‘The White Lotus’ Finale Speculation. Plus, ‘The Pitt’ E14 and ‘The Studio’ E3.

Chris and Andy discuss an oral history of the making of ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 that was published in The Hollywood Reporter this week, and what it revealed about Mike White’s creative process (1:00). Then, they discuss the third episode of ‘The Studio’ (25:25), before talking about the penultimate episode of ‘The Pitt’ and speculating on what storylines may be resolved in the finale (37:14). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Read the Hollywood Reporter story here. 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're gonna talk about the games, yeah, the games, the X's and O's, the drama, the trades, the playoffs are coming up. And now, you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're gonna love, so make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe Show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Let's go!

• 0:46Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me on the other line, don't expect too much because all his takes are from Vietnam, it's Andy Greenwald!

• 1:01Andy Greenwald?

  And I only recently moved them there. That's the irony of this.

• 1:04Chris Ryan?

  I know. What's going on, buddy? Happy Red Wedding Day?

• 1:07Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know how many children it takes to craft opinions as idiosyncratic as mine?

• 1:13Chris Ryan?

  As Severance doesn't emotionally speak to me.

• 1:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, I can't come up with this on my own.

• 1:21Chris Ryan?

  We have to laugh to stop from crying.

• 1:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's a global economy. Why don't you realize that?

• 1:27Chris Ryan?

  How are you doing today? Welcome to The Watch. Today, we're gonna talk about the pit, we're gonna talk about the studio, we are going to talk about, a little bit about White Lotus. Was there something else?

• 1:38Andy Greenwald?

  I just assumed that you were saving the first block of the show to talk about the Nintendo Switch 2. I just, I just, I don't know, I prepared a bunch of notes about that, but...

• 1:48Chris Ryan?

  I'm here in Philadelphia, Andy is in Los Angeles.

• 1:51Andy Greenwald?

  Also not kidding, but please go on.

• 1:52Chris Ryan?

  And as always, you can watch us on YouTube at Ringer-TV, you can watch us on Spotify, where you listen to The Watch on Spotify. And you can email us at [email protected] and follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod underscore on the old Instagram app. I think all those things will probably be there next week, but you never know. Greenwald, it's beautiful that we get to share these moments with each other, historic moments. We've shared a fair, a fair, a fair amount of historic moments. I personally don't really, 2008, I was kind of a mess, so I didn't really have... You know, I didn't really have a lot to lose. Didn't have, you know, I wasn't, I didn't have it. But this, this feels pretty raw.

• 2:31Andy Greenwald?

  You're feeling, you got some, you feel exposed?

• 2:33Chris Ryan?

  No, it's just like, there's a lot of red on the ledger. You know what I mean? Not for me personally. Uh, I'm, I'm very diversified. I've got a lot of minerals. Um, just socked away. No, it sucks, dude.

• 2:45Andy Greenwald?

  I went all in on, uh, Russian state media.

• 2:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:50Andy Greenwald?

  Actually, and that seems, that's going well.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'm sure there'll be a welcome home for you when you want to take your digs somewhere.

• 2:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's, uh, what's good for me is that like, you know, as much as I share of myself on this podcast, I do feel like maybe I've let it slip that I do enjoy some international foods, some imported wines and spirits.

• 3:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Andy Greenwald?

  I guess I'm gonna have to start thinking local.

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  Where do you want to start today?

• 3:18Andy Greenwald?

  Drinking local.

• 3:19Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to do, uh, White Lotus? Because there was, obviously the, the finale is on this Sunday. We'll be coming to you guys on Monday afternoon with our thoughts. Bill and Joe and Mal will be, uh, going on the Ringer Dash TV and on the Prestige TV pod feed with their thoughts immediately following the episode.

• 3:38Chris Ryan?

  A kind of unorthodox or rare occurrence happened where one of the trades Hollywood Reporter ran a giant oral history of this season of White Lotus before the season is concluded. And I know that you took a look at that. I took a look at that. I, first of all, you rarely see, you know, this sort of, um, kind of promotion for a finale. Like usually you would wait till after the finale and have all the actors and Mike White talking about that big thing that happened in the finale. But I thought it was, it was, it was interesting that they kind of like, let the breadcrumbs drop now. What did you think?

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  I, I thought it was interesting. I thought it was illuminating. I thought it was also kind of almost refreshing in an old school way to see the amount of neuroses that the cast has about their personal godhead, who's Mike White, who is also famously neurotic and worried about them liking him.

• 4:32Andy Greenwald?

  It, it, it felt, it felt very old fashioned to me that they're all worried about like their character arcs. Were they making the boss happy? Were they making him laugh enough? And that, I think that's a product of two things. One, the unique nature of the way they film these things, which is basically almost like a social experiment where they, um, Isolate this group of, for the most part, strangers in a relatively exotic place for a long period of time and make them work it out, quite literally. But also a fact, a factor of the, again, kind of unique, if not old fashioned, pay scale of the show, which is laid pretty bare in this article. It had been alluded to, I think, it hasn't been a secret, but it does seem to be the case that if you would like to join the cast of The White Lotus, you will get scale.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  Now, scale for a lead in a prestige HBO show is not nothing. I mean, you're getting a good six-figure salary for your participation in the show. But unlike with most shows, there isn't an enormous disparity between the headline cast or the more veteran cast and the newbies. Everybody's in it. Everybody's literally in it, in the case of like, whether you're on a boat or you're on a beach, you're getting devoured by mosquitoes in Bangkok, in the Bangkok night. And I think that does affect both the experience and the product in an interesting way.

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  I was struck by the same things you were talking about, the sort of nerves about pleasing Mike White, trying to understand Mike White, the amount of creative freedom he gives the actors to come up with backstories.

• 6:03Andy Greenwald?

  Like, for example, Patrick Schwarzenegger adjusting his crotch on camera. Apparently, a P. Schwartz original.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  That Daniel Day-Lewis school, maybe.

• 6:11Andy Greenwald?

  Unbelievable.

• 6:12Chris Ryan?

  But especially the Rockwell and Goggins characters, building up their relationship together and also kind of filling in some of the backstory. I wonder if we'll get a little bit more about Rick in this finale. I'm sure he's going to play a central part of it, but there are still some, how Rick came to be wealthy enough to afford this vacation in the first place and seemingly like be kicking around the Pacific Rim anyway with Chelsea is something I'm curious about. It doesn't necessarily, it's not like a requirement for the finale. I thought it was kind of fascinating to To your point about like this kind of being the socialist republic of Mike White is

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  the extent to which these people obviously just get catapulted into a new kind of fame when they are on this show. Right now, we're going through, regardless of how you feel about this episode, this season compared to previous seasons, like multiple people on this show have become essentially memes that will outlive this show for years. Now, you know, Patrick Schwarzenegger, or people are talking about being stopped in airports or coffee shops and that it just is, it sounds like in a way, it's, it's kind of doing old school television stuff where it takes a Leslie Bibb, who I think people will be like, oh yeah, Leslie Bibb, right? I kind of know her. And now it's like Leslie Bibb. I know who that is now.

