Despite Everything, ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Works. Plus, ‘Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney,’ ‘The Pitt’ E11, and the ‘Top Chef: Canada’ Premiere.

Chris and Andy talk about a couple of forthcoming shows, like ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ on Apple TV+ and the second season of ‘Andor,’ and how they are being marketed (3:37). Then they talk about the first episodes of ‘Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney’ (19:37) and ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ (31:48), before covering the latest episode of ‘The Pitt’ (53:53) and the premiere of ‘Top Chef: Canada’ (1:08:33). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production: Chris Thomas Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Chris Ryan?

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

• 0:24Speaker 01

  I need support staff to clear the room.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:30Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, Justice is Blind and so is his lawyer, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 0:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, did you get it? Because Justice is Blind and so is Matt Murdock. You got it?

• 0:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 0:48Andy Greenwald?

  It took like four seasons.

• 0:50Chris Ryan?

  I was actually referring to new member of the resistance, Amy Coney Barrett.

• 0:55Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 0:57Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. You know, it's funny you should mention that. I was listening to Gavin Newsom's podcast on the way in.

• 1:02Chris Ryan?

  Which one? The Bannon one?

• 1:03Andy Greenwald?

  Look how excited you are.

• 1:05Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm not excited for Steve Bannon.

• 1:07Andy Greenwald?

  No, you're just excited for content.

• 1:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Gav's got a real idea in his head about how to win over persuade, persuade the persuadables.

• 1:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  And we'll see if he works.

• 1:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, God bless. You know, it worked with Plump Jack Chardonnay. Why wouldn't it work with democracy? We're starting in hot for a day. We have so much content today.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  So much stuff to talk about, Andy. Today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about a couple of shows that are coming up and how they are being marketed to us. We also wanted to talk about tonight's episode of The Pit.

• 1:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we're going to talk about the first three episodes of Daredevil Born Again. We're going to talk about the first episode of Top Chef Canada.

• 1:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which is tonight as well.

• 1:44Chris Ryan?

  Which is tonight. So this episode is going to go out late this evening.

• 1:48Chris Ryan?

  Many of Kaya's favorite shows being spoiled as we speak. And am I missing something? Oh yeah, we also wanted to talk about John Mulaney, Everybody's Live.

• 1:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's amazing how much content we have for today.

• 1:58Chris Ryan?

  It's crazy. A couple of quick things, housekeeping. We are on YouTube, Ringer-TV is the channel. You can watch us on video on Spotify where you can also listen to us. You can also listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. You can email us. The address is [email protected] and you can follow us on Instagram, thewatchpod underscore at Instagram. And, um, you know, we're doing some great, great content on Instagram. Get ready with me, A Day in the Life, um, a lot of cat videos.

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  Are you making this up?

• 2:26Chris Ryan?

  Ramentors of Osaka.

• 2:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I get that. Yeah. Okay, that's fine. Do you um, do you feel like we're getting a lot of traction on YouTube? Like, do you feel like that's what people are doing?

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we're a fledgling channel. Us and the Prestige TV podcast, we're doing our best.

• 2:43Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think people are noticing?

• 2:44Chris Ryan?

  Did you get a chance to watch my Tears of Taylor Sheridan, like, ranking all of his shows and films?

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  No, I didn't get a chance yet. It's on my, it's on my suggested for you screen. Thank you, though, for reminding me. I just wondered if people were noticing the small injustices, like, I can't, what do I do with this wire?

• 3:02Chris Ryan?

  But I don't have to tell you.

• 3:03Andy Greenwald?

  Because you're on that side.

• 3:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Andy Greenwald?

  And it's subtly hidden from you, your headphone wire.

• 3:08Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:09Andy Greenwald?

  But I feel like this is just, it looks like I'm wearing a lanyard, which I probably should.

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  You should be wearing a lanyard, yeah.

• 3:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's unbelievable the way I slip in and out.

• 3:15Chris Ryan?

  Um, a couple of shows have been thrown in our face recently.

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 3:20Chris Ryan?

  By the great, uh, marketing machine that is the, the digital internet space. And honestly, sometimes when you're watching terrestrial television, you'll come across one of these. But Andy and I wanted to talk a little bit about, um, what marketing says about streaming networks. What marketing of these upcoming shows says about the networks that are putting them out. So we just got our first trailer for a hotly tipped Apple series, Your Friends and Neighbors, um, starring Jon Hamm, coming from Jonathan Tropper, about a rich guy loses his job, starts robbing his neighbors to get by. Um, that, that sounds a little bit direct. I think it's a lot more arch and hysterical than that. Obviously, also Andor coming in April. Andor had a teaser of the Steve Earle song that debuted during the sssss.

• 4:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, it debuted.

• 4:07Chris Ryan?

  Did it have, like, a big debut? It came out on YouTube, but then it was shown during the Oscars. That's right.

• 4:11Andy Greenwald?

  It debuted while we were recording that show when I was in London, so we didn't talk about it that day.

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  Also, when we were recording another show.

• 4:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Chris Ryan?

  They put out the special look behind the scenes of Andor, which actually was like a different trailer.

• 4:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  And then had Tony Gilroy and, and everybody talking about the series. The studio from Apple, coming soon, was heavily marketed at the Oscars and has been, I feel like they've been pumping this more than most Apple shows.

• 4:38Andy Greenwald?

  They did an event for it and a premiere for it at South by Southwest last week, I believe.

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  Do Seth, Seth Rogen and Catherine Han, are they doing development meetings in Grand Central Station? Live?

• 4:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I love that. You think that like Apple got a really good deal on a glass box? In Midtown East and they're like, sorry, David Oyewalo is there and then no one even knows about the show he's there promoting.

• 4:58Chris Ryan?

  They should do it at Union Station in, uh, in Los Angeles. We're all great. All the Hollywood deals get made there.

• 5:03Andy Greenwald?

  We took a train once.

• 5:04Chris Ryan?

  We did. Comic Con 2013?

• 5:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, a long time ago.

• 5:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and then of course Poker Face.

• 5:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  The Natasha Lyonne anthology, not anthology series, but week to week mystery show in, in the, the style of Columbo. That's coming back for its second season. Uh, it came out, first season was January 23?

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  Which is interesting because I was about to get on here being like, it's been four calendar years.

• 5:30Chris Ryan?

  How am I supposed to even remember her name?

• 5:33Andy Greenwald?

  Face, I don't even recognize her face.

• 5:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that's coming back with an incredible cast of, um,

• 5:39Andy Greenwald?

  Guest stars.

• 5:39Chris Ryan?

  Guest stars. And that's coming back in April, I believe. May? I think it's May.

• 5:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's May.

• 5:46Chris Ryan?

  That was a trailer that just popped up on Twitter. Andy, this was your kind of like, I want to, I need to talk about these, not so much about the trailers themselves, although we can discuss them, um, but about kind of like where we're at with creating awareness around series and about promoting things.

• 6:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Well, mostly I just feel like it's interesting to see these tech companies. I don't know if you've heard the term that I invented recently, disruptors. But I feel like it's relevant here because so much of the machinery, even though Hollywood has gone through paroxysms of catastrophic slash existential change over the last few years, the, the broad strokes mechanisms of how we process stuff, how it gets promoted, how it gets covered, how it gets talked about on podcasts and distributed. A lot of that has stayed relatively stale and the same, right? And increasingly, some of the bigger services just aren't playing by any recognizable rules.

• 6:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that the reason why we wanted to talk about this wasn't just the, you know, almost self-harming time gap between seasons of shows, especially shows like Poker Face that were specifically pitched to be like, we're bringing TV back.

• 6:55Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:56Andy Greenwald?

  We're doing 70s TV.

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's more that something like a service like Apple, which has more money than anyone else, a show like Your Friends and Neighbors, which we had heard was good from people who'd worked on and people who had seen glimpses of it. Apple clearly thinks it's good.

• 7:15Chris Ryan?

  They renewed it.

• 7:16Andy Greenwald?

  They renewed it before it even premiered. And then the clock turned to March and they hadn't even dropped a trailer for it. It seemed like they were, are they disinterested in promoting it? Are they, is it unnecessary to promote it? Or are they looking at algorithms that we aren't and basically saying, we're going to flood the zone in the last two weeks to get eyeballs on it? We don't know their strategy for releasing it and we don't understand its value to them. And I feel like, so I feel like the parameters of the conversation are worth setting because it's harder for us because we want to engage with this show, especially if they're dropping it weekly. It seems really exciting. The trailer, we should say, looks awesome.

• 7:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it looks really good. I completely honestly stopped watching Midway Through because I was like, I'm sold.

• 8:03Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you were sold when Corbin Burnson was in a hot tub.

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  I was sold just because I didn't want to give away, I mean, even if, let's just say that's the first 20 minutes of the first episode is starting to get into it, as they started introducing like his kids and like more and more characters in the trailer, I was like, let me just discover this.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  So wait, are you the reason why there's no trailer? Because you don't need it?

• 8:23Chris Ryan?

  There's a difference between whether or not I need a trailer and whether or not we're giving people awareness of shows when they're coming out. Now, some of that just does not matter. I do think that we're probably at a place now where most people's...

• 8:38Chris Ryan?

  Media consumption more mirrors their inbox, their email inbox where they're probably subscribed to maybe some newsletters, or they are trying to basically like go to the thing that they want and cut out other noise.

• 8:55Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  So people aren't necessarily like, maybe they're just turning on Apple TV and they're like, well, look at that beautiful man, Jon Hamm is standing in front of me. What is this show about? That sounds interesting. I would try it. Click. Yeah. Which is not altogether different than sitting at home on a Thursday in the 90s and NBC just puts another funny face in front of you and you're just like, I will continue to watch. This is good. But the thing I think is getting lost as everything becomes so, I mean, basically like shattered down into these like million little pieces that we have in front of us, is that there's really very little of the networks

• 9:35Chris Ryan?

  themselves pumping out their chests. There isn't that like coming soon on HBO. There isn't that feeling that I know. Yeah. Cause like what I think everybody needs right now is a feeling that there is a banner under which this stuff exists that they can depend on. That was what made HBO so great. It's what makes FX so great is that I will watch this new Michelle Williams show because it's on FX. I will watch whatever HBO puts on on a Sunday night. Dying for sex. Dying for sex. Yeah. So yeah, I think that one of the things that's odd is like Andor the Studio, Poker Face and Your Friends and Neighbors, four of shows that were really, really excited

• 10:16Chris Ryan?

  to check out and watch again. Don't say anything about Peacock, Apple, Disney Plus.

• 10:24Andy Greenwald?

