37Andy Greenwald?

  "You know, there's a new Weezer song that's not too dissimilar, and Carly's pretty cool, she's got some tattoos, and maybe we could listen to this." Dead zone.

• 1:08:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Andy Greenwald?

  Uninterested. But my point being, is, is the danger that somehow this is going to, like, re-litigate the Weezer wars?

• 1:08:52Chris Ryan?

  That was where you became a hard ass, is like, "We're not getting out of this car until you respect" late-period Rivers Cuomo songwriting.

• 1:08:58Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna say something at this end of the podcast that I think is just between us, just between us, us mice here-

• 1:09:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and Kaya.

• 1:09:04Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya's red in.

• 1:09:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya's omerta. My older daughter's not in the car, younger daughter's like,

• 1:09:12Andy Greenwald?

  "That Vampire Weekend song is pretty good."

• 1:09:13Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:09:16Andy Greenwald?

  So some like, "Every spring, fresh buds bloom", you know what I mean?

• 1:09:19Chris Ryan?

  And then just like, one single tear roll down your eye, and you're like, "No, it's just allergies, thank you."

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  That would be the best case. The other, the worst case is, "Oh, what's on my phone? My 2007 Spin Magazine cover story on Vampire Weekend titled 'The Graduates'. I'll just leave this here in the backseat."

• 1:09:37Chris Ryan?

  Just playing Roblox.

• 1:09:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's fine.

• 1:09:40Chris Ryan?

  It's like, I don't know how to read. I'm watching The Simpsons.

• 1:09:43Andy Greenwald?

  Where's the video interview of this?

• 1:09:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, um, I just want to say, uh, my favorite show other than Star City is, is British Politics.

• 1:09:51Andy Greenwald?

  Me too.

• 1:09:52Chris Ryan?

  I don't really understand how you guys keep doing this. I think it's cool that you're never satisfied. You never, you're always chasing perfection, you know?

• 1:10:01Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, happy 10 year anniversary to Brexit.

• 1:10:03Chris Ryan?

  That's right. Um, but Burnham is the king of the north, right? And he is, you know, you former Manchester mayor and he's riding south to join parliament. And Keir Starmer has stepped down today, today.

• 1:10:14Andy Greenwald?

  To clear the field.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  And is, is gonna be essentially handing over the reins to him. Now, then Burnham has, what, two more years to run?

• 1:10:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, before there's a general election, I believe, unless they call.

• 1:10:25Chris Ryan?

  Do they do it every four or five years there? I don't understand. I don't understand.

• 1:10:28Andy Greenwald?

  I think we're, we're thrown because, because you can replace them mid-stream and you can call an early election.

• 1:10:34Chris Ryan?

  If the Guardian writes enough negative articles about you, you'd just be like, I guess I have to stop. I have to stop being here.

• 1:10:38Andy Greenwald?

  Should we, Kai, do you want to just patch in Mickey and Conrad and see if they want to weigh in on this?

• 1:10:44Chris Ryan?

  No, I know. I just, I think it's, it's fascinating, but.

• 1:10:46Andy Greenwald?

  Can I say my favorite Andy Burnham fact?

• 1:10:49Chris Ryan?

  Of course.

• 1:10:49Andy Greenwald?

  The king of the north coming down. First of all, it is so sick that you can be like, every, everyone has been a, like, everyone in the Starmer verse has been so afraid of this happening.

• 1:10:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Andy Greenwald?

  And in order for it to happen, Andy Burnham had to like basically run to be the representative of Montgomery County.

• 1:11:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and just be like, guess I'll just rejoin parliament for no reason. And then wins a parliament seat last week and then gets on the Manchester to London train.

• 1:11:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:11:16Andy Greenwald?

  Wearing a just like casual t-shirt, gets off the train, wearing a crisp suit, like he stepped into a phone booth. But my favorite detail, Chris, was that he, the train goes into Euston Station, which is where I was commuting a lot last fall.

• 1:11:29Chris Ryan?

  That was your local?

• 1:11:33Andy Greenwald?

  Look, I think it's okay, even as an American, to say that London has some, first of all, trains, we are not criti-- they criticize the trains compared to what we live with here.

• 1:11:42Chris Ryan?

  They're allowed to, yeah.

• 1:11:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's fine.

• 1:11:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Andy Greenwald?

  The train stations there, many of them are very beautiful. And even the ones that aren't necessarily gorgeous, like Paddington, are incredibly efficient.

• 1:11:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Andy Greenwald?

  Liverpool Street, bustling, getting it done. Houston is the ass end of the universe. Houston is Penn Station 20 years ago.

• 1:12:01Chris Ryan?

  It's just like everybody looking at the board, and then when the board's like, this is what track it's on, 100,000 people run.

• 1:12:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:12:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  And key, the soon-to-be Prime Minister is swanning through that mess, hopefully stopping off for a Wendy's Good Morning Burger on the way.

• 1:12:15Chris Ryan?

  Bit of a Greg's. Greg's man, you know?

• 1:12:18Andy Greenwald?

  He would win.

• 1:12:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Andy Greenwald?

  See, look at the keen sense.

• 1:12:22Chris Ryan?

  I should, I should get on his team.

• 1:12:23Andy Greenwald?

  You should get on the team.

• 1:12:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:25Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like there's a lot of people jumping on now. Where were they last week?

• 1:12:29Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 1:12:29Andy Greenwald?

  You're like Aegon, crossing sides.

• 1:12:34Andy Greenwald?

  I won't bend my knee, but I'll, I'll go over there.

• 1:12:36Chris Ryan?

  All right. It was great talking to you today.

• 1:12:38Andy Greenwald?

  This was fun.

• 1:12:39Chris Ryan?

  We'll be back on Thursday with the first few episodes of The Bear. So The Bear drops on Wednesday night, Thursday night?

• 1:12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  In any case, we're gonna do the first three episodes of The Bear, maybe like a couple of episodes of The Agency. But we're gonna talk about the choices people make to put entire seasons of television up in one night.

• 1:12:55Andy Greenwald?

  And fine dining.

• 1:12:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 1:12:56Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thank you to Kai, I thank you to Kai. We will be back on Thursday. I hope everybody had a great weekend, and we'll see you soon.