Is TV Marketing Broken? Plus, ‘The Agency’ Ep. 6 and ‘Landman’ Ep. 8.

Chris and Andy discuss Apple making its streaming service free for a weekend ahead of the premiere of ‘Severance’ Season 2 and the best ways to market a TV show in a disjointed streaming age (1:00). Then they talk about the latest episode of ‘The Agency’ and how the plot has snapped into gear with the Novikov story line (25:44). Then they discuss the latest episode of ‘Landman,’ a show that has officially gone off the rails (41:59). 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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• 0:37Speaker 01

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• 2:08Speaker 03

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

• 2:13Chris 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, new year, old him, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  I owe everyone who listens to this podcast an apology. I left my voice box in 2024, so it's gonna be rough.

• 2:37Chris Ryan?

  You went too hard on New Year's Eve.

• 2:39Andy Greenwald?

  I went way too hard. Actually, the problem is, Chris, have you heard about old school zins? They're actually, they're these small rolled tobacco tubes that you just sort of stick in your mouth and you light them on fire.

• 2:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Andy Greenwald?

  And this is the result.

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  This is what happens to, this is your brain on cigarettes. I had a cigarette over the Christmas holiday and it was delightful. I think in moderation, you know, every once in a while, I'd like to, I like to go back and kiss the mistress. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  You respect the classics. That's the thing about you. Whether it's Homer's The Odyssey, or whether it's Marlboro's Red.

• 3:13Chris Ryan?

  It's Joe Camel's Camel Lights.

• 3:16Andy Greenwald?

  Joseph Camel, please.

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, it's great to see you. I wish we were in person. I'm sorry you're not feeling well today, but I think I know what's gonna make you feel better. And that's an ornately detailed discussion of the most recent episode of Landman, which we will do. We're also gonna talk a little bit about The Agency. We do have new shows coming, and I wanted to talk a little bit about that because it's a new year, the slate's turning over, and January is insanely busy month for TV, even though there are gonna be a lot of like, I think, because of the globes, you'll get a little bit of like, oh, and all these shows, you know, like older shows from last year are kind of still in the zeitgeist, if there is one. But a couple of new series coming up and some returning ones I wanted to ask you about.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  First of all, any, any general observations about the state of the world? Justin Baldoni's counter suit, do you want to jump in?

• 4:06Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 4:07Chris Ryan?

  You want to just do a reading of it?

• 4:09Andy Greenwald?

  Like? No, I mean, I, first of all, I just want to commend you for your bravery for being so pro Baldoni. The Baldoni Bronies, you know, need a celebrity media figurehead like yourself, I think, at this time. So kudos for bucking the trends.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  So, uh, there actually is not like a ton of entertainment news right now, other than that. And, um, apparently, uh, Viola Davis is going to play the president in a TV series or a movie on Amazon. But I didn't really see a ton of other interesting stuff. Also, a lot of it that I did see, I don't even, I, I feel like I've been burned by the internet rumor mill a couple of times. Uh, AKA, I thought Christopher Nolan was remaking Blue Thunder. So I am going to treat the rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio is in Squid Game, season three, with a little bit of cynicism.

• 4:55Andy Greenwald?

  Is that a rumor right now? I saw that they confirmed season three is coming and I saw that Netflix has proudly announced that season two is the biggest show in the world right now, which is definitely what they expected when they bankrolled it. But, uh, so is Leo playing the younger version of one of the, uh, giant VIPs?

• 5:13Chris Ryan?

  No, it actually turns out that all of Squid Game is just a dream he's having on Shutter Island.

• 5:18Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sick.

• 5:19Chris Ryan?

  From the Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island.

• 5:22Andy Greenwald?

  Have you ever weighed in on your personal opinions of Leo's life strategy? And not his dating strategy, we'll leave that to, um, to, to ringer dish. I just mean that my understanding of his life is that for like four months of the year, he devotes himself to his craft, generally with Martin Scorsese or making some sort of, you know, intense film that requires him to eat bison liver in Alaska or whatever the case may be. And the rest of the time, he's just letting it go. He's just playing beach volleyball, you know, maybe packing a little bit of a gut. Like, I just feel like, I don't know if that's good for the body long-term to make those swings, but I feel like he's got it figured out. Am I wrong here? Do you have an opinion about this?

• 6:00Chris Ryan?

  I think his, his on off switch is aspirational to me. I wish that you and I just recorded for a little bit of the year.

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  But when we were doing it, I had like a full head of hair and was jacked and looked beautiful. And then as soon as we wrapped on the watch, season 11, I was like, now it's time to put on 25 pounds and start vaping on a yacht.

• 6:25Andy Greenwald?

  In a yacht docked outside of Portland? Like, what is your-

• 6:29Chris Ryan?

  Outside of Portland, in January.

• 6:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm like, what is CR's vacation strategy?

• 6:35Chris Ryan?

  I'm just vaping on a yacht, staring at Scoot Henderson's house.

• 6:40Andy Greenwald?

  Someone still believes in you, Scoot.

• 6:42Chris Ryan?

  Andy, so Monday, this coming Monday, I wanted to do our most anticipated shows of 2025 episode, which Kaya reminded me that one of the highlights of last year's most anticipated list was Disclaimer, which we passionately discussed and then abandoned.

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  Am I wrong? Am I off by a year or two? Was it two years ago that Kaya's all-time favorite episode of The Watch ran, where you, alone in a room, just ran down the list of upcoming TV shows, being like, "That sounds cool."

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  And I was also like, I have been podcasting for three and a half hours, and it was, in fact, like 19 minutes.

• 7:15Andy Greenwald?

  I don't want to, like, say that, you know, that fate is written in the stars, but I believe the timing checks out, that you were doing that podcast at the same time Jeremy Renner was being run over by a snowplow.

• 7:25Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, you're probably right.

• 7:27Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I'm not saying coincidence isn't a thing, but karmically-

• 7:31Chris Ryan?

  Do you think that's why Jeremy Renner got distracted with the snowplow, as he was waiting for the watch to refresh?

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  He was listening, and he's like, "Oh, that does sound cool."

• 7:40Chris Ryan?

  It's not funny, dude.

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's not not funny. He seems to have made a full recovery, thanks to-

• 7:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because he has a cybernetic frame now. That's why, like, he does not seem like he is back to normal.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, fair, but was, what was normal for that guy?

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  I don't know, that's true.

• 7:59Andy Greenwald?

  But should we, Kaya, Kaya, should we-

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  You're gonna make Kaya comment on this.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  Not on Jeremy Renner, just on, like, should we memorialize the CR solo pod in any way? Like, do you think that if we do the most anticipated show for Monday, should Chris and I record solo versions of it, and we could run one and then the other? Like, how should we do this? Because I do think you set a precedent.

