Super Bowl Trailers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Plus, ‘Industry’ S4E5 and ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 4.

Chris and Andy talk about the most notable trailers from Super Bowl Sunday, including those for ‘The Adventures of Cliff Booth,’ ‘Disclosure Day,’ and ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ (3:17). Later, they react to ‘Industry’ Season 4, Episode 5 (26:28) before discussing why the most recent episode of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ was the best one yet (53:24). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:17Speaker 00

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:20Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:23Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, coming off the bench in a full suit of armor. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:37Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know if you were talking about me or Patriots offensive lineman.

• 1:41Chris Ryan?

  Oh, of Will Campbell.

• 1:43Andy Greenwald?

  Backup.

• 1:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we can do game talk if you want. Andy, it's great to see you today. Industry and Night of the Seven Kingdoms, the episode that came out on Friday. A little bit of Super Bowl talk because we got a lot of ads and trailers that we wanted to discuss.

• 1:54Andy Greenwald?

  And we spent it together.

• 1:55Chris Ryan?

  And we spent it together. I will say that my favorite thing that I've seen so far is there was a tweet that was Will Campbell quote, that was like, I will die protecting Drake May. And then it said, Will Campbell now is just a picture of a coffin.

• 2:12Chris Ryan?

  You hate to see it, you know?

• 2:14Andy Greenwald?

  I'll just say that we are all cousin Sal.

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  I think we're all Devon Witherspoon.

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  I wish we were.

• 2:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, good outcome.

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Chris Ryan?

  Fine game, you know, like very defensive. I had a feeling it was gonna be like a like Steelers Bears-y kind of like, uh, very, uh, was that a Steelers Bears or was that Colts Bears that year?

• 2:38Andy Greenwald?

  The vibe is correct even if the facts are wrong.

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I can't remember. What year Prince played a Bears Super Bowl, didn't he?

• 2:44Andy Greenwald?

  You're asking me like I'm gonna remember more than you.

• 2:45Chris Ryan?

  I watched it at your apartment in Brooklyn.

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I was probably, I was probably stirring the chili or something at the time, you know what I mean? Not a metaphor, I probably was.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  The watch at Spotify.com if you want to email us. Uh, the watch pod underscore if you want to follow us on Instagram. Ringer dash TV on YouTube if you want to watch us there. You can watch us on Spotify as well where you can also listen to us. Let's talk a little bit about the, the, the Super Bowl as a piece of television.

• 3:08Andy Greenwald?

  Can I just sort of do a quick temperature check on you because people who are not watching us on video will be surprised to know you have switched it up again. Football season has ended.

• 3:16Chris Ryan?

  The first thing Kai said to me was just like, what's up with the A's hat?

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  Well, so I'm, so you're wearing an Oakland A's hat.

• 3:21Chris Ryan?

  Let's take it back to core principles.

• 3:23Andy Greenwald?

  Hold on.

• 3:23Chris Ryan?

  First principles.

• 3:24Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 3:25Chris Ryan?

  If the hat is cool, you can wear it. That's what we used to do in eighth grade. White Sox hats, Raiders hats. We weren't like, oh, I'm such a huge fan.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  So this is a defensiveness worthy of the Seattle Seahawks right now.

• 3:37Chris Ryan?

  The A's hat is for this because Barry Zito Erasure will not stand. And I, and I'm correcting historical wrong in Moneyball. I also just like the A's hat, they're no longer in Oakland. Not that I care, I like Oakland.

• 3:50Chris Ryan?

  But.

• 3:50Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like you're all, like you really.

• 3:52Chris Ryan?

  And weren't the A's traditionally like historically a Philadelphia franchise?

• 3:55Andy Greenwald?

  That's all I was getting. You didn't even let me give you, here's what I was gonna do. I was gonna create guardrails for you. I'm like a Republican Senator. Just stop talking, stop tweeting and I'll make it normal. I was gonna say, the Philadelphia Athletics, totally fine. Also, you believe in the normalization of steroids to professional sports.

• 4:14Chris Ryan?

  I'm tired of all these rules, man.

• 4:15Andy Greenwald?

  Bash Brothers.

• 4:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so the A's hat. I'm wearing an A's hat.

• 4:19Andy Greenwald?

  It looks great. You're telling a green color story today?

• 4:22Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Green with envy for Seattle's defense. Let's talk a little bit about the advertisements.

• 4:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  So let's do trailers first because that and then we can talk a little bit about being on Hell's doorstep with some of the other commercials we were presented.

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Chris Ryan?

  Number one, I want to talk about Adventures of Cliff Booth.

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  Rare for a surprise ad drop.

• 4:46Chris Ryan?

  I had heard that that was coming.

• 4:48Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  No, I just I had heard.

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  Gatekeeping the news again.

• 4:52Chris Ryan?

  I had heard in between our last recording and when.

• 4:55Andy Greenwald?

  When you say you heard it, did like an industry parakeet whispered in your ear?

• 4:59Chris Ryan?

  I don't give out my sources.

• 5:01Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay. Great.

• 5:05Chris Ryan?

  More than I could have ever hoped for. The synthesis of Tarantino and Fincher. It looks so Fincher to me.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  That's the thing.

• 5:13Chris Ryan?

  We have not gotten, I do not think we have gotten a quality in terms of like the the video quality update, like upload that we deserve yet. So I think people are criticizing like a certain flat look to it.

• 5:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Chris Ryan?

  But I do not think that these are like what it's gonna look like. But the vibe, the cast, Carlo Gagino on a beach in Malibu staring out into the sun. Come on, come on.

• 5:39Andy Greenwald?

  I was surprised to get the trailer. I was also surprised, although no reason to be surprised, that it 100% looks like David Fincher directing a Tarantino movie.

• 5:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 5:50Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's what it's supposed to be. I'm not, this is not a criticism.

• 5:53Chris Ryan?

  The trailer is very Fincher. That's how Fincher cuts his teasers.

• 5:57Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, look at you.

• 5:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Just saying.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, you are the third chair on a popular movie podcast. I will defer to you on this. I just mean that like, it was interesting. It was cool to see it in his accent, so to speak. It was glossier, shinier, more, I mean, I know it's set in the 70s, I believe, but it still felt more futuristic looking with the way that he lights things than what Tarantino does.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes. It's also cool when a couple of people who have not been in either Fincher or Tarantino projects for that matter, show up and Elizabeth Dabekki.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Really commanding, commanding the entire frame. Scott Kahn, even though I don't really even think we get to hear him speak, looks awesome in this.

• 6:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Yahya Abdul Mateen, big fave of ours, so.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he, do you think he did, was able to do a double day at the Highland Park Theater? Where he also shot Wonder Man.

• 6:48Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if they shot the movie theater sequence, it looked like the Vista to me.

• 6:52Andy Greenwald?

  The inside, but they were shooting on, uh, Figueroa.

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  That would be great if he was just like, I'm here.

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, this theater Kristen Stewart bought.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's exciting.

• 7:02Chris Ryan?

  It's exciting shit, yeah.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  Investing, you know what, honestly, a really big glow up this weekend for the Highland Park region. You know, just shout out between Kristen Stewart buying the movie theater and Vias Tacos being in the halftime show.

• 7:16Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 7:17Andy Greenwald?

  Can I just ask you one other thing about the Cliff Booth thing? No official title, no official release date, but one unmistakable to-dum sound and a big red end at the end. Did you have any emotional reaction to that? Just because it feels, it's like, oh my God, Fincher, Brad Pitt. Netflix. Like, did that, did, are we past that?

• 7:35Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm past it.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 7:37Chris Ryan?

  First of all, Fincher's been working for Netflix for years.

• 7:39Andy Greenwald?

  True.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  And the back scratching that goes on between the two is elite.

• 7:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  Of the movies that he has made for them.

• 7:47Andy Greenwald?

  I'm a fan.

• 7:48Chris Ryan?

  The Killer, the fact that they even let him do what he did on Mindhunter. And I don't think that they were like, no more Mindhunter, I think he was like, I just simply can't make 10 hours of TV in meticulous period detail.

• 8:01Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's true, and also worth noting that like, the idea that Netflix is somehow just resolutely anti-art is not really the case.

• 8:10Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, like.

• 8:10Andy Greenwald?

  It's not borne out.

• 8:11Chris Ryan?

  I understand that, I, I would prefer that Fincher movies were in theaters for 45 days and then like,

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Chris Ryan?

  an extended period of time, but, and it's antithetical to a lot of what Tarantino obviously preaches in terms of like, the theatrical experience and also the shooting on film experience. But, but, but, few places would fund this film.

• 8:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Chris Ryan?

  In the manner in which it needs to be funded for Fincher to make it, they shot it in LA. I know there's gonna be a lot of digital effects in it, like there are in many Fincher movies, but.

• 8:44Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, Netflix is, we were talking about it last week, it's semi-unrelated, but, um. David Lynch's last project, Unrecorded Night, was going to be made for Netflix.

