‘The Last of Us’ E4 and the Last of ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

Chris and Andy talk about some TV and movie news that came out over the weekend, including a potential new tariff being levied on movies made internationally (1:00). Then they break down the latest episode of ‘The Last of Us’ and how the show has found its engine after Joel’s death (10:37). Finally, they discuss the series finale of ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (41:07) and Conan O’Brien's Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize ceremony, which was just uploaded to Netflix (50:30). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones 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.

• 0:00Chris Ryan?

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it.

• 0:23Speaker 01

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• 0:53Speaker 02

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

• 0:59Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan and I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, realistically playing a teenager, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:13Andy Greenwald?

  Is that Teen Just?

• 1:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, man. Today on The Watch, on a Monday, The Last of Us, The Last of the Righteous Gemstones, and possibly one of the last events at the Kennedy Center. Who even knows? We're going to talk a little bit about the Mark Twain, Conan O'Brien event that's on Netflix.

• 1:30Andy Greenwald?

  Did you ever think about The Last of U.S.?

• 1:33Chris Ryan?

  Wow, bro.

• 1:34Andy Greenwald?

  You ever think about that? It's been there the whole time.

• 1:37Chris Ryan?

  Just, let's just cut it there. I think we got to the bottom of it.

• 1:40Andy Greenwald?

  I've been thinking all weekend.

• 1:41Chris Ryan?

  Hit our inbox, thewatch at spotify.com. Watch us on YouTube at the the Ringer dash TV channel. You can also watch us on Spotify where I hope you are listening to us and follow us on Instagram, the watch pod underscore.

• 1:56Andy Greenwald?

  You can just be so involved with us. Are we with you?

• 1:59Chris Ryan?

  Um, do you want to talk about Donald Trump saving the film business?

• 2:05Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I want to make it clear, I would golf with anybody. And no bad ideas on the back nine. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:13Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes after three IPAs, you just start, you start whiteboarding, you know?

• 2:18Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I, so.

• 2:20Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about, like, so yesterday, somehow on a Sunday news dump, it was announced that Trump made this crazy.

• 2:27Andy Greenwald?

  See, we're already sane-washing it, like, you know, strategically, just as the weekend BO was coming in.

• 2:32Chris Ryan?

  I'm saying this guy is, is, is out there, man. Like, he's really, he really is just tweeting through it still. And he said that he is going to institute, I believe, a 100% tariff on foreign films. I don't know whether that means, like, next time I try to buy a.

• 2:52Andy Greenwald?

  Letterboxd hive in shambles.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  A Fellini movie? That means it's gonna cost twice as much on top of whatever other tariffs happen to plastic. But this was all in an effort, he claims, to bring production back to the United States.

• 3:05Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 3:06Chris Ryan?

  Which you have mentioned.

• 3:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Chris Ryan?

  And I have observed is like a really big concern, especially in Los Angeles, but in the industry, of basically like, to use a Trump phrase, offshoring, uh, production. So, this is nuts. I'm sure Matt Bellini's gonna talk about it. I'm sure Fanny's gonna talk about it. What, did you have a reaction to this?

• 3:25Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's just stupid and it's a waste of our time to even think about it, honestly. And I don't mean like for the purposes of the podcast.

• 3:30Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no.

• 3:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I mean, I, I, I generally, and I say this, you know, with, with, with all humility and attempted balance, like, I think to live in this world, one should not always pay attention to the crazy guys smearing his shit on the walls. Like, I think we have to, I'm talking about here at Spotify, because downtown LA is a mess.

• 3:48Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't want people to think I was talking politically.

• 3:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Andy Greenwald?

  Um, so, okay, great. I mean, it's all made up. I don't think he understands what a tariff is. None of it's possible and it's nonsense. And now everybody has to spend a day to a week being like, well, if this did happen, how would Cannes Film Festival respond?

• 4:04Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 4:05Andy Greenwald?

  Um, to your point, to try to take some thread of this seriously, like. Bringing production back to the United States is important, and particularly to Los Angeles, that ought to be a priority. There are ways of doing that, while also acknowledging the fact that cinema, Sean fantasy voice, is a global language.

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  It is a global language, yeah.

• 4:26Andy Greenwald?

  And, you know, like, you see, like, the Hollywood Reporter people, like, being called away from their Sunday night dinners, being like, "Okay, I guess this is what it means", and be like, "Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning was shot primar-" I'm like, yeah, like, I don't think it's better for the world if Mission Impossible movies shoot only in Cleveland.

• 4:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I definitely think Dune 3 should be shot in Philly now.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  Paul Trady's, like, walking out of the art museum steps, and a fucking worm jumps out of the park.

• 4:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, no worms. Just the ATV guys from Creed?

• 5:00Andy Greenwald?

  Come on. Stop talking me into this.

• 5:03Chris Ryan?

  Zendaya comes up like, "Yo, hon, you got any of that blue stuff we were drinking last night?"

• 5:10Andy Greenwald?

  I think they have a lot of blue stuff in Philly right now.

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  Did your aunt Benny Jeserit, does she still have that?

• 5:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, Benny Jeserit is a guy who lives on South Broad. He parks in the middle of the street. God, sometimes these ideas just flow through us. Yeah, it's just idiocy and distraction.

• 5:27Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  But, you know, again, to try to be the most generous one could be about it, I mean, this is where this screwed up world always puts us. Like, I'm sitting here being like, "Wait, wait, wait, why couldn't John Voight have been given time to present his plan?" Like, for as moronic as it is, and as, you know, deserving of ridicule, as the, you know, John Voight and Mel Gibson are my team captains in Los Angeles to save Hollywood.

• 5:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  One has to believe that on some level, if John Voight really was getting an audience at the White House, he would have said, "Tax credits for Los Angeles production are good, actually," or whatever.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that there was a way to address this without blowing up the entire world.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  I mean, there's so many things that, like, that go into this. I mean, obviously, several of the countries where a lot of production happens have universal healthcare for their citizens.

• 6:19Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  So I think it allows, or helps people work on, in those industries.

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  I mean, what, how long do you have, right? Like...

• 6:29Andy Greenwald?

  To not get sick? Careful, Karl Marx. I don't know what you're advocating over here. I feel great.

• 6:35Chris Ryan?

  Big Luthen energy over here.

• 6:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I would, to shout out a show we're gonna be talking about shortly, I would trust Dr. Watson to handle international tariffs before I would trust the current argument of the White House.

• 6:49Chris Ryan?

  I was thinking though, like about how fucking maddening it must be to be like, one of the dudes working for Trump, and when he just like pops off on one like this, and you've gotta get on X and just be like, "I got you, chief. Like, here we go. Time to tariff these fucking Square French movies."

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think we ever had, did you ever feel a similar pressure, like, in the glory days with Twitter, like, when people were like popping off sports takes, like, 2014?

• 7:18Chris Ryan?

  There was definitely a period of time where like, I would be, I remember one time at dinner at Laurel Hardware, and somebody, like, my phone just started vibrating because Kevin Durant, like, hurt himself. I think it was when he hurt his, I think he just hurt his knee. I don't think it was the Achilles.

• 7:32Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  And it was like, my wife was like, "Are you serious? Like, you have to go home to document this man's injury?" And, uh, but that's, that's really nothing compared to what Howard Lutnick has to do every day.

• 7:44Andy Greenwald?

  I do remember the time, similarly, this is different. That's also like, early days blog energy. Like, I remember there was a time when, I think we were both on Fire Island for the weekend, and the Avengers poster dropped, and I got like a text from Lane Brown being like, "Can you cover this?" I was like, "I guess so." We were sipping an Aperol at the beach. I was like...

• 8:06Chris Ryan?

  Why are you making it sound like we were in Ocean's 12?

• 8:08Andy Greenwald?

  You were management, you know, you could have vacation. I was like, "Captain, the presence of Captain America's shield is significant."

• 8:16Chris Ryan?

  You didn't see Thunderbolts, right?

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  I'm dying to see Thunderbolts. I actually really wanna see Thunderbolts.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  I hope you can do it for Thursday. Maybe we can do that in Andor on Thursday.

