One Award After Another: Oscars Recap. Plus, ‘Paradise’ Season 2, Episodes 4-6.

Chris and Andy talk about the Oscars broadcast, the shared dominance of ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Sinners,’ and why this year's crop of films was so exciting (2:41). Later, they discuss ‘Paradise’ Season 2, Episodes 4-6 (52:30). Drivers wanted. Learn more at vw.com Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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• 2:11Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, excepting on behalf of Sean Penn, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  Did you hear where he was?

• 2:26Chris Ryan?

  Smoking?

• 2:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  In Ukraine?

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  In Ukraine.

• 2:30Chris Ryan?

  That's like, is that rumor? Did that get confirmed?

• 2:32Andy Greenwald?

  Who would confirm it, do you think?

• 2:34Chris Ryan?

  Zelensky.

• 2:34Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 2:35Chris Ryan?

  He'd be like, I am here with Sean Penn.

• 2:37Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, your accent game remains supreme. He, I believe he's been weirdly silent.

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  He has been. Zelensky has been. He's got a couple of things on his plate. Sean Penn hanging out.

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  He had Stellan Skarsgård on his ballot.

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  It's good to see you, man. Oscars Monday, the day after. You can feel a change in this town.

• 2:57Andy Greenwald?

  Finally, we can exhale.

• 2:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Andy Greenwald is right here. I'm Chris Ryan. This is The Watch. You can email us at [email protected]. You can follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod underscore. Watch us on YouTube, the Ringer-TV channel, and watch us on Spotify, where you're also listening to us. We're going to talk about the Oscars today. We're going to talk about the winners. We're going to talk about the broadcast. We're also going to talk about Paradise, another property of the Disney Hulu empire, the umbrella. We got, last night, late, it was updated, the Jane episode went up.

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  One of us has seen that, and it might surprise you who.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  It's pretty thrilling. Don't tell them.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  No, don't tell them!

• 3:37Andy Greenwald?

  You have to like-

• 3:37Chris Ryan?

  You think people would listen to 42 minutes of Oscar conversation just to find out which one of us watched last night's Paradise?

• 3:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's like my children watching three and a half hours of the Oscars to see K-pop Demon Hunters perform. You know what I mean? You don't put the one thing that people are excited about at the top of the show.

• 3:54Chris Ryan?

  Bro, I feel bad for parents on the East Coast for last night. We're going to get to that. All right, so let's do, let's do some Oscars and then we'll get to Paradise later. Later this week, Pitt, Madison.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:04Chris Ryan?

  I might even talk about Marshalls, brother.

• 4:06Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. You really riding with him into these-

• 4:09Chris Ryan?

  My guy Logan Marshall Green came back for his quarters.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, my old, I knew him years ago. Logan Marshall Green is on Marshalls?

• 4:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 4:19Andy Greenwald?

  And-

• 4:19Chris Ryan?

  What do you think The Marshalls and Marshalls is about?

• 4:21Andy Greenwald?

  Now I'm more interested. And you're the greens today for those watching on video.

• 4:26Chris Ryan?

  We did not, we did not, we're not covering DTF today. Perhaps we will revisit, you know?

• 4:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to save your thoughts on Rooster Ep 2 for the end of the show?

• 4:34Chris Ryan?

  I'm waiting for everybody to see the conclusion, you know, where they, they find out that it's actually just a dream in Bob Newhart's head. Let's talk about Oscars. This part of today's episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. It's easy to sit back and follow the crowd, but all those award winning actors and directors didn't get nominated for making work like everybody else. They took chances and pushed themselves to create something uniquely their own. This is your sign to do the same from us, from VW and from the other drivers out there. Take control, chase after your ambitions, because honestly, what are you waiting for?

• 5:07Andy Greenwald?

  Before we get into it specifically, do you want to clear the air between us? Cause it seemed like you walked in here and you were like, you felt like I was distancing myself from you.

• 5:14Chris Ryan?

  Well, this is just a fun one because sometimes you live text your reactions to any given pop cultural moment to me. And sometimes I come in and I'm blind and this is one of those. I don't know. I'm like, uh, I'm, I'm, I don't know if you thought it was a delightful broadcast. If you thought it was a tedious broadcast, if you thought Conan was incredible, if you thought Conan failed to meet the moment, tell me everything you felt. Let's start with the broadcast itself.

• 5:37Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know who I was texting all night or do you want to, cause I was live texting.

• 5:40Chris Ryan?

  Who?

• 5:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, I was behind. I was watching it later that you watched it like you were 4pm, you were in your seat, ready to go, West Coast time. I was having a more leisurely afternoon, so I didn't want to like.

• 5:52Chris Ryan?

  You didn't want to rush?

• 5:52Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 5:53Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:54Andy Greenwald?

  And you know what, you know what else, you know what else didn't want to rush? The Oscars.

• 5:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh boy, that was a long one.

• 6:00Chris Ryan?

  I thought it got off to like a good tempo.

• 6:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  And there's just a lot of awards.

• 6:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but there were also moments when you felt like they could have seen it coming. Now introducing a new Oscar is a big deal. And the casting award, people have been advocating it for a long time. I think it's an exciting addition. Okay. I don't know if it's an exciting addition, but I think it's a worthwhile and deserving addition to the, the broadcast. And of course you want to highlight the fact that it's the first one. But do you think there was a moment in the booth when they realized that it had already been five minutes and Gwyneth hadn't started talking about her person yet, that they were like, oh, we misjudged this?

• 6:35Chris Ryan?

  You know, here's my thing about these.

• 6:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Chris Ryan?

  I'm pro awards. I like the awards.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, you don't like the.

• 6:42Chris Ryan?

  I, the, I don't, I don't need as much interstitial stuff, you know? I think we could do a rule where it's just like opening monologue, whatever bit you want to do then. I can imagine, you know, you need some pepper it a little bit over the course of the night. But I'm really like, the awards are never the problem for me. It's really like the like, and now let's slam on the brakes and do something else.

• 7:05Andy Greenwald?

  So you asked me about the broadcast. They didn't really do that this year, which I thought was good for the most part, unless there's some trippy dance number I'm forgetting about. They didn't say, and now a movie's tribute to movies. Don't we love movies like they've been doing for the last 15 years? Which I appreciated. So they mostly got about their business and it's not necessarily their fault that their business was delayed further by Thai, for example.

• 7:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 7:31Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 7:32Chris Ryan?

  They got, they got that back when they gave. K-pop Demon Hunters, it's award that they had been like holding for three and a half hours. And then they just like kick that guy off the stage.

• 7:43Andy Greenwald?

  That was wild.

• 7:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  My nine year old was like, that was the meanest thing I've ever seen. And she's been, her entire life is the Trump era.

• 7:51Chris Ryan?

  So who was the dude who got?

• 7:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's the meanest thing she's ever seen.

• 7:53Chris Ryan?

  Who was the dude who couldn't speak, who didn't get, get his chance?

• 7:56Andy Greenwald?

  We'll never know.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 7:57Andy Greenwald?

  He's been scrubbed completely from existence. He doesn't even get an Oscar now.

• 8:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. So let's talk, let's start with the beginning.

• 8:03Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  What did you think of Conan this year?

• 8:04Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, first of all, show starts and I was reminded of my number one, uh, feeling, which is, I really wanted to try and watch weapons before this broadcast. And I was like, ah, I guess it's about kids and a lady. Oh, man.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  You don't know what weapons is about at all?

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  At 2:38 AM, a bunch of children go missing.

• 8:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Andy Greenwald?

  And you know where I learned that? The poster. So I am otherwise, I am pure as snow.

• 8:28Chris Ryan?

  Are you the kind of person that the second the Oscars ends, you're like, those movies now have been consigned to the dustbin of history and I will not, never engage with them again? Or are you like, okay, weapons, like I should go see that now?

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  The King's speech is still on my list. I'm gonna get him a circle back.

• 8:41Chris Ryan?

  Top of the queue.

• 8:42Andy Greenwald?

  The artist. Um, that's, it's a good question, but weapons is something that I've been sucking myself up for.

• 8:51Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 8:52Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like I should engage with some of the post whitest kids you know, Uvra, you know, of the members of that sketch group.

• 8:58Chris Ryan?

  Of course.

• 8:59Andy Greenwald?

  I should at least invest in one of their work. So, no, I, I feel like this guy is an important, become an important filmmaker and people love this movie.

• 9:07Chris Ryan?

  Will you be watching his Resident Evil adaptation when it comes out?

• 9:08Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, maybe. I don't know. Look.

• 9:12Chris Ryan?

  I know, I was meaning like, are you enthusiastic for that IP?

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  We're at war, man. Like, anything's on the table for me now.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  You can say that about anything now.

• 9:18Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna say it.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  So when I'm like, did you watch the Madison? You're like, we're at war.

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, how dare you ask me this? No, I have better things to do with my time.

• 9:27Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for listening.

• 9:28Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, okay, so the show starts and I am, I'm, I'm pro Conan.

• 9:34Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 9:35Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that as a host, I thought his monologue was weaker this year in terms of just like, here's a professional funny man who can read the room. But I thought his steady hand on the, on the rudder and also his moves towards some moments of, um, not solemnity, but of more seriousness were very well appreciated. I thought those were very tonally appropriate for the moment, for the night, for the room. And I was grateful that he was doing it.

• 10:05Chris Ryan?

  Uh, obviously like a tumultuous year for him personally, like for a variety of reasons. I think, you know, whether it's 12, 15 months, but fires, losing parents, Rob Reiner, like just a really like, uh, a lot going on. He seems like, you know, when I've, when I've watched his pod, he seems to be doing fine, but like, I did note that when like, you know, the three quarter or almost towards the end of the show and he was just unaware that he was on camera and he was like, almost there, almost there, which could have just been nerves, like we're almost done, but it almost seemed like he was like. I can't wait for this to be over.

• 10:41Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think that was him. I think there were enough technical glitches that there may be a little bit of an internal audit about the direction and things. There was Melissa McCarthy's microphone. There were other weird elements of sound where you could hear the room, but not the people on stage. And there were hastily, there was a weird whip pan where they cut someone in the audience, but the camera wasn't ready. And then, yeah, and then it cut. There were a couple of explosions, not explosions, eruptions of applause or screaming that was unclear whether it was just like very excited nominees.

