You Should Watch ‘The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.’ Plus, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ E2 and ‘Industry’ S4E3.

Chris and Andy talk about ‘The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,’ a new NBC comedy starring Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe from the people behind ‘30 Rock’ (4:42). Then they react to the second episode of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ (14:17) and ‘Industry’ Season 4, Episode 3 (27:14). Later, they discuss a couple of comic book runs they’ve been checking out lately (58:26). 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 Additional Video Supervision: Donald LoBianco 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

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• 0:46Speaker 00

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• 1:17Speaker 01

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 1:23Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, a man who knows books are brain movies. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:37Andy Greenwald?

  Are you referring to our new favorite show?

• 1:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes. The fall and rise of Reggie Dinkins, which we are going to be discussing today as well as Industry, episode three, season four, and Night of the Seven Kingdoms, episode two, season one.

• 1:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:52Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Greenwald, uh, you can hit us up if you're listening, the watch at spotify.com to send us. Fan mail. It's the only kind of mail I'm interested in. You can follow us on IG at the watch pod underscore and you can watch us on YouTube at ringer dash TV. You can also watch us on Spotify where I hope you listen to us. You look beautiful. Your hair looks great.

• 2:13Andy Greenwald?

  You're so nice to me there, but I think you look good.

• 2:15Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, man.

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  I like that sweater.

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  I got it at Uniglo. No free ads.

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  But isn't, so you're implying that you were paid?

• 2:21Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm saying that's like, that's just what I did is I bought a sweater at Uniglo. I was getting other stuff and I was like, I don't, I like the look of that.

• 2:27Andy Greenwald?

  And they got a free ad.

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It's more of like a document of my existence, you know, and when Phoebe's out of town, life gets pretty small.

• 2:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 2:36Chris Ryan?

  Um, look, man, uh, we're going to discuss shorting stocks.

• 2:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, tall nights, but we should talk a little bit about this weekend.

• 2:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't, I always struggle when the fact that like our job is to talk about TV shows and it's, we're incredibly lucky to have this job. And I think it's, there's value in talking about art and entertainment and being a diversion for people. But often we start the podcast by talking about how we're doing and how the weekend was. And we are Americans living in America in 2026. And this weekend was horrifying and disgusting and deeply, deeply unsettling and depressing. Um, I don't know if we have anything to add really to the larger discourse, other than that we are watching, we are living through this. We are, I, I can say we, like we,

• 3:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  We love the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota and we are thinking of them. And, um, it's a tough time to be doing much of anything right now.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  It's really like taking a drill to your brain to, to spend your entire weekend engaging with this, but that's what I did. I'm as angry as I've ever been.

• 3:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and the second administration is going worse than I could possibly have imagined, even if that was possible. And I'll just say that there are plenty of examples of, um, you know, things I've read about or things I've seen about people from Minneapolis standing up for each other and showing up for each other that are the best qualities of Americans.

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 4:11Chris Ryan?

  So that's, I guess I'll leave it at that. We can get into like talking about regular TV stuff. I mean, like, did you spend like, were you on the news like all weekend or?

• 4:20Andy Greenwald?

  No, I mean, I, I think I, I had an experience that a lot of listeners, a lot of people probably had, which is the slow motion drip, drip horror of being alerted to the news on Saturday, following the news on Saturday while also attempting to parent and trying to keep some world separate.

• 4:37Chris Ryan?

  I was attempting to parent too, but people were like, we're good. These aren't your kids.

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  I've always thought you to be a warm presence at the parks of Highland Park, the playgrounds and, you know.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  If you want to come out of your route a little faster there, just so you know, I know it's none of my business.

• 4:54Andy Greenwald?

  So you're parenting at high school football practice? You have such an idyllic view of what this would be like.

• 5:01Andy Greenwald?

  Zero to 16, no involvements. Suddenly you're like Jim Bob Cooter, just drawing up the offense.

• 5:08Chris Ryan?

  And then Coach, Coach Taylor shows up.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't know. And I think that, you know, people even choosing to listen to this pod or rightfully choosing not to listen to this pod or watch these TV shows right now, people should do what feels best for them to take care of themselves as well, because we all have to be in this for a while. And there's no one healthy way to do anything, I think.

• 5:30Chris Ryan?

  I, I mean, I, I personally do not subscribe to the idea that you can't do both and that, like, you know, to watch Night of the Seven Kingdoms is somehow participating in the, the, the sort of painkiller that they're administering to you so that you don't keep your eyes open to other things. I, I think you can do both, but I think, uh, it would just be weird not to make a comment about this at the top of the podcast. Uh, where do you want to start? Do you want to start with industry? You want to start with Night of the Seven Kingdoms? You want to start with our little, our little new discovery that we made?

• 6:02Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe we should for fun.

• 6:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, let's do that, man.

• 6:04Andy Greenwald?

  Because I think that for both of us, this was a little bit of a tonic.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  And guess what? It's our podcast. We can do what we want. So.

• 6:10Andy Greenwald?

  For now.

• 6:11Chris Ryan?

  Rather than starting with the Game of Thrones franchise or one of our most beloved series of the last five or six years in industry, let's start with a show that Peacock doesn't seem to want to let you know exists.

• 6:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it is not a Peacock show.

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  I know. It's on NBC.

• 6:23Andy Greenwald?

  It is an NBC original comedy show that the reruns show up on Peacock.

• 6:28Chris Ryan?

  I know what I watch, brother.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay. And it's a lot of 30 Rock. Fix the algo. I had to search for the fall and rise of Reggie Dinkins multiple times because I watched this first episode a couple of times because it felt real good to watch it.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  It really does.

• 6:44Chris Ryan?

  Uh, this is the new show from, uh, Robert Karlock, who people may know that name from 30 Rock. And did he work on Kimmy Schmidt as well?

• 6:50Andy Greenwald?

  He is Tina Fey's longtime writing and producing partner. Um, so he was her right-hand man and co-writer for 30 Rock for Kimmy Schmidt, for, uh, EP on Girls 5 Eva. They worked together.

• 7:03Chris Ryan?

  Okay. And Sam Means, uh, also, uh, co-creator of this series, which is, uh, stars Tracy Morgan as a disgraced ex-New York Jet who is trying to make a comeback in terms of like his public perception, not on the field, via a, uh, puff piece sports documentary directed by Daniel Radcliffe, who plays a guy named-

• 7:25Andy Greenwald?

  Arthur Tobin.

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  Arthur Tobin, a documentarian from the University of Maryland.

• 7:31Andy Greenwald?

  School of Documentary, Anime and Pornography, I believe. This is full title.

• 7:35Chris Ryan?

  It's so good.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  And just the little things. Like if you missed the Joe Crease show 30 Rock-

• 7:40Chris Ryan?

  Forward my posters.

• 7:42Andy Greenwald?

  His posters that he brought with him, some of the-

• 7:44Chris Ryan?

  I'm sorry. We, uh, cause if you start laughing, you just like wind up telling the jokes again.

• 7:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. But what are some of the movies he's made? One is like called He Wore Shoes. And it was like, Ling Ling, don't eat that or something about the panda. Like it's immaculate.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, man. It's the, it's, it's got that 30 Rock, um, pace and that 30 Rock, like depth of joke.

• 8:03Andy Greenwald?

  Queen Erica Alexander from Living Single-

• 8:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:06Andy Greenwald?

  Plays, uh, Reggie's ex-wife, but forever business partner and agent.

• 8:11Chris Ryan?

  Current agent, yeah.

• 8:12Andy Greenwald?

  She's incredible. Um, and, uh, secret weapon Bobby Moynihan, who is always funny in everything, um, plays Dusty, I believe.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  Who is a backup kicker for the Jets when Reggie was there and is, uh, Reggie's friend regardless of race.

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  And then Dusty does the Wakanda salute.

• 8:30Chris Ryan?

  Look, man, uh- I know that 30 Rock has had multiple life cycles as a rewatch and Kimmy Schmidt as well. And people know like the kind of comic sensibility that's going to be included in the show. But I just, I think there were some ads during football, like it's not like it's been hidden.

• 8:47Andy Greenwald?

  No, and it did, it did fairly well. They debuted it on NBC, linear NBC, after the playoff game last week.

• 8:53Chris Ryan?

  This was like taking like happy pills for me. I really, really, really, really enjoyed watching this.

• 8:59Andy Greenwald?

  No one writes jokes better than these people and no one delivers these jokes maybe better than Tracy Morgan. It's so funny and it seems so effortless for them that it was like both hilarious but deeply inspiring.

• 9:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  I loved it so much. I never wanted it to be over.

