Danny McBride on the Premiere of ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ S4. Plus, ‘The White Lotus’ E4 and ‘Severance’ E8.

Chris and Andy talk about the trailer for ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 that was released last week (4:39), the latest episode of ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, and the many secrets the characters are keeping from one another four episodes in (13:11). Then they break down ‘Severance’ S2E8 (39:32) before they are joined by Danny McBride to talk about the premiere of ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Season 4 and how that celebrity cameo came to be (1:04:24). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Danny McBride 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.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:29Chris 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, when he found out the latest episode of Severance was a Harmony episode, he said, "Popper, no! It's Andy Greenwald!"

• 0:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, look at that.

• 0:50Chris Ryan?

  Oh, cross, cross the streams there on White Lotus and Severance.

• 0:53Andy Greenwald?

  That was like SEO intro.

• 0:55Chris Ryan?

  And I also tipped the cap to some viral content, you know, because, you know, Parker Posey on Good Morning America is just going nuts right now.

• 1:03Andy Greenwald?

  Parker Posey on Good Morning America.

• 1:04Chris Ryan?

  She went on Good Morning America and did her, did her Victoria Ratliff voice and people were falling out of their chairs.

• 1:11Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's great for her.

• 1:12Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, she's one of my faves.

• 1:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Chris Ryan?

  I got some great Parker Posey stories from the city of New York City.

• 1:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Oh, seeing her out?

• 1:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19Andy Greenwald?

  Is that time you went on an all-night day with her and you went to Russ and Daughters and ate fish? Oh, that was an episode of Louie. Sorry.

• 1:25Chris Ryan?

  We're getting, we're just getting warmed up. Andy Greenwald, today on the Watch podcast.

• 1:31Andy Greenwald?

  This is a good one. Why are we underplaying it?

• 1:32Chris Ryan?

  Special guest Danny McBride, talking about last night's extraordinary.

• 1:37Andy Greenwald?

  Last night's Danny McBride free episode.

• 1:39Chris Ryan?

  Of Righteous Gemstones. We'll talk a little bit more about that with spoilers once we get to that part of the episode. Obviously, that conversation with Danny is full spoilers. We put that up on our YouTube page.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  Is it up already?

• 1:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you can, that went up last night after the episode of Righteous Gemstones aired. You can watch that. Ringer-tv is the channel. You can also watch us on Spotify on the Watch page. You can listen to us on Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up, [email protected] is the email.

• 2:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 2:07Chris Ryan?

  And thewatchpod underscore on Instagram. We'll be doing a mailbag soon. I think a very pick-centric mailbag if, if, uh, if my calculations are correct.

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  And from what, what I understand, you are the, all the information coming towards our podcast flows through you.

• 2:22Chris Ryan?

  Kaya is in charge of our DMs. On the watch pod underscore, I think.

• 2:26Andy Greenwald?

  And in your personal accounts as well?

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  So when people are like, I find Chris Ryan undeniably attractive. I would love to give him $10 million to be my house husband. She's just like, pass.

• 2:40Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Did you have to talk to her about that?

• 2:41Chris Ryan?

  No, she doesn't even tell me. It's like, that's just a mystery.

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  Got it. Got it.

• 2:46Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Grimo, great to see you, man.

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  That was awesome that Danny McBride came through.

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  He was the best, man.

• 2:53Andy Greenwald?

  He's the best. He's such, he's such a nice guy.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  I think, we can talk about it more when we get to the interview. I just want to say that of the many guests that we've had to this campus where we record the podcast, including myself, because technically every time I'm kind of a guest.

• 3:07Chris Ryan?

  You're America's guest.

• 3:08Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, it is overstated as welcome. Danny McBride is the only person who's actually taken his Spotify guest sticker and put it on his person.

• 3:16Chris Ryan?

  He was also like, cool office you guys have here.

• 3:18Andy Greenwald?

  He liked it. He was into it. What a good guy.

• 3:22Chris Ryan?

  Um, how you doing with the time change? You good?

• 3:24Andy Greenwald?

  This sucks. This is, this one's tough.

• 3:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think a lot of podcasts in America are starting with a little time change talk.

• 3:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:31Chris Ryan?

  But I thought I would do it, you know?

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, you want to talk me through your experience of the time change? You were, you were away for the weekend, so maybe you just lingered a little bit longer.

• 3:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I mean, it was, you know what it is? It's a fun Saturday night because you're like, look at me. Johnny Dangerous up at 2:00 in the morning again. And, uh, and then it's a pretty tough Monday morning when you're like, it is, it is not 8:15.

• 3:53Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 3:54Chris Ryan?

  It is 7:15. I know you have not seen 8:15 asleep in a long time.

• 3:59Andy Greenwald?

  No, what's it like? No, my experience was even weirder because I was going to dinner on Saturday night and for whatever reason, my car, which I don't know if I've mentioned, is an electric vehicle. You're welcome. Changed its clock early and I, I assume.

• 4:12Chris Ryan?

  That's actually tariffs. That's just.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  That was a tariff that cost me an hour. So I was going to dinner and I was like, oh no, is it 7? Forget it. Because I was so upset at the thought of eating dinner at 7 instead of 6. That's my life. Meanwhile, Kai is telling us she has 8:45 dinner reservations.

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  Um, we have a bunch of stuff to talk about today. We're gonna talk a little bit about that most recent episode of Severance, as I mentioned, obviously, the White Lotus.

• 4:36Andy Greenwald?

  Controversial, yeah.

• 4:37Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and we'll talk a little bit about Gemstone's premiere. I wanted to ask you, Andy, if you'd had a chance to see the Last of Us season 2 trailer.

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  I did, and, and they showed it before Lotus as well, but the, a shorter version, but I did see the full.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  The full, the full, any reaction? This is, uh, I realize that this might be in the Severance zone of I don't remember how this ended. I mean, obviously, I know that they're in a town and likes, et cetera, but like, I can't really, it, there was, the only thing I was looking for in this trailer was the Caitlyn Dever character, Abby.

• 5:08Andy Greenwald?

  Is that because you're a big fan of the video game character, or what?

• 5:11Chris Ryan?

  I, uh, I'm, I'm aware of the discourse surrounding this character.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  Are you?

• 5:17Chris Ryan?

  Quite a weekend for discourse surrounding fictional characters.

• 5:20Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so, I mean, but Abby is apparently a controversial figure in the Last of Us universe and is, is not people's favorite. Uh, and, and Caitlyn Dever has been like, this has already been unpleasant, you know, uh, so, we'll see how this works out.

• 5:36Andy Greenwald?

  Are you, so wait.

• 5:36Chris Ryan?

  That is hardly like, it's hardly the most important thing.

• 5:39Andy Greenwald?

  Are you suggesting that people on the internet have strong reactions when beloved characters from other mediums are, are cast and put on screen?

• 5:47Chris Ryan?

  I mean, you should see the boards about Evel Knievel and Adrian Brody right now.

• 5:50Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I knew you were talking about. Thank you. Glad to have that one across my transom. Um, yeah, I, well, I remember the end. I remember that basically, and we won't spoil it for people who haven't watched Last of Us.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Let's grow up.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  But, I, I mean, I agree, but basically, uh, what, what's her name? Little gal is, she's the cure, but they gotta

• 6:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:13Andy Greenwald?

  Extract a cost, and then he's like, nope, and he, he does a little bit of a shoot 'em up.

• 6:18Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 6:19Andy Greenwald?

  And rescues her.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  And that's, uh,

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  I wonder how Dr. Robbie would approach that situation.

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  That's your season one.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  Don't even put my beautiful Dr. Robbie in imaginary harms way. How dare you, sir?

• 6:33Chris Ryan?

  I mean, with Goggins on two different Sunday night shows right now, I just think that the HBO, the doors need to come down. You know, the walls need to come down and characters need to be floating.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  You think HBO should be more like a repertory company?

• 6:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 6:47Andy Greenwald?

  Which, by the way, that was the first story I ever wrote for Granland. On June of 2011 was the HBO recycling program about how they always use the same actors. Maybe it's time to bring that full circle.

• 6:58Chris Ryan?

  I think so.

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  I do think that that would be, I mean, we are joking, but at the same time, one of the decisions that creators have to make is how to play with the empathy meter. And so when you introduce doctors who are doing their best to save the world from a mushroom apocalypse, and then our man is like, nope, I want to save this kid. If it was Dr. Robbie and Dana doing the surgery, that is a bold character choice.

• 7:29Chris Ryan?

  So when you were making Briar Patch, did you have like a special briefcase for the empathy meter?

• 7:33Andy Greenwald?

  We called it the football. I carried it around at all times.

• 7:36Chris Ryan?

  Wildcat Cal.

• 7:37Andy Greenwald?

  It was like James Marsden in paradise. They're like, chief, chief, I need a little more juice. I need people to care about me more.

• 7:44Chris Ryan?

  Wildcat is moving. He's got the empathy with him.

• 7:46Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry. Sorry. None for you and none for me.

• 7:49Chris Ryan?

  I'm sorry. So this looks cool. I think I've learned not to doubt Craig Mason.

• 7:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. You were higher on the first season than I was, if I remember correctly.

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I think I'm having a little bit of, um, it's a little bit of a challenge. I don't know whether this is just age or whether this is sheer volume of content on top of a fairly healthy sports intake and also just, you know, reading about the world where I'm just not remembering entirely what happens on TV shows all the time.

• 8:26Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that will affect your role as a cultural podcaster?

• 8:29Chris Ryan?

  No, not, I mean, what I mean is like, I just don't quite remember. I remember the beginning of The Last of Us. I remember horse. I remember big beats of it.

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  You remember horse?

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  A horse. Wasn't there a horse involved?

• 8:41Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. Yeah. I thought, I didn't, you're like. My man Horse. Like from Twin Peaks?

• 8:48Chris Ryan?

  No, I remember the beginning and getting out of Boston, because I too got out of Boston.

• 8:52Andy Greenwald?

  It was similar.

• 8:53Chris Ryan?

  And I remember the Move West. I remember Melanie Linsky. I remember Horse.

• 8:58Andy Greenwald?

  What about Nick Offerman?

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, the Bottle episode. See?

• 9:01Andy Greenwald?

  I remember that.

• 9:02Chris Ryan?

  I recall a lot of it. I recall a lot of it. Do you think, I wonder if there'd be a, do they go back to the well in S2?

• 9:07Andy Greenwald?

  With a little bit more from their life together?

• 9:10Chris Ryan?

  No, like a different set of characters.

• 9:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I, I think that-

• 9:15Chris Ryan?

  Like a, like a Righteous Gemstones interlude episode style.

• 9:18Andy Greenwald?

  With Bradley Cooper. I, my, my feeling about this is, I, I do remember it. And I was relatively dispassionate about the show. I thought it was beautifully made. And creatively and surprisingly made. And in many cases, like the best, maybe the best case scenario for

• 9:37Andy Greenwald?

  prestige IP storytelling. But I, but if, if when the first season was on, I probably said something about maybe having a slight allergic reaction to another dystopic end of the world tale. And I feel increasingly that, that, that, that allergy has only worsened over time.

• 9:52Chris Ryan?

  You want counter-programming.

• 9:54Andy Greenwald?

  I wouldn't mind. Or, or just like, guys, I think we have a pretty good roadmap that it's not going to be fungus. You know what I mean? Like, I think there are a lot of like,

• 10:05Andy Greenwald?

  like, you know, like, dun dun, Law and Order, rip from the headlines.

• 10:08Chris Ryan?

  Guys, it's measles!

• 10:11Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Like it's something really stupid.

• 10:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, unavoidable. So, uh, we'll see. I, it's, I'm sure it will be beautifully made and carefully constructed, and that's not a small thing.

• 10:22Chris Ryan?

  Do you have a end of the world scenario that you're particularly afraid of?

• 10:26Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm, you mean other than the one we're experiencing? Do you mean like, oh, of like, of the big five of like zombies?

• 10:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, of like Paradise, Last of Us.

• 10:37Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay. Name, give me some choices.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  I mean, those are, those are two of the biggest. Um.

• 10:44Andy Greenwald?

  Walking Dead?

• 10:45Chris Ryan?

  Well, those are zombies too. I mean, like, I look at the mushroom, I look at the fungus as, as like zombies, basically.

• 10:51Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 10:53Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 10:55Andy Greenwald?

  Of those, like, do I have a favorite? Or one that I'm afraid of?

• 10:59Chris Ryan?

  One that you're particularly afraid of? One that you're like, it can't be that.

• 11:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not afraid of zombies.

• 11:03Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 11:04Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I don't think that's where we're headed.

• 11:06Chris Ryan?