• 7:31Andy Greenwald?

  This is the most, I'm glad you steered us in that direction because the most old fashioned thing about the show, and I think in some ways the most refreshing, is that it makes stars. That is historically what TV has done. It hasn't been the reverse. Stars historically didn't come to TV, they came out of TV. And it is an old fashioned idea, but kind of of the moment. Like Leslie Bibb and Parker Posey and Jason Isaacs, these are actors who, and Sam Rockwell even, Walton Goggins, these are successful working actors who have had and were going to have had long careers. But in the sense that the show can remind people of how good they are, how popular they can be, how diverse their abilities

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  are, and what they can do when showcased, that's enormous. And that actually helps fuel the TV ecosystem. You know, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's some franchise movie is going to be built about around these guys. I don't know if, you know, especially after her recent comments, if Carrie Coon is going to be joining the Thunderbolts, but...

• 8:33Chris Ryan?

  I don't think she wants to.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think, I don't think, I don't think your man Tracy wants her to. Do you see those comments?

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  I did. Those were comments made on the big picture while I was sitting in the room with Tracy.

• 8:42Andy Greenwald?

  Great. Yes. I, I listened. I just wanted to test to make sure you remembered that you were there. I love, I love that podcast.

• 8:52Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, that is a huge thing about it. The cast and the level of stardom and the pay scale is also relevant to one other takeaway that I had from the piece. And we can go in from the, on the level of cast. One of the takeaways was that Walden Goggins was not, was not the original offer for Rick. It was Woody Harrelson. And Woody Harrelson apparently was even visiting the set of season two in advance of joining the cast in season three. And of course, Woody Harrelson from True Detective and White House Plumbers, he's in the HBO family. It was an easy call for Casey or their casting department to make. And it does seem like Woody Harrelson didn't want to work for scale and that didn't work

• 9:36Andy Greenwald?

  for him. Ultimately, I think for the sake of the show and the sort of, you know, the balance of the call sheet, I think that's a good thing. I think Walden Goggins has been amazing in it. I also think that the article made clear that Walden Goggins wasn't the first choice, not just because of star power, but because Mike White was like, oh, we need a rich bald guy to be with Chelsea and to be somehow different than the other rich bald guys on the boat. Mike White didn't get what he wants there, which brings me to my last point and takeaway from this article. It's good when auteurs don't get everything they want. Mike White is a veteran of the business. I was recently fired up Freaks and Geeks with my older daughter, it still hits, and

• 10:19Andy Greenwald?

  had forgotten that Mike White was on the staff of the first season of that show 26 years ago. So he knows from compromise. You know, this is not a new.

• 10:28Chris Ryan?

  He's also been on the short end of the stick a couple of times, which shows that very important to him.

• 10:32Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sure many times, yeah. Examples that we know about, like with Enlightened and others. There was another White Lotus story today that came out in The Times. Cristobal Tapia de Vier, the composer of the woo-woo music that everybody loves.

• 10:48Chris Ryan?

  Enjoy it while it lasts.

• 10:50Andy Greenwald?

  Got called up by the New York Times, was like, oh, tell us about your feelings about this awesome season. And he was just like, this was my last season of television, working with this man. It is well worth your time because you rarely see interviews that are as unprepped by PR agents as this one.

• 11:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Andy Greenwald?

  It is a noisy breakup. But my, the interesting thing about it was this guy.

• 11:14Andy Greenwald?

  Is not a natural fit for a soapy HBO Sunday night show. He's much more, he's much more into avant garde music and, and felt like it was an odd fit. And the good work that came out of it is clearly a collision between what he, he wanted to do and what Mike White wanted. That collision created too many sparks and now they seem to be parting. But one of the parting shots from Tapia Devere is he's just like, Mike White wanted loungy sexy hotel music. Now, there's nothing meaner that a composer can say about a director or showrunner than that. So I don't want to belabor it too much, but I do think there's a, it is a trend that we see of sometimes like Mike White not getting what he wants on the first pass has led to

• 11:59Andy Greenwald?

  a better solution and a better product. So.

• 12:01Chris Ryan?

  I'll go a step further with this. One of the, my, the most fascinating parts about this oral history that they did was Mike White talking about like his director's cut of these episodes being an hour and a half to hour and 40 minutes long and HBO being like, come on, man, like. And then Mike White has a really good sense of humor about himself and about the discourse surrounding the show. And he's like, people are already complaining about nothing happening on this show, so I had to cut it down. But he even went into some of the stuff, dream sequences that he shot, scenes that he shot that probably did go delving into different uh, backstories of people. And I thought that that was kind of fascinating. This is a guy operating in the, the very highly valued three verticals that HBO cares about, awards, buzz and audience.

• 12:45Chris Ryan?

  And uh, he's got it all. And yet, you know, I, I think smartly, both HBO and him are like, this still needs to be an hour and two or three minute show. This cannot be these like incredibly like self indulgent cinematic exercises. Even though you'd think if there was anybody who had that kind of juice right now, it would be him.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  Or Ron Howard. We're going to talk about the studio episode three soon. But Chris, you're 3,000 miles away from me right now, but we've never been closer. It's like you're looking over my screen because this is, these are the examples that I was going to use to say that like. It actually, the compromise or the collision made something better. Goggins instead of Harrelson is better. The soundtrack and score and theme music that we got is better than, you know, whatever Sub Sneaker Pimps music apparently was being temped in.

• 13:33Andy Greenwald?

  The episodes that we got, I think, I mean, I'm sure there are people, I'm sure I'm talking to one of the people, who would like to see Leslie Bibb's fever dream about ladyboys and fire dancing.

• 13:43Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 13:45Andy Greenwald?

  I think the episode's better without it. The other example was, in the piece, Mike White wanted season three to be in Japan. And some people, whose name rhymes with Basie Toys, was like,

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  "Tax breaks are a little bit better, a little bit better, just to cross..."

• 14:03Chris Ryan?

  At least they were.

• 14:03Andy Greenwald?

  Just to cross the line.

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  Season four is gonna be in New Orleans.

• 14:09Chris Ryan?

  Get ready, get ready to speak American, buddy.

• 14:11Andy Greenwald?

  I, I love, I would love, you know, I love all shows set in Japan or filmed in Japan or about Japan, or where someone, you know, frankly eats sushi. Great, I'm in. However, Thailand is, I think, is a less covered, less explored, and more thematically rich place for this show to be. And that was something that Mike didn't expect going in to it and came out feeling very strongly about. So, TV is, you know, TV is about compromise on some level. And I, I like, it is also rare, we should say, that like, getting a peek under the hood, I mean, obviously, there are a lot of things not said, but even this kind of juicy piece

• 14:53Andy Greenwald?

  about, that has sort of free-flowing quotes about a creative process from the creator, writer, director, and the cast are pretty rare. And I thought it was pretty illuminating. And, and kind of reminded us, and underscored a lot of what we were saying earlier in the week about how this is unique. This isn't something that you can just create and throw on your schedule.

