Pod Insights The Watch ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Season 1 Finale and ‘Industry’ S4E7 About this episode Chris and Andy talk about the Season 1 finale of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ and how much they enjoyed the ending (4:11). Then they discuss the fiery penultimate episode of ‘Industry’ Season 4 (29:47). Later, they close with The Watch: After Dark (01:07:11).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Additional Video Supervision: Jacob Cornett
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Transcript 14,471 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Speaker 01 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
0:37 Speaker 02 I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.
0:57 Speaker 01 Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
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2:05 Speaker 04 I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.
2:11 Chris Ryan? Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio, he feels like he's in the room with a reptile, it's Andy Greenwald.
2:25 Andy Greenwald? Good morning. What's this, I mean, for people watching on video, you've placed, is this my term sheet?
2:30 Chris Ryan? I didn't mean to.
2:31 Andy Greenwald? Is this my letter of resignation? Did the PM ask you to give me this? There's a sheet of paper between us.
2:35 Chris Ryan? On that piece of paper is how much I think you're worth.
2:40 Andy Greenwald? Honestly, a little behind the curtain.
2:42 Chris Ryan? It's an advertisement. We just have to pay some bills around here. You know, you cost a lot of money, you know?
2:46 Andy Greenwald? I do. I do. But also, I almost cost you money because I came in, the advertisement is for a film.
2:53 Chris Ryan? Yes.
2:54 Andy Greenwald? And...
2:55 Chris Ryan? A film I love. I feel my thing is quite good.
2:57 Andy Greenwald? Is this the ad?
2:58 Chris Ryan? No.
2:59 Andy Greenwald? This is the reel.
3:00 Chris Ryan? Personal endorsement.
3:01 Andy Greenwald? I...
3:02 Chris Ryan? Which you get when you sign up with CR Industries.
3:04 Andy Greenwald? I want to, I want, I want some accountability on this podcast. We're gonna talk about industry, we're gonna talk about Night of the Seven Kingdoms.
3:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
3:09 Andy Greenwald? But I think it's time for some accountability because ever since I got Donal Gleeson right, I have walked around like the, like the king of the Gaelic pronunciations. I have, I flex all the time.
3:21 Chris Ryan? What's that? What is, what is, what comes with that? The king of Gaelic pronunciations? Do you go into Irish bars?
3:27 Andy Greenwald? A pint of the black stuff whenever I want, yes.
3:29 Chris Ryan? Okay.
3:30 Andy Greenwald? I do follow a lot of creamy Guinness accounts, but, uh, so I was really ready to tell you that it's, that Sabrina Carpenter's ex-boyfriend is named Barry Keegan.
3:40 Chris Ryan? Like, like, uh, not like Elena Kagan, right?
3:44 Andy Greenwald? No, I, I am the established king of the Semitic pronunciations. I'm very comfortable.
3:49 Chris Ryan? I think there's just like a little, little, little O in there.
3:53 Andy Greenwald? No, there is, and I was wrong.
3:54 Chris Ryan? Keegan, yeah.
3:55 Andy Greenwald? So I apologize.
3:57 Chris Ryan? I mean, he's, he's not behind me, is he?
3:59 Andy Greenwald? First of all...
4:00 Chris Ryan? Are you apologizing to me as like representative of the Irish people?
4:03 Andy Greenwald? I'm apologizing to half of you.
4:04 Chris Ryan? Okay.
4:05 Andy Greenwald? The Elena Kagan half I feel comfortable with. The rest, no, I just, I, you know... I think it's good. I think that accountability is good.
4:13 Chris Ryan? What else is on your mind?
4:14 Andy Greenwald? Just like the United Kingdom does, unlike the United States.
4:17 Chris Ryan? What else is on your mind? Anything? Any entertainment news to grab you over the weekend?
4:22 Andy Greenwald? I have been keeping up with, you know, we all have, we have our private little TV corners. I've been keeping up with Drops of God.
4:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:30 Andy Greenwald? I'm really, it's very good this season. I'm really enjoying it. I recommend it.
4:34 Chris Ryan? Speaking of private TV corners, it'll come as no surprise that I have consumed the fifth season of Shorzy already. It was released over the weekend on Hulu, another, another banger, another masterpiece.
4:45 Andy Greenwald? How many, these are short seasons, right?
4:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah, six episodes of about 22 minutes each, so sitcom at length.
4:51 Andy Greenwald? That's great.
4:52 Chris Ryan? And not this week, I think next week, Jason Mansukis and Mallory Rubin will be joining me to discuss that season. But I think the first and last episode of this season are among like the best TV you can see on TV or on your computer screen.
5:05 Andy Greenwald? Well, you want me to watch the new season, not the old seasons?
5:08 Chris Ryan? I just wanted you to watch the first episode of this season as an exemplar of its power.
5:15 Andy Greenwald? You can't, you don't want to curate a different kind of ice hockey experience? You don't want me to watch like season two, episode four, because that's the one?
5:23 Chris Ryan? That seems like a lot of work for me to go back through and like curate an experience for you.
5:27 Andy Greenwald? You said last episode that you are basically Dr. Jack Abbott. Like in your free time, you just do a more hardcore version of what you do now.
5:33 Chris Ryan? In my free time, I like take down, I take down Wells Fargo branches.
5:37 Andy Greenwald? Oh yeah, we talked about that.
5:38 Chris Ryan? Um, I want to talk to you about
5:41 Andy Greenwald? Fair.
5:41 Chris Ryan? these two shows from Sunday Night.
5:43 Andy Greenwald? Uh huh.
5:44 Chris Ryan? It, uh, it was the final episode of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms.
5:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
5:49 Chris Ryan? But it was more of a exhale, a coda for that series, whereas industry is reaching a fever pitch.
5:57 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
5:57 Chris Ryan? So I'm happy to do whichever one you want to do first, and then we could do Watch After Dark after we discuss that.
6:02 Andy Greenwald? All right.
6:03 Chris Ryan? But which one would you like to talk about first?
6:05 Andy Greenwald? Because we've been having such juicy
6:08 Chris Ryan? Passionate.
6:09 Andy Greenwald? industry conversations. I think let's, let's talk night.
6:13 Chris Ryan? Oh, okay. And then save the industry to revive us?
6:16 Andy Greenwald? Well, let's have our little, yeah.
6:17 Chris Ryan? Night's not, there's nothing boring about night, you know, there's, there's, there's a controversy. We got nine kingdoms instead of seven.
6:25 Andy Greenwald? Okay, well, so do you, do you want to start with the, like, the critique, the commentary, the vibes? Or should we just delve right into the?
6:32 Chris Ryan? No, I want to do critique, commentary.
6:33 Andy Greenwald? Fake news that is delivered at the end.
6:35 Chris Ryan? The lore.
6:36 Andy Greenwald? I did text you that immediately.
6:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I think I had a pretty good answer.
6:39 Andy Greenwald? Do you, what would, does this change in any way your opinion on land acknowledgements in Westeros? We stand on Andal.
6:48 Chris Ryan? On Dornish ground.
6:49 Andy Greenwald? Territory.
6:50 Chris Ryan? No, I mean, I think it was, if, if I understood Mal and Joe correctly last night on, on Talk the Thrones on House of R.
6:57 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
6:58 Chris Ryan? I think it had more to do with Dorne's only, like, recently being acknowledged as part of the kingdom. You know, like, or-
7:05 Andy Greenwald? But then still, wouldn't it have been eight?
7:07 Chris Ryan? And then there's another one. There's like Irons, the-
7:09 Andy Greenwald? The Iron Islands.
7:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah, those also get, like, it's just like, the Targaryens are politically needing to depend on other people, I think.
7:16 Andy Greenwald? So it's, let me put this, so it's basically like when President AOC makes Puerto Rico and Washington DC states. Is that, because I'm into that.
7:26 Chris Ryan? Is that-
7:26 Andy Greenwald? Put in terms that I want.
7:27 Chris Ryan? It's a cool Tumblr post.
7:28 Andy Greenwald? I, listen. Um, okay, all right.
7:34 Chris Ryan? Were you satisfied by the conclusion of this season?
7:36 Andy Greenwald? I loved this episode.
7:38 Chris Ryan? Good.
7:38 Andy Greenwald? I loved the season, the opening seconds of this episode, maybe my favorite 30 seconds of Thrones content ever.
7:44 Chris Ryan? It's unbelievable. Daniel Ings as Lionel Baratheon.
7:47 Andy Greenwald? But Daniel Ings as Lionel Baratheon with the shit maester.
7:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
7:51 Andy Greenwald? Looking down on a grievously injured dunk while Miles Davis plays, I believe. Now, just again, a little pull back the curtain. Your boy likes to relax with a little mid-century jazz going on the so notes on the weekend. And when I fired this up last night, one time, two times, three times was I like, "Oh, I see my Sunday Vibes playlist has continued." And thus I'm being denied Dan Roamer's string.
8:17 Chris Ryan? You thought that your music was playing through-
8:20 Andy Greenwald? Because I didn't, I still, despite six weeks of the show, just didn't assume playfulness.
8:27 Chris Ryan? Yes.
8:27 Andy Greenwald? And innovation and wit and all of the, the lightness, not in tone, because the show was quite elegiac and whatever.
8:35 Chris Ryan? We have been taught over and over again that there are rules to this shit and that you cannot break. And, and you know- I think you could make a completely valid argument that you're like, well, that takes, having jazz takes me a little bit out of the moment, but it's also like this sense of humor and a sensibility that I think this franchise has really never had before.
8:54 Andy Greenwald? It's, it's just giving me life. I thought that whole scene was so delightful and so funny and in miniature, a wonderful representation of how limitless storytelling in this world could be. I've never felt that.
9:09 Chris Ryan? Look at you, you got wet eyes.
