Emmy Noms, Colbert Cancellation, and Did ‘Girls’ Stick the Landing?

Andy and Kaya chat about the Emmy nominations that were released last week (16:54) and the news that ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ was canceled (43:00). Then, in anticipation of a conversation about the Lena Dunham show ‘Too Much’ next week, Andy talks with Amanda Dobbins about the ‘Girls’ series finale (taken from a 2024 episode of Stick the Landing) (55:25). Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Amanda Dobbins Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:12Speaker 01

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

• 1:18Andy Greenwald?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Andy Greenwald. I have no official title at The Ringer, but I am joined by someone who does, Kaya McMullen. Welcome to the hot seat.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  I feel like we can get you a title.

• 1:29Andy Greenwald?

  You've gotten me parking validations?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31Andy Greenwald?

  And you recently got me a badge so I can enter the building without your help.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  I did.

• 1:34Andy Greenwald?

  And it's only been 10 years.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I think maybe like in another 10, we can get you a title like, maybe like, I don't know, assistant editor or something or like head creative.

• 1:45Andy Greenwald?

  What about waste management consultant?

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:48Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's me.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  That's up for grabs.

• 1:49Andy Greenwald?

  So as you can tell, Kaya and I are down one key cog in our triangle of power. Chris is traveling, which a lot of people are doing at this time of year.

• 2:00Speaker 03

  I'll be doing some traveling shortly. You'll be doing some traveling shortly.

• 2:03Andy Greenwald?

  To be clear, you are going on a vacation.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 2:07Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm going to look after my parents. I think that, I think it's a little bit different.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  I don't know what you mean. That's the most relaxing vacation I can imagine.

• 2:15Andy Greenwald?

  So it must be nice. So we're gonna do something a little bit different today.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:20Andy Greenwald?

  We are going to have a little chat about some things we missed because we are a little behind in our podcasting duties due to other travel and schedule upheaval. So the last time you listeners and viewers heard from us, we were doing a mailbag that we had recorded the previous week.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's been a bit.

• 2:38Andy Greenwald?

  And there's been a couple of things that have happened. That said, one consensus topic that has come up when I was canvassing potential guests and friends to visit us on the podcast today was that there's nothing to watch right now.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  I was putting together the production schedule for the rest of the summer, as I do.

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  You should have.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Like every few months.

• 2:57Andy Greenwald?

  You deserve all the titles. I don't deserve anything.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  Really, it's Chris who's running that spreadsheet, but I was just, you know, putting in my vacation when I'll be out. And so I was like, well, you know what? Maybe, while I'm in here, why don't I see what's kind of on the horizon?

• 3:11Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  And there's nothing.

• 3:13Andy Greenwald?

  Quick follow up. Where is this production calendar?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  It's been shared with you multiple times.

• 3:17Andy Greenwald?

  Has it?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I just want.

• 3:18Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, great. What's the app that it's on?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  That would be Google Sheets.

• 3:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, see, I don't know about that, but I'll look into it. Yeah, not very much. So what we're gonna do, okay, so the one show, full disclosure, the one kind of new show that people seem to want to talk about or hear about is the Lena Dunham helmed rom-com Too Much. Chris has really put a pin in that. Chris was really, really wanting to talk about that, so I didn't feel it was fair.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:44Andy Greenwald?

  To steal that, steal that opportunity from him. So we're not gonna talk about it today.

• 3:50Andy Greenwald?

  We are gonna talk about it at some point in the future with Chris.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  I can't wait for that conversation. I have not watched it yet, but it definitely is on my to-watch list.

• 3:58Andy Greenwald?

  Did you watch the Megan Stalter and Fergie London Bridge video that they released as a promotional?

• 4:05Speaker 03

  No, but I did watch Meghan Salter. I think it was on Colbert, which we'll be discussing a little bit. And she's just having a great run on Late Night right now. I love Meghan Salter. I think she's hilarious.

• 4:17Andy Greenwald?

  I think that people should enjoy their opportunities to the degree that she is because really it's all ending. Sorry. That's just my excitement about my upcoming travel, leeching into our conversation. Anyway, our good friend, co-host of The Big Picture, Amanda Dobbins, has also expressed an interest in talking about Too Much, which is relevant because one of the things we're gonna do today to try to just skitch on that Dunhamania that's once again sweeping America, is after our conversation, we are going to tack on a previously released episode of the short-lived cult podcast Stick the Landing, where Amanda and I talked about Girls, specifically the series finale, but really it's kind of a look back

• 4:58Andy Greenwald?

  on the whole series. So think of it, if you will, as kind of a, I don't know, what an appetite.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, whetting the appetite for Too Much. And also just like getting you in that mindset of like, where is Lena Dunham at as a creator? She also has a movie coming out soon, or that I think is filming right now with Natalie Portman. And so Dunhamania is definitely on the upswing. And I mean, I think Girls is such an interesting show and why I encourage you to go check out this conversation, which was great.

• 5:29Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  If you haven't already listened to it, because there's been such a reappraisal of Girls, I feel like in the last like couple of years where people have really come back around. And they're like, this show is actually like extremely timely, extremely smart.

• 5:43Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya, as our youth correspondent, what's going on with that? It's true. It's not just anecdotal, right?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  The kids, the kids love Girls. TikTok and Reels are full of clips of Girls.

• 5:54Andy Greenwald?

  Are they like just look at this fire, just like fire emojis scenes from Girls? Or is it like people in front of the clip talking about it?

• 6:02Speaker 03

  No, it's literally just like a four-minute clip of a Girls scene. And it has like 60K likes.

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I get serviced? I get serviced, people remembering the Tina Fey Girls SNL sketch where they take on a new roommate who is like an old Eastern European crone. Which is good for me, because I love that.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Interesting. So is it?

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  Do you feel like younger people who weren't following Girls at the time are finding something new, entertaining, relevant?

• 6:31Speaker 03

  I think there's a real hunger for like, and I wouldn't necessarily call Girls like a hangout show, but I think there is a real hunger for a show about like 20-somethings. And like, there was DOLTS and there was overcompensating. I don't know if either of those really like hit. DOLTS, I watched the first episode and it was cute, but it's like, I think Girls is just like on another level and like has such an understanding about that time period. So maybe it's like part nostalgia, part like people are really hungry for that type of show. I mean, I feel like the thing that's like has been pegged as the next Girls is the untitled Rachel Senate project.

• 7:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, coming to HBO later this year.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  I, yeah, who knows? So yeah, I think people, I think the kids just, yeah.

• 7:22Andy Greenwald?

  Also the thing about Girls, and I think this is in our conversation that we had with Amanda, it's like, it's old fashioned already in the sense that it was a mess as it was happening in the best possible way. It was on screen, someone struggling with how to be a creator, how to make a TV show, how to be the indie filmmaker that she was before that show got greenlit and then the steward of the next hangout comedy that she was instantly anointed as being. And I think that that kind of like growth experience with a show is something that Chris and I talk about missing and that it's kind of lacking. So, okay, so that will be at the end of our free form impromptu chat. Speaking of things, I don't know if, I don't know how much you prepared for this at all,

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  but like, do you, not that I asked you to, but I also don't know if you came in with anything like that you had been watching. Is there anything on your personal watch list? Have you, what has been on your screen during this last week and a half while staring at the blinking cursor of the production calendar?

• 8:19Speaker 03

  I just wrapped up The Eternate, which I enjoyed a ton. And I'm really looking forward to the second season of that and I think it's great that Netflix.

• 8:29Andy Greenwald?

  I was just gonna interrupt you because I don't know if long term, probably only the most hardcore listeners know how much you like shows like Fear the Walking Dead. So did it tickle some dystopian itch in you? Like this is?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  It's not so much that I like shows about apocalyptic settings and zombies and etc. It's that my boyfriend loves shows. Anything apocalypse related, like movie, TV, otherwise, is like an immediate sell. We just went to the movie theater for the first time in probably like a year to go see 28 years later.

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, good, yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Because again, apocalypse.

• 9:05Andy Greenwald?

  Now, not to put you on blast here, but if I remember correctly, and we're not gonna out anybody, but doesn't he have a very responsible career? Like, isn't he like in a more buttoned up profession than we are here in the crazy entertainment world? Do you think there's a correlation there?