• 8:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Andy Greenwald?

  It didn't get made because of his health. It was not made because Netflix decided to-

• 8:57Chris Ryan?

  Netflix was like, can you put a-

• 8:58Andy Greenwald?

  Can some of this be cake?

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:59Andy Greenwald?

  They didn't do that.

• 9:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes. So, uh, no, I don't have any reservations about it. If, if there had been a bidding war for this movie, and everybody was like, we'll give you $200 million to make a shot in LA sequel or continuing adventure-

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:14Chris Ryan?

  -of, of the Brad Pitt character, like, maybe, like, we could have a conversation about it, but it doesn't sound like there was much of a debate. And also Tarantino, not quiet as kept, but has also worked with Netflix in so much as Hateful Eight was basically recut into a mini-series of sorts for Netflix, and I do think that there is an ongoing relationship there.

• 9:33Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Well said.

• 9:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Disclosure Day, the Steven Spielberg Aliens movie.

• 9:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:38Chris Ryan?

  I don't, well, I don't know. They didn't specifically say it's aliens, but I think we can-

• 9:42Andy Greenwald?

  What do you think's coming out of the cloud?

• 9:43Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry, like, did you, they didn't say? Do you think that's the new JetBlue route that lands in Long Beach?

• 9:54Chris Ryan?

  Um, I don't think I've ever actually had, like, a very long conversation with you about the films of Steven Spielberg.

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  That seems like a weird lacune in our 30-year relationship.

• 10:05Chris Ryan?

  So, but for a certain kind of Spielberg fan, the idea of him revisiting this kind of subject matter is-

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Exciting.

• 10:10Chris Ryan?

  Very exciting. And I am that kind of Spielberg fan.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Is it fair to say, am I wrong to think that it's, is this in the The Close Encounters universe? Or is it just that anything about aliens that he does? Cause the spaceship, that again, we don't know it was a spaceship. I think that's-

• 10:27Chris Ryan?

  It could, it could be-

• 10:28Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know. That seemed, it looked a little Close Encounters-y.

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, you know, War of the Worlds, uh-

• 10:36Andy Greenwald?

  Great movie.

• 10:36Chris Ryan?

  Close Encounters, he's ET, he has, he has dabbled and- Engaged with the idea of extraterrestrial life over the course of his career and in different ways, like and sometimes in confusion and in mystery and in wonder and in innocence and sometimes with fear and trepidation and, and you know, what it would mean to the human population. This is interesting too, because the premise of this film seems to be Josh O'Connor's character, whoever he is, is in possession of a world-changing piece of information that he decides he wants to share with everybody in the world.

• 11:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 11:12Chris Ryan?

  Much to the chagrin of forces beyond his control trying to stop him. So obviously, in, in today's like kind of political moment and cultural moment, like whistleblowing and revealing the truth about things is pretty top of mind.

• 11:27Andy Greenwald?

  Well, and it felt very similar to The Post, in the sense, no, I'm serious.

• 11:32Chris Ryan?

  Right, I know.

• 11:33Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I found that actually very exciting. It does, the movie's called-

• 11:37Chris Ryan?

  Do you like The Post?

• 11:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 11:39Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 11:40Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I like the films of Steven Spielberg. Maybe I didn't say that, sorry to be predictable. I am not zagging on that. I find them thrilling and always worth engaging with. And I think that Disclosure Day seems to have found an interesting new lane for this type of film. If it does combine the political conspiracy thriller with actual aliens emerging from the clouds, exciting. Good cast, relevant, seems like democracy and other things may die in darkness in this film, which is good, because it's accurate.

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  Great cast, Josh O'Connor, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Coleman Domingo, Eve Hueson, I think?

• 12:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  So, very cool. I'm ordering these in my levels of anticipation, from most anticipated to least anticipated.

• 12:27Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you meant the cast, which was a bad look for Eve Hueson.

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 12:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think she's ever heard your Bono impression?

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  No, but I'm sure she, there is a chance-

• 12:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:35Chris Ryan?

  That she's aware that we talked about the Nick a lot.

• 12:38Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 12:40Chris Ryan?

  Because I don't know that when we were doing that, there was a ton of people out there breaking down multiple episodes of The Nick.

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  What are the odds, and maybe a superfan could let us know, that one of the episodes where we talked about Eve Hewson's performance on the Cinemax original program, The Nick, was also an episode where you did your Bono calling George Bush live on stage imitation from Disney?

• 13:02Chris Ryan?

  But I took that from you, I feel like.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but you, but at a certain point, like when you, you ran.

• 13:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:08Andy Greenwald?

  And I never could run, so it's yours now. Once you did it for Colin Farrell, it's yours. It's hung around your neck.

• 13:15Chris Ryan?

  The two times that I've actually just like, really, really, really felt small in this world were when Bill encouraged me to do Wayne Jenkins for Glenn Powell.

• 13:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Chris Ryan?

  And he had no idea what I was talking about.

• 13:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Chris Ryan?

  And when I did Bono for Colin Farrell, and he probably thought that was a racially motivated crime.

• 13:33Andy Greenwald?

  Did you?

• 13:34Chris Ryan?

  I actually don't remember his reaction, but it didn't seem to be effusive.

• 13:39Andy Greenwald?

  Where did you go in your process when you realized that like you had been pushed onto the stage, you can't back out, it's gonna go probably a certain way?

• 13:49Chris Ryan?

  Here's the thing, I work for Bill, not for Colin Farrell. So at the end of the day, you gotta kinda like make sure the check gets signed.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Which is why you believe Drake May should have received Justin Herbert's vote for MVP.

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  That's right. Project Hail Mary, there have been a couple of trailers for this. I don't, I did not read the book. Andy Weir, writer of The Martian, huge fan of that story and that film. Did not read that book either, so I'm not trying to claim anything otherwise, but it certainly seems like they put the entire movie into the couple of trailers that they have released for this film.

• 14:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 14:20Chris Ryan?

  I, I hope it's not too disappointing because of that, but this looks fun and cool, and Lorden Miller directed it, and Ryan Gosling in the sort of I'm Alone in Space role that Matt Damon so ably acquitted himself at. You excited for this one?

• 14:38Andy Greenwald?

  I have, this is one of those things, like you've said about trailers, where I'm like, you had me. Ryan Gosling in a charming space adventure?

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, we're good. It is odd to me, the, the degree to which its marketing campaign is, has been like, Steve Jobs at an Apple convention in the 2000s. Like every trailer's like, and one more thing, there's aliens.

• 15:01Chris Ryan?

  It is Amazon.

• 15:02Andy Greenwald?

  Relax.

• 15:03Chris Ryan?

  It's an Amazon movie, I think.

• 15:05Andy Greenwald?

  Is it?

• 15:06Chris Ryan?

  I believe so.

• 15:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, no way of knowing.

• 15:08Chris Ryan?

  I don't think they're great at marketing. And I wonder whether or not that might have something to do with it. Like, I wonder whether they're just sort of like, this is the same as the Tomorrow War to us? Like, how we're pushing it?

• 15:18Andy Greenwald?

  It is Amazon, you're right.

• 15:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And so I would just, I encourage them to be a little bit more like David Winter when it comes to cutting your trailers and get a little more creative.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  And in terms of cutting your staff at your newspaper. You know what I mean? Just branded a little bit differently.

• 15:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. The thing I am least excited about, and this is honestly includes a bunch of stuff that we didn't talk about, like the minions. The bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom seed here.

• 15:43Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna let you do this.

• 15:44Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:44Andy Greenwald?

  But I do want to say, it did surprise me. We were, I believe, in the kitchen when the ads were going at this moment. And you, like, like, a moth to a flame, you were like, oh, that's a minion. You seemed pretty interested in that. I know we're not going there.

• 16:01Chris Ryan?

  No, that's not what happened. We were sitting there and a minion appears.

• 16:04Andy Greenwald?

  From a distance.

• 16:05Chris Ryan?

  Like, like the son in Lawrence of Arabia and a camel riding out of the, you know, the desert.

• 16:10Andy Greenwald?

  I've seen that movie.

• 16:12Chris Ryan?

  A minion appears.

• 16:13Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:14Chris Ryan?

  That's great. I see him every day when I'm driving on the 101.

• 16:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:19Chris Ryan?

  I don't have any problem with minions.

• 16:21Andy Greenwald?

  You just seem pretty, I didn't expect that from you.

• 16:23Chris Ryan?

  Do you kids have a minions phase?

• 16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Thankfully, not a major one. Like, I've had to sit through some of those movies in the theater, which is quite aggressive.

• 16:32Chris Ryan?

  Despicable Me is also minions.

• 16:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Chris Ryan?

  Part of the minions universe, right? Yeah.

• 16:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, so, yeah, Despicable Me is the, um, is the franchise, and Minions is kind of the spinoff.

• 16:41Chris Ryan?