9:10 Andy Greenwald? We carried. Well, it could be allergies. I don't know. Um, I, we've covered this show in this universe for well over a decade. And as much as I've loved it, I've never been like, this is, I'm building a vacation home, maybe in Dorne, but you know what I mean? This episode and the way that, that Ira Parker, the sensibility that he's brought to it, keep them coming. Keep the spinoffs coming. Keep this show going. And, and for the first time, I was like, slightly frustrated that Game of Thrones, like Star Wars, we've talked about this before, is a fictional history, meaning.
9:53 Chris Ryan? There's like a, there's limits to what can happen. Right.
9:55 Andy Greenwald? Because I don't want one. Because I want a 10-year Game of Thrones show about Egg becoming a man and then king, which, you know, I know there's some, you can spoil things in the future if you want.
10:07 Chris Ryan? I don't, I don't want to.
10:08 Andy Greenwald? I don't want to either, but I, I loved it. And I loved just the wit and the brevity. I love a hard cut from a needle drop.
10:15 Chris Ryan? The catch 22 of the way we make franchise storytelling now is that we are over relying on prequels and, and fictional histories because the roadmap is so clear, because there's these points along a timeline that we can follow because for hardcore fans, there's an expectation that we're going to see. The Red Wedding, or we're gonna see Cassian and or get the plans, or whatever it is. But at the same time, there is like a kind of like, there's a limit to the pleasure because you never know. You're you're never part of an audience who completely doesn't know what's gonna happen and doesn't know where it's going. And even with something, a sort of wondrous, frankly, is Night of the Seven Kingdoms. You're right.
11:00 Chris Ryan? If you wanna just read the books, or if you just look at like a glancing history of the Targaryen, you know, royal family, you'll find out, you could find out what happens to this kid.
11:10 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
11:11 Chris Ryan? Which makes it, I mean, there's some, there's some interesting things that happen with that, too. Because then you're like, look at this little guy, man. Who would have guessed it? You know, like?
11:19 Andy Greenwald? I love it when Parent Corner comes out with you.
11:23 Andy Greenwald? Go your way, kids, see what happens.
11:24 Chris Ryan? I wanted to just shout out, you and I are big, uh, British character actor appreciators.
11:29 Andy Greenwald? I know where you're going.
11:30 Chris Ryan? Um, so I just wanna say, Aang's, obviously, you know, he was great in The Gentleman. He's doing a like wonderful flamboyant kind of, you know, just pissed prince who drinks a lot and probably thinks that he should be, and his family should be, the ruling family of the realm.
11:48 Andy Greenwald? Or wisely is like, fuck that. It's better to be rich than to be powerful.
11:52 Chris Ryan? Well, he's, but I think Lionel in this episode specifically and across the series has been the one chirping the most about like, maybe the Targaryen time has kinda come into an end.
12:03 Andy Greenwald? He does not like this guy.
12:04 Chris Ryan? And then Sam Sproul, who I, I love as an actor.
12:09 Andy Greenwald? He was great in this last season of Fargo.
12:11 Chris Ryan? And has been asked to, not asked to, but has largely had two or three really good lines per episode as he sits back and lets, uh, you know, Balor and, um, and Arian and everybody else cook. His scene with Dunk when he asks him to take his kid on the, you know, take his kid, but not go on the road to come back to Summer Hall, learn at Summer Hall, kind of be, be his minder in the absence of, of not only Balor, but of Arian, who's gonna be exiled.
12:43 Chris Ryan? And he's like, what he's asking has nothing to do with what he's talking about. Because what he's really talking about is his brother being dead.
12:49 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
12:50 Chris Ryan? And he's just got the lightest wetness to his eyes as he's talking.
12:54 Andy Greenwald? Like me.
12:55 Chris Ryan? And it's just like.
12:59 Andy Greenwald? The lightest witness.
13:00 Chris Ryan? That's right. It's just pollen.
13:04 Chris Ryan? He's, it's just a remarkable job to be like, I'm on the bench for five weeks and then when you need me, I come in and do that.
13:10 Andy Greenwald? It is essentially unfair to do what I'm about to do because House of the Dragon and Night of the Seven Kingdoms are not the same genre of television show. They're set in the same world, they're set in the same IP, they're set on different points on the same shared historical timeline. But it is essentially like comparing the way you can use real estate in a shrinking versus the agency. Like they're, they, they are different.
13:34 Chris Ryan? Shrinking the television show shrinking.
13:35 Andy Greenwald? Yes. Yeah. Or, or any sort of light emotional.
13:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
13:38 Andy Greenwald? Contemporary comedy. They're different and they have different aims and they have, uh, um, different real estate, honestly, in terms of what they can build out.
13:48 Andy Greenwald? But I didn't think about that when I was watching that scene. Not just a character who had been in the background stepping into the light and deserving the spotlight for that moment, actor and character.
13:57 Chris Ryan? Sure.
13:58 Andy Greenwald? But the scene was specifically about how this man feels about the events that have just transpired and his relationship to his children, which predates in the fictional world, our understanding of those children.
14:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:08 Andy Greenwald? And in that moment, I thought about how House of the Dragon is coming back after a renewed absence and I don't know who any of these people's children are. Now, I am not the best viewer of that show. I'm not pretending that I am.
14:18 Chris Ryan? It's also been a while, yeah.
14:19 Andy Greenwald? And it's been a while, but they have, they, each side of that conflict had a bunch of kids and then they're all flying dragons and they're eating each other and they're conspiring and they are playing, it's very hard to shake the sense that each of those kids, those characters is a, a widget on an, on an abacus of story.
14:39 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
14:40 Andy Greenwald? As opposed to living, breathing children within a family that has a dynamic that has to carry on.
14:46 Chris Ryan? You know, let me ask you a question.
14:47 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
14:48 Chris Ryan? You've worked on different kinds of adaptations in different capacities.
14:53 Chris Ryan? House of the Dragon is obviously based on a subjective history told from multiple POVs, but very much a history and has got a lot less text, a lot less humor, a lot less, maybe even character development. I think that there's a little bit more of just description of like, this guy was like this. And it's not as much working with POV the way George R.R. Martin usually does, like in the Thrones novels. And I think in Dunkin' Egg, like, it's very strictly told from Dunkin' Eggs, like even their internal monologues, like are the governing principles. Do you think that we're maybe seeing something where it's like, you know, we often think what you need is Martin's playbook to get to the end of the,
15:38 Chris Ryan? you know, his scripted kind of first 15 plays to get there?
15:41 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
15:41 Chris Ryan? But maybe what you do need is the emotional character development part of it? Like more than that?
15:49 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. I mean, we are, we are still the wrong messengers for this, but I am, I'm curious to understand that point better because obviously his writing is quite popular and makes people who, years before HBO adapted Game of Thrones, made, his writing made readers who may be fantasy averse or thought themselves as fantasy averse, fall in love with the books and become obsessed with the characters. And I think that's largely to do with the way he told the character stories. And I do remember this from being shouted at on the internet, that those books are POV books that shift POV, section to section, chapter to chapter, among a wide variety of the characters we came to know in Game of Thrones.
16:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
16:32 Andy Greenwald? So the fact that that was potentially the, was absent tone, voice, character, emotion, and that had to be backfilled into what was, to your point, essentially like looking like a Kirk Goldsberry shot clock of a dragon war. Not shot clock, shot chart.
16:49 Chris Ryan? No. Sorry Kirk.
16:51 Andy Greenwald? It's a weird stray for him to catch. Apologies. It's just like-
16:57 Chris Ryan? I think it's a compliment to Kirk.
16:58 Andy Greenwald? I hope so.
16:59 Chris Ryan? But possibly not to the writing of House of the Dragon.
17:01 Andy Greenwald? Well, I- Leaving the writing out of it, that's what they were handed. That was the brief to fill it out. Imagine the game that went on that created this beautiful shot chart.
17:12 Chris Ryan? You see what happened between Condole and Martin, Ryan Condole, the showrunner and sort of creative driving force behind House of the Dragon and Martin. And I think some of it might be the choices that Condole made, but on the flip side of that, it's like, he had to make some choices. He had to make some decisions about what these people would do and say and think in the moments in between the events that we know that they participated in.
17:35 Andy Greenwald? And in his defense, someone, you know, I've never met him or spoken to him. I don't think you have either. Like, the amount of pressure that he and that production was under from the beginning is immense, immense. Not, all showrunners are under immense pressure. That's the nature of the job. But if you do go back and think about the moment when, as you like to mention, you know, the first spinoff didn't make it really past the, they shot a pilot.
18:02 Chris Ryan? Blood Moon, yeah. Or codename Blood Moon. I can't remember what it was actually going to be called.
18:06 Andy Greenwald? I think it was TBD, what it was going to end up being called, but they never, they never, they never did. So, the, listen, it's Monday.
18:18 Andy Greenwald? It had been off the air for a minute and part of the return of investment to shareholders was let's get more dragon up there. And so that was a really tough, I would imagine, creative crucible to put something on the air.
18:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:31 Andy Greenwald? And by all metrics that matter internally, it's been a success. Like, that first season won the Golden, didn't win, did it win the Emmy or just the Golden Globe? I don't even remember at this point, but.
18:41 Chris Ryan? It was the first season and I think it won Best Drama Golden Globe.
18:44 Andy Greenwald? So.
18:45 Chris Ryan? Because that was the Emma Darcy and Olivia Cook went up on.
18:49 Andy Greenwald? With Miguel Sapochevsky, who's no longer part of the show.
18:54 Andy Greenwald? Anyway, um, yeah, it won, it won the Emmy for Drama Series for its first season. That was, I think that's what we were thinking of. I was about to say, well, it was COVID, it was 2024. But the reason I don't remember that is probably the vaccines, though, right?
19:07 Chris Ryan? It's probably it.
19:08 Andy Greenwald? That's probably it.