• 15:11Chris Ryan?

  I'll just say this, this is the last point I wanted to make, because I think that this oral history just made me think a lot about the White Lotus season, one that I have admittedly been probably a little lower on than you have, and, and, you know, in comparison to other seasons alone, I still have enjoyed it quite a bit. How refreshing it is to be going into a final episode and the only person who kind of knows what's happening is Mike White. Essentially, like, original storytelling still matters a great deal and that nothing can really capture our minds, like, just literally knowing, not knowing where something's gonna go. I know Last of Us is gonna be awesome and exciting and thrilling, but like, a lot of people have played that video game. They may deviate from it, but I was thinking about the preponderance of IP storytelling

• 15:53Chris Ryan?

  and how much of this stuff is like, yeah, like, we broadly know what's gonna happen, you know? Like, we broadly know what this show is about already when we go into it. And sometimes that can be even communicated, even if it's a well-worn genre. I don't feel like I've ever really seen something like White Lotus that mixes high art with, like, melodrama in this specific way with the compression of time that they put people in a resort for X number of days and there's gonna be a body, but there's also gonna be these revelations. I just think it is a really special show in a lot of ways, so I wanted to say that.

• 16:28Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see, in the piece, Patrick Schwarzenegger is like, "I heard a rumor they're gonna do an All-Star season."

• 16:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Andy Greenwald?

  Like, this is Top Chef?

• 16:35Chris Ryan?

  He's got a, I, the sweet little boy is gonna get his ass aggregated for the next three weeks. I saw Vulture already had a drafting the All-Stars season.

• 16:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:44Chris Ryan?

  We can maybe do that after the, after Sunday.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  The thing, I appreciate what you were just saying, though, about the show and how unique it is. And I did wanna circle back because I, when we were talking about it on Monday-

• 16:54Chris Ryan?

  You think Suneep still works for scale?

• 16:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, HBO has her number. I mean, she's on the, are they actually shooting Euphoria season?

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Andy Greenwald?

  Three?

• 17:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Andy Greenwald?

  It is season three, right?

• 17:05Chris Ryan?

  It is season three. Cool. But they also had the specials, so, you know.

• 17:08Andy Greenwald?

  But that's why, that's why, that's why I was confused. Canonically, where do they go?

• 17:13Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 17:15Andy Greenwald?

  That, I just, I just wanna, I just wanna get it right. That's why I do hear on the mic-

• 17:19Chris Ryan?

  That's why you're waiting.

• 17:20Andy Greenwald?

  That's why I'm waiting to weigh in on any of it. Um, no, when we, when we recorded on Monday, I said, and if anyone's listening to this just for the content and banter and not spoilers, I don't, I don't know, I assume people are watching White Lotus. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I did confess that I was as caught off-guard as security guard Guy Talk was about the identity of some, some ne'er-do-wells.

• 17:42Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:43Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and I did observe some pushback being like, "What show have I been watching?" And I gotta tell you, the White Lotus, first of all- I'll cop to you having not read anyone else's recaps about this season, that's for sure. But I just mostly listened to the big picture. But I, but in this case,

• 18:03Andy Greenwald?

  the show rewards me too. Like I am, it's not just that I didn't notice who those robbers were. I didn't care. At no point in my viewing of this show was I like, oh, I wonder who those guys were and how it will relate to the larger story. That's just not how I watch the show. And to your point about a lot of IP stuff or prestige stuff or big ticket stuff.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  Look who's turning a blind eye to Russian malfeasance. I never thought I'd see the day.

• 18:31Andy Greenwald?

  Mr. Podcaster, I gave you all the clues.

• 18:33Chris Ryan?

  The G in KGB stands for greenwald.

• 18:39Andy Greenwald?

  I just, we just don't know.

• 18:42Chris Ryan?

  Sure, we don't know.

• 18:42Andy Greenwald?

  It was them.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Who could say?

• 18:43Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean?

• 18:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:45Andy Greenwald?

  I just think there's a lot of static. And what's the signal the noise ratio?

• 18:49Chris Ryan?

  It's almost a hoax. Andy, I think that's a good place to leave it because we're like, other than that, I mean, we can make wild predictions or is there? I think you did on the last episode say like, I am predicting X happens.

• 19:02Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, not only did I make a prediction, you know, I'm very happy. I am in the Sean's void today recording, but Kaya is here with me just because I, you know, she knows I get lonely. And I did notice that the only thing that got aggregated or put on social was the one moment in 13 years of the podcast where I was like, I predict a character death.

• 19:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Andy Greenwald?

  I've successfully not given anyone what they want for 13 years. And I slipped once, they were all over it.

• 19:29Chris Ryan?

  Give us nothing, queen. Uh, okay. I don't really have a prediction. I think that, actually, I would agree with you, your prediction from the previous episode, the more I give it thought.

• 19:40Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I also think.

• 19:42Chris Ryan?

  Which was that Rick passes away.

• 19:44Andy Greenwald?

  Passes away. It's very beautiful. He returns to the ocean, as the monk would say. I am not feeling great about Guy Talk's future in the hospitality industry.

• 19:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that that's something to consider as well. Uh, I also think it's probably worth noting that at least from what we learned or what we observed in the opening moments of the season, it does seem a bit like a free for all. It does not seem like. Gary coming down from the mountain with, you know, a sniper rifle to take out Belinda.

• 20:19Chris Ryan?

  No, I think, I think it was interesting to see there were comments in that oral history. I think Schwarzenegger said, people are going to hate Mike White. So I am ready for anything and expecting the worst.

• 20:29Andy Greenwald?

  The other, I think the other relevant piece from that article for, clue watchers, otherwise known as people who watch television, was that John Grease, who plays Greg slash Gary, had sort of felt his own, as many actors do, like, stood up for his character's morality, saying that like, he wasn't really there in season two. Is he, is he playing himself as responsible for Tanya's death? Is he a psychopath? And Mike White was like, he's 100% a psychopath. Which I feel like on Monday, I was like, I don't know if this guy's really a psychopath.

• 21:03Chris Ryan?

  What if Greg is just a dude who?

• 21:06Andy Greenwald?

  Not everyone marries well, you know what I mean?

• 21:08Chris Ryan?

  Wanted to take advantage of a good real estate opportunity.

• 21:12Chris Ryan?

  Why don't we, you know what I do want to say just briefly? Before we get into the rest of the shows?

• 21:17Andy Greenwald?

  This is Speaker's Corner, buddy. Whatever you need.

• 21:20Chris Ryan?

