‘The Paper’ Restores the (Sitcom) Feeling. Plus, ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 5 and a Busy September for TV.

Chris and Andy talk about the premiere of ‘The Paper,’ the original Peacock series from the world of ‘The Office,’ and why the spinoff sitcom made them immediately feel at home (4:23). Then, they preview a busy month in television, including the upcoming premiere of HBO’s ‘Task’ and ‘Slow Horses’ Season 5 (31:53), before breaking down the fifth episode of ‘Alien: Earth’ (36:51). Later, they briefly discuss Darren Aronofsky’s new film, ‘Caught Stealing,’ and why they recommend it (01:02:08). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 2:30Speaker 04

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

• 2:36Chris 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 with some definitive takes on best laboratory safety practices, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:52Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, I was just checking the updated CDC guidance.

• 2:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's changing in real time.

• 2:58Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what would be sick is if you were Moro from Alien Earth and your hand could just do anything and you could just like get a COVID vax?

• 3:04Andy Greenwald?

  To myself? Honestly, I would tell myself it's the COVID vax, but then just...

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, it's Thursday. What's up, brother? We are here to talk about the paper, first season dropped on Peacock. That's the, uh, the new show, very much in the Office universe. And we're going to talk a lot about that today. We'll also talk about the fifth episode?

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  Can you believe it?

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  Fifth episode of Alien Earth. I think we have

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  Time flies when you're not having fun.

• 3:33Chris Ryan?

  Three left. And it was a big one, so we'll discuss that. There's a couple trailers. And, you know, we both saw separately, but, but in spiritually together, a film called Caught Stealing, which we might discuss a little bit at the end there.

• 3:46Andy Greenwald?

  What about the fact that it's opening day for our NFL champion?

• 3:51Chris Ryan?

  Our returning champs. Uh, I, I just feel so zen.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  I know, it's great, right?

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  I feel very much at peace. Do you feel at peace?

• 3:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  Because I don't know if you know how to just be chill about football.

• 4:03Andy Greenwald?

  Evidence would suggest I don't. I think that's fair.

• 4:06Chris Ryan?

  So we lose, it's a trap game. We lose to the, the, sorry guys, we're talking about the Eagles.

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  You start with a trap game? What are you, M. Night Shyamalan?

• 4:13Chris Ryan?

  Because it's, uh, it's Parsons trade, Cowboys, nobody believes in us.

• 4:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's our banners going up.

• 4:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we're distracted, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right.

• 4:22Andy Greenwald?

  Back throws for 4,000 yards tonight.

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, we lose, you say what?

• 4:29Andy Greenwald?

  Get out of my house? I mean, I should say I'm hosting. So I have to be on my best behavior.

• 4:35Chris Ryan?

  You're so adorable too, because it's like, it's not just like, guys want to come over the game. It's, would you like to come to me, Caso, for tacos and services?

• 4:45Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta be me. I gotta entertain a little bit. I want to make it worth everyone's while. I'm gonna check and be topping up your glass, you know, wearing a little maid's outfit. It'll be great. It'll be great. By the way, it's also three people. So it's really not that. And you, for the record, have declared, so, okay, let me say this. I think I will be very calm until 5:21 PM Pacific time. And then all bets are off.

• 5:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:08Andy Greenwald?

  But I do feel pretty good and we did win. So I'm not going to be that guy, at least until mid-season.

• 5:14Chris Ryan?

  I've decided that, you know how Sirianni's, they're not going to go out on the field for the banner? I'm gonna go stand outside of your house.

• 5:20Andy Greenwald?

  Just look at the mountains for a while?

• 5:21Chris Ryan?

  That's the past. That's the past, man.

• 5:24Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 5:24Chris Ryan?

  We are going to talk a lot about the past on this television, on this podcast, though.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to put you on the record though.

• 5:30Chris Ryan?

  Segue, okay.

• 5:30Andy Greenwald?

  It was really good. I'm sorry. You can run it, you can say it again.

• 5:32Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:33Andy Greenwald?

  Pretend none of that happened. I mean, keep this, this is gold. But, uh, you said that you would not be second screening the game tonight. You would just be focused on.

• 5:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm not looking at Twitter or Reddit tonight.

• 5:43Andy Greenwald?

  Football, friends, family and faith.

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  One of the most profound major sport off-seasons for me, I think. Obviously, you know, a time of great personal change. And I do feel connected to the Phillies. I do.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you spent a lot of time with them in their backyard recently.

• 6:03Chris Ryan?

  But nothing gives my weak structure like football.

• 6:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  It's not even that like, I like care about like developments in offensive strategy and like what Kingsbury's gonna do this. I mean, I care about all of it, you know, it's what I live for. But I would literally die if Cliff Kingsbury. Left the end of a, no, but it's just the, it's just the like, there it is. Sunday, Thursday, Monday, you know? And I, I really appreciate the backbone it gives.

• 6:33Andy Greenwald?

  The cadence.

• 6:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And as an only child, you know, I like turning on the TV when I come home and, and watching a little football.

• 6:39Andy Greenwald?

  Because the alternative is crushing loneliness. Should we close our laptops and talk about that?

• 6:45Chris Ryan?

  Um, but it does actually bleed into what I wanted to talk to you about today.

• 6:50Andy Greenwald?

  Bleed is also a good segue for Alien, but we had other stuff.

• 6:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I want to talk to you about The Paper.

• 6:55Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 6:56Chris Ryan?

  And this is the new series from Greg Daniels, who adapted The Office for United States audiences from, from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Um, and then that show obviously spawned a sort of Mike Schur extended universe. Mike Schur worked on The Office, then went on to do Parks and Rec and The Good Place, et cetera. Um, and was the, The Office was obviously the springboard for a lot of like huge careers when you look back. Um, those two shows in particular, Parks and Rec and The Office,

• 7:26Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible for casting.

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  Are responsible for a lot of stuff. And it's Greg Daniels and Michael Coleman, who worked on Ethan For You, doing this show, The Paper, which is connected to The Office in one specific way, or two specific ways. It is the same film crew that followed Dunder Mifflin around for all those years. Um, and Oscar Nunez, who is the, uh, Oscar from The Office, has now turned up at a Toledo.

• 7:53Andy Greenwald?

  With the same company. So there's the third.

• 7:55Chris Ryan?

  It is like this sort of.

• 7:56Andy Greenwald?

  Connected.

• 7:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then there is a corporate kind of chain of events that lead, you know, Dunder Mifflin to owning a newspaper, which makes sense.

• 8:03Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the company that owned, yeah. So to be clear, we are spoiling, I don't think any of this matters really, because you're not watching this for spoilers. But there was actually more. The Office DNA right from the jump than I expected.

• 8:15Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Not just the Chyron about like 20 years ago, this documentary crew did this, but that the first person on screen is Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration back in the Scranton Office Park and then sort of unspooling the story of what happened.

• 8:28Chris Ryan?

  As somebody who did not re-watch The Office three times during COVID, I didn't, a lot of that stuff was lost on me, I think.

• 8:36Andy Greenwald?

  The Bob Vance Refrigeration?

• 8:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Chris Ryan?

  I will say that I too was surprised by the connective tissue.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  I should say I have been doing an Office re- well, so I did some Office re-watching.

• 8:47Chris Ryan?

  I know, your kids, right?

• 8:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, last year for the lauded and much missed Sick the Landing podcast.

• 8:53Chris Ryan?

  Dude, you make fun, but you should see our inbox. It's very, it's very much missed.

• 8:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's just all just doctors saying like, "The pit was very good."

• 9:03Andy Greenwald?

  The, so I did re-watch some of the highlights, the best episodes for that, and that was a great experience. Had a fun podcast with our buddy Rembert about it. But yeah, my younger daughter has been enjoying The Office. The issue with re-watching The Office, if I may, is that there were a lot of episodes and cherry picking is hard if you don't have like, you know, you don't remember or you're not looking at some like Reddit guide to like the key episodes. So you do end up being like, "Oh, I remember this Christmas two-parter from season three being very good." But then you also forget when you do that, that this two-parter was from 2006, 2007, and the plot is Michael is depressed after a breakup. So Andy Bernard, newly arrived from Stanford at Helms, takes him to lunch at Benihana.

• 9:45Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 9:45Andy Greenwald?

  Which he calls Asian Hooters. And then they flirt with and then take, go home with two waitresses. And then the joke is that Michael can't tell them apart because they're Asian. So congratulations, America.

• 9:59Chris Ryan?

  We've come so far.

• 10:00Andy Greenwald?

  It was jarring and jarring to be sharing my culture, my generation's culture with my children. Anyway.

• 10:07Andy Greenwald?

  The DNA of that show was much more present.

• 10:09Chris Ryan?

  Were your kids like, what's Hooters?

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, weirdly, no. So maybe I should circle back on that. Um, so I was, I was in the vibe of this world and when I fired up the show.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  Um, you mentioned, you know, watching, rewatching it. I know that a lot of people, when they've rewatched The Office, just kind of have it on in the background. Like they'll put when it was on Netflix or when it's on Peacock and they just will have The Office sort of continuously playing while they're making dinner, while they're doing stuff or whatever, or they'll just sit down and watch three episodes of The Office. Um, you used to recap The Office.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  The later seasons.

• 10:43Chris Ryan?

  The later seasons, but as part of the Thursday night kind of recap of all the shows that were on on Thursday night.

• 10:49Andy Greenwald?

  Once again, I volunteered to do that.

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  It was a great idea.

• 10:52Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks.

• 10:52Chris Ryan?

  And it also kind of reminded me of what we used to make things in this country, stuff where it's like, there used to be a kind of, let's all gather around feeling with these Thursday night comedies. Now.

• 11:06Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think the portions of those recaps where I recapped Up All Night, the Will Arnett, Christina Applegate, we had a baby sitcom have aged well?

• 11:13Chris Ryan?

  That, I got, I gotta tell you something.

• 11:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I just said words that made no sense to you, right?

• 11:18Chris Ryan?

  I remember that.

• 11:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  But that's crazy that that's, that's, that was a show. I mean, like, I just like, that completely had left my brain until you said that.

• 11:27Andy Greenwald?

