Emmy Predictions, Netflix Is Adapting ‘Lonesome Dove,’ and ‘The Paper’ Season 2

Chris and Andy talk about Netflix’s announcement of a new ‘Lonesome Dove’ adaptation from ‘East of Eden’ showrunners Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart (2:05). Then they preview the Emmys by predicting which shows (and actors) will win the major categories (32:40). Later, they discuss the Season 2 premiere of ‘The Paper’ (53:57). Finally, The Watch: After Dark (01:07:06). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  From the studio that brought you WandaVision.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  That family wasn't real. You sure about that?

• 0:44Speaker 03

  I had a father called Vision. How is this possible?

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming only on Disney+.

• 1:05Speaker 04

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

• 1:11Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor for theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, the chief TV critic for the Hack Creek Cattle Company, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:24Andy Greenwald?

  You know, some companies still really prioritize the written word.

• 1:27Chris Ryan?

  Look, you know what I mean? It's like, First Amendment still counts down there. Greenwald, great to see you today on the show. Some Lonesome Dove is fucking back news. Uh, the Emmys are almost here. We're gonna play a little bit of Will Win Won't Win, or Will Win Should Win, I should say. Uh, The Paper has come back for its second season. We discuss, and maybe a little bit of Watch After Dark.

• 1:48Andy Greenwald?

  I think a lot of Watch After Dark. It might be a lopsided show today.

• 1:52Chris Ryan?

  Settled out. Uh, great to see you, man. TheWatch at Spotify.com if you want to reach out. Um, TheWatchPod underscore if you want to watch us in short-form video. Uh, the video of the entire show can be found on YouTube at the Ringer-TV channel, as well as on Spotify, where you can listen to us, as well as other podcast platforms.

• 2:11Andy Greenwald?

  Where can people find the metadata and like the, the live feed? Is that IraqGolds.net or is there a different?

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  I actually got, when I said that, I've been talking about my affection for, I believe, long-lost illegal streaming piracy platform called IraqGolds.net.

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  It's one of my favorite bits.

• 2:30Chris Ryan?

  And it's where real ones used to watch, like, La Liga games.

• 2:36Andy Greenwald?

  Real illegal ones, yeah.

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Now it is the subject of Lioness, season four. Joe is gonna redact me and take me to Gitmo for watching Valencia versus...

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  There is a knock list for people who illegally streamed El Clasico in 2003.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  And Kyle is just gonna kick my door down and be like, "You have no rights." Uh, and I don't, you know, I have to pay for what I did to society. Uh, but it's awesome to see you. And if there's a lightness to the air, it's just because we got good news this week, you know? Like, it, there's not a lot of good news.

• 3:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, what's the?

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  The good news is that Lonesome Dove is going to be made into a mini-series by the Netflix Corporation, by Zoe Kazan and her writing partner and producing partner Jeb Stewart. Um, and I'm so excited to talk to you about this. I didn't know, actually, I don't even know, are, like, what?

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know you were gonna frame this as good news. I'm not saying it's bad news.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  I don't think it's bad news to have a cool new Lonesome Dove mini-series.

• 3:34Andy Greenwald?

  I think it, yes. I think, I don't want to start with the zag.

• 3:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, you're zagging.

• 3:38Andy Greenwald?

  Let's start with the zag. Because a minute ago, you're like, "What are you doing? Why are you on your computer?"

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  How do you spell tiptoe? Is that with a hyphen? And then it, sometimes I'm getting a vibe that you have become what I was during COVID, when we would record on Zoom and like, you'd talk for five minutes uninterrupted and I would read Twitter. And that's okay.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  That's definitely something that only happened during COVID. That has never happened since we rejoined the studio.

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  I have IraqGolds.net on.

• 4:05Andy Greenwald?

  And Blue Sky, where you are just getting them.

• 4:08Chris Ryan?

  No, I just couldn't tell what you were doing with your computer.

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the thing that some people don't, let's pull back the curtain briefly.

• 4:13Chris Ryan?

  I know you want to.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  You work really hard for this podcast and everyone in this room, who also worked really hard, appreciate it. You have a rundown, you have a run of play, you plan. And part of the fun, fun, I think, is that I'm not often shared into that. I'm not read into that. Now, do I complain about it? No.

• 4:31Chris Ryan?

  No, I get the impression that you're like, "Thanks for doing this."

• 4:35Andy Greenwald?

  I, I thank you.

• 4:36Chris Ryan?

  But you wouldn't look at it any earlier than you would when you arrived to the studio.

• 4:40Andy Greenwald?

  So when we sat down and everybody took their places and the cameras turned on, I just sort of briefly perused Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, just to see if I missed anything and to slightly prepare for what you're gonna hit me with. So I thought maybe, I want to start with Lonesome Dove too, which was on Deadline a day or two ago.

• 4:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, this has been a strange week, right? Like, there was a story on a site called notboring.co that talked about everyone is reading Lonesome Dove, which I feel like has been a pretty consistent trend for the last couple of years.

• 5:10Andy Greenwald?

  Decades, but yes, especially recently.

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  The person who wrote the, the piece was nice enough to, to give us some credit for like, starting a wave. I know, uh, Gia Tolentino wrote like, a long piece about it in New Yorker. I mean, I think Lonesome Dove has been...

• 5:24Andy Greenwald?

  There's a new addition with an introduction by, I believe, Kyle from Lioness?

• 5:29Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry, his alter ego, Taylor Sheridan?

• 5:31Chris Ryan?

  And you open it up and he's like, "If you're reading this book, you have no rights." I'm like, "No, damn it." I just lost all my rights.

• 5:40Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, well.

• 5:41Chris Ryan?

  Um, so it's been in the, it's been in the ether. I think we had talked about, uh, the baiting war that had been happening, where I think the McMurtry, Larry McMurtry, the author of Lonesome Dove, obviously one of our favorite writers and a celebrated screenwriter and novelist over the last few decades, who passed away a few years ago.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  2021. Um, I remember eulogizing him on COVID while you scrolled Twitter.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was like, "God damn, these are some great takes from Ezra Klein." You know, I hope this guy never leaves this platform.

• 6:12Chris Ryan?

  And we talked about the bake sale that happened for, for the rights to, for the Lonesome Dove series. It's the tetralogy of four novels.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  Um, and a man named Thomas Toll, who used to be a legendary executive, legendary Pictures executive, uh, won the rights from James McMurtry.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  Larry's son, musician, accomplished musician.

• 6:34Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, he runs a company called Teton Ridge. Um, and it's, you know, kind of went silent after that for a while.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it went silent outside the Hollywood bubble. There were, there was clamoring for it. Like, he basically, it went on the market.

• 6:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 6:49Andy Greenwald?

  To, to attach creatives and also to find a streaming home.

• 6:53Chris Ryan?

  Which I did not know. I, I don't think I knew that it was like, in the process of finding creatives. And I didn't know that they were as far along as they were. Because shortly, um, after this, this blog post went up, the kind of saying like, "People are still reading Lonesome Dove, the summer of Dove never ended." Uh, Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stewart are announced as the co-writers and co-showrunners of the series. And Netflix will be the, the streamer for it, will be the home for it. And not only that, but they have, they've bought into Streets of Laredo, Comanche Moon, Dead Man's Walk, Dead Man's Walk, and Lonesome Dove. So it is the entire call and McCray.

• 7:33Andy Greenwald?

  Epic.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  Epic, which is really exciting.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  It is really exciting. I think, um, one of the other, so let's, let's start from, let's do two things. One, reading Lonesome Dove is one of the most pleasurable experiences of my adult life. It is one of the greatest American novels of all time. Um, it is, it, to read it is to not just lose yourself into this incredibly engaging adventure narrative and a vision of America that is timeless and alluring and horrifying in equal measure. But it also reads you into the Hack Creek Cattle Club of society, of people who are also like, "Welcome, brother," or "Welcome, sister." Like, it is, it is a wonderfully like, communal experience. And I remember when we were reading it together during COVID and even before we started podcasting about it,

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  we were talking about it and we would get messages from people we know or barely know or like or admire, like Elwood Reed, the showrunner, was like, "You have inspired me to read it for a fifth time."

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  Like, "I can't wait to saddle up again." So the, the sort of, the slow march of this book back into the public consciousness on this level is awesome. And when we did pod about it, we also talked about the fact that Lonesome Dove is iconic in two mediums. The mini-series on CBS from the eighties with, um, with Duval and Tommy Lee Jones is widely considered to be one of, if not the, best mini-series of all time.

• 8:51Chris Ryan?

  Crown jewel of it, yeah.

• 8:52Andy Greenwald?

  And we covered that as well. And we were really, um, I think, struck by how incredibly also timeless some of it was and also how eighties TV some of it was. And what, to circle all the way around, it's very exciting to think of a project that will be translating Lonesome Dove in totality. Meaning that, um, Streets of Laredo, which we'll talk about more in a second, which is really an intense corrective, not just to some of the absences in Lonesome Dove, like, um, Native Life, Internal Lives of Women, Trains, the existence of Trains, which he admits he forgot about when he wrote Lonesome Dove. But also to the myth-making of the fandom of Lonesome Dove, which he wrote as a tragedy, but was hailed as like, a return. It's kind of like a Born in the USA situation, where everyone was like,

• 9:37Andy Greenwald?

  "Man, what a great song about being born in the USA."

• 9:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's like, it's about Vietnam and debt, you know?

• 9:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So the idea that they could begin the story knowing the scope of it and maybe honoring our friend Larry's fuller intentions for the project is, it's thrilling.

• 9:53Chris Ryan?

  I don't really remember, uh, the mini-series, what it leaves out that I was like, "Oh, my God." I mean, like, the mini-series does a very nice job of hitting a lot of the highlight moments.

• 10:03Andy Greenwald?

  There's very little po campo.

• 10:05Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 10:05Andy Greenwald?

  One of my favorite of the, um, the chefs, the cooks that work with them. The two cooks that accompany them.

• 10:12Chris Ryan?

  Top two. He's got the great bill list. Top two Lonesome Dove chefs, go.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  Also chefs, doing a lot of work there, yeah.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, I agree with you about the book. I was talking with Tyler Parker and, uh, the, our, our rare colleague and Wait a Second co-host last night about this. And, and we were like, "Have you ever met anybody that doesn't love this book? Who read it?" You know, like, does anybody read this book and say, "Nah, not for me."