• 9:20Speaker 03

  You know, I haven't really considered that, but I think you might be right.

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, great news, we've got him here. Come on in. Okay, so you've been, oh, by the way, one other Eternot news that we didn't hit. Did you see that Netflix is bragging about how they use generative AI?

• 9:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I did see that.

• 9:36Andy Greenwald?

  Can I, which camera's on, John? That sucks.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:39Andy Greenwald?

  I hate that so much, and I hate even more that they did it in a show that I love and was championing for its.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  I know, don't you hate feeling like fooled or like gotten?

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  And it's like, we wanna give Netflix so much credit, it's like, and you guys did. It's like they are platforming a type of show that otherwise would like never be seen.

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  They quickly renewed it, and they still have to be like shitty.

• 10:08Andy Greenwald?

  I think that there's this trend, I mean, it's not a new trend, it's capitalism, but like this idea of like, we want everything to be everything, but also we don't wanna spend anything. And I was thinking about this in terms of like, like the Eternot would still have been excellent, regardless of how the bell tower exploded in the episode that they used AI for.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:27Andy Greenwald?

  It was excellent, even though, I think I'm not alone in saying this, the bugs were a little iffy. You know what I mean? Like, there were moments of CG that, but that wasn't the core of the show, so it was fine.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:39Andy Greenwald?

  I say this as someone who just watched.

• 10:43Andy Greenwald?

  So people were recommending. Shows that we're on right now. And so I decided I should do my due diligence, something I haven't done in four or five years. And I checked out Murder Bot.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  OK.

• 10:52Andy Greenwald?

  On Apple TV Plus service.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  That's the Skarsgård one, right?

• 10:55Andy Greenwald?

  It is. Not for me.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  OK.

• 10:59Andy Greenwald?

  Very much not for me. But what was kind of jarring about it was it felt at once so riotously expensive, because it is a very high-concept sci-fi future world in which there are multi-mouthed alien serpents leaping out of desert landscapes. But also, all of it looked kind of cheap. And it fell right in. I mean, that's the new uncanny valley for me.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:25Andy Greenwald?

  Like, if you're making a show about a robot with a soul, let's focus on the robot with a soul. But the expectation for CG and also the way that Apple does business demands a much-

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, Apple just, like, so, like, light money on fire, basically.

• 11:37Andy Greenwald?

  They sure do, which is going to be relevant in our Emmy conversation. OK, well, I have to say, this is very on-brand for me. I've really been enjoying the Criterion Channel's Miami neo-noir.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  You can only be you.

• 11:50Andy Greenwald?

  Series. Rewatched Miami Vice recently, which, if you really want to know what it's like being friends with Chris, watch Miami Vice, 2006 film, but also think about what if that movie was your best friend? Also, really loved the fact that this movie, Miami Blues, is on that, which features one of the greatest Alec Baldwin performances, based on a great novel by one of my favorite writers, Charles Wilford.

• 12:16Andy Greenwald?

  I kind of feel, I was gonna say I feel funny. Actually, I feel fun recommending this 1990 movie to people, because if you watch it, it is basically, in terms of its cultural relevance, it is like a silent film reel of a dirigible crashing in 1890. Nothing about this movie makes sense as a movie in the way we understand movies today, which is why I like it.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  OK, and this is Miami Blues.

• 12:38Andy Greenwald?

  Miami Blues.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Got it. You know a movie I watched last night?

• 12:42Andy Greenwald?

  Tell me.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Ronin.

• 12:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, do you want me to help you with the pronunciation?

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Yes, please.

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  Go on. It's better in the original Japanese, but, but wait, that's not dystopian.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  No, but it has Robert De Niro.

• 12:54Andy Greenwald?

  OK, so, so now we're beginning to, I feel like longtime listeners have never been able to get their arms fully around what motivates you artistically. So it's Robert De Niro's. The Venn diagram is De Niro dystopia and.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Lots of action scenes.

• 13:10Andy Greenwald?

  This seems more like the household viewer.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:13Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:13Andy Greenwald?

  Got it. The last thing I wanted to talk about that I've watched, and I'm just curious, again, youth correspondent. Are you familiar with a phenomenon known as K-pop demon hunters?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  No, I'm not. I'm sorry to let you down here, but.

• 13:26Andy Greenwald?

  It's okay. It's okay. I could bring my daughters on as like, like, super youth correspondents. Have you seen this on your Netflix? Has this passed across your cultural transom at all?

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 13:37Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so K-pop Demon Hunters is a movie.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:40Andy Greenwald?

  It is an animated film.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:42Andy Greenwald?

  It dropped on Netflix a month ago. It has broken a Netflix record because week to week, it has grown exponentially in terms of viewership. It is now.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Moments like these, you're like, wow, there's just a whole other world out there.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah. Not only on there, on our beloved Spotify, the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack is the number one.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 14:01Andy Greenwald?

  Album. All of the tracks are like top 10 globally.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:06Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe this is just a dispatch from Daddington Island, but I'm sounding like I have some sort of cultural cachet here as if it's underground. I love this movie.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Oh, great.

• 14:15Andy Greenwald?

  I genuinely thought this was great. So this is an animated film made by Sony for Netflix.

• 14:21Andy Greenwald?

  About a K-pop girl group called Huntrix, who are very popular. But they are also, when they are not on stage, demon hunters, keeping demons out of soul and our dimension. The demons, in order to fight back, come introduce a boy band called Saja Boys, and they have a great song called Soda Pop, and they start to steal souls through their popularity. Are you ready for the twist?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:47Andy Greenwald?

  The leader, I mean, I was gonna say, I don't know if trios can have leaders, but basically the front woman of Huntrix, Rumi. She's half demon.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 14:55Andy Greenwald?

  And she's been hiding it.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 14:57Andy Greenwald?

  So her struggle is real.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 15:00Andy Greenwald?

  My children are obsessed with this movie and there are, I actually asked my younger daughter the other day if she could tell when I really like something or not, and she said, yes, it's obvious.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 15:09Andy Greenwald?

  Which was, I thought I've been doing a pretty good job.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:12Andy Greenwald?

  I have not.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 15:14Andy Greenwald?

  I genuinely liked it. I thought it was clever. I thought it was bright. I think the songs are actually very, very good because they hired all the K-pop industry ringers.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:21Andy Greenwald?

  And it was kind of fun to see a kids movie that didn't follow the same, let's just make everything noisier with fart jokes.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:28Andy Greenwald?

  Template that everyone else does. It had, it had like elements of like manga and anime, and it was just a very enjoyable watch. I'm angling to get on big picture to talk, to talk it up.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  I think they should let you on already. I mean, I know Sean has like this longstanding rule that you.

• 15:45Andy Greenwald?

  That, what, that I only talk about kids movies?

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:47Andy Greenwald?

  I, judging by the texts that I was trading with those two, it does seem like a me for Dobbin swap might happen regarding Too Much and K-pop Demon Hunters. Which frankly would benefit everyone. So, okay, so maybe we'll circle back, but I had to get that taped off because, like, I feel like Chris would end the podcast if I said any of those words.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. He would have checked out like five minutes ago.

• 16:13Andy Greenwald?

  Do you feel?

• 16:14Speaker 03

  He'd be checking his email right now.

• 16:15Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the question. You've been watching us do this for a long time. Do you feel like Chris checks his email during the podcast less now that we're on camera?

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, he kind of can't anymore, right?

• 16:28Andy Greenwald?

  Let me rephrase this. Now that we're on camera, do you check your email more during the podcast? That's true, you kind of can't. Oh, speaking of email and speaking of Chris.

• 16:40Andy Greenwald?

  In the Mailbag episode, we talked a lot about some of our favorite moments from podcasts past.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  And it has blown my mind that some listeners have, A, have the audio files.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I know.

• 16:52Andy Greenwald?

  And B, have shared them with us.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:54Andy Greenwald?

  Can I just say, please keep doing this? I don't, again, I don't really get into the nuts and bolts of production calendars and email access for this podcast, but if it's not overtaxing the Spotify servers.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 17:07Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like we could crowdsource some sort of archive.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  I know.

• 17:11Andy Greenwald?

  So not just ones of me, but like-

• 17:12Speaker 03

  And then probably enter into like the National Library or something.

• 17:15Andy Greenwald?