• 8:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, and you both must be recording from a room in your childhood home.

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  Drinking three Bud Lights.

• 8:29Speaker 06

  And also after, after three Bud Lights, and it has to be like 6:00 PM.

• 8:32Andy Greenwald?

  I forgot all those details, but what a beautiful story that was.

• 8:36Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God. That was also the year that my, I've told the story of the big picture before, but I had to do a podcast, I didn't have to, I passionately wanted to do a podcast with Sean about the Paul Verhoeven movie Benedetta, which is about lesbian nuns and my mom. Was like, what are you watching?

• 8:58Chris Ryan?

  Anyway.

• 8:59Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, that's nice, though. I mean, it had probably been like three decades since you had one of those, "Hey, what are you watchings?"

• 9:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, seriously.

• 9:08Chris Ryan?

  Um, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the January shows, just because I, I'm trying to articulate this, but I was coming back into the mix here and I was, I was getting ready for work. And, uh, I was like, oh, I like, let me just look at the schedule for what Andy and I are going to be talking about. And some of the shows, some of the highlights over the next couple of weeks, obviously the return of Severance towards the end of the month, uh, Peter Berg's American Primeval with Taylor Kitchen, Betty Gilpin. You may have seen some ads for that. The Pit, which is, I think, going to be an object of fascination for us. This is the not an ER reboot or sequel show from John Wells and Noah Wiley about an emergency room. And then, uh, personal project, the return of Rogue Heroes, which is on MGM Plus. So I'm going to have to do some work figuring out whether people can watch that.

• 9:54Chris Ryan?

  But I'm very excited about that. There's a couple of other things I want to talk to you about, but of those shows,

• 10:02Chris Ryan?

  do you, do you, as a person who professionally talks about television, who makes television and who talks to other people who do those things?

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 10:12Chris Ryan?

  Were you like, I know what day Severance is coming out?

• 10:17Andy Greenwald?

  Great question. Hundred percent no. I know January broadly. I know that they released the first few minutes of the season, which I've not checked out yet. Cause you know, I'm a purist, all or nothing. Um, I don't order by the glass when it comes to television. But I, and I also saw that Apple is making its plus service free this weekend for everyone.

• 10:39Chris Ryan?

  I believe it was last weekend, but yeah.

• 10:41Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry. So for, for a weekend, which, so, so that in some ways was the first Apple TV marketing that I even was aware of. Generally, I thought that was smart. I always remember when the paid networks used to do that, like Showtime would be free for a weekend or HBO, and it seemed like a very effective marketing tool. But to answer your question, no, I, I actually don't know the date.

• 11:01Chris Ryan?

  So, and by that same token, American Primeval, I assume you don't know when that's coming. The Pit broadly, I, because I just told you it was coming in January. But I was, I was basically like, I was wondering whether or not TV has kind of got a marketing problem right now. I'm finding that more and more, when I chat with people. They are now that now the behavior of watching things on your own time, on your own schedule, and perhaps this is like anecdotal because I know not lots of new parents. I know lots of people who are very busy like with sports seasons that they're covering. So they're not necessarily like, oh, is it Thursday? Is this up yet? You know? But I am finding that, first of all, like, the marketing push is entirely leading up to

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  the release date. So I have not heard a peep, for instance, about Skeleton Crew since we talked about it. I know that the Ringer verse pods have been talking about it, but I haven't seen anything that's like Skeleton Crew, Skeleton Crew, online on Disney Plus. When I go, it just kind of like is a tile, but it's not featured. I wonder whether or not, like, part of the reason why this all feels so diffuse or fractured, or, or, or like there is no kind of like monocultural experience of watching television anymore, is because the networks, the channels, whatever you want to call them, have kind of completely bent the knee to the streamers. And the streamers are like, we have our own ways of making

• 12:27Chris Ryan?

  people watch. We don't need to tell them about things in the traditional way.

• 12:32Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's a smart observation. And as you're saying this, I'm realizing that this is, this whole area is pretty uncovered and unexplored. And I think it might be interesting at some point to have, maybe we do it anonymously, but to have a TV PR person come talk to us about the challenges. The one piece that I think was missing from your astute analysis is just the cost. It is extremely expensive to market anything these days. It is extremely expensive to hard launch something from zero to 60, basically, to, to flood the airwaves, to flood the internet, to flood billboards, buses in New York City with images of something that is new in order to do something that, as you just suggested, is just incredibly

• 13:15Andy Greenwald?

  hard generally these days, which is to sort of puncture people's awareness bubbles. A million years ago, shockingly, actually five years ago, when my show was being promoted by USA, people were telling me that it was in the way that they were looking at the changing world then, it was more cost effective to launch a new show than to bring back a show. Because you got more return on your investment, even though the investment in the marketing was higher, to convince people to get excited again to watch The Sinner or whatever, I'm just picking a USA show from that time, again, started to feel like internally like diminishing returns, you know, they couldn't budget as much because it was returning, and then to

• 13:57Andy Greenwald?

  puncture the bubble again, or to get people to start watching now with the perceived implied labor of having to catch up. Now, okay, I'm realizing The Sinner was a bad example because that was a new case every season type show, but even so, these were all attempts to try to address that yawning problem. And then in the case of the streaming era, you said it, every one of these services has their own logic to it. I feel like you and I have seen like sort of postmortems about Disney shows where they've said, well, they expected the first episode to have a certain amount of viewers, but what they were really watching was retention, and could they bottom out at a certain number? Remember, there are all these sort of like, after the Star Wars shows numbers, saying like, Ahsoka premiered at

• 14:39Andy Greenwald?

  the levels of Mandalorian, but did not maintain those levels or whatever. And then you get into the actual like underneath the hood stuff, which we were referring to with the interesting Disney honcho interview that Joe Adalian did on Vulture in December, where it was just like, these numbers were fine, but they were not, you know, five million dollars, 10 million dollars an episode fine. All this is to say, I don't know, what is the consumer experience of this? And I couldn't tell you.

• 15:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's not necessarily that I think these streamers or networks should be spending exorbitant amounts of money to advertise, say during a college football game. So, last couple of days, I've obviously watched a lot of college, not obviously, but I watched a lot of college football over the last couple of days. And one was as a very captive audience member on a flight back from Philly. So I watched like all of that Boise State game, and 90% of the advertising was for like a Viagra type pill, you know, like, so it was like-

• 15:39Andy Greenwald?

  How many did you buy?

• 15:42Chris Ryan?

  Well, you know, it's funny you should say that. I thought it might be-

• 15:47Chris Ryan?

  I thought they might come on on board for us as a sponsor and I could get some free product down the line, but you know, I didn't, I wanted to, penny saved, but I, my point was more, the one show that they kept advertising on this, on this game was an upcoming Fox series called Doc. Have you seen anything about this?