• 10:40Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think so.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  I think it kind of is, I, I know this sounds weird, but like, is this what Huckleberry Finn is supposed to be? Is this book like, the great American novel, the great American journey, the great American, like, you know, shared experience of, of a, of a dream of a place that doesn't quite crumb through? I think it's like, it's kind of emerging as that. Um, maybe not in, uh...

• 11:06Chris Ryan?

  Universities and maybe not in literary supplements.

• 11:09Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 11:09Chris Ryan?

  You know, as my guy Taylor tells me, you can't trust everything you learn at a school.

• 11:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. The communist infiltration of the schools have not managed to X out this book yet.

• 11:18Chris Ryan?

  And speaking of Taylor, you know, you had mentioned him in passing because he did write a foreword for or an introduction for the most recent edition of Lonesome Dove. And he talks about the immense impact it had on his life very sincerely.

• 11:35Chris Ryan?

  In Kim Masters's write up, so the journalist, Kim Masters, is a really, really well sourced journalist out here in Hollywood. And she wrote a piece within the structure of Matt Bellany's When I'm Hearing Newsletter for Puck. And she talked about the bidding war that just happened. So Zoe Kazan, Jeb Stewart, they have East of Eden coming in October on Netflix. Evidently Netflix is very satisfied with what they did and how they did it.

• 12:01Andy Greenwald?

  And had a good experience working with them.

• 12:03Chris Ryan?

  They announced that they had, they had, they were ready to take meetings about who was going to do this. I believe they have some, some pages, you know, like they're, they have started this process in earnest.

• 12:14Andy Greenwald?

  You're saying there's a script?

• 12:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And they took meetings like a week ago and it was expected that there was going to be a lot of competition for it. What most people would expect, just given the subject matter and the fact that the original Lonesome Dove mini series aired on CBS in the first place, but that was that Paramount was going to be involved. And they were not. And Kim's piece, I think, I would say delights in poking fun at the fact that Ellison, David Ellison missed out on this, found out that no one bid on Lonesome Dove and tried to come in with like a late, a late inning offer.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  But Netflix had already sewn up the deal. I do wonder whether or not like, you know, Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount.

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were going to say, I do wonder if the Justice Department can break up this deal.

• 13:02Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 13:03Andy Greenwald?

  Rob Bonta, do your duty.

• 13:07Andy Greenwald?

  If Mike Pence has the courage. This will, this won't happen.

• 13:11Chris Ryan?

  This will be Ken Paxton's big hail Mary. He's like, we need to bring, I don't even know the fuck that guy sounds.

• 13:16Andy Greenwald?

  That was pretty good. I think you should workshop that.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  Not making fun of his eye, but I am.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think it's okay.

• 13:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I think Ken Paxton makes fun of a lot of things I believe in. So I think it's

• 13:27Andy Greenwald?

  A lot of things that you believe.

• 13:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I think, I think some stuff that I think.

• 13:30Andy Greenwald?

  Don't get aggregated. It sounded like you were saying, he makes fun of the things I want to make fun of.

• 13:34Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no, no.

• 13:35Andy Greenwald?

  You were not saying that.

• 13:38Andy Greenwald?

  He was not saying that.

• 13:39Chris Ryan?

  No, I was saying, I bet if Ken Paxton watched this pod, he'd be like, look at this fucking guy in the Oregon hat. You know? So I'm just.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  You think he would go after you first? Which camera's on? You might be lucky to catch a stray.

• 13:53Chris Ryan?

  Be like, you know what? CR never misses.

• 13:57Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, if there are only two options.

• 14:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You think he's going to.

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  For Ken Paxton? Ken Paxton would, he would much rather run against me. Okay? And I don't blame him.

• 14:14Andy Greenwald?

  I would not do well running for statewide office in Texas.

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:17Andy Greenwald?

  Okay?

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 14:18Andy Greenwald?

  From Beto to Beto. I mean, can you just see the headlines?

• 14:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Come on.

• 14:22Chris Ryan?

  Um, where was I? I, I was cooking up a imaginary conspiracy theory that this, the, one of the reasons why this wouldn't be at Paramount is because Taylor will no longer be at Paramount soon. Cause he's taking his television wearers to Universal. This, I cannot imagine he had no interest in making this. And I wonder whether it was like, well, we can't bring Lonesome Dove in and not have him do it.

• 14:48Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Like it was, it just seemed to me, I, I wonder if there's a Taylor Sheridan element of Paramount not making a bid in earnest for this.

• 14:57Andy Greenwald?

  There's the, there's the case for Paramount to make it for legacy reasons and because so much of what we see, do, think and feel are, is based on the whims of billionaires.

• 15:06Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 15:06Andy Greenwald?

  So if David Ellison really loves it, that's good. If David Ellison really dislikes other things, that could be bad. Like, um, freedom of speech, whatever. Who knows? Cut that for the ad.

• 15:19Andy Greenwald?

  You guys could cut an incredible attack ad on me just from the first 10 minutes of this pod.

• 15:23Chris Ryan?

  It's okay, man. I don't need your endorsement.

• 15:25Andy Greenwald?

  Let me, let me turn around the water bottle I brought from, I borrowed from my daughter's today, which is an REI outdoorsman water bottle. So let's just really lean into the problems here. There's the case to be made of why they should have had it, but there is also an aggressive case why it makes sense for Netflix because in this new, like they have kind of a prestige division era where they want to, they want to grab, they want to grab a piece of the marketplace that they either had never had or kind of let, uh, had seeded it a little bit.

• 15:52Chris Ryan?

  Apple and HBO.

• 15:52Andy Greenwald?

  To Apple and HBO. Exactly. This is the best of all worlds because it is not just high minded, prestigious, literary cinematic, because they're banking on what, uh, what Zoe Kazan did with East of Eden, but also pretty red meat, like pretty right down the middle, incredibly popular entertainment.

• 16:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Andy Greenwald?

  So it is kind of a no brainer to me that they would, in a level playing field, outbid everyone else for it.

• 16:15Chris Ryan?

  I have one, one plea.

• 16:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I got, I got a couple.

• 16:20Chris Ryan?

  Please shoot this in Texas.

• 16:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yes. Oh, no. Yeah. Are you thinking like New Zealand or something?

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  Is the setting for East of Eden. Now, East of Eden, I, I believe, I mean, it could, they could have been shooting this for quite some time. I think East of Eden started shooting, like it may have been a COVID era. Like this is a good place to shoot if like we're coming out and we still have. I feel like East of Eden's been shot for a while.

• 16:45Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think we have the right read on, I think it has been, but we don't have the right read on the timeline because I think it was announced a long time ago.

• 16:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 16:52Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it was originally for a different streaming service when it was announced. I think it was Apple. So, and Netflix picked it up.

• 16:57Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 16:58Andy Greenwald?

  So I think we may be dating it to our knowledge of the project, but that's probably not when they were shooting.

• 17:03Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, I understand why people shoot things in other countries and the, the tax breaks they get and the labor costs that they have. It is what it is. I hate it. Um, but this is an authentically Texan and Western story.

• 17:18Andy Greenwald?

  Montana.

• 17:18Chris Ryan?

  Texan, Montana story. If we can't get behind this, like what are we doing? You know?

• 17:24Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 17:26Chris Ryan?

  That being said. I just said on the previous podcast we did, I believe, when we were talking about, maybe when the East of Eden trailer came out, so it was a couple of podcasts ago. I said, you know, based on the trailer, it seems like Zoe Kazan has like reconfigured the East of Eden story a bit to be a little bit more about the Kathy character.

• 17:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 17:47Chris Ryan?

  Which is not really what you would get from it if you were reading the back of the book, say, you know, that is not what usually people lead with as what's East of Eden about.

• 17:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 17:57Chris Ryan?

  If I, and I said, I really support that. I think it's like cool to see people who find different angles with their adaptations. And I don't think that everything needs to be a page for page recreation. So I have to then also stand on business and say.

• 18:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:12Chris Ryan?

  Zoe Kazan, do, do your thing with Lonesome Dove. Now, I think that she is probably coming at this with like an incredible amount of reverence, as is Jeb Stewart. Jeb Stewart, for people who don't know, is a legendary screenwriter and producer who worked on The Fugitive and Die Hard and has bones, has like old structural bones in the genre filmmaking world.

• 18:35Andy Greenwald?

  And honestly, I feel like being named Jeb and doing Lonesome Dove will open some doors for some locations in Texas. I don't mean to.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Ken Paxton's going to be like, you mean Jeb Stewart, the Confederate general?

• 18:47Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. First thing on Google. Just tell him to only Google once. He'll be thrilled.

• 18:53Chris Ryan?

  So I guess I, I just was going to say is just like, I'm prepared to, uh, I mean, I, I, I have no idea how they're going to approach this, but I wouldn't, I, I, I think it's important to be like supportive of, like you do not have to shoot it exactly as it happens.

• 19:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, I, I appreciate your being honest here, holding yourself to account. Intellectually, I agree with you.

• 19:18Chris Ryan?

  Emotionally.

• 19:19Andy Greenwald?

  Emotionally, I, I'm in a bit of, I'm in some tumult.

• 19:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  The feeling that I feel, this is, this is maybe, this is definitely an inexact comparison, but it reminds me of uh, two years ago, like when the Eagles, I don't know if you remember, they went to the Super Bowl, but like when a team that you spend all of your life obsessing over and consuming and like breaking down suddenly is in the public sphere and there are no other teams left and everybody's doing it, there's a very intense feeling for me of like, it makes me more anxious.

• 19:46Chris Ryan?

  You were trying to gatekeep the Eagles.

• 19:48Andy Greenwald?

  I was trying to gatekeep the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles. No, but like, I'm very emotionally involved in the narratives as they mean, what they mean to me. And now suddenly everyone's looking.

• 19:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Andy Greenwald?

  And, and Lonesome Dove does not belong to us, but I do feel so intimately connected to it that the thought of it being dissected again, put back together, examined, recontextualized, shaken up, makes me nervous. It doesn't mean I don't trust these people to do it. Um, I think there's a lot of opportunity to, not just to, to obviously go deeper than the mini series, which, you know, cast a white actor Frederick Forrest as Blue Duck. I think there's some moments there that a lot of people would like to take back.

• 20:28Chris Ryan?

  We'd like, we'd like to go to review and see if, VAR.

• 20:32Andy Greenwald?

  VAR, be like, the flag was up. The racist flag was up. Sorry.

• 20:39Andy Greenwald?

