The ‘Superman’ Trailer, ‘Landman’ Episode 7, and ‘The Agency’ Episodes 4 and 5

Chris and Andy talk about the trailer for the James Gunn ‘Superman’ movie that was released this week (1:00), and an article published in Vulture about how Disney was finally able to make its streaming service profitable (24:41). Then, they talk about the latest episode of ‘Landman’ (29:26) before discussing episodes 4 and 5 of ‘The Agency,’ a show that started off rocky but is now starting to find its groove (45:18). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:42Speaker 02

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• 2:12Speaker 03

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

• 2:18Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me on the other line, wake him when Playface comes out, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:31Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, hey guys.

• 2:33Chris Ryan?

  What's up, man?

• 2:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I mean, I think we're gonna do a great podcast today. It's great to see you. We're on different coasts. I think we made a mistake, you know, sourcing our, our video IT from Michael's, the craft store. But I do think that they offered us.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  They got everything there now, man. Yeah.

• 2:50Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, we are gonna talk about Michael's, which was featured heavily in last night's Landman. We're gonna talk a little bit about the agency, do a catch up there. I wanted to ask you a little bit about Superman. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the state of Disney, but it's just great to see your face. I'm freezing, dude. It's really cold in Philly right now.

• 3:07Andy Greenwald?

  How are you surviving? Cause you, look, I'll speak for myself too. Both of us, after a number of years in California, we've become quite weak.

• 3:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I wasn't looking forward to it. I left, it was 80 degrees. I won't lie, I wore two pants, two pairs of pants out.

• 3:20Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, wait, wait. I just have, can't let that hang there. Everybody knows that you're a layer king, but you are layering the bottom half now? How do you even do that?

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  That was the, the Forbidden Country was below the waist.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  You are a thought leader. This is an iteration.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  I put joggers on and I was like, why don't I just throw, I have a kind of casual drawstring khaki pants that I threw on over them. I was like, damn dude, this is, this is, I'm ready to walk to Whole Foods. It's all good.

• 3:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is it not constricting? Like, I, I have so many questions.

• 3:52Chris Ryan?

  No, I felt good. I felt good and warm. I felt like I was like Kurt Russell in The Thing. I was ready for anything.

• 3:57Andy Greenwald?

  Things worked out great in that movie, from what I remember. So, okay. Wow, good for you.

• 4:01Chris Ryan?

  Uh, it's good to see you. You know, a little bit of a quiet time in TV. We did our 10 best episodes of the year, 10 best shows of the year. We did our 10, our best episode of the year. That was last week with the folks from Shogun. Thanks to everybody who's reached out and said nice things about that. Very pro Kaia community, which I'm really happy about. Everybody's just like, Kaia seems really reasonable and they should listen to her more. You guys have no idea. We listen to Kaia about everything.

• 4:25Speaker 06

  That's my, uh, that's my bot army, actually.

• 4:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh my God, Kaia, are you full Baldoni? Is that what happened?

• 4:33Speaker 06

  Hold on, now, now. I only use my bots for good.

• 4:36Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, but I, but are you aligned with the dark PR web? Like, that's a whole story that we haven't even touched on.

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  This is basically the plot of Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper with a couple of tweaks. But, uh, yeah, the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni situation got nuts. The drones are still out. Luigi's in cuffs. The news is popping, but I want to ask you about the thing that's above the fold, Andy. The thing that's leading every paper in the world, which is Crypto the Dog rescuing the man of steel. James Gunn, the first trailer for James Gunn's Superman movie, which is coming out next summer, dropped. We've already had on the Ringer Network a bunch of reactions. You should definitely go check out Midnight Boys and Fantasy talking about this. I, I wanted to ask you, just as a, as a guy who believes men can fly,

• 5:23Chris Ryan?

  how you're feeling about the whole project?

• 5:25Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like I'm in a fortress of solitude on this podcast, on this topic. But I am on the record, I am pro this project. I am pro this movie. I'm pro this vision for Superman. And this trailer did nothing to dissuade me. It made me excited. And I have some, I do have some smaller notes.

• 5:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:42Andy Greenwald?

  But broadly speaking, I continue to believe deeply that James Gunn understood the assignment here, that he understands what's appealing about Superman, the character, and how to program that for the big screen. Which is, in a way, counter-programming the last few decades of superhero content, if not IP content, which is, he is a symbol of hope, of brightness, of bright, pop, American, mid-century dreaming. And he is not grim and gritty, and Zack Snyder should keep his filthy mitts off of him.

• 6:17Chris Ryan?

  My version of Superman right now would be like, the world is falling apart, right? The Lex Luthers are rising and Superman is making 10 best lists.

• 6:28Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, so in this case, you're Superman?

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  No, it's Obama, dude.

• 6:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sorry.

• 6:35Chris Ryan?

  Did you know that Obama hasn't done a top 10 TV list in like five years? He's ducking us.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  He outsources it to us.

• 6:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:44Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, we have not like definitive proof, but we have enough.

• 6:50Andy Greenwald?

  There was enough incriminating evidence to suggest that Barack Obama engaged with our TV content.

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  I disagree. I think, I think that that was, I think that was like a false flag. I don't think he ever really listened to The Watch. Yeah. Or if he did, he stopped when the golden age ended, you know?

• 7:05Andy Greenwald?

  To be clear, the evidence we had wasn't that he listened to The Watch. It was that maybe he read my Game of Thrones recaps. So I guess I was being generous by including you in the big tent of Barry likes us. But it's not even, it's not even that in this vision of your DC Universe Superman is making top 10 lists. It's that Superman really wants a podcast network and also to produce NBA documentaries.

• 7:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Superman's super into shrinking.

• 7:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's your, that's your version of it. Okay. So I feel like the poster, good. The casting, dynamite. And the kind of brightly colored day glow world is the one that I want this character to exist in. And now we can, we can dive beneath the surface a little bit. And there's definitely some stuff that I understand if you bumped on, but overall I was very excited and encouraged.

• 7:56Chris Ryan?

  I didn't bump on anything. I thought he really knows the movie he wants to make. That's communicated in the trailer. It's obviously gonna do a lot of heavy lifting. I counted even with my DC novice brain and my, you know, my Wikipedia login compromised. I was able to look up and or spot several characters who will probably be appearing in future projects from, from his new iteration of DC's cinematic universe. So like whether it's Nathan Fillion as a lantern, um, you know, you've got Millie Alcock's in this as Supergirl, I believe. But she will be, uh, you know, uh, in the future, that's who she's going to be playing.

• 8:40Chris Ryan?

  And there's like Hawk Girl, you know.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  You seem very bullish on the larger extended Superman universe. My, my only note.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  I'm also like, obviously a huge fan of Hawk women, like, you know, like in general.

• 8:53Andy Greenwald?

  You are an ally of Hawk women. You have always stood up for strong winged, mace wielding alien bird people. Like, that's just, people know that about you and you don't get enough credit. So, thank you, by the way. Thank you. You had no trouble with Caitlin Clark being named sportswoman of the year. And also you support Hawk Girl.

• 9:11Chris Ryan?

  Let me cut to the chase here. What's up with the dog? How big, how big of a part of this is the dog gonna be?

• 9:16Andy Greenwald?

  Let me just, like, the Hawk Girl of it and the Guy Gardner of it, that does feel like more servicing James Gunn's vision for the DC Universe, which is gonna be lousy with weird, funny, secondary characters. That's the Guardians of the Galaxy effect, the Suicide Squad effect, that's what he's drawn to. In interviews, he's like, Superman would have friends who are weird alien superheroes, which is cool. That's fine. Personally, I would prefer a movie that is just like, hey, there's an alien who represents hope who can fly. Let's just focus on that for one movie before we start universe building, but I'm willing to allow it because I'm pro dog. People who've listened to this podcast for a long time know that my thing about comic books is that they are at their best when they lean into the fucking comic book-ness of them.

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  The like, the weird, we can have characters whose superpower is they talk to cities and we don't need to worry about how we're gonna convey that week to week on Apple TV Plus or whatever.

• 10:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  So, having a super dog, which is canonically true, although there have been iterations of the character over the decades that have chosen to ignore it, feels like leaning in to the absolutely weird, organic, batshit nature of a character that has been in our conscious, shared consciousness for decades. I like that. I like that. And that is the kind of thing that really, of all the people making comic book stuff, only James Gunn and Taika, I think, are willing to go there. And in a way, I think this is celebrating the spirit of like comic book writers, who I always mention as people that I like, like Grant Morrison, who, when Grant reimagined Batman, steered. Steered into the 60s Adam West stuff, steered into like the Bat might and like all the weird,

• 10:54Andy Greenwald?

  the Bat car, all the stuff that's happened over the years and said, all of this is true, as true as Frank Miller's dark and gritty Batman. So I like that kind of collective, I understand the medium I'm working in, I understand the, the mission here stuff. I also think Carenz with looks awesome.

• 11:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he does look good and he's from Philly, so it's, it's all good, man. Like I'm, I'm gonna be.

• 11:13Andy Greenwald?

  He went to Shipley, did you know that?

• 11:14Chris Ryan?

  I did know that. Where did, I think, where did Burnth- oh, Burnthall went to a friend's school.

• 11:20Andy Greenwald?

  He went to Sidwell.

• 11:21Chris Ryan?

  In DMV, right? Like he went.

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  He went to, he went to Sidwell friends. He's a Quaker school brother, but from DC.

• 11:27Chris Ryan?

  We're the new Masons. The Quakers are like out here, you know, like we're running everything.

• 11:32Andy Greenwald?

  Did you feel excited when Deandre Hunter dunked on Wemba Yama, knowing that he is a friend central alum, like your best friend? Did you feel some of my energy in that dunk? Did that feel good?

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  Is he a proud alumnus?

• 11:46Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if he's proud, but he's definitely an alumnus.

• 11:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Andy Greenwald?

  A little bit after my time, not gonna lie to you. But, uh, yeah. So, okay. So where are you? So where do you net out on this?

• 11:55Chris Ryan?

  Cautiously pro, which I think is a great place to be with, uh, blockbuster movies because that way you don't get too out in front of your skis and get disappointed in the first 30 minutes. I probably, I think I'm a little less in tune with the gun thing than you are, you know? Like I think Guardians is fine. I think that it'll be interesting to see, to your point, whether or not they, they, this is not going to be a simple story. There, it's just, there's a dozen characters in the trailer, in the teaser. Uh, but I'm very excited for Hulk as Lex Luthor. I'm excited for Brosnahan as Lois Lane.

• 12:32Andy Greenwald?

  What about your guy Skylar from Righteous Gemstones? It's Jimmy Olsen.

• 12:35Chris Ryan?

  That's right. That's right. Who's the editor of the Daily Planet? Who's the, who, who runs the Daily Planet?

• 12:42Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's Wendell Pierce in this. I don't think we've seen him, but I think he's playing that.

• 12:45Chris Ryan?

  And he took over for, for Marty Baron.

• 12:48Andy Greenwald?

  He took over for Marty Baron. Yeah. Marty Baron said that he's done enough. Democracy is thriving. So he's gonna, you know, I heard Marty Baron is actually gonna make a top 10 list of his favorite TV shows of the year.

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's time for people to just be on the sidelines. I think that's my takeaway.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  What's the urgency?

• 13:05Chris Ryan?

  The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was an article in Vulture last week, I believe. So today's Monday, we're recording, obviously. So last, like, sort of end of last week, Joe Adalian, who does a bunch of really great industry business reporting for Hollywood, for Vulture, had a big sit down with Dana Walden and Alan Bregman. Basically, the two people underneath Bob Iger at Disney. Dana Walden runs TV, Alan Bregman runs the film department. And it was a, it was an interesting conversation just about what it takes to make a profitable streaming business, which is essentially raise prices. It's, it's lure people in with the promise of unlimited content and low prices,

• 13:48Chris Ryan?

  and then steadily raise those subscription rates over the course of a couple of years to the point where people feel dependent on it. Obviously, for especially parents, Disney Plus is like this essential backstop for any time you, you know, need something for your kid to watch. Like, there's that, it's there. So there was a lot of business conversation. What did you, what were some of your takeaways from that conversation? Obviously, people may not have had a chance to read it. We can put it in the show notes, but I was curious what, what your read on was that?

• 14:16Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there's a couple of things. One thing that, that was teased in this interview and then confirmed like the next day, so it wasn't referenced, is that there's going to be a Bluey movie, and I feel like the streets wanted me to just say yes.

• 14:27Chris Ryan?

  That's shocking that that's your takeaway from this thousands and thousands of words Q and A.

• 14:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's not. I just feel like we're gonna move, we have other takes, and I'm gonna forget to say this, and it's so deeply uninteresting to you that I thought I would just get it out there, you know? I think that's exciting. I think the only, here's my segue. Joe Brum, who's been on this podcast, who created Bluey, who writes every episode, wrote a letter to fans being like, "I'm gonna write a movie. I feel excited about doing something in long form, and that's awesome." By the way, that surprise episode from last year, that's probably the last thing I have to say about Bluey as a TV show. And then there's this weird verbiage, which is basically like, "This doesn't mean the TV show's ending", which basically suggests that the corporate needs of Disney...

• 15:10Andy Greenwald?

  Blue is like a, if not like close to a billion dollar industry for them at this point, demands that there be more seasons of this TV show. So this idea that it was this incredibly bespoke thing. So some agreement has been reached. This is the same sentiment that is throughout the interview with Bregman and Walden, which is, we are the best there is at integrating, at successfully mollifying, at, at streamlining and finding the way to maximize our value from the content that we create. That said, what we're doing might be low key evil, but whatever, it's fine. And evil is a strong word, but it is definitely

• 15:51Andy Greenwald?

  shareholder forward and not necessarily artist forward. Now, if you would like to take a drink because I've said something or create some sort of, you know, obvious man gif because like I'm suggesting that Disney is looking out for its corporate interests first, like, yes, I get it. But there is a different kind of cutthroat energy to this that I just wanted to call out, right? Where like, these incredibly skilled professionals are like, it took us a minute. There were some bumpy years, both with the strikes and then also and COVID and then also the Chapek interregnum in the Iger regime. But that Bob has empowered us to streamline this company in a way that is working now. And what we have learned how to do is maximize everything for big screen or small screen and then echoing

• 16:36Andy Greenwald?

  back to streaming. The example of that, that I kind of wanted to also talk about.

• 16:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I thought this is because you want to talk about Moana 2 and fantasy had brought this up a couple of weeks ago where it was like the use of deep Disney plus as a promotional platform for Moana 2.

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  So I took my, my girls to see Moana 2 this weekend and it was a beautiful moment for my family because all three of us thought it sucked, which is rare.

• 16:59Chris Ryan?

  That's the day they became real Greenwalds.

• 17:03Andy Greenwald?

  My older daughter was like, it's just sad that it's a money grab. And I was like, oh, I got a podcast for you. She said that. I was so proud of her. It was, it's terrible. And the first movie is not. The first movie is excellent. And

• 17:20Andy Greenwald?

  The path that it took is instructive in lines with this, in it line, aligns with this interview, right? That this was a project that was developed under the Chepek regime as a Disney plus series. It was going to be a continuing adventures of Moana or whatever. When Iger came back, he and Alan Bregman or Dana Walden or whomever looked at all the properties and they were like, this is foolish to do this, to burn this beloved content on the small screen, which I kind of agree with. We've seen what happens with Star Wars when you dilute the brand and just pump out TV shows. The issue, though, is that they then clearly just reworked what they had into a feature. And so you have a movie that has like, quickly introduces six new characters and then doesn't have arcs for them because

• 18:02Andy Greenwald?

  it's a movie. It's a franchise that was successful and popular partly because of Lin-Manuel Miranda songs, but they were like, we feel like we're maximizing our value by putting him on Mufasa. Honestly, would have been maximizing value to have bought Sonic the Hedgehog IP and have him write songs about how knuckles and tails are star-crossed lovers or whatever.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  Did you also see Sonic?

• 18:24Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, we're not a Sonic family, but thank you for asking.

• 18:27Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 18:33Chris Ryan?

  I just can't believe your wonderful daughter is like waving Das Kapital in the air and being like, what a money grab Moana 2 was.

• 18:41Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, to be fair, most children, I think, would see this movie and understand that. But the money grab is successful because as they delineate in this, this interview, you, you release it to theaters and you, and it's made a ton of money, like actual countable folding money, because that's still what you can get from a box office release, right? But also, releasing it fires up the neurons of the streaming network because it gets people watching Moana 1. And then when Moana 2 hits the service, it will lead to a boost in signups for people who want to watch it or whose kids demand to watch it. So it's all speaking to each other. So from a corporate, wow, that's incredible the way Amazon delivered these toothpicks to me in four hours way, you're like, yeah,

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  I really admire and appreciate that. But then when you get into the humanity of it, it's a little bit disturbing and distressing. Like that was my takeaway that they they understand what they are doing now and what their business is as IP brand managers, but I do not see a version of this that results in innovative thinking. I mean, we saw a preview of this when Inside Out 2, single-handedly saved the studio and Pixar.

• 19:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Andy Greenwald?

  And their response to was like, let's hit the go fast button on the sequel machine. Because now it's just going to be sequels. That works for them. Okay.

• 19:55Chris Ryan?

  My big takeaway from this interview was essentially the way that they kept bringing up the idea of quality, that they had arrived at this sort of epiphany that if it means less Star Wars, if it means less Marvel, it's important that the stuff that we do put out is quality. And I think this is always the gift and the curse with Disney is that woven into their brand identity is this idea of like, we are the the Dreamweavers. We are the people who give your childhood a narrative to like hang your your beliefs on. And then also like their shepherding of these other franchises, which they they spent a real pretty penny for, has been largely troubled, I think, you know, between

• 20:40Chris Ryan?

  the constant kind of turmoil surrounding the Star Wars franchises. And I think Marvel probably spreading itself too thin and running out of maybe viable characters, or at least popular characters that they were making stories about, which is has nothing to do with like, the varying quality or or interest level I had in each one of those shows that came out over the last couple of years. But when you're kind of like, the entire House of Cards rests on a table that says quality, at a certain point, you have to really start showing that, right? Like, Andor for us is is obviously a like hallmark show. It's like a it's like a best in class. It's like a example of what I would show anyone if they

• 21:24Chris Ryan?

  were like, well, what can you really do with IP storytelling when you're, you know, so subservient to all these other demands? But, you know, a lot of the other Marvel stuff and a lot of the other Star Wars stuff, I feel like does not look good. It doesn't feel the way the earlier stuff felt. It clearly has like a lack of Central star power that, you know, really generated a lot of interest around the MCU. The first time around, Star Wars is kind of rudderless now, like it, the best image I can conjure for like Star Wars is a faceless bounty hunter whose actor is probably not actually inside of that suit most of the time, voicing a character who like kind of wordlessly glides across the volume. That's what we have right now. Um, so I, I don't

• 22:09Chris Ryan?

  know. I mean, I, I, I think what they were saying was really interesting when it comes to like, we have to start adjusting these budgets so that these shows are not prohibitive to make like, and that was in direct reference to the acolyte, uh, which I thought was really interesting where they were like, we could not come up with a price point that fit the audience we had for this show.

• 22:29Andy Greenwald?

  But, um, but I, but, but I, I think you're bringing up an interesting point to talk about quality because I agree with you. And I want to reiterate, these people are best in class and very smart at what they do. One of the interesting takeaways from the piece that is relevant to what we talk about here was the fact that everyone involved recognizes the value of FX, which

• 22:48Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 22:49Andy Greenwald?

  basically is a, you know, is a, is a stateless entity at this point. It's not, it's a cable network that isn't really focusing on cable that exists not even as a tile, right? It's just producing stuff for Hulu. But Bob Iger and Dana Walden understand the value of the brand name and the entrenched leadership group there. And that came off its biggest year ever. That's not nothing. Like that is not a small thing. And that is actually kind of rare, I think, in the way that, especially in this tech streaming era, the way that these corporations are realigning themselves. So they are aware of the value of having something that stands for quality. The issue is in how they're articulating it. I think that for them, Moana two or Inside Out two are successes,

• 23:33Andy Greenwald?

  both because absolutely monetarily, they are huge successes. They are successes also in terms of their integrated streaming possibilities and then like the small little spinoffs that they can seed onto Disney plus that my daughters have already checked out and watched. But they're not really good. And maybe that's an old fashioned term, but for a while they were straddling that line where Pixar, like Inside Out one made hundreds of millions of dollars and is an exceptional film and pretty compelling and interesting. You see kind of the, the potential.

• 24:07Andy Greenwald?

  Shortcomings of this hybrid strategy this weekend with Mufasa, The Lion King, a film I have not yet seen with my children, but is fascinating. And we were texting a little bit about this this weekend, and maybe we'll revisit it at some point. But like, it seemed like the, you know, potential best case scenario outcome of Trojan horsing stuff. Because they got Barry Jenkins, one of the few truly, I don't know, just like universally beloved and respected cinema artists working today. And they got half a decade of his prime running around with like 3D volumizing technology to make a movie about lions singing Lin-Manuel Miranda songs. And they got Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the music. And they got Beyonce doing the voice.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  And the response seems to be the most nose holding polite okay that I've seen in recent times. And it got absolutely smoked, boat raced at the box office by Sonic the Hedgehog 3, a movie that had no illusions of like enormous protecting the memories of your childhood quality.

• 25:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's Jim Carrey saying, I needed the money.

• 25:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 25:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Andy Greenwald?

  And can't imagine what Idris Elba is saying about his involvement too. Like, that's fine, and it made the money. But that, what they did not say in this interview is that I don't think there can be, they can be in that business anymore of like, no, no, we're, we're serious about this. And we're going to elevate this, you know, and find more versions of Lion King's story to tell. And spend what, like with marketing all in, 300, 400 million? How much did they spend on this? And it is going to lose money. And I don't think even people like it that much. So I guess I'm making, I'm making the counter argument against myself now. But it's, it's always interesting when they open up, to use a Shogun analogy, they open up the kimono and let us see what, how they are thinking about this.

• 25:57Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I mean, obviously, that's a very like monitored situation. Those people are being really careful. They don't want to affect the stock price. There was nothing in there that really suggested the future of Star Wars or, you know, what, where that is going, which is probably the thing I'm most interested in. The Marvel stuff is a little bit more self evident with all the announcements that they've made about Doom and everything.

• 26:17Andy Greenwald?

  But also just like, like the drip, drip, right? That like, oh, yeah, Chris Evans is coming back. And then maybe Brie Larson is coming back. Like, of course, they're all coming back. They just have to go to London for a week. Uh, listen, I do it. I don't see why Chris Evans can't do it. But also, there is this sense now, and my apologies.

• 26:35Andy Greenwald?

  To Captain America Brave New World, which is coming out and Thunderbolts, which is coming out, but you're starting to get this feeling of like, like this is a small tea leaves thing, but like one of the longtime Marvel consigliaries and producers Nate Moore announced that he was leaving to do solo stuff and I'm sure he's going to thrive doing that. He seems like a successful and good guy, but like he was very involved in this Captain America movie and it, one is starting to get the sense that they are seeding the stage to Superman and the Gunverse for 25.

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  You think that? Oh, for 25. Okay.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, for 25 because they know they can't really compete, but what they have is not just the Russos and Downey running it back, but they have the ultimate reboot machine in the Secret Wars idea.

• 27:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  So that when they come back.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  And they have X-Men and Fantastic Four.

• 27:24Andy Greenwald?

  Right. But when they come back with those movies and those stories that like, the thing that, and we were texting with Joanna about this and I just hadn't quite gotten there yet, but that like with the magic retconning reboot machine of Secret Wars in which all universes and all possibilities crash into each other, there won't be a Black Panther 3 starring Shuri, there will be a Black Panther 3 starring, and I'm just going to put this on the record now, starring Michael B. Jordan as the alternate version of Killmonger who became Black Panther and they could just do that and then he could make three movies. Do you know what I mean? Like they can absolutely fan cast or wish cast or fix anything and then just start churning it out. So that's interesting and that's definitely something they weren't saying in this interview, but I feel like that's where we're headed.

• 28:09Chris Ryan?

  That was very Adam Schefter of you, just to like, like have that little breadcrumb trail out there.

• 28:13Andy Greenwald?

  Can I do the, the windhorse?

• 28:14Chris Ryan?

  That's windhorse, windhorse windshields. All right. You want to talk about things a little bit more real, things that are a little bit more caked in dust?

• 28:22Andy Greenwald?

  Can I just do one thing before we do that? Just to say as a rec? Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, the new Nate Bargatze comedy special is dropping on Netflix. Your friend Nate Bargatze, I'm in. Nobody needs me to Columbus, the most popular stand-up in America right now, but I was not familiar with your game.

• 28:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:42Andy Greenwald?

  And that shit is so funny and I loved it.

• 28:45Chris Ryan?

  Good for you, man. I love you out there watching stuff.

• 28:47Andy Greenwald?

  I watched it because I got that Netflix preview window, you know, now that they gave me a pin and everything and I just like, they offered it to me and I was like, thank you, sir.

• 28:54Chris Ryan?

  Were you aware of Nate Bargatze's viral skit on SNL where he's George Washington? You were aware of that, but you've just not seen any of his stand-up?

• 29:03Andy Greenwald?

  No, and I didn't know if he was, because again, you know, I'm a vibes guy now because I don't read news. So I don't actually, I'm untethered from facts, which

• 29:12Chris Ryan?

  Dude, can I stop you? You say that all the time and you pepper me with so many links all day long where you're like, this seems normal. And it's like a, like a screen grab from some news article. You say, you're not news deaf.

• 29:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I'm getting it in a way that like, because you and Kaya were just like joking around about like congress people that I didn't even know were in Congress, whereas what I'm doing is very, very old fashioned.

• 29:35Chris Ryan?

  We were joking about Ken Granger, not Matt Gaetz, but yes.

• 29:38Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there's nothing to joke about, about Matt Gaetz. He seems like a cool hang. I, I'm just still, my news aggregator is not like, I'm not old school like RSS feeds. I'm old school like suggested content on Facebook and an email I got.

• 29:53Chris Ryan?

  That is the worst possible way to get news.

• 29:55Andy Greenwald?

  And going to websites. I still go to websites and I'm like, oh, HollywoodReporter.com. Well, this is interesting. And I send it to you and you're like, this is settled business. This has been resolved for days on X.com and Blue Sky or whatever. So

• 30:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:10Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, but I feel, I'm open. Anyway, all this was to say, I just thought that Nate Bargatze, I thought he was kind of Shane Gillis-y and he's not. He's just, he's basically like Southern Bob Newhart. He's just like gentle, doesn't work blue observational stuff.

• 30:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you thought he was Shane Gillis-y?

• 30:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Chris Ryan?

  Okay. And what would that be? If what, how would you describe Shane Gillis?

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  I thought Shane, like from Philadelphia? I don't know. What do you want me to say? Look at the way you're looking at me right now. It makes me wish we were on video. I thought that maybe he was like defiantly anti-woke like you are. Not like, you know, I didn't understand that. I didn't realize that he's just like a guy in a jacket.

• 30:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Andy Greenwald?

  Talking about how his wife controls her bank account.

• 30:50Chris Ryan?

  Tweeds.

• 30:52Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Yeah, that's the easier way to say it.

• 30:56Speaker 07

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• 31:26Chris Ryan?

  Hey, speaking of anti-woke, let's talk about Lamb Man. My number one favorite thing about this episode, this most recent episode, which I think was a little bit of a tweener as far as Lamb Man episodes go.

• 31:37Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 31:38Chris Ryan?

  My number one favorite thing was actually not a cartel member staking out a patch party, waiting for Billy Bob Thornton to pick up his daughter, I guess.

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  And to throat punch a division one recruit quarterback?

• 31:52Chris Ryan?

  The incoming Texas Tech quarterback? You know, but it's like honestly with, uh, with the portal, who knows what's going to happen with that kid?

• 31:59Andy Greenwald?

  That's fair.

• 32:00Chris Ryan?

  Could go down.

• 32:02Chris Ryan?

  I, my favorite thing was them relitigating the culture war of Bud Light.

• 32:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I like that too.

• 32:09Chris Ryan?

  This show has already made its preference for Michelob Ultra abundantly clear. Like if there's one thing that I know this show is about, which I actually do want to get to. I know that this show supports Michelob Ultra as a replacement for hard alcohol. That you can have multiple half a dozen, eight Michelob Ultras and operate your life in a totally normal way.

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry to interrupt. You're thinking too small. This show advocates Michelob Ultra not as a replacement for alcohol, but as a replacement for all water.

• 32:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:39Andy Greenwald?

  And all hydration-based strategies.

• 32:43Chris Ryan?

  Taylor Sheridan should sponsor a tour de France rider who's just chugging Michelob Ultra as he rides through the Pyrenees Mountains.

• 32:51Andy Greenwald?

  Again, thinking too small. One who stops in the Pyrenees and has his blood changed out for pure Michelob Ultra. So it's just the effervescent lightly alcoholic bubbles flowing through his veins as he churns.

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  That's why you get the yellow jersey is because you are just fucking drinking a 12 pack of Michelob Ultra while riding your bike. I was, I asked myself this question though, Andy, in all seriousness.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  What's this show about?

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, it's a great question, buddy.

• 33:19Chris Ryan?

  Does this show need to be about anything? I mean, that's, that's, that's a larger thing. But I, you know, it's about family, it's about work, it's about West Texas culture. It's about a divorced woman finding purpose through getting senior citizens hammered. But the thing that I want this show to be about, and I think it is kind of veering there, is something that happened a couple of episodes ago, when Billy Bob Thornton and James Jordan have gone and beaten up the men who assaulted Cooper. Remember that? And they were talking a little bit on the drive back, and James Jordan's character is like, man, Dale, he's like, I haven't done something like that since 2016, I think he says, or something

• 34:01Chris Ryan?

  along those lines. And he says, it's getting wild again. It's getting wild again. And I was like, I kind of like that idea, that this area and this business and these, this patch, this part of West Texas, goes through these periods of unsettled, violent, chaotic behavior. And the reason why I was even thinking about that, because what seemed like sort of a throwaway conversation between Tommy and Jon Hamm's character, Monty.

• 34:32Andy Greenwald?

  Monty.

• 34:33Chris Ryan?

  Where Monty is like, obviously going to finance this other guy's well exploration, right? Where he's buying a bunch of his wells.

• 34:41Andy Greenwald?

  He, he's basically serving as the bank.

• 34:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And Billy Bob's like, I didn't think you did that anymore.

• 34:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 34:48Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, oh, this is kind of like, oh, wait, there was the crash, but then everybody figured out a way to do mortgages in a shitty way again. That like, there are little signs that everybody has forgotten the lessons that they're supposed to know and that things are toppling over a little bit. Am I reading too much into the poetry of Taylor Sheridan?

• 35:10Andy Greenwald?

  You, I mean, broadly speaking, and I say this with love, yes, you are, because in order to find deeper meaning or significance-

• 35:16Chris Ryan?

  You have to be a sicko like myself.

• 35:18Andy Greenwald?

  Signs of intelligent life, you have to be willing to carry not water, but kegs of Michelob Ultra for this guy.

• 35:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  So, yes, but I will say, and I mean this again generously, what is interesting about Taylor Sheridan shows is that he is kind of like a rough spectrometer of a national mood. Not the national mood, but currents in it. Really what I think is he's doing is he's just scribbling in his journal about stuff that sounds cool. Like, there is something that is so anti-drama about this show. It's just characters who are always right, being set up in arguments with people who are wrong so that they can be right. And then they talk about how right they are a little bit more, and then you're ready for the scene to move on, and he's just like, by the way, I was right. And then he punches someone in

• 36:03Andy Greenwald?

  a throat. So, it is, I'll say that you cannot dabble with this show, because it's just like learning a language on Duolingo once a month. Like, you actually have to immerse yourself in the culture-

• 36:16Chris Ryan?

  I've tried that.

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  -in order to understand this, because it is so batshit crazy. Not just the plot points or the performances, but just like the rhythms of it. You said this is a tweener episode, like, nothing happened.

• 36:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. This is TV writing 101-

• 36:31Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's not true. I mean, Angela did get a margarita machine at Michael's and bring it to a senior citizen home that she was randomly driving by after a CrossFit training.

• 36:42Andy Greenwald?

  Not just randomly driving by. He decided that he wanted this plotline, and he was like, well, hmm, but now how am I going to get these characters to an old age home? And he's like, I've got it. They will be driving very fast in a Bentley, and the 30-year-old, 17-year-old will say, Mama, what's that building we just passed? Do they put old people in there just to die? And she's like, yes, baby, that's the only reason they're there. Places like that are essentially morgues. And she's like, let's go there. I agree, let's go there.

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  This is, this is if, like, the people who wrote The Rural Juror on 30 Rock. Was that 30 Rock or Kimmy Schmidt? I can't remember.

• 37:19Andy Greenwald?

  No, it was 30 Rock. But, but there's something that is almost beautiful about the fact that like, I think I may have said a version of this already, but like, in writers' rooms, including the writers' room I'm in now, like, you could spend the better part of a day just trying to come up with the most elegant reason for two characters to cross paths. You know, and it has to pass everyone's bullshit detector and has to feel lived in and natural. Or you could just have a character drive by a random building at 90 miles per hour, a building that is a senior citizen center, something that I think most people, including my seven-year-old, are familiar with the concept of, and have it be the first time she's ever seen this building or considered it. That's so crazy.

• 37:58Chris Ryan?

  I don't think they would be allowed to do what they did.

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't think they would either.

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  Can you just roll up on a retirement community and be like, I brought a Sonos and a margarita machine?

• 38:10Andy Greenwald?

  Let me also talk about-

• 38:11Chris Ryan?

  And Cards Against Humanity.

• 38:12Andy Greenwald?

  Let me just also talk about the way that he just, he refuses to bend in any way to not just reality that we live in, but like the practicalities of television production, such as, I need an old folks home filled with people who are incontinent and basically dying. And they're like, we did a sweep of extras. We have five people in their 50s who look tired. Great. So they cut to these people who look like, I don't know, they look like our peers, essentially. And they're just all just sort of glancing away from the camera as if they are ashamed to be so deeply near death with their 55 max. But he didn't give a shit. He's like, that works. That works.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  He's talking to a man who is 70 and he's like, I'm 99. Also, I'm gonna make it sexual. Great. You should make it sexual. Ali Larder only exists in a world of sexual currency. So it was very nice of him to speak to her. I want to, before we get too far down the weeds in terms of the specifics, I want to address your question, which I think was a very good one.

• 39:15Chris Ryan?

  What's the show about?

• 39:17Andy Greenwald?

  The idea that it is about a moment in a part of the country in an industry that most of us don't think about or take for granted, and the sense of like upheaval happening there, the sense that there are inflection points in our economy or in our culture that are like canaries in a coal mine for something deeper, a sign of something that will have ripple effects, that's fucking great.

• 39:37Chris Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 39:38Andy Greenwald?

  Unfortunately, I actually think that the success of this show is the canary in the coal mine, that like this is what people want, and I think that they don't actually want to learn that maybe it's 08 all over again. I think what they want to learn is, ah, it's great to know for certain that women just want to get fucked and do exercise. Like, that's great. That affirms my worldview.

• 40:02Chris Ryan?

  That's only if you take any given character as a representation of his viewpoint of the world.

• 40:07Andy Greenwald?

  Just, I agree. There's also like the scene of the mother and daughter being like, the only way you can succeed is to have a good ass to marry a rich man, sweetie. And she's like, thanks, mama. And that's the whole scene?

• 40:21Chris Ryan?

  [snorts]

• 40:22Andy Greenwald?

  You can, we can have fun.

• 40:24Chris Ryan?

  I'm having fun.

• 40:26Andy Greenwald?

  But this is indefensible, because there's not any other character on the show who's just like, hmm. Everyone else is like, she's gotta put on some pants. I'm a man.

• 40:34Chris Ryan?

  I think the lawyer is supposed to be the, the counterweight to that.

• 40:38Andy Greenwald?

  The lawyer, the lawyer is an incredible character. Okay, counterweight in the sense that she's, she's all about her business.

• 40:46Chris Ryan?

  She's expressing skepticism about this way of life.

• 40:48Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. Okay. So am I.

• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  She's, she's giving the Greenwald viewpoint.

• 40:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. No, that's, that's fine. I, I think, uh, it is, again, my, it is nice in this economy to see a screenwriter being like, this is what I want to do this week, and nobody's saying no. I do respect that. I do like that.

• 41:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh, what do you think of the, the Cooper and Ariana relationship?

• 41:17Chris Ryan?

  Because I know that a lot of people are like really responding to Jacob Loughlin's character and like the, there's a certain sweeter heart to the show is like with this kid.

• 41:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that's the only, I've said, I said this last time we talked about it, like that's the only thing that I'm engaging with on a

• 41:33Chris Ryan?

  sincere level.

• 41:34Andy Greenwald?

  Since, yeah, on a, on a sincere level, I think it's, I think it's sweet. I think both the performances are, are good.

• 41:42Andy Greenwald?

  And, and again, I, you can sort of see the rough shape of something interesting and that like Cooper is going to forge his own way in the world and actually act as an obstacle to the easy settlement that everybody hopes to reach here. Like that's, that's fine. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm into that.

• 41:58Chris Ryan?

  Do we know why Cooper has beef with his sister?

• 42:01Andy Greenwald?

  Wouldn't, first of all, she's 35 years old.

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  She can't keep getting older over the course of this podcast.

• 42:08Andy Greenwald?

  She, all she wants to do is talk about what it was like voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016. And he's just like, I was four years old then. So it's, it's challenging for them to find time.

• 42:19Chris Ryan?

  I like the idea that she's failed senior year like 14 years in a row.

• 42:26Andy Greenwald?

  I still, I'm watching the show, man.

• 42:29Chris Ryan?

  I know you are.

• 42:29Andy Greenwald?

  I'm 100% watching the show. It was a tough one though. It's also a tough one.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  This wasn't my favorite episode. This, the previous episode was awesome. The

• 42:38Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya, are you watching, it was better. Are you watching Landman, Kaya? I forget where you are with this.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  No, I haven't started it yet. I'm thinking about it.

• 42:46Andy Greenwald?

  I would like to have a watch Landman with an adult woman challenge. Like just like, just, just like

• 42:53Chris Ryan?

  This is Mallory's favorite show.

• 42:55Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. No. Okay. Well, Mallory, let's, Mallory, come on the watch.

• 42:59Speaker 06

  One of my friends who is the same age as I am, watched it and absolutely detested it.

• 43:05Andy Greenwald?

  It's not that it's not entertaining. It's just that like the, the lengths that it goes, like with the Ally Larter character who is just Kind of abhorrent and a tough hang. And but then also everyone else is like, oh, she's tough to hang out with, but she's got a great can and like, that's the character. And then then at the end of the episode, Billy Bob Thornton's whole thing is stopped talking about how you're jerking off dudes, even though you're

• 43:31Chris Ryan?

  To his daughter, yeah.

• 43:32Andy Greenwald?

  Tell me instead that you're joining a monastery.

• 43:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:35Andy Greenwald?

  Because I never want a man near you again. She's like, love you. Like, this is not, you know, girl dad here. Like, this doesn't seem, to be honest, this girl is 30 years older than my children, but it doesn't seem like the most successful parent modeling.

• 43:50Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have offended your sensibilities, you know?

• 43:53Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, no, no. Just like, did you, how did you feel? I did want to dwell on some of the details. You know, you are, we talk about this sometimes on the pod and off the pod as well, but like, you know, we're, we're, we're older now and so we're making different choices about our bodies and like diet and stuff. How were you with the double carb order?

• 44:15Chris Ryan?

  Oh, the potatoes, french fries and noodles. I mean, I think sometimes you have to do it. I think it, my, my thing right now is I'm either gonna eat healthy or I'm going in. And if I'm going in, there is no tomorrow. Like, if I'm going in and I see two things on the menu that are starches that I want to try, we'll do it. Now, I'm, if I'm a Permian Basin guy and I'm going to the Patch Cafe a lot, maybe I'm, maybe I'm getting some spinach in there, maybe I'm trying to get a green going. But those guys are eating, like, that's probably their big meal for the day, you know, before they, they go replace pipe and or work on it oil derricks. Like, I don't know.

• 44:55Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think you'd go there? Would you order their grain bowl? Do you think that's like a strong choice at the, at the Patch Cafe?

• 45:00Chris Ryan?

  The thing is, is that I would probably bet five bucks a place like that has a fucking grain bowl at this point.

• 45:04Andy Greenwald?

  No, they do, but I don't think you should order it. I guess my bigger question is, this show is very entertaining and it's actually, I'm watching it, it's, I like it enough that I am frustrated about the laziness of some of these scenes and just, and some of the dialogue and stuff, because there, there's actually facile material here and you've got great actors and you've got great resources and great locations and you, and he strikes gold as much as he strikes oil with some of these casting and some of like that, that sweet relationship. It's hard for me, and I don't mean this in the way that you think I might mean it, but it is hard for me not to wonder if we are like over-correcting in the results of who won the culture war here, because like this is-

• 45:48Chris Ryan?

  This was made way before the election, though.

• 45:50Andy Greenwald?

  I know, but there's a version of this that's just like, it is defiantly kind of anti-woke in a way, and I am generally fine with that brief. It's just that I wish it was better.

• 46:04Chris Ryan?

  Or less obvious, yeah.

• 46:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, less ham-handed, because I just, I don't want this show to make up visions of gender roles, or diversity on the patch, or attitudes about carbohydrates. Like, I don't want my coastal sensibilities reflected in this.

• 46:20Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's like, if you're gonna make the characters be the characters, that's fine, but like, don't make it sound like Twitter.

• 46:25Andy Greenwald?

  I think that might be what I'm getting at, you know?

• 46:27Chris Ryan?

  Make it sound like this is actually how people talk, not like, oh, I was like, here's my version of a thread about why Bud Light is for snowflakes.

• 46:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's it. I think you've nailed it better than I could, because I am not trying to, you know, put on my position as just like the Monopoly man, looking down my nose over my mountain of New Yorker unread issues while I comment on it, although I do have that pile, and any advice on what to read in the last few months would be great. I just-

• 46:52Chris Ryan?

  Anything you can find via Facebook would be-

• 46:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, exactly. But I just mean that like, it's not the fault of the show, which was made before, or Taylor Sheridan, who's doing fine, to be the best version of this show that I think would be actually good for the average television viewer slash podcaster critic, but sometimes the limitations of it bother me, even though I am in.

• 47:18Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about a show that we haven't addressed in a couple of weeks, but I'm curious to know whether or not you feel like this one has any limitations. It's The Agency, which we discussed through episode three and now has just concluded episode five last night, so spoilers for up to last night's episode, Rat Trap. And I watched this series with deep appreciation. I watched the series and enjoy myself, but I do feel like it's my second time down Big Thunder Mountain. So I know where the dips are coming, I know where the thrills are. I'm basically referring to its beautiful adherence to the plot points and turns of Le Bureau,

• 48:03Chris Ryan?

  which is what it's based on. And I'm having a very funny thing where like something was essentially made for me. And I'm like, oh, that, yeah, that is what I wanted. Thank you. Do you know what I mean? Like there, it's not that there's anything wrong with this. I do think that after this season, we can probably have a conversation about whether Fastbender is the right Malatru character and like whether or not his sort of icy, I am unapproachable, like just Superman thing is really like what this story needs at the center of it because Cassavitz was obviously such an incredible central spy because of his vulnerability and his fallibility.

• 48:46Chris Ryan?

  And even watching Fastbender have to be like, you already know how to kill with your bare hands. So here's how you get beat up. Like having him trained that way. I was like, I don't know. Couldn't he just get sucker punched? Like, does he also have to be Jason Bourne? It's been an interesting experience, but I am enjoying the show. And I think the thing that I'm appreciating most is the performances around the margins. So maybe the ones that are happening a little bit outside of the immediate Fastbender circle.

• 49:14Andy Greenwald?

  I agree. I think Fastbender is at once excellent and magnetic, but also a little bit preposterous because as I was going to use the same analogy, there's a moment where there's a flashback to how he helped Samia during the riot in Addis. And I'm like, he's just Jason Bourne. Like this is shot like a Bourne movie. He is behaving like Jason Bourne. And yet, we are still supposed to believe his legend, that he is just a gallivanting kind of failed in real life English teacher who is now going to be a shitty novelist. And I'm like, that doesn't hold up under any scrutiny, just because of the way he looks and carries himself when he's Paul. Maybe, maybe it's a direction issue. Maybe it's a performance issue, that there should have been some differentiation between Martian

• 49:58Andy Greenwald?

  and Paul in terms of how he plays the part. But as we learn from the killer and as we learn from the black back Trailer, he's just playing one part now and he's and that's it and we we I enjoy it, but it is it is might be it might be a barrier to entry or to believability. That said, I am having on the facts, I'm having the same experience with you, but on the

• 50:19Chris Ryan?

  The feeling.

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  Subjective, the feeling, I I think I am now not. I was a little low on episode three, but I loved episode four and five. I was really entertained. I was really engaged. And for sure, part of that feeling was me doing the Leo DiCaprio meme because I recognized every beat and it did suddenly feel like the show had snapped into its setting as Le Bureau Theater. They were doing it. They are fully doing the storylines that we remember down to the scenes and the twists, and I love them. As I said, when we talked about the pilot, I'm like this, more than anything, this remake has reminded me that the original is one of the greatest shows of our adult lifetime. So it's been fun to do that. It's also been kind of interesting, and I wonder your thoughts about this. Like when we watched

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  the show as an original French drama and we responded to it, I don't think it ever occurred to me that a remaker or the people, the creative team who'd be remaking it for English would be fans of it to this degree. And what I mean is, the French show is very French.

• 51:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:25Andy Greenwald?

  And that it is very cerebral and it is very much like meditations on the the meaning of existence of man and are we always performing and spycraft, not as we've seen it in Lacare or as we see it in like James Cameron True Lies or Slow Horses or Black Doves, but like as a meditation on self. And this show is also, shockingly, really serious and really dour and very steely. And when I watch it, I'm like, they're pulling it off, but that's not what I expected to have. I'm not mad at it. Ultimately, when the show is about phenomenal men like Jeffrey Wright and Fassbender and especially Richard

• 52:05Andy Greenwald?

  Gere and even John McGaro talking to each other about Gilroy-esque nonsense, I'm like, this is just crackling and I'm just loving it.

• 52:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Andy Greenwald?

  But I am surprised, I can't tell, I guess I want to ask you, do you feel it's a good thing or a bad thing that the agency did reach into the heart of Le Bureau, like the guy in Last of the Mohicans, and just removed the heart?

• 52:26Chris Ryan?

  And showed it to everybody.

• 52:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 52:29Chris Ryan?

  I think that It's impossible to answer that question because what was so amazing about The Bureau was thinking that you had a secondary character who was essentially part of the office furniture, who becomes a hugely important part of the drama. And to know that going in and to also have it somewhat telecast by the casting is a little bit different than the first time around. As far as the sensibility of it maybe being, that's a very French show. I find this to be an almost like global show. So I'm enjoying actually as the episodes go by, the Jodie Turner Smith plotline more.

• 53:10Andy Greenwald?

  I'm enjoying it.

• 53:11Chris Ryan?

  Maybe even on an equal level as Nadia's in The Bureau. I think the guy playing Osman Kurt Iguain, who's also in House of the Dragon, is excellent.

• 53:24Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:26Andy Greenwald?

  That's where I know him from.

• 53:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's the

• 53:28Andy Greenwald?

  He's the maester.

• 53:29Chris Ryan?

  The maester in House of the Dragon. He is awesome in this. He's also incredible. If people haven't had a chance to see this movie, A Real Pain, the Jesse Eisenberg movie, he's in that and he is fantastic in that movie as well. So it's great to see him work. It's great to see them be like, this character has layers. Like every character is starting to have layers. Characters who I was bumping, like I bumped a little bit against Harriet Sansom Harris's Dr. Blade character and now I'm really into her. I think it's like, for some reason, seems a little bit more absurd this time around that like a therapist would just be getting read into all this stuff, but at the same time, I'm pretty into it. I think there's something a little bit janky about some of the timeline stuff in this iteration of the story.

• 54:14Chris Ryan?

  All the like, there's a nonlinear kind of therapy session happening. Then there is a, after something has happened, Martian is in the hospital and he's narrating that.

• 54:25Andy Greenwald?

  Which is accurate.

• 54:26Chris Ryan?

  And that's in The Bureau. Then there is also VO from Fassbender, which I think is probably like, I don't think people understand that this is about the Chinese trying to manipulate what's happening in Sudan. And so we have to show We have to tell people what this is because like I actually had to watch last episode more or less twice to get to the bottom of what Hugh Bonneville was doing at the end of the episode, but I was like, dude, Hugh Bonneville is in this episode. Great, great call.

• 54:55Andy Greenwald?

  I also just can't overstate the fact that like the thrill that existed in the French version, when the Martian character sits in on the, on the meeting and recognizes the back channel and floats the idea and goes to the club and it, you know, it basically gets this kind of confirmation in this super cool, confident spycraft way. And then a phone gets put in the phone box, you know, that all of that is taken from the version show that we've seen. And I still love it because it still slaps. It's so thrilling. I think that there is an element to, I mean, first of all, the, the, the Danny subplot was missing from episode three, and I think Sarah Lightfoot Leon is fantastic. I think

• 55:39Andy Greenwald?

  that it's just, it's just one of those things where I think the people made this and really knew what they were doing.

• 55:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the woman who played Marina in the, in the French version had a certain look. It was unexpected and there was something, you could have cast probably 30 exceptional actresses in that age range in that part, but you needed someone who brought something a little bit different to how they portrayed vulnerability, or confidence, or cunning, or anxiety. And she's got that in spades here. So then we get the scene when she's black bagged and, and, you know, interrogated. My feeling was happiness because I remembered this scene and I remembered what happens between her and the interrogator and I was excited to see it. I think as I'm talking to you, I'm realizing it's just like seeing a great, it's like seeing a really good version of a famous play, which is a different emotional

• 56:27Andy Greenwald?

  experience than seeing it for the first time. But that said, there is enough around the margins.

• 56:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And I think the global political stage has changed enough since the first series and that they've introduced things like Ukraine, they've introduced some instability in Belarus, they've introduced Africa, they've introduced China. I love how they're using London as this open real estate market for the global rich, you know, and it's like, we don't know, is, are the Saudis, the Qataris, is it Chinese who are owned, who own this building? Like, I think that's really fascinating. And if you've been in London, like that is a real thing. So I think it has a lot going for it. I think that it's more of a, like you're saying, it is a memory rather than an experience when you're watching it.

• 57:14Andy Greenwald?

  That said, and if people are listening or sort of sick of hearing us just say we like the other version better, my relationship to it has changed inexplicably, and I wasn't really tracking this, but no, it got the early renewal and that made me feel differently about my engagement. Honestly, it gave me the confidence that the people making it understand the project and they also understand that they have a lot of greatest hits to play in this concert, but that the longer people are at, I'm going to use this metaphor more, longer people are at this concert, the more they can play some new tracks and mix them in. And I think that that might be part of the plan and I feel better about that. Like, I guess all this is to say, I wasn't sure if I was even going to stick

• 57:55Andy Greenwald?

  with it, to be honest, because I liked the original and I was a little bit concerned about episode three. And now I'm like, no, I, it is a great hang to see Richard Gere playing this part on Sunday nights.

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  And to see Michael Fassbender talk about blitzing the quarterback. I wonder what-

• 58:12Andy Greenwald?

  Something he knows a lot about. It just flows off the tongue. Just a natural American guy.

• 58:17Chris Ryan?

  Brian Flores disguising all his packages.

• 58:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, just have people in a blender out there.

• 58:21Chris Ryan?

  All right, man. Well, we've been recording for an hour. We also had an hour of tactical difficulties, so I think we'll wrap it up there. Thanks to Kaya McMullen. No pod later in this week because of the holidays, but we'll be back next week. We're going to try something a little bit different for a year end recommendations pod, so we're excited about that. As always, if you're still listening, you can contact us at the watch at spotify.com. You can email us there and you can also watch us on The Ringer TV YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram at the watch podcast underscore.

• 58:53Speaker 06

  At the watch pod underscore.

• 58:55Chris Ryan?

  At the watch pod underscore. One day, I'll get it. Thanks for everybody for listening. Everybody have a great holiday and we'll talk to you next week.

• 59:02Andy Greenwald?

  Happy holidays, Berenski. See you next week.