What We Watched Over the Holidays: The End of ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Marty Supreme,’ ‘Heated Rivalry,’ and ‘Landman’

Chris and Andy talk about the end of ‘Stranger Things’ and whether the final season lived up to the hype (7:10). Then they discuss the exhilarating experience of watching ‘Marty Supreme’ in the theater, Timothée Chalamet’s remarkable performance, and the expert use of cameos throughout the film (22:18). Later, they discuss the excellent close to ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 1 (38:26) and ‘Landman’ Season 2, Episode 8 (45:26). 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the showstopping towering Santa. Oh, I like that one. And his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want, all waiting for you at The Home Depot. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head London broil roast beef,

• 0:45Speaker 00

  American white cheese and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers and Boar's Head pub style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus and dips, condiments and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now for game day sandwich inspiration and more. Visit boar'shead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:20Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:23Chris 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 for another year, it's Marty's supreme clientele. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's good. It's good New Year's energy.

• 1:41Chris Ryan?

  What's up, man?

• 1:42Andy Greenwald?

  You look and sound rested, replenished, reborn in a lot of ways.

• 1:48Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I've been out there. I've been pounding the pavement on the East Coast.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  You have been.

• 1:51Chris Ryan?

  The East Coast metropolises of New York City and Philadelphia. My voice feels a little bit off, honestly, but my energy is great. My mind is sharp.

• 1:59Andy Greenwald?

  Couple Lucy's and Zorong's America.

• 2:01Chris Ryan?

  I did have some heaters. I did. I had, I smoked a Capri Slim.

• 2:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, that sounds-

• 2:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know, like, just like a slim cigarette.

• 2:10Andy Greenwald?

  Did you, who'd you pawn that off of?

• 2:12Chris Ryan?

  My wife.

• 2:14Andy Greenwald?

  Just put her out on Front Street, I see.

• 2:16Chris Ryan?

  Sorry.

• 2:17Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 2:18Chris Ryan?

  Health insurance premiums are paid, so-

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  Did you like the skinny nature of the cigarette?

• 2:22Chris Ryan?

  It tasted like a roly, uh, you know, as the English kind of, you know, roll their cigarettes. It didn't have a lot of the, like, um-

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  This is the difference between-

• 2:29Chris Ryan?

  The Turkish power of camels.

• 2:31Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were mispronouncing Rollo, the caramel candies that my children like.

• 2:37Chris Ryan?

  If they made cigarettes taste like Rollos, they'd be fully back.

• 2:41Andy Greenwald?

  So back.

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Greenwald, what an amazing time to be alive.

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Chris Ryan?

  Here we are in Taylor Sheridan's America, and it is 2026. The inbox to reach us is still the [email protected].

• 2:54Andy Greenwald?

  How'd it do over the holidays?

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Our email inbox?

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Chris Ryan?

  We got a couple. I got one over the weekend, uh, from a lovely lady from the South who wanted to call us out on some of our- Our, like, litigation of Rebecca from Landman's purse holding. She was like, "That is actually how women from the South do hold their purses."

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  Is Rebecca meant to be from the South?

• 3:14Chris Ryan?

  No, she's a Northwestern grad, in fact, I believe.

• 3:17Andy Greenwald?

  The character, the actress is Canadian.

• 3:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh-huh.

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 3:19Chris Ryan?

  So, you know, and-

• 3:21Andy Greenwald?

  So you think she went method and started walking around like a velociraptor?

• 3:24Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's kind of like, you know, I, yeah, I bet it was like the way Shalit made it to Marty Supreme. We're gonna also have-

• 3:30Andy Greenwald?

  In the defense of this reader and this listener-

• 3:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  That is pretty small potatoes, considering what we could be complaining about on the show, and perhaps it's a bit unfair. Just, just like a, a little bit. It's like a little bit unfair.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we will talk about Landman at some point, but we have a big, a big menu of stuff. You can also, uh, follow us on Instagram, thewatchpod underscore. You can watch us on YouTube at the Ringer dash TV YouTube channel, and you can also watch us on Spotify, where I hope you were listening to us today. We are gonna talk about the stuff we watched over Christmas vacation, quote unquote.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:01Chris Ryan?

  Because when you're two guys who love culture, there's no days off.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 4:05Chris Ryan?

  Every day you go out and you say, "Inspire me," you know?

• 4:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and Los Angeles never does, but you were in a more, uh, captivating metropolis.

• 4:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I feel, I feel energized. I feel stimulated, you know?

• 4:17Andy Greenwald?

  You saw theater.

• 4:18Chris Ryan?

  I saw two plays.

• 4:19Andy Greenwald?

  Goddamn.

• 4:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and- I saw Liberation.

• 4:22Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  And I saw a preview of Tracy Lutz's Bug, starring Carrie Coon, which was excellent. And I highly recommend anybody who's able to get to the theater in the coming weeks.

• 4:31Andy Greenwald?

  Our favorite couple.

• 4:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And yeah, well, we were gonna just do kind of like a loose rundown. How are you doing? Do you want to talk to me a little bit?

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  About, yeah, sure. Let's talk. I mean, first of all, my oil futures are going great. So, thank you for asking about that. My portfolio is looking, looking pretty tasty.

• 4:49Chris Ryan?

  Um, I was heavily invested in, in the nationalization efforts of Venezuela, so this is a tough time for me.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that. That's going good. What else?

• 5:00Chris Ryan?

  What else?

• 5:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 5:01Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's another year for us. Do you feel like the flame is still as bright as ever?

• 5:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think that the flame...

• 5:07Chris Ryan?

  When did it start? The 12th? Something like that?

• 5:09Andy Greenwald?

  When did our flame start?

• 5:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  Our flame started, uh, I mean, we started in January.

• 5:15Chris Ryan?

  Right?

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  Um...

• 5:17Chris Ryan?

  You're usually the archivist of this couple.

• 5:18Andy Greenwald?

  I don't remember the first day.

• 5:19Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:20Andy Greenwald?

  But, but we were all over the fourth episode of the third season of Down Nabby or whatever, so we hit the ground.

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  That was early Downton, because Snitch Butler's was super early.

• 5:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's true, because that was when it was a more focused show. It was really about what it was about. Before they widened the aperture too much and went woke. It was just about like, how it's hard to get good service.

• 5:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 5:41Andy Greenwald?

  It's a much better show. Yeah, it was early, it was early January.

• 5:44Chris Ryan?

  Uh, where would you like to start?

• 5:45Andy Greenwald?

  We didn't say, January 2012.

• 5:47Chris Ryan?

  2012, yeah.

• 5:47Andy Greenwald?

  So this is your 14th?

• 5:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. God.

• 5:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's great.

• 5:51Chris Ryan?

  Do you still enter each year with a lust for like, what's gonna be, you know, big and new and fresh and interesting in television?

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  Do you?

• 6:00Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'll tell you what.

• 6:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:02Chris Ryan?

  This year, and one of the reasons why I think I'm fired up is because they're, they've given us such a bountiful January. And some of our favorite shows are coming back in January. The Pit, Industry, um... New shows like A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, returning shows like Night Manager from 10 years ago.

• 6:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and a ton of other stuff, so...

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Wonder Man.

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  It was just gonna be dropped as a binge on January 27th, right?

• 6:26Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's right.

• 6:27Chris Ryan?

  So I thought maybe we could just cap off, you know, just some of the stuff that was happening towards the end of December that we didn't cover in the last 10 days or so.

• 6:34Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds good. Also, I did want to ask you.

• 6:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Andy Greenwald?

  Because I'll be, I'll be honest about it as well. How, where are you with your pre-engagement with any of these January shows? Because I have not, this won't surprise anyone.

• 6:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Andy Greenwald?

  But also, like, we do have, this is not meant to be a brag, but just to restate that the shows, generally the shows that we really love, like Industry, or like The Pit, we like to enjoy week to week.

• 7:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And I also, I, one of the things that I respect is embargoes. So.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  You really do respect.

• 7:06Chris Ryan?

  I try not to break embargoes in terms of my comments about a show. I will say that I am net positive on the shows from this January that I have checked out.

• 7:14Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, oh, you are not, I see. Oh, you are not embargoing anything.

• 7:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. No, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna explicitly state one way or another how I feel about something until.

• 7:24Andy Greenwald?

  That was why you didn't invite me to also profit from the war actions over the weekend. Because you peeked behind the black curtain in Mar-a-Lago and you saw that they had X.com searching. Did you see that on one of the screens, they were searching X for Venezuela?

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  Were they?

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, that's what I do.

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  The only, my only.

• 7:46Chris Ryan?

  I usually do that during like the third, third quarter of an Eagles game.

• 7:49Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just searching Kevin Patullo to just see who's saying the meanest thing.

• 7:53Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I thought you meant finding him a new job.

• 7:56Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no, exactly. Yeah, no.

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  Offensive coordinator, Venezuela.

• 8:02Andy Greenwald?

  Recruiter.

• 8:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  I'm very, I'm very pleased with what we have on, on tap.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 8:09Chris Ryan?

  Put it that way.

• 8:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And so we'll probably, second show this week, we'll hit the return of The Pit.

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  The Pit, and then next Monday is Industry.

• 8:15Andy Greenwald?

  The biggest television news that happened, of which I am, and I, I do think, I ought to apologize again, I am ignorant of this really, is Stranger Things ended.