19:09 Chris Ryan? Lucky you, yeah.
19:11 Andy Greenwald? Just got another one last this weekend, can you tell? Just for fun. Anyway, it's always imperfect getting these things up on their feet, but you do get the feeling that there was whatever, whatever creative calm George, Ira, all of our good friends were able to carve out for themselves in the making of this show, it's remarkable. It, it, it's completely, it's a, it is a completely different tone and it is welcoming and exciting and expansive in a way that I just, it's just caught me totally off guard.
19:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I mean, I would, uh, there's not really much use in speculating where it goes from here because it's quite easy to just find out what the second novella is about. But I do think it's worth noting that I believe they are in production right now on it. And that it'll be back probably around the same time next year, depending on VFX needs or whatever. As this show's sort of proven, you can do a lot within this world that doesn't involve needing a ton of graphics, a ton of special effects for, for dragons and stuff like that.
20:11 Andy Greenwald? I don't want to be spoiled either, but it does seem like they're riding off to Dorne. And
20:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I guess so.
20:16 Andy Greenwald? I would just like to say, that would be like Drops of God, season three for me.
20:19 Chris Ryan? Like too much, too much drops?
20:21 Andy Greenwald? No, port, stop the drops, open the taps.
20:24 Chris Ryan? But we don't, what do you know about Dorne at the time period?
20:27 Andy Greenwald? Who cares? Dorne has good weather, libertine attitudes and lots of wine. Like, there is plenty of tape of me advocating for Game of Thrones characters to just cut the shit and move to Dorne.
20:41 Chris Ryan? And to be in, under the Tuscan sun?
20:42 Andy Greenwald? Yes, yes. If Arya had gone south instead of east, she would, she would have been like, yeah, the cover, she would have been Nicole Kidman in that famous breakup photo, she would have been so happy. I think things are better there.
20:55 Chris Ryan? I think things are quite nice there, you know, but that's not where the seat of power is. That's not where the decisions get made.
21:00 Andy Greenwald? Which is also fine.
21:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
21:02 Andy Greenwald? Get away from those seats. The seats also are not fixed. When the powerful people who usually fill those seats go to Nowheresville's like Ashford, look what happens.
21:11 Chris Ryan? We had an interesting conversation on TTT on Talk the Thrones about the casting for this season was so good. It almost makes you annoyed that in all likelihood Finn Bennett, Daniel Aings, Sam Sproul will probably not, if not not appear in the next season.
21:30 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
21:31 Chris Ryan? Probably not play a very big role because if you're shooting this from Dunkin Eggs perspective.
21:35 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
21:36 Chris Ryan? And they are on the road away from these people, we're not going to get cutaways to see what Finn Bennett is doing in the free cities.
21:41 Andy Greenwald? But this is what I mean. There has been a move towards in the last few years in, in film and in television, you want to control as much as you can control.
21:48 Chris Ryan? Sure.
21:48 Andy Greenwald? Especially with the costs going the way they are and the amount of, you know, the competition for attention. So adaptations, strict adaptations, adaptations that come from fictional historical timelines are seen in the development process as an incredible boon because you have some guardrails around whatever the kooky creatives you hire choose to do. Uh, or if those kooky creatives are too kooky, you can replace them with other creatives who are still existing within the same loose shoot of story. This season is so successful on every, by any metric, including just old fashioned TV metrics of, man, I love this crew. I can't wait for them to get together again and see where their adventures take us, including the villains, including wherever Arian gets up to.
22:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
22:29 Andy Greenwald? That you want a completely free glide path for them. You, you want them to make this show about these people. At some point I may actively advocate for this, but I'm not saying now Ira Parker has proven he can ditch the books. I'm not saying that they're apparently lovely novellas to pull from, but they're already as a part of me, and I'd be very curious about how the internal discussions are going to build, build on it, to build further to.
22:56 Chris Ryan? To me, it would be the, the bigger fear, and I don't think they'll let this happen because I think that they know what kind of reaction there would be, is what happened to Mandalorian, which was.
23:06 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
23:07 Chris Ryan? A very cool adventure of the week story with a serialized tale about this bounty hunter and his charge. And then they just could not resist bringing Luke Skywalker in.
23:19 Andy Greenwald? I think this is a, I think it's a great point.
23:21 Chris Ryan? And so I don't think young Ned Stark even chronologically can show up and just be like.
23:28 Andy Greenwald? First of all, he can't because the actor who played young Ned Stark, I believe, is Daniel Aramayo, who just won a BAFTA for Best Actor over all of the American Gods this weekend.
23:36 Chris Ryan? That's right.
23:37 Andy Greenwald? So he's a little bit busy.
23:40 Chris Ryan? I forgot him in the towers of, yeah.
23:41 Andy Greenwald? I don't think the show can afford him. Congratulations to him. It's kind of reversed, though, because it's an imperfect comparison or to try and build on. But I think what was exciting, Mando went free at the first. It was just like Jon Favreau was like, this would be cool.
23:57 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:58 Andy Greenwald? And we built out and he was inspired by like Frank Frazetta paintings and like the same kind of older genre entertainment that George Lucas was inspired by. But then it got, then it got caved in by canon.
24:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
24:10 Andy Greenwald? And I think what I'm arguing is this season was shaped by canon. It is, other than the flashback and a few, you know, other, you know, little filigrees, it is essentially a really, really successful adaptation of a beloved novella.
24:21 Chris Ryan? Yes.
24:22 Andy Greenwald? I'm saying, go, go. What's the name of the horse that he gives away?
24:26 Chris Ryan? Uh, Sweetfoot.
24:27 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, go ride, ride, Sweetfoot. Eat the apple and go. Eat the apple and go. Let me say it again.
24:34 Chris Ryan? The way you said it.
24:35 Andy Greenwald? That's how I talk to horses.
24:37 Chris Ryan? Oh, do you have a lot? Do you go into Griffith Park and just chat with them?
24:40 Andy Greenwald? No, I totally, I free them. I go up to the horse paths.
24:44 Chris Ryan? Um, have you watched that show on HBO, Neighbors at all?
24:47 Andy Greenwald? No.
24:47 Chris Ryan? Doc, yeah. It's, uh, it's about, um, neighbors in this great country of ours, beefing. And, uh, one of, one of the plotlines is about, uh, in Montana, I believe, some, some free range folks arguing about where horses are allowed to roam.
25:03 Andy Greenwald? It's interesting.
25:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
25:04 Andy Greenwald? Well, do we have rules about that?
25:06 Chris Ryan? Uh, you know what? When you get out west.
25:09 Chris Ryan? It's like, the rules get written by a couple of different people. There's the rules that like-
25:12 Andy Greenwald? Are you talking about like Mar Vista?
25:14 Chris Ryan? No.
25:14 Andy Greenwald? Where Kaia lives? How far west do you have to go?
25:16 Chris Ryan? Kaia lives in Mar Vista?
25:17 Andy Greenwald? No, Kaia lives in, sorry. Kaia lives on the west side.
25:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
25:20 Andy Greenwald? We're not trying to dox our producer here, sorry.
25:25 Andy Greenwald? Don't know how we ended up there, but-
25:27 Chris Ryan? Seventeen women at a wine bar in Mar Vista are like, "Where's Kaia? I was told she'd be here."
25:34 Speaker 02 My favorite, my favorite wine bar is in Mar Vista.
25:36 Chris Ryan? Oh.
25:37 Andy Greenwald? Also, do your woman voice again. I think it was awesome.
25:40 Chris Ryan? The shrieking harpies looking for Kaia.
25:43 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that was great.
25:44 Chris Ryan? Anything else about the show you want to hit up?
25:45 Andy Greenwald? I don't know if it's canon, and I just tip my hat to whomever came up with this idea, whether it was George Martin a few years ago, or whether it was Ira Parker, but the twist at the end that Egg did not get permission-
25:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah, there's a couple of "nobody else was there, so nobody knows what happened" moments. I think the Egg not getting permission-
26:05 Andy Greenwald? Right.
26:06 Chris Ryan? I asked Joe and Mal if it's possible that, um, Makar's okay with this, but is presenting to his like, assembled, you know, the collected, assembled court. He's like, "Oh, where's my son? Damn it." You know?
26:21 Andy Greenwald? That's kind of interesting. It didn't, it didn't seem like that.
26:24 Chris Ryan? You know, Sir Arlen didn't knight Dunk, or at least doesn't seem like he did.
26:29 Andy Greenwald? Incredible scene.
26:30 Chris Ryan? And Dunk, uh, Egg is not, has not gotten permission to go with Dunk.
26:35 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
26:35 Chris Ryan? So, how much will these moments that only one or two people were present for in the first place wind up impacting the totality of the story? Probably a lot.
26:43 Andy Greenwald? As someone who, you know, was really birthed in the crucible of Grantland.com and really defines himself as being, being the nexus point of sports and pop culture, are there any famous-
26:54 Chris Ryan? I'm literally wearing a band t-shirt-
26:55 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
26:56 Chris Ryan? And a hat.
26:56 Andy Greenwald? Oh, I know.
26:56 Chris Ryan? And a fleece hat.
26:57 Andy Greenwald? That'll, that, you're so unique in Los Angeles right now. There are no men over 40 with that particular combo.
27:03 Chris Ryan? How many guys do you think right now in this city-
27:05 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
27:06 Chris Ryan? Are wearing a baseball hat, a band t-shirt, and watched Night of the Seven Kingdoms in its industry last night?
27:13 Andy Greenwald? Literally everyone at school drop off, just to start local and then building it out.
27:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Would you say this is a top five show for you? Does it feel like a top five show without, you know, obviously seeing the-
27:22 Andy Greenwald? Not necessarily.
27:23 Chris Ryan? Next nine months of television?