  I'd rather watch minions in an AI version of a Michael Hanukkah movie than see The Mandalorian and Grogu in this, at this point. Go cook. Fuck this movie. Fuck this whole thing, dog. And it's not because I'm like, oh, you can't besmirch Tauntauns by making them Budweiser Clydesdales. But if you're doing this, you have no faith in your project.

• 17:10Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 17:11Chris Ryan?

  If you're like, we need the nostalgia of Budweiser Clydesdales, am I saying that right?

• 17:17Andy Greenwald?

  With landman Sam Elliott narrating.

• 17:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, then, then you have no, you have no sauce.

• 17:21Andy Greenwald?

  Which word were you worried about mispronouncing? Budweiser or Clydesdale?

• 17:25Chris Ryan?

  You know, it's just one of those things where I was like, is it Clydesdale?

• 17:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's Clyde.

• 17:28Chris Ryan?

  Clyde, that's what I thought, Clydesdales. If that's what you are doing before the film comes out.

• 17:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 17:35Chris Ryan?

  And you're like, let's see. And also, why are you invoking beer? This is a movie for like, kids?

• 17:41Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 17:43Chris Ryan?

  Right?

• 17:43Andy Greenwald?

  And then, the trailer that was shown is just the one that they showed before.

• 17:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes, with still no dialogue, no story.

• 17:51Andy Greenwald?

  That ad was absolutely consistent with the rest of the absolute end times AI slop garbage spilling downhill that was most of the commercials.

• 18:01Chris Ryan?

  Sean McNulty, who does the Wake Up newsletter, which is very good through the Angler, it's an excellent way to start your entertainment news morning.

• 18:09Andy Greenwald?

  As you drive under the looming shadow of a minion.

• 18:12Chris Ryan?

  He put together this list of the advertisements from last night. There were 14 tech ads, including ones from OpenAI, Codex, Anthropic, Meta, Oakley, Squarespace, Microsoft Copilot, Coinbase, Google Gemini, Ring, the Ring one was diabolical, OpenAI Farming, Alexa Plus, Salesforce, GenSpark, AI.com, Base44. And then there were a bunch of like, you know, get your prostate checked, lose weight, get a boner ads. What's up, man? We used to, can we, can we not get back to what we used to be here?

• 18:47Andy Greenwald?

  We are generationally cooked. I'd like to apologize to Kaia and anyone else below Kaia's age, like, it's a rap. If you'd like us to steer more into content where we talk about how much fun we had in the 90s and early 2000s.

• 19:02Chris Ryan?

  When Kaia buys her first house sponsored by Wegovy, this mortgage is brought to you by OpenAI Codex.

• 19:11Andy Greenwald?

  The ad, I don't know why.

• 19:13Chris Ryan?

  It's a trillion Coinbase points to have this house.

• 19:16Andy Greenwald?

  Which one was more disturbing, like really, like genuinely, I'm asking the question. There's the ad that's just the lyrics to a Backstreet Boys song, and then it's like, Coinbase.

• 19:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Andy Greenwald?

  And then there's like the little disclaimer that maybe someone encouraged them to have, which is like, crypto is volatile, have fun.

• 19:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:32Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, like the end of a Truth Social post. Have fun.

• 19:36Chris Ryan?

  Thank you for your attention on this matter.

• 19:38Andy Greenwald?

  The other one, the Duncan one, was absolutely from an unknown gate of Dante's Hell.

• 19:46Andy Greenwald?

  And I don't.

• 19:47Chris Ryan?

  That was, that was tough. You know, Affleck has been very articulate about AI and about its role in Hollywood and

• 19:56Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 19:56Chris Ryan?

  the things he is nervous about versus the things he's not nervous about with that. And I've really enjoyed his comments on it.

• 20:02Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I do wonder whether some of that was like salting the ground for this commercial.

• 20:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Chris Ryan?

  Um, I am always like, you know what? The big thing is like McConaughey is doing this a lot. He's in a ton of ads. It seems like Bradley Cooper and him are doing an Uber Eats ad. When's it enough money?

• 20:21Andy Greenwald?

  That, this is what I'm saying.

• 20:23Chris Ryan?

  What do you like? It would, and also, let me put it this way. It would be one thing if these guys were like, I'm in an Uber Eats commercial because then I turn around and I make sure that like all community arts centers stay open in Texas. And maybe they do, maybe they do.

• 20:38Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe, maybe Affleck was in a bidding war for the Highland Park Theater with Kristen Stewart. Do you know what I mean? Like, he's really ready to give back to the community.

• 20:44Chris Ryan?

  And he's, he's running his company and, and

• 20:45Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  But like, the idea of like one for them, one for me, it doesn't seem to be what's happening here.

• 20:54Andy Greenwald?

  I, wind horse fingers. I feel like there's just something, sometimes when

• 21:00Chris Ryan?

  Are you guys on the last train out?

• 21:02Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I'm saying.

• 21:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Andy Greenwald?

  It is so evident that it is last call at the money bar for Earth. And no one's talking about this. Do you know what I mean? Like, remember when, for example, young innocent us 10 years ago, watching True Detective Season 2 the first time? And we're like, haha, how fanciful.

• 21:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Andy Greenwald?

  A cabal of pedophiles. Oh, well.

• 21:22Chris Ryan?

  That's why I rewatched it.

• 21:23Andy Greenwald?

  I know. I'm saying you were right about this, as was Pizzolato. And we're like, anyway, Veep's back on. Great, no problem. We roll, we roll 10 years later. I'm just saying at a certain point, maybe we should take things literally and seriously.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Andy Greenwald?

  Why do they need so much money all the time?

• 21:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I just don't understand, because like, it would just be cool if like that, okay, you're gonna go make an AI, like, human resources or like, Office Solutions ad.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  Like, one, a funny one, ha ha.

• 21:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like, AI can help you, like, book your trip. Then, then go make like a fucking cool indie movie and give, give a director like five million dollars to like, get it off the ground, or, I mean, I may, and maybe they are doing that and not advertising that. If that's the case, you're doing a terrible job telling your own story. Yeah, because all I see is like, you guys doing these commercials incessantly.

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Chris Ryan?

  So, I don't know, I don't, it's just weird.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  DD stands for Duncan dignity. I don't get it.

• 22:22Chris Ryan?

  You know, that, I, I didn't hear that ad with the sound on, for all I know, it was really witty. I just, that looked, it looked demonic to me.

• 22:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's all, I mean, this is the whole thing, right? Like, all of this is gross. All of AI is trash. Sorry, it's trash. And yet, we're all just like, oh, it's interesting, I guess it's propping up the economy a little bit, like, when, when are we gonna speak up, Chris? If only we had a platform to fight back.

• 22:50Chris Ryan?

  I encourage people, if they're, there is an interesting, there's a, it's an amazingly well-written article and, and really fascinating, this most recent issue of The New Yorker. Michael Schulman wrote an article.

• 23:00Andy Greenwald?

  This is, this is usually my corner.

• 23:01Chris Ryan?

  About the scion of the, you know, Saatchi family, like Saatchi and Saatchi, the, uh, the British advertising firm, um, is a film obsessive, uh, and he has essentially dedicated his professional life to restoring Orson Welles's vision for The Magnificent Ambersons using AI, and is like, shooting actors on sound stages to then, like, basically deepfake them into Joseph Cotton's body to be in Magnificent. But it, it's an amazing piece, because it's also about how the work that this guy is doing is drawing from the, like...

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  Fringe historian, film historian obsessives who are like, I have assembled all the production stills

• 23:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 23:48Chris Ryan?

  From the magnificent Ambersons.

• 23:49Andy Greenwald?

  So we know the intent.

• 23:50Chris Ryan?

  And the production screenplay and the notes from RKO to Wells.

• 23:54Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  About like what's been taken out. So there is this weird act of scholarship that's going on and because like this guy does not have the rights to magnificent Ambersons. It's for academic purposes, air quotes. But it's an interesting article because I think like most of the time we hear about AI and we're like, so you're gonna bring,

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  you know, it'll be like Anthony Bourdain hanging out in the Field of Dreams cornfield or something and it's like, this is hell.

• 24:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Chris Ryan?

  But this is an interesting discussion about like what,

• 24:27Chris Ryan?

  like what it means to like history and film history, but not, I don't, I don't mean like.

• 24:31Andy Greenwald?

  Respectfully, that sounds like dork shit. Like that sucks.

• 24:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Andy Greenwald?

  But it's interesting.

• 24:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Andy Greenwald?

  I wasn't trying to shoot you down.

• 24:37Chris Ryan?

  Like I. It's not my movie.

• 24:38Andy Greenwald?

  As someone who often references New Yorker articles I just happened to read over the weekend, like this is a safe space for that. What's the Watch's coverage plan for Mando and Grogu?

• 24:48Chris Ryan?

  I'll tell you this.

• 24:49Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:49Chris Ryan?