  So, and the fact that we were alluding to the larger four book series gives some nuance to characters like Blue Duck and the native people in general, in terms of the timeline of what was going on for them while Gus and while Gus and Call were coming up themselves.

• 21:03Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 21:04Andy Greenwald?

  And it also gives context to other characters like P.I., who is a sort of comic relief character in, not just in Lonesome Dove, but particularly in the mini series, I believe is then in the mini series of Streets of Laredo is played by Sam Shepard.

• 21:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 21:19Andy Greenwald?

  Which is a legendary glow up.

• 21:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  Now you could see the fact that maybe he's a little bit handsome in addition to being dippy.

• 21:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Andy Greenwald?

  You know, in the first one. You can build with that larger sense of, larger sense of scale. But I do think the one thing that is gonna be interesting for them to translate is that this book is, this book is for everyone. And we have talked about, we have written, and other people have written, that Larry McMurtry, especially for writers of his era, was one of the very best male writers of female characters. And just had such a deep in life and on the page curiosity in his female characters and invested them with so much more than many of his contemporaries and peers. But this story, this book is so incredibly insightful about aging male friendship.

• 22:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 22:04Andy Greenwald?

  In a way, it is, you know, the father of our style. No, but sincerely, like about emotion or lack of emotion and connection and purpose and sort of a quixotic purpose, like it is a deeply, those characters are deeply male coded.

• 22:17Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 22:18Andy Greenwald?

  In a way that I think also is worth exploring on the screen.

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  I, I think-

• 22:22Andy Greenwald?

  Did I think I got Ken Paxton's vote?

• 22:23Chris Ryan?

  I think male friendship is, is worth a look. You know, we haven't really gotten a lot of examples of it.

• 22:29Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, but I'm trying to make the case that it's particularly nuanced in this book. And it is one of the ways that McMurtry was cutting against the expectation of two pals go on an adventure.

• 22:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, absolutely, man.

• 22:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which, so-

• 22:44Chris Ryan?

  I, I did a little bit of back of the envelope casting what ifs.

• 22:48Andy Greenwald?

  Did you? See, this is what you do when I'm doing other stuff.

• 22:52Chris Ryan?

  I, I just want to bounce some ideas off of you.

• 22:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 22:55Chris Ryan?

  This is a really difficult thing to cast, not be, just because Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones own these parts. But we've got a bit of, of an emergency in American acting. You know, there is actually like recently, a bit of like, there was like a story about, it was just basically one of those like, here's a chart. And you're like, oh, okay, that seems good or bad. But like, it was basically about the, the increase in British actors in American films and television.

• 23:24Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:25Chris Ryan?

  And the decrease in American actors. And the pipeline is a little dry.

• 23:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 23:30Chris Ryan?

  Like, not only in terms of performers in the age brackets that we're looking at for these characters, but also performers who don't look like they were on the Mickey Mouse Club 10 years ago.

• 23:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 23:43Chris Ryan?

  And so, we gotta talk this out. To me-

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  Or actors who haven't continued to address their lack of Mickey Mouse features with some external work.

• 23:50Chris Ryan?

  Makeup is a powerful thing. Now, it's also worth noting that we're talking about Lonesome Dove, then Streets of Laredo is the sequel. So that would be a very aged character in that-

• 24:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 24:04Chris Ryan?

  -book. We won't want to spoil anything for anyone. And then Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon-

• 24:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  -prequels.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and-

• 24:13Chris Ryan?

  Now, I would imagine we're gonna get two sets of Call and McCray. I don't think we're gonna have one person play all these different parts. Cause we're, we've got like early twenties to late sixties, I believe, or seventies.

• 24:23Andy Greenwald?

  And I, we have no reason to think that they are doing anything other than tracking the, not just the recommended reading order, but the publication order. Meaning, Lonesome Dove chronologically is third.

• 24:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 24:35Andy Greenwald?

  But it was the first published-

• 24:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 24:37Andy Greenwald?

  And it's the most popular, and it's where you should start-

• 24:38Chris Ryan?

  Lonesome Dove will be the fir- they're gonna make Lonesome Dove, and if it works, they will make more Lonesome Dove. But they are making Lonesome Dove.

• 24:44Andy Greenwald?

  They will take in the other books. But, but yes. The preferred reading order is, in chronological terms, is three, four, one, two.

• 24:51Chris Ryan?

  So, the hardest thing for me to do was to unwind my initial thought about Gus and Woodrow.

• 25:00Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 25:01Chris Ryan?

  And it, it's McConaughey and Harrelson.

• 25:03Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 25:05Chris Ryan?

  I know it comes with a lot of baggage. They're about to do their second TV show together, Brothers on Apple.

• 25:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Is it about male friendship?

• 25:13Chris Ryan?

  It is, actually.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  And I'll watch it.

• 25:16Chris Ryan?

  And I think people would bring some True Detective baggage to it.

• 25:22Andy Greenwald?

  This is smart.

• 25:24Chris Ryan?

  They're Texans.

• 25:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Chris Ryan?

  They're the right age.

• 25:27Andy Greenwald?

  They actually are.

• 25:28Chris Ryan?

  Think you could age them up or down a bit if you needed to, as evidenced in True Detective, where they, they, they span decade and a half or something.

• 25:36Andy Greenwald?

  They're both comfortably, I believe, older than Tommy Lee Jones was when he aged up to play Call in 1989.

• 25:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Obviously, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall had a more weathered look than I think Woody Harrelson and-

• 25:47Andy Greenwald?

  But we were at a different place with peptides then.

• 25:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Um, here's a couple of concern trolls about this idea.

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 25:55Chris Ryan?

  Number one, A, is like, are people gonna be able to get over, like, that's Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey? I think they would. Number two-

• 26:01Andy Greenwald?

  And by the way, you're saying McConaughey as Call and Woody as Gus?

• 26:07Chris Ryan?

  I think that's the obvious one. I think you could invert it if you wanted to be like, do you guys want to try something different?

• 26:13Andy Greenwald?

  I think McConaughey could play both parts, but I, I don't know about Woody.

• 26:16Chris Ryan?

  I think Woody in True Detective showed that there is some Woodrow in him.

• 26:22Andy Greenwald?

  Some Woodrow in Woody.

• 26:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I think that there is like, he would have that capacity. And I think Matthew McConaughey could certainly play a rascal. But when I close my eyes, I can see Woody Harrelson making biscuits.

• 26:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Beautifully said.

• 26:39Chris Ryan?

  So, let's start there.

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, great.

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  Do you have any other suggestions off the top of your head of an actor, say, age 40 to 60, who could-

• 26:51Andy Greenwald?

  This is-

• 26:52Chris Ryan?

  -embody either of those two parts?

• 26:53Andy Greenwald?

  This is diabolical.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  Well, you wanna know why it's diabolical?

• 26:55Andy Greenwald?

  I was not prepped for this.

• 26:56Chris Ryan?

  It's because there really aren't any. And also, you very quickly need to then start thinking about Australian and English actors.

• 27:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it, yeah, the, the, the drop off from McConaughey and Harrelson to a Hemsworth is quite steep.

• 27:11Chris Ryan?

  Or even a Guy Pearce. Or even a-

• 27:13Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, Ethan Hawke, I think, could, could potentially-

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Andy Greenwald?

  -look okay on a horse.

• 27:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Andy Greenwald?

  But, yeah.

• 27:20Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's go to Jake Spoon.

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Jake Spoon, uh, we've talked about this many times, but one of the interesting things about the original mini series that I'm sure they will correct is that there is such a, there's a very bright line between the movie actors that did this-

• 27:38Chris Ryan?

  And the TV actors.

• 27:39Andy Greenwald?

  And the TV actors of the time.

• 27:40Chris Ryan?

  Well, thankfully, there is no line anymore.

• 27:41Andy Greenwald?

  There is no line anymore. But that, and that's not necessarily a dig against-

• 27:45Chris Ryan?

  Robert Urick.

• 27:46Andy Greenwald?

  Robert Urick or Ricky Schroder, but they, they, they had, there's a differing level of charisma on the screen in that mini series.

• 27:55Chris Ryan?

  How about Tom Pelfrey or Eben Moss Bakarak?

• 27:58Andy Greenwald?

  That's great.

• 27:59Chris Ryan?

  You gotta have somebody who's, uh-

• 28:01Andy Greenwald?

  Soulful but shifty.

• 28:02Chris Ryan?

  Incredibly charismatic and incredibly self sabotaging.

• 28:06Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:07Chris Ryan?

  And has a lot of demons, but is also like, able to be a true snake charmer.

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  Are you gonna say Bernthal is Blue Duck?

• 28:12Chris Ryan?

  (laughing)

• 28:13Andy Greenwald?

  Look me in the eye and say it's not on your list.

• 28:17Chris Ryan?

  It's not on my list. I haven't, I haven't gone that deep down the casting line. I, I have a couple others that I'll throw out there.

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, for Dish.

• 28:27Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:28Chris Ryan?

  I did break my Amer- my America First edit, and I do have Leo Woodall as Dish.

• 28:34Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool. Yeah.

• 28:35Chris Ryan?

  And for Nude.

• 28:36Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:37Chris Ryan?

  It's really hard, cause I think, even though Nude's supposed to be like 17, I, I have Jacob Loughlin.

• 28:46Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 28:47Chris Ryan?

  Lambman Jacob Loughlin.

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's good.

• 28:49Chris Ryan?

  But he's a little older, he's older than Nude.

• 28:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Chris Ryan?

  Like, demonstrably. I don't know if you age Nude up. I don't know, like, what you wanna do with that, but-

• 28:56Andy Greenwald?

  You have a Deets?

• 28:57Chris Ryan?

  I don't.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  Like Keith Stanfield?

• 28:59Chris Ryan?

  I think it's pretty good, man. I think, I, I-

• 29:02Andy Greenwald?

  This is exciting.

• 29:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Andy Greenwald?

  They should hire us. I'll just say it. They should bring us on.

• 29:07Chris Ryan?

  Um, yeah, cause-

• 29:09Andy Greenwald?

  Male friendship consultants.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  Deets is in his 40s. I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, you can do whatever you want with it.

• 29:14Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, Danny Glover played him famously in the mini series and was incredible. Um, yeah, I think that's exciting.

• 29:20Chris Ryan?

  Do we have a Paul Dano spot?

• 29:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:24Chris Ryan?

  July Johnson?

• 29:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's a great call. Um, his, his arc, that's a, that's gonna be a fun one to cast, cause it really is gonna reflect like how people see this character. And, and his arc is a little more heroic seeming.