  Well, thank you for saying that. Chris and I have long talked about which university we would donate our papers to, the way all of our favorite authors have.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  It has to be like Temple, right?

• 17:24Andy Greenwald?

  I think it has to be Temple. I feel like some of the great writers have always go to University of Texas at Austin. Like, that just seems like a real repository of-

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:34Andy Greenwald?

  Old white male greatness. But I think you're right, it's probably gotta be Temple. But anyway, so if anyone has, like if your computer was just downloading stuff, whatever, Hollywood prospectus episodes, because we don't have any of it. It would be fun, and it also might allow us in the future, when we half-ass shows like this, we could just run classics.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Run back the Bourdain interview.

• 17:54Andy Greenwald?

  Reruns. Would you guys have to, well, could we run it back? Well, let's-

• 17:59Speaker 03

  We'll chat, we'll chat.

• 18:00Andy Greenwald?

  ESPN seems busy with other things right now, they probably wouldn't notice. Okay, so, next topic for us. One thing that happened while we were on our little mini-holiday was the Emmy nominations came out.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  The bellwether of TV greatness.

• 18:14Andy Greenwald?

  Truly. What, what was, do you have a capsule takeaway from this before we delve into the specifics? Because I think a lot of takes have already been-

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think my main takeaway is that they are essentially, the most like egrigarious like nominate- were all of the White Lotus things. And basically, every single guest star in the studio being nominated.

• 18:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, just for the record, I'm, let me call this up. The, one of the funniest nomination or category lists in history.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  Outstanding guest actor in a comedy series?

• 18:48Andy Greenwald?

  Outstanding guest actor in a comedy series.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  I'm looking at it right now.

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, ready? Jon Bernthal, The Bear. Bryan Cranston, The Studio. Dave Franco, The Studio. Ron Howard, The Studio. Anthony Mackie, The Studio. Martin Scorsese, The Studio.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  I mean, up-and-comer Martin Scorsese, I'm glad he can finally get a shine.

• 19:05Andy Greenwald?

  To be clear, you don't get nominated if you don't get submitted. So all of these people were submitted. All of their reps were like, cool, that seems like a fun idea. What's funny is it was in the news before the nominations were released that there was a rule change specifically regarding guest Emmys.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  And everyone's like, oh, we finally cleaned up that category. And what it was, was that you couldn't submit as guest if you had previously been nominated for the same part as a lead or a supporting. Meaning, the only relevance this year was Meryl Streep had been nominated for her role in Only Murders in the Building last year and was technically a guest in this past season.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:50Andy Greenwald?

  But she wasn't allowed to be nominated.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  All right.

• 19:54Andy Greenwald?

  This did nothing. This cleaned up nothing.

• 19:58Andy Greenwald?

  But the outrageousness of that category is a good jumping off point for, I think, the larger takeaway. And we can go through other stuff, like there are smaller details, there are wins, there are happy stories here. And who are we to rob joy from people?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  That's what this podcast is about.

• 20:13Andy Greenwald?

  It is. And I'm about to say the word severance. So you know I'm about to rob joy. No, it is that there is an enormous, maybe unprecedented category clump where basically White Lotus was nominated for Best Drama Series. And nearly every actor not named Schwarzenegger or Nivola was also nominated for being on the show. Severance is nominated, all the actors are nominated, and the directors and the writers and that. Leaving, especially with these categories, with these large casts, leaving very little room for any kind of diversity within the categories.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:47Andy Greenwald?

  Some people pointed out, far be it from me to be the one to point it out, that while it's wonderful that Andor was nominated multiple times across categories, including Best Series, no actors from Andor, except guest performer Forrest Whitaker, were nominated. Let me speak on this for a second.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  Please.

• 21:07Andy Greenwald?

  There are a number of culprits here, but I think the biggest culprit is the same thing that we often talk about in the podcast in terms of our ability to keep up with stuff. There are too many television shows and Emmy voters are not that different from anyone listening to this podcast. They are not watching all of these shows. They are watching very few of these shows. In fact, they are probably just watching-

• 21:32Speaker 03

  They're probably just watching Severance and White Lotus.

• 21:33Andy Greenwald?

  And White Lotus, or in the studio.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  And the studio.

• 21:35Andy Greenwald?

  Industry facing favorite shows starring people that they either recognize or they respect or support. And there's nothing wrong with that. Specifically in regards to White Lotus, one thing that's worth mentioning that I feel like isn't often remarked upon is that the Emmy nominating process, you're divided into peer groups. So actors are nominated because they've been voted on by actors. Directors are nominated because they've been voted on by directors. It is not the whole body.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  I see.

• 22:02Andy Greenwald?

  So you could, I'd be very curious if there's any data as to which peer group of Emmy voters watches the most television in their spare time. Maybe we could bring some of those guys into the larger pool. But White Lotus, for example, for whatever you thought of the recent season, it has become known as an actor showcase.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:22Andy Greenwald?

  For actors who are, you know, Mike White lifts people up from, not necessarily from anonymity, but from maybe cult favorite status or whatever. Jennifer Coolidge, Parker Posey gives people like Jason Isaacs opportunities they haven't had before. Sam Rockwell has long been beloved and Walton Goggins. So actors are like, A, this guy writes for actors. B, these actors are, quote, "doing it the right way." They're all traveling to Thailand and working for scale for the love of the game and for the love of the ensemble.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Just to get to be a part of it.

• 22:54Andy Greenwald?

  And probably that's the show actors most want to be on for their own career. So I'm not saying there's ulterior motives. I looked down that list of nominees, like, I'm not taking any of them off.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  So you think this is less of like a Globes thing of like, let's just get as many famous people as possible at our award show and more of like- Friends voting for friends.

• 23:13Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's more like, well, I think, I think it's, I think it is actors looking out for actors. And also actors watching certain shows that showcase actors.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:24Andy Greenwald?

  I also think, like, so for example, we could say, and if there's one place that's gonna say that industry was snubbed, it's this podcast. So industry was-

• 23:32Speaker 03

  You know what? I'm glad industry was snubbed because-

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, speak on it.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  It's still, that means it's still our cool indie show that, and like, you know, one day, one day we'll get our due.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  You think?

• 23:44Speaker 03

  And we'll be like, we were there from the beginning.

• 23:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think we've already been there. I feel like we've already gotten our flowers for that. But I, I agree, it keeps it underground, it keeps them hungry.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:53Andy Greenwald?

  But I also think that we have a serious structural problem that is similar to the, so when Chris and I talk about TV shows, either when we talk about it, or we hear from listeners, there is a barrier to entry for ongoing shows, where people are like, well, I've missed the ship. I've missed the boat.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:09Andy Greenwald?

  It's in its third season, when am I gonna catch up? Or maybe I will catch up, but it'll be in some summer when I've had dental surgery and I'm home, or whatever. Um, I feel like Emmy voters are in a similar place, where there probably is enough ambient noise now that my Hala or Ken Lung, just to use the industry examples, or Marisa Bella, are excellent.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:29Andy Greenwald?

  But they're also probably like, it's the third season.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:33Andy Greenwald?

  And, and it does seem to be that in terms of like-

• 24:35Speaker 03

  I have so much Severance to watch.

• 24:36Andy Greenwald?

  I have so many hours of Severance. I mean, I heard she goes to Newfoundland, that's a whole episode. Um, there is like this, this barrier to entry and this, this fatigue, this buildup. It seems like historically with the Emmys, shows either break through right away, because it's the hot new thing, or maybe they finally build up their momentum for their second season. Um, and then away they go.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Or it's like a season six kind of thing, where people are like, well, we should probably give them their-

• 25:04Andy Greenwald?

  But even in that, it's often in the, the peer categories.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:09Andy Greenwald?

  So like, The Wire, you know, really never, I think, never won a single Emmy. I may be wrong about that. It may have won a technical one. But it wasn't even nominated until its final season, and it was nominated for like, writing and directing.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  It's insane.

• 25:22Andy Greenwald?

  So, look, I also think it's worth noting, as we often have to in these things, the Emmys are not the award show for, you know, critical excellence. It's the industry celebrating itself.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:35Andy Greenwald?

  And no wonder the studio got, you know, a record-breaking number of nominations. I love the show, but I think people are supporting it, A, because it's about itself.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:45Andy Greenwald?