• 8:24Andy Greenwald?

  I want to, I'm sure people are tuning in for our political content, not our imminent Last of Us takes, but one of the reasons why I'm fired up about seeing Thunderbolts is, first of all, it filmed internationally, and maybe our last chance.

• 8:40Andy Greenwald?

  So let's, you know, let's treasure these things while we have them. It filmed in.

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  Cause it's set largely in New York City.

• 8:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I did. This is funny. I see, God, we're all over the place today, but I saw, um, I like watching the Instagram content of the British food site Topjaw.

• 8:57Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:57Andy Greenwald?

  A very, very handsome man just charmingly interviews people about restaurants.

• 9:01Chris Ryan?

  Favorite restaurant in London, yeah.

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, and he talks to Florence Pugh, which is just anyone talking to Florence Pugh is, is gold. And he was like, you filmed all over for Thunderbolts. And she's like, no, not really. And he's like, they told me you did. And she's like, oh, right. Well, we filmed in London, Utah and Malaysia.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Andy Greenwald?

  And he's like, that's pretty all over. So there you go. There's your answer. So, but the reason I'm fired up about it is because this weekend I watched, I don't know if you've heard of this film. It's called Avengers Endgame. With my children. Yeah.

• 9:29Chris Ryan?

  So they had seen Infinity War.

• 9:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 9:31Chris Ryan?

  I was really surprised when you told me this because it sounded like they did not treat the snap like much of a cliffhanger.

• 9:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, well, they had, you know, again, I can't control all their viewing. They had already watched the second Spider-Man Tom Holland movie where they're like, wow, it's weird. We were gone for five years. So they, they were pretty, it's pretty spoiled on that score. Um, I just wanted to say.

• 9:53Chris Ryan?

  Do your kids also watch Billions on Instagram? On reels?

• 9:58Andy Greenwald?

  No, they watch it on Paramount Plus because they're, they're responsible. Um, yeah, I, I, maybe this is like, uh, armor ahead of my more potentially dangerous takes later, but like Avengers Endgame fucking goes. That movie's great. That movie is so, so good and so clever. And it's just like the, it is, I think the best case scenario for so much of this stuff.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Let's just put a capsule on this. If Trump had an AI program redo the scene in Avengers Endgame where everybody's stepping out of the Doctor Strange rings. And it's like him and his cabinet and they're like,

• 10:37Chris Ryan?

  looks like film production is back on the menu, boys. And then like, you know.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, so like Sam Wilson comes out and he's just like, instead of the iconic line when he comes out of Wong's ring, this time he'd say, on your right cap.

• 10:53Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:53Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean?

• 10:54Chris Ryan?

  There you go.

• 10:55Andy Greenwald?

  And you know what the first cut would be after that? The scene of all the Avengers ladies doing it for themselves. Do you remember that? There's the shot.

• 11:02Chris Ryan?

  It's like Kristi Noem.

• 11:07Chris Ryan?

  Van Bondi.

• 11:08Andy Greenwald?

  Who gets the Gwyneth Paltrow, wait, am I in this movie, let alone in an Iron Man suit? Reveal?

• 11:14Chris Ryan?

  Linda McMahon.

• 11:14Andy Greenwald?

  Which one of your gals? She's the one?

• 11:16Chris Ryan?

  Definitely.

• 11:17Andy Greenwald?

  Sick.

• 11:18Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I think we covered that. I felt like it was important, though.

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think it's just like, don't, here it comes. It comes for this now, too.

• 11:27Chris Ryan?

  So do you want to get into Last of Us?

• 11:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should talk about Last of Us.

• 11:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Andy Greenwald?

  This might be our, this might be our last podcast.

• 11:34Chris Ryan?

  I really enjoyed this episode.

• 11:36Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 11:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Andy Greenwald?

  So I was gonna joke that this felt like an episode of Crossfire already, with your like, let's just hear him out, accommodationist attitude. And now, you liked this episode?

• 11:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, did you not?

• 11:48Andy Greenwald?

  I really didn't.

• 11:50Chris Ryan?

  Jeffrey Wright is a great actor, so I always got time for him when he's on screen. This one is basically the gang goes to Seattle. I want to talk to you a little bit about Seattle as a setting for this show. I don't know where they shot this, who knows? But I really enjoyed this as a location. And we get to meet Jeffrey Wright's character as this guy named Isaac Dixon, who's a former Fedra agent and now leader, a leader of the Washington Liberation Front. Seems like he has a kind of co-executive branch situation with Alana Olback, which was just like, absolutely amazing to see her as a hardened militia member.

• 12:31Andy Greenwald?

  What about his, uh, why I quit New York essay? Except it's about why I quit Fedra.

• 12:38Chris Ryan?

  Why I quit Fedra?

• 12:40Andy Greenwald?

  Because Josh Peck won't shut up?

• 12:44Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I know a lot of things have deteriorated in the post-apocalyptic mushroom zombie land, but like, I feel like there are other ways to like, whatever happened to quiet quitting?

• 12:55Chris Ryan?

  I think it was, I think he wanted to make an extreme gesture of his loyalty to the burgeoning WLF, which frankly looked like a bunch of people at a Silver Lake Dog Park, you know, but.

• 13:06Andy Greenwald?

  I'm cutting you off. Let's, give me, give me the setup you want.

• 13:08Chris Ryan?

  I was, beyond that, we get to, we learn a little bit more about the WLF and their...

• 13:16Chris Ryan?

  Ongoing conflict with the the scars or the seraphites as

• 13:20Andy Greenwald?

  We learned, yeah, we learned that.

• 13:21Chris Ryan?

  Those people are called. They're in a basically a civil war taking place in Seattle. And both are using very extreme measures against one another. Got some disemboweling going on. Got some little enhanced interrogation techniques with copperware. Want to talk to you about that.

• 13:38Andy Greenwald?

  I really have a lot of thoughts about the cookware. What about just, you know, one little trend that I'm always happy to see is creepy messages written in blood. You know?

• 13:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Like, get my attention.

• 13:48Chris Ryan?

  Stay with you. This one reminded me-

• 13:51Andy Greenwald?

  This was shot in Vancouver.

• 13:51Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so but this this episode reminded me of the Melanie Linsky passage of episodes from the previous season.

• 14:00Chris Ryan?

  And I just felt very stimulated by having like a fully new kind of world to play around in outside of Jackson.

• 14:09Chris Ryan?

  Ellie and Dina still very much a part of the story, but you almost could feel them kind of becoming secondary to what was going on on screen. Like their love story and their, you know, adventure that they have in the abandoned light rail tunnel, because Seattle does not have subways.

• 14:27Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was fine and we can get into what exchange they have, the secret exchange that they have. But I wanted to get your your impressions of the WF. I guess you're you're

• 14:36Andy Greenwald?

  I'm curious.

• 14:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Andy Greenwald?

  I I think, before we get into that, I want to say I I agree with your larger point. The the best video game aspect of the show is the idea of our player characters or protagonists wandering into new sets, new stages, new levels with pre-existing conflict. That they are not walking into a place where it will be them against the WLF. They are walking into an active war zone. Basically, between two factions and they are diminished by that and also inevitably, I think, will survive because of that. So I I think that that structure works really well and it's an example of the show's smartly leaning into something that the video game gave it.

• 15:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's not how I felt about the entire episode.

• 15:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  I have, I guess I want to answer, so what you have, you want to ask me about my feelings about the WLF and their...

• 15:33Chris Ryan?

  Not about their methodology, but as a crew. I mean, a lot of Uback and, and, Uback, is that how you pronounce her name, I think?

• 15:40Andy Greenwald?

  I've never said it out loud.

• 15:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and Jeffrey Wright just have, I just like, immediately was interested in what was going on between the two of them. She plays Hammerhand, who's the person who seems to, uh...

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 15:50Chris Ryan?

  Uh, recruit him.

• 15:51Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, I did write it down as Hammerhand.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 15:55Andy Greenwald?

  I was wrong. It was kinda cool. It's kinda cool. It's why you know the kind of boots on the ground reporting I do.

• 16:01Chris Ryan?