  I, the 8:30 and 9:30 slots of NBC comedy lineups are like that. It's like absolute Mandela effect craziness. Like, was that really a television show?

• 11:36Chris Ryan?

  Cause I remember one where, wasn't there a show that they did for a while that the whole point was, it was either that it was live or that it was improv, but it was like a sitcom about like, guys hanging out, but it was like a guy, it was like guys trying to get dates. God, I feel like it was like, there was some twist to it.

• 11:54Andy Greenwald?

  Guys trying to get dates.

• 11:56Chris Ryan?

  Like they were hanging out at a bar. Never mind. It doesn't matter. My point was more that, um, something.

• 12:02Andy Greenwald?

  Just, just looking, October 2011, I would rank the shows for this night of October 14th. Community was the best episode of the night.

• 12:09Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:10Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, for, that was a good episode, Remedial Chaos Theory.

• 12:13Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

• 12:14Andy Greenwald?

  Parks and Rec was second that night. The Office was third and Whitney, bring it in the rear.

• 12:19Chris Ryan?

  There was Whitney, yeah.

• 12:20Andy Greenwald?

  Good God. Okay, sorry. This is a little memory lane-ish. Go on. Some people watch it in different ways.

• 12:25Chris Ryan?

  What was my point? My point was that the paper has been binge dropped.

• 12:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  On a streaming service. Now, it has been advertised. I think it got a lot of press. I think the reviews have been affectionate, but sort of like, wow. You know, but that's critics. Most critics are like that. What did you think of the show?

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Point Dexter.

• 12:46Chris Ryan?

  And what did you think of the show's delivery?

• 12:50Andy Greenwald?

  I watched three.

• 12:53Andy Greenwald?

  And I loved it.

• 12:55Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 12:55Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I loved it. I was prepared to, I think we said this the other week. I was prepared to judge this on a curve because I think that sitcoms are hard.

• 13:04Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  Launch from full stop to before they get into rolling.

• 13:07Chris Ryan?

  And the guys behind The Office and Parks and Rec are, they are very vocal about like, I wish we could just throw the first 10 out.

• 13:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And here they literally have dropped the first 10.

• 13:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And this show's been renewed for a second season.

• 13:19Andy Greenwald?

  That, I thought that was an incredible, for as much as like the switching up the delivery system, if you like, right at the end felt a little panicky. The confident renewal was worth the money. Like even if it was like a, we need to do this to head off criticism or to sort of massage how people receive the show, because shows have been unrenewed before. I thought that was really a smart move because judging by the first three episodes, this is remarkable, to my mind remarkably ahead of the curve. And it shows not just the durability of the structure and the format, but particularly the just like, this guy's just a ballplayer skillset of Greg Daniels.

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  Like there is a, such a assured confidence to the casting, toward the structure, to the joke writing, to the vibe, that I found so welcoming. But I gotta say, more than welcoming, I was just laughing. I thought that some of the joke writing in these first two episodes.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  It was very effective.

• 14:19Andy Greenwald?

  Exceptional joke writing. The idea, I mean, I think we were all especially like, you know, hardened media vets, like, like us over here, we're like, why are you doing a newspaper show in 2025? The opening credits make it clear that this is just like a newspaper that is used on the bottom of cafeteria trays. That half, two thirds of the floor is a toilet paper company. And he's like, we need, I'm here to meet about the paper. And they say news or toilet.

• 14:41Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 14:42Andy Greenwald?

  Effective.

• 14:44Andy Greenwald?

  And then also in a way that I thought was incredibly clever, like. Casting people, a mix of like Tim Key, who is a very familiar British comedian figure, who worked with Steve Coogan, a that guy for people who watch these sorts of shows. I'm like, oh, not only is he Ricky Gervais, Steve Carell-ish, he's reliably funny in a very specific way that stands out. Sabrina Empachitore, who we know from White Lotus, is just on tilt from the beginning.

• 15:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:12Andy Greenwald?

  She's phenomenal. She's so funny, she's fully alive in a broader way. And then you backfill with actors who I've never seen before, like Chelsea Frey, who is somehow doing, just doing yeoman's work as the Jim and the Pam of the show.

• 15:27Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  And crushing it. And I just felt so instantly at home that I can't wait to watch more, and I'm glad it's renewed.

• 15:33Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it's fair or inevitable that we're just gonna compare different characters from the paper to characters in The Office?

• 15:38Andy Greenwald?

  It's inevitable in the beginning, and I think they seem to know that. I also thought it was interesting that, you know, for as much as this is a direct cousin of The Office, it does have an interest in local community and local doings and just the nature of doing good in a fallen world that was the defining feature of Parks and Rec. And I think that folding in some of that DNA, even though Mike Schur is not involved with the show, feels good and I think helps make the show feel, A, less claustrophobic than it might otherwise, but also might-

• 16:12Chris Ryan?

  Like if they were just like, we're in this newsroom all the time, playing pranks on each other?

• 16:16Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. I also think that it eventually will help head off a criticism that I've already noticed. Like, look, I had to do it, and I have a lot of empathy for the people who had to do it this week. Reviewing the first few episodes of a new comedy is a really challenging thing. You're inevitably gonna have to scratch your chin about something because it's not working yet, because the reason sitcoms succeed is because you are in love with the characters. And then you re-watch it, and you're like, see, I always knew I was right about Coach and Nick or whatever, but like, you didn't necessarily know that at the beginning. You kind of feel like a forced meet-cute-

• 16:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  -early on the sitcom. But some of the criticisms I've seen about the show are, you know, it gets certain things right, like the will they or won't they, or the vibes, or the jokes, the setting, but what's it really gonna be about? And that is a very contemporary TV question.

• 17:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  When The Office launched, everyone could tell what it was about. It was about weirdos in an office. The idea that something has to be about something else in order to justify its place in our streaming economy and our minds is something that Parks and Rec was ahead of the curve on. And so I don't, maybe this emerges more later in the season, but this show is set up to have a season-long arc, or a, and you know, a Gary's Old Town Bar newspaper, like Cheers did, or whatever.

• 17:28Chris Ryan?

  It's clearly like a wide-open gate to bring in tons of different characters and stories and then recycle them out after a couple of episodes. I mean, you're right, it has the structure, for as much as like, you know, I saw Seppenwall, and Alan Seppenwall, great TV critic, wrote about Rolling Stone. He compared like, trying to revive the American sitcom while also trying to revive American newspapers, like local newspapers. He was like, they're both, like, those are Sisyphean tasks, both. But I never, I really didn't trip over any of the journalism stuff, and I actually thought, like, they very quickly kind of give you a sense of, like, this is essentially like a dead internet clickbait

• 18:09Chris Ryan?

  factory with tons of, you know, pop-up ads and stuff. And I enjoyed the comedy of it, and I enjoyed the setting of it, and I enjoyed, like, the heart of it. The only thing I tripped over was this, the Impeccator character.

• 18:27Andy Greenwald?

  Really? I thought you were gonna say something else, because the only thing I tripped on was another character. You go first.

• 18:31Chris Ryan?

  I think that's just one of, and I've watched four of them. And I do think that that is one where they're just gonna dial her in more. But she seems like, almost like on a different planet, much less a different show. Now, part of that is just, she is a flamboyant, wonderful, Italian comic actress.

• 18:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:57Chris Ryan?

  Who has great physical instincts and all these other things, you know, all these other attributes. But I think that the way that her character is designed to be like... Kind of like the Emperor Palpatine of the show is, I just find it a little bit tonally off or like not to my tastes or whatever, but I think that that is the kind of thing that season two.

• 19:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Chris Ryan?

  These, this, this kind of show has shown before that like, they're like, okay, we can get this equalized on the board soon.

• 19:31Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think the.

• 19:33Chris Ryan?

  That might even happen later in the season. I just haven't gotten there yet.

• 19:36Andy Greenwald?

  The comp for her, interestingly, is not someone in the office. It's Ava from Abbott Elementary.

• 19:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 19:41Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of like, someone who just is so clearly not deserving of the responsibilities she possesses at the beginning of a series.

• 19:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 19:49Andy Greenwald?

  And is behaving in a flamboyant manner that makes sense in her universe, but no one else's. Um, I, I hear you on that. I, I just find her so funny. Um, like there's a scene in the third episode when she doesn't notice that Mare is behind her and she says, "I'm sorry, how long have you been sitting there? I thought you were a stack of shirts." Or pile of shirts. She says, "The woman who was named after a horse." Um, I love it. Uh, for me, the thing that the show hasn't figured out, interestingly, is the lead. Um, Donald Gleason, a, a great actor.

• 20:23Chris Ryan?

  He plays a character named Ned who through some nepotistic means winds up finding himself becoming the editor in chief of the Toledo Truth Teller.

• 20:31Andy Greenwald?

  And, and someone who inexplicably is obsessed with classic journalism and wants to be a journalistic hero in an era when that is over with and like has a, a typewriter and all these things. Uh, he's a great actor and I like him in anything. And I, I think that the people who made the show considered this a huge get because he is so versatile. Um, and you know, comedically memorable in the way he presents and like his.

• 20:54Chris Ryan?

  Especially in Rise of Skywalker, yeah.

• 20:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, to do what he did across those three movies is genuinely like that, even the Russian acrobatics judge would give it a 10. Um, he, that character, I think is the one thing that they clearly haven't figured out.

• 21:09Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  Because is he? I'll use the same language that we were using for other characters. Is he Michael Scott or is he Jim? Is he noble or is he Leslie Knope? Is he, you know, noble and good in a way that is-

• 21:26Chris Ryan?

  And an idealist and a romantic, yeah.

• 21:28Andy Greenwald?

  -idealistic in a world where that isn't, that he eventually gets everyone onto his side? Or is he like a weird gangly nepo baby, you know, who- And I don't think that's how they're playing him. But it doesn't quite find its balance yet between like, like leading man, central comedic character. Maybe, maybe again, this is part of the reviewing comedies, like these, these casts are solar systems that take a minute to find their gravitational pull.

• 21:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  And I trust this team to say, I, we're excited with what we have and to see how these energies play off of each other. But his role through the first three was the one, it's nominally a hero's arc, but that was the one that I felt was the most modeled.