  I would take it a step further. Well, no, well, I won't take it a step further yet. Let's, let's engage with what you just said. It does say something about them. I think in terms of how secure they feel in their place in the firmament of the industry or the larger economic environment.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  Apple saying, as you said, we're good. We know we have something good. It's working smoothly. Jonathan Tropper, the creator who I'm hoping we'll talk to, he's been on the show before, back when he was working, when he had created, co-created Banshee, one of my favorites. He's under an overall deal. He's worked for them before. It's rolling, right? They literally will be rolling on a second season soon, in the next few months.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  That works for them, for Apple. And I think exactly is what you're saying. They're like, we have a cozy ecosystem. People are using their Apple TVs. People are buying new iPhones. They're getting free subscriptions. When they see Jon Hamm is there, and this is a brightly colored buzzy show, which does seem to be what they look for. People will find it, and they're secure in that. What that doesn't necessarily do is a lot for Jonathan Tropper, maybe, and his creative team, who worked really hard to make something that would like to be singled out and celebrated for the work that they did, as opposed to just being a useful piece of the larger corporate strategy, which is opaque to them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

• 11:42Andy Greenwald?

  I think the Andor thing is an interesting counterpoint, because, you know, there is no show we're more excited about, I think, coming this year than season two of Andor. The narrative around season one was an interesting one. It was universally celebrated by people who don't really pay that much attention to Star Wars stuff, right? People who checked in with it. There was, there were some attempts to broaden its potential audience. I think it was around Thanksgiving of the year that the show was out, that they put it on terrestrial TV. They put it on all the Disney channels to try to get people watching, and it worked in an old Hollywood sense. It was nominated for Emmys. Did it work in a, this is return on investment

• 12:24Andy Greenwald?

  for the hundreds of millions of dollars Lucasfilm spent on it on behalf of Disney? Or vice versa? I'm not sure. So what they're doing ahead of season two is interesting to me. They seem to know what they have. In that the marketing does not seem to be the marketing you would do for The Star Wars Story Continues.

• 12:42Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 12:43Andy Greenwald?

  They have Steve Earle in the trailer.

• 12:44Chris Ryan?

  And they have all the critics hosannas as like, this is the most critically acclaimed Star Wars show ever made.

• 12:50Andy Greenwald?

  And the boldest thing that they're doing behind the scenes is that the first season is now streaming for free on Hulu. So outside of the Disney plus silo, if you don't subscribe to it, but you do subscribe to Hulu, you can watch it. The first three episodes of the first season are for free on YouTube right now. So they are really trying to get people to watch it. That what that says to me is two corporations with very different mandates in terms of how they want their expensive properties to be viewed.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Andy Greenwald?

  Or imperative to get them viewed.

• 13:20Chris Ryan?

  I think it's also maybe a bet on Andor. It's like, we think that the more people that get a chance to see this, there will be uptake. They'll want to know how this story concludes.

• 13:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think there is, and this is just, look, this is, this is our Thomas Friedman. We're driving in a cab in Bangalore.

• 13:36Chris Ryan?

  How's he doing?

• 13:37Andy Greenwald?

  Type of journalism. He's mad. He's quite, quite mad.

• 13:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Andy Greenwald?

  He doesn't like the way things are going one bit.

• 13:44Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like I feel confident characterizing his attitude as that.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  Does it make a difference to the consumer? How these services are marketing themselves to us? Because just to stay within the Apple world for a second. Your Friends and Neighbors We Have Not Watched Yet, looks really good. Absolute radio silence in the forward facing media.

• 14:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Andy Greenwald?

  The studio, you and I both watched some of, and we then stopped because we didn't want to get too far ahead because we're going to be potting about it. I feel confident saying on here that I think it's awesome.

• 14:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Andy Greenwald?

  I love it.

• 14:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Andy Greenwald?

  I loved the pilot. I can't wait to watch more. It is, has the potential to, I think, not just be a hit, whatever that means, but to be an actual like industry mover or driver. Like people are excited about it. They're excited about comedy being back. They're excited about Seth Rogen taking a big creative swing. They're excited about the aesthetics of the show. And probably in a myopic way, they're excited about what it is saying or not saying about Hollywood.

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  It might be that.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  But it's better than just that, right? It is not just a navel gazing.

• 14:51Chris Ryan?

  I just think that it's a, we're gonna talk a lot about the studio. One of the things we're probably reckoning with, and we can leave this conversation here because ultimately we could do 60 minutes on it, or we can do six minutes on it, is there was a period of time where it was not uncommon, and likely our podcast is an outgrowth of this phenomenon, where people would be like, the first question you would ask somebody at a party, or at a dinner, or when you saw somebody like you hadn't seen in a minute, you'd be like, oh, what are you watching, anything good?

• 15:22Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 15:23Chris Ryan?

  And that actually meant TV, like, what TV show are you watching? Oh, we have gatherings on Sunday nights to watch Game of Thrones and Girls and Veep, or whatever, or we, everybody gets together and watches Mad Men, or we are giving each other recommendations of things that we've come across, like, oh, you gotta check out Terriers, or whatever. And I think that TV is still good, but the ceremony, the ritual, the centralization of television as like an important thing that's a part of people's lives, is probably almost like it's gone back to like where it used to be, where it was like, TV is this additional thing in my life, but I can't keep up with who has what, when, and when it's debuting.

• 16:07Chris Ryan?

  I will watch, when your friends and neighbors, when I finally do turn on my Apple TV, I will check out your friends and neighbors.

• 16:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think the other, the flip side of that, and let's go back to the navel gazing Hollywood part again, though, is the flattening effect that you're describing, I think, does matter internally within a creative industry, when it just really does feel like you're working as hard as you were before, you're pouring as much of your creative self into something, and you really are just making content widgets for a larger, unfeeling company that makes decisions at a level that you don't really understand.

• 16:41Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 16:43Andy Greenwald?

  That is just what work is now, I guess, for everybody.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Andy Greenwald?

  So this isn't some like enormous breakthrough observation. But it does, I think it does have an effect and it does have a dispiriting effect. Knowing that you were on Sunday nights on HBO used to mean a couple of things that went along with it.

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of investment in, and investment in return on investment in terms of what you put into something. It would be celebrated, it would be marketed, you would have a tangible sense of who's watching it and why, and you'd have a connection with that. That doesn't feel necessarily like the case anymore. I'm sure there are many examples.

• 17:19Chris Ryan?

  There's no such thing as a lead in anymore. There's no such thing as, as a appointment television that you, like with the exception of Sunday night HBO stuff, like where you, we want to be watching White Lotus or whatever, maybe is like, Last of Us will be a really good example of a show that I think people are urgently watching Sunday to Sunday. But I don't really feel like that. And furthermore, I mean, like with Andor, for instance, I saw Tony Gilroy was interviewed about the release schedule and he made a joke about like, it's tough for podcasters. But, you know, it is, this is a decision that was made above my head.

• 17:51Andy Greenwald?

  It is nice that we were front of mind for him.

• 17:53Chris Ryan?

  But that also is going to be something where it's like, what time does Andor release? On the Wednesdays that it comes out or the Fridays that it comes out? And like, is there any kind of, there's no ritual around tuning in for a new episode of that when there's three episodes that go up at like 6:00 PM Pacific or something.

• 18:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, let's bring it all the way full circle and talk about, I mean, this is, in that sense, this is a, maybe this is just a completely, an our problem, not a world problem. But like, Chris, do you remember, I don't want to tax your memory. I know you've had a busy year so far.

• 18:25Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I have plenty of tax money to spend now, apparently.

• 18:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do you remember, do you remember a show called Squid Game?

• 18:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Andy Greenwald?

  That was.

• 18:34Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's the funny thing. We haven't talked about Netflix at all in this whole conversation.

• 18:36Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I'm saying like, if, if we talk to people at Netflix, we talk to Belvashari, we talk to Peter Friedlander, they'd be like, Squid Game, season two is a. You know, blockbuster for us globally. It was a huge, huge success. It hit every metric we had internally. It, you know, we had, we saw significant subscriber retention or subscriber growth connected to it. There's buzz for whatever.

• 19:02Chris Ryan?

  There's activations outside of the screen that we're engaged in where there's, you know, experiences and yada, yada. Yeah.

• 19:08Andy Greenwald?

  They, they, they're probably very, very pleased inside their office.

• 19:12Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 19:14Andy Greenwald?

  We, as podcasters who watched the first episode of it when the whole thing dumped in December and we were like, okay, um, it feels a little empty, you know, it, the, the, the ritual of watching it, connecting, feeling part of something larger and having it say something, being able to say something about it, but also feeling like it was saying something about us in return. That is a potentially a very old school and disposable fantasy.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay. So that sounds all very dark.

• 19:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Well, we're talking about the industry. What else am I going to do?

• 19:42Chris Ryan?

  That same network is releasing a very, very, very compelling series this week, Adolescence, uh, with Stephen Graham and Aaron Doherty.

• 19:50Andy Greenwald?

  Stephen Graham, the hardest working man in show business.

• 19:53Chris Ryan?

  Which is like another just example of Netflix can just afford to take chances on things. And this is something I hope a lot of our viewers take a chance on. And then they also just like let Mulaney cook for an hour in primetime.

• 20:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Chris Ryan?

  Live. Now, you and I were both huge fans of Everybody's in L.A., which was John Mulaney's, uh, live show series that he did last year. This year, he is scheduled to do 12 weeks of these live shows now, starting, uh, with this one that aired.

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  Theoretically, this would be the first season potentially of, of more than one. We'll see.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I got a chance to watch some of this when I got home last night from a screening, but I know that you built your entire evening around this.

• 20:30Andy Greenwald?

  You weren't live.

• 20:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was not live. But what did you think?

• 20:33Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, I appreciate you making this segue because I think it is worth noting that Netflix's increasing investment in live events is its, its version of addressing this concern.

• 20:42Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 20:42Andy Greenwald?

  Of making it a, not just a profit driver for itself, but a sort of, you know, across all metrics and across all, uh, um, demographics, like the hub.

• 20:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:53Andy Greenwald?

  For what we watch and process and enjoy. So, um, yeah, I, Everybody's in L.A. was, you, you thought it controversial, but it was on my top 10 of last year.

• 21:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I thought that you did a little bit of rule bending with that.

• 21:06Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm still waiting for you to watch a Miyazaki movie for just talking hard truths to each other on the mic. But, okay.

• 21:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wait, I watched. Porco Rosso?

• 21:15Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 21:15Chris Ryan?

  I watched Amanda's son watch it on an iPhone, but I thought it looked pretty good.

• 21:20Andy Greenwald?

  Can you just say those words again in that order? I just, I just want to let them wash over me.

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  Me and Knox were hanging out.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:27Chris Ryan?

  And he wanted to watch planes. And so we were watching Porco Rosso.

• 21:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Chris Ryan?

  And.

• 21:33Andy Greenwald?

  That's the one about the pig pilot.

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Andy Greenwald?

  It was probably arguably one of the weaker ones.

