Golden Globe Noms, Back Into the Sheridanverse, and ‘The Agency’

Chris and Andy talk about some of the major takeaways from the Golden Globe nominations that were announced today, including ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 getting nominated for Best Drama despite not being released yet (1:00). Then they talk about the latest episodes from the three big Taylor Sheridan shows airing on Sunday nights right now—‘Yellowstone’ (28:02), ‘Lioness’ (40:04), and ‘Landman’ (48:56)—and Sheridan himself making a cameo on two of those shows. Finally, they cover the latest episode of ‘The Agency’ and discuss whether there has been a drop-off in quality between the second and third episodes (1:03:21). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on The Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellini. I'm a founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. With my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow The Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 0:45Chris Ryan?

  Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com, newly redesigned. And joining me in the studio and on video, he just mowed a widow's lawn, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, front and back, baby. Hey, can I get a redesign now that we're on video?

• 1:08Chris Ryan?

  What do you want to do? How could you change perfection here, you know?

• 1:11Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, first of all, it's great to see you.

• 1:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Andy Greenwald?

  What's great also is that everyone can see you.

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 1:17Andy Greenwald?

  Because people have known for years now that you are a layer king.

• 1:20Chris Ryan?

  I am. It's also, this is the perfect time for it.

• 1:22Andy Greenwald?

  But what they don't know is that now you are layering shades, not just jackets.

• 1:27Chris Ryan?

  I functionally usually work with blue and gray. I think that that's great for you.

• 1:31Andy Greenwald?

  You are a symphony in ocean today. You look amazing. I love it.

• 1:35Chris Ryan?

  We are here with Kaia. We are on the new Ringer TV YouTube channel.

• 1:39Andy Greenwald?

  Kaia looks nice, too. I noticed she's not on camera, but, okay.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  Not in my contract.

• 1:44Andy Greenwald?

  Not in mine, but hey.

• 1:47Chris Ryan?

  So, thank you for watching us, if you are, if you're listening to us, hello. And we're just gonna do the normal, normal show today.

• 1:55Andy Greenwald?

  I see nothing normal about this show.

• 1:57Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's Golden Globes Monday. So, I mean, I think we can start there, Andy. I think, I don't care about the Golden Globes and don't understand who votes for them and how shows get picked, but I do look at it as a bellwether. For what seems to become the quote unquote best of the year. Now, there are so many Golden Globes categories for movies and TV. That it gets a little participation trophy ish after a while because it's like between limited series comedy and drama that it's like almost every notable performance and notable show gets a nod. But I thought it would be useful for us to go through this stuff now that you're back on the the free shores of America.

• 2:34Andy Greenwald?

  Which I'd like to touch on.

• 2:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, do it now, man.

• 2:37Andy Greenwald?

  Not sure if I am back.

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:39Andy Greenwald?

  I genuinely feel a little Atlantic, not transatlantic right now.

• 2:43Chris Ryan?

  I feel like when you arrive back from England and he was just in England and he got back Saturday.

• 2:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:49Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you start real cocky. You're like, I feel great.

• 2:53Andy Greenwald?

  I, Chris, I crushed it last week. I was just in the pocket. I was like, this is my, you know, fourth, fifth time there this year. Like I just, I get it. I know how to do it. You know what the sign of success was on this trip? Not just the wonderful things.

• 3:07Chris Ryan?

  Football club to support yet?

• 3:08Andy Greenwald?

  That are, uh, no.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:11Andy Greenwald?

  I just tell people I like Liverpool. Everyone's like, nice. It's fine. I feel like that's okay, right?

• 3:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's like my buddy wears a Knicks hat and doesn't watch basketball and walks around New York being like, how about those guys? And they're like, I know, right? It's great. No, I feel like my sign of success outside of the wonderful work experience that I'm having is, um, a little bit bored even. You know what I mean? Like, that's a sign of like, I'm not.

• 3:31Chris Ryan?

  Not drinking enough.

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  Not pushing it too. I'm drinking just enough. It's great. And then the one wobble was that I got to Heathrow on Saturday. And I was like, man, I just crushed the trip. I'm totally like, I'm in the pocket. I slept, feel good. I feel like I contributed a lot. And then I noticed that all the TVs were all on the same channel. It was just like very concerned looking news ladies talking about a furious windstorm named Derek.

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  They called off the Liverpool match. Your beloved Liverpool did not play this weekend.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  Believe me, I know. Um, and all of the news headlines just said, don't go outside. And I also want to say like, I know that it's now an international thing to name storms. I didn't know it was, I didn't know that it was a UK thing. It's pretty sick that they give storms kick ass Celtic names like Derek, D A R R A C H. It sounds like a vengeful Viking god. And, uh, they were saying, don't, don't go outside.

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  Did, uh, did your plane rock at all in the, in the?

• 4:32Andy Greenwald?

  Hell yeah, brother. We were fucking getting after it. We were rocking, we were rolling. And I guess my, the reason why I was actually nervous this time was the fact that in my recent trips to the UK, I've learned that they have a very different attitude about risk and being unwell than we do.

• 4:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, you also might have a much lower risk tolerance.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Hundred percent normal. I do think I told the story, right, where someone at my place of work was like, I've got a bit of a headache, does anyone have a paracetamol? And someone was like, oh, paracetamol, I'm not sure, let me look. And they like dug around their bags and looked in the office medical kit. And they had like one blister pack with one, not even extra strength Tylenol.

• 5:16Chris Ryan?

  Doctor Doug Ross opened up the kit.

• 5:17Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, what flavor do you want? These are peanut butter, but they're also ibuprofen.

• 5:23Chris Ryan?

  They're also opioids.

• 5:25Andy Greenwald?

  The look that people gave me, not only when I had headache medicine, but someone spilled something and I was like, I've got a Tide Stick. Why do you carry that in your satchel? It's because I have children and also they sell this stuff at 7-Elevens, I have everything. Anyway, my point being, when I was like, yeah, I got a COVID vaccine, they're like, are you still doing that over there? Do you have a condition? So the fact that-

• 5:46Chris Ryan?

  You have a pre-existing respiratory-

• 5:48Andy Greenwald?

  Literally, they're like, are you over the age of 70? The fact that that's their normal attitude, and then for a rain and windstorm, the news was, don't go outside.

• 5:58Chris Ryan?

  Duck and cover, right?

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  So, anyway, maybe that's having a lingering effect on me. So if I'm not at my best today, blame Derek.

• 6:06Chris Ryan?

  That part, you nailed.

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 6:08Chris Ryan?

  When we get into television and when we talk about the works of Taylor Sheridan, which we're gonna do a bit of today, and we're also gonna talk about the agency on Paramount Plus slash Showtime on Paramount.

• 6:18Andy Greenwald?

  Big Paramount Day for us.

• 6:19Chris Ryan?

  We're the Paramount Posse.

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  Is it catching up with the cock? I don't know, but it's neck and neck.

• 6:26Andy Greenwald?

  Did you just ask me if the posse is catching up with the cock?

• 6:29Chris Ryan?

  No, because Peacock gets-

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  We're getting this on video, right?

• 6:32Chris Ryan?

  We, Peacock gets like pride of place in this podcast because of Kaya and because of her support, her tireless support for Comcast and for its reality programming.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 6:43Chris Ryan?

  We support Peacock, but-

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  I heard they were thinking about unloading Bravo until Kaya stepped up, like the Norman Rockwell painting, just one brave soul.

• 6:53Chris Ryan?

  She did a one woman march on Washington.

• 6:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, she no, in Philadelphia or Comcast.

• 6:57Chris Ryan?

  I honestly do think that if Bravo was ever threatened, we would see numbers in the streets as if like we could never imagine.

• 7:03Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that's what's finally gonna do it?

• 7:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Andy Greenwald?

  That's gonna be the new resistance.

• 7:08Chris Ryan?

  If Donald Trump is like the blow deck, it costs too much.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  I didn't TikTok being banned.

• 7:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 7:14Speaker 04

  That's what it's gonna mobilize the people.

• 7:15Andy Greenwald?

  Whatever it takes.

• 7:16Chris Ryan?

  Um, Andy, well, let's talk a little bit about the Golden Globes before we get into this now. I'll just run through the big TV categories, which are the shows. Best television series drama, The Day of the Jackal, a show we we both enjoy quite a bit.

• 7:28Andy Greenwald?

  Do we? You do.

• 7:30Chris Ryan?

  What did you watch, one?

• 7:31Andy Greenwald?

  I watched two. I I I just wanted to like, just keep it real.

• 7:34Chris Ryan?

  Okay, one you want a little separation between you and me.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I feel like we've been gassing up Peacock in the last 45 seconds.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  I enjoyed The Day of the Jackal.

• 7:41Andy Greenwald?

  Kristin.

• 7:41Chris Ryan?

  Uh, The Diplomat, I criminally have not watched season two.

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  No, we should.

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Mrs. Smith.

• 7:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's my show.

• 7:47Chris Ryan?

  Little you're a little more like up on that than I am.

• 7:49Andy Greenwald?

  Big up on that.

• 7:50Chris Ryan?

  Shogun, we equally love.

• 7:52Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I like that we're now gonna just divvy up custody of each one of these nominated programs.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  I think we both obviously adore, maybe this season was not our favorite, but we still love the show. And then the surprise, perhaps on the television side of the entire slate.

• 8:06Andy Greenwald?

  Here we go.

• 8:07Chris Ryan?

  Is the nomination of Squid Game, season two, several weeks before it's out in the public and to my knowledge.

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  Before a single soul has seen it.

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  Well, obviously, the Hollywood Foreign Press or whatever has seen it, but um, or the reconstituted Hollywood Foreign Press or whatever this post scandal Golden Globes thing is, but I don't remember this happening personally.

• 8:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, for the record, the Hollywood Reporter story notes that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association no longer selects the nominees or winners.

• 8:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay, good.

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  Instead, it is selected by a racially and ethnically diverse group of voters, who I believe also selected Donald Trump recently. So it's pretty ambiguous what their tastes in politics are. But congratulations to groups of voters. Anyway.

• 8:52Chris Ryan?

  In any case.

• 8:53Andy Greenwald?

  They were given access.

• 8:55Chris Ryan?

  Were they?

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you think they just nominated it because they got excited?

• 8:59Chris Ryan?

  I'm just saying, is that an impossibility?

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  I think they did it because they were standing up in support of South Korean democracy.

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  All right.

• 9:06Andy Greenwald?

  Chris.

• 9:06Chris Ryan?

  I can see you've come back.

• 9:09Andy Greenwald?

  The best thing is, I'm gonna remember none of this podcast. Thank God it's being filmed.

• 9:13Chris Ryan?

  When you start talking about lioness, I'm gonna put on a bulletproof vest.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  Did Paramount send you one as a thank you gift for your years of support?

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know.

• 9:24Chris Ryan?

  What if Paramount send me a full grown horse for my support of Taylor Sheridan?

• 9:27Andy Greenwald?

  And then Taylor Sheridan shows up shirtless to teach you how to ride it?

• 9:33Andy Greenwald?

  See, this is great because now the cameras are on you so they can see that you're smiling. Because I think for a moment it passed in front of your eyes like, that would be a pretty cool Saturday.

• 9:41Chris Ryan?

  It would be amazing. I don't have kids. I'd love to go horseback riding with Taylor Sheridan.