• 29:43Andy Greenwald?

  But it depends how you see the character. It's Chris Cooper in the mini-series.

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Andy Greenwald?

  Play the part, young Chris Cooper. By the way, another potential Jake Spoon would be Anthony Starr. Not American.

• 29:53Chris Ryan?

  That's pretty good, though. But then we start getting the Aussies in here, you know?

• 29:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's exciting. I mean, it would be, it would be really meaningful, I think, to us for this to be done right and also to be done expansively. And by that, I mean expensively.

• 30:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Andy Greenwald?

  And correctly. And, you know, for the, you know, not for the long haul, meaning they're gonna like squeeze 10 seasons out of this, but that they will really tell a full story.

• 30:15Chris Ryan?

  I would imagine it's a season per, per book. I don't think they're gonna do Lonesome Dove over the course of multiple seasons, do you?

• 30:22Andy Greenwald?

  I think, my, my-

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Interesting, Grimold.

• 30:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, my guess is that Lonesome Dove is the name of the series that they are going to make, and in success, it will be longer and include other chapters, so to speak. But I also wonder if there's like, this is, the other reason why it would have been interesting, I mean, I don't want Taylor to do this show, but his, the way that he franchises himself, like, there are so many stories here. And certainly, like, Comanche Moon, which is the weakest of the series, just is kind of like this wild tumble of like story spackle over 40 years. And in it, you get more context on the characters that we've come to know and love, but also brand-new characters that he was just throwing out there. There's, there's a, um, the Union General who has his eyelids cut off.

• 31:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Andy Greenwald?

  And then wears sunglasses.

• 31:13Andy Greenwald?

  But there's also real historical figures, like Charles Goodnight, who is a real rancher who was very, very prominent in the West. And one of the incredible things about the book is when they just cross paths with him.

• 31:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Andy Greenwald?

  And he's incredibly odd. But McMurtry did his research and created an indelible character out of a historical figure. And so if you expanded it and expanded the B story and C story, and then maybe had a companion series, you could do a lot here. I like, I like your casting.

• 31:40Chris Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 31:41Andy Greenwald?

  You're welcome.

• 31:42Chris Ryan?

  I think McConaughey and Harrelson-

• 31:45Andy Greenwald?

  But do you think, like, you're just, you're 100% right, though, that the list, like, Netflix has lists. They maybe even reached out to people. And do you think the list is even 50% American? I don't know.

• 31:58Chris Ryan?

  I really don't know. I mean, I, I don't know whether or not audiences care anymore. You know, if it's, like I said, if it's, if they made Gus and Woodrow Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, would people be like, I'm furious about this? You can't, you can't cast two Australian guys?

• 32:14Andy Greenwald?

  No. I mean, Australians, Australians are the Texans of England. You know what I mean? So I think that would be different.

• 32:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay, we'd see our inbox.

• 32:25Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think you can pin us down. I just think-

• 32:28Chris Ryan?

  You know which way we'd vote in Texas, but other than that-

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  Other than that, you don't know. We're scrambling up the perceptions of the parties.

• 32:38Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to talk to you a little bit. We've, obviously, will continue to monitor this situation. Is there any other, like, headline news that you wanted to discuss?

• 32:45Andy Greenwald?

  Is it like 12:30 now? Are we done?

• 32:46Chris Ryan?

  No, not at all.

• 32:48Andy Greenwald?

  We've been doing this?

• 32:50Andy Greenwald?

  Is there any other headline news? I don't know, you made, you spooked me with the computer, so I, I closed everything down.

• 32:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, I didn't see anything. So there's that. How about that?

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't want to talk about the Hawaii Five-O movie?

• 33:00Chris Ryan?

  Did you, did you?

• 33:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, but sometimes you surprise me. Sometimes you say stuff that I didn't know about.

• 33:04Chris Ryan?

  Well, by that same token of me saying, like, Zoe Kazan's allowed to, to do whatever she wants with Lonesome Dove.

• 33:10Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 33:12Chris Ryan?

  I suppose, um, and the fact that Lonesome Dove is being made at all. Is it really, would it be churlish to be like, who needs Hawaii Five-O? I think Lonesome Dove probably has a bigger footprint in American culture than Hawaii Five-O.

• 33:27Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Hawaii Five-O-

• 33:28Chris Ryan?

  They've also done several-

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  But has it ever been, but has it been a movie?

• 33:32Chris Ryan?

  I guess not. Yeah.

• 33:33Andy Greenwald?

  There you go. There's more to explore on the big screen. Also, now it's Sean and Amanda's problem. Enjoy.

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• 35:09Chris Ryan?

  Bonjour, compadre. It's the-

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• 35:13Chris Ryan?

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• 35:40Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to talk about the Emmys? Tell me, tell me where, what you're thinking. Because I know you've really spent the last few days poring over the Creative Arts Emmy results.

• 35:47Chris Ryan?

  No, but I did read a little bit about them just to get a sense. I mean, you were very right that The Widows Bay train has left the station.

• 35:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, there is no breakman. You know, like, it's, it's just true. Denzel and Chris Pine are the only two people who could stop Widows Bay at this point. Full unstoppable joke for people.

• 36:03Andy Greenwald?

  I got it. Thank you.

• 36:05Chris Ryan?

  I want to go through the five or six major categories here.

• 36:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 36:10Chris Ryan?

  And say what will win and what should win.

• 36:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I'm calling up the noms.

• 36:15Chris Ryan?

  So why don't we start with comedy? Series.

• 36:18Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 36:18Chris Ryan?

  Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Margot's Got Money Troubles, Nobody Wants This, Only Murders in the Building, Shrinking, Widows Bay.

• 36:30Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 36:31Chris Ryan?

  I think this is a should-win, will-win. But like, the same answer. I think it's Widows Bay.

• 36:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Andy Greenwald?

  Widows Bay is going to win. This is, this is, this is a book it, put it in stone. I think it's pretty thrilling. I think it's deserving. I think it is a rare case where it's, I think, you know, at our mid-season check-in, it was maybe both of our number-one shows, or certainly in the top two or three. It's one of the most exciting shows of the year, and happy to report to all the comedy police out there that I think it's the funniest of all of these nominees. So-

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  I personally thought The Bear was funnier, but that's okay.

• 37:06Andy Greenwald?

  Because you, like Ken Paxton, you laugh at trauma?

• 37:11Chris Ryan?

  Ken Paxton, like, ha, ha, Carmy again. I can't believe it.

• 37:17Chris Ryan?

  This guy doesn't handle pressure well.

• 37:20Andy Greenwald?

  You're making it sound reasonable.

• 37:22Chris Ryan?

  Because I just don't even know how he talks. I've never, like, been like, time to watch some Paxton tape.

• 37:29Andy Greenwald?

  I would check in with you. Because sometimes you're like-

• 37:31Chris Ryan?

  If I just kept sending you packs?

• 37:33Andy Greenwald?

  No, because sometimes you're like, you know, honestly, it's incredible to be child-free. Like, we watch these movies, we go for long walks, I get to have these drinks with my wife, you know, and then, but then there's the B-side of it, where you're like, just crushing.

• 37:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm like, are you, what's going on in the insurance industry?

• 37:46Andy Greenwald?

  Worried about that.

• 37:47Chris Ryan?

  I do, uh, gotta hand it, Trump ethers this guy every time he introduces him. He's like, this guy looks like absolute shit.

• 37:59Chris Ryan?

  I hate this guy. He's a fucking dirtbag.

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  Please vote for him.

• 38:03Chris Ryan?

  But you're next, you're next editor, yeah.

• 38:07Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so Widows Bay would win, shall win, should win, and for comedy, for drama. The Diplomat, The Gilded Age, A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, Paradise, The Pit, Pluribus, Slow Horses, Your Friends and Neighbors. What do you think should win?

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's a tough one, because as has been the case for the last few years, I think that this category is really an assortment of gentlemen's Bs and B pluses, um, other than honestly, Your Friends and Neighbors. And Paradise is, you know, maybe it's sort of that meme with the three dragon heads and it's the crazy one.

• 38:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:42Andy Greenwald?

  But I respect it for that.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  And interestingly, like, Shaleen Woodley won an Emmy.

• 38:47Chris Ryan?

  She did.

• 38:48Andy Greenwald?

  For her performance-

• 38:49Chris Ryan?

  She did.

• 38:49Andy Greenwald?

  On Paradise of the Season. I would say that there are three, and I, full disclosure, I have not watched The Diplomat Season Two or The Gilded Age Seasons, any. But, um, I think that there are three stronger candidates here, uh, that I could get behind. I think you can make the case for Night of the Seven Kingdoms, because it was so deeply surprising and just so absolutely wonderfully made. A rare example of a show, especially a first season of a show, just hitting its target and communicating it right from jump.

• 39:20Andy Greenwald?

  I would make a case for Pluribus, because it was unlike anything else and engaging in ways that felt unfamiliar since the last time Vince Gilligan was on our TV screens with Better Call Saul. And then the third one that deserves it is the one that's going to win, which is The Pit.

• 39:37Chris Ryan?

  Yep. I think that The Pit will win, and I think that Pluribus should win. I have a tendency, I think, to get tired of, of monarchies or dynasties, rather, in, uh, in awards.

• 39:50Chris Ryan?

  The Emmys are particularly vulnerable to having a seven-year run of a show, you know, or a five-year run of a show, winning every year, kind of no matter what. It's no knock against The Pit's excellent second season. I just think that Pluribus is the kind of show that I think should be celebrated. And I think actually did some interesting things with TV that I hadn't seen before.

• 40:13Chris Ryan?

  And I'm really, I, I love that show, and I think it, I think it should be celebrated in that regard, but I understand that The Pit is going to win.

• 40:20Andy Greenwald?

  I think someone has to come and take The Pit's crown, and I think it's-

• 40:23Chris Ryan?

  It's gonna take a really big show to do that.

• 40:24Andy Greenwald?

  It is. I think it's, it would either take a show that can succeed on The Pit's terms, which is making everyone love TV again in a very familiar and old-fashioned way, and hitting its release dates and being an ever-present part of our lives, which is incredibly hard to do. Or it's gonna have to snatch it from the other side of the aisle and be a no-doubter,

• 40:44Andy Greenwald?

  prestige drama firing on all cylinders. Of which we don't have that many anymore. And by that, I mean, you know, in the, in the mold of A Mad Men or A Sopranos, or A Better Call Saul, or maybe in Season Two in success, Pluribus.