• 11:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and Kimmel said something and was there just like a, Kimmel like mentioned something and there was like a huge, huge reaction?

• 11:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it was about documentaries and I think one of the nominee groups was very excited about it. And he was like, well, they won't invite you back if you keep interrupting. And he was, I think he was trying to be playful, but there was, you add up all those things and there's kind of a feeling of loose chaos in the room, not enough fun, everyone's drunk at the Golden Globes and Tina Fey is making jokes sort of way. So when it cut to him and he didn't even know if he was on or not, I didn't put that on him. I think, I think

• 11:38Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm not putting it on him. I just meant like, I couldn't tell whether that was a like mass drop. I'm like, I'm ready for this to be over.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's a tough show. That said, I have seen other people point this out. This is not like a unique take, but one thing that we have criticized hosts of these award shows in the past for is not actually being responsible to the audience past the point of their monologue. And so when Autumn Rock Paul wins for cinematography for Sinners, it's an exciting moment and a significant moment. And I think everyone in the room understood the significance of the moment because a woman has never won best cinematographer at the Academy Awards before. I thought it was appropriate and, and good that Conan mentions that to the audience at home.

• 12:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Andy Greenwald?

  That, that there's a, there's, there's a reason for the extra ovation there.

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 12:24Andy Greenwald?

  So he, I think he was invested and engaged. And then I also thought that a few of the bits, like the Jane Lynch YouTube bit, was funny.

• 12:33Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:35Andy Greenwald?

  And the closing bit, I don't know how many people stuck around for it after hour four or whatever it was.

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  The lockjaw.

• 12:40Andy Greenwald?

  Where he just does the end of one battle after another was pretty good and did make me wonder, did he have alternate endings planned for at least four or five of the Best Picture nominees? Or was this always the way the show was gonna end?

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  Oh, like a Sinners thing? Like was he gonna dance at Irish, like folk dance if like?

• 12:56Andy Greenwald?

  That's not the end of the movie I saw.

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  Is that when you turned off? Were you Dave Wasserman of sinners? I've seen enough.

• 13:04Chris Ryan?

  The Irish have won.

• 13:05Andy Greenwald?

  The Irish win. That's incredible.

• 13:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's why I think a lot of criticism seems to be missing the Irish.

• 13:12Andy Greenwald?

  Is your headline, first of all, you're wearing.

• 13:14Chris Ryan?

  Common Irish W.

• 13:15Andy Greenwald?

  Green head to toe. You're like between Jessie Buckley.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  No, actually, the ASAC today is in honor of Coogs.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's good.

• 13:23Chris Ryan?

  In honor of Ryan Coogler.

• 13:24Andy Greenwald?

  All right. It's not because Jessie Buckley and Jack O'Connell is sinners or the biggest winners of culture this year? That was fun.

• 13:32Chris Ryan?

  What did you think of the seemingly? I mean, they weren't arbitrary because they were actual anniversaries, but like, let's start at the end and work backwards. You McGregor and Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge is not a big movie for me, so it took me like a solid 20 seconds to be like, is this a Moulin Rouge reunion? And then I kind of got the sense that maybe like they had to replace someone who dropped out because with all due respect to both of those people who I really like you and McGregor and Nicole Kidman's work generally. That doesn't feel like proportionate to the Best Picture.

• 14:05Andy Greenwald?

  That was really weird.

• 14:06Chris Ryan?

  And so I was almost like, was no, did Nolan get caught up like cutting Odyssey stuff? And so it couldn't come to present best pick.

• 14:14Andy Greenwald?

  It was very strange. That was, is anyone in this room a Moulin Rouge head? Is that like, have you seen it, Kaia?

• 14:21Speaker 07

  No, sorry.

• 14:22Andy Greenwald?

  I've, yeah, I'm sorry. I've never seen that film.

• 14:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Andy Greenwald?

  You know what? I'm okay with that. It's below King's Speech on my catch up list.

• 14:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Andy Greenwald?

  Very odd and very minor.

• 14:32Chris Ryan?

  It's like, now welcome Vin Diesel and Roda Mitchell from Chronicles of Riddick.

• 14:39Andy Greenwald?

  But also, what was also weird about it was that they seemed like when they just start singing as if this was some like moment we've been waiting for.

• 14:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Andy Greenwald?

  Very weird.

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  Very strange. That was why I was almost like, did you guys, were you guys supposed to do best song or something like?

• 14:53Andy Greenwald?

  The other thing that I would say is I don't care about arbitrary anniversaries. Sorry, stereogum, but.

• 15:00Chris Ryan?

  The internet does.

• 15:00Andy Greenwald?

  The internet does. But when they are charming, funny people, like most of the cast of Bridesmaids.

• 15:08Chris Ryan?

  Where you take stereogumma down a peg or two, you know?

• 15:10Andy Greenwald?

  It's a brush back pitch. You come at me again, Brooklyn vegan, you're next. We don't mess around here. We'll call people out if need be. But they were great, like having the bridesmaids women on stage was funny. And at no point was I like, ah, the passage of time bridesmaids. I was just like, they're, they are funny always, and I was happy to see them.

• 15:29Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what I'm starting to wonder about Wig?

• 15:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Chris Ryan?

  Because she's like undefeated at award shows. But it seems almost like the guy you only want to see at bachelor parties. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like an amazing one night thing, but you wouldn't really want to trust the whole wedding to him.

• 15:47Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, in terms of like officiating the wedding in your metaphor?

• 15:50Chris Ryan?

  Like, I could see, like, there was a point where I was just like, how come Wig and Correll don't just host one of these things? Because they have such great improvisatory skills with one another and great chemistry. And I wonder whether it's just because, and that's why Farrell hasn't done one of these where it's just like, it would just turn into a long eastbound and down scene, you know?

• 16:08Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that's right.

• 16:09Chris Ryan?

  And people would be like, actually, this is a very solemn event. We're gonna pay tribute to Robert Redford.

• 16:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think that would be tough. I think that's right.

• 16:16Chris Ryan?

  Do you watch these rooting for people? I think it's a mix of rooting, sometimes rooting interest. A lot of just like my weird anxiety, secondary anxiety for people not, not to fuck up. You know, like, I just don't want to see people get yanked offstage, go too long, do the things that are like, kind of.

• 16:34Andy Greenwald?

  Forget to thank their team. You hate that.

• 16:36Chris Ryan?

  I hate when they do that.

• 16:37Andy Greenwald?

  I.

• 16:39Chris Ryan?

  Gotta thank Gary.

• 16:39Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth.

• 16:40Chris Ryan?

  Gotta thank Mark.

• 16:41Andy Greenwald?

  These are guys?

• 16:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to say more about them?

• 16:45Chris Ryan?

  Gary and Mark.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  Your golf coach?

• 16:49Andy Greenwald?

  I, I mean, we probably should begin by saying that there was a little bit more intrigue than in some past years.

• 16:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 16:55Andy Greenwald?

  There was nothing, it was not as absolutely chalk as it's been the past few years. Uh, even though it did, I think, end up mostly aligning with what the savvier prognosticators were predicting. I think there was still a chance for enough upsets or wild cards to keep you leaning in.

• 17:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, this was a particularly long award season.

• 17:14Chris Ryan?

  I think it got. I mean, I've definitely seen more hostile awards campaigns, but I think by the end of it, it was like, nothing good is gonna come out of this lasting any longer, you know, like it was,

• 17:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:26Chris Ryan?

  It was pretty much like, whether it was pitting one battle against Sitters, or whether it was like the Icarus flight of Timothy Chalamet, it seemed like we were, with the exception of Jessie Buckley, like just gonna kind of tear it apart if it went on any longer. That's the nature of the beast. But I do think if this had been February 1st, it seems like Chalamet would have won.

• 17:50Andy Greenwald?

  That does seem true. You rarely, I don't often give a lot of credence to the stories of sudden surges or surprise upsets. That does seem to be the case.

• 18:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  Marty Supreme movie I loved, dropped completely off any radar for winning things. And it does seem that the, it does weirdly seem like his blindside against ballet really hit him.

• 18:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I thought that happened after he, after the voting was closed.

• 18:18Andy Greenwald?

  I never fully understand when the voting happens. I'll say this about the long, the long campaign. There is a small case to be made that was on display last night, that the brutally long just road that these movies all go on together, international road of promotion, and then BAFTAs, and then back, and then all the different, the various Guild Awards and things, that it has forged, almost perversely forged, a sense of community and shared artistry among a diverse group of creatives than might otherwise exist. Like, I did think, and obviously there are connections between people that we don't know about.

• 19:02Andy Greenwald?

  Like, people develop projects together, people meet on set, people are put in contact and have meetings, have lunches, have Sundance relationships.

• 19:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz Trer, Kugler and Chloe Zhao, where it like did Sundance stuff together.

• 19:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, they're all Sundance bros, and there was a moment when Jessie Buckley won, I think the cameras caught Kugler coming over to give Chloe a hug.

• 19:22Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 19:23Andy Greenwald?

  And that stuff's great.

• 19:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Andy Greenwald?

  And the relation, and you know, and- I don't think it's corny, especially in the spirit of what Conan was saying, to want to see and want to cheer for not just Michael B. Jordan winning his first Oscar, but the moment afterwards that cameras caught later of him embracing Leo for a long time. And Leo talking to him and like, well, in a sense, welcoming him in deservedly to a very exclusive club.

• 19:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Andy Greenwald?

  I like that. I like the relationship between these films and that they can support each other and not do what their publicity teams are doing, which is tear each other down. That said, it's way too fucking long.

• 19:58Chris Ryan?

  Well.

• 19:58Andy Greenwald?

  And it becomes abstract to the point where it is about blood sport and competition and almost completely separated from the films themselves, many of which left theaters, if they were in theaters at all, half a year ago.

• 20:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's the thing about this particular crop of movies is that Sinners came out late last spring.

• 20:13Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:14Chris Ryan?

  One battle after another came out late last summer. Marty was in theaters from what, like Christmas, but had been screening pretty widely for a while.

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  What had the run up in the film festivals?

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  Um, it's tough. It's tough to be, in some ways, I think it's a testament to Sinners and One Battle After Another that they were durable enough to text to support conversation for that long. Because I think if they had been maybe more traditional Hollywood fare, like Your King's Speech kind of thing.