• 16:06Andy Greenwald?

  I've seen nothing but things about this.

• 16:08Chris Ryan?

  So this is a show starring Molly Parker. It essentially seems like, like a riff on regarding Henry, where a hard charging surgeon who might be maybe personally a little bit complicated, a little bit abrasive.

• 16:23Andy Greenwald?

  Abrasive, yeah.

• 16:25Chris Ryan?

  She gets into a car accident and hits her head. And based on what I'm understanding from the show, remembers how to be an internal medicine surgeon, but doesn't remember that she was mean and is kind of like going through life being like, now I am like, now I'm nice, but like I got a divorce and I have to like go repair all that and stuff like that. And I was thinking about, I want to, I want to develop this idea with you, which is, it's called Crit and it's about your time as a TV critic. You get into a car accident, hit your head against a windshield. You remember everything about TV and about what you do, but you forget you didn't like True Detective, season one.

• 17:08Andy Greenwald?

  Did you cause this car accident? Did you, did you cut the brake lines? Cause you seem to be the winner in this situation, but please continue, pitch me the world.

• 17:20Chris Ryan?

  True D, season one, rewatch pod.

• 17:24Andy Greenwald?

  Or, see, I was all in on this and I thought you were going to be like, and the twist is you just are delighted by television. You just think everything is really good, but specifically you just want me to hit my head so hard, I think Taylor Sheridan is good?

• 17:38Chris Ryan?

  You do think Taylor Sheridan is good.

• 17:40Andy Greenwald?

  We'll see about that, but. Um, first of all, I want to have a, I, I, we were talking about PR. I want to talk about like the marketing and branding meetings at Fox where they were like, this, we have this show. It's called, you know, Dr. Frowns or something, or like, will she heal again? And they were like, no, no, no, no. Who's the guy who's just like, what's the simplest version of this? We could call it doctor, like two wordy for America.

• 18:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Andy Greenwald?

  Doc. It's an incredible title. Yeah. I mean, these, well, there's two things to say. One is like these giant games, which are broadcast, which often are broadcast on broadcast networks. This is an opportunity to audition their content.

• 18:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and they can just spam viewers with it until it sticks and it worked on me. And I didn't watch any college football. I, I, I am, my awareness of the show is very high as my interest is very low. But I would also say that, you know, when you run the numbers, Doc, when it premieres, it may have already premiered, will have more viewers than a lot of the other shows that we're going to talk about.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Andy Greenwald?

  This month, right?

• 18:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:45Andy Greenwald?

  So it's hard to talk about in the abstract because so much of this is apples and oranges and dependent on how much the show costs and who's making it and what their goals are. But I do continue to just sort of be mystified by like American primeval, which is a show that, as you said, it's coming out, um, strong cast, Peterburg, explosions in the sky soundtrack. Like this is something that we are interested in.

• 19:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:09Andy Greenwald?

  This is something.

• 19:10Chris Ryan?

  The American West.

• 19:10Andy Greenwald?

  The, the people who are involved in it have been devoting their professional lives to for quite some time. And what does that mean to Netflix? What is, what are, what is Netflix's goals for this?

• 19:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that if, if we talk to somebody from Netflix, they'd be like, we get far more traction with TV series because of, uh, notifications on people's phones and just promoting things within their for you tile than we do from buying time on college football games.

• 19:41Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 19:41Chris Ryan?

  Now, I think I did see an American primeval ad during some college football, which makes sense because it's like, hey, do you like other shows that are about stuff like this? This one's really good, too. Check it out. But I just think that there's like, There's no way that I would ever compare like the way Rogue Heroes or The Pit is being promoted to Superman. But I do note with interest that Superman has like 50 million views on YouTube. Everybody is acutely aware that it's coming out next summer and will probably zero in on like, yes, of course, it's coming out July 20th or whatever it is. And like the familiarity people have with, I guess, I mean, obviously Superman is like this iconic character that's been made 10 times.

• 20:21Chris Ryan?

  And most people who are alive know that there is a character named Superman. But the movies are able to point you towards a day and date. They are trying to get you into the theater for that first weekend and everything builds up towards that. Whereas for TV, I think it's kind of like, people almost like throw their hand. It feels like Hollywood has thrown its hands up at the idea of creating traction or interest or buzz around a show. And they leave it to critics or they leave it to the algorithm.

• 20:53Andy Greenwald?

  Which is...

• 20:54Chris Ryan?

  And I don't even know if critics can make a show anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if like, if you freak out about a show, like, I guess, you know, an example, a good example of that would be The Bear, which I think was critically acclaimed before it became commercially like lauded, you know?

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think that things would be different in the world of CRT, the television show that you just sold straight to series to Fox. Where I emerged from the flaming wreckage of my electric vehicle to preach the gospel of high quality broadcast television. But I mean, I think it's important to note, like, what's, let's put things like rank things in terms of the importance of having a known date. And by that, I mean, The Pit feels like the kind of thing that is much more important to Max and its strategy and its survival and its intention than even Severance does to Apple.

• 21:49Andy Greenwald?

  Because Pitt is one of the first things that we've seen like really come to screen that is absolutely a byproduct of the post-COVID, pre and kind of during secretly strike conversation about like, we need to bring 1997 back.

• 22:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:06Andy Greenwald?

  We need to do this. Not like, we'll see if we can just get Kelsey Grammer to do some more Frasers, but like, we need to create the kind of adrenalized, you know, attention demanding appointment viewing that is also procedural and familiar.

• 22:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  That ER gave us. So we're basically going to make ER again. So for people to sign up for Max, like because the pit is there and, and then the churn of like, let's dive in, let's go episode to episode, that seems existentially important to the Max project. Because despite our love for HBO shows and et cetera, and you know, and I know you love the Magnolia Network and you're excited The Shining Veil is, is getting a run back on the main screen. Max's future is not guaranteed, right?

• 22:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Andy Greenwald?

  In the same way that like, Apple's TV experiment is fine, as long as they want to do it, and it doesn't really matter. The Severance piece of it, I mean, you and I think Severance is a good show. We think it's an interesting show and are both very, very curious about whether it can level up in its second season. Severance is a, a, a high quality play by Apple. It's a class, like, look how classy we can be play. It's an artistic play. It's an awards play. But in terms of the existential survival of Apple TV, which is a foolish question, since it doesn't matter.

• 23:17Chris Ryan?

  It doesn't matter.

• 23:18Andy Greenwald?

  To Apple. The free weekend of like, hey, look, we have movie stars. We have Jake Gyllenhaal and Brie Larson and, and, you know, I've named seven other people I'm forgetting right now.

• 23:29Chris Ryan?

  Harrison Ford. Yeah.