  Is, is definitely crossed my mind not to see this film. I'm talking to my guys about it.

• 24:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  How, what kind of feedback are you getting from your team?

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, they're worried about what it, what it means for our, us as a podcast, because I think people, people know we're the truth tellers.

• 25:06Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 25:07Chris Ryan?

  When it comes to Lucasfilm.

• 25:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. Yeah. I mean, it, it fit in, it looked like cartoon slop.

• 25:15Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  It fit in with everything else last night.

• 25:17Chris Ryan?

  Uh, halftime?

• 25:19Andy Greenwald?

  Halftime was great.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  Halftime was great.

• 25:21Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was a.

• 25:23Chris Ryan?

  Bad Bunny's performance.

• 25:24Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was incredibly beautiful, surprising. I thought you were good. I thought we each picked one to watch. I thought we just self-selected into the categories. Conceptually as a show, I was really impressed by it because I can't remember a previous Super Bowl halftime show that was as much of a like narrative, almost theatrical performance that was less about racing through the hits in a way that felt like cumulative or with some momentum. This, it was an incredibly smart,

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  approach, I think, to an opportunity where. He's the most streamed artist in the world and is incredibly popular. But there's also a large swath of mainstream watching it on NBC audience members who probably don't even know if they know about Bunny Song. They might know one or two, but they don't have that connection with the artist. So in a way, he was freed from the expectation of proving his, proving that he deserved to be there via recognizable tunes and put on just like a absolutely, I was shocked to say, I found deeply moving,

• 26:29Andy Greenwald?

  carnivalistic, expressive, exciting, inclusive celebration.

• 26:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I thought it was awesome. It was awesome as like a musical performance, as awesome as a piece of theater, I thought. It was actually awesome as a piece of television, the way that they kind of moved through.

• 26:43Andy Greenwald?

  It was thrilling.

• 26:45Chris Ryan?

  The sugarcane, like the telephone poles with the electrical infrastructure issues, obviously. Like, it was just the symbolism of it, but also just the actual fun and joy of it was just really palpable.

• 26:56Andy Greenwald?

  It was deeply political without having to do anything, which I think is also a testament to important and interesting art. And also, all these fucking losers hating on it, like, it's, these whiny bitches. Have fun, you stupid hater losers. Like, honestly.

• 27:12Chris Ryan?

  Clip that.

• 27:13Andy Greenwald?

  Clip this. Grow up. Just like fucking the Vances clapping along to Kid Rock screaming a hernia out, except he's lip syncing.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  Was Vance there?

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  I think so. I mean, that's his.

• 27:24Chris Ryan?

  I thought he was in Italy getting fucking booed.

• 27:26Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's right. Well, they're all, honestly, who can tell? They all look the same to me. Like, you fucking wish you were invited to a party where people are having fun and loving each other. Jesus Christ. This take brought to you by Coinbase.

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• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  Let's get into industry. So we're going to talk about these. Was there anything else you want to talk about with the game?

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  It hits different when your team's not in it.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  I mean, my heart rate was just incredible.

• 28:52Andy Greenwald?

  We had a lovely time, honestly.

• 28:53Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it was just a very enjoyable afternoon and evening that I did not spend spitting blood out of my nose. You know, like, it was just, I guess, actually, that last Super Bowl that we played was was pretty awesome, but I also didn't even know what to do with myself because it was so awesome.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a real problem. That's a real relatable problem.

• 29:16Chris Ryan?

  Episode five of season four is Eyes Without a Face. It was aired on Friday night to get out from under the Super Bowl, Super Bowl rush on Sunday, which I think was wise. Of the people I saw over the weekend, many people were talking about this, this episode. Kind of a, I was going to say like a side quest. I was going to say, I'm not a bottle, but like, um, you know, kind of a, I think that industry has now made a season of interesting, like, basically, like, the episode is, they sort of side quest episode is actually the main quest.

• 29:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:51Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if that makes any sense, but anyway, the episode's called Eyes Without a Face. I thought it could easily just been called The Thing Is Nothing, which is the exclamation Eric makes when he finds out that Tender is indeed just like a ghost ship operating on false promises and scams.

• 30:11Andy Greenwald?

  That also is a great summation of the first 10 minutes of this podcast of us, with us turning our gimlet eyes to the state of the American culture and economy. So the show is relevant.

• 30:21Chris Ryan?

  Turning our gimlet eyes to Eric Chavez and Miguel Todd.

• 30:27Andy Greenwald?

  This is a great turn from you. You gonna go up to Sacramento to see some games in the?

• 30:31Chris Ryan?

  I wanna, I wanna obviously talk about

• 30:35Chris Ryan?

  Akra and the Sweepy and Quabena trip to Ghana. But I wanna start with Eric and Harper here. I think Harper is probably the most challenging gambit of this show.

• 30:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 30:49Chris Ryan?

  That the protagonist is unknowable in this way.

• 30:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well said.

• 30:55Chris Ryan?

  I find that to be awesome. Like, I like the challenge of thinking about television differently than I usually do, where a character is acting from a place, whether it's trauma or, you know, an old wound that they're trying to heal, whether they are stating outright what is their motivation or just clearly behaving as such. Harper is just a mystery. Harper arrives on the scene. You know, she's described as like a world eater by Eric in the first episode of this series. She's a little bit chameleon in that she can kind of adjust to working for like Tory businessmen

• 31:39Chris Ryan?

  or being in like, you know, a kind of a German rave or something like that. She can do whatever. But she has a certain like quality that doesn't ever go away. But, you know, this is an interesting episode for her because her mother passes away.

• 31:53Andy Greenwald?

  Offscreen?

• 31:54Chris Ryan?

  Offscreen. A woman we've never met. We've met the brother. And Harper's relationship to Eric and her conversation with him about her mother is really interesting because it's about like whether or not backstory matters to me.

• 32:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 32:11Chris Ryan?

  And, you know, there's like kind of a little bit of a fake out where you're waiting for Harper to be like, I just wanted my mom to love me and that's why I'm like the way I am. And instead she's like, I wanted her to live long enough to bend the knee and see what a Titan I have become. And I wanted to ask you about like geolocating a character, making that character consistent and the importance of that and whether or not you think. Is industry breaking a rule or following a rule here?

• 32:38Andy Greenwald?

  It's such a good question, and I think you've identified something that is deeply compelling and at times deeply frustrating about the show, which is that it is based around someone who is almost entirely opaque. And my sense of it is, and this is something hopefully we'll get to talk to the guys about at season's end, but I think that they are motivated by a challenge that they've laid out to themselves. I'm not saying it was a challenge they laid down in season one, because they will admit to anyone that they were just throwing their best up at this wall, not thinking they... There was no point in the making of the pilot of the first season where they thought they would be making the season of television that they are making now.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  Which is a good thing. But I do think over time, it has evolved into a challenge and like a marker laid down, being like, we are not going to play the traditional television game of backstory and explanation of emotional motivation with this character. There's a moment, I don't think it was this episode, but when she says, "My trauma was traumatic."

• 33:37Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. She's insistent that her childhood does not explain her adulthood.

• 33:43Andy Greenwald?

  And she refuses it.

• 33:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:44Andy Greenwald?

  And she shuts that down for the people in her life, including the people in her life who are the audience, which is, runs counter to the last 15 years of television storytelling, which I admire. But it's challenging when you say, "We are going to make this character an ongoing exercise in denial and counterintuitive storytelling thinking," when you are trying to move, grease the wheels of narrative across episodes the way everyone who makes a television show has to do. And I will say that more so than in other seasons, her stasis...

• 34:20Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:21Andy Greenwald?

  And it's not just...stasis isn't the right word. It's that we are stuck in kind of a doom loop with how she treats people, particularly people like Eric, is more frustrating this season than in other seasons. Now... One of the things that these guys have proven really skilled at is in the great mixing board of life, you know, putting up, moving the dials in a way that you don't even notice it, all coming together. So Yasmin doesn't appear in this episode.

• 34:49Chris Ryan?

  She does not.

• 34:49Andy Greenwald?

  And she's had remarkable highs thus far this season that have moved her story ball forward in a way.

• 34:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Andy Greenwald?

  So though, to your point about like, which is the A story and which is the B story, this probably isn't Harper's showcase episode. That's still to come. So I'm willing to take it in over the course of a season. But there were, in the early going, when she just unloads on Eric in like, ways that are so excruciatingly cruel and cutting, which she's very skilled at doing, to the point of, he's left wondering why I keep doing this. That is also a tough gambit, where we in the audience are like, why are we still doing this?

• 35:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  Circling this clearly destructive relationship. I don't, I think we're in mid-process, so I'm not judging it. And I think that what the episode did to its great credit is that Mahala got to play the other side of the coin.

• 35:39Chris Ryan?

  I thought she was wonderful in this episode.

• 35:40Andy Greenwald?

