NBA Power Poll 1.0, Plus a ‘You Can See Everything’ Breakdown With Wesley Morris

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons check in on the NBA with a power poll of all the teams. Then, Wesley Morris joins the pod to break down ‘You Can See Everything,’ Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s new documentary. (0:00) Intro (4:22) NBA Power Poll intro (4:51) “The Dregs” (12:36) “Panic Time” (15:35) “Hot Messes” (20:09) “Possible Panic Time” (22:13) “Proof of Life” (30:20) “Contender Crock Pot” (35:29) “Contenders” (42:13) “Favorites” (54:56) ‘You Can See Everything’ breakdown with Wesley Morris Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Wesley Morris Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Download Uber Eats and order now. http://ubereats.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. 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.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary.

• 0:28Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new rewatchables. Yesterday, we did it live on Netflix. We did A Nightmare on Elm Street, one of the best horror movies of all time. It was me and Ben Lathan and Chris Ryan. We argued about whether it was the best horror movie of the 80s. Had an interesting result to that argument. Ben tried to do a hottest take where he defended Freddy Krueger. That was interesting. Really fun podcast all around. That wraps up Horror Movie Month. We did it follows Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was gonna wait until after Brewers Rays World Series Game 4 and then realized that not one person in my life has texted me about this World Series, except for my buddy Chip

• 1:10Bill Simmons?

  Kane, who's a diehard Brewers fan. I just, the Rays had a chance to make people care about this series and then they shit the bed over the weekend. And we are where we are. And it's probably gonna be one of the least remembered World Series in a long time. At least we have the WNBA to make fun of, because the WNBA announced this week that Game 6 is going to be at 12:30 Eastern Time in Atlanta, because they couldn't figure out all the stadium stuff. The Hawks had games, the Warriors had games. And, you know, it's not like they had time to figure this out, because they just found out what the finals was two weeks ago. Oh, wait, they're supposed to have a bunch of contingencies. Atlanta was the four seed? And they were completely blindsided that they were gonna make the finals?

• 1:54Bill Simmons?

  This is the dumbest thing that's probably, even for a league that has gone out of its way, this seems stupid this entire year, and has, I think, made 12 or 13 major decisions this year. And I'm disagreed with all of the decisions, like literally all of them. This is a new low for them. They had a thing. They can't even simulcast Game 6. It's on USA, which is bad enough that they are showing any finals games on USA, but it's on USA. And then, it's being simulcast. It used to be on CNBC for the primetime games, but the market's going on during the day. So now it's on, I think, SyFy, Spike TV, the Playboy Channel. I don't know where it's being simulcast, but this is just a massive embarrassment.

• 2:38Bill Simmons?

  And the commissioner's already announced she's stepping down. Commissioner Kathy, who was singularly terrible down the stretch here. I think she should step down a second time. And I don't know who is gonna be the next commissioner, but I promise they'll be better than Kathy Engelbert was. Just, I just can't believe how dumb this league is. People wanna like this league. People, I don't even care about the finals anymore, and I've cared about this entire season. I've moved on. There's college football, there's NFL, there's NBA. They delayed it with the FIBA. They delayed this final. It started eight days after both teams had clinched and were still going, and they're just driving away their audience. Good luck to everybody. I just can't understand how everybody can

• 3:23Bill Simmons?

  be this incompetent. But anyway, good luck to Atlanta and Golden State in Game 6 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Coming up, I am gonna do a power poll for the first week of the NBA season, and then we're gonna talk to Wesley Morris about You Can See Everything, the new Nathan Fielder movie about Elizabeth Holmes. That is next. We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Power Poll next. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast, presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would, earn points on eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel.

• 4:08Bill Simmons?

  21-plus select states or 18-plus DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 4:45Bill Simmons?

  All right, my first Power Poll of the NBA season. We've only had a week. I'm gonna try not to overreact. We're recording this before Tuesday's games, and the only one that really matters to me for the purposes of the poll is Pistons-Nicks, because I think there would have been lessons from that game, but just gonna have to work on what we had. Going from 30 to 1, separated in categories, and I'm gonna try to zip through this as fast as I possibly can and come up with like one or two takes on each team. First group is called the dregs. It's always called the dregs. And guess what? To nobody's surprise, Sacramento is there as the 30th ranked team. They're 0-3. I, of course, went to Kings Reddit this morning, because it's one of the funniest places on the internet. And the top, if you

• 5:29Bill Simmons?

  do the hot, and that gives you like the hottest posts of the moment, the top post, it was somebody posting, "Amen," just those four letters, to an embedded tweet, and the tweet read, "When I die, bury me in my Sacramento Kings jersey, so God knows, I've already done my time in hell." 789 likes. So there's your Kings season so far. My favorite Kings fact, they're paying $49 million this year to Keegan Murray and Deandre Hunter. $49 million combined. If you combine them and called them Keandre Murter, I guess you just call it Keandre Murder at this point, Keandre Murter, I think that's the worst contract in the

• 6:12Bill Simmons?

  league. Two swing guys, I don't think either guy would play for the Celtics. And the Celtics aren't even one of the top five teams in the league. Kings. Acuff, kinda fun to watch from a League Pass standpoint, but this is as grim as we thought it was gonna be. So they're 30. 29 is Brooklyn, 0-3, playing Boston tonight. I'm gonna flag this now. Michael Porter plays really well against the Celtics. Kinda worried about this game, but Brooklyn's where we thought they were gonna be. They'll trade Porter at some point. They'll start playing rookies. And the good news for them is Houston gets to swap picks with them. Oh no, that's terrible news. So they don't even have their first round pick technically. So we'll see what happens with them. This feels like a trade machine team to me. 28 Milwaukee,

• 6:56Bill Simmons?

  1-3, won last night against Indiana without Zubats. I watched it. I watched basketball was great last night. There was the, I gotta say, the multi-view, NBA.com or whatever the League Pass thing is called, they fixed the multi-view. So now it's just the four games, all, just the four squares, like in NFL. It's wonderful. It's really great. I really appreciated NBA. It made up for all of your terrible co-running of the WNBA that you gave us a full multi-view. But I was watching all the games. There were some really good ones last night, and Milwaukee did beat Indiana. So Milwaukee has Miami's pick, which I guess is the good news here with the way Miami's looked so far. The bad news,

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  Gary Trent's just getting zero-minute games here. This is somebody who stopped playing over the course of last season, who did not look like a rotation player, just in general. And then they gave him the $64 million deal that clearly was about as fishy as that place they would show in Seattle before Seahawks games, when they showed the people throwing the fish. It was about as, that's where the contract should live. They're gonna get punished. They're gonna lose a pick in this. I think everybody in the league is expecting them to lose their first round pick. So we'll see if it has anything to do with this year's pick, because I don't think they would take the Miami pick away, but they might take something away. So, anyway, guess what? Nobody in Milwaukee cares. Like, literally nobody.

• 8:26Bill Simmons?

  The Brewers are about to win the World Series. The Packers look like a playoff team. The Bucks traded Giannis. They got back a bunch of whatevers and some picks from a team that probably isn't that good. And nobody cares. And if you looked at the beginning last night, there was a great screenshot picture, a wide shot of them announcing the starting lineup. Tyler Herro with the hammer. Unclear if he's the worst hammer guy of all the 30 home teams when they announce. It's between, probably between him and Brooklyn. I didn't see who got the hammer with Brooklyn, but whatever it was, probably not the greatest choice ever. They showed the wide shot, and there's just nobody at this game. And that's just

• 9:08Bill Simmons?

  gonna be the Bucks. So congratulations to them. They won the title in 2021, and it's been really, really grim ever since. Number 27, Chicago. Watched them last night. Caleb looks like he's gonna be an easy 22-7 guy this season. Probably on bad teams. That's really all that matters for them this year. I will say, there was one thing I liked. Of course, I watched the Celtic game to the bitter end. The Celtics were up by like 40 the entire game. With like a minute to go, they got a steal, and they threw it at a Hugo and Hugo, sorry, sorry Hugo. They threw it ahead to my guy Hugo, who was about to go up for a dunk. Caleb Wilson with the hard foul behind, and there was like 45 seconds

• 9:52Bill Simmons?

  left, and then he angrily stalked off to the bench. And I liked it. You know what? He's trying to set the tone in a 40-point blowout, but I appreciated that. I appreciated the competitiveness. I think they're in good shape with that, dude. Number 26, Phoenix, 1-2. This was the only other team Reddit I went to. Suns Reddit, the top post was, "This is gonna be a very long season," was the written thing. And it was a meme of sad Ben Affleck, sadly smoking but wearing different Suns jerseys. So that's where the Suns mindset is. Eddie Johnson heard some of the announcing for this one last night, and he was pretty

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  appalled by the defense, by Booker's, I don't know what Booker was doing in that game. Booker had a, I don't care if I'm traded, kind of performance, where he just really didn't shoot. And the center situation's bad. Miles Bridges, Jalen Green, you just have two guys you can attack all the time now. Last year, there was, they were much better, I thought, defensively than what we're looking at this year. And Booker not shooting is weird, and the vibes are weird. And guess what? They don't have their pick. It's going to Houston. So this is grim. We knew it was gonna be grim, because they should be had traded basically all their first-rounders, but it did make me wonder, I know Booker's contract is appalling

• 11:13Bill Simmons?

  and just gets worse, but it did make me wonder if there's something there with Booker and Bam.

• 11:19Bill Simmons?

  Trade machine build, then kick it around and, and, and study it. But that is a really a classic, good trade for both teams. Now you have Bam, who would never, ever leave Miami allegedly. You have Booker, who would never, ever leave Phoenix allegedly. But are both teams better if you make a trade like that? I would argue yes. Number 25, last team in the dregs is the Utah mustard juice. They are one and three, and you're not going to believe this, but Jaren Jackson's hurt already. He has played 13,000 career minutes. This is season number nine for him. He has played 1,800 plus minutes three times. And if you're a Jazz fan, you are now entering the, the think zone here of we traded some stuff away

• 12:03Bill Simmons?

  for Jaren Jackson Jr. And then we got some stuff back for, for Kessler. Would I rather have just kept Kessler and not traded anything for Jaren Jackson Jr.? That's where my head would be at as a Utah fan. Peterson looks okay. He doesn't look busty. He's not jumping out of my TV either. He looks fine. He's a playable starting guard. Doesn't look as good as Boozer has. Didn't look even close to as good as Yaxel looked last night against Denver. You might take Wilson over him too. I wouldn't say he's the top, one of the top three rookies I've watched. But again, and I'm going to say this only four times during this segment. It's only been a week.

• 12:48Bill Simmons?

  I am not overreacting. I am just pointing out what I've watched for the first four, for the first seven days. And he has not jumped out of the TV to me yet, but I'm going to give it some time. Okay, next category, panic time. Only one team here. Number 24, Miami, they're 0-4. And every single possible heat fear that you would have had heading into this season has happened already. You have the honest Bam fit has looked horrible. Bam looks like he has no idea what to do on offense. They're playing too fast for what their talent is. They bet on Klay, who has looked washed. He looked washed, even though the, the percentages were okay for him last year. I thought he looked kind of washed last year.

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  He looks worse this year. Three point shooting in general for Miami, 30.6. Not where you want to be in a team with Yanis, who is not the easiest guy to play with. Let's be honest. You have to build the right kind of team around him. He needs a head of steam. He needs the ball all the time. And we have not seen this work out for five years, which was one of many reasons why I was worried about Celtics trading for him. They paid Wiggins, who hasn't looked good this year either. I've watched a ton of heat this year for some reason. Wiggins might be a, we should only paid him year by year guy. They gave him an extension, but he has not looked good. The Jovic extension from last year was one of the dumbest extensions anyone's given in the last five years. It's been a disaster. He's unplayable. They traded too much of the depth in the honest deal.

• 14:16Bill Simmons?

  They don't really have any moves now. And I think the bigger issue, forget about how they started because they easily could have been two and two if they had some crunch time luck. I just wonder 10 years ago, you could get away with Yanis, with Yanis and Bam as your two guys. And you could put around some league average guys around them and probably win 50 games. I think the league's too deep now. I don't think you can do it. I don't think you do with Booker and Phoenix either. I think everybody, the regular season, you need depth. You need a team that's almost built like how the Celtics or even the Thunder, who've just lost four guys, withstood two massive injuries that we'll talk about in a second.

• 14:58Bill Simmons?

  But still have enough talent to at least be able to put basketball players out there. I don't know a team like this. I, I went over on them before the season because I thought defensively, I thought they'd be really good and they haven't been. And maybe that's how they get back in this. I think they're going to have to play bigger. I think they're going to have to play Portis more. And in general, maybe bully ball this a little bit versus play the style that they used last year. And I wouldn't bet against them figuring out, figuring this out. With that said, this is as bad as it could get. They are minus 110 to make the playoffs on Fanduel. So basically even odds. And when you think about how deep the East is and how Charlotte started out better than we thought, I think they're behind the eight ball already.

• 15:41Bill Simmons?