27:25 Andy Greenwald? I think it's a top 10 show. I think we'll, I think we'll see, but I, I just wanted to leave on the idea, I want to leave the way the show left me, which is the feeling that really special first seasons- Leave you with.
27:38 Chris Ryan? Yes.
27:38 Andy Greenwald? Where you just can't believe they touched lightning and they made it work the way they did. And all that hard work and years, years of development and then a year of post-production.
27:48 Chris Ryan? Did you have any critiques of this episode?
27:51 Andy Greenwald? Of this episode? No, I was just delighted by it.
27:52 Chris Ryan? There you go.
27:53 Andy Greenwald? I was delighted by it and it helped, you know, we were talking about this in terms of, and we're about to talk about it again. In terms of covering shows week to week without going ahead. In the fullness of the season, whatever criticisms I had about the, the brutality of the battle or the Fleabottom flashback are now weighted with how the show ends, which just helps you rea- it, it just helps you understand what the journey was all along. And so I am less critical of that. You know, it didn't, when you're watching week to week, there's a sense of that, that kind of savagery and violence and also flashbacking stuff. Oh, are two roads diverging here? Is that where the show is going? And it was just kind of a quieter beginning? No, the show reestablished what it is with its, you know, with its anachronistic needle drops and its sense of humor and Night of the Nine Kingdoms and all that.
28:39 Andy Greenwald? And, you know, it is one of those feelings that we're chasing, whether it's the pit or whether it's the bear where something kind of comes out of nowhere. This is obviously heavily hyped, but in terms of what it ended up being, it absolutely surprised me.
28:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it was heavily hyped, but I don't think that anybody, I mean, to bring back the feeling of those early Game of Thrones seasons in a complete, but in a completely different sensibility.
29:01 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
29:02 Chris Ryan? And to, to make you feel like for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever, that you're like completely transported while also making like little jazz jokes or digestion jokes or whatever, it's, it's.
29:15 Andy Greenwald? The, the, the deal that, the deal with the devil that shows make over time is that sense of what you're going to earn back on your investment and like the big market spikes. And with Game of Thrones. I haven't done a rewatch. And I wonder-
29:32 Chris Ryan? Bill is.
29:32 Andy Greenwald? Is he? Well, I'm curious what he'll say about it because the real attraction at those early years of Game of Thrones and the way it was marketed and sold to HBO fans was more the, yes, it's fantasy and swords, but it's people in rooms talking and it's, you know, it's the same kind of infighting, backstabbing as The Sopranos or whatever.
29:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
29:51 Andy Greenwald? As the show went on, whether it was, at the beginning, it was the quiet murmuring of the book crowd saying, just wait, just wait for some big shit coming. And then you'd get the sense of, one of those big things is about to happen. And then the red wedding would happen and the world would feel different and TV would feel different. But the equation over time is, there's going to be a big thing. There's going to be a big event. Wait till the dragons show up. Wait till this battle occurs. Wait till, wait till, you know, Hardhome or whatever it might end up being. And we are already in that place with House of the Dragon. Whether it's because of the type of show it is, whether it's because of the way we had covered Game of Thrones-
30:25 Chris Ryan? Even the way they structured the second season where it's like, obviously you guys are marching off to a battle. And if you just cut to after the battle and we just see a battlefield, like, I think people are going to be pretty disappointed.
30:35 Andy Greenwald? And I think that if you did a poll of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms fans, I think they are excited to see the further adventures of Dunk and Egg.
30:42 Chris Ryan? Yes.
30:42 Andy Greenwald? And I, and is there going to be another big jousting tournament or a fight? I couldn't care less.
30:48 Chris Ryan? I think that there's, because of the Knight Squire thing, I think that these guys did a lot of tournaments. You know, like I-
30:54 Andy Greenwald? Oh, there's opportunity for those things. But I'm saying there's no fan who's like, I'm tuning in because of blank event or the expectation of a noisy event. That's just not the relationship with the show. And that is so successful, both in terms of the quality of the show and honestly, in terms of the production budget-
31:10 Chris Ryan? Yes.
31:11 Andy Greenwald? -for Netflix, Paramount, HBO, whoever's going to end up paying for the show.
31:16 Chris Ryan? This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. It can be hard to do your own thing when everyone else is following everyone else, but that's what some of the best films are about. An outcast striving to make their own way in the world. And this is your sign to be that outcast. From us, from VW, from the other outcasts out there, take a chance. Make the most of every day and don't be afraid to veer off course every now and then. Because if you don't do it now, then when? Learn more at VW.com.
31:47 Chris Ryan? HBO has a little bit of a recipe where they do a huge penultimate episode and then the finale is a coda. I think we kind of learned that all over again on Sunday night, where I would consider this a pretty significant episode of industry.
31:59 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
32:00 Chris Ryan? And one that I think had the best handle on the more genre aspects of the series.
32:07 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
32:07 Chris Ryan? And show this season was seen in this episode. So this was called Points of Emphasis, written and directed by Mickey Down and Conrad Kay. And I kind of divided our talking points here up into different pairs and different characters and storylines. Would you like to say anything at the top?
32:27 Andy Greenwald? Yes, I'd like to begin, give an opening statement. Pam Bondi voice.
32:32 Chris Ryan? Hold on, let me get my bird book.
32:35 Andy Greenwald? Quite the opposite. Let me say, I thought this was an outstanding episode of industry. I think this was probably the best episode of the season. It was a joy to watch. I'm excited to talk to you about it. Like I was saying about the finale of Night of the Seven Kingdoms, it helped me recalibrate some of my concerns or feelings or whatever about the previous run of episodes. I also want to bring it in conversation, something that we said on Thursday. I'm sure everyone listening listens to everything we say, so this might be redundant.
33:04 Chris Ryan? Give them a little refresher course.
33:06 Andy Greenwald? When we were talking about the pit, we were talking about how one of the true expert moves of veteran writing staffs is being able to take the temperature and be cognizant of the temperature of a potential future audience. I brought it up in context of, I was noticing that people were starting to turn on Santos. And this week, right as that discourse was happening, independent of the show, online, Reddit, or whatever, they give her a moment to showcase a different side of herself, her humanity. She sings. We reached a similar place with Dr. Al Hashimi. Last week, I think the same episode, Thursday, we were talking about- I think constructively about some of the things we missed about the show or the way the show has changed or my industry might be hitting different.
33:49 Andy Greenwald? And one of the points I brought up was how the construction of the show in the first seasons with Pure Point gave characters and thus the audience an opportunity to go off book, to go home, to present a different part of themselves away from the office. Those parts weren't necessarily better, shinier, nicer, less manic or less staged or performed. But they were different and it gave us different insight and a different tempo. I said that about like veteran shows and then this week, industry gives us Harper and Yaz's Night Out for the Ages.
34:24 Chris Ryan? That's interesting that that's the first thing you jumped on as what to talk about.
34:28 Andy Greenwald? It's not. I think we'll end up talking about that, but I was just noting that as someone who I think is of the two of us more of an anxious watcher of everything.
34:40 Chris Ryan? But when you say that, what you mean is if it doesn't feel good, you immediately note it. Like you're not like, they might correct this in 10 seconds or 10 minutes.
34:50 Andy Greenwald? I begin to, and I am prone to catastrophizing, perhaps in everything, not just in cultural criticism, but that it feels like they were, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and it felt intentionally because of Eric and Harper living and working in the same claustrophobic space, they were moving away from that dynamic. Perhaps with, and I think you made this point articulately, like that's actually the point, that their lives have now just become, they're perpetually on this nightmare hamster wheel and there is no distinction anymore. And so I felt reassured, I guess I want to say, not because it did the thing I wanted it to do, but because it was a reminder that we have showrunners who are thinking big
35:33 Andy Greenwald? picture, who aren't just trying to execute the day's trades. And that's not, I was into the episode well before that. That scene happens in the last quarter.
35:42 Chris Ryan? It's almost like a...
35:46 Chris Ryan? A coda for a different version of the show.
35:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
35:49 Chris Ryan? Or like an homage to a different version of the show. I keep going back to what Haley said to Yasmin in the elevator. Couple of weeks back, which was, nobody gets out of this alive.
36:00 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
36:00 Chris Ryan? So that can mean many different things, whether it's actually death, murder.
36:05 Andy Greenwald? As it has already on the season.
36:07 Chris Ryan? Or it can just mean the version of yourself that you thought was true is dead. You know, and I think maybe that's more of an example of what happened to Eric in the previous episode and we are watching it take place with Henry.
36:22 Andy Greenwald? We sure are.
36:23 Chris Ryan? Within this episode. So let's start with the two people tearing Henry apart. Which is Whitney and Yasmin.
36:30 Andy Greenwald? Mm hmm.
36:31 Chris Ryan? Uh, for different reasons. Um, Yaz and Henry, like they opened up the episode with a, that was all the money we had. Henry and Karen Hill argument, not even an argument. It's just really like these two people looking at a letter that is essentially a death notice. Uh, for Henry's life, career, future.
36:50 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
36:50 Chris Ryan? Uh, and by proxy Yasmin, who has attached herself, has become Lady Muck.
36:55 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that was, that was interesting.
36:59 Andy Greenwald? I don't think there was any indication that she hadn't changed her name, but I think there's a moment when Harper says her name.
37:03 Chris Ryan? I mean, I think that-
37:04 Andy Greenwald? And you bounce, you kind of-
37:05 Chris Ryan? Half of the benefit of marrying somebody like Henry is to be like, I'm Lady Muck now, right?
37:09 Andy Greenwald? To put your name in the muck.
37:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
37:10 Andy Greenwald? I mean, what could be better?
