Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn on the ‘Pluribus’ Season 1 Finale

Chris and Andy briefly talk about the ‘Pluribus’ Season 1 finale (1:02), before they’re joined by series creator Vince Gilligan and star Rhea Seehorn to unpack the episode (8:25). They discuss Carol and Zosia’s complicated relationship, how they tackled the measured rhythm of the story, the challenges Seehorn encountered in acting opposite the Others, writing the second season, and much more. Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady 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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• 1:17Speaker 00

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:23Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line, but shortly you'll be joining me in the studio. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:34Andy Greenwald?

  Good morning. We are The Collective. I can be anywhere at any time.

• 1:37Chris Ryan?

  It's absolutely right. Andy, today on The Watch, we are going to be bringing folks an interview that we did in studio a couple of days ago with Ray Seehorn, the star of Pluribus and Vince Gilligan, the creator of Pluribus. We talked a lot about the broader themes and ideas of the first season of the show. So we didn't get into super detail about the finale, but I think what we'll do is, since it's an extensive interview and it's a great chat with these guys and they were so generous with their time, we're going to get into that interview as soon as possible. And maybe Andy and I will save some of our more detailed thoughts about the finale and the season as a whole for when we come back on January 5th after the new year. So Andy, anything you wanted to just throw out there as like a top note headline Pluribus for people to take with them?

• 2:22Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it was definitely more about South American like village and folk traditions than I would have expected going into the season, but I do love the fact that TV can still surprise me in 2025. No, that said, I thought that it was a pretty triumphant finale for what was an incredibly subtle in some ways and impressive season. And one thing that I really liked about the show was just right there in the opening that I'm referring to. It has a cold open where I believe her name is Kusumayo is eager to be uploaded. And so we find out that they have in fact worked on the precise combination of smelling salts

• 2:59Chris Ryan?

  Airborne, baby.

• 3:00Andy Greenwald?

  That will they they they can do it.

• 3:02Chris Ryan?

  Straight after with the extra moisturizer.

• 3:03Andy Greenwald?

  You ever worry about that? Like you're just shooting that stuff up there one of these days. I appreciated that it was a it was a subtle and artistic and slightly digressive way to say, this can happen. This is coming for Carol. They can do this. But also, the the way that it was shot with the feeling of like joy and togetherness and she's surrounded by people who love her and these are her parents and family members and they can't wait for her to join them. And she's quite excited to join them because she loves them. And the second that it works, it's clear that they will never physically interact with each other again in the same way, which isn't necessarily a, you know, we understand what the joining is now, right? We understand that they are with each other

• 3:45Andy Greenwald?

  at all times. Thus, they do not need to perform the pantomime of making each other breakfast or singing to each other or whatever it may be. But seeing it played out that way, just the choreography and the direction of it was so stark and so honestly devastating that it set the table beautifully for everything that followed.

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  It's funny you should mention that because I had a similar reaction to the moment preceding, and this is obviously Andy talked about the cold open, but we'll be, as Vince and Ray do, discussing spoilers for the entire first season of the show. The moment preceding Carol and Zosia's breakup, essentially where they're in the ski lift, the gondola, taking them up the mountain. And they're having this sort of storybook romance, globetrotting romance. I kind of knew it in the moment, but I definitely knew it upon rewatching it is that like as they get out of the gondola, you realize that the entire ski lift stops after they get out. And so that stops running in a cycle.

• 4:45Chris Ryan?

  And so obviously, all of it has been done as a production for Carol and for her romantic, ideal version of this, this love affair. And the fact that it stops and it just swings a little bit. It's such an ominous foreshadowing moment of their breakup to come. And also why they are going to break up and the fact that for as much as Carol thinks she has them pinned down with you can't lie and you can't kill and you can't do this. Progress happens either way, you know, life finds a way and and that they, they, just because they said, we won't do anything like that without your consent. Doesn't mean they're going to stop looking for ways to convert other people and perhaps possibly Carol.

• 5:29Chris Ryan?

  And so she starts to put the full court press on her. And you have to wonder whether or not in, in some way or shape or form that her love affair with Carol is about a, a sales pitch. And I thought it was just an amazing example of Gilligan and his team's ability to tell a story with things beyond just words. To set a, set a tone, set a mood and then to fall through with it.

• 5:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we talked about this with them, which was a real thrill to do, but the, the mastery of the show is in the marriage between the micro and the macro storytelling. Because in that moment, we as fans of television, Reddit, pill, whatever, we wonder like, is, is Zosia now saying I, is she making jokes and razzing Carol about board games and, and croquet? And that's the previous episode, but just basically behaving more quote unquote, human with her. Is that a sign of the collective evolving and how they deal with the peculiar, specific problem of Carol? Or is it all part of a larger evolutionary existential?

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  Manipulation. And then, of course, what are all relationships maybe but a delicate dance between softening yourself and making yourself vulnerable and open to other people's ideas and behaviors and kind of wanting to bring down the hammer of getting what you want out of it?

• 6:47Chris Ryan?

  That's what this podcast is all about, right?

• 6:49Andy Greenwald?

  It's finally time we just admitted it with each other. And the day you watch a Miyazaki movie, I'll know that you have been uploaded to the larger stream of consciousness.

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  That's what I bring the atom bomb.

• 7:00Chris Ryan?

  I have a helicopter come and drop. The wind rises.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if anybody does it better than than the Albuquerque crew or the Vince Gilligan creative team is run right at television's essential struggle between the desire for thing, the audience's desire and maybe often the creator's desire to grant wishes and make people enjoy things and feel good about things and the essential, the essential note of conflict, which is what drives all storytelling. And to that point, the creation of an intro and direct introduction of Manusos is just so brilliant because in a show like this, there are no fences. They could bring in anyone or any energy in the world and they

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  took the time to create a, a like a heat seeking missile that is just perfectly designed to disrupt Carol's own negativity.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And also upset her conception of herself as this incredibly principled.

• 8:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 8:04Chris Ryan?

  Basically like last person on earth. She meets the real last person on earth, the last real hero, or at least in terms of what the way he sees it, he's here to save the world. This is a good place for us to stop just because I don't want to get so far ahead of ourselves that we wind up repeating ourselves with our conversation with Vince and Ray, who were awesome guests and it was really cool to have them in studio.

• 8:25Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, dream guests to meet both of them, but also to see their dynamic with each other.

• 8:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:29Andy Greenwald?