  But B, it's also about itself in a kind of, um, uh, old-fashioned, "Look what we used to be able to do, maybe we could do it again."

• 25:54Speaker 03

  And isn't this so cool? And isn't this so fun and high stakes? I mean, I too, I love the studio. I think it was hilarious. Um, but yeah, I mean, Hollywood loves to

• 26:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Watch Hollywood.

• 26:07Andy Greenwald?

  We both remember our favorite Best Picture winner, The Artist. You know, we all love movies about people making movies. Um, let me run through a couple of other things that I'm happy about. And then, please jump in if there's others that you agree with. I mean, Severance getting tons of nominations, a high-quality show that certainly deserves the attention, is clearly beloved in the industry and by people on Reddit who hate me. So, I wish them all well.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  And original, original.

• 26:30Andy Greenwald?

  And an original idea, yes, and an ongoing series. Um, I'm more excited by, as I said, the nominations for Andor, which were plentiful. Sidebar, it, I still think, I know it would be hard to litigate or, um, or articulate, but I do miss a showrunner Emmy, because the nature of it is that our friend Tony Gilroy, who is, everyone understands that he is the, he is the mastermind of the show. His nomination comes as being an executive producer for Best Drama Series. He is not nominated for writing. His brother Dan is nominated for writing one of the episodes that he wrote. Even Dan Gilroy, with all of the Gilroy pride, will admit that his script passed through his brother's typewriter, as they say beforehand.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 27:14Andy Greenwald?

  So, I don't think Tony's crying about this, but I do think it's worth noting. I think he'll be okay. He'll probably be fine. Um, enormous breakthrough for the pit.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  A Max original.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  Our guy.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  And our guy, Dr. Noah, what did he say? He said like, if he had known it would have been 20 years, 20 years would pass between nominations, he would have enjoyed them more the first time. Um, special shout out to Catherine Lenassa, nominated as well. Um, the- A few years ago, when we were talking about how much we love The Bear Season One, we always paused to say like, we also love the story of The Bear Season One.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:49Andy Greenwald?

  Coming out of nowhere, people feeling good about it, excited about it, making new stars. The pit is that story again.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:57Andy Greenwald?

  I, in a way, it makes total sense that it's broken through, but it is still kind of surprising.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's classic television in every sense. And for a long time, people thought, oh, they don't, people don't really want that anymore.

• 28:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and if they want it, it's like a TNT original and it's not playing in the same sandbox as the more ambitious prestige shows. And it absolutely is, and it deserves to be there. And I think it has a good chance to win. Adolescence showing up majorly in the anthology series categories. Most of the actors getting nominated as well. Director, awesome, one of the greatest shows of the decade.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  I have not gotten around to that one.

• 28:37Andy Greenwald?

  You haven't done it. So, okay, how does?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Andy.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Let me think about how this is gonna work for you.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  When do I wanna set it? I understand it's four episodes. I understand, I can get through it quick. When do I wanna set aside time to watch a show about?

• 28:50Andy Greenwald?

  You watch Fear the Walking Dead.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  That's so different.

• 28:55Andy Greenwald?

  I think, hmm, I think that, okay, here's my-

• 28:59Speaker 03

  I think that I'll watch it in November when I am doing my due diligence in putting together my favorite TV of the year list.

• 29:09Andy Greenwald?

  And you're voting in some civic elections, you know, just some local stuff.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  Just maybe some amendments on the ballot here in CA. We said this when we covered the show, I'll say it again to you. It is not, it is absolutely harrowing.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:23Andy Greenwald?

  And gripping.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:24Andy Greenwald?

  But it is not unpleasant.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:28Andy Greenwald?

  Especially, the, one of the brilliant things about the show, I think, is that, you know that, you know the whole deal, four episodes, four single shots. The first episode has the, the, like, language and grammar of a procedural.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, okay.

• 29:43Andy Greenwald?

  So you are not as emotionally distraught in the beginning. It appears to be just like a remarkably, like, beat by beat TikTok examination of the police system.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's only at the end of the episode that you start to realize some of the emotional things that are gonna be tugged on. And then the next episodes, the episodes don't go, don't pick up at the end of the previous one. So you have a minute to like- You have a minute to breathe. That said, I would not binge them all in one night.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:11Andy Greenwald?

  But if you can make it through the classic Robert De Niro film, Ronin, I think you can do, I think you can do adolescence.

• 30:20Andy Greenwald?

  I also wanted to shout out my favorite actor, Brian Tyree Henry, getting a nomination for Dope Thief, which, all due respect, did not really deserve other nominations. But that was an example, and maybe it's because of his stature, his previous affection from the Academy and from the industry. But in a weird way, that was an outlier, because we're talking about like Ken Loong and other actors. Everything was so hive mind, in the sense that writers, directors, and actors were all nominated from the shows that clearly people were watching. So just seeing a different show listed in there, an actor recognized when his show wasn't, felt very rare.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:55Andy Greenwald?

  And worth celebrating. I mentioned Forest Whitaker nominated for Andor as Saul Guerrero. He's amazing in it. He deserves it.

• 31:06Andy Greenwald?

  You were mentioning before, like, is it Golden Globes-y and like trying to get celebs there? I don't know if that's the case, but I will say the guest area is... So Cate Blanchett nominated for, disclaimer, a show that I promise you only Chris and I finished. Like, I'm not even sure if the other members of the Corone household finished it.

• 31:28Andy Greenwald?

  But she's nominated because it's Cate Blanchett.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:30Andy Greenwald?

  So, not that she was bad, but I don't really think that that was a show that people were out here celebrating. I thought generally there are two fantastic categories worth

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:43Andy Greenwald?

  calling out. One is supporting actor in a limited series, limited or anthology series or movie.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:51Andy Greenwald?

  This is just a murderer's row. This category, Javier Bardem for Monsters, The Menendez Story.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Didn't catch that one.

• 31:59Andy Greenwald?

  Didn't watch it, but always here to celebrate Javier Bardem. For me, I'm just gonna assume that this nomination is for his appearance on Conan Must Go, the Conan O'Brien travel program, where he shows Conan around Madrid.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 32:10Andy Greenwald?

  Um, Bill Camp from Presumed Innocent, one of the best performances of last year.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  I love Presumed Innocent so much.

• 32:17Andy Greenwald?

  Presumed Innocent, so Presumed Innocent is, that's the other interesting thing.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Where's our Presumed Innocent this summer? Where is our Hijack?

• 32:23Andy Greenwald?

  I know.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Apple.

• 32:24Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, this is such a good call.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Right?

• 32:26Andy Greenwald?

  That's what we should be doing right now.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  I know. Where is our, like, campy, slightly silly, but extremely compelling mystery show?

• 32:34Andy Greenwald?

  Both of those shows, we talked about it last year. Summer movie theaters used to have Presumed Innocent, literally the movie, or that type of movie, uh, or Hijack. Not here. Now, was I pleased to see Idris Elba on Chicken Shop Date, or whatever that show's called?

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was on Good Hang 2.

• 32:53Andy Greenwald?

  He was, that's, he's been, he was doing a podcast tour.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 32:56Andy Greenwald?

  He's delightful, but I want to see him on a plane.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  I know, exactly. I want to, yeah.

• 33:02Andy Greenwald?

  Did you ask him, when you were at Good Hang, did you ask him about Hijack, season two, To Jack?

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance, but...

• 33:08Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Amy has watched Hijack?

• 33:11Speaker 03

  I think she would like it a lot. Um, I'll suggest that to her next time.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I've got a couple other notes for that show.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Okay, great.

• 33:18Andy Greenwald?

  No, I love the show. Um, Presumed Innocent, not nominated as a series, but tons of the actors got nominated. Jake got nominated, Ruth Negga got nominated, Bill Camp got nominated, Sarsgaard is also in this category. Those performances are stellar. I was thrilled to see them. Also in this category are Owen Cooper, the kid from Adolescence, who is stunning. And, oh, here's your way, there's a clip online, Kaya, of him and De Niro on the same British talk show, because De Niro was promoting, like, Zero Day.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Oh, God, that show was so...

• 33:49Andy Greenwald?

  And someone's like, uh, "Mr. De Niro, do you have advice for Owen Cooper?" And he's like, "Keep doing what you're doing."