  Because she, they would give her, I'm not, because it's not just the first scenes. She does come back and they have a moment.

• 35:45Chris Ryan?

  I also thought she was best, and the show was best in the final moment, when Kavina's like, doesn't come forward and tell her about Sweepy, after Sweepy has told her. And her performance in that scene.

• 35:59Andy Greenwald?

  When she's reacting?

• 36:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. But doesn't say.

• 36:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Chris Ryan?

  Which is restraint that this show sometimes like, doesn't always show, you know, like, they would maybe in another, on another day, have Harper dress him down and talk all about like, sex and relationships and business and what they're doing and what he should be doing. And they kind of did that in the sushi restaurant when they were going out on a date and they've done it in bedrooms together, where they've had these very explicit internal, external conversations. You mentioned Yasmin.

• 36:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Chris Ryan?

  She, to me, is

• 36:35Chris Ryan?

  The most classically successful character on this show because she is, her sort of backstory has gone from background to foreground and is now the text. You know, like her, when you first meet her, you're just kind of like, she's gonna be the rich kid who actually shows that she's got something to her, you know? And what we find out about her and what we find out about her childhood clearly shapes what she has done and is doing, both to the powerful men and the less powerful women in her life.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 37:09Chris Ryan?

  And it all comes from her father. And that is like the, like, that's how you do writing. It's like you show how somebody is shaped and what they then pass on to other people. But Harper is like a little bit more of like a a sine wave or something where it's just like, oh, it's like this and now it's like that, you know, like.

• 37:26Andy Greenwald?

  I think you're on to something there, too. The very best shows and it's industries in our top three every year that it's on, so we consider industry to be one of the very best shows, finds an interesting alchemy from the showrunner's perspective of chasing things that they are interested in and things that they clearly know in their bones. And not just the creators, the writers, the creative half of the, of the equation, the behind the scenes creative half of the equation. And it's hard not to come away from the last, not just the season, but like the last eight episodes of the series and not think that these guys really have some deep and cutting and maybe even like experiential understanding of Yasmin, of Henry,

• 38:09Andy Greenwald?

  even of Jim Diker in his final moments, like that was coming from,

• 38:13Chris Ryan?

  I think.

• 38:13Andy Greenwald?

  That was coming from a soul, that speech. And I worry the Harper character and to a degree Eric as well. And I wonder if it's because they're American, I'm not sure that it is. I don't know if they have had that same level of depth or rigor because they are often reactive or raging. And the, the level of complexity that Henry Muck's backstory was given. You know, in the grand Barry Lyndon style with a ghost story.

• 38:40Chris Ryan?

  To the fact that all of these people that you're describing have had, I mean, even Rishi got to be so many different people on the show. Harper and Eric. Are largely doing the same thing that they were doing in the first season.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  With each with each other.

• 38:55Chris Ryan?

  With each other, but also of like, business wise. I mean, they don't work for an investment bank anymore, like a large institution, but they are essentially bloodhounds for bullshit. And addicted to the deal.

• 39:08Andy Greenwald?

  And addicted to chaos.

• 39:09Chris Ryan?

  And addicted to chaos. And are still like, kind of trapped in that hotel room ping ponging off of each other.

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  And Eric even at that, you know, in this episode, has a vision that I think is fairly like, has it's in terms of like, it's empathy reaction in most people is fairly high of like, even whether you're together with your spouse or not, but like, people that you love or have loved, and your daughter sleeping soundly and peacefully. And his response is non-traditional, let's say, in that moment.

• 39:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think also, you mentioned Diker, the Diker speeches, the thesis statement for this entire season.

• 39:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 39:45Chris Ryan?

  It's a bunch of people who don't feel anything, who know what they're supposed to be feeling at any given moment, and don't have that. And so that's driving them insane. And they're self-medicating with their phones and pornography and drugs, and risk.

• 40:01Andy Greenwald?

  So, do you think we are headed towards a moment this season where, and this episode did some of this work, so I don't want to imply that it's not the case, but where Harper and Eric come to an understanding of recognition, which exists in the subtext, but literally saying, I don't want a father, I don't want a daughter, but this works.

• 40:20Chris Ryan?

  Well, haven't they said that before?

• 40:21Andy Greenwald?

  They've said versions of it. And is that enough to fill in the blanks, you know? Because I think that one of the things that makes the show perpetually restless and perpetually interesting is Mickey and Conrad are contemptuous of convention, and they don't want to be boring. And they don't want to be standard. And that's fine. And sometimes when the show has veered, not just fine, that's admirable. I thought that the Sweet Pea episode, and we'll get into that, Miriam Petche's performance and everything in a moment, because I thought it was excellent. The coda of her storyline, to me, was conventional. That she was absolutely Harper-esque and like undeniable, punching me in the face and I will still destroy your world.

• 41:04Andy Greenwald?

  And that, but then, once the doors closed on my like prefab fancy condo unit, I cry like everyone else.

• 41:11Chris Ryan?

  But I still found it to be ambiguous, like what's she crying about?

• 41:14Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 41:14Chris Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Is she crying because that's her body releasing all the stress of the last couple of days? Is she crying because she's thinking about how her mom won't ever bring up her OnlyFans controversy? Is she crying because because she's so happy? You know, like, is she crying?

• 41:30Andy Greenwald?

  I love that there's ambiguity in it. I would just, I guess my question is more about, I think I'm more on, I, we don't, we don't want that version of Harper. You know, behind the scenes, she cries like everyone else. I don't think that makes sense, but there is a worrying opacity to the character, especially this season, that has removed her from the larger machine. She is now, she was always driving the story with her behavior, but now she is completely driving everything and people are falling at her feet to go along with it. That it is starting to, to me, like,

• 42:05Andy Greenwald?

  there's not a lot of recog, I've never met anybody like this. Now, obviously, I haven't met a lot of, a lot of the people on the show.

• 42:10Chris Ryan?

  I haven't either, but we don't really interact with a lot of people whose professional life requires professional death on the other side of a negotiation.

• 42:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's well said. I don't need.

• 42:21Chris Ryan?

  Like, that's the thing that I think draws a lot of the, these characters are all damaged. One of the reasons why I think they're damaged is that they are drawn to something where there has to be a loser for you to win.

• 42:33Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's very well said. I guess what I'm trying to articulate is, this is not a, frankly, I think, disqualifying argument that these people aren't likable. Like, fuck that. The challenge of making a show about people who quote unquote aren't likeable is that you shade them with degrees of recognizable humanity. So you don't endorse their actions, but on some gut level, you understand their perspective in it. So you do that on a show like this by the Henry episode. You do that in a show like this with, as you said, everything of the Yasmin's father, or with the Claire Forlani ant character. It's just a passing thing that you carry with you. And then when she behaves like a monster to Haley, you're still carrying that. Everything with Harper is not just transactional, it is increasingly

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  off screen. So the card from her mother that she shreds, and then the phone call that leads her to react in a way that is familiar to people who've been watching Harper. I guess what I'm saying is, in the practice of it on screen, maybe that wasn't enough.

• 43:30Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 43:31Andy Greenwald?

  But it's episode five of an ongoing season, but I just am noting that disparity. But there were so many other worthwhile things in the episode that I don't want to harp on that one thing that I think we walked away from it with.

• 43:40Chris Ryan?

  I want to get into the across stuff, but the way I want to do it is to talk about the thriller aspect of the show that's been really introduced in this season, the idea of this corporate espionage thriller. Two episodes in a row where there has been a not totally unexplained sense of menace in the background of an episode. So with Dyker, it's the guy who's in the flat with Rishi and him. And I've seen speculation online that he was either, that he was not just a random guy at a pub, that he, you know, obviously, and I think you and I engaged with that.

• 44:13Andy Greenwald?

  You heard speculation on this pod last week.

• 44:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we speculated that as well.

• 44:16Andy Greenwald?

  And I think there's been, people were writing to us saying like, that's actually an actor we recognize. It's not just a day player, so.

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  Right. And then in this episode, Sweepy gets assaulted in a bar, a bathroom at a bar, and she gets assaulted after letting the CFO of Tender, Tony Day.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  Know her exact location.

• 44:37Chris Ryan?

  Know her exact location. So you would have to assume.

• 44:39Andy Greenwald?

  And he says the beach can get dangerous at night.

• 44:41Chris Ryan?

  You have to assume that either he ordered that, or someone is listening to his phone, because he does seem to think that his office is bugged.

• 44:49Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 44:50Chris Ryan?

  Where do you think this is, where are the breadcrumbs leading back to? Is this Whitney?

• 44:56Chris Ryan?

  Is Whitney like running like a crime syndicate under the belly to?

• 45:00Andy Greenwald?