  He's pretty good.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 16:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so your question is basically like, was I into this? I mean...

• 16:07Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no. I have a, I have a separate question. I don't know if you wanted to talk specifically about...

• 16:10Chris Ryan?

  No, no, go ahead. You go.

• 16:11Andy Greenwald?

  These are my favorite. Um, my bigger question for you, and I do have some like, other, uh, subsequent questions, but like, what is the fundamental difference between this show now and The Walking Dead? And I don't mean in terms of the quality of, of, uh, production, um, the settings, not even the caliber of actor. Now, Walking Dead had many good actors on it, including, um, your patron, Saint John Bernthal, but like, Isaac, um, I'm sorry, Jeffrey Wright coming in as Isaac raises the bar, gets my attention. It is exactly, uh, the kind of provocation that like, Melanie Linsky being in it. I guess it is not exactly like it in the sense that apparently, I've learned this, that Jeffrey Wright plays this part in the video game.

• 16:55Andy Greenwald?

  So it was expected and it's not totally out of left field.

• 16:57Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 16:59Andy Greenwald?

  But just, uh, just on a, on a foundational level, a show about people scrabbling through an apocalyptic zombie wilderness, discovering that the real monsters are people all along, it's Walking Dead.

• 17:13Chris Ryan?

  I'll be completely honest with you, man. I watched Walking Dead for like, four years.

• 17:16Andy Greenwald?

  And so did many millions of people. I'm thinking about this because I'm trying to calibrate my engagement in the show, which is diminishing significantly without Pedro Pascal and A. Reason, without a, this girl is going to save everyone and whether we make this choice or not will determine everything that follows.

• 17:32Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 17:33Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not saying that's gone. Uh, her immunity finally was brought up and confessed and so that's still on the table.

• 17:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she did her diplomatic immunity.

• 17:47Andy Greenwald?

  How much more would you love the show if she had done that?

• 17:49Chris Ryan?

  If she had. Well, Lethal Weapon 2 should exist in the timeline of this show, just like the... What did she sing?

• 17:56Andy Greenwald?

  She sang Aha's Take On Me.

• 17:59Chris Ryan?

  Up there with Thompson Twins and Aha.

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  Listen.

• 18:01Chris Ryan?

  Are having a moment.

• 18:02Andy Greenwald?

  I feel so, as a man in his late 40s, it's so rare to see my formative content and culture reflected back at me.

• 18:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Andy Greenwald?

  So, thank you. Thank you, television. Um, no, I'm not saying The Walking Dead is a bad comp. I'm not saying The Walking Dead is a bad show, although I did argue that at times in a Grantland column.

• 18:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 18:20Andy Greenwald?

  I'm saying I no longer really see the difference in terms of what's compelling to me once I get past the, oh, Jeffrey Wright's doing a cool monologue. And I did think of it when, um, friend of the pod Casey Bloys, head of HBO, was on with Matt Bellany on The Town. And Matt asked him a smart question that Casey has wrestled with before, which is what makes shows HBO shows anymore? When you are, you know, dealing with the same kind of IP stuff, and Casey is very nimble with it, and he basically said that we feel like if we're gonna do it, we want to elevate it, or we want to change it, or we want to change your perception of it. Um, and he used even like True Blood as an example of how HBO has always kind of done that. And it wasn't some new David Zaslove mandated thing.

• 19:03Andy Greenwald?

  And I was just thinking about that as I'm watching this show be, I guess, the best version of something that to me is not, is increasingly less compelling.

• 19:13Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Uh, I mean, I don't have like a really good counterargument. These are just the kinds of, I like these kinds of stories.

• 19:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Chris Ryan?

  So, the idea of a post-apocalyptic Seattle being fought over between a highly militarized, like militia and a religious faction is kind of curious. I'm curious about it. I feel like also these episodes, honestly, since Joel.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  Are kind of moving a little bit.

• 19:39Andy Greenwald?

  Ooh.

• 19:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh, not in a bad way, not in any way against Joel.

• 19:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Chris Ryan?

  But I think maybe I turn each episode on and I'm like, I don't really know. I think I'm enjoying not knowing what the show is about anymore. You know, like before it was like very rote about this father-daughter relationship.

• 19:57Andy Greenwald?

  It was on a track.

• 19:57Chris Ryan?

  Between two people who were kind of deeply in pain as they went across this, you know, post-apocalyptic wasteland and finally found a home, which it turns out was inevitably and ever going to be that. I think it allows Bella Ramsey and the Ellie character now to be a couple of different things, rather than just petulant at a person that she, for some reason, unspoken, seems to distrust or mistrust or have some beef with.

• 20:25Andy Greenwald?

  But she wants something now in a different way.

• 20:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she wants something and I think, uh, I think that you can kind of feel even in the performance that as the, I mean, the character still does things that are very annoying, like dropping the lid on the tank or being like, I'm going over here without, you know, waiting for cover or anything like that. But, um, I, I am enjoying like the each iteration of, now, now that this character's on their own, now that they are kind of having to fend for themselves and deal with the consequences of some of their decisions. I, I find it a little bit more engaging or pretty engaging. I, I suppose I just find myself like zagging here where in a post Pedro Pascal world, I'm actually like kind of more stimulated by the show than I was before.

• 21:11Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's, first of all, happy for you.

• 21:13Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, man.

• 21:14Andy Greenwald?

  Um, happy for you. You're getting a lot of what you want this week. A, a post Pascal television show and real change in Washington. So, you know, it's win-win.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  I am definitely struggling more with the, I would say, challenging mashup of.

• 21:35Andy Greenwald?

  Young lovers on the run plus sadistic zombie apocalypse show. It is a, there are a lot of tone shifts within the episode that are tough to keep up with. I think that the Deena character is fun and good energy and a good counterbalance to Bella Ramsey's performance as Ellie.

• 21:53Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 21:54Andy Greenwald?

  I also find myself, and this is incredibly pedantic and nitpicky, but very distracted by the fact that, that they, that she has perfect hair and makeup and a cool punk belt all the time. Like, it just feels a little, uh, either video game-y or wish fulfillment-y.

• 22:11Chris Ryan?

  TVE.

• 22:11Andy Greenwald?

  TVE, for sure.

• 22:12Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 22:13Andy Greenwald?

  Um, that kind of, that, I kind of bump on that. And then, you know, I, I just gotta say, like, I thought the wandering into the Sunkist record store that's also a music store, so Ellie can play a beautiful sadcore cover of a song from the eighties that, uh, she would have no way of knowing. And I really questioned that this version of Joel would know either, while Deena stares rapturously at her, was pretty dumb and cringey. Now, I'm gonna also tell on myself here. I know that's from the video game. That is verbatim from the video game. But do you know what else is from a video game? The time Sonic the Hedgehog and his pal Tails got more golden rings than Dr. Robotnik. You know what I mean? So like, what are we doing?

• 22:55Chris Ryan?

  But we, I mean-

• 22:55Andy Greenwald?

  And what are we doing this for?

• 22:56Chris Ryan?

  The source is the source. The source material is the source material.

• 22:58Andy Greenwald?

  But, it is a, I'm trying to be generous when I say this, that I understand that the project-

• 23:04Chris Ryan?

  Do you want the show itself to interrogate that moment in a different way than the video game did, or do you think that's just fan service of the video games?

• 23:11Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it's fan service. However, this is a very, you know, when we talk about contemporary TV-

• 23:16Chris Ryan?

  I think that it's actually wrong because by 03, when the apocalypse happens, I don't think mournful indie covers of eighties songs had really broken out yet.

• 23:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, Westworld never happened. So that whole thing where it's like-

• 23:30Chris Ryan?

  Well, no, but like, you remember, who is the band who did the like, kind of, um, emo cover of the Breakfast Club song?

• 23:38Chris Ryan?

  What was the breakfast?

• 23:40Andy Greenwald?

  Don't you forget about me?

• 23:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I didn't, wasn't there like in a?

• 23:43Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. There was a lot of that. There was like the Ataris doing the John Hughes songbook. Like that was, that was a thing.

• 23:49Chris Ryan?

  But was that before oh three?