• 23:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's who's on our service. You might want to hang out here. They're proud of Severance, as they should be, but it feels like the exception to them. You know, do you know what I mean?

• 23:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Andy Greenwald?

  So it, it strikes me that like, having Severance also be there, and it's been a minute, is important. Reminding people particularly.

• 23:45Chris Ryan?

  It feels to me like Severance is a show, along with Ted Lasso, that really broke contain on Apple and like,

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Chris Ryan?

  was something that people were like, I guess I gotta figure out a way to watch the show Severance, because everybody at work is talking about it. Um, I don't know. It's, it's interesting. I'll be curious to see. What of the shows aside from Severance that are coming out in the next couple of months?

• 24:05Andy Greenwald?

  Chris, don't you think though, this this conversation, and we can move on after this, but like, don't you think this conversation is just sort of adjacent to a conversation we've been having for a long time, which is, um, shows aren't on any schedule anymore?

• 24:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:16Andy Greenwald?

  And there used to be, you know, a, a, a marketing department, a network, whomever could count on the fact that at a certain time of year, viewers would be primed for blank.

• 24:27Chris Ryan?

  Hell, a certain day of the week.

• 24:29Andy Greenwald?

  Well, yes, but even past that, I mean, well, it's the only example we ever use, so I apologize, but like, if it's summer, it's the bear, right? Like, we, we've, that has worked, and that has worked for them, and that, um, I mean, that's a value add, it's a money save, that they, that people are primed to expect it. It's one of the reasons why FX has been super adamant about Chris Stor keeping his schedule and making it the same way that he has been making it. The Severance thing, like, who knows what their money spend on that is, but it's a, it was a huge, you know, a, a exponential add, I would imagine, because it wasn't just like, hey, remember this cool quirky show that everybody liked last year, it's remember this cool quirky show from three calendar years ago.

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Andy Greenwald?

  Trust us, it's worth coming back to. That, that's a whole different calculus. And I, and for the life of me, I, I don't understand how people do it, because it's not a simple, I mean, not, nothing in this industry is simple anymore, but the PR job, the marketing jobs are quite different.

• 25:25Chris Ryan?

  PR would be like, you know, I think it's marketing is what we're talking about. PR is more like letting people who are in the press know about, like, a show is coming up. I feel very well informed by PR, I don't, I just don't necessarily feel like TV shows feel like they are being marketed to me when I am just an audience member. And there are certain things where I think you can look at success stories from last year, Shogun's a good example, where I feel like Disney was kind of like, we have this marketing muscle, and we're gonna get behind this show, because it seems like it's an a, a awards contender, we're really proud of it, it, it cements this FX relationship, etc. So I'm curious to see whether or not any shows from like, the first quarter of this year feel like they

• 26:10Chris Ryan?

  Get a push that way. I guess that's where we can leave it.

• 26:13Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'll say that not to continually gas them up for this, but FX is the best at this. FX makes things that we've never heard of feel important and puts them on our radar in the right way, not as quasi-industry professionals, but just as fans, whether it's Shogun or English teacher. They got appropriate pushes that communicated the content really, really, really well. And I think that for what it's worth, I think HBO does it when it's playing a home game. So when White Lotus hits, which is coming up pretty soon this year, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna hit. I mean, obviously it's gonna hit, but I mean, it's gonna, the marketing is gonna hit and deliver. And people will be like, oh yeah, time to go back. I don't think that's gonna be an issue at all, whereas they may have struggled more with some of their,

• 26:57Andy Greenwald?

  you know, newly onboarded IP content. Like, I mean, I think everybody, everybody paying attention knew there was a Dune show, but what was the marketing for that other than the fact that you guys like Dune?

• 27:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You guys want to see how this kid got born?

• 27:11Andy Greenwald?

  10,000 years before he got born?

• 27:14Speaker 07

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• 27:57Speaker 07

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• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  All right, dealer's choice.

• 28:23Chris Ryan?

  You want to do landman or agency first?

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should do agency first because it's always good. You know, while they're listening, while they're leaning in, we could hit them with a little of the seriousness and then, um, then we can talk legal strategy.

• 28:34Chris Ryan?

  You don't think that there's seriousness in landman? I have way more landman notes than I do agency notes.

• 28:40Andy Greenwald?

  I'd love to hear your notes. I, you know, I alluded to this when we recorded on Monday, like I, I just think this show has snapped into gear and it's working and snapped into Richard gear and it's working. This has now become something, and yes, I am, it is like watching really good cover songs of one of my favorite albums, but this has become appointment viewing for me in a way that a lot of shows, even shows that we really generally like and keep up with, have not, like I am actively excited for new episodes to drop and I'm thrilled to watch them. And I know that sounds like a very low bar, but I feel like people who listen to this podcast understand that, that there are shows that you enjoy to different degrees, some for you, some for the conversation, some to keep up with, some that you're, you know,

• 29:23Andy Greenwald?

  have a more challenging relationship with, and I'm just super into the show now. I'm really digging it.

• 29:28Chris Ryan?

  I think you're right about the snapping into gear. There is a moment in A Spy for Sale, which I think is the sixth or seventh episode, which was the most recent one. I know that one, this goes up, I think there's an agency tonight. I think it goes up on Thursdays now. So I'm not sure what the, the, yeah, I think this is the sixth episode that we were talking about, A Spy for Sale.

• 29:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's correct.

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  And this one felt like it kind of, you know, there are still beats from the bureau that are very familiar. There are, is this weird phantom limb experience that I have while watching the agency where I'm like, I think I know what's going to happen in this scene already, but I can't quite remember. And also they've shuffled the deck a little bit, but you've got a different level of technology being used by the agency in this series. I think they are trying to articulate a global political moment in a very interesting way, which is briefly said by Richard Gere at the end of this episode.

• 30:28Chris Ryan?

  He's like, this is the only department of the government that thinks in terms of decades and eras, and you just put us five minutes, you just gave us like five minutes. He's saying this to the Martian character, to Michael Fassbender. It's a very cool moment because Fassbender's character is essentially having a panic attack in a conference room. And the shot is from outside of the conference room as the meeting that they're in is dispersing when they've decided that they're gonna try and rescue Coyote, I assume. And Gere is yelling at him, and it's Richard Gere and Jeffrey Wright giving him the business. So you'd think, oh, we're gonna get closeups of these guys, they're gonna let these guys cook. But instead, it's almost muted a little bit, and it's outside of the office, and you can see

• 31:10Chris Ryan?

  that this guy is like becoming more and more isolated. It's a great little piece of filmmaking. But that whole idea is very cool to me. Like, the idea that this is a organization that is thinking in terms of political eras rather than political moments is just a cool thing to dramatize. I thought that the show, to your point, though, snapped into place and snapped to attention with the Novikov plotline in this most recent episode. So this is a ex-KGB, aging ex-KGB officer who has basically placed himself in a sort of a middleman information

• 31:50Chris Ryan?

  sales position with the sort of the location of Coyote, who's a CIA agent working in Belarus. And a lot of this is tied to the Ukraine conflict. Remind me when this is set. Is it three years ago?