  And I just want to say, if anyone listening is part of a team that might one day come on this podcast also creatively actor, writer, director, showrunner. Definitely ask each other questions during the podcast because

• 8:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because it makes it easier for us.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, because Ray was going right at Vince and I was like, this is great. I could just mute myself. I loved it.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  We will be back on January 5th. We will probably talk a little bit about more about the Pluribus finale. I will probably have some thoughts on the last few Stranger Things episodes. And then we have an incredibly busy January to share with our watch listeners between the pit, industry, Night Manager, Night of the Seven Kingdoms, tons of stuff. So we will never not have something to watch. Greenwald, great year podcasting with you. I love podding with my best friends. So it's barely work.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  This is the best thing we get to do. I'm so happy we get to do with you. Thank you to Kaya and Kai who joined the team this year.

• 9:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Andy Greenwald?

  Doing great work. Just, just throwing me, both of you guys just throwing me hospital balls on social. I love it. Appreciate it. Appreciate all of you.

• 9:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we'll be back with you guys on January 5th, everybody. Happy holidays and happy new year.

• 9:35Andy Greenwald?

  Happy new year, Baranski's.

• 9:37Chris Ryan?

  Here we are with Vince Gilligan and Ray Seehorn, the creator and the star of Pluribus, one of me and Andy's favorite TV shows of the year. And it's just an honor to have you guys here. This was just such an incredible Thanks for having us. Season of television. I can't wait to ask you, Vince, we had you on for the pilot or the premiere and the first two episodes, so.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Same like it was just yesterday.

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I know.

• 9:59Chris Ryan?

  So thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having us.

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  Congratulations on the season. Like, as you could tell, I didn't want to be there for the first interview in case you guys botched it.

• 10:09Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't want my name associated with it, but now I do.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Caution is a watchword.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  It was a fantastic finale and we're going to talk about all of it. I have kind of a thinky question to start off with and it'll get easier, I promise. But I wanted to start with something from the finale. There's a moment when at the end of this magical ski trip that Carol has gone on with Zosia, a pre-ski on the couch, she realizes slowly

• 10:30Chris Ryan?

  You just wanted to say a pre-ski.

• 10:31Andy Greenwald?

  With great clarity, one of us is bilingual. I won't say which language. With great clarity that this can never actually work. And this struck me as like a very universal and quite relatable moment for anyone who's ever been in a potentially doomed relationship.

• 10:45Andy Greenwald?

  And usually though, it's not because your partner has, is going To use your harvested semestals to consume you into the global hive mind. That is a specific to the show.

• 10:54Speaker 04

  I did date a girl in college.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Very similar, like super parallel story.

• 10:59Andy Greenwald?

  So it's definitely chimed with something in your past.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Or a stem cell, actually.

• 11:03Andy Greenwald?

  But this moment, this one scene from the finale really did make me think of the kind of magic trick you guys pulled off with this season, where something so wild, global, insane, uh, genre and heightened can feel relatable to our day to day existence. So I, there's an aspect of this question for both of you, but Vince, I wanted to start with you. Just in terms of crafting that scene where you take something that is about one giant thing. The others plan here and what they're going to do to Carol. But making it specifically about Carol's journey and her emotional relationship with this woman in this moment.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  As in what goes into crafting?

• 11:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm just curious because famously you work so collaboratively with your writers. And I'm curious if this is a weeks of conversation or it's just simply you always have a north star in terms of what the story needs to be.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  It was, it's definitely, there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears, a lot of weeks of conversation. And, and our secret weapon, other than Ray in front of the camera, our secret weapon. We got a lot of secret weapons behind the camera, but starting with Gordon Smith and Alison Tadlock, who, who co-wrote that episode. But there were a lot of conversations with all of us, all of us writers, the, what is it, seven of us.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Figuring this stuff out and it does not, none of it comes easily. Sometimes I just feel like, gosh, you know, you watch it later and someone, some smart person has insight into it and says, hey, this is kind of like every relationship in a certain sense, every new relationship, like, I guess it is. I haven't really thought of it until just now.

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  Is it more of a math problem for you guys in the room saying the scene has to start here with Carol here? And we have to end it with her realizing this and then you fill in the blanks?

• 12:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like is it all the way back to like when you're breaking the stories like in the beginning?

• 12:42Speaker 04

  The breaking process is the most important part of the process. It is where we sit around in the room and we say, what happens next? And, and sometimes we get, we, sometimes we do jump ahead. Sometimes we say, where should the season end?

• 12:54Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  What is the big revelation at the end of the season? At the very beginning of the season, we didn't know there would be that respite for Carol, where she finds out, oh, they need our stem cells. They need to stick a big needle in her hip. And so you, you find it some, some, some, sometimes you have a north star to you. That's a good phrase. Uh, but sometimes you think you have a north star and you work your way forward. And then you realize that north star was illusory.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  We're not going to wind up there at all. It, it's every single day is a, is a, is either a bold new adventure or a fresh hell. Depending on how you want to look at it.

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  Adventure in L.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. But you just, it's not the most satisfying answer. Except to say to folks, uh, listening to this, watching this, who, who are, are struggling to, you know, do this job, know that we're struggling too. It's, it never gets easier.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Which is kind of a bummer. But on the other hand, if you look around, oh, everyone else has it easier than me. I'm having a hard time. No, no, everybody, if you're doing it right, it's not easy. So that's the best short answer I could give to it.

• 14:01Speaker 05

  And you've always said, which I thought was great advice to writers, that if, if it comes too easy, like then the character does this because it's just going to make it really easy for you to make the show or the scene go where you wanted it to. You need to kick the tires on that because it, it might not be actually what that character would do. Like you need to like drill down.

• 14:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's interesting. In the beginning of that scene, Carol has said that maybe she's happy. And it's almost as like an alien virus is in her body in that moment. I wondered, uh, what that felt like for you to play Ray.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  We had a lot of discussions about that and, and. You know, Carol, when she was pre this event and this kind of misanthrope, she wasn't allowing herself to experience happiness. And I think probably mostly subconsciously, but a little bit consciously, she is aware that that wasn't the best way to go about life, that I'll be happy when, I'll be content when, I'll be successful when. And, you know, even her thoughts and when she's remembering the ice hotel, she knows that she didn't allow herself to take in that kind of beauty and that kind of love when she could have. There's some willing delusion as far as feeling love. I think she is feeling affection for Zosia,

• 15:14Speaker 05

  but it's also coming out of being so broken by the time in isolation, not just the 40-plus days or whatever it was, but also the existential threat that it would be forever. You're going to die alone and never speak to anybody ever again, unless you make this shift. And so we had lots of conversations about what's front of mind versus back of mind, what's being suppressed versus what's in the front? How much is she allowing herself that? And then they did this brilliant thing for me to hang on to as an actor, that she's trying to be happy, she's trying to take it all in. And then, much like you brought up, there's still the very human part of us that sometimes is petty, sometimes is defensive, sometimes can't leave, you know, good enough alone.