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  Did the apocalypse happen in oh three?

• 23:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Andy Greenwald?

  We can never know this for sure.

• 23:55Chris Ryan?

  It's the first episode of the show.

• 23:57Andy Greenwald?

  We may not know that. In fact, it's hard for us to figure out what the first episode even was. There's so many. But I'll take your word for it. Um, I, I think that when we say often on this podcast that like there are a lot of stakeholders on a show or a lot of cooks in the kitchen, that can mean like different studios or producers or artistic points of view. In this case, it specifically means that it is Mazen and Druckmann working together to make something for HBO. What you will get is sometimes an uncomfortable hybrid. And I think for the most part, the show is actually not uncomfortable at all. It's worked tremendously and people are very happy with, with the result. There are moments though, where I'm like, I, I would question the necessity of that. And I, and I looked it up to see why it was there at all.

• 24:41Andy Greenwald?

  And it was there to service the video game fandom.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  There are three elements of this show story wise. There's the Ellie plot. There is the Seattle WLF scars plot. And then there is the mushroom people. Cause we haven't really been back to Jackson since we left. So we are kind of keeping our POV with Ellie or Isaac essentially. Now this show I think has shown in the past that it will flip around. Obviously there's the Nick Offerman, Barry Bartlett episode. There's some time spent with Molly Alinsky. There are various flashback episodes. There are kind of, you know, flights of fancy with Jakarta or the guy in the first

• 25:24Chris Ryan?

  episode who's giving a lecture about like the viral, the viral outbreak. But I found myself kind of returning to that same idea that I brought up last week, which was the difference between Last of Us and Andor and how I thought this episode was trying to sort of have its cake and eat it too, in a way that I didn't mind that much, but it was, you know, you could make an argument that there's a version of this show where everything is discovered by Ellie. So we're now already like Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. Ellie has no idea.

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, it's 2013, I think is the Last of Us infection. Because if it was 2003, that would be 26 years since Joel lost his daughter.

• 26:05Chris Ryan?

  Well, he's real old.

• 26:06Andy Greenwald?

  It's 2029 now, right?

• 26:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:10Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I'm-

• 26:11Chris Ryan?

  Because there's a difference between the game and the TV show when they do it.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, is there?

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Andy Greenwald?

  So, okay. I think, Kai, can you let us know as our producer, this is when the pod is at its best, right? When we get really deep into the weeds of easily Google-able facts?

• 26:26Andy Greenwald?

  Why don't we continue the podcast? Could you be a stat gal for us and check this while we go?

• 26:30Chris Ryan?

  The point is, is that I don't know that she would know-

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  The character Ellie would know a beautiful folk indie version of that song.

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  So she invented it?

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 26:43Andy Greenwald?

  Well, now I know why Dina was like, "Holy shit."

• 26:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  This is a whole genre.

• 26:49Chris Ryan?

  Like, imagine if you'd never seen Social Network, and one day I came in and just sang a beautiful boys chorus version of Creep.

• 26:58Andy Greenwald?

  Follow-up. Are you all the boys in the chorus? Are you like, auto-looping yourself like Reggie Watts to create?

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Andy Greenwald?

  I think I would be surprised on more levels than just, "You've invented music." I'd be like, "Where have you been hiding this tenor?"

• 27:15Chris Ryan?

  I just wanted to, I was trying to make the point, though, that I find the shows kind of going back and forth between, you know, you're watching Ellie and Dina-

• 27:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:24Chris Ryan?

  Be like, "Whoa, look at all those explosions over there. I guess we have to go towards them."

• 27:28Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 27:28Chris Ryan?

  And then we know what's happening to some extent, uh, just via, vis a vis, like, our couple of scenes with Isaac in this episode. It's, it's the difference between doing that complete John Dos Passos, like, we're flying around every single possible character, versus, "I am just gonna kind of live through this one person's experience of this."

• 27:48Andy Greenwald?

  I would also like to say publicly, you were right. The television show is 2003.

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  Great. Well-

• 27:55Andy Greenwald?

  So-

• 27:56Chris Ryan?

  Are you gonna respond to anything I've said other than that, though?

• 27:58Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm just thinking about, so there was no swift boating? Like, John Kerry-

• 28:02Chris Ryan?

  John Kerry is, yeah. I get the impression John Kerry went down with the first wave, though.

• 28:07Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know. They were in Boston. Do you know what I mean? Like, he has-

• 28:11Chris Ryan?

  Wasn't he largely like, uh-

• 28:13Andy Greenwald?

  A product of Washington at that point?

• 28:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 28:18Chris Ryan?

  Guys, say this for the quarter steps. They drained the swamp. You know, speaking of cities, I wanted to bounce this off of you. I've put it together a little bit of a Last of Us city rankings.

• 28:29Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay.

• 28:29Chris Ryan?

  And I thought maybe you could, you could weigh in on your own here.

• 28:32Andy Greenwald?

  I, I did, I did appreciate, I, I liked the moment when they saw the explosions.

• 28:36Chris Ryan?

  I also liked the moment when they're in the subway tunnel and those fucking things are trying to get into the train car and they're like, blap, blap, blap, blap. You know, that's the thing is any time a day ever gets corny, it gets really good.

• 28:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I'm like, this is, this is how we're built different and not in a good way in this case, that like, once they chase him down to the subways, I was like,

• 28:59Andy Greenwald?

  because you're all about that life. I was like, oh, you know, I'm thinking about how if only Campbell Scott's character in Singles had successfully built a monorail.

• 29:07Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 29:08Andy Greenwald?

  This whole thing would have been invalidated.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  Wait, did Singles come out? Yes.

• 29:13Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  Singles is the 90s, yeah.

• 29:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, maybe that's what started the infection.

• 29:17Andy Greenwald?

  The super train? That they didn't build it?

• 29:20Chris Ryan?

  They brought a mushroom guy in from, from Portland, Oregon.

• 29:24Andy Greenwald?

  And he lived in the little complex with everyone?

• 29:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's just like, I, from, for me, for those, when the My Law directed scene where Abby was running from,

• 29:36Chris Ryan?

  And the chain link fence is coming down.

• 29:37Andy Greenwald?

  The chain link fence, I was like, this is so sick, honestly, and it's so engaging, it's viscerally done. And I'm not saying that My Law deserves all the credit and Kate Heron is a good director, directed this episode. And it was also well-directed, but there was something that was so visually engaging and dramatically exhilarating about that scene that I was completely all in and all my little nitpicks about like Dina's dental health fall away. And that's when the show is at its best in terms of my engagement with it.

• 30:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Andy Greenwald?

  Subway thing for me, I'm like mildly engaged, but I also know both of them are going to survive. There's going to be some, I, I predicted some moment, I don't mean to sound like a, like a total asshole here, like a,

• 30:12Chris Ryan?

  I called it, yeah.

• 30:14Andy Greenwald?

  It wasn't that, but there had to be some narratively significant moment that happened and it was just a question of getting over the obstacles. And for me, those scenes start to feel like mashing the X button. To get through it, to see what it, what we've learned or how we're, how it's going to resolve. That there is a segment of the audience, and this was true with Walking Dead 2, and I think I wrote about this back in the days of Granland, which is just like, If you like the flavor of this snack, there's gonna be a lot of it. And so you're going to be happy. That's never been my favorite flavor, so I'm looking in the other scenes and I found them lacking.

• 30:43Chris Ryan?

  And, and the other scenes were of people getting tortured, so.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  So that was the other thing.

• 30:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I do wanna talk to you about cookware. But I also, and I'm willing to cut, now I'm willing to cut the show some slack because, um, post 2003 really was the golden age of character actors giving slow monologues about something unrelated.

• 31:02Chris Ryan?

  You know, when I was a boy at the.

• 31:04Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe they didn't know.

• 31:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Andy Greenwald?

  How totally hacky that type of scene is, I think, at this point.

• 31:10Chris Ryan?

  There's actually, it's funny, in Gemstones.

• 31:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Chris Ryan?

  John Goodman starts one of those speeches and then it just goes, fuck, fuck it, like.