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 33:55Andy Greenwald?

  And the kid's like, "Okay, grandpa."

• 33:57Speaker 03

  He's like, "Who are you?"

• 33:58Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. Uh, Kid is incredible. Ashley Walters is, uh, plays a cop on Adolescence. He's in the first two episodes. Excellent, deserving of his nomination. And Rob Delaney for Dying for Sex, a show that I did not finish, but have nothing but good feelings for. I support you. Not for me, I don't think, but I respected and.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  I heard it was good. I didn't watch it, but I heard it was good.

• 34:21Andy Greenwald?

  This that these are the kind of hard hitting takes that people tune into to watch for. The other category that I really liked, strangely enough, is directing for a comedy series.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 34:31Andy Greenwald?

  I just felt like this was a really cool and diverse group of directors. So Jim Burrows, I call him Jim because would people have been famous for 40 years and their nicknames become famous? I feel like those of us who have never met them can use them.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 34:47Andy Greenwald?

  Like Bob De Niro, I feel like we could say. James Burrows, legendary, the, the, the legend of multicam directing from Cheers through basically Will and Grace, every show you've loved in the last 40 years. Gets nominated for mid-century modern, a Nathan Lane comedy that I haven't watched, but I'm sure the same people who like dying for sex.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  I'm sure it's lovely.

• 35:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  People like it and that's great.

• 35:09Andy Greenwald?

  People like it, but I'm, I'm happy to see him nominated at the same time that Lucci on yellow for hacks. And, and Io Adebry get nominated for the bear. Io famously, this was her directorial debut. Very cool. Seth Rogen directed the shit out of the studio.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:28Andy Greenwald?

  Like not a vanity thing, like that show is spectacularly directed. And one of the reasons why I think it is good and acclaimed is because it had such a specific aesthetic point of view. And then Nathan Fielder, who doesn't get brought up on this podcast very often, except when people are slandering or comparing me. Rehearsal, people love it. I assume it's like mid-century modern.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

• 35:51Andy Greenwald?

  But I.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Same sense of humor.

• 35:52Andy Greenwald?

  Same sensibility.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 35:54Andy Greenwald?

  But broadly speaking, this is the equivalent of like a student with this Emmys, this is like a student film getting nominated for an Oscar. Because there's nothing else about the entire nominee list that suggests Nathan Fielder is being watched by anyone. Except maybe the comedy directors who vote on their own category. So I thought that was, those were cool categories.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  I'm also having that same confusion with the bear that I always do where I'm like.

• 36:16Andy Greenwald?

  Which season is this?

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm for this literally up until I just Googled which nap, which episode napkins was, I was like, oh, we're talking about the latest season of the bear. Um, nope.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  Talking about season three.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  And it was even more confusing last year when

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:31Andy Greenwald?

  there was like a backlash seemingly because of the response to season three. But Liza Colanzaias won for season two, a season that did not have her breakout episode.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 36:44Andy Greenwald?

  She's nominated again this year for the season

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Which she's also phenomenal.

• 36:46Andy Greenwald?

  which she did her stellar work in.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:48Andy Greenwald?

  Um, this, these nominees are for season three.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Also, I'm such, I just gotta say it. The Bears is not a comedy. I'm sorry. I know.

• 36:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think that the takeaway here, one of the takeaways remains like, this isn't working.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 37:03Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but at the same time, uh, when you see who's nominated, we were saying like, who, who are the comedy directors?

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:10Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I don't necessarily know if we should, I think keeping comedy writing and comedy directing separate does make sense.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 37:17Andy Greenwald?

  But The Bears is just not a comedy and it's not their fault.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  I will say that I O Debray is often the only funny part of The Bears, so.

• 37:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. That's true. Um, Josh the Tumor was nominated for writing Say Nothing. Say Nothing Otherwise Pretty Much Blanked, which sadly doesn't surprise me.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:36Andy Greenwald?

  Um, especially with such a, I mean, it would be in the limited anthology series category and that's just a stacked category.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I feel like the Emmys don't love nominating international actors or like actors not from the US.

• 37:51Andy Greenwald?

  I think both that and I think that they can give themselves a pass for ignoring it. It's like, well, we didn't know about them. We didn't, we'd never heard of those people anyway. That, I mean, it's hard to argue that when all of Adolescence gets nominated.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 38:04Andy Greenwald?

  But that show was a phenomenon. Um.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  And it was four episodes.

• 38:09Andy Greenwald?

  And it was only four episodes. Still too much for you, but.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  I'll get to it.

• 38:13Andy Greenwald?

  You'll get to it. Um, here's a fun quiz for you.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:17Andy Greenwald?

  Department Q.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 38:18Andy Greenwald?

  Did you watch that?

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 38:21Andy Greenwald?

  You can say not yet.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Not yet.

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  This is gonna be a busy fall for you. Uh, Department Q received one Emmy nomination.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:28Andy Greenwald?

  Can you guess what it was nominated for?

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Hmm, no, I could not even.

• 38:35Andy Greenwald?

  I respect it.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  I couldn't.

• 38:36Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna tell you, no, you couldn't.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  The logline of the show, that show is the one with the detective.

• 38:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, Cold Cases.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 38:43Andy Greenwald?

  In Edinburgh, Scotland.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  It was nominated for main title theme music.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 38:49Andy Greenwald?

  Fun fact, Scott Frank, friend of the pod, co-composer of the theme music.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 38:55Andy Greenwald?

  And frankly, that's enough talent.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:57Andy Greenwald?

  I'm like, and Tony's like this too. Tony Gilroy is like, oh, you know, Nick Britell and I would sit in his apartment on the Upper West Side coming up with, I'm like, guys, pick a lane.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  This also remind, did you see who is composing the music for Euphoria, season three?

• 39:11Andy Greenwald?

  Hans Zimmer.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Are you in?

• 39:14Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Hans Zimmer was a big fan of the first few seasons?

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably.

• 39:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that separates us.

• 39:23Andy Greenwald?

  The only other department Q note I would say is I did find it interesting that Netflix submitted it as a drama series, which suggests that they hope to continue it, or maybe they just thought that was their best chance.

• 39:35Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of snubs, I don't know, like we said, industry, I said, say nothing. Other shows that we've loved on the show that weren't recognized are English Teacher, Black Doves, The Mulaney Talk Show Experience.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  My favorite show of the year.

• 39:47Andy Greenwald?

  Is it?

• 39:48Speaker 03

  I mean, I really do love that show.

• 39:49Andy Greenwald?

  We love that show. But I, but I do think it's tricky. I think ultimately, I don't know what the fix here is unless they start doing something, unless they get into the, deeper into the Academy voting process and try to spice it up a little bit.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  What do you think the ultimate goal of the Emmys is? It's like, do they want to have the cultural cachet of the Oscars, but for TV? Is that their?

• 40:13Andy Greenwald?

  Does the, do the Oscars still have cultural cachet?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 40:17Andy Greenwald?

  What's weird is, for a long time, yes. I mean, I wrote this column many times back in the Grantland days, that even when prestige TV was really popping off, there still was this little brother syndrome at the Emmys where they seemed so thirsty for. Approval and fame and movie stardom, that they would just shower like if Al Pacino deigned to do an HBO movie, that movie was going to win everything.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:41Andy Greenwald?

  I think those days have changed, particularly as the Oscars have, and this is a, this is a big picture topic, but the Oscars have kind of detached from the cultural mainstream almost entirely. The biggest movies of the year are generally not recognized, with some huge exceptions, but generally not recognized at the Oscars. The Emmys have kind of been struggling with that. And I think that if you look at the drama series nominees, right, which we could just list, I'm sure, again, I said, of course, I was like, we're a little late on this, we'll just touch on it, and now we're in like minute 20.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:18Andy Greenwald?

  But here are the nominees, there are Andor, The Diplomat, Last of Us, Paradise, The Pit, Severance, Slow Horses, White Lotus. It's tough to argue.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:29Andy Greenwald?

  There, there's a reason for all of those shows to be there, and I think that the Emmys, and as much as they are a collective group that can be, if you can ascribe singular thought or motive to them, is always trying to do what we try to do whenever we can on this podcast, which is just grasp for some sort of mainstream monoculture consensus. To that end, whether you agree with me, or you have your own thoughts about like White Lotus and Severance, like, they were big shows. And they drive conversation as much as conversation can be driven by TV these days. I don't know, there's, none of them are Game of Thrones, I guess is the thing.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:10Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and none of them are, to go back even further, none of them are the West Wing.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 42:13Andy Greenwald?

