The Case for Watching ‘Paradise’ E7. Plus, ‘The Pitt’ E10 and Remembering Gene Hackman

Chris and Andy take a moment to remember Gene Hackman, the one-of-one actor who passed away last week (7:00). Then they talk about the last two episodes of ‘Paradise’ and make the case for why Episode 7 of the show may be in contention for best episode of the year (12:20). Finally, they discuss the latest episode of ‘The Pitt’ and the show’s ability to make the audience feel deeply attached to every character (46:14). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production: Chris Thomas Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Chris Ryan?

  This episode of The Watch is brought to you by Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee. So when they heard the new season of HBO's original series, The White Lotus, was set in Thailand, they were inspired to brew up two new flavored creamers, Thai Ice Coffee and Pina Colada flavored creamers. They're available for a short time only, so for the love of coffee, go try them now.

• 0:24Speaker 01

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

• 0:30Chris 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, foiled again by cashew cheese, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 0:44Andy Greenwald?

  I'm glad you mentioned the cashew cheese. I would also like to say, Chris, before we get into this wonderful recording, where we'll be talking about television shows.

• 0:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 0:52Andy Greenwald?

  Paradise, The Pit.

• 0:53Chris Ryan?

  Sorry, what? We're very far away.

• 0:55Andy Greenwald?

  What I wanted to say was, for people who aren't watching us on video,

• 0:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 0:59Andy Greenwald?

  we are sitting like Bruce Wayne and Vicky Vale in the original Tim Burton Batman at the dinner scene.

• 1:06Andy Greenwald?

  You are very far from me.

• 1:07Chris Ryan?

  But who is who here in this scenario?

• 1:10Andy Greenwald?

  I'm always Vicky Vale.

• 1:12Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, great to see you, man. You're hearing this on Thursday in the early evening on the West Coast or later at night on the East Coast, because we wanted to be able to talk about a pretty big new episode of The Pit that would have just gone up on Thursday. Today, we're also going to talk about just the phenomenon, the rocket ship, the EMP blast that is Paradise.

• 1:35Andy Greenwald?

  I'm really glad we stuck with it.

• 1:38Chris Ryan?

  I'm really glad we stuck with it as well. We had gotten a lot of messages being like, "Hey, it seems like you guys quit this show. Episode seven, episode seven, episode seven." And I gotta say, the streets were right. The streets were right. We're going to talk about the end of the first season of Paradise. But how are you?

• 1:55Andy Greenwald?

  I'm good. I also wanted to, I mean, I didn't run this by CT and Kaya beforehand, but I did want to debut something new for the video listeners and viewers, where if you say something I disagree with, I'm just going to hold up a sign that says "false", because I feel like that's the best way to show dissent.

• 2:10Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 2:11Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think it's going to work?

• 2:12Chris Ryan?

  You didn't watch. You don't know how effective the protests were last night.

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, did it work? Are we, are we good?

• 2:19Chris Ryan?

  He's becoming moderate.

• 2:20Andy Greenwald?

  We should say to our listeners that we are entering a new phase of our relationship.

• 2:24Chris Ryan?

  It's not new. You haven't read the news in like three years. You keep saying like, here's my new plan is I'm not gonna read the news. And I'm like, gay, did you see what happened?

• 2:32Andy Greenwald?

  Like, well, because you can't quit telling me. That's the thing.

• 2:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't kids. I wanna know. I wanna know.

• 2:38Andy Greenwald?

  You wanna know how it's gonna go out?

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:40Andy Greenwald?

  When the lights go off?

• 2:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Also, I have lots more free time to fill. I don't have to worry about like, oh, is this kid gonna get to soccer? It's like, no, I'll read the Guardian.

• 2:48Andy Greenwald?

  It's cute you think my kids play soccer, but do you?

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  They are in Trump's America.

• 2:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. They better get, they better get, get moving.

• 2:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, soccer's a European game.

• 2:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's right. Um, you wanted to chat briefly.

• 3:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:05Chris Ryan?

  About the late Gene Hackman.

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I just felt like we, so generally I would give ourselves, you know, I think generally we do a good, a pretty good job. We do a fine job on this podcast. Um, I do think that due to my massive, smothering, open head Adam Scott in Severance in the Kitchen Surgery state of jet lag the other day, that I did just completely forget the four things I wanted to talk to you about regarding the Oscars.

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  I thought you may have missed it because you don't look at the news.

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  That I didn't know the Oscars were on?

• 3:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I did wanna, I mean, there's a couple of things. It's like a nesting doll of, of points here. One was just the in memoriam segment in general.

• 3:40Chris Ryan?

  Number one, yeah.

• 3:41Andy Greenwald?

  And some.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  I would like to make, can I just interrupt you briefly? I wanted to make an apology on behalf of The Watch, on behalf of C.T. and Kaya.

• 3:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Chris Ryan?

  Who both, uh, they don't deserve.

• 3:52Andy Greenwald?

  This is right.

• 3:52Chris Ryan?

  To be tarred with the same brush as us.

• 3:55Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:55Chris Ryan?

  But Andy and I were like, uh, talking about the memoriam.

• 3:58Andy Greenwald?

  This is one of my nesting dolls. Go for it.

• 4:00Chris Ryan?

  And we were like, what is with this music?

• 4:02Andy Greenwald?

  This music sucks.

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I was just like, well, I was more saying like, I think I know this song, but I don't think it's appropriately like, it's like you wanna have darkness, but like, at the end, you're like, but we're all going to heaven. It's uplift.

• 4:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, right.

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  And the requiem that they were playing during the in memoriam segment on the Oscars, I thought was just a little brooding.

• 4:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's not one of your top five requiem.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  So on behalf of Andy and I, I would like to apologize to the estate of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

• 4:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's, it's in the public domain at this point?

• 4:31Chris Ryan?

  Amadeus, that's a real Philly pronunciation.

• 4:33Andy Greenwald?

  Amadeus. Emadias, get your water ice.

• 4:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I used to get my bread from Saliari.

• 4:41Chris Ryan?

  So my bad. We dismissed probably one of Mozart's.

• 4:44Andy Greenwald?

  Wolfgang Amoroso Mozart. Sorry, go on.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  That one's probably high up on the This Is Mozart playlist on Spotify.

• 4:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's probably top 10. Shout out to the watch on Bud's Woman, Amanda Tobbins, for being first on the parapets.

• 4:59Chris Ryan?

  We can count on her.

• 5:00Andy Greenwald?

  To let us know when we're wrong. But yes, but the point remains that I thought it was a little over the top.

• 5:08Andy Greenwald?

  For an in memoriam. An in memoriam that I also wanted to say was, and this is a weird way to phrase it, the most stacked ever.

• 5:16Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  It was devastating.

• 5:18Chris Ryan?

  I think it's more also that we are now seeing people that we grew up watching.

• 5:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:25Chris Ryan?

  Pass away, which is a very sad fact of life. But like, I think it's only going to get more uncanny as we're like, watching people that I was like, damn.

• 5:33Andy Greenwald?

  I knew him.

• 5:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I've saw many of your films in the theater from 17 to 37.

• 5:39Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, it's true. Do you know what else does that to you? When I was in London, I went to see a museum exhibition, really good, at the National Portrait Gallery. And it was of the photography from the magazine The Face.

• 5:50Chris Ryan?

  Oh, God.

• 5:51Andy Greenwald?

  So it was in the August halls of London's National Portrait Gallery. And it was like, Justine Frischmann, Elastica, 1996. And everyone's like, hmm, oh, I see. How fascinating. It was really cool. But it was also like, we were hanging out, looking at these magazines. And now it's in a museum. But so, okay, so totally stacked. I thought it was, I thought it was pretty disappointing that there wasn't more for David Lynch. I thought.

• 6:15Chris Ryan?

  It was sad.

• 6:15Andy Greenwald?

  The sweetest thing about it.

• 6:16Chris Ryan?

  I think that they could have done a David Lynch tribute. But in reality, like, I mean, as an alternative to like, the Bond thing.

• 6:23Andy Greenwald?

  I was gonna say, if two major figures of culture died, David Lynch and apparently James Bond.

• 6:29Chris Ryan?

  Well, he did die.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  James, don't spoil that bad movie.

• 6:33Chris Ryan?

  That's from three years ago now.

• 6:35Andy Greenwald?

  Also, boy, in a way, that title of that movie was really like a, like, kind of a scold.

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  It was No Time To Die. And he was just like.

• 6:43Chris Ryan?

  So you never saw that one?

• 6:44Andy Greenwald?

  I did see it.

• 6:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  I saw it on an aeroplane.

• 6:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Andy Greenwald?

  Just as. Carrie Masters of the Air, Fukunaga Intended, right? He directed that, right?

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  He did, directed.

• 6:55Andy Greenwald?

  Terrific.

• 6:55Chris Ryan?

  Why did you do air quotes like they weren't really Masters of the Air?

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  No, because didn't he also direct some of that series?

• 7:02Chris Ryan?

  He directed the first four or five.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  But they didn't want to talk about that.

• 7:05Chris Ryan?

  They, yeah, that's, Big Apple didn't want you to know about that. That's why it said, directed by Carrie Fukunaga at the end of everyone.

• 7:12Andy Greenwald?

  This is too many nesting dolls.

• 7:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay.

• 7:14Andy Greenwald?

  I did think that the sweetest tribute to David Lynch was that Isabella Rossellini brought Laura Dern as her date and wore blue velvet. That was beautiful.

• 7:23Andy Greenwald?

  All of this was to say, the Gene Hackman news really was a gut punch, not because the, the passing away of a 95-year-old actor is necessarily right. I mean, the news that's come out since is pretty shocking and bizarre and confusing, but he had retired 20 years ago. And so the day was inevitably coming, but just, I just wanted to take a moment on the microphone to say like, I think he's the greatest American actor.

• 7:47Chris Ryan?

  There you go. Way to stick your neck out.

• 7:48Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, thank you. Have other people in the news said something similar? Or am I really on the front edge here of culture?