  No, me neither. Although World War Z painted a very convincing picture of it. Not the film, the book.

• 11:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 11:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Andy Greenwald?

  God, that is a, that is a high-key dick move. I actually didn't see the film. I'm talking about Max Brooks's novel.

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  I actually, it's, it's actually a fictional oral history. And I highly recommend it. The film is also quite good.

• 11:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Chris Ryan?

  But they're two distinct pieces, you know?

• 11:31Andy Greenwald?

  Do you find, I feel like we've talked about versions of this in the past, like particularly when we were watching, well, there was a rise in, like when people were watching Contagion during the pandemic.

• 11:41Chris Ryan?

  I was people.

• 11:42Andy Greenwald?

  So you, you seek solace in fictional representations of real world fears?

• 11:47Chris Ryan?

  That particular one was Bill asking to do rewatchables about Contagion about a week into it.

• 11:56Chris Ryan?

  If I remember correctly.

• 11:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Chris Ryan?

  I don't know that I necessarily would have fired that up, but I often find myself looking for like stuff that represents, that reflects the moment that I'm in somehow.

• 12:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:08Chris Ryan?

  So yes, I would have watched Contagion either way.

• 12:10Andy Greenwald?

  I just think that generally, we're, I just think we're wrong about most things. And I think that there is a kind of perverse comfort in turning towards apocalyptic storytelling when the world feels apocalyptic, because even though it's bleak, it's certain.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Andy Greenwald?

  And it's controllable and knowable. And you can get all the messy stuff out of the way and be like, these good people in dungarees are committed to saving what's left. You know? And it's like, I don't think it's gonna go, I just don't think it's gonna go like that. I actually don't think the world is ending writ large. But I also just feel like I'd like a different type of.

• 12:43Chris Ryan?

  No, we're in great shape.

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  You haven't given me my daily news dump yet, my daily news digest.

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, let me just check here, see what's going on in the New York Times.

• 12:54Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just watching your face. On video now, we could actually see it happen in real time.

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  We could?

• 12:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, the New York Times, it's like a lot of, a lot of like, not puff pieces, but it's a lot of like color.

• 13:06Andy Greenwald?

  A lot of fluff.

• 13:07Chris Ryan?

  Today, the stock market's crashing, so.

• 13:09Andy Greenwald?

  Nice.

• 13:11Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about Severance. Want to do that first, or you want to do White Lotus first?

• 13:15Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should do White Lotus first.

• 13:16Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 13:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's more, more front of mind.

• 13:19Chris Ryan?

  I have a question about whether or not, and I think I've rung this bill a couple of times. And I am saying this as somebody coming from a position of incredible enjoyment.

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were gonna say wealth until 10 minutes ago when the stock market crashed.

• 13:36Chris Ryan?

  Four episodes in, a lot of secret keeping, more so than I feel like I remember from earlier seasons of this show where multiple characters and sets of characters within these little pods are obscuring something either from partner, loved one, family member, especially from the audience.

• 13:57Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 13:58Chris Ryan?

  So that with the exception of Belinda, Guy Talk.

• 14:05Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I would even, I put Chelsea in the other group. I put all these people in these other groups. We're watching 65% of a character. We're watching 65. They're not telling us like, don't know why Rick is, I mean, we can guess that he's being honest about his father or whatever.

• 14:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think we were guessing that a week ago.

• 14:24Chris Ryan?

  But I don't necessarily know, does it matter to you that we don't have a really like awesome sense of what brings Rick and Chelsea together? And was he like a fun guy six months ago?

• 14:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think what you're speaking to there, and I think I agree with your larger point, is that up to now, we're four episodes in, we're almost halfway through. Do we have nine this season? 10?

• 14:45Chris Ryan?

  I think so. I think it's nine.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's long, it's maybe a bit longer than past season. So maybe the midpoint might feel different.

• 14:50Chris Ryan?

  It's been eight in the past, and I think it's nine this season.

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's not just that we've had 65% of Rick in terms of his truth telling. It's that Chelsea has had 65% of Rick because he's hiding things from her as well.

• 15:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:01Andy Greenwald?

  And Chelsea's character to this point is pretty much just reactive to Rick. Now, I don't mean that as any kind of criticism of Amy Lou Wood. Is that her name? I think she's great and delightful and fully present in every scene. And I get her and I like the character, but we don't know anything about her past or why she feels so close to Rick or why she's choosing to be with him and supporting him and loving him despite the way he's behaving. So there is a lot of shadow that we're existing in.

• 15:30Chris Ryan?

  That's what I think I'm, that's a perfect way of putting it. There's a lot of shadow four hours in. Why is Victoria, Victoria seems to be like.

• 15:40Chris Ryan?

  Willfully ignoring the obvious, open-robed, like, addled husband in front of her who's going through crisis.

• 15:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 15:50Chris Ryan?

  You know, I, I think that the Greg and Chloe relationship is a little bit more clear, where it's like, we met on a matchmaking service. But at the same time, like, Greg going from monosyllabic, bald, beta to like, perhaps, like, psycho killing.

• 16:10Andy Greenwald?

  Machiavellian, yeah.

• 16:11Chris Ryan?

  Is, is like, not a stretch, but it is a, uh, it's an interesting turn to go midway through, in conjunction with Belinda interrogating him. I'm not really sure if I'm making like a coherent point. I think there's just something interesting where a lot of the first two seasons, I think, we learn about characters over the course of the season and they change. But who they are is not as much of a mystery, or who they are to each other is not as much.

• 16:37Andy Greenwald?

  Or the revelations aren't as slow to come. I mean, I think there's a bunch of different ways to, to, to, to talk about the season. And I think that they will, at least for the purposes of this podcast today, Midway Through, might sound overly critical. I don't mean to be critical because I'm still enjoying the show very, very much. But I do think it is noticeable, um, how little development the individual storylines have experienced over this time. The, um, uh, oh my God, what's, why am I blanking on, there's too many names, or maybe it's the time change. Jason Isaacs.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Tim Rattler.

• 17:09Andy Greenwald?

  Tim. Tim's misery and the development of his circumstance so far is entirely siloed. Because as you said, no one else is, I mean, they're starting to notice, but they're not really. So it is completely a solo performance. In past seasons, at this point, specifically, I'm thinking about the second season, the fault lines within the groups were not only more evident. Like, if you think about the Michael Imperiali, F. Marie Abraham, and the kid thing, like, they were behaving in three distinct ways that were already in conflict from the beginning.

• 17:38Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:39Andy Greenwald?

  And then the subsequent fault lines of like, how they would treat women that were then in, brought in front of them. And then the upstairs, downstairs storyline with the call girl who was then taking advantage of the stuff. So like, we were starting to see the way the tendrils were overlapping with the behaviors that were introduced in the first two episodes. To this point, I feel like this season is the most. In a way, the characters, the trust that we have in the characters is based solely in the fact that all the characters are on the White Lotus. Meaning, the accrued equity of watching two seasons of the show is giving us the patience to be like, well, they're gonna get White Lotus-y sooner or later. It seems like it's all set up to do that.

• 18:17Chris Ryan?

  It's kinda like watching Black Mirror, where you're like, if you're watching a kind of flat setup for a Black Mirror episode, you're like, but something fucking great isn't gonna happen.

• 18:25Andy Greenwald?

  What's interesting, though, is, again, if you look, like, think about those groups in season two. So there was the family guys' trip, and then there was the two couples. And there were so many distinct personalities, but also very, very, very palpable fault lines within it. So with the Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharp, Theo James.

• 18:49Andy Greenwald?

  My airline buddy, Theo James, like that.

• 18:51Chris Ryan?

  Do you wanna explain what you're talking about?

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  Haven't I said that? He's just on every flight I take.

• 18:55Chris Ryan?

  You've told me that.

• 18:55Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't say this on the podcast?

• 18:56Chris Ryan?

  I don't think so.

• 18:57Andy Greenwald?

  Every time, I do a triple take. Because he's very handsome, but he's not like, super tall sculpted Adonis. He just looks like a normal guy wearing nice clothes.

• 19:07Chris Ryan?

  Are all guys who are in the movies and TV actually like that?

• 19:09Andy Greenwald?

  I don't hobnob with them the way you do.

• 19:10Chris Ryan?

  No, but like, aren't they all like 5'5" and...

• 19:13Andy Greenwald?

  But they're all wearing like, just the right distress cords. I mean, anyway, it doesn't matter. I didn't get to see what he was watching on the last flight, but I promise it wasn't an Orang, because he respects his, he respects his fellow-

• 19:26Chris Ryan?

  You still haven't watched it, right?

• 19:27Andy Greenwald?

  Flightmates. No, because now, for me, if I turn it on-

• 19:32Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you're gonna be like Sheeple? You're gonna be like, oh-

• 19:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just kind of, now I'm like, kind of an exhibitionist with an Orang.

• 19:37Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:38Andy Greenwald?

  Like, now I kinda wanna open all the windows in my house, and turn it on on the big screen, just hoping the neighbors are coming by.

• 19:42Chris Ryan?

  I stand with sex workers!

• 19:44Andy Greenwald?

  I want people to know what kinda house this is. Anyway, what I'm trying to say about season two is that the fault lines were very evident and very compelling. And then what was exciting was how were they going to explode across the canvas of a show in which all the characters and plotlines converge. This season, like, if you look at the girls' trip-

• 20:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I got no notes on that.

• 20:06Andy Greenwald?

  It's totally enjoyable. It's comedic, it's fun, they're all playing the hell out of it. They are also distinguishing the characters so artfully from scene to scene. Leslie Bibb is really, really putting on the afterburners.

• 20:17Chris Ryan?

  I would like to just also mention one quick thing, as we're talking about the three ladies, Kate, Jacqueline, and Laurie.

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  What Koon is doing with food acting right now.

• 20:28Andy Greenwald?

  Elite.

• 20:29Chris Ryan?

  Should be studied.

• 20:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Chris Ryan?

  Watch these last two episodes. She almost is never not stuffing her face with fruit or drinking a beverage.

• 20:37Andy Greenwald?

  Lot of watermelon.

• 20:38Chris Ryan?

  And a lot of like, she's eating when like it gets thrown back to her, like the conversation is kind of like.

• 20:45Andy Greenwald?

  Even Valentin's looking at her and she's like.

• 20:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she, but it is like, the fact that you get to see her do that and then also like the sort of rigidity of Gilded Age is fantastic. It's a great spectrum of performing.

• 20:59Andy Greenwald?

  She's great, but the stakes of that storyline are still very unclear to me.

• 21:05Chris Ryan?

  Sure. I mean, I think across the board, now we have a stolen gun. We have a man on a mission for revenge.

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 21:11Chris Ryan?

  Like some actually pretty traditional pulpy plotlines have been kicked into.

• 21:15Andy Greenwald?

  This was the first episode that tugged on that lever of the like, oh, we're, we're, we're being pulled inexorably towards some sort of conflict or unpleasantness or anguish for the characters. Yeah, that, that's, that's absolutely starting to emerge, but, but the thing that I'm surprised at in this episode, before I turn it back to you is.

• 21:36Andy Greenwald?

  Episode one, I got on mic with you and I was like, you know what I'm excited about? I'm excited about a white lotus. All due respect to the multiple Emmy winner, but without Jennifer Coolidge, just because I was like, her tonal variance was, I don't know if it was a drag, but I was like, this was the right time to jettison that character and that storyline. Because it was so much her show and then the show everyone else was on. What I didn't appreciate was having Tanya from season one to season two, gave a character who was always in a sort of disarray and distress. Who really was in search of something and her need to find that thing. Provided a lot of more traditional episodic, week to week, and then season to season narrative.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  She's not there anymore and yet the show is still in her wake in that the biggest episode to episode mystery now seems to be.

• 22:26Chris Ryan?

  Who killed Tanya?

• 22:27Andy Greenwald?

  Belinda gonna realize who this guy is, what she did, what's gonna happen?

• 22:31Chris Ryan?

  Until you mentioned it, and I think that for as much as I love her as a public persona and as a performer.

• 22:39Chris Ryan?

  My, my like, kind of, I had a Tanya meter that went up and down over the course of two seasons. But I didn't really think about, maybe it's, it's, the Tanya piece is missing. And that that is like, actually like, this consistent, zany, absurdist comic part, that maybe it's missing now.

• 23:00Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, it's not, and it-

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  But not in a missing way, like, I miss it. It's just, it's not there.

• 23:03Andy Greenwald?

  But you could miss the comedy, or you could miss the fact that, that her and her relationship, was it Portia? Who was her assistant in season two?

• 23:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Portia, it's, uh, Haley Richardson.