• 9:18Chris Ryan?

  Now, did you want 10 episodes waiting for you or did you, were you happy to have just the one and like piece parcel it out?

• 9:27Andy Greenwald?

  I definitely was ready for more, but like it does help frame it and just to be like, because, because I like you. Maybe this is one of the few areas we don't talk about a lot, but I, I do rewatch 30 Rock.

• 9:38Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:38Andy Greenwald?

  And every time I rewatch it, I'm in awe of just what, the construction of it and the jokes and how every time you watch an episode, no matter how many times you've seen it, there's the third level joke.

• 9:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, something happening in the background of it.

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but in the midst of like, but the relationship to that show is, well, we have it. And so we can just drink deeply from the well.

• 9:58Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:59Andy Greenwald?

  It was kind of nice to, to, to really examine the diamond sharp precision of their writing and construction in the, in that old familiar 21 minute broadcast format.

• 10:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Andy Greenwald?

  That's so hard to do. And this has a higher concept in that it's documentary, but then it's not documentary. And then they had to advance the personal storylines and the emotional thing. I mean,

• 10:20Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 10:21Andy Greenwald?

  But they've, they just know how to do it.

• 10:23Chris Ryan?

  They also have enough scratch to work with that they are doing things like recreating Reggie Dinkins's old McDonald's.

• 10:34Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, what's it for the?

• 10:36Chris Ryan?

  For the MVP, the like.

• 10:38Andy Greenwald?

  The McDonald's veal?

• 10:41Chris Ryan?

  It's like veal pack.

• 10:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible.

• 10:45Chris Ryan?

  And it'll be like a pretty authentic 90s McDonald's commercial, you know? Uh, so there's, and then Reggie does some like ad in Japan where kids are hitting him with Nerf bats. And he's like, what is this an advertisement for?

• 11:00Andy Greenwald?

  I do think we're helping our listeners heal if you just laugh about this show.

• 11:05Chris Ryan?

  Well, I just think I'd be like, I feel bad because now we've spoiled nine jokes in it, but.

• 11:08Andy Greenwald?

  But there are 900 jokes in it.

• 11:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so please, please, please go watch this.

• 11:12Andy Greenwald?

  What is your feeling? I kind of feel like maybe this is the first time you've ever seen Daniel Radcliffe act. Is that possible?

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 11:22Chris Ryan?

  I.

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see Equus on Broadway?

• 11:24Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 11:25Andy Greenwald?

  I know you didn't see Merrily We Roll Along, which was amazing, but.

• 11:29Chris Ryan?

  All right.

• 11:30Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, some of us saw it on Broadway.

• 11:31Chris Ryan?

  Relax.

• 11:33Andy Greenwald?

  And it was released in theaters recently. You could check it out.

• 11:35Chris Ryan?

  We can't both brag about that stuff, you know?

• 11:37Andy Greenwald?

  Why?

• 11:38Chris Ryan?

  Because you don't have the reaction that I do to yours things, you know, I'm like, I, you know, we can't just be like trading back and forth like.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  Cool theater experiences we've had. That's what keeps us in the top 200 of entertainment podcasts all these years. That's what keeps them coming back.

• 11:52Chris Ryan?

  I'm just embarrassed that I may have ne- I know that I've seen Daniel Radcliffe in a movie or a TV show.

• 11:57Andy Greenwald?

  I wasn't trying to like call you out.

• 11:58Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 11:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's possible that you haven't and that's okay.

• 12:00Chris Ryan?

  I mean, obviously I'm conversant in the Potter movies.

• 12:03Andy Greenwald?

  But I wasn't coming at you.

• 12:04Chris Ryan?

  But not.

• 12:04Andy Greenwald?

  This isn't a gotcha podcast.

• 12:07Chris Ryan?

  All right.

• 12:08Andy Greenwald?

  I was going to say, would you think? Like, here's this kid.

• 12:11Chris Ryan?

  It's not gotcha, it's would you?

• 12:13Andy Greenwald?

  It's would you?

• 12:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's like the opposite of Nikki Fink.

• 12:18Chris Ryan?

  Told you.

• 12:19Andy Greenwald?

  What would you think?

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  Of Daniel Radcliffe in the show? He looks like he's having the time of his fucking life.

• 12:24Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I wanted to get to.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  If you were Daniel Radcliffe and they were like, hey, you stand in between Bobby Moynihan and Tracy Morgan and Erica Alexander, they're gonna do fucking a million jokes a minute at you.

• 12:34Andy Greenwald?

  And you have, and you can be funny too.

• 12:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 12:36Andy Greenwald?

  And you have a young family and you want to live in New York and you just commute to Silver Cup Studios or whatever.

• 12:41Chris Ryan?

  And you throw Halpert face every couple of minutes.

• 12:43Andy Greenwald?

  Such a sick gig. It's great. I also have to say, and I'm only bringing this up.

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  Maybe I should start doing that on this show.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  I've been doing it for eight weeks. Kaiya saw it. You've never seen me do it?

• 12:58Andy Greenwald?

  There was a, there is a non-zero, I don't think this is likely, but there is a non-zero chance that two or so weeks ago, walking in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, my daughters and I walked past Daniel Radcliffe carrying his child. Now, this is now like a sliding doors moment within my family because they didn't see, and then they wanted me to drive slowly back around the neighborhood. And then we were like trying to like cross-reference, like, why would he be in Los Angeles? And ultimately, I was like, I don't think it was him, because this person was of average height. And I think that Daniel Radcliffe is slightly below average height.

• 13:37Chris Ryan?

  I mean, what's that? What's below average to you?

• 13:39Andy Greenwald?

  Like 5'7".

• 13:40Chris Ryan?

  Exactly 5'7".

• 13:41Andy Greenwald?

  I would say that. I would just grab that number.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  But my point is, yeah, I, I, I think, because the what's the-

• 13:53Chris Ryan?

  A lot of actors are, by the way.

• 13:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, no, because they, because their delicate features are smaller and then emote more for the camera. Like Jeremy Allen White is here in the studio with us. You can't see him. But believe me, he could really sell it. I think, I bring it up both because I'm curious if anyone else had Daniel Radcliffe sightings, but then also like, there is no good outcome of that, right? Like, what if we had seen him and it was Daniel Radcliffe? And we locked eyes and my kids were like excited or impressed? There's no good interaction there, right? There's no like cool dad way to be like-

• 14:28Chris Ryan?

  We have the same glasses?

• 14:31Andy Greenwald?

  We both work on Harry Potter.

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm sure he would adapt you up. He's like, now you're part of the brotherhood. The Brotherhood of Wizards.

• 14:38Andy Greenwald?

  He would have dapped me up.

• 14:39Chris Ryan?

  Actually, wizard, wizard brotherhood is probably, you know.

• 14:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Chris Ryan?

  Not a great time for them.

• 14:45Andy Greenwald?

  Nope, doesn't sound good.

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  Uh, okay, so we highly recommend Fallen Rise of Reggie Dinkins. I don't know what night it goes up. You know, I'm sure you can check local listings.

• 14:55Andy Greenwald?

  But we have to be able

• 14:56Chris Ryan?

  So really be, I'll find out for you.

• 14:57Andy Greenwald?

  We have to be able to support.

• 14:59Chris Ryan?

  Reggie Dinkins.

• 15:00Andy Greenwald?

  Shows like this.

• 15:00Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so here's the thing with Reggie Dinkins. You got this first episode and then it's not back until for real. It's a mid-season replacement, so it's March 2nd is when it'll really start airing on Mondays at 8:30pm.

• 15:12Andy Greenwald?

  Right, it was originally gonna premiere on February 23rd, but they gave a little sneak preview.

• 15:16Chris Ryan?

  Don't know why I closed my computer.

• 15:17Andy Greenwald?

  Cause we're done for the day.

• 15:19Chris Ryan?

  I just, I did.

• 15:19Andy Greenwald?

  This is the only thing we want to talk about today, clearly.

• 15:23Chris Ryan?

  Okay, do you want to talk about industry or night?

• 15:26Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, let's do night and then let's move on to industry.

• 15:29Chris Ryan?

  Night of the Seven Kingdoms, yeah, episode 2 opens with some swingin' Dee.

• 15:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, House of Dee, I think is what this is called.

• 15:37Chris Ryan?

  It features some Targh's, uh, which I was pretty, pretty into these guys.

• 15:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay.

• 15:44Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:44Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not, I'm not, I want to know, I, I, give me, give me your take on this. No, I want to know what you're into, what's moving you.

• 15:50Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's a 33-episode, minute of, 33-minute episode of Game of Thrones.