  Where everyone's like, well, of course, or The Sopranos, you know, those days are probably past us. I think the inclusion of Paradise is probably the most interesting, and Sterling K. Brown nominated again. Hard to say whether Paradise's nomination is a kind of like, look, there's still TV for the rest of us, kind of thing.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  Or it's just Dan Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown are... Any known quantities and favorites.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  And famous faces.

• 42:42Andy Greenwald?

  And famous faces. I think the best argument that I've seen, and we've talked about versions of this for years, that I still think they should do, just to try to get their arms around what TV is in a different way, is if they would introduce an episode of the year.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:58Andy Greenwald?

  Award, and that would, you know, the second episode of season two of Last of Us would be there, but potentially.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  Pedro Pascal is nominated as.

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  Pedro Pascal is nominated for lead actor for a show he appears in three episodes of.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 43:13Andy Greenwald?

  But hey, he's Mr. Fantastic.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  It was a great performance.

• 43:16Andy Greenwald?

  He's very good.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  And it's also Pedro Pascal.

• 43:18Andy Greenwald?

  But I think it would be, yeah, exactly. Everybody loves looking at him.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  He's so cute.

• 43:22Andy Greenwald?

  How'd you feel? Did you see his thing about how he, after seeing himself in Wonder Woman 1984, he'll never shave again? Do you agree with this?

• 43:30Speaker 03

  I think that's a fair takeaway from that.

• 43:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was looking at this. I was like, wow.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that movie did a lot of things.

• 43:36Andy Greenwald?

  Also, it didn't do a lot of things, which is why we are where we are in the DCU. But I think what would be interesting in this episode of the year thing, if they could do it, is that it would put potentially,

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  you know, the pit fest episode of The Pit, the second episode of Last of Us, up against Ice Chips of The Bear season three, and maybe an episode of Traitors.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:58Andy Greenwald?

  Or Love Island or whatever. Like, I think that if it would be open for all categories, it would be very interesting to see the entire voting block be like, that was the TV, you wouldn't say moment, but the episode of the year.

• 44:12Andy Greenwald?

  It also might reflect the way TV is changing, which is a great way to segue to the other thing that happened while we were.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  Offline, which is CBS, as everyone now knows, CBS has canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and canceled the Late Show franchise entirely. And, you know, I think this part needs to be said again, purely for financial reasons.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  It has nothing to do with the multimillion dollar bribe they just paid to be president of the United States in order for a settlement to go through. I think that part needs to be said.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  A settlement to go through so that a merger may happen in the near future.

• 44:50Andy Greenwald?

  Between Paramount and Skydance.

• 44:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think there's a bunch of ways to go with this. And I think that the moral and corporate cowardice on display is disgusting

• 45:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:03Andy Greenwald?

  and sickening and bone chilling.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 45:07Andy Greenwald?

  I also think that there is a kind of none of these takes are new. I think people have this has been all the way through the spin cycle of takes.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:15Andy Greenwald?

  But I think that the conversation about the long term viability of the old late night talk show model is also on the table here. So again, as youth correspondent, let me get you let me hit you with a gotcha question. When's the last time you watched an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert?

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Like an episode in full?

• 45:31Andy Greenwald?

  You're like, ah, it's 11:35 PM. I've just finished watching KTLA local news.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  I haven't had cable in 10 years, so.

• 45:36Andy Greenwald?

  You're the problem.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Like, do I will I watch the interviews on YouTube?

• 45:41Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, like, I'll watch a 10 minute spot from that on YouTube. But like, yeah, I mean, I haven't had cable since I lived at my parents' house when I was in high school. So I, yeah.

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  So you're the problem.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  I am, yeah.

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm also the problem. Next year, Chris and I will both turn the age that is the ceiling, the absolute ceiling of the age group that advertisers want.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Oof.

• 46:07Andy Greenwald?

  So this is our last year of relevance, just to be clear, and.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Live it up.

• 46:11Andy Greenwald?

  It's totally fine.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Get those takes off.

• 46:13Andy Greenwald?

  The watch with Kaya and Benito Skinner or whatever launching 2027.

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  And I also could not tell you the last time I watched a talk show.

• 46:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:24Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, for me, it's more that I am asleep at that time.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:27Andy Greenwald?

  But it is so I think it's important like, look, I love Stephen Colbert.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:32Andy Greenwald?

  I love him as a comedian. I love him as a moral conscience. I love him as a voice on our TV screens. I spent time with him for an interview I did years ago. I did a cover story in him for Emmy magazine and he was.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  I wonder if that's still printing.

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  God, can you imagine?

• 46:49Andy Greenwald?

  I am going to talk about the death of media, though. Hold on, of magazines in this rant. He is as lovely as everyone says he is, you know, and is compelling and interesting a figure. I love the idea also of these franchises, because I also grew up in a time when you would hear rumors about David Letterman and what he was doing. And I couldn't stay up that late, but I wanted to because it seemed like there was a cool secret. By the way, there are no cool secrets anymore, except apparently industry, which we're gatekeeping. So the idea of these long-running totems of our cultural life, it matters to me. But I am not immune to the argument

• 47:32Andy Greenwald?

  that when I watch a clip of someone, let's say Megan Stalter on Colbert. I watch that after the fact. And I watch someone on Subway Takes or Hot Ones or-

• 47:47Speaker 03

  Chicken Shop Date.

• 47:47Andy Greenwald?

  Top Jar or Chicken Shop Date.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Chop Jar.

• 47:50Andy Greenwald?

  Chop Chop. That's an old person's show. No, we talked about Top Jar, right? That's when this like pretty British boy, posh British boy is like, best restaurant in Soho.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Oh, no. Oh, I haven't seen that one.

• 48:03Andy Greenwald?

  As someone who has only serviced London restaurant content, it's pretty good. Anyway, the point being, think about how much money is being spent on each of these things versus effectiveness and reach.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:15Andy Greenwald?

  I am sympathetic to that argument. It does remind me of the fact that like, so 20 years ago, when Chris and I worked at magazines, like, we were the beneficiaries of this ecosystem that we thought had guardrails on it, where everyone was kind of in on it. So corporations had huge advertising budgets that they would lavish on magazines. And the magazines could then publish. And then artists, in our case, we worked in music magazines, in part of their album rollout, would agree to cover stories with interviews and-

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Because there was no other way for them to get their message out.

• 48:50Andy Greenwald?

  And it all fed each other.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:51Andy Greenwald?

  And what felt incomprehensible until it happened, basically, you know, in the mid 2000s, you know, literally around 20 years ago, was that some of the players in this little-

• 49:04Andy Greenwald?

  Symphony of back patting decided, what if we didn't?

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  What if we didn't have to do it? What would happen if we didn't, if we surprise released an album? What would happen if we didn't agree to a cover story?

• 49:15Speaker 03

  What would happen if I just put all of this out on my own social media pages? And, or I did an interview, an interview magazine where my friend just talks to me.

• 49:24Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. And we all tumbled, you know? And music industry reformed and is now a different thing. But it does feel, it does feel existential because I don't believe them when they say that they're losing $40 million a year on the show or that there aren't other advantages to it. But the ecosystem where like movie studios are spending money and they're promoting movies with actors who have a, some ability to open movies and they go do the talk show and all that. It does kind of feel like a galaxy brain, well, what if we don't? Kind of moment.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it kind of feels like a brick at the foundation is being taken out and kind of being like, all right, is this thing going to topple or is everything going to be fine?

• 50:10Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it's also speaks to something that has been relevant in Hollywood ever since the tech companies took over, which is what business is anyone in?

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:18Andy Greenwald?

  When I wa, I don't know if you watched Jon Stewart on Monday, but he, I'm sorry, I don't know if you were served a reel of Jon Stewart on Monday.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  His monologue that he gave about, yes, okay.

• 50:30Andy Greenwald?

  And as fun and inspiring and sweet in some ways as it was and righteously angry as it should have been, his basic thesis, right, was you corporations owe something to the public and we provide value with our thoughts and creativity that can't be monetized.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:50Andy Greenwald?

  And good Lord, does that speak to my permission to live out soul?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Is this just like another step in the long road of like, everything's just going to be like AI slop eventually and no one is going to get paid to have like creative thoughts and opinions? I don't know, maybe.

• 51:05Andy Greenwald?

  Until someone says, hey.

• 51:09Andy Greenwald?

  Wait a second. Yes, that is where we're headed. And when I say someone, that's like saying like, we could stop global warming if we use paper straws. It's like, no, the trick is they told us we could do it if we painstakingly compost, but the fucking companies don't give shit.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, meanwhile billionaires are right on private chats.

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  So we can all speak, you know, stridently about the value of Colbert or art. But until someone who actually has-

• 51:36Speaker 03

  An intelligent consumption of media.

• 51:38Andy Greenwald?

  Until someone on the actual power, which is deeply consolidated feels that way. I don't know. I don't, I don't know what we're doing.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:47Andy Greenwald?

  I was glad to learn before we started recording that our parents, thanks to their diet at MSNBC, believe we're turning a corner.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, any day now.

• 51:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like, we got them.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  We got them.

• 51:56Andy Greenwald?

  I think the good guys are about to stage a pretty good comeback. I heard Hakeem Jeffries is gonna give a spirited press conference. And we're gonna nail it, but-

• 52:05Speaker 03

  Right after they get back from their vacation.

• 52:07Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's right. That's right. I mean, I can't wait for the Hakeem Jeffries pictures on a boat in Italy. I can like it on Instagram. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't intend for our talk about Colbert to be like as apocalyptic. And I do, and I also, I'm definitely not on the side of like, well, he should have made more money. But it was, it was, it was shocking, though. It was shocking only because it is not surprising that even regardless of the merger and everything, I would imagine that the powers that be at Paramount, Viacom, whatever the company is going to be called, have kicked the tires on this. Why are we doing this?

• 52:47Andy Greenwald?

  Sidebar, someone posted recently, there was a great HBO movie years ago about the Letterman and Leno, based on the book by Bill Carter called The Late Shift. And basically, it's a fictionalized version of all that intrigue. And one of the inciting incidents is like a, you're in the CBS boardroom and Sir Howard Stringer, the head of the company is like, how are we gonna get into late night? That's a $70 million a year business. And they're like, let's just throw money at Letterman or Leno. We need to be in that business. Those days are over.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:19Andy Greenwald?

  But- Yeah, I don't even know. I went off on a tangent of something that I didn't even remember what I was saying.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's just like, I guess, continuation of the slow death of cable.

• 53:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, sorry. I was just saying, it's not surprising that they considered it. But it was shocking the way that they did it without, honestly, the shamelessness.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:38Andy Greenwald?

  Because they did do this because of the bribe and the merger. Or they were, they felt empowered to do it.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:48Andy Greenwald?

  If David Ellison at Skydance had said like, you know what? It's important to me that we have a strong, independent voice at 1130. And that Stephen Colbert is one of the last, you know, 360 entertainers we've got. He can sing, he can dance, he can make people laugh, he's charming. Then it would still be part of their rotation. Whether he said, get that lib off my screen, or he was just like, I don't really care about that. I'm looking to maximize shareholder value. The outcome is the same.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:14Andy Greenwald?

  And, and it's a huge bummer.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, would it have happened in this way five years ago? I don't think so.

• 54:22Andy Greenwald?

  No, it, it, it's cutthroat in a way that is maybe the new normal, right? Like, because they also said, clearly, his contract is, it's over when his contract ends. I am not a client of James Baby Doll Dixon, but I would imagine that conversations about extending that contract began months ago.

• 54:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:41Andy Greenwald?

  If not a year ago. And the fact that they were like, we're good.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:45Andy Greenwald?

  Is stunning, and that's the other reason why it sent reverberations, because, uh, nothing is safe.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:52Andy Greenwald?

  Not even Chris's chair on this podcast, after your performance today.

• 54:55Speaker 03

  Coming for you, Chris.

• 54:56Andy Greenwald?

  I think you've already, I think you're here. I think he's gonna have to do, I don't know what he's gonna do about it.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  No, I will retire back to my comfortable seat in the dark, in the back of the studio.

• 55:05Andy Greenwald?

  I think we need to work on that, now that I have you on mic. We don't mind you sitting over there in the dark, but I feel like we should be able to flick a light on and get you on cam.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  For the gotcha questions?

• 55:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yeah, I just feel like it's too much anonymity to stand behind your tapes.

• 55:21Speaker 03

  That's how I prefer it.

• 55:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, so after this, unfortunately, you'll be back in your corner and we'll only be able to hear you laugh in the background of Good Hang with Amy Poehler.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  No, you can hear me laughing in the background of this show, too.

• 55:32Andy Greenwald?

  Occasionally.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  When you make Teagan in character jokes.

• 55:34Andy Greenwald?

  That one got you. That was the best one. All right. Well, as always, it is a pleasure to talk to you for longer. Thank you for joining me today.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 55:41Andy Greenwald?

  Um, we will be back. I, I'm gonna see Fantastic Four this weekend.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  So, I know, but that's what sets me apart. That's what makes me a unique, strident consumer of art and creativity. I'm gonna go see Fantastic Four this weekend, so I'll talk about that on Monday. And I just hope everyone out there is enjoying their vacations. Cause.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Dog days of summer right now.

• 56:02Andy Greenwald?

  Must be nice.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Maybe you can catch up on some Love Island. That's what I've been doing.

• 56:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just gonna get back into MSNBC.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Good.

• 56:08Andy Greenwald?

  I've heard good things. So, okay, so we're gonna get into, if you've already listened to my conversation with Amanda Dobbins about Girls and the finale of Girls and this phenomenon of Girls, when it aired last year, year and a half ago?

• 56:21Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, this will not be new to you, but if you're interested in a fun conversation about a show that is back in the news, according to our youth correspondent, please stay tuned and enjoy a bonus episode of Stick the Landing. And otherwise, gosh, Baranski's, we'll talk to you soon.

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• 58:22Andy Greenwald?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Stick the Landing, a brand new podcast about endings. My name is Andy Greenwald and I am so excited to be joined today by my good friend, everyone's favorite podcast co-host, co-host of The Big Picture, co-host of Jam Session, Amanda Dobbins.

• 58:41Speaker 05

  Hi, Andy.

• 58:42Andy Greenwald?

  Amanda, I'm so happy to be podding with you.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  I'm thrilled.

• 58:44Andy Greenwald?

  Every week, we're going to look at a television series and its finale and look at it through the lens of the time past since it aired and maybe reflect back on what it all meant, how we feel about it. And obviously was very eager to have you join me and you suggested today's show, HBO's Girls.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  Yes. So to pull the curtain back a little bit, if I may, are we allowed to do that on this podcast?

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  It would be weird for a podcast to be confessional anyway, but maybe we could break ground today.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  Okay. The show that you originally suggested, I had never seen.

• 59:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  So this was a little bit of necessity in the sense of it's a show that I watched every episode of and finished.

• 59:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Because I tend to be a TV quitter.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  And especially like in this sort of great finales era that we are, that I assume you're focusing on, I guess it's pretty early, they're either the kind of like Game of Thrones-y, how will they resolve all of it?

• 59:43Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 59:44Speaker 05

  Like big world building finale things, which like no one wants to hear from me from. Or there is, I mean, that's kind of it finale wise, or there, I guess, like sitcoms or something. There's not that many shows where I committed to all of them and that we all committed to all of them, but they weren't like big tent shows.

• 1:00:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Girls falls in a very, kind of in a unique space because it ran for six seasons. It started in 2012 and ended in 2017, making, honestly, astonishing 62 episodes of television, of which you have seen 62.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:00:19Andy Greenwald?

  And it kind of bridges the gap between, for, especially for half hour shows, or I guess, I mean, this was categorized as a comedy at the Emmys and it was very funny. But from when comedies would just sort of be, you're hanging out with your friends until you're not.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:00:34Andy Greenwald?

  And then at the end, something weird would happen or it wouldn't, but it didn't really take away because there wasn't one single story to this more contemporary era of all shows are telling you a story and all shows have, I mean, it gave us the name of this podcast, all shows are an airplane trip that has to land successfully in order for the journey to have been worth it. I can't imagine that's how anyone started watching Girls and it's interesting to reflect on the finale to wonder if that's how anyone finished watching it.