  So we'll see how this next two or three weeks goes. But this might be one of those things by, by December, they might just decide this didn't work and their first round picks go into Milwaukee. So this, this is, this team's about as on the clock as we get for the non playoff teams right now. Okay, next category, hot messes. I don't necessarily hate what I'm watching, but I also feel like it's a little messy. Number 23, the Clippers, not a disaster. So that's a bonus and Kawhi's already hurt. So if you're a Clipper fan, you feel good about that too. You got a Toronto swap that you got in that trade. Garland looks great. Garland looks great. Now we'll see if he stays south through the whole year, but he looks great.

• 16:25Bill Simmons?

  They're hitting a bunch of threes, which can go up and down. There's been a lot of Brook Lopez so far. That would be a red flag for me. And Rui hasn't really shot the ball well, but in general, this, when you watch them, especially though when Niederhauser will come back at some point, but it's a team that doesn't not make sense. So maybe they're not going to be as bad as, as, as we thought. Now they don't have their own first round pick, but they do have that Toronto pick. So in a weird way, they can, I, I don't know what the play is with this team. The energy around the team, not great. The fact that Kawhi is not kicking ass on Toronto probably makes us feel a little bit better, but I have them in the hot mess category. I have New Orleans in there as well.

• 17:10Bill Simmons?

  Number 22, 0-3 on the season. They lost three games in the clutch. They blew an incredible game to Denver on Saturday night where they had the game, blew it nine times. They're 0-3 in the clutch this year, headed probably for 0-70. They had the dopiest roster situation in the league, just this, just threw some talent together with no rhyme or reason for how it might work. And then they hired Jamal Mosley to, to try to figure it out. I wrote down, it's like when the inventor of the bagel, egg and cheese sandwich was like, what could make this better? What if I put some bacon in this? And then they took a bite and I was like, this is delicious. This is the opposite with Jamal Mosley trying to figure out this New Orleans roster.

• 17:55Bill Simmons?

  He's buried Herb Jones already, which I don't understand at all because it's not like this team's getting stops defensively. The funniest thing to me though, Zion Williamson, who looks pretty explosive offensively, looks skinnier. I, I can't say he looks like a guy in the way out of the league, except he has nine total rebounds this year. And Jeremiah Fears, who I think is like 6'1", who plays point guard, also has nine rebounds. And I think this is going to be a subplot for the season. Zion rebounds versus Fears rebounds, nine to nine right now. Not a good sign for the Pelicans. They are not a playoff team. Golden State, I was convinced before last night, I have them number 21, they're 1-3.

• 18:37Bill Simmons?

  I was convinced before last night that this was one of the five worst teams in the league and maybe one of the, one of the three worst. And the moment Steph got hurt, this was going to be beyond grim. That leads me to my first overreaction after one week. Overreaction number one. Yaxel might have single handedly saved the, saved the Steph era, like for real. And I can't tell you how good he was in this Denver game last night. I watched the entire game. Now I was watching three games at once, but I watched the entire game. Yaxel looked like mid 2010's LeBron in this game. I don't say that lightly because mid 2010's LeBron was awesome. He was doing it, they were running the offense room.

• 19:21Bill Simmons?

  He was all over the place on defense. He was rebounding. He was initiating stuff. He was getting in the basket whenever he, it was unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how good he was. I don't know what this team does long-term because they have Draymond, 27 million expiring. They have whatever's going on with Porzingis at 20 million and could put those two together for something if they wanted. And I keep looking at Sabonis and Sacramento and wondering if they flipped those two for Sabonis and threw in some conditional pick and Sacramento got out of the last year's Sabonis's deal. Could this team get really interesting when Butler comes back? I was done with them. Yaxel sucked me back in. So there you go.

• 20:05Bill Simmons?

  I have them 21 and then 20 is Orlando. They're 1-2. Suggs is out. Palo is out. I didn't feel great about this team to begin with, from the way they started this season. And really the big takeaway is this team will not look the same in February. Something will happen. There will be some trade. I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's going to be Palo. I don't know if it's going to be Suggs when he comes back, Franz. Something's going to happen with this team. Okay, next category, possible panic time. Only one team in here, Denver, 1-2. Obviously my favorite Western Conference team, as you know, and they need Cam Johnson back. They can't shoot right now. They're 30% on three all season. If they're not making threes, they're not going to be a 50 win team.

• 20:48Bill Simmons?

  They have two realities here that are happening. And if you watch the first three games, they got killed in at least one half of all three games and really should have lost all three. They should have lost the New Orleans game that they, they won the New Orleans game because Brazil had an out of control game off the bench and because New Orleans is a stupid basketball team. That's why they won. There's two realities though. Post-prime Aaron Gordon is here.

• 21:19Bill Simmons?

  2023 champ, great career. I think he's moving into a different phase, which is fine. The bigger concern is post-prime Joker might be here. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of chatter and, you know, there's social media stuff and all kinds of things about, is this guy 100% anymore physically? Is he the same since he had that injury last year? The game doesn't look as easy for him this season. And I don't know if he's nursing some sort of injury that he's not telling us about, or if this is just wear and tear from having to do everything for basically a decade.

• 22:03Bill Simmons?

  It doesn't look as easy for him. It's, it seems like it's harder to get his position. It seems like it's, it's harder for him to get the plays and shots that he either wants for himself or somebody else. Everything is just a little bit more of a chore. It feels closer. Now, the worst version of Joker was always those Minnesota playoff series where they would just wear him down, but doesn't have his legs on his threes. And just in general, seems like he's laboring a little bit and I am concerned. But again, it's week one and he might be fine a week from now. I'm just pointing out what I've watched this first week. Next category, proof of life. I got Washington at 2-2 as the 18th best team. Yeah, I have them ahead of Denver. No AJ yet. They've still been pretty fun.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  Trey Young just can't really shoot anymore. It doesn't matter. He gets his points. He gets to the free throw line. He gets assists. He, any, any, remember that there was that stretch where it's like this guy's going to be the next Steph? Steph actually made threes, but he has been putting up stats. He's competitive. He gets hunted on defense and it's fine. AD has looked, I think, really good. And as long as he stays healthy, I think this is a 35 to 37 win team. I would trade him literally tomorrow. I would, I would trade him right now. I would be offering him to Golden State every day because as long as he's healthy and you watch how he's running around, how he's moving, how he's looking, you trade him now before he gets hurt. They have two future playoff guys, in my opinion, and I haven't seen AJ yet because he hasn't played.

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  But I think Kyshon George could absolutely be a wing on a really good playoff team. And I think Trey Johnson, you could see it. He could be a heat check scorer on the right kind of contender. So they have those two spots, whatever with Trey. I guess they keep AD. I don't know about Sar. Sar doesn't shoot or make threes anymore, so we don't know what's going on there. And then we see what happens with AJ, but at least, at least we're moving in a positive direction. Congratulations, Joe House. Portland 2-0. They've only have two game sample size. They beat Sacramento and Phoenix. So hard to say. They're playing the Lakers later tonight. Two short takeaways. Dame looks great. Like he really looks good offensively. He's shooting again. He has his lift.

• 24:12Bill Simmons?

  And, you know, once again, it goes back to Milwaukee doing that crazy Myles Turner move last year where they just could have had Dame as an expiring on a big deal this year. And a lot more flexibility with that than how paying him 22 million a year for the rest of eternity.

• 24:29Bill Simmons?

  Ja Morant also looks fine. He's not Ja Morant anymore. He's not 2021 Ja Morant, but he's at least competitive. He's talking shit. He's got a little swagger to him. 42 million this year, expiring next year. They didn't give up anything. It's fine, but need to see them more. But it's as weird of a team as we expected. All kinds of combinations. Drew Holiday's still playing 23, 24 minutes a game for this team. Scoot's in there. You never kind of, it's like a hockey team. You never kind of know who's out there, but I'm intrigued by them. Number 17, number 16, Dallas, 2-2.

• 25:09Bill Simmons?

  It's time for overreaction number two of my one week of watching basketball. Cooper Flag looks absolutely spectacular, absolutely spectacular. This is holy shit level. And my overreaction would be, I'm not sure it's possible for him to be on an under 500 team anymore. I actually think you have to recalibrate. Dallas, I think their over under was 33 wins, something like that. I can't remember if I went over under, but it was a hard one. He's a top 15 to 20 guy in the league now. He does whatever he wants offensively. He can go full speed left or full speed right already, get to the rim and finish at age 19,

• 25:51Bill Simmons?

  which basically LeBron is the only other guy I've ever seen be able to do that at that age. He's unstoppable. He's competitive. He does everything you'd want. And it feels like he went up a level from last year. So you have that. You have Kyrie looks okay. And you have this weird crunch time swing group of they got to figure out somebody from Max Christie, Reese Scheff, Lawrence Johnson, one of these guys. They need one of those guys to be able to make threes. But there's pieces here and if they're in a game in the last five minutes and they have Kyrie and Flag, they have two guys who can get whatever shot they want. Kyrie again, like need, hasn't looked totally like Kyrie yet, but let's, let's see what it looks like a month from now. But this team's better than I thought it was going to be and it's because of Flag. Number 15, Charlotte, 3-1.

• 26:38Bill Simmons?

  You know who's really good? Nas Reed. Yeah. You know who else is really good? Brandon Miller had the best game of his, his probably NBA career yesterday and looked like a Paul Pierce, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown level, like this is going to be an NBA guy. I don't know if that's going to last, but that's how we looked last night. They're only shooting 30% from three. They're 3-1. They've had no Con, no Kobe. Those guys don't come back for, I think, at least one more week. It's been a lot of Dennis Schroder, like a lot, like a, like a lot of Dennis Schroder, especially at the end of these games. And yet, my biggest fear with them and the reason I thought, I thought there were 11 possible playoff teams in the East. I thought they were going to be the one to drop out because I thought they were going to get hammered in this little stretch here.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  And they're 3-1. If they can stay 500 until White and Con are playing, playing normal minutes again, combined with what Grayson Allen's been giving them, Schroder in there and, you know, Nas Reed, Steinbach. I think it's a playoff team. They're plus 155 to make the playoffs on FanDuel. And from what I've seen, they look like a playoff team, so they're holding the fort. Last team on this list is Memphis. They're 4-0. This was one of the ones I felt the most passionate about in the month leading up to the season that I thought they were going to be better than people thought. And nothing has surprised me here. I'm not victory laughing because I was wrong on some stuff too, but this was the one I really felt good about because you knew Boozer was going to be good right away.

• 28:08Bill Simmons?

  You knew Beef Stew was going to be fun for them. You knew Coward was going to be good. You knew when Edie plays, that it's going to be good. Nobody understood what was going to happen with Ty Jerome here the first week of the season. So we'll see if it lasts with him, but just not surprised by this one. This team had the right look and vibe. And I thought one of my biggest bets was them to be a play-in team. They might even be a whiff better than that if they can get a full season from Edie. And Boozer, getting him third was a miracle. It really was. Like you shouldn't be able to get a guy like that third. And the reason they did was because the top four in this draft was so good. But that's just incredible to get that guy third.

• 28:48Bill Simmons?

  That guy is a real, he's initiating stuff. He's rebounding. He's competitive. He's, he's got it all. I love Cam Boozer. So there you go. That's the top 14. We're going to take a break and then I'm going to rip through the, the top 13 teams right after this. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA action just got even better with FanDuel because this Wednesday with early win, a fast start could be all you need to win big. Pick an eligible NBA game, apply the token, bet the money line. If your team jumps out to a seven-point lead at any point, you win instantly. That's right. You don't have to wait till the final buzzer. Check out early win on eligible NBA games in the FanDuel app. Just another reason why this is your most rewarding season ever on FanDuel. 21-plus select states or 18-plus DC or Wyoming.

• 29:32Bill Simmons?

  Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. This week, buy a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes, Joe House's favorite. Get another one free on Uber Eats when your watch party gets hungry. Order and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free. My Sunday football one, I always try to go a little healthier on Sunday. I don't try to do this all the time because I got the podcast on Sunday night. I don't want to be live. I want my brain to be working. So I'm a big salad and soup. Always trying to get, like, maybe I'll get a little chicken nuggets or something.

• 30:17Bill Simmons?

  But for the most part, that's my Sunday. Other people are different. Other people get wings, pizza, whatever. But that's the thing about Uber Eats. You can get whatever you want. Basically, whatever game day calls for you can get almost, almost anything on Uber Eats with deals every week. Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. For alcohol, you must be of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, 13 teams left in the power poll. We are going to move to the next category, which is the contender crock pot. These teams aren't contenders.

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  But they're on the crock pot, like when you're making a beef stew. Sorry to bundle up and the stew is just percolating and you don't know how good it's going to be yet. And you keep tasting it and saying, no, it doesn't, but it's just going to, it has to simmer for a lot longer. 13 is Atlanta, two and two. I just need to watch them more. I, the rebounding seems to be the big question mark where they're, you know, they have Jack Landell and, and obviously a Kangu is the centers and,

• 31:22Bill Simmons?

  are they going to be able to rebound against good teams? What's somebody like Dern going to do against them? But athletically, you know, they look like they did last year. They're able to hang with all these different teams. The Houston game was interesting last night because Houston just had a little too much for them. And it, it felt like there was a talent disparity between the two teams. The what if with this team is if they had taken Yakso instead of Flemings, what this team would have looked like and how he would have fit in with this. I was fine with the Flemings pick. I'm not, I'm not second guessing it. It's just, when you see how good Yakso is, especially at age 24, that would have been a fun one. Number 12 Indiana, two and two, feeling it out. Crunch time five, hasn't had enough reps yet.