• 15:54Andy Greenwald?

  So to be clear, I liked it.

• 15:55Chris Ryan?

  Inconceivable if you've ever dealt with Game of Thrones television before. The idea that they would be in and out, that they would tell a quick, not even like, I don't know, discernible act structure, because it's really about this guy trying to get into this tournament, trying to, trying to make a name for himself in Westeros, and the different characters he comes across along the way. And I thought it had some really great notes, but the thing that jumped off the screen to me was the arrival of the Ternarians, which, you know, obviously like suggests some sort of adversary in this whole adventure. And Finn Bennett is apparently a great, high-cheek-boned asshole. Uh, he plays

• 16:36Andy Greenwald?

  There's no shortage of those.

• 16:37Chris Ryan?

  Aeryan Brightflame, I believe his name is.

• 16:40Andy Greenwald?

  I love that you know this.

• 16:41Chris Ryan?

  And Sam Spurrel, uh, plays Mekar, who has the two failed sons, um.

• 16:45Andy Greenwald?

  Wasn't Birdie Carvel was

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  Is Balor.

• 16:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is Balor.

• 16:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Andy Greenwald?

  He seems pretty chill. He's nice.

• 16:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's a reasonable executive, I think, you know, Hand of the King.

• 16:54Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, I'm, I yearn for that. Like that, that's not a bad baseline.

• 17:00Chris Ryan?

  Targaryens? Are we sure? Yeah.

• 17:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'd like to set a floor.

• 17:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Andy Greenwald?

  Like some, they're not all bad.

• 17:04Chris Ryan?

  And then set the floor on fire.

• 17:06Andy Greenwald?

  Burn down the whole castle.

• 17:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think one of the interesting magic tricks of the show thus far is that it is, I, I believe this to be the case, uh, that this is suitable for noobs. Like you can watch this show with no knowledge of Westeros, or even having not really watched Game of Thrones, and you kinda get it. And I think that's a remarkable achievement.

• 17:30Chris Ryan?

  Yes. If you watched Game of Thrones, the way I am broadly aware of what happens on Harry Potter, like I'm sure you could engage with this and be like, right, like there's that family. But I think it would help to have watched Game of Thrones a little bit.

• 17:42Andy Greenwald?

  I attempted, I, I watched this episode in two ways.

• 17:49Chris Ryan?

  I was going to say in two chunks, and I was like 15 minutes and 15 minutes.

• 17:54Andy Greenwald?

  I'm life maxing right now.

• 17:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Andy Greenwald?

  I can't focus for too long.

• 17:59Chris Ryan?

  You know when you were having your sleep problems?

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:01Chris Ryan?

  I was wondering whether you should have flipped that into life maxing.

• 18:04Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, just owned it?

• 18:05Chris Ryan?

  You know, the guy who's just like, I wake up at midnight, bang, I've got 12 more hours on you working. You know, like, maybe you should have been like.

• 18:12Andy Greenwald?

  I did. There was the day that I slept for, I believe, 80 minutes. And I was like, well, pre-dawn is when one should really engage with Landman this week.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  And I felt much worse.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  Those guys love sunrises on Landman. Yeah.

• 18:25Andy Greenwald?

  And sunsets.

• 18:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 18:27Andy Greenwald?

  They just love staring at them. I'm missing something. Like, I feel like I, I, that would be life maxing.

• 18:33Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.

• 18:34Andy Greenwald?

  Just, just that I watched the beginning of the episode and I was like, I'm, I still enjoy these characters. I enjoy the banter. I enjoy the, the tenor and tone of what's going on here. But there were a couple of lines that I was like, I'm not, I realized I wasn't fully catching. And I don't think it's just because of my declining, um, hearing.

• 18:50Chris Ryan?

  And you refuse the subtitle.

• 18:51Andy Greenwald?

  So I put on subtitles.

• 18:52Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  And I was surprised at the volume of like, ah, black fire, bright blade.

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 18:59Andy Greenwald?

  I saw your ser once at a habits morn. And I was like, okay, dorks, like. You really fucking went for it. Like, they're still saying this shit, and I was enjoying the show without it.

• 19:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Andy Greenwald?

  They're just like, ah, this is the Westerosi word for waking up and eating breakfast. I'm like, okay, all right. But my point wasn't that that sucks. My point was that they integrated it well.

• 19:20Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 19:20Andy Greenwald?

  Heat doesn't matter.

• 19:22Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 19:22Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's really important.

• 19:23Chris Ryan?

  I think it's super important, yeah.

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it's very hard, and this is all, I promise, this is a compliment. We're gonna get there. I think this is all in the service for something that has been relatively unique in our entertainment, which is something that can service everybody.

• 19:37Chris Ryan?

  It's very rare that this happens. And, you know, I don't know what the numbers are on it, but I think that the fact that they have found a new tunnel gear to tell these stories is like really fabulous and important to whatever extent, you know, you find Game of Thrones important.

• 19:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Chris Ryan?

  It's like, it's funny, it's tender, you know, there's a little bit of mystery to it, there's a little bit of romance to it, there's a little bit of menace to it, and...

• 20:02Andy Greenwald?

  And the stakes, like, this can be done. The most exciting thing that happens in this episode is tug of war.

• 20:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:12Andy Greenwald?

  I really appreciated that. You know?

• 20:15Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel at all when you're watching, you're like, and like, what's the, what are we waiting for here?

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  No, well, there's a couple of things that are fun. Like, one, we actually have no idea if Duncan is good at being a knight.

• 20:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:28Andy Greenwald?

  They're really hiding the ball on that one, that's fine.

• 20:30Chris Ryan?

  In terms of fighting.

• 20:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Chris Ryan?

  Because in terms of his heart, he's all there.

• 20:33Andy Greenwald?

  He's pure, but otherwise, he's like that...

• 20:35Chris Ryan?

  That's a measurable, I can see, you know?

• 20:36Andy Greenwald?

  But other than that, all we've seen is basically the Westerosi equivalent of him posting up against a chair in his workout videos. You know? I'm still trying to get the Cranlin money from last week. I feel like that was good for us.

• 20:47Chris Ryan?

  Was that like a Xi, that guy?

• 20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Chris Ryan?

  Yi?

• 20:50Andy Greenwald?

  Remember that?

• 20:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. The guy who played, played against, in an empty gym against a chair with nobody in it.

• 20:55Andy Greenwald?

  Was it the same chair Clint Eastwood debated at the RNC? That was a big year for chairs.

• 20:59Chris Ryan?

  I wish we could go back to that.

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  Mr. Obama, I disagree with you. That wasn't that long ago.

• 21:05Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 21:07Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, yeah, we don't know that, so that's exciting and interesting. But there's also, now, look, somewhere off camera, Mallory and Joe could be laughing at this, the ignorance of this comment I'm about to make, but because I am trusting the show as it's been presented to me, I feel confident making this statement. I don't think Duncan is going to be decapitated in episode four, or have Jamie Lannistered one of his arms.

• 21:32Chris Ryan?

  Take that to Calshi. You're right.

• 21:34Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Andy Greenwald?

  I thought Calshi was in Esos. I was so confused by what you were saying.

• 21:40Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm just talking about making a futures bet.

• 21:42Andy Greenwald?

  Right, yeah, no, that's good. That's good. I was mixing it up with Klarna. I was just thinking about all the ways we're bankrupting ourselves.

• 21:48Chris Ryan?

  Klarna's the thing where you can pay for a burrito three times, right? In like installments.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  They tell you three times, and then Harper Stern Tao shorts your burrito purchase.

• 21:57Chris Ryan?

  I think they're just gonna short that, short the Klarna, yeah.

• 22:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's right. Anyway, that is also a different relationship with watching a show like this, and honestly, watching a lot of prestige television shows. This stuff still works if you take out the dread. The dread is not an essential component of contemporary television. It was kind of the special sauce that boosted the last 20 years of this stuff, because it was definitely absent from the years of watching like Empty Nest and Golden Girls or whatever. Although, those Golden Girls were quite up there in age. Imagine the prestige version of it, where the specter of death is looming over every episode. Anyway, I find that really, really pleasant and really, really enjoyable.

• 22:42Andy Greenwald?

  I think they're doing a lot of, I mean, they are, as they should, banking on the talent, just the acting talent that you can get. You mentioned Bertie Cavell, Sam Sproul, people we weren't familiar with, like, I don't think I'd seen Finn Bennett before, but I was like-

• 22:57Chris Ryan?

  He's in True Detective Night Country.

• 22:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's that guy?

• 22:59Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 23:00Andy Greenwald?