• 20:46Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  Like a Green Book or whatever, uh, we would have just like atomized it. It just would, I, I, I think what happened last night, and we can get into the actual awards now, is a pretty decent and fair, uh, it's One Battle After Another's night. It won six awards.

• 21:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 21:06Chris Ryan?

  Um, but I feel like the broadcast almost allowed it to be a co-winner night of Sinners and One Battle.

• 21:13Andy Greenwald?

  It did.

• 21:14Chris Ryan?

  Because I think.

• 21:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's right.

• 21:15Chris Ryan?

  You mentioned, uh, Autumn, uh, Dural, Arkapaz's win, um, and Kugler's win. In both of those, they pulled the Tom Cruise, everybody stand.

• 21:24Andy Greenwald?

  Um, yep.

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  Autumn had all the women in the audience stand.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  That was awesome.

• 21:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Kugler had everybody who worked on Sinners stand. And I thought it was like a good recognition. I always remember that Pulp Fiction win for screenplay when Tarantino was like, I think this is gonna be the only thing I win tonight.

• 21:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 21:39Chris Ryan?

  And I think Coogler used original screenplay to be like, this is probably it. So let me do the real big.

• 21:47Andy Greenwald?

  That was great.

• 21:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I thought MBJ winning was really cool. Um, it probably is not my favorite of the performances that were nominated. I think mine would probably be Leo. Um, or Wagamora, but uh, I also like Chalamet. I mean, it was a really, really, really good category. I liked Ethan Hawke a lot in Blue Moon. So I, I thought each film got its moments and it was almost like for all the like weird, like who voted for what and the, the, um, what do they call it? When the ballots, when you can ranked, ranked choice ballot or like, because people get second place votes or whatever.

• 22:22Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Like, like New York City mayoral elections.

• 22:25Chris Ryan?

  It almost seemed like preordained where they were like, we're gonna give sentimental value its moment.

• 22:29Andy Greenwald?

  It shook out that way.

• 22:30Chris Ryan?

  Amy Mattigan a moment. We're gonna give sinners a couple of moments, but OBA is gonna kinda be.

• 22:36Andy Greenwald?

  I think that not to, I, I wouldn't, first of all, I wouldn't presume to be Sean fantasy here.

• 22:42Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 22:42Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see, did you see his costume work last night in the bathroom?

• 22:44Chris Ryan?

  It was really impressive.

• 22:45Andy Greenwald?

  I want more of that from him. He's been a leading man up till now, but I think it's time to have a character actor bent.

• 22:50Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you think Sean should step back from the spotlight?

• 22:53Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just think he should get a little weirder, you know? I think, I think that's really good.

• 22:57Chris Ryan?

  Sean's pretty weird.

• 22:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I know, but his, but his on the, he's.

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  But I mean, like.

• 23:01Andy Greenwald?

  He didn't get invited to interview Steven Spielberg last week.

• 23:04Chris Ryan?

  Cause he's just a freak.

• 23:05Andy Greenwald?

  Cause he's a fucking freak show. Okay? That's not how Steven gets down.

• 23:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:10Andy Greenwald?

  Despite his belief in extraterrestrial life on the planet right now. I don't presume to be even worthy of a sixth chair on the big picture, but I will say from my vantage point, a, a really remarkably good year for movies and a very strong year for the nominees. Um, you mentioned the five best actor nominees, all of whom are deserving of recognition, if not an award. And Jesse Plemons didn't even make the cut and that, that may have been my favorite performance of the year. Definitely top three.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  The Goon you joined?

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Chris Ryan?

  Damn.

• 23:36Andy Greenwald?

  He's unreal in that movie. He's, he's a freak show. He's great. But if you look, if you think about sinners, one battle after another, secret agent sentimental value. I mean, I think these are, and Marty Supreme, I think these are like significant cinematic achievements that will last longer than this year or last longer than the King's Speech. And particularly sinners and one battle after another. I know one battle after another is a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Vinland.

• 24:04Chris Ryan?

  Still reeling.

• 24:05Andy Greenwald?

  I know. I was waiting for it too. I was like doing this-

• 24:08Chris Ryan?

  Because you have to assume, like, we talked about this, I guess.

• 24:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he got it right.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  He knows-

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  He knows him.

• 24:12Chris Ryan?

  How Pynchon-

• 24:14Andy Greenwald?

  Nope. I was doing the Simpsons meme, "Say it, say the name!" When he got up there, I knew he was gonna get it right. These movies are, so it is an adaptation, but I think they're both wildly original cinematic expressions and visions, and they are both very much of this moment and of this year, and I think will remind us of the time in which they were released in a way that a lot of the last five, six, seven, 10 winners won't.

• 24:41Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's very, I think that's exciting. I think that's good for the medium in the same way that whether or not he was our favorite performance of the year, or whether or not you and I would ever fucking see Hamlet, I think-

• 24:50Chris Ryan?

  I saw Hamlet.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  Look at you!

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. I did my work.

• 24:54Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 24:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  I was gonna reach across the aisle there and be like, "We stand in blockade of this."

• 24:59Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 25:00Andy Greenwald?

  That's because we have different opinions about dead kids in movies.

• 25:02Chris Ryan?

  I love them.

• 25:03Andy Greenwald?

  I know. I know.

• 25:05Chris Ryan?

  Why do I sound like Lockjaw? "I love them!" You like dead kids?

• 25:12Andy Greenwald?

  We've all got our quirks. We're at war. We can express our differences in ways that don't shame each other, okay?

• 25:18Chris Ryan?

  That would be such a fucking amazing movie fight if you just started being like, "I'm sorry, we're at war."

• 25:25Chris Ryan?

  That's why I didn't watch Hamlet.

• 25:26Andy Greenwald?

  If I just started? This is my get out of everything free card for the next one to 16 years, I guess? I don't know. No Hamlet shade, I just didn't really, there was never a moment where I was like gonna fire this up. What I was trying to say is, Michael B. Jordan and Jessie Buckley are emerging stars, and who are stars who have charisma and also acting chops, and that's also very cool to see.

• 25:51Andy Greenwald?

  It is, I know this is sort of a fool's exercise to look back on past Oscar campaigns where, you know, we sit up, we sit here the next day and everyone talks about what it means and the significance, and this was elevated over others, but it is kind of shocking to run back 10 years. Birdman won Best Picture? When's the last time you fired that up?

• 26:08Chris Ryan?

  I have not.

• 26:09Andy Greenwald?

  That has not made the rewatchables. Spotlight?

• 26:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I've-

• 26:13Andy Greenwald?

  I know. Spotlight and Moonlight-

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Taken a couple runs around the newsroom with that one.

• 26:16Andy Greenwald?

  The Lights won for a couple years. And then we get into The Shape of Water and Green Book.

• 26:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that was, that's a real, like, I was talking last night with somebody about- You know, I have not always been an Oscars fan.

• 26:29Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 26:29Chris Ryan?

  There's like a whole run there, which I'll, I'll describe as late period Eastwood superiority. You know, like the, the million dollar baby kind of

• 26:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 26:40Chris Ryan?

  Run there where I was just like, oh, the Oscars are on tonight. You know, like it was at that level of like,

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  Did you have other plans?

• 26:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just being like, it's Sunday night in New York City. Let's go.

• 26:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's selection Sunday. That's all I care about.

• 26:55Chris Ryan?

  Delonte West, Demir Nelson, St. Joe's team. One seed, baby.

• 27:00Andy Greenwald?

  Clint.

• 27:02Chris Ryan?

  So I mean, it's not always been that like, and, and Green Book and Shape of Water were definitely like,

• 27:09Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's not even, we didn't even say Nomadland, Coda and every, everything everywhere all at once.

• 27:13Chris Ryan?

  Covid was in there. Yeah. Not Covid, Covid didn't win any Oscars, but I mean, there was the Covid Oscars, the Soderbergh, Union Station Oscars, you know?

• 27:22Andy Greenwald?

  You don't think Covid won anything? The Covid shutout?

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  I think Covid arguably won the decade so far in terms of being a story.

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. Anyway, yeah. So what other specific ones should we talk about? Like I,

• 27:35Chris Ryan?

  I wonder whether or not the, the scale or the proportions of OBA and sinners would have felt differently if Penn had been there. Because really it was the editing, casting, OBA, and then it was PTA for the most part, speaking on behalf of the film. It was in, you know, if they, if it had, if Sean Penn had been there, for better or for worse.

• 27:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Chris Ryan?

  Because he might've gone up there and been like incredibly gregarious and like, you know, humble and he's not, not humble.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Or he might've gotten up there.

• 28:08Andy Greenwald?

  Just with a dart in his hand and just,

• 28:10Chris Ryan?

  Or and just been, or been like, let, I don't know if you guys have heard, there's war happening.

• 28:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Chris Ryan?

  You know?

• 28:15Andy Greenwald?

  That's yet another thing he and I have in common.

• 28:17Chris Ryan?

  Which I think really only Bardem directly referenced.

• 28:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, there was a lot of, I thought clever and delicate dancing around it and everyone knew what we were talking about without talking about it. I think the Sean Penn thing is tough because the Oscars rarely deliver.

• 28:34Andy Greenwald?

  Merit at the right time. And it's, you know, it's the multiple winners. There are some that you can quibble with, but others, especially people like Sean Penn, who have won over decades, it's like you're not taking, maybe you take away the one that Bill Murray should have won for Lost in Translation, the Mystic River one, but otherwise, like, The Lockjaw is one of the most incredible cinematic creations of the last however many years.

• 28:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  He deserves awards and recognition for it, but it's a kind of a bummer that he won because he's won before, because he wasn't even there and you don't even get the speech. And because I had Stellan in my Oscar pool, just like Vladimir Zelensky.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  Did you have an Oscar pool?

• 29:11Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 29:12Chris Ryan?

  Would you, did you, were you, did you want Stellan Skarsgård to win?

• 29:15Andy Greenwald?

  I did, just because that's my favorite movie of the year, and I think he's incredible. I should own up to the fact that I rarely, I don't know if I've ever made predictions on this podcast, but I did sit here and say that I thought Sinners was gonna have a late surge and sweep, and that did not happen.

• 29:28Chris Ryan?

  It didn't.