  This is the thing. The show is in a successful place right now because we don't know. And there's a sense of both paranoia, which is earned and exciting, but also a sense of like, all of these people fly too close to the sun all of the time. And are they, do they think they're in a movie? Do they, are they behaving like they're in some sort of dangerous thriller? But it's also possible that she was assaulted in a bar unrelated to it. So that's not a bad place dramatically for the show to be. With three episodes left, I'm curious where the, where the cards are going to fall because the other option that I'm not as big of a fan of is that Whitney Halberstrom is just a really bad evil guy.

• 45:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Andy Greenwald?

  Who is clearly running a fraudulent company and is willing to assault or murder people who get in his way. That's less interesting to me because it's less nuanced. It's better, the show is better when it lives in the in-between space. When the Nathan McKay keys drop when they get to Accra and they're filming, it's beautiful. And again, this is exciting to see the show take advantage of location shooting, of vibrancy and cultural differences and the actors that they found to play these parts. Was thrilling and I can't help but intuit a level of excitement on the part of the creative team of the show towards the storyline, maybe more so than what's going on back in London. Like the keys dropping and then being on this thriller and actually getting to write,

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  Mickey and Conrad getting to write it and Joe Charlton, who's credited with this right, this episode, getting to write this and the actors getting to play.

• 46:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they basically got to do the insider, you know?

• 46:28Andy Greenwald?

  They, and I don't blame them. Who doesn't want to make a Tony Gilroy, Michael Mann type thing? There was a disparity, I would say, in terms of like, what was really, what was driving the episode? That felt like a much more of an interesting place. And I guess I'm curious about your perspective on the episode. Do you think it looks beautiful? It sounds beautiful. The actors played it really well. I'm still worried about the what's there there because the, as I said, like tender is just so clearly fraudulent from jump that I'm waiting for more.

• 47:01Andy Greenwald?

  Nuance in the investigation. If it is, I want it to be more than this is clearly corrupt. There is no there, there.

• 47:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, we just spent.

• 47:07Andy Greenwald?

  The thing isn't a thing.

• 47:08Chris Ryan?

  The first seven minutes of.

• 47:09Andy Greenwald?

  And Harper being like, why do we have to play by the rules? Like, give me a little more.

• 47:12Chris Ryan?

  The first 10 minutes of the episode that we just did, we talked about a bunch of companies that have ingratiated themselves and burrowed in.

• 47:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Chris Ryan?

  To the economy.

• 47:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Chris Ryan?

  At such a depth that like their failure is not an option.

• 47:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 47:26Chris Ryan?

  And I think that if I had to guess what Tender.

• 47:28Andy Greenwald?

  Were you talking about the Patriots?

• 47:29Chris Ryan?

  I, what Tender is trying to do is to make themselves intertwined with the British economy or the global economy to a point where.

• 47:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:36Chris Ryan?

  Its malfeasance has to be overlooked because to, to take it away.

• 47:42Andy Greenwald?

  You can't operate on a cancer.

• 47:43Chris Ryan?

  Would affect the Labour government, would affect the, you know, the economic sort of health of a, of a nation. I, I think because I can see the thriller happening from both angles.

• 47:53Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 47:53Chris Ryan?

  I understand like Whitney needs this aristocrat to sell his bullshit as a bridge to the life that he always thought was way out of touching distance for himself. As far as like the thriller aspects of it goes, I don't know that I need a gunfight or a death at the end of this, and we've already had one.

• 48:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Chris Ryan?

  Uh, to make it count as a thriller, you know? I mean, when you think about all the presidents, Ben, when you think about some of the great political conspiracy thrillers of our lifetime, there's no dead bodies. There's just people getting spooked in parking lots or, you know, thinking that their phones are tapped or, or whatever. It's, it's, uh, it's interesting. I, I do wonder how they are going to bring all of the threads together. But yeah, like it, it's, it's been such a remarkable genre shift within the framework of this show itself that I'm just along for the ride.

• 48:49Andy Greenwald?

  No, the elasticity of the show is thrilling. Like this is. This is a week to week argument for a return to ongoing series. Mm hmm. Because one of the arguments against them over the last few years and a much more like creator empowered version of the television industry, which has shrunk a lot, was that, you know, the auteurs got bored. They didn't want to be locked into the same shows or the same production budgets, the same network executives. They wanted to tell different stories and have more opportunities, which is fine. I mean, people should be free to. I'm pro, who was it Kurt Flood, who was the first free agent? Like, I'm pro. Yeah.

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  Workers' rights. But there is something to be said for watching shows that, where the creators are like, no, we can do this here. We can stretch this in ways that you can't imagine. Yes. And, and the, if, if what I'm, if I'm being critical even of this episode, I'm excited by what I'm seeing, you know, and if, if, if certain things aren't perfect, why would they be perfect? Two years ago, it was an embryonic version of a show. Now we're, now we're watching something week to week that not just could be anything, could be almost anything that we love traditionally. Yes. So the, the, the best of industry, in my opinion, is Miriam Petchy showing up

• 50:12Andy Greenwald?

  in a background role with a almost joke name, Sweet Pico Lightly, and then everybody seeing something in each other and growing and growing and growing until she is Erin Brockovich-ing her way through Africa in this episode. Yes. Holding the screen, beautifully shot, like that shot of her on the beach was the kind of artistic flourish that the, the, the boys didn't direct this episode, but that felt interesting because that, to me, felt like a connection of the visual language of the Henry in the, in the mansion, in the manor house episodes. Yes. Visual palette into a completely different world. I thought that was really cool. And the idea of journalism and detective work and financial, whatever it is that they

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  do, all becoming one thing in this fraudulent global economy is rich stuff, no pun intended. I really liked that. But.

• 51:07Andy Greenwald?

  There's a lot. These episodes are dense. And it's been interesting to engage with the episodes, particularly this season, because they've all been very, very dense to digest. But like, the density of the Commander and the Gray Lady is a fixed perspective.

• 51:27Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 51:28Andy Greenwald?

  This is telling multiple stories in multiple locations, trying to advance them in a traditional narrative way, but then also getting really, really, really hooked in to certain parts. And you start to feel the attention and what's being paid in different portions, different

• 51:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Andy Greenwald?

  locations.

• 51:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. Honestly, it probably bears a rewatch.

• 51:50Chris Ryan?

  The episode itself?

• 51:51Andy Greenwald?

  This episode.

• 51:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And I think honestly, also this season, as like a statement, all the episodes together will feel different than the week-to-week experience of it.

• 52:01Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to call out the fact that like, when it hits, like the scene when, what's his name, when Tony Day is like exploring pathways for me before the potential assault. And it's just so well put together, because that is an example of a creative team just knowing the brief. It is beautifully performed, it's beautifully written, it's beautifully shot.

• 52:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the fact that Diker's editor is still involved and is like, when she's just like, "I'm Sweet Pico Lightly," and he's like, "You're what?"

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  I know, but then like a minute later, he's like, "Miss Go Lightly, let me explain to you." And like, wow, everybody is just ready with the banter.

• 52:36Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like we need to talk about the fact that Eric leaves his ex-wife and his daughter in one bed after, you know, his daughter's been expelled from school for catfishing

• 52:49Chris Ryan?

  a colleague or another student?

• 52:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 52:51Chris Ryan?

  And he leaves them in that room to go to an escort or...

• 52:56Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he begins the episode by telling this hotel worker, so to speak, not to call him. But then she takes his call.

• 53:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and she has a room and

• 53:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:08Chris Ryan?

  he invokes, there's some language that's very like father-daughter.

• 53:12Andy Greenwald?

  Well, look, I know what you're asking me.

• 53:13Chris Ryan?

  No, no, I wasn't asking you as a girl dad.

• 53:16Andy Greenwald?

  I have said this has been quite a year for Girl Dads on screen.

• 53:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 53:19Andy Greenwald?

  From sentimental value to one battle after another, it's really been a championship season.

• 53:24Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 53:25Andy Greenwald?

  Nobody goes 17-0.

• 53:27Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 53:27Andy Greenwald?

  Is what I'm saying.

• 53:28Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 53:28Andy Greenwald?

  And.

• 53:29Chris Ryan?

  Not even the Pats.

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is certainly not. This is, uh, that was, that was a tough one. For me, the Eric storyline is still so entwined with Harper and he, but Eric has been given more, not just nuance to his struggles, which are clear, but like more screen time for them than we've seen. And so it's hard to separate the two. Eric's pretty much stuck in that hotel. Which.

• 53:56Chris Ryan?

  As a character?

• 53:57Andy Greenwald?

  Is he? Well, it, that's one of the things that this is, this is a sign of a worthwhile show, right? Because we could ask, is this budgetary? Like, did they have to shoot it all quickly because they were going to a kra? Or are they making a comment on the kind of purgatory?

• 54:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  That he is stuck in.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's the thing that's so interesting is that Eric, when we see him at the beginning of the season, when he's like golfing and Trump is off on the, the green and he seems to have a beautiful girlfriend. He's living, it seems in the Hamptons or something like.

• 54:26Chris Ryan?

  Or wherever he is.