  I've enjoyed his work.

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's really good.

• 23:02Andy Greenwald?

  He's a chameleon, let's say.

• 23:04Chris Ryan?

  I think that they got, they, man, they geolocated-

• 23:11Chris Ryan?

  Like these sort of tired, but malevolent, but maybe not all malevolent, old, like fading monarchs. And the way that those guys are playing these, the Targus. And, you know, they don't have, the Targaryens no longer in this show, there are, there are no dragons. You know, not, it's not a choice. They've said that the last, the dragons are gone, you know?

• 23:32Andy Greenwald?

  Did they say that on this show?

• 23:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:34Andy Greenwald?

  That was before I turned the subtitles on.

• 23:37Andy Greenwald?

  But also, I didn't care. I want to be clear.

• 23:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Andy Greenwald?

  Makes no difference to me. I didn't think, for budgetary reasons alone, I knew that one wasn't about to fly in and land in the middle of the parade grounds.

• 23:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And he was like, Duncan, you sure are tall.

• 23:50Andy Greenwald?

  And they high five, freeze frame.

• 23:53Chris Ryan?

  I just like their, their way that they are characterized and the way that the three actors so far playing the, the Targus have, have kind of agreed on like a tone. You know, it's always interesting to me when, that's good direction, that's good writing, and that's good, that's good ensemble acting is to be like, where are we at? Like, you're gonna be like this, I'm gonna be like this. But none of us are in a different show. None of us are like, really hamming it up. They leave that to Daniel Ings, who's doing an incredible job as Lionel Baratheon, who we get a little bit of tug of war with.

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  Also, you know what was really cool, what was relatable, was the interaction that Duncan has with the Night's Guard in his fancy outfit. And he's just like, I'm just a son of a crabber. But he's a fucking nepo baby.

• 24:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. How you feel about that?

• 24:35Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, that's the problem with our economy too.

• 24:38Chris Ryan?

  Nepo babies?

• 24:39Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Think there's a couple of other things going on too.

• 24:42Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. Let's just, let's just do a game where we just shout out the problems.

• 24:46Chris Ryan?

  Do you think I'm a nepo baby?

• 24:48Andy Greenwald?

  Um, in the realm of criticism?

• 24:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  Um, yeah.

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  I do. And frankly, it's always rubbed me the wrong way.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, you're not beating the allegations.

• 25:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's true. It's true.

• 25:04Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? There were a lot of opportunities for you, uh, that you could have.

• 25:08Chris Ryan?

  We're at.

• 25:09Andy Greenwald?

  Print media, you know, newspapers.

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Andy Greenwald?

  You could have stayed in that lane.

• 25:13Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Gerald Inquirer was like, Chris, you are the prince who was promised free, please.

• 25:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think there were a couple of other points. One, I didn't know, I guess maybe, maybe I've seen, have you seen full, full team scrimmage jousting before?

• 25:29Chris Ryan?

  No, but that was fucking awesome.

• 25:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it was cool.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, that almost made me be like. We should get like multiple football games played at the same time.

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  Like the four box?

• 25:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  But like all in the same field?

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  Like all of them on that snowy Mile High Stadium.

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Chris Ryan?

  And have like the Seahawks playing at one end against the Rams.

• 25:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's pretty cool.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  And then they have to fight in the middle. I don't know.

• 25:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's kind of Quidditch, by the way. Daniel Radcliffe could have told you about it had you run into him. But yeah.

• 25:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that that was like an effective, like a really effective way of showing like Duncan's lack of preparedness for what he's getting into, you know?

• 26:07Andy Greenwald?

  He was a little stressed.

• 26:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think he was like, this is faster, this is more violent than I thought it was. You hear stories about it. Or you squire for somebody and it's like one, one thing, but it's another thing to be like, shit, that's gonna be me.

• 26:17Andy Greenwald?

  Or remember when the last time we saw jousting on a Game of Thrones show and it was intercut with violent childbirth?

• 26:24Chris Ryan?

  That's right. I forgot about that.

• 26:25Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if you remember, but the real battleground is the womb.

• 26:30Chris Ryan?

  Was that the end?

• 26:31Andy Greenwald?

  That was the pilot episode of House of the Dragon.

• 26:33Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's right.

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's the real battleground, son.

• 26:36Chris Ryan?

  The womb's not up there.

• 26:38Andy Greenwald?

  No, you have to think about the womb.

• 26:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, thinking about the womb is a real battleground.

• 26:42Andy Greenwald?

  Like, these are all the problems. Do I have to spell it out for you? I see the big board. Last thing, I'm curious, maybe we'll talk to Ira Parker at some point, or you guys will, you could ask this. I'll write the question before you take my answer off air.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 26:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like, did they have in their edit process, did they have non-super fans' eyes on the product? Meaning, I would say, as someone who is relatively unspoiled, but not wholly unspoiled, and I, and I don't think this will spoil anything, a lot of lingering shots on egg this episode. I would say Thumb is heavy on the scale.

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's just good storytelling. It's like, this kid's not like the other kids, you know?

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  Cause of?

• 27:21Chris Ryan?

  I think also just because of like his alarm at seeing the Targaryens arrive, or his knowledge of...

• 27:26Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe he watched House of the Dragon, season one and two. He's like, oh my god, we're all gonna be stuck talking to a tree for six weeks. Fuck.

• 27:35Andy Greenwald?

  Thought we were gonna have fun.

• 27:36Chris Ryan?

  That's it.

• 27:37Andy Greenwald?

  That's probably what he's thinking.

• 27:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Andy Greenwald?

  So you don't feel like you're being overly, I mean, there's only four half-hours left, right? So you don't feel like we're being overly indicated, like anything's being?

• 27:48Chris Ryan?

  No, I think it's just like decent, I mean, clearly like... He's important, you know?

• 27:54Andy Greenwald?

  This kid?

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Yeah, he seems important.

• 27:57Chris Ryan?

  But how important will be interesting. You know, how important and how like, I like the idea that they can tell stories in this world without everybody being a Messiah.

• 28:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Or um, an arch villain.

• 28:09Andy Greenwald?

  It's very, I never thought I would say this about a Game of Thrones.

• 28:13Chris Ryan?

  You go back to like the moment of like Jaime and Brienne doing their like road trip. That's like, to some people, maybe even myself included, that's like, that's like the best Thrones gets. And so it's nice to have a show about that.

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• 30:10Chris Ryan?

  Let's get into industry.

• 30:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Chris Ryan?

  In a lot of ways, I think that this could have been, I mean, they needed to have the first episode to introduce new characters and to introduce new stakes. And that first episode of this season was largely about Tender and its relationship to the OnlyFans-esque company that I can't remember.

• 30:30Andy Greenwald?

  Siren.

• 30:31Chris Ryan?

  Siren. And the Cal Pen characters dismissal from the CEO role and-

• 30:38Andy Greenwald?

  Is he one and done, do you think?

• 30:39Chris Ryan?

  I would imagine we will see him at some point.

• 30:41Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 30:41Chris Ryan?

  Knowing the way industry-

• 30:43Andy Greenwald?

  Recycles characters.

• 30:44Chris Ryan?

  It's not even recycles characters, but people come back for their pound of flesh.

• 30:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Chris Ryan?

  You know what I mean? When they get wronged. Or not. Maybe they just come back and get a job like Kenny and everybody else.

• 30:54Andy Greenwald?

  Everybody's fine.

• 30:55Chris Ryan?

  It's been remarked upon by us and by many other people, and I believe by Mickey and Conrad and talking about the show, that this is a soft reboot. You're rebuilding the plane midair in some ways. And so because of that, I think that this episode also functions as a season premiere in some ways because at least in terms of now we have established a new company with Harper and Eric, they have brought on some familiar faces and some unfamiliar faces to work with them. By the end of the episode, you've sort of got the Avengers getting into an elevator and they're-

• 31:27Andy Greenwald?

  Thunderbolts.

• 31:28Chris Ryan?

  Sure. That's a good way of putting it. In the meantime, Henry has emerged from his winter of discontent and taken over this role as CEO that could be somewhat ornamental, but seems like, you know, he's taking it much more seriously. And he's brought Yasmin along with him to be his comms consultant and to just be-

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  His minder, basically.

• 31:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, his right-hand woman. And it just felt like this episode had the thriller pacing that I think that this show thrives on, even though I enjoy the slices of life and the kind of more, the moodier pieces. So what did you think of episode three?

• 32:08Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I want to start with what you said, because I think that that's hugely important. Every week we've talked about this season, I've been marveling, like the, who's that dude who just climbed the skyscraper?