• 7:55Chris Ryan?

  You zagged.

• 7:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, it reminded me of, remember a few years ago, we did a thing where we were just, I don't know, when I say we did a thing, I sometimes can't tell if this is a podcast or just our life. But we were talking about how when like the iconic lists of like the greatest rock bands.

• 8:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:11Andy Greenwald?

  It's almost always British bands. And then it's like, well, what's the iconic, greatest American rock band? And we kind of made a case for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

• 8:18Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, we did do that.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's kind of the Gene Hackman is the greatest American actor analogy for me.

• 8:22Chris Ryan?

  You know what? That's a really great, that's a great correlation. Yeah.

• 8:25Andy Greenwald?

  So completely.

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  Or comparison.

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  Of a cultural moment and like, you know, in terms of where he studied, who he worked with, but completely sui generis and so absolutely incontrovertibly him always. And.

• 8:41Andy Greenwald?

  Just unique from when he came on screen as a performer with his abilities to do comedy and drama and menace and heart, but throughout his entire career, just looking at his filmography. And I remember when, I mean, the time that I was casting something and I was trying to cast a male lead, looking for someone who could be physical, but also funny. And we don't make actors like this.

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, he comes from a generation of actors like that Duval, Pacino, Hoffman, De Niro era, Cattell, sort of towards the later end of it, where the character actors were the stars.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 9:18Chris Ryan?

  And all those guys have the ability to be incredibly immersive or chameleon-ic and disappear into costume or accent or whatever. Like, there is a quality about them that is always like, you know, you can turn the dial on Hackman and have him be fourth or fifth down the call sheet like he is in Reds, or carrying the entire film like he does in Night Moves or whatever.

• 9:43Andy Greenwald?

  Conversation.

• 9:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, or he can come in and do four or five scenes in Crimson Tide and blow it out of the water, almost literally.

• 9:52Andy Greenwald?

  Or he can just be incredibly funny and on the joke in The Birdcage.

• 9:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Andy Greenwald?

  You know, like, his Lex Luthor, is his Lex Luthor underrated or properly rated? Because he wouldn't shave his head.

• 10:03Chris Ryan?

  It's been a while since I've seen the Donner ones, but like, I think that history has really smiled upon that performance.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, in those movies, truly. So, you mentioned it. I think that my favorite Hackman is probably Night Moves, which is a 1975 mystery.

• 10:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Arthur Penn, kind of in the vein of the kind of stuff we like to read, the

• 10:22Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 10:22Chris Ryan?

  Ross McDonald, John D. McDonald, the kind of stuff.

• 10:24Andy Greenwald?

  He plays a guy named Harry Call, who wears a sick leather jacket and drives around LA and then gets hired to investigate something that takes him to the Florida Keys.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Andy Greenwald?

  So it's like, we incepted this idea years before we were born. And it's real swampy and real grimy. And he's so, he's so good because he's, again, he like, he walks into a room. And other characters are kind of afraid of him. This character used to be a football player.

• 10:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he played for the Rams.

• 10:48Andy Greenwald?

  He has size. But in the first 10 minutes of the movie, he is also cuckolded. And he looks so sad about it. He's just, I don't, there just aren't actors who can do that wide range of a performance.

• 11:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I like, you know, I grew up with the 80s and 90s performances. So in my introduction to him was kind of cranky old man. Like the Firm and Unforgiven.

• 11:11Andy Greenwald?

  He's so, he is, the Firm is top five, maybe.

• 11:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Horny Hackman. That's a, that's a big part about the Firm.

• 11:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 11:19Chris Ryan?

  Rewatchables, as we talked about Horny Hackman. And then I went back and saw him in Crimson Tide, or not, Night Moves and, and French Connection.

• 11:27Andy Greenwald?

  Scarecrow.

• 11:27Chris Ryan?

  Scarecrow. But it's, he was always kind of a cranky old man, even in his younger days.

• 11:33Andy Greenwald?

  Bonnie and Clyde?

• 11:33Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:34Andy Greenwald?

  Super crank, super cranky.

• 11:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Andy Greenwald?

  I think also, we talk about like movie star eras, the fact that he could be the lead in The Conversation, which is a masterpiece. And then be in the 90s version of The Conversation, Enemy of the State. And still make sense in that world. And then we did the, we did the rewatchables on Tenenbaums, right?

• 11:54Chris Ryan?

  We did, the World Tenenbaums one.

• 11:58Andy Greenwald?

  Him doing, Hackman doing Tenenbaums, and apparently hating it, but giving one of the greatest performances of his career, and maybe the perfect coda to his career. And then like a year later, doing Welcome to Mooseport with Ray Romano, and then piecing out. It's kind of like the way I won't accept that the Chiefs scored 22 points in the Super Bowl. Like that was a 40 to 6 game.

• 12:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:19Andy Greenwald?

  In the, so the-

• 12:19Chris Ryan?

  So you, you think that Tenenbaums was his last movie?

• 12:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, Tenenbaums was his last movie. And Welcome to Mooseport was Mahomes throwing two TDs against the backups in garbage time. Did you think I was gonna be able to bring it back to the Super Bowl? Because I feel like our listeners did.

• 12:33Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to get into Paradise in the Pip?

• 12:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, how do you want to do this? Two shows that begin with P. That's, that's one way we could do it.

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  I want to talk about Paradise.

• 12:40Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 12:41Chris Ryan?

  Because I'll admit that after like the second or third episode, I was like, this was a fun experiment for us.

• 12:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. What did we say? We were like, it's, it's actually bad.

• 12:53Chris Ryan?

  It was good, bad, and then it went bad, bad. And I think there was something. I was, I was having an allergic reaction to the back lotiness of it, which I know is intentional, given that we're going to spoil Paradise, by the way, if you haven't watched it. I highly recommend you do watch it, though. And I highly recommend that even if you've only watched the first episode or very little of it, that you watch the seventh episode.

• 13:20Andy Greenwald?

  And I think, I mean, people don't like it, especially creators don't like when we say things like this, but like, if you are pressed for time, I think it's okay. You can jump ahead. The show has been renewed. You're fine. You may miss some of the, the, the deep flashbacks about Agent Billy, but I think you'll be fine.

• 13:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes, there is, there is like a very soft middle to the first season that then gets really, really, really, really fun. And in seven, excellent. So seven is called The Day. It is essentially, I don't, wouldn't necessarily call it a real time, but it feels like real time, account of the hours before the evacuation of the White House and the arrival at the Colorado bunker that Samantha Redmond, played by Julianne Nicholson-

• 14:07Andy Greenwald?

  AKA Sinatra.

• 14:08Chris Ryan?

  AKA Sinatra, has built for the sort of, the liberal elites. Well, I don't know if they're libs, but you know, like, it's like the, the elites of Washington, the essential people who are going to continue or restart society in this underground bunker in Colorado.

• 14:23Andy Greenwald?

  I would say more that it seems like it's run by like a billionaire oligarch class, which, which is weird.

• 14:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it just didn't ring true.

• 14:31Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 14:31Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, for the majority of the season, you're aware that some sort of catastrophe has taken place.

• 14:37Andy Greenwald?

  And that the world is presumed ruined.

• 14:40Chris Ryan?

  That the world outside of the bunker is- Ruined, right. On the flashbacks to the flight that we have seen so far, I believe in the first episode, maybe at the end, we get a glimpse of it. We know that there is some sort of explosion because I think we see the white light of an explosion. And we know that Xavier Collins, who is Sterling K. Brown's Secret Service agent, who is the protagonist of the show, is very mad at the president, James Marsden, AKA Cal, AKA Wildcat.

• 15:09Andy Greenwald?

  We should have more AKAs in our lives.

• 15:11Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I got plenty. You just don't know about them.

• 15:13Andy Greenwald?

  Do you really?

• 15:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Andy Greenwald?

  Like, when you're walking around the Ringer office, what do they say? Who's moving?

• 15:19Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 15:20Andy Greenwald?

  Spark plug.

• 15:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, we find out that the events that led these people to the Colorado bunker were, a volcano exploded in the Antarctic.

• 15:32Andy Greenwald?

  How quickly did you Google, are there really volcanoes in the Arctic?

• 15:36Chris Ryan?

  My attitude about these kinds of things is very similar to my attitude about flying in a plane, which is like, there's very little about it I can control. Like, I can recycle.

• 15:44Andy Greenwald?

  This is why you're healthy.

• 15:45Chris Ryan?

  I can recycle, but there is a certain, you know, like...

• 15:47Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that's helping right now?

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  Your YoPlay containers going in the blue?

• 15:52Chris Ryan?

  That's how I responded to Trump, sorting my trash.

• 15:56Andy Greenwald?

  This'll show. Good job.

• 15:58Chris Ryan?

  Sir, that is compostable!

• 16:00Andy Greenwald?

  This is an act of resistance.

• 16:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  Good job.

• 16:02Chris Ryan?

  I paid $13 for these eggs, and they will go in my compost.

• 16:09Andy Greenwald?

  So in a way, you're just investing.

• 16:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and so there's a volcano in Antarctica causing a 300-foot wave, take that 100-foot wave.

• 16:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I wonder what that was like in Nazareth.

• 16:21Chris Ryan?

  Uh, to come out of the Southern Hemisphere, traveling at 600 miles per hour, which leads to, it's preceded by an awesome sonic boom, which I did not know waves of that size produced. And I would describe in a style, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa directed this. They directed much of, I think much of, or several episodes of the first season here.

• 16:45Andy Greenwald?

  I think only the first two.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  And the last two?

• 16:48Andy Greenwald?

  The first two and the last, and the big, and the last two, yeah. They did two blocks.

• 16:52Chris Ryan?