• 32:06Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and Zubot's got hurt in the first quarter of the third game against, I think it was Brooklyn. So this is a classic. Make no assumptions, have no takes on this team for a month. Just wait, let's see the crunch time five, let's see them get some reps. The one thing I will say, Ty looks great. Ty and Siakam, their pick and roll is still, I think, one of the six or seven best plays in the league. And this team, I still think is a 50 win team. Number 11 Toronto, two and one, and Kawhi's already hurt with the knee swelling. He's made it 52 minutes. Will he get to 1,200 this year, 1,500? What would you get to bet your life? What would you bet?

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't think I would bet my life on any number of minutes with Kawhi's knee. I wish I could play karma police by Radiohead right now because, um, it just seems a little bit fitting that he destroyed the Clippers and went to Toronto and made it two games. But for them, the reason I have them 11 still, even with Kawhi out is because I think this allows them to unleash Murray Boils and, and Graves. And I mentioned Graves before the year, I just really like him and I like Murray Boils even more. And I do feel like they can establish some sort of identity with the young guys while Kawhi's out. So we'll see what happens. Number 10, the Dennis Green division for they were who we thought they were. This is where I have the Lakers, three and O playing tonight.

• 33:34Bill Simmons?

  We'll see if this is the best it ever gets for Laker fans because they have Kessler who's healthy. They have Luca and Reeves averaging 61 a game combined, which is even higher than like your highest Shaq and Kobe season. They have Luca with a 42.3% usage rate through three games, which would break the record. The record was 2017, Russ had 41.65, which was the biggest ball hog season of my lifetime, other than maybe 2006 Kobe. 2006 Kobe was more justified, but 42.3. And, uh, all the overs for Luca looked great. He was 34 points a game, I think was around even 36 points a game was like almost three to one.

• 34:15Bill Simmons?

  I, I think he'd get to 36 points a game if this is how they're going to use him. Number nine, I have the Knicks of New York, who I saw in person on Friday night. Sal and I talked about this a little on Sunday. I'm not going to overreact. If they get killed by Detroit later tonight, then maybe it's time to start overreacting and wondering what's going on. But this is, you knew this was going to happen. Everybody was so selfless last year. They win the title, they climb the mountain. Now it's the next year. Now, Guy, it's the disease of more, uh, combined with the fact that the bullseye is on them night after night. Even when they played in Boston, the game I went to on Friday night, it was a close game down the stretch. I waited for Brunson to take over. Boston was able to take him out. The Knicks took a couple of bad shots.

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  Tatum made a couple really, really tough shots. Boston wins. I didn't think less of the Knicks. It's just kind of what happens. It was a way more important win for Boston because they need to get over the hump of that team. The only thing I would say with the Knicks that I think you have to flag, I do wonder about the Dolan stuff with this team. The behind the scenes stuff with the organization, uh, the phishing email that came out last week, some of the stuff with the rings, just the, uh, the fact that he actually got the title. How is he going to behave? What's, what's the environment going to be like? How long do Leon Rose and, and Worldwide West, how long do they want to stay? Do they have extensions or you're locking them down longer?

• 35:40Bill Simmons?

  And if this team shifts more to the Dolan side, is there going to be collateral damage with that? So I'm just, I'm just, just watching that one. Okay, the contenders, I have five.

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  And I'm putting them in alphabetical order because I couldn't decide what the order is. So alphabetical order, Boston, two and one. I'm going to give you one note on each of these five contenders. Boston, Paul George, 30 minutes a game, 50% from three. And they're playing Brooklyn tonight, so those numbers will probably be even better if he plays. Can they get a full year of what I've watched in the preseason and the regular season from him? Because what I've seen is somebody who fits in absolutely perfect with the Missoula style, with Tatum. He doesn't care if he has the ball that much. He's just there to help out. He's at the perfect point in his career. Defensively, he is way better than I was expecting at age 36.

• 36:41Bill Simmons?

  Watching some of the stuff he did in the Knicks game in person, um, his ability to guard different guys, different, uh, guy, different heights. He could guard Brunson, you know, he was defending Towns at one point, like, if you, if you're going to just basically take last year's team, put Tatum in the Jalen spot, and then add somebody who is just a selfless, I don't care, I'm just here to help type of guy. This is the type of guy you'd want. And it seems like he loves it there. The team loves him, the franchise loves him. So the trade's been a home run. And, uh, I keep thinking back to when I came out of the call and asked me and found out they got Paul George and how bummed out I was. I really enjoyed watching him. Can they get 65 games out of him would be my question.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  Can they get, he's playing basically 30 minutes a game. Can they get 1,800 minutes from him? And can those 1,800 minutes look like what they've looked like in the preseason in this first week would be my question. FYI, the, the Tatum Brown stuff is ridiculous and I hate it. And I just wish it would go away. I think it's stupid. I think it's beneath both of those guys. They want a title together, just stop talking. Cleveland is my next team. They're two and one. I watched them play Minnesota last night, which was about as entertaining as you're going to get in October for a basketball game on League Pass. It was just an absolute delight to watch. It was really, really fun. My big question for them, can Peyton Watson actually be their fifth guy? They paid him like it. They traded stuff for him.

• 38:11Bill Simmons?

  They're taking the tax hit for him. Offensively, he looks lost so far. And this was my fair, I mentioned this before the season. So you get somebody basically off this 19 game sample when Jokic wasn't out there, when he had the ball all the time for Denver and the offense is running through him and he looked really good. Okay, now I'm on Cleveland. Mitchell and Harden have the ball all the time. How do I fit in over on the side in this situation was my big question. And right now he looks lost. He's two for 14 from three. And, uh, the defense has been good, the energy, all that stuff from what I've seen. But that's the thing to watch. Again, uh, it's not an overreaction. It's just, we've watched a week and this is not what they paid for so far.

• 38:55Bill Simmons?

  Detroit, three and O, playing the Knicks tonight. 15.7 made threes a game, 42%. Is that real? Duncan Robinson's averaging almost 20 points a game. He's never come close to that his entire career. Javante Green's making threes. John Collins is shooting 50% from threes. Is any of this real or is this just a hot week? We'll keep watching. Dern's out for two weeks, but, uh, yeah, I thought that was, I, I think I said this on the pod. Did the over unders with Zach and House and like a week later, I think the ones I would have flipped were Detroit, Miami.

• 39:35Bill Simmons?

  And I didn't, I'm going to live with my picks, but, um, Detroit, the, the, the home court advantage they have, plus Cade, plus how hard they play every night. I think it's really hard for them not to be in the high forties unless they have major injuries. So there's Detroit. Minnesota, three and one.

• 39:58Bill Simmons?

  Big question for me. Is this Ant's MVP season? Are we looking at it? He's right now 33.3 a game. He's shooting 26 times a game, 37.6 usage, all kinds of swagger. Going toe to toe with everybody. And you could say it's partly because they made some chemistry moves and he's having fun playing with LaMelo. LaMelo, LaMelo's playing 25 minutes a game. He has 25 turnovers and 25 assists. He's taken 32 threes and 17 twos. I can't say LaMelo's been even good for Minnesota so far. But Ant's been great and obviously loves playing with LaMelo. So maybe that, that's the win in that. But I thought LaMelo against the Cavs last night was really unimpressive.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  And he's just too sloppy with the ball soon, but that's kind of the vibe that they want. And Ant feeds into it. He's plus 650 for MVP right now, and I think he's the best bet. If his, if his, if his knee holds up, which seems fine so far. But he's on a mission and this team's going to be probably a four or five seed. So he's in the range. I would say him and Luka would probably be the two bet. Luka's like plus 450 on Fanduel. I'm not allowed to bet on this, but from what I've seen in the first week. I feel like Ant went up a slight level and it feels like we're headed for a career year with him. So more shots for him too. It's a team that makes more sense. It was interesting down the stretch against Cleveland, especially in the OT.

• 41:21Bill Simmons?

  They basically played the four guards and swings with Gobert, which we were wondering, is that going to be their destiny in these crunch time games? And that's what they did. Gobert didn't end up making, getting the big rebound down the stretch and whatever. Philadelphia, three and one.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  There's only one question. Well, there's two questions because one would be can LeBron at age 42 hold up? But the bigger question, what happens to this team when Embiid goes down? Cause he will go down because he goes down every year. They have Adam Bone at center and they have LeBron at center. And that's basically what they're going with. So if Embiid's gone for a month, what happens to this team? How do they play? How small can they go? How much can they put on LeBron? How much can Maxine Brown and VJ Edgecombe kind of carry with Embiid not playing for a month or more? And then LeBron being unable to play four times in a week because he's 42 years old in December? That would be my question. But we have so much time to talk about Philly.

• 42:25Bill Simmons?

  I, when Philly dials it up and plays their fast fun lineup, when they're just like, we're running on every, on everything. It's about as fun of a team to watch in the league. So there you go. Last group, the contenders.

• 42:40Bill Simmons?

  I put San Antonio third. They're one and two. I did not like how they started this season. I thought the three guard lineup is the kind of thing that makes me not trust their coach. It's just stupid. Like the whole thing you had to do this year was get Harper to buy in for one more year to be in the six man. And instead they did this, ah, but we're only going to play this three guard minutes for, three guard lineup for nine minutes a game. And it's not, we're not really doing it, but it just looks like you caved. Because you wanted all three guys to start and you didn't want the locker room issues. And I didn't like it. Bring Harper off the bench. He's 20 years old. He's, he'll be fine. It's been good for Fox, who's looked good this year and they don't have Tobias Harris yet.

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  So you could say when Tobias comes back, maybe now you do the two guards with Tobias and bring Harper off the bench. It's fine. 32% from three, predictable. Wemby, 37% field goal. Not ideal, but we've only played three games. The big question for me. The scrutiny over the course of the next couple of months here. The spotlight. They're not the young and fun Spurs anymore. They're not coming out of nowhere. They're not on that roller coaster ride up. Now we're going down a little bit. Now we have some twists and turns. Now you're the lead segment on different ESPN shows and different basketball podcasts. And you have just people picking you apart and wondering what's going on with you all the time.

• 44:07Bill Simmons?

  How are they going to handle that? They're being treated like they won the finals last year, even though they didn't. But with that kind of scrutiny, which they just never had until February, March last year. And in February, March last year was all about, oh my God, there's so much fun. Wow. This is the other side of it. How you deal with the backlash and it's not just basketball. It's any other aspect of being a public figure. How you deal with the backlash after you've had some success determines the next phase of your success. And that's what I want to see from this team. Thompson blocking Wemby at the, at the buzzer on Friday night was a moment. It really was. It was a moment for Houston, which we'll get to in a second. And it was also an interesting moment for San Antonio. It was, people were rooting for Thompson to stuff Wemby in that moment.

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  Last year they would have rooted for Wemby to stuff it on Thompson. And this is the kind of shit that happens when you've had real scrutiny and you've had some failure. So how are they going to deal with it? And is Mitch Johnson the right guy to deal with it? That would be my overreaction number two, after one week and three games. Is Mitch Johnson the right guy for everything that's about to happen with this team? And the scrutiny that they're going to be under for the next eight months? Number two, Oklahoma City, they're 4-0. And on Saturday. I was looking at the odds for them for 65 wins, 70 wins. 70 wins was down to I think like plus 130 on Fanduel at one point. That's how good they looked. They were just killing everybody and they had the look.

• 45:35Bill Simmons?

  It looked like everything that happened to them last year, which was bad, culminating in them not winning game seven. Was the best thing that could happen to them this season. J-Dub looked incredible. The team Mara looked like so much better than you ever could have expected from the 12th pick in the draft. And then they had the most devastating, I think 24 hours in, in recent NBA history where they have, not only they lose. J-Dub to just a brutal, awful Gordon Hayward type injury. But then we learned that they lose Wallace too. And Wallace, this torn labrum happened early enough in the season that maybe you could see him in April, May.

• 46:16Bill Simmons?

  But this was somebody that with, with J-Dub out, you would have assumed, oh, well, case and Wallace will play more. So he's gone too. So you lose two of your best five. They're not going to win 70 games now.

• 46:29Bill Simmons?

  And it's the kind of adversity that you just feel the whole season. It, it just changes. Watch it happen with the Hayward season with Boston. It just changes the complexion of this season. It adds like this sadness to it that just, it's like this little black cloud that follows you everywhere you go. Not to mention, this is now two straight major injuries for, for Williams. This one's way more ma, way major than last year. But you know, now he's basically lost two years of his career here. He's only 25 years old. At least like there's some fibula tibia stuff that he has the better version of that leg fracture. Hayward had the worst version. Maybe he could come back in April, May, I don't know.

• 47:13Bill Simmons?