  I have to say that for as great of a run as Goggins is having on White Lotus, and for as much as he is kind of created a new public facing identity out of this show where, you know, he's doing like, I don't, I don't know whether it's still a Super Bowl ad or what it is, the Goggins goggles thing and Architectural Digest and these incredibly vulnerable interviews that he's doing about the Rick character and drawing parallels to his own rather tragic life. And, and it's just been fascinating to watch. It is still the second best Walton Goggins performance currently on television. And if people have not been keeping up with Gemstones's final season, Andy and I sometimes fall off a little bit talking about Gemstones on a week to week basis.

• 22:05Chris Ryan?

  Because it's just like, how many times can you listen to two dudes say those dudes were funny? But I just wanted to shout out Goggins on this most recent episode. And Edie Patterson as Judy introducing me to the phrase titty meat.

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  And honestly, like so many new slang things that I'm never allowed to say, but I will say to you, Goggins right now is like, he's Pacino in Serpico. There is something so amazing. Every time I think Baby Billy is out of places to go, he gets a German nanny for his two children that he doesn't want.

• 22:42Andy Greenwald?

  That he hates. He hates her. That's what makes it extra funny. He's so mad about her.

• 22:49Chris Ryan?

  Get these children out of my face.

• 22:51Andy Greenwald?

  But he feels like she's doing a bad job and he hates her old world villain style.

• 22:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it makes me feel like Indiana Jones.

• 22:59Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I think we all know whose thumb is on the scale here because I, I'm not a betting man and I don't get involved in wringer decision making, but I guess that when I open up Instagram tomorrow, I won't be immediately served a video of you saying titty meat, but probably I've just fallen into your trap and now Kai has got this clip.

• 23:18Chris Ryan?

  As she writes a resignation letter for this time. Um, anyway, I just wanted to say Gemstones is great. I've honestly like, does this, did this season have a plot yet? Not really, but if they want to keep having like mock family reunions at various sites across the South, I'm fine.

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it doesn't, it's funny that we, we love the show regardless. We're in the tank for it. But when we had Danny McBride on a couple of weeks ago, I think we were very credulous of this idea that, well, the saga of the Gemstone family reached its natural conclusion in the construction of this season. And that, you know, in terms of like Jesse's redemption arc, or will they find the golden Bible? Or will Eli like make peace with his tattered legacy? Like whatever it was that Danny and his cohorts, they reached that point and they were like, you know what? It's the end of the story, road chaps. Let's all shake hands and like part. When in fact, it may have just been that four episodes in, they just realized that their characters were screaming adult babies.

• 24:17Andy Greenwald?

  Just coming up with new and different ways to talk about fucking each other and fucking each other over. And they were like, we might be good here. And I'm okay with that. Like, this episode was absolute, it was just bonkers. But what's the plot this season?

• 24:33Chris Ryan?

  I actually watched it twice because like, I missed, I think, a bunch of the BJ jokes of him being in the wheelchair and not being able to lean down to get his suntan lotion, or being obscured in the family portrait.

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the plot of this season is that three siblings in their 40s and into their 50s are mad that their now aging father is hooking up with someone?

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  That's it. That's the season of television. I have no complaints.

• 25:00Chris Ryan?

  Um, pit or studio? Dealer's choice.

• 25:05Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa, I don't know. I maybe studio only because, you know, we've been talking about our tours thus far, and about the helpful note giving process that clearly is going on at HBO. And so this might be a nice corrective to that.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  Through what lenses are you watching this show? As a comedy or as a, as a document of Hollywood real politic?

• 25:30Andy Greenwald?

  Chris, much like in my real life, I've developed, when I purchased progressive lenses, that shift. The first episode of the show.

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  I could make so many jokes right now.

• 25:44Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you know, like, you know?

• 25:47Chris Ryan?

  Like shifting towards the center?

• 25:49Andy Greenwald?

  No, do you know the Spider-Man meme where it's like Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire with the glasses off, and he, you know, he can't see whatever. But then, like, he puts the glasses on. And so like, glasses off, I'm like blinking at a fundraising email from Mallory McMorrow in Michigan, and then I put the glasses on, and it's just like an old style comic of Barack Obama punching fascism.

• 26:12Andy Greenwald?

  But like, powered by Eric Alterman's blog from the early 2000s?

• 26:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 26:15Andy Greenwald?

  Those are my progressive lenses. And they are rosy.

• 26:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, well, I watched the first episode and we talked at length about the first episode of the studio. And I, and everything I said about that still stands. I mean, I think the show is hilarious. I think the show has a style and an aesthetic and a propulsive energy and a great score and great clothes. And just, it's so, it's such a beautifully conceived.

• 26:38Chris Ryan?

  Great set design. Yeah, it's, it's a very pleasant watch.

• 26:40Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, and everything about it is in concert and it's just people at the peak of their powers doing something, I think that is excellent. I definitely, uh, probably got two in front of my skis while I was water skiing naked like baby Billy in saying that at the heart of this show is a melancholy ode to everything that we've lost. Because I also, I guess, thought, you know, we all, I think we both did this, or maybe you watched a little more. I only watched the first one and then wanted to be doing it week to week. The first one was a little bit longer. Somewhere in my brain, I was like, oh, this is like a combo platter show. It's going to be like 40, 50, 60 minute episodes and it's going to balance out some of the comedy with something else.

• 27:21Andy Greenwald?

  And the episodes are in fact essentially 30 minute farces.

• 27:26Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think it's.

• 27:27Andy Greenwald?

  Thus far. And I don't mind that, but I was viewing it, I think I was setting up for a different viewing experience. Not that that would have been better, but that's just been my experience with it.

• 27:37Chris Ryan?

  I love the show, but I think it's closer to Curb than it is The Player.

• 27:40Andy Greenwald?

  That, that's, there you go.

• 27:42Chris Ryan?

  The, the conceits of these episodes, the setups, and even the fact that, um, they're named after, I mean, they have like an almost Seinfeld-esque, uh, conventions for the naming of the episodes. And I, I just thought like watching The Note, which is essentially Seth Rogen's character, Matt, doing everything he possibly can to not tell Ron Howard that the last 40 minutes of this thriller that he has made with Anthony Mackie is so, are, is incredibly boring. Is basically like Larry, you know, has to do this at a restaurant, Larry wearing a MAGA hat, you know? Like, it is, it, it is a sitcom and it's construction.

• 28:25Chris Ryan?

  And it has like heartfelt moments, but I noticed this is now two episodes where rather than it be about a guy who, as it's so eloquently stated in the pilot, that guy's like, I, Matt is like, I love movies and I just realized I might be the one who ruins them.

• 28:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 28:41Chris Ryan?

  And this, this tension about like art and commerce and keeping this industry alive against all these other forces. It's also like, it's really funny when Seth Rogen, Ike Barinholtz and Catherine Hahn are cursing at each other and screaming and running around. And then Ron Howard comes in and does an against type role. And so either way, I'm fine. In fact, it might be wiser for it to be funnier than it is for it to be more melancholy. Because like, when you get into the melancholy part, you start to get into some of the conversations we had about that first episode where it's like, are they memorializing an era of Hollywood that died in 2003?