  So these two guys have actually put together like a very solid... Very entertaining CV of stuff that they've directed. Crazy, stupid love, focus. You know, like, they are very sure hands. I would not have imagined that they would be the first choice for a bite your nails thriller. You know, like this. But that is essentially what you get, which is like this countdown clock of the very last moment that the people in the White House can get out of the White House, get onto planes, fly to Colorado. They are trying to decide to what extent they need to notify the American public and the world public about what's coming. Obviously, some people around the world are starting to get that sense because large swaths

• 17:37Chris Ryan?

  of it are being destroyed hour by hour. And

• 17:42Andy Greenwald?

  We start to learn about it due to the breakdown of decorum on cable news.

• 17:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yes. And a lot of the TV news stuff is very Cloverfield.

• 17:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:55Chris Ryan?

  It's like they are communicating a lot of exposition by doing these kind of stand up shots. And there's a lot of like verite. It's very, very cool, the way they kind of communicate a lot of this information.

• 18:07Andy Greenwald?

  I also did want to like just fact check, like there is not fact check, but maybe just question. There's the one reporter for the CNN analog.

• 18:14Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And he's just like, I'm gonna stay doing a panel talk.

• 18:18Andy Greenwald?

  No, not that guy. The one who's just the woman who's just like, I am coming to you live from Jakarta, Indonesia. Minutes before a 300 foot tsunami wave arrives. And he's like, should you be there? And she's like, don't worry. I've chosen to do my report from a balcony of a skyscraper. I was like, oh, yeah, should be fine. Should be fine. Nice view of the harbor.

• 18:40Chris Ryan?

  Doesn't work out for her.

• 18:41Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 18:42Chris Ryan?

  Doesn't work out really for anyone. I would say that the great thing about this episode among just, just the fact that it is a adrenaline rush and it's so well done is A, the sincerity with which they are like.

• 18:58Chris Ryan?

  They're treating the subject matter, which is pretty, you know, obviously sensational. They're like, no, we're gonna take this deadly, deadly seriously. And very emo. And on top of that, every time you're like, we're twisted out. I'm wrung out. Like, there's nowhere else for this to go. They gotta get on the plane and they gotta go. They're like, what if we also had to deal with this? And what if we also had to deal with Xavier Collins's wife is stranded in Atlanta? But can she get from Hartsfield Airport to an Air Force Base? In like, the amount of time that she needs to get there to get evacuated?

• 19:31Andy Greenwald?

  Anyone who has ever remotely aided a spouse navigating an airport really felt like that was more gripping.

• 19:37Chris Ryan?

  When he's like, steal a car if you have to.

• 19:39Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like you've said that to Phoebe on occasion.

• 19:42Chris Ryan?

  I don't know, man. I, I, this was a real lesson to me that like, not, A, not to give up on shows, but B, that certain episodes can just be so head and shoulders above everything else that it almost, I don't wanna say like redeems, like I'm giving it like, I'm like, oh, you've, you've been redeemed. But it was like, this is incredible television.

• 20:04Andy Greenwald?

  It was a really, really good episode of a show that also, even within this episode, stayed true to its bona fides, which is that it is batshit insane.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:13Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I feel like any conversation about paradise must, as a caveat, the way they describe the side effects of drugs in commercials, say that it is cuckoo birds.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  May, may do cause vertigo.

• 20:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, seizures. Like, it is so crazy. And I come here, though, not to bury it for that, but to celebrate it. Because, Chris, we used to be a nation of many things, laws, but also broadcast television. And broadcast television, and I, we forget this through the, the haze of Netflix fees and things, that broadcast TV, even the things we celebrated, really, really, really, really used to go for it.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Andy Greenwald?

  Go for it in very, very broad, off, sometimes comical ways. And I don't know why this is the first example that came to my mind. It's 40 years old. But like, L.A. Law, which was the prestige drama of the 80s in a lot of ways, along with St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues.

• 21:09Chris Ryan?

  I can bury, man.

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  But, what's that?

• 21:11Chris Ryan?

  I can bury. Jill, I can bury.

• 21:13Andy Greenwald?

  So, did you just name a character? You're like Stump the Schwab? It's like naming actors on L.A. Law. Okay, Michael Tucker.

• 21:21Chris Ryan?

  Hamlin, let's go.

• 21:23Andy Greenwald?

  A Martinez, are we just gonna do this? Who was the guy Benny? Was Benny the then?

• 21:29Chris Ryan?

  That's Corbin Bernsen, right?

• 21:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no, Benny wasn't there like?

• 21:31Chris Ryan?

  That's Arnie. He was Arnie, right?

• 21:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Arnie. No, there was the special needs guy that worked in the office, played by the guy who was the villain in Dark Man. I think his name was Benny.

• 21:39Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 21:41Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, see, I won, but winning feels terrible because you just look at me like I'm crazy?

• 21:44Chris Ryan?

  Okay, Dark Man.

• 21:48Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, on L.A. Law, when there was the Diana Muldour played like Rosalind, who was like the badass supervillain of The Office for one season, and then she walked into an empty elevator shaft.

• 21:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, they were just, they were like, your contract's up, guess what?

• 22:03Andy Greenwald?

  But they were also like, our story, our writers' room goes to 11.

• 22:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:07Andy Greenwald?

  And we will see what happens, but we are not here to win awards or even be streaming or available on video. We are here to fucking go for it week after week.

• 22:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 22:16Andy Greenwald?

  And Paradise has that baked into its insane DNA. And I, I really, really respect it. And sometimes when it hits hard, like it does with this episode, where they were like, okay, in these 46 minutes, we are going to end life on Earth. And to a TikTok of what, not, okay, not in the TikTok in the modern sense, but like in a reported story kind of way, of what it would be like for these people in this room.

• 22:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Andy Greenwald?

  And have moments of mawkishness or unreality, like when President Cal is like, takes a moment to talk to the guy sweeping up outside the Oval Office. But what that gets us are these moments of sincerity, then the moments of hysteria. And to the show's credit, it doesn't make anyone look particularly heroic, which I think is, maybe that's the most modern thing about it.

• 23:05Chris Ryan?

  That's what I really liked about it. You, you mentioned the hysteria. So my favorite part of the episode is when the president is given, he's recorded an address that is very like,

• 23:16Andy Greenwald?

  Stiff upper lip.

• 23:16Chris Ryan?

  May God bless us and, and hopefully tomorrow we'll begin to recover and, you know, we'll be there, America, shining bright.

• 23:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Chris Ryan?

  And then he decides to take the tie off, both literally and sort of linguistically.

• 23:30Andy Greenwald?

  And, well, it's Cal, so first he ties one on a little bit, then he takes the tie off.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  And then he's like, I need a cup of coffee, which is the best. You know, it's just kind of like the legal speedball.

• 23:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Chris Ryan?

  And,

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  he sits down and addresses the globe and says, we're fucking dead. We are dead. But before that, when he makes this decision and it's obvious to his immediate circle that he is going to now tell the truth about the imminent destruction of the world.

• 23:58Chris Ryan?

  Xavier's like, weapons hot, man, because it's about to get steamy up in the Oval.

• 24:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Chris Ryan?

  Because he knows as soon as everybody figures out the world is ending and this guy has actually got a place to go.

• 24:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  I want on that plane.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  And it's going to get pretty, pretty, uh, pretty ugly inside the Oval. So like the Secret Service agents are then asked to defend the president and in, in some cases shoots civilians who are trying to get on this, on this transport. It's called the Versailles Group, you know, of people who are like going to be transported and restart society. And that's when shit hits the fan. And it is, it is pretty nuts. And then even one of the Secret Service agents isn't invited.

• 24:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  No, your name's not on the list, dog?

• 24:46Andy Greenwald?

  I, I kind of.

• 24:47Chris Ryan?

  And it's like, you have to guard the White House. I'm like, from a wave? Like, why?

• 24:50Andy Greenwald?

  Did that give you, did that give you flashbacks to like trying to see the MIA secret show or something in 2003? Like the fader.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  I work at the fader, come on!

• 25:00Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta be on the list.

• 25:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was at the fader fort.

• 25:04Andy Greenwald?

  You were, you were guarding the fader fort.

• 25:06Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 25:07Andy Greenwald?

  Even after a South by Southwest ended. No, I, I, I think it's also when you have a, if you'll allow it, apologies to the deceased, a tidal wave of a story show like this. Sometimes it just sweeps past really good ideas, but just by sweeping past them, it pays them some attention. What I mean is like, it's what you just said, that like baked into this insane tempo of an episode, the idea that like other things, other end of the world type stories or apocalyptic stories. Try to at least showcase the dignity in continuing to do your job.

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:42Andy Greenwald?

  Or sweep up or guard even after, you know, all hope is lost.

• 25:45Chris Ryan?

  Or even if it's a post-apocalyptic story and it's like the real, the real evil came from within.

• 25:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 25:51Chris Ryan?

  It's like, oh, well, that's the breakdown, the evil that men do, the Hobbesian, the Hobbesian piece, you know? But this is like, it's, it's already bad in the room before the wave even hits.

• 26:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And there's, and what dignity is there? Cause you're dying anyway.

• 26:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Andy Greenwald?

  And I, I sort of appreciated that aspect of it. And so that episode was incredibly strong.

• 26:11Chris Ryan?

  I have a couple more notes to just pass along before we get to the finale.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Cause that gets real weird.

• 26:15Chris Ryan?

  Okay. In this episode, Xavier spends most of it texting his wife during the end of the world, which I get. You want to make sure she gets to the airport, but I was thinking about texting with you. If the world was gonna end.

• 26:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, you'd be informing me.

• 26:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, I first I'd be like, guess what?

• 26:36Chris Ryan?

  Lioness is not coming back.

• 26:37Andy Greenwald?

  Some news calling.

• 26:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, but then I just feel like you would be sending me like, heard this new nineties-esque indie jam.

• 26:46Andy Greenwald?

  I'd be like, okay, but did you see this on Stereogum? This band's pretty good.

• 26:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Andy Greenwald?

  And you'd be like, yes, I've been listening to them for years and not telling me about them.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  This is really it right now.

• 26:57Andy Greenwald?