• 32:19Chris Ryan?

  Alex Honnold.

• 32:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Andy Greenwald?

  Perhaps not literally similar in terms of risk, but, but, so perhaps that's a bit grandiose, but I will say.

• 32:29Chris Ryan?

  It would be great if when he was doing that, you could have like, if he had an earpiece and was like, Alex, uh, do you think this is more or less impressive than Mickey and Conrad getting?

• 32:39Andy Greenwald?

  Doing a soft reboot for Industry, season four.

• 32:42Chris Ryan?

  Eric back across the pond.

• 32:43Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I do watch the show though, with a perhaps slightly, slightly less, but still a, uh, a remarkable appreciation and respect for the risk.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  It is also, as we joked about last week, a remarkable counterpoint to a show like Landman that basically took an entire season to do what they did almost in the off season between, between seasons three and season four.

• 33:13Andy Greenwald?

  One of the greatest things about Industry is its unwavering commitment to always being the most extra slash best version of itself. And it just has complete disinterest, uh, story wise, in what Mickey and Conrad are not interested. It just doesn't deal with it. And I think that's incredibly good writing advice.

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  Give me an example of what you're talking about.

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  So this episode picks up, we learn, you know, in a throwaway comment that it's been one month since the last episode. I, like the people who make the show, have no interest in how Henry set up his CEO office or his decision-making to bring Yasmin on or her reaction to it, or how they found this weird crumbling post-Nazi Austrian bank to be their front.

• 33:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Andy Greenwald?

  Similarly, I loved the way season three ended for Harper and Eric and all, you know, the characters that we had been invested in as the, the status quo crumbled around them.

• 34:11Andy Greenwald?

  It worked. It was really effective storytelling and it was very dramatic and compelling. That said, I don't think I'm interested in her life and career at Mastin. Neither were they. I'm not really interested in Eric's retirement or his life away. It doesn't matter how they got him back. I want them back together. And once you accept that, I think, because there is an urge in all things, especially as podcasters, to explain everything, to make sure everyone-

• 34:37Chris Ryan?

  It's also a very easy way to make many television episodes.

• 34:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, 100%.

• 34:40Chris Ryan?

  By being like, and then, and then-

• 34:42Andy Greenwald?

  And maybe this is also an American thing of like, I'm gonna show my work. I'm gonna do all this extra. And they're like, fuck it, that's funnier. That's more interesting. Let's go towards that.

• 34:50Chris Ryan?

  Largely, I would say like, a lot of the discourse of online commentary about television shows is more or less boiled down to plot holes and narrative sort of, like, basically pressure testing narratives and being like, well, they didn't say that he got across the street, so I assume he's invisible, you know? Like, it's like this sort of stupidity that is now bred into-

• 35:14Andy Greenwald?

  Was that your recap for the game Frogger? What is the context of that observation?

• 35:19Chris Ryan?

  That was my speck on Nightcrawler from X-Men.

• 35:22Andy Greenwald?

  Or it was the dark story about the chicken. That definitely got pitched around.

• 35:27Chris Ryan?

  Dude, last night when I was, never mind, I don't have to digress here.

• 35:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is it about Nightcrawler?

• 35:31Chris Ryan?

  No, it was about House of X and Power of X.

• 35:33Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, we'll put that, we're not doing Eagles talk this week, we'll do-

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  Hickman talk.

• 35:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we'll do nerd talk at the end. The biggest example of what I'm trying to say in regards to industry is Rishi. One of the best characters on the show, in many ways emblematic of the growth of the show, from someone who was a background, not afterthought, but certainly not the focus, to someone who forced his way through Sagar Radia's performance, but also his utility and humor and everything he brought to the show, forced his way into the main conversation. Last season ended for that character in a real, like, heat check moment, I would say, for the show.

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Where his bookie-

• 36:11Andy Greenwald?

  Shoots his wife point blank.

• 36:12Chris Ryan?

  Was it his bookie or the, like-

• 36:14Andy Greenwald?

  He owes this guy.

• 36:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  In front of him. And I was like, this is a real, they've really painted themselves into a corner here, and it's a real challenge to themselves to get out of it. I didn't remember how they operate. And what I mean by that is I am very interested in the version of Rishi we've seen so far in the season and how they are using him.

• 36:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Andy Greenwald?

  I don't really want to know what happened in the one minute, five minutes, five days, five months after the events of last season.

• 36:44Chris Ryan?

  I don't think we will have that. I would imagine we don't. They will probably at some point have to have the Sweet Pea, Rishi and Harper kind of conversation about like, you know, Sweet Pea obviously feels like Rishi's actions led to his wife's death, calling him a murderer. He's like, I'm not technically a murderer.

• 36:59Andy Greenwald?

  And he was responsible for the leak of her OnlyFans or whatever it was. Yeah.

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 37:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So that was, but again, that's a, that's a smart use.

• 37:07Chris Ryan?

  Stern Tao's HR policies have yet to be defined.

• 37:10Andy Greenwald?

  I would say that's accurate and we can circle back to that as well as Tinder's, certainly in terms of company offsites.

• 37:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Andy Greenwald?

  But the best, the best exploration and explanation of Rishi is to just put him, with, with cigar giving that performance, in the room with Sweet Pea and letting her react to it. That's more interesting and that's forward facing. And I inevitably, because of their relationship with the actor and the character, there will be more Rishi, but I think that that's really been appropriate and a lesson to people who struggle with the like, oh, I've, I've, I've trapped myself. How am I going to get out?

• 37:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Andy Greenwald?

  I really, I really like all that.

• 37:45Chris Ryan?

  I also think that there's some, they built some danger into the show because they have said goodbye to characters. They have let Rob leave. They have let Gus leave. They have let Jesse Bloom leave. You know what I mean? Like, they don't just keep you around just to keep you around. Now, you could say at the end of this episode, there has to be five other bankers in the world other than Kenny and Sweet Pea if you wanted to, but in some ways, I think it's indicative of the specific personalities involved in terms of Harper and Eric, that they need people to work with them who understand their specific ways of working, right?

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Yes. Yes. Who are also quite clearly willing to play fast and loose with what society deems appropriate. I'm glad you brought up Rob because all of that, all of my prelude there is a, was a way of sort of hopefully contextualizing my feelings about the show this season and also saying that I thought this was the weakest episode in quite some time, maybe since season one or two.

• 38:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and we can get into it. I want to talk to you about how you felt about the episode as well. But one of the reasons why, one of the things that I thought at the end of the episode, which felt very, the entire thing felt a little untethered and unmoored to me, not just because there is no trading floor, but because characters, for the first time in a while, were, to my mind, performing their inner workings in a way that felt, I'm not gonna use the word earned, but felt, declarative and not really meeting the moment, like.

• 39:18Chris Ryan?

  So like Harper's sushi date?

• 39:19Andy Greenwald?

  Harper's sushi date and her unloading it Eric, uh, felt like the show is asking my hollow to play a very different person, episode to episode to episode. Yasmin's, uh, complete heel turn back to being, you know, the psychosexual manipulator that she has been in the past. I mean, that's consistent with the character, felt if that whole detour felt shocking for shocking sake to me. It felt emptier in a way that I think critics of the show have criticized it before, but I've never really felt. And the one thing I'll throw on the top of this, and then I'll give you the floor, is that weirdly, I felt like the show, it's not, doesn't have a, it doesn't miss pure point, it misses Rob.

• 40:03Chris Ryan?

  Cause he, he was the soul?

• 40:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And they let go of him at the right time. I think that that character arc was satisfied.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  I, I think that that was the most honest thing that they could do, cause they would just be like, a guy like this just,

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 40:17Chris Ryan?

  Couldn't, would not fucking hack it slash had, had sort of like a self-regard that would be like, I can't do this to myself anymore. Now, I don't know what Rob is doing in California, like obviously the end of his character arc in season three suggests he's back, back on his bullshit, like selling things that people don't need to people with too much money. So, uh, great. But I hear, I hear what you're saying. I think I had different reactions. I mean, I, I think I mentioned last week that I was like, characters on the show are now entirely like vocalizing like an interiority that usually stays interior.

• 40:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Chris Ryan?

  In some fashion. And I think that, um, that's.

• 40:59Chris Ryan?

  In some cases, that's just called style. Like, that's how Sorkin writes, and that's how Jesse Armstrong writes. And different writers have different ways of of externalizing people's psychology and emotional states. And also using characters to vocalize and verbalize things that they feel about the world and things that they feel about whatever the hell they're talking about in the show or movie. Yaz rang very true to me.

• 41:26Chris Ryan?