• 8:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Andy Greenwald?

  Now, just to fully contextualize it for our new listeners, starting this year with a new podcast, Stranger Things is a con. Instant presence in my life now because my older daughter is completely obsessed. I don't think it's a violation of any embargo to say that the lock screen on her device is completely Joe Keery coded.

• 8:47Chris Ryan?

  Coded or just?

• 8:48Andy Greenwald?

  Is it coded if it's just Joe Keery?

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  I think it's just Joe Keery. The other way would be like drawings of him, things that he like maybe likes, you know, like.

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. Okay, right. No, it's just him.

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  Some Joe singles, you know?

• 9:01Andy Greenwald?

  Again, this is Joe single. First of all, I don't know if Joe is single.

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  No, I meant DJ O's band. Yeah, singles by that band.

• 9:08Andy Greenwald?

  I'm saying that his big single, the end of beginning, is her favorite song ever recorded and she has no interest in any other songs.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  By him?

• 9:19Andy Greenwald?

  By him.

• 9:20Chris Ryan?

  Okay. I think that might be a challenge for his music career and he's talked about that.

• 9:24Andy Greenwald?

  The people only want the one song?

• 9:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:26Andy Greenwald?

  It's a good song.

• 9:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Andy Greenwald?

  But I was like, this is, I was like, you know, you could go to the play song radio option on Spotify. And maybe I was like praying that like Elevate Me Later by Pavement would come up or something.

• 9:41Chris Ryan?

  Well, he does play Malkmus in the Pavements talk.

• 9:43Andy Greenwald?

  I've mentioned that to her. It's received zero traction so far, I gotta tell you. And she won't even do that because she just likes this one song.

• 9:49Chris Ryan?

  I do find it fascinating if we're, if we're so lucky as to be recording this podcast, say in 2035.

• 9:56Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  Like how people's relationships to actors, bands, shows, all that stuff changes as our habits become so algorithmic. Not to say that your daughter is not having an organic relationship with art and, and life.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  TBD.

• 10:14Chris Ryan?

  TBD, but the idea of being like super into just one song.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  By a person.

• 10:19Andy Greenwald?

  And no interest in digging deeper.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  And also being like, this person is Steve from Stranger Things. Like he does not have like a life outside of it or whatever.

• 10:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, well, that.

• 10:27Chris Ryan?

  So she's interested in that.

• 10:29Andy Greenwald?

  She's very interested in Charlie Heaton and Talia Dyer's relationship continuing. And in fact, she informed me the other night that many of the international dubbers of those characters have also fallen in love.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's nice. I, I saw that. I think they're body doubles.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  And their body doubles date as well.

• 10:45Chris Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 10:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So this is, so I'm now done talking about my knowledge of Stranger Things. How are you feeling about it?

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  I, I thought that as an event. It was fun.

• 10:56Andy Greenwald?

  Because you went to the theater at midnight?

• 10:57Chris Ryan?

  No, because-

• 10:58Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't see it in the theater, you saw it on TV?

• 11:00Chris Ryan?

  I didn't, but I will say that it was like a fun experience over the holidays, the way that they parceled these out.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Chris Ryan?

  I think I talked a little bit about watching it with like my wife's best friends, like-

• 11:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the youth-

• 11:11Chris Ryan?

  Daughters for the Thanksgiving ones.

• 11:13Andy Greenwald?

  The youth contingent.

• 11:14Chris Ryan?

  You know, we knocked out like the Christmas ones over the course of like a couple of nights in New York, like we would just throw it on. I found the finale to be like, nice, you know? Like, I think this show for me probably peaked with its first and second, to some extent, seasons. And that the way that they kind of made it all about, the mechanics of like the upside down, I mean, it's hard to talk about because I don't know if you care or understand, but like, it basically became very video game in its logic and in its execution. So rather than having, like, the character moments were like, this guy is gonna have this character moment, but it's only gonna be as a quick aside, like almost a cutscene-

• 11:59Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 11:59Chris Ryan?

  From, we have to do this to do this to do this. It's like watching The Avengers, like an end of Avengers movie. So, I thought it was pretty like about itself by the end of it. But, you know, I also, I feel warmly towards it. And I wonder if in a different world, without strikes and COVID and stuff like that, if it would have worked out differently for that show. Because I think part of like, the abstraction of it is just how long it has been-

• 12:26Andy Greenwald?

  The experience.

• 12:27Chris Ryan?

  In gestation, like in being a 10-year experience.

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  Purely like Pitchfork rating scale, like how do you feel about the finale? Because-

• 12:34Chris Ryan?

  The finale, I would say-

• 12:37Andy Greenwald?

  And you can spoil whatever you want.

• 12:38Chris Ryan?

  I'll do this, I'll say the finale, I would give like a five. The coda, I would probably give like a six or a seven.

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 12:45Chris Ryan?

  I thought like that once they kind of wrapped up the action- The sort of character beats were nice.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  The sense that I get, again, based on very little, just ambient understanding of it, is that it is in some ways, it reminds me of Lost in the sense of you strike gold with all the things that make TV good.

• 13:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Andy Greenwald?

  In the sense of like, you know, finding actors right before everyone falls in love with them, creating characters in a world that people want to spend time with, and a world that seems to have potentially unlimited depth to keep scratching the surface and finding more and more wrinkles to, and people get excited about the gamification of the story in that way.

• 13:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Andy Greenwald?

  But inevitably with a show like that, I don't, I mean, I haven't read interviews, but I can't imagine if they were given some of Carol from Pluribus's Sodium Pentathal, the Duffer Brothers would be like, we always imagined an endgame with Vecna.

• 13:38Chris Ryan?

  And I think also, the bigger the show got, the bigger the show had to

• 13:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Chris Ryan?

  like expand to reach what they assumed what people wanted.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 13:47Chris Ryan?

  So that by this end of the season, it just becomes a magical action movie where all these characters have now become warriors somehow, even though they are like teenagers.

• 13:57Andy Greenwald?

  Like Blono too, right? I heard she-

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, but like Natalia Dyer's character is like basically Ripley and Alien in this, in this show now.

• 14:04Andy Greenwald?

  That's pretty sick.

• 14:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that it is a different, as the one-time host of America's leading podcast about television shows ending, I would say that there ought to be a different category for shows that have to wrangle the multi-headed Hydra of their own success to end. There is no naturally satisfying ending to a show that didn't have, I mean, what's the name of the Joe single? They didn't have the end at the beginning. So-

• 14:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Andy Greenwald?

  Kudos to anybody who tries and even manages to come out with a gentleman's five.

• 14:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes, there, I mean, I have like read a little bit about how like- The origins of this show and how they had thought about it, maybe as an anthology and maybe as like this sort of like homage to like very like like a Stephen King contained universe rather than something that was going to be a dimension sprawling magical teenager. Potter meets Avengers kind of Lord of the Rings level show.

• 15:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:03Chris Ryan?

  And it just wound up being that big. And I I guess that that's what they felt like they needed to expand it into. And it wasn't as interesting to me. But for some reason, in the specific time it was released this year.

• 15:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Chris Ryan?

  I didn't really feel distracted by a ton of other stuff. And the weather being the weather, it was like kind of fun to like at midnight, throw it on and just kind of like zone out.

• 15:25Andy Greenwald?

  I think the marketing and the way Netflix turned it into something even bigger and then.

• 15:29Chris Ryan?

  And then they made like 25 million dollars.

• 15:31Andy Greenwald?

  Eventized it was really, really smart. To your point about like what they originally intended, it is always for me at least worth remembering that the initial pitch for the show was a series called Montauk.

• 15:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:41Andy Greenwald?

  Which I believe was about Lizzie Grubman's parking shenanigans at the Surfside Inn 20 years ago. And to think that from that.

• 15:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Andy Greenwald?

  They ended up with what they ended up with. But it's interesting like it was it was an homage, right? To the spirit of the things that people in our generation grew up loving that became a.

• 16:00Chris Ryan?

  It became an homage to like the things that kids, the age of the kids in the show would have also loved that because it was like an homage to Marvel and Potter and L L T R, which are like more 21st century.

• 16:13Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 16:14Chris Ryan?

  Like tokens or totems rather. Do you think like, does your daughter have any connection to it being like an 80s vibe show?

• 16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Broadly, yes. I think she gets the.

• 16:29Chris Ryan?

  That that's when it's set?

• 16:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And that's why they don't have phones and stuff, you know?

• 16:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, although she does feel frustrated in a way that maybe we would feel when characters couldn't call each other in black and white movies as easily. I don't know. She's just like, why doesn't she just search that up? You know?

• 16:45Chris Ryan?

  Pennsylvania 324.

• 16:48Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's.

• 16:48Chris Ryan?

  Now he's not here. Click.

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, operator. Um, there's some of, there's definitely some of that. It's also funny where like today, on the way to school, she was explaining Joseph Quinn's character, because that's where she, I think she's in season four now.

• 17:00Chris Ryan?

  Eddie, yeah.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  And she's like, people think that he's like, a bad guy because he plays Dungeons and Dragons and listens to heavy metal. I'm like, right, that was a thing. And she's like, I know, but I'm like, do you? Turns up end to beginning.

• 17:17Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm like, do you know where Chicago is? And that's a whole other story. But, um, do you know about Lounge Jax?