37:12 Chris Ryan? I thought that the best line in this little exchange was, why are we talking about money again? The public perception of my morality is on the block. Take this with the, with the spirit as intended, or whatever he says, but nobody gives a fuck about how you come out of this. Was perfect because it is the two elements of that class of person that, that's sort of like-
37:31 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
37:32 Chris Ryan? I'm landed gentry, to the extent that I understand the British class system, which I don't. But not only does money not matter, because there's always money, there's always been like these, there's been a couple of times in my life where I've been around somebody who's just like, well, money, like, we can make the money. Every, every other conversation I've ever had is like, well, we don't have the money to do that. We don't have the money to do that. I don't have the money to give you. I don't have the money to make this happen. And then there were like six guys who were like, well, money, you can just kind of-
37:57 Andy Greenwald? Blink twice. Are those conversations called the rewatchables?
38:01 Chris Ryan? No, I don't mean Bill.
38:03 Andy Greenwald? Okay, I just, this is safe. There's no one, no one's listening.
38:06 Chris Ryan? Very generous guy. Uh.
38:09 Andy Greenwald? Say it's camera one.
38:10 Chris Ryan? Some more Vista over there.
38:13 Andy Greenwald? He's thinking about investing in wine bars.
38:16 Chris Ryan? I just thought that this was incredible because it's like, of course, somebody like Henry, his concept of cash, or like what's in your bank account, is completely divorced from Yasmin's, even though Yasmin also comes from a publishing dynasty.
38:28 Andy Greenwald? But it's different.
38:29 Chris Ryan? But she's like alone now, you know, her father's dead, the family member, when the, the person that Claire Filoni played earlier in the year, is obviously like that part of her life is gone. She's no longer an investment banker or working in the financial sector. She's trying to make a name for herself as a comms director, kind of.
38:47 Andy Greenwald? She is not Harper, as is mentioned at the end.
38:50 Chris Ryan? She is not, but it gets down to also like, the important thing for Henry is that she understands that no one cares about Lady Muck.
39:01 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
39:01 Chris Ryan? And most of all him, you know, like, take this with what, how it is intended, but like, you're not, you're not the main character here.
39:09 Andy Greenwald? I think that whole scene was pretty close to brilliant, and in execution, writing, and performance. And I was drawn to the subsequent lines, because, again, one of the things that I think we've always really admired about the show, is that Mickey and Conrad are exceptional at writing to the, to the moment, but they also write to the rafters. They write to, you know, in the British theater, it's called the gods. You know, we're sitting really high, I don't know if you've, you've been to the theater.
39:38 Chris Ryan? I have, yeah.
39:38 Andy Greenwald? Quite regularly, yeah. They are writing for, they are not unaware of the medium and the history, recent history of the medium that they're writing for. And so they know what they're doing when they have a character like Henry say, "I am a good person."
39:52 Chris Ryan? Sure.
39:52 Andy Greenwald? That is everyone from Don Draper to the dude from Low Winter Sun.
39:55 Chris Ryan? Marty from Ozark, yes.
39:56 Andy Greenwald? Looking in a mirror, being like, no, this is, I will just say what, what is at stake.
40:01 Chris Ryan? The guys from Bloodlines.
40:03 Andy Greenwald? Keep going. He says, "I'm a good person, and the world will tell that back to me. Otherwise, what am I doing here?"
40:10 Chris Ryan? Yes.
40:11 Andy Greenwald? "What am I for?"
40:12 Chris Ryan? Why be a good person unless you get any gratification from being a good person? Unless you get any affirmation?
40:19 Andy Greenwald? All validation is external.
40:20 Chris Ryan? Yes.
40:21 Andy Greenwald? Which, as people who work in the media on camera, we know nothing about, certainly.
40:24 Chris Ryan? This is actually, I mean, I don't think, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, I, I basically hit pause on this, because I think what this show gets at sometimes is like, what would your morality be if there was no reward for it?
40:36 Andy Greenwald? If no one was watching?
40:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah, well, what would your, what, what would you do if?
40:42 Chris Ryan? What this season has been about, perception, points of emphasis, the name of the episode, the story, the narrative, the television show, who, who's gonna write this if it's in a red top, or if it's in a broadsheet, or if it's on a blog, how does that change what happens with the narrative? Like, it's not about, this is the right or wrong thing to do, it's about how will it be perceived?
41:04 Andy Greenwald? Well, so, and so directly to that point, Jenny Bevan's journey is that, she's the, the government minister who, when tempted with the, the apple, in the Garden of Eden, basically, or the snake, literally, a roomful of snakes, and she can get out of this alive if she buries her mentor, and she has-
41:28 Chris Ryan? Lisa Dern, yeah.
41:29 Andy Greenwald? Played by Chloe Peary, right, who we like a lot as an actor, she says she can't do it, not for, and, and no one will know that, that she didn't do it, she has her dark night of the soul moment there, and she decides she has to be moral, the outcome is indifferent.
41:46 Chris Ryan? Yes.
41:46 Andy Greenwald? The outcome hap- what happens, happens anyway, and she is, the perception from her mentor and friend is that she was the one with the knife in her hand, she gets the roses, and she says, you know, she says like, you're basically a Tory.
41:59 Chris Ryan? He says, congratulations on your, on your, like, promotion or your career, you Tory, yeah.
42:04 Andy Greenwald? So, that is an example of what, what benefit do you get if you have a quiet moral victory?
42:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
42:10 Andy Greenwald? Everything externally is still the same.
42:12 Chris Ryan? On the other side of Henry is Whitney.
42:17 Chris Ryan? We've talked a lot about Max Mankella's performance this season, I think I've been a pretty vocal, uh, fan of it.
42:24 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
42:25 Chris Ryan? I thought he was extraordinary in this episode, and I think that as Whitney becomes more-
42:32 Chris Ryan? A parent as he starts to step into his true role.
42:37 Andy Greenwald? Mm hmm.
42:38 Chris Ryan? I mean, how his performance is loosening up a little bit, and I loved the first time Henry and Whitney. It's it's it's in the office after Henry's read this letter.
42:49 Andy Greenwald? Like say all the things.
42:50 Chris Ryan? And Whitney's like, get this off your chest because I need your head clear.
42:52 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
42:53 Chris Ryan? Um, and kind of.
42:54 Andy Greenwald? Beautifully shot, by the way, behind glass. We're watching it already between another partition.
42:58 Chris Ryan? And then Whitney is just sort of spinning seemingly in real time, this pure point. Merger acquisition that he wants tender to conduct. One of the great observations of this is that compulsive liars are always like, I'm telling the truth. Starting now.
43:13 Chris Ryan? It's a big thing like to be like, everything that we did before led to this point, at which point we can now become the Goldman Sachs of the 21st century. If you just believe me one last time and do this thing with me.
43:26 Andy Greenwald? All great empires were built on some type of fraud.
43:28 Chris Ryan? And what we find out is that even in that moment where he's like, I'm the fucking man. I've been buying all these synthetic positions and pure point because I'm a financial genius. We find out at the end of the episode, complete horseshit.
43:40 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
43:40 Chris Ryan? Complete bullshit and that they were just trying to basically push this over the line to get this to a place where whether it's the US or England or the EU or wherever it was going to have to be audited and all the jurisdictional problems that they were going to have with the sort of regulation of this company. By the time they got to the point, they'd be like, well, it's too big to fail now, right? Like we have, there's too many Gen Z'ers out there who are first coming to us with their banking needs. You know, it's like complete bullshit, but it's actually like, sounds very close to things you read about in the newspaper.
44:10 Andy Greenwald? There's a, let's talk about this scene. There's a quote that is also, I mean, there were a lot of quotes to be pulled out and printed out. And maybe we should just do that for when we finally decorate the studio. We should just like.
44:21 Chris Ryan? Quotes from industry.
44:22 Andy Greenwald? Get a dot matrix printer and just print out inspirational quotes from industry.
44:25 Chris Ryan? Says you can't construct a universe where nothing is real.
44:27 Andy Greenwald? Or just something about like your husband's cock and big like Zapchancery. You know, which podcast is this of the one they're not putting on Netflix? Now we know why. No, the Whitney's quote. There's a misalignment between the velocity of my vision and the velocity of regulation. And then later it says that gap is where smart people have always made money.
44:47 Chris Ryan? Probably right.
44:48 Andy Greenwald? That's, that's true. That's, that's how you write a liar. You give him some truth.
44:53 Chris Ryan? Yes.
44:54 Andy Greenwald? I also really appreciated sometimes, sometimes like it, you know, what is it when something in history rhyme, you know, like when the, when the art meets the moment and the way that, the way that Kit Harington physically reacts to the words jail time, the week that Prince Andrew has been, you know, arrested and, and made to feel real, potentially real consequences to a, a life poorly lived.
45:21 Chris Ryan? Yes.
45:22 Andy Greenwald? Was, was interesting because there is a word, as you said, there's always more money. There's always more, it's really just about perception and validation. We joked last week, there's always a harpsichord for him to go back to. But jail time cuts through.
45:36 Chris Ryan? I think it's jail time. I think it's also, you can't claim naivete twice. Like you can't do loomy.
45:44 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:45 Chris Ryan? And then do tender.
45:46 Andy Greenwald? I'm just a well intentioned.
45:47 Chris Ryan? I'm trying to make the world a better place. Kit Harington's what the fuck face, where it looks like he's got acid reflux of plum wine coming up through like the bottom of his soul. And, you know, his, his sort of the way he looks at him when he says Yasmin thinks that, that when they're on the plane later on, he's like Yasmin thinks you have footage of us.
46:11 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
46:12 Chris Ryan? And he's like, footage of you doing what? And he's just like, you know, in a compromised, compromised position. And Whitney kind of just like looks at him over his glasses, which I didn't remember him ever using before, and just goes, what do you think? And Kit Harington's just like, yes.
46:28 Andy Greenwald? Right.
46:28 Chris Ryan? And that means he's so fucked because it was such an immediate yes.