• 31:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 31:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's the thing, and it, it, it, it scratches a certain itch. It's a very familiar thing, and when you give a scene like this to an actor like Jeffrey Wright, it is a contemporary Shakespeare monologue. Like, he knows what to do with this, and he seems to savor it. I found it pretty hideous. Honestly, I found it really ugly. And the whole thing ugly, and I didn't think it's particularly brave or.

• 31:40Chris Ryan?

  Because you think he was denigrating cast iron cookware, or because of his?

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  I think he was right, and I wanted to criticize it, but I did appreciate that he was just like, copper is very, very difficult to clean. And I was like, that's the law, that's the truth that the Nancy Meyers movie industry has hid from us.

• 31:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Andy Greenwald?

  Like, it looks good in Pottery Barn or William Sonoma, as he references. Hope they cut that check.

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  When I have an ice cold Pepsi after I torture a guy.

• 32:10Andy Greenwald?

  I was, I was thinking about it, like, the one thing's that, the first thing that ages poorly in all major movies is just the, like, the naked product placement. Like, when I was watching Endgame and, and Ant-Man, Cap, and, and Black Widow, like, go to Tony Stark's lake cabin to be like, let's invent time travel to fix the universe, but they pull up in a sick Audi e-tron test model.

• 32:31Chris Ryan?

  The Audis are crazy in Avengers movies.

• 32:33Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 32:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Andy Greenwald?

  Um, it worked on us, but anyway.

• 32:37Chris Ryan?

  Is that why you bought an Audi?

• 32:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's why I bought an electric car.

• 32:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Andy Greenwald?

  You know, you're welcome. Um, yeah, I, I just, I, I found it, I found it gratuitous and, and, and gross.

• 32:52Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 32:52Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, and whenever these shows go in that direction, it's just not how I want to spend my time.

• 32:56Chris Ryan?

  Well, I want to see what their ideological differences are, you know? And I, I am very intrigued by this lady who seems to have a hold over the Scar people, the Seraphites, you know? Like the, the idea of this like love going beyond love and into violence is.

• 33:11Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think of her as more of a Marianne Williamson or a Tulsi Gabbard type?

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  My Last of Us city rankings are as follows.

• 33:19Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 33:19Chris Ryan?

  Ready?

• 33:20Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I'm ready for this. I, I'm not done talking about the Seraphites, but yes.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 33:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  No, you go ahead and talk about the Seraphites then.

• 33:26Andy Greenwald?

  Are you aware that, um, that creator Neil Druckmann has said that some of his influence for this was his childhood in Israel?

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  I was aware and I was, I was not aware that you were going to bring it up, but we can talk about it.

• 33:38Andy Greenwald?

  I, I just find, I don't know, I, I'm not denigrating or speaking to his personal background or history or reasons for what he's doing with his art. I, I am, I am a hundred percent struggling, as you may have heard with my, uh, when we were talking about the first thing here, uh, that we talked about today, like,

• 33:55Andy Greenwald?

  trying to use this hyper violent zombie video game, now a TV show, as any kind of vehicle for deeper thoughts about where we are in the world or who we are as a people, I'm out on.

• 34:06Chris Ryan?

  Is it because of that's, okay, is it because of the genre? Or is it because of like the hell that we live in?

• 34:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's a combination of both, I think, and you can speak to this better than I can, but I think that even from, uh, from my vantage point, which is, uh, under my covers with my head, hands over my face.

• 34:26Chris Ryan?

  Manically reading Facebook, yeah.

• 34:28Andy Greenwald?

  Reading Facebook to get my news. Horror movies.

• 34:30Chris Ryan?

  Engaging with the larger and or.

• 34:33Andy Greenwald?

  Engaging respectfully, always respectfully.

• 34:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Andy Greenwald?

  I think that horror movies like, I, please tell me what's wrong about this analysis, but I think the things that horror movies do really well, which is, you know, pluck the strings of emotional extremity and reaction.

• 34:48Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:48Andy Greenwald?

  And that other movies and other types of art don't, and also they are a very, very, very, um, Hardy vehicle for real world analogy, right?

• 35:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, like half of the world seems to run on fear. So horror is a really effective window through which to like, look at the human experience.

• 35:08Andy Greenwald?

  To look at the human experience and to look at issues of the day in a way that is-

• 35:10Chris Ryan?

  What are you scared of? Yeah.

• 35:11Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's, I think that's great for you guys. No, I genuinely see that and respect it. And when I am able to engage with it, it is, it is a me thing. It is not a genre thing. I think that scripted prestige television dramatic shows are incredibly hardy vehicles to explore emotional relationships between people in the world as it is. And while including room for nuance and non-binary and all senses kinds of explorations of ideas. I think the mashup of the two, which is necessary for a long running TV show, feels awkward to me and feels sometimes incoherent to try to juice yourself on the, I am holding a pan to the scarred naked guy's arm while he screams.

• 35:55Andy Greenwald?

  And then also be like, but what this really says about my trauma is that type of shit turns me all the way off.

• 36:02Chris Ryan?

  Is it because of the specific genre we're watching? Or do you think maybe you've just kind of seen so many genre shows, regardless whether it's The Boys or Game of Thrones or whatever, that you're like, I am actually starting to be allergic to this. I just want you to tell me a good story. Cause you could make the argument that Andor is certainly doing what you're talking about right now. Right? Using Star Wars to talk about real wars.

• 36:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but I think that Andor is very much in, it stays within its lane of being a show about adult spies and revolutionaries struggling. It would feel very different if, if, if Willman was secretly a Padawan learner, apprentice to a Jedi, and now all of a sudden there's space magic.

• 36:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Andy Greenwald?

  There isn't space magic on that show, and I think it's consistent. This show, I think, and I'm not saying it's a bad idea to try to do it. I'm finding the collision to be off putting of- We are being thoughtful, emotionally and emotionally wise and considerate. We even have a therapist on the show, but also.

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  For all the good she did.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  But also, we're gonna, I'm sorry, what did you do in the subway car with your two guns up?

• 37:15Chris Ryan?

  Blap, blap.

• 37:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I find that to be an increasingly uncomfortable collision, particularly in this moment that we are living in, where I just start to find it really kind of smug and conversation ending, that this perpetual obsession that we have, that when the shit goes down, we're gonna fix it with guns and charisma.

• 37:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Andy Greenwald?

  When I actually think a better argument for how we could fix it was on view in the Conan O'Brien Mark Twain Prize thing on Netflix, which we'll get to in a second. That's kind of, that's the energy I'm bringing to this. Now, let's talk about your city rankings.

• 37:49Chris Ryan?

  I think number one has to be Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is where Murray Bartlett at Gofferman lived. Now, I think it goes bad a little bit towards the end there, but you really have a beautiful domestic scenario there, you know? And the wife picket fences, living off the land.

• 38:06Andy Greenwald?

  Does it remind you of how, like, when restaurant owners take a space, they get like a 10-year lease?

• 38:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  And then they're like, you know what? Restaurants are mortal, they're fickle, they're challenging. If we can make it 10 years, that's a success.

• 38:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Andy Greenwald?

  So that's kind of the vibe there.

• 38:20Chris Ryan?

  That's my Lincoln, Massachusetts. I love lived there, so I think it's got.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  Did you say love lived there?

• 38:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:26Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 38:27Chris Ryan?

  Number two, kind of shocking, Seattle.

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is so wild.

• 38:31Chris Ryan?

  Verdant, and also diversity of viewpoints.

• 38:36Andy Greenwald?

  A robust, so you're saying there's a robust debate in the public square of Seattle?

• 38:41Chris Ryan?

  It's like 1770s Philadelphia.

• 38:42Andy Greenwald?

  It reminds me of the opening of Hamilton.

• 38:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Okay, do you feel, though, there's an opportunity to... Okay, remember a few months ago when the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl?

• 38:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Andy Greenwald?

  You were wearing the hat. And then remember I told you that my parents, who lived downtown, were like, we didn't even see anything. There wasn't a celebration.

• 39:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, did you look at the windows on the other side of the apartment? Is there an opportunity to be like my parents in Seattle and be like, those crazy kids are out there kicking up some kind of ruckus, but I'm just here with my old Bob Marley vinyl and my immaculate guitars?