  They're doomed. They might be doomed people. And I think that you get like 35 seconds of it's you and me in the open road and everything is in front of us, baby. And now it's like very quickly slipping back into like Henry is talking like a corporate mouthpiece again. And Yaz has to exact her power over him in the ways that she understands how. And maybe also the reason why this is one of my favorite shows of all time is because people are fucked up and do fucked up things.

• 42:04Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to say

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  another admirable thing about the show that sets it apart is that the creators are not overly in love with their creations.

• 42:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 42:17Andy Greenwald?

  There is a tendency baked into television that over time the audience softens towards the characters, even ones who we've seen do bad acts. And the creators feel similarly. And they steer them towards the light or give you more and more of their humanity and often, in effect, defang them. Even shows as like Pantheon, as Mad Men did this. Not with every character, but you know, they fall in love with the actor, they fall in love with the performer. One of the core tenants of industry that I think critics often miss is that these guys, these characters aren't just fuckups. They fuck up constantly. What has Yasmin been good at professionally?

• 43:01Andy Greenwald?

  With all of her fumblings over, you know, towards doing this and trying this instead over three or four years. Maybe, you know, being the dramaturg for psychosexual inappropriate workplace relationships, that might be her calling.

• 43:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:19Andy Greenwald?

  And so I don't want to, I want to be able to have the conversation with you that we're having because I don't, I don't want to fall back into a criticism of, but I like her. I want her to be better. That's, that's definitely not what I'm, what I'm saying. I just felt like the, when you move as fast as these guys do, story wise, and you break things sometimes along the way, it can be hard for the audience to catch up to where the characters are in that moment.

• 43:48Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  So the Eric Harper thing, I did have a moment, not as someone enjoying the scene between two actors that I love, but someone who has watched four seasons of the show, being like, Eric needs to get away from this destructor, this eater of worlds.

• 44:03Chris Ryan?

  Of course he's not going to.

• 44:04Andy Greenwald?

  No, of course not.

• 44:05Chris Ryan?

  This is the only thing that makes him feel alive.

• 44:07Andy Greenwald?

  But I, but then, but then within the context of the episode, as she is just eviscerating him before she leaves work and eviscerating him when she comes back from her meal in which she didn't eat, I want.

• 44:18Chris Ryan?

  Do you think she was hangry?

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Thank you, yes. I want to see, I want to see what he is deciding to commit himself more.

• 44:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 44:30Andy Greenwald?

  Because what instead, the way that I, the feeling I left the episode with, and again, I want to be clear, like, I didn't, I don't watch the show with subtitles. I didn't watch it twice, and it could be moving too fast for me at times. But when he, when I read the this plus that equals that equation of the episode, Eric felt like he has yet to understand Harper and be the human in her life that she so clearly needs. So as a sign of good faith, he has imperiled his children's future by giving her $10 million or pounds, or whatever the case may be. That felt disproportionate to the moment, to me.

• 45:06Andy Greenwald?

  It moves the story.

• 45:08Chris Ryan?

  Well, I mean, so I think because of the style in which the show is made sometimes, because of the filmmaking and because of the music and because of the cinematography and the, honestly, the beauty of a lot of the performers that are performing the work. It's easy to lose track of the fact that I think several of the main characters are on the outside looking in to both, to the worlds that they occupy.

• 45:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 45:35Chris Ryan?

  Diker is a really good example of the Charlie Heaton character who's working at a Financial Times-esque newspaper is clearly like writing checks his stories can't cash in terms of their reporting.

• 45:46Andy Greenwald?

  And there's the illusion that he himself was a speculator or a gambler and lost money.

• 45:49Chris Ryan?

  And he's lost money and now is basically asking for this, you know, reporting trip to Africa so that he can continue to investigate tender. Eric and Harper were last seen during the fall of this investment bank at Pier Point. They have interpersonally fallen out multiple times.

• 46:10Andy Greenwald?

  Savagely so.

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  And just tried to destroy each other's lives multiple times.

• 46:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Chris Ryan?

  And the meeting that they can get at the beginning of this episode is with family bank investors and small time, not maybe not small time, but like they get the bare minimum response from the city in London.

• 46:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 46:28Chris Ryan?

  Wall Street. So they are outsiders. Henry is noble by birth and that's pretty much it and is going through like a midlife crisis and obviously has severe mental health problems and probably substance problems and et cetera, et cetera. Yasmin has gone through her traumatic relationship with her family and doesn't really have a job right now, you know, and is not, one of the things that was so harrowing about the second episode is every time it's suggested that Yaz would leave Henry, he's like, where is she gonna go?

• 47:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, there's a lot of that.

• 47:02Chris Ryan?

  And it's like, yeah, where is she gonna go? Where are any of these people gonna go? They have grabbed onto each other as pieces of driftwood, as life rafts. And now they are turning the life raft into a speedboat, you know, and going into a point unknown. But I think it's important to remember that even if the characters are viewed as these like world killers, as Eric once called Harper.

• 47:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:26Chris Ryan?

  They have a lot of problems and I don't think the show is shying away from that.

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's really well observed. I think the one of the things that's been most compelling about the show over time is that we came to it in season one with definitely with an American mindset of like, I guess it's going to be Darwinian, but these kids who come from diverse backgrounds in all senses financially in terms of race, class, country of origin, you know, the alphas will win and then become the rightful heirs of whatever. That's a very American way of looking at it. The only life raft that all these people are clinging to is entrenched old money and aristocracy. So, and Henry's been, you know, introduced to the show as an important plank and a great performance from Kit Harington. And we see the prison of his life, but it is a gilded cage and a lot of these other characters

• 48:13Andy Greenwald?

  would probably think they would die to be a part of it because governments change, fintech regulations change, but the people in the clubby rooms playing handball do not change.

• 48:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And that, that whole sequence with Jennifer Bevan at the end with the meeting with the current-

• 48:30Andy Greenwald?

  Ricky Martin with a Y.

• 48:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And the, the prime minister's chief of staff comes in and is essentially like soft launching Bevan's coup against the current, the current, like basically, was it the digital spaces minister or like-

• 48:47Andy Greenwald?

  Well, but then, but then the, but then the, the press, the tabloids are saying that she's the labor's heir apparent. So really it's a coup against whoever is the standard for Keir Starmer in their current show. I mean, I, I think that there are these collections, as always with the show, of just jaw drop details and moments and the, the paintings being, the, the bad paintings being by A. Hitler is incredible. The, um, one of the probably less likely to be remarked upon, but I thought really outstanding scenes and how it was staged is when Harper walks in on Eric's daughter visiting and the entire

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  scene is, I believe, quite intentionally filmed like there was a prostitute in the hotel room.

• 49:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 49:35Andy Greenwald?

  Um, it's his daughter.

• 49:37Chris Ryan?

  Well, also is the daughter think that Harper is who Eric left the family for?

• 49:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, in a way, it doesn't matter because she's right. Either this is the person who caused the rupture in the family, or the rupture in his professional stability, or has brought him back into their lives in a different way. She is the disruptor. The daughter's right about that. And then he gives her a wad of cash and says, "Tell mom this was a good visit."

• 50:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the transactional nature of everything on the show, that was just really brilliantly, beautifully staged. I think maybe what I'm feeling in terms of what to my mind, so far this season the show has been less successful at, is stitching these small observations and these incredibly radioactive in the best possible way characters, stitching them together into something that feels as propulsive and as clever and as almost seamless as the show was last season. But maybe that is also a byproduct of they broke it. They intentionally broke it, and now they're beginning again. So I'm definitely, like, these lighter criticisms I have are not, like, I'm not turning my back on it.

• 50:42Andy Greenwald?

  I'm interested in how they steer everything back together into a larger tapestry.

• 50:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Andy Greenwald?

  Because right now, and this is another point, I'm curious your thoughts about, tender is being presented to us in a way in which all of James's skepticism is true. It is, and this is also to do with, I think, Max Miguel's performance, which is pretty sneery supervillainy. They're bad, right? And I don't know if the show is more narratively compelling or not, if there's some doubt about it. But it's been three hours of television, and all they had to do was take a trip to Sunderland to find out that this is as corrupt as something can be.

• 51:22Chris Ryan?

  I...

• 51:23Andy Greenwald?

  So what's the next card to turn?

• 51:24Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Is it that tender is good, actually is good?

• 51:28Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Or is there, you know, again, these guys and this show, they're not simplistic thinkers in terms of how they view the world or in terms of how they make a drama. But to this point, it seems pretty clear. Not what's good and what's bad, we're past that, but what's factually true. And maybe ultimately the most important-

• 51:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, a lot of talk about narratives and story.