• 17:24Andy Greenwald?

  It's the punk club where, um, I, I, I, I welcome this because like, it is, it is.

• 17:29Chris Ryan?

  Have you been watching along as she watches or is she just watching it on iTunes?

• 17:32Andy Greenwald?

  She's just grinding tape, just trying to, trying to catch up and not, and not avoiding spoilers and not really caring.

• 17:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's another thing that I think people have largely given up on.

• 17:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:42Chris Ryan?

  They, they don't, they don't care about embargoes.

• 17:45Andy Greenwald?

  They don't respect embargoes like you at Pennsylvania 1500. That's where, that's our other watch inbox.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Gray Roots entering the chat, uninvited. Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Root Retouch covers up to 100% of grays in just 10 minutes. No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty free. 10 minutes, sensational color, sensational price. With those savings, your next girls' night is basically free. Find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Gray Roots entering the chat, uninvited. Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Root Retouch covers up to 100% of grays in just 10 minutes. No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty free. 10 minutes, sensational color, sensational price. With those savings, your next girls' night is basically free. Find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late night, half-priced appetizers are here at Applebee's. Saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings, crispy cheesy mozzarella sticks, creamy spinach and artichoke dip. Your favorite apps half-priced, available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more. Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright 2026 Applebee's Restaurant LLC. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's wok-cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you.

• 19:56Chris Ryan?

  I did want to tell you one more thing about Stranger Things. So spoilers for the finale. You don't care.

• 20:01Andy Greenwald?

  Nope.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  Hawkins is this hotly contested interdimensional property now because there's like

• 20:08Andy Greenwald?

  Like no one's gonna listen? What do you mean?

• 20:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, there's the Hawkins Town.

• 20:12Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, right.

• 20:13Chris Ryan?

  Then there is the Upside Down, which is sort of like Dark Hawkins, which is you can get to through some portals in different places.

• 20:19Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 20:20Chris Ryan?

  The thing that they introduced in this final chapter or season is the idea that in fact, there is then like a thing called the Abyss, which is where Vecna lives. Vecna is this really bad guy.

• 20:31Andy Greenwald?

  Is that like when we found out about Dumbo? That there was like another part of Brooklyn? With like, the streets looked a certain way, but

• 20:38Chris Ryan?

  See, this is why you can never quit.

• 20:40Andy Greenwald?

  Is that?

• 20:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this is why you have

• 20:42Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I remember we were like

• 20:42Chris Ryan?

  Don't listen to any of the haters, man. You're the best.

• 20:44Andy Greenwald?

  Like the first time people took us to Galapagos in Williamsburg. And I was like, oh, there's a dark Brooklyn. But then we found out about Dumbo.

• 20:50Chris Ryan?

  This is where the G ends. Yeah.

• 20:52Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, go on.

• 20:53Chris Ryan?

  So there's Hawkins, Upside Down. Then there's the bridge, I think, or the bridge might be between Hawkins and the Upside Down. I can't remember.

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  This is literally me explaining where I live in LA to people in London.

• 21:03Chris Ryan?

  And then there is the Abyss, which is where Elle sent Vecna.

• 21:09Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 21:10Chris Ryan?

  When she like zapped him with her mind.

• 21:12Andy Greenwald?

  Is Elle what you call 11?

• 21:13Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 21:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 21:14Chris Ryan?

  And Vecna and the Mind Flayer are in this fucking desert. Like it's like, like outside of Tucson.

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  But are they together?

• 21:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, very much so.

• 21:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's sweet.

• 21:23Chris Ryan?

  They're really, they, they, they are bonded together.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 21:29Chris Ryan?

  There's a huge destructive moment, event where, you know, they blow up the upside down. Brett Gelman does that.

• 21:35Andy Greenwald?

  Damn. Brett Gelman blows up the upside down?

• 21:40Andy Greenwald?

  Do you feel like, what if the Dever Brothers had pitched that 10 years ago to Cindy Holland and Ted Sarandos? Close your eyes. I'm gonna paint you a picture.

• 21:50Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, so there's this huge destructive thing, there's a ton of damage done. Can I, can I really spoil it? Elle closes the gate to all of this stuff and sacrifices herself.

• 22:02Andy Greenwald?

  My child already told me this. She's not watched this, but she already told me this.

• 22:05Chris Ryan?

  Another big explosion happens, you know? Cut to 18 months later.

• 22:10Andy Greenwald?

  I love an 18 months later.

• 22:11Chris Ryan?

  Hawkins, the tax base has exploded. That's not, it's not just that the infrastructure got destroyed. It was like, the population came back.

• 22:20Andy Greenwald?

  And they were just like?

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  It's teeming. It's like Hawkins is, there's a gold rush happening in Hawkins. And everybody has come back and there's so much construction and building going on.

• 22:30Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm giving the wrong cities. This is actually San Francisco, once Daniel Lurie became mayor.

• 22:34Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 22:35Andy Greenwald?

  And he's like, there's a new Gap store.

• 22:36Chris Ryan?

  But it's just the funniest thing, it's like, there's no coverage whatsoever of multiple interdimensional explosions happening in Indiana.

• 22:43Andy Greenwald?

  But, no, but so are they like, spending their way through it? Is it like, it's?

• 22:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's no.

• 22:48Andy Greenwald?

  Is it abundance?

• 22:48Chris Ryan?

  It, it kinda seems like that. It seems like there's no permitting, there's no zoning, they're just like, putting everything back where it belongs.

• 22:55Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 22:56Chris Ryan?

  And I thought that was a very funny like, note to end on. Although it is kinda nice, because like, these six people or 10 people are like, kinda like, everybody's just moved on, you know?

• 23:04Andy Greenwald?

  I'm also interested in the 18 months as like, kind of a default, like, that's the appropriate length of the ellipsis. And it's, it's front of mind, because I, I, we were re-watching Sleepless in Seattle this weekend. It's, it's, it's on the Criterion's Fresh Start collection. Otherwise, clearly, why would I watch one of the most beloved movies of all time? And, and for those who haven't re-watched it recently, it opens with Tom Hanks like, in just paralyzing grief, with good reason.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  His wife, Carrie Lowell, is just suddenly... Passed away.

• 23:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Andy Greenwald?

  That's not a spoiler. That's the movie. And then it's like, then they're like, what will you do?

• 23:42Chris Ryan?

  Did you ever get him?

• 23:43Andy Greenwald?

  Rebuild your life. It's possible. What would you? And, and he's like, I think I'm going to uproot myself and my child from the only home he's ever known and live on a boat in Seattle.

• 23:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I'm super into Mother Love Bone and think this town is really about to pop off. But the yada yada for like, when it's okay for him to start dating again is 18 months.

• 24:01Chris Ryan?

  Right. 18 months is, I think that that's like a solid time. It's two pregnancy cycles, you know?

• 24:06Andy Greenwald?

  That is a wild call for you. That is the first thing you thought of? You could just bang out some Irish twins and then you're ready to start over.

• 24:15Chris Ryan?

  It's nearly a rookie contract, you know?

• 24:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Kai, what do you, how do you feel about this? Just in terms of someone like you, you're, you're living your life.

• 24:21Chris Ryan?

  Specifically Tom Hanks mourning his wife or Hawkins moving on from?

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think 18 months is a generally reliable benchmark for moving on from something? Something good or bad, like rebuilding a Midwestern town?

• 24:34Chris Ryan?

  Did you expect this to be the first time we threw to you in 2026 was going to be asking this?

• 24:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. I feel like after 18 months, it's kind of like, all right, wrap it up.

• 24:42Chris Ryan?

  What's it supposed to be like a month for every year?

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  For what?

• 24:46Chris Ryan?

  For like a breakup?

• 24:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is that, wait, they have that for like time?

• 24:50Chris Ryan?

  I think it was supposed to be like.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  Jet lag, it's a day for every hour.

• 24:53Chris Ryan?

  Or maybe it's a death. I can't remember. I ca, it's something, it's something. It's like a month for every year. Uh, you, you basically like, you're like, that's the way you're supposed to like mourn or whatever.

• 25:02Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Well, that's right on target then, because in Sleepless in Seattle, definitely the things that we're leading this pod with for our first pod back. He says, he's talking to, and beautiful Rob Reiner performance in that movie. He says how, when's the last time you dated?

• 25:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Andy Greenwald?

  And he says Jimmy Carter was president and the movie is set in 1991. So.

• 25:21Chris Ryan?

  That would be 20 years. It's about 20 months.

• 25:23Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, like 14 year, 14. He's ready.

• 25:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Andy Greenwald?

  In fact, he's a little behind.

• 25:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  He's a little, he's a little bit lagging.

• 25:30Chris Ryan?

  Let's go now to a film that we both saw.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  The movies.

• 25:34Chris Ryan?

  I can tell you're chomping at the bit. Marty Supreme.

• 25:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Chris Ryan?

  How many times did you go to the movies last year or in the last 12 months?

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  How about the last 18 months? I was a different guy. How many times?

• 25:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  Embarrassingly few.

• 25:47Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:47Andy Greenwald?

  I would say. Under a dozen.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  I think it's it's it's opened you up. Because now like I feel like when you go and you like something, you really love it.

• 25:56Andy Greenwald?

  I I I will say this, just to start, like, I I like our friends at the Big Picture Podcast. I am a great believer in the in theater, in-person cinematic experience. I was.