• 54:29Chris Ryan?

  And now he has chosen to live essentially in a bathrobe.

• 54:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Chris Ryan?

  And eat BLTs.

• 54:34Andy Greenwald?

  First, but get to the bad parts.

• 54:36Chris Ryan?

  And look at pornography on his phone and/or have sex workers visit him.

• 54:40Andy Greenwald?

  And pornography of his coworkers, right? Isn't he's watching, he's scrolling Sweepy.

• 54:44Chris Ryan?

  He is. Yeah. So, yeah, like, is he just trapped? Or is it a commentary of like, perhaps at a certain point, people prefer that version of excess and.

• 54:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:57Chris Ryan?

  Pleasure than the version that's like, you get to golf every day.

• 55:00Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 55:01Chris Ryan?

  And talk to people.

• 55:02Andy Greenwald?

  It actually ties into what we were saying before of like, how much money is enough? It's a question of what you think you deserve and what you're doing it for. And that golf sequence was an illustration of, in theory, whatever drove Eric from his more humble beginnings in New York City to London, was to become a person who can golf like that, have proximity to powerful people like that, have a girlfriend like that, whatever. And he didn't like it. What he liked was

• 55:30Chris Ryan?

  Feeling like the world was about to get swallowed up inside of like a black hole every day he goes to work.

• 55:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and beating it, beating it back for one more day.

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• 56:32Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about A Night of the Seven Kings before we get out of here.

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 56:35Chris Ryan?

  And not even a little bit.

• 56:36Andy Greenwald?

  I'm in no rush.

• 56:38Chris Ryan?

  What a fucking awesome piece of TV that was.

• 56:41Andy Greenwald?

  This episode was great.

• 56:42Chris Ryan?

  I never end these episodes like that was insignificant. You know what I mean? Like these 33 minute short stories that they tell or chapters of a story that they're telling are so beautiful, so detailed, so nuanced, so well performed, well shot. And this is, this, I mean, each of the last three episodes has been my favorite episode of the season so far.

• 57:08Chris Ryan?

  What did you love about this episode?

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  This was my favorite episode of the season so far, without question. It's called The Seven.

• 57:16Andy Greenwald?

  I'm going to start with this. We used to get a lot of flack, maybe some of it deserved, back when we were, we were really the, we were the face of Game of Thrones, you know, commentary for a while.

• 57:27Chris Ryan?

  People close their eyes, think of Game of Thrones, they think of us.

• 57:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

• 57:31Chris Ryan?

  Two little dragons flying over Philadelphia.

• 57:33Andy Greenwald?

  You're welcome, or flying to LA to film an after show.

• 57:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  And we got a lot of flack for not reading the books. And thus, anytime we would comment on like, well, you know, clearly this is coming from George R. Martin, or this is Benioff and Weiss's brilliant scaffolding of his story or whatever, we didn't full, I'll say, fully know what we were talking about.

• 57:56Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 57:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that also likely blinded me to the strengths of George R. Martin as a writer and as a world builder, because watching it purely as a TV show, you're really just engaged with that narrative experience.

• 58:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Andy Greenwald?

  This is a long and maybe unnecessary prologue to say, the simplicity of this show and the fixed perspective allows me to say, to see, this guy's a really good storyteller.

• 58:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 58:26Andy Greenwald?

  The A to B to C of Dunk's long night, again, no pun intended,

• 58:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:34Andy Greenwald?

  from being in prison to suddenly about to fight next to the king-to-be.

• 58:41Chris Ryan?

  The hand of the king, yeah.

• 58:43Andy Greenwald?

  He's not the, is he the hand, or is he?

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  Baylora's thing is the hand.

• 58:46Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know who's gonna be, you and Nell can explain to me the details of it. But being basically at the All-Star Game.

• 58:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:55Andy Greenwald?

  The twists and turns are so grand and so natural and so not overthought or overworked that it's such a pleasure to experience them this way.

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:08Andy Greenwald?

  Does that make sense? That this is like, there is just such a beautiful flow to a story that is not inventing any kind of wheel, it's just rolling?

• 59:16Chris Ryan?

  The, there was a version of this, and again, like, talking about what a show could have been when it's like based on hugely successful novellas that millions of people have read, but there is a version of this where it's just like a knight from nowhere that wins a tournament and gets renowned. What we're actually seeing is this guy live the virtues of being a knight,

• 59:38Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:39Chris Ryan?

  learn and teach the virtues of being a knight to others.

• 59:45Chris Ryan?

  And basically bring out the best and worst in other characters. Over the course of these episodes where I thought I was gonna get into it and it was gonna be basically like a George R. Martin version of a sports movie where Rocky wins at the end. And now it's like, no, this is like this guy being entered into a whole political and military and interesting world of characters. And you know, like, I just think that this version of the Targaryens are so fucking entertaining and interesting.

• 1:00:15Andy Greenwald?

  So much more interesting.

• 1:00:16Chris Ryan?

  And the three brothers, like, having such, or not brothers, the two brothers and Arian is there is make our son. But like, having such like interesting relationships to the pomp and circumstance of the realm is like so fascinating. Like, Baelor being like, it's all about history and respecting traditions and like, understanding like all these little new aspects of it. And then Arian's just like, it's about like fucking dominating and oppressing people.

• 1:00:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's so much more interesting. If you say, or if people say about your work that you have created a, you know, an incredibly rich history, fictional history, that suggests the possibility of telling a Howard Zinn version of that history.

• 1:01:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:01:05Andy Greenwald?

  Or a Brothers Grimm version of that history. And Star Wars has struggled with that, although that's the success of Andor is literally that. Like, if this really is a series of events that have shaped stories, then we can come into those stories at a different place. We can explore the parts of them that usually get overlooked by the quote-unquote history books, AKA the blockbuster films. And the fact that this show has been able to do that, just sort of dip in and tell something so small feeling, but epic within a larger world. It's also kind of fun to think about, like, in a, to relate it to our world and be like, maybe, maybe, I've never wanted to be in Westeros, ever, in 15 years of covering the show.

• 1:01:49Andy Greenwald?

  But you gotta, you gotta hand it to a, a pre, or maybe they'll never get smartphones world where like, you could just be at Ashford, like, drinking beer and all of a sudden the most interesting thing that's ever happened breaks out in front of you. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:02:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the Hand of the King joins like a hedge knight's team to fight his own brother.

• 1:02:08Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that is so crazy.

• 1:02:10Chris Ryan?

  A nephew, yeah.

• 1:02:11Andy Greenwald?

  That's happening and everybody in that crowd is gonna tell everyone about what they saw.

• 1:02:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Andy Greenwald?

  But the show communicates that sense of happenstance and grandeur in a way that feels pleasurable. And also just like, not to be corny, but like,

• 1:02:27Andy Greenwald?

  the, the, the, one of the talking points of Game of Thrones that was deeply successful. And it's reductive to say this was the show because the show was so big and so sprawling and so expensive and went on for so long. It contained multitudes. It had versions of every kind of story in it, which is why it's one of the most beloved shows of all time. But like, this is a nicer show. This is a show that has some room for reason or kindness or goodness within it.

• 1:02:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:53Andy Greenwald?

  And sometimes play the hits, man. Like when, when little Raymond's like, make me a knight so I can fight beside you.

• 1:02:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that stuff works for a reason.

• 1:03:03Chris Ryan?

  Um, again, another really good Finn Vennett episode, I thought. Him cracking walnuts and just being like, I have, I have the bylaws, so we can just get right into that.

• 1:03:14Andy Greenwald?

  Not the most efficient way of cracking nuts, but also then, this is the cleverness and the visual cleverness of the show is he's smashing the nuts and the nuts are going everywhere. And then what's his, that other dude just goes to help clean them up.

• 1:03:24Chris Ryan?

  He's just like, go get me that. Yeah, go get that. Go pick that up.

• 1:03:27Andy Greenwald?

  Great stuff.

• 1:03:28Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay.

• 1:03:30Andy Greenwald?

  There was, um, I like the idea of, uh, what's the line? Cowering behind 6,000 years of end all foolery? That he's just like, no, this is actually what we're gonna do.

• 1:03:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Andy Greenwald?

  And again, this is a, you understand, or again, I haven't read it, but I, I think I understand the role these stories played and they are kind of fables. But, you know, before you print the legend, people had to live the story. So the fact that everyone's rolling their eyes at this.

• 1:03:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:56Andy Greenwald?

  And can't quite believe it.

• 1:03:57Chris Ryan?

  But then coming out of it, it's gonna be like, but then Arian challenged him to.

• 1:04:01Andy Greenwald?

  And it's so smart about undercutting what we expect from this world. Because when the dude of the, the, the Bracken stands up, and I was like, oh, I guess, I guess I'm supposed to know who that is.

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  Right. And he just farts.

• 1:04:12Andy Greenwald?

  He just rips one.