• 51:51Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe that's the ultimate takeaway from the episode is what Eric says is that none of that matters unless you have the winning story.

• 51:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 51:59Andy Greenwald?

  Which I thought was compelling and also, you know, as a recent convert to Bill Ackman's work, didn't know about his battle with Herbalife. Really fascinating.

• 52:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Andy Greenwald?

  Did some Googling, there's a documentary about it.

• 52:11Chris Ryan?

  Are you up on some of his more recent opinions as well?

• 52:14Andy Greenwald?

  Fascinating, fascinating character, just morally just consistent and just seems like a really good guy. I, oh, I'm the only one in the room who's willing to say it? I just feel like, I guess I respect dangerous thinking.

• 52:27Chris Ryan?

  Guy has a lot of her money in Pershing, so she's just a little nervous.

• 52:32Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was interesting, I didn't know anything about that. I can't say I've been like, wasn't really clocking billionaires until relatively recently.

• 52:38Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah?

• 52:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because don't care and then now that they've all like, you know, revealed themselves, I'm like, oh, okay. By the way, I thought, I'm glad that you refused your invitation to the Melania screening.

• 52:50Chris Ryan?

  I was busy, you know, I wanted to watch the Broncos.

• 52:53Andy Greenwald?

  You wanted to watch Reggie Dinkins?

• 52:54Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to watch Reggie Dinkins. Couple of things for me, it wouldn't be the same show. It would probably be too big of a swing and too crazy. I kind of, I would have fucked with like Jim Diiker being the hero of the season or the protagonist of the season.

• 53:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  And Conrad Mickey getting in the newsroom and doing like, how do these stories get assembled? And maybe there will be more, like, he'll be more featured as the season goes on.

• 53:23Chris Ryan?

  It was kind of fun to be in a different workplace and talking about this, talking about different, you know, actions and consequences of a job in the same fashion as the way investment bankers talk to one another. There was a lot of overlapping off-screen dialogue happening with the, in the newsroom there.

• 53:44Chris Ryan?

  I also just thought it's worth pointing out that while I'm like, oh, it would be cool if you guys just like, straight up made this show about a financial journalist looking into multiple companies out there and trying to get Harper to help him. It would also take away from the fact that I do think, as we've commented before, the central love story or the central relationship of this television show is Harper and Eric.

• 54:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I think, I think I'm, maybe I'm basic, maybe I'm soft batch, but I think I need more of that. I think that Harper as Shiva destroyer of worlds is a compelling character and has been unique and compelling for three seasons. And I think that the show has been appropriately delicate with backstory and trauma, as she says in this episode, "My trauma was traumatizing." So that's, which I thought was a really effective line and true to character.

• 54:39Chris Ryan?

  It was funny when he was like, "Seems like you're triggered."

• 54:43Andy Greenwald?

  They're great together. Ken Long is such a good actor. He's so, I think it's just remarkable to watch him play different gradations of the same person in different times in life. And he can make himself, you know, as a man who I believe is probably 5'7", roughly, he can make himself

• 55:00Chris Ryan?

  Huge or small.

• 55:01Andy Greenwald?

  Huge or small, with really subtle ways through performance. Like the episode where Harper goes off, you know, goes off the grid in Berlin and there's the, with her twin brother. And so we know, we remember that from the past. We remember that relationship, the episode. It's not unintentional that one of the first things she does this season is shred a card from her mother, I believe. So it requires a light hand to backfill some of the humanity of the character. But I do think that the show, and I'm sure they are aware of this as well, and there's episodes to come, and as we always say, we don't watch ahead. But I think, I think that the way that Eric was backfilled with his family and his relationship

• 55:43Andy Greenwald?

  to his family and his choices and his relationship with, is it Bill was the boss that he

• 55:47Chris Ryan?

  Adler.

• 55:48Andy Greenwald?

  Adler was the boss we sabotaged last season. I get where he is, like echolocated in terms of like his emotional journey, despite my criticism of his willingness to sacrifice everything. Harper, less so. And so I think that to make that the relationship that is going to, you know, provide the ballast for the season, I think I need more. And luckily, there's more episodes. So it is not, this is not prescriptive. I think I was feeling that this episode. How did you feel about the Austrian vacation?

• 56:20Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was very funny.

• 56:22Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was very funny. I thought that it's one of those things where you, I could see someone being like, whether they think it's on the nose or more of like an ideological convention rather than a scene of dramatic characters. I'm like, compared to what? What else on TV is doing anything like this? And I actually loved the moment after the three-way and when they get home.

• 56:48Andy Greenwald?

  Not the oyster? Not the breakfast oyster?

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  No, when Henry sort of scolds Yasmin for giving, for facilitating that guy's op-ed.

• 56:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Chris Ryan?

  And that was, you know, perhaps paternalistic or whatever of Henry to just be like, know your place, like, don't go around my back and use the media to fight my battles or whatever. But I did think it was like the grades of the way that these aristocratic fail sons kind of judge one another and what their sort of red lines are.

• 57:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 57:22Chris Ryan?

  You know, and he's like, he's not just like writing homages to the Wehrmacht or whatever, you know, like, or the Weimar Republic or whatever he was writing about. You would know based on your Effingers reading.

• 57:33Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, did I mention that? Sorry, I've just been reading so many great books lately.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  Have you actually cracked a new book since then?

• 57:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, two. You know, I like to do a two-track strategy.

• 57:45Chris Ryan?

  I don't know how you finish anything.

• 57:47Andy Greenwald?

  I'm, I mean, I'm not watching TV.

• 57:53Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I've got a little bit of little pocket of time.

• 57:55Chris Ryan?

  Okay, uh, where was I? Oh, I just really liked that scene.

• 58:01Chris Ryan?

  And I think a lot of these plotlines are really in their infancy. I don't know that Ivy and Bauer is done now and they've they've fixed it.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  I bumped a little bit on that. That the vacation only because it was reminiscent of circumstances we've seen on succession relatively recently.

• 58:22Chris Ryan?

  We all have to get on a plane and go and do this.

• 58:24Andy Greenwald?

  And woo someone who is a little bit, whoa.

• 58:27Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  So that's how they do it in that country.

• 58:30Chris Ryan?

  But it was a good illustration of like Whitney's sort of in this Harper-esque place of outsider.

• 58:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:37Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, and, and again, another person where it's just like, this is his shot. This is he's making his run here with this merger and his idea and his big talk about bank killer.

• 58:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 58:47Chris Ryan?

  And that's how these guys, I guess, assume that they have to talk and think if they want to build their their pile.

• 58:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and, and it, I think it's similarly like the show doesn't hold your hand in understanding that like,

• 59:03Andy Greenwald?

  this isn't a fringe company and that its attempt to become a bank or a bank killer is of incredible central importance to the labor government.

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:14Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:15Andy Greenwald?

  But of course it should be because you want, this goes back to my first point. Push the show towards the most interesting, most dangerous places. So.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  And in an industry's case, as quickly as possible.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I think that that is, that is the DNA of the show that has allowed it to be successful and to grow exponentially season to season in terms of interest, viewership and success. So this is me wholeheartedly, I believe, you know what, I believe in the strategy. And I think that the, you know. It's like, it's like putting your money with a, it's stern towel. It's a little bit, it's a little bit aggressive.

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's one directional. Omni, single, it's like you're really going.

• 59:59Andy Greenwald?

  One directional, not like Harry Styles.

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  No, not like that, but I just mean like, it's like those guys are talking about at the breakfast table. They're just like, this is insane to just be a short only play.

• 1:00:07Andy Greenwald?

  But I, but even, even that, that's something that I really love because it was like, that struck me as something that is a great television thing, which is aware of the character you've built and the plot decisions you've made over three years. And Harper consistently just seems to be shorting things.

• 1:00:22Chris Ryan?

  The entire business is built on these like pivots and being first or being, you know, and like getting around the bend before everybody else. So when a person like Harper keeps pitching these people, these guys are all gonna eventually, like one of them is gonna be like, she, she could be on to something. It's worth a little bit of money to find out.

• 1:00:40Andy Greenwald?

  That was the Jesse Bloom.

• 1:00:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:41Andy Greenwald?

  But, but what I'm saying is it's, it's using something that they had already established. Cause I think that if you look at all of her big bets, they've basically been shorts. And I don't know, again, I might not be remembering it correctly. I don't know if any character was like, what's up with you in shorts? Are you, you have no confidence in things, thus reflecting your character about like how the world works and the, you know, and, and your place in it, that you just don't buy any of this great man bullshit.