• 21:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 21:39Andy Greenwald?

  But go on.

• 21:39Chris Ryan?

  I wouldn't know. I mean, I, I just, I have nothing to compare it to.

• 21:42Andy Greenwald?

  How, what was your milligram dosage in your jaw at that moment? Just where were you zen wise? What was your zentrus level?

• 21:50Chris Ryan?

  I was two Italian lagers in, but I thought it was great.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Italian is in spirit of Porco Rosso. The pig is Italian.

• 21:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I wanted to squeeze one more European lager in for. They become out against the law.

• 22:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. Whoa, whoa, too rich for my blood. Signore Moretti.

• 22:06Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 22:06Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 22:07Chris Ryan?

  Um, do you think there's going to be a run on Peronis tonight? To get them before they go up? If he's really, if, if Trump's really tariffing European.

• 22:17Andy Greenwald?

  I was saying this to you on the way in, like, all the stock market fluctuations doesn't affect me, but I am very exposed in the cognac space. Like, like worryingly exposed. So you joke, but I'm going to start tuning so many seasons of Stick the Landing. Be like, hey.

• 22:37Chris Ryan?

  You know what was a good ending to a show? Two Broke Girls.

• 22:40Andy Greenwald?

  It was a good ending to a show, The Watch Podcast, because. So I did plan my night around watching this.

• 22:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Andy Greenwald?

  And, look, I love, I love this conceit. I loved, he also, in this show, is basically almost like did a new mission statement for what he was doing.

• 22:57Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:57Andy Greenwald?

  Because everybody's in LA idea was like, hey, they're letting me do something crazy while the comedy festival is going on. And literally everybody is in LA, so we can have these star studded things and we can have fun and and we can build some momentum. And as he said last night, figure out how to make the show just in time to stop making the show.

• 23:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Andy Greenwald?

  So in a way it was starting again from a cold stop, but he did say that it is his opportunity to inflict his particular cultural detritus damage from his childhood on a new generation.

• 23:22Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:22Andy Greenwald?

  Um, which I do think is interesting. We are the wrong people to be talking about this, but he definitely is doing things that for us feel like, well, it's talk shows.

• 23:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, he did an entire credit sequence. That's an homage to William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A.

• 23:36Andy Greenwald?

  Still is.

• 23:37Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and he.

• 23:40Chris Ryan?

  His first guests were Joan Baez and Michael Keaton.

• 23:42Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 23:43Chris Ryan?

  Um, all I'll say about the, the first segment, I watched Mulaney's kind of like intro standup part was just that, uh, it was very reflective of this current moment in Los Angeles.

• 23:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  It was just like, we, we got fires, floods and measles, man. So like,

• 23:58Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 23:59Chris Ryan?

  It's,

• 23:59Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I, I thought two things about it. I think that he's like a generational talent and is good at almost everything. And one of the, one of the low key things that he's proved himself to be quite good at is navigating conversations. And he does do really well when there are a lot of things being thrown at him, the producer in his ear, the caller on the phone, four disparate guests on a couch, Richard Kind, like, he's very, very good at being the ringleader, which isn't always the case for people who are solo practitioners often on stage. So seeing him get good at that kind of, um, talk show stuff and the flow is really cool and really exciting. And it does create a lean in kind of experience watching it because it is, it is live. And that part alone adds this like frisson of excitement and fun to watching

• 24:42Andy Greenwald?

  it. I'll say that after one episode, what I missed most was the LA of it. There was a specificity to that.

• 24:50Chris Ryan?

  Was this not in LA?

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  It is. But as he was saying in his monologue, like Netflix did not want that conceit to continue because they, at least, maybe he was joking, but also I feel like he wasn't.

• 24:59Chris Ryan?

  He was like, people don't like LA.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Don't like LA. And he said they made another run at the focus groups after the fires.

• 25:04Chris Ryan?

  Everybody's in Seoul, Korea.

• 25:06Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the thing about, one of the things that I love, and I think there's going to be more of it. And there were some evidence of this. It's like, um,

• 25:12Chris Ryan?

  I can imagine if he was like, everybody's in the electric state and they're just like robots walking around.

• 25:18Andy Greenwald?

  And then like accidentally the camera slips behind the curtain. You see the Russo brothers lighting money on fire and laughing.

• 25:23Chris Ryan?

  All the ads are just Billy Bobby Brown's extended brand deals. Yeah.

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  God, I, did, have you talked about the electric state on the big picture?

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 25:31Andy Greenwald?

  I just feel like before we have to like, you know, pivot.

• 25:35Chris Ryan?

  Pivot to what?

• 25:36Andy Greenwald?

  To, to Avengers doomsday. I feel like you just gotta get off a couple more like Russo real talk.

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I'm coming for them later. I got something for them, uh, on the Daredevil thing.

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, nice. Okay, great. Anyway, the, um, I, I did miss.

• 25:49Chris Ryan?

  I'm still mad at you guys for ruining the adaptation of Cherry, which is a great novel.

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  You, do you think they're listening?

• 25:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 25:57Andy Greenwald?

  You think both Russo brothers stopped what they're doing to us?

• 26:00Chris Ryan?

  Anthony listens and he's like, Joe, you're not gonna believe what they said about us.

• 26:05Chris Ryan?

  Ben Stiller was on Real Ones this week.

• 26:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, he didn't say that that this on this podcast on on the Real Ones pod, but people should check it out. It's a very fun episode. Um, but he did say on a, in like an interview with Eddie Q where he was like, sometimes I listen to podcasts about Severance, but as soon as they're critical, I turn them off and never listen again. So I guess.

• 26:26Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's not coming back on?

• 26:27Chris Ryan?

  I don't think so.

• 26:28Andy Greenwald?

  Did you think I'd burn that bridge?

• 26:29Chris Ryan?

  Until we do back to Dan Amora, you know?

• 26:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 26:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Andy Greenwald?

  We could do that.

• 26:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's gonna do that?

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  I, I don't know.

• 26:36Andy Greenwald?

  Or, or is me watching multiple seasons of Severance sort of a meta show about a man in prison?

• 26:41Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 26:42Andy Greenwald?

  A trapped man. You, you know what I do appreciate? You do let me, you do let me run.

• 26:47Chris Ryan?

  I let you crash this podcast.

• 26:50Andy Greenwald?

  Like I watch, like you have your computer open. Like, do you see interview bookings dropping out of our iCal in real time?

• 26:57Chris Ryan?

  We're very popular with, with the, the community here. Yeah. I think, I honestly, I would do the same thing if I was Ben Stiller. If I heard us talking about my show.

• 27:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Chris Ryan?

  I'd be like, fuck these guys.

• 27:07Andy Greenwald?

  I still wanna get to the bottom of when he was on.

• 27:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:13Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and it was like.

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  I think, I think that that was just a miscommunication. We were told that he really loved our show.

• 27:18Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 27:19Chris Ryan?

  And it then it did not seem.

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  Real Ones.

• 27:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And see, it turns out he was waiting for Rower Beck and Roger Bell and Logan Murdock.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's fine with me.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  I, I am too.

• 27:26Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, anyway, I, all I was trying to say is.

• 27:29Chris Ryan?

  The conceit, the LA conceit and how it was less LA this time.

• 27:32Andy Greenwald?

  It did feel that way, you know? Um, he still has a great, uh, great filmmaker, great friend of our pod. Honestly, I know he, he does listen. Unlike the Russo brothers, Brooke Linder is doing all like the interstitials and the videos and the sort of man on the street stuff, which I think is really crucial to the show. I also kind of noticed, and I wonder if they're gonna address this going forward, it was much more panel than the previous shows had been. There was, it was almost entirely the panel conversation. And then there was one totally bizarre, funny bit about Willy Lomans in, um, uh, Death of a Salesman.

• 28:05Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:06Andy Greenwald?

  And then Cypress Hill performed with a, uh, orchestra and then the show was over. And there wasn't a lot of like extenuating, like in the street comedy bits or short films or tape pieces.

• 28:16Chris Ryan?

  I liked the joke he made about how he no longer does cocaine and Adderall. So he does things like this to get his heart rate up and feel alive again. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I watch so much Taylor Sheridan.

• 28:29Andy Greenwald?

  Did you talk about that on your YouTube thing? Cause I watched that. The after hours one. Yeah, I um. Here's the question I had for you. I don't know if you saw this part. Did you see when when Joan Baez came out?

• 28:40Chris Ryan?

  I did not.

• 28:41Andy Greenwald?

  It was interesting. Joan Baez is eighty four years young. You know her. Oh, Monica Barbaro from the movie you like. That was Joan Baez. I didn't know if you.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Did you ever see that?

• 28:50Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 28:51Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 28:52Andy Greenwald?

  You want you want me to see it?

• 28:53Chris Ryan?

  I do want you to see a complete unknown, yeah.

• 28:55Andy Greenwald?

  I would like to watch it in the same way that you watch Porco Rosso. Over someone's shoulder.

• 29:01Chris Ryan?

  Over a young child's shoulder?

• 29:03Andy Greenwald?

  This is Bob Dylan. Knox. Great, great man.

• 29:11Chris Ryan?

  Unlike Ben Stiller, I think Amanda does listen to this pod.

• 29:14Andy Greenwald?

  We know that Amanda listens to this pod and we're gonna be hearing about. This is just wanton use of her son as a as a conversational prop. The when Joan Baez came out. The first thing she said was. They told me this is live and you could say anything. So I do wanna say that like unelected oligarchs are destroying our country. And we're living in an insane like end of democracy times. And there definitely was a. Oh, someone just like just was just let it rip at a cocktail party?

• 29:44Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:45Andy Greenwald?

  Like it was weirdly, there was a lot of silence. And I thought it was an interesting moment. And then John Mulaney was just like, okay, then he was like, thank you for saying that, Joan. Now, I promise you. Every single person.

• 29:58Chris Ryan?

  It's good.

• 29:59Andy Greenwald?

  Every single.

• 30:01Chris Ryan?

  Been watching him for a long time.

• 30:03Andy Greenwald?

  Every single person on that stage and probably every single person working on the show and probably ninety eight percent of the audience, unless the parking attendant you had last night in Hollywood was in the audience. Agrees with her. But it was a very surreal moment of like. This is live and crazy, but there are limits to that.

• 30:20Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 30:20Andy Greenwald?

  And what we can and can't say. And I listen, I'm not. I don't want this to be like misheard as me being like. How dare John Mulaney muzzle the resistance live on television? It it was just a it was an interesting example of like what chaos is or isn't.

• 30:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 30:36Andy Greenwald?

  In one of the most bizarre times in American history.

• 30:40Chris Ryan?

  Well, I can't wait to watch it.

• 30:41Andy Greenwald?

  Joan Baez saying that and then Send Dog in a tuxedo going. Smoke weed like was. That was weirder like that.