  That's a good record. I would, I would do that. I would also, you'd see the dots and you'd be like, I bet, I bet my friend is composing his thoughts about a life well-lived together in the trenches of podcasting and media. And I was just looking for the right Palpatine gif.

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  Just to hit, just to make you, just to.

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  Somehow Greenwald has survived.

• 27:18Andy Greenwald?

  To make you lull one last time.

• 27:20Chris Ryan?

  The only other thing was I can't remember which character says this. But I think it's either the president, I think it's the president who says a tsunami moves fast, but fear moves faster.

• 27:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Chris Ryan?

  And I have to say, I don't care. If there was a tsunami, I would just be, that's, that's my number one.

• 27:37Andy Greenwald?

  You wouldn't worry about fear.

• 27:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Fear is like.

• 27:40Andy Greenwald?

  Fear's coming.

• 27:42Chris Ryan?

  I think people are allowed to be afraid. I think people should be allowed to be allowed to freak out.

• 27:46Andy Greenwald?

  Especially in low lying areas.

• 27:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Uh, anything else on episode seven?

• 27:52Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Would you say contender for episode of the year? Well, I mean, how can you say it's only March?

• 27:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's only March.

• 28:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think that it is, and this is just part of the larger conversation about the show. I really, really like how hard the show goes. You know, that it's, that it's just like, an episode like this, in the current way that we seem to understand how to make television in this country, would either be the first episode or the last episode of the third season.

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, fuck it, we got more, we got more, we got more, we got more. And so that you have an episode this crazy, and then the powers that be, in this case, Dan Fogelman, is like, perfect. I've now cleared the room, cleared the air, and cleared most of the earth, so I can tell the story that motivates me most. The surprising love story between a gruff foreman and a Senegalese worker dying of black lung.

• 28:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Andy Greenwald?

  Like, great, let's fucking go. Let's keep going. There's, this show is so free of the pomposity and the portentousness of so much prestige TV of the last few years.

• 29:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Andy Greenwald?

  Compare this to Zero Day, which is also ostensibly about a catastrophe in this country, with a focus on the highest chambers of power.

• 29:15Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:15Andy Greenwald?

  And-

• 29:16Chris Ryan?

  Did you ever finish Zero Day?

• 29:18Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, no, I have not. Have you finished it?

• 29:19Chris Ryan?

  I read, I read the recaps for the rest of it. I watched three and a half of them, and then I read the recaps.

• 29:24Andy Greenwald?

  Does it get, does it get real smart? Does it get real good?

• 29:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it gets so much smarter.

• 29:30Andy Greenwald?

  Oh my god, the show's so smart. I love it. Oh, you're so smart, Zero Day. You really, it's like reading the op-ed pages of the failing New York Times. It's awesome. But it's apples and oranges, except, I can't do this metaphor, except the oranges are rancid, I don't know.

• 29:50Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the, the fact that they spend the finale mostly concentrating on a character who had been in the very, very, very far background-

• 29:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's so pleased with itself, yeah.

• 30:01Chris Ryan?

  And that his-

• 30:04Chris Ryan?

  He is not only the person who tried to, he is the attempted assassin of Cal the first time.

• 30:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 30:10Chris Ryan?

  That then he is sent to a Colorado supermax prison.

• 30:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, he was.

• 30:13Chris Ryan?

  It's just a bit of kismet.

• 30:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Chris Ryan?

  Because he's like, who would have thunk it? I wind up in the supermax.

• 30:17Andy Greenwald?

  He did.

• 30:18Chris Ryan?

  And if I can just orchestrate my own escape.

• 30:21Andy Greenwald?

  It's great, he says.

• 30:22Chris Ryan?

  I'm right nearby the excavation site, the, the site of the town.

• 30:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 30:28Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, it's amazing. It is like one of the great like little TV tropes. Actually, I don't even know if it's a TV trope. It's just one of the funniest things is when this guy who's, uh, what's his name?

• 30:39Andy Greenwald?

  Trent?

• 30:40Chris Ryan?

  Trent. He has been posing as the librarian in this town.

• 30:43Andy Greenwald?

  He's false Trent.

• 30:44Chris Ryan?

  Fake Trent. False Trent is even better.

• 30:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's what it says on Wikipedia, false Trent. Oh, man.

• 30:53Chris Ryan?

  He kidnaps Xavier and he's like, whew, finally I get to unburden myself with the truth about what I've done.

• 31:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 31:01Chris Ryan?

  And then just tells him his entire life story.

• 31:03Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he's concussed.

• 31:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I was just like, this is so great. This is awesome.

• 31:07Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think this is better, better or worse than current NFL concussion protocols?

• 31:11Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 31:12Andy Greenwald?

  Like when they go in the blue tent and false Trent is there to explain the plot of paradise to you? And if you could follow.

• 31:18Chris Ryan?

  And then AJ Brown is like, damn.

• 31:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's like, oh, that's really riveting. You're like back in the game.

• 31:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the, you know, the, the end of this episode, the end of this season, I guess it's worth noting that there is a, uh, woman named Jane who people will remember from the.

• 31:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's worth noting.

• 31:35Chris Ryan?

  From the beginning part of the season.

• 31:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Chris Ryan?

  Who over the course is, is, starts out as a secret service agent who is Xavier's protege.

• 31:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and Billy's lover.

• 31:43Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 31:44Chris Ryan?

  And, um, over the course of the season, it's revealed that she is not only a killer, like a outside, a hitman more or less, or an assassin, but that she is unwell. Um, that she.

• 31:57Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 31:58Chris Ryan?

  That she seems to have like a kind of Hannibal Lecter thing going or not even, I wouldn't even.

• 32:02Andy Greenwald?

  She's a little sociopathic.

• 32:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Andy Greenwald?

  And she is, you know, what do they used to say about Allen Iverson? Like 150 pounds soaking wet?

• 32:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Andy Greenwald?

  She's like 105 pounds soaking wet, but the most brutal killer.

• 32:11Chris Ryan?

  Dead eye shot because at the end of the episode, they, now you, you guys do or don't care, like basically over the entire second half of the season, it's kind of a lost, you know? Jack versus Locke kind of thing where it's like Xavier and his people and some of the Secret Service agents and they get all the guns.

• 32:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Chris Ryan?

  And then Samantha and the Briny X and the billionaires. I like calling her by her given name.

• 32:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, but you're gonna confuse people. They're gonna fail concussion protocols.

• 32:38Chris Ryan?

  Sinatra and it seems like Xavier has the upper hand until Sinatra, who's been swearing that she's not a monster the entire season.

• 32:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's also just like, this show is so-

• 32:47Chris Ryan?

  Threatens to kill his daughter.

• 32:48Andy Greenwald?

  It's unstoppable. It's like, it's like, it's like it has some sort of food poisoning. It just keeps, it just keeps coming out of it. And so the character who is behaving like a Bond villain says, oh, maybe I am a Bond villain. Like, okay, then let's move on. That's just who you are for the purposes of the show.

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  And so it seems like Xavier, you know, he's got his daughter has been kidnapped by Sinatra. She's threatening to kill Presley and is like, um, you know, so you're gonna do my bidding and yada, yada. And then Jane goes rogue.

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Chris Ryan?

  And is like, no, I am gonna kill Presley. She's the one who's been-

• 33:20Andy Greenwald?

  I did.

• 33:20Chris Ryan?

  Guarding. She said she did kill her.

• 33:23Andy Greenwald?

  They were having girls' night, eating ice cream.

• 33:25Chris Ryan?

  He's getting real mad, uh, but then Jane pops into the room and shoots Sinatra in the one part of the sternum that doesn't kill you.

• 33:33Andy Greenwald?

  That is remarkable. She's bleeding out, but not all the way.

• 33:38Chris Ryan?

  That would make a cool YouTube video. Me and Angie shoot each other right here. And see who lives long.

• 33:45Andy Greenwald?

  But what if it was narrated with that TikTok voice? It's like, I took my two best friends to a room and I shot them both in the sternum to see how quickly they wouldn't die. I shot Chris first and he seems to be in discomfort and the blood is bubbling around his mouth and neck and he cannot speak, but he's promised me that he'll survive. My children only watch content with that voice.

• 34:01Chris Ryan?

  It ends with, uh-

• 34:04Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, like also you're like Xavier gets real mad. He shoots two dudes point blank in the forehead, but I guess everyone has different definitions of anger.

• 34:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, he winds up, you know, so Sinatra's incapacitated. Jane is still pretending to be on-

• 34:18Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, I'm so sorry. It's like, you-

• 34:22Chris Ryan?

  Why am I recapping the show?

• 34:23Andy Greenwald?

  You are sane-washing the show. Okay, in the spirit of the day.

• 34:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you have to understand that on this show- There's a massive, massive pot, plot, plank, which is that in recreating society to the best of their ability, they recreate a classic neighborhood diner that serves that classic dish that sucks.

• 34:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, they don't have dairy.

• 34:45Andy Greenwald?

  Do they not? They, I don't think they don't have dairy. I think when they announced that the cheese is, can you believe it? It's cashew cheese, which barf, but they say they did that. I think it's like-

• 34:54Chris Ryan?

  Actually, you know, you can make a pretty decent cashew cheese.

• 34:57Andy Greenwald?

  Get out of this podcast.

• 34:57Chris Ryan?

  I'm just saying you can. I mean, like, I've had it.

• 34:59Andy Greenwald?

  You can make a pretty decent cashew puree, but just eat cheese or don't. That's my feeling about it.

• 35:04Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 35:04Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. You can make a decent cashew cheese.

• 35:06Chris Ryan?

  Did you have a lot of fun last night watching Trump's address?

• 35:11Chris Ryan?

  You worried about the dairy farmers? Is that what's going on?

• 35:14Andy Greenwald?

  Release the water. Feed the cows.

• 35:17Chris Ryan?

  Feed the cashews.

• 35:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, feed the cashews. The implication is that they've, they've, they've helped society so much, right? That they have made this somehow, uh, you know, it's vegan.