• 40:56Chris Ryan?

  An anthology.

• 40:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Chris Ryan?

  Which has become- Kind of the forgotten category, I think, because whether it's because if you make a good limited series or anthology series, it tends to then become a continuing drama. We have All Her Fault, The Beast in Me, Beef, DTF St. Louis, and Love Story, John F. Kennedy and Carolyn Bisset.

• 41:22Andy Greenwald?

  And by the way, did we said, I imagine you said a moment ago, when I was desperately trying to find a list of the nominees, that the awards are Monday night?

• 41:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 41:29Andy Greenwald?

  Because they're ducking.

• 41:30Chris Ryan?

  They're ducking.

• 41:31Andy Greenwald?

  They're ducking NFL.

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  Good L. Yeah, they're ducking Raj.

• 41:33Andy Greenwald?

  Shameful.

• 41:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, okay, so I feel like this is a category where I've sampled most of them, although I did not, I did not get on that plane for Love Story, did you?

• 41:45Chris Ryan?

  I think I would probably say that Beef should win. I watched a couple of episodes of Love Story and was not a fan. I watched a couple of episodes of All Her Fault, was not my jam. I liked Beast in Me, I liked Beef. I, I respect DTF St. Louis, but it wasn't really my favorite. I think DTF St. Louis is going to win.

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 42:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and I, I am happy for that because I think Steve Conrad should keep making shows, and I want him to have like the award kind of backing.

• 42:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's an incredible story. I mean, I think Beef is one of my top three shows of the year. I think Beef should win.

• 42:23Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 42:24Andy Greenwald?

  I think it was, yeah.

• 42:25Chris Ryan?

  Can I tell you something?

• 42:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Chris Ryan?

  You're starting to have too many shows to be in your top three.

• 42:31Andy Greenwald?

  No, I've got three.

• 42:32Chris Ryan?

  Furious, Beef, and Widows Bay.

• 42:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 42:36Chris Ryan?

  Damn, dog.

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  Locked in. I'm not making up.

• 42:39Chris Ryan?

  But you know, because sometimes you can be like, this is definitely top two.

• 42:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I do with music. That's what I would be like, just to get, in this attention economy, I would try to, you know, grab you and say like, this is definitely the single greatest song of the decade.

• 42:54Chris Ryan?

  Sure, sure.

• 42:55Andy Greenwald?

  That worked for me for a few years.

• 42:56Chris Ryan?

  It did. I mean, it works for everybody, you know?

• 42:58Andy Greenwald?

  For a little while.

• 42:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It worked for Drake May.

• 43:00Andy Greenwald?

  Careful. Um, yeah, I, I think DTF St. Louis is going to win. I think that's something that we also.

• 43:09Chris Ryan?

  The Creative Arts Emmys kind of showed that there was a tremendous amount of momentum for that show.

• 43:14Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think that's a credit to the show, which did connect with people. I think it's a credit to HBO's incredibly impressive marketing and awards team in terms of getting, pushing a narrative, making it, I mean, the show got good ratings, so I'm not saying it was an uphill climb, but they are very good at doing this when they have something to work with. But separate and apart from the fact that I didn't enjoy watching the series, I think it's a great story because Steve Conrad is someone who has made beloved shows that were criminally or underseen.

• 43:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Andy Greenwald?

  And was, had the reputation of someone.

• 43:47Chris Ryan?

  Two seasons of Patriot, yeah.

• 43:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and then Perpetual Grace, LTD, and then he made the puppet show also.

• 43:52Chris Ryan?

  Ultra City Smiths.

• 43:55Andy Greenwald?

  Good for you.

• 43:56Chris Ryan?

  Thanks.

• 43:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's an incredible thing that when you get, like, no disrespect to our, our friends at Amazon Prime Video 10 years ago, but like, you get the call of the majors and you just start throwing gas.

• 44:07Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 44:08Andy Greenwald?

  And if you're given the right opportunity and the right marketing and the right casting and the right push, you can connect. I think that's a nice story. It's, it's, uh, it's REM, REM signing with Warner's. You know what I mean? Putting out green.

• 44:19Chris Ryan?

  I, I will, so yeah, DTF should win, or will win, and I think, I think Beef should win, but I don't feel incredibly strongly about this one. Actor in a comedy, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for Wonder Man, Steve Carell for Rooster, Matthew Rees for Widows Bay, Jason Segel for Shrinking, Martin Short for Only Murders in the Building. I'm going to pair this with something else.

• 44:43Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 44:44Chris Ryan?

  Which is actor in an anthology, limited or movie.

• 44:46Andy Greenwald?

  I was hoping you'd bring this one up.

• 44:47Chris Ryan?

  Riz Ahmed in Bait, Jason Bateman in Black Rabbit, Charlie Hunnam in Monster, the Ed Gein story, Oscar Isaac in Beef, Matthew Rees in The Beast in Me. Now, I just got done reading a wonderful back and forth between Katie Rich and Chris Rosen in The Ankler, uh, going over the Creative Arts Emmys, talking about the momentum, making some predictions for the Emmy. So this was something that I had not really even deeply contemplated until yesterday. Is Matthew Rees going to win both these awards?

• 45:20Andy Greenwald?

  I think there's a real chance. Um, did you watch Bait, the Riz Ahmed show?

• 45:26Chris Ryan?

  A little bit, yes.

• 45:27Andy Greenwald?

  Did you?

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  He's, he's great.

• 45:29Andy Greenwald?

  He's always good. I feel bad that I, I did not watch that. I think that this is a category where there is a chance that someone like Charlie Hunnam could win for, I mean, award shows, whether they are Oscars or the Emmys, love it when actors play real life people, whether they are popular musicians or monstrous serial killers. There's a path there, I think, for, for him. I don't, I think Jason Bateman might win for DTF, so I don't think he'll win here.

• 45:56Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, or was he not nominated for DTF? I guess, would it be in this category? Or did, or did David Harbour beat him?

• 46:02Chris Ryan?

  He was only nominated for Bait, for, for, for this.

• 46:05Andy Greenwald?

  Or Black Rabbit. So, so are people going to check the box if they like DTF? I don't know. The more I look at it, the more it seems like the Rees momentum might be unstoppable. Especially because.

• 46:16Chris Ryan?

  Chris and Katie did point out that this.

• 46:17Andy Greenwald?

  They couldn't be more different roles.

• 46:18Chris Ryan?

  Anthology Limited is a strange, historically strange award that sometimes goes against the grain, but I, I think that things are lining up for it to be like, this dude is the most delightful and best actor on television, let's give him two awards, to the extent that there is a group think like that. So I think he will win and should win for Widows Bay. I really liked Jason Bateman in Black Rabbit.

• 46:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:44Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was some of his best work. It was also like offbeat for him.

• 46:48Andy Greenwald?

  It was some of his best hair.

• 46:49Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 46:50Andy Greenwald?

  Top three Jason Bateman hair. Top two.

• 46:53Chris Ryan?

  Well, it would be this.

• 46:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Chris Ryan?

  The Cotton in Dodgeball.

• 46:58Andy Greenwald?

  Great call. Great call. And, um, The Hogan Family.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and The Hogan Family.

• 47:05Andy Greenwald?

  When it was pure, you know?

• 47:06Chris Ryan?

  That original, that original cut. Um, so are we saying Matt Rees should win, would will win?

• 47:14Andy Greenwald?

  Look, I, I don't want to say anything against him. I think one of the things that's been really fun, just as a fan of him for years since The Americans, and as someone, both of us who have been in the room with him when he's come on the podcast, genuinely one of the most delightful people we've ever hung out with.

• 47:27Chris Ryan?

  Can I give you a bunch of money?

• 47:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And, and his reputation deserved in the industry has been like, this is, guy's the real deal. He can do comedy, he can do drama, he can do anything. But I never got the sense that he was recognized like by the general public as the superstar that he is, and that, I think Widows Bay, despite being limited by the viewers on Apple, has changed the narrative about that. And I think people will vote for him just to get him on stage again.

• 47:52Chris Ryan?

  He's navigating modern television better than any actor I can think of.

• 47:56Andy Greenwald?

  It's a good prompt.

• 48:00Chris Ryan?

  I know, that's not even like, uh, give me somebody who does it better. I just mean like the choices he's making, the variety of roles he gets to play.

• 48:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Chris Ryan?

  Um, and the, the way he can like move from a sort of prestigey but pulpy crime show to a quirky comic horror to, you know, like.

• 48:21Andy Greenwald?

  Isn't he the lead in Presumed Innocent, season two also?

• 48:23Chris Ryan?

  I think you might be right. Or are you joking?

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not joking.

• 48:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think you might be right. He seems to have definitely mastered his own schedule. I will say that. Actress in a comedy, Quinta Brunson for Abbott, uh, Io Adabiri for The Bear, Elle Fanning for Margot's Got Money Troubles, Lisa Kudrow for The Comeback, Jean Smart for Hacks. This one feels, the Jean, this is where Hacks is going to get its awards.

• 48:50Andy Greenwald?

  I think so.

• 48:51Chris Ryan?

  Award.

• 48:52Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, the only other one that I would, I could see happening is, is Elle Fanning because clearly, clearly Emmy voters liked Margot's Got Money Troubles and, um.

• 49:02Chris Ryan?

  I think she's great in it.

• 49:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Uh, I don't think you can, I don't think you could bet against the person who wanted, who has won it every year that she's been nominated.

• 49:12Chris Ryan?

  I have an outside, I don't think this is going to happen, but I have an outside IO bet.

• 49:17Andy Greenwald?

  Do you?

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  If I was going to, if we were betting this.

• 49:20Andy Greenwald?

  Is this what Bill and Sal were talking about when they said teasers are back? Is that what this means? Because I didn't know.

• 49:25Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I thought she was fantastic.

• 49:27Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. And so funny. Hilarious. Right? You laughed. You laughed. You and Paxton being like, she's worried about her dad.

• 49:39Chris Ryan?

  Um, actor.

• 49:41Andy Greenwald?

  I think she's awesome, but I think the combination.

• 49:43Chris Ryan?

  Jean Smart will win. Who should win?

• 49:45Andy Greenwald?

  Um.

• 49:46Chris Ryan?

  Elle Fanning?

• 49:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I would say, I mean, look, the, the IO argument is a good one to make because over the course of this series, she has shown an incredibly broad skill set.

• 49:58Chris Ryan?