• 32:06Andy Greenwald?

  I believe it's three years ago.

• 32:07Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Because there are references to-

• 32:10Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think it's 2023. I'm sorry.

• 32:12Chris Ryan?

  Okay. There are references to things that are like, is he talking about Biden? Is he talking about, like, they don't say Putin, and they don't say Biden, but like, there are allusions to the White House and to Russia that are very clear. In any case, Ukraine is becoming a bigger and bigger part of this series, but- It's just a very good Le Carre-esque, you know, the bones of all the spies in Europe like moment that I felt like gave this series a little bit of clarity and distinction from Le Bureau.

• 32:46Andy Greenwald?

  And this is, well, this is a moment that I love particularly in Le Bureau too with it where it's just like, it's not about money. It's not about real politic or global influence. It's about personal anguish and, and the personal toll of this. In my memory, this plot line with bidding on the bike was longer and more drawn out. So it, and I can't tell you because I haven't rewatched in a while, whether it was more or less effective by making it, you know, reducing it to what it was in this, in this episode, but it absolutely landed for me for all the reasons you're saying. Like fundamentally, what you and I love about these stories, all of it is in this episode, this most recent episode from the cleverness of the online bidding, the, you know, they're not sure who they're actually

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  in business with, the leak, not the leaked, the, um, the bugged phone call to the doctor's office. That's a coded message, the box of phones and the phones ringing and the, the beautiful mix of like hard power and soft power and old school spycraft and new school technology is just delightful and clever and considered. And every beat, uh, it walks, for a show that doesn't do a lot of handholding, it does walk us through the Tik Tok, uh, the old way of saying it, not the, you know, the, the website that you don't want to see banned,

• 34:01Andy Greenwald?

  version of it.

• 34:01Chris Ryan?

  The website?

• 34:03Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. The, the RSS feed. I don't know what it is. People at this point, they know what they're listening to.

• 34:10Chris Ryan?

  Did you have a car accident just now? You know what Tik Tok is?

• 34:13Andy Greenwald?

  It's an app?

• 34:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:15Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 34:15Chris Ryan?

  Come on. Don't be like that.

• 34:17Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't, look, I don't do the dances like you do, so I'm not as familiar, but, um, I did love all of that. I'm interested that you're bringing up the the politics of it because 1,000%, this was a lot of conversation was about this topic, whether it was between the Butterworths, Butterworths and Joe Wright, when George Clooney and Grant Heslov were developing it, when Showtime was was was trying to adapt it. One of the biggest pieces had to have been the elephant in the room, which is it is a fundamentally different project to make a show about the secret spy service of France or of the United States. And one of the things that I'm very curious about around the corner is that the United States plays a role in the first season of The Bureau.

• 35:02Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:03Andy Greenwald?

  And I will not spoil that. But the idea of all of this hardship and all of this sort of like underdog subterfuge.

• 35:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:14Andy Greenwald?

  Being undertaken by the biggest power in the world. The show has done a very smart job of muting it. It makes it a personal story. It makes it about people doing their best. You know, this isn't set at Langley. This is set in London. So everybody's a little bit out of their comfort zone. But.

• 35:29Chris Ryan?

  When you say that, are you talking about all the British actors doing American accents?

• 35:33Andy Greenwald?

  I'm talking about myself as someone who has spent a lot of time being out of his comfort zone in London recently. But um, but so how it's going to navigate the real politic of that is is interesting to me because I think that there was an element of The Bureau that you felt like the humanity of Malatrou and of the characters we saw was kind of their diminishing importance, which is not, I do not mean to make a pejorative or subjective commentary about the role of the French in the world. I still love shredded carrot salads for lunch as often as I can. But it's sort of, that's the tension that I'm interested in going forward. And in a way, it's kind of an analog to the other tension of the show that just fundamentally does not work, but it doesn't bother me, which

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  is that Michael Fassbender is playing Jason Bourne.

• 36:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:20Andy Greenwald?

  And the fact that any of these people, even for half of an episode, were like, whoa, this failed book author certainly is ripped. Like. He has

• 36:27Chris Ryan?

  He has incredible 40 times so he can outrun the Chinese Secret Service.

• 36:32Andy Greenwald?

  Just like, look, look at this bookish cuck running through Battersea Power Station. Bravo. No, I, I, I generally, I find it interesting that he has chosen to play this part without the slightest bit of vulnerability. And so far, it hasn't taken me out because everything else is so engaging, but I do find that kind of interesting. Um, do you, do you, I just want to get your take on that, if you have a take on that, on the way the show has done a remarkable balancing act of focusing on what it's focusing on, while talking about the larger global goings on, but not pot committing too far one way or another about what role it's playing in that conversation.

• 37:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I think it's, it's a magic trick to reference a still evolving situation in Ukraine to talk about things that are still kind of like bubbling up. I mean, even referencing the executive branch of the American government that is in flux. You know what I mean? Because we're obviously about to have this, a new president who has pretty, pretty clearly stated opinions about, about where the Ukraine conflict is going to go. It doesn't have anything to do with like how people are going to appreciate the agency, but it's like almost a recent period piece in some ways to watch it. Um, it in

• 37:57Chris Ryan?

  no way really impacts the way I watch the series, but it is like, it's trying to thread the needle where every single one of these people has like something personal going on. And this is what was so great about Le Bureau was there were so many, so many personal stories that the political and the espionage stories kind of intertwined with them and that they were reflections of their interiority, you know, like the way that Malatrou did espionage work was in fact, an extension of his permanently broken heart, you know, uh, the way that he was sort of managed by his boss was in a reflection of his boss's insecurity about, you know, his own place in the world. So I think they're doing a good job of that. I wish we had more John Magaro and more Catherine

• 38:42Chris Ryan?

  Waterston, but I think that we will get some. Fassbender as the central character or the central actor of the piece is, is kind of like exactly what you said. I like it and I don't think it works. You know?

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Chris Ryan?

  It's like, he's just too beautiful and cool and fast and smart and everything. And never seems to like, get freaked out or overwhelmed or overstuffed. And this was the first moment they kind of put him in that position. But he was still able to run in and negotiate the information purchase from Novikov. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to see him try to do that.

• 39:23Andy Greenwald?