  It was about as fluky of an injury as you can get. And for this team, this is the bigger, the bigger point here. Something I wrote about in my book, something we talk about on this podcast a bunch of times. It's just really hard to win the title. And I say this as simplistically as I could possibly say it. You need so many things to go right. You really do. Look at the Knicks last year. Everybody stayed healthy the whole stretch when they had to stay healthy. Right? Everything came together. And that's part of winning, winning the title is things come together. Guys lift each other up. You need good luck with injuries. You need guys at the right points of their career. And it felt like OKC had that this year.

• 47:55Bill Simmons?

  And now it's flipped the other way where this is now a what if team? I don't think they have enough now. And, and what's harder for them is there's not really a trade. You know, when Sal and I talked about this on Sunday night, right after it happened. And I mentioned how it was hard because they have big salaries and small salaries, nothing in between. There's tax stuff with them. They have a trade exception. You know, that could they give up one of the, they, they still have some good picks left. Could they give up one of them for somebody like Herb Jones? Sure. Could they get a little more aggressive and maybe use the Hartenstein contract and some other stuff to go get a bigger one? Maybe. But my guess is they're probably going to bet on their young guys and bet on.

• 48:39Bill Simmons?

  All these guys, all these picks they've stockpiled, guys who barely played. Let's throw them out once and for all. Let's give everybody minutes. Let's try to tread water and still be a top three team in the West. And see where we are early February, right before trade deadline. And then make a decision then and not before then. But maybe they just decide we're going to get at least Wallace back in April, May. And nobody's probably going to pull away from us. And that's how they handle it. Presti is not a panic guy. The only time I ever remember him really kind of panicking was that last KD season before KD went to the Warriors. When they made that, it was like a, the Dion Waiters trade and they, they went over the tax for the first time.

• 49:23Bill Simmons?

  And they just seemed like, oh shit, we got, we got to do stuff. What could, how can we add to this? And that was the only time he wasn't patient and careful and calculated. So I think he's going to be patient, careful, calculated. Big question for me with this team. Hey, Chet Holmgren.

• 49:42Bill Simmons?

  You're on a max on your second contract. You've made an all NBA team. And right now, you are clearly the second best guy in this team. You are going to have to go up a level. S J, I'm not worried about, but we're gonna need Chet to be, I think, like a, at least a 20 and 20 and 8 or 20 and 9 guy, right? To take up some of this, but really a bummer. I loved watching OKC that first week. This was, this was, really sucked.

• 50:14Bill Simmons?

  And then everybody comes on the pods and the TV shows and they're just like, ah, man, prayers up for J Dub. Like, I just hate all of it. I hate injuries, fuck injuries. I don't understand why we're having more of them. The J Dub was more of a fluke. I do feel like there's stuff to look at with the sneakers for some of these other injuries we're having. And the fact that we have all these low tops and now we're having all these injuries below the knee. And I, something's fishy about all of it. I, it can't just be the wear and tear and basketball being harder. I wonder if the technology, because guys love the ability to Euro steps and do all these other things. I wonder if the technology is actually working against them in some cases. I'd love to read a, a huge study on this. Anyway, I vote OKC number two and then Houston, a team that I tweeted about during the weekend saying they had the look.

• 50:59Bill Simmons?

  It was an old Mike Lombardi phrase about when, uh, when teams have the look, when you're just like, man, that team looks like they could, they, they think they can win the title. Houston has the look. Shengun went up a tiny level. He's basically 25, 9 and 7.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  The team chemistry seems way better. I don't think we can overstate the weird burner scandal with K D last year combined with the fact that they lost Van Vliet. And it just seemed like a rudderless team. Like, you look at Van Vliet and Smart, it's not even like they're playing that well. Like, they're certainly not shooting well. They're shooting 27% combined from three, but the vibe, when you watch it, this seems like a connected team. Thompson went up a level. Jabari Smith definitely went up a level. And it's a team that's played with each other for a while now. They've had a little adversity. Van Vliet's hugely important to them. And it feels like a team to me that thinks they can win the title. That's what I've seen so far. So what's their move would be my big question?

• 52:00Bill Simmons?

  Because they have, they can swap a first with Brooklyn after this season. So that's gonna be a really good pick. They have the Phoenix first in 2027 next year. If you know, Phoenix has been bad. Those are two pretty juicy assets. So what would the move be? And what does this team need? Because if you're trading either of those things, I want somebody who can play at the end of games. Right? So, right now, I'm looking at Van Vliet, I'm looking at Jabari, K D, Shengun, and either Easton or Smart as my five. So if I'm trading one of those assets, I want somebody basically who's either a better point guard than Van Vliet, who I think is the leader of this team and I wouldn't trade him. Or somebody who could be in that Easton, Smart spot. And maybe Easton is the answer.

• 52:45Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's Easton and a pick. But what they do with that, um, that'll be what determines their destiny. They are 19 to 1 to win the title. They have the eighth best odds on FanDuel. And I think they're absolutely, I have this group, I called this group the contenders too, but I guess this is the, uh, the favorites, I should have said, San Antonio, OKC and Houston. I think right now, these are the three best bets to win the title. Now, this could change in a week and a month, I'm just saying right now. Houston, eighth best odds on FanDuel, I don't agree with that at all. I think this, this team is as good as anybody else in the league. And it's a really interesting moment for K D.

• 53:26Bill Simmons?

  You know, who comes in the league in 07, who really hasn't had a relevant playoff moment since the 2019 playoffs? When he was, I thought, the best player in the world until he got hurt. He went to, that was apex K D. He went to another level. Really that, down the stretch and then that first playoff series before he got hurt.

• 53:49Bill Simmons?

  And really hasn't gotten back there since. And now he's, you know, headed toward his 20th season. Is this his 20th season? Jesus. And still looks really good and still can get shots, you know, in the spot, gets his shots in the spots that he wants them. And, uh, I don't know. This team has the look. I don't know what to tell you, but this is what we get after, after only watching a week of basketball. This is the team that's jumped out to me the most. I think they're a legitimate contender. So there you go. That's my power poll. 30 through 1. It'll be interesting to see when we do this in a couple of weeks, how different some of these, uh, some of these rankings will be. So that's it for the power poll. We're gonna take a break and come back and talk to Wesley Morris about You Can See Everything after this.

• 54:33Bill Simmons?

  FanDuel has a new NBA promo called Hardwood Hero this Friday. I like these goofy names they're giving out. All you have to do is opt in, use a 50% PBT, that's a profit boost token, on any NBA bet, minus 200 or longer. If anyone in that evening scores 40 plus points, you win. Your PBT. We've had Edwards, Ty Jerome, Luka, Jalen Brown scored 40. Luka's playing Golden State that night. That is the easy one. Just do Luka. Go Luka against any not elite defensive team. I would go 40 for him. Remember, you don't have to bet a 40 piece. All you have to do is place a minus 200 or longer wager on the NBA slate. And any player who scores 40 plus, everyone wins. Check it out this Friday, FanDuel, your most rewarding season ever.

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic. The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Opens in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles, nationwide, October 30th.

• 56:18Bill Simmons?

  I think October, November 1994.

• 56:22Bill Simmons?

  I saw Hoop Dreams at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. And it was the best documentary I'd ever seen in person. Last Friday, took the tea, because I was visiting my, my daughter.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  What?

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  Took the tea to the Coolidge Corner Theater and saw it at 11:30 a.m. You can see everything. First time I deliberately avoided everything written and said about the movie. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I had a great time. So I've seen two of the best documentaries of my life in the same theater. I'll just start there, I knew you would enjoy that.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Oh my God. You did double Coolidge for the great documentary experiences of your life. I, I'm very touched by that. I'm sure the Coolidge people are very touched by that.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  Great theater. It's a nonprofit theater. They rely on funds from everybody. Wesley Morris is here. He used to work for the Boston Globe and probably saw some movies in that theater. Now he's at the New York Times.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Many a movie at the Coolidge. You know what I saw at the Coolidge Corner, like, like memorably, unmemorably? I believe that is where I got shown, um, The Human Centipede.

• 57:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Now, the Coolidge is probably gonna send me an email saying there was no way you saw that there, but I feel like that's where I saw it. Like, they, it was, it was just like a critic screening. Like, I think I was the only person in the theater.

• 57:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, listen, I'm there Friday, 11:30 and it's, it's pretty nice out. You know, for Boston, it's 60 in October, the sun's out. And the, the place was half full. I was impressed for, for this documentary that got very little promotion. It's become a phenomenon. It's become, for a documentary to hit the point where everybody in my life has been like, have you seen it yet? What are your thoughts? I want to, I'm sure it's been the same for you. It's pretty rare to get these.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  It's the only thing anybody wants to talk about. In my, I mean, you know, it's funny, there's the midterms.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  And you know, it's funny, the other thing, if you live in New York, I mean, this is a pretty national thing, and I'm gonna try to figure out a way to make it relate to, so you can see everything. But you know, in New York, the big thing, you know, did you read this wise, was this piece that Nikole Hannah-Jones written about sending her daughter, like, her daughter asking her why she sent her to the schools that she went to. That was like a, that was, it felt like a national firestorm.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  Jesus.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  And then, uh, but then this documentary opens, and I just feel like this is a very interesting moment for reading, reading and reading comprehension, or like, watching and watching comprehension. Um, because we really, I don't know about the people in your life, but everybody wants to talk about like, what is going on in this movie? Um, and what it, what it means. And did you, like, how do you feel about the people in the movie? And I don't know, that feels exciting, too, where you're like, we're really trying to get to the bottom of what this movie was trying to get to the bottom of.

• 59:31Bill Simmons?

  So you have one of the great liars of the last 20 years, Elizabeth Holmes, just a pathological liar. Let's start there.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Wow, Bill, okay.

• 59:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, she is.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I'm not arguing.

• 59:42Bill Simmons?

  I'm amazed that people fell for her act in this movie, because we have all this evidence from the past that this is an ass.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  This is, this is great, this is.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  And she is clearly trying to, um, steer the narrative a different way, so people feel bad for her and use words like neurodivergent to explain what, how she processes stuff. And she's a pathological liar, and this is how she got the Theranos thing. I watched the Amanda Seyfried show, I saw the Gidney documentary, I followed all this stuff when it happens, because I thought it was really interesting, and I, and I thought she was so manipulative, and so good at lying, that she was one of the great liars we've ever had. And now you have Nathan Fielder, who is a performance guy, first and foremost, who just wants weirdos with a canvas that he can just paint on, basically, on his weirdo

• 1:00:31Bill Simmons?

  canvas. And he obviously becomes fascinated by this lady. It's like, how can somebody, to the bitter end, be this much of a liar? I wonder if I could just spend time with her, and see if she's actually lying, or if there's more there. And then it becomes this cat and mouse game, and turns into Heat. This is Pacino and De Niro. They're at the fucking diner table for, for three hours, two hours.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Months at a time.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  She's like, I was having coffee with Elizabeth Holmes half an hour ago. This becomes Heat. He's just trying to figure out what, what her next score is gonna be, and she's trying to figure out, oh shit, this guy's on every move I have. It was like watching two boxers circle each other in the ring, and Holmes is like, oh god, he, he knows my jab's coming. Oh, he's ready for my hook. What, I'm just gonna be dumber and dumber in this movie, and hope maybe that's my move. And then, by the way, it didn't work.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Wow, okay.

• 1:01:26Bill Simmons?

  It just didn't work.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  I love this read of this movie. I love the, the impossible to get around. Um, she has all the control, and, well, you know, obviously, um, Lance Oppenheimer, the director, and Nathan Fielder, the co-director, and, you know, ostensible subject, co-subject. There, there is this sort of fight for control, and what I have been, like, made to understand is that the way that she controls is to pretend that she doesn't have it.

• 1:02:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's like, oh, my controlling, domineering boyfriend slash husband, whatever, he's doing everything. Come on. Are people really buying this?

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Um, I did, I bought it, I fell for that. Um, I've been, but you know, I mean, I think this movie is operating in stages, right? I think that, you know, you see it a couple times, and your, your mind begins to change. I mean, I, I feel like.

• 1:02:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know why? Because she has a very trusting face, and she keeps eye contact for abnormally long times, and usually when people do that, you assume that they're truthful. Her human cues match somebody who is truthful. And it's like this complete fucking magician act.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Hmm, mhm. I think that, you know, as a, you know, bringing somebody in, so you know, there's a world in which, like, she knows everything about Nathan Fielder, right? Um, you know, she and Billy Evans, her, it's funny that you don't want to say husband either, because I don't feel comfortable with that word. I think legally, I think they're married. Um, but he just is like perpetual, he seems like a boyfriend.

• 1:03:19Bill Simmons?

  Right. Um, he's like the guy in a TV show, that it's like, the, the rich sister in the dynasty family ends up with the Billy Evans, and they're like, ah, I don't trust this guy. What's he up to?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  He's the Kardashians, the Kardashians don't trust.

• 1:03:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Right? Like, he's that, he's that boyfriend. Um, anyway, I, there's a world in which, like, she knows everything about Nathan's project.