46:32 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
46:32 Chris Ryan? And he says it with such defeat. And Whitney's just like, then you have your answer. And the way he says that back to him is so non-threatening and just kind of like, this is obvious. Will you just get to the fucking board here that we're playing the actual game on? I just thought that whole exchange was so great. And the two of them have developed over the course of the season, this incredible intimacy, even when they're fighting.
46:55 Andy Greenwald? There, well, so much of love on the industry is spoken through the language of fighting.
47:00 Chris Ryan? Yes.
47:00 Andy Greenwald? Historically.
47:01 Chris Ryan? Yes, Man and Harper, great example.
47:02 Andy Greenwald? Exactly. So the intimacy is intimacy. And in a world that is so deadened to the possibility of real feeling, real emotion, real intimacy, hatred, anger, that's currency. And that's been a, that's been a core belief of the show all along. The show also got back to some of its more elite needle drop tendencies. We moved on from the Yesman and Henry scene, where she's, where she comforts him, but then is awake all night while A Promise by When in Rome plays.
47:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
47:28 Andy Greenwald? I did wonder when Whitney, before they get on the plane, says like, uh, like, one last time, believe in us one more time. Did you think like that would have been a good place for a Hamilton needle drop for the George Washington, like one more time song?
47:42 Chris Ryan? I think that might have been a little bit more abrasive than jazz in a Night of the Seven Kingdoms, though.
47:47 Andy Greenwald? I'm just making up the ideas here. I'm just pitching you stuff. There's just something about this episode where I just felt like the fellas grabbed hold of all of the, all of the threads that they had unleashed into the world. They grabbed hold of them and wove them and wove them in a way that was consistent with the season because this episode had the pulse pounding conspiracy thriller.
48:11 Chris Ryan? It's got Whitney in the garage with Ferdinand being like.
48:13 Andy Greenwald? It has that energy that they've been chasing all season and they've been very public in their interviews.
48:18 Chris Ryan? And I don't know who was in the backseat with him in the, in the Jeep that they pull Whitney into in New York. It looks a lot like Corin Redgrave, who was, in my mind, I remember from In the Name of the Father as the detective who basically, I don't know, I just, I just didn't see that actor's name. But that was just a great face to have in the backseat where he's like, you basically exist with their permission.
48:40 Andy Greenwald? But even that energy is shot through the, you know, the, the, the pier point meeting. And so, so they have that. But it also had these larger, series long themes of, um, death of innocence of, of.
48:57 Andy Greenwald? Overwhelmed, overwhelmed kids trying to survive the death of late period capitalism.
49:03 Chris Ryan? He's just like, let me go. He's like, well, how about you guys let me get on a plane? And that, you know, it's like an almost like childlike, what if I told you that a dog ate my homework? Kind of like response to the Russian mob or Russian government being like.
49:15 Andy Greenwald? And there is a looming feeling of that, that again, that rhymes with our life that you cannot escape. You cannot put your phone away. You cannot be untethered from the marketplace. You cannot move on. You cannot quit things. Eric is proof of that this season. And you could sort of like, this, this is also the, the glory of storytelling hindsight. But like in the glow of this episode, Eric, once again, thinking he could fly very, very, very close to the sun and remain mostly unburned feels different, hits different.
49:53 Chris Ryan? Yes.
49:54 Andy Greenwald? I appreciated that.
49:55 Chris Ryan? My read of what Fernanda's saying, and one of the things that I love about the FSB subplot of the season is that they're not explicitly laying out things because I don't think that would benefit the characters who are speaking to explicitly them out. But my understanding, based on the show, but also based on like reading about Wirecard, similar kind of actions that the FSB is alleged to have taken. I don't know why I'm being so careful.
50:25 Andy Greenwald? Who are these people with money?
50:26 Chris Ryan? I haven't read my ad yet. It's the FSB.
50:30 Andy Greenwald? My God. Want to make friends and influence people?
50:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
50:33 Andy Greenwald? Great.
50:33 Chris Ryan? Is that it's, the success of Tinder is secondary to the survival of it because what they want is the personal spending habits, financial information, social security numbers. What are you spending on vices? What are you doing? Like, you know, I think Whitney mentions Tinder has become like this huge banking app for younger people. That's probably very attractive. So like, I don't necessarily think they're looking to collapse the Western economy as much as they are looking to manipulate the people who participate in it.
51:06 Andy Greenwald? The thing that is really, really resonant and horrifying and compelling about contemporary spy fiction, and this is why we keep talking about Oliver Harris, a writer that we love a lot, is because he and this storyline in industry are reflecting the reality of a world in which. Traditional espionage is irrelevant because everybody gives it away. It's all being given away.
51:30 Chris Ryan? Oh, my God, yeah.
51:31 Andy Greenwald? It's all for free. So it's just a question of who is able to receive the data and then play with it.
51:38 Chris Ryan? If you want to-
51:38 Andy Greenwald? It's not about getting the data anymore.
51:40 Chris Ryan? Honestly, if people want to see something extraordinary, it's not like the Wirecard. It's not as rooted in like financial malfeasance or, you know, moving numbers around. Joshua Yoffe wrote a piece in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about the rise of the single-use agent in the wake of the Russian war.
51:55 Andy Greenwald? The story is amazing.
51:56 Chris Ryan? The story is fucking incredible.
51:57 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
51:58 Chris Ryan? And it's basically about a bunch of people now that like there's been this incredible explosion of Ukrainian refugees leaving, young people who have left Ukraine, but also all of the sort of open border running around that's been going on in Eastern Europe. That Russia has been using people in dire straits using multiple cutouts so that it's never actually traceable back to like the lieutenant at the FSB who wanted me to light an Ikea on fire in Warsaw. And it's all being used over Telegram and it's all like, go to a bus station, pick up this duffel bag.
52:36 Andy Greenwald? Just move this bag to a different place.
52:38 Chris Ryan? And leave it there. And then I need you to drive a BMW across Latvia, you know? And it's an extraordinary portrait of like, also, on the other hand, they want Russia in this article is like, well, we want you to know it's us, but we don't want you to ever be able to prove it. And we want to keep what we're doing below the level of a military retaliation.
52:59 Andy Greenwald? It's TaskRabbit for terrorism.
53:02 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:02 Andy Greenwald? It's, it's, everyone who works in any field has had a version of the conversation in the last 10 years where it's like, well, we're all Uber drivers now.
53:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:10 Andy Greenwald? Not to disparage Uber driving, it's just to say that all of us who used to think we were part of some sort of safety net, we're all just gig, we're all just gig workers who will never retire.
53:19 Chris Ryan? Well, it's just a fascinating, like, other side of it to what the sort of Wirecard, more high, high finance world is.
53:27 Andy Greenwald? Absolutely.
53:27 Chris Ryan? This is more like guys just getting on buses in Poland because a Telegram message told them to. And it's-
53:33 Andy Greenwald? Guys in band t-shirts and sports hats? Or you don't want to incriminate yourself? I, I, I want to stay on the FSB thing for one moment.
53:39 Chris Ryan? Oh, my God.
53:40 Andy Greenwald? I mean, I know that's-
53:40 Chris Ryan? This is my guys.
53:43 Andy Greenwald? Is that what your hat is? You should wear an FSB hat, the way Rob Lowe wore the NFL hat. I'm just a fan of when the game is played well.
53:50 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:50 Andy Greenwald? I'm a fan of the great powers.
53:51 Chris Ryan? I love Putin sticking with his roots, you know?
53:55 Andy Greenwald? I think that there are.
53:57 Chris Ryan? I, by the way, I did not fall out a window this week, just so you know.
54:01 Andy Greenwald? Nor did you have any desire to come close to radiation.
54:05 Chris Ryan? My brakes work great.
54:06 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that's right. You just made vacation plans. Very smart.
54:12 Chris Ryan? Funny.
54:12 Andy Greenwald? Not funny, but, you know.
54:16 Andy Greenwald? So, I am still not fully, but clearly from just what we were just saying, I love this shit. And I want all shows to be spy shows, whether they are actually spy shows or not. I still, I still am kind of on the fence about the necessity of Whitney going full FSB asset and wanting to go off-grid with his Lithuanian passport this season. Here, let me talk you through this, because I think some people are some, I think it's possible that some fans of the show bump on this aspect of the storyline, because it is pushing the show so fully into a different realm, though history and news headlines prove that these realms are actually very much built on top of each other, particularly in
55:01 Andy Greenwald? the last 20 years in England.
55:05 Andy Greenwald? Because I love to sit there and come up with speculative other versions of the thing that I'm given, which is not necessarily a good way to deal with art, I was thinking about a longer play in which the completely fraudulent roots of Tender and the FSB manipulation of Whitney, that's a season five thing, where because the story is rich enough, just purely as Gatsby-esque financial fabulism, that it works. And then you don't have this other drumbeat knocking increasingly louder, taking the focus off of some of the other stuff. But as I was watching this, I was also realizing I can't advocate for that and then also cheer
55:45 Andy Greenwald? Mickey and Conrad on for understanding the reality of the moment from a television industry sense, meaning. Future isn't promised. You have to tell the best version of every story you can all the time. And it kind of reminded me of the fact that like, though we like those guys and vibe with those guys and we talk to them, there's 10 years between us and it's kind of like talking to any, like, because we're cusper Gen X people.
56:11 Chris Ryan? Sure.
56:11 Andy Greenwald? But like, full millennials or under, where you make a reference to maybe owning a house one day and they're like, come on, dog. We all know that will never happen. And so I kind of feel like that generational divide is relevant here.
56:23 Chris Ryan? Is it nihilism?
56:24 Andy Greenwald? I think they're getting a season five because the show is doing really well and everyone's happy with it. But I think the attitude, which is not wrong, of we have to burn it all the way to, we can't go home tonight.
56:35 Chris Ryan? Also, look at all the people on this season who have, I mean, they had Anraj at the, at Harper's.