• 29:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that's right. I think that one of the reasons why the show works, why the show might continue to work for multiple seasons should they choose to do it, and why Seth Rogen has stayed afloat in his career is like, he's a comedian, and he's choosing the laughs over the elegiac tone or the melancholy every time. And I think that's smarter. There's always a concern with shows like this that are navel gazing, or inside baseball, or obsessed with the industry, that you just lose people. If you build each episode up to a point where Seth Rogen falls over, like, and crashes into something, in this episode, he falls backwards into a cart full of M&Ms, you're gonna win back some of those hearts and minds, you know, that might not otherwise be too worried about the state of cinema.

• 30:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Andy Greenwald?

  I also feel like even within this episode, it's kind of a tell, right? That like, the conceit of the first episode, which is that Matt's artistic ambitions, that he wants to make a Martin Scorsese movie and be in business with his childhood cinematic heroes, and the mandates of his boss, which is that he has to make a movie about Kool-Aid, are fundamentally impossible to reconcile. That's brilliant, funny, and wise, and relevant. This episode begins with a conceit that already proves-

• 30:43Andy Greenwald?

  That already disproves like the, the, the nature, not the nature, the, the thesis of the show. Somehow, despite pursuing profit and Kool-Aid at all costs, this studio has somehow greenlit a clearly very expensive period epic from Ron Howard starring Anthony Mackie and Dave Franco that is positioning for award success and box office returns.

• 31:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Andy Greenwald?

  Eh, that's not real. Like, that isn't happening. Ron Howard could walk that movie with some of those cleverly inspired shots, minus the motel ending, into every major studio in Hollywood today and be rejected.

• 31:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Ron Howard currently only just found a home for, uh, a, like, a, a thriller set on an island called Eden that I believe stars Sydney Sweeney among like several other pretty big stars. And literally, no one was picking it up because of the exact reason why you're saying Anthony Mackie's Alphabet City would also fail to find like a, a huge, a huge platform.

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the, it, it, the purpose of a, a, a good and successful show, and certainly satire, should serve its premise and serve its joke at all costs. It should not be trying to, um, proselytize, you know, that, that ratio should be as it is, as it has been, um, managed already in this show. That said, like, the, the, there is then like a meta level of indictment within it, which is like Anthony Mackie, who I think is a great actor. He really was great in The Hurt Locker. He is good in the Marvel movies. I enjoy watching him. Recently saw him on an old episode of Lip Sync Battle, which has been resurfaced in my household, thanks to my children.

• 32:28Andy Greenwald?

  The Tom Holland doing umbrella in front of Zendaya is really like, that's a real mood lifter.

• 32:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, serve yourself, Greenwald. You gotta just be like, it's Bobland night, you know?

• 32:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Uncle Chris, come over and babysit. See how that goes. I just got them into kunk on Earth. Like, we're doing baby steps, okay? It's working. You gotta see the vision.

• 32:48Chris Ryan?

  So that's British. So we're gonna get mom planned next week.

• 32:51Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly, exactly. It's a, it's a longer road than you may realize.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  But Chase Suiwonders, who plays, I forget the name of the character, but she's now a newly elevated exec with Matt, and she's been great in holding her own in these scenes with the more famous funny people.

• 33:08Andy Greenwald?

  When she's just like, Anthony Mackie is my favorite actor? I'm like, I'm, all respect to Anthony Mackie. But one of the problems with this world that we live in right now is, is anyone, anyone's favorite anything? Like, is Anthony Mackie this young person's favorite actor because of Captain America Brave New World? Or Hurt Locker? Or when he was on that Netflix show where he was regenerated into like six different bodies? Remember that?

• 33:34Chris Ryan?

  It was on Peacock, where he keeps getting like, he's like the action star. Like, he, it was like an action show, right?

• 33:39Andy Greenwald?

  Altered Carbon.

• 33:41Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 33:42Andy Greenwald?

  On Netflix.

• 33:43Chris Ryan?

  But he was in like, not Metal Gear Solid, but something like that on Peacock.

• 33:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think he's made appearances on Twisted Metal on Peacock.

• 33:49Chris Ryan?

  Twisted Metal.

• 33:49Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if he's the star, but I've actually heard that's pretty good, but, um.

• 33:53Chris Ryan?

  Look at you.

• 33:54Andy Greenwald?

  Look, I hear things. I don't watch them, but you know, I keep my ear to the street. Anthony Mackie, I believe, took over Altered Carbon from your man Joel Kinnaman's.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 34:05Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, I called him your Joel Kinnaman's.

• 34:07Chris Ryan?

  What happened? You turned into Tracy Morgan.

• 34:11Andy Greenwald?

  If only. If only. Yeah.

• 34:16Chris Ryan?

  Um, any other stuff on this deal? Let me think of what I wanted to mention. I think Baranholz is my slick MVP of this one, my secret MVP. Catherine Hahn, obviously, is gonna win the memes. She's gonna be like, the kind of takeout, or her like walking into places and being like, Delulu. But I really like Baranholz having to tell Ron Howard about his fake dead cousin.

• 34:42Andy Greenwald?

  Baranholz's face acting is excellent.

• 34:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's, he's fucking awesome. He's on Good Hang this week with Amy Poehler, I believe.

• 34:49Andy Greenwald?

  Is he? Kai is in the room with me. She can take, guess what, Chris? We get the thumbs up from Kai. Kai's not even on mic today.

• 34:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. She's saving her voice for Amy Poehler.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  If I stand up, I can be on mic. Ike Barinholtz, lovely, lovely man, is on Good Hang this week. Everybody should go listen.

• 35:04Andy Greenwald?

  I also want people to know that the effort it took for Kaia to join us on mic today, she had to stand up. She had to lean over. She's got a lot of devices.

• 35:13Andy Greenwald?

  She's, I assume, I only see the back of her laptop. I only assume she's fact checking my altered carbon takes in the middle of time.

• 35:18Chris Ryan?

  Probably right.

• 35:21Andy Greenwald?

  She, I think she is. No, she has twisted metal open.

• 35:24Chris Ryan?

  That's good.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  You know how I was able to see it from here? Progressive lenses.

• 35:28Chris Ryan?

  It's, it's a great show. I'm, I'm happy, I'm happy that it's, uh, kind of found some success, it seems to, at least. And, uh, yeah, like I, I'm fine with it if it, if it wants to be more or less a sitcom.

• 35:40Andy Greenwald?

  It's funny because this must be, it's very high profile. There's a huge list of guest stars. It is a autourish project for Rogan and Goldberg, who directed the whole thing and brought their own, as we said, style to it. It cannot be cheap, but it's funny in our totally messed up economic ecosystem that the studio is, the studio feels like one of those necessary bricks that a service needs to just get people like, oh, it like, like Ted Lasso kind of was meant to be before he had also became overly inflated and every season became an event. And, you know, the budgets ballooned like there was, I saw a promotional video that my personal favorite actor, Brian Tyree Henry was doing to promote, um, Dope Thief. I don't have any, but I don't have shares in that project, like, or him, just a fan.