• 29:28Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I'm all about accountability. So, yeah, the Sean Penn thing was kind of a bummer, I guess, in that case.

• 29:38Andy Greenwald?

  But otherwise, oh, the casting I wanted to talk about, only because it's funny that in its first year, and there's nothing wrong with the casting of one battle after another. It's the best picture of the year, according to many, including the Academy, ergo, it was pretty well cast.

• 29:54Andy Greenwald?

  But I feel like that award, the spirit of that award, was invented for movies like Marty Supreme and Secret Agent, both of whom were nominated.

• 30:02Chris Ryan?

  I know what you mean. I will say that I do feel like when Bluto comes to the door in one battle after another, and he's just like, are you cool? And Blue's just like, yeah. Like, finding that kid, like, they found people that were.

• 30:17Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's incredibly cast.

• 30:19Chris Ryan?

  But I know what you mean, where it's just like the faces in Marty Supreme are like, how the hell did you do that?

• 30:24Andy Greenwald?

  And so much of it, and obviously, a lot of this comes from Josh Safdie himself, but like, many, many if not most of the parts in that movie are played by non-professional actors. And that ability to like, identify someone who can deliver this specific brief on camera is really, really challenging. And Secret Agent, which we haven't talked much about, but I know we both really liked,

• 30:45Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 30:46Andy Greenwald?

  is just stunning. Production design and how every single person looks.

• 30:51Andy Greenwald?

  Unique and memorable and period and you know it is as transporting as the scenery and the vibe, just the way that they look, it's just incredible.

• 31:01Andy Greenwald?

  But yeah, I, I, I always like when screenplay awards are kind of like shadow. They're the real best pictures, but this time it kind of, it just tracks.

• 31:13Chris Ryan?

  So for screenplay, you would have, was Trier nominated for screenplay?

• 31:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he was for original, but I thought, like you said, like.

• 31:19Chris Ryan?

  He didn't adapt that from World War II.

• 31:21Andy Greenwald?

  What's that?

• 31:21Chris Ryan?

  He wasn't adapted from World War II in some ways.

• 31:24Andy Greenwald?

  Or from all.

• 31:25Chris Ryan?

  Aren't all screenplays kind of?

• 31:27Andy Greenwald?

  In a way.

• 31:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of from World War II, I did like when Paradise star Sterling K. Brown did the Casablanca bit with Conan.

• 31:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 31:35Andy Greenwald?

  And was like, was that the Hitler one? But that was good. Do you think it was a meta cruel joke commentary on the state of our business that the screenplay awards were given by Downey and Chris Evans? Just like, well, just find it in posting their way through an absolutely putrid non-joke bit? Promoting an Avengers movie?

• 31:54Chris Ryan?

  There were a couple of tough bits and.

• 31:55Andy Greenwald?

  That was tough.

• 31:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem. I think that you would never go wrong with reference. If you just have people come out who are like, I am here because of great screenplays. You know, here are some of my favorites. Here's some of my favorite lines, whatever, let's get into it. I just think that they over, overcooked the pie by 10 degrees and 10 minutes. Almost every time and there's always going to be some person who comes out and is like, what the fuck are we announcing tonight? And it's just like, damn it, dude, you're Robert Downey Jr. Like you're pretty much Jack Nicholson.

• 32:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:32Chris Ryan?

  Like you're the closest thing we have, you should be giving out best picture.

• 32:35Andy Greenwald?

  You should be the mayor of this.

• 32:36Chris Ryan?

  But it doesn't seem like they can kind of rely on you to just be like, read the fucking prompter for, to some extent.

• 32:41Andy Greenwald?

  He has been, I would say, encouraged.

• 32:44Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 32:44Andy Greenwald?

  To do this and has been enriched beyond measure and so it'd be hard to stop him now.

• 32:50Chris Ryan?

  I was just for a second there, I forgot and I was like, what's that guy off to now? I was like, oh yeah.

• 32:55Andy Greenwald?

  Who, Bob?

• 32:56Chris Ryan?

  Bobby Downs, yeah.

• 32:58Andy Greenwald?

  Doctor Doom, man. We would be remiss if we didn't talk about the fact that the. In many ways, the most memorable and the most crafted and the most intentional part of a show ostensibly celebrating the living art of cinema was the in memoriam segment. And it was, honestly, it was a sledgehammer. It was devastating, I thought, to watch and pretty remarkable. Babs? Well, I want to get to that. We got to get to that. I thought that the Rob Reiner thing was really, really moving and that was expected. But I couldn't believe the amount of people that showed up for him. Sure.

• 33:40Andy Greenwald?

  Like, to get all these people, some of whom, like, John Cusack doesn't do events. He doesn't come to Los Angeles, as far as I could tell. He just sort of hangs out in Chicago and has strong opinions about stuff. He, which by the way, sounds like a podcaster and a sick gig. Yeah. He flew out just to stand on stage for a second, you know, to be a part of this. I thought that was as much a testament to someone's ability to be a good person as well as a good artist as anything else you could ever see in an award show like this. I really liked the way it was designed. So it went from music, was it the Princess Bride music they were playing? There was music from a Rob Reiner movie that went into the images and the montage of people.

• 34:24Andy Greenwald?

  And then they paused for Diane Keaton, but in a very classy way with Rachel McAdams, also made it about Claudia Cardinelli and... Diane Ladd. Diane Ladd. And I thought that was incredibly moving and it's just like, I know this is one of the tolls of getting older, when people who are always there for you artistically and just like in the crowd of these events, they start showing up on the screen instead of in the seats. For sure. And that's just where we're headed as humans. But it really hit hard this year. And then, of course, it had to, I think, end with Redford. And I thought it was, I guess, I got the sense that he would have enjoyed having Babs do it. I think that a hallmark of Babs is it's going to be about Babs.

• 35:09Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. So I had, that kind of break screeched a little bit for me in terms of like this beautiful swelling moment that the whole show was built around. And then she sang. Speaking of beautiful screeching moments that brought the whole show to a halt, yes. You know, I got to say, I don't really have an opinion about her music.

• 35:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's where you draw the line. Your entire career is having takes.

• 35:31Chris Ryan?

  I, I, it's, it's a musical performer I have zero relationship with.

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I feel weird about that. You know what I mean? Like there are transformers that I, I know more about than Barbra Streisand's discography.

• 35:44Andy Greenwald?

  Name, name your top three.

• 35:47Chris Ryan?

  Um, I mean, I've always been a Megatron guy. I just think it's a cool name and I know.

• 35:52Andy Greenwald?

  And you like his worldview? Is that, you like his politics? It's a cool name.

• 35:59Chris Ryan?

  Megatron is the fucking sickest name.

• 36:02Andy Greenwald?

  It is, it is.

• 36:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:03Andy Greenwald?

  And you know what? Here's another thing, just a little fun side note. Among the many reasons why I'm never quitting Facebook is one of the stories that was given to me randomly, almost as if it was predicting this in exchange, was it was like, "Happy birthday to Marvel editor Bob Budyansky, who on this day in 1982, named Megatron."

• 36:24Chris Ryan?

  And then bestowed that onto the greatest wide receiver of my lifetime, Calvin Johnson.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  Correct. And received, I would imagine, nothing for it, but you know.

• 36:32Chris Ryan?

  You know, you were talking about, uh, this, this is not germane to the Oscars. You know how you're like, oh, and you start seeing people in memoriam that you've grown up with? I am now realizing that the Instagram montages of like, you know, who was a problem? Julio Jones.

• 36:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Chris Ryan?

  Those guys, their careers have happened while I've been watching football.

• 36:53Andy Greenwald?

  No, their careers have happened since you moved to Los Angeles.

• 36:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:56Andy Greenwald?

  Their careers have happened since you started The Ringer.

• 36:59Chris Ryan?

  No, like I, and they also now are really, what's really big is showing early 21st century, um, lineup announcements from tournament games.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 37:09Chris Ryan?

  And so like, I want like DeJuan Blair's pit team. And I'm like, damn, I witnessed the entirety of DeJuan Blair's career. Like in my 30s.

• 37:20Andy Greenwald?

  We should, there should be, you know, like, you know, these, the projects where like, they go to interview survivors and they're like, "We need to record your memories, you know, before this generation passes, so future generations will know what like, you know, horrific war crimes were like." Like, someone should come to your house and be like, "Chris, Chris, tell us about Dwan Blair's..."

• 37:41Chris Ryan?

  And I think Dwan Blair was a problem.

• 37:45Andy Greenwald?

  This is a beautiful take, because you actually have no problem here. Like, so, okay, so Megatron was number one, or should we move on?

• 37:51Chris Ryan?

  Let's go back to Barbra Streisand and the beautiful tribute they paid to the people's lives and work.

• 37:55Andy Greenwald?

  What about Shockwave? He had little cassettes that played in him.

• 37:57Chris Ryan?

  Oh, he was cool. Was he racist?

• 38:00Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he had some problematic tweets.

• 38:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 38:04Andy Greenwald?

  But you have to think about it with a lot of these Transformers.

• 38:07Chris Ryan?

  I just couldn't remember if Shockwave was like, "Hey, brother, like, let's listen to rap."

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  Keep going. Keep going.

• 38:14Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, it was like an 80s cartoon Radio Raheem thing.

• 38:18Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, you have to understand that in the 80s, it was, the culture was different. You know what I mean?

• 38:22Chris Ryan?

  I was there.

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  Toys, you and, Dwan Blair wasn't even born yet, and you were there. Oh, I see what you mean. Like, like, the commercials and things were like, trying, you're right.

• 38:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think that was racist, that Shockwave was trying to, I think, see, again, this is the problem with the modern mindset, with like, these, these like, Gen Z types. The problem with Shockwave is he was trying to enslave the human race on behalf of the Decepticons. I don't really, I'm sorry.

• 38:48Chris Ryan?

  It was an appropriation, wasn't the problem?

• 38:50Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not the asshole that didn't acknowledge who originally owned the land he was standing on. Like, the problem was what he was actually doing in the moment.

• 38:57Chris Ryan?

  All right, I'm gonna let you lay out that.

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  So he liked a few tweets.

• 38:59Chris Ryan?

  K-pop.

• 39:00Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 39:01Chris Ryan?

  I'm very happy for K-pop demon hunter's success.

• 39:04Andy Greenwald?