• 26:08Chris Ryan?

  So am I.

• 26:08Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, it's a. Oh, are you?

• 26:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, I just, I only listen to that.

• 26:13Chris Ryan?

  There's not only three people who love in in in theater.

• 26:16Andy Greenwald?

  I only listen to the big picture when it's pure.

• 26:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:18Andy Greenwald?

  When it's just the two of them. I don't like any interlopers on that show. Just like that dynamic, it's like if there's guest hosts on PTI, you know what I mean?

• 26:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, a little like glimpse behind the curtain. We we we were ships in the night.

• 26:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Andy Greenwald?

  We passed each other, you were coming out of the movie and I was coming into the movie.

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  I had gotten back from a very early flight and I wanted to see it. And I could not wait till 8:00 P. M.

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the thing, I had not had a good night of sleep and I was. Here's what I didn't communicate to you in that moment, although I tried to with my searching look that I gave you as you passed the giant fucking poster cutout for Chris Pratt's Mercy. A real movie that has the ad, wait, I had it open just to like look at it for a minute.

• 27:00Chris Ryan?

  I know what this movie is about. It's Rebecca Ferguson is an A. I.

• 27:03Andy Greenwald?

  The head tagline for this film, which is a real film. The future of criminal justice is artificial intelligence. Way to read the room. If there's two things that are equally beloved in America in 2025.

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's the criminal justice system and artificial intelligence. And you give me Chris Pratt not smiling? Fucking, that's my 13th time in the theater. Can't wait. Anyway, as we were passing, I was really, really concerned that I would be sleeping through this film.

• 27:34Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:35Andy Greenwald?

  No judgment on the film, I was just not feeling.

• 27:39Chris Ryan?

  You would have been easily the first person to fall asleep in a Safdie Brothers movie.

• 27:42Andy Greenwald?

  I had that, I was hoping for that. I was like, that might be my my my saving grace here. That was not the case. I was so exhilarated and transported by seeing this movie in the theater. I loved it. I loved the movie, I loved the experience of seeing in the theater.

• 28:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think this is a great.

• 28:00Chris Ryan?

  It's a great movie. It's a great movie. I, you know. I think that. When you step into the theater, like the thing though, the thing you can hope for is to feel fully immersed in something. And I think we've probably started to confuse world building with like, like more genre, like fantasy sci-fi kind of things. Like, are you convincingly building a fictional universe for me to explore?

• 28:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 28:27Chris Ryan?

  But to me, like, world building is what Jack Fisk does in this movie. And he's the production designer, and he's been, he's probably one of like, the handful of greatest production designers in the history of Hollywood filmmaking, and worked with Terrence Malick in the, in the seventies on Badlands and Days of Heaven and-

• 28:42Andy Greenwald?

  David Lynch.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, David Lynch did Mulholland Drive and-

• 28:45Andy Greenwald?

  And then PTA. He did The World Be Blood.

• 28:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And when you watch Marty Supreme, like, the thing that leaps off the screen-

• 28:52Andy Greenwald?

  Eight years old, this man.

• 28:52Chris Ryan?

  Is the sort of tactile nature of the New York that they create. And feeling like, as Marty is going down fire escapes or running through the backs of stores, that there is an alley and then another store. And like, the illusion, probably because film is just magic-making anyway, is that, like, you are actually in this interconnected warren of the Lower East Side in the 1950s. And that is like, it's so captivating. And then when you add the seemingly incongruous but like, wonderful score on top of it, from Daniel Lepatten, it just, it just takes you away. Beyond ping pong and, you know, youth and young manhood and, and finding a sense of purpose beyond yourself, which the movie

• 29:37Chris Ryan?

  is also about.

• 29:38Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, every time, I'm not, I'm not even being like, self-deprecating. I often don't feel qualified to talk about movies because I see so few of them these days. But like, every time I see a great movie, my first thought is always, oh my God, it's so hard to make a good movie, let alone a great movie.

• 29:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Andy Greenwald?

  And every frame counts and every second counts. And you're talking to the specificity of the decisions made in it. And, you know, reading about the film after seeing it, talking about how they like, wet down the trash in the streets to like, increase every potential moment of realism. And so the actors would be feeling it too. You read about like, Tyler and Timothy filming like, after their insane night scene, and that they were filming that at four in the morning and ad-libbing how tired they were, because they were.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Andy Greenwald?

  You read about Chalamet secretly training to become a ping pong champion for six years, which could be super annoying, honestly, but isn't because it's-

• 30:32Chris Ryan?

  Are you fine? How, where are you with him?

• 30:34Andy Greenwald?

  I sent you a gif of Shaquille O'Neal saying, "I owe you an apology. I wasn't familiar with your game." And I have taken all caveats away from my embrace.

• 30:46Chris Ryan?

  Did you ever see the Dylan movie?

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 30:47Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Do you like the Dune movies, though?

• 30:50Andy Greenwald?

  I like the Dune movies. I think I've seen, I think I've, I feel fairly well-versed in his filmography.

• 30:58Chris Ryan?

  I mean, you're one of the preeminent experts on his appearance in Homeland.

• 31:02Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. Famously, I met him on the set of Homeland, and in no moment was I like, "This is the next great movie star."

• 31:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Andy Greenwald?

  It's an incredible performance, and the entire movie hinges on his face and his commitment. And also, I was thinking about another recent re-addition to Criterion Collection that I re-watched because it was just there again. Because I'm clearly desperate for a "let's turn the TV on and just watch what's on" experience. This is as close as we get, was I was re-watching Boogie Nights, and I was watching it thinking about DiCaprio having worked now with PTA, and how great he is in one battle after another, and how he now says, or has said in past interviews, that he does regret passing

• 31:43Chris Ryan?

  On Boogie Nights, yeah.

• 31:43Andy Greenwald?

  On Boogie Nights, and thinking, "I don't think he would be good for it." Like, that's obviously like, you know, hindsight, but that there's a specificity to what Wahlberg is good at, that PTA, as a great director, sees and excavates and shines a bright light on. Interestingly, now, I'm more like, Sidney Pollack would have been a good Jack Horner, too.

• 32:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'm open to that argument, that there could have been a different one there. But anyway, you watch Almay in this movie, and you're like, absolutely no other actor, contemporary actor, could have given us that specific performance.

• 32:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I also don't really know, on an extra level, like, who else could have sold this movie?

• 32:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:21Chris Ryan?

  You know, I mean, the work he has done. To get this movie, I think it opened better than the Dylan film did. Uh, I think it's appealing, at least from what I've read, to 18 to 34 year olds, who are not always dependable box office supporters. And he's like a new generation of movie star while also having the chops of somebody who could have been famous in 1972, you know?

• 32:46Andy Greenwald?

  I did, and I felt really exhilarated by the fact that the movie does, you know, it's highly stylized, obviously. It has that saftige and a sequoia that keeps people awake in movie theaters. It has the reliance on anachronistic needle drops that I do want to ask you about. But it also has an absolutely genuine, sincere, and I think really interesting curiosity and engagement with reality, in terms of like historical reality. And I thought the movie was incredibly compelling and moving as a snapshot of Judaism in the 20th century, but also the way capitalism works and has always worked in America versus the world. And it's not like heavy handed about any of that, but it's alive to it.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 33:29Andy Greenwald?

  In a way that I really liked. I also wanted to ask you, so struck, I was so struck by the use of non-traditional actors up to, and this is the most me, I feel like this movie has been well covered at this point by everyone.

• 33:43Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 33:44Andy Greenwald?

  Here's what I can bring to it. I think that I am the only minor media figure to audibly gasp when one of my favorite writers, Pico Iyer, appears as the supercilious chairman of the World Table Tennis Association.

• 33:59Chris Ryan?

  That's who that was?

• 34:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. The, to me,

• 34:02Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I don't even know this writer.

• 34:04Andy Greenwald?

  Deeply influential and beloved travel writer, um, wrote two of my like most formative books in the 90s, Video Night in Kathmandu and then Lady and the Monk. And then since then, he like, he lives in Japan and he's just thoughtful. He's very, he writes a lot about Buddhism and spirituality and travel and our global world. And all of his books are good, including his most recent one. And I was like, I recognize that guy. He's never acted.

• 34:29Chris Ryan?

  Did you find out like what Safdie's connection to him was?

• 34:31Andy Greenwald?

  No, because you look down the list of this and you're like, and George Gervin is running the

• 34:35Chris Ryan?

  Tracy McGrady's on the Globetrotters.

• 34:37Andy Greenwald?

  Tracy McGrady's on the Globetrotters.

• 34:38Chris Ryan?

  Abel Ferreira and Penn Jillette.

• 34:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, New York great, in quotes, John Katsimatidis, the chairman of the D'Agostino Grocery Store Corporation, plays Dion's dad.

• 34:48Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 34:50Andy Greenwald?

  That can work, or it can catastrophically not work. And I thought that the casting of non-traditional actors, the Kevin O'Leary thing, I thought it worked to a degree that was totally invigorating and exciting. But like even the dude, what's his name, Philippe, what's his name who walked across the towers?

• 35:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Andy Greenwald?

  He's, he's the Belgian ping pong commentator, like

• 35:10Chris Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 35:11Andy Greenwald?

  The use of faces. And then not just saying like, that's who should be in the scene, whether it's the kid who plays Dion, who I guess they found on YouTube, or Levon Hawk, Maya's brother who's in the hustling scene, or Tyler, who I didn't know was an actor and maybe isn't, but is incredible. Like, Richard Brody in The New Yorker wrote that he thought that this works well for the Safdie's because the Safdie's communicate their story, they tell their story

• 35:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 35:37Andy Greenwald?

  through, less through like traditional performance, more through visuals and reaction and presence, which makes sense.

• 35:45Chris Ryan?

  You know, it was also awesome in Spencer Grenese, who's in Dope Thief, but is in that one bowling alley scene, talking to Tyler about like, guard your, guard your wad, like, don't, don't let anybody see your cashier. And then obviously chases them to the gas station. Like, he's got like that same kind of face. Even though he's done some acting, obviously, he's like a, like an up and coming actor. Like, I just think that he's like, Safdie is

• 36:10Andy Greenwald?

  Abel Ferreira, we didn't even mention Jesus.

• 36:11Chris Ryan?

  You know what it is? It's a total commitment to an idea. So it's the same thing with the music. When it opens with Forever Young, and you know, like, we won't, we don't have to spoil

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  Marty Supreme, folks haven't had a chance to see it, but it also ends on a very significant needle drop. And if you kind of go halfway.

• 36:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Chris Ryan?

  Or if in the middle of the movie, you weirdly start changing, oh, now we're doing 1950s needle drops. It's like, you have to be

• 36:38Andy Greenwald?

  You have to be fearless.

• 36:39Chris Ryan?

  You have to be fearless, but you have to be committed to an idea. And the idea is essentially that Marty Supreme is a memory piece of this guy remembering in the 80s, what life was like in the 50s. That's what Josh talked about with Sean.

• 36:51Andy Greenwald?

  Josh himself remembering the feeling of the past through the emotional.

• 36:55Chris Ryan?

  No, the character. Josh is like, this idea is like, kind of, you know, it almost feels, he's making the 1950s feel like the 1980s because it would be older Marty Supreme remembering the 1950s.

• 37:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 37:08Chris Ryan?

  So it basically gives a rationale to the postmodern new wave vibe of the music in the film. To commit to something that fully and then to not even be like, this is why I did it in the film itself is so brave and fearless. And it's the same thing with like, Kevin O'Leary could have fucked that movie up.

• 37:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 37:29Chris Ryan?

  So many people could have just.

• 37:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's a major part.

• 37:31Chris Ryan?

  I mean, there is, something happens in, um, in this thing on, the Bradley Cooper movie with Bonnet, that is like, the wrong version of this.

• 37:39Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:40Chris Ryan?

  And it completely takes you out of the movie if you're even in it in the first place. The fact that they're able to pull off all of these faces, you're essentially the entire movie is like the bar scene in Goodfellas where they're just like, and then there was, you know, this guy and then this guy. And it's like, that's the whole movie is faces like that and people like that. It's so invigorating to see because you realize that, especially when we're watching TV, seeing a lot of the same faces, seeing a lot of the same people.

• 38:09Andy Greenwald?

  And a lot of interpretations of an idea that a character is on the page.

• 38:12Chris Ryan?

  And there, and when it comes to like extra work or people filling out a scene or people in the background or people who are briefly on camera, it's like, there just doesn't seem like there's a ton of thought given to it, probably because they have to move so quickly. But.

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  Are you talking about the geologist on Landman? Not yet. But I, I, I agree with that. I will, maybe this is a sign of my, uh, trepidation and lack of fearlessness. The last needle drop was the only time that I was like, only because that song is so overly dropped.

• 38:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 38:43Andy Greenwald?

  The New Order one, um, shout out to the upcoming season of Industry, works for me. And like the Peter Gabriel one worked for me. The last one is when you, when you.

• 38:52Chris Ryan?

  You can say it's, I mean, we can.

• 38:53Andy Greenwald?

  Tears for Fears. When you drop a song that is not just known in its moment as a famous huge song, but has been known by every subsequent generation, almost like by clockwork in the decade from a needle drop.

• 39:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Andy Greenwald?

  I think that it removes you from the immediacy of the moment, which Chalamet is delivering in terms of his performance. That was the one time that I was a little out of it. But, but there was a feeling. That I had after the opening sequence where he's in London and everything that happens in London and Gwyneth Paltrow and their connection. Where I was like, I don't remember the last time I had this feeling in the movie theater, where I was, it's actually more like a sports thing, and maybe it's fitting that it's a sports movie, where I was like, please don't blow this lead.

• 39:38Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 39:39Andy Greenwald?

  I was so in love with my, and I don't think I was out of it, I was fully invested, but I was so in love with the experience I was having. And I was so worried, eventually that faded, but like of a wrong note that would.

• 39:51Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like that's.

• 39:52Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, you're up 21-0, don't let the Cowboys back in it.

• 39:56Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like you're more now aware of how you're feeling about a movie while you're watching a movie or a TV show? Like, are you more like, do you think it's because like you maybe you're like, you have less time? So it's like, my relationship to culture is now a little bit more transactional, and when you do feel like I'm levitating, don't, don't, don't bring me down now.

• 40:18Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think so, but then there were a couple moments, when the bathtub crashed to the ceiling, I think then I lost all reservations about it.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 40:27Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I was just laughing and euphoric and like, this is, here we go.

• 40:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:31Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I mean, I, it's of no value, based on my almost complete ignorance of the larger cinematic slate still of 2025, for me to say this is my favorite movie of the year, but I, I, I would rate it higher than One Battle After Another.

• 40:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 40:46Andy Greenwald?

  In my own personal top two list, which might expand over the next few weeks as we build up to the Oscars.

• 40:50Chris Ryan?

  Do you think you're gonna do a deep dive into 2025 movies? Like when you're watching and you're like, um, I'm just like watching Boogie Nights or whatever?

• 40:58Andy Greenwald?

  I'm going to watch Sinners in Eddington, and I still wanna take a, take a return to Zombieland with you. I mean, I saw the, I saw the, the trailer for.

• 41:06Chris Ryan?

  Bone Temple.

• 41:07Andy Greenwald?

  Bone Temple.

• 41:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's coming soon.

• 41:09Andy Greenwald?

  You excited about it?

• 41:10Chris Ryan?

  Very, yeah.

• 41:11Andy Greenwald?

  It's, is Ralph Fiennes, he's playing the, um, the Rabbi of the Bone Temple?

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  Not exactly, but yeah.

• 41:18Andy Greenwald?

  He is in 28 Years Later as this character.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  He is.

• 41:21Andy Greenwald?

  And then they're like, let's spend more time in the temple.

• 41:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 41:25Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, and then there's another one.

• 41:27Chris Ryan?

  I, there will be hopefully a third one. I, I don't want to spoil anything about 28 years later.

• 41:31Andy Greenwald?

  I don't want you to.

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  I think you should go into it as blind as possible.

• 41:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 41:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Andy Greenwald?

  How will I feel about the needle drops?

• 41:37Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Young Fathers did the soundtrack. It's an incredible score. I wanted to briefly tell you about one other thing that I watched that I know you probably are only in and out on. We talked about this show briefly for the first episode. It's heated rivalry, which is still the number one show on the Max streaming app.

• 41:52Andy Greenwald?

  God, Casey stays winning.

• 41:54Chris Ryan?

  And we didn't do a best episode of 2025 episode of this podcast, which we have done the last couple of years.

• 42:01Andy Greenwald?

  We were unable to due to scheduling reasons.

• 42:03Chris Ryan?

  We did Shogun one year, uh, we did the bear one year. And I, I think we were a little bit like, you know, I feel like we left it all on the field of adolescence, but we were, we were talking about like, maybe we should try and do the third episode of adolescence, or maybe the second to last episode of task. Like, there was a couple of candidates.

• 42:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I, I think I would have voted for ultimately the third episode of adolescence, but I think wrangling all the overseas talent would have been challenging.

• 42:28Chris Ryan?

  Although they were just in town for critics' choice. I think they're gonna be in LA for a while to get some awards.

• 42:34Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think they want to talk to me about Jedleg? And like, that is just like how best to manage that flight and what to order? Don't get the soup. But then otherwise, just as this is just, you know, inside baseball, but like, we were also like, what more do we have to say about Andor or the pit since we've already done interviews with creative people?

• 42:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:50Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway.

• 42:51Chris Ryan?

  It's probably recency bias, but I, I would have made an argument for the fifth episode of heated rivalry.

• 42:56Andy Greenwald?

  God, it's great. Good for you.

• 42:59Chris Ryan?

  I've watched the rest of this over the course of sort of the Christmas break. It is an amazing achievement of a show. Uh, just the level of skill from Jacob Tierney, who created it based on these novels by Rachel Reed and then wrote and directed the episodes.

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Chris Ryan?

  He's a fucking big time talent, man. Like, I'm so blown away. And I asked you to watch like a brief moment at the end of the fifth episode where it kind of is the culmination of one side subplot of the show, this established, uh, hockey star's public coming out.

• 43:35Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm. Quite, quite public.

• 43:37Chris Ryan?

  How that affects the two main actors, uh, main characters, uh, Ilya and.

• 43:42Andy Greenwald?

  Who at this point in their journey are closeted.

• 43:45Chris Ryan?

  And Connor, yeah. And, uh, Spoilers for this episode, if you haven't seen it, I would just highly recommend you watch Cheetah Rivalry. But the end of this episode, which is actually excellent, it also features, like, Ilya has to go back to Russia for a funeral, and Connor's in the hospital after an injury, and like, there's this, like, it's just a very, very, very well-done episode of television.

• 44:11Andy Greenwald?

  This is five of, out of eight?

• 44:13Chris Ryan?

  Six.

• 44:13Andy Greenwald?

  Six. Oh, so this is the, this is the penultimate?

• 44:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 44:15Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 44:16Chris Ryan?

  And then the last five minutes of this is, uh, this guy coming out after, after winning what would be the Stanley Cup, and these two younger hockey players watching it at their separate homes.

• 44:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 44:29Chris Ryan?

  While, uh, I'll Believe in Anything by Wolf Parade plays.

• 44:34Andy Greenwald?

  I just got chills.

• 44:34Chris Ryan?

  And the reason why I think I've, like, I've checked this out so many times is because of the filmmaking in it. You know, they're shooting it on anamorphic lenses, the way that they are communicating the emotional and psychological reality of the characters with camera movement and music and cutting, it is so high level for a show that could, in another person's hands, could have just been very straightforward soap opera, hot sex, TV show.

• 45:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 45:10Chris Ryan?

  And he, he makes it, like, cinematic. It is so good. I, I would just, if, if you, if you have heard about this show and you haven't watched it, please check it out and see if you, if you can get to episode five. I mean, I think if you're watching it, you'll just, you'll just watch it. It's just really compelling anyway.

• 45:27Andy Greenwald?

  I was glad you told me to watch it for two reasons. The first reason is, it's good to be validated, in my opinion, that, that those Wolf Parade records are incredibly important to the culture, because that, that hits.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:41Andy Greenwald?

  That was, that was the pure uncut.

• 45:43Chris Ryan?

  I would have been a tyranny on just to talk about Wolf Parade.

• 45:45Andy Greenwald?

  I would love to talk about Wolf Parade at length.

• 45:47Chris Ryan?

  I was more of a Shina Lake guy than a, uh, I'll Believe in Anything guy, but for sure.

• 45:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's a sign of great artistry. You just sort of can unearth these nuggets of or. Yeah, I, I think that what I appreciated the most is the way that historically, but like, this century of television and the role the penultimate episode often plays, especially with the type of shows that we talk about in Lion Eyes, there has often been a, a death.

• 46:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  In the second to last episode.

• 46:21Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 46:21Andy Greenwald?

  And the death is both shocking in terms of your audience investment in the character who dies and also the timing of it. Like you, we were, I think, no longer, but we were conditioned to expect fireworks in finales. And so that was the great innovation of George Pelikanos and the rest of the Wire staff.

• 46:36Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:38Andy Greenwald?

  But you do it in that episode so that you can actually, you can remind the audience that, that, that good shows aren't about the rock getting thrown in the pond. It's about the ripples.

• 46:48Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 46:49Andy Greenwald?

  And how the ripples affect on people. And so to watch an episode cold of characters I did not.

• 46:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you don't know who Scott is. You don't know what's going on.

• 46:57Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know what was going on on the main stage thing. But I immediately, I mean, I figured it out pretty quickly.

• 47:01Chris Ryan?

  Actually, before you keep going, I just realized that I transposed the actor who plays Ilya's first name Connor. It's Connor Story.

• 47:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Chris Ryan?

  And the character who I was referring to is Shane Hollander. So Connor Story plays Ilya and then Hudson Williams plays Shane. So I just fucked that up.

• 47:17Andy Greenwald?

  You have to apologize to me. I don't watch the show. This is, I would have let you get away with anything.

• 47:21Chris Ryan?

  I'm just trying to do the work. I'm sorry. Yeah.

• 47:23Andy Greenwald?

  Absolutely. Anyway, just to say that the, the power of the scene was coming into a cold and realizing the significance of the, in this parlance of prestige TV, the, it's the opposite of a murder, but how it affects these characters.

• 47:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Andy Greenwald?

  And where they are in their lives and the significance of it. And again, like there are these little subtle touches that I also really appreciated that with. Connor or Shane? Who's the, who's the, the dark haired?

• 47:50Chris Ryan?

  That's, that's Shane Hollander is the character.

• 47:53Andy Greenwald?

  When Shane Hollander, yeah. Watching this on television.

• 47:57Chris Ryan?

  With his parents.

• 47:57Andy Greenwald?

  He's watching Major League Hockey television, I believe.

• 48:00Chris Ryan?

  I don't have that.

• 48:01Andy Greenwald?

  The New York, the New York Admirals.

• 48:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:04Andy Greenwald?

  Have won this, this Stampley Cup.

• 48:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Scott Hunter has won the cup.

• 48:09Andy Greenwald?

  It's falling on his parents who are like, oh, we're watching something significant. Something is happening and it's hitting him completely different.

• 48:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's beautifully framed.

• 48:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, uh, really, really excellent TV. So check it out if you haven't already.

• 48:24Andy Greenwald?

  What, I must have Major League Hockey television. I fucking just found out I have Crunchyroll still.

• 48:31Chris Ryan?

  Of course you do, we have kids.

• 48:32Andy Greenwald?

  But we don't watch it.

• 48:33Chris Ryan?

  You guys moved on from anime?

• 48:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, anime is not as popular in the house now that they've discovered, um, YouTube.

• 48:42Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about?

• 48:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 48:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you want to talk about Landman?

• 48:45Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the thing, do I want to talk about it? Like, when you, like, what if you had done, what if you were that dude, Morgan Spurlock, rest in peace? And you like supersized me for a year and then you came in to make the movie about it?

• 48:59Chris Ryan?

  That is sort of what's happening.

• 49:00Andy Greenwald?

  And someone was like, so what do you want to talk about today?

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  Landman's hit a little bit of a slump. Let's just.

• 49:05Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  Let's call it what it is.

• 49:06Andy Greenwald?

  Sure, let's be honest with each other.

• 49:07Chris Ryan?

  I note this with interest on today, January 5th, because it was just announced that the next season of Mayor of Kingstown will be the last season of that show.

• 49:16Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think this is the first, uh, domino to fall in the Sheridan verse?

• 49:20Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was interesting.

• 49:21Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  I, I, I'm sure I'm wrong. Taylor Sheridan is no longer the showrunner of Mayor of Kingstown. You know, I think that the fourth season was quite liked, critically acclaimed even with, uh.

• 49:33Andy Greenwald?

  Put that on the poster.

• 49:34Chris Ryan?

  Of Edie, Edie Falco is, is sort of the co-star of the show in this season. I kind of gave up Mayor of Kingstown like late season two. I don't even know if I watched any of season three. And, uh. I, you know, Taylor Sheridan's moving his productions, his TV production work to Peacock Universal, NBC Universal.

• 49:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:55Chris Ryan?

  And I do wonder whether or not it is a signal that the third season of Lioness will be the last season, or that, you know, some of his work is going to start winding down. I say that in relationship to Landman because the middle of this second season has felt a lot like late period Yellowstone to me.

• 50:14Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:15Chris Ryan?

  Where you're like, we have a lot of random kind of action.

• 50:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 50:19Chris Ryan?

  We're starting subplots and then sort of like drifting away from them.

• 50:24Andy Greenwald?

  We're not, we can't make up our mind about how characters behave and how they feel about each other.

• 50:28Chris Ryan?

  Well, it has like an almost compressed feeling. Remember that critique, I used to like get really upset when Succession would have like an emotional breakthrough with two characters and then the next episode it would just completely reset back to the original model for their relationship? That happens all the time on this show.

• 50:44Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, every Andy Garcia, Billy Bob Thornton scene is the same scene.

• 50:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And almost, I mean, like, almost every scene between Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott, which are really well done in terms of like, those guys are really good actors, but they is, and I think we'll probably get somewhere with this stuff, but it just really feels like he's writing six different shows that then get cut together into episodes.

• 51:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, the structure of the show is built out of paper mache and it's a bummer. And I think before we get into the specifics of it and the things that I really do want to talk about in a public forum.

• 51:21Chris Ryan?

  Like Cialis?

• 51:22Andy Greenwald?

  Like, yes. And who's really to blame here in a lot of these like marital tiffs? The point you make is a really interesting one because Taylor Sheridan remains and one of the reasons why I also like covering him, as long as I don't have to watch all the shows, is because he is such a unique figure in the television landscape because he produces content at a volume of all the great high quantity television producers. Your.

• 51:51Chris Ryan?

  Botchko's.

• 51:52Andy Greenwald?

  Botchko, your Dick Wolf, your Shonda Rhimes.

• 51:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:57Andy Greenwald?

  But the David Kelly one, I would X out only because I think he's more in common with him. The other few, they make, not only are they good investments for whoever nurtured them and had them on their rookie contract, so to speak, they are good for the Pujols contract as well because those shows can run themselves at a certain point. Grey's Anatomy is still thriving. How many years ago did Chanda de Camp to Netflix? Which doesn't mean, I mean, she still is executive producer of that show.

• 52:24Chris Ryan?

  19, I can't remember, yeah.

• 52:26Andy Greenwald?

  But these shows can continue because they are a template that works, that the creator established. The thing that's so unique about Taylor Sheridan is that Landman or any of the shows that he makes should be able to run regardless of who's at the helm. If you gave me the log line for Landman, or you, God forbid, read the Texas Monthly article that somehow inspired it, or came across his desk briefly.

• 52:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the Christian Wallace article, or the podcast, boom, boom.

• 52:50Andy Greenwald?

  You could be like, well, obviously, this is a television show. If the show had just had the patience, the very non-Taylor Sheridan patience, to just be about Cooper's journey over multiple seasons from worm on boss's team to someone who Wildcats his way into.

• 53:07Chris Ryan?

  To Jon Hamm, yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 53:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's a fucking show.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 53:11Andy Greenwald?

  But the shows only convey what Taylor Sheridan's attention span holds for the microsecond that he spends working on each script. So they are not actually repeatable. And I want to be clear when I say that, when he gets interested in something, it can often.

• 53:28Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's why his shows start so well.

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  But it also can be so shocking and weird and surprising that suddenly it can come alive, like it has intermittently over the, for the previous episodes of the season. That even I was like, oh, okay, well, there's something there that's interesting.

• 53:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Andy Greenwald?

  And then he loses interest and then he reboots it or whatever. So I think that's interesting to note that like, Landman should be a franchise that could run for many, many years, which makes it a very valuable investment for Paramount despite its high price tag. Once he walks, I don't see what the show is.

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Well, you can almost make an argument that, like, given all the footage that we have, you could cut together.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  A more traditional, but actually like probably pretty entertaining version of this show. Because part of the thing that's so disorienting is the juxtaposition of like Billy Bob Thornton's raging erection in a morning.

• 54:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Chris Ryan?

  You know, with his wife in a hotel room where he terrifies a hotel maid.

• 54:30Andy Greenwald?

  Hold on, don't save it. I'm sorry, Kaya. We're bringing you in on this.

• 54:35Chris Ryan?

  For why?

• 54:36Andy Greenwald?

  I want to tell Kaya about the scene.

• 54:38Speaker 04

  You said hotel maid where this is, this is where you bring me in?

• 54:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. I do think that, you know, this, this is in the spirit of something I issued a few weeks ago, which was the watch landman with a woman challenge. So the opening of this episode, Kaya, begins with Billy Bob Thornton is sleeping in a hotel room. He and his wife have taken a room for a romantic getaway.

• 55:04Chris Ryan?

  Dejeuner.

• 55:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. He wakes up quite upset and startled because there is another person in their room. This is a room service server who is decloshing or whatever, multiple plates of breakfast food, including like omelets with truffles and all sorts of things. He reasonably cries out in alarm that someone is in the room with him. She then cries out in secondary or perhaps primary, in this case alarm, because what we subsequently learn is that he has taken multiple doses of Cialis and is.

• 55:40Chris Ryan?

  At attention.

• 55:42Andy Greenwald?

  At attention. To be clear, the camera shows us this.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  At which part do you want my thoughts on specifically?

• 55:50Andy Greenwald?

  The maid then screams, "Don't rape me."

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  You, you started this. You have to get yourself out of it.

• 55:57Andy Greenwald?

  And then Angela, the wife, who has let the woman into the room while her husband sleeps, starts screaming at her husband for waking up and not covering himself.

• 56:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Andy Greenwald?

  And then he has thus not only ruined their breakfast, but their entire.

• 56:15Chris Ryan?

  Marriage.

• 56:16Andy Greenwald?

  Marriage.

• 56:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Andy Greenwald?

  Who you got? Who's to blame here for this whole thing?

• 56:24Speaker 04

  Probably Taylor Sheridan.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  Right, she answered correctly. I just feel like so many of the bits on the show, not Billy Bob's bits,

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  are, begin from a place of such deep, deep impossibility.

• 56:41Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  Like, to get to the funny part about that scene, which honestly, we never got to, requires an entire suspension of disbelief about how Rue Service works.

• 56:51Chris Ryan?

  It's a different kind of show. It's also just like a crazy screwball comedy about a rich oil executive and his wife.

• 57:00Andy Greenwald?

  Erections?

• 57:01Chris Ryan?

  No, but it's just like, that's like, it's just, it's just like, what happens is he just throws all this stuff at the wall.

• 57:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Most people would be like, this works, this works, this works, this doesn't. Especially not together. And since he has kind of carte blanche, she's like, it all works. It also might be why people like the show, is that they never know what's gonna happen from scene to scene.

• 57:21Andy Greenwald?

  That is true.

• 57:21Chris Ryan?

  I think what has sort of emerged over this season specifically is, the first season had the tension of Jon Hamm versus Billy Bob Thornton, but also working together.

• 57:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Chris Ryan?

  Plus the cartel stuff, plus a lot of work on what the oil industry, how that works in the Permian Basin, and like, how like, drilling, and how it gets staffed, and the dangers that these guys face. I thought that was gonna continue with some of the stuff that they've introduced this season with the accident that happens.

• 57:56Andy Greenwald?

  That was a good.

• 57:56Chris Ryan?

  With the car accident that happens at the drilling site, with the natural, the toxic chemical leak that they have.

• 58:01Andy Greenwald?

  None of these things have led to anything.

• 58:03Chris Ryan?

  No. I mean, broadly, like, it seems like many people working for this oil company are thinking about their own mortality, and thinking about like, what they should be doing with their lives. You add in the Sam Elliott thing of being at the end of his life, and being like, I don't think any of what I did was worth it. There are themes that come out of it that kind of make sense.

• 58:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and there's a moment like the, like Boss's 20-year barbecue, where what's-his-name shows up with the watch.

• 58:27Chris Ryan?

  With the Rolex, yeah.

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  Also, what's that guy's name? It's like, anytime that character... Leaves Dale, Dale leaves the compound. I'm like, oh, I enjoy his character and his and his performance.

• 58:38Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 58:39Andy Greenwald?

  These are real people, working jobs and dealing with things.

• 58:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:42Andy Greenwald?

  And then it just throws it all away again.

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  Right. And so, yeah, I just think that they have, I, I think one of the things that's really jumped out at me is like, Andy Garcia really is only ever in his office.

• 58:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:54Chris Ryan?

  And he's the second or third person.

• 58:57Andy Greenwald?

  He went to the track.

• 58:59Chris Ryan?

  I just, what's, what's going on there, though? Like, we've, we've now done like five hours of him being like, I'll back your oil company. And Billy Bob's like, you shouldn't do this.

• 59:06Andy Greenwald?

  You're evil, but also I need you, but also we see eye to eye.

• 59:09Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I only want to talk about one scene specifically. And again, I think this is worth it for anyone who doesn't, who doesn't watch the show, because there are moments when, such as the, um, the breakfast scene, where I'm like, this is just, this is, this is actually awful.

• 59:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Andy Greenwald?

  Everything about this is bad, and this is bad for the world and bad for me personally, that I'm watching this. And then there are moments, not to, you know, I'll couch it, I'll be nice. Then there are moments on the show that make me feel like, and this is a small digression here, but are you familiar with, this might be my all time favorite, I don't know if it's TikTok originally, but it's an Instagram thing, which is a, a clip of a guy saying like, when I give my dog a CBD gummy, so he's not scared of fireworks.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Andy Greenwald?

  And then it plays, uh, Enigma, and the dog flies up out of the bed.

• 59:56Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:57Andy Greenwald?

  I, I laugh every time. There is a moment in this last episode that made me feel like the dog on gummies being lifted out of my dog bed and floating through the cosmos.

• 1:00:08Chris Ryan?

  And that was?

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  And that was the moment when, in response to his elderly father being discovered lying in a hot tub.

• 1:00:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:00:15Andy Greenwald?

  Otherwise, fine. Um, that his response to help his aging and clearly depressed father is to pull off of the road at a strip club that he's never entered before.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  But his wife has.

• 1:00:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And walk over to the stripper, counting her money.

• 1:00:32Chris Ryan?

  The only one.

• 1:00:33Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:00:36Andy Greenwald?

  Lice's plates as hot lips.

• 1:00:40Andy Greenwald?

  And Cold hire her to be his father's physical therapist.

• 1:00:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Andy Greenwald?

  She quite rightly says, I am in no way qualified to do this.

• 1:00:52Chris Ryan?

  And he's just like, show her some of your stretches. Show him some of your stretches.

• 1:00:55Andy Greenwald?

  Here's a wad of money. And also, if you want to give him a handjob, that's fine.

• 1:00:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Andy Greenwald?

  And she's like, I understand the parameters of the assignment and I accept.

• 1:01:06Andy Greenwald?

  Even saying it out loud, I'm starting to worry that I've hallucinated this. But this does happen. And over the course of the episode, then she shows up at the house. She has completely inorganic banter with the other men in the house. Like poor calm fury, who I just hope, I just hope that like he would get his retirement straight. Like his role on this show is so insane. Because every time you're like, I guess he's going to be more important because they have a giant legal issue.

• 1:01:37Chris Ryan?

  Standing in the house.

• 1:01:38Andy Greenwald?

  Tommy, I'm gonna zoom into this one. And they cut to him going, I think it's a bad idea, Tommy. And then he closes the laptop.

• 1:01:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Andy Greenwald?