56:41 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, we didn't even mention it.
56:41 Chris Ryan? Presentation. They had Kenny come back and do the trading for Harper's position. They brought Eric back. They brought Rishi back. Like, Whitney, I mean, what, the only thing I would say about Whitney is that he said, if you see me without my phone, it means I'm dead.
56:55 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
56:56 Chris Ryan? So that.
56:56 Andy Greenwald? No, I think the Whitney story is a contained story.
56:59 Chris Ryan? Yes.
56:59 Andy Greenwald? As much as anything is. I'm just trying to, I was trying to advocate both sides of the position, which doesn't work. You either, as Harper said, let's just short things, or let's not.
57:09 Chris Ryan? Right.
57:09 Andy Greenwald? I just think that that is, generally, I think they are operating under a smart TV principle. It's just funny because there's still a more conservative part of my mind where I'm like, settle in.
57:20 Chris Ryan? Yes.
57:20 Andy Greenwald? Settle in now. You've, you've, you've got the job. You're not auditioning anymore.
57:24 Chris Ryan? You mentioned Whitney going full Lithuania. I think it'll be interesting to talk to the guys about whether or not, like, to what extent is Whitney like a, I am a self-aware agent of the, of the, of the Russian intelligence services?
57:40 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
57:40 Chris Ryan? Or was he hopefully guided by Ferdinand to basically be the inheritor of what Ferdinand became, which was like, hey, I just thought I was getting promoted a lot for handing over some personal information and now it turns out that I am a lieutenant, you know, in the.
57:55 Andy Greenwald? Right.
57:56 Chris Ryan? FSB's like, mission to, to get a handle on Western finances. I want to get through a couple of other.
58:03 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
58:04 Chris Ryan? Things in this episode. One is, I have the note, Yaz takes over the family. Her use of that word.
58:11 Andy Greenwald? Family?
58:11 Chris Ryan? Was fascinating. And also just a great piece of writing because.
58:17 Chris Ryan? I think for the longest time in her relationship, but her relationship to Alexander is obviously developed over the course of the last two seasons with Henry. Whether or not you think that what she's asking for is to create a new bottom for Henry to find, because he'll never get better unless we
58:33 Andy Greenwald? Tough love.
58:34 Chris Ryan? fully destroy him. We have to destroy this version of him for him to survive. Or a more a different way of looking at it would be to take what she's talking to Harper about at the end of the episode and say, well, is she not laying out a path for herself to do that, to feel in control, to feel a part of things? There's a lot of competing moments in this episode. Her conversation with Jenny Bevan on the phone
59:01 Andy Greenwald? Great.
59:01 Chris Ryan? almost feels like she's not ready for primetime. Like she's like, don't yell at me. You know, like, and so in some ways, like, she still is making this personal. She still is
59:10 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, she, she, she
59:11 Chris Ryan? Sensitive.
59:12 Andy Greenwald? Glass of wine makes the phone call like a killer and completely comes undone when truth is stabbed into her.
59:17 Chris Ryan? Yes. What did you think of that manipulation of, there's a lot of language being thrown around, like red tops, which refer to newspapers like the Sun.
59:25 Andy Greenwald? Which I didn't know. I was still carrying the wires term for red or blue tops.
59:30 Chris Ryan? So there's red tops, which are like these tabloids that I think are a little bit more salacious.
59:34 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
59:34 Chris Ryan? You know, are more salacious than say like the Times or what have you.
59:39 Andy Greenwald? By the way, I just glibly said, oh, I thought it was like the wire. This was an episode that reminded me again that it's not an invalid point to suggest that industry is making moves towards becoming a kind of UK the wire.
59:49 Chris Ryan? It kind of is.
59:50 Andy Greenwald? The, the way the tendrils have snaked into every aspect of British society. And the way that Yasmin's appearance in the red top news, newsroom with, um, what's the guy's name?
1:00:05 Chris Ryan? Character's name is Kevin.
1:00:06 Andy Greenwald? Character's name is Kevin Rowley. It's Pip Torrens, who's an actor. I think he's been on the Crown. He's a recognizable face. He's incredible. It's one of the show's unsung or lesser sung attributes that it just finds these faces, these talents, these great actors to step in and become someone in relatively small amount of screen time. But that scene communicated, those two scenes, I mean, if you pair them, Yasmin and what's uncle's name?
1:00:30 Chris Ryan? Alex.
1:00:31 Andy Greenwald? Alexander. Those two scenes.
1:00:34 Andy Greenwald? Talking about how we started the conversation, the divide between work life and home life, and there is no divide when the money flows freely between all of it and relationships are indistinguishable. Visits to a private home aren't categorized, but visits to an office are, but what's the difference when business is being done at both? The way that everything is snaked together is so, so, so compelling and dystopian and kind of horrifying. I thought that, but to bring it back to your original question about Yasmin and Alexander, when she's like very innocently saying, I believe he's touched cocaine a few times and perhaps heroin, you know, and the way that that plays on him is such a phenomenal character moment from Risa Bella.
1:01:13 Chris Ryan? It's also like the dissent, because in Alexander's mind, probably a bit of booze and adultery is like one thing.
1:01:20 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
1:01:21 Chris Ryan? And cocaine is like, well, so he's off the wagon. And then heroin is like, well, what are we talking about?
1:01:24 Andy Greenwald? That's a new level. There's also a nice bit of, like, a very subtle harmony between this scene. And then is it later in this episode when Yasmin with Harper says, wasn't it nice to be 17 because people would do things for you?
1:01:40 Chris Ryan? Yes.
1:01:41 Andy Greenwald? She's still a little girl in this way. And so this scene with the older figure, he does this for her. She manipulates the uncle. So the people still do it, but that is still her understanding of how, of soft power.
1:01:52 Chris Ryan? When do you think she made the decision to do this?
1:01:54 Andy Greenwald? During the, during the needle drop of The Promise, when she's lying awake all night.
1:01:59 Chris Ryan? The letter, yeah. I think she, I think that idea is that she's been awake all night thinking about what to do to him.
1:02:04 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, exactly.
1:02:05 Chris Ryan? And she doesn't necessarily know at that point about Pierpoint, Al Mirage, and Whitney trying to go to New York and do all this stuff, but I think that that's the moment where it starts to go in that direction.
1:02:16 Andy Greenwald? I mean, again, there's, there's an argument to be made that Mickey and Conrad are steering the ship in such an intellectually challenging and uncompromising way that they leave a lot, that they, they leave a lot for the viewer to fill in. There's also a more conservative take on it, which is they just leave a lot of meat on the bone.
1:02:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:02:36 Andy Greenwald? That, that the Harper Yasmin, I don't know what you'd call it, coupling, duopoly, whatever.
1:02:45 Andy Greenwald? There's more to it in the sense of that is only made explicit in the last scene where they talk to each other about it, that if there had been more opportunities this season to show them reacting to similar situations in such wildly divergent ways, we might, it might have primed the pump a little bit more because Harper, like, across two seasons, Yasmin has made very, very bold choices, but in a way pragmatic choices to secure the bag or the bags or the ability to buy more bags in the future. The marriage of convenience that sometimes becomes conventional and veers into protection, caregiving, love, whereas Harper is devoid of any of those instincts and her marriage
1:03:27 Andy Greenwald? with Eric is purely, purely mercenary and stays that way.
1:03:32 Chris Ryan? I will point this out.
1:03:33 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, please.
1:03:34 Chris Ryan? Their night ends at a nightclub where they dance in a beautifully shot sequence.
1:03:40 Andy Greenwald? To Daft Punk.
1:03:41 Chris Ryan? It's the third dance sequence that we've had this season. None of those dances have ended well. Haley and Diker.
1:03:51 Chris Ryan? Henry and Whitney. Harper and Yaz. I personally do not buy Harper and Yaz are the emotional core of this show and their relationship is the thing that matters the most in this show. That's always been a little bit like.
1:04:07 Andy Greenwald? Convenient?
1:04:08 Chris Ryan? Well, I just don't, I mean, I think it's like a way to sell the show and I think it's clearly like Mahala and Marisa Bella are friendly and like they, they have like a relationship that they return to over and over again over the course of the series. I, the only time I ever bumped in this episode is I'm like, what are these two like text about in the interim between these intensely emotionally tender moments and almost killing each other?
1:04:33 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
1:04:33 Chris Ryan? Like, are they like, hey, damn, like, have you been to Lamb's Conduit recently? They really did a nice like, like, what do they talk about?
1:04:42 Andy Greenwald? It's a nice road. I do like going there.
1:04:44 Chris Ryan? I just, I just like, I, there's, there's like a little bit of a thing there where I'm like, it's not that I don't buy it as much as I would not take that dance as being like, we're, we're BFFs.
1:04:55 Andy Greenwald? Because, because in, I think the spirit of the show, that you could look at the first three seasons as a trilogy in a way, but really every season. Is more like The Wire in that it reshuffles the deck and tells a specific story to that season. If the show were more conventional, and if everyone was being more explicit about the idea that the fifth season will likely be the last, which I think is probably safe to assume, not by any internal knowledge, but of the sense of like, how long people work on any one thing anymore?
1:05:22 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:05:23 Andy Greenwald? So if we were to think of the show that way, then I guess this is build, you could say, oh, we're building towards a season where Harper and Yasmin finally join forces and they tear down the establishment of old world money and old men everything, you know, through Harper's financial wizardry and savagery and Yasmin's communications genius. It's not that show.
1:05:45 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:05:45 Andy Greenwald? So I think you're right to say that. And so the more relevant line is the line about like, what does she say? We're here forever, even if we can't be. This was, this was putting, literally putting a, an emotional memory pin in a beautiful moment because we may never get it again in this, certainly in the season, but probably in the series.