• 35:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's the implication. Not that they didn't have dairy, but really it's all a misdirect to expose that the woman serving and snacking on the delicious cheese fries has a deadly nut allergy, or so she should have.

• 35:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 35:43Andy Greenwald?

  Where if she was really real Trent's wife, instead of a woman eating junk food outside of a-

• 35:48Chris Ryan?

  We learned that because the town therapist breaks HIPAA and starts sharing all the confidential files with Robinson, the other Secret Service agent. It's just a lot of, a lot of personal morality going on.

• 36:01Andy Greenwald?

  Since you clearly have retained all of the factual information of this show, and to a degree that I may have not.

• 36:07Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 36:08Andy Greenwald?

  The thing that I'm wondering if they've really dwelt on is when they were making the list, like, like, can you get into this?

• 36:16Chris Ryan?

  The Versailles list.

• 36:16Andy Greenwald?

  The Versailles list.

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:18Andy Greenwald?

  It seems like, correct me if I'm wrong, there are a lot of like, high priority people, like, like the cabinet, friends and family of the president, the billionaires and their friends and family. I assume some crucial people who can do things like surgery, like doctors and scientists who might help repopulate the earth. But then there does seem to be a rather large chunk of the population that's just there to like- Be a bartender or be a waitress. Now, I think that's nice if it was done with an egalitarian spirit, like society needs all its members to contribute to the best of their abilities. I'm sort of wondering, though, if I was drawing up the versatile, which I never should have been allowed to do.

• 36:59Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 37:00Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like-

• 37:00Chris Ryan?

  You'd be like Lane Johnson. Saquon Barkley. My kids.

• 37:07Andy Greenwald?

  In that order. That-

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  Joanna.

• 37:13Andy Greenwald?

  I know all the other podcasters first, is that where you were going? Van, the whole Ringer verse, really.

• 37:23Andy Greenwald?

  That, well, they entertain me, you know. I'd find a way to get you in there.

• 37:27Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, man.

• 37:28Andy Greenwald?

  False Trent. Welcome to the watch. I'm Andy Greenwald. This is my longtime partner, False Trent.

• 37:34Chris Ryan?

  Being the fake librarian in your town.

• 37:37Andy Greenwald?

  Before you 3D printed another gun.

• 37:40Chris Ryan?

  Welcome to my library, we only have lonesome doves. And books about the fall of Saigon.

• 37:45Andy Greenwald?

  You would let me make mixtapes, though.

• 37:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:47Andy Greenwald?

  That would be a tell.

• 37:49Chris Ryan?

  No, I'd just stand behind you and be like, I actually heard these guys three years ago.

• 37:53Andy Greenwald?

  I read about them on Stereo Gum. I do think that every single person in the town should probably be a nuclear physicist who unfortunately has to be a barback until needed.

• 38:03Chris Ryan?

  That would be really funny, yeah.

• 38:04Andy Greenwald?

  But like, I think everyone should be the elite of the elite, like the greatest, biggest brained artists and like, like Neil deGrasse Tyson should be there if needed, but he's just selling ice cream in the park. Do you know what I mean? That would probably be my way of doing it.

• 38:20Chris Ryan?

  I just want to ask you a question before we get off of Paradise. We've had this show and we've had Layman, that I think both, we've gotten a lot of just real joy out of.

• 38:32Andy Greenwald?

  Joy, yeah.

• 38:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. What do you think it says about us that we're responding so?

• 38:38Chris Ryan?

  I don't know, not necessarily always positively, but excitedly to this kind of stuff. Instead of Severance.

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, um, well, I was gonna say Mala, no, Malala. Make America Laugh Again, comma, Los Angeles. Just trying to make it work. Because these shows are fucking crazy and they're entertaining and they are, I mean, one, they're making us laugh and giving us stuff to make each other laugh with. They are also triggering parts of our creative cerebral cortex that just aren't always engaged with. Like, it's not just about solving rational, reasonable, complicated puzzles. It's also about just having a wild ride sometimes and, you know, a healthy.

• 39:24Chris Ryan?

  Maybe we should change, we should change the, the watch to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

• 39:29Andy Greenwald?

  I love Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. You know what we should do, or what we could do, or would have been a good Tuesday column for me to have written at Grantland years ago? Would have been the healthy TV pyramid, like a food pyramid.

• 39:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, like what you should have.

• 39:41Andy Greenwald?

  How many servings of different things makes a healthy diet over the course of a week? Because it does.

• 39:46Chris Ryan?

  Well, we could just do that on the watch, you know?

• 39:49Andy Greenwald?

  I, Joanna and I were talking about doing it for, you know, just another project we're working on with, with our friend, The Librarian.

• 39:55Chris Ryan?

  Called the Pyramid Big Trend.

• 39:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's weird the way his bald spot keeps growing back in. It's fine. No, but you know what I mean? Because I do think it does, it does affect one's mood. If you are over indexing one type of show over another.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know if there's anything else like Severance on the air, though.

• 40:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, I didn't mean to, listen, Severance does not need a drive-by for me on this podcast.

• 40:20Chris Ryan?

  We, we, we can love, love who we want to love, you know?

• 40:23Andy Greenwald?

  But I don't, I want to be clear, I don't think Paradise is quote unquote, "good" in the way that we talk about things being good or bad anymore. But I do think it is batshit crazy.

• 40:33Chris Ryan?

  I think it's pretty good.

• 40:33Andy Greenwald?

  And it's pretty entertaining.

• 40:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's definitely got me thinking two times about tsunamis and waves, you know?

• 40:40Andy Greenwald?

  In a way that White Lotus didn't?

• 40:44Andy Greenwald?

  What sort of things are you thinking about tsunami?

• 40:46Chris Ryan?

  Well, I was just like, do I want to get to higher ground? Based on like, you know, like, do I want to get?

• 40:51Andy Greenwald?

  You mean for this podcast, to Barack Obama's company?

• 40:53Chris Ryan?

  No, like, live in, in like, a mountain, live on a mountain.

• 40:57Andy Greenwald?

  I don't like altitude.

• 40:58Chris Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about the pit.

• 41:02Chris Ryan?

  All right, bud, here we are.

• 41:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yep, we're back.

• 41:04Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna do the pit. Do you have any, anything you'd like to discuss other than Paradise in the Pit? I usually, we save this stuff for the top of the show.

• 41:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just, you know that I am always, as established by the beginning of this podcast, I'm always just checking the transom, seeing what news are coming across my little ticker tape. And I did just see some pretty exciting news for you. This is a headline from Hollywood Reporter. Joe Russo says Robert Downey Jr. is researching and quote, "writing backstory for his Dr. Doom role." Quote, "He is so dialed in."

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  Do you have to, would that mean reading comic books?

• 41:36Andy Greenwald?

  Researching is so interesting. Can you imagine him in the stacks, like the University of Texas library?

• 41:41Chris Ryan?

  Where's Victor's from? He's Hungarian?

• 41:44Andy Greenwald?

  Latvia.

• 41:44Chris Ryan?

  Latvia.

• 41:45Andy Greenwald?

  My family's from Hungary, so that's, you know, it's the one, one slight difference, yeah.

• 41:52Chris Ryan?

  So you can't really do a lot of boots-on-the-ground reporting from Latvia, right?

• 41:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, you fly direct to Sokovia, and then you just drive south. It's fine.

• 42:01Chris Ryan?

  Is it actually adjacent to Sokovia?

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  Marvel Balkans kind of thing?

• 42:06Andy Greenwald?

  Lonely Planet for that region in the Marvel Universe. No, I, I, you're so credulous about this stuff in a very sweet way. I feel like I could say anything right now, you would believe it. I don't know how you research the role other than read comics. And what do you mean, writing the backstory? Oh, are they, unless they're just, you know, deviating from canon, which is its own thing. Aren't you glad that he's dialed in, though? You wouldn't want him to be phoning this performance in.

• 42:31Chris Ryan?

  I have never really seen him not dialed. Like, that's his whole thing, is he's dialed.

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  He's super dialed.

• 42:39Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm a, I, I just, I just, I want the best for these guys. We didn't talk about Daredevil.

• 42:44Andy Greenwald?

  Oh yeah, we haven't, I haven't checked it out yet.

• 42:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I, I think, I'm curious to see what you think. I, I don't know if it's gonna be a big project for us.

• 42:52Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think I would have?

• 42:53Chris Ryan?

  I think it's another one that seems like it's been stitched together.

• 42:58Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we, we'll cover it next week, cause there, when it was announced and they were gonna do like network, broadcast network television, shout out Paradise, they were gonna be like, this is a, like, kind of like a, a comedic legal thriller.

• 43:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Andy Greenwald?

  Set in the Marvel Universe, and they filmed some of it, and they were like-

• 43:12Chris Ryan?

  Wait, they said that about Daredevil?

• 43:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 43:14Chris Ryan?

  Wasn't that supposed to be She-Hulk was gonna be a comedic legal thriller?

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  They doubled down.

• 43:18Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 43:18Andy Greenwald?

  They were like, this is a space that's really working for us.

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  Just missed with She-Hulk.

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, like Ally McBeal-esque.

• 43:25Chris Ryan?

  What if Ally McBeal was blind?

• 43:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  Keep going. Tell me what, wait, you have my attention.

• 43:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, alright, I didn't have anything else for you, cause uh, the only other thing I wanted to mention was that,

• 43:38Chris Ryan?

  increasingly in television news, or in TV just in general, I just feel like, shows have much less lead time promo wise than they used to, so it's not, uncommon now to find out that Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren, and Pierce Brosnan are in a crime thriller directed and produced by, Guy Ritchie.

• 44:00Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 44:00Chris Ryan?

  That is airing on Paramount in three weeks.

• 44:03Andy Greenwald?

  There is something mercenary about the Paramount strategy though, because we did kinda know about this. Wasn't this originally announced as like a-

• 44:10Chris Ryan?

  So this was a Ray Donovan spinoff?

• 44:13Andy Greenwald?

  Very odd.