  I mean, you're joking. It is weird to say like that was a comic performance.

• 50:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, exactly. But it is a award worthy performance over five seasons, but I think the general turn, not just in my opinion of the last season, but I think the, the, the awards voting membership turn, and by the way, this is, this would be for the fourth season, so all this can happen again next year.

• 50:15Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  So you're not going to be getting, The Bear's going to be nominated again next year most likely in some of these categories, if not all of them. And so if there's any like legacy last time up bounce, it would come next year.

• 50:27Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 50:28Andy Greenwald?

  Quinta has won this award, right? I believe she did, in between the Jean Smarts, or I just remember her winning for the show.

• 50:34Chris Ryan?

  She won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy in 2022.

• 50:37Andy Greenwald?

  Let Maine decide, you know what I mean?

• 50:39Chris Ryan?

  All right, this is one you're.

• 50:40Andy Greenwald?

  Let the voters decide.

• 50:41Chris Ryan?

  Actor in a Drama, Sterling K. Brown in Paradise, Gary Oldman in Slow Horses, Mark Ruffalo in Task, Rufus Sewell in The Diplomat, Noah Wiley in The Pit. Noah Wiley's going to win this.

• 50:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 50:52Chris Ryan?

  You want to have a Wiley Ruffalo conversation? You want to have a Wiley Sterling Brown conversation?

• 50:58Andy Greenwald?

  This is such an interesting category because the five actors nominated are all doing five distinct things.

• 51:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:05Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't think, there's very little overlap in terms of what they're being asked.

• 51:10Chris Ryan?

  Dr. Robbie certainly farts less than Jackson Lamb, that is true.

• 51:13Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we don't know that because, let's do it, you could do an investigation because I can't imagine you're going into the pit like nostrils open. Do you know what I mean?

• 51:21Chris Ryan?

  There's probably a lot of scents in the emergency room.

• 51:24Andy Greenwald?

  And a lot of people to blame it on.

• 51:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Andy Greenwald?

  You can really spread the blame around in there. Um, like Gary Oldman's performance on Slow Horses is iconic, incredible, consistent, um, certainly worthy of celebration, but he, because he does the same exact thing every year for potentially 10 straight years, I don't know when voters would be motivated to reward him for it up against flashier new things every, every fall. Um, I don't watch The Diplomat. I like Rufus Sewell, but I don't think he's considered to be a main, uh, threat in this category. And Sterling, but Sterling Brown is giving a very old school TV star, he's got to run, he's got to shoot, he's got to emote, he's got to carry a baby across.

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  He's doing Jack Bauer and Jack from Lost at the same time.

• 52:12Andy Greenwald?

  That's good. The two Jacks.

• 52:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the two Jakes was the Chinese.

• 52:19Chris Ryan?

  Wiley's gonna win. I think Ruffalo should win.

• 52:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I do too. Although, the interesting thing here is Wiley is giving a, you know, an incredibly charismatic, measured performance across what has already been 30 hours of television, which is incomprehensible in competition with shows that are like six episodes every two years.

• 52:42Andy Greenwald?

  The other difference is just like a marathoner versus a sprinter, because when Ruffalo gave this incredibly searing brilliant performance that he gives in Task, which I agree with you, he should win for, he left it all on the field, because I know there had been discussions about making a second season, but that was not assured. So the plotline he was given was a full arc.

• 53:01Chris Ryan?

  Still mad about Task not being nominated for drama?

• 53:04Andy Greenwald?

  It's crazy. It's crazy. But, but in a weird way, his performance should be measured against like a mini-series category, because that's kind of the intensity, beginning, middle, and end that he gave.

• 53:18Chris Ryan?

  Actress in a Drama. Carrie Coon for The Gilded Age, Chase Infinity for The Testaments, Keri Russell for The Diplomat, Ray Sehorn for Pluribus, Zendaya for Euphoria.

• 53:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's a cool category.

• 53:30Chris Ryan?

  I think Zendaya should win. I think Keri Russell will win.

• 53:35Andy Greenwald?

  Interesting. I think Zendaya is definitely deserving of winning for her performance being the fucking, the pace car for a truly insane season of television.

• 53:47Chris Ryan?

  Sort of in this, it's like the pace car driving in front of like a massive car accident.

• 53:52Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, she, she is delivering like solid, remarkable, charismatic performance like a, like an elite luxury vehicle, and then behind her is the Fury Road.

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 54:03Andy Greenwald?

  Menagerie.

• 54:05Chris Ryan?

  She's in the Audrey Hepburn with the top down.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:08Chris Ryan?

  And then behind her is Furiosa.

• 54:09Andy Greenwald?

  Genuinely. I think that, first of all, I love a narrative. I think Keri Russell, who is an incredible actress and still, I think underrated, winning while her husband wins one, if not two, awards is incredibly sweet. They're a lovely couple in real life and on screen, and they deserve success, happiness, and recognition. But I think Ray Sehorn should win. I think, I think she's owed, because I don't even think she was nominated for Better Call Saul.

• 54:36Chris Ryan?

  Was she not?

• 54:36Andy Greenwald?

  I think she was maybe nominated for the final season, which was celebrated at the time, but that, even that was overdue. The, the show does not work without her. It's written for her.

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  What she did over the course of one season is maybe fading slightly in our memory, because it was, it was a brief period of time. It was only a couple of weeks, basically, in the end of the year.

• 54:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:58Andy Greenwald?

  But it was astonishingly good.

• 55:01Chris Ryan?

  Let's do Actress Anthology Limited or movie to end this up. Claire Danes in The Beast in Me, Sally Field in Remarkably Bright Creatures.

• 55:09Andy Greenwald?

  What did you think about Remarkably Bright Creatures?

• 55:12Chris Ryan?

  I don't understand what distinguishes this from any other Netflix movie. So the idea that this was made for television in some way, but was on Netflix, I don't understand. So then like, why isn't Matt Damon in Rip, the Rip, eligible for Best Actor? You know what I mean?

• 55:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is he not? It's a great question. I mean, he wasn't nominated, but.

• 55:35Chris Ryan?

  I guess I had, honestly, this whole debate hadn't occurred to me until I saw Sally Field being nominated for, for Remarkably Bright Creatures.

• 55:42Andy Greenwald?

  She has that effect on people.

• 55:43Chris Ryan?

  Keri Mulligan for Beef, Sarah Pigeon for Love Story, Sarah Snook for All Her Fault. I don't have a ton of feeling about this one. I suppose this makes it a poorer last category for us to do. I think Sarah Pigeon's gonna win.

• 55:57Andy Greenwald?

  I do too. I have feelings about this.

• 55:59Chris Ryan?

  And.

• 56:00Andy Greenwald?

  Award shows love to anoint a star, and she was the talking point coming out of that series, which did gangbusters ratings.

• 56:06Chris Ryan?

  I guess I would say Keri Mulligan. The, the, the two performances that I like the most here are Keri Mulligan and Claire Danes, and I think Keri Mulligan had a little bit more scope to it.

• 56:16Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't watch All Her Fault. I can't imagine Sarah Snook being anything less than excellent.

• 56:21Chris Ryan?

  That was, I watched two or three episodes of that, and then my wife informed me of what happened at the end. Yeah.

• 56:27Andy Greenwald?

  Just between us, was it in fact all her fault?

• 56:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's okay. Nobody's listening.

• 56:33Chris Ryan?

  It always is.

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  It always is, yeah. I love Keri Mulligan's performance in Beef, and I would love to see her win. I would say, like, for The Beast in Me, which I did not finish, I, Claire Danes was, was doing it, but that was not my favorite Claire Danes performance.

• 56:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I weirdly like this Claire Danes performance, because she has a normal job.

• 56:52Andy Greenwald?

  Rich writer for The New Yorker. Super normal job.

• 56:57Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about the second season of The Paper?

• 57:00Andy Greenwald?

  I do. I do. I really do.

• 57:02Chris Ryan?

  So this came out on, this is one of those weird, like, it's on NBC once a week, but I believe the entire season is on Peacock?

• 57:09Andy Greenwald?

  Today, right?

• 57:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  Is it dropping today? Oh, no, yeah, last night.

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  Last night. I had high hopes for this, because I think that this is a classic sitcom situation, where I think they might need a season to figure out some of the kinks, and then they get to the second season. They're like, we know who can do what on this show, and we know where we want to take it. And obviously, it's something NBC believes in to the extent that it came back for a second season, you know? I, how do I say this?

• 57:43Andy Greenwald?

  Take your time.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  I don't know whether or not, how much I want to like it is impacting how much I like it, if that makes sense.

• 57:51Andy Greenwald?

  Because of the expectations you carry into it, or the fact that you want a show that.

• 57:55Chris Ryan?

  This is a show that like, I routinely like, usually like to have one of these in rotation.

• 57:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 57:59Chris Ryan?

  You know, I am not, I like having Superstore on in the background. I don't mind, you know, like, I like ending my night, if, if it's been a stressful day, with a nice, like, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, adults, you know, kind of show.

• 58:14Andy Greenwald?

  In a Newport Light.

• 58:15Chris Ryan?

  In a Newport Light.

• 58:16Andy Greenwald?

  Call it a Tuesday.

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  I think I, but I'm watching this show with like, way more like, is this working? Is this not working? Rather than just letting it happen and letting it be successful on its own terms. I watched the first two episodes of this season, as you instructed me. The second episode definitely gave me like, a lot more like, oh, okay, like, this, this show can go a lot of different places, and I think the characters are interesting, and the jokes are getting more knowing of like, what different performers can do. What did you, you think of the, the episodes that you've seen from this new season?

• 58:50Andy Greenwald?

  I'm aligned with you in that I liked the first season fine, and was also more than willing to give it a chance to find its footing. I think one of the real challenges of this type of show, and by this type of show, we mean hopefully, long-running ensemble comedy, is that the choices you make at the beginning, in terms of casting, and where you place the characters on the game board, and then let them go, where you begin them is not often where you want them to end up. And so there's just growing pains. And we love and celebrate Parks and Rec, and then you go back and you realize that Adam Scott and Rob Lowe didn't join until, I believe, the third season. So it takes these things, these things take time, and it's important to try to give some grace if the, if the general vibes are promising. And the season, season one was

• 59:31Andy Greenwald?

  promising enough to overcome, I think, a lot of the skepticism of, we're, this many years later, we're doing a direct spinoff of one of the most successful broadcast comedies of all time.

• 59:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:42Andy Greenwald?