• 39:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, playing indie folk covers of new wave songs, sure.

• 39:25Andy Greenwald?

  You think there's space for that?

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  Seattle's a huge city.

• 39:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, it, but it feels like a small town, I think, from people who live there say that.

• 39:32Chris Ryan?

  Number three, Jackson, communal.

• 39:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:36Chris Ryan?

  But a lot of bureaucracy.

• 39:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I agree.

• 39:38Chris Ryan?

  You know, like, a lot of, like, we have to run it up the flagpole, obviously frustrating guys like Seth.

• 39:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Do you know what Seth said when they asked him if everyone in Jackson needs due process? I don't know.

• 39:50Chris Ryan?

  Number four, Salt Lake City, functional medical infrastructure.

• 39:55Andy Greenwald?

  Functional, but brittle.

• 39:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 39:58Chris Ryan?

  Maybe not the most secure medical infrastructure.

• 40:01Andy Greenwald?

  I would say it was, it earned its reputation, but it burned fast and it burned hot.

• 40:07Chris Ryan?

  Number five, Boston. I mean, it was actually still functional.

• 40:11Andy Greenwald?

  I actually saw no difference between Boston on the show and Boston in real life.

• 40:13Chris Ryan?

  Number six, Jakarta.

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  We didn't go back.

• 40:16Chris Ryan?

  Nope, because it's gone, but it's still better than Kansas City. Because.

• 40:23Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 40:24Chris Ryan?

  Because Kansas City had roving death squads and they were probably all Chiefs fans.

• 40:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, also, we wouldn't want to be in Kansas City regardless.

• 40:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Andy Greenwald?

  Good point, yeah. Do you, um, did you have thoughts about the, the cookware?

• 40:37Chris Ryan?

  Uh, a real, like, I think I too have probably heard my fair share of guys about to kill another guy, but first has a cool monologue.

• 40:45Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:45Chris Ryan?

  Um, for a long time, those were my, my stock in trade, you know, like, I really,

• 40:52Chris Ryan?

  that's just like.

• 40:53Andy Greenwald?

  You built yourself piece by piece through those speeches.

• 40:54Chris Ryan?

  Christopher Walken to romance, like, that's how we, we built this, this place.

• 40:58Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 40:59Chris Ryan?

  But, uh, you know, I was curious about where that was going. It did seem like he wasn't about to make an omelet, and he didn't.

• 41:06Andy Greenwald?

  There is a kind of wild, if you were to just.

• 41:09Chris Ryan?

  That dude was like Burnby. I don't give a fuck, you know? Think about that level of commitment.

• 41:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's belief.

• 41:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Andy Greenwald?

  Um, that's what Vic Fangio demands.

• 41:21Chris Ryan?

  You think John Gamble's just like, "Fucking, let's go."

• 41:24Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I'm wondering. That's what I'm wondering.

• 41:28Andy Greenwald?

  Ah, it's gone. I did... Oh, oh, I was gonna say, if you had... And probably some of our listeners do this, like, if you were just pretty much engaging with television through the window of HBO, there would be just so many strange parallels, and it's not just Walton Goggins playing, you know, the alphas and omegas of television and White Lotus into water skiing nude and then becoming a teen Jesus. It would also be, like, if you'd watched Gemstones last week, and I... Trust me, if you're one of the listeners who's just like, "I've heard that show's good. I think I'll watch it. I'm gonna fast-forward the spoiler." It's okay, because I think it will make you wanna watch the show more if I say, "Last week,

• 42:11Andy Greenwald?

  when Uncle Baby Billy and Eli were tied up in the back of the Gator Park, and they discovered the Mercedes-Benz dealer, Big Dick Mitch, also tied up. He was tied up and nude, kind of like the Scar guy."

• 42:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 42:30Andy Greenwald?

  And didn't work out great for either of those guys. In fact, ended similarly. But I prefer the righteous Gemstones way of handling it.

• 42:37Chris Ryan?

  Do you wanna talk about the Gemstones, though?

• 42:39Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should.

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• 43:08Speaker 05

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• 44:19Chris Ryan?

  This series came to a conclusion last night with a 50-minute episode that I thought had some of like the best moments and best lines of the season. I particularly appreciated this to be a show where one man can congratulate his father on still being able to do comes.

• 44:40Chris Ryan?

  And I don't really know if there was that much story to tell even from the beginning of the season in retrospect. The lorry plot and the quote-unquote mystery around what was going on there. And I don't even know if the gold bible for me really wound up paying off. Certainly did not for Corey. It was like kind of in that spot where like this show could have gone on for 12 or 20 years. Like it's always sunny and you could have just kept having these crazy kids get together and get kidnapped and then get rescued. I think it ended in the right place. What did you think of the finale and what did you think of this last season?

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  I agree with you. I think though, my zag on this is I thought generally speaking, this season was a mess. I loved every episode and I loved watching it. I think it's a mess for reasons that give me some optimism and the ending it gives me some optimism. We don't presume to know Danny McBride well. We have interviewed him a few times. But I think I speak for both of us. We love him and we love his creative mind and his humor, but also his artistic and aesthetic ambition. And when we talked to him, we were talking mostly about that Bradley Cooper opening episode because that was what had aired at that point. What I kind of feel like I felt in this season was someone, and he said to us and he said to others,

• 46:02Andy Greenwald?

  that he didn't even tell the cast that he had kind of decided this was it until the end, which meant that it was an ongoing, he was sort of seeing how it was going and seeing, you know, trying to do an honest assessment of an audit of what they had made for the season. I feel like the tension was, do I want to keep funning or do I want to push a little bit further? And that's kind of been the story of his career, right? Of like, we could just do, I could just do Kenny Powers bits forever.

• 46:31Chris Ryan?

  10 years, yeah.

• 46:31Andy Greenwald?

  But maybe I want to make something that feels more like a movie. And with Gemstones, the fun tension over the years that were always okay because of the jokes, was that like, what if I wanted to do a flashback 70s wrestling thing? What if I wanted to do a Southern Fried Gothic over the top horror movie at times or action movie? And this felt like the show kind of ran out of gas, like for what he wanted to do with it. And the emotion that it sometimes went for in the finale, I felt was the best that it could do with the show.

• 47:02Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 47:02Andy Greenwald?

  But maybe there's more to do for him. And so it was the appropriate place to end because the other choice was, to your point, it could have just been them ripping each other for four more years. And would we have liked that?

• 47:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Andy Greenwald?

  But I think he wanted to do something more.

• 47:15Chris Ryan?

  I think I really would have just watched E.D. Patterson and Tim Balz for years. I thought every episode had a chuckle to like a full on, I need to rewind that and hear that again. Something strange happened this season in particular, even though he's been part of the show for, it's almost his entire run, is that I felt like Goggins was like Miles Davis. And it was almost too good.

• 47:44Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 47:44Chris Ryan?

  Do you understand, like, I know this is weird, but he was like doing... It was like watching Daniel Day-Lewis just be on a comedy.

• 47:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 47:53Chris Ryan?

  And you hear stories about Goggins being like, I showed up to the set of Gemstones and I was just like, my emotional tank was empty from doing White Lotus. And I really didn't think I had any juice left. And then you see what he does. And I don't think a Baby Billy show would have worked. But Baby Billy was so fully realized and so committed that it almost like daunted like John Goodman.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think it did. And I think that you, you can, we have to give Goggins all the credit, but I also think that, that Danny McBride looks at this and sees what, what room there is for that character to grow. Or what sort of fuels the character, not just, what does he say, an eight ball and $2 million? Like, you're 100% right. Like, it was a weird thing last week where all Mac subscribers got an email saying, you know, praise, praise he, the show is over. And we all thought it was done, uh, but it wasn't. But I'm sure many people thought last week's episode could have been a finale because it was very Baby Billy centric.

• 48:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Andy Greenwald?

  And he was very absent in this episode, other than realizing that he didn't want to get on a cross, he wanted to raise his kids. So that was good. But I think that, I think that Danny McBride saw that character and where he had to go. And then I think he probably saw another year of, do I break up these siblings? Or do I have them say mean stuff to their dad and act like children again? And it would be funny and they would come up with new scenarios and new monkeys or whatever. But it's ultimately kind of limited.

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  Whenever you got a monkey, you know that things are.

• 49:21Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have a monkey on a roughhouse show, it's gonna go well. So I don't begrudge any of it.

• 49:25Chris Ryan?

  Did any part of you think that the show is gonna end with Cory killing the Gemstone kids?

• 49:29Andy Greenwald?

  No, and I think that was also, this is such a weird comment, but like, it kind of robbed the finale of some juice for me. Because so definitively was he not going to do that? And also frankly, like the, he's the real villain all along felt a little soft. The show, and I wonder, I just, this is just idle speculation, but I wonder if there was some budget stuff this year. Because past seasons have had a lot of monster truck stuff and a lot of. Like big, bigger set pieces while the season felt a lot more limited to very, very specific. Family dynamic.

• 50:08Chris Ryan?

  I could think they got the lake house. They have the mega church.

• 50:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  They had a couple of other things, but there was not, I think they, they spent a lot of money on the civil war.

• 50:15Andy Greenwald?

  I think they did.

• 50:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that they made choices and it worked and they, I think they decided or they, I don't know whether, the jury's out whether it quote unquote worked or not, but they decided that the engine of this season would be. Should John Goodman get to have sex again? Like, and.

• 50:28Chris Ryan?

  He did comes.

• 50:29Andy Greenwald?

  He did him. He did a lot of them. Um, so that, so the like, oh, well, it's actually her ex-husband is a, she's a villain. No, the ex-husband's a villain. No, it was the son.

• 50:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:37Andy Greenwald?

  And then she's like, boy, that really sucked the way my son killed my husband and then. My boyfriend's son shot my son in the head, but not fatally, but then ultimately fatally.

• 50:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:46Andy Greenwald?

  And then she's like, let's go on a boat together. It's a lot of gymnastics.

• 50:50Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 50:50Andy Greenwald?

  To get to a place that felt fine, but I continue to think it's a credit to the show, which is one of the funniest shows of the decade. That we're debating it a little bit.

• 50:59Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think that there, there was like a runaway kind of like, is this actually better than succession?

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Chris Ryan?

  Or like more astute about power and family. And, you know, I, that's a silly. Binary to exist in, but I do think at its best, the show even transcended like the comic parts about it.

• 51:16Andy Greenwald?

  It did.

• 51:17Chris Ryan?

  Um, but yeah, I highly, if, if you're listening to this and you haven't watched the Racist Gemstones, like you're missing out. You should check it out.

• 51:23Andy Greenwald?

  I mean.

• 51:24Chris Ryan?

  That's what a weird thing to say.

• 51:25Andy Greenwald?

  You're a big fan. I mean, Edie Patterson as Judy is, and, and Walden Goggins is Baby Billy are, are Hall of Fame.

• 51:33Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:33Andy Greenwald?

  Hall of Fame characters. It's always funny. It's just, it's just one of the purest funny, purest comedic shows on television and. But I feel like.

• 51:45Andy Greenwald?

  We, we don't know what they're going to do next.

• 51:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:49Andy Greenwald?

  Danny McBride and Edie Patterson are attached to, to develop this like Southern book club's guide to vampires. Novel that came out a year ago. They were, that was announced. So that might be an extension of the brand, or at least they're still working together. I personally, I, I like to view him as a long-term auteur and like all of these shows are of a piece and I can't wait to see what the next chapter is.

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  Let's briefly.

• 52:11Andy Greenwald?

  Can I say one thing?

• 52:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Andy Greenwald?

  Christina Flannery, the costume designer of the show, low-key MVP.

• 52:17Chris Ryan?

  Oh, the Michael Jackson outfit?

• 52:19Andy Greenwald?

  Everything. It like, just squeezing Jesse into those pork pie hats.

• 52:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Andy Greenwald?

  And Judy wearing like a wizard robe.

• 52:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and all the like, the secret society of creatures.

• 52:28Andy Greenwald?

  The cape and pistol stuff.

• 52:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  And like, Calvin's $5,000 shirt.

• 52:32Chris Ryan?

  But that was also an example of like, I feel like they had building up to that for like, seven episodes and then it was like a 22nd, kind of.

• 52:38Andy Greenwald?

  The cape and pistol thing?

• 52:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it wasn't, you know, it was like, and also part of what the show does is like, Sean William Scott and Stephen Dorff are gonna show up and be really funny and surprise us or remind us of what they're good at.

• 52:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Andy Greenwald?

  And it's good, but it did feel, this season felt, I mean, it didn't, it didn't feel as sharp.

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  Which maybe is what Danny was feeling and why it was time to pull the plug.

• 53:00Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's talk a little bit about Conan O'Brien's special on Netflix.

• 53:04Andy Greenwald?

  Can't believe you fired it up.

• 53:05Chris Ryan?

  Dude, I, I did the work. I had such a weird evening. I needed a laugh. So, uh, it was Conan O'Brien, the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and it went up on Netflix on Friday?

• 53:16Andy Greenwald?

  Over the weekend, for sure.

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, over the weekend. This, uh, as you may know, the Kennedy Center is going through some changes under the Trump administration, so that's sort of the premise of this, uh, special is that despite knowing...

• 53:32Andy Greenwald?

  What was going on?

• 53:32Chris Ryan?

  What was going on? Oh, no, it's like, Trump's been elected and they decide to do it as like a last gasp, right?

• 53:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think that this was filmed like, two months ago, so it was already happening.

• 53:42Chris Ryan?

  Okay. I thought it was shot in November. Maybe he got the award in November and they shot the like...

• 53:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, there was a question whether they were gonna go through with it.

• 53:49Chris Ryan?

  It's actually set in 2003. I don't know if you're looking at The Last of Us video game on Wikipedia.

• 53:53Andy Greenwald?

  I actually just Googled Conan O'Brien Jakarta, question mark, and what I've gotten back is frankly shocking. Um, yeah, I did, there's no like...

• 54:04Chris Ryan?

  Is it a Studio Ghibli animation of Conan O'Brien?

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  Eating a mushroom?

• 54:08Chris Ryan?

  Being like, bumba, yeah.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  So you've seen the Studio Ghibli AI theft, but you've not seen the Studio Ghibli movie?

• 54:15Chris Ryan?

  I saw Porco Rosso, I told you that.

• 54:17Andy Greenwald?

  You watched it over a child's shoulder?

• 54:19Chris Ryan?

  We don't have to do this bit again. I promise you, before the cordless steps rise, I will watch a Studio Ghibli.

• 54:24Andy Greenwald?

  That said, I did text you that the happiest viewing experience, other than mainlining and/or the happiest viewing experience of the last few weeks was this.

• 54:32Chris Ryan?

  Talk to me about it.

• 54:34Andy Greenwald?

  I just, so, these Mark Twain prizes have been, the 20-plus years, they've been giving them away, and I've engaged with some of them, like, I remember watching the Tina Fey one. I just thought this was a really smart, by Netflix and Ted Sarandos, who...

• 54:49Chris Ryan?

  Who you love.

• 54:50Andy Greenwald?

  Who I just support and I love. Tariffs be damned. No, like, I find his engagement with comedy interesting. Like, he, you know, went to the SNL 50th, he really, that part of the business seems to still very much animate him.

• 55:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes, very much so.

• 55:06Andy Greenwald?

  And having Mulaney be a show, like, it's because he also believes in the power of having a Letterman or Conan-type person doing a talk show. There's a lot of speculation that he wants to step in and, like, basically steal Saturday Night Live as a concept and juice, and I don't mean, like, steal the show.

• 55:21Chris Ryan?

  It's once Lauren retires, he might start as SNL competitor.

• 55:24Andy Greenwald?

  Launch a competitor, and that's, so, him making the Mark Twain Prize a show that is on Netflix and him being in the audience for this. Correct. I thought was interesting, but also just a really, really successful gambit, because it was, just as an hour, hour and a half, it is a total joy to watch. Like, just pure comedy, like, Mulaney crushes it. Tracy Morgan, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler destroys Bill Burr, like...

• 55:52Chris Ryan?

  I gotta say, man, I really enjoy Nikki Glaser.

• 55:55Andy Greenwald?

  She's great!

• 55:56Chris Ryan?

  She was so good with the interrupter.

• 55:58Andy Greenwald?

  She was so good at that bit.

• 55:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:00Andy Greenwald?

  And, so, pure comedy, watch this, it's great. Secondarily, I am an absolute emo sucker for watching people...

• 56:09Andy Greenwald?

  Show themselves a little bit more and be slightly earnest interspersed with-

• 56:12Chris Ryan?

  This is why it's important to you that the Eagles linebacker corps are also your friends.

• 56:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Yes, a million percent. For what it's worth, I just saw, all right, I was listening to the Lonely Island, Seth Meyers and Lonely Island podcast they do, and our colleague at The Ringer, Amy Poehler, was a guest. And she, they were talking about her last appearance on Weekend Update, and they clipped it, it's on Instagram, you can watch it. But she specifically says that her favorite sensation in the world is when something is heartfelt and then gets cut a little bit by a hard joke, and that's kind of what this experience, watching this thing was. It's like, there's the, there's the at once experience of Conan O'Brien coming on in 1993. Malini talks about watching the first episode, like, I remember watching that also.

• 56:57Andy Greenwald?

  And finding, you know, in college, being like, what are they getting away with? What are they doing? And having that inform my sense of comedy or what was possible. The feeling of, oh, now we're just giving awards to this because it's three decades old? That's a tough one, but also kind of moving to see people from such disparate backgrounds, like game recognizing game. It's a little bit like, like a Legends game in the NBA or something of like, people from different generations saying, I see you, I see what made you special, I see what made you funny. I love it, I'm a sucker for it, I thought it was beautifully done, very sweet. And then, and then also at the end, Conan really, really delivers and gives a speech that is very funny,

• 57:37Andy Greenwald?

  that is also very relevant, and then is both undercut and then lifted up by some really exquisite silliness.

• 57:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Andy Greenwald?

  And I, I'm, I'm honestly not kidding when I say that I feel like when, when the shit really hits, like, being able to laugh and have strong, non-cynical feelings will be more useful than having, you know, rifles, at least until the Gulags open. But do you know what I mean? Like, I genuinely found this to be a more moving, cultural and artistic representative of a small type of no hashtag resistance-

• 58:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Andy Greenwald?

  -than making shows about like, actually, the end of the world's gonna be mushrooms, it's gonna be shit. But don't worry, if we're tough enough, we'll survive. Like, I just, I'm just kind of sick of that type of dystopia.

• 58:22Chris Ryan?

  You love to laugh, man, it's okay. I love it.

• 58:24Andy Greenwald?

  We got it, we have to.

• 58:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Andy Greenwald?

  What else, what else can we do?

• 58:28Chris Ryan?

  Well, according to Isaac Dixon, we could do all sorts of stuff.

• 58:31Andy Greenwald?

  Show me what else we could do again.

• 58:34Andy Greenwald?

  I want the gift. Can we start doing gifts now?

• 58:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't, I can't put it any better than that. I have not somebody who's super well versed in Conan lore. So some of the like, in 93, this blew everybody's minds. Like, I wasn't really-

• 58:48Andy Greenwald?

  You weren't about, all about that masturbating bear life?

• 58:50Chris Ryan?

  I just didn't really participate in late night shows. That I, it's kind of a blank spot for me.

• 58:55Andy Greenwald?

  Did you need to go to bed early to make the bus for baseball? Like, what was your late night regime? Why didn't you engage?

• 59:01Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I don't really remember what I would do at night, honestly. It's just kind of-

• 59:05Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 59:06Chris Ryan?

  I don't, like, there wasn't like a hard bedtime, but like-

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Were you Spider-Man? What do you mean? What was your, no, you, I don't remember what I did at night?

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what? It's just like, sometimes, I think I played a lot of video games. Like, I think I was really, really playing whatever in 93 I had.

• 59:25Andy Greenwald?

  Like Strider on Genesis?

• 59:26Chris Ryan?

  And then in 94, it was like, hello ladies, you know?

• 59:30Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, there it is.

• 59:35Chris Ryan?

  I'm fucking around.

• 59:38Andy Greenwald?

  All the, all the ladies were watching the dancing Edo's on Leno every night, you know? I don't know how you kept up.

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, that did kind of turn me off. I was like, this shit is so stupid every single night. I can't watch any of these guys.

• 59:49Andy Greenwald?

  The OJ coverage.

• 59:49Chris Ryan?

  But I'm, like, the same thing for Letterman. I did not have like a deep relationship with Letterman.

• 59:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think we were just, I don't want to speak, I mean, I'm sure there are people our age who did this, but like, when you hear people like, well, Conan certainly, or, or Bill, when he talks about like discovering Letterman, when it was the coolest, secretest thing, I was, I think we were too young to stay up that late then, in the early 80s. And so, but I was, when Mulaney's making these jokes in this thing about how like, he, like, what kind of 14-year-old should know that Conan was originally on a series of 13-week contracts?

• 1:00:23Chris Ryan?

  That was so fucking funny.

• 1:00:23Andy Greenwald?

  But that was also me. Like, I was reading TV Guide for the articles, being like, whoa, it seems like there's troubles brewing at Peacock Factory in Burbank. Like, I, I was not talking to ladies.

• 1:00:33Chris Ryan?

  Hello ladies.

• 1:00:34Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, goodbye ladies. And-

• 1:00:36Chris Ryan?

  Wait, where are you going?

• 1:00:38Andy Greenwald?

  Don't you understand? 13 weeks are not normal, even in this business plagued by massive turnover. The, uh, I, I was very aware of the narrative that like, someone was being given a shot here and it might be a little bit risky or different. I was like, I should like risky and different.

• 1:00:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Andy Greenwald?

  But I did find Conan show, particularly like in the, when he found his stride, um, was the Nikki Glaser joke about how like- How did I miss this for five years when her father showed her the five year anniversary? And her father's like, it's only been good for two.

• 1:01:08Andy Greenwald?

  That element of like, that, that in Smigel and like all the other writers that were involved in it were really, really informative. And I think it is, it also appeals to that sense of like, you know, the, the, the old, the old adage about like, how, you know, 60 people bought the Velvet Underground record, but they all formed bands. Like being able to see the, the roots and the connections between people.

• 1:01:30Chris Ryan?

  The feeling of somebody was getting away with something. That this like, I can't believe they're putting this on TV.

• 1:01:35Andy Greenwald?

  I also, this, this is definitely going to alienate some of our, some of our youth listeners.

• 1:01:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:01:40Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I'm sure we're getting more and more by the week. Um, but it, it's wild to have seen like, award ceremonies or prizes given or old roasts, you know, and there was like a older generation. And then now Letterman, who was the young buck, is the eminence Greece of this. And everyone's like stands to applaud him and makes jokes about how old he is. And then you realize that every generation to the degree that they're talented and of good communal spirit and survive is perfectly equipped to be the old elder statesman and to care about something and to look after each other.

• 1:02:14Chris Ryan?

  Getting old helps. Yeah.

• 1:02:15Andy Greenwald?

  Getting old helps. That's our lesson. Kaia may not believe it, but as our youth correspondent, I thought it was really fun and it just made me happy.

• 1:02:23Chris Ryan?

  People can check that out on Netflix. Uh, we will be talking about and/or episode six through nine on Thursday.

• 1:02:28Andy Greenwald?

  This is gonna be big. That's a big conversation.

• 1:02:30Chris Ryan?

  Big conversation. I wore my Gorman jacket today, just in honor.

• 1:02:33Andy Greenwald?

  I can tell. The twill is immaculate.

• 1:02:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks to Kaia. Thanks to John. We'll be back on Thursday.

• 1:02:38Andy Greenwald?

  We do more politics on Thursday?

• 1:02:40Chris Ryan?

  I bet we will.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

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• 1:03:18Speaker 05

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