• 44:13Chris Ryan?

  Or an extended, Ray Donovan extended universe now. I admit, I did not go deep enough into Don to know-

• 44:20Andy Greenwald?

  Ray Don.

• 44:20Chris Ryan?

  Whether there was some, some United Kingdom connective tissue, some tentacles reaching across the Atlantic.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  Sure, we, we have a special relationship.

• 44:28Chris Ryan?

  But I think that this is one of those really interesting Hollywood development stories of this era, where it's like, it started out and it was gonna be, this.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 44:37Chris Ryan?

  And it was gonna be a spinoff of that, and then they like, somebody, Guy Ritchie had enough pull, and Tom, and, was obviously able to pull the, the Tom Hardy lever hard enough to get him to do this, that it just became its own thing. It's called Mobland, which is- You know, about the easiest title for a show you could ever make to make me wanna watch it.

• 44:58Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. I was waiting for the hammer.

• 45:00Chris Ryan?

  I would, I could go for a slightly more elevated title.

• 45:03Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 45:03Chris Ryan?

  Maybe In the Land of the Mob.

• 45:05Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. Oh, that's nice. That's classy.

• 45:07Chris Ryan?

  But.

• 45:08Andy Greenwald?

  I like the suggestion, loose suggestion, that like, everything is MCU now. Not in the sense that it's a shared Marvel Universe, but that everything is just like, well, we're gonna roll and then we'll just figure it out. But doesn't it strike you that like, is it an us problem or an industry problem? That Paramount is just, does seem to be existing. It's like everything, let me start over. It's not everything is MCU. Everything is Sheridan verse now.

• 45:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Andy Greenwald?

  Because it's just like, when the Sheridan projects would get announced and it's like, oh, guess what? Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford are doing a TV show. We were still reeling, like, doing our normal podcast calendar of like, taking a couple of weeks to be like, no way. That doesn't seem likely. That seems like a press release. And then it premiered like six days later?

• 45:52Chris Ryan?

  I have to.

• 45:52Andy Greenwald?

  There's an element of that here.

• 45:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz so this was essentially initially going to be a spinoff called The Donovan's. And it was gonna be obviously based on Ray Donovan. And it was gonna be the origin story.

• 46:04Andy Greenwald?

  Of The Donovan's.

• 46:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm just doing this off.

• 46:06Andy Greenwald?

  So this was gonna be the 1923 of Ray Donovan.

• 46:09Chris Ryan?

  And funnily enough, Helen Mirren is in both 1923 and the 1923. But this is, I don't think that this is a period piece. It was created by Ronan Bennett, who did Top Boy.

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  That's your guy.

• 46:20Chris Ryan?

  Which is why I'm like, this is, this is something I'm very interested in. Guy Ritchie directed some of the episodes and yeah, Mirren and Brosnan play the head of a crime family and Tom Hardy is their enforcer. So I'm excited. Uh, that comes at the end of the month.

• 46:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's really wild. That's really soon.

• 46:38Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about The Pit though.

• 46:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we have not spoken about the show for several weeks, which in pit time is about four or five hours.

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 46:47Chris Ryan?

  Um, I, I.

• 46:51Chris Ryan?

  I look forward to watching the show every week.

• 46:53Andy Greenwald?

  More than anything else.

• 46:56Chris Ryan?

  Even when it sounds like the characters are reading blog posts about their own characters to each other. It still does so much to move me, to excite me, to thrill me. I have really, really gotten into these characters. Like, I've just really started to like, you know, grow attached to these people, even though there's this compression happening.

• 47:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:19Chris Ryan?

  I feel like I eat, we are on now.

• 47:22Andy Greenwald?

  10?

• 47:23Chris Ryan?

  Episode 10 of 15, so we are at.

• 47:26Andy Greenwald?

  The two thirds mark?

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  Are we at 4pm?

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  4pm.

• 47:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the shift's almost over.

• 47:32Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes. And I will say that I've seen a lot of things happen on television over the last couple of years. There's a lot of really breathtaking moments. The dinner from the bear, you know, the, the, the big death on succession. Moments that you'll never forget. I'll never forget where I was when Dana got punched in the face on the pit.

• 47:53Andy Greenwald?

  We were all punched in the face in that moment.

• 47:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:56Andy Greenwald?

  That was devastating. And that was, that was the act out of the episode.

• 48:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Andy Greenwald?

  That was actually the last.

• 48:01Chris Ryan?

  Look at you dropping a little, all right, Sean McVay?

• 48:04Andy Greenwald?

  Because.

• 48:05Chris Ryan?

  Little terminology?

• 48:06Andy Greenwald?

  They were in 12 personnel in front of the hospital. That was the last moment Kaya saw. We're about to spoil everything else for her, but.

• 48:12Chris Ryan?

  I'm sorry, Kaya. And I have to say that there's not a ton of spoilers in the next episode until sort of the last act of, of, of 4pm.

• 48:21Andy Greenwald?

  So, but let's focus on.

• 48:22Chris Ryan?

  We're talking about 3:45 here.

• 48:24Andy Greenwald?

  Let's talk about the Dana thing.

• 48:28Andy Greenwald?

  What you're, what this show has done with more efficiency and more speed than anything since the 90s, which is what the show was expressly designed to recreate, apologies to the HBO Max Discovery lawyers who are having to defend that in court now, is just make us love people to our bones.

• 48:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Andy Greenwald?

  Very, very quickly.

• 48:50Andy Greenwald?

  The number of that guys and that gals on the show that I feel deeply, deeply emotionally connected to, like from the security chief to every nurse, uh, is so intense.

• 49:01Chris Ryan?

  Shout out Perla.

• 49:01Andy Greenwald?

  And said, love Perla. Love Perla went on a, on a journey this episode. She couldn't handle the heat.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  Is so intense and such a wonderful, wonderful, familiar callback to the way we used to engage with TV. And so to bring it to this point where Dana, who is the constant through these first nine hours, and is drawn so sharply by, and so quickly with so relatively few brushstrokes, because she doesn't get a lot of reps, she's just always there.

• 49:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 49:28Andy Greenwald?

  And Catherine, Catherine Lanasa is such a great performer and such a wonderful warming presence that you feel like you know her better than you do. For her to be hit?

• 49:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 49:36Andy Greenwald?

  Devastating.

• 49:36Chris Ryan?

  By that guy.

• 49:37Andy Greenwald?

  That guy. The guy we all hate. And by the way, Doug.

• 49:40Chris Ryan?

  Doug.

• 49:40Andy Greenwald?

  Classic Doug.

• 49:41Chris Ryan?

  Fuck that guy.

• 49:42Andy Greenwald?

  That guy, he got laid off from title. He's having a heart event, you know?

• 49:46Chris Ryan?

  He was working remotely in Pittsburgh.

• 49:49Andy Greenwald?

  He was working remotely in Pittsburgh.

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  He can get way more bang for his buck than real estate.

• 49:53Andy Greenwald?

  He was in charge of Hulu's livestream of the Oscars and then had some sort of cardiac event and he had to go to the ER.

• 50:00Chris Ryan?

  There is a tension on this show, I think, that you can see as this season has gone on of things that they definitely want to say about the contemporary, current medical system, our hospitals, our insurance system, all these social critiques, all of which I tend to agree with. But you can feel it a little bit like, we need to have a character here who is gonna be like, why haven't I been seen yet? I could be having a heart attack.

• 50:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:28Chris Ryan?

  And I will say,

• 50:31Chris Ryan?

  they did, they did bring in an ankle sprain before they cleared the decks with this guy.

• 50:37Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think they were actually playing favorites a little bit.

• 50:40Chris Ryan?

  No, no.

• 50:41Andy Greenwald?

  You don't think?

• 50:41Chris Ryan?

  No, I don't think.

• 50:42Andy Greenwald?

  This guy was, this guy's a monster. He was racist to, what's his name, the beautiful boy?

• 50:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but Mateo, but they would theoretically, like, you'd wanna clear him faster. I know, you know, like, the silent heart attack, I've never heard of that before, so I don't know how silent it is.

• 50:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I have them constantly, but usually I'm just worried. So, you know, I don't mind that they're giving him the slow treatment.

• 51:03Chris Ryan?

  It happens every time you bed down for a transatlantic fight.

• 51:07Andy Greenwald?

  It's true. I have a lot, weirdly, right before my trips, I tend to have heart attacks.

• 51:12Chris Ryan?

  So, yeah, she, Dana, is obviously the angel of this show. Catherine Lannas is so great, and she gets punched in the face really hard outside of the hospital by this fucking guy, Doug. So the episode sort of culminates with that.

• 51:26Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to, can we talk about what you were, what you've alluded to twice? So with this show, and it's good, it's actually a good episodic pairing for us to talk about this with Paradise, because we are getting the absolute highs and lows of the broadcast network experience, even though neither of these shows are actually on broadcast networks. But the pit is, first and foremost, above, beyond anything else, it is super entertaining. It is super emotionally engaging and endearing. And I'm not kidding, it is the show that I look forward to the most, watching at the moment, every week. It is capable of absolute staggering highs, like the episode where Robbie teaches people how to mourn, or seeing

• 52:08Andy Greenwald?

  what happens to Dana and wondering what's gonna happen next. It also does have scenes, like you were talking about, that feel like the stories I heard about shows that had to go into production when the writer's strike was happening, when they just had, like, notes. Because as soon as Dana is punched, suddenly there's like this Greek chorus of all the nurses just spouting Huffington Post facts about the state of violence in hospitals. And then, poor, poor, what's her, the woman who plays the hospital administrator, whose name is Michael, I forget her name, I should have it in front of me.

• 52:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, from The Wire?

• 52:41Andy Greenwald?