• 30:52Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think I do this podcast because I used to just listen to Cypress Hill's Black Sunday?

• 30:58Andy Greenwald?

  In our buddy's song?

• 30:59Chris Ryan?

  What connection does that have?

• 31:01Andy Greenwald?

  I just, that is a weird like-

• 31:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, like what are the sliding doors that brought you here?

• 31:06Andy Greenwald?

  I thought, I guess maybe this is just what aging is for everybody, but like, I, I think I said this, I, I definitely said this to you. I don't think I talked about it on mic, but like, when I was in London, I went to see an incredible museum exhibit.

• 31:19Andy Greenwald?

  I did say this, right? The National Portrait Gallery about the Face Magazine.

• 31:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we talked about that.

• 31:23Andy Greenwald?

  We talked about that. And I was like, oh, so this was just life and now it's here. That's kind of what it was like seeing Cypress Hill wearing tuxedos.

• 31:31Chris Ryan?

  So seeing like a picture of Alexa Chung next to like a Francis Bacon painting?

• 31:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Life's a trip, man. I'm just gonna enjoy this cognac while I can. I'm glad the show is back and I'm very curious to see what it turns into as it goes. These things have to evolve. They can't just be, can't just do it once.

• 31:48Chris Ryan?

  Let's do, let's do Daredevil.

• 31:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  Because we can save the pit and Top Chef for the end if people are like waiting to, to get to those things. So the first three episodes of Daredevil Born Again are up.

• 32:00Andy Greenwald?

  Two went up last week. One went up this week, I believe.

• 32:03Chris Ryan?

  I believe so. Yeah. Um, one of the more labored over of the Disney plus Marvel series, and that's really fucking saying something.

• 32:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Chris Ryan?

  Some of that is like widely documented. Some of it is like, you know, superleaks.org on Twitter, it says that episode two used to have a different ending or whatever. But in any case, uh, this is usually, uh, when things are picked over, re-edited, re-shot, reorganized, new showrunner, whatever. I don't think there was a new showrunner necessarily.

• 32:34Andy Greenwald?

  There was. There a hundred percent was. Did you notice that the show says created for television by Dario Scardopane and Matt Corman and Chris Ord?

• 32:43Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah. Okay. So, uh, typically what that means is that's going to be a no from us, dog. Right? Like, uh, usually like that kind of, um,

• 32:53Andy Greenwald?

  Turmoil?

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  Bullpen by committee turmoil, re-edits, reshoots. Nobody knows what we want here. And I think that I completely understand if you watch those, these first few Daredevil episodes and that's your takeaway. I think what I weirdly, I wouldn't say loved, but liked quite a bit about these first three episodes.

• 33:12Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 33:13Chris Ryan?

  Was that somehow, some way, in this crazy world of ours, they have a show with a POV. And they have a show with like a feel and a vibe and a tone.

• 33:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  And that show is probably the show that they had eight years ago, or six years ago.

• 33:29Andy Greenwald?

  It kinda was.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, on Netflix.

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  The Netflix show.

• 33:31Chris Ryan?

  But I will tell you this, just to get the ball rolling.

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 33:35Chris Ryan?

  The first 15 minutes of this first episode are the best fucking thing Marvel has done in years. Like, seriously. And I know that it's a divisive sequence where some people feel like it's just way too chaotic or poorly shot or poorly executed. Benson and Morehead did it, um, where, and those guys have done some other Marvel stuff, but have also made a series of really, really striking independent sci-fi movies. Um, and I, I'm here to tell you, I think these guys should be the Russo brothers. I think that these guys have just enough of a unique feel and vision for these worlds. Now, they also did stuff on Moon Knight, which we did not care for as much.

• 34:16Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 34:16Chris Ryan?

  But this opening sequence is so weird and vibey. And I was like, I, I actually had to like check that I was actually watching the right thing. You know, when they're having like a huge, like a get together at a New York City bar. That actually kind of felt like a New York City bar for five minutes. And then there is a blindingly violent confrontation between Daredevil and Bullseye. Um, and it's just, it felt live, it felt electric. A lot of this stuff feels like guys walking into a room and reading the latest rewrites off of a cue card and then getting stitched together with something they shoot six months later.

• 34:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 34:55Chris Ryan?

  To stitch together with like whatever the end of the show is gonna be. There was a feeling of like. I don't know, it felt like organic material for a little while here. Now, it goes into being a pretty straightforward, uh, urban crime drama, which I'm not allergic to at all, but a lot of like, ah, so your girlfriend is also the couples counselor of Kingpin.

• 35:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's just rom com. That's, that's just a hilarious premise.

• 35:25Chris Ryan?

  I'd like a lot of the actors, uh, so far I, I've, I've, despite myself, I mean, despite my cynicism about this entire project at this point being Marvel. I thought it was pretty good.

• 35:37Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's pretty good too. And I was pretty surprised that I thought it was pretty good for all the reasons you said. I, I think that one thing that is impressive is that on some level, this might be the, one of the more expensive examples of corporate humility that we have on record. So 10 years ago, Marvel Television was a separate entity from Kevin Feige's MCU stuff. And if you really want the nitty gritty of this, our friend and colleague Joanna Robinson's book MCU lays this all out. And they made the show, they made a series of shows for Netflix. One of them was Daredevil with Charlie Cox.

• 36:13Chris Ryan?

  Jessica Jones and yeah.

• 36:14Andy Greenwald?

  And I'll say they, they were a varying degrees of quality. Daredevil was really, really good at the beginning and then settled into being pretty good. Jessica Jones, similarly, and Luke Cage, they were all pretty good and no one talks about Iron Fist.

• 36:27Andy Greenwald?

  The one thing that you can definitely say, whether you love the shows or dislike the shows, is that they were TV shows. They were made in a traditional American television manufacturing way with a showrunner, writer's room, making a season of television. And they were, I think fans thought they were successful and I think Netflix thought they were pretty successful. When the streams merged and Kevin Feige got control over the entire organization, just in time for Disney to build a streaming service, the mandate changed completely. They weren't going to make television shows. They were making MCU extensions on the small screen. And their process mirrored that.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  And we've heard stories, um, that are, you know, funny, quirky, surprising, challenging, infuriating, off the record or behind the scenes about how some of these shows got put together. Sometimes the results were surprisingly decent to very good, like WandaVision or Loki. Other times they were.

• 37:27Chris Ryan?

  Secret Invasion.

• 37:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, or Hawkeye, or any of these other shows that just didn't.

• 37:30Chris Ryan?

  Hawkeye, honestly, in retrospect, now, seems to be good.

• 37:34Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it had moments.

• 37:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Andy Greenwald?

  But it wasn't.

• 37:36Chris Ryan?

  But it's crazy to watch Daredevil and have a reference to something that happens towards the back end of Hawkeye. I just admire the way that Daredevil is like, if you've seen that, it works. If not, you don't need to worry about it.

• 37:48Andy Greenwald?

  But all this was my way of saying that they did admit that going, that they had stumbled creatively in TV and that they would now let showrunners make TV shows. And this version of Daredevil was initially a plan to be like, the way all the other networks and streamers are doing it, being like, we're bringing TV all the way back. We're making a 15 or 18-episode season of this show. And then they weren't happy with the results. And then they brought in, um, Dario Scarpapone, who I mentioned, who'd worked on, uh, The Bridge. And I believe he worked on The Punisher series that they did for Netflix as well. And they reconfigured it. But, um, regardless, there is a clear, clear point of view here. There is a reason for these characters to be existing in relationship to each other.

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  One of the hallmarks of the Marvel stuff that we got really down on was that you could kind of see the broad strokes of what a show could be. Um, and then it just completely forgot that, either due to rewrites or due to larger top-down mandates of, "We love what you're doing here, but we really need to introduce Florence Pugh."

• 38:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  And introducing Florence Pugh in the television show Hawkeye, uh, that was the best scene in that series.

• 38:53Chris Ryan?

  I forgot that she shows up.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  But the series itself made no sense with that other interesting thing carved out of it, like melon ball right out of the middle of it. Um, this show is like, I mean, Daredevil is the character for this. Daredevil, uh, you, I know you don't love, canonically, not your favorite character.

• 39:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I just, I just haven't really spent a ton of time reading stuff about him, or reading his, his books.

• 39:14Andy Greenwald?

  Daredevil is the one that is like the most specific. It's a certain part of a certain area of, of New York and it, and these types, and it has legal drama stuff. But also has these sort of like grand Catholic tragedy, broad, uh, storytelling stuff that, that draws a lot of interesting creative people, writers and artists to it. And with this show, like, it's, it feels really like basic to say this, but when you watch. The show, you're like, ah, Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk are both men trying to change. And they are at opposite ends of this. Okay, that's, you could build something from that, right? And you could just build a TV show around it. And it has a narrative propulsion that works. So I'm curious what you thought of having watched three episodes. The first, everything we understand about, they'll never talk publicly about what they did or didn't keep.

• 39:59Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the understanding I had, I was sort of joking the other week when I said they were making She-Hulk again. But I do think that the mandate was to make a legal thriller.

• 40:08Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 40:09Andy Greenwald?

  Um, not a superhero show. And that they got pushed back from the stars, they got pushed back from focus groups, they got pushed back all over the place. So from what I understand, that opening sequence where Matt Murdock is very much Daredevil was added.

• 40:23Chris Ryan?

  I see.

• 40:24Andy Greenwald?

  And that some of the legal stuff that we then see later.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  So this is supposed to be a show about how this guy's trying to get out from under the identity of this vigilante hero and just being a normal lawyer.

• 40:34Andy Greenwald?

  Right, just like Wilson Fisk wants to just be a normal mayor.

• 40:37Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 40:37Andy Greenwald?

  Um, which New York is famous for having.

• 40:39Chris Ryan?

  We're just normal mayors.

• 40:40Andy Greenwald?

  Just normal mayor after normal mayor, definitely not criminals. Uh, so what did you feel about that shift? Cause you were drawn in by, and I agree, like.

• 40:50Chris Ryan?

  I was drawn in by the violence, yeah.

• 40:51Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it is super violent, but it is violent in a way that is, you know, they're, they're in the spirit of that famous scene in the third episode of the first season of Daredevil.

• 41:00Chris Ryan?

  The six minute one-er of like them just beating ass in the hallway, yeah.

• 41:03Andy Greenwald?

  There, there's a brutality to it and an almost awkwardness to the way the violence is filmed. And it is setting an aesthetic, it has an aesthetic point of view.

• 41:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I don't know.

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  I guess like I'll have to see much more of it to understand whether or not that first episode is an outlier. As it is, stands now. I think it's fine. I think there are parts of it that look like they were stapled in. Or like late additions. For instance, there's a, uh, action scene in a subway tunnel where a character gets hit by a subway train and it really looks like Dan Aykroyd's Nothing But Trouble. Kind of like it, it's pretty poor. But there are parts of it that I find to be like really, really pretty compelling. I, I, against my own better judgment. Despite how on the nose it is to have a former criminal who just tells it like it is

• 41:59Chris Ryan?

  become a political sensation, I do kind of enjoy the Fisk bear stuff and especially Michael Gandolfini.

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, so I was gonna call out too.

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  So I just, I just saw Michael Gandolfini in a really, really cool movie the other night and uh, it's really awesome to see him emerge as like a performer and he plays essentially an aide to camp in Wilson Fisk's uh, Merrill office who is kind of, he's a little bit bannity, you know, he's like pushing him.

• 42:29Andy Greenwald?

  He's a true believer.

• 42:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but he's like, if you get Staten Island, you don't need Manhattan, like this kind of like, you know, like speak, speak to the populist.

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  Speak to your voters.

• 42:38Chris Ryan?

  Impulses and um, yeah, like I kind of enjoy, I, I, I usually am like not feeling Donofrio's performance as Kingpin, but I kinda like him as Fisk.

• 42:49Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's right. I, I, I was ready to, to just kind of have an allergic reaction to him doing this because it is full of ticks and bits and, and, and performance. But honestly, I don't mind a special effect being a human being trying something.

• 43:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Andy Greenwald?

  As opposed to the green screen of a, a train going by or of a city, you know, a, a city being dropped on the planet or whatever. Like this is, it's working for me within the confines of the show. I think that it, what I appreciate about it is like, it's sort of hard to make something be the best version of what it is. And the best version of Daredevil comics do pay attention to the ground level stuff that's going on around the law offices of Murdoch and Nelson or what Fisk is doing when he's not beating people to a pulp. Like it, it is a little bit more grounded. I recently, um, I, I don't know if we've ever, if there's a comic we've mentioned more on this podcast, but there was a, a run of Hawkeye that I loved. Matt Fraction and David Ia were the creators of it. And um,

• 43:50Andy Greenwald?

  my daughter was looking through the, I have the little hardcover of it. My daughter was looking at it primarily because I told her there was an issue that's entirely from the perspective of a dog, which there was. Um, and after a couple of those Italian lagers hit, it makes perfect sense. Um, the, one of the things that I love most that I'd forgotten about this comic is the first page of it. It says, and I'm paraphrasing, I wish I, I should have had this prepared. It basically says, Hawkeye is a member of the Avengers. This is what happens when he is not doing that. That's all you need to know. And that's what the Hawkeye show should have been. It did adapt elements of it, like the tracksuit mafia and meeting the younger, the female Hawkeye, Kate, all that. But then it also had to address the blip and it had to address the Steve Rogers musical and Florence. It was just too many things.

• 44:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  This is a show about a MCU character who isn't in the Avengers and what he does. And they were incapable of or uninterested in telling those stories up to now. And I think it's just a much more modest, even though clearly bloated and expensive um, uh, production.

• 44:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I think also when you're gonna have, weirdly, violence on the level that they have it on, which is extreme.

• 45:02Andy Greenwald?

  It's pretty violent.

• 45:03Chris Ryan?

  It's pretty extreme. You can also push the drama out a little bit further because

• 45:08Andy Greenwald?

  There are stakes.

• 45:09Chris Ryan?

  Either people are there for it or they're not. And so having a really vanilla drama.

• 45:14Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:14Chris Ryan?

  Like you can, and they, and I don't know whether this is a consequence of all the recutting and reshooting, but like they are doing away with characters. Like, nobody is really safe on this show, which kind of gives their, there's an element of danger to every interaction.

• 45:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because, and you know, maybe for the purposes of our conversation, the best way to frame that is to say, I think for the first time, there wasn't a Marvel executive in the writer's room leaning over and saying, actually, we, we need her for, for Secret Wars.

• 45:42Chris Ryan?

  Right, right.

• 45:42Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry.

• 45:43Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 45:43Andy Greenwald?

  Um, which from what we understand was the case in nearly every other Marvel TV production.

• 45:48Chris Ryan?

  Evidently Foggy will not be in Avengers Doomsday.

• 45:51Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no, he'll be in this, he'll be in Secret Wars. He's back, everybody's back for Secret Wars. Um, I mean, there are crazy things like, like Camarillo Reyes, who plays White Tiger. Uh, the actor passed away two years ago.

• 46:06Andy Greenwald?

  And is fully on this show.

• 46:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:08Andy Greenwald?

  Um, so this is quite a long production. Um, all those scenes and I think a lot of that whole storyline were, were shot before the writer's strike.

• 46:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:18Andy Greenwald?

  Before they reconfigured.

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's also like, you have to, I believe this is going to be two nine-episode seasons.

• 46:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, they split it into two seasons.

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  Um, and it was initially at one point going to be a week-to-week procedural that was gonna run for like 18 episodes.

• 46:31Andy Greenwald?

  It was a long, it was gonna be a long season of TV.

• 46:33Chris Ryan?

  Burnthall is obviously going to be in this show as Punisher. We've got a subplot of dirty cops who all seem to have Punisher tats.

• 46:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:43Chris Ryan?

  It's up to that.

• 46:44Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. This is, the show does stake out some interesting terrain, which all police on screen, other than the retired Clark Johnson, are like, gangsters?

• 46:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's bold.

• 46:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Andy Greenwald?

  And the mayor of New York's a criminal. I guess the show, Marvel's not, not too scared anymore.

• 47:00Chris Ryan?

  That's the thing is I do feel like there's a degree of, uh, maybe not fearlessness, but like to your point, a lot of the, whatever is gonna happen with this show, I feel like it's gonna keep going in the direction of kind of being grimy, cause I don't really know how you would pull out of the spin at this point. With a lot of these other series, you just feel like, oh, all of a sudden, this became a Christmas show, or all of a sudden, this became about family, or all of a sudden, this became about raising the next generation of heroes, right? And that's not what this is, which is just a nice anecdote. I mean, I'm not saying one is better than the other.

• 47:31Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, but fundamentally, and there's an audience for this, but the Marvel TV shows were about Marvel and the larger Marvel construction and plan. And this is a show, whether you like, you can like it or you can dislike it, but it is about these characters in this place. Um, like I, I, it, it's interesting that we're both sort of like, we both netted out kind of in a similar place. Like, I, I kinda dig it. Like, the, the scene, I think it's in the second episode, um, when Murdock and Fisk meet at a diner.

• 48:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Andy Greenwald?

  Of all of the you and I, we're not so, we're not, we're not so different you and I scenes

• 48:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Andy Greenwald?

  That we've watched over the last 15 years, this was up there. Didn't bother me. You know, there was a nice sense of the moment.

• 48:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's two guys who missed the juice. You know what I mean? Two guys who just missed nights out.

• 48:17Andy Greenwald?

  They should watch Taylor Sheridan shows. Do you think that would help them sort of turn the page?

• 48:21Chris Ryan?

  They should do a live Daredevil.

• 48:23Andy Greenwald?

  In their night, oh yeah.

• 48:24Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay. So we're, we're like passively into this.

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that the show is an honest reflection, not just of vigilantism, but of, um, vlogging as journalism in modern day New York?

• 48:36Chris Ryan?

  That is the one part of the show where I'm like, they needed, they had to go back and do this. To like be expository dumps about like what's going on at any given point.

• 48:44Andy Greenwald?

  That doesn't bother me. So, so what we're talking about is that there's the character, that the canonical character of Spider-Man and Daredevil is a journalist named, um, Ben Urick. I don't remember if they dispensed of him in the Netflix show, but the character who is Bebe Urick, who is his niece, is, has upgraded her uncle.

• 49:00Chris Ryan?

  Picked up the, the family mantle of journalism.

• 49:02Andy Greenwald?

  But now, you know, just doing it with a, with a cell phone and a, and a beating heart questing for truth.

• 49:06Chris Ryan?

  I wish it was Side Talk, you know, I wish it was.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Can you imagine? Bing bong, Kingpin's back.

• 49:15Andy Greenwald?

  Fuck Trey Young! That would be so good.

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Trey Young exists in the, in the Hell's Kitchen Marvel verse?

• 49:21Andy Greenwald?

  I think he's going to be revealed as the big bad at the end of this season.

• 49:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Andy Greenwald?

  Of Daredevil, the person they hate the most.

• 49:26Chris Ryan?

  Those aren't Punisher tattoos, those are Trey Young tattoos.

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, the, the, so the, the Bebe Urick character is a character who like gets let in by Michael Gandolfini into talking to the mayor and, and you know, and, and she's like, but he was acquitted by a jury. Like that is a little bit.

• 49:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 49:44Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, soft. But the interstitials that the character is supposedly filming, which is just like man or woman on the street.

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  Not bad.

• 49:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's kind of fun.

• 49:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Andy Greenwald?

  Because they clearly did just go out and find people to say stuff that, you know, that's relevant. And, and I appreciate that. For as phony as most shows are about New York, especially when they're, especially when they're the superhero version where they're like, ah, this town, we come together against aliens. You hear that, Thanos? Like, this is a little bit more.

• 50:12Chris Ryan?

  They should get the guy from Side Talk who's like, I got a Subaru Forester so strippers can give me shape ups in the back.

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  We should have someone.

• 50:21Chris Ryan?

  He might be my favorite.

• 50:21Andy Greenwald?

  What about the, what about the guy who would like they go to Coney Island? He's just sort of like.

• 50:25Chris Ryan?

  Talking about glizzies.

• 50:26Andy Greenwald?

  He's just talking about Joey Byron versus Wilson Fisk. Like who's a better leader? These ideas are free.

• 50:34Chris Ryan?

  What's up with the, this is a very granular question. In the first fight sequence.

• 50:40Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 50:41Chris Ryan?

  Bullseye throws like 40 knives into Daredevil.

• 50:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Chris Ryan?

  What's up with that? A, is he not actually Bullseye and not hitting his target?

• 50:49Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 50:50Chris Ryan?

  B, what kind of suit did Daredevil have that just was knife resistant?

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  It wasn't. That was the thing.

• 50:55Chris Ryan?

  So he got stabbed like 40 times?

• 50:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, I would retire too.

• 51:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Chris Ryan?

  It's like Tiger rupturing his Achilles. You know?

• 51:03Andy Greenwald?

  You're done. When you're done, you're done.

• 51:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Andy Greenwald?

  I was thought you were gonna be like, cause the other thing that the, that the show did in the beginning. Daredevil was also like, he's Daredevil, but he's a little bit Spider-Man. You know what I mean? He was just like.

• 51:15Chris Ryan?

  What's up? Was he always like so?

• 51:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like web swinging with his little bolo clubs?

• 51:19Chris Ryan?

  I thought maybe also like Daredevil can always hear really well, right?

• 51:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Chris Ryan?

  But like.

• 51:26Chris Ryan?

  What happens if Daredevil puts AirPods in? And he can only hear Ezra Klein, you know, like what happens if he's like?

• 51:31Andy Greenwald?

  Noise cancelling.

• 51:32Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 51:33Andy Greenwald?

  Well, if you only.

• 51:34Chris Ryan?

  Does he just miss out on mad crimes? Yeah. Except for the one that matters?

• 51:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, exactly. Cause what he's focused on is how Democrats could run on a growth agenda. He's like, this will actually deal with all the problems, the sinkholes, the mayor. By the way, emphasis on Karen. Okay?

• 51:51Chris Ryan?

  This is some of our best work in a while.

• 51:52Andy Greenwald?

  The kitchen. The kitchen. Um, yeah, I think the consistency.

• 51:56Chris Ryan?

  Still, he's in shambles right now. I can't believe these guys love Daredevil.

• 51:59Andy Greenwald?

  Damn it. Why didn't I put side talk in Keer?

• 52:04Andy Greenwald?

  Bing bong, Lumen. Can you imagine?

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  Cold harbor.

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, what are we doing?

• 52:11Andy Greenwald?

  Do you feel like Matt Murdock's blindness is consistently expressed on the show?

• 52:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Why? Do you feel like sometimes like it's Stevie Wonder? Like sometimes you can see?

• 52:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, because he fucking can, right? But he can't say, well, he can't, but he can, he can.

• 52:29Chris Ryan?

  What do you, what do you mean?

• 52:30Andy Greenwald?

  What? Do you think I'm scared to say it? I've been muzzled?

• 52:33Chris Ryan?

  No, but is he like, I got infrared or is he?

• 52:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's got infrared, sonar, all of his senses. So that's why he can, you know, be in a fight with Bullseye in a narrow staircase and not miss a step.

• 52:44Chris Ryan?

  When he fucks those cops up, it's really cool. He's like, oh no, please don't. And he's just like, I'm gonna bust you guys up.

• 52:49Andy Greenwald?

  Careful.

• 52:49Chris Ryan?

  No, it's a good scene.

• 52:51Andy Greenwald?

  When you want, when he's rising up against the blue?

• 52:53Chris Ryan?

  Well, the cop who keeps getting his ass kicked too.

• 52:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  Is well cast. Like they're, they have a good eye for like the, the secondary characters. Like they've done, they got a lot of like really like authentic faces.

• 53:05Andy Greenwald?

  If you ever.

• 53:05Chris Ryan?

  Shout out to also, uh, Margarita La Via.

• 53:10Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, we love her.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 53:11Andy Greenwald?

  From the deuce.

• 53:12Chris Ryan?

  From the deuce as Heather.

• 53:14Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:14Chris Ryan?

  Matt's.

• 53:15Andy Greenwald?

  Paramore?

• 53:16Chris Ryan?

  Paramore, yeah.

• 53:17Andy Greenwald?

  Slash Wilson Fisk's couples therapist?

• 53:19Chris Ryan?

  Couples therapist.

• 53:20Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool. Look, let's keep talking. I think we should keep talking about the show because I think it, it tackles a lot of our interesting, no.

• 53:26Chris Ryan?

  In general, yeah, I'll, I'll keep talking about it. I don't know if I want to do it like every episode, like let's get into the.

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, coward. You're afraid of like the big ideas the show is suggesting about how to run a city.

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  Oh, we gotta talk about Top Chef went to the six. We gotta do that. But I, let's do the pit first. Let's stay on narrative television.

• 53:43Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 53:43Chris Ryan?

  Before we get into reality.

• 53:44Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 53:46Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to say anything else about Daredevil before I move on?

• 53:48Andy Greenwald?

  I want to say so many things, but I'm just warming up. No, we're good. I'm, I'm gonna keep watching.

• 53:53Chris Ryan?

  The pit.

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. This is really my favorite show.

• 53:58Chris Ryan?

  I don't have children.

• 54:00Chris Ryan?

  That was, that was about as vivid of a childbirth experience as I've ever seen in my life.

• 54:05Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  I gotta be completely honest with you, man. I did, I did watch some of that through, through like the hand over my eyes.

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  All right. So, so did I.

• 54:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's okay. And I have, I have been a hashtag ally.

• 54:18Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:18Andy Greenwald?

  Through at least two live births.

• 54:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Andy Greenwald?

  Um, at least, you know, I don't want to. Don't want to put a cap on greatness, you know what I mean? Um, I also, you know, want to be careful how we talk about this because like there, there is a reason, I think, why

• 54:35Chris Ryan?

  I have a reason why I brought this up.

• 54:37Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no, I do too. But I, I think that generally, like, the actual sometimes violence and intensity and of human childbirth, like, is important

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  to demonstrate and show and the risks. Um, and I'm, I'm, I'm all for that. I, so what I would like to say is, because I also did struggle with watching uh, aspects of the scene, but, but I want to say, I want to be clear because I want to be consistent. I think sometimes people listen to the podcast and they're like, your arguments are inconsistent. And to you, I say, sir, no.

• 55:05Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Stiller.

• 55:06Andy Greenwald?

  Mr. Stiller, how dare you? Bing bong, sir. Bing bong. Um, I would like to just say that I have a blanket. Um, a blanket, uh, um, discomfort

• 55:19Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:19Andy Greenwald?

  with anyone's body being put into anyone else's body. Doesn't have to be a woman giving childbirth.

• 55:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, I got you.

• 55:27Andy Greenwald?

  Within the body cavity.

• 55:28Chris Ryan?

  Even Han, Han Sol putting Luke inside of a tauntaun.

• 55:31Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. Other than like some extremely tasteful European pornography, you know, like that, that's where I, you know, and not the German stuff. I'm just saying, like, that's where I draw the line. So that's just what I bring into the show. You know?

• 55:45Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  You want to say anything? Are you?

• 55:47Chris Ryan?

  I was gonna say that the reason why I brought this scene up first, uh, and I can't remember what time of day it is on, on the pit or what episode we're on here. Is this 12?

• 55:55Andy Greenwald?

  11.

• 55:56Chris Ryan?

  11?

• 55:57Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:57Chris Ryan?

  Um, this was a, a sequence in which a woman comes in, she is the surrogate for uh, several of her colleagues, uh, her gay male colleagues who have, who, who are having a child. It's a lovely uh, snapshot of what real community can look like.

• 56:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Chris Ryan?

  And then it is a, uh, cascading series of tra- near tragedies.

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 56:22Chris Ryan?

  First, uh, it takes a long time, like there's some complications with the delivery. When the child comes out, its heart rate is very low and they have to do some emergency services to get the kid

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  Breathing.

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Breathing. Um, I was terrified for

• 56:38Chris Ryan?

  Our important angel, Dr. Melissa King, and that she would not be overseeing that. And then on top of that, the amount of blood loss that happens with the mother requires there to be emergency surgery there. So of like just a harrowing 10 minutes, 15 minutes of of screen time where it was one of those few times where I think because of the extremity of what we were seeing. I was like, I almost feel a bit manipulated by this show. Like this is, this is a bit of like a super tornado hitting this emergency room at this point.

• 57:10Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredibly stressful.

• 57:11Chris Ryan?

  And I, and I already can see the inbox and people being like, actually, this happens all the time. I understand that. Yeah.

• 57:16Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, I think we're, you're not talking about it on a human level. You're talking about it also in a story architecture level.

• 57:21Chris Ryan?

  That's what I'm talking.

• 57:22Andy Greenwald?

  And one of the things that really impressed me about this episode was, well, take one step further back, like there's a version of the show that I think is effective that isn't nearly as good or isn't nearly as smart. Just by the nature of it being a fast paced, frenetic, hour by hour, real time emergency room, you're going to just almost stumble into gripping stories and moments of distress and anguish and celebration.

• 57:49Chris Ryan?

  It's pure drama. Yeah.

• 57:50Andy Greenwald?

  But, but what they have done in terms of the larger story scaffolding amidst the, the minute to minute insanity is really, really impressive and worth calling out. So you, you began by saying that you were child free. The two episodes ago, when there was the sisters in the pool in an episode that I can't even talk about anymore.

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  I could barely watch that.

• 58:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Andy Greenwald?

  To pull back, like writer's room brain, like they played a very strong card there.

• 58:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Andy Greenwald?

  That figures into the decision making on the creative side and on our investment as an audience too. And so we are scarred and we are leaning in, but we're also like, they can't do it to us again, can they? And then also this is show is trying to address some version of reality and probability, and they could do it to us again. All of that is at play here. And what I found even more impressive was not only the way that they balanced that, they gave us the quite literally almost heart stopping moment when we thought someone was going to, that there was going to be someone not making it out of this, this room alive. But that you could pull back and have all of this play on Dr. Collins, on Heather, on her storyline and allow, and, and build it so that her moment of honesty about what happened

• 59:02Andy Greenwald?

  with her miscarriage. Comes together with Robbie in a moment, two moments of honesty. And the second one, built on the back of this intensity that we just experienced. And it's a beautiful earned character moment. The kind of earned character moment that has to be manipulated to get to when it's all supposedly one day. I was very impressed how it all came together.

• 59:24Chris Ryan?

  This is probably, at the end of the day, this is probably my favorite show that's currently on TV.

• 59:30Andy Greenwald?

  Me too, me too.

• 59:32Chris Ryan?

  I think I'm probably also commenting on the child's birth sequence more because of how the episode ends, which brings home a long speculated eventuality that we, we had kind of teased that we, we had not watched ahead. I don't watch ahead on this show.

• 59:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 59:48Chris Ryan?

  But they had been making such hay about Pitfest for such a long time.

• 59:54Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  And we've got, you know, at least one incel roaming the streets of Pittsburgh.

• 59:59Andy Greenwald?

  Now, will this be the same story?

• 1:00:01Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. But obviously, there's a mass shooting incident at this music festival. And that's the cliffhanger that this episode ends with. And Jake, Robbie's, you know, mentor's kid, is that right?

• 1:00:11Andy Greenwald?

  I believe that's right.

• 1:00:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, is at the Pitfest and Robbie was supposed to have been there.

• 1:00:16Andy Greenwald?

  I would say also, again, like, the show knew what it was doing. Because the feelings of dread and inevitability that were present early in the season and then kind of quieted as we got distracted by more immediate concerns, like, is this person going to bleed out in front of us in this scene? Was orchestrated just to perfection. This episode was filled with equal amounts of looming dread that what happens or what's suggested at the end of the episode was coming or was just around the corner. But also, some real moments of, like, the Collins-Robbie scene, like, some moments of really beautifully staged and earned.

• 1:01:00Chris Ryan?

  And the Robbie Dana scene.

• 1:01:01Andy Greenwald?

  The Robbie Dana scene. Like, all of this is, these are, these are, these are cashing checks that were written in hour one. And it's being done so skillfully, you know, in an episode, we're talking about episode 11. Most TV shows don't make this many episodes anymore, let alone at this degree of difficulty or with this.

• 1:01:19Chris Ryan?

  Also this degree of intensity, yeah, right. Um, I want to talk to you a little bit about the continuation of the Langdon plot, which. You know, this episode picks up literally the second after the last episode ends and the previous episode, Dr. Langdon, who had been one of the main characters of the season, is abruptly dismissed for stealing medication from-

• 1:01:42Andy Greenwald?

  Louis' librium.

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and he has been weaning himself off some painkillers and muscle relaxants-

• 1:01:46Andy Greenwald?

  So he says-

• 1:01:47Chris Ryan?

  From a back injury.

• 1:01:51Chris Ryan?

  You know, Dr. Rubenovich takes the stolen drugs from Langdon's blocker. He alerts Dana to the extent that he's like doing audit of the medicine that he has stolen. But he, you know-

• 1:02:06Andy Greenwald?

  That he's prescribed.

• 1:02:07Chris Ryan?

  That he's prescribed. And then at one scene, early in the episode, as things are really starting to intensify, they're obviously short-staffed, there are fireworks going off everywhere in the emergency room, Robbie goes into the bathroom to take a leak and it seems like he is about to maybe take a librium himself.

• 1:02:27Andy Greenwald?

  He takes one out of the plastic bag, puts it in his pocket-

• 1:02:30Chris Ryan?

  It's-

• 1:02:31Andy Greenwald?

  Separate from the ones that he then returns to Louis.

• 1:02:33Chris Ryan?

  I read it as he thought about it, heard the person in the stall next to him, thought better of it, goes to the sink and washes his face, does not take one.

• 1:02:43Andy Greenwald?

  And goes to watch Taylor Sheridan shows instead, to just get the same effect, take the edge off.

• 1:02:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was a big question mark in the episode. In a way, it's kind of interesting. Maybe we're making, maybe it's not as subtle as we're making it out to be, but if, you know, if there are any criticisms of the show, it has at times been a little didactic and a little like expository.

• 1:03:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes, it's very literal.

• 1:03:07Andy Greenwald?

  Like the Greek chorus of nurses being like, "Did you know violence against nurses is..." So this scene being underplayed-

• 1:03:13Chris Ryan?

  This episode's version of that was the long discussion about people who are addicted to opioids doing medication, seeking medication and how they go about doing it.

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  And how they might actually be employed and be, yes. The, so this was remarkably subtle for a show that doesn't really traffic in subtlety. There's also a way to look at this that feels of a piece with the inevitable whatever was going to come to pitfest coming, in the sense that when the show premiered, there was-

• 1:03:44Andy Greenwald?

  One of the things that was underlined was that A, being a doctor in the ER is potentially mentally devastating. That you remember, the show begins with Robbie meeting, taking over for his colleague who's standing on the roof. This is flagged as an anniversary of the worst day of Robbie's life. So the sense that he has had some darkness is there and that there's more darkness to come. He is also on, there are also different ways, some intentional, some unintentional, some conscious, subconscious ways of crashing your own car. And one of them might be telling everyone who you know, trust and is capable and who cares about you to leave.

• 1:04:28Andy Greenwald?

  Now, there's reasons why he did, especially with Langdon and certainly it's empathetic with Collins being like, this is the end of the day and you've clearly been through enough.

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  I hope for the sake of the ER that Collins has not yet punched out.

• 1:04:40Andy Greenwald?

  Or, because the one thing that was one thing too many where he was like, turn off your phone.

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, yes.

• 1:04:48Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe he meant, put your phone on personal, do not disturb, but make sure I'm one of your.

• 1:04:54Chris Ryan?

  I don't have those distinctions.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  You just put do not disturb or do not?

• 1:04:57Chris Ryan?

  I rarely put it on do not disturb.

• 1:04:59Andy Greenwald?

  I put it on personal every night with just like a few key, key numbers can get through. Like my parents were in an emergency.

• 1:05:10Andy Greenwald?

  You know, Sean, Amanda, if they want to like give us any feedback on the podcast.

• 1:05:14Chris Ryan?

  What about me?

• 1:05:15Andy Greenwald?

  I just check in with you when I wake up, as you know. But you definitely, when I wake up at like six in the morning and I'm just full of takes. Not only are you not awake, I know that you're not awake.

• 1:05:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Andy Greenwald?

  Cause you brag sometimes about being like, wow, it was eight o'clock when I woke up. There's no indication whether your phone is on, off, near you.

• 1:05:34Chris Ryan?

  It's near me, but it's not, it's not being looked at until my peepers open.

• 1:05:38Andy Greenwald?

  But what if it starts buzzing with NFL free agency gossip from me?

• 1:05:43Chris Ryan?

  I have it face down, so it doesn't buzz. I think it's on like silent when it does that.

• 1:05:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:05:49Chris Ryan?

  I have a real problem looking at my phone first thing in the morning as soon as I open eyes. I wish I had it in another room. I wish I greeted the day with serenity and positivity.

• 1:05:58Andy Greenwald?

  You're not excited to see what's going on since you, since you lay down at night? Things are pretty cool, pretty consistent, pretty steady ship right now.

• 1:06:07Chris Ryan?

  I just admire this show so much. The Santos plotline, I think, is one that has been debated by viewers, by audiences about like, is she needlessly antagonistic just to give this situation any kind of internal drama? But I think that the example, her doing morally the right thing, while professionally perhaps the wrong thing, for her own professional prospects and how everybody is pretty much abandoning her and even the people who are trying to reach out to her, she rejects like Mel, is like very well done.

• 1:06:46Andy Greenwald?

  I also think that it's worth exploring and maybe even exploring more in future seasons that there, I mean, what Robbie does, has done already on this day is, he could be in the Avengers, like in one day.

• 1:07:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:07:02Andy Greenwald?

  Exploring that there might be some ego and adrenaline attached to that within some people who choose this is worth pursuing.

• 1:07:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Love the show. Let's talk about Top Chef.

• 1:07:13Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, last thing about this, because you mentioned this to me, do you feel, do you feel like Dr. McKay might need to pump the brakes a little bit?

• 1:07:20Chris Ryan?

  She's on the edge.

• 1:07:21Andy Greenwald?

  She's.

• 1:07:22Chris Ryan?

  She's on the edge.

• 1:07:23Andy Greenwald?

  She's crusading.

• 1:07:24Chris Ryan?

  I mean, when you think about it, it's a tough collision when everybody who comes into the emergency room, this is likely one of the worst days of their life.

• 1:07:34Andy Greenwald?

  Although, on this show, they remain very chatty.

• 1:07:37Chris Ryan?

  But for all of the doctors to also be going through it, which I know is probably indicative of what we ask from our medical professionals, it's just really tough. So McKay, I find that character fascinating and really well performed, but obviously is really going through it. And we still have that, like, human trafficking plot is out there.

• 1:07:57Andy Greenwald?

  That's in the background. And I think the biggest potential tragedy, bigger even than human trafficking in the world of the show, is if Dana's really quitting.

• 1:08:03Chris Ryan?

  I'm fucking out.

• 1:08:05Andy Greenwald?

  You're so out.

• 1:08:06Chris Ryan?

  If, if, if she's not on this show, I'm out.

• 1:08:10Andy Greenwald?

  Can I also say as someone who doesn't really seek solace in Taylor Sheridan, I think that the guy who's walking his daughter down the aisle but needs a little something to get through it.

• 1:08:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think if I could just like give him some notes. I think the real problem in his performance was when he was just like, "Doc, last time I was here, you know, they gave me something." I think it was called

• 1:08:27Chris Ryan?

  Morphine.

• 1:08:27Andy Greenwald?

  Morphine. I don't know what it was, but it was a miracle drug.

• 1:08:32Chris Ryan?

  Um, I don't have a ton to say about the first episode of Top Chef because reality television shows, competition shows, and the first episode is such a, um, you know, parade of characters and you're like, who am I supposed to care about? Who am I supposed to watch? There are tons of little moments that I found amusing. Let's talk briefly about the Canada of it all.

• 1:08:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:08:53Chris Ryan?

  Our enemy to the north.

• 1:08:55Andy Greenwald?

  Careful.

• 1:08:56Chris Ryan?

  What a time to be doing Top Chef Canada.

• 1:08:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's wild.

• 1:08:59Chris Ryan?

  Um, this is Gail Simmons' home turf, so I'm very happy for multi-time watch guest Gail Simmons. And, um, I personally

• 1:09:11Chris Ryan?

  have only been to Canada once and briefly.

• 1:09:14Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:09:15Chris Ryan?

  Like for a day. I think I was on a rafting trip.

• 1:09:17Andy Greenwald?

  And you accidentally crossed over?

• 1:09:20Chris Ryan?

  No, we were there, like, it was like super brief. Like, we stopped at like a Tim Hortons or whatever.

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  Grabbed some steel?

• 1:09:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so I don't have a lot of familiarity with Canadian cuisine. I always deeply admired the episode of Bourdain.

• 1:09:35Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:35Chris Ryan?

  Where he's

• 1:09:36Andy Greenwald?

  In Montreal.

• 1:09:36Chris Ryan?

  Hanging out with the Joe Beef guys and, and they, they take the train and eat truffles on their scrambled eggs and stuff like, it looks awesome. I hope we get some of that. Um, we get 20 chefs. How many chefs is?

• 1:09:50Andy Greenwald?

  It's usually 15.

• 1:09:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, 15. There were some where I was like, uh, what?

• 1:09:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm agreeing with you.

• 1:09:56Chris Ryan?

  Somewhere I wasn't sure if they were ready for primetime.

• 1:09:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and, and I guess that netted out at the end. That being said, the person who goes home.

• 1:10:06Chris Ryan?

  I've had their food.

• 1:10:07Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 1:10:07Chris Ryan?

  It's good. In Maine.

• 1:10:09Andy Greenwald?

  Did you really? So I thought you were gonna say the person who went home, I have her hat. I thought that's what you were gonna say.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  No. What did you think of the first episode?

• 1:10:18Andy Greenwald?

  So, everything you said is true. The, this is a well-oiled machine at this point. This is season 22. First episodes of this show, they've tried them in multiple ways. They've tried introducing human interest stories first. They've tried going right into the competition. They're always going to be chaos. We are never really going to get a sense of the majority of the cast's personalities, their perspectives, their strengths, their weaknesses. It's just going to be a dash.

• 1:10:46Andy Greenwald?

  This was no exception. Because I love this show so much, and because I do feel like I have the time equity, having watched every episode of all previous 21 seasons, I would like to just, just lay down a concern marker. Here.