• 15:59Speaker 05

  And Carol's definitely one of those people that she, everybody knows on a great date, you don't ask about exes. Like, what are you doing? Like, she clearly is immediately picking at something. And that gave me the license to realize like, okay, so that obstacle is still there. There's still a part of her that keeps, that knows you can't totally trust us in what's going on. But at the same time, craft-wise, we... Have to, and Gordon Smith was directing it as well. Like, I'm aware, when you say reverse engineering, like, understanding where it has to go, I'm aware that the payoff for being hurt, that that personally hurt on top of terrified of the news that she gets, then she had to have let her heart go a little bit.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  She had to, you know, some of those feelings had to be real in order for, in order for the kick in the face to hurt that much.

• 16:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I love those scenes of the sort of more romantic interlude with, with Carol and Zosia just because they're almost filmed like a fantasy, like, they're filmed like a memory that you would have, like, a memory where you're like, I've erased the bad part of this relationship and all I remember now is

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 17:07Chris Ryan?

  us being escorted up this gondola to the, to the chalet or whatever. And I was wondering whether or not, when you were doing scenes with, with Carolina, like, like, when you were doing those Zosia scenes, like, what is that like, as a, what is she like as a scene partner when she is also a part of a collective consciousness, basically?

• 17:28Speaker 05

  Right. Well, I mean, first off, hats off to her. That is such a deceptively difficult role. And Carolina Ovidra is just crushing it. And I've had these conversations with Vince and, and in certain interviews, in the beginning, when she was really like, not struggling in any kind of pejorative sense, but like, the way we should as actors, trying to like, dig down, like, how, how do you play this? And she's trying to dial it in with Vince, or with Gordon, or any of the writers and directors, and you suddenly, I, she, I know she felt like, why am I not getting it? Sounds like, you're having all the tools that we normally rely on as actors taken away. You cannot listen and react. You can't even, other than certain parts of the neurodiverse population, in general,

• 18:13Speaker 05

  humans mirror each other. We reciprocate. If you take the conversation angry, or you look like something just crossed your mind that's sad, like, I follow, I mirror that, but she can't. But at the same time, she can't look like she's just high on Valium, or a robot, or, you know, like, she's sentient, she's compassionate. We've now reached this part, which she had to do too, like, evolving. These, these people are also evolving slightly. You see her not, you see them not be able to realize that I'm being sarcastic about a grenade.

• 18:41Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  And get to a place where they can make a joke about an orgy.

• 18:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  You know, um, so there's some evolution happening there as well. And it's so fun, I think, that Vincent and all of them have, have made sure that like, you can never fully know if she's being manipulative, like in this role she's playing. Um, but I like the larger philosophical question of like, you can't really answer that about anybody, like any act of love that you're doing for somebody that you love, like has an objective.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I hadn't thought of that. You're right.

• 19:14Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, what is manipulation? And, um, obviously we see Carol get to that final place, but sorry, long way of saying, I just really wanted to like shout out to like the incredible work she's doing. Um, it, it is also difficult, but I was able to at least channel that into the character. It is very difficult to come up against, so, and we've all been there where you're super upset and you're with somebody that keeps going like, I hear you.

• 19:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  I hear you. And that sounds like, it's very painful.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  The worst part of a fight is when somebody's like, you seem mad.

• 19:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Tell me where I am.

• 19:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. Don't therapy speak to me. Um, and like, I, I, we had so much fun with, they're inherently dramatic, but it makes them inherently comedic to me. The scenes where, where Carol's getting upset and no one else is getting upset with her. And the more you, cause we've all been there, talk about like, find the places that are like, what's relatable to anybody. Not only have we all been the person screaming, the barn's on fire, when everyone else is like, can you just sit down and have brunch?

• 20:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  Um, but also you know, when you start to look insane and you're like, I know I look crazy much. And you're like, I'm not helping, I'm not helping my situation.

• 20:16Andy Greenwald?

  Starts with that is a winner. Like, that's gonna go great.

• 20:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's right up there with, I'm fine.

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, just small digression, since you mentioned working with Carolina and, and sort of working with her as she learned to play this almost, this very challenging type of role. I wonder if there's anything parallel to, um, you joined this Vince's merry band of Albuquerque Bandits, uh, in Better Call Saul, and you had actors like Bob who had worked with this family before and bringing you in, saying, here's how we do things. Here's how Vince does things. Um, what was it like taking on that role with actors like Carolina and the other members of the cast, being like, welcome to town. It's a land of enchantment.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  Right?

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Make sure to hydrate.

• 20:51Andy Greenwald?

  The altitude is no joke. Um, but.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  Uh, it was, um, it was important to me to, uh, not so much to say like, I guess there was a few things, this, this is how they work, this is how it goes, because I knew it was going to be slightly different. And we were gonna find this very strange tone and genre shifts together. I mean, a lot of it is on the page and there's point of view in the scripts and they're beautifully written. But Vince had told me early on, like, I think you said, I'm not sure what the show is yet. And I knew he didn't mean that they didn't like slave over these scripts that we got. It was more about, we're gonna know it when we see it as far as like, how comedic can a scene go while still supporting how dark you made a moment over here? Or do, are they out of balance now and not in the same show

• 21:39Speaker 05

  anymore? And we had a lot of fun doing that. So I knew we were gonna do a lot of things differently and I wasn't gonna hang on to like, guys, listen, so on Better Call Saul, like, that would be such an ass.

• 21:49Andy Greenwald?

  On the acclaimed series, in which I was an essential part.

• 21:53Speaker 05

  It's right up there with the actresses, whenever you like test for things and there's always one person in the room that's like, oh my God, you guys, I don't even want you to be nervous because they're so nice. Have you met them? I've met them so many times. Don't even worry. Oh my God, Vince is just like, mm. So like, shut up. But anyway, yes, people do that. So, but I did think, I want to do what people did for me on Better Call Saul, because it was terrifying. You're like, uh, this is a bunch of Breaking Bad people. Am I gonna fit in and all this? And first of all, the whole crew and cast is super, you know, open arms. It's all about like, hell yes, come bring something new, play in the sandbox, let's go. Literally with this bar that I think should not even be

• 22:34Speaker 05

  a bar, it should be a given that like, know your stuff, like be fully, fully prepared and know all your lines. Nobody wants to waste takes on you not knowing your stuff. And then come with ideas and then be, as Vince and Peter have both said, Peter Gould, be confident enough to collaborate, which is hard some days because you're feeling small or scared, but the best idea in the room wins. And it's okay, you don't have to like. You don't have to have a chip on your shoulder. You know, you can receive ideas from anywhere. And so I did tell everyone, I made sure that everybody felt like they were a part of the family. And I make sure I get whoever is certainly my other supporting cast members, but also guest stars whenever possible.