  That, that point about like, being able to be good at everything. I think, you know, you and I are not experts, but we, we do read a lot of spy fiction. I feel like the, the greatest invention of the bureau was the idea, not just that someone would be embedded in the field for six years, which, you know, is, I think is not normally the case in any major spy department in any government in the world. But that then he would immediately put on a suit and be one of the most important management people, you know? I mean, look, Chris, there are very few people who are built like you, you know, who can be talent and management. And the, the show is sort of perpetuates that fiction. And the idea that Casavitz is sort of bookish and weirdly able to do both worked a little better for me than Fassbender.

• 40:08Andy Greenwald?

  Like when he's in the office, I'm just like, well, this guy is just an alpha and he's just letting him do whatever he wants. But clearly they respect his management acumen, even though he's clearly compromised and a little bit, has lost a little bit in the field.

• 40:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:19Andy Greenwald?

  To your point about like, the, the reflecting, changing temperature of governments and things. I mean, in a way, this show, I mean, it doesn't glamorize the spy services necessarily, but it is a love letter to the deep state in the idea that, I mean, and I do, I know it sounds silly.

• 40:37Chris Ryan?

  We are in a true, true celebration of the deep state moment on television right now.

• 40:40Andy Greenwald?

  But, but, but the idea that no matter who is driving the car, the car still functions. The car is on a longer journey. And even though the drivers may swap out, it's largely following a considered and responsible route. Like that, that is what shows like this offer us. That is what that line that's at the end of that episode suggests, right? That like, though, though governments may change and, and, you know, The culture wars may, the flames may be fanned or whatever. We are doing something here that, that far, far, far outstrips the importance of the day to day scrum.

• 41:17Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 41:17Andy Greenwald?

  And that's clearly very appealing.

• 41:20Chris Ryan?

  That's also like, I think it's interesting to take a step even further back from that and wondering if that's something that they're lying to themselves about. You know, like

• 41:27Andy Greenwald?

  Great question.

• 41:28Chris Ryan?

  The idea that whether or not like Gear, Gear's character Bosco thinks that he is in this nervous system where they are determining the future of democracy for an era. And in fact, what they're mostly doing is fixing their own mistakes and hoping Malatru's love life and, and parenting doesn't get them in a ton of trouble.

• 41:49Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. And, and it is interesting to consider this, not just in the, in the moment that we're living in, but like seeing strands of this in a lot of popular work at the moment, like we, we don't need to get into it, but I watched Conclave finally last night and it's, it's a very similar thing, right? Where people who have had to either take a giant leap of faith or lie to themselves that the choices that they've made independently as individuals in the world matter, right? Both to an institution and to the larger moral weight of the universe, in the case of Conclave. And in the end, it's all kind of just about personal foibles and politics.

• 42:25Chris Ryan?

  Is that your entree to Andy's movie minute? Do you want to talk about Conclave for a second?

• 42:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, not really. Cause I, I don't want to zag, but it didn't really work for me.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 42:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I, I actually kind of wanted to talk to you about it maybe in a future conversation because I, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I thought it was super entertaining and it had some of the best actors just, just showing out. So I, I enjoyed it. I'm not like immune to it, but I think ultimately what I was struck by, and I wonder if this was because I watched it on, on TV. I watched it on Peacock, not in the theater, that it kind of felt Netflix-y to me in that it was the most gourmet version of junk food imaginable. Because it is both kind of preposterous, particularly at the end, it just kind of, kind of lost me. But also that it, it really is Agatha Christie like, where it's like, here are the four people, one by one, they will fall.

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  And it was just so boilerplate in that, but surrounded by absolutely gorgeous, like jaw dropping shots by Edward Berger, the director. And you have Ray Fiennes just at the peak of his powers. So I was, I was all in despite those sort of. Hammy flaws up until the very end where I was like, come on, come on now.

• 43:37Speaker 07

  Okay. Well, maybe we could say if like we do a movie catch up if once you, as we get closer to Oscars, if you have some more.

• 43:44Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. But, but do you get, but you, I would love to. Thank you for the invitation. But, but do you know what I mean in terms of the like, it's interesting to think about all of these current entertainments as like the lies we tell ourselves, right? And particularly to bring it back to the agency. In most shows, having a, giving a character who is in the midst of the most stressful moment of their lives, or else they wouldn't be making a TV show about it, a child is an unforced error.

• 44:10Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 44:11Andy Greenwald?

  In the context of Martian's journey and what you were just saying, it makes it even more interesting because ultimately would the world be a better place if he had just raised his child? You know what I mean? Like honestly, or would he be in a better place? I like that the show is not, it's not running towards those questions, but it's not skirting them either.

• 44:31Speaker 07

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• 45:36Chris Ryan?

  Let's wrap up by talking about Landman.

• 45:37Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking about raising your child correctly.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  What's this episode called? Clumsy This Life? Yeah, it is. It's clumsy, comma, this life. Um, do you know what the, do you know what the next episode is called?

• 45:50Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Wolf Camp.

• 45:54Chris Ryan?

  That's the camp I want to go to.

• 45:56Andy Greenwald?

  I thought about sending my younger daughter there, actually.

• 45:58Chris Ryan?

  Bro, I, uh, I feel like I'm in pretty good health and I definitely, definitely wondered if I had a stroke while I was watching this episode. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, this episode looked like the Safdie's directing an AI Netflix Christmas movie.

• 46:18Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah.

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  For some reason, I don't know if this is just me, but like, was there a ton of really jittery, close up handheld camera work in this episode?

• 46:28Andy Greenwald?

  Well, particularly, this was the finest use of the ethnically coded camera lens since the OC would go to Chino and suddenly everything would be like all sepia and dark. Like the scenes when the, when the drug smugglers were like, "Hondale, like, let's get the cocaine."

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  And so it's a completely different show.

• 46:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. That was on the lioness set, I bet.

• 46:52Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean.

• 46:54Chris Ryan?

  They're like, I know we just strafed these guys briefly with a helicopter. Can we come back and do it again for Landman?

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  You have to accept that there's a moral quandary involved in watching these shows, Chris, where you just see the hand of like Taylor Sheridan cutting deals with the US military to use tomahawk whatevers and then them being like, "We'd like to use it on this show too." And he's like, "Great."

• 47:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Andy Greenwald?

  Great. How much time do you want to be on camera, sir?

• 47:20Chris Ryan?

  This fucking episode was true pandemonium. In, in terms of like, the episode starts and it, I, I have to say like, regardless of what Taylor Sheridan's viewpoints on female lawyers are, this Rebecca is like a different person in this episode, right?

• 47:40Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I want to be charitable here. Rebecca is top five worst characters on television this century.

• 47:48Andy Greenwald?

  It's very, very, very hard to imagine a worse character. In conception, sorry, a little bit in performance, like, she sucks at her job. She's awful.

• 48:02Chris Ryan?

  She's leading with her heart.

• 48:04Andy Greenwald?