1:06:05 Chris Ryan? They shot those dances very similarly, where it's the two people in a sea of bodies, spotlight, coming together at a moment of incredible volcanic change in their lives. I just think it's interesting.
1:06:18 Andy Greenwald? I think that one of the things that has appealed to us about the show from the beginning, and what we used, we joke about and say like, oh, it was primarily a vibes show, is that the people making it and the characters are intensely pre-nostalgic, that they live moments with the inflated like Gladiator-esque sensibilities of something that will make a core memory, as opposed to the way things actually happen. And it's written that way, too. Like, this is praise. People don't talk like this. Like, I think that is accepted understanding of the discourse.
1:06:47 Chris Ryan? I love many things where people don't talk like that.
1:06:49 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, exactly. I mean, people like David Mamet plays, or Michael Mann movies, or...
1:06:52 Chris Ryan? Earl Pinter, yeah.
1:06:54 Andy Greenwald? That's not how people talk, but it reflects how people feel, and how people are, and how we conceive of things or remember them.
1:06:59 Chris Ryan? Also, there's like an element you have to understand, you don't have to understand, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but like, you have to understand, like, there's... A way in which the style that you imbue your characters with when they talk, or how they talk, can be truthful, if not true to life. You know, so it's like Aaron Sorkin characters say the things that I think people wish they were clear enough of mind to say at any given point, to dress down a boss or an authority figure that way, or whatever. Mamet's repetition is how speaking in the world sort of sounds, but it's highly, highly stylized. So I don't really mind.
1:07:37 Andy Greenwald? It's paintings, not photographs.
1:07:38 Chris Ryan? Yes, I don't really mind that part. Anything else from industry you wanted to hit?
1:07:41 Andy Greenwald? Did you enjoy Will Amina eating McDonald's?
1:07:44 Chris Ryan? I thought it was amazing. Amazing.
1:07:48 Andy Greenwald? When she pulled the rug.
1:07:49 Chris Ryan? And also, like, a very funny joke about how if you guys weren't so busy being, like, bisexual secret agents, you might just be able to, like, do this job.
1:07:59 Andy Greenwald? This is, this is what I first of all brilliantly said, put that on our new wall of quotes.
1:08:04 Chris Ryan? She was just like, I'm having a fucking quarter pounder and like totally played you, and it wasn't like 4D chess. It was pretty simple.
1:08:12 Andy Greenwald? This is what I was saying when I was struggling with the Eric appearance on CNN, where I was like, Eric and Whitney are, this is maybe a good place to say this, like, it's not just that they're speaking elevated language, it's like they're behaving like lunatics in a arena that is supposedly reality, like bright lights, television. And I struggled with it when the host of the CNN program was like, well, that was another great segment. It's like, you just had like an art happening?
1:08:39 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:08:40 Andy Greenwald? Like, you just had an improvised, like, Donmar warehouse freakout.
1:08:45 Chris Ryan? And you're like, well, Scott Jennings, what do you think of that?
1:08:48 Andy Greenwald? Exactly. The Will Amina scene was what I think I was looking for, and it came a little bit later. And then that's also the argument for considering something as a full season, because they got their card pulled, they're playing, they're, they're, they're playing at glory holes and, and, and, and spycraft.
1:09:04 Chris Ryan? Somehow, Peer Point has returned.
1:09:05 Andy Greenwald? Dude, make the meme. Make the meme.
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1:11:09 Chris Ryan? Anything else you wanted to talk about in the world of Andy Greimolt?
1:11:12 Andy Greenwald? My world.
1:11:13 Chris Ryan? Or, you know, let's get to a little watch after dark. I gotta say, I miss the Olympics more or less entirely. I did watch a highlighted version of the USA-Canada hockey game. Hits stiff when you're watching Shoresey. This season of Shoresey is very much about Canadian pride.
1:11:31 Andy Greenwald? Did you feel, what was your roller coaster of emotions when the good old U.S. lost some teeth but won the match, won the medal? And then your guy Cash Patel is in the locker room? Did you, how'd that make you feel? Good?
1:11:44 Chris Ryan? I was in a basement with Ferdinand, talking about data sets and some opportunities to advertise on this podcast.
1:11:51 Andy Greenwald? Honestly.
1:11:52 Chris Ryan? We got our producers, "Look at it's very expensive real estate in Mar Vista." So we may have to make some compromises.
1:11:57 Andy Greenwald? You should call your guys. There's four or five guys you've been in a room with. I am fascinated about this.
1:12:03 Chris Ryan? What if we find out Kaia's real name is Arena?
1:12:06 Andy Greenwald? Yes. This has been the longest, this is essentially the FSB version of Siberia, is to cultivate these two.
1:12:12 Chris Ryan? Fake pictures of her in Big Sur, being like, "Love hiking. In fact, love sending guys across borders."
1:12:19 Andy Greenwald? I just hope.
1:12:20 Chris Ryan? Burger phones.
1:12:21 Andy Greenwald? Kaia, in this version of your life, which is thrilling, by the way, I, I hope that you've been given other tasks that befit your station within the post-soviet hierarchy.
1:12:29 Chris Ryan? Can you imagine Poo is like, "You must go and record a long-running pop culture conversation show."
1:12:35 Andy Greenwald? What these guys did in bars will eventually become relevant.
1:12:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:12:42 Andy Greenwald? Eventually. It does explain our longevity.
1:12:45 Chris Ryan? Yes, it's incredible.
1:12:46 Andy Greenwald? Honestly?
1:12:47 Chris Ryan? Well, we, we provide a useful data set.
1:12:49 Andy Greenwald? Of guys wearing band t-shirts and sports hats. Like the last great frontier to crack America. We must go at people who are excited for the replacement.
1:13:01 Chris Ryan? When they try to find pressure points in my life and they're like, "It looks like he likes the Sixers."
1:13:05 Andy Greenwald? Again.
1:13:05 Chris Ryan? And hardcore.
1:13:08 Andy Greenwald? He alone represents our interests.
1:13:12 Chris Ryan? All right. Well, okay. So Thursday, the plan is we are going to do the pit.
1:13:17 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
1:13:17 Chris Ryan? We're going to have a special guest.
1:13:19 Andy Greenwald? Oh, we're going to talk Wonder Man. We're going to finish Wonder Man, which I have done and I recommend everyone does. It's a great show.
1:13:26 Chris Ryan? Sunday night, we will put up our industry finale recap.
1:13:32 Chris Ryan? Probably with a special guest appearance. From Vladimir Putin.
1:13:36 Andy Greenwald? Go on.
1:13:36 Chris Ryan? But some of this stuff that's flying around about him and the New Yorker.
1:13:41 Chris Ryan? And that'll go out on Sunday night and then, you know, the usual watch shenanigans over the course of the week.
1:13:46 Andy Greenwald? It would be incredible if Vladimir Putin went on a sports podcast just to talk about like ice hockey. Like if he was just like, I'm not here to talk about any of that other stuff. You know what I mean? Like he was just here to talk.
1:13:58 Chris Ryan? I'm just trying to imagine Putin on Bill.
1:13:59 Andy Greenwald? Just balls and strikes. Bill's like, who are your guys?
1:14:02 Chris Ryan? That's Marin.
1:14:03 Andy Greenwald? Oh, right. The Marin. All right. Putin on Marin.
1:14:05 Chris Ryan? Making Putin listen to 32 minutes of Jalen Brown talk would be the fucking greatest thing that this country has ever done.
1:14:11 Andy Greenwald? So wait, let's game this out. So it's just like when you took back some of the Ukraine.
1:14:16 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:14:16 Andy Greenwald? It's like when Danny Ainge stockpiled picks in return for Paul Pierce.
1:14:22 Andy Greenwald? Right? Like there's some version of that.
1:14:24 Chris Ryan? And Putin keeps trying to talk about like Russia's historical imperative to take over a nation. He's like, you know, you're missing a point. And that's, and that's what Jalen's been doing on a night to night basis. And I don't know if you've noticed, but he scored 38 points 29 times.
1:14:38 Andy Greenwald? What if Putin, because remember Putin is a master of flattery. Like he is, he is a spy. So what if he's just like, Russia is better with Ukraine. It just is.
1:14:47 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
1:14:47 Andy Greenwald? It just is.
1:14:48 Chris Ryan? Oh, I thought you were going to mean like he would come in and he'd just be like, in Russia, like we love the Celtics kind of thing.
1:14:54 Andy Greenwald? Russia Celtics love you. Like the old Smirnoff joke. Now I want to do Putin on like, we won't do it now, but Putin on many podcasts. Cause I did, I apologize. I went straight to the Marin of like, who are your foundational guys? Or like Marin telling Putin about the time he auditioned for Lorne Michaels. And Putin having to be like, well, sure. You know, I had to sit through Yeltsin's cabinet meetings. You can imagine.
1:15:13 Chris Ryan? Thanks, Takaya. Or is she?
1:15:17 Andy Greenwald? This is the one that has legs.
1:15:19 Chris Ryan? Thanks, Takai. Thanks, everyone for making the show today. We'll be back on Thursday. Pitt, special guest for Wonder Man, Sunday night, industry finale recap and more, more exciting stuff next week.
1:15:37 Chris Ryan? This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormone.
1:15:51 Speaker 03 Are antibiotics and as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lasages and supplements? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.
1:16:06 Speaker 03 Now streaming on Paramount Plus. I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for that. He's back. I'm older. I'm wiser.
1:16:21 Speaker 03 And sharper than ever. Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything. Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount Plus Premium Plan.
Previous ‘The Pitt’ S2E7 and an ‘Industry’ S4 Mailbag. Plus, Trailers for ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ and ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3. Next ‘Wonder Man’ Co-Creator on the Show’s Origins, Near Cancellation, and the Status of the ‘Community’ Movie. Plus, ‘The Pitt’ S2E8. Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated