‘The Pitt’ Is Back! Plus, Our Most Anticipated Shows of the Year.

Chris and Andy talk about the news that the Television Academy is rolling out the Legacy Award, a brand-new Emmy meant to spotlight long-running (snubbed) shows of years past (5:48). Then they react to Kate Winslet revealing that ‘Mare of Easttown’ Season 2 will go into production starting in 2027 (18:24). Later, they discuss the Season 2 premiere of ‘The Pitt’ (27:22) and their most anticipated shows of the year (50:57). 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: Sarah Reddy 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

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• 1:17Speaker 00

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:20Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio scrubbing in again, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:36Andy Greenwald?

  Do they ever show, like, shouldn't there be one hour of the pit where they're just lotioning? Cause all that.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Lotioning?

• 1:43Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the alcohol, like the cleaning solvent, the stuff they're scouring their hands to stay clean.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Wouldn't it be, that would be the end of their shift. So maybe the last, like, you know how like there's this conspiracy theory that there's a secret last episode of Stranger Things?

• 1:57Andy Greenwald?

  I'm very excited about this. Yes.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  You do know about this.

• 1:59Andy Greenwald?

  I do know about this.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Conformity gate.

• 2:00Andy Greenwald?

  I want to talk about this and I want to pitch not off the dome, but the secret last episode of many shows.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Okay, we could do that. Conformity gate for everything.

• 2:09Andy Greenwald?

  So you're saying, and I love this.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  So there should be a secret last episode of the pit that's just about them doing self-care routines at the end of the night.

• 2:15Andy Greenwald?

  Hour 16 being like, I heard magnesium helps you sleep.

• 2:21Chris Ryan?

  Those guys have better stuff than magnesium, I assure you.

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but then you end up like Dr. Langdon, back at work with seemingly no consequences.

• 2:27Chris Ryan?

  Of course, Andy and I are talking about The Return of the Pit on HBO Max. We are also going to talk a little bit about some of our most anticipated shows of 2026. We got a little bit of news at the top. Greenwald, it's great to see you. The inbox still watch, the watch at spotify.com. On Instagram is the watch pod underscore.

• 2:45Andy Greenwald?

  How's the email box going? Chris Gate keeps it, just FYI.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  You're welcome to get access to it.

• 2:51Andy Greenwald?

  Don't ever want to see it.

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  The inbox is the most pure Andy fandom and it is the most like really thoughtful, like people writing in nice, long notes about what we mean to them and their thoughts on what we've said. So while you spend all of your time reading the comments.

• 3:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, no.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  A fair amount of time.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  Thirty percent.

• 3:13Chris Ryan?

  If you just had access to the inbox, I think you'd be satiated.

• 3:16Andy Greenwald?

  You know what my new preferred way of interacting with the fans is? Kaya screen grabbing celebrity likes.

• 3:25Chris Ryan?

  Speak on it, man. Go ahead.

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, it was exciting because potentially soon to be retired Kansas City Chiefs great Travis Kelsey.

• 3:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:34Andy Greenwald?

  Smashed the like button.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Andy Greenwald?

  On one of our reels. And I think that what was most exciting is that I think you and I both thought it was a reel in which I just explain.

• 3:44Chris Ryan?

  Landman.

• 3:45Andy Greenwald?

  Landman with no, by the way, I just want to commend Kaya and Kai for that too. Like I wondered how you were going to chop that up. And I was like, maybe they'll put in some commentary or a couple of gags or maybe we made each other laugh. It's just me explaining the plot.

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 3:58Andy Greenwald?

  Which earned the biggest laugh record from you since 2006.

• 4:01Chris Ryan?

  It was very funny.

• 4:02Andy Greenwald?

  So I'll take that. But anyway, yeah, so as it turned out, Kill it at Kill it Trav was just watching the clip where we're like, we don't know if DiCaprio is a good actor.

• 4:13Chris Ryan?

  Maybe he was just like all of us disassociating. You know, it was just like flipping through some reels.

• 4:18Andy Greenwald?

  I don't blame him and for what it's worth. That screen grab that Kai sent me.

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Andy Greenwald?

  Got the biggest response from my daughter that anything related to my professional life, or my personal life, or me has ever gotten.

• 4:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  Because of the potential, just like, Taylor-adjacenceness of it.

• 4:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe she had fallen asleep early and he was just sort of scrolling.

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  It's your version of me thinking Helen Mirren has listened to the rewatchables because of the Proof of Life rewatchables and Proof of Life is directed by Taylor Hackford.

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  You don't think she, you don't think she has? I think-

• 4:52Chris Ryan?

  I don't think Helen Mirren has ever listened to a podcast.

• 4:55Andy Greenwald?

  Not intentionally, but I do think that we have household penetration sometimes.

• 5:00Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes.

• 5:01Andy Greenwald?

  These people who have, maybe don't really engage in like this, the Bluetooth speakers, you know, and just maybe play the thing, like the older listeners.

• 5:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.

• 5:09Andy Greenwald?

  Just playing in the house, playing in the car. Not an issue for us in the Patrick J. Adams household, who remains an incredibly good sport and probably should come on the podcast sometime.

• 5:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, he's got the opportunity. He got the new Taylor Sheridan. He got the Madison coming.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  I can imagine a world where Taylor is like, Travis, what are you looking at so intently on your phone? What are you so engaged in? And he says, well, these two really smart guys are breaking down Leo performances.

• 5:34Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, that was so nice. That is 100% not how Travis Kelsey would describe us. Just like off the rip, just like looking at us. That's not how it would go. But thank you.

• 5:45Chris Ryan?

  For a second, I thought you were talking about Taylor Sheridan and Travis Kelsey hanging out because I forgot who Travis Kelsey was with.

• 5:50Andy Greenwald?

  Or Taylor Hackford. Helen, so you and I ship Travis and Taylor, but it's-

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Taylor Hackford.

• 5:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's Taylor Hackford, the director of Ray, and Travis Morrison, late of the dismemberment plan.

• 6:02Chris Ryan?

  That's right. There's never been a more watched statement made. Nice job.

• 6:06Andy Greenwald?

  We're back.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  Where should we start today? A little bit of news?

• 6:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and then I do want to leave time to the Golden Globes of this weekend.

• 6:14Chris Ryan?

  So just so you're clear, you do not believe that there is a secret episode of Stranger Things coming. You're on the record saying that.

• 6:19Andy Greenwald?

  Do you?

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  No, there's not.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  There's 100% not. You can't do that.

• 6:23Chris Ryan?

  No, there is not.

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  It took them three years to make a season.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  But did you know, like, the idea that the, like, a group of, I guess, fans, I mean, they're fans, psychically are willing this to happen and are like piecing together, like, the clues in the final episodes of the show to construct an alternative ending is-

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  So are you, are you asking if I find it in any way plausible that large groups of Americans are denying reality?

• 6:50Andy Greenwald?

  And if they dislike something that they see on their screens, they think that they can will into existence an alternate version of those facts?

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  That's what I'm asking.

• 6:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's possible.

• 7:00Chris Ryan?

  Andy, there was a little bit of news in the TV biz this week that we wanted to talk about, which was the announcement that there is going to be a new Emmy added to the Emmy.

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  Rossum.

• 7:10Chris Ryan?

  That's the Emmy buffet when we get to the awards season. And this was an interesting one because, you know, I think I have been critical of the Emmys. I mean, I've also been told that my criticisms hold no water, but that the like or have no sense of logic, but that the Emmys somehow miss the zeitgeist of television that they like because of the sort of way that they're organized in terms of their calendar.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  You've been critical, do you think?

• 7:38Chris Ryan?

  I think I am critical of the Emmys, yes. And, you know, this this new Emmy that they're introducing, the Legacy Emmy, I believe it's called.

• 7:48Andy Greenwald?

  This was announced this morning.

• 7:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, which is going to be something of a lifetime achievement award, but for shows.

• 7:53Andy Greenwald?

  For a show.

• 7:54Chris Ryan?

  And is essentially like explicitly in the interview that the president of the Television Academy did with the Hollywood Reporter.

• 8:02Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, shout out to Hollywood Reporter, guy who got the Emmy person on the phone. And the first thing he said was, first off, congratulations on this new award, which is really stretching.

• 8:12Chris Ryan?

  What's the name of the president of the Academy?

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, in front of me, it's Maury something, but it's just more like, it's just more like he's congratulating him on creating an award.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 8:21Andy Greenwald?

  Which is beautiful. Go on, please.

• 8:24Chris Ryan?

  So it's Maury McIntyre is the president.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  Maury Supreme. Do you think I'm wrong? What? They're both scrappy kids.

• 8:34Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it would be better or worse if Marty Supreme was the president of the United States?

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think it would be so mu- what are you talking about? It would be so much better.

• 8:42Chris Ryan?

  I think we would be involved in even more bad deals.

• 8:45Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's a little bit more reactive?

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  He also would have been very much centering ping pong during these last several years.

• 8:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's fine with me.

• 8:53Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, Maury is introducing this new award and in the interview with Scott Feinberg at the Hollywood Reporter. It's explicitly kind of referred to as the Wire Award. Not quote the Wire Award, but it's the idea is that it's going back to correct Emmy wrongs, to to recognize shows that were criminally unrecognized during their time. And Maury McIntyre quote says, are we trying to correct the Wire?

• 9:21Andy Greenwald?

  He says that unprompted.

• 9:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, is that what you're asking? That was not necessarily the intent, but it is obviously something that we see as an opportunity. So the idea here is that every year they're going to give out like this award to a show that had a profound impact on television. Now, I would imagine that that means that they will not be additionally like, you know, throwing hosannas on on Modern Family and Mad Men, right? Like, I don't think that a show that has been recognized already is going to get a lifetime achievement award.

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  So I was very, I'm very interested in this and I'm kind of excited by it because I think that every year, no matter which field you cover, people who who work in the various arts industries are always fan casting, wish casting, new categories to try to make, whether it's the Oscars, the Grammys, trying to make it a little more relevant, trying to spice it up a little bit. Rarely does it happen in one of the more established awards. Like, I think the Golden Globes has like the box office achievement, right? Or something, but like the good, the most money making award, which feels very American.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Like a fan, oh, yeah, yes.

• 10:23Andy Greenwald?

  But, um, so I like that the Emmys were talking to people about this. This guy Maury credits, Perleena Bokway, who's the chairwoman of Universal Studios, as suggesting it. And I think it is a testament to how much the medium has changed because in the, even the suggestion of an award like this, 10 or 20 years ago would have been absurd, primarily because TV was still considered to be an immediate medium or an almost a disposable medium. It did not have a long tail. People maybe had DVD sets or watch reruns, but there wasn't the sense that work that made was made in the past could endure or re-enter the conversation like, like, say,

• 11:06Andy Greenwald?

  a suits, uh, the way that it can now. So I I think that's good for the self-respect of an industry. That it's willing to say, we didn't appreciate these shows in their time to the degree we should have.

• 11:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 11:19Andy Greenwald?

  Clearly, the influence is such that we want to rectify that. I think that's good. I was surprised that it is not a individual award because, for example, David Simon is more than deserving of a lifetime Emmy award.

• 11:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 11:36Andy Greenwald?

  Because The Wire is the best of his many completely ignored television shows. Right?

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  So if you give him an award, you're also maybe giving it to Homicide, or The Deuce, or Generation Kill, or all of the things he did that were kind of ignored.

• 11:50Chris Ryan?

  Show Me a Hero, Only on the City, yeah.

• 11:52Andy Greenwald?

  That said, I came around in the, what, 75 minutes since I learned about this? Because I do think it's cool that we could celebrate a show after its initial window has passed. But it's a very wide net and I'm, I don't, because he says, is this the Wire award? Yes, but also we could give it to Gunsmoke for really making westerns important on TV, which I'm like,

• 12:17Andy Greenwald?

  I can't tell if Kai is laughing, coughing, or crying. Should we just digress and talk to Kai about why westerns are important to television? Like, you could make that argument.

• 12:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you could definitely be like, were it not for Columbo, we wouldn't have.

• 12:32Andy Greenwald?

  We wouldn't have the chance of Poker Face returning with Peter Dinklage at some point in the future.

• 12:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, just top of the, top of mind, have any other shows that you think would qualify for this? Because a lot of the things.

• 12:44Chris Ryan?

  Can I just say what I think of this first?

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, sure.

• 12:47Chris Ryan?

  I hate it.

• 12:47Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa!

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I hate it. Take the L with dignity. You didn't recognize The Wire.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 12:52Chris Ryan?

  You continue to not recognize great television. You're not correcting a historical record. You're just bummed out because now people have become so much more in touch with the last 20 years of television, 25 years of television history because of the streaming services. So people are constantly re-watching these shows and being like, damn, this is the best thing I ever saw. How come it doesn't have any Emmys? So I appreciate the fact that we would maybe get an opportunity, especially as, honestly, like, we've had so many tragic losses from the Wire cast.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 13:21Chris Ryan?

  Especially recently, that there would be some sort of recognition of The Wire. I don't know necessarily how that would play without giving it this kind of award and this kind of recognition. But to me.

• 13:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Chris Ryan?

  I feel like this is. It's kind of, I feel like it's kind of bullshit.

• 13:37Andy Greenwald?

  To be clear, the award, he makes it clear in this interview that the award will be given to the same eligible people who would have been eligible.

• 13:44Chris Ryan?

  Which would be David Simon. It would not be Idris Elba.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Executive producers and the showrunner slash producers as determined by the people who make the show.

• 13:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, so Idris Elba would not be, he wouldn't, he maybe would come to the awards ceremony.

• 13:58Chris Ryan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 13:58Andy Greenwald?

  If his plane doesn't get hijacked.

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  Perhaps he would be there for hijacker Luther as well, yes.

• 14:02Andy Greenwald?

  You think he's gonna be at the Emmys for hijack?

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  I think that they might want Idris Elba at the show to boost it, yeah.

• 14:09Andy Greenwald?

  Side note, just, you know, a little bit like talking about the talking about it thing, I just continue to watch with real admiration how you manage to correctly choose your targets, because I'm sitting here singling out working day actors in Texas for their bad haircuts and just putting them on blast, and you're like, the Television Academy writ large is fraudulent. There's like, no, the victim was crime. It's impressive.

• 14:36Chris Ryan?

  I just think that this is like, you can have it both ways. Like, you know what you should be worrying about and thinking about is tweaking the way the Emmys work?

• 14:43Andy Greenwald?

  And who, right.

• 14:43Chris Ryan?

  So that shows like and or do not get like completely overlooked. Now, I don't know how to do that, that's not my job, my job is podcasting, but I'm just saying, going back and being like, you know who should have won the Super Bowl in 1998? This team, you know, that's bullshit.

• 14:57Andy Greenwald?

  Was that the year that Gary Anderson of the Vikings missed the field goal?

• 15:00Chris Ryan?

  It probably was. I gotta say, I've been doing like a fair amount of podcasting with Bill and the amount of random football games that get referenced where I'm like, ah?

• 15:08Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to say that I've been listening to, the only person in this world who I listen to is Sheil Kapadia, who is just doing God's work regularly. And now I just listen to the NFL show every day too, and, and he was like, I'm not sure if it was the 2022 NFC Championship game or the 2023 Championship game. I believe the Eagles were involved in at least one of those games, I have no memory, but 1998.

• 15:36Chris Ryan?

  Gary Anderson.

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe. There's no way of us checking that.

• 15:39Chris Ryan?

  Mal and him were talking about like a Ravens Broncos game that they were referring to as if it would have been like, you were there when the man landed on the moon, right? You know, like, I was just like, for sure, that was crazy, when Flacco did that.

• 15:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, they were talking about like the time Tim Tebow won a playoff game, and I was like, I'm gonna need 45 minutes to remember all of the players.

• 15:57Chris Ryan?

  But then there's like a whole swath of NFL history that I feel like I was kind of partying for, you know? Do you know what I mean?

• 16:05Andy Greenwald?

  Sunday mornings, you just weren't.

• 16:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, it was a.

• 16:08Andy Greenwald?

  It was a long Saturday.

• 16:08Chris Ryan?

  A bit of a blank spot for me.

• 16:10Andy Greenwald?

  That's fair. Okay, well, I hear you. I think that it, like with many things, it comes down to the execution. Like, are they going to do this as like, is this going to carve out six minutes from an otherwise overstuffed or weirdly nostalgic broadcast to say, 25 years ago, this show premiered and it was really important and we're giving them a trophy? Or is it going to be like run like, you know, another award? Is it going to be, is it going to be part of the broadcast like a retrospective?

• 16:40Chris Ryan?

  We are giving, we are, everybody knows this is happening so that the casts show up to stand and applaud. That there will be some sort of like, Michael B. Jordan comes out and gives it to The Wire. We get Michael B. Jordan at the end.

• 16:53Andy Greenwald?

  And he comes out again, plays two parts.

• 16:55Chris Ryan?

  And, yeah, and that, that would be, that would be the deal. I don't think it would be like you're in competition.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I'm, I'm open to your cynicism here, but for some reason, the fact that it is a show award, which is just acknowledging something that is great, which is relatively to me, non-controversial, being in the same way, I'm like, this 1950s German novel is great. Like, that seems different to me than how inevitably, at some point in the next one to five years, Tom Cruise is going to get an Oscar that's a lifetime achievement Oscar?

• 17:23Chris Ryan?

  I mean, he just got the governor's, like, I mean, it wasn't the lifetime achievement one, but he got a governor's ball Oscar that was like essentially his, his career capping speech.

• 17:33Andy Greenwald?

  Governor's Ball, like the, like the concert in New York.

• 17:35Chris Ryan?

  Or whatever it was.

• 17:36Andy Greenwald?

  The Strokes headline, Tom Cruise's receipt of the Gov Ball Award.

• 17:40Chris Ryan?

  That's our MGMT.

• 17:41Andy Greenwald?

  Childish Gambino.

• 17:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I, I, that, that, I mean, I think people deserve to be celebrated, but the one where it's just like, yeah, we'll give them one.

• 17:52Chris Ryan?

  Fix the comedy section of your award show before you worry about like making sure The Wire got its dap. You didn't give it to it. You fucked up. You fucked up. That's the clip. You blew it.

• 18:05Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 18:06Chris Ryan?

  Okay, one other.

• 18:07Andy Greenwald?

  I like that you had no suggestions for this dog shit award.

• 18:11Chris Ryan?

  My no, my suggestion is like, feel free to honor television history and do a better job telling that story.

• 18:18Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 18:18Chris Ryan?

  But don't be like, here, we can just like, kind of skate on the fact that one of the most groundbreaking, incredible, timeless television shows ever got zero fucking attention from us while it was on and needed it. It needed those nominations when it was on, not now.

• 18:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but is this like, would you, I feel like this is the same attitude you would have if the Grammys were like, ah, but like Palace Music's 1994 record in retrospect, you know, like there is no one, what will take care of you is the defining indie country statement of the 90s.

• 18:52Chris Ryan?

  No, because you know, honestly, I bet, I bet ultimately David Simon has long since gotten over this.

• 18:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:58Chris Ryan?

  He got his Peabody. I think everybody, I think David Simon, if I had to guess, is like, I feel like I'm, I'm a made man, you know, do people respect my shit?

• 19:06Andy Greenwald?

  This is, and we can let it go at this and we'll see how they actually do this in practice, but that's why I think it is good that it is not a David Simon award. It is a The Wire award because of the community of people who made that show, both the cast and crew and just Baltimore.

• 19:20Chris Ryan?

  But they're not going up on stage to get an Emmy.

• 19:22Andy Greenwald?

  They just lost John Harbaugh. Like, let these people get something, you know?

• 19:26Chris Ryan?

  They got Pete Alonso, though.

• 19:28Andy Greenwald?

  Did they?

• 19:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Andy Greenwald?

  Is Mal happy, happy about that?

• 19:30Chris Ryan?

  I don't think she's very happy right now.

• 19:33Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry. I love Mal. I have no comment. I want her to be happy.

• 19:36Chris Ryan?

  The only other news I had for you is that there's a column on deadline.com by a British journalist named Baz and his column is called Breaking Baz. And he'll sometimes get tidbits of information from any number of luminaries in the British cultural sort of scene.

• 19:53Andy Greenwald?

  Is he, is he legit or is he like Jackie Harvey in The Onion?

• 19:56Chris Ryan?

  He's just, he's kind of a little bit of like a throwback. Like, it, it kind of gives me like sweet smell of success vibes sometimes, like his column where he's just like, I'm here at the West End debut in Claire Foy's Radiant. You know?

• 20:08Andy Greenwald?

  Checks out. H is for Hawk. H is for hot.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, anyway, he talked to Kate Winslet and Kate Winslet was like,

• 20:17Andy Greenwald?

  So he's like us.

• 20:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And he was like, what's up with Mayor of Easttown? And she was like, I think we're going to shoot season two in 2027.

• 20:26Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 20:27Chris Ryan?

  Paraphrasing, but that is basically what she said. This would be the first I'm hearing of it. I mean, we have heard of rumblings of, did they ever have an idea for season two? How would it work? Brad Inglesby, obviously now working on Task, season two, which seems to be going full steam ahead.

• 20:43Andy Greenwald?

  It is.

• 20:44Chris Ryan?

  I think, here's my question. Let's just say this is true, that they are going to do Mayor, that they found a spot to do it in 2027. Do you want Mayor Task crossover? Do you want this to be the larger Delco crime universe?

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  Let me give you two answers. One, I would love for there to be more Mayor. I would love for Kate Winslet to play this part again and for there to be a larger Inglesverse. I don't really, I don't really have a problem with that at all. I think that sounds awesome. I think that we would have a lot of fun podcasting about it, discussing it, and also wondering what other Philadelphia set shows might be incorporated. Like, is Tires also in this world?

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  I hope so.

• 21:25Andy Greenwald?

  See?

• 21:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  Look how I, look how I catered to you.

• 21:28Chris Ryan?

  Tire season two was awesome.

• 21:30Andy Greenwald?

  And it's in the Inglesverse, potentially. All of that being said, I find this extremely, extremely surprising and a little bit more-

• 21:41Chris Ryan?

  You think Kate's fishing?

• 21:42Andy Greenwald?

  More than a little bit unlikely. I think Kate would like to be doing that.

• 21:45Chris Ryan?

  She's just casting. She's like, hey, Brad, remember me?

• 21:48Andy Greenwald?

  More likely than the regime season two. And I think that, um, but just in the reality of these things, Brad Inglesby, friend of the pod, famously works, he works alone. Like Mayor, he's kind of a loner. He is not one of the writers and creators, of whom there are many, and this works for people who have multiple projects going.

• 22:10Chris Ryan?

  It doesn't seem like it.

• 22:10Andy Greenwald?

  And maybe multiple rooms. He doesn't use a room. He writes these shows. He is writing Task Season Two. HBO has invested in Task as an ongoing plank of, as an important ongoing plank of their larger, I don't know if it's going to be year to year, but every 18 months strategy. So I think it would be very, very surprising if they are investing in Brad and in Task as a show that they, that matters to them.

• 22:36Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:37Andy Greenwald?

  They would foreshorten the, or just actively cut off the chance of a season three in a timely fashion by telling him, now go do this other thing.

• 22:44Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 22:44Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think it makes sense. It would be cool.

• 22:47Chris Ryan?

  It would be cool. Yeah. I, look, it was a great show and I'm open to it coming back. I think that it would probably need to be a different kind of series. Mare going back through her back pages quite literally, literally in terms of her yearbook, but in terms of her childhood experiences, her youth and her lifelong friends and the, what, what transpires among them.

• 23:14Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that story's been told. So whatever the, the deal is, like, I think it needs to be something that's a little bit more like outward facing for her. And I'd be curious to see where the character is now, though.

• 23:25Andy Greenwald?

  It, it's also interesting to think about Task as a response to Mare in its creation because, um, you know, Mare was, was, was commissioned, written and filmed and released into a world where big stars coming to TV for event series or mini-series was the norm.

• 23:44Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 23:45Andy Greenwald?

  It was released then, it was received into a world where, well, why don't we just run this back, started to become the norm as well.

• 23:51Chris Ryan?

  That's, you should say that in Nicole Kidman's accent. Cause that's, she was like, I'll keep doing it.

• 23:57Andy Greenwald?

  What, what? That's what she sounds like?

• 23:59Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 23:59Andy Greenwald?

  Fucking Paul Hogan.

• 24:00Chris Ryan?

  She sounds like, uh, in here. She's stories matter.

• 24:04Andy Greenwald?

  She shaved the Byron Bay off that accent. You know what I mean?

• 24:07Chris Ryan?

  She did.

• 24:08Andy Greenwald?

  She's sort of like international class now.

• 24:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Andy Greenwald?

  Um, Task.

• 24:12Chris Ryan?

  Hot break.

• 24:13Andy Greenwald?

  I think everyone involved with Mare were hoping, was hoping to go.

• 24:16Chris Ryan?

  Keep, no. Hot, hot break feels good in a place like this. Why, that's South African. My bad.

• 24:22Andy Greenwald?

  Diplomatic community in a place like this.

• 24:26Chris Ryan?

  It's good.

• 24:27Andy Greenwald?

  Good stuff.

• 24:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think that there was a moment when Mare was rocking at the Emmys that everyone involved was like, "Let's keep this going," but the logistics of it were quite challenging. And Task was designed to be anthology-esque, but I think like the Mark Ruffalo character and his backstory and how he can step forward or step back on a show that is built to welcome in new casts around him every year is just a different scaffolding.

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, let's be honest. I hope it's not a new cast every year because that would be a high turnover rate for that.

• 24:59Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, I just mean that like who's going to be on this year's Task Force remains TBD. There are clearly players in the wind that could come back or not, but from what we've learned so far, Mark Ruffalo is returning.

• 25:13Chris Ryan?

  Is returning.

• 25:14Andy Greenwald?

  And anything else is up in the air.

• 25:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  I wanted to just take your temperature on something, which is one of the favorite shows of our podcast, Industry is Returning, this weekend.

• 25:24Chris Ryan?

  Sunday night.

• 25:24Andy Greenwald?

  We're very excited about it. And I noted with interest, everyone else in the world is also very excited about this, which is really good.

• 25:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  For the show, for all the talented people who worked so hard on it, for Mickey Down and Conrad K. And everybody who bet big on the show. I just have to say, I don't know how you feel about this, but in reading all of the five stars and hosannas.

• 25:47Chris Ryan?

  I have only read like headlines. I have not read reviews. Yeah.

• 25:51Andy Greenwald?

  No, Mickey and Conrad are screenshotting the five stars as they should, so I'm seeing the response, which is great. I just want to quote disgraced Canadian rapper Aubrey Dregram when I say, "He wasn't with us shooting in the gym."

• 26:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, to all the other critics?

• 26:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying.

• 26:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Andy Greenwald?

  Where were you guys?

• 26:07Chris Ryan?

  Are you gatekeeping?

• 26:09Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 26:09Chris Ryan?

  Are you Columbusing?

• 26:11Andy Greenwald?

  No. Am I sailing towards something and claimed I discovered it? No.

• 26:17Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 26:18Andy Greenwald?

  Who's the Viking who really did discover it? No, no, no one discovered it. People were here first. That was a test. You failed.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  You failed. You are not recognizing whose land we are sitting on.

• 26:32Chris Ryan?

  I don't know what your question is. Do I feel weird about the fact that other people like Industry now? Like, do I feel a little bit like you guys didn't, you weren't there in season one, right?

• 26:42Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 26:44Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it was a weird time, right? Didn't that show come out during COVID? Was it or like right around it?

• 26:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 26:49Chris Ryan?

  Was 2020 and like

• 26:50Andy Greenwald?

  2021.

• 26:51Chris Ryan?

  I still, I think I like season one of Industry more than Conrad K and Mickey Down to.

• 26:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's fair.

• 26:59Chris Ryan?

  I think that I still find that to be like this wild punk rock kind of finding our footing situation and, and very strange and idiosyncratic.

• 27:11Andy Greenwald?

  But you also like the first Modest Mouse record better than the one with Flo Don on it?

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  See, look at your face.

• 27:17Chris Ryan?

  Well, are you talking about?

• 27:18Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying.

• 27:19Chris Ryan?

  Are you talking about?

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  This is activating our indie heads.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like I think that, but I eventually was like, yes, everybody should love this. You know what I mean?

• 27:28Andy Greenwald?

  Is that famously what you were saying when you were partying?

• 27:33Andy Greenwald?

  Chuck was like, you want to watch football tomorrow? And you were like, no, I must spread the gospel of Isaac Brock. Interstate eight is good.

• 27:40Chris Ryan?

  It is good. It is better than.

• 27:41Andy Greenwald?

  Good news for people, bad news is fine too. That was you. We had a lot of fun, Kai. You missed it. It was great stuff.

• 27:47Chris Ryan?

  I had to stop down because I had to do five factor authentication to get back into my own computer. But let me just say, I did watch the first industry episode and without giving anything away.

• 27:58Andy Greenwald?

  Let's go.

• 27:58Chris Ryan?

  They're fucking.

• 27:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we're, we're so back. I'm not pouring water on that.

• 28:02Chris Ryan?

  It's hibachi time.

• 28:03Andy Greenwald?

  Let's go.

• 28:04Chris Ryan?

  Let's throw it up. Let's make an onion volcano. You know what I mean?

• 28:07Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, got it.

• 28:08Chris Ryan?

  Like it's, it's steaming. You know what I'm saying?

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  Like all classic volcanoes.

• 28:14Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm talking about Benihana.

• 28:16Andy Greenwald?

  No, I get it now, but then you said volcano. And I was like, the people of Pompeii were like, be careful, there's steam emerging.

• 28:22Chris Ryan?

  Got a lot of historical references today.

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'm trying to take the long view of what's going on in our world.

• 28:29Chris Ryan?

  That's true. Industry will obviously be hitting that really.

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• 28:53Chris Ryan?

  Energy and get after it.

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• 30:25Chris Ryan?

  Hard on Monday. Let's talk about the pit, which we delayed the release of this episode today to catch the premiere of Pit Season 2, The Pit Season 2. Pit to its friends, though. You know what I mean?

• 30:38Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 30:38Chris Ryan?

  If you've been down as long as us, you can just call it Pit.

• 30:41Andy Greenwald?

  We can call it Pit, but our new attending wants to change that.

• 30:45Chris Ryan?

  Right. Let's talk a little bit about some new faces, but first let's talk about the old faces. Robbie's back. Langdon's there. He's making amends. I'd like to know a little bit more about that process. Dana is trying to quit smoking, but she is still working at the hospital. She's still working.

• 31:01Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think she should not be allowed because she's still working on quitting smoking? You said that in a way that was like despite her personal.

• 31:07Chris Ryan?

  Given the way the pit usually goes, I bet by the end of the day, she's gonna have a couple heaters.

• 31:11Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah. She's earned them.

• 31:14Chris Ryan?

  Santos is trying to get promoted. Mel seems a little.

• 31:19Andy Greenwald?

  Well, she's

• 31:20Chris Ryan?

  Wistful.

• 31:20Andy Greenwald?

  She's worried about malpractice.

• 31:22Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's right. She's worried about malpractice. And Whitaker is trying to teach the new Whitakers. As far as patients, we got a guy with a busted wrist with some cognitive problems.

• 31:31Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:32Chris Ryan?

  Uh, there's a, a young girl with a lot of bruises. There is an abandoned baby.

• 31:39Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 31:40Chris Ryan?

  And a coterie of, of older, older people.

• 31:43Andy Greenwald?

  You weren't moved by the old lady who eats 12 weed cookies a day?

• 31:47Chris Ryan?

  I thought that was cute. And I recognized that actress, um, but I couldn't, couldn't find the name. Um.

• 31:52Andy Greenwald?

  It looked like, was it Lois Smith?

• 31:54Chris Ryan?

  It might've been, actually.

• 31:55Andy Greenwald?

  I think it was Lo- if it's Lois Smith, she's still acting at 95. She should have all the cookies she wants.

• 31:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not sure if that was her.

• 32:01Chris Ryan?

  It's great to be back. It is great to be back. I think that the very thing that I thought was very smart about this episode is, is the only thing that anyone will have to say where it's like, huh? Which is that they took the temperature down. Last season ended in such a sort of absolutely like viscerally ragged place.

• 32:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Chris Ryan?

  After a mass casualty event in Pittsburgh where the hospital becomes the like, the, the main hub of, of treatment.

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  And there's now memorial to that.

• 32:32Chris Ryan?

  And there is a memorial to that. So to start, what is it now? I guess.

• 32:37Andy Greenwald?

  About 10 months later.

• 32:38Chris Ryan?

  10 months later, uh, and to start at a much more calm, much more like, hey.

• 32:43Andy Greenwald?

  7 a.m.

• 32:44Chris Ryan?

  Punching in 7 a.m. There's nothing, it was a quiet night last night. There's nothing big going on. Cause remember the show started with an outrageous, uh, accident, subway accident. Um, so there was very.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  Debraded. Uh, do you want to talk about that? You seem like you don't.

• 33:01Chris Ryan?

  I don't like the, the term debrading at all. I don't, do you?

• 33:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I live in a household where I'm constantly mocked for not being able to braid hair.

• 33:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 33:11Andy Greenwald?

  So I know it's not the same thing, but I always think fondly of my children.

• 33:15Chris Ryan?

  When you're.

• 33:15Andy Greenwald?

  When I'm watching the pit season one. Yeah.

• 33:19Chris Ryan?

  Uh, what did you think of this first episode?

• 33:21Andy Greenwald?

  We talked about it, uh, at length during season one. We talked about it during the brief offseason, what a gift it was to have, A, have the show in our lives generally, but B, have a show that was back to, back to the way things used to be.

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:33Andy Greenwald?

  And, and on a yearly schedule. And I gotta say, my internal clock was off.

• 33:38Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:39Andy Greenwald?

  Because when I fired up episode 201, I was like, seems fast. Seems sudden to be back here.

• 33:46Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 33:46Andy Greenwald?

  At first. Um, I also felt in a real way, and again, this is, I don't mean this necessarily critically, but when the season opened with, uh, Dr. Robbie riding a motorcycle helmetless through the streets of Pittsburgh, while sort of like an anonymous, sludgy.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  Gin Blossoms-y.

• 34:05Andy Greenwald?

  All-rock song played. I was like, broadcast, we are so back, baby. And we would be ripping this. Like, this was corny as fuck as an opening.

• 34:14Chris Ryan?

  Well.

• 34:14Andy Greenwald?

  It was.

• 34:15Chris Ryan?

  I mean, he's a guy riding a motorcycle to work. What do you want?

• 34:17Andy Greenwald?

  I want him to wear a helmet, first of all. No. I think it's telling us something about his.

• 34:21Chris Ryan?

  You want Modest Mouse to be playing?

• 34:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. But like, the early shit.

• 34:26Chris Ryan?

  You had your, your chance to watch you do Rivalry with Wolf Parade's revival, and you, and you know, I had to beg you to do that.

• 34:32Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I, I'm capricious. You can't tell what I'm gonna do.

• 34:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay, good.

• 34:35Andy Greenwald?

  Good guessing. Um, no, I just mean, it was, it was a reminder of the, the, the, the strong, I don't mean to use a medical analogy, but the strong bones of this show are definitely from a different era. And the people who are so good at doing this show are also from a different era. Like, this is not a show made by young guns trying to change things, nor should it be.

• 34:58Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 34:59Andy Greenwald?

  But that opening.

• 35:00Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 35:01Andy Greenwald?

  With that song was corny.

• 35:03Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 35:03Andy Greenwald?

  Which was okay for what the show is. It, then going back into it, it did take me a few minutes to remember just the unique alchemy of the old with this slightly juiced up prestige pacing and opportunities to tell deeper stories. Um.

• 35:21Andy Greenwald?

  So it took me a minute, is all I'm saying. Once the show kind of, once everyone was reintroduced and everybody found their rhythm again, I was all the way back. And then when the show, when the episode ended, on a-

• 35:32Chris Ryan?

  Little bit of a cliffhanger.

• 35:33Andy Greenwald?

  Cliffhanger note of like note passing.

• 35:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:36Andy Greenwald?

  I was desperate for more. And I, and I, and I was curious about that because I wonder if, the pit was very popular when it started airing last year. It has grown in popularity exponentially, so-

• 35:46Chris Ryan?

  It is an awards favorite, like, and-

• 35:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's gonna win this weekend, I think, at the Golden Globes. I don't know the numbers, HBO does. What percentage of the pit fans watched it initially and how many have binged it since?

• 35:59Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 35:59Andy Greenwald?

  And if it's going to take some adjustment for people to be like, to slow down again.

• 36:03Chris Ryan?

  It definitely took me an adjustment. So in the last few minutes, basically like, you know, for guys, if you've watched this show, the episode, and you're listening to us, you know that there is a plot point where this is Robbie's last day before he goes on a sabbatical to the Badlands.

• 36:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that sounded like a very CR-coded sabbatical.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  Well, I had, I've actually been thinking about how I'm running out of time to drive across America. Something I've never done before.

• 36:29Andy Greenwald?

  Running out of time because we're not gonna be free to move in the country anymore?

• 36:32Chris Ryan?

  I don't really feel like my body, I'm sure I could do it, but like, I feel like, both in terms of like my energy levels and my like, physical fitness and like, my ability to be in a car for six to 10 days. I just haven't, I haven't done a significant road trip since high school.

• 36:51Andy Greenwald?

  That's interesting. Yeah, I, I did drive across the country once, about 20 years ago, but that was like, pre-podcast.

• 36:58Chris Ryan?

  Did you like it?

• 36:58Andy Greenwald?

  Imagine. I liked the places that I saw and like, the connective tissue of like, oh man, it just looks like this for seven hours and then there's Salt Lake City or whatever. But even 20 years ago, this, I was like, well, we could stop at this subway or we could drive 15 more miles to another subway and get a sandwich. Like, I didn't really get-

• 37:18Chris Ryan?

  But you didn't have a eater back then. Like, you could find the, the Max and Helens of North Dakota.

• 37:24Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, I had, there was road food and there was chowhound.com. Oh, I was on the boards, homie.

• 37:30Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, it was just like, do you want to get scrapple here? Or eggs? It was not that thrilling.

• 37:34Chris Ryan?

  Buttermilk channel does it again.

• 37:37Andy Greenwald?

  That was fucking you, dude. You're like, you mean the restaurant downstairs from your apartment?

• 37:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Andy Greenwald?

  Can't hope if I'm lucky. Proximity is king.

• 37:49Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's, it, I liked the, the places, but the in-between, it wasn't exactly like the road trips of like, James Crumley novels that we like to read.

• 37:57Chris Ryan?

  Carowack. You were like, ah, trip in the light fantastic here.

• 38:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, or like, you know, going into bars called the Slum Gullion and being like, oh, what's the fried, chicken fried blank of the day, you know? It didn't have that same romance.

• 38:10Chris Ryan?

  You read on the road?

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 38:11Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 38:12Andy Greenwald?

  And I read like Dharma Bums and like all the other ones.

• 38:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Didn't seem, doesn't seem like it.

• 38:18Andy Greenwald?

  It doesn't seem like I read that book.

• 38:19Chris Ryan?

  You don't seem like the kind of guy who's read on the road.

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  I seem like the guy who was like, I'm interested, and then read it and was like, not for me. Not for me. I'd like to stay off the road.

• 38:30Chris Ryan?

  Robbie read on the road. Let me put it that way.

• 38:32Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 38:32Chris Ryan?

  Dr. Robbie has read Carowack and he's on his way to the Badlands to a UNESCO site, hangout, uh, and he's got a replacement. The replacement is, uh, Dr. Ahashimi and it's, uh, she's played by, um,

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  Sepa Demowafi.

• 38:47Chris Ryan?

  From the Deuce. And, uh, she's got some ideas about integrating AI into the, uh, the ER.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  Love it. Let's get more letters in there.

• 38:56Chris Ryan?

  Getting some efficiencies, uh, handled, upping those, those patient scores. And, um,

• 39:03Andy Greenwald?

  Changing the name?

• 39:04Chris Ryan?

  She's a, she's a real big first hundred days person, you know, because she's shadowing Robbie. She's there before him.

• 39:12Andy Greenwald?

  She's a disruptor.

• 39:13Chris Ryan?

  Calling meetings and she's implementing all of these new philosophies, all these new, you know?

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  She learned about AI from her time at the VA and she wants to bring it to the ER.

• 39:22Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 39:23Andy Greenwald?

  And Robbie's like, NO.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  Clip that, cowards.

• 39:31Andy Greenwald?

  Come on. Say your next thing. Let's go.

• 39:34Chris Ryan?

  Just get with your relationship to being clipped. It's just the funniest thing. It's just like this thing that you hate so much, but you clearly want it to happen five times per show.

• 39:45Andy Greenwald?

  I don't want it to happen. I want to control it. I want it to happen not at all.

• 39:50Chris Ryan?

  So you want to, you want to sit with Kai after this and, and go through the footage and be like, clip that. I look amazing there. For hours. Yeah.

• 40:01Andy Greenwald?

  Like broadcast news.

• 40:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 40:04Chris Ryan?

  I don't even remember where I was going with this.

• 40:05Andy Greenwald?

  Dr. Hashimi's arrival.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  This is part of Andy's strategy because I don't want to go for the obvious one. So every time he says clip that, I'm like, all right, I'm not going to clip that.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly. So then it's just you on a podcast and there's somebody who's blissfully still listening to us on audio somewhere. There's like, why is this show sucked now?

• 40:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's fine. I'm willing to take that risk.

• 40:25Andy Greenwald?

  This is light work for me. Come on.

• 40:28Chris Ryan?

  I've completely forgot my point.

• 40:29Andy Greenwald?

  You had a point about Dr. Hashimi's radical ideas about the first hundred days and how it's being received by the rank and file.

• 40:36Chris Ryan?

  She winds up being, you know, so she's mildly frustrating to the folks in the ER because she's got like this new stuff going on. But then they bring her into the fold by putting her square in the middle of this cliffhanger at the end of the episode. And I just wanted to ask you your read on that. So there's a, a baby is abandoned in the bathroom of the waiting room. They bring said child back into the ER to do some examinations. It's her, it's Donnie. Is that the guy, the nurse's name?

• 41:09Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 41:10Chris Ryan?

  What's the nurse's name?

• 41:11Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, but it's not that.

• 41:13Chris Ryan?

  There's two nurses and.

• 41:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's a tall guy with a earring. Love that guy.

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then the other guy who's also got a newborn.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 41:21Chris Ryan?

  And they're like,

• 41:22Andy Greenwald?

  We'll get their names by episode nine, I promise.

• 41:24Chris Ryan?

  This baby seems okay. And then there's like a piece of paper.

• 41:28Andy Greenwald?

  They get a quick, like it's the initial

• 41:31Chris Ryan?

  Results.

• 41:32Andy Greenwald?

  Of some scam?

• 41:33Chris Ryan?

  I guess. Like, it's a little bit confusing and she's just like, oh shit. But then it's unexplained, like what's wrong with the baby, why Ashimi's having this reaction more so than the, her corresponding doctors or counterparts? And that is the fucking magic of this show. But I agree with you. I wanted to smash the next episode button. You know what I mean?

• 41:56Andy Greenwald?

  I did.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  I, you did. You did do that?

• 41:58Andy Greenwald?

  No, I wanted to.

• 41:59Chris Ryan?

  And I resisted because we do have screeners, but we're trying to watch it along because I want to create the experience that viewers are having and understand like the frustrations and or elation that you would have if you were waiting a week to watch the show. So I don't want to go ahead and find out that baby's a robot, you know, like.

• 42:14Andy Greenwald?

  In a way, it was.

• 42:15Chris Ryan?

  But if the baby was a robot, I bet Al Ashimi would be like, that's dope, AI.

• 42:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's great. Do you think that she made a fake baby to Tesla?

• 42:25Andy Greenwald?

  She brought, she flooded the ER with replicants? And the challenge is to determine.

• 42:30Chris Ryan?

  I think that is Warner IP.

• 42:33Andy Greenwald?

  Blade Runner?

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think that is where everything's going. That would be all right. Um. I think that we're harping on it because in the, in contemporary television, there's a choice to be made. Do you do a super dramatic cliffhanger? Which is part of the algorithmic strategy of the more dedicated binge drop streamers like Netflix, like that's what you do. Like if, if and when you get notes from those places, they are almost entirely about the first few minutes and the last minute.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 43:04Andy Greenwald?

  Or you see a show like, I mean, like Task had big moments at the end of the episodes, but they are contoured in a way that doesn't, I don't, I almost don't know how to describe it, but they feel more sculpted and more considered. So it is not a drop you off. It's not, you're not dropped off the cliff and you're hanging.

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  You are in a, you are perched on the precipice of something. It's a classier kind of cliffhanger. This one felt a little bit e- either or.

• 43:28Chris Ryan?

  Well, I wonder whether or not, because traditionally.

• 43:33Chris Ryan?

  That's not how medical procedurals necessarily have worked historically.

• 43:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, Doctor House would be like, it's lupus, and then they'd all hug.

• 43:39Chris Ryan?

  Those last five minutes are, well, we've made it through another crazy day here. And instead, this is just the beginning. So for as traditional as the pit might be, and for as much as it might be playing from sheet music that's 20, 30, 40 years old at this point, I think it actually does have that little bit of that, like, we want people to stay engaged with this and want to watch the next, feel desperate to watch the next episode.

• 44:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, so let's talk about that. I think that's an interesting framing for this episode and the show in general, which is what's new and what's tried and true. I definitely, and I texted you this when I was watching it, like, I was wondering how many musical notes are there in the hymnbook? Because it's like, okay, well, some of these cases feel familiar. The new lost lamb nurse, as opposed to a resident this season, the new hardass coming in and shadowing and disrupting how Robbie likes to do things. Like, these are not, this is not reinventing any kind of wheel. But the creators and showrunners of the show, which include Noah Wiley and R. Scott Gemmell,

• 44:44Andy Greenwald?

  and they are very nimble, I think, in subtle ways, like, bringing in, starting in the morning so we can have that little aftertaste of the night shift, my guy, Dr. Shen.

• 44:56Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 44:57Andy Greenwald?

  The other charge nurse who works with Dana, whose name I'm blanking on as well. But like, you can continue to build this larger sense of a world, of a community, of a cast. The other thing that shows, and tell me if I'm wrong, if you remember any big examples of this, but the other thing that I don't really remember House, MD, or ER, these shows being able to do, would be have recurring patients on the rhythm of like, a Louis. Like, Louis, it was a memorable character.

• 45:23Chris Ryan?

  I think ER did have some stuff like that, if I remember correctly. I can't think of an example, but for the most part, in my, I haven't watched Grey's in a while, but like, Grey's would typically wrap up, unless it was a special, like, it's that Jeffrey Dean Morgan guy who's on for like, six weeks or whatever, Denny.

• 45:45Andy Greenwald?

  He made a big impact.

• 45:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like, otherwise, it would be like...

• 45:49Andy Greenwald?

  Didn't they get married in heaven or something?

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think she marries, she has sex with his ghost.

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  There you go.

• 45:56Chris Ryan?

  Doesn't she?

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah.

• 45:59Andy Greenwald?

  Just stare at me until I believe you.

• 46:01Chris Ryan?

  That's like, that's chasing cars, right?

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Andy Greenwald?

  She has, she has sex with his ghost?

• 46:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  And then she has a mental break.

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Andy Greenwald?

  Kai was quick to jump in on the question, did he, she have sex with a ghost?

• 46:15Chris Ryan?

  Well, because it's a faith.

• 46:16Andy Greenwald?

  Last week, I'm like, what's etiquette in the room service menu?

• 46:18Speaker 03

  I have faith in Shonda Rhimes. I don't have faith in Taylor Sheridan.

• 46:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's fair. I just feel like a double standard.

• 46:23Chris Ryan?

  Um, yeah, to your point, though, yes, I do think that one of it, the idea of rolling slowly out, like, and this is like, look, I didn't re-watch The Pit season one, but one of the sort of great miracles of that show was the prolonged exposure to the brother and sister who were working through saying goodbye to their older father, you know what I mean?

• 46:45Andy Greenwald?

  Longer and not knowing which case will linger and which one won't.

• 46:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and if you want, if you want to do that in one episode of VR, I think you would have a 60% as effective a feeling at the end of that storyline if you stretch it across four hours, which is probably like, you know, as far as you can take that without really punishing people.

• 47:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  It just hits much harder and it winds up being a much more effective storytelling device. So I still think, I, I understand what you're saying where you're like, you're getting back into it and you're like, okay, like, I, I'm, I'm feeling my way through it, but they've got to lightly the groundwork for an episode five when something happens significantly.

• 47:22Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. I, I also think that, I'll say we, but really I'll just say that I need to do this, is recalibrate. This is, this is, for all the things we're saying about how familiar The Pit is in its, in its delivery system and the, the pleasure that it gives us, it, it is unique because the first season was so thrilling and the experience of watching was so thrilling, but the charge of the show is we're just going to do it again on a different day.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and I think that that's what you're also responding to is that like, I think they did a really good job of subtle differences in the characters who were returning after 10 months.

• 47:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 47:56Chris Ryan?

  Santos is not. As annoying, you know, like she's not.

• 48:00Andy Greenwald?

  No, she, she, the banter is, is kind.

• 48:03Chris Ryan?

  It's the kind of banter you would have where she's like, this is my personality, but we've obviously spent.

• 48:07Andy Greenwald?

  We've been through.

• 48:08Chris Ryan?

  More time together, and so I'm not going to absolutely bust your balls. Whitaker is now something of a leader within the ER. Mel is now no longer like maybe perfect every single day and completely focused on the task at hand. She's got things that are distracting her. So I thought it was really nice. It, it obviously ramps up a level in the last five minutes and, and, you know, we're, we're completely sold on this show. So it's just, we're just waiting a week to find out what's going on with this baby.

• 48:35Andy Greenwald?

  Interesting that they didn't, they, they held back the Sean Hattie card. Dr. Jack Abbott, he won, he won an Emmy for his brief appearance on the show. I think he is main cast second season, so curious about how he'll fit into it. I, I, I noted with interest that apparently it is, it is a known medical description that a heart in distress is a quivering bag of worms.

• 49:01Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know that.

• 49:02Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, did you learn from the show or were you?

• 49:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I have to admit, I watched this show in the morning and over breakfast.

• 49:09Andy Greenwald?

  Interesting. So you had a quivering bag of worms in your bowl?

• 49:12Chris Ryan?

  I usually don't get queasy at, at that stuff.

• 49:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Chris Ryan?

  And I think it's more of a like, maybe a nighttime show for me now that I think about it.

• 49:20Andy Greenwald?

  Just fall asleep thinking about how they were like, move his lungs horizontally to see if his heart.

• 49:26Chris Ryan?

  She's like, you'll tear the lung off and he's like, do it slowly.

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do it more slowly, but also like they have cut, you know, I'm no, I'm no thoracic surgeon, but they have cut the long way. You know how like when you watch how to properly cook a steak videos and they're all like, be sure to cut, you know, the right way with the grain.

• 49:41Chris Ryan?

  Understand what cutting against grain means.

• 49:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they showed you last night.

• 49:44Chris Ryan?

  They're like, you can see the grain. I'm like, I don't see the grain.

• 49:47Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they cut against the grain on that man. They went against the grain on that man.

• 49:51Chris Ryan?

  Are you supposed to cut with the grain or against the grain?

• 49:53Andy Greenwald?

  With.

• 49:53Chris Ryan?

  Steak.

• 49:55Andy Greenwald?

  What are you, what are you doing with the steak?

• 49:56Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I honestly don't really make steak.

• 49:58Andy Greenwald?

  There you go. So it doesn't matter. My point is, my point is they have cut against the grain of this man's body cavity. They have turned his lungs sideways. They have been physically massaging and then electric paddling his heart.

• 50:13Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:14Andy Greenwald?

  At what point, and then they send him upstairs. Can you, the secret episode of the pit should be the team upstairs being like, what the fuck did you just give us? And what am I supposed to do with this? That guy's health journey begins now.

• 50:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean? That guy's in shambles. Shambles.

• 50:35Chris Ryan?

  Um, any other notes?

• 50:38Andy Greenwald?

  I hope that no one ever has to drain my torso. I'm not saying it won't happen, but like that doesn't sound.

• 50:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I cannot believe that the guy who is like, this is bleeding so much, we can't even suction this is alive.

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I don't mean that guy.

• 50:55Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 50:55Andy Greenwald?

  I mean Louis.

• 50:56Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Louis. Yeah, right. Getting tapped. I hate that. I hate that for him and I hate that. I the concept of being tapped. I don't like it.

• 51:03Andy Greenwald?

  No. You've pott all day. You have nothing more to give. Bill taps you all the time.

• 51:09Chris Ryan?

  Langdon, what about that? What about him? How are you feeling about him?

• 51:12Andy Greenwald?

  Uh.

• 51:13Chris Ryan?

  That's obviously Patrick Ball, very good actor and sort of a, I believe a fan fave to some extent in terms of his character. Uh, I, I do believe that there is a road back for people who, you know, maybe have those experiences in the ER. So I'm sure it's true to life. Um, I thought it was effective to have somebody who was such a hard charging, smart ass the first season.

• 51:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Chris Ryan?

  Be a little bit humbled, but also not being psyched about being humbled. You know, like you could tell he's like a little bit frustrated that Robbie's not giving him the time of day.

• 51:52Andy Greenwald?

  Can I give you my one note about him? Cause I, I've come, I, I think he's a clearly a very talented actor. And it's a good character arc and the dynamic, the change in dynamic from the way he was with Robbie in season one to this season.

• 52:02Chris Ryan?

  We're like Butch and Sundance and now we're like, eh.

• 52:03Andy Greenwald?

  It's good.

• 52:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Not sure you should be here.

• 52:06Andy Greenwald?

  I rough him up a little bit. He's too pretty.

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  No, he's been out of the ER. He's been getting some sun. He's been getting, he's getting, getting well.

• 52:11Andy Greenwald?

  He looks the same. He looks complete, looks great. He looks very clean and handsome and fine and like well rested as he did in season one.

• 52:18Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 52:19Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not saying he should have been like long night of the souling, you know, but.

• 52:22Chris Ryan?

  We had the penguin's hat.

• 52:24Andy Greenwald?

  He did, he did have the Penguins hat. So you, do you think-

• 52:26Chris Ryan?

  Maybe he spent his entire rehab getting super into Penguins.

• 52:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is he Columbus-ing hockey because heated rivalry hasn't dropped yet? How do those words work?

• 52:34Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's a really good question. There is a world, these are both HBO Max properties. You know?

• 52:40Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, but the Penguins play, they don't, the Penguins don't play in Major League Hockey.

• 52:43Chris Ryan?

  No. I don't, I'm sure there's a Pittsburgh team in Major League Hockey, but I don't know what they're called and I don't think-

• 52:50Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, we all know they're the Pittsburgh Puffins. Like-

• 52:54Chris Ryan?

  No, it's the New York Admirals. I mean, they would have cool names.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  They would, they would have a, they have a, look, I am not denigrating heated rivalry or its achievement. I'm saying of all the hundred things that Jacob Tierney is the man's name, what he had to do, coming up with plausible wink, wink, we all know what team this is, names was not, I'm guessing it wasn't number one on the list. So usually it's just like-

• 53:14Chris Ryan?

  Well, I have Jacob Tierney right here.

• 53:17Andy Greenwald?

  Jacob Tierney is listening in the car with Patrick J. Adams right now, being like, this son of a bitch gets it wrong again. I'm just saying the names in alt versions where they don't get the rights are usually like one degree removed.

• 53:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 53:29Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 53:29Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I'm just saying-

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  The Philadelphia Falcons.

• 53:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Langdon got super into the Penguins while he was away. Or maybe his character's always been a big, big hockey fan. I don't know.

• 53:37Andy Greenwald?

  You want to comment on it?

• 53:39Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm such a hockey dilettante, you know?

• 53:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, you're, you, you're, 20% of your entertainment now is hockey-based.

• 53:46Chris Ryan?

  Stanley Cup playoffs is, is where I, I fully check in. Flyers have been hot this year, though.

• 53:51Andy Greenwald?

  Rick, Rick-

• 53:52Chris Ryan?

  Tocchet.

• 53:52Andy Greenwald?

  Tocchet.

• 53:52Chris Ryan?

  Remember him?

• 53:53Andy Greenwald?

  I do.

• 53:54Chris Ryan?

  From the playing days?

• 53:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, I remember him from the headlines of the articles I didn't read in the Inquirer days. I was too busy reading Jack Kerouac to get into hockey.

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Should we run through some shows that we're looking forward to in 2026?

• 54:05Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  What a fun episode-

• 54:08Andy Greenwald?

  I think so.

• 54:08Chris Ryan?

  -of this pod.

• 54:09Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think?

• 54:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. This is how I liked the pod.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  Are we gonna air this one?

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't know how much of it, but I organized this list by scraping from a bunch of very useful articles on the internet, including websites like The Play List, Roger Ebert dot com, The Trades, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, all of whom have done their most anticipated lists. Here's the thing with TV is the first quarter of this year, maybe the first half of this year is, is relatively firmly scheduled.

• 54:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Chris Ryan?

  But- More and more now, I am finding scheduling to be fluid when it comes to our streaming networks. Many of these shows, or several of them at least, were filmed like more than a year ago. It's been really interesting to kind of read about the productions of some of these and find like, "Oh, like this has been on the shelf for a hot minute." And I don't know whether that signals like a return to full content coffers for some of these places, whether or not people are trying to be more careful about when they drop stuff and building it up, you know?

• 55:10Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I could speak a little bit to it.

• 55:12Chris Ryan?

  I figured you could.

• 55:12Andy Greenwald?

  I think there are a number of reasons why. I think that there is, as with movies, there are examples of TV shows that are in the can and are quote unquote troubled and have a longer post-production process, or they may order reshoots, or they might not be confident about them and they want to move them out of certain high-volume or high-attention parts of the season. That's certainly true. The other thing, and I don't know how relevant it is for a bunch of the shows that we're talking about, but also like movies, certain shows and certain genres have incredibly long post-production periods due to vis effects.

• 55:46Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 55:48Andy Greenwald?

  Like a show that I worked on last fall, which won't be on TV for another year.

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 55:54Andy Greenwald?

  Then, and then the third part of it is, I think you're bang on, which is like, there is, the coffers are more full.

• 56:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:03Andy Greenwald?

  And there can be some thought about, or more intention about where we want to debut things, how we're going to handle the marketing, where we want it to fall in the run-up to awards, or whatever the case may be. And then the last piece being, all of these streamers in their offices have their entire schedules as they want them through the end of '27.