  I have, I watched the first one, and I thought of the season, and I was like, okay, I like, there's some funny things bubbling up here. The idea that someone in the company has died that no one knows who actually was a black ops meth cook from the Bogner Group.

• 59:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Andy Greenwald?

  It's pretty rich comedic terrain.

• 1:00:02Chris Ryan?

  It's, it's, it's a huge storyline on, on Lion.

• 1:00:05Andy Greenwald?

  Imagine, crossover. The second episode was the one where, at least for the first half of it, I was like, okay, I see. They're starting to cook now. They're starting to understand certain pairings work better with each other, writing towards those pairings, writing, understanding the characters and the performers that they're writing to. And then, the show did something that possibly cost me my fandom. And what I mean is, it tried to, there's a history, a recent history of sitcoms overcoming what we perceive of, because we, we know too much about TV shows as problems, by steering right into them.

• 1:00:41Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:00:42Andy Greenwald?

  The example I would give is, will they or won't they couples? Let's just have them do it and then move on. You know, not stretch it out over season after season after season, like Allah Sam and Diane.

• 1:00:51Chris Ryan?

  You're talking about Daniel Radcliffe and Megan Thee Stallion and, and Reggie Dinkins, right?

• 1:00:55Andy Greenwald?

  I wish we were talking more about that. That is my favorite comedy of the year, bar none. One of the top three shows, easily, of 2026. No hesitation in saying.

• 1:01:06Chris Ryan?

  Peacock division.

• 1:01:07Andy Greenwald?

  So this show, you know, for example, with, with Ned and Merritt, ran right at that.

• 1:01:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Andy Greenwald?

  The where it trips up, I think, is the second episode really runs at the documentary conceit in a way that I found totally exhausting and vibe-killing. So, to make clear what I mean, the idea of the single cam documentary setup, like Modern Family did that, The Office, the original Office did it, the American Office famously did it, Parks did it. Parks did it, and never once said, a documentary crew is following us.

• 1:01:38Chris Ryan?

  That was the style.

• 1:01:39Andy Greenwald?

  We just understand the visual language. Christopher Guest movies did that as well.

• 1:01:41Chris Ryan?

  And they're doing straight-to-camera interviews.

• 1:01:43Andy Greenwald?

  They do straight-to, straight-to-camera, but yes, but they don't say it's a documentary crew. The Office announced the conceit, and then pretty much ignored it, until they ran out of story, and then they tried to make a cameraman an emotional Pucci in the Jim and Pam relationship, when they completely ran out of other stuff to do. And I was very angry about that in my Grantland days, and I remain, remain quite angry about that. I feel like Greg Daniels and the people making the show are like, we need to deal with that elephant in the room early because otherwise, what are we doing? And so they hinted at some things in the first season, like Oscar being like, I'm not doing this again. I won't sign the release. How are they getting the private moments or the romantic moments? In the second episode of the season, Ned and Mare, who are trying to keep their burgeoning

• 1:02:27Andy Greenwald?

  relationship secret, go on a weekend outing and they're trying to keep what's going on secret from the office. And there's some hijinks because then they get a work call.

• 1:02:34Chris Ryan?

  They're trying to be weekend Ned and weekend Mare.

• 1:02:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, fine. A great setup, comedy, tension, all of that. But the camera conceit requires the show to devote real airtime and also writers' room real estate to a camera crew jumping in a follow car and then hiring a delivery robot to spy on them while they are having sex in a hotel room. The juice is not worth the squeeze. We know how to watch television shows at this point and the amount of effort being put into the conceit of it being a documentary that we don't care about is totally off-putting and silly to me and breaks up the momentum that the show is starting to form. Are you with me on this? You are not as militant as I am about it.

• 1:03:15Chris Ryan?

  I'm very curious to know, so Michael Cohen also works on this show and he's, you know, Greg Daniels is-

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  He co-created with Greg Daniels, who-

• 1:03:23Chris Ryan?

  And I think is still involved. I mean, my point is that Michael Cohen comes from Nathan for You. Has a background in Nathan for You and a background in Conan, but like, I wonder whether there is a sly kind of societal commentary going on here. The first episode also features a lot of security camera footage. You would wonder if you were like, actually assembling a documentary about a paper company, like, why do you need to have like, all this surreptitious footage of people having personal meltdowns or personal romantic interludes? And I wonder whether it's supposed to be like, A, a commentary on our surveillance tape, but B, like, a degree of which it's like messing with the conceit of like, we

• 1:04:06Chris Ryan?

  just take it face value that these characters are being observed?

• 1:04:10Andy Greenwald?

  I appreciate the point of view and I think that made for some exciting conversation when Greg Daniels was looking for a collaborator to create the show. But at a certain point, you've got to make a comedy that works on its own merits. And I also feel, I don't mean, I'm not concerned trolling. I like the show. I want it to succeed. But there's some things here that are slightly concerning. And one is that like, the lesson from The Office that Greg Daniels was celebrated for and should be celebrated for was that how to take it from the very spiky, very brief British show, which I think had, what, eight episodes total or something like that, including the Christmas specials? I'm sure that number's slightly off, but it was low.

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  It was very funny, but also had like, a real layer of melancholy to it. And I think in The Office US, it was more just like, your work family can be your real family.

• 1:04:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and it was like, we feel in this country, like, spend more time at work. Why not? But also that Michael Scott was ultimately lovable and decent despite being foolish. That was the tweak that worked. The other brilliant conceit was, even though there were only four or five cast members listed in the opening credits, famously in The Office, they cast every background character with people they liked, people they fell in love with in the casting process, people they saw hope for, writers for the show, like Mindy Kaling. And the ensemble developed naturally from what they were seeing on the screen. And you can tell that they tried to run that back. There's nothing wrong with that. But what you end up with, with The Paper, on the poster for season two, there are 11 people.

• 1:05:37Andy Greenwald?

  That is a very, very big ensemble, even before you get to the other characters who aren't even on it, like Alan Havy, the old comedian who's on Mad Men who plays the boss, or Nancy Lenahan, who was great on Widows Bay. It's a really, really, really big ensemble. And some of them are working.

• 1:05:55Chris Ryan?

  I'm just, you know what? I can't stop smiling because I'm imagining an undecided voter in Texas.

• 1:05:59Andy Greenwald?

  Thinking about which show to vote for.

• 1:06:01Chris Ryan?

  Cracking a USA Today and there's a full page ad for The Paper, season two, he's like, that's simply too many people on the poster.

• 1:06:07Andy Greenwald?

  I think it is too many people on the poster.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  That's why Tarrico will not get-

• 1:06:11Andy Greenwald?

  I think common sense Americans can agree on that. I'm not trying to tell you who can be on your sports teams. I'm just saying it's too many people in a broadcast sitcom poster. It's an abundance mentality that frankly, we can't afford.

• 1:06:26Chris Ryan?

  It's the Cheesecake Factory menu, yeah.

• 1:06:28Andy Greenwald?

  It's building an arch when people are struggling. You know what I mean? Now I'm appealing to the purple voter. But what I mean is, like Alex Edelman, a very funny, accomplished comedian and writer who writes for the show, is on screen as a character who so far, because of the lack of screen time, his personality is kind of confused baby. There's room for that character to grow, but he's not popping yet. Characters, but it's not that he's not popping, it's the problem, it's that others are. Like Eric Rayhill as Travis is hilarious and the rhythm is fantastic. And the show has never made me laugh harder than in the second episode, when someone makes a stray comment and it just pans to him and he just sings the Stained song that they've just said. More of that, please.

• 1:07:12Andy Greenwald?

  If I could film that on my phone, like, that was great stuff. I also think that like, Chelsea Frye is fantastic as Mare. So there are working pieces here. But then over on Mars, you've got Sabrina and Pachatore as Esmeralda, who they like, who is an incredibly odd and unique comic energy and who does not fit on this show. And they have not figured out how to account for that energy yet, other than recently they're pairing her with Tim Key, who's a brilliant British comedian, who they also hired. So I just get the sense that they walked into the store with a very big budget, bought everything and everyone they liked, and now they're having to figure it out in real time. It is not a bad problem to have, but it has yet to translate into-

• 1:07:53Chris Ryan?

  Not unlike adults. I don't think 10 episodes is enough per season. And I think that this is a genre and a media, like a style of television making that needs 10 hours, not 10 episodes. You know what I mean? Like, I think it needs like, a longer runway to like, work stuff out per season. I understand that there are economic headwinds that, and also perhaps like, audience trends that make that impossible, but I'm going to continue to watch just because I really-

• 1:08:21Andy Greenwald?

  We like shows like this. I think that's why I'm more impassioned about it, because I think they have every chance to succeed now. Good. But because, like you said, the runtimes are, the season orders are shorter, every episode feels more important than maybe it ought to. And the, so the criticism is increased. I think there's just some, my worry is that there's just some like, original sins that you can't, you can't solve for. And one of them is that Donald Gleason's character as the star doesn't work, doesn't fully make sense. In the first season, he's sort of, they're trying to find that sweet spot between, like they did with Leslie Knope, where it's like, in the first episode, everyone hates him because he's annoying and extreme, and then they're like, but they also secretly love him because he works harder than everyone else.

• 1:09:06Andy Greenwald?

  But also, he's kind of a snakey weirdo and they can't decide where to land on that. And so then the axis spins towards your beloved Esmeralda. And I'm just trying to tar you with like, a foreign brush for the voters.

• 1:09:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, I couldn't die in Lane and gotten that part. I don't know if I want to make Ken Paxton like, a big character on this show. I'm just going to say that.

• 1:09:28Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that you're going to get a call later today and Bill's going to be like, we need Paxton on rewatchable? And you'll be like, hopefully, Bill Paxton? Because that is probably a better lane for you? And he's going to be like, no, would the movie be improved with Senate candidate Ken Paxton?

• 1:09:44Chris Ryan?

  I also don't think that my Ken Paxton is translating to pure audio.

• 1:09:46Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, do you think, because people, so are you encouraging people to fire up the YouTube here to see the face that goes with it?

• 1:09:53Chris Ryan?

  Maybe, maybe. But I also don't want to offend anyone if they're like, you know, like-

• 1:09:57Andy Greenwald?

  Your body changes when you do it. It's pretty impressive. I do think everyone should watch. Something, I don't know-

• 1:10:04Chris Ryan?

  Sasha Baron Cohen, I just didn't have it in the part. Can we get the after dark lights?