• 9:45Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you'd have to do the full Putin though. You'd have to have your shirt off.

• 9:50Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know who these voters are, but we can assume that Netflix made the season, or some of it, available to them. I would say that going by, I mean, it's hard to wrap your arms around this enormous list of nominees and make any sort of sense of it, other than the fact that Netflix took this very seriously.

• 10:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  Is my main takeaway.

• 10:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Andy Greenwald?

  And you can, that's evidenced by Emilio Perez, the Netflix film that won at Cannes, getting, I believe, more nominations than any film since Nashville or something.

• 10:16Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I don't think, I mean, yes, that's true, or something like that, but I don't know necessarily that the Golden Globes, like in that way, are a harbinger of what's gonna happen with the Oscars.

• 10:25Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't think so either. I'm saying that Netflix, and I'm not saying that there was any sort of bribery or literal horse trading, which is what you're asking for from, from David Ellison and the new regime over at Paramount, but I am saying that these awards, all award shows can be influenced by how seriously the studios or streamers take them and engage with them and get their product in front of the voters. And I think that Netflix getting the most nominations for a movie that so far doesn't have a ton of stateside traction, I would say. Doesn't mean it's not good.

• 10:57Chris Ryan?

  It was obviously did very well at Cannes and it is a much talked about film.

• 11:02Andy Greenwald?

  It might be good. I'm not.

• 11:03Chris Ryan?

  I'm not sure what its Netflix numbers are, or if it's been in the top 10, but that is, I guess the point I was gonna make about Squid Game not being seen and for the most part not being even buzzed about, because I don't know anyone who has seen it, and I think I probably would at this point.

• 11:18Andy Greenwald?

  You know someone?

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  No big deal, but I would know, like, if someone was like, I have Squid Game screeners, I think I would know. The Golden Globes historically is a place not only for this kind of like strange celebration of every single possible microgenre of Hollywood, but it's also a platform where people launch new stuff and promote upcoming projects. So the Squid Game thing, while sure, maybe five people saw the entire series and was like, god damn it, they did it again. I'm surprised, I'm not surprised by its inclusion as a piece of promotional material, and it is a globally, like, huge, huge phenomenon, so.

• 11:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I also think that Netflix is a very, very smart company in terms of many, in many categories, but one of them is marketing. And a few years ago, when we talked about Netflix, we pointed, one of our talking points was how they had kind of broken the calendar and seemed separate from the awards churn, and found more value in dropping shows on holiday weekends, or in, you know, what had traditionally been-

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  As they will with Squid Game.

• 12:22Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly, and what had traditionally been kind of like blackout spots, but realizing that's actually when people are home watching things. It seems like they have now found a way to continue to do that, but also marry it to the more traditional promotional awards calendar, because it's not, again, it's not just Emilia Perez getting in into this, it's not just Squid Game getting in before anyone that we know has seen it. Keira Knightley's nominated for Black Doves, a show that we both love and-

• 12:45Chris Ryan?

  She deserves it.

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  And she 100% deserves it, but that show premiered eight days ago. So what I'm saying is, they're playing the long game here.

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Do you think, just quickly ask you about your holiday viewing plans, you know, you don't-

• 12:56Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you.

• 12:57Chris Ryan?

  -observe Christmas, per se.

• 12:58Andy Greenwald?

  I observe it from a, from a distance, although I have Christmas thoughts after being in England around this time of year.

• 13:02Chris Ryan?

  Have you thought about how you will spend your Christmas day? At what film? Will it be Lord of the Rings, War of the Rohirrim?

• 13:08Andy Greenwald?

  That just flowed. You just said that so smoothly. The Rohirrim, are they the horse ladies or no?

• 13:14Chris Ryan?

  The horse lords of Rohan, yeah.

• 13:16Andy Greenwald?

  Lords or lordesses?

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  I think it's mixed, it's a mixed group, yeah.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, you and I both know that one of the strongest factions of fandom of the Lord of the Rings films are the women who like the horsewomen. Like, that's just, people would talk, this isn't a bit.

• 13:31Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  Like, people love those characters, and so I, I would like it to stay true.

• 13:36Chris Ryan?

  Your choices are that, the brutalist, or staying home and binging Squid Game?

• 13:39Andy Greenwald?

  Also, there's an NFL football game.

• 13:41Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and a complete unknown.

• 13:43Andy Greenwald?

  And an NFL football game? So, uh, what's my, what's my choice? Well, I haven't seen Enora yet, and that's my number one movie I want to see.

• 13:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Andy Greenwald?

  And then probably then the brutalist I really want to see.

• 13:52Chris Ryan?

  And then there's that director's cut of Twisters where they might kiss, right?

• 13:56Andy Greenwald?

  Don't tempt me with a good time.

• 13:57Chris Ryan?

  Best TV series.

• 13:58Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, what do you think I should see on Christmas?

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  A complete unknown.

• 14:01Andy Greenwald?

  I'm pretty dug in to my, my take.

• 14:03Chris Ryan?

  What's your take?

• 14:04Andy Greenwald?

  Eh.

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  All right. I don't have to tell you. If you're not open to it, you're not open to it. Did you see that kid on game day? Did you see Shalhoub?

• 14:12Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, no.

• 14:13Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, dude. Do you know anything about this? Do you know about this?

• 14:16Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so offline. I know nothing these days.

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  Bro, Shalhoub went on game day, on college game day in, in Atlanta for the Texas-Georgia game. Kai, you saw this.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 14:26Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Kai was watching college game day anyway.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:29Andy Greenwald?

  And was just like, oh.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  As I do on a Saturday.

• 14:31Chris Ryan?

  Um, you know, and the guest picker? It's like, they have like six guys on a panel, but then they'll have a guest come and help them pick the games.

• 14:38Andy Greenwald?

  Truly, college football is a blind spot. I don't know any of this.

• 14:41Chris Ryan?

  A bunch of guys, it's like McAfee, Nick Saban, Desmond Howard, whoever, and they're all up on stage, and then they pick games.

• 14:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay.

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  Kirk Herbstreet's on there, I think.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  Like, who they think's going to win the game?

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and these were crucial games, these were the conference championship games. Shalhoub went to the Fame High School. Everybody's doubting this kid. But what they don't know, that I know, is that dude loves Bill Simmons.

• 15:02Andy Greenwald?

  So you...

• 15:03Chris Ryan?

  And Woj, and like, like, is a sports head.

• 15:07Andy Greenwald?

  Like, he follows Bill, or do we know deeper, does it go deeper than that?

• 15:10Chris Ryan?

  He follows Bill on Twitter. He only follows like 40-some people on Twitter, and Bill and Zach Lowe are two of them. Uh, he's just like me.

• 15:20Chris Ryan?

  No, so he gets up on stage, he's got this weird pencil mustache because he's in some Safdie Brothers movie about a ping pong player from the 50s. And it's like, what's this guy gonna do?

• 15:29Andy Greenwald?

  I literally feel like everything you're saying is made up.

• 15:30Chris Ryan?

  Is he gonna be like, oh, I like green, so I'm going with Marshall, you know? Like, I think that, you know, Bertolucci once said, you can only do what you can do in front of you, and that's why I'm picking, you know, Clemson. No. This kid went straight ball knower. And, yeah, it is. And he picked every game, I think he went 6-0, including, except for, or 6-1 because he picked Texas over Georgia. But he blacked out and was just like, I love SMU, Kevin Jennings, there's gonna be the next Heisman winner.

• 16:01Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 16:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's the 80s again, the Pony Express is back.

• 16:05Andy Greenwald?

  So, so you're, so this is, the, the long tail of this argument is, I should see his Bob Dylan impression because he likes college football.

• 16:12Chris Ryan?

  Because he's the man. He's doing good, and he's quite good in this film, I'll, I'll say that.

• 16:17Andy Greenwald?

  I, man, I, one of the great regrets of my life is that the time I spent with young Timothy Chalamet was one of the least memorable actors.

• 16:27Chris Ryan?

  When did you spend time with Timothy Chalamet?

• 16:28Andy Greenwald?

  2012, Chris. I'm, I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina, home of the, the Panthers, a scrappy NFL franchise.

• 16:35Chris Ryan?

  They may have broken us.

• 16:37Andy Greenwald?

  I know. And I was on the set of, speaking of Paramount, I was on the set of a Showtime program called Homeland.

• 16:43Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. He was Dana's boyfriend.

• 16:45Andy Greenwald?

  He was the vice president's son.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Andy Greenwald?

  And I was hanging out with him and his mom, who was on set because he was underage, and he was very shy. And at no point was I like, Lisan Al-Ghaib of College Game Day.

• 16:58Chris Ryan?

  And was he just wearing a Jeremy Lin jersey and like, he was just reading, reading Jason Concepcion tweets?

• 17:04Andy Greenwald?

  Let me tell you this, I don't know if you have stories like this in your life, but I have tried to make a number of different runs at this anecdote and to share it and to make it like, to kind of like to zhuzh it up into something worth sharing.

• 17:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's inert. There's absolutely nothing to this.

• 17:17Chris Ryan?

  Well, he was like 14 or 15.

• 17:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but you know, sometimes 14 year olds have it, have the spark.

• 17:23Chris Ryan?

  I guess, but then they can lose that spark. They can lose that spark. No, I broke towards high school is what it started to emerge.

• 17:29Andy Greenwald?

  The spark?

• 17:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have?

• 17:31Chris Ryan?

  Late high school.

• 17:32Andy Greenwald?

  I don't want to put you on the spot with this, but like, do you have any celebrity interactions that are so colossally boring that you can't actually use them in conversation?

• 17:41Chris Ryan?

  I think I just told one recently. My Paul Mescal one where like another man was talking to me about going to see a chiropractor and Paul Mescal was just like, um, please let me get out of this like elevator. I was like, that was it. He looked hot.

• 17:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Well, but also, but like that one, he was already Paul Mescal.

• 17:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he was like in town promoting Gladiator.

• 18:00Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 18:01Chris Ryan?

  So, but he didn't care about me. That's cool.

• 18:03Andy Greenwald?

  I guess that was like-

• 18:04Chris Ryan?

  I still care about him.

• 18:06Andy Greenwald?

  Cause usually one of the highlights of the London to LAX flight that I have now done five times the calendar here. Adds up to a number of full days is that you get like Andrew Scott watching the in-flight entertainment system.

• 18:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  Or, um, what's his name? Rufus Sewell chatting with people at the bar. But then this time, I sent you a picture. There was like a hundred percent like a, this guy was just like letting everyone know that he was a tussled and sexy British actor.

• 18:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 18:36Andy Greenwald?

  And I had no idea who he was.

• 18:38Chris Ryan?

  Neither did I when you sent it to me.

• 18:39Andy Greenwald?

  I took a-

• 18:39Chris Ryan?

  It honestly looked like Josh Allen if Josh Allen went to Zara. I don't, I don't know.

• 18:44Andy Greenwald?

  Tell me, say more about this. Okay. Anyway, all right. Let's, I am curious-

• 18:48Chris Ryan?

  I don't really have a lot of other observations for you. This was just a note that the great Emmy debate overseen by Hannah Einbider's mom of whether or not Bear is a comedy. We will rerun that with the best television series.

• 19:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, do you want to-

• 19:01Chris Ryan?

  Musical comedy.

• 19:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, name them.

• 19:03Chris Ryan?

  Abbott Elementary, The Bear, The Gentleman.

• 19:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Chris Ryan?

  Love that.

• 19:07Andy Greenwald?

  Good show.

• 19:07Chris Ryan?

  Hacks, Nobody Wants This, and Only Murders in the Building. Now, you could split the difference and just give it to Only Murders, which is a beloved TV show by people over 50. Or, maybe Nobody Wants This, a late-breaking Netflix property this year. I think, post-Emisses, you know?

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  I could see, I could see that winning it.

• 19:25Chris Ryan?

  I could see it too.

• 19:26Andy Greenwald?

  Especially because of Netflix's clout.

• 19:28Chris Ryan?

  And...

• 19:29Andy Greenwald?

  What about the limited series?

• 19:30Chris Ryan?

  The limited series is interesting because there's at least one show on here that I did not know was limited.

• 19:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I think it might change its mind.

• 19:37Chris Ryan?

  Baby Reindeer on Netflix, disclaimer on Apple. Monsters, The Lyle and Eric Menendez Story, which I actually think is going to win.

• 19:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's the one you think is going to be ongoing, right? It's gonna be George Gascón.

• 19:48Chris Ryan?

  That dude's out. Have you really not read a paper?

• 19:50Andy Greenwald?

  I know he lost, but he was like, as my last act, I will free these boys.

• 19:54Chris Ryan?

  No, he was doing that to get elected. He was just like, oh, is something trending? Let me get, get in front of that.

• 19:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but the new guy coming in was like...

• 20:01Chris Ryan?

  He's like, I'll think about it.

• 20:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'll think about it.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  I'll think about it, yeah. He's like, I'm elected, so I don't have to worry about getting re-elected just a second.

• 20:07Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, my kids know that when I say, "I'll think about it," it's a yes. They celebrate when I say, "I'll think about it."

• 20:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's a good question. How do you, how do you hedge your bets but lean no?

• 20:19Andy Greenwald?

  You have to say no. I'm learning this. If I say maybe...

• 20:22Chris Ryan?

  What about maybe next time? Do they go for that?

• 20:25Andy Greenwald?

  It's a tougher...

• 20:26Chris Ryan?

  Dad, dad, dad, can we watch Landman? And you're like, maybe next time.

• 20:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's a tougher one, but I can get, I can get that one through.

• 20:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 20:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I can get, I have the votes to get that one through.

• 20:36Chris Ryan?

  The one that's confusing here is The Penguin.

• 20:40Chris Ryan?

  And we follow it up with our beloved Ripley and True Detective Night Country.

• 20:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which is continuing, but as a different... I mean, they are making another one, but it won't be Night Country.

• 20:47Chris Ryan?

  Another True Detective.

• 20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes. You know what? Steve Zalian, keep making Patricia Hyman's, Hyman's novels.

• 20:53Andy Greenwald?

  Let's, uh, let's use our Netflix clout to have that conversation, because that does not seem to be happening.

• 20:57Chris Ryan?

  But The Penguin, to me, giant hit.

• 21:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Chris Ryan?

  Maybe Colin Farrell doesn't want to put that shit on, but like, maybe, maybe, could like, The Penguin go through massive cosmetic surgery and just look like Colin Farrell, so it's easier for him to shoot the show?

• 21:11Andy Greenwald?

  That would be so smart.

• 21:13Chris Ryan?

  Canonically, does that work with the character?

• 21:15Andy Greenwald?

  Well...

• 21:16Chris Ryan?

  Or does he just get more and more Penguin-like?

• 21:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think Matt Reeves is doing something very different, you know, very groundbreaking. I don't want to step on his webbed toes on this subject.

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, what, what, the, the way to do it would be to double cast, like, have Colin Farrell show up as...

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  Like the hot DA?

• 21:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, or no, or like Oz's cousin.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Andy Greenwald?

  Cause, who's just like Irish and very good looking.

• 21:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and then he could do a bunch of scenes that way.

• 21:45Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I didn't know that that was a limited series unless you call it, you're calling it an anthology series within the greater Gotham story. I, I don't really know.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  I am surprised, this seems a little bit like gamesmanship because they have not decided. I think they would very much like to run it back.

• 22:00Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think that it is a longer conversation for a number of reasons, one of which is they are making the sequel to the film, which will pick up some elements of the story presumably.

• 22:10Chris Ryan?

  You see, there's some, some rumors that that is a, a delayed and troubled production.

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'd like to answer that in two ways. One, uh, that doesn't surprise me. And two, it's very interesting doing a culture podcast while not learning any news.

• 22:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:25Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm just, I'm, I'm learning in real time. I think that's being worked out. I would say that, that we have many examples. I think White Lotus did this recently of a show winning or being nominated and eliminated before category jumping for a second season or third season. That could happen.

• 22:41Chris Ryan?

  Wait, did it jump? I thought it was considered an anthology because no characters except for Coolidge recur.

• 22:46Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, all right. White Lotus didn't category jump. What's the one that category jumped?

• 22:49Chris Ryan?

  Shogun.

• 22:50Andy Greenwald?

  Category, show, yes, but I'm saying one that had won or run in a category. I thought it was White Lotus, but I'm clearly mixing it up with something else. Um, all, but the reason I say it is, is that, um, usually the category jumping ahead of time is gamesmanship. And I actually, if you look at the best television series nominees, as you listed for HBO, uh, sorry, for this year for the Golden Globes, HBO has none, which is very, very noteworthy. And The Penguin likely could have taken one of those slots. So I'm, I'm surprised that it didn't do it, if only for the chance to win, even if they didn't actually green light a second season for. One year to 18 months to two years from now.

• 23:32Chris Ryan?

  Is there any of the performance nominations that you want to talk about? To me, it's like, this is basically everybody who's on TV, so.

• 23:39Andy Greenwald?

  I would also note, though, just on that HBO point, that like House of the Dragon, I believe, won this award as drama series.

• 23:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Andy Greenwald?

  And is not nominated.

• 23:46Chris Ryan?

  Emma Darcy is nominated.

• 23:47Andy Greenwald?

  But Emma Darcy is.

• 23:50Chris Ryan?

  That is strange.

• 23:51Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's telling, I think.

• 23:54Chris Ryan?

  I like the second season more than the first season.

• 23:56Andy Greenwald?

  I think you are in a minority. I think it was better. I totally agree with you. But that's just temperature taken out there.

• 24:04Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I think it ended on a bad note. I think because it felt curtailed, but I thought that.

• 24:10Andy Greenwald?

  And that lingered.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  Dramatically, and it had its, my favorite episodes of the series were in that season.

• 24:16Andy Greenwald?

  You know what's good about this new iteration of our podcast? Is that like, you're actually like the data guy, and I'm the old fashioned shoe leather, just like Tom Friedman in a cab reporting. I'm like, I think people didn't like it as much. And you're like, show me the numbers. Like, I don't need to.

• 24:29Chris Ryan?

  I talked to a cab driver.

• 24:30Andy Greenwald?

  I talked to a cab driver in Mumbai. Yeah, I mean, it is a weird also, it's a, Golden Globes also just fall at a weird time of year, where you have the leftover nominees from the Emmys, not leftover, but people who had already, this has already been litigated in the Emmys, where it's like Maya Erskine and Donald Glover from Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Anna Sawai, who won the Emmy in this category, and Hiroyuki Sanada. And then you have the shows that have debuted since. So you have Jake Gyllenhaal from Resumed Innocent, Billy Bob Thornton, we're going to be talking about him in a minute.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, most people seem to have been nominated this year. And I like many of these performers, and I liked a lot of these shows. I don't have a very strong opinion. I think there was a big showing by the Disney, ABC, Hulu Corporation across the board. They got a lot of nominations, including ones you wouldn't necessarily expect, like Catherine Han for Agatha Long.

• 25:23Andy Greenwald?

  Ted Danson sneaking in there for your show, Man on the Inside.

• 25:26Chris Ryan?

  Um, I'm just gonna blow by that.

• 25:29Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh. I know you are.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh, alright, let's wrap it up there then. I mean, Sean is gonna be covering all the movie stuff and I think has a very, very, uh, close eye on the Globes as a directional for where the awards race is going. And for the Oscars, it seems like it's so wide open. And the debate is already so hot as to whether or not like Wicked should get this sort of anointing just because of its late season success. Um, and the joy it's brought many, many people. You haven't seen Wicked?

• 26:04Andy Greenwald?

  No, I thought I was, I thought I was in the barrel for that, but my children saw it without me.

• 26:09Chris Ryan?

  So we can take them to a complete unknown then?

• 26:10Andy Greenwald?

  There's a couple of those, exactly. Couple of those they've seen without me. Uh, Wild Robot was another one. Got, got some noms.

• 26:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Andy Greenwald?

  Have not seen Moana 2 yet. I know you were curious.

• 26:18Chris Ryan?

  What is like the number one movie that you have not seen that you're like, I can't wait to see it? Cause I know you travel. Enora.

• 26:24Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so psyched to see Enora. And by the way, I saw that someone in Enora, who, of whom I have no opinion yet because I've not seen Enora. Was cast in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, season two.

• 26:34Chris Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  Is it a guy?

• 26:35Andy Greenwald?

  The younger fellow?

• 26:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Andy Greenwald?

  He's gonna be the male lead.

• 26:39Chris Ryan?

  You're right. Okay.

• 26:39Andy Greenwald?

  In Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2.

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 26:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  And who's, who else is in that show?

• 26:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's all that's been announced.

• 26:46Chris Ryan?

  Just that guy?

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Chris Ryan?

  Damn, you get, you got news too?

• 26:49Andy Greenwald?

  Well, again, that just, I heard that from a cab driver. Just to put a button on it, I look forward to Sean's conversation about this because I do think, on the big picture, because I think the Golden Globes these nominations coming when they do have a lot more to say about the state of film industry and the Oscar race than they do about the television industry, which feels like it's still just a little bit like windstorm Derek right now in terms of what's up, what's down, what's flying across the pitch at Anfield? Is that where our team plays, our boys?

• 27:18Chris Ryan?

  But they're, they didn't play because of the wind.

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  I wanted to, I was testing you.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:22Andy Greenwald?

  You got that right. They didn't play against.

• 27:24Chris Ryan?

  They're apparently about to re-sign their trio of soon to be free agent superstars.

• 27:28Andy Greenwald?

  Mo Salah?

• 27:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  I sent you a clip from my Uber driver the other night. It was so funny to listen to the WIP of London.

• 27:36Chris Ryan?

  Talksport, yeah. I knew what it was.

• 27:39Andy Greenwald?

  You knew instantly what it was. It was so civilized.

• 27:43Chris Ryan?

  Ah, it can get pretty racy on there.

• 27:45Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the tenor was different than, you know, Joe from Bortondale calling in to talk about why Jalen Hurts is deficient. And by Joe from Bortondale, I mean you and Zach.

• 27:55Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you're now you're getting back on team Jalen here?

• 27:57Andy Greenwald?

  I always, I'm always more team Jalen than you guys.

• 28:02Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about Taylor. So last night, you're really all day yesterday. In fact, Mallory and I had this funny thing going on Saturday where there was some really good college football between Georgia and Texas and Oregon and Penn State. And I was like, what time can we watch Landman? I was texting with her and those shows I think go up on Saturday evening, or at least Landman does, but all day Sunday, you can watch them. I like to think of someone sitting down though, and from eight to 11.

• 28:28Andy Greenwald?

  Just.

• 28:29Chris Ryan?

  Banging out the trio.

• 28:30Andy Greenwald?

  Cause yeah, cause they're all Sunday night.

• 28:32Chris Ryan?

  Lioness, Yellowstone and Landman. In two of these shows, I have to report to you, the Lioness season finale and the penultimate episode of Yellowstone.

• 28:43Andy Greenwald?

  Now, I have been doing some reading about these things, so I'm not completely in the dark, but I do want your perspective and I, we're gonna need Kaya in here as well.

• 28:51Chris Ryan?

  Well, Taylor Sheridan has cast himself in both these series.

• 28:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, he has.

• 28:55Chris Ryan?

  Largely as a supporting player bit part, almost kind of comic casting where it's like, oh, it's Taylor Sheridan. That's really funny.

• 29:02Andy Greenwald?

  You think? Okay.

• 29:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. So, uh, in Lioness, he plays a Delta.

• 29:07Andy Greenwald?

  I saw this, remember? I did watch the season premiere.

• 29:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And he's like, got some banter with Joe.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  Super yoked.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  He's yoked to the fucking max, man. Like he's so, he is creatined up.

• 29:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's, yeah.

• 29:19Chris Ryan?

  Or it's just pure dumbbells and it's old fashioned drinking milk and eating four sixes steaks.

• 29:26Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of dumbbells, this is Liver King 2.0.

• 29:29Chris Ryan?

  I just don't want to offend him because he wants to come on.

• 29:31Andy Greenwald?

  If he wants to ride horses with you.

• 29:33Chris Ryan?

  I have told Kat and Allison are bookers. They are so nice and they're so good at what they do. And they're just like, is there anybody you've always wanted to have on the pod? Instantaneously, Taylor Sheridan is the white whale. I want to talk to Taylor Sheridan. I was like, I don't care about who we voted for. I just want to fucking talk about Mayor of Kingstown, season one, episode three.

• 29:51Andy Greenwald?

  Talk about?

• 29:53Chris Ryan?

  I'll talk about all of it. I've seen all of it. So last night. On two of these three shows, both of which were crucial. The last episode of the season of Lioness, these last, second to last episode of Yellowstone ever. I would describe the main character of both of those shows, of those episodes as Taylor Sheridan, the actor.

• 30:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 30:14Chris Ryan?

  Taylor Sheridan started as an actor.

• 30:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. He's a frustrated actor, I believe, which led him to-

• 30:18Chris Ryan?

  And has done this remarkable job, I think, writing these parts and writing these pages of dialogue and these action scenes for other actors were clearly, whatever you could say about paychecks, people want to do these shows, right? Like, the level of talent he's getting involved in these things is pretty mind-blowing. Sometimes we're just like, damn, Nicole Kidman really just wanted to walk back and forth between these offices and say, Joe, you know what's at stake, you know? But obviously, there's something to the role.

• 30:45Andy Greenwald?

  And I do wanna, I don't wanna, I wanna let you continue, but I don't wanna gloss over this, that like, there is some element of negotiation here that I am, is just, there's a piece of the story we don't have.

• 30:57Chris Ryan?

  You think that he's giving them like equity in his ranch or something?

• 31:00Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think that what he did was like, have a conversation with Demi Moore, and he was like, do you wanna be in my television show, Landman? And she was like, no, thank you. And he was, he was like, what do you wanna do? She's like, well, I'm gonna be swimming today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. And he was like, can I bring a camera crew? And then she gets third billing on the show.

• 31:19Chris Ryan?

  Well, what else are you gonna do? I was gonna make a smoothie. Can I, can I film you making a smoothie? Is it all right if Jon Hamm's also there? And he's talking on the phone.

• 31:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and Jon Hamm was like, I'll come do it too, but I've got six days, and I only wanna be in the same room as Demi Moore.

• 31:34Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 31:35Andy Greenwald?

  They make it work.

• 31:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:36Andy Greenwald?

  Which is, you know, what film crews have been doing since time immemorial, and I respect it.

• 31:40Chris Ryan?

  No, and if you read the Vulture article about Barry Jenkins making Mufasa?

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  I did.

• 31:44Chris Ryan?

  We're about to go in some exciting places.

• 31:46Andy Greenwald?

  So-

• 31:47Chris Ryan?

  If the Mufasa technology can merge with Taylor Sheridan. Who knows who he can cast? Clark Gable is gonna be in the fucking Lion is Season 3.

• 31:57Andy Greenwald?

  This is so incredible. Can you imagine? Because people should read this article because it is both fascinating.

• 32:03Chris Ryan?

  The Matt Solaris site's article about Barry Jenkins?

• 32:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, it is both fascinating and a little bit chilling in the sense of just like how we've really let the shit out of the barn now in terms of like completely.

• 32:14Chris Ryan?

  It's Barry Jenkins and the people who made The Field Street Could Talk on a blank soundstage with tape on the ground, wearing VR headsets.

• 32:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 32:22Chris Ryan?

  Playing around in a grasslands and trying to make a fully digital film.

• 32:27Andy Greenwald?

  And I am going to be there for it, both because my children want to see this movie and because I really love, respect and admire Barry Jenkins. And I am interested when artists engage with what's happening in the world and not run from it.

• 32:41Chris Ryan?

  You know what I just realized? You know what?

• 32:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Chris Ryan?

  Barry Jenkins knows.

• 32:44Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 32:44Chris Ryan?

  He knows ball. He is also a huge college football fan.

• 32:48Andy Greenwald?

  He's a ball knower.

• 32:48Chris Ryan?

  And he knows so much about Florida high school football.

• 32:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 32:52Chris Ryan?

  Barry Jenkins should make a movie about a young, brilliant offensive coordinator. Making his way up through the ranks of college football with Tim Chalamet.

• 33:02Andy Greenwald?

  But he's a lion.

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  No, it doesn't have to be a lion. Like, I just mean, he should make like the Rhett Lashley story.

• 33:07Andy Greenwald?

  Why are you giving this away for free?

• 33:10Chris Ryan?

  Because I want it. I'm, it's, it's not, it's, I don't look at art as proprietary, you know? I think it should all go into the public domain.

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds like spoken by a guy with equity. Just giving it away. Uh, I think, you're a mocker in this town. You could, you could make this stuff happen.

• 33:25Chris Ryan?

  It's just free game. If Barry Jenkins is looking for something new to do, I just think.

• 33:29Andy Greenwald?

  I think he is.

• 33:30Chris Ryan?

  Get Timothy Chalamet the Cheesecake Factory menu and put a headset on him and have him dialing up air raid offense concepts.

• 33:39Andy Greenwald?

  Barry Jenkins has been on this podcast. We could reach him. Timothy Chalamet, as noted previously, follows Bill Simmons on Twitter. We could basically have this in pre-pro in six weeks. All I was gonna say, though, was this idea, I don't want to leave it alone, the idea of Taylor Sheridan having access to the movie.

• 33:56Chris Ryan?

  If this OC could talk, you know?

• 33:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the OC.

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  Built in fanbase.

• 34:03Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 34:04Andy Greenwald?

  But this time.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 34:05Andy Greenwald?

  He's coordinating.

• 34:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Andy Greenwald?

  If Taylor Sheridan had access to the Mufasa technology, because in this article, Barry Jenkins like has the goggles on and he like falls in love with a little like warren under a waterfall that the people designed but didn't plan to set anything there.

• 34:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like playing Grand Theft Auto.

• 34:20Andy Greenwald?

  But if if Taylor did that and he's just like, where's Taylor? And he's just like, he's in the virtual headspace in the coffee place where the women wear bikinis? And he's just living there?

• 34:30Chris Ryan?

  So I just finished the.

• 34:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 34:32Chris Ryan?

  Statement. Lioness, it's the season finale. Yellowstone, it's the penultimate episode.

• 34:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 34:37Chris Ryan?

  These episodes hinge.

• 34:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's crazy.

• 34:40Chris Ryan?

  On Taylor Sheridan's characters. In Yellowstone, he plays a rancher in Texas who takes over like the auctioning of of the Yellowstone Ranch, of Dutton Ranch.

• 34:50Andy Greenwald?

  We're getting rid of it, right? Like we've moved on.

• 34:52Chris Ryan?

  And in Lioness, he single-handedly fends off an Iranian like Republican Guard Battalion to save the QRF, the Joe's little team who are doing something that's quite illegal in Iran. So it is mind-blowing to watch this happen. We're like this dude and at the end of the episodes, people are like, man, I want to be you and I want to fuck you. You are the best. And he's just like, hey, I'm just doing my job. And writing the show.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  Now.

• 35:26Chris Ryan?

  That I do that.

• 35:27Andy Greenwald?

  People may think that I'm going to come down hard on this, but I want to be clear about something. I want to be honest.

• 35:32Chris Ryan?

  And that we were also going to talk about how I feel about Lioness's finale.

• 35:36Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to be honest with you that I had a similar arc for myself planned for Briar Patch, season two, where I was going to be shirtless for the majority of it and also get into a firefight in Iran.

• 35:49Andy Greenwald?

  Now I can finally be honest about why there wasn't season two. Because my pitch was very thorough. Um, but, so I, so I get it.

• 35:59Chris Ryan?

  Now, in the Mufasa grasslands, would you be yoked in this?

• 36:02Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah, it looks, put these goggles on.

• 36:06Chris Ryan?

  I want, and now that we are on video, like, wouldn't it be amazing if I took my shirt off and I just had like the ropey bing, bing. Ralph Fiennes, Odysseus body that he got? Have you seen that?

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  Ralph Fiennes is in a movie where he's like, plays Odysseus.

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  And he's jacked.

• 36:23Andy Greenwald?

  I, I.

• 36:24Chris Ryan?

  Like, for real, not 300, like, they airbrushed him? Like, I think he got absolutely swole under those conclave robes.

• 36:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is it, is it like Fassbender? It's in, in The Agency? Where he's like, "I am now a normal man, returned from writing books." Involved, we'll talk about this in a minute. Okay, uh, let's. I should also say, just for context, that, that Taylor Sheridan's not lioness, but lionization of himself has been the subject of some online commentary already.

• 36:55Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 36:56Andy Greenwald?

  I saw a piece in, on Vulture today, I believe it was called, like, "This is a Cry for Help."

• 37:03Andy Greenwald?

  So I.

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  I believe that the Yellowstone recap on Vulture began, "What the fuck is going on?" Or something like.

• 37:10Andy Greenwald?

  Because this is the penultimate episode of one of the most inarguably most popular shows. And a, not even tertiary character spends the majority of it with his shirt off flirting with one of the Hadid sisters.

• 37:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh. Playing strip poker.

• 37:23Andy Greenwald?

  And playing strip poker.

• 37:26Chris Ryan?

  With Beth, yeah.

• 37:27Andy Greenwald?

  It's, that's wild.

• 37:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 37:29Andy Greenwald?

  Can you now, standing, the man standing in front of me, sitting, um, can you make the case for Yellowstone? Late period Yellowstone, is there a case to be made?

• 37:39Chris Ryan?

  I stopped being able to make the case when Rusolo and I were recapping the previous season.

• 37:44Andy Greenwald?

  You guys.

• 37:44Chris Ryan?

  And then just.

• 37:45Andy Greenwald?

  My boys.

• 37:46Chris Ryan?

  Hit double eject, like Goose and Mav right out of the top. Now, one of those guys dies in the ejection.

• 37:52Andy Greenwald?

  Respect to Ryan.

• 37:54Chris Ryan?

  But we tried, you know what I mean? Like, I, I still stand by those first few seasons, the first season especially. The Yellowstone project, I think, has become a victim of, like, all the various, um, interested partners and parties. And the, like, I think that the Kevin Costner thing wound up, actually, if, if you actually get a good accounting of it, I don't know how they even made the last season with him, kind of being like, "You can have me for five minutes." I'll walk into that room and be like, "God damn it, Beth."

• 38:21Andy Greenwald?

  Time to die.

• 38:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay. So it's, but it's sort of inextricable to consider that show.

• 38:29Chris Ryan?

  I think that that show is being literally like primed for market to be spun off into the Madison, which is this Michelle Pfeiffer Kurt Russell show that's gonna have something to do with Yellowstone and a Texas spinoff from some of the characters.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 38:45Chris Ryan?

  Like a Texas ranch spinoff. And I'm sure Taylor Sheridan's ranch hand guy will play a part in that Texas one.

• 38:51Andy Greenwald?

  The, the potential continuation of the show or rebranding of the show with Matthew McConaughey is dead, that old rumor. Okay. So it's basically just, it's being brought to market to be stripped.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  He cast Bella Hadid as his girlfriend?

• 39:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 39:04Andy Greenwald?

  Where were you, Kaia? I needed you.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  It took me a second to process that.

• 39:10Andy Greenwald?

  And then.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  I was like, is there a third Hadid sister? I don't know about.

• 39:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Andy Greenwald?

  There's.

• 39:14Chris Ryan?

  Marsha Hadid, and she's just like a really like normal woman.

• 39:17Andy Greenwald?

  But there's a lot of like, that means that in, in this show, in Yellowstone, but also in Landman ep. 5, there, or, or episode 4, there is a recurring thing where extremely young women are asked why they want to sleep with these 70-year-old guys.

• 39:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Andy Greenwald?

  And they're like, well, they've just got a certain way about them.

• 39:37Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the man likes what he likes.

• 39:38Chris Ryan?

  So, should we talk a little bit about Lioness?

• 39:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and we need Kaia, because.

• 39:42Chris Ryan?

  We need Kaia to jump on here, because she watched it.

• 39:44Andy Greenwald?

  You guys will talk about Lioness.

• 39:45Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for going on this journey with me.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Of course, yeah.

• 39:48Chris Ryan?

  Let me be completely candid. I thought that this season of Lioness started off incredibly strong.

• 39:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Chris Ryan?

  I was never bored for a second of this season of Lioness. I do think that the politics got a bit muddy at the end.

• 40:00Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. Do you like a consistent political show? Like you want it to be, okay.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  I think once they jumped, they fully just like jumped the ship on the Mexico plot and were like, actually now we're going to like go and.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  Invade Iran.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's when I was like, what are, what are we doing here?

• 40:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I think that that was, to be fair, what the White House Chief of Staff in the show was saying. She was like, how have you decided to start a hot war without informing the Commander in Chief?

• 40:26Andy Greenwald?

  It seems like a good question.

• 40:28Chris Ryan?

  And Morgan Freeman was just like, if it's a win, it's a win for all of us, and if it's a loss, I take the loss.

• 40:32Andy Greenwald?

  Now, watch this drive. In George W. Bush fashion.

• 40:36Chris Ryan?

  Um, so I thought that like. It became a show that was like, actually like a very, very effective espionage show and also got into the like, what happens when you go too far undercover idea?

• 40:49Speaker 04

  And also try to break up a child smuggling ring?

• 40:52Chris Ryan?

  Well, that was in the second season. The first season, it was like this, this woman Cruz got close to a woman named Aaliyah.

• 40:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Chris Ryan?

  And it was like, it was actually like a very effective storytelling mechanism. In the second season, I think it just became about seven different things, which I understand that's what happens on shows, but this was like, is this about Mexico or is it about China or is it about Iran or is it about, you know, all of three of those?

• 41:16Speaker 04

  A helicopter pilot and her father.

• 41:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly. So this season ends.

• 41:21Andy Greenwald?

  Did Taylor write every episode of this?

• 41:23Chris Ryan?

  Every single episode. Directed the first two, much like he did with Landman.

• 41:26Andy Greenwald?

  Feels limiting, but okay.

• 41:28Chris Ryan?

  You want to get some new voices in there?

• 41:30Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, let's wait till we get to Landman because I, I have genuine questions about this because what you're saying about Lioness, that it's like about too many things, it's kind of my feeling about Landman, which is it's about too many things and also no things. Like there are certain strands that are-

• 41:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think that actually works for Landman.

• 41:45Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 41:45Chris Ryan?

  I think you have to reset what you're watching with Landman. I think with Lioness, you think you're watching a modern day milit- highly like militarized Tom Clancy show.

• 41:55Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 41:55Chris Ryan?

  And what happens is like, as the, the plot almost has to come up with his like, what if we did this? That would be fucking sick.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  It feels like the plot is designed to set up these big action set pieces.

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  Exactly. There is a lot of that this season. There was multiple like, whoa, this is like a movie level shootout that they're doing. It's also, I would gather, I would guess that almost every location from Monterrey, Mexico to the Turkey-Iran-Iraq border is shot in Texas.

• 42:26Andy Greenwald?

  No doubt.

• 42:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh, which I think is really making the most out of your, your, your property, but is, I thought notable that like, it was like, this looks exactly like where they just were. It's just that you're pretending this is Iran. The stuff with- Caitlin, who is Nicole Kidman's character and Byron, who is Michael Kelly's character. So what they do is-

• 42:46Andy Greenwald?

  Do they ever leave the Situation Room?

• 42:48Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. They go to Mexico.

• 42:50Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, nice.

• 42:51Chris Ryan?

  And they-

• 42:51Speaker 04

  They get their hands dirty in this.

• 42:53Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 42:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they really do. So the cartel has been working with the Chinese to un- cause unrest at the border.

• 43:00Andy Greenwald?

  Say less.

• 43:01Chris Ryan?

  And what they decide to do is kidnap the accountant for the Los Tigres cartel, who is also Josie, the main lioness's father.

• 43:11Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 43:11Chris Ryan?

  And that was the original sort of like, you gotta go to your dad and basically make it so that he will betray his father.

• 43:17Speaker 04

  There was this whole plan where she was going to like fly her helicopter into Mexico and then like smuggle-

• 43:24Chris Ryan?

  Drugs.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  Drugs back and then we, they just decided to drop that because-

• 43:29Chris Ryan?

  Because of this, what happened with the child trafficking. Then, uh, what they do is they go to this accountant guy in Costa Rica where he is being held at a black site.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's also Texas.

• 43:40Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, you know, Caitlin says to him, "We need trust. We need to work with people we trust."

• 43:48Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 43:48Chris Ryan?

  "Can we trust you?"

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 43:50Chris Ryan?

  "Can we trust you to tell us if the Chinese or the Iranians like reach out to you?" And he's like, "I guess so." And he's like, "Well, we trust your whole family. We will protect your whole family except one guy."

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:02Chris Ryan?

  And that's his brother. So what they do is they go to Monterrey, Mexico, and he goes, "Hermanito." And they hug.

• 44:08Andy Greenwald?

  That means little brother.

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  Shoots his brother in the head.

• 44:11Andy Greenwald?

  Who shoots his brother?

• 44:12Chris Ryan?

  The Pablo, the guy.

• 44:13Andy Greenwald?

  He shoots his own brother?

• 44:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, in front, in front of everybody. And they're like, "Ah, new jefe."

• 44:18Speaker 04

  And then Michael Kelly throws up.

• 44:19Chris Ryan?

  And then Michael Kelly throws up because not of what he witnessed, but how little it's gonna change things.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:27Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Also, the two of you guys tag teaming to describe this to me is-

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Honestly, it's a two-person job.

• 44:33Chris Ryan?

  Also, how flickering, Kyle, is like, they've got a Chinese agent, like-

• 44:39Chris Ryan?

  With like blinders on, like strapped to a chair in Mexico for some reason. And Kyle's like, looks at Caitlin and just goes Guantanamo.

• 44:48Andy Greenwald?

  Like, like, should we?

• 44:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and they do.

• 44:50Andy Greenwald?

  Like the same way people are like, table fries?

• 44:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, is anyone feeling table pancakes?

• 44:56Andy Greenwald?

  We're all, we're all thinking it, right?

• 44:58Chris Ryan?

  So that's where Lioness ended up. Look, I think that the problem with a show like that ultimately is that you need to feel like the stakes are so high all the time.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:08Chris Ryan?

  And after doing it twice with basically the same ending.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:13Chris Ryan?

  A cynical, kind of like, what have we really done here moment?

• 45:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:17Chris Ryan?

  Now, granted, like, they found love in a hopeless place. You know what I mean? Cruz and, and Josie.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  I'm, can't wait to see how it works out for them.

• 45:24Chris Ryan?

  But Joe, the Zoe Zaldania character, is taken back in by Neil, her husband.

• 45:30Andy Greenwald?

  Had he, had he cast her out?

• 45:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he was kind of like, you've been shot in the liver and if you're not taking your health seriously, I can't take you seriously.

• 45:37Andy Greenwald?

  Wow, tough love.

• 45:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but her mesh, the mesh they put on her liver holds. When she goes to her.

• 45:44Speaker 04

  And then gets like, shot at again.

• 45:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is that something you can get?

• 45:48Chris Ryan?

  Apparently.

• 45:49Andy Greenwald?

  I need that for when I'm in London.

• 45:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you gotta get that mesh.

• 45:51Andy Greenwald?

  That third pint.

• 45:53Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, I, I, I take it no one passed away from being assaulted by up to a thousand.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  People got shot in the stomach, but everybody's fine.

• 46:02Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that if you got, now I hope this never happens, but if you got shot in the liver, do you think Phoebe would be like, I must cast you out of our home until you take your health more seriously?

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  I think if she was like, I will, if I was like, I've been shot in the liver, but I'm going to continue to pod and it's going to rip, rip the stitches, she would be like, then you have to find somewhere else to live.

• 46:21Andy Greenwald?

  But what if you just lo-, oh, now I understand it because you love to pod.

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and she loves to fucking shoot people.

• 46:31Chris Ryan?

  I really, I, I got a ton of enjoyment out of this season and especially there are moments early in the season that I think are like. Fucking iconic, like Zoe Saldana yelling at people. It's just the plot gets incredibly muddy over the course of the of this season. And it ends with the United States essentially allowing slash running the Los Tigres cartel to operate within the United States. And I don't know what happens with the China and Iran, so.

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  Seems like we should find out.

• 47:02Chris Ryan?

  Well, when it ends Ambassador Feng is on the phone for Morgan Freeman and he's like, let him stew.

• 47:09Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's just calling it his million dollar picks? Do you think that's that's what it's about?

• 47:14Chris Ryan?

  I love Jacksonville.

• 47:16Andy Greenwald?

  Picks against the spread.

• 47:18Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for allowing that to happen.

• 47:20Andy Greenwald?

  I love this.

• 47:21Chris Ryan?

  Guess the lionesses.

• 47:22Andy Greenwald?

  I I think that.

• 47:24Chris Ryan?

  Thank you, Kaia. Good job.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  No problem. Fired up 10pm last night. I was like, I gotta do my homework.

• 47:30Chris Ryan?

  I never really would have thought that the person really going on this journey with me would be Kaia.

• 47:35Andy Greenwald?

  I think all our listeners knew.

• 47:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 47:36Andy Greenwald?

  There was never a doubt.

• 47:39Chris Ryan?

  You actually are not required to have any follow up questions here.

• 47:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, I do, but I generally, and I I am caught up on Landman. I've watched five hours of that program.

• 47:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Andy Greenwald?

  And I I do think it's like a glass half full, half empty kind of thing because what you just said about Linus, you know, typical fair minded CR take, like you, you enjoyed the highs and you just sort of rode the lows. You know what I mean? Like they didn't take away from the experience for you.

• 48:04Chris Ryan?

  I'm a sicko. I like I.

• 48:05Andy Greenwald?

  Truly.

• 48:06Chris Ryan?

  I truly do love this shit. So even when it doesn't make any sense, or you can tell they're like resetting again so that they can do a third season.

• 48:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Chris Ryan?

  I I am like, I'm aware of what I'm watching and I appreciate it.

• 48:20Andy Greenwald?

  I I struggle with Landman because there are things there and we talked about.

• 48:24Chris Ryan?

  You don't struggle with Landman.

• 48:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I do, because I'm still watching it.

• 48:27Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm saying you don't struggle.

• 48:29Andy Greenwald?

  I'm struggling.

• 48:29Chris Ryan?

  If you were struggling, you would have stopped. You would have been like, Lioness, like, I can't, dude.

• 48:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, I am your friend.

• 48:36Chris Ryan?

  I think you secretly like Landman.

• 48:38Andy Greenwald?

  Miyazaki movie. I will continue to. I wanted to secretly like Landman. And I think that I secretly was liking it until this fifth episode.

• 48:49Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 48:50Andy Greenwald?

  And what I'm, what I'm, it cannot get out of its own fucking way.

• 48:56Chris Ryan?

  Let's do a little bit of spoilers for the fifth episode. Because speaking of not being able to get out of the way.

• 49:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:01Chris Ryan?

  This episode concludes.

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  With a guy named Rick.

• 49:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Chris Ryan?

  Being crushed.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:09Chris Ryan?

  By several tons of.

• 49:11Andy Greenwald?

  Iron bar.

• 49:11Chris Ryan?

  Of pipe piping. Yeah.

• 49:13Andy Greenwald?

  And he is the architect of his own destruction.

• 49:16Chris Ryan?

  He really is.

• 49:17Andy Greenwald?

  He's acting like a grade A prick.

• 49:18Chris Ryan?

  He's throwing a huge fucking Moody on the top of tons of metal.

• 49:24Andy Greenwald?

  Unsecured iron pipes, kicking them in frustration.

• 49:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Andy Greenwald?

  That his workday is gonna be long.

• 49:27Chris Ryan?

  But then he dies right in front of his boss, Billy Bob Thornton. That was the point where you were out?

• 49:31Andy Greenwald?

  He doesn't just, no, I enjoyed that part. It reminded me, I texted you this, it did remind me a little bit of Walter J. Weatherman on Arrested Development, being like, and that's why you don't have a tantrum on top of a truck full of iron piping. Because he did, he didn't die right away.

• 49:47Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 49:47Andy Greenwald?

  He had enough time to have a cellphone in his hand.

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  Well, it was Billy Bob's.

• 49:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he handed him a cellphone. He said, call your wife. Now.

• 49:54Chris Ryan?

  He's like, what do I tell her?

• 49:55Andy Greenwald?

  Couple of things.

• 49:57Chris Ryan?

  My FanDuel account and numbers.

• 50:01Andy Greenwald?

  Take the money line. There were a couple. I, the deepest moment of humanity in the show was a guy calling his wife to say goodbye on A, someone else's phone.

• 50:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  B, in the middle of the day. And I think that we all know honestly, very few of our loved ones would pick up that call. If it came from an unknown number.

• 50:23Chris Ryan?

  Don't you think if we did something more important, our wives would pick up if we called? Like if we were like, I'm working with tons of metal piping?

• 50:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, because, because how mu- I mean, yes, they would say that.

• 50:33Chris Ryan?

  I would just set the, set it up where I'm like, I won't bother you during the day.

• 50:37Andy Greenwald?

  Except?

• 50:38Chris Ryan?

  And if I need you, I'll send a text if it's just like, can you pick up more Michelob?

• 50:41Andy Greenwald?

  And here you are calling.

• 50:43Chris Ryan?

  If I call, it's probably to tell you I love you before my lungs collapse.

• 50:47Andy Greenwald?

  Chris, this is an unknown number. So my point is that Phoebe, being a lovely person, gets the, gets the, the brief, like she understands. But the sixth time she picks up panicked, and it's like act blue for the Attorney General candidate in Missouri, she's like, fuck this. I have to have my Tuesday. You know what I mean? Like, there has to be an end to this. Unfortunately, the end was to her husband at the bottom of a mountain of iron piping.

• 51:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Andy Greenwald?

  So it's a tough beat for Rick. Uh, that's not my issue. The bigger issue, and this is why I kinda wanted to tie it into the larger Taylor Sheridan thing, is that. His project is so unique and it is just unvarnished brain gush. It is like hanging out. It's basically like his podcast that he does solo.

• 51:31Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 51:32Andy Greenwald?

  And it is just like being talked at.

• 51:34Chris Ryan?

  This is why I want to talk to him. I want to know how he plots these shows out because like there's so much story in each one of these.

• 51:40Andy Greenwald?

  There's also so much time wasting.

• 51:43Chris Ryan?

  I don't call, I don't think it's time wasting. I think it's real life taking place on camera.

• 51:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 51:49Chris Ryan?

  How long is the, how long is that dinner scene with Ali Larder?

• 51:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's so, so long. And the gist of it is she's sad that they don't appreciate her pasta.

• 52:01Chris Ryan?

  Her bolognese that she had wild boar flown in from Italy.

• 52:05Andy Greenwald?

  Eight adults are like, what's this ribbon of wheat on my plate in a ketchup sauce? And she's like, that's Italian pasta. And he's like, interesting. It fucking sucks.

• 52:15Chris Ryan?

  No, they all like it.

• 52:16Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, this tastes good, but I watch men die for a living. It's not just that. Here's something that I want to talk about, and I imagine that it happens across all of his shows. And I would like to coin this phrase if it hasn't already been coined, which is inevitably three times per episode, maybe four or five times, especially on Landman. Other characters are in a scene and their job is to lob a couple of softballs at Billy Bob or Jon Hamm.

• 52:40Chris Ryan?

  Jon Hamm, yeah.

• 52:40Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 52:41Chris Ryan?

  Those fucking cucks at the, the board meeting. And then. They're just like, I like wind power.

• 52:45Andy Greenwald?

  And then they just clear out. It is like watching Luka Doncic play heliocentric basketball.

• 52:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Andy Greenwald?

  The, what I like to do during these scenes, when characters are just bombastically delivering the same speech that was delivered in the previous episode about how all of you are fucking beta snowflake dipshits for plugging in your cars. Watch the other actors in the scene. I call this the Taylor Sheridan days. This is when every other actor in the scene just has to awkwardly stare into the middle distance while someone speaks uninterrupted for three to six minutes about wind power. It is so fucking nuts to watch these other actors who are like, I get to be on a TV show. What'd you do? I watched the restaurant table awkwardly while a 30 year old told me how to be a lawyer, even though my character is a lawyer. Like.

• 53:37Andy Greenwald?

  It's so deeply unnatural. It's like Japanese no theater.

• 53:42Chris Ryan?

  That's why I like it. It's like you, there's no rhythm to these scenes. Like you get to the dinner scene in episode five. He's come back home. He's got James Jordan with him. They're just disgusting. Jacob Loughlin, the Cooper character, has just been mowing a lawn for an entire other workday.

• 53:59Andy Greenwald?

  And then cut to the dog and the dog's like, yep, still watching you mow the lawn. Then he mows the lawnmower and he cuts to the dog. And he's like, do you like me yet, dog? And the dog's like, bark, bark. He's like, one day you will like me, dog. Anywhere else I can mow?

• 54:13Chris Ryan?

  And then Pauline Chavez's character is like,

• 54:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:17Chris Ryan?

  If you drink one beer, it promotes breastfeeding health, right?

• 54:22Andy Greenwald?

  Taylor Sheridan, Google's lactation.

• 54:25Chris Ryan?

  Dude, I, I heard that's kind of true though, right?

• 54:28Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. I got these other supplements that'll work for you.

• 54:33Chris Ryan?

  Apparently within,

• 54:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:35Chris Ryan?

  I asked my wife, I said, is that true? And she was like, I don't know. I haven't had a child, but

• 54:39Andy Greenwald?

  Did you call her in the middle of the day?

• 54:41Chris Ryan?

  No, we were at dinner.

• 54:42Andy Greenwald?

  From the bottom of a pile of metal?

• 54:44Chris Ryan?

  What are we gonna talk about? It's Sunday dinner. And I was like, well, there's been a couple of ideas kicking around the Taylorverse that I'd like to throw, bounce off of you.

• 54:51Andy Greenwald?

  Where were you when Billy Bob needed a conversation at the pasta dinner? They were in silence when he could have been like, I hear beer is good for your boobs. And then the, then the other, the daughter would just like stared wistfully, happily, because her parents are fucking noisily in the next room. By the way, there's this scene when, you're right, I do love the show.

• 55:12Chris Ryan?

  How could you? Where else can we get this?

• 55:15Andy Greenwald?

  There's this scene when Ally Larder is taking her, her daughter.

• 55:19Chris Ryan?

  Other shows are like, oh, I hope this person.

• 55:22Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not a bad person.

• 55:23Chris Ryan?

  I hope this person is a good person, even though they might be bad, or I hope, I hope this person really heals from this.

• 55:28Andy Greenwald?

  And instead, we get Ally Larder wobbling like, like a absolute fabulous taking a lie detector test between her characters two modes, which are like, why don't you fuck me enough? And let's go shopping for tequila. And she has me seated.

• 55:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, also, they introduced her menstrual cycle to this episode.

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  Again, it's just like Taylor Sheridan's like, what are other things that we're not allowed to talk about in today's cocked society? I know, asking wives where they are with a red menace. Let's fucking go. That's how I like to talk to ladies, like my girlfriend Bella Hadid. Did I mention that's my girlfriend? And I'm allergic to shirts?

• 56:02Chris Ryan?

  That's not his real life girlfriend.

• 56:03Andy Greenwald?

  No, not yet. He's very charming.

• 56:05Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 56:06Andy Greenwald?

  I like when Ali Larder, her daughter, she's like, come on, we need to celebrate the little things in life, like you now being old enough to run for president of the United States, my teenage daughter.

• 56:16Chris Ryan?

  Why did Ali Larder's character think that she is a gamilf rather than just a gilf?

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  Because Taylor Sheridan doesn't get noted. He's like, that must be what it is. And everyone's like, yes, sir, big boss. It's so crazy. I, in the midst of all this, there are these moments where I'm like, this is interesting. The moments, unlike some-

• 56:42Chris Ryan?

  Every time Jon Hamm picks up a phone, I'm like-

• 56:44Andy Greenwald?

  What's he gonna say this time?

• 56:45Chris Ryan?

  I'm like, shh, to everything in the world. I need to hear what he's gonna say.

• 56:49Andy Greenwald?

  Unlike some, I enjoyed Billy Bob Thornton's probably factually deeply untrue monologue about the fallacy of clean energy. I did not enjoy having the same lecture the next week from Jon Hamm. That's just bad writing.

• 57:05Chris Ryan?

  It's not the same lecture. That's more about the public perception of fossil fuel industry.

• 57:10Andy Greenwald?

  You're unbelievable.

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  I'm saying there's a difference. Billy Bob Thornton is like, everything you see is powered by oil. And even if, like, we aren't even ready to make the move to electric, which in fact also has like a pretty difficult carbon footprint. I have no idea if any of that's true. I just drive a gas guzzling German car. Jon Hamm is like, we can't get these people on our side. We don't control how our product is used.

• 57:36Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Yeah, just hands in the air. We're all, we're all innocents here.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  Now, where's my private plane?

• 57:40Andy Greenwald?

  The church of money. The thing that makes a Taylor Sheridan show noteworthy isn't Billy Bob Thornton's entire scene with a 30-year-old lawyer who doesn't know how to hold a handbag, where he just always has the right thing to say and just dunks on her again and again and again, and then lectures her about wind turbines. It's that at the end of that scene, in case the point hasn't been made, she is then menaced by a rattlesnake, frozen to the site, and he then decapitates the snake with a shovel and takes the rattle as a blood souvenir.

• 58:15Chris Ryan?

  You don't think it's cool how she gets after it in the deposition, though?

• 58:20Andy Greenwald?

  As someone who has known attorneys, that scene was so fucking crazy, where the high-priced lawyer on the other side says, "Objection," and she's like, "You fucking dipshit. You don't even know what this is, do you? My dead Army Ranger father would shit on your grave."

• 58:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and she's like, "I don't have an Army Ranger father."

• 58:43Andy Greenwald?

  But we're done here, and the entire lawsuit goes away. And then the daughter's like, "You guys want to get skinny margs? I hope there's no sugar in this tomato sauce."

• 58:52Chris Ryan?

  That's an interesting part.

• 58:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's fascinating.

• 58:55Chris Ryan?

  She has been in a bikini for 87% of this show.

• 58:58Andy Greenwald?

  And your guy.

• 58:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:00Andy Greenwald?

  Cole Fior.

• 59:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:01Andy Greenwald?

  Great actor. His job on the show is to be like, "No."

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  And still you watch.

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Because you're my friend!

• 59:10Chris Ryan?

  You know, deep down, that we don't get this anywhere else. There's nowhere else to find it. There's no Romanian series. There's no, there's no fucking Peacock series.

• 59:21Andy Greenwald?

  Find it.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  What this is. This is somebody, like, brain barfing onto the screen. And I would actually, if these episodes were like hour and six placid minutes, I'd be like, "Come on, man. Like, I'm not doing this." These are like... You never know when a cartel guy is gonna show up and be like, this is my land.

• 59:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  That's my road. And then Billy Bob's like, film this, I gotta get my piece.

• 59:46Andy Greenwald?

  Also, my guy Boss, who I'm into, my guy Boss is like, he has a really interesting management approach.

• 59:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Andy Greenwald?

  Where he's like, I support everyone equally, but when one of my guys who has been threatened at gunpoint three times doesn't get into the truck, I just let it roll. No big deal. He's also like, every day, men in my employ have their arms and hands permanently disfigured.

• 1:00:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  But when a guy in a ponytail shows up and loosely threatens my boss, I'm walking off the job.

• 1:00:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. The only thing I'm kinda confused about is why, I mean, Cooper's just trying to help out. You know what I mean?

• 1:00:20Andy Greenwald?

  I, I wanna talk about Cooper.

• 1:00:21Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:00:22Andy Greenwald?

  Who's the actor?

• 1:00:23Chris Ryan?

  Jacob Loughlin.

• 1:00:23Andy Greenwald?

  He's very good.

• 1:00:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:25Andy Greenwald?

  He's very good.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  He's in the Friday Night Lights of this show.

• 1:00:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and Paulina Chavez as well. Like, that whole conceit, again, like, it's so clumsy, but it does make me wonder, like, I'm in a writer's room right now, and like, why do we spend days of a week figuring out a clever or interesting or emotionally compelling, or even maybe just like recognizable as human behavior, true way into a scene, when you could just do the same scene twice and move on? Because if the goal is to have him and the widow of one of the guys eventually become close, perhaps.

• 1:00:58Chris Ryan?

  They are close.

• 1:00:58Andy Greenwald?

  Perhaps intimate.

• 1:00:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they're two, two people looking for friendship in Texas.

• 1:01:03Andy Greenwald?

  He shows up, you're, you're amazing. He's just, just like candidate Beto O'Rourke. Trying to find friends. She, he, he shows up, there's nowhere to sit in the house except this couch sliver between her, who's breastfeeding.

• 1:01:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Andy Greenwald?

  One beer deep, no doubt. And like, a, a big guy, just to squeeze in there. And then there probably was a moment when Taylor Sheridan's like, what's happening in this scene? And he was like, you know what was funny in the previous episode? When he couldn't eat spicy food. Let's run it back. Let's just run it back. Let's literally just have him eat spicy food again. And now they're.

• 1:01:41Chris Ryan?

  The reason why we have spent this entire conversation talking about our favorite little bits.

• 1:01:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Chris Ryan?

  And our, and our little confusions is because one of the reasons why I love this show is that it is not about anything. It's about all the shit that they scream and cry that it's about, but there is no villain. It's a case of the week show. You could have watched one and two and then five and you would have been like, I got it.

• 1:02:04Andy Greenwald?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:02:04Chris Ryan?

  And I, there is something kind of, there is an artistry into what he is doing in that regard. And also I love the fact that whereas like with Lioness.

• 1:02:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Chris Ryan?

  You really have to have, you have to have your global map out to know like what's going on with Lioness. And everything is the fate of the free world.

• 1:02:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:23Chris Ryan?

  Until it's not.

• 1:02:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Chris Ryan?

  With Landman, you're just like, oh, that's another workplace liability.

• 1:02:29Andy Greenwald?

  OSHA is gonna be here about this. I, I, I, I did want to say like, to give credit to it. Like, I think that the Jacoboff and Paulina Chavez scenes are good.

• 1:02:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Andy Greenwald?

  And compelling. And it doesn't matter how they got there or how, how, you know, the, the gesticulations to put them in this room or whatever. They are both in a show that I'm interested in.

• 1:02:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Andy Greenwald?

  And I, and I like it.

• 1:02:50Chris Ryan?

  The kid being like, I don't know any other way to help. You know what I mean? It's, it's, there is like, it's a genuinely sweet little exchange.

• 1:02:55Andy Greenwald?

  His attitude about showering, I'd like to interrogate a little bit.

• 1:02:58Chris Ryan?

  I don't know what the deal is with that. I guess maybe he's just like, I'm not showering for your expensive dinner.

• 1:03:03Andy Greenwald?

  Right, on this new furniture.

• 1:03:04Chris Ryan?

  Cause he's trying to shed this class consciousness, you know?

• 1:03:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but like, he's also shedding a lot of like, BO, man, like, be respectful. Look at the nice meal your mother made. She's just, she's such a cool mom. She's so fun. She's such a fun mom.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about Agency.

• 1:03:22Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:03:23Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you are current on Agency.

• 1:03:25Andy Greenwald?

  I am current, three episodes deep.

• 1:03:27Chris Ryan?

  This show for me, I know a lot of people loved the first two episodes. I liked them.

• 1:03:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Chris Ryan?

  Um, I think I was having a little bit of like, oh, I, I feel like every single thing here is just basically almost sometimes word for word from Le Bureau, the show it's based on.

• 1:03:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:03:41Chris Ryan?

  Those first two episodes were directed by Joe Wright.

• 1:03:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:03:44Chris Ryan?

  Some lovely shots in the first two episodes, some lovely mood setting and, and you know, the idea that this open floor plan office is this maze of deceit and backstabbing. And, you know, where can you find an honest person in here? All that stuff visually represented really well. Michael Fassbender, warrior monk, standing in an apartment block at the Barbican, like, you know, isolated against this brutalist architecture or whatever. I get it all and I love it all, but it does speak to the difference in TV and film. When you get into this episode, the third episode directed by Philip Martin, whose work I'm not aware of. And this is no knock against Joe Wright, who's made three movies that I love, uh, and several that I like quite a bit.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  That this just felt way more fleet of foot and felt way more like a TV show. And I think focused on the performances in a way that brought characters to life in what is a very complicated dance because Catherine Waterston, you're like, I know that she is important, but might not be important for a little while because of the way the story is structured.

• 1:04:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Chris Ryan?

  I thought that there was a couple of scenes of Gear Wright, Waterston, Fassbender and Magaro, where you're like, ah, that is the difference between that person and like replacement level acting.

• 1:05:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Chris Ryan?

  Because even Jeffrey Wright asking Catherine Waterston, when she's like, do you think that he's adjusting all right to being back or is, you know? And he's like, are you asking for him or are you asking for you? And she's like, both in her eyebrow cocks.

• 1:05:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Chris Ryan?

  Like, that's movie star acting. Like the way that you can communicate an emotion or a feeling with just like the smallest facial gesture or something like that is just, that's what like elevates you. And I just thought multiple times Gear going into the, the cube, uh, where he talks to Dominic West.

• 1:05:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:37Chris Ryan?

  Um, and it's just like, how are you feeling in there? He's like cozy, you know? Like, I was like, that's fucking Richard Gere, dude. Like it just got, it really warmed up for me and I, and I really enjoyed this episode a lot.

• 1:05:49Andy Greenwald?

  I think this is an interesting conversation because I agree with every point you're making. And I, I mean, I, I see the same things you do, certainly in the acting and performing. And for the record, Philip Martin is a veteran British TV director.

• 1:06:00Chris Ryan?

  Sure he's a genius, right?

• 1:06:01Andy Greenwald?

  No, he, he did seven episodes of The Crown and you've seen his work before.

• 1:06:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Andy Greenwald?

  I thought this was a pretty weak episode.

• 1:06:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh, here we go. Well, Siski and Ebert.

• 1:06:11Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I'm not drawing big conclusions. I think that in a way, we're responding to similar things. Which is to say, usually in television dramas, the big drop off is between the first and second episode. There's tons of time lavished on the pilot, in the same way that we say like, you know, you have your whole life to make your first album and then the band's second album you'd make in 10 months and it's rarely as good.

• 1:06:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38Andy Greenwald?

  This, in this, because they clearly block shot the first two episodes and Joe Wright directed them, this third episode was the agency's second, second episode.

• 1:06:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Andy Greenwald?

  Or its premiere as a TV show.

• 1:06:48Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:49Andy Greenwald?

  Um, in which it is sort of struggling to find its footing after the precipitous drop from cinema to television. It can come back from this. It's fine. It, it should be.

• 1:06:59Chris Ryan?

  But explain what you mean.

• 1:07:00Andy Greenwald?

  Well, tech, okay, so on a couple of levels, the biggest one for me was, I thought that the show, this episode was very, very poorly lit. Joe Wright clearly is a stickler for his shot selection, for his lighting.

• 1:07:16Chris Ryan?

  His symmetries, yeah.

• 1:07:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, for his big, the glass box on top of the glass box. I don't know, and I don't, you know, making this shit is real hard. So I, I'm not saying anybody screwed up or something. You know, there was also locations and there was a lot of night stuff. But the entire hotel assignation at the beginning between Fast, Better, Martian and Samia, um, Joni Turner Smith, was incredibly dark and muddy. And even the follow-up conversation with Martian and, and Jeffrey Wright's character, like, just the kind of thing where it's like, if you have actors with darker skin, you need to light them appropriately so they're fully present in the scene. And that bumps me when I realize that, when you see it done well and you see it done poorly. It felt, when it's noticeable in specific ways like that, I'm like, this isn't just

• 1:08:01Andy Greenwald?

  a, we're de-accelerating the sports car to get into like the, you know, the meat of the season before we ramp it up again. It's like, oh, they had to figure out from scratch how they're going to communicate the show visually, and I felt that.

• 1:08:12Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:08:13Andy Greenwald?

  I also felt that with the lack of, listen, you know, I'm the least director bullshit guy.

• 1:08:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's why I'm kind of surprised to hear this.

• 1:08:19Andy Greenwald?

  But the director bullshit, I thought, in the first two episodes was lifting up the show in terms of its, maybe its pomposity, but also its ambition. Without that in this episode. I found that it was a lot of people declaring themselves and who they are in speeches to each other and did not feel like narratively propulsive or like character-based quirk.

• 1:08:41Chris Ryan?

  Are you thinking mostly about like the poppy Martian scene?

• 1:08:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:08:45Chris Ryan?

  And the, and the doctor in Martian scene?

• 1:08:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I am. Yeah, I exactly, exactly those scenes. And I, and again-

• 1:08:51Chris Ryan?

  The Fassbender part, he is doing a lot, like they keep putting him in a position where he is like, I am going to break through this veneer-

• 1:08:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Chris Ryan?

  -by telling you everything that you think you know, you know?

• 1:09:02Andy Greenwald?

  There is a choice when you cast Michael Fassbender and you want to use, speaking of sports cars, and isn't that what he spends most of his time doing? Like, you don't want to cast a Lamborghini and then have it slowly cruise around the neighborhood. Like, you want to get it on the open road. And he is such a kinetic and powerful weapon on screen. I'm struggling with a little bit, and maybe it's, it's partly the, the understanding of the character in the French version-

• 1:09:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Andy Greenwald?

  -because, because Matthew Kassavitz, you know, he, he's, he's relatively ripped, but he's also-

• 1:09:33Chris Ryan?

  A bookish kind of like-

• 1:09:34Andy Greenwald?

  He's kind of normie.

• 1:09:35Chris Ryan?

  You, you would, the whole point of him is that he is the kind of guy that you would walk by and not notice.

• 1:09:39Andy Greenwald?

  And Fassbender is not.

• 1:09:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Andy Greenwald?

  And when he runs hot, he seems like a lunatic. He seems like the lunatic you want on your side in a foxhole. But, you know, him, the way that he's walking, the way he's behaving, it, I am bumping slightly on Jeffrey Wright being like, yeah, he just wanted to have a quick, you know, side piece. I, I get it. You know, like, he does not-

• 1:10:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that the idea is that Jeffrey Wright's got his own secrets because he's been-

• 1:10:04Andy Greenwald?

  Totally. This is-

• 1:10:05Chris Ryan?

  -kind of checking on operations he shouldn't be because of his brother-in-law.

• 1:10:08Andy Greenwald?

  His brother-in-law. This seems like ticky tack criticism, and I am in on this show, but I found that other than the high points that you just mentioned, and for me, the highest point is Richard Gere, who is fucking Richard Gere on this TV show, is so sick.

• 1:10:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Andy Greenwald?

  He's so effortlessly good and awesome. And every scene, like the scene when he basically lets Fassbender know that he's been listening to the audio tapes-

• 1:10:31Chris Ryan?

  Apartment, I mean, flat.

• 1:10:34Andy Greenwald?

  He crushes that scene.

• 1:10:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Andy Greenwald?

  When he comes in and he's been briefed and he explains everything without telling him anything, without telling anyone a thing, like, I love that. But I'm just, I'm just throwing it out here, I don't want to be Negative Nancy about this, but like, there is a severity and puffed up nature to the show that is a delicate balancing act. And weirdly, I thought Joe Wright's direction was allowing it to stay afloat. And if you're trying to make this show with this tone and this seriousness of purpose and this really like grim speechifying intensity, you're gonna have to slap your wings a lot to stay in the air. Otherwise it sinks a little bit.

• 1:11:17Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like, for some reason,

• 1:11:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Chris Ryan?

  the Coyote, Felix, and whatever the name of the guy who's been redacted into a black site and the wooden duck character? I can't remember that character's name. But basically, all of the spy craft, all the spy game stuff, do you find that legible? I don't remember on the first pass of Bureau being like underwater the way I am, but it also might be a little bit of like what the show is doing to you because obviously they go an inch into explaining what the Felix operation is without telling you. But I didn't, I didn't know Felix is an asset that they are looking for in Ukraine? Like, are this, is he an assassination?

• 1:12:05Chris Ryan?

  Like, okay, we don't know.

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  No, but it's a sim, I believe it seems like it's a similar operation than the operation that was threatened in the, in the, in the French first season. I, I think that what I'm missing is, and I, I should go back and watch the first few episodes, just sort of see rhythmically what they're doing because the Butterworths, like, they should do something different. Like, you have the opportunity.

• 1:12:27Chris Ryan?

  I think having Ukraine makes it a little different.

• 1:12:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but they also, I think one of the things that they're doing differently is apportioning story and what they're paying attention to. And so, one of the things that I lacked in this episode was the Danny character. She's the woman who's being trained to go undercover in Iran. She's not in this episode at all.

• 1:12:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:12:43Andy Greenwald?

  And one of the smart things about the French show was, it was like, We are partnering two stories and

• 1:12:50Chris Ryan?

  Bringing them together.

• 1:12:51Andy Greenwald?

  And only at the beginning because Martian supposedly is that the French iteration of the character is home and is done supposedly, right? Whereas he's crossing paths with a woman who's just beginning

• 1:13:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:13:04Andy Greenwald?

  Her undercover adventure and they're together early and then they split up and those storylines don't converge. Now, we will see what the Butterworths and and the brain trust behind the show, what they are interested in. They are blowing out some storylines and reducing other ones. But I thought that that was a very smart way to be like a little handholdy because the the education of the audience was being done on screen with the education of the young woman character as opposed to downsizing that part. So Fassbender is behaving this way and then lecturing us as to why he's behaving that way.

• 1:13:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I like the idea that you and I can watch like the same thing and that we, I like it for the reasons that you don't like it and vice versa. Like I think that I found the first two episodes a little bit too glacial and and I liked, you know, I got what Joe Wright was doing and creating this London of secret apartments inside of

• 1:14:01Andy Greenwald?

  Shadows.

• 1:14:01Chris Ryan?

  Big buildings where everybody, you know, I got it.

• 1:14:05Chris Ryan?

  But I felt like these scenes got into their point faster. In the third episode, I felt like the characters moved more quickly and weren't as like performative like yet like randomly yelling at each other for some reason. Like I thought everything kind of was like, ah, this is the sort of

• 1:14:23Chris Ryan?

  this is the map of these people and how they interact with each other. And there were just more moments of like Jeffrey Wright walking by Richard Gere and Michael Fassbender and being like, why are they talking without me there? Like a little bit more of the internal politics that I really like enjoyed in the first series.

• 1:14:37Andy Greenwald?

  I think anytime John Magaro is on the show, it lights up because it's like, hey, that guy, that's funny. There's always going to be a little joke.

• 1:14:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44Andy Greenwald?

  His chair's in plastic. He's stressed out. One thing that I'm interested in watching and I don't have any like assumption, I don't know what it would mean one way or another, but the Butterworths are film writers generally, screenwriters, very highly paid, very highly regarded screenwriters and re writers and Joe Wright is a film director.

• 1:15:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Andy Greenwald?

  And What was interesting about this episode is that this is the episode where it downshifted into being a TV show, but the writing and plotting still felt keyed into a different kind of language. So that the moments that you're pulling out to me feel like the TV moments. And the episode, from the way it was directed, even the things I'm complaining about, were kind of like, hey, let's lower the flame a little bit.

• 1:15:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Andy Greenwald?

  But it's a balancing act. And all this is to say, you should never judge a show on the second episode. And in this case, spiritually, this was the second episode. So I think we'll learn a lot more next week.

• 1:15:38Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Taylor Sheridan will show up on this show?

• 1:15:41Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think he's Felix?

• 1:15:43Chris Ryan?

  That would be...

• 1:15:45Andy Greenwald?

  What's up, guys?

• 1:15:46Chris Ryan?

  I mean, we are in the Ellison family tree here.

• 1:15:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:49Chris Ryan?

  You know, it is part of Showtime, Paramount Plus, like, we're all part of it.

• 1:15:52Andy Greenwald?

  No, you said that guy, the producer, right? Is like on both.

• 1:15:54Chris Ryan?

  Glasser, yeah. This show has been renewed for season two.

• 1:15:58Andy Greenwald?

  That is not a surprise, but also it is a relief.

• 1:16:01Chris Ryan?

  It is a relief because, well, I mean, first of all, I don't think that it would even... You can't tell this story and pretend like you're doing it in one season. So what Andy and I said when we first started talking about the agency still goes, which is that part of the genius of this series is seasonal storytelling. And what it does over the course of multiple seasons.

• 1:16:20Andy Greenwald?

  And at least, you know, in the renewal announcement, we don't have any access to the numbers and we don't understand.

• 1:16:24Chris Ryan?

  It's doing quite well, apparently.

• 1:16:25Andy Greenwald?

  But what your friends at Paramount were trying to tell the world is, hey, we got one here.

• 1:16:32Chris Ryan?

  Yep, yeah.

• 1:16:33Andy Greenwald?

  Which they better, considering they spent for it. And I think it's a good thing, no matter what I thought of this episode, investing big on a great property and casting the shit out of it and not skimping. I want those risks to be rewarded. Because people are not taking risks anymore in this, in hashtag this town.

• 1:16:51Chris Ryan?

  All right, Andy, so a little bit of admin, which I think probably would have been more useful at the beginning of the episode, but whatever.

• 1:16:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, Kaya told me, everyone listens all the way to the end, always.

• 1:16:59Chris Ryan?

  They listen to a cackling version of me and Kaya trying to describe what happens in the season finale of Lions.

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  I don't mean trying, there was no trying, you did it.

• 1:17:07Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for listening, thanks for watching. You can watch us on the Ringer TV YouTube channel. Like and subscribe, we'll try and do some... Exclusive content for this channel. Uh, I'm just gonna do some Taylor Sheridan stuff for it. And we're really excited to be here. Joe and Rob will also be here and the Prestige TV gang on this channel. So you can check everything about TV out here.

• 1:17:27Andy Greenwald?

  I also think it's very brave of you to commit to doing the next episode shirtless, like Taylor Sheridan playing strip poker.

• 1:17:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, I just have a couple more batches of the substance to take before.

• 1:17:36Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you got that fucking Ralph Fiennes torso.

• 1:17:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you soon.