• 56:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  Plus, what they would like to see in '28.

• 56:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:28Andy Greenwald?

  But it gets kind of wonky.

• 56:30Chris Ryan?

  I also...

• 56:31Andy Greenwald?

  They don't announce, they control when they announce them.

• 56:32Chris Ryan?

  I will say too that... Two of the things that have been most mystifying to me is when shows are chosen to be released, you know, like, like how they decide like that Night of the Seven Kingdoms, Industry, and The Pit will all be on at the same time, rather than spread out over the first three to four months of the year, or whatever it is. And also, like, how Netflix goes about deciding, like, what's a June show versus what's a February show, just because of the amount of stuff that they're putting out. Netflix is the streaming service behind the first show I wanted to talk to you about, and that is All Centers Bleed,

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  which I grabbed this morning. I did not know that this was planned to be a 26 release, but this is the nine-episode adaptation of a writer that you and I both love a lot, a crime writer named S.A. Cosby. And this one stars an actor that we're very into, Sopé Dérissou.

• 57:28Andy Greenwald?

  This is, I'm very excited. I didn't even, I don't know about this.

• 57:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's the, it's, All Centers Bleed is a great noir from Cosby, and it's about a character named Titus Crown.

• 57:41Andy Greenwald?

  Have you read this one? I've not read this one.

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  I have read this one. This is really cool. And he is the first black sheriff in a, like, a southern, small, southern town. And it comes from Joe Robert Cole, who had a lot to do with Black Panther, with the first Black Panther movie. So, very pumped on that. Don't have a release date for it, but it is Netflix, and it's the kind of thing that gets me just, like, fired up to do this podcast, is the prospect of talking about this show.

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  I think this one is further down the line. This was filming in the fall. So I think this, if it is 26, it'll be late 26, but it's definitely one to flag, because that's very exciting.

• 58:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Why don't you grab one off the list that you want to talk about?

• 58:17Andy Greenwald?

  I want to talk about Criminal.

• 58:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Andy Greenwald?

  Which I think was on your list, too. It is an Amazon Prime series, and...

• 58:25Andy Greenwald?

  For those interested in, for people who read comics, they're familiar with this. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, long-running anthology series, which has standalone stories. I'm not going to pretend I've read all of them, but I've read the first two, I think. And Ed Brubaker is just a master of comic writing, but also this is the shit he loves. Like, I think if he was a guest on this podcast, we would have a lot of fun talking about books that we love together. And it's essentially anthology, you could read each of them on their own, but there is a unifying conceit that some of these criminals hang out at the same bar, live in the same city, know each other, have other connections. And what's exciting about the series is not just that Amazon hired Ed Brubaker to adapt

• 59:10Andy Greenwald?

  it and showrun, they also brought on another low-key watch MVP, author Jordan Harper, who wrote the book Everybody Knows that we flipped out about last year as the co-showrunner. Charlie Hunnam, Richard Jenkins, Audrey Arhona, Ryan Bowden, Anna Fleck, Dee Rees.

• 59:33Chris Ryan?

  Directing, yeah.

• 59:35Andy Greenwald?

  This is exciting.

• 59:36Chris Ryan?

  Is this tonally, in terms of the comics, would you compare it to Sin City? Would you say it's more like a comic version of like Dime Store Jim Thompson kind of stuff? Like, is it sort of, okay?

• 59:50Andy Greenwald?

  It's contemporary, like, urban, you know, I think Sin City is correct, but I think that Ed Brubaker's love of this form is very different than Frank Miller's.

• 1:00:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:02Andy Greenwald?

  Frank Miller's is very Catholic, like, good and evil.

• 1:00:05Chris Ryan?

  And almost like mythological level, like, he mythologizes archetypes within noir stories.

• 1:00:12Andy Greenwald?

  Ed Brubaker knows a good yarn in a different way. So I don't know, I mean, I can't speak to like how they adapted it or what they took from, but I just think it sounds like a cool series we're gonna like.

• 1:00:21Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I will shout out, uh, The Terror, Devil in Silver.

• 1:00:25Andy Greenwald?

  Another The Terror.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so this is gonna be on AMC, uh, starring Dan Stevens, Maren Ireland, who's one of my favorite performers, um, Juth Light, CCH Pounder, and Steven Root. And I think you could make an argument that this is one of the more reliable anthology series of the last, what, what's it been, 15 years since the, the first Terror came out?

• 1:00:47Andy Greenwald?

  Ten-ish.

• 1:00:47Chris Ryan?

  There's only been a couple of them, so it's not like, uh, there's a, there's a ton, but this one is set in a psych hospital and, um, is based, it's an adaptation of a Victor Lavelle novel. I'm very excited by this, not only because of the cast, not only because of the setting, and not only because of the pedigree of this series in the first place. Christopher Cantwell, who did, uh,

• 1:01:09Andy Greenwald?

  Halton, he was, when he was, he and his then writing partner, uh, did Halton Catch Fire.

• 1:01:14Chris Ryan?

  Right. He is, uh, sort of showrunning this and, uh, Corinne Kusama is doing the, uh, is directing a bunch of the episodes, and she's an incredible horror director, director, full stop. So, very excited for this. Uh, AMC largely in the, the vampire business right now, but it's cool to see like, and, you know, a show like this pop up.

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of books we read in high school, do you want to talk about East of Eden?

• 1:01:40Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about East of Eden. I didn't read that in high school. I read that last year.

• 1:01:43Andy Greenwald?

  Did you really?

• 1:01:44Chris Ryan?

  Twenty-four. Yeah.

• 1:01:45Andy Greenwald?

  Good for you. So it's more front of mind for you?

• 1:01:48Chris Ryan?

  I guess, yeah. I mean, I had never read Steinbeck. I, it was just a blank spot for me, so I decided to...

• 1:01:54Andy Greenwald?

  I would, I was, I wrote a lot. I like Travels with Charlie. I was like, oh, I'm gonna discover America. Tortilla Flats.

• 1:02:00Chris Ryan?

  The Interstate Eight.

• 1:02:01Andy Greenwald?

  Hell yeah.

• 1:02:01Chris Ryan?

  Of John Steinbeck.

• 1:02:03Andy Greenwald?

  If there's one thing I love doing, it's reading about traveling through the heartland of America.

• 1:02:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:08Andy Greenwald?

  If there's one thing I don't like doing, it's that.

• 1:02:10Chris Ryan?

  It's that. Uh, Zoe Kazan, uh, adapted this, uh, for Netflix. Uh, a friend of the pod, Tracy Letts, is in this, as well as Florence Pugh, um, the...

• 1:02:23Andy Greenwald?

  Christopher Abbott?

• 1:02:23Chris Ryan?

  Christopher Abbott. The big role, the, the James Dean role, Cal Trask, is played by a, uh, a newcomer, right? Joseph Zarda.

• 1:02:32Andy Greenwald?

  Zada?

• 1:02:33Chris Ryan?

  Zada. Um, and...

• 1:02:37Chris Ryan?

  I I am thrilled that this is happening. I think um I'll be curious to see whether or not the expansive nature of Steinbeck's novel, the epic and very biblically tinged story of of these two brothers in in the Central Valley translates to some of the Netflix-y Yes. next episode, binge-y, I can't wait to hit another one. Now, look, like, they've put up really, really, really, really good shit every year. Adolescents, Ripley, like, shows that are routinely at the top. East of Eden is a different beast.

• 1:03:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I think that this is what makes this so interesting to me. It's not, everything about this feels like such an odd bet, because I think it's a passion project for Zoe Kazan. It was shopped, it was developed, it was moving around.

• 1:03:28Chris Ryan?

  Wasn't it Apple for a while?

• 1:03:29Andy Greenwald?

  It's been, it's moved, I think, I think it did, I don't know if it was Apple, but I know that it moved homes. They shot this over a year ago in New Zealand.

• 1:03:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:40Andy Greenwald?

  It's a big, big, big swing. And, you know, with something like Netflix, like, can they use their platform to be like, we are showing you greatness because we can fund it and we can put it in front of a lot of people? Or are they like, we took, we took a swing and we're not really going to promote it that much and maybe it didn't work well? Or the third version is, you know, is it, is it Netflixized?

• 1:04:01Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  Are they?

• 1:04:02Chris Ryan?

  I don't think, there's not really, I mean, there's a couple of gasp moments in East of Eden.

• 1:04:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Chris Ryan?

  But I don't know if there's nine of them.

• 1:04:12Andy Greenwald?

  No, but like, probably midway through, when Professor X and Magneto play chess one last time.

• 1:04:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Andy Greenwald?

  Cal Trask will return.

• 1:04:19Chris Ryan?

  And Cyclops's glasses.

• 1:04:20Andy Greenwald?

  In Doomsday.

• 1:04:20Chris Ryan?

  He's like, oh! Yeah, we haven't talked about those. I can tell you're getting hyped, you're back.

• 1:04:26Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not.

• 1:04:27Chris Ryan?

  You're back. Yeah, I can tell.

• 1:04:29Andy Greenwald?

  I like that one.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  You are fucking living for the MCU. That's you.

• 1:04:33Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I think they might be fumbling the bag a little bit. I think they may, like...

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Andy Greenwald?

  They showed that X-Men trailer and everyone was like, that's sick, that's my Cyclops.

• 1:04:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Andy Greenwald?

  And then the next trailer was like, The Thing meets Namor. Everyone's like, that's nice.

• 1:04:52Andy Greenwald?

  I was familiar with their game. Anyway.

• 1:04:54Chris Ryan?

  It's so confusing how you switch back and forth between what you think and what everyone thinks.

• 1:05:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's how you can't pin me down.

• 1:05:02Chris Ryan?

  I know, but you're like, everybody's like Namor's, like, I don't know, it sounds like you have a Namor problem.

• 1:05:08Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Well, you think that's not my Namor, but that is my Cyclops.

• 1:05:14Andy Greenwald?

  He's named Namor because no amor. Remember that?

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  No, I don't. What's that in?

• 1:05:21Andy Greenwald?

  World of Wakanda or whatever, Black Panther 2.

• 1:05:23Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I forgot.

• 1:05:25Andy Greenwald?

  I know.

• 1:05:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  And Ryan Googler's like, I am this generation's true artist. I have made a movie on my own terms and I will win Oscars and I've made so much money. And now I shall return to.

• 1:05:35Chris Ryan?

  To Black Panther 3, yeah.

• 1:05:36Andy Greenwald?

  All right. So, but I want to, I want to double down on your point about what Netflix's big mini-series strategy is because this year we'll have, it's not just East of Eden from our high school, sorry, my high school curriculum, but also Pride and Prejudice.

• 1:05:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:05:50Andy Greenwald?

  Which is.

• 1:05:51Chris Ryan?

  With Emma Corrin, right?

• 1:05:52Andy Greenwald?

  With Emma, the cast is wild. This is a Dolly Alderton adapted a version of the novel and it's going to be a mini-series. I'm not clear how many.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  I'm extremely hyped.

• 1:06:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I want to, okay.

• 1:06:02Chris Ryan?

  Yo, Kai from the back row.

• 1:06:05Andy Greenwald?

  Let me name some names here and then let's bring Kai in on this because the cast is sick. Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet, Jack Loudon as Darcy, Olivia Colman as Mrs. Bennet.

• 1:06:18Andy Greenwald?

  Fan favorite in my house, Louis Partridge as George Wickham.

• 1:06:21Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:21Andy Greenwald?

  But here's the thing.

• 1:06:22Chris Ryan?

  That dude's Danny Olivia Rodrigo, right?

• 1:06:24Andy Greenwald?

  Not anymore.

• 1:06:26Chris Ryan?

  Fuck.

• 1:06:26Andy Greenwald?

  Come on it. Kai, I'm bringing you in one second. This is big in my, the thing about this is, so Pride and Prejudice, 2000, the 2005 version with Keira Knightley is my daughter's favorite movie of all time.