  From The Wire. And she plays, hold on, I'm gonna get this right. Michael Hyatt is her name, and maybe it's pronounced Michelle, I'm sorry, but Gloria Underwood is the character. The most thankless part on contemporary television. She just swings in like a pinata at chemo mints for everyone to be like, "This fucking guy." So for her to arrive just at that moment, to literally be the straw administrator whose fault this is, was incredible. But there is something, I keep wanting to say that it's unique, but it's not unique. It's just rare at this present time with TV, that it can be the best and also the clunkiest. And it doesn't really take away from the experience of enjoying the show.

• 53:24Chris Ryan?

  There is definitely something in the first sort of set of episodes that I think we talked about in detail about our relationship to the patients was deepened by the time spent with them because they would go from being like, they just come in, now they're being attended to, but they're still like, are they gonna recover? So there was, it was not uncommon to have a case last over the course of two, two and a half, three episodes. I think that that's gotten shortened a little bit. I think you sent me a message that I knew you were gonna send about the drowned child.

• 54:00Andy Greenwald?

  So this is episode eight?

• 54:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:02Andy Greenwald?

  I was unable to complete watching this episode. I, I cannot do that. That was, and that's intentional.

• 54:09Chris Ryan?

  I was able to, but I care a lot about pool safety, so.

• 54:12Andy Greenwald?

  You've been, you used to be a lifeguard.

• 54:13Chris Ryan?

  I know, I know.

• 54:15Andy Greenwald?

  You probably saw videos like this all the time to like, impress upon you the importance of it. That was not possible for me to watch, but I guess kudos to the show for having, again, like, just the breadth of story that it can do that.

• 54:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Andy Greenwald?

  And do the thing that these shows so brilliantly do, and have been doing for 30-plus years, where you don't know which way it's gonna go.

• 54:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Andy Greenwald?

  And the people who make the show know that the audience is on tenterhooks, and they know that they have a number of pathways available to them in terms of what type of story they want to tell and the effects they want it to have on the characters and audience.

• 54:50Chris Ryan?

  I have no complaints about that plotline. I was very moved by it. I also found the, is it right out, is it the episode after that where Collins and Dana kind of briefly hold hands in the room where they're talking about, like Robbie's talking about how difficult it is to like, get over the kids dying? And then that speech gets interrupted by yet another crisis. It's always another crisis. I did wanna ask you just like, a practical question. What is going, what was going on with the child trafficking story? Or the human trafficking storyline?

• 55:25Andy Greenwald?

  I like, you're like, because I'm legit like. Here's the thing, I thought you were gonna be like, a practical question. As a parent, when your child goes into the, a medical situation, but instead you were like, Andy, if there's one thing you're passionate about, it's children, comma, children trafficking. Child trafficking. I think, well, a couple of things. I, I think that, that the volume of cases on this show is a strength. And that they can just run through so many scenarios, so many possibilities. And, and, and I think that the answer to this is also part of the question you were asking about, like, the, or the question we were both asking you about, like, the efficacy of the group of nurses just reciting facts.

• 56:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:04Andy Greenwald?

  The show is very much written and there have been stories like, like our guy Reggie Ugu, who wrote about this in the Times, like, medical professionals have really championed this show.

• 56:11Chris Ryan?

  The inbox for The Watch, which you can reach us at [email protected], is full of testimonials from people working in hospitals. One day, we're gonna have to just do kind of a compendium of them, but like, people being like, this is as real as it fucking gets.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  And also, I have kind of a rash on my back, but I'd love to show them if they're available for like a back and forth. Um, it's not itching, but it is, I did notice it.

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I think that one of the reasons why they're responding to it is not just that like, oh, that's the correct amount of propofol to, to dose someone with. They're responding to the fact that like, people don't understand.

• 56:45Andy Greenwald?

  What, how much is that?

• 56:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:46Andy Greenwald?

  That they're not, that the show is actually showing the breadth of the job.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:50Andy Greenwald?

  That it is not just, um, you know, putting, doing surgeries or administering people, checking things about them, it is also being the front line for social failings of this country, for crime, for, for things slipping through the, slipping through the cracks. And so that storyline was opaque in the sense that, is it leading to something? I mean, that's the other thing, right? That like, if this was ER.

• 57:16Andy Greenwald?

  Everyone in the Michael Crichton estate, their ears perk up. That storyline where a young woman shows up with her quote, with her boss.

• 57:25Chris Ryan?

  With her pregnant boss who is also answering all the questions about her medical care, which leads.

• 57:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 57:30Chris Ryan?

  McKay, who's getting a little frayed, I think, over the course of the day.

• 57:35Andy Greenwald?

  She, she's also, she's, she's a bit of an activist in there. She, that, that storyline would have paid off definitively.

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 57:42Andy Greenwald?

  Over the course of two episodes or three episodes. Instead, what we get, and it might be all we get, and I think that that's one of the ways that the show is sort of conditioning us. In how to, how to watch in future seasons is that we may never know the answer to that. There may be.

• 57:56Chris Ryan?

  I have a feeling we're gonna have a very tempestuous last third of this show.

• 58:01Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, they, but they are also.

• 58:02Chris Ryan?

  Season.

• 58:03Andy Greenwald?

  But they're throwing a lot of stuff in the air and we're not sure which are coming back to us. Like, is it, you know, is it?

• 58:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:07Andy Greenwald?

  Is it the incel kid?

• 58:08Chris Ryan?

  Is it Kill List Kid?

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  Is it the music festival that's going on? Is it that one? Or is it something we don't even expect? So I, I think that the, the, the purpose of that storyline was to some degree to kind of muddy the waters or confuse you.

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Andy Greenwald?

  But ultimately it was to land on the fact that despite all of their goodwill, despite all of their very, very obvious suspicion.

• 58:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  There wasn't anything they could do but give her a pen, which is very say, uh, say anything of, of them.

• 58:35Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's right.

• 58:36Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  Callback.

• 58:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:37Chris Ryan?

  Um, you know, when this show first started, I think that the cases and the jargon and the sheer nerve wracking tension of, of watching surgeries and watching all this stuff happen was the star of the show. And it is doing what I had kind of hoped, which is that sheerly from spending nine, 10 hours with these people. We have now started to like, get more than just like Santos seems like a real problem child here. Like you, these characters are now getting more and more fleshed out. You're getting McKay, you meet her ex, you meet.

• 59:11Andy Greenwald?

  That, that, that seemed a bit far fetched to me, but okay.

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but I, I think it was good to show. Both sides of that character at the same time. It was cool to have her both like bantering with her ex and you know, getting kind of teased about that, but also calling the cops on the incel kid and also trying to delay the release of the woman she thinks is being trafficked.

• 59:35Andy Greenwald?

  She's a cross a lot.

• 59:36Chris Ryan?

  She's, she's really stressed out. Yeah.

• 59:40Andy Greenwald?

  Is she in Mateo? We think that's happening?

• 59:42Chris Ryan?

  I don't think, I don't know. She still, what's her ex's name? Chad?

• 59:47Andy Greenwald?

  Cliff? Chad? Something like that?

• 59:48Chris Ryan?

  I think it was Chad. I think she still seems to have a candle for him. This also comes into play with the arc of the Langdon character.

• 59:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we gotta talk about this. So this is, again, it is kind of fun to have a show that is 15 hours. It's not six, it's not eight. So the, the, the crescendo moments that we've come to expect rhythmically, that like three episodes in, something big might happen. Penultimate episode, something big happens, is thrown off a little bit. So we are, so much stuff is being thrown at us that, like I said, we don't know what's gonna come back down and what's gonna land. I didn't have on my bingo card, major cast upheaval in episode 10.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. So there has been a subplot to this season where Santos, the young doctor Santos, who's basically on her first day, has been finding bottles of medicine that she thinks have been tampered with.

• 1:00:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And there was something with the, like Louis Librium was not the correct number of pills. There was, there was a couple of question marks.

• 1:00:47Chris Ryan?

  And essentially like, you know, she's starting to become suspicious now. Her suspicions are couched with the fact that Langdon is the only one who really seems to take deep offense to Trinity's cockiness and her, you know, some of her behavioral stuff. But she's obviously like a very talented and intuitive doctor. And he seems to be really like going after her and also very aware that like other people are noticing this now. So as he gets increasingly paranoid, I think like, you know, she, they've been, they've been putting out this breadcrumbs of the narrative over the course of the season that these two are on

• 1:01:27Chris Ryan?

  a collision course, but you're led to believe it's going to be more about workplace harassment, bullying and/or like these generational clashes that happen. And instead it turns out that Langdon has been stealing Benzos to wean himself off of painkillers that he had been taking for a back injury and that a doctor, yeah, so he claims. And it's a searing scene at the end of the most recent episode where Noah Wiley's character Robbie confronts Langdon. It's fucking awesome. Where he's just like, open this locker and like, you know, don't make me make security, come do it. And just kicks him out of the hospital. Sight unseen, not sight unseen, he finds Librium. So I guess sight.

• 1:02:08Andy Greenwald?

  He sees it.

• 1:02:09Chris Ryan?

  And the Langdon character immediately like kind of goes into defensive pleading.

• 1:02:16Andy Greenwald?

  Bargaining.

• 1:02:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like very, very obviously like trying to figure it out. Patrick Ball does a really good job in that. You know, this is essentially like if you wanted to map it against ER, which I'm sure lawyers all over the world do not want us to do. Patrick Ball, his Dr. Langdon is essentially Doug Ross. He's like, if, if Robbie is the Mark Green, Langdon is the raw, like the attractive, younger, hotshot doctor bantering with Garcia all the time. And he kind of falls apart in the middle of the day. What'd you think of this?

• 1:02:47Andy Greenwald?

  So I think, as I have said many times, I love the show just unabashedly. I think that it's been, it was interesting to note for all the balls that are in the air, they do lose track of them sometimes, or they are still figuring out the conceit that they've created in terms of the show being one day, hour to hour. I think that, as you said, there were breadcrumbs that that was it. The drug storyline was something to be monitoring. If you look backwards, Langdon's behavior, especially in the last few hours.

• 1:03:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like, I need to make some salmon tonight.

• 1:03:18Andy Greenwald?