• 1:03:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh no, I'm worried you got sucked in by her.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I, I think that I'm, well, I mean, I did, okay, here's the thing.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  Because my wife got sucked in, that's why I'm concerned. My wife was like, I feel bad for her. And I'm like, you gotta, you gotta read some of the 2014, 15, 16 stuff. This is a person who knows what she's doing.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  And you know, it's funny, because at some point, Nathan does present to her, like, a partial list of the things that she has said and done over the course of the life of this, of this, um, right, this Theranos project. And you're like, oh yeah, that's right, she did do, she is reported to have done, and has been convicted of doing, several of these things. Um, I think what I got tricked by is good filmmaking, right? I, I think that one of the, one of the excitements of this movie is, a person that I, I Wesley had no feelings about at all. Like, I didn't care about this case, I did not care about

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  this woman, she was yet another one of these Silicon Valley fraudsters.

• 1:04:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  She arrives at the same time as the WeWork guy, um, Sam Bankman-Fried, uh, there's another guy that I'm not even remembering, and like.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  You could throw in Zuckerberg, too, as, as people who twist the truth.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Yes, but there, with those other three people, there is a legal dimension, right? These were three guys, these were three people who wound up being revolted against.

• 1:05:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Um, because of their, because of the fraud that they tried to perpetuate. And I just kind of got a little sickened by the cultural interest in these people as main characters. And I think, you know, I listened to the podcast, uh, the, the, and I list, I, I did not watch the Alex Gidney documentary, um, because I just was full at that point. But then, this movie shows up, and my, my feelings about it, I don't know, they don't change, but I'm like, okay, Nathan Fielder has found this woman, there'll be something, something interesting is going to happen here, because somehow he managed to get into her life.

• 1:06:02Bill Simmons?

  So you cared less about the Theranos stuff than the cat and mouse game of the documentary was the thing that got you?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. But I mean, I think I went in knowing how important the, I mean, she's going to prison already, we know this.

• 1:06:20Bill Simmons?

  For 11 years.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Right. This is not, this is not an attempt to, like, exonerate her, but what's interesting is, and this is the, this is the sort of tug of war of the, I don't know, the sort of ethical tension in this movie, is you find out at some point that she and Billy are at it again. Like, they're gonna do Theranos 2 Electric Boogaloo.

• 1:06:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  And so, I'm like, wait, so what lesson got learned here?

• 1:06:49Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna work, though.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  And, well, I mean, okay, so this is what I'm really dying to ask you, like, like, related to, to what I'm thinking about, and the journey that I've been on, and the thing that I was interested in, which is, you know, the thing that, that this, that we're all kind of sitting with is, like, how much are we thinking about what's true and what's real?

• 1:07:10Bill Simmons?

  Who's sitting with that? What do you mean? How does somebody know anything about the past, and then go into this going, I don't know, maybe, like, to me, here, here's my take. To me, this is Nathan Fielder, whose whole career is built to some, has been building to something like this, right?

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree with that.

• 1:07:30Bill Simmons?

  That first he took a real interest in weirdo people that he threw himself into, and created weird business things with. Then he does the rehearsal, the first episode of the rehearsal, which was unbelievable, where he just completely goes over the top to throw into this whole teaching somebody how to be like, part of this bar trivia thing, right?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Bill Simmons?

  It's all leading for him to try to figure out, is this person a liar or not? I think she is, but I want to dive into it. Dives into it, she has already decided, to the bitter end, I'm gonna pretend I'm a dope who doesn't know any better, and I'm being controlled by whoever I was with, and I just don't know how this happened, and I'm just not that smart of a person, and I don't get what who's on first is. I don't, what was funny about that, I don't get. And she is committed to the bit, to the bitter end. Nathan Fielder's whole comedy bit is, I commit to the bit, to the bitter end. So now it's just, it's a fucking death match between these two, to see who can win, until she

• 1:08:35Bill Simmons?

  goes away. And by the time she goes away, I feel like she won. Like, I felt like he was kind of, I, I don't know how much he played up for the documentary or not, but I felt like he was kind of in love with her, that she was a victim.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  That there might have been, there might have been, she might have been taken advantage of, that she might not be a liar. And then he, in the second part of the documentary, when Amanda Seyfried comes in, and he starts fixating on, did she know or not that they were getting paid? When the answer is clearly, obviously, yes.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:03Bill Simmons?

  She knew she was getting paid, and that becomes, and then he slowly eventually realizes that she's a liar at the end. And that's the end of the movie. But then he shows them at the end in the beach, when he's, we never know if he's in the beach with her. It's mentioned, he's like, I can't do that. And then at the end, he shows, he shows them in the beach, which I think is his way of saying, even I got a little duped by this lady, I went in the water with her. But now I know what she's about.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  But again, like, I think that, the genius of this movie is that it works on the level that you're coming at it from, right? It works as a.

• 1:09:49Bill Simmons?

  Which is a comedy.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  A comedy, well, also, but, but a kind of, um, I'm gonna use this term and I'm sorry that I'm doing it, but it's a thing that came to mind first. It's almost like a dialectic between people who's special, like a person who specializes in lying and another person who specializes in the performance of lying, right?

• 1:10:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  And what happens when these two people come together to spend time trying to, he's trying to figure her out and she is kind of enjoying the game that he's trying to play with her. And she knows that there's no way that she's gonna crack. I don't even know what cracking looks like for her at this point.

• 1:10:40Bill Simmons?

  She knows the whole time, I will never, ever admit anything. I am going to play dumb until I go to jail.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  But this movie is also, it's a movie, right? And it's a movie that, like, the way we're talking about it, just describing her not cracking, you know who I thought of? Catherine Trammell.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  And

• 1:11:01Bill Simmons?

  I mean, honestly, that's the perfect analogy. We still don't know if she was gonna murder Michael Douglas at the end of the movie or not.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  We don't know. We don't know.

• 1:11:10Bill Simmons?

  Would I be dumb enough to, if I was gonna kill my boyfriend, to write about it in a book and say I was gonna kill him before I killed him? Nobody would be that crazy. Catherine Trammell.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  I think that

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  that's what came up. And I think that, you know, you think about Hitchcock with this movie. You think about, you know, an entire history of, of Verity movie making. You think about the priorities of improv comedy here. I mean, there's just so much to think about, but then there is just the fact that the thing works as a movie.

• 1:11:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, so that's my question, big picture, is this a movie or documentary? And this is something that

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Documentary is a movie. You mean like a feature? Is it like, like, how do we think about where to put this on the video shelf?

• 1:11:54Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna sidetrack us. So, mark where you are and we'll come back to it, because this is gonna be sidetracked. To me, the more fascinating, the most fascinating thing out of all of this with this movie to me was that it flipped what has happened with documentaries for the last 15 years, which I've made a few in my day. Something that was happening behind the scenes with documentaries that I don't even think the average person realized what was happening, which is they weren't authentic anymore. And most of the people, especially like in the sports ones or movies, or if you had Sliced the Loans doc on Netflix, whatever it is, the subjects are getting paid to be in them, or they're getting an EP fee, or their production company is getting to be part of the documentary.

• 1:12:37Bill Simmons?

  They are somehow getting a check from it, and it forever changed how we made documentaries, because once these became things that could establish production companies and give them value, once they became things that could make money and get awards, this wasn't hoop dreams anymore, you know? If you had hoop dreams down in 2026, Arthur Agee and Henry Gates, what was the, no, Henry, William Gates.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Bill Simmons?

  William Gates, Arthur Agee, they would have probably gotten 10% of the profits each, right? There's the only way they're participating. So, when my wife is talking, like, I saw this documentary and, like, do you think she got paid or not? And I'm like, the way people do documentaries now, she absolutely should have gotten paid. So, 824 is just gonna make all the money from this? The only reason they were able to make the movie was because these people give them the time. And it was interesting that this became one of the cruxes of the movie. It's like, oh my God, they wanted money out of this? Like, look the fuck around. This is the documentary business now. This is the world everyone has chosen. People get paid to be in these things, and I don't think they're documentaries anymore. I think that we need a new name for them. They're like docu-films or something. They're not documentaries.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  They're selfies. I mean, I don't know.

• 1:13:49Bill Simmons?

  They're selfies. They're selfie documentaries.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  I think, but you know, that, that, well, I love that you're, you're identifying this, and I don't know if we're gonna get back to where I was trying to go.

• 1:13:59Bill Simmons?

  No, we will. I'm gonna steer you back.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  But, but I, but what I, I love, I wanna sit here for a second, because I think that what you've got here is a kind of serious, old-school relationship to nonfiction filmmaking.

• 1:14:15Bill Simmons?

  Which is gone.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  And this new industrial model, which is, fuck you pay me. And I want control over the depiction of myself. I want to be a stakeholder financially and editorially, um, in, in the direction of this project.

• 1:14:34Bill Simmons?

  Or you don't get to make it. I remember when this changed for 30 for 30, and I think I've talked about this before. I had this Orlando Magic idea I wanna do about how Shaq and Penny fell apart in Orlando. Had this huge pitch, the NBA didn't wanna do it because, you know, and they had to greenlight all the NBA stuff. They didn't wanna do it because it was basically a small-market team that blew up and the star went to a big market. They didn't wanna do it. I was pushing for it. I was like, this is a great idea. We gotta do this. This is the best what-if team of the 90s. Finally convinced them to do it, and what happens? Shaq and Penny don't wanna be in it unless they're EPs.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  And we're going, well, we don't, these are documentaries. That's not normally how we do stuff like this. It wasn't gonna happen. Guess what happens? Shaq and Penny become EPs. The first shot of the documentary is them getting together with this inauthentic, oh, we're still buddies. And it's like, I don't know if they were still buddies, but they're pointing the camera. And I remember thinking to myself, this is, feels like a moment. I feel like documentaries are shifting right now into something different, where I'm not sure what we're capturing is actually what, what is the right thing to be capturing. And it's, it's been the case with documentaries ever since.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's the thing that makes, I mean, what you're identifying is what, I mean, I've been calling this movie a culturally destabilizing event. And part, part of its cultural, part of what's destabilizing about it is that you, there was a before, and everything, it feels like so much that is happening in the wake of this movie is gonna change because of it.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  I think it's gonna feel strange for subjects to even broach the conversation that, that, that Billy is kind of, um, performing happening, like, having with Nathan in, in the, in the 824 team.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Behind Elizabeth, like, out of earshot of Elizabeth Holmes.

• 1:16:32Bill Simmons?

  Who clearly went away and it was planned, and she went upstairs, and the way they reenacted it was absolutely what happened.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Yes. And I think that the movie's cynicism about the selfie occasion, the selfification of, of, you know, nonfiction portrait filmmaking is kind of, I mean, it's a little bit what, what killed, what got Ezra Edelman's Prince documentary killed.

• 1:16:59Bill Simmons?

  A little bit. It's what got Ezra Edelman's Prince documentary killed, plain, plain.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  I think that there's a real fear of

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  complicated storytelling about people. And I think when you ask whether or not I, like, like, how could I fall for this, or like, did I fall for this? I fell for it because what I'm really interested in here is the questions that it's, that it raises about, and I think this is true for all of us. I think there's a real desperation to kinda understand each other. And no matter where on the video store shelf you wind up putting this movie, what you are watching is one of the great works I've ever seen about relationships. And

• 1:17:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, and one of the great, whether we call it a documentary or whatever it is, it's on the shortlist of all time now, I think.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  Because what's, what's really great about it, I knew, again, I knew nothing. The movie just could have ended when she went to jail.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:18:09Bill Simmons?

  And it would have been awesome.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:18:11Bill Simmons?

  It'd been like, wow.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  So, wait, sorry, you, she goes to prison and you're like, what? You know there's 90 more minutes?

• 1:18:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm like, I honestly didn't know, when I say that I avoided everything, I avoided everything. So she goes to prison, and I'm like, where are we going?

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  I, I was like, wow, this movie doesn't get out for another hour and 20 minutes. What's happening? And then Amanda shows up, and it becomes a completely different movie, and it's one of the most riveting. I, first of all, when does somebody just come into a movie with more than half of the movie done and completely take it over? It's like the all-time Dion Waiters.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, this is the key check, is key check of all time.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  It's unbelievable. And by the end of the movie, I'm like, I'm like, I'm, I have, like, every other guy watches this movie. I have a huge crush on her. I have to completely reevaluate every, every movie she's ever been in that I've seen. What's going, this is one of the most fascinating celebrities we have.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  That is a really interesting phenomenon that's gonna happen as a result of this movie.

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  And she fits into the rest of the movie. It's like, she's another one. I don't know what's real and what's not real, because we have Nathan talking about, I just went through a breakup, and is clearly, like, he's putting himself into this, and, you know, he doesn't really put himself into a lot of stuff that way. But he's putting, like, his stuff in the movie, and then she comes in, and it's like, is, is she acting? Is she really that interested in this? Does she feel bad about being in the TV movie? Then when she gets mad at Billy Evans, which is the best scene in the movie, when all of a sudden it just starts escalating, and it's like an actual, real argument that you never get.

• 1:19:55Bill Simmons?

  I, I just could not have been more compelled.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I will say, I knew this was going to happen going into it the first time I saw it. And I still, like, nothing can prepare you for the depths, because I thought she just was in it to reenact some stuff, right? I just, I just assumed she'd be doing some cute Nathan Fielder-oriented things, but this is much, uh, you know, she's a therapist. She is a BFF. She is like, the, the, the, the best friend of the person in a romantic comedy who is like, this girl is bad news.

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  But then you're also rooting for them, maybe, it's like, maybe these two have a chance.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:43Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Nathan, maybe Nathan's a little sweet on Amanda. Maybe this is how it's gonna end with them together. I was prepared for anything at the two-hour mark.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  And Amanda Seyfried is also the

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  The best example of what acting is good for, and I don't mean because her acting is so great, but I mean, I just, you rarely get to watch a movie about an actor, a good actor, where you're thinking about like, what the value of the art form even, like, what the value of the art form, why we love acting, why we love going to the movies, what it is that an actor is doing for us when they play these real life people.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, but beyond that, the skill of sliding into a person.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:30Bill Simmons?

  And becoming a different person. And this is somebody who was a child actress, who is just clearly good at it. And she's like, sliding in between, oh, I think that's what the real Amanda is like. And then she's acting, and then she becomes Elizabeth Holmes in the reenactment, and then she's back to being Amanda again. I'm like, this is fucking incredible. This is like, watching what Meryl Streep's process is or something.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  But I mean, again, like, like, the process of, of acting, but also the sort of morality of playing a living person, of playing a, like, a problematic living person, a living person who's been convicted of crimes.

• 1:22:08Bill Simmons?

  Which she didn't feel like she had really 100% come to grips with. It was like, yeah, you, you, you took advantage of this situation like everybody else did. You were able to get an Emmy out of playing this, this disgraced character. And don't act like there's not a little blood on your hands.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  I mean, and I think that she was willing to be punished for that. Right? I think that, you know, I think that, you know, we don't know where the truth begins and ends in so many areas of this film. But at some point, I think Amanda, Amanda Seyfried shows up to agrees because I think that she feels, I think she might feel like there was both more to say and something to atone for somehow. I don't know. I don't know.

• 1:23:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, but by the way, she's an actress and she realizes it's smart for her to be in this.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Does she? I mean-

• 1:23:08Bill Simmons?

  I think she does. I think she, she obviously knew what Nathan's work was, and she was like, this is gonna be good.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Did you think that she knew that this was gonna be the movie of the year?

• 1:23:16Bill Simmons?

  She got to watch the first half of it.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  That's how they got her to do it. That's how they got her to do it. So she watched the first half.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  We see her watching the footage.

• 1:23:25Bill Simmons?

  So she's like, I'm in. How can I help? Because she, she's smart enough to realize, like, holy shit, this story is still going.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  I love the cynics on this movie. The cyn- I mean, this is the most cynicism-proof, but cynicism-absorbent movie I've ever seen. It can handle all your skepticism and like, just real, real industry, your industrial real talk. I don't know. I just love how indestructible and elastic and, and absorbent this thing is.

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, and also the tricks that it plays on you and I and every other person who's watching this, where you're on the roller coaster ride of understanding how people could have gotten snuckered by this lady. It makes, after two and a half hours of it, it makes sense to me. It's like, I get it. I get it. She, she just, she bats her eyelashes. She seems super smart.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Does she? She doesn't even blink.

• 1:24:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. No, she, she does the opposite of batting her eyelashes. Just stares you down, has that low voice. There's something that you want to protect about her as you spend time with her. You're like, oh, man, I feel bad. You don't even know why you feel bad for her. And, you know, she can cry on command and make it seem like it's the first time something's gotten to her, but she can basically do it whatever she wants.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  She's the actor. She's as good an actor as Amanda Seyfried.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  100%, you know? 100%. And then she has this Billy Evans, who she knows is, you know, kind of a scumbag.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  We gotta talk about Billy.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, I, I, the one thing I did know was that I was gonna see his crank at some point in the movie, because my wife came home and was like, there's a penis in this movie. I was like, what's going on? Don't tell me more. But yeah, but he's-

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  There's a very important penis in this movie. It's important.

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  So I read, I read, I read a lot of the news kind of stuff about this after, and they, somebody wrote a whole piece about the penis.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:25:23Bill Simmons?

  And how he's like, they kept coming home from the gym, him and Lance, the director. And he's like, I had a shower. He's like, you can film me showering? And leaves the door open. And you're like, you'd like, film you naked shower? It's like, yeah, I don't care. Like, for some reason, he wanted to do it, which is, fits into the premise of you can see everything, I guess. But just to do that is so bizarre.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:45Bill Simmons?

  Like bizarre.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  I think that, but you know, in the world of the movie, it really works because what we see, what we're, we're not looking at Lance Oppenheimer, we're officially looking at Billy Evans showering. We're, we're seeing Nathan see Billy shower, right?

• 1:26:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  And so there is this, there is the creation of a tension, of a, of a, of a jealousy from Nathan to Billy.

• 1:26:13Bill Simmons?

  The throuple dynamic is looming.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, I also think that there's a world in which we're watching a blank from hell movie. Right?

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, it starts out, that one shot early on, when Nathan's just watching through the window with that crazy look. It does seem like Rebecca DeMarney in Hand that Rocks the Cradle, standing outside the house, deciding whether she wants to go in.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  I do think that, like, the part, like, he clearly, I think that it's interesting to me that you are, I, I mean, you can correct me for a moment, you're sincerely wondering if Nathan got took by Elizabeth Holmes.

• 1:26:51Bill Simmons?

  No, because that's the point of Nathan. I am wondering, but with Nathan, everything's on the table at all times.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  You'll never know.

• 1:26:59Bill Simmons?

  We'll never know. He's, he's basically a magician with this shit. So he's, he's putting in there stuff that he wants me to either think or question at all times. This is what he does. This is why he's the best. But the whole time, I'm like, is he falling in love with this lady? And they have that long scene near the end when they're on the couch, and they're just staring at each other, about as long as you can possibly stare at somebody without starting to make out. And same thing at the end, when they say goodbye in the car, when they're standing like this. And at that point, like, if I had to bet-

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Oh, they're, they're, they're almost, they're, I mean, that's like all but a kiss.

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  That's like two people that are about to fuck.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:35Bill Simmons?

  So if I had to bet, was Nathan sweet on this woman by the end of the first half of the filming, yes or no? I would bet yes. I think he got taken by her.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  And you think-

• 1:27:45Bill Simmons?

  But knew the whole time that she was a liar.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, is it like, you're my people?

• 1:27:51Bill Simmons?

  But this is, but this is Basic Instinct. This goes back to your Basic Instinct thing.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56Bill Simmons?

  This is like Michael Douglas's character going, I should fucking run the opposite direction of this lady. But I, there's a fucking magic to this. I'm alive. My blood's boiling. I'm ready for this.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  And, you know, in Basic Instinct, she knows, right? Catherine Trammell understands. What does she say? You, you, you like the heat, Nikki? You like the fire or something like that?

• 1:28:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's-

• 1:28:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, she says at the end, I'm almost done with my book. That means, that means you have to go. Which is basically what Elizabeth Holmes, I'm almost about to go to jail, which means you have to go. It's not like she's gonna see this guy again.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  But she, but, but you know, he does, he does not give up.

• 1:28:37Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  And I feel like this is, I mean, you know, Bill, this is like a film noir. You know, the, the femme fatale goes to prison and the dupe is trying to like, if not get her out, then at least understand.

• 1:28:50Bill Simmons?

  This is body heat. Yeah.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Oh, there we go. Yeah.

• 1:28:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  This is like, this is, this is like just film noir territory. There is, but there's also something about him as a character that I think is really compelling because he wants, he wants to get to the bottom of her, but he also, he kind of can't believe that what is happening is happening, right? Like, he knows every single thing that she did. He is fully prepared with the legal case against this woman, the moral case against this woman. And yet, I think that the, that the effectiveness of the project for us as viewers, who had

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  our questions about whether it was possible that Elizabeth Holmes really seduced all these like, old white men to give her, you know, all this money, and to help this company. What he does, you know, the performance art dimension of this is he becomes one of those guys, right? And the money, the potential for money here, because if you think of what, how many days till prison when this money conversation comes up? Like, not many. Like, we're talking days.

• 1:30:05Bill Simmons?

  Right, because they start filming-

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  34 days.

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  With 34 days left. When did the money conversation happen?

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Because I think that's the point at which, uh, before she goes, well, it's definitely before she goes to prison.

• 1:30:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  But I mean, how many more days? I don't remember. But it's like such a clear, like, his value and the value of, of the proposition, I think, changes when the money goes out of the picture.

• 1:30:35Bill Simmons?

  Like, so I, I guess my question with that, they make that like the big fulcrum of the last part of the movie, right? This is, this becomes the big litmus test of whether you, you think she was a liar all along or not. And he has some real hesitation to, well, it's a documentary. You can't pay somebody for a documentary if she knew this is all a lie. And I, I think they, this is the one thing I'm pretty convinced they played up for the movie.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Sure. Oh, you mean, wait, the, the filmmakers?

• 1:31:06Bill Simmons?

  I, Fielder, his character in the movie, being this discombobulated about the possibility that she might've been in on asking for money to be in the movie. I just feel like any rational person is gonna assume that they're gonna wanna get paid. This is Billy Evans, who's making an AI Elizabeth Holmes thing that people can jerk off to. I'm pretty sure he's gonna ask for a cut of the documentary. This guy will try to make money from anything. He's not gonna try to get paid to be in the documentary? These people care about the ethics of old school documentaries, the way we did them in the 1970s? Like, no fucking way.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  But I think that playing it up is really brilliant because-

• 1:31:46Bill Simmons?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, because it makes, it makes, it makes the documentary a kind of Theranos.

• 1:31:54Bill Simmons?

  It does. But it also, it also plays on people that don't really know how documentaries actually work. Like, my mom was, my-

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that's-

• 1:32:03Bill Simmons?

  My wife was like, oh, my God, I can't believe, if she really wanted to get paid for that. And I was like, I hate to break it to you, but this is what happens in documentaries. It's like, if you see, like, Fleetwood Mac, which they're finally doing the Fleetwood Mac documentary, which has been the best music documentary idea out there for 20 years, right? It's gonna be an apple. I'm pretty sure probably some checks were cut to get Stevie and Lindsey Buckingham and all of these people, you know, to talk. Now, I don't know that for a fact, but this is just how it goes now. If you're watching, you know, an Adele documentary, Billie Eilish, whoever, they're getting paid. So, does that change how you watch it when you know that going in?

• 1:32:47Bill Simmons?

  To me, it does. Like, when I watch stuff like quarterbacks, or, you know, whatever LeBron's documentary is gonna be, this is, it's not gonna be like this authentic slice of whatever. Like, When We Were Kings, which is probably the best sports documentary of all time, that's a documentary. That's just footage and, you know, some interviews and, and this guy is just embedded in this crazy circumstance of a fight, and it's awesome. That's a documentary.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  I also think that it's, I, like, the, a useful thing, and I really, and one of the things that I think that is gonna make this movie infinitely teachable, is that, you know, one of the things you learn when you start studying nonfiction filmmaking, and really, any kind of, like, nonfiction endeavor, is that you're really still, as much, as, as much journalism goes into, you know, the making of, of, you know, the nuts and bolts and skeleton of, of the story being told and, you know, the arguments being made, in a documentary or a piece of, you know, nonfiction writing, it's still an art form. And the thing that you learn-

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

  You know, I agree with that.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Right. The thing that you're learning-

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  One of the hardest things to do. You're basically writing a magazine feature as a video, and you're doing, you're putting everything together. It has to be edited perfectly. You have to walk the viewer through stuff. You have to decide what you're leaving in, cutting out. They're really fucking hard to make.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  And so, much of what we're talking about is the choice, our choices, but also the, the sort of, the sort of existential question, or like, maybe it's more than existential, like, it's just, the, it's not inherently true because it's not scripted, you know, quote scripted, unquote. It's, there are, there are, there are forms of truth, and there are

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  ways of performing in a documentary. I mean, you know, Errol Morris's Thin Blue Line is, you know, a classic example of, of, of, of where these questions are, are thriving with respect to reenactments. And the way in which Errol Morris is kind of bending the truth, bending one truth to get to this larger truth.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  I think this movie is doing a version of that. No matter what happens in terms of who knew what and agreed to do what, and maybe even like, took something over again, whatever, however that operates, the larger truths here, and the larger questions here about the relationship of this woman to this man and Billy, you know, this, this, this marriage, the filmmaker, the subject to his, to, to, to the filmmakers. I mean, these are still questions that are worth talking about because, in many ways, they're unanswerable, and they're classic nonfiction filmmaking, nonfiction art questions.

• 1:35:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's two things with a documentary. There's two questions fundamentally. Doesn't matter what the documentary is. First question is, what am I trying to answer with this documentary?

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:57Bill Simmons?

  The second question is,

• 1:36:00Bill Simmons?

  if I'm a viewer, how much of this do I believe? How much of this is 100% authentic? And if it's less than authentic, now it's on my brain to figure out how to decipher how authentic this is or not. Which brings me to my favorite music documentary ever, The Eagles, History of the Eagles, Part One, which I wrote about for Grantland, which I just watched twice recently.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Bills, one of my favorite Bills.

• 1:36:23Bill Simmons?

  I just love it so much. And one of the reasons I love it, well, it answers, the basic question is, why did the Eagles break up? This was the biggest band in the world. Why did they break up? All right, so that's the premise of Part One. But then the underlying premise is, are they telling us everything here? Because the Eagles are being run at that time by Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

• 1:36:47Bill Simmons?

  They're coming up with all these different reasons why the band didn't break up, but they're ignoring the elephant in the room, which is like, they clearly broke up because these two guys couldn't coexist in a band anymore because Henley had ascended a little higher than Glenn Frey, right? So they're kind of saying it in roundabout ways, but nobody's saying it. And it's like, it's Don Felder's vote. He, he was at the Alan, Alan Cranston speech, and he made a face, and so we stopped the band. It's like, I don't think that's what happened. I think you guys flew too close to the sun, and you had two alphas that wanted to run the band, and bands flame out after seven years. But nobody will say it? So it's on me as the viewer to be like, all right, I'm a smart person. I can,

• 1:37:30Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna take all the stuff you give me, but I'm also gonna draw my own conclusions. This documentary, the Fielder one, the big question is, is this person a liar or not? And then the sub-question is where it gets really interesting, because the Eagles one is like, eh, what was going on with Frey and Henley? What was actually happening there? This documentary, there's five things I'm wondering about.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:54Bill Simmons?

  Did Nathan fall in love with her? How big of a scumbag is the husband? Was the father afraid of Billy? Cause it seemed like he kinda was, and-

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  He definitely doesn't like Billy, that's clear.

• 1:38:08Bill Simmons?

  And was the father the only actual sympathetic character in this whole thing? Cause he clearly loved his daughter and felt like she was led astray by a couple people, and that she had some trauma in her past. And it seemed authentic to me as I watched it.

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  Bill, you're leaving out a major character detail here.

• 1:38:26Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  About the dad.

• 1:38:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, like, like, like daughter, like daddy, this guy worked for Enron.

• 1:38:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  I don't know what he did at Enron, but like, I mean, I don't know, she, I mean, Elizabeth can read.

• 1:38:41Bill Simmons?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  She could read as a little girl.

• 1:38:44Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't, wasn't great. So then you have, on the other sub-questions, this whole paying them for the documentary and how real was this? What actually happened when he went to visit her at the end? Because the, the, the thing, the reenactment we're seeing is just his memory of being in a room where he couldn't have notes or a recorder, which is really hard, especially as you get older to remember every detail. And then you have the whole Amanda Seyfried thing, I said it right that time, of how authentic is she in this or not? Is she an actress, or is this really her? So you walk out of the theater and you're like, my fucking head is doing 360s. I have 40 questions and I can't really answer any of them.

• 1:39:26Bill Simmons?

  It's time for a new segment, Greatest Plays of All Time. It is brought to you by State Farm. We've witnessed some truly legendary plays throughout football history, plays that can never be recreated because they're designed for that precise moment on the field. It's the same reason why State Farm helps personalize coverage. You need a plan designed to suit your unique situation. But back to those iconic plays, some people talk about Dwight Clark with the catch, Joe Montana, San Francisco Dallas, there's Music City Miracle, Beastquake. I still think the two most famous plays ever are Super Bowl plays. It was Malcolm Butler with the, with the pick against Seattle to save the Patriots' Super Bowl and the Seahawks-Patriots, the first time they played.

• 1:40:07Bill Simmons?

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• 1:40:50Bill Simmons?

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• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  I have other questions.

• 1:41:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm sure I left some out.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  And, I mean, but I don't think you're gonna like my questions, because they're about,

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  they're about the, like, the, the world of the movie itself.

• 1:41:38Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  And I really did think a lot about

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  what it must have been like to be Elizabeth Holmes in a relationship with a man.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  I, I mean, at the end of the day, no matter what kind of liar she is, I don't think liars are born. I think liars, like, certain liars, pathological liars,

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Circumstances create those people.

• 1:42:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  And I think that the thing that you're, I actually, I tried to watch it the way you were watching it. And I think for the most part I did. But at the end of the day, I'm still aware, and I think the movie, one of the movie's achievements is that it's still aware that we are watching a person, like a human being. And the thing that I love about that moment, that disturbing moment with the dad where he's like, just blurts out that she was raped and that explains everything. I think there's a world where it does kind of explain everything. We know nothing about this incident, including whether it's true.

• 1:42:43Bill Simmons?

  It's by far her most sympathetic as a viewer, where you actually like, oh shit.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I think it's a thing that you keep thinking about because we learn that before who's on first. And I mean, do we have to explain who's on first? Like, I mean, not as a comedy routine, but as a, like a moment in the movie.

• 1:43:02Bill Simmons?

  So I thought, I thought that was her biggest mistake in the entire film.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Hmm. How do you mean?

• 1:43:10Bill Simmons?

  Because that's when it became clear that she was committed to the bit, to the bitter end. Because my, I have two kids now that are older. Either of my kids at age five would have understood who's on first. Like you're talking, you need an IQ like 80 and above to understand who's on first. And to, and she's like, I don't get it. I don't understand what was funny. It's like to not be, for her to claim that she didn't have any opinion on why somebody would have thought that was funny. To me was disingenuous. Because you could be like, even if she's committing to the bit and being like, I don't get it. She could be, she could at least have asked him, is it funny because of the delivery that they have back and forth? Or their chemistry? Like, help me understand.

• 1:43:52Bill Simmons?

  But she's just like, I'm stupid. I don't understand what, I don't, I don't get it. I don't know. Like, how does somebody not understand who's on first? Come on.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  God, I, no, no, no, I'm with you, except she's, this conversation is, this moment is happening with Nathan on one side of her on this sofa and Billy on the other, at the other end of the sofa.

• 1:44:14Bill Simmons?

  Who's like rubbing her head to keep contact with her as it's happening, to keep like her little control on her.

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  On the one hand, Nathan's explaining comedy to her, right? Like she says, I don't get it. And it's interesting what she doesn't get, right? What she doesn't get is that this is like, this is a form of human relationship. These are two guys who love each other. And the way Abbott and Costello express love is by fighting, right? Like it's by arguing with each other.

• 1:44:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  I, I think that, you know, Nathan's explaining comedy to her. And Billy is explaining her to her. And I think to the extent that like you feel sympathy for this, this, if you don't feel sympathy for this one woman, I think there's, there's been many a woman who's been in this situation where you're being double mansplained. And I've just, the paralysis of being accused of being humorless, not understanding a major form of communication in comedy.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  And then having your entire personality kind of reframed as being too special to be normal, to even deign to get the joke of who's on first. It's like, well, shit, what am I supposed to do?

• 1:45:36Bill Simmons?

  I just don't believe it.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  You don't believe it.

• 1:45:38Bill Simmons?

  This is why, this was the only scene I, I didn't believe it. I thought she was like, I gotta keep the ruse to the bitter end. We had decided before these documentary crews came here, that I'm just gonna play dumb and defer to Billy at all times. And I'm never gonna admit, ever, in any way, that I tried to deceive these people with Theranos. I'm never gonna admit it. I don't know why people, it did work. And she's just committed to the bit forever. It's like watching somebody, you know, it's like one of those Twitter videos where somebody walks in on, you know, their wife with another guy and she's like, I don't know what you mean. And it's like, but that, we just saw the guy climb out the window. Why are you still lying about this? That's what she's doing for three hours.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, this is interesting because, but the other, the other hu, there are a few things the movie gets hung, a few very important and interesting things the movie gets hung up on. One, the, the sort of ethical questions about whether or not to pay, uh, Elizabeth and Billy.

• 1:46:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  But the other thing is that New York Times profile that Amy Chozick wrote of Elizabeth Holmes, in which she is quoted as saying that that's not me, that's a character that I created. Um, and you know.

• 1:46:52Bill Simmons?

  Right. And then they have the big battle about, by the way, did that Times reporter ever come up with the quote?

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we just ran a, we just ran a piece where, you know, they, the Times calls Amy Chozick to like, explain what happened. And I mean, her explanation was perfectly logical. She had the notebook and then she tossed it. Like not because, I mean, we throw out notebooks all the time. It's just not, you can't keep all the notebooks, although I, I do keep all my notebooks and I'm not even a reporter. But her explanation to me made sense. It did not seem strange at all.

• 1:47:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  Um, what's strange is that they claim they recorded every conversation that happened and couldn't find it, but can't produce the conversation in which this alleged not quote took place?

• 1:47:38Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know.

• 1:47:40Bill Simmons?

  But that's the point is, I think she was playing characters really this whole time.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:45Bill Simmons?

  Dating back to, she played the Theranos character, now she's playing the, I don't know how all this happened to me, I'm sympathetic. And they thought, so the bigger question to me, tying into what you just said. Why would they want to do this film? A. Why would they want to do this film with Nathan Fielder? B.

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  Well, this is the part where.

• 1:48:07Bill Simmons?

  And I have not heard an adequate explanation. It takes five minutes to Google Nathan Fielder. Billy Evans clearly online. It's not like he's.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  I don't know if they know what it means. Like, I don't, I actually don't know. I mean, maybe Lance Oppenheim was the way that this, this movie got started, right? And Nathan came attached. I don't.

• 1:48:27Bill Simmons?

  So Lance, but this is where they've been very tight lipped about, how much did they know about Nathan? And did Lance do the documentary? And be like, I'm gonna use Nathan as like my host for the documentary and somehow convince them this was a good idea?

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  I, I do think that Nathan was probably just kind of around. And I, I don't know. I mean, I don't even want to venture a guess about like the, the, the sort of, the, the, how the form of the documentary came to, came to be.

• 1:48:58Bill Simmons?

  But this is the classic, I'm gonna let the coyote into my, my chicken cage.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03Bill Simmons?

  What could go wrong? He seems nice.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  But I also think that that is how blind to hubris they are, right? I actually think that the Theranos to Electric Boogaloo part is huge to this movie. Like, it, it isn't just.

• 1:49:20Bill Simmons?

  Can I have a different idea for why they did it?

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:49:25Bill Simmons?

  I think he's a really well-liked, respected, award-winning comic who's good at making stuff.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:33Bill Simmons?

  I think they felt like, if we can convince this guy.

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. Oh, no.

• 1:49:39Bill Simmons?

  That you're actually a victim.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Oh God, we went 4D. Okay.

• 1:49:44Bill Simmons?

  If we can win this guy over, everyone will think that you're the victim, that you didn't realize what you did and you're gonna be a sympathetic figure. So they basically, they were like, let's go to the NBA finals of this. It's, we're not just doing a documentary. We're gonna try to win over Nathan Fielder to make it seem like he believes in us. And guess what? It backfired.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Well, I think that last shot is, is extraordinary. I think that last shot is.

• 1:50:17Bill Simmons?

  The ocean shot or the shot of them in the prison?

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  I think the, the, the ocean shot.

• 1:50:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  I think that having Amanda Seyfried say, it's complicated. You know, like her not having, this person, you know, Amanda Seyfried, who like really, is just so game to do all the exploratory, sidekicking, co-hosting, you know, passenger seat ruminating that you just want in a homie.

• 1:50:51Bill Simmons?

  She's out of an eighties movie. It's like Ally Sheedy in War Games. Like, hey, we're going, do you wanna go to the island to see where the War Games guy is? Yeah, I'll go with you. Yeah.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's Mary Stuart Masterson and Martha Plipp did it, you know, like, like, yeah, so many other.

• 1:51:07Bill Simmons?

  Samantha Mathis and pump up the volume.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Halle Berry in Boomerang. Like this, she's just ready for.

• 1:51:14Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna help our hero for the last half of the movie.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Let me just figure out how I can be of service. Yeah, I, I wanna be of service. I also, but I do think that her, the stake that she holds in this film has everything to do with the fact that she was a previous interpreter of the same information, the same story. And I think she's as curious as we are about what Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have learned in the years since we last saw fictional Elizabeth Holmes.

• 1:51:46Bill Simmons?

  By the way, it goes.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Played by Amanda Seyfried.

• 1:51:48Bill Simmons?

  With that, it goes Billy Evans saying, yeah, we should have it up and running in a year. And then the next thing is two years later. Uh, there's some really great editing in this movie, like that, that are just really funny. They did such a good job. I had a bigger question with you about Amanda.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  I know what your question is.

• 1:52:10Bill Simmons?

  Can she be best supporting actress for this?

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  Yes, I think she can. I mean, if the actors want to go there, let them go there.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  Cause she does reenact stuff for, you know, she's on, she's on screen reenacting Elizabeth Holmes for at least 10 minutes. But this bleeds into this weird, we've never had this for an Oscars category before where she's real her, but also pretending to be Elizabeth Holmes her. I think she should be eligible, and I also think this is going to be eligible for best movie. I don't think there's any question.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  I think it's, I, it can be.

• 1:52:43Bill Simmons?

  But can Nathan, Nathan can't be best actor, I don't think.

• 1:52:49Speaker 01

  Well, he does, I mean, if, if, if Amanda Seyfried is acting in those prison sequences, isn't Nathan also? You know, I mean, doesn't it then sort of open, isn't that the mouth hole?

• 1:53:01Bill Simmons?

  Five spots.

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  Right, but isn't that the?

• 1:53:03Bill Simmons?

  He wins, he wins, they get, if the film gets nominated and the directors get nominated.

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  I don't, nobody, we're not talking about Nathan Fielder, we're talking about Amanda Seyfried here, because that is the revelation. And I think that

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  the, the thing that.

• 1:53:17Bill Simmons?

  When you say that that's a revelation. Cause I think we feel the same way on this. Is this like when an athlete? When you're like, wow, there was a little more in there than I thought.

• 1:53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:29Bill Simmons?

  Like, like Jalen Brown carrying the Celtics to 56 wins last year. I was like, wow, didn't know he had that in him. And it was the same thing with her in this movie where I'm like, I didn't know.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  I, you know, I think a really important part of this whole Amanda Seyfried journey is the Testament of Anne. That Shaker movie that came out last year, did you ever see that?

• 1:53:52Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  I don't like it. I don't, I don't think it works. Mona Fastbold, who is also co-responsible for The Brutalist. That Brady Corbeil movie that came out two years ago with Adrian Brody, won a second Oscar. Amanda Seyfried plays, she stars in that film.

• 1:54:13Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  And I think the, it's a, it's a strange movie. A lot of it is just, a lot of it is her character being, it's about the sort of creation of the Shaker, of Shakerism as a, as a religion. And a lot of what Amanda Seyfried is doing is singing, like a kind of like arrhythmic

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  choral songs that the Shaker sang and doing a lot of Holy Spirit, caught the spirit dancing. And I think that it's the boldest performance she's ever tried to give. And I think she.

• 1:54:54Bill Simmons?

  She put her over The Housemaid?

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  But, oh, but Bill, interestingly.

• 1:55:01Bill Simmons?

  I liked her in The Housemaid.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  Those two films happened at the same time.

• 1:55:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Those two films came out within like weeks of each other. And I think that she, you know, you and I talk a lot about what happens when actors ripen. You know, when they get a certain age.

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just, I mean, she's always been good. I've, I mean, I've always loved her. But I think that now there's like a maturity and a wisdom and a down for anything aspect to her that makes her as an, as a performer really exciting. And so the thing that's the other revelation here is not just that the kind of actor she is, but the, the way that her acting is used here is almost philosophical. Like she herself is

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  making a case for the importance of acting. And it isn't in like a James Lipton sort of way. It is by doing. Her mere presence is.

• 1:56:03Bill Simmons?

  She's not hitting her over the head with it.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she's just doing it, showing it.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  And in that sense, I don't know, does an actor playing themselves, playing someone else, playing that they've already played? I don't know what kind of bylaw this is gonna, this is gonna run up against, but I think she should be eligible. And to the extent that it matters, I think she should be nominated.

• 1:56:26Bill Simmons?

  We agree. Well, then you add this other piece of Nathan Fielder, who by the end of the first part of the movie, you feel like he might be in love with Elizabeth Holmes. But then you also feel like he's falling for Amanda Seyfried a little bit in the second part. Culminating in the rehearsing of the things where she's now basically the two people he, we might think he might be sweet on, have now blended into this super person that he just seems so delighted. So for him, as somebody who's followed him for 13 years, basically.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  This is vertigo, baby. It's vertigo.

• 1:56:59Bill Simmons?

  He fucking, he climbed the mountain with this one. This is everything his career was leading to. I did the first podcast with him, I think, at Grantland in 2013. Yeah, he came in cause, cause Lewis sent me like the first six Nathan for years. And even before it came out, I had him on. I was like, I just love this show. He was a Canadian guy, you know, he was probably a little nervous to even do media for something he did. And now 13 years later is, you know, has a chance to win the Oscar. And I think, I think this is one of the best documentaries, for lack of a better word, we've ever had. Like this to me goes into all the greats that I've seen in my lifetime. This has to be mentioned on the shortlist with, with any of them, I think.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that, I mean, just in terms of it's being a meta text, right? Like I love a documentary that is also about itself in some way.

• 1:57:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's also really well framed and well edited. Like, could it be 15 minutes shorter? Like, sure.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. Where, what would you cut? I was never, there's never a dull moment. I mean, I'm sure a professional could find ways to do it, but I didn't have that feeling where it was too long. But you know, you, you're, you.

• 1:58:12Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's like almost three hours. But no, I mean, I certainly didn't get bored. It wasn't like I was like, oh man, hour to go. As soon as Amanda Seyfried showed up, it was like, it, it was like, uh, it was like a trade deadline trade. It's like, oh, they have Rasheed Wallace now. Oh my God, here come the Pistons.

• 1:58:33Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, I wonder, is this going to rejuvenate the form itself, which I think has desperately, desperately needed rejuvenation for a whole bunch of different reasons? Are we going to get back to our roots of, yeah, these are big swings?

• 1:58:49Bill Simmons?

  You know, or, or is this just a one on one? I don't know.

• 1:58:52Speaker 01

  I don't, well, nobody else, who else could do this?

• 1:58:54Bill Simmons?

  Nobody else could do this.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that every time I try to draw some conclusion from some major cultural crater that gets like left in the earth.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I can conclude, I can talk about its meaning like culturally, but industrially, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's funny, this same director made Primetime. The, the To Catch a Predator movie with Robert Pattinson. That came out and was, did pretty well earlier this year. And I feel like there's a project here, right? There is a project about that's some, that has something to do with

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  the confusion of what's real and what's fictional. And the sort of moral stakes of, of reenactment, right?

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  The, the idea that somebody else is going to take this cause up seems rare. I think you just let Lance Oppenheimer.

• 1:59:56Bill Simmons?

  I, to me, it's more.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  You mean, you're just, you're talking about the form itself.

• 1:59:59Bill Simmons?

  Film makers being like, oh wow, I'm going to start thinking outside the box. Maybe this is a way I could have my own version of this.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  Well, I will say then to that, to your, to your like larger point, sorry to get myopic there.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  This is a really interesting year for young white filmmakers, just no negroes have come up yet. Or women for that matter. But I, I, I feel like

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  this is a like, you know, the Curry Barker story, the, the back rooms guy, Lance Oppenheimer.

• 2:00:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, these are all people 30 and under. There's, there's an easy to understand reason though.

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  You're gonna say, what, the internet?

• 2:00:43Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think people under 30 have been filming stuff for most of their lives.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  I think that is a huge part of it.

• 2:00:50Bill Simmons?

  They see things through a camera, really from the time they're in sixth grade on. Like, my daughter can do social media editing that I don't understand how, she never went to a class.

• 2:01:04Bill Simmons?

  And I look at the stuff she can do, and it's like, she's just a different human being than me. She's grown up with all of these tools that I don't really understand how to use. But I think you have now everyone under 30 looking through something, which is basically filmmaking. So they're seeing things differently, and also, like, you can, you can film. When I was, 40 years ago, I'm lugging around, you know, I had the video camera that had the side pack on it. And I'm lugging around and we're filming stuff and making fake movies in high school. And it was a fucking pain in the ass. You had to come home, you had the VHS out. You'd have to, like, have two VHSs just to edit anything. And now you can, you know, anybody can make anything now, and I think we're starting to see it.

• 2:01:46Bill Simmons?

  I really do. I think, I think you can see it drifting into the under 30 generation.

• 2:01:50Speaker 01

  I also think to your point about, um, I mean, the way we're thinking about, like, generations and what you're asking about what happens to nonfiction filmmaking now.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  I think that, like, at the same time, because of the flattening of the way we, or the, you know, the diversification, but also the flattening of the way we experience a lot of television movies. I think people don't think about documentary versus, you know, some other form, right?

• 2:02:22Bill Simmons?

  No, it's, it's an hour and a half or two hours of content to kill time on a Tuesday night.

• 2:02:27Speaker 01

  People watch documentaries all the time.

• 2:02:29Bill Simmons?

  You know what I'm telling you? You know what happened to Netflix this year? When you look at those top 10 trends, and you look at, like, top 10 movies? What were, over and over again, the top 10 movies? They were these fucking Lifetime movies that they were licensing. And it was like, "The podcaster who killed his boyfriend."

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:46Bill Simmons?

  And it was like, "What's that?" Click, you start watching, it's like, "This is a fucking Lifetime movie they made in Canada." And it's number two over the Affleck movie they just paid $100 million for. Like, that's, that means something, that people are clicking on titles and thumbnails over filmmakers and stars and ideas. To me, is, is something and probably a little bit alarming.

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  I just learned over the weekend that Mr. Beast employs about 15 people, possibly more, to just do thumbnails for Mr. Beast. Just the thumbnails.

• 2:03:26Bill Simmons?

  Listen, I know for my son, like, he, he did Mr. Beast Games, or Beast Games, whatever he called it. My son, like, that's for his generation, is Survivor. Which is funny, because Beast Games did a collaboration with Survivor where Jeff Probst came in. It was like, it was like a passing of the torch, almost.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  I just think that the way that we think about the, I mean, clearly, the models have changed, right? The, the old models are broken, the new models are here with us, and they are active.

• 2:03:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then you have those other weird models, like the micro dramas and the stuff like that, that I'm not a personal believer in, but we'll see.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  But I don't think, but that's like, that's like a bad version of an old model, right?

• 2:04:08Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's basically new wave quibi.

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that Mr. Beast is like, like, you know, it's a show like Mr. or an experience like Mr. Beast, that's a new expression of something. I mean, it might have some tendrils that, that reach, that connect to the past, obviously. But the way that show is put out into the world and, and assembled, and, you know, a bunch of shows like it, I think that there's a real understanding that

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  streaming platforms are just a completely different medium and, and, and they need a language that makes sense there.

• 2:04:47Bill Simmons?

  Or, or I can be super cynical and say it's all about what's in the thumbnail, and that's really all that matters.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  But maybe that is, Bill, that's part of the news.

• 2:04:54Bill Simmons?

  I've watched four episodes of War. First of all, great thumbnail, and McNulty's in it, right?

• 2:05:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't really like it.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, is it good?

• 2:05:04Bill Simmons?

  Not really. It's just dressed up British people, kinda arguing in, in, uh, like, disciplined settings. Like, big group settings of people being just British, and nothing's really happened yet. And I've watched all four episodes, but I, I always joke about the iPad test where I'm looking down, up, down, up. I'm probably at, like, 37% for War, where I'm just going through basketball box scores. I'm like, "Oh, somebody's yelling at somebody, back down." And I think that's just a lot of shows now, and it's really tough to cut through with something where it's like, "Oh." And that, I think that's a real conundrum for these streamers.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's why you can't really game it, and it's also probably why you don't need to spend $150 or $250 million on something when you just don't know what's gonna happen.

• 2:05:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, when you can spend $3 million on, "Oh, this, this dude went in and, and, uh, killed this, killed this mailman outside his house. Did he do it or not?" Next, "The mailman murders." I'm like, "I'm clicking on that. What is that?"

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  I'm gonna look that up.

• 2:06:10Bill Simmons?

  I just made that up right now. You would watch the mailman.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  You just made that up?

• 2:06:13Bill Simmons?

  I made that up.

• 2:06:14Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Well, you just, somebody needs to mail you a check, because...

• 2:06:17Bill Simmons?

  Mailman murders.

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  You need to, like, like, copyright that real quick.

• 2:06:20Bill Simmons?

  November 3rd on Netflix.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Before we go, uh, I wanna tell you, 'cause I don't know if I emailed this to you, but my favorite radio station, WXPN in Philadelphia, you know, they do this annual poll every year of the, you know, 885, 88.5 is their number. They do, like, these countdowns, and this year, the countdown is the 885 greatest songs from television and the movies. And, you know, you go to, you know, WXPN.org, and you just go, you can go and vote in this poll. I just feel like this is the newest thing of all time.

• 2:06:56Bill Simmons?

  So is it like theme songs, or song?

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  Anything you want. It could be Jaws, it could be, uh, you know, "Don't You Forget About Me." You know, my, my number one on my list is "Fight the Power" from Do the Right Thing. I mean, I just, I don't know, I just feel like this is a very fun thing, it's a great idea, and, I don't know. This is such a, this is so for you.

• 2:07:20Bill Simmons?

  When are you coming to LA?

• 2:07:21Speaker 01

  I don't know, soon.

• 2:07:23Bill Simmons?

  Gotta do rewatchables at some point soon.

• 2:07:25Speaker 01

  Sometime in the next year or so.

• 2:07:27Bill Simmons?

  Sometime in the next year or so?

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  No, I mean, before the end of the year, sorry, that came out wrong.

• 2:07:31Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't think of anybody I wanted to talk about this movie with more than you. Great to see you, as always, my friend.

• 2:07:37Speaker 01

  Nice to see you.

• 2:07:38Bill Simmons?

  Pleasure. Talk to you soon. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wesley Morris, thanks to Gahow and Eduardo, and Jack and Chris from the Spotify side as well. Don't forget, new rewatchables went up, we did "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Horror movie month is officially over, so go check that out. I'm gonna be back on Thursday with a bunch of NFL stuff. Hopefully, there are more trades, we had a trade today. Maybe some World Series stuff, if it's still going. And I'm trying, I'm gonna try not to record during Game 6 of the WNBA Finals, which would be happening at 9:30 Pacific time. Hilarious. Great job, WNBA, you killed it. Uh, I'll see you on Thursday.

• 2:08:35Bill Simmons?

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