• 22:07Chris Ryan?

  Interesting. I, what did you think of the kind of, the will they or won't they plot that is like, clearly they will, which is-

• 22:18Andy Greenwald?

  It felt sped up.

• 22:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  But again, I think they thought about that, right? Like, I think that they're, part of making TV shows at this particular moment is understanding that the, you've never been making shows for a more self-aware or educated or TV literate audience.

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  Impatient.

• 22:33Andy Greenwald?

  And impatient, right? So you can't run from these things. I mean, the best shows of the last few years have gone straight at it, you know? And then maybe they come up with some ways to stall it. Like re-watching The Office, the, the lengths that they went, because I think they were to keep Jim and Pam apart, because I think they were still operating under the, which I think is actually false, but the like Sam and Diane fallacy, that like the show's over once they're together. Now, did them getting together effectively neuter their growth as characters once they both decided to continue working at the Scranton Office Park until the show was canceled? Yes, but that did not happen.

• 23:08Chris Ryan?

  No, Jimmy became an agent, right?

• 23:10Andy Greenwald?

  He and Daryl started like some sort of sports management-

• 23:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, in Philly. Because he was always on the train, remember?

• 23:17Andy Greenwald?

  He was always commuting, yes.

• 23:18Chris Ryan?

  He was always commuting.

• 23:19Andy Greenwald?

  And Pam went to art school, like it- There was no way to keep that on the rails for long, but them getting together like it got five seasons worth of good stuff even after and them getting together was epic and fantastic.

• 23:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because at the beginning of The Office, Pam has a boyfriend, right? She has a fiance.

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, they've been engaged for three years.

• 23:38Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 23:39Andy Greenwald?

  The great David Denman, who you just saw in Peacemaker.

• 23:42Chris Ryan?

  I did just see him in Peacemaker. He's also, what did I also, he was in, um.

• 23:46Andy Greenwald?

  Roy.

• 23:47Chris Ryan?

  Uh, he's in, uh, what, goddammit, why can't I remember the name of the movie now?

• 23:52Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I saw him in that movie.

• 23:53Chris Ryan?

  Jeremy Sol尼亚 movie.

• 23:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's in Rebel Rich.

• 23:55Chris Ryan?

  Rebel Rich, yeah.

• 23:56Andy Greenwald?

  He was very good in Rebel Rich, I gotta say. He was great in that.

• 23:58Chris Ryan?

  He's also in, uh, 13 Hours, the Benghazi movie.

• 24:01Andy Greenwald?

  Isn't it? You know, somehow I missed that one. Um, the, James Gunn, what a, speaking about Peacemakers, because he was married to Jenna Fisher when she was doing those scenes with Roy and she's like, he's like, I always liked that guy who was kissing on my wife. Bring him back. It's cool. It's Hollywood, baby. His current wife is making out with John Cena in the show.

• 24:22Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 24:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's beautiful.

• 24:24Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 24:25Andy Greenwald?

  Don't be judgy. Come on, it's all, it's all kinds.

• 24:27Chris Ryan?

  Have you seen John Cena's promotional run for the Peacemaker?

• 24:29Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, how, what do you mean?

• 24:31Chris Ryan?

  He's like a, like a coffee expert and he's like, yeah, he's like a really like, he's a real Renaissance man. He talks about how you can judge a coffee shop's coffee by how they make a flat white.

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's his go-to to test it because it, it requires demonstrating the artistry of pulling shots, but also milk.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  That's exactly what John Cena said.

• 24:54Andy Greenwald?

  He and I have many things in common.

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  Would it be amazing if John Cena replaced me on this podcast?

• 24:58Andy Greenwald?

  And would we tell anyone? That would be amazing. You know? I think the tell would be like, the listeners would be like, man, CR really cares a lot about coffee now. That would be the only thing.

• 25:12Chris Ryan?

  And I took over the CDC.

• 25:14Andy Greenwald?

  There you go. That seems more likely. By the way, how many more episodes of Peacemaker have you, have you knocked down?

• 25:19Chris Ryan?

  I haven't. I mean, that is a show that comes out weekly and I may, I may continue. I saw James Gunn teased there will be big cameos at the back end of the second season.

• 25:29Andy Greenwald?

  Do you see he's, he announced a new Superman movie?

• 25:30Chris Ryan?

  And he's also like, there's a Superman movie coming in 27. Yeah.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  That's real soon, guys. Like, that means they're shooting it imminently.

• 25:37Chris Ryan?

  I think early next year.

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  Probably why, uh, Cornswod is, was not eating the British snacks in that Lad Bible thing that I saw, because he's got to maintain.

• 25:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Andy Greenwald?

  He couldn't slip, but he also couldn't. Say that he was making another Superman movie that fast.

• 25:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Andy Greenwald?

  But that's good. That's kind of the movie version of what we were asking for in TV. Like, get the seasons renewed. Like, let's make them.

• 25:57Chris Ryan?

  Well, I'm curious whether or not, you know, obviously, I would imagine that The Paper, if it's being renewed on its first day of release, which is sort of an HBO thing, you know, like where you wait for it to come out and then you're like, we love, we're so happy with it. It's renewed. I imagine that this is always the plan.

• 26:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but I think it is.

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Peacock doesn't have a lot of franchises and The Office is kind of...

• 26:17Andy Greenwald?

  They need it to work, but I do think it was smart. You know, that was playing the expectation game and the media game well. Because I think people do, anything helps to get people to watch something new, even if it is structurally or formally familiar. The sense that there's more coming does help people, I think, commit. I just think that there were aspects of the show, like,

• 26:42Andy Greenwald?

  when did we stop valuing expertise in this country? Oh, I remember January. In the sense that, in the sense that, like, who directed the season of The Paper? I mean, Greg Daniels himself, but like, The Office veterans like Paul Lieberstein, who is Greg Daniels' brother-in-law, but also was Toby on The Office and was a showrunner. Ken Quappas, Jason Wallner, who did Human Giant.

• 27:04Chris Ryan?

  Tons of modern family stuff, yeah.

• 27:06Andy Greenwald?

  They've done this stuff before. And then also Yana Goroskaya, who did What We Do in the Shadows, Tazbe Shavitz, who I think was on, worked on Res Dogs. Like, they got people who knew how to do this. And then he also, they also had things behind the camera that I appreciate, like Alex Edelman, who's a stand-up comedian,

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  and plays, you know, a funny character named Adam in the show, is also a writer and producer on the show.

• 27:30Andy Greenwald?

  He's not the only one. I'm just looking at the cast list.

• 27:32Chris Ryan?

  But that's like also, that's always been the Greg Daniels DNA, is to kind of mix people's roles up and give people kind of different things to do.

• 27:40Andy Greenwald?

  A chance to create things and be writers as well and shape it. And then just the small little details, like Alan Havy, who has had a long career as a stand-up and is on Mad Men, is crushing it in these small parts. Is it Nancy Lenihan? Yeah, Nancy Lenihan, who you remember from like 100 movies, plays his secretary and has like one scene in the third episode. I'm like, that's very funny.

• 27:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes, right.

• 28:00Andy Greenwald?

  That she's there, that's her doing it. That's great. And the sense of like building out that community with people who you're excited to see, including official friend of the podcast, Tracy Letts.

• 28:09Chris Ryan?

  Oklahoma's own.

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, I gave you a hard time for gatekeeping that relationship.

• 28:14Chris Ryan?

  I wasn't gatekeeping it.

• 28:16Andy Greenwald?

  No, okay, sure.

• 28:19Andy Greenwald?

  There was just like, like, who are you texting? You're like, nobody. I'm like, wait, you're like, oh, it's just my friend Tracy Letts.

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  It was me and Tracy being like, did you see this Italian crime film called like, "I will shoot you in the face and then talk to you later."

• 28:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's better when Sabrina Paciatori says it. The context didn't matter. I was just like, oh, this is someone who we admire, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tracy Letts. And then you're just like, that's my text pal. I was like, whoa, that's crazy. But, but, but then you gifted the gift of gab.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  He asked, yeah.

• 28:51Andy Greenwald?

  That was very nice. So now I feel, now I can be like friend of the pod.

• 28:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Andy Greenwald?

  That felt good.

• 28:55Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely. I would love to have Tracy on. Talk about sandbaggers.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  But also, isn't he a big Eastern Gate guy?

• 29:00Chris Ryan?

  Huge Eastern Gate. He is the gatekeeper of Eastern Gate.

• 29:03Andy Greenwald?

  The Eastern Gatekeeper. It's right there.

• 29:05Chris Ryan?

  Did you see, there's like five stories right now that are like, this is Eastern Gate.

• 29:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  Did you see like the six right wing German politicians all died the month before the election?

• 29:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Or Trump's like, yeah, more troops in Poland if they want. That's so sick.

• 29:22Chris Ryan?

  He's a, he's a big, uh, if they want guy. Trump. He's like, if you want, sure.

• 29:27Andy Greenwald?

  You know who else was like that? My grandmother. You do what you want. You always do. That's what she would say. That was like, it was a classic thing. Anyway, we're getting off topic only to say, I feel I'm very bullish on this show. I loved watching it. I'm very happy it's here. And I just think that there's, it is, it is a specific feeling that is hard to capture in a review, but the enthusiasm and the warmth of like, oh, this is a thing that can grow. This has been planted and there's something coming up here was exciting.

• 29:56Chris Ryan?

  I think that, uh, I think it's good that they, in retrospect, or not in retrospect, but after having watched half the season or a chunk of the season, knowing that it's renewed, I think it's wise that they put the 10 episodes up. I think if that pilot had gone up, it could easily get lost to...

• 30:16Chris Ryan?

  The chatter just around like, oh, football's back and like, there's all this other stuff happening. And it's just like, well, yeah, and then next week, one more episode of the paper will be up.

• 30:24Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 30:25Chris Ryan?

  It was always going to probably be a batch and then weekly after that. But I think that now this will be there. People can catch up with it. People can watch it at their leisure. And then maybe the second season becomes a little bit more of an event.

• 30:36Andy Greenwald?

  I'm generally a week to week person, but I just feel like this was smart for NBC Universal Peacock to be like, we're in the business of Greg Daniels working in this world.

• 30:45Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 30:45Andy Greenwald?

  And so we are not going to be short sighted about it. We're going to trust the people, the person we hired and the way he hires to do something special here. And it is a weird example of foresight, honestly, because famously, The Office was, after the first five or six episodes, people are like, what is this? The British one is better. This is never going to work. Parks and Rec, first five or six episodes, famously.

• 31:11Chris Ryan?

  She's annoying.

• 31:12Andy Greenwald?

  Kind of weak.

• 31:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Andy Greenwald?

  Did not understand its lead character, retooled, figured it out.

• 31:17Andy Greenwald?

  It would have been a shame if they had, if they, first of all, I think this is ahead of schedule, but I think it would have been a shame if they had given up on it too early.

• 31:24Chris Ryan?

  It comes at a time.

• 31:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 31:27Chris Ryan?

  As we enter into September here. That is going to be extraordinarily busy over the next couple of weeks in television. And that's another reason why I think it was probably just in,

• 31:39Chris Ryan?

  it was smart for them to kind of get all their stuff up. And I actually do wonder if, if folks at Peacock took a look at what was coming out. Not that like, these shows necessarily are going to be like somewhere I turned pretty big and take away all the oxygen, but.

• 31:51Andy Greenwald?

  Controversial episode.

• 31:53Chris Ryan?

  It was. It was. It was a controversial episode.

• 31:58Chris Ryan?

  It was.

• 32:01Chris Ryan?

  It was a strange piece of, of what a lot of people are saying was like, trying to sort of rehabilitate the Jer character.

• 32:08Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, we are talking about it. I thought you were continuing to move on.

• 32:10Chris Ryan?

  Oh, no.

• 32:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay. I have something. Okay, go on.

• 32:15Chris Ryan?

  Did you watch it?

• 32:15Andy Greenwald?

  Of course not. I've not, I've never seen a frame of it.

• 32:17Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay.

• 32:19Andy Greenwald?

  What I did experience-

• 32:19Chris Ryan?

  You are the king of like, I don't know what we're talking about, but I have a strong opinion.

• 32:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's why I succeed in this fractured media economy.

• 32:26Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 32:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's my secret sauce. I don't watch any of this shit. Um, no, but I was driving the girls back from their, uh, doc, annually, physical doctor's appointment, and my older daughter was reading the, you know, the, um, the, uh, epistolary, like, after, like, the last part of the third book-

• 32:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Andy Greenwald?

  Where Belly is in España-

• 32:50Chris Ryan?

  No, in the, in the-

• 32:52Andy Greenwald?

  I know, the show's in Paris.

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:53Andy Greenwald?

  They changed it.

• 32:54Chris Ryan?

  She finds the only four nice people in Paris-

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  That's incredible.

• 32:58Chris Ryan?

  To hang out with.

• 32:58Andy Greenwald?

  Did you ever meet any of them?

• 32:59Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 33:00Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't. Um, she's in, in Spain, and so she's reading-

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  My last memory of Paris is going to this cocktail bar called Combat and being like, "Here we are," and it was like six, so no Parisians are, are drinking, and they're, the empty bar.

• 33:13Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:14Chris Ryan?

  You can sit over there, in the corner, like, on a stool, like, all the way over there.

• 33:18Andy Greenwald?

  It, it was good, though, that when you-

• 33:21Chris Ryan?

  Great city.

• 33:21Andy Greenwald?

  When you went to Paris, you went to Paris between London stops.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Andy Greenwald?

  So I saw you before you went, and I was like, "How's it going?" And you're like, "It's pouring rain and everyone's mean." And then you came back into the warm, beery bosom-

• 33:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Andy Greenwald?

  Of the big smoke.

• 33:34Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, "I miss Paris."

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  Suddenly, like, "Why is everyone so nice to me? I don't trust this." Uh, no, but she was reading these letters that are from the book that, um, uh, what's his name?

• 33:42Chris Ryan?

  Conrad.

• 33:43Andy Greenwald?

  Conrad. Writes, and like, they're just constantly like, "You don't have to write back. I get it. I'm just gonna keep writing you. You're probably dating some, like, motorcycle-driving guy named Benito with a ponytail." And I'm just like, "This seems a little, like, boundaryless. You know what I mean?"

• 33:58Chris Ryan?

  Is that how your daughter read the, the letters?

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, she was like, "This is so romantic."

• 34:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, "This is how they get you." I pulled over to the side of the road.

• 34:07Chris Ryan?

  Toxic masculinity.

• 34:08Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 34:09Chris Ryan?

  They just tried to do a lot. It was a very jair-heavy episode considering what the people really want. You know?

• 34:17Andy Greenwald?

  You are the voice of the people.

• 34:19Chris Ryan?

  I'm just, I'm an avatar. I'm a conduit. They speak through me.

• 34:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's beautiful.

• 34:23Chris Ryan?

  I was just saying that September is a very busy month of television. I thought I'd do a little bit of a preview for the folks.

• 34:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool.

• 34:30Chris Ryan?

  Obviously, Paper, Alien, those are the things we're talking about today. And Task comes on Sunday.

• 34:36Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 34:38Chris Ryan?

  I will say that I have watched the first episode of Task. And it's everything I ever wanted from a television show.

• 34:45Andy Greenwald?

  Say it into the camera.

• 34:46Chris Ryan?

  It's everything that I ever wanted from a television show.

• 34:49Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 34:49Chris Ryan?

  It is two dudes on a collision course with each other and Rita's water ice.

• 34:57Andy Greenwald?

  Now, I wish it was John's.

• 34:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:59Andy Greenwald?

  As a water ice purist.

• 35:01Chris Ryan?

  Do you like black cherry?

• 35:03Andy Greenwald?

  That's not my preferred flavor now. You ever had the chocolate ice from John's?

• 35:07Chris Ryan?

  The what?

• 35:07Andy Greenwald?

  The chocolate water.

• 35:08Chris Ryan?

  I have not. And I typically do not like chocolate water ice.

• 35:12Andy Greenwald?

  Really?

• 35:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 35:14Andy Greenwald?

  But John's also has a nice assortment of fresh fruit flavors in the summertime.

• 35:17Chris Ryan?

  Yo, I went to a place in Fishtown called 1-900 Ice Cream.

• 35:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I've been talking about this place.

• 35:22Chris Ryan?

  That went crazy. They went crazy.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  They snapped.

• 35:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You dropped something, King. This ice cream cone.

• 35:30Andy Greenwald?

  Did you? What flavor did you get?

• 35:32Chris Ryan?

  A vanilla-chocolate soft-serve swirl.

• 35:36Andy Greenwald?

  Do they dip it?

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  With Heath bar topping. And I had almond, my wife had dark chocolate dip.

• 35:43Andy Greenwald?

  I like the dip. They do have some crazy sandwiches and stuff, too.

• 35:46Chris Ryan?

  They do, yeah.

• 35:47Andy Greenwald?

  Do you? Well, we'll circle back. I was gonna bring up some slang that the kids are using these days. But like, do you remember all the slang that we read? Remember when we read Marlon James' great book, Brief History of Seven Killings?

• 35:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 35:58Andy Greenwald?

  And the entire book is written in like thick 1970s Jamaican patois?

• 36:02Chris Ryan?

  You and I did not use that slang.

• 36:04Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no. We're reading this book and we're like, wow, this is really like-

• 36:06Chris Ryan?

  That was sort of our Asian Hooters moment. You and I walking around.

• 36:09Andy Greenwald?

  Just reading the book.

• 36:11Chris Ryan?

  Brief History of Seven Killings slang.

• 36:13Andy Greenwald?

  Do it. I dare you.

• 36:14Chris Ryan?

  I dare you.

• 36:16Andy Greenwald?

  You don't need to dare me because however many years later-

• 36:18Chris Ryan?

  I've got more to lose at this point.

• 36:19Andy Greenwald?

  You told me before we filmed that you have nothing to lose anymore. You are a stateless actor. You are Tom Hanks in The Terminal right now.

• 36:31Andy Greenwald?

  My, the junior high of Los Angeles, they say "giat." They are using Jamaican slang.

• 36:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Andy Greenwald?

  How are we gonna get in front of this?

• 36:41Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I think that train left the station.

• 36:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but we didn't get the alert. You know what I mean?

• 36:45Chris Ryan?

  Amtrak was down that day.

• 36:47Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks, thanks, Sleepy Joe. No Amtrak alerts.

• 36:49Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the Paper Alien Earth Task, which rules, and we'll be talking about extensively on Monday. Um, and then when we get into mid to late September, we have the lowdown, which we talked about last week, the Ethan Hawke Sterling Hard Joe showset in Oklahoma, about a conspiracy-addled-

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  Truth-storian.

• 37:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, uh, who goes into, down a rabbit hole, trying to uncover a conspiracy in Oklahoma. English teacher is back. House of Guinness, my scouts are out, and they're, and they're checking it out. Uh, House of Guinness comes from Stephen Knight, stars Anthony Boyle from Say Nothing, and is basically succession about the start of Guinness, right?

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  Quite a popular beverage these days.

• 37:33Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Slow Horses is back.

• 37:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's wild.

• 37:37Chris Ryan?

  Again, uh-

• 37:38Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 37:38Chris Ryan?

  There is a Jessica Chastain show-

• 37:41Andy Greenwald?

  The Savant.

• 37:41Chris Ryan?

  That I'm kicking the tires on.

• 37:43Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 37:43Chris Ryan?

  I'm thinking about taking it for a test drive, we'll see if the salesman lets me go pass a block, you know?

• 37:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think that you have a relationship with that dealer, right? The Chastain dealership?

• 37:52Chris Ryan?

  I do. Sean, it says "Fennessy's Chastain Dealership" outside on the sign.

• 37:58Andy Greenwald?

  He's, I, there's no way to continue this joke.

• 38:01Chris Ryan?

  If something's working out, if there's a new model, they save, save me a test drive.

• 38:05Andy Greenwald?

  That's nice.

• 38:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then the gold is coming back in early October.

• 38:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's been interesting, because the gold has been out in the UK, and so people were wondering why we were ignoring it.

• 38:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they were like, there's rules.

• 38:14Andy Greenwald?

  It is not.

• 38:14Chris Ryan?

  On September 18th, a show that I really, really need you to be a part of is Black Rabbit.

• 38:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that is the Jude Law-

• 38:23Chris Ryan?

  Jason Bateman show.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  One of them, it's like restaurants in New York.

• 38:26Chris Ryan?

  It's basically like, uh, what if a guy owns Schiller's?

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 38:30Chris Ryan?

  Or the, uh, what was the Spotted Pig?

• 38:33Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:33Chris Ryan?

  That guy got canceled. Not that guy, but like, that kite type of place.

• 38:38Andy Greenwald?

  Like a hotspot.

• 38:39Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, it's a lot of restaurant shit in the show.

• 38:43Andy Greenwald?

  Good for me.

• 38:43Chris Ryan?

  And then a bad brother comes back, but not the bad brother, like, the restaurant that we like.

• 38:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, why'd you tell me that? Like, if it was just, like, then Nick shows up, and is like, "How you guys doing?"

• 38:53Chris Ryan?

  This has been a very local-

• 38:56Andy Greenwald?

  No one's in the room with us.

• 38:56Chris Ryan?

  It's the Philly special.

• 38:57Andy Greenwald?

  Kai is on vacation. Kai just wanted to give us some space today. So nobody's checking us.

• 39:02Chris Ryan?

  He's cutting the cameras.

• 39:04Andy Greenwald?

  He's cutting the cameras right now?

• 39:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's done with Scoot Mockering.

• 39:06Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  Um, anyway, I think it's gonna be a really cool month, but that's a lot of television to fucking watch.

• 39:12Andy Greenwald?

  That was so sweet. That was so pure. I think it's gonna be a really cool month, guys. Just don't worry about getting your booster shots. It's gonna be a cool month.

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• 39:51Speaker 08

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• 41:35Chris Ryan?

  You want to talk about Alien Earth? Yeah, I do. That was the best episode of this series about the dumbest fucking characters I've ever seen in my life. That's very well said.

• 41:46Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to quote the show?

• 41:49Chris Ryan?

  This is proof how stupid smart people can be. Well, you have to basically, and I gotta tell you something. Yeah, please. Noah Hawley went on House of Our and Bobby Cissé went on House of Our Cool Interviews. You should definitely check it out. Mal and Joe and Rob have been breaking down the show all season and I've heard him on that episode. I heard him talk a little bit on, I believe, the official Alien podcast. And when I say I heard, I read aggregated quotes from his official Alien podcast where he's getting a little flip about like other Alien movies, specifically Prometheus and Covenant, which he's referring to now as like alternative fiction.

• 42:33Chris Ryan?

  And so like, and I understand he's got to approach things where he's like, as I did with the Coens. Yeah. I am doing with Alien. I have to believe in myself. It's my shit. It's true. You gotta get those voices out of your head. Now, I'm only being a dickhead about this because I love Prometheus and Covenant and feel like somewhere in those movies is a map to the stars, you know, is a fucking highway to heaven. I don't, we didn't quite get there, but it was really close. The on-ramp was visible. Okay. I'll allow it, though.

• 43:07Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 43:09Chris Ryan?

  I think that he was also like, isn't it kind of funny? Like, in some of his conversations, I think he's sort of talked a little bit about like, you know, if you sign up to do one of these jobs like these characters do, where they're just like, yeah, it's 60 years. Everybody I know will be old or dead. I basically am getting ground down by a corporation.

• 43:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, these corporations own the world, et cetera, et cetera. You're not necessarily going to get the best and the brightest.

• 43:41Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 43:42Chris Ryan?

  And so that is supposed to go a long way, I think, to explaining why the science officer on the Magino is eating a sandwich and drinking out of a water bottle when they're loosely conducting experiments on alien life forms.

• 44:01Andy Greenwald?

  Alien life forms that have already been established are predators. And suck all of the blood out of living beings.

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you have to basically.

• 44:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Chris Ryan?

  It's rare that you watch a science fiction show or movie and are like, these people aren't that good at their jobs.

• 44:21Andy Greenwald?

  They're not sending their best and their brightest.

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like, usually you're introduced to a cast of characters and you're just like, we're the fucking, like, the Marines they send in aliens are the best Marines.

• 44:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 44:32Chris Ryan?

  And they get their asses kicked by the aliens. And it's only through the ingenuity of Ripley that, you know, they, they, they quote unquote become victorious.

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 44:41Chris Ryan?

  But watching this and watching the people on this ship, you're just kind of like, oh, man.

• 44:45Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, again, there's also like.

• 44:47Chris Ryan?

  That can be a frustrating thing to watch, is what I'm saying.

• 44:49Andy Greenwald?

  I found it frustrating to watch. I also think that, and again, in a vac- in a vacuum in space, I, I do admire this about Noah as a creator and as an auteur. He, he loves aesthetic choices and that defines his work as a director as much as anything else. And I'm okay with that. Like, we like Wes Anderson. Like, I like people who have, who make committed choices to an aesthetic.

• 45:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Andy Greenwald?

  The pieces of the alien mythos that were compelling to him, certainly visually, were a kind of, and I know there's a word for it and I forget it, it's used to describe Star Wars as well. It's like a type of future, which is like a little bit busted.

• 45:27Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 45:28Andy Greenwald?

  But that, you know, taking some of the same technology, or the appearance of technology, that Ridley Scott used in the first Alien, like clunky keyboards, or non-high-def screens, and like, very like, ham radio vibes. I like the continuation of that. I prefer that. I think it makes it for visually interesting storytelling, and kind of, you know, sort of a surprise makes you lean in instead of lean back kind of stuff, where it's like, oh, a very liberal smoking policy in the airlock of space on the ship.

• 45:57Chris Ryan?

  But when they made the first Alien...

• 45:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, there was a liberal smoking policy anywhere.

• 46:00Chris Ryan?

  People smoked literally everywhere.

• 46:01Andy Greenwald?

  On airplanes, so why wouldn't you do it? So, I appreciate that. I think that there were elements, though, that were challenging, one of which being, I think to your point, no one appears qualified for any of the jobs they have, including captain, sub captain, security offi-- well, security officer seems decent.

• 46:17Chris Ryan?

  He seems quite qualified.

• 46:19Andy Greenwald?

  But like, medical officer, not because he's smoking, because, you know, doctors used to endorse cigarettes.

• 46:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:24Andy Greenwald?

  More that, when they are doing open torso surgery, no one thinks to put on a mask. Now, again, maybe this is our future, and, you know, the CDC no longer recommends that doctors wear masks, and that's very possible, so maybe I should be thinking about it that way. But like, there's a, there's a, there's a series of required suspensions of disbelief.

• 46:45Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  That escalated and escalated, and I found challenging.

• 46:48Chris Ryan?

  Some of which I thought Noah Hawley, who wrote and directed this episode, played for almost comic effect.

• 46:55Andy Greenwald?

  He did. It's intentional. He knows what he's doing.

• 46:57Chris Ryan?

  Clearly, Chabuzo, who is played by Karen Aldridge, who people may remember from Severance, and I believe Fargo, is the science officer, and her whole, like, I've left my Stanley jar, like, my Stanley cup, like, open, and I also have, like, a deli sandwich next to this eyeball, and I'm kind of just all over the place, and I also liked the light suggestion that they've been in space so long, and been in space so long with these things, that she's starting to develop, like, a camaraderie with some of the...

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, for this amount of time, standards have definitely

• 47:32Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 47:33Andy Greenwald?

  fallen a little bit.

• 47:33Chris Ryan?

  But when it comes to, we just didn't notice that there wasn't a guy in the sleeping pod, which all seemed to be in the same room, I'm like, well, that just seems, like... Plot mechanics.

• 47:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 47:45Chris Ryan?

  Like when they're like, oh, where's Petrovich? It's like, didn't you look?

• 47:49Andy Greenwald?

  Like, again, part of the challenge I'm finding in... Well, there's two things. Just, I'll just, I think I should just call it. Like, if I was swept up in the human or emotional drama of the show, I don't know if I would be picking Knits specifically as I am. I'm not particularly engaged with the characters as we've met so far, outside of Mora, who I think is a great actor and a really interesting part.

• 48:12Chris Ryan?

  And since this is very much a showcase episode for him, and he gets to move around a lot more than... I was just, like, blown away by him again.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  I continue to be most impressed by the thoughtful structure and scaffolding of the show and the season. I don't even think I've mentioned that. I just think that the way that the show communicates previously on within the framework is awesome.

• 48:32Chris Ryan?

  It's so stylish.

• 48:33Andy Greenwald?

  It's stylish, it's thoughtful, it's fresh. Doing the structure of, like, a mini-episode of Alien in the first two episodes, and then a step back, and then doing Alien as a flashback here, I thought that was just very clever, very clever, uh, architecture, especially for the way we watch TV now. That said, I want to know your opinions as the alienologist. This was Noah making an Alien movie. He had an hour, or he took an hour to do it, which is shorter than most movies, but got us from A to absolute destruction and Z at the end. What did it do right?

• 49:16Andy Greenwald?

  What, in terms of, like, honoring the things that you like about these movies? What did it do freshly or differently? In the sense that all people who have directed an Alien movie get their chance to say what's interesting to them? And what do you feel like it did wrong within its hour-long framework?

• 49:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that he, first of all, and, you know, you could also ascribe this to the past accomplishments of Ridley Scott and James Cameron and H.R. Giger, and the people who, all the screenwriters and writers who have worked on the first two Aliens, to honor and also iterate on the production design, the world, the feel, the feel of this ship, the feel of how it must be.

• 49:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. The mother room? Love the mother room.

• 49:55Chris Ryan?

  The mother room is awesome. Like, the crowded, uh, the crowded bridge that they have.

• 50:03Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah, that's another thing. Small details. You don't ever see a crowded spaceship.

• 50:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. The dynamic of the, um...

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  Of all of the remaining surviving shipmates who now are, for the most part, like Zavari is the acting captain, but is just the, is also an exo who had been sleeping with the deceased captain.

• 50:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think she was sleeping with a science officer, Bronski.

• 50:30Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 50:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think Bronski Beat was named after him.

• 50:32Chris Ryan?

  That's probably right. They probably did do that. You know, the Jeremy Bisping and Michael Smiley characters, who are the mechanics, like kind of in the tradition of Harry Dean Stan and Yaphet Cotto. I think ultimately, though, like, and I actually like, I think they left some, some really good stuff on the table with Andy Yu, who was playing Tang, who is the sexually deviant navigator, who I think we were led to believe was a synthetic.

• 50:57Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was the implication.

• 50:58Chris Ryan?

  But is apparently just a creep and also is kind of like, what if you had a creeper in space?

• 51:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Chris Ryan?

  In space, everyone can hear you creep, you know? But ultimately, this is about Moro and this is about Cesar's performance again. And it was like, if that had been the series, if that had been the season, if it was like, this season is about getting to Earth, I would have been fascinated. And I think you could have done that, but you don't have Peter Pan, and you don't have Kersh, and you don't have Boy Cavalier, except for being on TV. I just think this is like, the action in this, in this episode is quite good. The alien behavior is new.

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  I want to ask you about that. Let's circle back to that.

• 51:44Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of interesting developments on, on that side. But I, I found it like, suitably entertaining and thrilling. But it's really about Moro for me. He's a character that I have not seen in this world before, and he is just deeply fascinating to me.

• 52:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I think it's a shame that. Just something we, it was like a throwaway reference in what you were saying, and it feels a little bit throwaway within the series, that this is a guy who had a family, and to get a paycheck, said goodbye to them, forever, but then with a forever, he didn't even anticipate with the message that his daughter has died.

• 52:23Chris Ryan?

  And I don't mind that, and I did think it was like, humanizing for him, but I actually find the other part of his motivation more interesting.

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm saying, I found it interesting, but I also found it almost a shame that it's just like, a little bit of scribbled backstory to fill in. It's like, anytime a character is sitting alone, looking at photographs, like, okay, that's shorthand to get of us some sort of emotional thing.

• 52:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not pretending that like, I would be, like, people are not above it. That is a hallmark of visual storytelling. But there is so much in the decisions of this one character, to change his body, to give up his family, to become essentially a ronin for capitalism.

• 53:00Chris Ryan?

  And that's the thing that fascinates me, is that in a world where four or five corporations are running the planet, the CEOs of those corporations become gods, and the people become religious fanatics.

• 53:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, that's fascinating.

• 53:14Chris Ryan?

  And so, the idea that Moro would be like, "I have no family. Your mother rescued me as a palsied beggar, and turned me into..."

• 53:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 53:23Chris Ryan?

  Like, a gladiator, essentially. "My sword goes to her, and to this family, and to this mission." And then, that's what's guiding all of his decisions on that spaceship. Is, you know, Rishi Marjani's character is very, is like, "Well, we have to like, save this person and save that person." He's like, "The only thing I'm saving is the specimens."

• 53:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I find that-

• 53:43Chris Ryan?

  "That's the only thing I care about, is the cargo."

• 53:45Andy Greenwald?

  It is, I don't want to come off being like, it is a sin, that the show's biggest problem through five episodes is that it has too many good ideas.

• 53:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's pretty awesome.

• 53:56Chris Ryan?

  It's pretty cool.

• 53:57Andy Greenwald?

  I think that we are experiencing, and we should check ourselves, that like, three episodes to go, potentially future seasons, it's too soon to say, "Oh, he's, Noah's not interested in that." Or, "The powers that be wanted more of an alien show, and then he wanted his show, and then this third part..."

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  This is way more alien than I thought it was gonna be.

• 54:14Andy Greenwald?

  Ultimately, I think that too. So, I do want to ask about some of the alien behavior. Let's start with our friend, the newly hatched xenomorph, in this episode.

• 54:25Andy Greenwald?

  What's its motivation? Now, I don't mean like-

• 54:27Chris Ryan?

  The one running around?

• 54:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. The one, first of all, it's very human, like clearly like someone in a suit, which is interesting.

• 54:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and each movie takes, I mean, there are, there are people who are keepers of the flame about like alien behaviors, way more so than I ever could be. There are, each filmmaker brings a different interpretation to alien movement and alien behavior. So, Fincher's Aliens are way different than Ridley Scott's, are way different than James Cameron's, are different than Fede Alvarez', et cetera, et cetera.

• 54:56Andy Greenwald?

  But do any of them do what the alien did in this one? Which is corner in a dramatic way, what's her name? The, Zavari?

• 55:07Chris Ryan?

  Zavari, yeah.

• 55:08Andy Greenwald?

  And then trip her, I guess to make it more fun and sporting? That felt like predator behavior.

• 55:13Chris Ryan?

  Right. That alien kills. Like, they, they don't, I think you could, I think that alien could drag Zavari back and make it part of like a big alien honeycomb breeding thing.

• 55:26Andy Greenwald?

  That's fun.

• 55:27Chris Ryan?

  Which they do in Aliens and stuff like that, but there is usually, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I, I did find it playing with its food a little bit-

• 55:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 55:36Chris Ryan?

  Was strange. Yes. But then, the eyeball also seems to-

• 55:41Andy Greenwald?

  What's the eyeball? Is maybe the hero of the show?

• 55:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like people have compared him to Baby Yoda.

• 55:46Andy Greenwald?

  The eyeball is just like-

• 55:48Chris Ryan?

  Many people are saying-

• 55:50Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, the blood bugs, blood bugs are out. Like, I thought that was pretty sporting of it.

• 55:55Chris Ryan?

  I suppose we're supposed to interpret that as there is alien on alien beef and-

• 55:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:00Chris Ryan?

  They're not working in concert with each other, but rather like, no, I want it, I want it, I want it. And the eye needs a live host.

• 56:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:08Chris Ryan?

  Right? Like, it needs, it gets in and then it's like, I keep you alive-

• 56:13Andy Greenwald?

  Sort of.

• 56:14Chris Ryan?

  And control you a little bit.

• 56:15Andy Greenwald?

  Meat puppet, if you will.

• 56:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:17Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was very, I thought maybe it had developed a fondness for our- Unhygienic science officer in that moment. Kudos to Noah and his team for really mining a lot of effective nightmare fuel.

• 56:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:34Andy Greenwald?

  You know.

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  But it's good to take the scariest possible thing, which is an eyeball that is an alien that jumps into your eye socket and make it cute.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's not, that wasn't the worst thing.

• 56:43Chris Ryan?

  What was the worst thing?

• 56:44Andy Greenwald?

  The blood bugs that vomit baby blood bugs into your water bottle.

• 56:48Chris Ryan?

  You never have a problem with?

• 56:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  Is if you just drink Aquafina and you unseal it and it's like, I can see.

• 56:53Andy Greenwald?

  I wanted to talk about that.

• 56:54Chris Ryan?

  There are no blood bugs in here.

• 56:55Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing in here. Nothing in here.

• 56:57Chris Ryan?

  Not even any nutrients.

• 56:58Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's literally nothing. There are microplastics swimming around, but you're good. You're good for another 10 years at least.

• 57:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was horrifying. It's horrifying.

• 57:10Chris Ryan?

  You're a water bottle guy, right?

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  I got one right here.

• 57:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you ever just take a peek in before you take a sip?

• 57:14Andy Greenwald?

  Now, either I, here's the thing, I either have to choose to do that every time or never do it.

• 57:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:19Andy Greenwald?

  Like, there's no middle ground here. You drive yourself mental.

• 57:22Chris Ryan?

  I liked the fact that it wasn't, you know, I was, I love it when somebody is like, you think it's gonna be this disgusting thing, but it's gonna be much grosser.

• 57:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, it's gonna be much worse.

• 57:32Chris Ryan?

  I thought she was gonna like, take a drink and the thing was gonna go in and instead it spooged in her water and then left.

• 57:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it was like, my work here is done.

• 57:43Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like I need to be more attentive. Like, I feel like this was instructive for me because recently, you know, it's heatwave here in Los Angeles.

• 57:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 57:51Andy Greenwald?

  And the bugs come out, like flies and stuff flying in the house. And my younger daughter screamed and then breathlessly reported to me with like, Toledo Truth Teller levels of detail about a fly had sat, landed on my toothbrush.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  And she was like, so revolted by this. And I guess I'm worried that my first response wasn't as strong as hers. I'm a little bit like, maybe a little bit like, you know, these kids toughen up when they go on the New York City subway and touch the pole. You know what I mean?

• 58:23Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 58:23Andy Greenwald?

  I did get rid of the toothbrush. Where's the camera?

• 58:25Chris Ryan?

  Did you really?

• 58:26Andy Greenwald?

  I did, but then I kind of felt like.

• 58:28Chris Ryan?

  Wash it in hot water?

• 58:30Andy Greenwald?

  She was like, I just felt like there were market forces in the house, you know, that I just couldn't avoid it.

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Andy Greenwald?

  But I don't know.

• 58:37Chris Ryan?

  I still feel like with your younger kid especially.

• 58:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Chris Ryan?

  You're still in that zone where you can just lie.

• 58:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  And you could just be like, you know, that's a friendly fly.

• 58:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but then I felt like that is, because one thing you have to do, there's a, I believe this is where the term double consciousness comes from.

• 58:55Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 58:56Andy Greenwald?

  I want to be parenting in the moment, but I'm also always checking for the things that are going to come up in therapy later, you know, and they're like.

• 59:02Chris Ryan?

  Therapy are yours.

• 59:04Andy Greenwald?

  Great question, buddy. No, that like at some point they'll be like, how did you feel about your father? It'd be like, he was a, he was a decent man with some, you know, wrong opinions that he was not afraid to share.

• 59:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:15Andy Greenwald?

  With the world. And he was foul and unclean because one time a fly sat on his toothbrush. So I had to like, just take that off the board.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  I, I remember there's this one time my wife and I were in Maui.

• 59:28Andy Greenwald?

  This is a relatable story already. Go on.

• 59:31Chris Ryan?