• 36:25Andy Greenwald?

  Where he was like, handed an iPad and was just like, Brian Tyree Henry, what are your five must watches on Apple TV plus? And you see, he's a good actor, but one of the things that makes him good is his vulnerability.

• 36:36Chris Ryan?

  So hard to choose.

• 36:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, he's like, mm, oh, boy. And the first thing he picks is Causeway, the film that he was in with Jennifer Lawrence.

• 36:44Chris Ryan?

  That's good.

• 36:45Andy Greenwald?

  And then, uh, and then there's a really long pause. He's like, uh, Presumed Innocent. I gotta be honest, that show got me. And I stopped watching after that because I felt like.

• 36:54Chris Ryan?

  Wait, I want to know what the other three were. I want to know if he, if he got there.

• 36:57Andy Greenwald?

  I can't give it away. Like I want, you know, we have to, we just send, we sending people to the Times today. We're sending people to the Hollywood Reporter. Like we're sending people to, what's the other podcast you do? It's about movies?

• 37:07Chris Ryan?

  The big picture, yeah.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  We're sending people there. Look at us. We're sharing the ball.

• 37:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, all right. So should we get to the pit, which is, uh, has its penultimate episode airing tonight? By the time this podcast will go up, uh, you will probably be watching that. Um, this has been, we have done a lot of like week to week coverage of the pit, but this, these last three episodes, I believe, have all felt like kind of like one big episode, which is this mass casualty event that has struck Pittsburgh and that the pit hospital finds itself dead smack in the center of being the, the first line of defense, basically in terms of responding to people who have been injured. So spoilers going forward about the pit, if you haven't caught up with it yet. Um, although I do, I will say that in some ways

• 37:54Chris Ryan?

  there, there has, they have kind of gone back into what is happening to these doctors and how this affects them rather than, and then the shooter shows up, you know, like they have not made it, uh, hysterical in that way. And I appreciate that. I wanted to start by asking you if you noticed this thing that just leapt out at me after this episode, which is essentially that you begin the season, I'm currently in Philly. My mom started watching the pit. So I've been watching a little bit of the beginning of the season with her. And where we are now in the series, the three stalwart kind of rocks of the emergency room have been smashed to bits.

• 38:39Chris Ryan?

  Emotionally, physically, chemically, you know, like Langdon Dana, and of course, Dr. Robbie are crumpled into a ball, getting punched in the face, getting fired essentially. And all of these kids, relatively speaking, have taken these huge roles in the emergency room and garnered nothing but respect from their colleagues. And then remarkably, as a piece of television storytelling, Slowly but surely, they're bringing in like Sean Haddish comes back. You know, like we have like these new doctors that are popping up and are like Dr. Welch, who seems to have taken over for Dr. Garcia as the surgeon who's like kind of the cowboy surgeon

• 39:21Chris Ryan?

  in the in the ER or the guy who just is crushing Starbucks in the parking lot as he does.

• 39:30Andy Greenwald?

  I love him.

• 39:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:31Andy Greenwald?

  I love him and I don't know his name. I keep trying to catch it as it goes by. But yes, continue your thoughts.

• 39:37Chris Ryan?

  No, I just was like the the basically like where we started the show and where we're ending the show is like all the characters have been reversed in terms of how they've like interpreted the day, how they've come through this really, truly sadly not historical day, you know, it's like it's obviously a mass casualty event doesn't happen every day in Pittsburgh, but the whole point is that this is something that these people have prepared for. I just find it like a fascinating piece of like television storytelling construction and moving people, even though it's a compressed period of time, even though it's only a day in the life.

• 40:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Chris Ryan?

  To put people like the people who are on top are now on the bottom and vice versa.

• 40:17Andy Greenwald?

  Well, side note, like do you when you're watching that and what you just described as like, you know, the the the the valiant, but aging established core giving way to young truth seekers, does that remind you of the DNC? Is like, is that like, do you feel like there's some real world parallels here?

• 40:37Chris Ryan?

  That's right. That's right.

• 40:39Andy Greenwald?

  So who's?

• 40:39Chris Ryan?

  Who's Ben Wikler in this in this comparison? No, but you know what I mean.

• 40:44Andy Greenwald?

  I, yes, I do know what you mean. And I think that I know we've been sort of beating this drum, but hopefully we'll have a chance to talk to some of the creative team behind the show to really get into this because for as incredible as the show is on the with the headlines and like with the front facing like these are great performances, a lot of stories have been written about the verisimilitude and the way doctors are like this is actually is my life that I'm seeing represented and my struggle. There is a tar level composing going on in the background.

• 41:17Chris Ryan?

  Lydia Tar, that is, yeah.

• 41:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  One of your favorite professors, yes.

• 41:22Andy Greenwald?

  Not not the not not the tar pits, which is actually now almost like intentionally confusing. No, like, take these last few episodes as an example. Like, this show, which is built on the back of successive crises, builds to an almost unbearable crescendo of crisis. And that crisis spreads out over multiple episodes. And then, within the crisis, there are little moments of calm, or a little like, now we turn to the timpani. Or now, you know, it somehow is swelling all at the same time. And we don't feel, I mean, at least, as a viewer, when the show chooses to go small and quiet

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  in the midst of the noisy, bloody, and loud, it feels natural. It doesn't feel like we're taking our attention off of the most important things. And it also sometimes can act like a respite for the audience to catch their breath, even as those quiet moments might be our hero breaking down and repeating, you know, Hebrew prayers. So I think that that's just an incredible act of showrunning and construction, first of all. And then, what you also were talking about, I don't know if there's a precedent to this, that like, the sort of shadow repopulating of the emergency room in real time. So when my guy, Dr. Starbucks, shows up and gets deputized to be outside,

• 42:52Andy Greenwald?

  there is no fanfare. There is, it is not shot. There's no music to suggest that, oh, here comes someone we're gonna get to know. What we get instead is like, oh, there kind of is a cavalry. And we will, as we have throughout the course of the season, get to know this person and his or her quirks in the course of action. So that we almost didn't even notice the water in the tank being swapped out.

• 43:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like, Dr. Collins is missing, and I miss her, because I love that character. But I am now tracking.

• 43:24Chris Ryan?

  I gotta get her do not disturb function.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 43:28Chris Ryan?

  She's just like.

• 43:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, for example, and I'm not just saying this because of my progressive lenses, but like, I have been availing myself of the do not disturb function on my phone. But apparently, the wizards behind The Atlantic and Deliveroo in the UK have hacked Apple's do not disturb functions. Those are the only people that can reach me when I'm in slumber.

• 43:49Chris Ryan?

  Some would say The Atlantic knows something about hacking.

• 43:52Andy Greenwald?

  Some would say.

• 43:53Chris Ryan?

  So many people are saying.

• 43:56Andy Greenwald?

  It's true. It's true. Um, okay, but specifically, I mean, we could talk about the crisis itself. We could talk about how I think the show did the right thing story wise by the, by the perpetrator not being David, by the perpetrator being someone. You know, that, that it, that it allows us to focus on what I think the show wants us to focus on and what deserves our focus, which is that this sort of event, while unusual in terms of like someone's first day, is a regular occurrence in America and something that healthcare professionals have to be prepared for and have to survive and live through. And then, most incredibly, I mean, this was the, my biggest takeaway from this episode, the moment that's sort of lingering in my brain, is the moment when the, the, the peak

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  of the crisis recedes, and then they're like, okay, now we are in an emergency room again.

• 44:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Andy Greenwald?

  Now we have to put people in rooms. Now we have to take off their colored bands and learn their names and put, work up their charts and basically, it goes on. There isn't a break, other than that one moment when, uh, when, what's her name, Heather? What, is that her name? The, the administrator?

• 45:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Oh, the, the administrator's name Gloria.

• 45:04Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry, Gloria. I already talked about Heather. When Gloria comes in and, you know, actually says one nice and productive thing, which I feel like that actors, you know, agents like, had to advocate for. Like, can we just have one moment, please? After that, it's just, it's just back to it. I thought that was really, really striking.

• 45:25Chris Ryan?

  Um, I mean, we could go over so many different moments that I, I, I do want to touch on. Just a kind of a higher up view of the show itself and the effect it's having on me, not only emotionally, just to see what feels like very real stories being dramatized on the screen and, and you can feel the accuracy, the searching for like, having like you said, the verisimilitude, the, the real like palpable tactile feeling of like, this is how this works when you need to intubate somebody or whatever. Um, I had this moment, I believe it's in the end of this episode where Robbie puts on his zip up sweatshirt.

• 46:09Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, oh man, I'm not ready for him to be done with the day. It was like old school. We have spent, what is it now? More than three months watching these people, right?

• 46:23Andy Greenwald?

  Shockingly, yeah.

• 46:24Chris Ryan?

  And it, every time I turn an episode on, I, I'm like zapped right into the immediacy and urgency of, of whatever they're experiencing. It doesn't, it doesn't take me a minute to like wipe the cobwebs off. But watching him put that hooded sweatshirt on, which is what you see when he's coming into the, to the hospital in the first episode. And as he's sort of starting to get ready to go, I think that the genius thing the show did was kind of like, yeah, man, your shift's over. Like that, that, like, yeah, Gloria did say, thanks for everything you've done here today to everybody, but like, it's Dr. Abbott's ER now. They're starting to clear out like all of the, the sort of high level trauma patients and they're going back to the

• 47:07Chris Ryan?

  regular business of broken bones and, and EKGs. And it's like this, the, the most profoundly depressing thing about it is that theoretically he has to like zip that thing back up and come back in two days, if not a day.

• 47:20Andy Greenwald?

  Here's, this show is, this is one of the most successful first seasons in recent memory for me, um, across the board. And, um, not just in terms of the quality of the season, but like in establishing a beachhead for like, okay, this is what we're doing here. And this is what we're going to do going forward and we're going to keep it going forward.

• 47:38Chris Ryan?

  And it's worth noting, season two is apparently coming in January.

• 47:41Andy Greenwald?

  This is exactly that. They, they built this to go, which is rare at this day and age and, and very, very welcome. Already, I find myself in my mind, like, wish tweaking the conventions. Meaning, like, if the next season is another day with Robbie, which I imagine it will be, do we have to start it when his shift starts? Like, can we start it when he can't sleep? Like, what can the show do within this convention? And how much do we want? And the reason I say that is, and let me say, this could be a terrible pitch. This could be like, you know, Seth Rogen pitching Ron Howard on a different ending to Beautiful Mind.

• 48:23Andy Greenwald?

  But, like, the day that he just had really makes-

• 48:30Chris Ryan?

  How do you top that?

• 48:30Andy Greenwald?

  But not just in terms of a second workday, but the other half of it, like, the work-life balance, which is clearly impossible to balance. Like, what do you do for your other 14 hours?

• 48:42Chris Ryan?

  He goes home and watches Severance. And he's like, ah, I'm just emotionally connected with these people.

• 48:46Andy Greenwald?

  This show speaks to me. Who is Marquez gonna choose? So many good choices for his love. Um, yeah, when you put it that way, maybe it's not that interesting to watch it. But maybe that's just a sign, like, I don't think they should tweak it. But I am curious, which is kind of how you want the show to be going. Do you feel, well, let's say this, like, again, in terms of the larger construction of this, to throw in a measles patient and suggest a potential outbreak? And also give Robbie a chance in his absolute peak exhaustion and frustration to rail against Dr. Google?

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  Dr. Google, by the way, it's always cancer, if you trust that doctor. Not that I've ever, you know, looked. That was a very, very smart pivot at that moment, just to remind us that the stakes aren't necessarily gonna drop. And I also think that that kind of smart decision-making in miniature is what gives me a lot of confidence for season two. Like- I don't think season two has to have a mass casualty shooting event in the middle of it to be worthy of a season of the pit at this.

• 50:01Chris Ryan?

  Shonda Rhimes is somewhere being like, "Challenge accepted."

• 50:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, I mean, did you see that? This was going around, and I don't know when the original tweet was from, but it was, someone was, made the joke of like, "Season one of Medical Show, the emotional and professional lives of these doctors are compelling, realistic, and grounded. Season five of The Medical Show, I'd like you to meet our new patient. His name is Dracula."

• 50:24Chris Ryan?

  I saw that.

• 50:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. That is an issue. But the compressed nature of this suggests a little more flexibility within that framework. But I don't know. I mean, this is a question that maybe we'll get a chance to ask people, but like, do you attempt to? Because this show has just ticked every box in terms of like, how to execute something like this. So one of the hard questions is, do you try to top what you did? Because they certainly left it, as the little sister of the measles patient saw, they left it all on the floor.

• 50:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, you know, there will be a couple of questions. I have a couple of questions about like, okay, what, are they going to finish this plotline by the end of season one? And then I have a couple of questions about whether or not, knowing this is now a pretty beloved television show, that we'll probably be up for, if not winning Emmys, in a couple of months.

• 51:12Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's true.

• 51:13Chris Ryan?

  A couple of months, right?

• 51:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think it will.

• 51:16Chris Ryan?

  At what point do you say, okay, now we have to play the long game a little bit? For instance, I don't know necessarily that every season is going to have a three-episode torture chamber like the one we've just gone through. I don't necessarily know whether another season needs to reintroduce three new medical students. Are they always going to have like, you know, a group of an intern and third and second year medical students like Javadi, Whitaker, Santos, and Mel? I wonder whether or not, like, it will continue to delve into the... Interconnected personal lives of of people like McKay and Robbie and Collins,

• 51:57Chris Ryan?

  or whether we find out more about Abbott, you know, which I'm deeply fascinated by that character because the only glimpse we get of him early in the season is him standing on the edge of a building. And then he comes in and he is essentially like the greatest doctor in the history of the world. Partially because he probably got some sleep, you know, and these people are worked now to the bone, but I.