  Is that your performance review?

• 48:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, okay, so basically, the premise of this episode is it starts, it's basically right from when the last episode ends, which is that Cooper is at Paulie Chavez's house, and Rebecca and Nate have come over to give her a settlement check. But then Rebecca's like, I've been looking for you, Cooper, which I feel like I am watching Landman pretty closely and don't remember her mentioning, like, I'd love to chat with your son if you get a chance to.

• 48:40Andy Greenwald?

  To be fair, the parenting style that Tommy shows to Cooper, which is, I believe, exchanging two sentences with him over seven episodes of television and not looking him in the eye when he's sharing a meal with him for the first time in what maybe months, does not suggest a close bond that even a competent lawyer could exploit.

• 49:01Chris Ryan?

  But it doesn't feel like Rebecca's been pounding the pavement of the Permian Basin looking for him, right?

• 49:07Andy Greenwald?

  She's scared of snakes, that's been established.

• 49:09Chris Ryan?

  So she inspires Tommy, and the episode opens with this super intense, close-up, handheld conversation where she's like, I'm gonna fucking end your life. And Cooper is just like, I'll fucking end yours. And they're all, like, I wonder whether this was like, like, a feeling that there needed to be more of an adversary or an antagonist in this show, because all of a sudden, her being like, my entire identity and life is about protecting the corporate liability of MTEx, and I will stop at nothing to make sure that we save $500,000 or whatever, after she's already had these experiences, literally with the Norris family, of like,

• 49:53Chris Ryan?

  okay, like, I'm softening it up and I'm just trying to protect the company. She's like, now, like, the villain of the show, I guess.

• 50:03Andy Greenwald?

  You know, for this week, a lot of people have talked about the unreality of shows like Law and Order, in which crimes are committed and people are sent to jail, all within 42 minutes of screen time. But those shows are like the Harvard Law Library of jurisprudence compared to the way law is depicted on this program. One of my favorite small details is when Jon Hamm is like, "You did a great job in that deposition." Remember the deposition where she just delivered a monologue? She was just like, "You fucking cuck don't speak again."

• 50:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Andy Greenwald?

  And in this one, an entire liability claim is resolved before breakfast? Like, they came at 8:00 in the morning.

• 50:46Chris Ryan?

  But she also, like, the implication is that Cooper killed three other men or four other men.

• 50:51Andy Greenwald?

  That's later. That's late.

• 50:53Chris Ryan?

  Right. But like, that seems to be what's turning in her mind when she's talking to Cooper, is that you intentionally murdered these men to get with their widow?

• 51:02Andy Greenwald?

  All their wives. Listen, I feel like you and I are approaching this from a different place. When we reach that scene, when Tommy is so incensed, not only does he kick over her stool, he bricks a Michelob Ultra for the first time on this show. He's never done that before. I was surprised he didn't take it to go. My response was, oh, thank God, Taylor Sheridan has stumbled into some stakes here. Like, actually, someone might be in peril or be antagonistic to someone other than a straw man cut out that has a speech shouted in his or her face before, you know, learning the error of their environmentalist ways. So I actually thought, for as preposterous as that was as a turn, that was, they stumbled

• 51:45Andy Greenwald?

  into some story there. That didn't bother me as much as the just absolute catastrophe of him just getting her a million dollars and quitting his job because he's learned all he needs to learn. And he's gonna own an oil company someday.

• 52:01Chris Ryan?

  I'm waiting for you to do that with podcasting. Like.

• 52:06Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm getting there.

• 52:06Chris Ryan?

  I've learned all I can learn about this podding. I'm quitting and I'm gonna like run, I'm gonna own Bill one day.

• 52:12Andy Greenwald?

  In the third, in the third decade of doing this show, I promise that I will.

• 52:16Chris Ryan?

  That's a good second season arc for Crit. I say all that and I criticize the Rebecca character. I criticize those opening moments. I talk about the, the, the weird change in visual language of the show. But I'll tell you why I keep coming back up to the bar and ordering another Michelob Ultra. And it's this. It's fucking Jon Hamm impersonating Rob Riggle from Step Brothers having a heart attack.

• 52:43Chris Ryan?

  First of all, I gotta ask, man, this guy runs an oil company. I'm sure he has a really good cardiologist. Do guys have heart attacks and just take pills now? Like, do you know how that's like an eighties movie trope? It's like, where are my pills?

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like your angina pills. Yeah, yeah, uh huh.

• 53:00Chris Ryan?

  But Hamm, there's a moment in this show where I'm like, oh, this was stitched together. Like, I don't, Hamm calls Tommy. And it was like, hey, by the way, like, we have a lot of cartel activity in our oil fields. So I've, I've leased the National Guard to come start dropping bombs next to our wells. And Tommy's like, you got it, bud. Then Hamm has a heart attack.

• 53:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:25Chris Ryan?

  And calls Tommy again and is like, by the way, fuck your son. Why didn't he say fuck your son the first time? He already knew. And I think this is a problem with all of Jon Hamm's scenes are him getting off a plane and talking on the phone. So they are, I don't think that they are shot with any sort of like sense of story chronology or linear kind of.

• 53:51Andy Greenwald?

  So do you think that when he shot that first phone scene, no one had given him the note chronologically, they were block shooting, that he was also experiencing a cardiac event?

• 53:59Chris Ryan?

  That is what I think, but that's, that is the fucking juice of this show. Is this guy having a heart attack? And Demi Moore being like.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I want to talk about. Chris, you and I used to live in a society and in that society, Demi Moore was paid $20 million to lead the movie's striptease. And in the year of our Lord 2025, Demi Moore's job is to take a cell phone from a not at all dying man and say, call another time, dipshit.

• 54:29Andy Greenwald?

  Like, what are we doing?

• 54:30Chris Ryan?

  Well, I wonder whether, what is it, like, president a priori, like, if, like, there's, like, if the Speaker of the House has to become, I wonder if Jimmy Moore is gonna become, like, the de facto head of M-Tex while he's recovering from his ninth heart attack.

• 54:44Andy Greenwald?

  You mean designated survivor?

• 54:45Chris Ryan?

  Because why else would Jimmy Moore be doing this? Right?

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  Well, as I've said multiple times, I think maybe she was just swimming. And Taylor Sheridan showed up with a camera crew and was like, I can use this. What if this was, what if we discovered this was all found footage? You know what I mean? Like, none of the people involved knew that they were in a TV show?

• 55:05Chris Ryan?

  Jon Hamm just loves flying private.

• 55:06Andy Greenwald?

  He just loves flying private. The military is just actively just shooting stuff. He's got the camera rigs out. You say that Jon Hamm is only doing these scenes, but you are overlooking the opening.

• 55:18Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, when he talks to the governor of Texas.

• 55:20Andy Greenwald?

  When he solves the border crisis with a hollandaise sauce-obsessed governor. Like, I will say this again, the Taylor Sheridan days is real. And I cannot believe that any actors actually enjoy doing scene work where they monologue for six minutes and have to, and then get monologued back.

• 55:37Chris Ryan?

  What are you talking about? It's probably the, your, your entire, all you have is highlights when you're on a Taylor Sheridan show.

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  But you also have to do, unless you're like, kind of an asshole, you have to do coverage where you just sit there for half a day while Jon Hamm's like, let me tell you how the border works. And he solves it.

• 55:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, let me tell you something about how this TV show's worked. Jon Hamm shot all of his scenes getting off a plane, getting into a Ford Explorer, or in that restaurant, which is the same restaurant that has been in every scene of this show. And there's one moment where he's walking out from the governor, and I swear to God, seven different women are taking a sip of a mimosa at the same time. And I was like, I'm on drugs. I'm having a fucking psychotic episode right now.

• 56:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's the feeling I had when the Balar-beloved Grandma Saracen from Friday Night Lights says the word, "I just wish I could have a dick in my face one more time."

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta stop you like it's not good, right? Like, can we, can you just like new year, new you? Can you let us in on the bit?

• 56:43Chris Ryan?

  It has gotten worse. It has gotten worse. It was, I think it was really good when it started and now it is, I am watching and I am like, I feel like crazy while I watch this.

• 56:53Andy Greenwald?

  Cause again, it's like, it's cool. The Taylor Sheridan has some, has some, you know, some counterfactuals to make about environmentalism and lithium batteries and gas. But we, we heard that already. You know what I mean? And so now when the, when the quarterback is like, and also vaccines are for cucks and pandemics are planned. And she's like, I'm going to marry you if you're nice to the olds. Like, that's a little bit sus. And then, and similarly, like when Billy Bob shows up to dinner, I was like, come on, they're not going to do the spicy food bit again. You're not going to pull that chestnut off of the tree. You're not going to do it again. They fucking did it. And then she delivers a four minute monologue and he's like, God damn it.

• 57:36Andy Greenwald?

  You're the only woman with stones in this town and leaves without speaking to his son. It's just, I'm not saying he needs a writer's room.

• 57:47Chris Ryan?

  You also are saying you're skipping the sex scene where a t-shirted Billy Bob Thornton, jackrabbits into alley larder.

• 57:56Andy Greenwald?

  And then she's mad at him.

• 57:57Chris Ryan?

  You're fucking me like it's Saturday night, but in fact it is Saturday morning and you need to make sweet love to me. What are we doing with our lives?

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, then their 30 year old daughter, just the joke is that she's not listening to it because she has her headphones in.

• 58:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Andy Greenwald?

  But then a few minutes later, in case we're worried that she's been protected from this completely inappropriate public performance, her mom's like, gotta go on the elliptical today, honey, because your, your father just treated me like, like Jon Hamm treats the Permian Basin.

• 58:29Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I, I don't know, man. You're saying there's a lot of TV coming up in January and I feel like I've been a good friend.

• 58:35Chris Ryan?

  Fucking have to finish this with me. You can't, you can't abandon me now. Honestly, you can't.

• 58:41Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's a lot. It's a lot, buddy.

• 58:43Chris Ryan?

  There's like two more left.

• 58:45Andy Greenwald?

  But, but also like 30 more, right? Because...

• 58:48Chris Ryan?

  Well, I, I will find another landman for you, but like, I mean, you gotta finish the first season. It ends, this episode ends with the Texas National Guard bombing an area of a Texas oil field where there was cartel activity and the pilot is like, "We got bogies in the, in the target zone." "I think I hit something." It's like, this is, it seems like it's gonna get like a, a little bit out of control on, on this series now.

• 59:15Andy Greenwald?

  Generally though, that was a better act out than the previous act's ending, which was Billy Bob Thornton getting heated from his lawyer conversation. And then just a long tracking shot of him leaving the bar.

• 59:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Andy Greenwald?

  Getting into his car, lighting his 39th cigarette, getting an angry FaceTime from his wife, then hanging up on her. Like, oh shit.

• 59:33Chris Ryan?

  It's so good, dude.

• 59:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's just characters acting like they always act. What'll happen next?

• 59:38Chris Ryan?

  My favorite other filmmaking moment of the episode was, uh, after

• 59:41Andy Greenwald?

  Filmmaking moment?

• 59:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Ethel or whoever says, "I just, I just want a dick in my face one more time." And, and Ali Lard is like, "We, we can do that."

• 59:50Andy Greenwald?

  Oh yeah, she says we can do that.

• 59:52Chris Ryan?

  It's a hard cut to a drone shot over the, over the, like, the land while, like, Zach Bryan plays.

• 1:00:02Chris Ryan?

  But it's like, I feel so, I'm like a Pavlov's dog where it's like, as soon as the, the, like, country music plays and there's drone shots of the, of, of the area of Odessa, I'm just like, "Oh, I'm, I'm back in." Like, it takes one thing for me to be like, "Oh, this is, this is incredible."

• 1:00:19Andy Greenwald?

  I want to tell you something from, from my heart and seriously, you know, I, I mentioned during our book recommendation podcast on Monday that I love Samantha Harvey's Orbital.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:27Andy Greenwald?

  Which makes reference to something that I'd forgotten about, which is that like, one of the satellites sent, just like on a, just get out there mission in the seventies in the hopes that maybe some century, some species might find it, carried a, like a golden disc engraved with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on it. So that some multi-tentacled space creature might be like, "Oh, sick. I love it. Better go find these guys."

• 1:00:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Andy Greenwald?

  I think we need to send another satellite out with the first season of Landman on it, to be honest.

• 1:00:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but with my-

• 1:00:57Andy Greenwald?

  I think we need to be honest with the universe.

• 1:00:58Chris Ryan?

  But with my brain, like Three Body Problem, like, style. Where it's just like, my brain and like, robot arms holding a LaserDisc of Landman, going out into space, to be like, so I can explain it to them.

• 1:01:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, or, or an EKG of your brain while watching Landman, set to brutalist core music by Julius Eastman, right? Of just like, this is when we peaked as a species. Like, we were, we were a rough people, we were a brutish, a brutalist, if you will, people, but we could experience joy sometimes.

• 1:01:34Chris Ryan?

  I hope Taylor can land the plane here, man.

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  Oh shit, fucking, it could land at like, that plane this weekend, man.

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, it was great to see you. I hope you feel better. I'll see you on Monday. We're gonna talk about our most anticipated shows of the year, and honestly, probably Landman, so get ready.

• 1:01:51Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you for listening to what Landman has done to my voice. I promise to be in better spirits on Monday.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

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