  It was our first trip we had made after moving to Los Angeles and we went to Maui and then we did the road to Hana.

• 59:37Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure. It's a long road.

• 59:38Chris Ryan?

  It is very stressful for a marriage. And we got to.

• 59:42Andy Greenwald?

  Were you driving?

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I drove.

• 59:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, brother.

• 59:45Chris Ryan?

  And a lot of slow down, slow, slower. And we got there and like, you know, had dinner or whatever and she went to sleep. And like at some point in the night, I like turned a lamp on to find something. And when I looked up.

• 1:00:00Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no.

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  There was just like an array of, of Olympic athlete bugs on the ceiling.

• 1:00:07Andy Greenwald?

  They were just like.

• 1:00:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like, not like, ooh, a fly. It was just like a beetle the size of like.

• 1:00:12Andy Greenwald?

  Did they all stop?

• 1:00:13Chris Ryan?

  Lawrence Taylor.

• 1:00:13Andy Greenwald?

  Were they like, maybe you won't notice me?

• 1:00:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I decided.

• 1:00:17Andy Greenwald?

  They were like Lawrence Taylor?

• 1:00:18Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, looking at it, they were looking at me.

• 1:00:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Chris Ryan?

  And I was just like, we're just going to turn the light off.

• 1:00:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:00:25Chris Ryan?

  And we're gonna, we're not going to tell her for sure, you know, for days.

• 1:00:30Andy Greenwald?

  And she won't listen to this podcast, so you're safe.

• 1:00:35Chris Ryan?

  But it's like, sometimes you just have to pretend like it didn't happen.

• 1:00:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. What's the harm? I mean, I guess the engineering crew of the Maginot found out what the harm was. So there's a, there's a line. But, you know, we're thinking about it.

• 1:00:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Andy Greenwald?

  But we all have to like, we have to live our lives, you know, you can't respond to everything.

• 1:00:50Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Zavari brought the dirt from Utah with her expressly for the purpose that if she hooked up with a guy and he died, she'd pour it on his corpse?

• 1:01:00Andy Greenwald?

  Or? Good question.

• 1:01:02Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it was just like, hey, a little bit about me, I'm from Utah. This dirt's great.

• 1:01:06Andy Greenwald?

  I think a little, little thing about me, I carry a fisherman's tackle box with 50 vials of dirt from all of the Wayland-Yutani states. And which one, which state are you from, future paramour? And it's like, Utah, he's like, she's like, okay.

• 1:01:22Chris Ryan?

  Or maybe he gave that to her and he was like, when we get back, we're gonna move to Zion, you know?

• 1:01:26Andy Greenwald?

  So please just hold this dirt for me in case I die violently in front of you.

• 1:01:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Andy Greenwald?

  It is thoughtful, you know, in terms of its planning. I thought Zavari, like, sometimes leaders meet the moment. You know what I mean? And other times I feel like they don't.

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she was not quite Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide, as exos go.

• 1:01:46Andy Greenwald?

  She was not ready. She was not ready for prime time.

• 1:01:49Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the last scene of this episode is Moro meeting with the Yutani heiress, or the current CEO of Yutani, and um, she's convinced by his passion. And she's just like, give this guy whatever he wants to go recover the specimens and fuck Boykavali up.

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Chris Ryan?

  And whatever else.

• 1:02:08Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, this has gone fast. We are now, there are only three episodes left.

• 1:02:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I've really enjoyed this. I think we, we obviously like, I think, have our critiques of it, but I'm not sure

• 1:02:22Chris Ryan?

  how popular this is. It seems like it's a really big show. I mean, I know that there was the release statistic that it like, you know, nine million people over six days watched the first episode. And I assume it's, it's continued somewhat apace to that, but it does feel like it's, it's, it's been a success.

• 1:02:35Andy Greenwald?

  This is one of those things where, like, it does feel like that. The only ways we really, really know how successful something is for the larger streaming, the parent company of the streaming service in which it is on. It's either if it is a out of the box shock, like The Bear Season 1, being like, oh, this is just undeniably everywhere and we didn't expect anything, so now we're crowing about it.

• 1:02:59Chris Ryan?

  And everybody's like, yeah, chef.

• 1:03:00Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just keeping things in the FX world then. The other example of that would be Shogun, where they went all in, it was hugely expensive, and then clearly they were justified for it, so they couldn't stop bragging about it. Something like this is fascinating to me, and I would love to get under the hood and actually know. First of all, what makes this successful to the Walt Disney Company is unknowable to us, like in terms of market penetration, or awareness, or brand management, or the relationships with the Thai tax board, or whatever else they're trying to keep happy. Creatively, they seem happy with it. Noah's someone they've been in a relationship with for a long time. I think they're very happy with the reviews, and they're certainly like, again, like, we'll have a big podcast when the show is over, but the way that it's structured, if you think

• 1:03:43Andy Greenwald?

  about it, like this was a huge episode, and there are three left, and everything that's left on the board feels enormous in terms of things breaking out, things breaking in.

• 1:03:52Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's got such good, and honestly, to Noah's credit, to Noah Halli's credit, you know, with Fargo, he always gets to end it at the end of the season, and he can burn his ships.

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  Burn the boats.

• 1:04:03Chris Ryan?

  Here, assuming this has got a multi-season arc in his head, and he's talked about it, that is the case, this is gonna be a lot more about putting chess pieces in place for the future, and I think that it has a lot of potential. And I'm also really impressed with the fact that, like, for as much as I enjoyed, you know, like, what is the timeline of Yutani, you know, reading about that stuff on, like, Alien Wikipedia, I didn't really think that somebody was gonna be able to pull this off. And he has done so by, yes, like, serving you some of the flavors that you're used to, like, basically giving us three hours of Alien movie in the opening episode, the second episode, and now this fifth episode, but also, obviously, delving into a lot of

• 1:04:48Chris Ryan?

  his own real fascinations. And even when I'm not fascinated by what he's fascinated by, I kind of respect the move.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  Totally. And I just think it's interesting the way it is unknowable. How these larger companies are considering the projects they invest in, invest heavily in, and what timeline they're looking at. Like, I think we are used to covering on a podcast twice a week basis. The sort of shock turns like, oh, Shogun, they're going to submit it as an ongoing series. They're going to throw more money at it and find more story, like how lucky they had this. These corporations and networks and streaming services, I mean, they are currently bare scheduled.

• 1:05:23Chris Ryan?

  I honestly thought you were talking about the corporations in the Alien Universe.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  We're not there yet, but you could probably find the way Shine Hard Wig Company becomes.

• 1:05:32Andy Greenwald?

  They are already programmed through 27. Like, they know what's going to be on through 27. They are thinking about 28. They are also conversations that are just almost abstract to us, like. Within FX, they might be getting around a table and being like, well, we have, part of our mandate is to do things with the IP that we're allowed to play with. We, a part of our mandate is to have a quote unquote big show or one or two big shows that can compete at the Emmys with the attention economy. Win Reddit or whatever.

• 1:06:04Andy Greenwald?

  What is more valuable to them? To greenlight another $300 million for season two of Alien Earth? Or to potentially set on fire $300 million, starting another one from scratch?

• 1:06:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Andy Greenwald?

  I don't actually know how those conversations go, but I find it interesting. And so when we, so I think we were having a text about like, well, how many people are watching this show? What is its market penetration, whatever? Not because that affects how we feel about it, but I'm thinking, I'm curious.

• 1:06:32Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's unknowable. I don't, I don't know what the return on investment is. I think all we could say is. This show is working. Even though I'm not like, I'm not in love with it. I found this one tough to watch. Because, again, because I have a water bottle. But, but there's stuff here.

• 1:06:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's definitely stuff there. Did you want to talk at all about Caught Stealing?

• 1:06:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we went to the movies.

• 1:06:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, separately.

• 1:06:56Andy Greenwald?

  Why do you keep saying, are you worried that people think we spend too much time together?

• 1:06:59Chris Ryan?

  No, but I was just like, you, independent of me.

• 1:07:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:07:02Chris Ryan?

  Went to see Caught Stealing instead of Weapons, which is fine. I have my outlet for Weapons coming soon on The Big Picture.

• 1:07:08Andy Greenwald?

  And then we went to dinner.

• 1:07:09Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:07:09Andy Greenwald?

  We, can we say that we went to dinner together?

• 1:07:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Andy Greenwald?

  Are you, because I feel like you're kind of like reclaiming your space. That's fine. It was a long weekend. Usually we do take time off for each other.

• 1:07:20Chris Ryan?

  I just don't want people to know I go to Asian Hooters that much.

• 1:07:23Andy Greenwald?

  And then at dinner, I was like, "Yeah, it was good." And then you were like, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we'll go see it." You were playing a little coy, but you saw it. We both saw the film Caught Stealing.

• 1:07:31Chris Ryan?

  Now, there's no way to talk about this movie without having a spoiler discussion. So if you haven't seen Caught Stealing, Andy and I both recommend it. It's a really, like, honestly, pretty fun movie, and especially if you like the kind of stuff that Andy and I like. Detective-y, urban fiction. You'll enjoy it.

• 1:07:48Andy Greenwald?

  Also, before spoilers kick in...

• 1:07:51Chris Ryan?

  It's also set in 1998 in New York City, which is... You're speaking my language.

• 1:07:55Andy Greenwald?

  Weirdly, not enough coverage of the internship crew at Matador Records that summer. I feel like there was a moment when there could have been some little overlap there. I don't think I would have survived, but then, really, no one does. No, just that, what I found really charming about seeing this movie was that it was just a fucking movie. Like, this is what we talk about that they've taken from us, in a way, you know? It's Charlie Huston, a great crime novelist, adapting his own book. Darren Aronofsky, a great director, who historically does not make the most crowd-friendly stuff, or at least the most, like, fun stuff. Having fun.

• 1:08:30Chris Ryan?

  For a while, yeah.

• 1:08:31Andy Greenwald?

  You mean in the movie?

• 1:08:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, it's dark, but it is also, it has a vibrancy and lightness of spirit and tone.

• 1:08:38Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:39Andy Greenwald?

  That I wish there were more, I just wish there were movies like this. I wish that it was more successful counter-programming than it seems to have been, because this is a pleasing movie experience.

• 1:08:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I think that it does a convincing, if not, like, no-perfect job of recreating a time and a place that is obviously very close to our hearts, but also just, like, great music, great hangs, like...

• 1:09:03Andy Greenwald?

  Great cat.

• 1:09:04Chris Ryan?

  People chilling in a bar, a cat, yeah. And a good, kind of, um...

• 1:09:10Chris Ryan?

  It reminded me of the post pulp run of indie or studio indie crime movies where it was like a bag of money and all these different criminals and then, you know, people have compared it to snatch or to lock, stock and two smoking barrels. I think that what's different about this movie, and this is where we kind of get into spoilers if you, if you want, but you know, there is this Charlie Houston novel, which I haven't read, so I don't know how faithful it is.

• 1:09:41Andy Greenwald?

  And it's the first of a trilogy.

• 1:09:42Chris Ryan?

  And it's the first of a trilogy. And for people who don't know, this movie is about a guy named Hank, who is an ex-baseball player, living in New York City bartending, kind of more or less wasting his life, like going, staying out real late, drinking beers all day. He's got just basically the hottest girlfriend that's ever existed, which is Zoe Kravitz as a paramedic.

• 1:10:04Andy Greenwald?

  Can we just, can I just like, as someone who was quite vocal about the ending of Twisters, can I say like, having a movie with hot actors who like have sex with each other and are into it?

• 1:10:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's good for the culture.

• 1:10:16Chris Ryan?

  So, uh, it is a very, very, very fun fucking movie for like an hour and you're like, I just want to like live in this.

• 1:10:25Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. We did, to a degree.

• 1:10:28Chris Ryan?

  And then the Zoe Kravitz character gets killed.

• 1:10:31Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. As does everyone eventually.

• 1:10:33Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes, almost everyone, yeah. And I think that this is an example of, I understand how it would make sense in a book and I understand how it makes sense in a page. And I even understand when Darren Aronofsky is like, here we go, we're gonna do X, Y, and Z, it's gonna make sense in the movie. But then when you get five scenes of Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz.

• 1:10:54Andy Greenwald?

  You want more?

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  Well, it would just turn me into John Wick if she was taken from me, you know?

• 1:10:59Andy Greenwald?

  It kind of, it kind of works that way.

• 1:11:00Chris Ryan?

  It does. It is kind of like, what if John Wick was just a bartender and not like actually a superhuman? I get it. But like, the tone of the film remains a little bit, probably more buoyant than I would expect.

• 1:11:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Chris Ryan?

  After her demise.

• 1:11:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I mean, you could flip it the other way and say like, this is an example of excellent casting.

• 1:11:21Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:22Andy Greenwald?

  Pushing something into a stratosphere that it didn't necessarily expect to be. Like, the emotional heaviness of that. Lingers, the, her absence is felt, the gravitational pull shifts. Like, I think these are good problems when you cast everything, and this is cast, it's insane, the people that are playing these roles. Like, by the way, give me more funny Liev Schreiber, please. Like, shout out Day Trippers. Like, this dude actually is funny, but usually, by the way, are you aware that Liev Schreiber's internet presence is entirely, uh, like, talking about Ukraine and then also promoting a whiskey that he's the owner of? It's just, was just not an online presence that I expected for Ray Donovan, you know what I mean? It's just like, oh, okay, that's, he's keeping busy.

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and by the way, for the record, I'm objectively pro-Ukraine and pro-whiskey, so I'm not picking a fight here. No, I know, but it's funny when somebody is like, I have two passion projects. And here they are, on my Instagram. Yeah. Anyway, um, the casting across the board is excellent, and it lifts the entire thing, just like the direction is excellent, because this guy really knows how to direct a film, and it is vibrant, it's fun, and there's like a, what I imagine to be a drone shot, like, along the backs of the buildings on the Lower East Side when he's sneaking out on the fire escape. It's an awesome sequence, yeah. It's a beautiful shot, and it's just all better than it needed to be, and I kind of missed that, the sort of the elevated B movie into a B+. I think that- That's exactly what it is, yeah. I think that it's a good sign that the movie had the thing at all, that it loses when she goes off the board. Yeah.

• 1:12:51Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and then, like, Matt Smith, again, is just really taking advantage of his moment of being like, oh, that's a guy who's good at stuff, and playing characters and doing things, and everything is a little bit better than it should have been. Like, the good English band Idles does the soundtrack, and it's like, they, Griffin Dunn playing the bar owner- Yeah. Um, all these small details added up to something that I just found entirely delightful. I highly recommend it, sorry for spoiling it if you've listened through this to get to the fact that we're recommending it, but- This is just classic podcasting by us. I, I, I did not- I don't know, maybe this is, maybe something's shifting in me. Cause like, both the paper and Cott stealing, I'm like, yeah, I loved him. I just had a great experience. I, I, I like, I like liking things.

• 1:13:35Chris Ryan?

  I know you do, and I think, uh, there was nothing about Cott stealing that I was like, I don't like this. It was really more of a like, I don't know if the second half of the movie pays for the first half of the movie.

• 1:13:46Andy Greenwald?

  Cause you were super in on the first half of the movie.

• 1:13:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I really was.

• 1:13:49Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's also just a nature of, I don't need to tell you about how movies work, you know them much better than I do, but like, they were committed, you know, it is not, it, it's an example of like chemistry sparking or something working that in a TV show you can then write towards. In a movie, you're like this, we've already left the station. We're rolling.

• 1:14:07Chris Ryan?

  I just, just wanted those two crazy kids to make it work, you know?

• 1:14:10Andy Greenwald?

  Talk to me, just before we go, give me your, give me your pitch for Austin Butler leading man. Are you pro?

• 1:14:16Chris Ryan?

  Well, the number one thing about him is he has great taste. Or somebody who is his manager or agent has great taste because I think that he's gone about his career in a really, really good way. Where he's working with really interesting filmmakers. He's taking a variety of different kinds of parts. I don't know what his range is as of yet, like whether he's in bike riders or Cott stealing or masters of the air. He looks the same, he largely acts the same.

• 1:14:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Chris Ryan?

  You know, like he's Austin Butler. You could say that is the sign of a movie star, that Robert Redford is Robert Redford, whether he's in The Candidate downhill racer or Three Days of the Condor. And that's very effective for him.

• 1:14:57Chris Ryan?

  It's, I, I haven't quite gotten there yet with him like, as an emotional kind of.

• 1:15:03Andy Greenwald?

  We're in the same place.

• 1:15:05Chris Ryan?

  Hurt like being, but I do think he's cool. And I do think he's funny and I do think he's a convincing person in an action set piece. But there's a, there's, I think something is like, he's hiding something a little bit, not hiding something like.

• 1:15:18Andy Greenwald?

  He hasn't given it, he hasn't revealed it.

• 1:15:21Chris Ryan?

  Put Austin Butler in a congressional area.

• 1:15:23Andy Greenwald?

  Put Austin Butler.

• 1:15:24Chris Ryan?

  What are you hiding, Austin?

• 1:15:25Andy Greenwald?

  Put him at the CDC.

• 1:15:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Andy Greenwald?

  He. Yeah, he's, he's, he's cool, hot, has good taste, and this movie is so perfect for someone in his, in the place he is in his career. It, in that it, it, it doesn't work.

• 1:15:41Chris Ryan?

  I know how to have fun, that's what he said to this movie, yeah.

• 1:15:44Andy Greenwald?

  It doesn't work if he's not charismatic, if he's not the, the, the star that this whole, you know, carousel of broad characters, and the characters are broad, I mean, like the Bad Bunny character, Action Bronson, like, there's a lot of big acting, Vince D'Onofrio, Liev Schreiber, it's big, swirling around him, it works with that actor in the middle of it. I, I, you said it better than I could, I keep looking at him, being like, well, what's there there? It's not bad, and there are, you know, very successful careers of people who aren't, who don't have other layers, because this layer is enough, but, um, I just don't, I don't quite see it yet, but it worked for this. This was a perfect movie for him.

• 1:16:26Chris Ryan?

  And if anything, I am interested in checking out the other books in the series by Charlie Huston.

• 1:16:30Andy Greenwald?

  Charlie Huston is a great writer, who deserves more of our time, uh, he had a book last year, that called Catch Penny, that I recommend incredibly, incredibly highly, he's a phenomenal and cool writer, and a little cameo in this movie.

• 1:16:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:42Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh, I believe he is a Giants fan, which is...

• 1:16:45Chris Ryan?

  Evident by the, by the film. Um, all right, everybody, thank you for listening, we'll be back on Monday, believe it or not, and we are gonna be talking Task, episode one.

• 1:16:54Andy Greenwald?

  Are we gonna redecorate next week? We haven't really...

• 1:16:57Chris Ryan?

  We have to start just bringing stuff in.

• 1:16:59Andy Greenwald?

  Should we each?

• 1:17:00Chris Ryan?

  It's not like my wife would love for me to get some shit out of the house, so, like, I, maybe we should just start bringing books in and stacking them.

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'd like to see, could we just get a corporate card and buy everything again?

• 1:17:09Chris Ryan?

  Buy what again? Oh, all the shit that we own?

• 1:17:12Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:13Chris Ryan?

  I'll ask Bill.

• 1:17:14Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, to be fair, every few years, he goes shopping for a new studio.

• 1:17:20Chris Ryan?

  To be fair, his show is 100 times bigger than ours.

• 1:17:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's it? It's only 100 times bigger? What happened? Our number's up?

• 1:17:28Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I'm just throwing out a ballpark figure. I think Bill's show commands a slightly larger capital investment.

• 1:17:35Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that would be the case if we just shifted to all Eagles talk? And by Eagles talk, I mean Don Henley, Joe Walsh.

• 1:17:43Chris Ryan?

  It doesn't make me wonder whether we should do like our Thursday show, Jujubee's Guess the Lines, but for the next episode of Task?

• 1:17:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's fair. You will have to explain gambling to me.

• 1:17:51Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to John. Thank you to our listeners. We'll be back on Monday with Task. Please watch it on Sunday night. Go Birds, Baransky.

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