  So godspeed. So he has a little interaction where he once again has to see a blonde woman in tight pants and go, oh, I don't know if I approve of this one. She then says to Sam Elliott, I'm going to do aqua therapy with you, man I've just met. I Googled it and watched a YouTube video. Let's both get in our underwear.

• 1:02:06Chris Ryan?

  Aqua size is pretty straightforward. And I will like move around in the water.

• 1:02:10Andy Greenwald?

  Cradle you.

• 1:02:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Andy Greenwald?

  In the pool for, and I'm going to quote the show here, hours.

• 1:02:20Andy Greenwald?

  That doesn't even seem.

• 1:02:22Chris Ryan?

  They're pruning.

• 1:02:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I'm saying. I mean, maybe when you, you know, he's a, he's a handsome, handsome man, but he has some wrinkles. So maybe you can't tell.

• 1:02:30Chris Ryan?

  There's also a really great Sam Elliott movie called The Lifeguard.

• 1:02:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, when he's a younger man.

• 1:02:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, which so it's.

• 1:02:36Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think it's a full circle moment for him?

• 1:02:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Chris Ryan?

  Would you say that this was a better use of cradling a person in the water than task?

• 1:02:45Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:02:47Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 1:02:48Chris Ryan?

  Different, different setup.

• 1:02:50Andy Greenwald?

  I guess it's different. I guess it's different. One was sexually charged in inappropriate ways and one wasn't because it would have also been inappropriate. So, no, I don't know if I have an answer to that. Last thing that I just want to get your read on, there's a scene, you know, Demi Moore's role this season has been expanded.

• 1:03:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Andy Greenwald?

  Primarily what she's been given opportunities to do is lose it solo. Like cry, cry, scream, hit things, pour out bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, et cetera.

• 1:03:25Andy Greenwald?

  And then take absolutely indefensible business swings, you know?

• 1:03:30Chris Ryan?

  But, you know, she's in a vulnerable spot, you know, the guy who points out that she has salad dressing on her mouth, which I was like.

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I want to talk about. This is the scene.

• 1:03:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. So there's a scene where Demi Moore is like about to go to a meeting, but she is eating a salad at a grill somewhere, you know?

• 1:03:43Andy Greenwald?

  She's at the bar. She's solo dining, which you and I respect.

• 1:03:45Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:03:47Andy Greenwald?

  For what's worth, good job by the, you know, onset makeup person because I did freeze frame it and I was like, did they just neglect? To do a touch up on her face because something is on her face.

• 1:03:58Chris Ryan?

  That would be awesome if like in the background of the scene, it was just you taking a picture of your food.

• 1:04:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I don't even post it, but just want to know.

• 1:04:08Chris Ryan?

  Lovely Cobb salad at Cattleman Ranch.

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  Ranch, enjoying my trip to Fort Worth.

• 1:04:16Andy Greenwald?

  I also would say in the spirit of this podcast, I'm saying that I don't think Kami is covering herself in glory as the leader of MTEx thus far. That said, I would like some of her energy in the offensive play calling of the Philadelphia Eagles.

• 1:04:28Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:04:29Andy Greenwald?

  I think we do need a little bit of like, a little less defensive turtling. You know what I mean? Like, let's go for it. If we think oil's there, let's at least, as the clock's winding down, go for it. Okay. So she's sitting there, she's eating her salad, a man who.

• 1:04:45Andy Greenwald?

  Is has the same haircut as the geologist. In that it's like rat tail with like a lot of, a lot of, a lot of extra dressing on top.

• 1:04:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  But is 20 years older and heavier.

• 1:04:59Chris Ryan?

  Than the geologist.

• 1:04:59Andy Greenwald?

  Than the geologist. Sits next to her, flirts a little bit, makes small talk and then presumes to uh clean.

• 1:05:09Chris Ryan?

  It is an aggressive move. He could just be like, give a little bit of salad dressing.

• 1:05:11Andy Greenwald?

  He went for it.

• 1:05:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Andy Greenwald?

  And she like rightly recoils, acts as if he had just woken up in his own hotel room with morning wood. Like it's the most worst thing you could ever do.

• 1:05:24Andy Greenwald?

  That's not the part I want to talk to you about. What I want to really pick your brain on is then later, after Kami's just like, let's spend $400 million on a wish.

• 1:05:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because the geologist is like, I got this.

• 1:05:36Andy Greenwald?

  That guy, that, by the way, when that guy appeared on the show.

• 1:05:38Chris Ryan?

  He's fucking Luke in the trench run. He's just like, I don't need the guidance system. I can just find the gas.

• 1:05:44Andy Greenwald?

  Two weeks ago, when that guy showed up on the plane, drinking watermelon juice and tequila. He was not listed in the credits as geologist.

• 1:05:53Chris Ryan?

  Oh, right.

• 1:05:53Andy Greenwald?

  They've decided this in the last episode and a half. Also, I shared this, my research with you. I did Google oil company geologist. And let me tell you, they look more like chopped Tim Walz.

• 1:06:05Chris Ryan?

  Well, they look like Colm Fuehr.

• 1:06:08Andy Greenwald?

  At best.

• 1:06:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Andy Greenwald?

  They do not look like.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  Colm Fuehr would be the Timothy Chalamet of geologists.

• 1:06:13Andy Greenwald?

  They do not look like, if Desmond from Lost was in Imagine Dragons.

• 1:06:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:06:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so that's a flight of fancy, but as you said, would you say dress for the job you want? I respected that. In the scene after Kami's been like, I trust this guy with my life and all of my fortune.

• 1:06:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Andy Greenwald?

  She's like, Tommy, you don't know what it's been like. At lunch today, I was eating a salad. And uh, and I am quoting here, a very handsome man. Tried to wipe green goddess from my mouth.

• 1:06:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Andy Greenwald?

  What point did anyone on set be like, we got to recast, no offense to this working Texas actor. But at what point were they like, we may have to recast that part or adjust the dialogue?

• 1:06:54Chris Ryan?

  I don't think that that guy is going to show up again. I think it was more of a symbol of Kami. Now Kami, not wait in 18 months, you know, Kami's, we're six weeks after Monty's dead.

• 1:07:04Andy Greenwald?

  This is a great point. I'm not saying she should have rushed into it, but I'm trying to set a benchmark here. This woman was married to Jon Hamm.

• 1:07:13Andy Greenwald?

  That is what anyone in the future is competing against.

• 1:07:17Chris Ryan?

  I just really hope that the guy who played the dude in the bar.

• 1:07:19Andy Greenwald?

  This is like, I love the watch. Here's the tricky thing. This is how this show works.

• 1:07:24Chris Ryan?

  She's gonna clip this.

• 1:07:25Andy Greenwald?

  We can.

• 1:07:26Chris Ryan?

  And this guy is gonna be like, I'm fucking.

• 1:07:28Andy Greenwald?

  I finally got a job on a major television show. Here's what I know about 14 years in of podcasting for this show. We can glaze the finest actors in Hollywood forever. Crickets. Crickets. I make one passing comment about how crazy it is that Suits is popular now. And Patrick J. Adams, the star of Suits, records a fucking reel being like, they're mentioning my show. Oh, they ripped my heart out.

• 1:07:57Chris Ryan?

  I like suits.

• 1:07:58Andy Greenwald?

  And that's how you win. That's how you win. I don't know how to do this. I am still bad at this.

• 1:08:04Chris Ryan?

  Um, I think that you've had the full Taylor Sheridan experience. In just, in just a few, a few months of Landman, you've experienced the high highs, the confusing middle and the lowest of lows. We'll see over the next two episodes if he can pull it back together.

• 1:08:22Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think?

• 1:08:23Chris Ryan?

  I just don't even know what the next two episodes, you could just tell me the next two episodes were gonna be exactly like the last three episodes.

• 1:08:29Andy Greenwald?

  There's no story.

• 1:08:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Andy Greenwald?

  There's no villain. There's no stakes. My hope, if I could just prescribe, I think the next two episodes should be about the fallout in the marriage of the woman at the nursing home after she has been, you know, working this beautiful job, making the best life she can for her and her husband, who I believe works at a high school. He was wearing some sort of athletic garb. And how the first time he's shown interest in her was after the Angela makeover. I'm just worried, I'm curious about the next day, you know?

• 1:09:00Chris Ryan?

  You think that's what Landman should be about?

• 1:09:02Andy Greenwald?

  I think it should be entirely like a kitchen sink drama about those two.

• 1:09:06Chris Ryan?

  All right.

• 1:09:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I think.

• 1:09:08Chris Ryan?

  I think we did a good job today. We surveyed a lot of stuff. We're gonna be back on Thursday with the first episode of the second season of The Pit to talk about.

• 1:09:15Andy Greenwald?

  I can't believe you missed the opportunity to be like, you now have the full Taylor Sheridan experience. Just like America woke up to the full Taylor Sheridan experience on Saturday.

• 1:09:24Chris Ryan?

  Turns out Lion is a documentary.

• 1:09:25Andy Greenwald?

  This is all we're saying.

• 1:09:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks to Kai. Thanks to Kai. We'll be back on Thursday with The Pit. Everybody take care.

• 1:09:31Andy Greenwald?

  Everybody just watch it when you're eating salads. Be careful. Ordering room service. Be careful.

• 1:09:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, be safe. Be safe out there.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lasages and supplements? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.