  This is like a hostage video. Is there a gun to your head?

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 39:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 39:08Chris Ryan?

  I think if you're gonna basically hold the entire awards show hostage to see... These, these folks perform.

• 39:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Chris Ryan?

  Golden, is that the name of the song?

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  You know that's the name of the song.

• 39:19Chris Ryan?

  Is it?

• 39:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:20Chris Ryan?

  And then, and then you're, it's, it's, it's inevitable that they're gonna win the award for best song.

• 39:26Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:27Chris Ryan?

  To cut that dude off.

• 39:29Andy Greenwald?

  Just.

• 39:30Chris Ryan?

  Is criminal. It's like, like you're, is there anyone directing the show? Is there anyone who could just be like, don't start the band, like let this guy talk? There's seven people on stage.

• 39:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 39:39Chris Ryan?

  Obviously, she's gonna do the big speech, but like, come on.

• 39:43Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it was very, very cruel. It's also not their fault that the show was running along up to that point.

• 39:50Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 39:50Andy Greenwald?

  And they decided to just bring the hammer down on him.

• 39:52Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 39:53Andy Greenwald?

  And that's when you start thinking like, oh, they have time for all these other bits, but they don't have time for this? Yeah, I, I felt bad. But I, I don't have anything to add other than like, it is a pretty remarkable success story for a movie that Sony was, it's not that it was ever problematic, but Sony wasn't sure what to do with it or what its uh, upside was. So they offloaded it to Netflix and it became the biggest movie in the history of Netflix and such a big movie and such a surprise that it took Netflix almost a full calendar year to get the deals done for there to be a sequel. That just got announced last week. And which means the sequel won't come out for.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  Years.

• 40:26Andy Greenwald?

  Four, five years.

• 40:28Chris Ryan?

  And then all those kids who've grown up on K-pop demon hunters, they're gonna be, they're gonna be in their twenties.

• 40:34Andy Greenwald?

  God, and they would, they will never even have heard of Dwan Blair. It just.

• 40:39Chris Ryan?

  No, we'll do the work. We'll make sure they know.

• 40:41Andy Greenwald?

  You'll do the work for the next generation. That you also, that gives you a four, five year window to watch K-pop demon hunters.

• 40:46Chris Ryan?

  That's true. That's true. Um, any other awards that you wanted to hit?

• 40:50Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, had you, had, do you remember ever seeing a tie? I read this morning that it has happened.

• 40:55Chris Ryan?

  It's happened a couple of times. I don't, I don't know why he didn't announce, and these are the other people that also.

• 41:03Andy Greenwald?

  Drama, drama.

• 41:05Chris Ryan?

  For best short?

• 41:06Andy Greenwald?

  I, I agree. There wasn't a ton of drama there.

• 41:08Chris Ryan?

  Can you imagine if they tried to pull that with like actor? And they were like, but first, Michael B. Jordan will, will accept his award.

• 41:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but then they should have kept the other people on screen the whole time.

• 41:18Chris Ryan?

  Just even Hawk the entire time.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  I think that would have been excellent.

• 41:22Chris Ryan?

  This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. It can be hard to do your own thing when everyone else is following everyone else, but that's what some of the best films are about. An outcast striving to make their own way in the world. And this is your sign to be that outcast. From us, from VW, from the other outcasts out there, take a chance. Make the most of every day and don't be afraid to veer off course every now and then, because if you don't do it now, then when? Learn more at VW.com.

• 41:53Andy Greenwald?

  I guess the only other thing to discuss is Paul Thomas Anderson, a enormously important figure for our adult film-going lives. Didn't just get his flowers, he got the whole bouquet.

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:06Andy Greenwald?

  That was exciting. And also, like I sort of alluded to this a moment ago, kind of rare to see, I was thinking about how David Lynch got an honorary one. You think about how Tarantino got-

• 42:17Chris Ryan?

  Two Screenplays.

• 42:18Andy Greenwald?

  Screenplay Awards. And obviously has directed actors into Oscars in the past. But for him to have this, I mean, his career is still very much ongoing, but this career capping moment with such an unambiguous triumph, winning, writing, directing, and picture, and being relatively in his prime to accept it all and reflect on it, I thought that was really special.

• 42:40Chris Ryan?

  When he won Adapted Screenplay and got up on stage and he said, "You make a guy work pretty hard to get one of these," I thought that that was in and of itself like a pretty good advertisement for what it means. You know, like you can be too cool for school and you can be like, "I'm not going," or you could be like, "It doesn't really matter who remembers these things." But I think in the moment and for the people who have put so much blood, sweat, and tears into making films and sometimes not under, like, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson's movies are often kind of supported by like the luminaries who decide to be in them.

• 43:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 43:13Chris Ryan?

  But like are not necessarily commercial gambits up until a point.

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  Movies-

• 43:17Chris Ryan?

  It was just pretty, it was pretty cool. As a longtime fan of his work, it was pretty amazing.

• 43:22Andy Greenwald?

  Movies and Oscars and movie makers and Oscars is a different relationship than something like TV creators in the Emmys. Like Oscars have always had, deservedly so, this patina of importance and reverence and history. And you can't really be too cool for school with that. Like, all of these people in that room, no matter what type of movie they make, whether it's Weapons or a short or the type of movies that were inspiring PTA to do the work that he does. They watch the Oscars and they revere movies that have won them in the past. And so to actually have that moment, it's, I think it would be impossible for it not to feel like a dream or an incredible capstone. When he was up on stage for the second or third time, I was still thinking about Andy Jurgensen,

• 44:07Andy Greenwald?

  who won editing for One Battle After Another.

• 44:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 44:11Andy Greenwald?

  And I thought his speech was really, really beautiful because he, he said his thank yous. Then he thanked his aunt, who he said was an archivist at the Academy and was the person who taught him about movies and showed him movies and gave him this library and this sense of history and artistry. And anytime you can do that, especially in an award show where you can connect time through people who have done the work in different ways and different, you know, but all in pursuit of the same kind of artistic joy and celebration.

• 44:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Andy Greenwald?

  Really moving and meaningful.

• 44:42Chris Ryan?

  He talked about One Battle After Another in a way today, and I'm sure he's done this in other interviews and, you know, it's, I'm in no way telling him how to speak about his own work. But I was almost like a little bit frustrated by the fact that he put a, kind of like a little bit of a bow on the movie. It was like, this movie is about our failures as a generation to leave the world in a better place and the hope that the next generation, and I get that. And maybe, maybe this is somewhat colored by reading Vineland and taking a much different message from Vineland.

• 45:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Chris Ryan?

  But I kinda, I kind of wanted him to be like, it's not up to me or it's not my responsibility to explain One Battle After Another.

• 45:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Chris Ryan?

  To people so that they feel good about voting for it. Do you know what I mean?

• 45:35Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 45:35Chris Ryan?

  And there's, there's a case to be made that it's like really the last 10 minutes of One Battle After Another that like really thread the needle on that, that idea of like, it's American Girl, it's about, it's about her, it's about this.

• 45:50Andy Greenwald?

  And he said that as well.

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Andy Greenwald?

  Which is not necessarily my takeaway.

• 45:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think that's a very smart point to make and it goes back to our criticism of the long award season because one of the things that the long award season does is it just.

• 46:06Andy Greenwald?

  Leeches away the electricity and the energy and the enthusiasm and the chance of unpredictability and surprise, not just about the awards, but about how the people who have been campaigning for them and giving speeches and thanking, talk about them.

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  It reduces them into, this is a movie about hope for the future, when in fact, what I think makes it worthy of the Best Picture Oscar is how riotously messy it is at times and how parts of that movie don't work, but then you just keep going to the next part and you're completely, you're being driven over that very, very bumpy road by a guy who knows where he's going.

• 46:41Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 46:41Andy Greenwald?

  And you're excited to be in the car. I totally agree with that. I mean, I, you, I think the, that said, we joked about it a lot over the last few months, when and if I saw a movie to talk about it with you, but the hashtag girl dad thing in a lot of these movies is relevant and interesting, that it is a lot of filmmakers at a certain point in their life, wrestling with the world as it is and what it means to try and have hope for it. Like what Conan said, would try it for the next generations. And that's, that sentimental value, that's Marty Supreme, that's one battle after another. That actually is secret agent too, even though it is very much about a specific moment in the past, but it has that same sort of generational trauma and what we owe to people and how we keep going.

• 47:23Chris Ryan?

  That is a boy dad though.

• 47:24Andy Greenwald?

  Who, Wagner? Oh, in the movie.

• 47:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's why I didn't initially name it.

• 47:30Chris Ryan?

  That's why you kept it up.

• 47:31Andy Greenwald?

  I was deeply less interested or moved by it.

• 47:32Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 47:33Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of its hope for the future. I find all that stuff kind of interesting and, and when you said what PTA talked about, I mean, he thanked, when he thought there was a chance that was his only speech, the first one. So he talked about his kids.

• 47:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, I thought Kugler was very aware that like.

• 47:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  Odds are, this is the last one I win tonight, so I'm going to go up and I'm going to do the whole thing. I'm going to say, sorry for being away to my kids.

• 47:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 47:54Chris Ryan?

  And all that stuff, yeah.

• 47:55Andy Greenwald?

  But PTA also thanked his kids, I believe, the first time he went up. And I thought, Yokim Trier, you know, he ended with a Baldwin quote about it's the responsibility of adults to care for all children. Whether they know, whether they root for Megatron or whether they root for DeJuan Williams, whomever.

• 48:13Chris Ryan?

  DeJuan Blair.

• 48:14Andy Greenwald?

  DeJuan, oh, sorry.

• 48:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, come on.

• 48:16Andy Greenwald?

  This is.

• 48:17Chris Ryan?

  Power forward for Pitt.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  Was he the one who didn't have knee cartilage anymore? Who am I thinking of? The guy that the Spurs drafted?

• 48:22Chris Ryan?

  I think that was Dwayne Blair.

• 48:23Andy Greenwald?

  I think it was too. I just want you to know that I saw his medicals and they scared me off. But shout out to R.C. Buford and Coach Pop for seeing past that and seeing what you saw. You know, it's your responsibility to parent these kids too.

• 48:35Chris Ryan?

  There's intangibles.

• 48:36Andy Greenwald?

  There are.

• 48:36Chris Ryan?

  You can't find them on a scan.

• 48:38Andy Greenwald?

  There are. It was a, I mean, it was cool. And I would imagine as a cinephile and, you know, rewatchable guy that like when PTA was like, here, here's the lineup from 1975 and it was one flavor of the cuckoo's nest. Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws in Nashville.

• 48:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Andy Greenwald?

  That's, we used to be a society.

• 48:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I also think that people will watch the movies from this year, hopefully long into the future, including a bunch of movies that didn't get recognition.

• 49:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Chris Ryan?

  From this year, you know? And I do think that the 10, having 10 nominees is at once, I think, deflating for the eight that are really, have no shot. But it is also good to keep those movies in circulation, to, to have other nominees, maybe the frontrunners say like, boy, I'm such a huge fan of Secret Agent. Boy, I'm such a huge fan of, um, It Was Just An Accident, whatever. You know what I mean? Talking about even F1 and just keeping those movies in circulation. This actually leads into my last question, which is you have a big night for OBA, a big night

• 49:44Chris Ryan?

  for Sinners, a nice award for Weapons, all Warner Brothers movies.

• 49:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Chris Ryan?

  Don't believe David Ellison was in attendance.

• 49:51Andy Greenwald?

  He was in Ukraine with John Penn.

• 49:53Chris Ryan?

  On the other side.

• 49:56Chris Ryan?

  Damn.

• 49:57Andy Greenwald?

  Fuck, it's so fast though.

• 49:59Chris Ryan?

  You're not going to be able to answer this because time will tell.

• 50:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:03Chris Ryan?

  Do you walk out of here, see, we can make these original stories. They can be box office, successful box office movies, regardless of the reporting about what their fucking budgets were. $200 million, $400 million, like whatever it is, these movies made in domestic box office is really good. Marty Supreme, I think, made $100 million. Like these original films are finding an audience. There is, uh, research to suggest that a younger generation of people are enjoying going to the movies.

• 50:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 50:33Chris Ryan?

  I do think we are not exiting, but in some kind of twilight of the over IP franchise period of storytelling in Hollywood.

• 50:43Chris Ryan?

  But do you leap out of this Oscars into a great unknown of like, is there gonna be Hollywood in three years?

• 50:49Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 50:50Chris Ryan?

  Or are you like, they should look at this and be like, yeah, more of that.

• 50:55Andy Greenwald?

  I-

• 50:55Chris Ryan?

  Let Mike and Pam cook.

• 50:57Andy Greenwald?

  Truly, though. I mean, again, this is not, I'm not, we're not the people to like, really do the deep forensic dive as to why Mike and Pam at Warner Brothers had this absolutely generational run over the course of this year when their jobs were very much in jeopardy. But you could look at the fact that they felt either empowered or desperate enough, or just, you know, fearless enough to take. You see, they're not risky swings. They were considered swings. Do you know what I mean? Like, the sinners, like Brian Kugler developed sinners, this from what I understand, and took it to market. And was like, here are my terms to make this movie with you. And Warner Brothers said, we accept, even though the terms were very filmmaker friendly.

• 51:39Chris Ryan?

  President breaking.

• 51:40Andy Greenwald?

  President breaking. He owns the print, basically, right? He, the copyright is, will revert to him. And that was a deal that they had to be willing to take. PTA is beloved by people who look exactly like us, and that hasn't always translated into enormous box office success. And this was always going to be the most expensive movie of his career. So the play for this movie had to be what happened last night. That was the path to get this movie to being not just a profitability, but to making it quote unquote, worth it. Got it done. And the weapons thing is, you know, taking a swing on, it's a cheaper movie, but someone who you believe in, who can deliver in a genre that tends to overperform at the box office.

• 52:24Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the difference between that and what other studios do, which is just either blind IP chasing, or making swings, but kind of thoughtless ones. Like, I don't even see the path, or I don't even understand the road that I'm trying to put this movie on. Not all movies, especially now, this is always the case, but there isn't just, we're so far removed from that. Well, we'll start it small in the Midwest and we'll slowly platform it out. Like, every movie's gonna have a unique path towards finding its audience, but there are paths.

• 52:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that's kind of exciting and hopeful. And the scariest thing about it isn't that the people who are taking over Paramount, who have taken over Paramount, who might be taking over Warner Brothers, they're going to be smart, thoughtful, film-loving, film-educated people working and making those decisions there as well. There's no question about that. But the company, the combined company, is going to be so massively in debt that will they be able to shout out over everyone else, saying, "The only thing we can bank on as a path to profitability is..."

• 53:31Chris Ryan?

  Megatron, the movie.

• 53:32Andy Greenwald?

  Is Megatron's, no, Megatron at Hogwarts, the trilogy. You know what I mean? Like, that's trickier.

• 53:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, when Shockwave came to Hogwarts, introduced them all to rap.

• 53:47Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but I think everybody knows muggle technology doesn't work at Hogwarts. You couldn't bring a radio, it just wouldn't work, you know?

• 53:56Chris Ryan?

  Oh, it's like an EMP went off?

• 53:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's like an EMP, but the M stands for magic.

• 53:59Chris Ryan?

  Should we get to paradise, then?

• 54:01Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have any other questions, or do you want to wait for next year?

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Why? Did you plan on talking about Harry Potter next year?

• 54:06Andy Greenwald?

  I plan on talking about it today, but I guess you want to move along.

• 54:09Chris Ryan?

  Thank you, Oscars.

• 54:10Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you, Oscars. Listen to Sean and Amanda talk about it, too.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely. That part of today's episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. A lot of these films, what makes them so great is seeing a character who is driven to achieve what they want, and you can do the same. Grab the wheel, be the protagonist you've always wanted to be in your own life. Learn more at VW.com.

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• 55:15Speaker 04

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• 55:59Speaker 07

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• 56:29Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about Paradise. I have to admit, I thought that the newest episode of Paradise went up tonight at 9:00 PM.

• 56:37Andy Greenwald?

  Tonight being Monday.

• 56:38Chris Ryan?

  Tonight being Monday. So I'm sorry for being slightly unprepared, although, and you know what the problem with Paradise is like, you could think you have a handle on it. God damn it, if the last five minutes, those episodes, they twisted up.

• 56:51Andy Greenwald?

  Bit of a twist.

• 56:53Chris Ryan?

  So we're going to talk a little bit about episode four, five, and I guess we could talk a little bit about six, right? Cause that's Jane.

• 57:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's Jane.

• 57:03Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about, and here's the thing about Paradise. If you're not quote unquote, up to date, it's just really hard to talk about this show without spoiling certain things.

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  Or sounding insane.

• 57:13Chris Ryan?

  Or sounding completely out of your mind. So let's say upfront spoilers. And feel free to spoil Jane. I think it's okay.

• 57:20Andy Greenwald?

  That's fine. Okay. Thank you.

• 57:22Chris Ryan?

  Spoilers through last night's episode of Paradise, but we're gonna be focusing mostly on

• 57:26Andy Greenwald?

  Hold on, I just have to, Kai, are you okay if I spoil Jane? The sixth episode of the second season of Paradise?

• 57:32Chris Ryan?

  Is that Shailene Woodley's character? No, it, no, she's Annie.

• 57:35Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 57:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay, then clearly it's fine.

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 57:38Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna spoil that too, though.

• 57:39Andy Greenwald?

  I just like to think about everyone else in the room.

• 57:41Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Let's start with R.I.P. Annie.

• 57:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, Shailene Woodley, here for a bad time, not a long time.

• 57:51Chris Ryan?

  Kind of a little bit of an extended Kyle Chandler vacation on this show.

• 57:54Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 57:55Chris Ryan?

  Um, for, for folks who don't know what I'm referring to, I don't wanna-

• 57:58Andy Greenwald?

  You're spoiling lanterns.

• 58:00Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm spoiling another show.

• 58:03Andy Greenwald?

  Friday Night Lights.

• 58:05Chris Ryan?

  Where-

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 58:05Chris Ryan?

  A big time actor is like, oh shit, Shailene Woodley's in this movie. Is it Shailene or Shailene?

• 58:12Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm, I've never said it out loud before.

• 58:13Chris Ryan?

  Shailene, Shailene. That's what I thought.

• 58:15Andy Greenwald?

  This is why we need Kai's voice in our ears.

• 58:17Chris Ryan?

  Or you just could listen to me, because I said Shailene.

• 58:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's Barry Keoghan.

• 58:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, she shows up on this show and I'm like, cool, maybe this is like what Paradise will do is, as it goes and gets bigger and bigger, it will have, you know, guest star of the season join and perhaps they will stay, stick around or perhaps not. Shailene Woodley's on this show for two, two episodes, recently on the first episode and then this fourth, and then the fourth episode where she, uh, you know, hangs out with Xavier.

• 58:46Andy Greenwald?

  She's in the other episodes, but they are briefly, like at the end of two, the Xavier plotline and the Annie plotline.

• 58:52Chris Ryan?

  I mean-

• 58:52Andy Greenwald?

  What you mean is showcase.

• 58:53Chris Ryan?

  Showcase.

• 58:54Andy Greenwald?

  Her story.

• 58:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I'll allow it.

• 58:56Chris Ryan?

  They shot her out, they like, they, I'm sure they did that and-

• 59:00Andy Greenwald?

  Forgive me, it's just that we're at war, so I wanna get all the details right. You know, it's just like, maybe at a less-

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  Partisan time, we could just gloss over details.

• 59:09Chris Ryan?

  What if then my response would be like, um, maybe you, as a podcaster-

• 59:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 59:15Chris Ryan?

  Should support me-

• 59:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 59:17Chris Ryan?

  As the secretary of podcasting.

• 59:19Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah, I think that would be great.

• 59:21Chris Ryan?

  Except so.

• 59:22Andy Greenwald?

  I like it.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  Have you seen his press conferences?

• 59:24Andy Greenwald?

  They're great.

• 59:25Chris Ryan?

  He's out of his fucking mind.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Andy Greenwald?

  Who, who could have predicted that?

• 59:30Andy Greenwald?

  Some people just wilt under pressure, you know?

• 59:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, what was I saying? She has, is no longer with, with, with us because she dies at the end of the fourth episode.

• 59:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but what a run. And I thought she brought something, how do I say this nicely? Sometimes when I'm watching Paradise-

• 59:48Chris Ryan?

  There are people on Paradise where I'm like, I've never seen this person before.

• 59:52Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:53Chris Ryan?

  They seem like a TV actor.

• 59:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:55Chris Ryan?

  And then Shailene Woodley is like, kind of more of a star, you know what I mean? Like, I thought she had a little bit more, uh, energy around her performance and a little bit more like charisma and a little bit more magnetic kind of vibes. But what did you think of like her storyline ending mid-season?

• 1:00:12Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think that the show's commitment to its core principles of speed, story, and surprise are unmatched. And as we say every time we talk about this show, you cannot and should not compare this to a prestige HBO drama or even a prestige HBO procedural. This is even more so than The Pit, like this is an inheritor of a very specific strain of serialized broadcast storytelling. This is us, like Dan Fogelman, it's very similar DNA pitched in a different type of, of, of genre.

• 1:00:53Andy Greenwald?

  And I can't help but maybe, and maybe like the first season, I think we joked about it more about how absolutely batshit a lot of the developments were and the way that they were revealed. I've found the storytelling this season to be, um, more emotionally consistent and engaging than the first season. I also realize, especially after the episode that just aired, I find the outside world just a more compelling storyline than the inside silo world. Whereas the first season, then maybe I would have been shaking my head that like 90 seconds of screen time establishing Annie's relationship with her mother and her backstory, is that really enough for us to understand how she survives three-plus years alone in Graceland and then, uh, gets pregnant

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  and lives alone more and then goes outside and then, you know, doesn't go with her baby daddy to Colorado because of her trust issues, but then learns to trust as she dies in a diner, like, that's an impossible calculation to earn all of that story. Second season, I'm like, well, it, it's, it's kind of just like minimalism at its finest, which is a weird thing to say about a show that is so maximalist in its aims. It does everything so, so efficiently and so-

• 1:02:03Andy Greenwald?

  Like, the show moves so fast. At no point until doing this podcast with you, am I like, it's remarkable that Gary packed changes of clothes and also showers and hair and makeup in that bunker.

• 1:02:13Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:02:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's not what we're doing here, people. So, a long way to say, it works.

• 1:02:19Chris Ryan?

  The way that the first season unfolded, and you're right about identifying the difference between what it was like in the bunker versus what it's like outside of the bunker. There was like a Truman Show element of unreality, especially that first episode, but a lot of it was the Sinatra characters' elliptical way of talking because they were trying to hold off on revealing, like, who she was, what's going on in the bunker, and then also what had happened outside of the bunker, and why people are the way they are. And that was a kind of, almost the entire season-long gambit of like, I don't think when you finally get to the episode that really turned us onto the show, which is Seven, which is the

• 1:03:00Chris Ryan?

  real end-of-the-world episode, that's when you find out about the EMP and the nukes and all the stuff that happened.

• 1:03:07Andy Greenwald?

  I also, we should have led with this. I honestly don't retain any information. I watch every show, just like a happy baby seeing Teletubbies for the first time. Like, this is the only show-

• 1:03:17Chris Ryan?

  Is that because there's a war on, or just because?

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  I'm glad you're finally becoming aware of it.

• 1:03:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's not just business as usual for you. No, uh, this is the only show that I religiously watch the recap without skipping.

• 1:03:30Chris Ryan?

  Because you're like, oh, right.

• 1:03:31Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure. But also-

• 1:03:32Chris Ryan?

  Wildcat hit that EMP. They were like, don't do it!

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  Broke the card, but I also, I know this seems counterintuitive, but like, I kind of celebrate that.

• 1:03:41Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:03:41Andy Greenwald?

  That I just, okay, sure. Now we're zagging, let's go.

• 1:03:44Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Short-Term Memory is like, what?

• 1:03:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Truer than you realize.

• 1:03:48Chris Ryan?

  The way that revelations have kind of been doled out over the course of the season, not only because we've watched now, like, multiple characters go through the last day on Earth, society, last day of society, um, multiple times now. I think also, take the mailman episode, which was the last week's episode, which is kind of-

• 1:04:10Chris Ryan?

  Paradise, maybe not at its best, but at its most paradise. In so much as introduces a very kind seeming character. You are like, okay, so this is gonna be a new member of like, the kind of good guy gang to the extent that there is one.

• 1:04:24Andy Greenwald?

  And do you recognize who this actor is?

• 1:04:26Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:04:26Andy Greenwald?

  Playing Gary. Cameron Britton, who we adored.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  Fucking Mindhunter.

• 1:04:30Andy Greenwald?

  Playing Kemp, that was the name, Ed Kemper in Mindhunter.

• 1:04:34Chris Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:04:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's sick.

• 1:04:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Andy Greenwald?

  Good for him.

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  He's incredibly good actor. And the entire time, you're like, this guy has like, a sweetness to him. That's really, really nice.

• 1:04:45Andy Greenwald?

  Gentle.

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  As it gets further into the episode, you're like, that's interesting. And it's interesting that he's like, I'm in love with Terry, but like, really actually in love with her, not just like, I love her from afar. And, um, as you get to the final twist, which is not that Ennis has betrayed everybody.

• 1:05:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:04Chris Ryan?

  But that the mailman isn't Gary, the mailman has in fact, kinda lost it at the end.

• 1:05:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:05:10Chris Ryan?

  And killed Ennis.

• 1:05:11Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:12Chris Ryan?

  And maybe Terry is not with the oak received coffee drinking militia.

• 1:05:16Andy Greenwald?

  Or that she wasn't taken by them.

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It's a good twist. And it's, it's nice to have it compact within the episode, rather than be like, in two or three episodes, the season twist is that the mailman is bad.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  It's funny, well, I don't know if it's funny. It's, it's fun, I think, to have been watching television a certain way long enough to see the game change. Like, in the same way that like, in Offensive Court, or like Vic Fangio is just like, ah, now I need to, now this is what offenses are doing, because they're highlighting inefficiencies, and now I must change what I do to counteract it. And the example we always use for years in the podcast, if you're drinking, if this is a drinking game, drink, is John Landgraf at FX being like, oh, the mini-series, people have given up on that. And then he leaned into that world, and it worked out really well for them.

• 1:06:02Andy Greenwald?

  One of the things about the, the, the kind of, the slowing down of television over the last 20 years, the, you know, we can tell every part of every story, and we can really drill into these people's lives, has been a kind of, it's not we've become less vigilant watchers. It's that we've been told that sometimes now, um, there is room for moments in scenes that aren't crucial building blocks of plot.

• 1:06:31Andy Greenwald?

  That you could have a moment that could be more about how the characters respond to, reflect on it and grow. The example I'm talking about is in episode five, when Gary misreads the moment where he's been built a radio so Terry could reach out, could try to contact Xavier. And he goes in for a kiss and she's like, I can't, I'd know. An old school TV watcher, watching bang, bang, week to week, 22 episodes, like, that's the most important thing that this scene is telling us. This guy doesn't get it. This guy wants something he's never gonna get.

• 1:06:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Andy Greenwald?

  My dumbass HBO brain is just like, oh, there's nuance to this. He wanted something, but he could express something else. When in fact, there are no wasted moments in Paradise, because it moves to fucking fact.

• 1:07:10Chris Ryan?

  That's what I'm saying. It's like every single thing that happens in Paradise is actually worth paying attention to.

• 1:07:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:07:16Chris Ryan?

  Or none at all. And you'll just find out and like, it's, you can watch it in two different ways. When you go back and look at the mailman episode. In fact, the reason why you didn't think that that was an inappropriate and red flag moment for that guy is because Ennis is set up as the bad version of Gary.

• 1:07:32Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:07:33Chris Ryan?

  So the guy in the Georgia Tech hat who's bossing everybody around and has been like, waiting all his life for the prepper moment and doesn't want anyone to leave.

• 1:07:41Andy Greenwald?

  And staring at one of the women that he brought into the bunker in a menacing way.

• 1:07:45Chris Ryan?

  Gary is saying that Ennis is, is in fact what Gary is. He doesn't want people to leave. He wants to be with Terry. He's never had, he doesn't have anyone that he would have saved before then. And in fact, now in retrospect, if I was like, damn, Gary and Terry really got along that way? They did not. I don't know that Terry would characterize Gary as her best friend and her partner for the last five years.

• 1:08:04Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:08:05Chris Ryan?

  She might have just been like, that was a dude I was in a bunker with.

• 1:08:07Andy Greenwald?

  Um, that's cold. I mean, again, last week I, I, you know, this is not surprising. There was a little bit of a drive by on, on Last of Us. And I think what I was trying to express that I appreciated about Paradise, in the moments it has, which are not very many, towards sketching out different ways of dealing with an apocalypse. I'm here for one where people come together and make it work. Like, that is also a zag from what we've seen for.

• 1:08:35Chris Ryan?

  Instead of having like. Yeah, just skin eating.

• 1:08:38Andy Greenwald?

  Inevitable breakdown of everything. That said, the the ability of the show, or maybe the willingness of the show, or is it the necessity of the show, to yada yada, just giant swaths of potentially interesting material is remarkable and feels different. Now, the other thing about a Dan Fogelman show is that the past is never past. Like, they can always revisit, remine. I mean, James Marsden is still kicking around in the show, and his character dies in the pilot, I believe. So there's still, there's always stuff to unpack. That's the, that was also the essential backbone of This Is Us. We're just jumping through time, and we understand that some characters are no longer with us, but there's still history to to learn from there. The, like, the, we're all gonna be in this room, the world has ended for three weeks, and then it's just

• 1:09:22Andy Greenwald?

  like, we're out, now we've got chickens. And I'm like, I just feel like a couple, probably a couple more speed bumps than we realize, including the fact that they have brought in a young child who remarkably doesn't age.

• 1:09:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Bean.

• 1:09:36Andy Greenwald?

  That is.

• 1:09:37Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's only been three weeks.

• 1:09:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but then it's three years.

• 1:09:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right. Right. Well, we haven't seen what Bean looks like. We just see that Bean saw.

• 1:09:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but that was a week ago.

• 1:09:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Andy Greenwald?

  That wasn't three years ago.

• 1:09:49Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:09:49Andy Greenwald?

  Unless they recast him.

• 1:09:51Chris Ryan?

  Is there any Gary, is there any Gary Bean Terry stuff in the Jane episode?

• 1:09:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, uh, well, I believe we see, I could be wrong, because I did watch them back to back, but I believe that when Gary turns on.

• 1:10:07Chris Ryan?

  Ennis.

• 1:10:07Andy Greenwald?

  Ennis.

• 1:10:08Chris Ryan?

  Bean season.

• 1:10:09Andy Greenwald?

  Bean season.

• 1:10:10Chris Ryan?

  That's at the end of the.

• 1:10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but that is in essentially the present moment. That's like two weeks before Xavier arrives.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:10:16Andy Greenwald?

  And Bean is still. Now, maybe what the show is actually telling us, that a three years of canned beans does not support.

• 1:10:26Chris Ryan?

  Is the fountain of youth.

• 1:10:27Andy Greenwald?

  Bone growth. You know what I mean? Maybe it is a subtle dig at a vegan diet. Maybe that's what it's saying. I don't know.

• 1:10:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:10:35Andy Greenwald?

  But that was a tough one to sort of plot around. Everyone else, everyone just looks amazing after their three years in the bunker.

• 1:10:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Andy Greenwald?

  Just ready to like start new lives and it's like, nobody seems that bummed out about the end of civilization. I mean, if you were in the bunker and you could tell stories about the NCAA tournaments of the early 2000s, that would get me through the first three weeks.

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  That was when Kansas had Keith Langford.

• 1:10:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like, what if, what if the other version of paradise is like, you invite the six people who can help restart society and you have your nurse and a mechanic and then, you know, and-

• 1:11:07Chris Ryan?

  But they were getting loose at the end. It was just like, she likes mushrooms.

• 1:11:10Andy Greenwald?

  She likes mushrooms.

• 1:11:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Andy Greenwald?

  And then you also bring in the guy that has like raging sleep apnea into the small room. Like, is that the moment when you're like, there is one flaw in my plan? That's a tight space, man, but I guess there was a shower.

• 1:11:26Chris Ryan?

  I'm actually curious. I'm gonna ask you, because honestly, Jane's a little bit of a mystery to me.

• 1:11:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Chris Ryan?

  What motivates her? What animates her? What's her trauma?

• 1:11:33Andy Greenwald?

  The one thing that I am, I don't know, the one thing I'm curious about, the beauty of the show and the reason why we enjoy covering it is, it could literally do anything at any moment. And I think that's, well, that's crazy. That's fun. And I definitely like the show more this season. And thinking about it, it's almost entirely because of the Annie and Xavier out in the world stuff.

• 1:11:55Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:11:55Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's been more emotionally compelling. It's more interesting. It's more exciting. And like I was saying, it presents just a different way to tell an apocalyptic story. And at this point, that's as refreshing as anything else.

• 1:12:06Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  I would say that the episode that you have yet to see is the weakest of the season so far, in my opinion, because Jane, no disrespect towards the actress, who we should shout out, Nicole Bride and Bloom. If you're going to cast a willowy 30-year-old as a savage unhinged killer, she's doing a pretty good job. It's a tough beat, but she's handling it well.

• 1:12:31Chris Ryan?

  And she shot- Sinatra in the chest.

• 1:12:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:12:35Chris Ryan?

  At the end of the first season.

• 1:12:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I.

• 1:12:37Chris Ryan?

  But now still works for Sinatra.

• 1:12:39Andy Greenwald?

  Sinatra knows. Sorry, that's, I just spoiled the episode.

• 1:12:43Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right. She was like Sinatra.

• 1:12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Do you remember? And she does remember.

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:12:47Andy Greenwald?

  She tells her I remember, but she's like, that's why I'm keeping you close. Cause you shot, you shot me.

• 1:12:52Chris Ryan?

  With the secret to our success.

• 1:12:53Andy Greenwald?

  I know. But, but all this is to say, like, the, the excesses of season one, which was just twist on top of twist on top of twist, that, that the goofy, young, uh, secret service agent who you're overlooking, she just loves Nintendo, actually is an unhinged psychopath responsible for much of the bloodshed. That was, that was a good TV twist, but not a story I really needed a lot of, um, this is us level trauma unpacking about.

• 1:13:20Chris Ryan?

  Do we have her like before?

• 1:13:21Andy Greenwald?

  We do. We have her, uh, from, from birth. And not just her from birth and her backstory with her difficult, uh, mother and her childhood. And then how she, um, once wanted to help her mentor get a promotion, so she, um, cut the, her boss's rival's dick off and delivered it to her in a bag. Um, do you want to take a moment and watch that scene on Hulu?

• 1:13:44Chris Ryan?

  What was her mentor doing? Was she also a killer or was she like?

• 1:13:47Andy Greenwald?

  She's in, she's in like the special services, you know, um, she's trained, you know?

• 1:13:53Andy Greenwald?

  The one, the show can, has the interest in seemingly everything and can seemingly do anything it wants. And one thing that I am less interested in, in the second season, is the subtle suggestion that there might be some deeper power connecting these people, that it's not just the, the magic of television that everyone can intersect emotionally and plot wise at the right moments. And this is the scenes of, like Xavier's visions of Link.

• 1:14:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:19Andy Greenwald?

  Who is the new character.

• 1:14:20Chris Ryan?

  Thomas Tordi, yeah.

• 1:14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Thomas, who, who, you know, as far as we know, they've never met and they've never been in the same room, but they, maybe this is, and it's even referred to, he's like, I keep having these dreams.

• 1:14:30Chris Ryan?

  And they're also having the seizures with the nosebleeds.

• 1:14:32Andy Greenwald?

  So it's as if there is something. Something more metaphysical happening.

• 1:14:36Chris Ryan?

  Do I want me to tell you what I think that is or what the internet thinks that is?

• 1:14:39Andy Greenwald?

  Well, before you do, let me just say that the Jane episode begins with someone at like a Best Buy in 1997, getting a lot of emails and messages saying, "A killer will be born at 12:00 or whatever AM. You must deliver a message to this killer." And this guy then goes to the hospital and yells at baby Jane that you are a killer, but you can change. And the mom then hates her child because she's like, "You're a killer. You're trouble." And so then Jane's just like, "I'm a killer. I'm trouble."

• 1:15:09Chris Ryan?

  I think I just want you to recap this show for me for the rest of the season.

• 1:15:12Andy Greenwald?

  So, Eddie, so tell me your theory.

• 1:15:13Chris Ryan?

  It's not, it's not individually like it, I did not, I'm, I'm not.

• 1:15:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the inventor of this. Maybe I am Columbus-ing this. Uh, that Alex and the other Sinatra shooter drop is like a time machine of some kind. That would track with the lost, the lost tendencies of this show.

• 1:15:33Andy Greenwald?

  And I.

• 1:15:34Chris Ryan?

  Capital L.

• 1:15:34Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be more accountable in this wartime, but also more, uh, I gotta stand by what I say. And if I admire the show for being willing to do or try anything, I can't roll my eyes at that.

• 1:15:47Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:15:48Andy Greenwald?

  You gotta go for it. But, um, I thought you would actually have turned slightly on the show once it became Lone Xavier and Cub.

• 1:15:57Chris Ryan?

  There's too many babies in this situation.

• 1:15:59Andy Greenwald?

  Too many babies.

• 1:16:00Chris Ryan?

  I mean, Bean's not a baby, but like we're just got, we got too many kids in the mix. Um.

• 1:16:05Andy Greenwald?

  And, and despite the foregrounding.

• 1:16:07Chris Ryan?

  He's been made a promise.

• 1:16:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's, and also the name of the baby is Annie's baby, as it says. But also the foregrounding of, um,

• 1:16:16Andy Greenwald?

  when he's like, "Well, babies are resilient." I'm like, "Baby." You know, I've, I've been a, a, a major player, a key player, or a good supporting actor and raising.

• 1:16:26Chris Ryan?

  49% shareholder.

• 1:16:27Andy Greenwald?

  Two of them. And I think that they were pretty strong and healthy, but I don't think I would have gone on a road trip on horseback.

• 1:16:34Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:16:34Andy Greenwald?

  From Graceland to, um, the greater Atlanta metro area.

• 1:16:37Chris Ryan?

  But if there was no devices, maybe that would be something you would do, you know?

• 1:16:41Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you mean if I couldn't play subway surfers, I would take a baby on a road trip just to feel alive? What do you mean? No devices?

• 1:16:47Chris Ryan?

  See, see the, see the country.

• 1:16:49Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the one thing that, here's the other thing that I'm tracking that is kind of a, a bummer, is the like, the hashtag girl dad stuff in movies that we were talking about. That really works for me. The had a baby once and then joined a TV writer's room vibe from paradise, where so much of everyone's actions and then expletions for the actions involve Xavier, another character being like, "The moment you become a father is the moment you realize who in your life is going to betray you when an EMP goes off in a post-apocalyptic event." You know what I mean? Like that whole thing where he's just like, "I trusted this woman with the baby because Terry wouldn't let me read stories to my children, and she didn't let you do it either, Gary."

• 1:17:32Andy Greenwald?

  Like, it's a little bit Park Slope parents message board for me.

• 1:17:36Chris Ryan?

  It is.

• 1:17:37Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 1:17:37Chris Ryan?

  There's some next door qualities to it.

• 1:17:39Andy Greenwald?

  And if it's rubbing me the wrong way, I can only imagine.

• 1:17:41Chris Ryan?

  That honestly, I did not pick up on that, but that just goes to show you, my childless home.

• 1:17:46Andy Greenwald?

  No, because you're imagining a world where there's a time machine that can just make you forget all the parts of paradise you don't like.

• 1:17:53Chris Ryan?

  We can wrap it up there.

• 1:17:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:17:55Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kai and Kaya. We'll be back on Thursday, where we will talk about the pit and take a little spin around the Sheridan universe, which has come back with two shows, one on CBS, one on Paramount Plus.

• 1:18:06Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, but do I have to watch both of them?

• 1:18:07Chris Ryan?

  No, you don't have to watch Marshall's.

• 1:18:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:18:09Chris Ryan?

  I don't think you really understand what Casey's going through, anyway.

• 1:18:13Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for listening.

• 1:18:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I say when we talk about the state of HBO.

• 1:18:16Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

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• 1:18:53Chris Ryan?

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