• 1:10:09Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, we got to do this before we get out of here. I almost spent all my remaining gasoline on the paper. I'm a fool.

• 1:10:16Chris Ryan?

  I know. This is the number one topic on Andy's mind. I know that this has been covered on some of our NFL podcasts, specifically fantasy. But as a global, a citizen of the world and a global traveler-

• 1:10:29Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 1:10:31Chris Ryan?

  I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about the two wolves of the NFL. Sean McVay and Kyle McShanahan, who had two separate approaches to trans-Pacific travel. The San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, I believe, play today in Australia.

• 1:10:49Andy Greenwald?

  They do.

• 1:10:50Chris Ryan?

  Although I suppose it is tomorrow in Australia.

• 1:10:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's 10 AM tomorrow in Australia.

• 1:10:53Chris Ryan?

  The San Francisco 49ers chose to fly a week early and attempt to acclimate to Australia time. The Los Angeles Rams-

• 1:11:02Andy Greenwald?

  I believe they booked their flight on Oceanic Flight 815.

• 1:11:07Andy Greenwald?

  LA to Sydney.

• 1:11:08Chris Ryan?

  So you have Miles Garrett in seat eight. Aaron Donald in seat fourteen.

• 1:11:13Andy Greenwald?

  The MVPs are either the front or the tailies.

• 1:11:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Chris Ryan?

  I've been fascinated by the story.

• 1:11:20Andy Greenwald?

  Say what they did.

• 1:11:20Chris Ryan?

  The Rams chose to basically go in and out. They're like, we're flying in.

• 1:11:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yesterday.

• 1:11:24Chris Ryan?

  Playing a football game and then flying out.

• 1:11:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:11:28Chris Ryan?

  The idea being the Rams will never acclimate. And when they get back to California, like the jet lag situation. Now, there are no two men that I trust more deeply with the wonders and the mysteries of the human body than Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan.

• 1:11:45Andy Greenwald?

  Certainly Kyle Shanahan has proven himself to be the Hippocrates of our time.

• 1:11:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:11:50Andy Greenwald?

  You know, just like a born healer.

• 1:11:53Chris Ryan?

  He has definitely convinced the world.

• 1:11:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:11:56Chris Ryan?

  That it is not his insane training methods, but in fact, an electrical substation that makes all of his players' muscles explode in their own body.

• 1:12:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:12:08Chris Ryan?

  I think that.

• 1:12:10Andy Greenwald?

  This is the only story I care about.

• 1:12:11Chris Ryan?

  To test this with us. A B, A B.

• 1:12:14Andy Greenwald?

  With us.

• 1:12:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I would give you first pick. Would you rather have a week to get ready or in and out, basically spending 50 hours on a flight within 72 hours?

• 1:12:25Andy Greenwald?

  What are you asking? What do you think? Whenever I had to be at work in London on Monday, I would be like, can I leave on the Wednesday before? I would, sincerely though, I would leave on Friday.

• 1:12:38Chris Ryan?

  See, but I would do that for fun. I don't know, what do you think? Do you think that there's any truth to the idea?

• 1:12:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:12:44Chris Ryan?

  If you just fly through it.

• 1:12:46Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  Jet lag never happens.

• 1:12:50Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like a wonderful.

• 1:12:53Chris Ryan?

  Because I don't think that's true.

• 1:12:54Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't think it's true.

• 1:12:56Chris Ryan?

  Weird things happen to us up there.

• 1:12:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:12:57Chris Ryan?

  And I know that I read something about like the Airbus that the Rams were taking.

• 1:13:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:13:01Chris Ryan?

  And it's all lie flat compartments. And there's something specifically about it where they're like, it's going to be very quiet on the flight.

• 1:13:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but do you know why else it's going to be quiet? They rented or they procured these like luxury double decker, all lie flat to increase the comfort and also I would imagine to help the players sleep during normal night hours. They also booked these planes that have no wifi. Now, for you and I, we've got our 600 page books. We have our thoughts. That's fine. But I think young men generally like.

• 1:13:36Chris Ryan?

  You don't think Ty Simpson wants to raw dog?

• 1:13:38Andy Greenwald?

  I do not.

• 1:13:39Chris Ryan?

  All the way to Australia.

• 1:13:40Andy Greenwald?

  I do not think it is good for their circadian rhythms or their life rhythms to be disconnected from the lifeblood of their young selves. So I worry about that, too. The follow up question, I could talk about this for an hour. I think this is so interesting. Like what entertainment was preloaded onto the flight?

• 1:13:59Chris Ryan?

  I think those guys would all be encouraged to get things onto their iPads. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:14:02Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 1:14:03Chris Ryan?

  And I think there will be a contingent.

• 1:14:04Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:14:05Chris Ryan?

  Of people who are like, let's play some games of chance to pass the time.

• 1:14:10Andy Greenwald?

  But do you think that, who's the guy that we met? Koby Turner? Is that the guy's name? The, remember, remember when we did Mina's podcast and we were there with.

• 1:14:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and he, yeah, he was also, yeah.

• 1:14:18Andy Greenwald?

  Remember the LA Rams? Like, what if he forgot his iPad? Or what if he was focused on like body health and like he didn't download anything and he gets on the plane and the only thing on the screen is like Irma Vep on HBO, like all nine episodes. I'm not saying you wouldn't like it.

• 1:14:30Chris Ryan?

  Flying this plane?

• 1:14:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I did, I did book the entertainment system.

• 1:14:36Andy Greenwald?

  I think it is so, and these are younger men. They are more, you know, they can, they're more resilient than we are. And they are obviously devoted to the science of themselves and probably know what they need in a way that I'm still hoping to achieve before its curtains. But in no world does it make sense to me to just say, okay, okay, men, jet lag does not exist. We are playing on the other side of the fucking planet at 10:00 in the morning, two days from now, but it'll be here tomorrow. That is so disrespectful and crazy and very on brand, I think, with McVay's just like reality warping identity as a head coach.

• 1:15:15Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:15:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's wild to me because we have, this is not meant as a brag. This is meant just like, we have done the transit, we've done, that flight is 14 hours, I think.

• 1:15:25Chris Ryan?

  To Australia?

• 1:15:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, isn't it like 18?

• 1:15:27Andy Greenwald?

  14 to 18, something like that. Depends how fast Sean McVay's driving the plane, because you know he is. The flight that we, that we have done and that I was doing regularly for the last two years is 11 hours. And I have never felt more like the ooze from Ghostbusters 2 than that subsequent 24 hour period.

• 1:15:49Chris Ryan?

  I see, I think I fixed it. I still think that.

• 1:15:51Andy Greenwald?

  You always do. You're at Foils, you're having a pint.

• 1:15:54Chris Ryan?

  No, I have the 10:00 PM flight, gets in at 4:00 PM the next day.

• 1:15:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's already dark.

• 1:15:58Chris Ryan?

  It's, I go dark to dark. I just straight bane it. Like I, I'm straight bored in the darkness. And then I hold out on alcohol for like.

• 1:16:10Andy Greenwald?

  10 minutes.

• 1:16:11Chris Ryan?

  Four hours.

• 1:16:12Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 1:16:13Chris Ryan?

  And then as soon as it hits your lips, I know they say, don't drink on jet lag.

• 1:16:16Andy Greenwald?

  It really fixes you for about 80 minutes.

• 1:16:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I still maintain that in 24, I would have been fine. It was just that I got 800 text messages about Trump winning again because I flew on election night.

• 1:16:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:16:30Chris Ryan?

  And I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and was like, fuck.

• 1:16:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Chris Ryan?

  Uh, what does this mean for getting back?

• 1:16:35Andy Greenwald?

  What does this mean for my Calci futures? I, luckily, I was waiting for you with my cheery disposition.

• 1:16:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes, we then recorded the possibly worst episode of the watch ever the next day.

• 1:16:46Andy Greenwald?

  It's fair. I.

• 1:16:49Chris Ryan?

  But otherwise, I've not had a bad jet lag trip in a while.

• 1:16:52Andy Greenwald?

  The jet lag thing for me isn't what I'm, what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to articulate is that I figured it out. Like I know what to do the night before. I know which flight to take. I can sleep on the plane. I get there, I have my routine. I even know what I like to do the next day and I sleep that night. Like when you get there and you basically just have to make it to bedtime, it is okay. It's just that the next day I wake up thinking I'm fine, thinking I could go four quarters, you know, of professional football, or at least my version of it, which is taking a bus to a flower market in Hackney. But inevitably, that goodwill and good intention hits a brick wall at like 10:00 AM or even 11 or 12, when I perhaps invited you guys to join me for lunch. And then the food in front of us begins to move of its own accord.

• 1:17:37Andy Greenwald?

  And the thought of ever ingesting anything again seems like absolute poison.

• 1:17:41Chris Ryan?

  So I feel like what you wanted to do was talk more about your personal experiences and not what.

• 1:17:46Andy Greenwald?

  I would love to talk about my experiences. And by the way, note, Rochelle Canteen does a lovely Sunday lunch and I apologize for what my behavior there last time. What I'm trying to say is you cannot mind game your way past physical circadian reality. And they're going to be super fucked up.

• 1:18:03Chris Ryan?

  I'd also be scared if I was the Niners.

• 1:18:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:06Chris Ryan?

  Because everything I'm seeing from them is, it's way nicer here. Like Christian McCaffrey is like, I've never tasted coffee before like this. And what if those guys are like, I don't want to leave?

• 1:18:17Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, you really run that risk with the 49ers.

• 1:18:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Andy Greenwald?

  It is basically a furlough.

• 1:18:23Chris Ryan?

  Eight of them are going to blow out their Achilles anyway. So they're just going to be like, I guess we live in Melbourne now.

• 1:18:29Andy Greenwald?

  We're just going to rehab here. So we're a day ahead.

• 1:18:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Andy Greenwald?

  Of the American healthcare system. I, I find this so interesting and I guess, I guess we'll see what happens on the field.

• 1:18:39Chris Ryan?

  We shall. That'll be a big topic for us on Tuesday when we're back. So I think the plan is, at least now, we'll be back on Tuesday morning because we wanted to have the Emmys to talk about and we'll also have lanterns. I hope everyone has a great weekend in Los Angeles. Please stay cool. It's been very unpleasant.

• 1:18:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's awful.

• 1:18:58Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and thanks to Kai, Kai and Sarah. We'll be back on Tuesday.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

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• 1:19:24Speaker 03

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• 1:19:29Speaker 01

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