• 23:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, she was great. Um, it was Tanya's presence and her questing, and that pushed the show out of the resort and onto the yachts, and into the, uh, Tom Hollander character and the crew of Gaze who were trying to kill her. And Portia into Leo Woodall, and it pushed, pushed, pushed outside of it.

• 23:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:33Andy Greenwald?

  Now, the equivalent in this episode was, oh, Greg slash Gary has a mega yacht that Tanya's money paid for, right? And so now we're, now we're pushing out again, and, you know, who cares about the, the, the plot hijinks to conspire to get everyone onto this boat again?

• 23:49Chris Ryan?

  There's also multiple characters who don't want to be doing anything. Like, Tim-

• 23:54Andy Greenwald?

  They don't want to be there.

• 23:55Chris Ryan?

  Greg and Rick don't want to be there.

• 23:57Andy Greenwald?

  So, so, so the boat ended up being, so far, the season's best and funniest, um, social commentary, with like, the types of guys that were on there and their women. And then Parker Poe, yeah, and Parker Posey talking to everybody, um, and reacting to everybody.

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  You, I just-

• 24:14Andy Greenwald?

  And I love, by the way, the, the scene of just like, when, when Goggins was talking to like, Neil and Mitch, about like, hiding his, if he ever needs to hide his money, and he goes, "Saw a D never." Like, I loved every second of it. But in terms of getting characters that I'm interested in's fault lines to line up with each other, not really, because Tim is just totally gacked on, on Lorazapams and whiskey, and doesn't want to be a part of anything.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Andy Greenwald?

  And is just shutting off. And then everybody's sort of shutting off and siloing themselves. So there wasn't much overlap. Now, the boat's continuing, and who knows what trouble a Schwarzenegger can get into under a full moon, but, um-

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so this is, we should note, most White Lotus episodes are a day of the hotel stay.

• 24:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  This seems like, given the scenes from next week.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, which I didn't watch.

• 25:02Chris Ryan?

  That it will be essentially the first part of two, like, one big episode that stretches across two episodes.

• 25:09Andy Greenwald?

  How are you, so, this is a side question, but I was curious about your feelings in light of this episode. One thing that I've noticed about myself, not just when I lose an hour and don't get to have dinner, you know, while the sun's up.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Andy Greenwald?

  I'm really selling myself on this pod. My relationship to watching characters get super fucked up has changed a lot. Like, there was a time when I would see characters getting after and I'd be like, "Yeah, that's what you do on a boat, brother." Like, there but for the grace of some, you know, some Thai cash, go I.

• 25:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Andy Greenwald?

  Now I'm watching Isaac's just neck pills and then also just consistently drink brown liquor throughout an entire day on the ocean. I'm like, "That just seems like Barf City, man. That seems unpleasant."

• 25:52Chris Ryan?

  Well, he tries to heave outside of Guy Talk's little stand there, right?

• 25:56Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like the events catch up to him.

• 25:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Andy Greenwald?

  And give him some feelings.

• 26:00Chris Ryan?

  Um, my read on that is also, like, I understand the idea that, you know, everybody is kind of living in their own cloud of pharmacology and denial. But you don't need to be Philip Marlowe to figure out where the lorazepam went.

• 26:16Andy Greenwald?

  She seems-

• 26:17Chris Ryan?

  This guy was super uptight, alpha, like, for two days, and now he's, like, hanging dong with the robe open and is fucking in a sarcophagus everywhere he goes. So I think that's where the lorazepam went.

• 26:28Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think you've tracked it down? Similarly, so what you're saying is this show lacks two crucial occupations.

• 26:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Andy Greenwald?

  A legitimate private detective and a legitimate security guard.

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Let's talk a little bit about Guy Talk.

• 26:44Andy Greenwald?

  Guy Talk, man, blinded by love, and she did look great in her dance outfit.

• 26:48Chris Ryan?

  But maybe security guard's not the job.

• 26:50Andy Greenwald?

  He's not cut out for it.

• 26:51Chris Ryan?

  I mean, he seems like he would be a great, uh, I mean, pick a gig. He could work at the snake farm. He could be, there's, like, apparently a big boat culture in-

• 27:02Andy Greenwald?

  He's very calm.

• 27:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Andy Greenwald?

  Which I appreciate.

• 27:04Chris Ryan?

  And has a sunny disposition.

• 27:06Andy Greenwald?

  Very positive guy. Thought maybe he was getting a promotion despite allowing an armed robbery to take place under his watch. It is peak You Had One Job. I think, um, it is also peak signposting where the guy's like, I am putting a gun in this cabinet. I am locking the cabinet.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  I am handing you a key.

• 27:27Chris Ryan?

  We are holding on the cabinet.

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  Just to be clear, gun in the cabinet.

• 27:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Andy Greenwald?

  So this is, this is Mike White's Chekhov's gun. Uh, it has been pocketed by Tim.

• 27:36Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 27:36Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, Sky Talk at least does seem aware of the pickle he's in.

• 27:40Chris Ryan?

  I will call this now as a red herring. I think the gun gets into the wild.

• 27:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Chris Ryan?

  Uh, not to be morbid, but the sound of the weapon going off in the first episode, flash forward or whatever.

• 27:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Uh, is, it sounds like an automatic weapon.

• 27:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And, and there's also, there was a lot of heavy, heavy, uh, um, camera lingering on Greg Gary looking at Zion, looking at Melinda Sun.

• 28:07Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:07Andy Greenwald?

  Now is a pressure point, now that he's coming, right?

• 28:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I.

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  And he's, he's the focus of that first opening moment in the pilot.

• 28:15Chris Ryan?

  That, that crime still looms pretty large over this because in the past it's been a body bag and this is a, a, a mass murder, uh.

• 28:24Andy Greenwald?

  Or, or a shooting event. And regardless, the other thing that I think is in play that might be interesting is there's nothing to suggest that that event is the finale. That event could happen next week or it could happen the week after.

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  Darts today.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying like that might be a fun way to play with audience expectations and to differentiate the season.

• 28:45Chris Ryan?

  You should eat dinner at seven o'clock every night.

• 28:47Andy Greenwald?

  I do feel full. I do feel satiated. Thank you.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Um, what else did I want to talk to you about? Rick, let's talk a little bit about Rick.

• 28:57Andy Greenwald?

  For a man that is, is detached and emotionally dead, he packed a delightful wardrobe of shirts. He looks great.

• 29:06Chris Ryan?

  The wardrobe and the wardrobes across the board are excellent.

• 29:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was watching, paying attention to the way that, that they dress Chelsea every episode, which is just.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  She wearing like a blondie t-shirt?

• 29:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's just insane and like not flattering, but also perfect.

• 29:19Chris Ryan?

  Um, Goggins is an actor who I obviously have a tremendous amount of affection for.

• 29:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Chris Ryan?

  And has spent most of his career.

• 29:31Chris Ryan?

  Even after Justified, as I think a character actor, as a supporting all-star, Boyd Crowder on Justified was initially one of those like great Pinkman Omar kind of roles that was initially supposed to go.

• 29:47Andy Greenwald?

  He was just supposed to be in the pilot, I believe, yeah.

• 29:49Chris Ryan?

  And became the second most important character on that show.

• 29:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Chris Ryan?

  He has definitely passed into a new realm now. Not only in his public persona, which I think is definitely playing up the quote unquote Walton Goggins element, like just the cool, you know, iconoclastic dude. He's got an Instagram video up of him driving through the desert, listening to Hotel California today. He did like a Super Bowl ad. I got a chance to do a Righteous Gemstones premiere panel talk last week.

• 30:24Andy Greenwald?

  You were great.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Thank you, but he was, he definitely had like a lot of aura up on that stage. And was talking about how coming on to Righteous Gemstones, I would assume from White Lotus.

• 30:35Andy Greenwald?

  Straight from.

• 30:36Chris Ryan?

  It was like the tank was empty and it was, it was difficult, but as soon as I put the Baby Billy stuff on, like I got revived. But watching him do Rick, this Rick part is like, oh, you're, you're moving into like a kind of like a almost leading man realm in a way.

• 30:56Andy Greenwald?

  Without question, he's, he's like Dixie Nicholson at this point. And I think I was, I've also been thinking about him a lot because he's on all of our TV shows right now, but I was thinking about him and Jesse Plemons, who I just, we saw on Zero today, but also.

• 31:13Chris Ryan?

  We did see him on Zero.

• 31:13Andy Greenwald?

  I watched, I watched Civil War and I thought, I think a lot of people said this, that his scene was the best thing in the movie and. I was thinking, I mean, these kind of conversations are cul-de-sacs, but at the same time, it is hard not to imagine the careers that those guys would have had in a different decade.

• 31:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 31:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, in the 70s, those guys are movie stars in a different way. And then we do still have people like that, but they're just making the best of the opportunities that come to them. They have an unexpected charisma. They are good in everything. They're incredibly versatile. But they've had to kind of just swim against the tide and emerge, right? And make the most of their opportunities, which are never going to be, unless there's incredibly rare occurrence, like they're never going to be like monocultural thunderclaps. You could do the reverse and be like, John Cazale would have been incredible on season three of The White Lotus.

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 32:06Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? But he actually got to be briefly a movie star.

• 32:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Andy Greenwald?

  So I think the specific thing that I wanted to say about him and that aura that he has in relation to this episode is that there is a, I think, probably not alone in saying this, that there's a segment of the audience that's watching this season and it's like, he's the star of the show. That Rick is the main character of this season.

• 32:31Chris Ryan?

  I saw an interview with Jason Isaacs where he was talking about how they basically had the run of that hotel as these productions do. And that he had a villa, I think that he was basically sharing like an area of the hotel with Goggins. And he's like, yeah, and like, you know.

• 32:48Andy Greenwald?

  He said he got very close with his kids.

• 32:49Chris Ryan?

  His kids. But that Walton mostly kept to himself and smoked and stared up off the veranda, which is essentially like what he's doing in the show.

• 32:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's what the CR heads don't realize working with you at The Ringer is like. Like, everybody wants a piece of the aura.

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 33:03Andy Greenwald?

  But you're just sitting in the parking lot chomping on zins. Do you chew on them or do they just dissolve?

• 33:07Chris Ryan?

  You put them up in your upper lip.

• 33:10Andy Greenwald?

  What happens if you chew?

• 33:11Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I've never tried.

• 33:14Andy Greenwald?

  You wanna light this candle live on air?

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  I wanna see what happens.

• 33:18Chris Ryan?

  We'll do bonus cut. I should save that for when we have to do Patreon.

• 33:22Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, fair. Or when I have to talk about Last of Us, episode six.

• 33:26Chris Ryan?

  Because the stock market is cratered so hard.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Fair.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  And I'm like, watch me choose in.

• 33:32Andy Greenwald?

  You would make so much money.

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  The other big revelation this episode is that it turns out we were wrong to judge Piper for her reluctance to quote, "meet and interview a monk" because that was never the plan.

• 33:46Chris Ryan?

  I, what do you mean?

• 33:48Andy Greenwald?

  She just wants to, she wants to live there.

• 33:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Andy Greenwald?

  She didn't want to do an interview for whatever she was doing.

• 33:53Chris Ryan?

  Her thesis.

• 33:54Andy Greenwald?

  She's graduating and then she's gonna live there.

• 33:56Chris Ryan?

  So far, that's her plan.

• 33:58Andy Greenwald?

  That's what she wants to do.

• 33:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay. You don't have to get too mad at me about this.

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just supporting her. I feel like, I feel like that's a good plan for her.

• 34:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Andy Greenwald?

  And she'll be near her dad, who will be fugitive.

• 34:11Chris Ryan?

  Or in a Thai prison, yeah.

• 34:13Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I feel like he's, I think he's interested in the Gary way of life. Unfortunately, the assets are frozen.

• 34:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:20Andy Greenwald?

  Unfortunately, is that?

• 34:21Chris Ryan?

  But we did have that guy on the boat talking about how to like, avoid taxation and...

• 34:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but he was saying that to the wrong guy.

• 34:28Chris Ryan?

  I know, but maybe Rick can be like, I know a guy who knows a guy.

• 34:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but Rick and Tim aren't on speaking terms.

• 34:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, maybe, you know, when Tim shows up with a gun and is like, give me your accountant's name.

• 34:37Andy Greenwald?

  Wow, you are really caping up for Tim Radler.

• 34:40Chris Ryan?

  Are you sure you don't want a writer's room?

• 34:44Andy Greenwald?

  The real hero of the show.

• 34:45Chris Ryan?

  Rick comes in and he's like, mother, I got you, my accountant. Mike's like, God, you guys saved the whole show.

• 34:51Andy Greenwald?

  And the accountant is Jon Bernthal from The Accountant 2?

• 34:55Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I do think, speaking of our Patreon account, a version where CR spins the hits.

• 35:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Andy Greenwald?

  And you just do your version of stuff. Speaking of spinning the hits, you are remarkably silent about Jon Bernthal's.

• 35:08Chris Ryan?

  Shaves his head.

• 35:09Andy Greenwald?

  His quotes about his new Punisher.

• 35:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that he's writing?

• 35:12Andy Greenwald?

  Where he's just like, no more of this candy ass Punisher that you've seen. We're gonna deliver the real, for the real heads.

• 35:18Chris Ryan?

  I don't wanna see him get hurt.

• 35:20Andy Greenwald?

  Emotionally, or as the Punisher?

• 35:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't know how The Punisher exists on Disney+.

• 35:26Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, Say Nothing is on Disney Plus, you know what I mean? Like, the walls are down, brother.

• 35:32Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 35:33Andy Greenwald?

  Let it, let the river flow.

• 35:35Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's fine.

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  It's a marketplace of ideas up there.

• 35:38Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna, I'm not watching Enora until I can watch it on Disney Plus, the way I was intended to watch it.

• 35:43Chris Ryan?

  Can you?

• 35:43Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I just-

• 35:44Chris Ryan?

  Because you can watch it on Hulu.

• 35:46Andy Greenwald?

  Can you?

• 35:46Chris Ryan?

  For free. Yeah.

• 35:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, then I can watch it on Disney Plus.

• 35:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm just gonna look it up right now, this is incredible content. Disney Plus, home.

• 35:54Andy Greenwald?

  Google this, and then, oh, then you know what you should do?

• 35:57Chris Ryan?

  It's loading.

• 35:58Andy Greenwald?

  Chris?

• 35:59Chris Ryan?

  Search. Hold up, they raised the prices. Search.

• 36:02Andy Greenwald?

  Are you gonna pay? Pay!

• 36:04Chris Ryan?

  Enora.

• 36:06Andy Greenwald?

  Is the video team getting this?

• 36:07Chris Ryan?

  It's not there.

• 36:08Andy Greenwald?

  Not there yet?

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Andy Greenwald?

  I think that you should write to your friend Nelson Pelts, and say-

• 36:13Chris Ryan?

  Ike Perlmutter.

• 36:14Andy Greenwald?

  Ike Perlmutter, dear Mr. Perlmutter, here is another, uh, bullet for your arsenal.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  Oh, it's not on Hulu either. That's cool.

• 36:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you're just, you're just spreading misinfo.

• 36:27Chris Ryan?

  It's there, like, it'll be there at some point, but it's not there now, sorry.

• 36:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you remember Minya was misinfo?

• 36:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Andy Greenwald?

  You're misinfo.

• 36:36Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Info.

• 36:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, you're just spreading misinfo.

• 36:39Chris Ryan?

  Misinfo, M-I-S info.

• 36:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 36:43Chris Ryan?

  Minya's the best, honestly, misinfo, one of the, one of the greatest ever to do it.

• 36:47Andy Greenwald?

  Truly.

• 36:47Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let me tell you a little bit

• 36:52Chris Ryan?

  about what we're gonna do next.

• 36:53Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, are we done with White Lotus, or like, are you, can I, can I check your, before we go, can I just check your lorazepam meter? Like, there is an element of continued enjoyment in the show, because I do think that there is some, not critical rumbling, but like, audience rumbling, that like, not much is happening, this is the weakest season, that kind of talk. I feel like when you check into a White Lotus resort, you are guaranteed a baseline of service, and I feel like I'm being serviced.

• 37:22Chris Ryan?

  Me too. I also can tell, to your point about, I wouldn't, you were talking about the history of White Lotus and forming how you watch and the amount of-

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 37:32Chris Ryan?

  I think Mike White has a lot of credit in the bank.

• 37:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Chris Ryan?

  And I think what he's trying to do this season,

• 37:38Chris Ryan?

  I would imagine, is-

• 37:41Chris Ryan?

  Backload with some shit.

• 37:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Chris Ryan?

  Because we still have this crime. Those kids are, Saxons only getting fucking creepier. You know, like Lachlan is apparently a close up artist. Like, everybody is spinning out a little bit and it's getting more violent. Things happen in threes, like.

• 38:00Andy Greenwald?

  True.

• 38:00Chris Ryan?

  You, you can just feel like this, this thing is happening. The, I, I don't trust these Russians, just frankly.

• 38:06Andy Greenwald?

  The ladies are having an Enora moment? I guess. I'm just guessing. Am I wrong, though? See, I just got a skitch on the back of culture. I don't need to engage. It's like me with the NBA. I get it. I know the, I know the storylines of this season. You know what I mean? I don't have to watch the games. It's fine.

• 38:24Chris Ryan?

  Give me a storyline.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  Um, from the season?

• 38:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:26Andy Greenwald?

  SGA, an all-time guard season.

• 38:29Chris Ryan?

  So you listen to Bill for 15 minutes?

• 38:31Andy Greenwald?

  No, I saw it on Instagram. I didn't even lis-, I don't even listen anymore. But I'm aware.

• 38:36Chris Ryan?

  We're so fucked.

• 38:37Andy Greenwald?

  I'm good. I'm fine. I got a lot going on, you know? I got, I'm, I'm pretty busy right now.

• 38:43Chris Ryan?

  We had talked a little bit about skipping. Oh, do you want to say anything else about White Lotus?

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  So you feel, you have, there's, there's, there's something banked. You feel good about that?

• 38:51Chris Ryan?

  There's a gun in the wild. Rick is looking for revenge. These girls are going out with some Russians. I mean, it's pulpy. It's about to happen.

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, here's the only other thing I want to say about it.

• 38:59Chris Ryan?

  I have not watched it yet. I'm just saying.

• 39:01Andy Greenwald?

  I have lived, the number of years I've lived on this earth, waiting for someone like Amrita to just stop me in the lobby and be like, "You are not your pain."

• 39:11Andy Greenwald?

  Like, what a, what a win for Rick. And Rick can't even say thank you.

• 39:17Chris Ryan?

  Do you ever not want to talk about feelings?

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 39:19Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 39:19Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I guess only when I'm on this podcast with you, being like, "Oh, NBA jokes," like, but that's covering pain.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  Why don't you choose some Zen, yo, like, uh?

• 39:29Andy Greenwald?

  The other 23 hours of the day, yes, it's all I want to talk about.

• 39:32Chris Ryan?

  Then let's talk about Severance.

• 39:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. There's some strong, strong feelings.

• 39:35Chris Ryan?

  What, what you're talking about that is like, when you come into this room. Audi Andy.

• 39:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:42Chris Ryan?

  He's out there. Um.

• 39:45Chris Ryan?

  Well, I know, I know, I just kinda wanna turn the floor over to you because I think I watched this before you.

• 39:50Andy Greenwald?

  Coward.

• 39:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know, as I watched Harmony drive toward Salt Neck.

• 39:56Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 39:57Chris Ryan?

  I was like, here we go.

• 39:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 39:58Chris Ryan?

  I don't think we're gonna get a lot of cross cutting to the other folks in this one. Thirty-six minute episode directed by Ben Stiller. And it's essentially like, uh, what Harmony Kobol has been up to.

• 40:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Chris Ryan?

  The season while all this other stuff has been happening. And we get a very Severance-like backstory to her, which is about sixty-eight percent clear. Um, we find out, spoilers going ahead, no? We find out that Harmony is the actual inventor of the Severance procedure.

• 40:30Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 40:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we find out that, um, Lumen or the Egans used to run basically a, a child sweatshop powered by ether. Um, where Harmony and her sister and this guy Hampton, played by James LaGro, which was great to see. Sissy?

• 40:47Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was her aunt.

• 40:48Chris Ryan?

  That was Celestine, that was her sister. That was her older sister, wasn't it?

• 40:52Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, oh, look at us, we're already disagreeing.

• 40:55Chris Ryan?

  How'd you feel about this episode?

• 40:59Chris Ryan?

  Hold on, I'm gonna get a zin.

• 41:01Andy Greenwald?

  I saw, I saw like, uh, like a restaurant did like a promotional thing on Instagram using, there's probably a name for this. Kaya, Kaya is our youth correspondent, can probably tell me what this is. When you take like a, like a meme or a video that's gone viral and then you turn it into your promotional thing, like a thing about an animal. Okay, sure.

• 41:19Chris Ryan?

  Is that what you're talking about?

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. But I saw one of like someone doing slow pitch for someone smacking balls and, uh, baseballs in like a, in a.

• 41:27Chris Ryan?

  In high heels.

• 41:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, what are you watching? What's your algo all about?

• 41:31Chris Ryan?

  You didn't see that there was a woman in high heels, like, just like crushing fast pitch baseball.

• 41:36Andy Greenwald?

  No, in this, she was, someone was pitching.

• 41:37Chris Ryan?

  At a batting.

• 41:38Andy Greenwald?

  And then didn't get.

• 41:39Chris Ryan?

  She was.

• 41:39Andy Greenwald?

  She didn't get her hand away fast enough because the person tagged her with the, with the ball that she hit. She got hit and like let out this wail.

• 41:46Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 41:46Andy Greenwald?

  And I feel like that's what you just did when you said, what did you think about this episode? Then you got back behind the netting?

• 41:52Chris Ryan?

  I mean, this is a very divisive episode online and I know that a lot of people did not care for it.

• 41:58Andy Greenwald?

  I, I found this an awful viewing experience. Um.

• 42:04Andy Greenwald?

  But I am very, very interested in what the, no, genuinely, like what the decision-making behind this episode say about-

• 42:11Chris Ryan?

  You're being genuine about the first part.

• 42:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, about what the show is and why it is, and it is difficult, I think there's two difficult things to express here. One is the, as is often the case with Severance, the craft on display is god-tier and undeniable, like, and almost, um, almost maniacal, right? We've, interviews have come out from like the great James LaGrosse, great character actor, has been around for a lot of our movie and TV-going lives, plays Hampton. He was saying that there was almost two years between the exteriors of this episode and the interiors, because they moved the entire production to Newfoundland to get those absolutely stunning and striking visuals.

• 42:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the vistas.

• 42:53Andy Greenwald?

  And then they decided, well, we don't want to actually shoot inside a house here. We're going to build this as a set in the Bronx. And then he went off and did other things for almost two years and then filmed them. I mean, that is a commitment to, um, production that most people do not get.

• 43:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Andy Greenwald?

  And it was staggering. Like, again, if you watch this episode on mute, I think I would probably feel the same way about it, or maybe I'd even like it more, but there's no denying-

• 43:17Chris Ryan?

  Not much dialogue in it.

• 43:18Andy Greenwald?

  -how beautifully, um, it was shot. Um, I think that there is a issue, for me as a viewer, when the craft and the aesthetics outweigh the more humanist concerns of storytelling emotion and things like that. This, to me, was like watching a master builder in a workshop, completely lost in his craft, building a chair out of fine wood and picking the wood grain and, and doing other things that involve carpentry that I don't know about.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:52Andy Greenwald?

  And feeling so good about the process and having a wonderful experience making a chair, and then moving on to the next chair before realizing that the chair is incredibly uncomfortable to sit in. I do not think that there is virtue in this episode being an absolute slog to watch. I do see that there's sort of like a reflexive fandom defense of like, oh, it's, not everything needs to be spoon-fed to you, and this is world-building. You know, I'm like, world-building-

• 44:21Chris Ryan?

  Where did you see this?

• 44:22Andy Greenwald?

  This is not-

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  Piece of, uh, discourse?

• 44:24Andy Greenwald?

  All over the internet.

• 44:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  This is not Settlers of Catan. Do you know what I mean? Like, we, world building, this is a fucking entertainment product.

• 44:33Chris Ryan?

  We say world building a lot, though.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  This is a television show.

• 44:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  And if you decide to spend the invested capital of your audience to expand the world, or, you know, zag, tell a different sort of story, I do think you owe it to your audience to make it the most exciting and compelling and surprising thing possible. Not a 37-minute icy, ether-drenched slog, which culminates in a woman sucking on her dead mother's oxygen tube before being revealed as, oh, guess what, she's the inventor of all this shit, which I don't even think a superfan feels is necessarily consistent with the show they had been watching. Because, again, I think the best version of this

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  show is a show about people making a choice for their own lives, as opposed to a large culty corporation inventing things in secret. That's not as compelling to me, but I may be in the minority. Regardless, this was rough. This was a rough watch.

• 45:34Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the redeeming characteristic of this episode for me was some explanation as to the strange relationship between Harmony and literally every other character. Is, she had been this person within Lumen who obviously wielded some power, but not too much power. You know, she was essentially, or looked to be, a, uh, middle manager.

• 46:01Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 46:02Chris Ryan?

  Right? But all throughout this series, we have gotten this suggestion, or this picture of her as somebody who was, um, very, like, a true believer in what was going on.

• 46:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, diehard.

• 46:16Chris Ryan?

  And had shrines, and had, obviously, been a part of this since she was a child. There had been these suggestions about her and her upbringing and her schooling. So I was satisfied with, and not surprised by, the revelation that she was an integral part of this. Um, is...

• 46:35Chris Ryan?

  World-changing brain surgery, something you can sketch out on a notebook? I don't know, but I got it. I got that she, she probably was someone that Lumen needs to have close, but not let to get too high because ultimately what this is, is a dynastic family, like a mafia, you know, like it's about passing power down through the egans, not about being like, well, this person technically did come up with the procedure, so they should get a seat at the table.

• 47:03Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  Um, the other favorite part of it was LaGro, um, you know, and, and just the idea-

• 47:11Andy Greenwald?

  Is it LaGro? I wasn't saying it right.

• 47:12Chris Ryan?

  I, I think it's LaGro or LaGro, so I'm not sure. I apologize to him.

• 47:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think I got it wrong. If he's listening.

• 47:17Chris Ryan?

  If he's just like, God, you guys are the best.

• 47:19Andy Greenwald?

  If he's so nice, if he was. He was really, he was really good.

• 47:22Chris Ryan?

  He was really good and you and I have talked a lot about our, um, our, our interest in what the world outside of like these six people is, uh, like, you know, is, is there a Home Depot over there that we're not seeing? Is there a Kathy Hochul? Who's just allowing this to happen in upstate New York or something or whatever? And getting somebody who obviously had this experience in their childhood, never got over it, is addicted to a pretty deleterious, uh, industrial-

• 47:57Andy Greenwald?

  Solvent.

• 47:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And, and is living in a ghost world is, is pretty like striking. I just, I just felt like that was like literally like nine minutes of information stretched out to 36 and that it was a bit essentially like more mystery placed on top of, like, as soon as they like kind of talked about something, they were like, you know, like, there was, there was like the, the feeding tube thing, which I guess we do get cleared up for us when-

• 48:31Andy Greenwald?

  It exists earlier.

• 48:31Chris Ryan?

  She pulled it out of her own mouth and it's like, yeah, I mean, I guess I get it. I-

• 48:37Andy Greenwald?

  Go ahead.

• 48:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you go ahead.

• 48:38Andy Greenwald?

  The show's doing bits. It's just bits on top of bits, you know, and I, and, and as much as you and I love Wes Anderson and love his movies, I think a multi-season, eight to 10-episode, eight to 10-hour series in Westworld might be asking a lot.

• 48:55Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:55Andy Greenwald?

  It would certainly be asking a lot of him and, and his production team. But I, I, I'd say that to be, try to be fair-minded. Like, there's some things that work in different, there are things that work in different mediums and in different doses. Ultimately, I, I guess I remain, and maybe people hear this sometimes in my commentary, what I remain perplexed by is the seeming passion and popularity of the show because it is such a closed circuit to me. It is so unwelcoming. It is so, ultimately, an episode like this felt smug to me, in a way.

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 49:23Andy Greenwald?

  That like, look, we can do whatever we want, and it doesn't have to make sense to you, and everything is stylized, and everything is inhuman, honestly, the way that people talk to each other and relate to each other. There's a spark of something in James's performance, not gonna wade into the, the danger zone of his last name.

• 49:45Chris Ryan?

  I think, you know, honestly, like, I, I didn't really enjoy watching this episode. The thing that really felt off to me was the triumphalism of the last moment.

• 49:53Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 49:54Chris Ryan?

  Was that it was like, cool that Devin was calling her, and that she was like, tell me everything.

• 49:59Andy Greenwald?

  And now she's gonna be-

• 49:59Chris Ryan?

  Rock music kicks in.

• 50:00Andy Greenwald?

  A good guy, I guess?

• 50:02Chris Ryan?

  Well, we'll see. But I, I was just like, she's bad. This whole thing's kind of an evil endeavor.

• 50:10Andy Greenwald?

  It, it, it, one thing that I think might-

• 50:13Chris Ryan?

  And she must know that Gemma's down there, so-

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  Let me, let me throw something out here. I'm just gonna put a, plant a little, a little flag.

• 50:20Chris Ryan?

  You're gonna go stick your neck out on Severance here?

• 50:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'll say, there is a world where the third season rips. Where the third season-

• 50:30Chris Ryan?

  I love it.

• 50:31Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'm being sincere here, because we have not seen any more of the season.

• 50:35Chris Ryan?

  Is this the same world where SGA is having a historic guard season?

• 50:37Andy Greenwald?

  I heard he's great. By the way, tough break for Knicks fans. Jalen Brunson hurt his ankle, and the Dallas Mavericks only had seven players able to play the other day. And they can't sign people because they're so close to the first apron.

• 50:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the apron, it'll get you.

• 50:52Andy Greenwald?

  You impressed?

• 50:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  Come on. I can still, I can hum a few bars. Um- This is based on nothing but my own experience having watched this many episodes. There is a world where this season, the work of this season is not macro data refining Cold Harbor. It is yanking the ideas and promise of season one into the, into shape for the starting gun of what the show is going to actually be. To get it to the point where the show, where everything is in, no pun intended, in harmony. Where these characters are seeking to bring down Lumen and these characters are seeking to keep it, to, to, to prop it up.

• 51:37Andy Greenwald?

  And, and this group is the hinge point for that seismic battle for the state of the world, both Audi and Innie. And all of this labor of, I mean, the, the, it's not just retconning, it's just conning of this harmony character into something that could make,

• 51:56Andy Greenwald?

  not make sense, but be a productive cog in the show's machine going forward. So now we have some backstory. Now we've taken her away so we can bring her back in on the side of the angels at least. Or like on the side of characters we know. So she's not siloed off on an island somewhere. Like all of this kind of labor, all could be in the service of a third season of the show that has communicated clearly what the stakes are and where it's going. That won't be off the air for three years. That has Bo Williman apparently like on the writing staff or on the creative team throughout. Because I think, you know, it's been reported that he joined the creative team at some point in season two.

• 52:34Chris Ryan?

  Second season, right.

• 52:35Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, and I say that not just because we're a fan of work that he's done or that he's on Andor. It's just more like, okay, a, a steady creative partner for Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller, which has not been the case. So it comes roaring back as the show that it ultimately wants to be, and that's fine. I think that's very possible.

• 52:53Chris Ryan?

  That is a.

• 52:55Chris Ryan?

  A very interesting way of characterizing and putting a narrative, contextualizing the like as if this is a down season. It is to you and me.

• 53:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Chris Ryan?

  But for I think a lot of people, it has fulfilled the promise of the show entirely. And it's become, when you talk about it as a closed circuit, you use that as a pejorative. I completely understand that and I pretty much agree with you. For a lot of people, I think the closed circuitry of the show is the future, not the bug. It is the, I am so invested in this. Every frame has something of value in it.

• 53:27Chris Ryan?

  So yeah, I think, I think that there, it'll be interesting to see whether the third season deviates from any of that or becomes a little bit more traditional in its storytelling, which I think I, Joe and Rob have talked about this episode specifically. Half this season is very special episodes.

• 53:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the, the actual characters that we came to know in the first season have had relatively little screen time.

• 53:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 53:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, we haven't seen Dylan in three episodes, right?

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 53:55Chris Ryan?

  Pretty much.

• 53:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, we didn't see Helly either, like, or Irving last week.

• 54:00Chris Ryan?

  We haven't seen Patricia Arquette for the entire season since the first episode.

• 54:04Andy Greenwald?

  I was okay with that. No, no disrespect to her.

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about a show we adore before we get out of here. Cause we have Danny McBride coming on to talk about the first episode of The Righteous Gemstones, his final season, the fourth season.

• 54:17Chris Ryan?

  Lights go down. And spoilers for this episode of Gemstones, which is kind of funny to say, cause typically I would not think of Righteous Gemstones as a spoiler-y kind of show.

• 54:30Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and within the first three minutes, you realize you're watching a interlude episode. They do about one, two of these, usually one per season, a flashback of different points in the gemstone family history.

• 54:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I feel like Danny said the other night, not with us, but at the event that you moderated that like. The kids who played the young versions of them were just so great that he's been writing to them.

• 54:50Chris Ryan?

  This was a different kind of flashback. It goes back to the Civil War and talks about essentially the origins of the Gemstone family coming to God in a roundabout way, but in a way that very much fits with the complicated relationship this family has with ministerial services. And Bradley Cooper plays Elijah Gemstone, who is masquerading as a preacher who he has murdered, named Abel Greaves, and is drafted into, he's conscripted into serving the Confederate Army

• 55:25Chris Ryan?

  as a chaplain. And most of the episode is about his slow crawl to actually being a man of God. From a con man and a murderer and a thief and a gambler and a drunkard to actually seeing the value in preaching the gospel. And Danny McBride directed it. Bradley Cooper is in basically every shot. After the first opening two minutes, Jim Cummings, who I love, is the, basically the other actor of note in this episode, although Paul Schneider makes a quick cameo.

• 56:04Andy Greenwald?

  And Jim Cummings plays which part?

• 56:06Chris Ryan?

  He's the major who kind of at first accuses Elijah of being a-

• 56:11Andy Greenwald?

  He tells him he's gonna go to hell?

• 56:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and then he's like, "You're going to hell." And he's like, "Wait a second."

• 56:16Chris Ryan?

  What'd you think of the episode?

• 56:18Andy Greenwald?

  That was real surprising. I'm sure many people were shocked that after the opening, not credit, but the opening logo and music, that we were still very much in the 19th century.

• 56:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that it wasn't just like a quick bit.

• 56:32Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, we talked to Danny about this a little bit, but I thought, well, I thought two things. One, one of the meta reasons to love this show and to love Danny McBride's career and the Rough House Boys' career in general is the chance to see people who just love certain things, certain vibes, music, movies, TV shows, styles of filmmaking, get to play. And so to see him be like, "Yeah, I have enough chops now and enough credit banked with the Warner Brothers Discovery Corporation that I will just make my Civil War epic." I thought that was incredible. And that the filmmaking is really good.

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:12Andy Greenwald?

  And I think he told us that they had 10 days to shoot this, which is just wild, considering the rest of the time there, we won't spoil it, but they're very much in the present day.

• 57:20Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:22Andy Greenwald?

  I thought it, one of the things that I have enjoyed with this show that differentiates it to a degree from Vice Principals or our beloved Easttown is that, like Elijah Gemstone, the show kinda pulls itself up and scrabbles against the rocks towards some sort of deeper meaning and significance.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's not just telling jokes. I mean, it's telling jokes, but it is initially casually, but I think increasingly actually interested in that idea of what makes a good person.

• 57:54Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 57:55Andy Greenwald?

  And I loved the way, and because I went to that event that you did, and I'm gonna say it again, you were awesome.

• 58:01Chris Ryan?

  Thanks.

• 58:02Andy Greenwald?

  That is real hard to juggle nine people on a panel, especially when they're those big personalities. Watching it again, I did appreciate the way, and also the way Bradley Cooper played it, but like, it's not just funny the way he won't pray with people until they die, but then when he does have his kind of moment, is his moment in service to those who died or is it just ego? Where he's like, I was saved.

• 58:25Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 58:25Andy Greenwald?

  So I have a purpose, which underwrites the whole series. So I thought it was pretty fun and pretty dazzling, and I also though have the knowledge that we get real back to a lot of dirty jokes on boats next week.

• 58:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, your point about Gemstone's, on a scene to scene basis, is as funny as it gets and you get to watch E.D. Patterson and Tim Bolts act together and do these incredible lines as BJ and Judy, but the larger point of the show might be exactly what you're saying, which is like... How do you cast off all this shit that you've festooned yourself with? And sort of aspire to be like Amy Lee, right? Like to, to, to the people that you actually like, um, that you lionize. And I have to admit, I'm kind of mesmerized by Cooper. I don't know. I don't know.

• 59:22Chris Ryan?

  It's been a long journey with him. He is a very vulnerable actor and, and public persona, I think. And has chosen to do something that is like, the only real like comparison you could make is basically Warren Beatty. In my mind, you know, there are plenty of actor directors, but his sort of project, which is like, I'm very interested in the act of creation, the act of, uh, the act of celebrity. And, you know, a lot of the, the themes that he comes back to. And the fact that he has sort of willed himself into being this director, writer, auteur,

• 1:00:02Chris Ryan?

  uh, is fascinating to me, but the, you know, him taking time out to come down to South Carolina and do this series that he had apparently never watched before.

• 1:00:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Chris Ryan?

  And was just like, I'm in, let's do it. And then the crazy thing is, is that I've had a chance to watch this episode a couple of times in preparation for this pod and also for that talk. Is you can kind of see weird shadows of Danny McBride's.

• 1:00:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Chris Ryan?

  Jesse Gemstone performance.

• 1:00:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:00:30Chris Ryan?

  In Bradley Cooper's performance as Elijah Gemstone. So it's, it's, uh, it's just a really cool thing that they got to do. And, you know, obviously we're kind of in a, in a age where maybe there are too many, like guess what we did kind of episodes, you know? And sometimes they really work, like episode seven of Paradise or episode one of Gemstones. And sometimes we, they, they feel like they're a miss for us in some regards. Like the episode of Severance we were just talking about. But it is kind of neat to see TV.

• 1:01:02Chris Ryan?

  Detaching from sort of like the rules a little bit on such a mass level. Now, sometimes that can be disorienting, but I think in this case, it was a huge success.

• 1:01:11Andy Greenwald?

  I think that what Danny and his crew do is low key very important. And you'll, you guys will hear in the interview, it sticking to his guns and like, these are my friends. We get each other's secret language. We have the same taste. We make, we know how to make stuff. And we're going to decamp to an island in South Carolina and just do it ourselves. Has really borne out with some great work, but also there is, for as silly as his work can be, there is a very, very, very smart observational awareness of industry trends and where things are going. And as he, he talks about like, why he went to TV as opposed to making movies and the benefits of that.

• 1:01:53Andy Greenwald?

  And all that being said, like Bradley Cooper is a really funny actor. And he was, first came to our attention genuinely by being pretty funny.

• 1:02:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Andy Greenwald?

  In Wedding Crashers and the Hangover movies. And, you know, the, the, the nature of the business and of stardom and of auturdom has pretty much taken funny Bradley Cooper from us.

• 1:02:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:17Andy Greenwald?

  He does play this dramatically.

• 1:02:20Chris Ryan?

  But he's very funny.

• 1:02:21Andy Greenwald?

  He's so good.

• 1:02:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Andy Greenwald?

  At being funny and charming. And that's not a bad thing for a leading man. That's not, I mean, Warren Beatty knew that.

• 1:02:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and he didn't really bring the lulls to Reds, but he could turn it on when he needed to. I think that's a really smart comparison. So I, I, I am just generally really, really here for a project that kind of plays aw shucks. We're just having jokes here, but is pushing and not just pushing in terms of like, you know, character development, but also pushing in terms of filmmaking and like, what we can get away with here within this number, within this group of creatives in this other side of the country.

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's a world, I mean, I'm sure this was discussed, but should they, you know, should we put up two episodes of this? Like, I'm sure HBO and Danny talked about like, but do you want to have like then the family in the second episode and have that go up on the same night? But I think it's really cool that they're like, no, you guys sit on this, this 50 minute episode about this war.

• 1:03:14Andy Greenwald?

  We should say, and I think this is the good kind of soft spoiler. When the gemstones modern day return.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:22Andy Greenwald?

  At 10:00 PM next week. They come in hard, like no beats are skipped. It's everything that you want and it's joyful. And what we've seen this season is awesome.

• 1:03:32Chris Ryan?

  Let's get into our interview with Danny McBride. We'll be back on Thursday talking about the pit, maybe some Daredevil. We got John Mulaney's live show on Wednesday night on Netflix. I know you're excited.

• 1:03:42Andy Greenwald?

  I think the people are-

• 1:03:42Chris Ryan?

  Number two next to Bargetzi for you in terms of guys who make you laugh.

• 1:03:46Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we'll see. They're jockeying for pole position. And I think that it'll be interesting. Your hunger strike to avoid Daredevil will finally come to an end.

• 1:03:56Chris Ryan?

  It's not a hunger strike. I just, he's never been like my favorite Marvel character.

• 1:04:01Andy Greenwald?

  Who is your favorite Marvel character?

• 1:04:03Chris Ryan?

  Um, all the members of the Thunderbolts because they're the most independent cinema minded.

• 1:04:07Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see that? Was that Florence Pugh being like, we made an A24 movie?

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:12Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, guys. Nice.

• 1:04:15Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kaya, thanks to CT. We'll be back on Thursday. Enjoy our interview with Danny McBride. Thank you to him for joining the watch and we'll talk to you soon. We are so honored to be joined once again on the watch podcast by Danny McBride. Danny, what's going on, man?

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Not too much. I'm in this fancy office with y'all. This is fun.

• 1:04:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, man. So season four, uh, we're releasing this on Monday. So it dropped last night and I think people are going to be delighted and surprised by what they get in the premiere episode.

• 1:04:44Andy Greenwald?

  We should be clear. We were going to drop this before the premiere and then we watched the premiere and then we realized we needed to talk to you about your, you directed a 50 minute Civil War FX starring Bradley Cooper.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm sorry.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Check that off the list.

• 1:04:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yep. So we needed to be able to say this because otherwise it would have been real elliptical.

• 1:05:02Chris Ryan?

  You're going to tell this story probably a bunch of times to people, but I just got to know like, how did this come about?

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  You know, when we embarked on this, since it was the final season, I felt like it was only, um, you know, it seemed like it was a good idea to sort of like, go back to the beginning and kind of show a glimpse of, uh, how this family began this journey. And so I had that idea about their distant relative sort of being a con man, a card player, you know, in the Civil War. And, um, I didn't know whether that was just going to be like a cold open or if it would be a full episode. And as I started writing it, it just felt fun. It felt, uh, like it would be something challenging to try to pull off. And so, yeah, I submitted that script in and I thought for sure HBO would be like, yeah, we're good with this. We'd like to see the cast that we're paying for in the episode.

• 1:05:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  But they they responded positively to it. They I think they they appreciate the ambition of it and what we were trying to do. And so then it became the idea of like trying to cast that, you know, which I had not thought about that. But it was like, you know, this needs to be a certain type of actor. It's like you're you're gonna have people tuning into the show expecting to see the actors that are actually in the show. And, you know, the show's an ensemble. The show never relies on just like one person carrying everything. So also, you know, the show hadn't done that before. So I just knew it was a steep bill. And so we had to find somebody who I felt like would have enough charisma, enough charm, and enough appeal that people wouldn't be turned off, but be intrigued when it showed

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  up. And I think me and my producing partners, I was just talking with them and we were trying to like brainstorm like, who could that be? And I kind of just threw off the cuff like, you know, somebody like Bradley Cooper, but never kind of assuming that that would be something he'd be interested in. But yeah, my my buddies were like, well, we should just submit it to him and see. I mean, why not? And so we sent it to him and he responded pretty quickly and said he dug the material and wanted to do it. And it was interesting because he had never seen gemstones before. And then he said he didn't want to watch it until we were done. He didn't want to have it influence his performance or anything.

• 1:07:08Andy Greenwald?

  Come on.

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And so then I was like, well, I haven't seen Maestro. So no, but I I thought it was amazing that he did that. And I appreciate it because you know, when you're on a show that's established, sometimes what you find is when you cast guest stars, they've seen the show and they want to like try to score laughs the way that that the cast scores laughs. And sometimes it turns into just an impression of like, you know, people. And so I thought it was it was cool that he identified that as like a hazard to avoid and that he brought his own spin to it.

• 1:07:40Andy Greenwald?

  What scene did you show him immediately after he raps, just to really educate him? Was it Ron Goggins with his pants off? Was it all of you yelling the word pussy at John Goodman?

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:50Andy Greenwald?

  He, you know what?

• 1:07:52Chris Ryan?

  Going through Tom Hanks' Phil Mager.

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  It was it was I'm not sure which one. He didn't see anything from this season. I think it was he went back to the beginning and watched it all back to back. And then he went back and watched Vice Principals. He went.

• 1:08:04Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  He did that. He did the deep dive.

• 1:08:06Chris Ryan?

  Had he seen Eastbound?

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  He I assume he had seen it. Yeah.

• 1:08:10Andy Greenwald?

  It would have been disqualifying if he hadn't seen. Just like as a creative.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  I would have it would have been a disclaimer that I did let him know what he was getting into.

• 1:08:17Chris Ryan?

  Did you have like a Civil War itch you were looking to scratch at all? Like, is that something that like you're historically interested in like as like a text? Cause like I was like, this is actually like, if you were just made like a three hour Civil War movie, I would be pretty into that. Like it definitely had like the Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, Gettysburg vibes going for it.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  It, you know, I grew up in this small town of Virginia, Spotsylvania, Virginia. And there was like a ton of Civil War battlefields around there. Bunch of history happened there. I mean, we moved there in the eighties and they were, you know, clearing out these like forests, you know, for these little, you know, these neighborhoods. And so, you know, my neighborhood was a brand new neighborhood. So I, you know, when I was a kid, I'd like walk my backyard and I could find like Civil War bullets.

• 1:09:01Chris Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  I found a belt buckle back there. And so I always was sort of fascinated by that. The idea that like you're hearing about these stories in school or wherever. And then you're walking in a place where like it actually happened.

• 1:09:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  I think being exposed to that as a kid, it always kind of held this place in my brain. So I, I just like love history stuff too. I find myself like always like reading about history. And I don't know, I just kind of find it interesting. So that story to me, I kind of was like wanting to do a period piece. It's just creatively, it was something I wanted to try and, and that story just kind of felt ripe for it.

• 1:09:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's the thing that I'm always curious about when we get the chance to talk to you is like, there's the, there's the humor that you're going for and the story that you're going for. But you and your team and your pals like have such a keen aesthetic sensibility to you. You're like, we're going to make this kind of story now.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Andy Greenwald?

  We're going to make a sports movie. We're going to make a like a drag racing, action comedy. In this case, we were like, I can make a war movie. So as the filmmaker of this episode, what did you do to prep for that side of the ball?

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  You know, I was just trying to figure out. You know, not how not to make it seem too modern, you know, like that I feel like sometimes when you see period stuff, it feels too modern. Sometimes it pushes you out of it. I mean, obviously, we used like, you know, so I just tried to embrace a style that was like not too flashy. I mean, there's some things in there, but you know, that and you know, honestly, it's a lot to do with our like crew, you know, their production designer, Richard and our costume designer Christina, you know, a lot of times when we create these seasons, I just enjoy collaborating with these people. I really trust their, I trust their instincts and their creativity. So I always like kind of try to push myself. We write these scripts to like drop things into their lap that they haven't done before and to kind of like just push everybody to kind

• 1:10:41Speaker 03

  of like try to achieve something that we really didn't think would be possible. And with that, that was a big part of it of like, I knew that they could make that world feel real. And it was just a matter of if we had the resources to do it. I think we had like, you know, just a little under 10 days to shoot that whole thing.

• 1:10:57Chris Ryan?

  Get out of here.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. All of it was like, most of it was daylight dependent, except for just like literally like two or three scenes. And so it also was this kind of crazy thing where, you know, you had to take advantage of the daylight. So you had to like rap every day by like, you know, six o'clock so that you could make turnaround the next day. So like you kind of ended up there with like, you know, less than like 10 hours to shoot. And we're shooting in South Carolina too, which is like rains like every other day. And, and so it was, it was a lot to sort of like navigate. It was a leap of faith, but you know, it was, it was fun to drop that script in like my production designer's lap. And it's like, he's like prepping for a modern day mega church comedy and now he's got to figure out how to build a fort.

• 1:11:35Andy Greenwald?

  There's like no complacency allowed. They have like a lot of neon in case you need it, but an oil skin tent and suspenders.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was crazy. And you know, it was, it was so much fun. And it was like how we started the season off, like shooting wise too. So, you know, it, it didn't feel like we were making gemstones.

• 1:11:53Chris Ryan?

  That's cool. I mean, it's nice if it's going to be the last one. You get to try like to get work a different muscle in the beginning. Was Cooper, did he ever come up to you and say like, hey, man, like, what about like, like, did he have any filmmaking ideas?

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  He totally did. You know, I, I loved working with him on this, you know, I admit, we worked together on Aloha.

• 1:12:13Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:14Speaker 03

  And so I knew him a little bit from that. But, uh, yeah, when he, you know, when he came on this, I mean, he's someone who's been on a million sets. He's a great director himself. And, uh, yeah, I just really appreciated his energy on the whole thing. I mean, honestly, we really couldn't have pulled it off without him. I mean, because when you're kind of like running that, like, there's such a small margin for error. The fact that he was just down and, and came like with every take, he was fine. You didn't ever, you never had to find a scene. It was always just sort of like very ambitious days and we were never slowing down to like get it right. It was always just like, we got it, let's go, you know? And he was down, I mean, he didn't, he didn't want a trailer, he didn't want a chair. He didn't get paid anything, you know, and he's coming there to South Carolina, 90 degree weather, wearing a period,

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  an authentic wool period costume, you know, and just sort, was just game and never wasn't smiling and having fun. And it was, it was awesome. I think it was cool.