• 52:20Andy Greenwald?

  Also, there's an implication that he's was military or that he had some experience.

• 52:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think he's he's a lot of his tricks seem to come from this is what you do when you don't have the equipment you need.

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I wanted to ask you about a couple of things and see if you're like, yes, I need to know what the like where this ends.

• 52:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, before that, can we just shout out the the Durff family?

• 52:40Chris Ryan?

  Double Durffs, yeah.

• 52:42Andy Greenwald?

  Double Durffs. That was.

• 52:44Chris Ryan?

  Fiona Durff and Brad Durff, yeah.

• 52:46Andy Greenwald?

  Fiona Durff, who plays McKay's real dad, Brad Durff, playing her dad and getting another.

• 52:51Chris Ryan?

  So Chloe went home, the girlfriend, she just she bounced.

• 52:55Andy Greenwald?

  She bounced. What's the guy's name?

• 52:57Chris Ryan?

  Chad? I think Chad.

• 52:59Andy Greenwald?

  Guy's just catching strays at this point. I mean.

• 53:02Chris Ryan?

  Skateboarding, you know, like that's how we built this country.

• 53:05Andy Greenwald?

  That's that's you skateboarding over to my house to show my children Mobland? Why can't you be like Uncle Chris?

• 53:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you need to know? Do you need justice for Dana? Do you need Doug in cuffs?

• 53:19Chris Ryan?

  In town square being pelted with rotten vegetables?

• 53:22Andy Greenwald?

  I need justice for Dana, just on an emotional level. I want her to be celebrated like the queen that she is. But I have to say that I am a fan of the moments, the show, which has, you know, shown us like a debated leg with the skin coming off of it. The moments it chooses restraint. Like, if there is no more talk of Robbie and Heather and the time she was pregnant and what that might have meant for both of them, that is okay with me. That was beautifully handled and in the flow of a workday between professionals who we know respect each other. Like, I'm I'm good with that. Similarly, like, I'm good with the David storyline being hard, challenging, complicated, but not.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  That he rained death upon an entire city because of his

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  social media posting. So all that is to say, maybe Doug never comes back. And I, and I feel like the, I think you're right to ask about that because a little thread like that and how they handle it might tell us more about what the show is going to be because a HBO show would let it linger, you know, this is, this is, this is the pits pine barrens, you know? Or if it is more basic streaming, not sorry, the opposite of that, if it is more broadcast in its DNA, then

• 54:45Chris Ryan?

  He finally has a heart attack and he's like the last patient or something like that. Right?

• 54:49Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 54:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like the Langdon thing.

• 54:55Chris Ryan?

  I wonder whether we're gonna have to interrogate his, how his ID card worked. I guess he just like comes in the door. Obviously, he's still capable of doing medicine, but, uh, you know, a lot of those things, Langdon, whether or not Dana's gonna fully quit, Robbie, obviously going through it. I think we're gonna have some kind of reckoning moment about COVID and the mentor that he lost.

• 55:19Chris Ryan?

  McKay has been arrested.

• 55:22Chris Ryan?

  You know, like Santos, Langdon, do they have a a kind of final moment together? Does that keep, keep going on into the second season? I'm, I'm fascinated by all of it. It's just been an extraordinary experience for the last

• 55:35Andy Greenwald?

  We'll talk more about this.

• 55:36Chris Ryan?

  14 hours after the finale.

• 55:37Andy Greenwald?

  When we get to the finale, but what a gift for the people responsible for the show to hopefully, I mean, that clearly they've already made their decision. The show's, the writers room has probably already happened. They're shooting soon for season two, but what a gift to be like, we can pick our spot. And they could be, it could be one week later, it could be six months later, it could be two years later. It's, it's up to them. And I'm excited to see a different status quo and then see how it shakes out, you know? And, and, and the other thing to remember about the beauty of this long season is that it has created such a large community. So that, um, you know, if we never see, if that was it for Jake's mom, who had a thing with,

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  Robbie, who showed up to check on it. If that's all we see of her this season, we know who she is now. She's in play. You know what I mean?

• 56:29Chris Ryan?

  And since it's coming on in eight months, we don't have to be like three years later. Wait, Jake's mom was.

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  Who is that?

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:36Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly, exactly. And even if Langdon is, what's the medical equivalent of being disbarred?

• 56:41Chris Ryan?

  I feel like you mentioned Jake and we didn't really talk about that sequence of Robbie trying to revive his girlfriend.

• 56:48Andy Greenwald?

  From last week.

• 56:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:51Andy Greenwald?

  But then I also like. We kind of skipped over the episode.

• 56:52Chris Ryan?

  That's almost the dramatic version of Baby Billy being the comedic version where I'm like, what do you say? I mean, it's absolutely gut wrenching to watch that. And everybody in that, on that cast played that moment exactly perfectly, you know, where they're. What do you, what do you even say about something like that? I know it's a podcast, but.

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, I mean, I, I think that one of the things that we could say, and, and I don't think this is the last time we'll talk about this. Like, this show has a respect for life and death on a fundamental human, on a fundamentally human level that is sorely lacking, honestly, from most entertainment. And it's not the responsibility of all entertainment. Like, I don't think, I don't think that.

• 57:36Chris Ryan?

  Mobland has to.

• 57:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Mobland or if like, if John Wick then like had a companion series where they went to the ER or the morgue. Like, I, I get it.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  Tom Hardy's like, I put this guy to wood chipper, but we should have a moment of silence.

• 57:48Andy Greenwald?

  But I will also donate some like bougie ties or whatever and some catheters to get.

• 57:55Andy Greenwald?

  I, I just think that that aspect alone, like that seems to be its core belief in terms of respecting the fragility of life and the, and, you know, what, what happened, that, that every plotline, every casualty may have been a full person and honoring that. And it builds outward from there. And I'm, I'm struck by that. I'm just struck by the humanity of a show that in lesser hands could have been plug and play. Let's get these eyeballs, let's get these clicks, let's just, let, let's get the old machinery firing again. And it left the human part in the dust.

• 58:30Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's just wrap it up there. So we'll talk about the pit finale next week. Would love to maybe get some special guests involved with that. And then, uh, we'll obviously be spending Monday show talking about the finale of White Lotus and whatever else comes up.

• 58:43Andy Greenwald?

  And no screeners, right? We're all watching it live.

• 58:45Chris Ryan?

  All, everybody, we're all, we're all in it together.

• 58:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's like the old days.

• 58:48Chris Ryan?

  If this day has taught me anything, it's that we're all in it together. Thank you to Kaya for producing that. Thanks to Greenwald for his insights as, as always, buddy. Uh, and I will talk to you soon.