• 1:11:03Andy Greenwald?

  On a number of sides of, of, of the issue. I think the biggest one is the Canada of it. I say this as someone who has been to Canada, and more than just Tim Hortons, and have had great times, great meals in Vancouver, like up on Vancouver Island, Montreal, one of the best food cities I've ever been to, Toronto.

• 1:11:25Chris Ryan?

  Damn, go off, son.

• 1:11:27Andy Greenwald?

  The, the breadbasket where I've eaten their famous red lentils. That's not true, but I thought that was funny.

• 1:11:33Andy Greenwald?

  This is, this is like a legit, legit country and entire, you know, multiple regions of food and culture. And there's every reason in the world to put the show there.

• 1:11:44Andy Greenwald?

  This first episode did not even attempt to make a case for why they did it.

• 1:11:48Chris Ryan?

  Did they go outside in this first episode, really?

• 1:11:50Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 1:11:50Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:11:52Andy Greenwald?

  There wasn't even a moment to say, do you know what's often ignored in the North American continent? Trade law. No. Canada. And that was so lacking that it, and it felt so like off the cuff that I was like, are they here purely for tax reasons? Are they in Toronto for the same reason that shows that pretend to shoot a New Yorker in Toronto? I'm not saying this to ascribe like ill intent.

• 1:12:18Chris Ryan?

  I know what you mean.

• 1:12:19Andy Greenwald?

  The show will be culturally sensitive and will make a case for itself as it goes on. But there is a Top Chef Canada. David Zilber's ex-NOMA, who was on this episode, is one of the judges of Top Chef Canada. Top Chef Destination Canada just felt like, okay, now we're here.

• 1:12:34Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:12:34Andy Greenwald?

  And guess what? There's sour cherries too. And that felt really weird because I think that the show-

• 1:12:40Chris Ryan?

  Well, even like, there was some guy in the elimination, no, in the quickfire, who chose maple syrup as his ingredient. They were like, nice fucking job, maple syrup.

• 1:12:48Andy Greenwald?

  A little bold.

• 1:12:49Chris Ryan?

  And I was just like, I don't know. At least he's like recognizing where they are, you know?

• 1:12:54Andy Greenwald?

  There was such a strange absence of anyone being like, I'm interested, I'm curious, I'm gonna learn something. We're in another country.

• 1:13:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well-

• 1:13:02Andy Greenwald?

  That, that, that felt really, really weird. And then you add to that two other factors that are kind of working against the show at the moment. One of which is just like attrition at season 22. The second of which is, and we said this last year, it's really, really hard to come off of the All-Star season and then the world, you know, world champion season that they did in London. It was Padma's last season and really felt like the culmination, season 20, like, okay, this is everything we've built towards. Everything since then, to a degree, has felt like a retrenchment. And add that to the fact that there's just a couple little things of like, not nickel and diming, but like, you know, they don't say $250,000 anymore?

• 1:13:44Andy Greenwald?

  They say a quarter of a million dollars to make it sound more expensive. Every single, I mean, it's a long been a critique of the show that every single thing is branded.

• 1:13:54Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:13:54Andy Greenwald?

  But, holy shit, every single thing is branded.

• 1:13:57Chris Ryan?

  I can go back to watch episodes from five years ago and Padma was still on and we're like, why is there a minions challenge? Like, I mean-

• 1:14:02Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's universal internal branding. But this is just like, they were like, the prize is Delta Medallion status. I'm like, I've won that prize, can I be on the show?

• 1:14:12Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I guess I'm a Top Chef now.

• 1:14:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that coupled with the lack of-

• 1:14:17Chris Ryan?

  Sick brag, by the way.

• 1:14:18Andy Greenwald?

  Good. Listen, listen, I have to like have some swag at this point, right? Just talking about European OnlyFans to get you to laugh. I got it. I have a long way to go to dig myself out of that.

• 1:14:29Chris Ryan?

  That's what she said.

• 1:14:32Andy Greenwald?

  See, there it is. Kaya, we found our, we found our call out clip for YouTube.

• 1:14:37Chris Ryan?

  Fuck.

• 1:14:39Andy Greenwald?

  I really also would like, and this might be too, this is definitely too much for a first episode, but I'm just throwing it out there. And by the way, this is not constructive criticism. They've already shot the season.

• 1:14:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:48Andy Greenwald?

  But I kind of would like in the chef testings, some point of view of like what it's like to be a restaurant operator or cook in 2025 or 2024 when they filmed this. Because when we have championed the show in the past, in the recent past especially, we've been like, the show is sneaky, been an incredible mouthpiece for shifts in a larger shifts.

• 1:15:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Andy Greenwald?

  In a massive industry. Eating out, eating in, takeout, casual, fast casual, representations of family stories, ethnic stories, cultural stories and how they matter. And there's a sense, the thing that I don't want the show to turn into is just like so many other things are at the moment, just like last chance cash grabs, like let's just, let's just go for this, let's get this, let's get out there.

• 1:15:37Chris Ryan?

  I'm very interested to hear you say all that. I think that there may be, it's, it's more of a product of gameplay than it is economics. So I do wonder whether or not,

• 1:15:51Chris Ryan?

  it's just hard to like see 15 strangers and decide in an hour, like I'm interested in this person, I'm not interested in that person. I, I wonder whether or not like, starting at 10 and letting it breathe would be better, but there are a lot of people who are just watching for quick fires and eliminations. And they don't really care about the stories and they don't really want to hear about like what, why this person deserves it. Like they want to see Buddha fucking make crazy shit.

• 1:16:18Andy Greenwald?

  But we do know from talking to Gail and from just, you know, generally how the show, how the creators and executive producers, producers have comported themselves that like telling the larger story, making the show of substance beyond being a competition does matter to them. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I will be curious. I'm absolutely not going to miss an episode. So I'm curious how that is folded into something. And I don't know if I would be feeling that critical if the show hadn't. If the show had been able to make a strong declarative statement for itself in the first five minutes of this episode, which is really bizarre to me that they didn't. And it's also worth noting, you know, people have bad days, people have bad cooks, this is stressful. I don't know if we've, I don't remember the last time we saw.

• 1:17:01Chris Ryan?

  This many mistakes in the first cook.

• 1:17:02Andy Greenwald?

  Or catastrophe, like the one that sent, uh, it was Mimi home, I believe. Like, they called two people out to be like, yeah, yours wasn't good, but like, there wasn't even any preamble.

• 1:17:12Chris Ryan?

  No, there was not like, this is a tough decision.

• 1:17:14Andy Greenwald?

  You have to go, that wasn't even food.

• 1:17:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Andy Greenwald?

  Usually doesn't do that.

• 1:17:17Chris Ryan?

  We'll see what happens on Last Chance, you never know. Maybe it was a little jitters.

• 1:17:21Andy Greenwald?

  You think it was jitters?

• 1:17:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 1:17:23Andy Greenwald?

  So who on this season you've had, you had had her food, I can only speak to having had, um, uh, Katiana Hong from Yang Ban here in LA.

• 1:17:31Chris Ryan?

  How is it?

• 1:17:32Andy Greenwald?

  Good.

• 1:17:32Chris Ryan?

  Good. Uh, I.

• 1:17:35Andy Greenwald?

  Would you want to eat soup out of an apple?

• 1:17:37Chris Ryan?

  Would I want to eat soup out of an apple? No. Um, I am.

• 1:17:40Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you for addressing that question head on.

• 1:17:42Chris Ryan?

  Curious about whether Kat can put it, put it back together.

• 1:17:46Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, listen, if she's worked for Billy Corgan, she's put up with some stuff.

• 1:17:49Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, the Anya character from Russia, who was like, I opened a restaurant.

• 1:17:54Andy Greenwald?

  Is she from Russia? Didn't, didn't come up. That was super weird. Like, again, I'm sure her restaurant is good.

• 1:18:00Chris Ryan?

  I thought this was gonna be a bad time to open a Russian restaurant, but we did great. And I was like.

• 1:18:03Andy Greenwald?

  What's the next, what's the B side of that story? She's just like, I'm from Russia and I made a restaurant about Russia in San Francisco the week Russia invaded Ukraine. Or did they? No, but it was like, it turned out it was great. And I was like,

• 1:18:18Andy Greenwald?

  and? And what else did we learn from this experience? I guess she, she really, she was into cabbage. I, I, I don't know. I, I, I, the only other takeaway I had.

• 1:18:29Chris Ryan?

  You're the king of, of just flagging stuff.

• 1:18:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm just asking the questions. Don't bury the messenger. I'll, I'll end on something positive. Kristen has assumed her full phoenix form as host. No jitters.

• 1:18:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:18:42Andy Greenwald?

  She's the host of the show.

• 1:18:43Chris Ryan?

  I also liked Tom's Canadian tuxedo.

• 1:18:46Andy Greenwald?

  Did you like that?

• 1:18:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure. I like a denim denim look.

• 1:18:49Andy Greenwald?

  You do? You, it works for you.

• 1:18:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Andy Greenwald?

  It works for you. So you, what you're pitching for yourself is denim denim, Mimi's hat.

• 1:18:58Andy Greenwald?

  And a lot of dot RU subscriptions.

• 1:19:03Chris Ryan?

  I only subscribe to Pravda Cooking, not, not NYT Cooking. I like Eric Kim's recipes to go through.

• 1:19:12Andy Greenwald?

  The filter?

• 1:19:13Chris Ryan?

  Tass, yeah.

• 1:19:15Andy Greenwald?

  This is, there's a lot here.

• 1:19:17Chris Ryan?

  I think we did a great job today. Uh, I can, I can feel Kaya's approval. Um.

• 1:19:22Andy Greenwald?

  As we ruined two shows that she was looking forward to watching tonight?

• 1:19:26Chris Ryan?

  I don't know that even we ruined them, you know, because they're so good.

• 1:19:30Andy Greenwald?

  They're so good.

• 1:19:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks to Kaya, thanks to CT, thanks to all of our listeners. And we'll be back on Monday, believe it or not, and we're going to be talking about White Lotus and Severance. And maybe I'll have you watch an episode of Adolescence.

• 1:19:45Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. People are saying it's a searing watch.

• 1:19:48Chris Ryan?

  I, I don't know if it's a feel-good time at the movies.

• 1:19:51Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, that when I flew home last week, that was the, the front of the arts section of The Guardian.

• 1:19:57Chris Ryan?

  And where they were like, this is fucking incredible.

• 1:19:59Andy Greenwald?

  There, there was actually a subhead and then it was like, this is, the headline was, this is fucking incredible. Then subhead had said, Andy, you can't handle this.

• 1:20:07Andy Greenwald?

  To be clear, I was very tired, so I, I, I may have made some.

• 1:20:10Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. We'll be back on Monday.