• 1:13:08Andy Greenwald?

  That is awesome. I love the fact that he also found a way to differentiate every, every time that he was asked to pray, but didn't want to pray out loud with his popping voice. There's growth there.

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:13:21Chris Ryan?

  Did you, uh, the other person who's got like a sort of major role in the episode is Jim Cummings, uh, who I'm a huge fan of his movies and obviously has, I think, some parallels from the way he started out his career and how he's making his stuff to what you and Jody and David have done. Did you, were you just kind of a fan of his or did you know him personally, like on the side?

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  I, I didn't know him personally. David Green, uh, knew him a little bit better than me, but I like Thunder Road. Like I liked, uh, I responded to what he had been doing and I always like, I've liked, I've liked him. I liked his vibe and so he, uh, he read for it and, uh, yeah, he just, to me, it felt like instantly it was, it felt right.

• 1:13:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's awesome. It was, it was cool. Um, I was just, so let's talk a little bit about this being the final season.

• 1:14:05Chris Ryan?

  We speculate a lot about this when shows are wrapping up. Andy actually did a whole podcast about final episodes of shows called Stick the Landing. And it's always curious because I'm sure there's a little bit of like uncertainty even in the decision, right? Like, so how much of this season was like, this is it? Like, I'm writing this and I know I want to land it. Because I know that a lot of your shows, you end seasons just in case it doesn't come back. Like, this will be a complete statement.

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. You know, it was a, it's like a testament to HBO that I just, you know, I've worked with them for so long and, uh, and they've always been very supportive of anything creatively I want to do there, and that's been awesome. And, uh, you know, like you said, every season, we kind of prepare that it could be the end. And, uh, this season, as soon as I started writing it, I could kind of tell it was the end. It was like all the ideas I was having about the season had to deal with closure and, and sort of like taking people to their like logical conclusions. So, you know, but I didn't make that announcement like at the beginning of the season, like, this is it, you know? Because I was still keeping my brain open to like, well, who knows? Maybe we'll start getting in here and we'll find something and I'll want to keep doing more or, but at the closer we kind of like got to nailing the season, the more it just was like apparent.

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  It was obvious that like we were completing it. And, uh, I think it was helpful too, because I didn't, you know, sometimes I feel like when you see finales, uh, like I see it all the time, like it, it can veer into like seeing through the performances and you can see the actors, especially if it's roles they've done for a long time. It's like you can see them saying goodbye to those characters. And it's kind of like, you know, I don't know, sometimes it might be, it might jump the tone a little bit of things. And so I thought there was something that was cool about like everyone, all those actors not entering the season, like just knowing definitively that it was over with, you know? Uh, but as we got closer to the end of the filming, it was apparent that it was. And so then those, uh, those emotions, those feelings, it was hard for that stuff not to come up.

• 1:16:01Speaker 03

  But I saw like there were scenes like in the last episode that I cut out because I could see it. I could see myself just like, oh, I'm sitting here, I'm saying goodbye to this character on screen.

• 1:16:11Chris Ryan?

  Last time with the Cybertronians, yeah.

• 1:16:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. But it was. It was, uh, it was, you know, it was, it was, it was fun. It was, uh, it was a good experience like making the show. And so I think that's also why it, uh, I didn't want this last season to be like a downer the whole time where everyone's just like really taking stock of, of it being the end. I wanted us to enjoy it and to like approach it with the same energy we approached every other season, you know, and, and not make it so obvious out of the gate that it's a swan song, you know, just do what we've been doing and try to stick that landing.

• 1:16:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. As the person not only who's playing the character, but kind of the, the creative wellspring for the show, how do you navigate that line? Because as fun as it is for audiences to see the gemstone siblings just, just going for it every time they're on screen and how much fun that must be to play. How much of that do you just like to be present and enjoy? Like we could be doing this for years, honestly.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Andy Greenwald?

  Versus, I want to tell a story. I want to finish this story. I want to answer the questions I had and then get out. How do you navigate that during the process?

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  You know, I just like look to filmmakers I admire. I mean, I think that's the thing with television is that like, you know, a lot of people jump from movies into TV. And, uh, you know, there's, there are limitations with television that I think like sometimes making an inferior art form to movies. And I think that it's, you know, with a movie, you show up, you tell a story and everyone's there to complete something, you know? And then the marker for success is if it, you know, people saw it, you know, and that's what it is. And the marker for success with television is that the show goes on and on and on. That doesn't necessarily ensure that like the story you're telling is, is the best, you know, it doesn't, that's not, those things don't go hand in hand necessarily.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  So for me, it's a matter of like, it would be very easy to stay in that show. It'd be very easy to just start sleepwalking through these seasons. I love all the people involved. We shoot it in my backyard. Uh, there couldn't be anything easier than like staying involved in the show. But I think that's part of the reason why I wanted to push myself to finish it is that I wanted to, uh, never get to that point where anybody was like sleepwalking through it. I wanted every season of it to matter. And I wanted to complete the story we were telling without, uh, there being like seasons that could be completely skipped or, you know, things that happen sometimes when a show overstays its welcome.

• 1:18:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was wondering, cause there's like a

• 1:18:24Chris Ryan?

  Different version of your career where you're still playing Kenny Powers.

• 1:18:27Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:18:27Chris Ryan?

  You know.

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  And we felt that in the day when we were doing it. It's like, you know, TV was sort of still that thing where everybody wasn't like jumping in to do TV. I remember when we pitched Eastbound and Down to, uh, to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. They were surprised that we wanted to follow Foot Fist Way up with the television show. At that point, people were making TV shows to get movies.

• 1:18:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  But there was, um.

• 1:18:48Andy Greenwald?

  You were visionary.

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  We started something. But I, you know, honestly, it was an answer to like the experience we had with Foot Fist Way. Like when that got bought by Paramount Vantage and we start doing test screenings and stuff. And they're asking people, recruiting people to come in to watch Foot Fist Way and based on whether they like dodgeball. And to Jody and I were like, this is the wrong audience. It's not, that's not what we're doing. But you could see how they were instantly trying to fit it into what something else was. And then we would have these abysmal, uh, you know, these abysmal testing results, you know, that were just, that were just terrible. Because people had been misled about what the, what they were coming in for. And so I kind of identified pretty quickly where I'm like, I don't think the type of stories we want to tell are going to survive this process.

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  And I think with television, you know, and not having to like jam a story into 90 minutes and we can do it longer. I think we can like, we can be more unexpected and we can kind of, uh, we can do more than what we would be allowed to do in 90 minutes. And so that was sort of the idea of going in Eastbound was like, I think Eastbound as a 90 minute movie would have been a piece of shit. It would have just been like, you would have, uh, you would have seen every twist and turn coming. It'd be like, he's up here, he's down here, he comes back here.

• 1:19:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's never, there's no way unless you made a sequel to like replicate the sensation people had when he goes to Mexico.

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:06Chris Ryan?

  You're just like, holy fucking shit. I can't believe this is happening.

• 1:20:09Andy Greenwald?

  There's also an opportunity, and I, I'd love you to speak about this more than what I'm potentially going to throw at you. But like, we know about the kind of like Apatow way of making movies. Maybe you guys did some of this as well, or McKay does this too, where you're shouting alts and you're finding stuff on the day. And the ad lib becomes the funniest line in the movie.

• 1:20:24Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:20:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's still contained ultimately in a 90 minute sealed thing.

• 1:20:27Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:20:28Andy Greenwald?

  Your experience being like, oh my god, Walton Goggins isn't just a guest star. Like, this is a part of this show now. And it's gonna send us rocketing in a completely different direction allows the improv to become part of the larger.

• 1:20:39Speaker 03

  It does. It's like, you know, that's one thing I really have enjoyed about writing for television is that, you know, having that looseness where you can, you know, we like to have it all planned out before we go in, but then being open that like when something starts to pop that you suddenly you're rewriting the back half of the season.

• 1:20:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  That happened with, that happened on Vice Principals, the first time Edie Patterson showed up. Like, the very first scene I did with her, I think it was in the third episode of that. I was, she was just making me laugh so much and I, and I just, I felt it. I was like, she has more to do with the story than what we've like initially arced out. And so I went back and even though we had both seasons written, I went in and changed the entire ending of the show and kind of like altered the entire back half of that story. Because I just saw that she. She should be on it more. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:27Andy Greenwald?

  Do you end up feeling more, this is a weird way to phrase it, but like, when you, when you see the end result, like we can use this season of Gemstones as an example. Do you feel more proud to see that you were able to execute the biggest plans that you had laid? Like a giant civil war episode? Or are you more proud about a line that Edie threw out on the day being the hammer in the trailer? You know what I mean? Like, is it?

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  You know, it's a, it's a combination of all of it, I think, you know, like I'm, I'm proud of what we're able to accomplish. But I also just feel like, you know, we, we cast these people that, that are genuinely good at what they do. And anytime anybody comes and crushes and delivers, it just makes me feel happy. It makes me feel happy that they got to do it. It makes me feel happy that they understand what we're doing enough, that they know how to throw things in that elevate it. It's, I think it's the funnest part about making anything that's film or television is the idea that it is so collaborative, that you have all these people you work with. And that, you know, there's so many other art forms that are just rely on the individual. But with film and TV, it's sort of like you just, you get to work with musicians, you work with artists,

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  you work with costume designers, you work with performers. There's something so fun about. When when all of those things line up and everybody is sort of like their eyes on the prize and everybody's contributions are just making it something that you could never have made on your own.

• 1:22:45Chris Ryan?

  I can't remember the last time, maybe it was in the last time I talked to you, but you guys came in and you'd been in Covenant and were maybe getting started on Halloween? And I was wondering whether or not, like, do you feel like right now in the film business versus the TV business? Like, is it just, there's just more opportunities to do the IP stuff? Or to like, kind of reimagine a pre-existing property? Whereas in TV, you can still tell like a kind of original story. Because like, at this point now, you've created a gallery of characters that could at any point now be rebooted or reimagined or, you know, revisited. It's, you've got your own mythology and the stories you've told on television. How is the experience coming out of Halloween?

• 1:23:28Chris Ryan?

  And like, how do you view kind of like what you're asked to do or what you can do in films versus television in that regard?

• 1:23:34Speaker 03

  You know, I don't know about all the inner workings of like how the industry works, but just from what I see, I mean, it seems like, you know, with television, sort of like, everything's not riding on whether the show, like, everyone sees it or not. Like, when you're subscribing to a service, you know, every single thing doesn't have to like, deliver like millions of viewers. And, and so you're given a little bit more latitude. And I think movies are just such an expensive endeavor. And it's such a crap shoot that I think that it, to me, it just feels like they, they have to bet on something. They have to, like, it either has to be something that they can prove work before, and that's why they're doing it now, or it has to be an actor that's, you know, when people normally show up for their movies.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  And so I think the parameters for something getting approved, it just has other obligations that I feel like TV, at this point, doesn't necessarily have.

• 1:24:26Andy Greenwald?

  How many years ago, or how many years has it been now since you all kind of decamped from here to South Carolina?

• 1:24:32Speaker 03

  Well, you know, we shot, I'd never even been to Charleston, South Carolina before, and we shot Vice Principals there, and that was in 2015, and then came back to Los Angeles in 2016, and we're kind of like, you know, we all had like kids and everything. And we kind of just had this incredible time there, and it was, I don't know, it was like, it was refreshing. We always had to come to the South to shoot our shows usually. We never, we never had shot anything out in California.

• 1:24:57Chris Ryan?

  Did you shoot Righteous in, or sorry, Eastbound in Georgia?

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  We shot it, we shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, Myrtle Beach, and in Puerto Rico.

• 1:25:06Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:25:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so, yeah, so we made the full move in 2017, and everybody kind of like, you know, took their families, and we all went down there, and, you know, even writers and, you know, everybody that we worked with kind of like took that leap of faith.

• 1:25:21Andy Greenwald?

  It kind of was, you're visionary again in a way, because first of all, you really foresaw work from home coming. I respect that.

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  Such a relief.

• 1:25:28Andy Greenwald?

  Any other stock tips you got? I really appreciate it. But, but more broadly, like, there is something, especially from this vantage point, it's like pretty inspiring that like as the industry has been roiled by all these massive changes and upheaval, that you guys are like to the side, doing your own thing, generating your own thing in the ecosystem that you want to create. So like, what perspective has that given you now, especially considering what's been going on in the last few years with strikes and consolidation and budgets and priorities changing?

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:54Andy Greenwald?

  How do you see it all from where you guys are now?

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  You know, I see the reality of it is just like, you know, I keep up with all my friends that are still in Los Angeles and stuff, and you know.

• 1:26:02Andy Greenwald?

  They're doing great.

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  Everything's going great.

• 1:26:04Chris Ryan?

  Hell of a 25.

• 1:26:05Andy Greenwald?

  Very busy.

• 1:26:06Speaker 03

  But, you know, I think if you're, if you're tasked with creating and you're tasked with writing, like sometimes it's good to not have the distractions of the real world and to be able to just focus on what you're trying to do. I think you can get paralyzed by, by the state of affairs when it comes to like looking at what's happening in the entertainment industry.

• 1:26:23Andy Greenwald?

  You're being reactive too, you're not?

• 1:26:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I even felt that when I was living here. I felt that. I felt that I would, when I was like looking for ideas or new things, I just felt like everywhere I turned was, I don't know, we're just.

• 1:26:35Chris Ryan?

  Somebody has final drafts. Raft open at every table.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. And then I would find when I would go home to visit my family. Or, you know, when I'd go back to the South, I just felt like instantly I would have all these different ideas. And it was just something I was just noticing would happen every time I went home. I just felt more inspired and. So it was a little bit of was just like following that, but you know, maybe it's like we're living in an illusion when we're down there about the real state of affairs. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing when you're tasked with trying to create something. You might not, it might not be helpful to know how fucked up everything is.

• 1:27:08Chris Ryan?

  When you guys do, when you come to the end, so this is the third time you've ended one of these series. Are you already thinking about something that will go into this kind of box? Like where it's like maybe another multi-season show or are you starting to play like, is it more vague than that? Do you have characters in mind that you're like, maybe this could be something, maybe that could be something? Have you thought about that?

• 1:27:29Andy Greenwald?

  Was Jesse Gemstone in your mind when you were wrapping Vice Principals or is it not working like that?

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  You know, I would have ideas of kind of what I would talk with, but I think ultimately like what you have to do is you or me personally is like, you have to kind of completely like let go. I think you have to like shut the brain off and you have to like not be so desperate to be like, I quickly have to do something else, you know? And I think it's good to just, for me at least, it's been good to just completely let go. And to kind of be okay with whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And then I find you kind of can find inspiration in that. And that's what, uh, you know, I wasn't sure what we're going to do with television after Vice Principals. I wasn't sure if I was going to even make another TV show or if that was just going to kind of be the end of that. And it took me, uh, you know, we finished shooting Vice Principals in 2015. I didn't start writing the pilot of Gemstones until like near the end of 2017.

• 1:28:19Speaker 03

  So yeah, I stepped away and helped David write that first Halloween and kind of got my brain on that and it was fun. And then it was fun to sit down and kind of have no preconceived ideas. And I was able just to be kind of clean of like, what do I want to get into next? And, uh, um, yeah, it was, that was fun. So I'm sure it'll be that same way. I mean, I have a bunch of ideas of what I would want to do, but I, I am like going to commit to just like not.

• 1:28:42Chris Ryan?

  Doing nothing.

• 1:28:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:43Andy Greenwald?

  You don't want to list them right now?

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44Andy Greenwald?

  Just so we have them on record.

• 1:28:45Speaker 03

  I'll see what you guys think. Let's go.

• 1:28:47Andy Greenwald?

  Let's workshop them a little bit.

• 1:28:48Chris Ryan?

  Do you find that, oh, go ahead.

• 1:28:50Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:28:50Chris Ryan?

  No, do you find that when I was curious, I'm always curious about, obviously you love film, film and TV and stuff. Like how it ebbs and flows with what you're watching when you're in production versus when you're out of production? Like if you're in production, are you just watching? Shit at the end of the night to kind of turn your brain off.

• 1:29:08Speaker 03

  I I'm like the worst. Like honestly, I haven't I don't watch anything. It's like I when we're cracking these scripts and stuff, I just don't find any enjoyment in watching like anything like I'll just like, well, I'll watch like a fucking episode of Below Deck that I've seen 10 times as opposed to like

• 1:29:23Chris Ryan?

  A lot of nuance.

• 1:29:24Speaker 03

  This is a new episode of whatever show everyone's talking about, but it's really because my brain just can't enjoy it. It's like I, uh, you know, the hardest part about writing television is that it it it consumes you completely, you know, when you're running the running the room. So it's like, I'll sit in that room for eight hours, 10 hours with these guys. Then I'll come home and my wife will be talking to me and I'll be just like giving her that thousand yard stare of like, you know, anytime anything's said like dinner, what's for dinner? What could they eat for dinner and church lunch next week? It's like, I just can't be present, you know? And so it really happens when I watch things. I'll just sit there and I'll see something and I won't take the ride because I'm just instantly thinking about problems in the room or knots in the story that I have to untie. And so I kind of find that the brainless stuff, the the reality TV

• 1:30:08Speaker 03

  show, there's just something in there that I can kind of just like half tune out and it kind of numb myself.

• 1:30:13Andy Greenwald?

  I I do think next time we have you on for whatever the project is next, we should, you know, we'll greet you, we can catch up, we'll sit down and then we'll be like Severance, season two, episode six and like get real in the weeds.

• 1:30:24Chris Ryan?

  Dana McBride.

• 1:30:25Andy Greenwald?

  Think or swim.

• 1:30:25Chris Ryan?

  Dana McBride's five years late TV podcast?

• 1:30:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no, I know. We were just blindsided with current events, but or five years later. You know, I've really been thinking about what you guys asked me in 2025.

• 1:30:36Speaker 03

  That that will be what I'll do though. Honestly, like now that this, when this show's done, I think I I sound mixed the last episode Friday, so I'll be officially unemployed at the end of this week.

• 1:30:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:30:45Speaker 03

  But that is what will happen is all this will be the time now that I'll just start watching everything.

• 1:30:50Andy Greenwald?

  Or you're going to get really opinionated about lunch for your kids last year.

• 1:30:53Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:30:54Andy Greenwald?

  That was too many chicken nuggets.

• 1:30:56Speaker 03

  What's going on here?

• 1:30:57Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, hey, hey, dad's home.

• 1:30:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, acclimate slowly.

• 1:31:00Andy Greenwald?

  Settle down, everyone.

• 1:31:01Chris Ryan?

  Is there something that you're like, goddamn, I can't wait to watch this. I just haven't had the brain space.

• 1:31:05Speaker 03

  Severance, I haven't seen Severance. You know, I've never seen one episode of Succession. I like, there's a big shows that I

• 1:31:11Chris Ryan?

  That was pretty good.

• 1:31:11Speaker 03

  Cultural moments that I like, feel like I've totally missed out on.

• 1:31:14Andy Greenwald?

  Your team at HBO can hook you up, probably.

• 1:31:16Chris Ryan?

  Well, because also there was a lot of gemstones like discourse where it's like, this is also like succession.

• 1:31:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that was a great take. I think we tried that take out.

• 1:31:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you took that off the lot.

• 1:31:27Andy Greenwald?

  Which is the more profound family drama that makes you laugh?

• 1:31:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Andy Greenwald?

  A little more comedy in it, a little more drama.

• 1:31:31Chris Ryan?

  They let you take that two blocks from the lot?

• 1:31:32Andy Greenwald?

  No, but you were being respectful. You were like, let them do their thing. We don't want to cross poll. Speaking of, since we're talking, we're airing this after this Civil War episode, and you said that you had some questions you wanted to answer. This is the part where we just sort of give you the layup of like, what can we expect in this riotous final season of Gemstones? Like, when you sat down to do this and you were like, this feels like the final season, how would you characterize the questions that you wanted to answer? No spoilers on whether you did, but like, how do you want to set this up for the viewers?

• 1:32:02Speaker 03

  You know, I feel like, God, how do I say this without giving anything away?

• 1:32:07Andy Greenwald?

  We have HBO PR here.

• 1:32:09Chris Ryan?

  I can reverse engineer this.

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  Okay, give it to me.

• 1:32:12Chris Ryan?

  What from the first episode and the sort of original sin of this family should we be paying attention to, I guess?

• 1:32:19Speaker 03

  Look at this disruptor over here. I love it. You know, at the end of the day, it's like, you know, you want to make this show, making a church show, it would be easy for people to like lay that out there and then to not identify with these characters really because like, who really knows what it's like to be a corrupt megachurch pastor, you know? And so the trick with the show is always like trying to figure out how, as despicable as these characters are, how do you make them relatable? And for me, in that first season, it was like the death of their mother. You know, like, that's something that people can relate to and how people deal with grief and how people deal with the hard truths of life, you know, that you lose people and things move on. And it's a big factor, I think, of why even people gravitate towards religion

• 1:33:01Speaker 03

  is that it's a way to sort of try to find meaning in things that are upsetting that happen to all of us and how to find solace or peace in it. So that has kind of been, with all the hanging dong and all the other crazy shit, that is sort of the thing. I feel like that's like kind of at the beating heart, that's at the center of it so that you can still sort of like land empathy or land, you know, truths that might resonate with people. And so I think that is definitely something we're exploring in this like final season is, you know, how do people move forward and change, you know, when they'd rather hold on to what has been?

• 1:33:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:41Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta ask you this because every time we get the chance to talk to you, I want to find a way to talk about Ashley Schaefer BMW. And the way I wanted to phrase it was this, it's like to live life in 2025 can be stressful for all of us, you know? And, you know, sometimes one fires up the YouTube machine, maybe to check something, or maybe, you know, it's just open on your computer. And one thing that I can count on, just sure is the changing of the seasons, is that the Ashley Schaefer BMW blooper's reel.

• 1:34:06Chris Ryan?

  The seven minutes.

• 1:34:07Andy Greenwald?

  Will be suggested. You might like this. You last watched this. So that was my question. Do you ever encounter stuff that way? Like you open YouTube and somehow the algorithm is saying, you might find this funny.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Yes, I do. That comes up all the time, too. It does, all the time.

• 1:34:22Andy Greenwald?

  And do you watch it?

• 1:34:23Speaker 03

  I skip it. No, I'll see it every now and then. It was like that. It's funny that that still floats around because it was a memorable moment even on set. And the idea that it still makes people laugh, it's, uh, yeah, it's kind of awesome.

• 1:34:37Andy Greenwald?

  Well, because that's also, that was like one of those moments that just came out of the ether, right? Like there was, I assume the script did not suggest, they didn't have as much plum content.

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  There were zero plums in that original script.

• 1:34:47Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing about farmers markets.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  Nothing about farmers market.

• 1:34:49Chris Ryan?

  Nothing about Donna or Beverly?

• 1:34:51Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, it could be either.

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:34:53Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, well, that makes us, it's like stars, they're just like us.

• 1:34:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Andy Greenwald?

  You're getting served the same.

• 1:34:57Speaker 03

  You're getting served the same algorithm.

• 1:34:59Chris Ryan?

  Is there a lot? Cause that was part of, was it on like a DVD of the first season?

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, we, our editor Jeff Sebenak, he was on Eastbound, he was, uh, he was another classmate of mine from School of the Arts. And, uh, yeah, he cut that together. I mean, it was something that like we had to like, you know, it was very difficult to put that into the show because everyone was just laughing the whole time. But, uh, he, uh, it was his brilliant idea to sort of like capture that and put in a format that people could like watch what didn't make it into the show.

• 1:35:30Andy Greenwald?

  There are not, a not insubstantial number of Americans who like, when and if they get the chance to meet Craig Robinson, they won't ask him about The Office, they won't ask him about music, they will just ask him about the moment his.

• 1:35:40Speaker 03

  Lift quivers?

• 1:35:41Andy Greenwald?

  When he almost strokes out, yeah.

• 1:35:44Chris Ryan?

  Oh my god.

• 1:35:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's beautiful.

• 1:35:46Chris Ryan?

  Danny, man, thank you so much for coming by. Yeah, of course. Good luck with the sound mixing and everything and thank you for the show. Good luck with unemployment. Yeah. We hope it's not too long because we'd love to have you back.

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll help you all out. What do you need? You need coffee served? I'm here.

• 1:35:58Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, maybe just help us with these lights.

• 1:35:59Chris Ryan?

  You have a way with finding cold brews, so maybe we'll do that.

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  Look at that.

• 1:36:02Chris Ryan?

  Thanks so much, dude.

• 1:36:02Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:36:03Chris Ryan?

  Thank you, guys.