  Or that you make rash decisions.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  You have adopted a dog. You're an adrenaline junkie. You're a junkie. Like that stuff. The way that he yelled at Santos, those were telling spikes on the old EKG character meter.

• 1:03:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Andy Greenwald?

  That said, I think that it was kind of muffled and lost. Like, there, and, and, and there may be a number of authors of the slight miss, in my opinion. One of which is Patrick Ball's really, really good as a handsome, caring and intuitive doctor. I'd never at any point in the 10 episodes we had bought that he had any edge to him whatsoever in any direction.

• 1:03:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I guess that makes it all the more surprising, right?

• 1:04:00Andy Greenwald?

  I guess it makes it surprising, but I, I think that there are pieces at play that they were interested in that, you know, that are Doug Ross-esque. Or we've seen in most other, maybe even, I was gonna say more conventional, but just, let's just say other medical dramas, which is adrenaline, God complex, hero complex in characters. So have, giving him more variation so that the fall lands more, it doesn't just seem like another discharge from the hospital, I think would have been better. Now, it feels a little bit like greedy to be like, I love everything about this and they're figuring out what could be a hit formula that works for years. And I'm, I wish it was better.

• 1:04:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Andy Greenwald?

  It also could be, we, I, we don't know, we don't know what the next few episodes will bring and we don't know what the next few seasons will bring. It could be that the Langdon character was designed to be a misdirect. That we thought we were getting Doug Ross for the next five years and it was a 10-episode.

• 1:04:55Chris Ryan?

  Arc.

• 1:04:56Andy Greenwald?

  Guest star arc.

• 1:04:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I could also see like.

• 1:04:58Andy Greenwald?

  And that's it. And that also might be why, uh, you know, again, like the show has done a great job casting younger people. But if you go by Wikipedia, all the major actors have been in many other things and Patrick Ball has not.

• 1:05:09Chris Ryan?

  Right, right. Well, I would like to, uh, I, I would like to see whether or not.

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  I'm very curious to see how like what cast comes over from this season to the next season. I'm curious to see how far they say like we go ahead in time. You know, like, will, will season two of The Pit take place?

• 1:05:32Chris Ryan?

  Three days after season one, two months, a year, like, when do they, within terms of the story? And whether or not he gets some sort of, I mean, can you come back from that? I don't actually know what the rules are with something like that.

• 1:05:45Andy Greenwald?

  Seems iffy, but also, he was really doing a good job being a doctor. I mean, again, like, I'm an armchair physician here, but just moments before, whatever those-

• 1:05:55Chris Ryan?

  More doctors take liberium.

• 1:05:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I'm just saying, he had a very steady hand when he was cutting the burn guy's skin off.

• 1:06:00Chris Ryan?

  Would you be up for season two of The Pit, slow Tuesday?

• 1:06:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. It's such, I mean, the thing is, they, and obviously, the writer's room has probably already begun. They've, they've thought about this, but like, how do you pick your day?

• 1:06:14Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:06:14Andy Greenwald?

  And, and not just like, do you pick a chill day?

• 1:06:17Chris Ryan?

  There is no slow Tuesday in, in emergency rooms.

• 1:06:19Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's, that's definitely part of the truth of it, and there's never going to be a slow Tuesday on the room where everything happens all the time. But like, what level of time jump will we see? Um, a week, a month, two years? I mean, it's all, it's all in play. Um, but I, I do think about the fact that like, for as much of a slam dunk as, sorry, everyone, sorry, legal teams, making ER again with much of the team was-

• 1:06:46Chris Ryan?

  It's just like every time, like Casey Boys must be like-

• 1:06:48Andy Greenwald?

  He's so mad. Sorry.

• 1:06:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Andy Greenwald?

  But they, they were making this up as they went along, and it was a leap of faith. Like, the way they were filming it, the characters they had chosen, doing it in 24 style, and the resources to it.

• 1:07:02Chris Ryan?

  What do you mean making it up?

• 1:07:02Andy Greenwald?

  What I just mean is like, they, they wrote, they conceived of, wrote and shot and edited these 15 episodes.

• 1:07:11Andy Greenwald?

  No one knew what was coming.

• 1:07:12Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:07:12Andy Greenwald?

  And there's a, and all shows are like that to a degree, but like, the confidence with which they are pulling off a lot of this really technical, high-level, difficult stuff, story-wise and, and technically, technically. It's kind of amazing to me, you know, there, there was no- If this had been a broadcast show in the 90s, they would not have had 15 episodes banked before they started.

• 1:07:33Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:07:34Andy Greenwald?

  They would have had, you know, four to six in various stages of production, and then they would have been getting feedback. They would have gotten early reviews. They would have, they could tweak if they needed to. And I think that they just, it is a sign of like a very steady hand that they knew what this was. They knew what they had in Noah Wiley's performance and, and I guess in his creative involvement across the board. I mean, that, Noah Wiley on the show, I think is the performance of the year.

• 1:07:57Chris Ryan?

  I just think he's, yeah. I think he, I was gonna say that the thing that blows my mind is that in the beginning of this episode, he's giving this tearful, like, eulogy essentially for, was that maybe?

• 1:08:08Andy Greenwald?

  That was the previous episode.

• 1:08:09Chris Ryan?

  Previous episode. But in the course of two hours, he goes from giving a tearful eulogy for a young girl to angrily on the verge of tears dismissing one of his lieutenants from...

• 1:08:21Andy Greenwald?

  And doing a medium story in the middle where he gets very angry and upset about McKay and her behavior with the cops, and then giving her a chance to fix the baseball kid's eye, and then saying, "I didn't consider your point of view."

• 1:08:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:33Andy Greenwald?

  It is an emotional modulation of a human that I think we all should aspire to.

• 1:08:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Andy Greenwald?

  But in terms of performance, too, how is he tracking this? How is he tracking?

• 1:08:41Chris Ryan?

  I hope we get a chance to talk to him about it.

• 1:08:43Andy Greenwald?

  I do, too. I think he's just incredible on this.

• 1:08:45Chris Ryan?

  We can wrap it up there. The pit's still awesome. Paradise.

• 1:08:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm a fan, man.

• 1:08:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's, like, TV's kind of back. Like, this is a meat and potatoes TV episode for us in that we are watching television shows and talking about them and, you know, kicking and screaming, but I was willing to do it for you, because you're my guy. But that, like, this is part of the healthy TV diet.

• 1:09:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Andy Greenwald?

  Shows like this, to have the thing that you're looking forward to.

• 1:09:10Chris Ryan?

  I like this, don't, don't, stop giving it away for free. We're gonna build the TV diet next week.

• 1:09:14Andy Greenwald?

  The pyramid.

• 1:09:15Chris Ryan?

  I believe in us.

• 1:09:16Andy Greenwald?

  Next week?

• 1:09:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:09:17Andy Greenwald?

  I got a lot going on.

• 1:09:18Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:09:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, we will, let's do it soon.

• 1:09:20Chris Ryan?

  On Monday, we will be back. We will have some reaction to the latest episode of White Lotus.

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:09:26Chris Ryan?

  And then we are gonna be joined by a very special guest.

• 1:09:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Chris Ryan?

  Danny McBride, back on the watch, and we're gonna talk about the season premiere of Righteous Gemstones. I'm so excited to talk to Danny about this first episode.

• 1:09:38Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if it's worth pretending it hasn't happened because we will, unless people think we just decided to wear these clothes again.

• 1:09:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, I said Danny Burby will be on the show with certainty because it's already happened. It was a great, great time hanging out with him. And I'm so excited for people to see the new season of Righteous Gemstones. Thank you to Kaya. Thank you to CT. Thank you to you.

• 1:09:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, thank you.

• 1:09:57Chris Ryan?

  The sort of architect of the healthy TV pyramid.

• 1:10:01Andy Greenwald?

  Mmm, yes, the C. Everett Coop. The C. Everett Special Agent Cooper.

• 1:10:06Chris Ryan?

  Is Coop canceled? Is he good?

• 1:10:09Andy Greenwald?

  I mean.

• 1:10:10Chris Ryan?

  One of the guys, one of the surgeon generals had like a very weird last three innings of his life.

• 1:10:15Andy Greenwald?

  It may have been Coop only because he had a very weird facial hair thing. And I feel like.

• 1:10:20Chris Ryan?

  Did you listen to Bill and Russell on Sunday?

• 1:10:22Andy Greenwald?

  Not yet, no.

• 1:10:23Chris Ryan?

  The first 20 minutes is just about facial hair and how their facial hair over the course of their lives often mirrored whatever was in fashion in baseball.

• 1:10:33Andy Greenwald?

  So they had like the Giambi? Like what did they?

• 1:10:35Chris Ryan?

  It was like the lotus chin stuff and then also like how

• 1:10:38Andy Greenwald?

  Lot of chin music.

• 1:10:39Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes sideburns came all the way down, but then we had like the Chipper Jones moment where we were going all the way up. We're going to see how far north sideburns could go.

• 1:10:47Andy Greenwald?

  The first, I'm sorry, you said the first 30 minutes of their Sunday night podcast?

• 1:10:51Chris Ryan?

  It was more like 1520, but it's beautiful.

• 1:10:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's peak.

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  Beautiful podcasting.

• 1:10:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's peak podcasting? Now, if I no longer acknowledge the existence of the NBA, can I still listen?

• 1:11:00Chris Ryan?

  Ryan Rusolo is making a show unlike any other right now.

• 1:11:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Chris Ryan?

  Ryan Rusolo has recently done an episode about King Henry V. He recently had Les Claypool from Primus on his show.

• 1:11:10Andy Greenwald?

  What a king.

• 1:11:11Chris Ryan?

  And is just talking about facial hair at the top of a podcast, two hour long podcast about the NBA. He's the best.

• 1:11:16Andy Greenwald?

  Some lead, others follow.

• 1:11:18Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 1:11:18Andy Greenwald?

  He is amazing.

• 1:11:20Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, great to see you. Talk to you on Monday.