• 1:06:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:36Andy Greenwald?

  Like, once a week, we're watching this movie. Not me. Once a week, she's watching this movie.

• 1:06:42Andy Greenwald?

  I have tried to, in my continuing attempts to engage her in things that don't involve Killatrav accidentally liking one of our reels, been like, look, there's a new one coming. Isn't that interesting? And also I like these actors. And there's a lot of skepticism in my house because the, the bar is really high because of the previous movie, but. Also, she doesn't think Jack Loudon is, quote, "hot enough."

• 1:07:05Chris Ryan?

  Wait, what say you?

• 1:07:06Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna tell us about your interest level in this. Is it, are we looking for a TV series?

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  I just love Dolly Alderton. I love all of her books. And so I'm really, I think this is her first foray into television writing. And so I'm very intrigued. And I love Olivia Colman in all things and Emma Corrin. And Jack Loudon, he's cute. I think we can get him there.

• 1:07:29Chris Ryan?

  For Darcy?

• 1:07:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Andy Greenwald?

  Because he's not supposed to like, because Matthew McFadden isn't like, he's a handsome man and a good actor, but like, that's part of Darcy.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  It's supposed to be a slow burn.

• 1:07:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like The Pit, season two.

• 1:07:43Andy Greenwald?

  A slow burn.

• 1:07:43Chris Ryan?

  Slowly building up.

• 1:07:44Andy Greenwald?

  I just also want to say, I am pro this series and I am pro Dolly Alderton, English writer who I've never read any of her works. But I am now especially a fan because on her Wikipedia page, can I just share with you her personal life? This is a personal life entry of an established and successful British writer. Food is one of her principal interests. She has named spaghetti vongole as her preferred last meal.

• 1:08:09Chris Ryan?

  Wow, really?

• 1:08:10Andy Greenwald?

  And is passionate about pickling and vinegar.

• 1:08:14Chris Ryan?

  Do you like spaghetti vongole?

• 1:08:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. We went out to, am I passionate about it? We went out to our buddy Tyler's birthday dinner.

• 1:08:21Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh. And I saw you.

• 1:08:23Andy Greenwald?

  And that's what I ordered.

• 1:08:24Chris Ryan?

  And you did not like that dish.

• 1:08:26Andy Greenwald?

  It was awful.

• 1:08:27Chris Ryan?

  What I don't like doing is order, what is your attitude about ordering meals at restaurants that you know have a high veridence in quality?

• 1:08:35Andy Greenwald?

  I figured we were at a beloved and established Los Angeles Italian restaurant.

• 1:08:42Chris Ryan?

  Trattoria.

• 1:08:42Andy Greenwald?

  Nope.

• 1:08:45Andy Greenwald?

  Spaghetti House, let's say. And I was like, I feel safe here because of the volume. Like, how many people come here that like the classics? Including like the classic that you got, and you got the chicken parm. I was like, you can get like, I'm ordering the same dish that I would get like at the Italian restaurant in Wiltshire PA when I visited my grandparents.

• 1:09:03Chris Ryan?

  I felt like I was in the Italian version of Deadwood. There was like, whatever that protein was, there was not very much of it. And it felt like I got like the last cut. You know what I mean? It was tough. But I like to, at restaurants, you know, some people are like, don't order the chicken. You know, that's boring. I find chicken actually quite reliable at restaurants and interesting. Cause I think there's so many different preparations. For spaghetti vongole, like honestly, sometimes I'm just like, I'm not rolling the dice tonight.

• 1:09:29Andy Greenwald?

  With the clams.

• 1:09:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Andy Greenwald?

  I also don't think, and kind of, again, feel free to jump in here about your girl Dolly Aldrich.

• 1:09:36Andy Greenwald?

  I, that's a, to me, when done well, it's a perfect dish, but I don't know if that's my last meal. Cause you gotta get the, you got the shells and you're just.

• 1:09:42Chris Ryan?

  Do you have a last meal?

• 1:09:44Andy Greenwald?

  I think I just, I probably had it this morning at this rate.

• 1:09:48Andy Greenwald?

  I hate the yogurt that Amanda gave us.

• 1:09:50Chris Ryan?

  Did you really?

• 1:09:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Chris Ryan?

  No wonder you feel so jacked on protein right now. I am also looking forward to Pride and Prejudice. I'm also looking forward to, you know what I'm gonna open a little space in my heart for? Blade Runner 2099.

• 1:10:02Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 1:10:03Chris Ryan?

  From Amazon.

• 1:10:03Andy Greenwald?

  You're willing to give this a shot?

• 1:10:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know what? I fucking love Blade Runner. I think, I think I didn't really think about this that much about my, my relationship to that world.

• 1:10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Chris Ryan?

  But those are two awesome movies.

• 1:10:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:10:16Chris Ryan?

  Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049.

• 1:10:18Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 1:10:18Chris Ryan?

  There's been some really interesting animated stuff done around it, I believe. But this is the first real effort to expand the universe on TV.

• 1:10:28Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:10:29Chris Ryan?

  Scott Free is involved, so that means there's some tangential Ridley Scott relationship. But for me, it's the, the cast. It's Michelle Yeoh, Hunter Schafer, and our boy Tom Burke.

• 1:10:41Andy Greenwald?

  Tom Burke is.

• 1:10:41Chris Ryan?

  And Tom Burke was like, this show is way more first Blade Runner vibes than 2049. And I'm, I'm curious.

• 1:10:51Andy Greenwald?

  Tom Burke is low-key British him. That guy's a really good actor. He hasn't really had that part.

• 1:10:55Chris Ryan?

  It's actually spelled T H O M Burke, and the H is for him. And it's not only silent, it's invisible, it's not in there. You know what I mean?

• 1:11:04Andy Greenwald?

  I love that for him.

• 1:11:06Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to take an opportunity to call maximum bullshit on you, though. Because everything you just said is verbatim why you didn't like Alien Earth. You were like, "I care about this movie franchise. The movies have been pretty good. This is the first opportunity to expand it on TV." And it can go fuck itself. That was more or less what you said.

• 1:11:25Chris Ryan?

  No, I was like, "It can go fuck itself because it's fucking around with the chronology and the timeline and it's like, attitudinally, like it's just like..."

• 1:11:31Andy Greenwald?

  You are willing to take a gamble on the Blade Runner TV show?

• 1:11:34Chris Ryan?

  What are we doing here?

• 1:11:35Andy Greenwald?

  Because chronologically, it is clear that it is 50 years later.

• 1:11:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Andy Greenwald?

  So not Sleepless in Seattle, 18 months later. A full 50 years.

• 1:11:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, I, I, I don't really care about like, how things move forward in the Blade Runner reality. I mean, I'm sure we will experience the Blade Runner reality like any day now.

• 1:11:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Chris Ryan?

  But the Alien thing was way more about, first of all, I liked some episodes of Alien.

• 1:12:00Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:01Chris Ryan?

  But it made me mad as shit that no one really got torn to pieces by aliens other than red shirts in that show. And then also that they were like, "Oh yeah, well, aliens crash landed on Earth way before these other movies." Like, that's not cool.

• 1:12:18Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I agree with that.

• 1:12:20Chris Ryan?

  That's really, Scott did that work, bro. He put David in space looking for them.

• 1:12:25Andy Greenwald?

  Who directed this Blade Runner television show?

• 1:12:28Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think it's got a couple of different helmers.

• 1:12:31Andy Greenwald?

  A couple of different helmers. I don't know. They could mess up the things that you liked about it.

• 1:12:35Chris Ryan?

  You know what? This is the spice of life, is that you and I just sometimes we don't go two thumbs up at the same time.

• 1:12:41Andy Greenwald?

  Alright.

• 1:12:41Chris Ryan?

  Siskel and Siskel wouldn't have been, it's been a good of a show. Um, I'm excited about Beef coming back on Netflix. Uh, this one, uh, is like now it's become kind of an anthology series.

• 1:12:52Andy Greenwald?

  Would they announce April for this?

• 1:12:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Kaylee Spahney. I'm fucking in. Kaya nodding.

• 1:12:59Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see Fickner? Your boy Bill Fickner involved.

• 1:13:02Chris Ryan?

  This is the logline, is a young couple witnessing an alarming fight between their boss and his wife, triggering chess moves of favors and coercion in the elitist world of a country club and its Korean billionaire owner.

• 1:13:14Andy Greenwald?

  That is literally what would have happened if Kaya and Nick had gone to the Spotify party tonight that you told me not to go to.

• 1:13:21Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to, do you want to talk it out?

• 1:13:23Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's but everyone should know that's what's simmering underneath this podcast.

• 1:13:26Chris Ryan?

  No, let's talk it out. It's fine. We're having a goofy little show here. You want to talk it out? You asked me if I was going about six weeks ago.

• 1:13:33Andy Greenwald?

  I'm also eager to watch Beef Season 2, and now we're about to do Beef Season 3.

• 1:13:36Chris Ryan?

  And I said, I'm not. I said, no, I'm not going. And then yesterday, some of my superiors implored me to attend. And I said, who am I to deny them?

• 1:13:47Andy Greenwald?

  You listen to the superiors, but not your your blood brother here.

• 1:13:51Chris Ryan?

  They cut the checks.

• 1:13:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 1:13:52Chris Ryan?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:13:53Andy Greenwald?

  What I didn't appreciate at the time was that this party, and I might not have the specifics correct, I believe Spotify is throwing it to celebrate Golden Globe nominee Kaia.

• 1:14:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes, essentially.

• 1:14:04Andy Greenwald?

  Ahead of the awards. So.

• 1:14:05Chris Ryan?

  But Kaia, you know, and I wonder when when Kai was like, you should come. I don't have anybody to talk to at this thing. I wonder if that's how all celebrities feel. You know, do you think, do you think Shalhoub is like, guy, I wish somebody would just come up to raffing me about the Knicks at the Critics' Choice Awards?

• 1:14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I was just reading about how he met Josh Safdie, where they were both at the same, like, after hours, like, bluefin tuna serving speakeasy, and Josh Safdie went over to him and he would, Timothy Chalamet. It was kind of like actually how we met, where Chalamet and his buddy were like, that's cool, man. We're on mushrooms right now.

• 1:14:37Andy Greenwald?

  So I feel like he's open to conversation.

• 1:14:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, probably right. A couple more?

• 1:14:42Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:14:43Chris Ryan?

  You want to knock them out, or should I? I'll do it.

• 1:14:44Andy Greenwald?

  Go for it.

• 1:14:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I am, in the same way of Hurt Me Again, like Blade Runner, I want to see what happens with this Cape Fear on Apple.

• 1:14:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I couldn't go there.

• 1:14:56Chris Ryan?

  Javier Bardem playing Max Cady, Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as the couple he terrorizes. I don't know how you can improve on the first two iterations of this relatively straightforward story that I don't really know, like, how many different angles there were.

• 1:15:11Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:15:11Chris Ryan?

  And the promise of Cape Fear, not the promise, but the part of the attraction to Cape Fear is the compression. And the nerve wracking thriller aspect.

• 1:15:22Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:22Chris Ryan?

  We doubted that they could do it with Presumed Innocent for one hour. They they made us feel like perhaps they had cracked the code.

• 1:15:28Andy Greenwald?

  But Presumed Innocent S2 not on your list, but I'm checking for it.

• 1:15:31Chris Ryan?

  There you go. So I I am curious about Cape Fear. That'll be on Apple TV. You you obviously are into.

• 1:15:37Andy Greenwald?

  But they're claiming for Cape Fear that that and this is Nick Antoska, uh, who is very good at.

• 1:15:43Chris Ryan?

  Channel Zero, a bunch of other shows, yeah.

• 1:15:45Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, that the inspiration is drawn more from the John D. McDonald's book.

• 1:15:51Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:15:51Andy Greenwald?

  The Executioners.

• 1:15:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:15:53Andy Greenwald?

  I'm here for more faithful John D. McDonald adaptations. That is my political platform and I stand by it.

• 1:15:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I don't know if you could find a more vanilla piece of couples casting than Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams, who I I look forward to discovering, our longtime watch listeners and whose hearts are breaking right now. But I'm I'm pretty good on.

• 1:16:21Chris Ryan?

  I guarantee they're not listening to us.

• 1:16:23Andy Greenwald?

  That is like if, because sometimes you could be like, okay, we'll have like a we'll use some spicy Mortadella, but we'll put it on white bread to tame things. But like, this is a mayonnaise sandwich.

• 1:16:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but they've got the Mortadella with with Paviar.

• 1:16:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 1:16:36Chris Ryan?

  He's gonna be cooking.

• 1:16:37Andy Greenwald?

  That's an Italian sausage. So, you know, he's he's a Spaniard.

• 1:16:41Chris Ryan?

  A couple of other things, just to shout out. Obviously, there's going to be a bunch of returning big shows. Uh, among them, the one I am the most excited for, and I look over to Kyle for for verification here, is Euphoria, season three. I'm fucking back. We're fucking back. Shot in Vista Vision. I think Sharon Stone's in it. Everybody who's in it is like, I don't really know what this show is about, and I just know that I shot my parts.

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  So that's like Gwyneth Paltrow talking about the Spider-Man movie.

• 1:17:07Chris Ryan?

  It kind of is like a Lordy and Sweeney are like, yep, I'm done. Like, I don't know what the deal is here, but it's, you know.

• 1:17:14Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, look.

• 1:17:15Chris Ryan?

  This show is fucking good.

• 1:17:17Andy Greenwald?

  When you give Sam Levinson carte blanche to do it, carte blanche to do whatever he wants.

• 1:17:20Chris Ryan?

  You give him old cameras.

• 1:17:22Andy Greenwald?

  What could go wrong?

• 1:17:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Andy Greenwald?

  Um, is it like Stranger Things where they're like, these 35 year old adults are still in high school?

• 1:17:29Chris Ryan?

  No, they've they've they've aged them up. It's like, it's it's there's gonna be a time jump.

• 1:17:33Andy Greenwald?

  Is there going to be a missing episode, a secret last episode?

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  Sydney Sweeney is has an OnlyFans now, I think.

• 1:17:38Chris Ryan?

  In the show.

• 1:17:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, in the in the show.

• 1:17:40Andy Greenwald?

  Don't don't do Bill like that. Come on.

• 1:17:45Chris Ryan?

  You're the killer today. Euphoria is coming back, House of the Dragon is coming back.

• 1:17:50Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know presumed innocent cast? Do you know the-

• 1:17:52Chris Ryan?

  Brosnan.

• 1:17:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's Brosnan and Matthew Rees, the hardest working man in television.

• 1:17:56Chris Ryan?

  Matthew Rees has like three shows this year.

• 1:17:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible.

• 1:17:57Chris Ryan?

  It's wild.

• 1:17:58Andy Greenwald?

  But he's ready, by the way, to come back on the pod because up until last week, our guy Matthew Rees's Instagram and social media presence was still just his boat tour company.

• 1:18:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:08Andy Greenwald?

  Movable Feast NY. And he'd be like, here I am at the premiere and be like, dude, you're not a boat. You're actor Matthew Rees. Last week he became Matthew Rees. I'm proud of him.

• 1:18:16Chris Ryan?

  Good for him, man.

• 1:18:17Andy Greenwald?

  He's promoting this shit. He's gonna come back on the pod.

• 1:18:19Chris Ryan?

  He is?

• 1:18:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you won't be here.

• 1:18:23Andy Greenwald?

  I just assume he will. He's a great guy.

• 1:18:24Chris Ryan?

  Uh, anything else, anything else? Oh, the show that I'm, oh, I'm really excited about these two new shows. We mentioned a couple of the returning things. Um, Euphoria and House of the Dragon, Beef's coming back. And, um, the two other new shows that I'm really pumped about, Lanterns.

• 1:18:43Andy Greenwald?

  Gotta talk about Lanterns.

• 1:18:44Chris Ryan?

  You talk about Lanterns. Give me like, tell me what's coming here because it's obviously, this is a, uh, DC. Is it, I don't understand how this works anymore. Is it a DC Universe show?

• 1:18:54Andy Greenwald?

  It is. I don't know the degree to which it was, uh, created as one.

• 1:19:01Chris Ryan?

  But it's been connected.

• 1:19:02Andy Greenwald?

  It has been connected. So I, cause I think the genesis of this project predates the gunnecence.

• 1:19:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:19:08Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and it was pitched and, um, greenlit as a very grounded, more, I guess, in the spirit of Penguin, um, show about Green Lanterns. And in the comic books, one of the more interesting angles on a character that can often be cartoonish is that they are space cops. Who doesn't love cops?

• 1:19:28Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:19:29Andy Greenwald?

  So the pitch for the story, and I think that the thing that drew such an impressive, creative troika behind it, it's Chris Mundee off of Ozark, it's Tom King, who is one of the god-tiered genius comic book writers of our time, and our friend Damon Lindelof, was that it was going to take these, um, you know, galaxy-powered superheroes and put them on Earth investigating a crime.

• 1:19:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Andy Greenwald?

  And it's combining two- Two canonical characters, Hal Jordan, played by one of our favorites, one of television's favorites.

• 1:20:00Chris Ryan?

  Kyle Chandler.

• 1:20:01Andy Greenwald?

  Kyle Chandler.

• 1:20:03Andy Greenwald?

  And Jon Stewart, another canonical Green Lantern, in this case, played by up and coming star.

• 1:20:08Chris Ryan?

  Fucking Aaron Pierre, man.

• 1:20:09Andy Greenwald?

  Aaron Pierre.

• 1:20:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Andy Greenwald?

  Also, what's his name?

• 1:20:12Chris Ryan?

  Guy, what's his face?

• 1:20:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:14Chris Ryan?

  Nathan Fillion.

• 1:20:15Andy Greenwald?

  Nathan Fillion is wedged in there as another Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, who is, which he played in the movie. So tonally, very curious how that performance, which was very funny, plays in this universe.

• 1:20:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Andy Greenwald?

  But this is an attempt to broaden the tent of James Gunn's DCU. But they were actively saying, like, this is True Detective, but with Power Rings.

• 1:20:38Chris Ryan?

  I'm very excited for that. And the last one I was gonna shout out was Scarpetta.

• 1:20:42Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:20:43Chris Ryan?

  Just because your parents definitely have Patricia Cornwell novels.

• 1:20:47Andy Greenwald?

  So many of them.

• 1:20:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Scarpetta.

• 1:20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Weren't they all A is for, B is for?

• 1:20:52Chris Ryan?

  Is that her?

• 1:20:53Andy Greenwald?

  I think so. I think so. Now, maybe I'm wrong.

• 1:20:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Scarpetta, Kate Scarpetta.

• 1:20:59Andy Greenwald?

  I'm wrong.

• 1:20:59Chris Ryan?

  Is her fictional forensic pathologist, Mary something?

• 1:21:03Andy Greenwald?

  God, those are the books that were just lining the radiator.

• 1:21:06Chris Ryan?

  There's also like a bunch of mysteries with cats that my mom had.

• 1:21:09Andy Greenwald?

  I remember those.

• 1:21:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:10Andy Greenwald?

  The stacks of, it's a shame our mothers never spoke.

• 1:21:14Chris Ryan?

  None of them are.

• 1:21:15Andy Greenwald?

  Because as Philadelphia City school teachers who loved mass market paperbacks.

• 1:21:21Chris Ryan?

  They would have a lot to chat about.

• 1:21:23Andy Greenwald?

  And had sons who had jobs they don't understand. I think like they really could have bonded.

• 1:21:27Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'm very happy if you're happy.

• 1:21:29Andy Greenwald?

  Are you still doing your radio show?

• 1:21:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Chris Ryan?

  Kate Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist, and she's gonna be played by fucking Nicole Kidman, who just can't stop working.

• 1:21:39Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-mm. Addicted to the grind.

• 1:21:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes, so.

• 1:21:42Andy Greenwald?

  And Liz Sarnoff.

• 1:21:43Chris Ryan?

  Is, who worked on Barry and worked on.

• 1:21:45Andy Greenwald?

  Lost and many great things.

• 1:21:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so I'm excited because of the pedigree, because of Nicole Kidman, and because I love a, I love a forensic pathologist.

• 1:21:54Andy Greenwald?

  Can I throw one out here?

• 1:21:55Chris Ryan?

  In fact, it would be cool if they had a forensic pathologist on the pit.

• 1:21:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, well, that would be the after show. That would be the missing episode where someone comes in and it's like, who the fuck moved this guy's lawn? Why is this shit sideways? This guy had a cold. Come on. Relax. No, I wanted to ask you about the show Vladimir, which I've never heard of. Uh huh. Until I was doing my thimble full of research for this podcast. It's apparently adopted by a book called Vladimir by Julia May Jonas.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Also hyped for this one.

• 1:22:24Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay. So maybe you can explain this to us. The fucking librarian over here. I thought this was like the true story of the birth of Putin. And I was like, I'm gonna watch it. And then I looked at the, the, the credits and it's Rachel Weisz, Leo Woodall, John Slattery. And it's directed by Berman and Pulcini, who did the American Pastoral. Speak of it, Kaya. So what is this?

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  Um, I read this book a couple of years ago, so I might be missing some plot details. But essentially it's a man and a wife who are living on a college campus. They're both college professors. The husband gets into a little something with the student. She decides to stay with him. And then as sort of like, not so much like an act of revenge, but kind of like, well, I'm gonna get mine. She starts kind of obsessing over another younger professor on the campus.

• 1:23:15Andy Greenwald?

  Rachel Weisz or the younger professor? I, look, we love campus shenanigans. This seems, this seems fun. This seems fun. Sharon Horgan, one of the EPs. My old classmate, Miriam Silverman, who I now shout out on this podcast in the cast. She, not to spoil anything, makes a return to Landman this coming weekend. Does she? Yes. I got it. I'm glad because I definitely was like way on front being like, look who's joined this show. Yeah. And then a gas leak happened and I was like, well, I guess that's what's happening this season. They brought her back. Great. Yeah. I've been wondering how Ainsley's doing in her studies. We'll find out this weekend. You clearly already found out. I, I'll be honest with you. I, I can, I almost fired up this week's Landman last night. But the thing is, my obligation to the listeners of this podcast is so great

• 1:24:00Andy Greenwald?

  that I didn't want that many days to elapse. I want the freshness of my takes to be captured. The fresh crude. That sweet crude. I want to, I want to create the absolute worst case scenario for me this weekend in which I watch the Eagles lose on a last second fumble or something to the 49ers and then realize as the light fades in the sky at 3:30 PM or whatever it is, that I have to watch Landman. Like, let's really line up the Nightmare Sunday.

• 1:24:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, God. All right, go Birds.

• 1:24:30Andy Greenwald?

  Go Birds, you want to talk about that?

• 1:24:31Chris Ryan?

  No, just go Birds.

• 1:24:32Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:24:32Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kaia, thanks to Kai, thanks to Andy.

• 1:24:35Andy Greenwald?

  And thanks to the listeners who remembered that we said right before New Year's that we would spend all this week talking about the Pluribus finale.

• 1:24:42Chris Ryan?

  Did we?

• 1:24:43Andy Greenwald?

  We did. We sure did.

• 1:24:46Chris Ryan?

  I don't remember 2025.

• 1:24:48Andy Greenwald?

  We've turned the page.

• 1:24:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you guys get ready for Beef Season 2, dog.

• 1:24:52Andy Greenwald?

  Get ready for our favorite show, Vladimir.

• 1:24:55Chris Ryan?

  Get ready for Industry. We'll be back on Monday to talk about Industry and Landman. And everybody have a great weekend. Go Birds.

• 1:25:10Speaker 00

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