• 23:18Speaker 05

  And Bob Odenkirk and Patrick Fabian and most of the members of Better Call Saul, if they had time, did the same, like, go rehearse with them. Yeah. Not to nail down a performance, we're going to leave that open, but to run lines, to get familiar. It is not.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  You'd work on your own time on the weekend.

• 23:36Speaker 05

  Yes, we did on the weekends. If I couldn't do it because of my hours, then I would ask them if they could meet me like out at a fitting, at my lunch break, in my trailer, anything. It's so hard, and I've been there, to be a guest star and have, the only time you've said the lines out loud prior to action was by yourself in your hotel room. Yeah. Whether you're a seasoned vet or not, it's just really hard. So in that way, I just wanted to make sure people understand, I'm here for you, we're all here for you, we're all going to collaborate together, it's going to be awesome. Technically, the only thing I went to them and said, and Samba did say like, I'm really glad you told me that, is I said, if you start getting a lot of direction that's very

• 24:19Speaker 05

  fine-tuned kind of modulating, the instinct for most actors is to go, wow, I must really suck. Right. Like, they cannot get what they want. Right. And I said, they do that when they actually think you're capable of fine-tuned modulation. If there's any way to get out of your head and tell yourself, this might be a gift to do almost like an exercise where you see how much you can slightly shift a line to a 7.8 and then an 8.3, like, you will have fun and you will be a better actor at the end of the day. Yeah.

• 24:50Andy Greenwald?

  And if things get tense, you can always say, look, Vince told me, he doesn't even know what the show is.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 24:54Andy Greenwald?

  Really like, don't worry.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Got no idea.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  And I also said, and don't look me in the eye.

• 24:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure, of course. Sorry, we could have started with that.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  I did get excited when you said we have a bar, there's a bar and I said, and I misunderstood. You were invited. I was never invited.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  Right.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Is there like an actual bar?

• 25:10Speaker 05

  That's a secret to all of us is that there's an open bar.

• 25:14Chris Ryan?

  I was wondering, you know, there are a few episodes here, and this is for both of you, but like there are a couple of episodes of this season that I imagine like a different version of the show, the script could have been like eight pages long because that's like, there's not that much action in a classical sense, like it will, you'll expand the accordion of time and show Carol do 13 things around her house that like ordinarily most TV shows would be like Carol walks in a room and then like cut to whatever the thing that she was trying to accomplish is. And I gotta admit, I would wonder, have you done stuff like that before? Like since like being on stage, like where you have this much like work a day stuff to like

• 25:56Speaker 04

  And wordless.

• 25:57Chris Ryan?

  Depict. Yeah. And it's, and a lot of it is wordless, like on screen.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Well, I wasn't totally surprised by that kind of storytelling because I mean, look at the Mike Irwin trout scenes. But you know, because of Breaking Bad and Better Call, so I have seen them advance I think I'm going to get the writer language wrong. So you can help me to advance the story through character development. Is that the right way? Like it's not, it's not plot, plot, plot. Sometimes the character going through a task is what's advancing the story.

• 26:25Speaker 04

  And the old expression, you know, character is plot, plot is character sometimes. I mean, not always, but yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  But without dialogue and not being afraid. I think another big component to that is that Vince assumes the intelligence of his audience. And I think his fans feel very rewarded by that, that it's okay to let, because in those moments, especially when I'm by myself, I realized this time around, because I had so many scenes because of the isolation sort of portrait, part of the story. That in those moments, the audience is frequently my scene partner because I'm taking their hand down the rabbit hole. Not that I'm playing to camera, you know, in that sense, but we are plotting out the same story points of this task, whether it is burying her wife's

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  Burying her wife, putting the pavers on it, or even just the smaller things like waking up in the morning. If they have me waking up on the couch with an empty bottle near me, I know I couldn't sleep in the bed where my wife used to sleep still. And I had to drink to get myself to fall asleep. That's a very specific way to fall asleep and a very specific way to wake up. And we all know those horrible moments when something horrific happens and you wake up the next morning and you have that little sliver of time where it's possible it was a nightmare.

• 27:46Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:47Speaker 05

  And then we stage it so, you know, that I turn and I see Helen's body and it comes crashing down. And then it's about playing those moments with or without dialogue. I'm thinking like, what's next? You would immediately think, well, did the whole thing happen?

• 28:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  Is this all, was any of it a dream? Is it all real? And you just go from there and tell the story the same as you would without dialogue.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, as an audience member, it's a, it's a different kind of watching that I think you're used to in contemporary television because there is a degree of wandering eye going on. I mean, just with the sheer amount of TV that I watch, sometimes I will like look at my phone or whatever while I'm watching something, but it's Disappointing. I'll give up my Apple TV subscription if it's like a, as a penalty. But it's like, I can't do that with this show at all. You know, you have to, because even if you think like, what could I possibly see on this version of her listening to the voicemail message on this time? There's always something. There is always something

• 28:43Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 28:44Chris Ryan?

  Being revealed. There's always something that you can be like, I now mark her emotional journey here

• 28:49Speaker 05

  Right.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Because of this or whatever. And it's like, it's like actually just close watching. It's such a fascinating question. It's really more just

• 28:56Speaker 04

  I'm astounded by it too. I mean, yeah, we, we wrote it because we knew, we, we are able to have that tool in the toolbox because we know Ray will pull it off.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  Oh, thanks.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  And not everybody can. I mean, not every actor can. And, and, and, I mean, it's just, yeah, you can watch her over and over again. That's what the highest compliment For anything I can ever have a hand in making is if people want to re-watch it. And if people get together on their own time, then talk about it.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  And we hear anecdotally that that's happening a lot. And it, again, so much of it is Ray's ability to be watched and re-watched. It's, you know, I used to think, you know, what is it that movie stars have? Is it what kind of, there's a certain charisma? And there is, and it's ineffable, and it's hard to, you know, and a lot of people for many decades, generations have tried to figure out what it is. I don't know what it is, but I do know that when an actor is, is having all of that, is doing that hard work that Ray is doing. And also, all of these actors are, I mean, just as an example, Carlos Manuel Vesca.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  In episode, in the last episode there, 107, he's all by himself too, for a big chunk. And what both these actors have in common is they're, they have this inner life. It's just, I'm just repeating kind of different words what Ray just said, but it just, there's a version of acting where, where you can just sort of, you know, where's the light? Is the light hitting me? Where am I on my mark, you know, and let the audience provide the context and the interpretation. But, but Ray is actively doing all that stuff. And you can see, I'm not my finest, calls you the Jumbotron face. I say, I say, Ray has a face like a Jumbotron scream. And it was, I think it just popped into my head because it was right after that. The cold plane.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  But it was like, you know, I would say, I meant it, I meant it well. I had good intentions, but I was like, you, you see everything without any words. I mean, without any dialogue.

• 31:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 04

  So it's, and not everybody can do that.

• 31:10Speaker 05

  Thanks. Yeah, he came right, we were doing some press junket and he was in a different room. We come in the hall and he's like, I need to tell you something I just said. And I was like, what? He's like, I want to explain Jumbotron. And I was like, what? But you said, you said like theater, and I absolutely agree. It is, to me, Better Call Saul and now Pluribus have been the closest to my experiences on, on, on stage. Yeah, I remember seeing. The humans in New York, the play, and Reed Bernie has a moment in the beginning where he just, it's very, we used to call it sometimes, holding the stage. You don't have to be doing something as long as you're thinking the thoughts and you'll

• 31:52Speaker 05

  suddenly get in sync with the, thinking the thoughts, telling the story of the character and what they're doing and why are they pausing right now, especially if it's not direct address, it's about something else that you're inviting them into.

• 32:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  And Reed did it and the audience will start, it's like their heart starts sinking with yours and the breathing starts sinking with you and you can hear a pin drop. And I, I used to do that a lot, you're right, a lot of television will cut it. So you kind of almost start becoming afraid to add thoughtful pauses or meditative moments because they get cut and then it looks like your timing is weird.

• 32:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 05

  When they put it together.

• 32:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  I learned a lot watching Jonathan Banks on Saul. I would go to set a lot to watch him because he had these long periods and he's really, really good at inviting the camera in because I had a habit in the beginning that when they would give me very private moments, I would instinctively turn away from the camera because I do think of it as another entity there. And Jonathan will turn towards it without ever looking like he's just playing to camera and just let, and just let it be and, and let them be in on the secret. And I talked to him a lot about that and it was very helpful to me.

• 33:05Chris Ryan?

  That's really cool.

• 33:06Andy Greenwald?

  There's a confidence Vince to some of the scenes that you include in the series and Chris mentioned like the Patrick Fabian voicemail and it's just like she's calling the phone, I'm like surely they'll cut away from it this time. And they don't. And, and we enjoy it and, but I think it's worth drilling down a little further because it's definitely not in those moments.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  My wife was actually like, on like the 10th time, she's like, it's coming back around.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  You're like, I don't think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you're in the writer's room going, make them watch it again, I sleep on a bed of Emmys. I don't think it's that. I do think that there is a level of confidence that is earned here because it's not just the incredible actors you have to hang these wordless scenes on, but you have, I would imagine, I'd love to hear you talk about it, a shorthand with production writ large. Like you couldn't write these scenes if you didn't have the relationship with the locations, with the people who've been working on your shows, with your writers, with your directors to pull it off. The editors, exactly. Every visual element, because sometimes when scenes are overwritten, it's because the writer is just like, I can only control this.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  That's a very astute observation. Yeah, and these people, we've been working with some of them almost two decades now. So, yeah, it's funny. The life is just rich with ironies. I love that you were saying, "Oh, you must be very confident." I am the least confident person I've ever met. But some things I have a little more confidence about than others. And part of it is, I'm never, you know, I'm never gonna go broke assuming the audience is smarter than I am. And that has held us in good stead. All of us assume that. The writers, we all, starting with us, we all assume that. The audience knows more than

• 34:46Speaker 04

  we do. And also, the little spark of confidence in the knowledge that we don't need all of the audience. There are, you guys, God bless you guys for digging what we do. God bless the folks listening. I assume they're fans, too. But there's a whole world of people like, "This show sucks. This show, all she does is wander around." It's a small world. But that is as it should be. That's not, that's not a bad thing. If the audience was monolithic, the world would be the others. Better that than the others. Everybody being like, "It's okay." Yeah.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  I have no reaction to this content whatsoever.

• 35:27Speaker 04

  But we don't need everyone on Earth. We just, I don't even know what we need. That's the apples in their wheelhouse, not mine, as far as how many viewers they need to make something worthwhile. But I have confidence in that Ray is very watchable. And I have confidence in that it was the truth. And I have confidence in that people, there is an audience for this. It's not every human being on Earth, but it's enough. I have confidence that the audience will reward us if we deal them squarely. Deal with them fairly. Don't break the rules midstream. Don't, you know, but it just, and it just, and also, hearing the example you gave, hearing Patrick Fabian over and over again, it wasn't

• 36:12Speaker 04

  in some weird way torturing the audience. It was more about, what is the effect this would have on Carol? And I knew every single, I had confidence. That every single time Ray would find a different way to listen to this voicemail, this outgoing message, I knew that every single time she would find a different way and she would make it funny.

• 36:35Chris Ryan?

  I mean, all of your responses are so different. After you get the last Westgate message, all the, all the calls you make after that are like, no, fuck you. You know what I mean? Bring me a Gatorade, you know?

• 36:48Speaker 05

  There's this one thing we had fun too. Like one of the last times she's listening to it, after Diabate played by absolutely brilliant Sambaschuta, has given her this news about you can tell them you don't consent. The director, Ganja Montero, came over and she said, and you can see it in the wide, but it is a wide shot. She's like, she goes, maybe Carol would be like a little bit embarrassed about this message that they won't even talk to her that that's how bad her behaved. Cause I have not told, maybe the others, the others probably did tell Diabate that they don't speak to me, but Carol doesn't fully know that and it's a little embarrassing. So even though she's like, Don, get through the message because I want to tell you I don't consent. There's a small part that I added with, with her direction that made me laugh where I'm

• 37:33Speaker 05

  just like, it's just fine. Just kind of like, no big deal. I think it's just a busy signal. I got it.

• 37:39Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta push back on the no confidence thing in one specific way. This is an anecdote that we tell all the time and you can tell us if this is completely untrue, but I think one of the most inspiring and wild anecdotes about the last 20 years of TV writing is the idea that you guys in the Breaking Bad room did not know what the gun in Walter White's trunk was going to be used for when you introduced it at the beginning of that season.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Or the stuffed animal in the pool, which was on my mind.

• 38:06Andy Greenwald?

  So you do keep making things hard for yourself and then writing yourself out of it. And I wondered if dropping an atom bomb on the front yard was in an attempt to, let's say escalate things even further for you guys? Or if you have a little more of a roadmap this time?

• 38:19Speaker 04

  We have a little more of a roadmap this time. I, that was the stupidity of youth with that hamster in the trunk of the Cadillac. That was the dumbest thing ever. I think we had-

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  Did you regret it for a long time?

• 38:31Speaker 04

  Oh, there were times in the right, that was the one of the lowest points ever in any writer's room.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  This is our heroic story, Vince.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  I would stand against the wall at a certain point and I would just slowly bang my head against the wall and the writers are just like, dude, are you all right? And I wasn't that hard, but just trying to knock the ideas loose. And they were just all just kind of the long silences, long uncomfortable silences. And I, and I would say, let's have a flight of fancy. Let's, let's pretend we never did the M60 machine gun. And then they're all like, okay, sure. Let's do that for five minutes and then let's get back to reality because you have to pay off the machine gun in the trunk. And we, it was, it was like.

• 39:15Speaker 05

  You also told me occasionally, he'd be like, so then Walt goes to the car, he opens the trunk and puts his suitcase and they were like, no, you can't open the trunk. And it's like, damn it.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  He just kept trying to yada, yada.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, I, yeah, plead guilty to that. We, it was, it was, I, I don't, we have, we have ideas for what the, the, the atom bomb is for. And we, we, I think we had the, the pink teddy bear, I think, I think we kind of knew in our hearts that it came from, it was a classic bit of, or classic or not, it was a bit of misdirection.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  It was, oh my God, there must've been a terrible shootout in the house here. Oh no, it came from the sky. It was a, you know, we, we, what is the most unlikely explanation for all this crap in the pool? Oh, it was a, you know, but, but then it can't just be a random aircraft collision. Walter White has to have been responsible for it. That stuff was tough, but there was nothing ever tougher than the M60 machine gun. That was just, that was hubris on my part. Oh, we'll figure it out. We got all year. We'll figure it out. I, I, I deserve all the pain that I inflicted upon myself. But the writers did not.

• 40:29Andy Greenwald?

  I suppose if Ray gets the script for 201 and Carol's just storing her whiteboard markers in the atom bomb cabinet, there's nothing in there.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  It's fine. It's fine.

• 40:39Speaker 00

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• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  The Minusos plot is something that's fascinating to me because his journey is so electrifying to watch, you know, that road trip that he takes to get through the Darien Gap and to get to Carol. And you're playing it when he arrives, very defensively, but also like, kind of like, this is my, my home turf and like this, I have my ideas about how I want things to go here. And I almost was curious whether or not, like, do you have to turn off the side of your brain that knows what else is happening in the other half of these scripts or in the other half of this story when you're acting just Carol's POV from, from those scenes?

• 43:12Speaker 05

  Well, we only get our scripts one at a time. Like, I, I am in the, usually around in the middle of shooting, like, let's say six, when I get seven.

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  And occasionally I'll ask a few questions, but mostly, and this started happening on Better Call Saul, I realized it's, it's not really, like, if I'm doing a play, understanding what the endpoint is, is going to help me to reverse engineer what the most interesting point A is, right? To, to, to take that journey. But I think a lot of times we end up asking where something's going to help, and I have another series, to help, to help understand, like, how do I, how do I help tell this story? Do, I need to make sure that my character, I know later that I'm going to find out that my character's lying. So that's part of me playing it now versus I find in the world that Vince Gilligan and,

• 44:07Speaker 05

  and Peter Gould were creating, that you're not, you're playing, it's not necessary, they don't need me to telegraph to the audience where the story's going. That's not my job anymore. And it was actually nice to have that burden taken away because oftentimes my RAM space is totally full with what I'm playing right now. Like, there's a lot going on when he shows up. You know, it's a reminder that she's terrified that, like, deep down, I'm being called out for, like, not at all following through with my revolution.

• 44:37Speaker 05

  I'm also lying through my teeth that I don't know why they came back. Beats me. I can see that he can see that I'm lying, which is so fun to play and he's a wonderful scene partner. She's protective, but also like baseline, because somebody asked me the other day, they were like, she's just so rude, though, as soon as he comes out. I was like, uh, he showed up with a machete.

• 44:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, in an ambulance.

• 45:01Speaker 05

  In an ambulance, it was like, I'm coming in and then bats my phone away from me. Like, I'm allowed to be a little pissy. It's very, those, all the energies they put me next to, whether it's Zosia or Diopate's energy, or, and now Manusos, like, they're, again, inherently dramatic, but inherently comedic as well, if we just play our objectives, because we're both immovable objects in that scene.

• 45:24Andy Greenwald?

  I want to talk specifically about the playing Carol against different energy, because the logline is, the most miserable person in the world must save the world. Vince, in the earliest days, like the Blue Sky days of the writers' room, what drove you to create the character of Manusos in the way that you did, potentially knowing that that specific friction would be so interesting? Because you'd almost, as a cliche, would think that, oh, you'd pair the miserable with the joyful, and you'd think Mr. Diopate would be the pairing that would be leading some sort of thing. You've chosen someone who is even more hardcore than she is, which is totally surprising and pays off beautifully.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  You just sort of think about it all day long and slowly bang your head against the writers' room wall and, and...

• 46:06Andy Greenwald?

  Is there a death threat this game?

• 46:07Speaker 04

  Pretty much.

• 46:08Andy Greenwald?

  It's a machine gun.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  It's like Jimmy's trash can at HJ.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Right, it looks like the trash can at HJ. It's like having a bunch of Legos on a table and fitting them together, is this pleasing? Now, let's try this. That's kind of the job. It's not elegant. It's not an elegant process. It is a brute force process sometimes. In the case of that example...

• 46:33Speaker 04

  We already knew, I guess, reverse engine, trying to come up with a good answer about a great question that I had never thought about before. How did we do it? I guess I figured, well, we figured, because it is kind of a communal mind in the writer's room sometimes, but we figured, there's already a pretty unhappy lady with the happiest person on earth, Zosia, so we already have that dynamic. So what else, what other dynamic? Because you do want to put opposites or very different energy levels together, because that leads to drama. We've got kind of a private Benjamin kind of character, for folks who remember that movie.

• 47:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  And Carol, let's put her, let's put her against a hardcore Navy SEAL.

• 47:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  And see, they both have similar goals, except they're going to go about them in a very different fashion. That's probably what the thinking was there.

• 47:27Andy Greenwald?

  And you had a cleaner way to deal with Chekhov's gun in the car this time than you did in Breaking Bad. The shotgun in the cop car, you dealt with it very cleanly.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 47:36Andy Greenwald?

  It did come back.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 47:38Andy Greenwald?

  No head banging necessary.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  Exactly. That was, that was, I love the way you played that, and I love the way Gordon directed that in episode 105, where, after this terrible night, sleeping in the police car with the, with the, with the gumball lights going, and then, and then it's like, you notice this button.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  I love, I love that scene. That scene made me, and then finding the handcuff key.

• 48:01Speaker 05

  Yes, because I found, I like, it's, it's, it's so wonderfully illustrated of just like, of Carol, like, she frequently goes about things the hardest way.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  That is, that's her MO. Always. The hardest, just, you know, I got a three in the morning, with a flashlight, like Mother and Skelly, all dead body parts. Ah, it's like, you could have just asked him.

• 48:24Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah. What's your fantasy? So I was like, I asked him. That's how I found out. I'm like,

• 48:27Speaker 04

  Dude, why do you drink so much milk? Yeah, yeah.

• 48:32Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you about, one of my favorite parts of the character is Carol's relationship to substance abuse and the way that it kind of dots along as these little punctuation marks throughout the season of the breathalyzer and the beginning of the season, the sensor inside of the liquor cabinet, the reference to heroin use, and obviously the truth serum sequence. And tell me a little bit about like, because it's interesting how it's not hers. It's not like her, like, I'm leading with this. I'm in recovery or whatever. It's always in the background. I really loved that aspect of the character.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  Oh, thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Um, yeah, was it, we've been having so much fun speaking to journalists that even like hardcore jaded journalists that like actually want to talk about philosophical questions about what this is bringing up for them. And we're hearing all these different things.

• 49:22Speaker 04

  Wonderful.

• 49:23Speaker 05

  As you might imagine, you know, like, is it commentary on AI? But that was coming from an editor of a major publication and he was just sure it was. And I said, but that's the forefront of your mind. You're bringing to this show, what is the existential threat for your, for you right now? You know, when Ben started writing it 10 years ago, you know, the AI existed, but not the debate topic it is now. Likewise, the pandemic lockdown hadn't

• 49:49Speaker 05

  happened yet. And I bring that up because I had a journalist once say that she thought the entire thing, the entire show is a metaphor and portrait of grief and depression.

• 49:59Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 50:00Speaker 05

  You know, being down a well and you can't, and people are saying cheer up and you can't hear them. And you can try to fake it, but you can't keep faking all this. And then another person said they think the whole show is about addiction.

• 50:12Chris Ryan?

  Wow.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  The entire thing. And I was like, that's so fascinating. And it's not, no, it isn't because there is no right answer. It's, it's everything. It's about human nature. And with that part component that you're bringing up, I did ask, because it's important to me, I said, let me know if, if this is a portrait of alcoholism.

• 50:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  I need to like, layer that in. That's a, that's a different. And they said, it's not, it's not, it is a, I can't remember the exact phrases that were told to me to help, to help me in discovering all that stuff. But it had more to do with, this is a self-medication issue, a, another way to block the world out, this misanthrope.

• 50:49Speaker 05

  That she takes too far sometimes and clearly her wife was worried about her. But not worried about like, she did that because they were trying to freeze eggs.

• 50:59Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean? So it was, it was tied to a specific event. So I felt like we kept it just from going off the cliff of like, we should.

• 51:08Chris Ryan?

  I mean, also that whole revelation is so great because it's in conjunction with the news. So it's being convinced that they're being surveilled.

• 51:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:16Chris Ryan?

  You know, and so like it, the parallel is awesome when that happens.

• 51:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think she, I think Carol takes a lot of things too far.

• 51:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:25Speaker 05

  She's not very good at moderation.

• 51:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, she's not a moderate kind of gal and, uh, and that's one example of it.

• 51:35Andy Greenwald?

  Vince, I wonder what the experience has been like for you because as, as Ray just mentioned, this was an idea that you've been kicking around for a while and over time, I'm sure it's, it's been shaded, details have emerged, um, you found Ray to be the perfect star for it. And then events kind of started to chime with it in interesting ways and it's proven to be a very seaworthy conceit that is, um, can be a mirror for so many of our own issues of our time. I, this is a high minded question for a guy who's just been banging his head against the wall for 10 years, but I wonder what that, what has that experience been like as a creator realizing that you have some to, to, you know, to reference the end of the season, some fissile material here?

• 52:12Speaker 04

  Oh, I love the way you put that. I, it's amazing. I just, I, I spent the last, how long did it take us to do? It's been like three years. I mean, I've lost track of the time.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  So have I. You mean, since you sent me the first script?

• 52:25Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 52:26Speaker 05

  Probably three.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  Three years, probably. Okay. And then it took us quite a while to make the show. And then it, uh, the first season took us quite a while to edit it and do all the visual effects. It, the, the last however many X number of years, uh, three, let's call it three, uh, although I'd been thinking about it for almost 10. I, I was telling myself and then, you know, three in the morning, you wake up in the middle of the night and worry about things. And I kept telling myself, it's okay to move away from Breaking Bad, the single biggest, uh, uh, the, the first thing on your tombstone, Breaking Bad, most likely. It's okay to move away from that because you had it and just remember how insane the year 2013 was with like, you know, that was the closest I'll ever get to be in a.

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Like, you know, like a rock and roll star or something, walking down the street and people like, oh my God, Breaking Bad, it's never gonna happen again. And go forward with courage. Try something new, because even if this thing, everybody collectively yawns when it comes out, and then says, I should have done more Breaking Bad, at least you will have had the, you can be proud of yourself, you know, you had the courage to try something new. And then this thing comes out, and it's just like, I, beyond, I don't know, beyond my wildest expectations about the reaction to it. And if it is, if it is facile material, as you say, the, the, the timing was, was, was perfect, that's just dumb luck. I mean, we, we made

• 53:53Speaker 04

  the, we always make the best show we can make. That's always, we're never not gonna do that. But then, as with anybody else, everybody else is out there making the best show they can make too, no matter what show it is. That's, cause that's why you get into this business. You have love and passion, you wanna make great things. And then the chips fall where they fall. Anyone who says luck didn't play a hand is lying either to themselves or to the person you're talking to.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  I would, I would say about you, though, I, I think the fact that you don't write to particular themes, you're not trying to preach a specific thing, lends a timeless quality to it, that is meeting the world right now in a place where, cause what I'm hearing from a lot of people is, this show is this great conduit for them to have some very nuanced conversations about a lot of areas that we have been thinking about for the last decade as very binary responses to. It is definitely this or this, and with a lot of it. And, and, and seeking, you know, a way to have some conversations that are

• 54:57Speaker 05

  more nuanced and based in what does it mean to be human? And, and, and what does happiness mean? And even you've said this before, like, Happiness doesn't, seeking happiness doesn't mean avoiding all struggle, avoiding all, you know, thought provoking or difficult situations and conversations. And you've always thought that. So I, I, I just feel like the fact that he wasn't setting out to write to a particular thing is part of why it's seaworthy. But I did have a question, if I may. When stuff started coming out, like the pandemic or AI, were you like, crap, they're going to think that's about this?

• 55:33Speaker 04

  I seriously thought that when the pandemic hit. I, I, I remember thinking, oh my God, the last thing on earth, the, that anyone is going to want to buy or watch is something that they feel is about yet another pandemic. And I seriously, I had some dark days in, you know, around, we all had a lot of dark days.

• 55:51Andy Greenwald?

  Over your sourdough starter, you're working, working at being like, oh no.

• 55:54Speaker 04

  2020 was a tough year for everybody. But I remember thinking, oh my God, this thing I've been working on now for five years, uh, no one's going to want it. And luckily, it, it, you know, I, I work slower than glaciers make. So then another five years went by and everyone's Almost in time for the next one. Yeah, almost in time for the next pandemic. Yeah. So I

• 56:15Speaker 05

  You're like, I gotta get this out before the next pandemic.

• 56:19Andy Greenwald?

  And, or now you have to do another season. So just to leave it on that note, where, where are you in that process? Is there a third whiteboard behind Carol's two that has the whole process?

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Oh man, I wish, I wish elves would write all this out on a dry erase board and then I could go take credit. Uh, um, or Carol for that matter, that'd be great. We, we are plugging away. Yesterday, we had our final day in the writers' room of season two for, for, don't get too excited.

• 56:46Speaker 05

  I knew that wasn't

• 56:48Speaker 04

  For, for the year 2025. Yeah, we are plugging away. Uh, we think we know what the first episode, uh, what happens in the first episode. And, uh, we're going to keep, uh, nose to the grindstone and pedal to the metal in, uh, 2026. But it, it takes longer than I wish it did. I, I, you know, the old expression, you can have it good, you can have it fast, you can have it cheap. Pick two. You don't get all three. And, uh, we, we definitely cannot figure out how to do it fast. But, uh, we're having a good time. I got great, great writers and, uh, can't wait to see what Ray and Carolina and Veska and Samba and You know, all these wonderful actors do with season two. It's gonna be, it's gonna be fun getting back.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  I don't know anything.

• 57:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. I don't know a thing.

• 57:36Andy Greenwald?

  Now's your chance to ask him. You've got him on the record.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  How is Carol's golf game in season two?

• 57:42Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, this is all he wants to talk about. I can close my laptop.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  I got multiple texts being like, God, you can tell like the swing thoughts are different, you know, 45 days in versus when you first play on the course.

• 57:51Speaker 04

  Really?

• 57:52Speaker 05

  Good. My swings, I, um, cause I'm taking golf lessons now.

• 57:57Chris Ryan?

  For the character or out of personal interest?

• 58:00Speaker 05

  Personal and for something else. But, um, I'm like, now it pains me. I just didn't, I feel so bad.

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  There's nothing worse than watching yourself swing at a golf club.

• 58:09Speaker 05

  Lessons. And I see that my stance is, I think I pulled off looking like somebody who does golf.

• 58:14Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Just not really, really well, which is what I wanted to get to. And, um,

• 58:20Speaker 05

  I ran out of time. I did the best, I did the best I could.

• 58:21Chris Ryan?

  When you were hitting the skyscraper, you were dialed.

• 58:23Speaker 05

  Well, I had this to do with where the ball goes. That is Diane Mercer in post.

• 58:29Andy Greenwald?

  You talk about the show being a mirror. Chris really only wanted to talk about the golf swing and the zins that were for sale in the gas station.

• 58:35Chris Ryan?

  No, there were no zins.

• 58:37Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that there were no zins.

• 58:37Chris Ryan?

  It was all cigarettes. And my buddy and I was like, it was like, do you think that the other others use zin?

• 58:44Speaker 05

  Oh, interesting.

• 58:46Andy Greenwald?

  They've cleaned them out.

• 58:47Speaker 05

  My friend only.

• 58:48Chris Ryan?

  It's like a, I'm glad I get to do this with Vince Scully. It's like a tobacco pouch, like a nicotine pouch.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  Okay, alright.

• 58:55Chris Ryan?

  But very popular with golfers, actually.

• 58:56Speaker 05

  Unfortunately popular with teens.

• 58:58Chris Ryan?

  Teens, yes.

• 58:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, not a good thing.

• 59:00Speaker 05

  Don't do it.

• 59:01Chris Ryan?

  Forty-eight year old men.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  My friend only wanted to talk about the lottery tickets in that scene.

• 59:06Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 59:08Andy Greenwald?

  Something for everyone.

• 59:09Speaker 05

  Well, they just couldn't stop like wrapping their head around like, so is there any joy in winning the lottery if money doesn't matter? Do you still feel like a winner, but like everybody won, right? So does it matter? And I was like, I cannot answer your question.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  I thought your reaction was perfect because it's like, yeah. And then it's over.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, it means nothing, but but but it is somehow. I thought like that reaction for me was born out of like, well, at least it has nothing to do with them. It is my own success because it's it's based on odds and luck that they didn't do.

• 59:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  See, because I love the way you played it, but you could have also gone, now I fucking win the lottery.

• 59:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like, right.

• 59:50Speaker 04

  What about the last 30 years?

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, when you could just go to Fort Knox anyway.

• 59:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  Ray, Vince, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for this season of TV.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 59:58Speaker 05

  Thanks for having us.

• 59:59Chris Ryan?

  Of course.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  This was fun.

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:00:01Speaker 05

  Super fun. Thank you.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

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