• 1:01:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's right.

• 1:01:06Andy Greenwald?

  But now they have, what is, I mean, Yaz uses the word narrativize. They, Mickey and Conrad have narrativized that, that is now the business model.

• 1:01:14Chris Ryan?

  Well, until season five, when she's a real builder.

• 1:01:16Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Andy Greenwald?

  She could have built back better.

• 1:01:19Chris Ryan?

  It's infrastructure week, baby.

• 1:01:21Andy Greenwald?

  That all works.

• 1:01:22Chris Ryan?

  I tried reading House of X, by the way, which is the Jonathan Hickman run. I've, I've read it, I've, I think I've like read it, like I've read Gravity's Rainbow, like I've started a lot.

• 1:01:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Are you doing this?

• 1:01:33Chris Ryan?

  I'm not doing it chronologically.

• 1:01:35Andy Greenwald?

  No, but are you, I, I, first of all, I appreciate your candor. Are you doing this because you feel like X-Men are coming back into your life over the next two years? Thanks to the MCU and you wanna kinda get in front of it?

• 1:01:44Chris Ryan?

  I picked it up because I have a anthology graphic novel of the two, of, it's like.

• 1:01:51Andy Greenwald?

  Hoxpox.

• 1:01:51Chris Ryan?

  House of X.

• 1:01:52Andy Greenwald?

  House of X, Powers of X.

• 1:01:53Chris Ryan?

  Powers of X. And then there's also House of M.

• 1:01:57Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's 20 years ago and you don't want that.

• 1:01:58Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:01:59Andy Greenwald?

  That's the Scarlet Witch thing, no more mutants.

• 1:02:00Chris Ryan?

  House of Power of X, right? Okay, and I have a book of it and I was like. Oh, I did download the chronological version of this, but then they were like, "We just did that for fun. You shouldn't actually read the story that way." So I'm trying and like, I mean, it's very, very good.

• 1:02:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's very dense.

• 1:02:17Chris Ryan?

  It's very dense. We're talking about many, many timelines.

• 1:02:20Andy Greenwald?

  So for people who don't know, the last great reinvention of a property that Marvel Publishing did was, now this is already five years ago, the great comic book writer Jonathan Hickman, responsible for a lot of the big, big ideas that are now going to be put on the screen in Doomsday and Secret Wars in terms of like multiversal incursions and all that.

• 1:02:41Chris Ryan?

  Don't blame him though.

• 1:02:42Andy Greenwald?

  No, don't blame him. He took over the X-Men and just kind of industryed it in the sense of like, "I am going to profoundly and forever change," or so we hope, "the status quo" by not throwing out, building on this franchise's radical history of reinvention and radically reinventing it. And so in these, I mean, it doesn't even, it's not even worth getting into all the big changes, but the biggest one was instead of, you know, Professor X versus Magneto and their superheroes and supervillains, it was this idea that's always been coded into it, that their mutants are a race. And in this world, they come together, they live on Krakoa, the mutant living island, which has been canon since the 70s.

• 1:03:23Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 1:03:23Andy Greenwald?

  And start a new society that will negotiate with humanity and like give them access to-

• 1:03:29Chris Ryan?

  Pharmaceuticals.

• 1:03:29Andy Greenwald?

  Pharmaceuticals and things, basically in exchange for being left alone. And they do things like combine their powers, like weird dumb joke characters, combine them into a team that can resurrect any mutant forever, because Professor X stores their memories and lives in their brain. And so they have cured mortality.

• 1:03:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Andy Greenwald?

  And this is a story that goes across timelines and across outer space.

• 1:03:52Chris Ryan?

  It's like jumped, I think the timeline jumping is a little confusing.

• 1:03:56Andy Greenwald?

  And it was really worth it and a way forward that of course, the demands of comic books meant that Hickman was like, did it for two years and was like, "Cool, I think I'm gonna go do something else." And they were like, "Well, we'll just keep doing it for a year." And then they were like, "And now it's over."

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  And everybody's different again now, or back to the way they were, and it's hugely disappointing. But you're, look at you jumping on this, doing the work.

• 1:04:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I mean, I just, I just had that lying next to my bed, so I was just like, "I wanna take a break from screens for a little while."

• 1:04:25Andy Greenwald?

  And from Effingers, I guess, which you haven't quite picked up. Did you? Are you, is this of interest to you? If we're doing a little comic book talk at the end here. Are you aware of the biggest success story in comic books of the decade?

• 1:04:39Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:04:39Andy Greenwald?

  Which is DC Comics' Absolute Line. Where they did, kind of like what Marvel, in a way what Marvel did 25 years ago, where they were like, in a lower place sales-wise and culturally, certainly before the movies. And they were like, we're gonna create a new, separate universe called the Ultimate Universe, and we're gonna give our best creators free range to... What would, what would happen if the X-Men and Spider-Man happened now? In this case, the year 2000.

• 1:05:03Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:03Andy Greenwald?

  And that's when Miles Morales, who's now famous in the Spider-Verse movies, came from, not originally, but eventually. So DC was like, basically did another like corporate-wide fuck it. And we're going to create new versions of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Martian Manhunter, with the very, like truly the best of the best creators.

• 1:05:21Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:21Andy Greenwald?

  And with kind of twists on the origin story, where Wonder Woman is a princess, not of Amazon, but from hell.

• 1:05:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 1:05:29Andy Greenwald?

  And Batman is this, you might not relate to this, is a son of working people.

• 1:05:35Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:35Andy Greenwald?

  He's not a nepo kid, you know? Like, so that, that might be your limit. And they are selling at a rate of like, comics haven't sold since the 90s.

• 1:05:47Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:05:48Andy Greenwald?

  And like, the collected editions are sold out everywhere.

• 1:05:51Chris Ryan?

  Absolute?

• 1:05:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, absolute, yeah. And people are, they're awesome. I just started dipping a toe into them, but it's very cool. And I, and I think that one of the things-

• 1:05:58Chris Ryan?

  I've never really fucked with DC, but maybe I'll check it out.

• 1:06:00Andy Greenwald?

  Me either. I think the thing that's been interesting is the relationship between these publishing arms, that for a while, one of the reasons why Marvel felt, one of the less reported on, I know Marvel is completely reported on. But I think one of the reasons that Marvel did get to dominate the world is because they had been kind of incubating really cool ideas and concepts for so long that the MCU could pick and choose some of these things, to varying degrees of success. But like, certain versions of characters, or there was canonical blueprints for them.

• 1:06:30Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:06:30Andy Greenwald?

  Or for taking things in a different direction, or doing kind of what-if, not just the series what-if. And now, and then over the last 20 years, the comics, with notable exceptions, sort of had to service- The continuities of the movies in this forever attempt to be like, you guys really liked seeing Doctor Strange on the screen. May I interest you in 30 years of Steve Ditko's?

• 1:06:51Chris Ryan?

  It's vertical integration times a billion.

• 1:06:53Andy Greenwald?

  Which I don't think has ever really worked. So I think what was cool about DC coming from a place where the movies pre-gun weren't hitting. And still, I guess the jury's relatively out on that. They were just like, we're going to be a publishing company and we're going to do bold things. And it's paying off.

• 1:07:08Chris Ryan?

  What a great recommendation to end the show on.

• 1:07:09Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think people made it this far?

• 1:07:11Chris Ryan?

  I hope so. I mean, I think our industry conversations are always something people look forward to, I think.

• 1:07:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's nice.

• 1:07:18Chris Ryan?

  Um, thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kai.

• 1:07:20Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, which absolute comic book will you be picking up between now and Thursday's show?

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  I mean, how do I, where do I even begin?

• 1:07:28Chris Ryan?

  Wonder Woman, Princess of Hell kind of describes Kaya, you know?

• 1:07:32Andy Greenwald?

  Just more of her world beating attitude.

• 1:07:34Chris Ryan?

  That's right. Uh, thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kai. We'll be back on Thursday with some pit, some other stuff.

• 1:07:40Andy Greenwald?

  You know what else is this week? Speaking of comics, Wonder Man.

• 1:07:43Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you know what?

• 1:07:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which I kind of want to check out.

• 1:07:44Chris Ryan?

  I kind of want to check that out too. So we'll be back on our Marvel bullshit this week as well.

• 1:07:48Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 1:07:49Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks, everybody for listening and watching. We'll talk to you on Thursday.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

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• 1:08:28Speaker 05

  It's getting chilly outside, but you know what that means?

• 1:08:34Speaker 05

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello, broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl? How about melty? Okay, Chipotle chicken avo melt? It's dip and bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.