• 1:04:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's. It's funny in the moment, but it's also, I think, having a bit of good natured fun.

• 1:04:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there is no halftime speech that.

• 1:04:21Andy Greenwald?

  But no, but that there's no homework even to watch the show. Because my first thought was, I am gonna have to text Mal and Joe to ask who this guy is. When in fact, it's just that, you know, the diet of the time is just not agreeing with him. Which makes sense. Speaking of the diet of the time, you know, we've all had like, in college and things, we had stressful all-nighters. We had work to do. Like, do you, do they have coffee in Westeros?

• 1:04:45Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my god!

• 1:04:46Andy Greenwald?

  Because those guys stayed up all night stressed, and then they're supposed to battle? Now, I know.

• 1:04:50Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't, that's a great question. Was there any caffeine or, or stimulant?

• 1:04:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Chris Ryan?

  Like, did they have like, any like little leaf that they sniff? You know what I mean?

• 1:05:03Andy Greenwald?

  Just throwing that out there. If they could just call Rishi from the time slot previous and just say, could you drop by?

• 1:05:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 1:05:10Andy Greenwald?

  Only because it's like, that's a lot to ask of some people who've been through a lot.

• 1:05:14Chris Ryan?

  A lot of those guys are steaming drunk all day long.

• 1:05:16Andy Greenwald?

  And they're young, you know, it's different. Like, they're younger anyway. But like, they, you just don't wanna overlook just the little details that you doesn't. So, the Daniel Ings character, he's a, he's a Baratheon.

• 1:05:31Chris Ryan?

  And he's like, I just, I'm doing it for the gram. He's, this hasn't happened in like a thousand years. I'm definitely participating.

• 1:05:37Andy Greenwald?

  All-time character.

• 1:05:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Andy Greenwald?

  And talk about like, PER, like just his efficiency rating is off the charts. But I think that even without being someone who reads and looks at scripts, I think audiences at this point understand in their bones when, when scenes exist because of notes after the fact to backfill the impact of something that happens in a later episode. What I mean by that is, when he shows up in this episode.

• 1:06:06Andy Greenwald?

  It's the culmination of every appearance he's made thus far.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:06:10Andy Greenwald?

  But it felt nat- A, it feels natural. We're excited to see him. This tracks with a character we've been, we've been, uh, we've gotten to know. But none of those previous scenes felt extraneous, like that they were laying breadcrumb trails for this.

• 1:06:23Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:06:23Andy Greenwald?

  They were enjoyable on their own merits. And so much of the TV that we watch these days is, is things that feel a little misshapen and disjointed because they've been noted.

• 1:06:33Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:06:34Andy Greenwald?

  In the spirit of helping things along and greasing the wheels of story, but like, I think that anyone listening to this podcast can notice the scene and be like, I feel like this.

• 1:06:42Chris Ryan?

  I would say that this is, obviously you speak from personal experience.

• 1:06:45Andy Greenwald?

  I've been noticed.

• 1:06:46Chris Ryan?

  As a professional writer, but this has been a consistent kind of fascination of yours over the course of Pluribus and Landman and maybe now this of like, hey, did this person have too much freedom?

• 1:06:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:06:57Chris Ryan?

  Or was this person not allowed to express themselves in like the proper way? Because they were getting noted to death on something. It's kind of a fascinating, well, we can't really know, you know what I mean?

• 1:07:07Andy Greenwald?

  It also speaks to the fact that like, in the contemporary television moment, you can be incredibly successful as a writer, as a producer and as a showrunner, with very different skillsets. And I don't say this to diminish anyone or lift anyone up too far outside of their station, but like, what Ira Parker is doing within the guardrails of this book that I haven't read, but I'm praising, and the story and the actors that, that he was given, and HBO's production expertise and how we can do this at scale, is, what he's doing within all of that is amazing.

• 1:07:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Andy Greenwald?

  And might be-

• 1:07:39Chris Ryan?

  It hearkens back to, to Wise and Benioff in the early seasons.

• 1:07:42Andy Greenwald?

  And it might be the best version of it on TV right now. Whereas, I don't think, I think we'd be interested to see the Vince Gilligan or Matt Weiner version of a George R.R. Martin adaptation. But let those guys cook.

• 1:07:53Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:07:54Andy Greenwald?

  Now, five years from now, when Ira Parker has his overall at Apple and is making his own show, and we're like, goddamn, this might be the best thing on TV.

• 1:08:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Andy Greenwald?

  Fantastic.

• 1:08:02Chris Ryan?

  Or he's making the Romanoffs. Yeah.

• 1:08:04Andy Greenwald?

  Or he's making the Romanoffs, or he's continuing to prove that he is uniquely skilled, not uniquely, remarkably skilled at adapting something for a larger audience. Like, that's, that's no small thing.

• 1:08:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that there's a narrative that the reason why Martin adaptations don't work is when the showrunners are like, I'm deviating from Martin. Whether it's like, I am adding, uh, I'm embellishing, or I'm speeding up, or doing whatever. And at least for now, I know that Ira Parker has added some things and changed some things, not changed markedly, but like embellished and flourishes in this. But so far, I think he is like kind of doing a very able adaptation because he is like, I know, I know why people like this. It's not because I'm me, and it's not because this needed some sort of historical revision.

• 1:08:58Chris Ryan?

  It's like because they really want to see the story that they've read.

• 1:09:02Andy Greenwald?

  Adapting things successfully is incredibly hard. And I think it requires a lot of different, it requires you to be successful in a lot of different areas. One of the areas is, and I, and I have listened to you guys talk about it to get more insight into it, is how you, you're changing mediums, so you have to change, you have to change the frame, you have to change the scope, you have to tweak things and break things more into line, and hopefully you have some flexibility of, well, that's really popping off on the screen, so that guy's going to get a little more time. You have to do that kind of changing. But you also, at the core, you have to be able to communicate why you, the adapter, loves this.

• 1:09:44Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:09:45Andy Greenwald?

  There has to be some beating heart of enthusiasm for something that you love. Now, you can do a non-traditional adaptation, I think, hopefully, and still communicate that love, and you're, you know, you're taking that love and you're building a different skeleton around it. But communicating that is part of the job. Disdain does travel.

• 1:10:02Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:10:03Andy Greenwald?

  Or frustration, or, you know, not to mind-read in the case of the last season of Game of Thrones, just like...

• 1:10:08Chris Ryan?

  Let's get this over with.

• 1:10:09Andy Greenwald?

  What are we gonna, what are we supposed to do? We have to do the best version of it that we can.

• 1:10:12Chris Ryan?

  Or maybe they just felt like they were now stewards of a giant VFX project, you know, at the end. I mean, maybe the place where they felt like this story was going to end really didn't have as much to do with what they were originally interested in.

• 1:10:25Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it becomes the kind of project that we've talked about with, with the rise of like Marvel and comic book storytelling, which is, are you making the best story you ever could make? Or are you making the best version of what this has to be due to the expectation, audience, IP, financial network requirements being placed upon me?

• 1:10:45Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:10:46Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that... You know, we go back and I don't remember everything we said about that final season of Game of Thrones, but I think there was a lot of like-

• 1:10:52Chris Ryan?

  We were full of praise.

• 1:10:53Andy Greenwald?

  Were we sometimes?

• 1:10:55Chris Ryan?

  I think you and I were probably a little bit of a lighter touch on it than-

• 1:10:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, cuz it didn't, yes.

• 1:11:00Chris Ryan?

  It didn't betray us.

• 1:11:01Andy Greenwald?

  There were episodes like, like what Arya does and how the, I'm not gonna spoil Game of Thrones, but like how the Night King storyline ends, I think we were like, that was it?

• 1:11:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Andy Greenwald?

  But that episode was beautifully executed and exciting.

• 1:11:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it was cool.

• 1:11:16Andy Greenwald?

  It was cool. But that was different than what it was at the beginning. And it's just, what do you think, you're out in these internet streets. Are people liking this show?

• 1:11:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Yes. I don't know. I don't think it's like a runaway blockbuster, we need to get a Lionel Baratheon spinoff going kind of show, but I think it's being very well received. I think there are some people who are like, this is fucking boring. I think they'll probably change their mind as they hit the second half of this season, but yeah, it's a smaller story. I think they ably communicated that. And I think that the half hour episode runtimes are excellent in terms of a selling point for something that's new and different.

• 1:11:52Andy Greenwald?

  Treason by puppetry.

• 1:11:53Chris Ryan?

  That's right. We can wrap it up there. Thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kai, thanks to Andy. We'll be back on Thursday with some Pitt and some other chit chat about popular culture. It's been great talking to you.

• 1:12:03Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks to Clint Kubiak. Good luck in Vegas.

• 1:12:05Chris Ryan?

  That's right, brother. And to the A's. Good luck in Vegas to them.

• 1:12:08Andy Greenwald?

  Well done.

• 1:12:19Speaker 00

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