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  Right. It is also functionally, the way the show is made is a kind of bridge between those eras, right?

• 1:01:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 05

  And I, I rewatched, I didn't do an entire series rewatch, but I went back and visited shows from each season.

• 1:01:10Andy Greenwald?

  Mallory Rubin set the bar pretty high because.

• 1:01:12Speaker 05

  I, I'm not going to compete with Mallory.

• 1:01:14Andy Greenwald?

  No, none of us can.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  But also, that's, that's not as many episodes of TV, right? She did Friday Night Lights?

• 1:01:19Andy Greenwald?

  Friday Night Lights was like 70 something.

• 1:01:21Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:01:21Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think, I don't think we as a people really are ready to grapple with how many episodes of things there were until relatively recently.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  How many episodes of the season was Friday Night Lights?

• 1:01:30Andy Greenwald?

  It start, it was 22, 22, then.

• 1:01:32Speaker 05

  Shut up.

• 1:01:33Andy Greenwald?

  Then 13. It was because it was.

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  There were 20, I remember that.

• 1:01:35Andy Greenwald?

  It was an NBC.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  There were 22 episodes?

• 1:01:37Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, talk about bridging the gaps. It's, that started as a broadcast network show and then ended as a more prestige.

• 1:01:42Speaker 05

  Totally, totally.

• 1:01:43Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't mean to take away from your accomplishments.

• 1:01:44Speaker 05

  Listen, no one's competing with Mallory. That's.

• 1:01:46Andy Greenwald?

  You get, you get your finishing flowers here.

• 1:01:48Speaker 05

  I had forgotten, first of all, like how great a show it is, and it's a really great show, but it is a show as TV show. Like it has a lot of the bones of, as you said, shows that we used to watch on network TV, like Hanging Out with Your Friends. And there are, there's an A plot, there's a B plot, there's like, are they gonna get together? There are some other, and it arcs over a season very beautifully. But it does have a more traditional structure. And as it keeps going, it is trying to engage with like a larger project and a larger TV project at the time. But in some ways, it's not totally built for that.

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  So the finale is like an interesting thing. Because it's trying, I guess, and is maybe remembered, as you noted, as some larger, it's part of this finale's project. But is it even built that way to be sort of like, this is our grand statement? This is the end of, you know, six years of what we've been building towards? Or is it just kind of a flourish on an experience that we all had?

• 1:03:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think one of the things that we're going to be talking about as we talk about the finale in the show is the way that Girls as a project was constantly almost at war with itself, where it was an independent filmmaker who was working within a medium that she didn't feel completely comfortable and servicing the medium in ways that felt true and sometimes in ways that felt more, not forced, but that she was trying to fit in.

• 1:03:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  And the finale is fascinating for that reason. It, it is, I'm sure other shows have done this. I always think of it as a Breaking Bad in the sense that it ends twice. The show ends essentially in the penultimate episode.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  Many of the characters do not appear again after that episode. And the actual finale, Latching, which we're going to get to.

• 1:03:43Andy Greenwald?

  Is, in a sense, one last short film from Lena.

• 1:03:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:03:48Andy Greenwald?

  Telling a story that she was interested in, ending things the way she wanted to end it, but not in the more conventional way.

• 1:03:54Speaker 05

  I would argue that it actually ends three times.

• 1:03:57Andy Greenwald?

  I love this.

• 1:03:58Speaker 05

  Because I don't know if you, and I should have texted you last night to do this, but I rewatched episodes eight, nine, and 10.

• 1:04:05Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, so did I.

• 1:04:07Speaker 05

  Okay, so episode eight is what will we do this time about Adam?

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:04:11Speaker 05

  And it is the last appearance of Adam Driver.

• 1:04:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:04:14Speaker 05

  As Adam, one of the most important creations of the show and one of the most important finds of the show. I mean, it is a real credit to Lena Dunham that she found Adam Driver, who's become one of the great actors of our generation and is lights out amazing on this show. But so that episode ties up the Adam and Hannah story, which is ongoing throughout the show and ties up a lot of the thematic stuff specifically. And I guess we're spoiling, right? We're talking about finale of things. So, I mean, I guess we can talk about the fact that Hannah gets pregnant in the last season.

• 1:04:54Andy Greenwald?

  It would be incredible if we danced around it.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  Right, right, right. But so, in some ways, the Adam episode, episode eight, like even, it justifies the pregnancy plotline for me.

• 1:05:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  Because of what it brings in terms of their, like, imagined life together and then their realization that it's not going to work out.

• 1:05:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 05

  And that this like, is like, really needs to be done and it's time to grow up. And that is like, the truest version of it, it's time to grow up.

• 1:05:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Speaker 05

  I think of the three. And then you get the penultimate episode, which is Goodbye Tour, which is all of the four women screaming at each other in a bathroom, and Tashana being like, I hate all of you.

• 1:05:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  Which is like, the true, honest ending of this show is like, a friend, a group of friends.

• 1:05:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, because, and we'll get into this, one of the things that always was confounding about the show was, are they friends?

• 1:05:46Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:05:46Andy Greenwald?

  What is their relationship to each other? It was very circumstantial and it was convenient at times.

• 1:05:50Speaker 05

  Sure. And I thought it was a very funny and honest snapshot of.

• 1:05:56Speaker 05

  You know, your early twenties, post-college friends and the way that a group of women friends grows apart as you grow older and you're, you know, you're growing as a person, you're finding different things, you're becoming different people. And yet, groups of women always have this insistence, the Marnie insistence of like, no, we need to heal and be together and have a group meeting in this bathroom. And it can get really ugly. But like, the ugliness and the love are kind of there simultaneously. As Jessa yells at one point to Adam, she's like, I hate her and that is why she's my best friend.

• 1:06:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, there was the line, was that in, there's, I would watch this episode where they have their, Adam and Jessa have a screaming fight.

• 1:06:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, they just like, absolutely.

• 1:06:39Andy Greenwald?

  She's like, obviously, you've never had a friend before.

• 1:06:40Speaker 05

  Right, exactly. That, to me, was a great, and like, in line with the rest of the show in terms of how the, how they wrap up the friend stuff. That worked. And then, and then you have latching, and then you have the finale, which I think a short film is an interesting way to describe it, because it is kind of closed off. It definitely also feels half-baked.

• 1:07:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Speaker 05

  And to me, the other reason I picked it is because I remembered it vividly and have not watched it since.

• 1:07:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, me too.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  And remember being like, what? And I hadn't examined my thoughts since then. So I was interested to go back. And I had a lot of thoughts, but one of them was like, oh, so did you guys just have like, a whole other season, sitting on the floor somewhere that you didn't get to make, and then you decided to make this coda or something? Like, what, there is, it is so tacked on, in a way. And it has moments of resolution and it's, there is, I guess, like, a larger takeaway in the, in the last shot, that I suppose is related to the rest of the series, though how it's related, I kind of hate. But it's interesting.

• 1:07:52Andy Greenwald?

  I want to get into that.

• 1:07:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's interesting, I- Like, why didn't it stop at episode nine?

• 1:07:58Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we can, I want to go back before we end up there. Although I do think, watching, and I rewatched the pilot and rewatched the finale, and there was a lot of intentionality in terms of twinning the two episodes where there's feeding in both, there's Marnie and Hannah in bed together in both. There's, there was some thought about, you know, mirroring it in sort of an interesting way, that at least it wasn't, it may feel tacked on, but there was thought about

• 1:08:25Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 1:08:25Andy Greenwald?

  Giving closure of the whole project. But I want to go back a little bit and sort of set the scene, because one of the things that I also feel is part of the conversation is, the years that this show was on the air were pretty momentous in terms of how we covered television and also how the culture moved.

• 1:08:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Andy Greenwald?

  And the show was a lightning rod for so much of it, because not only was it right down the middle of, I mean, like an arrow right in the heart of the culture machine. I read my own review of the first few episodes for Grantland, and I was like, well, this is going to strike a chord, because it's, the show is about most of the people who work at New York Magazine's Vulture, or other places like that.

• 1:09:02Speaker 05

  Amanda Dobbins worked at New York Magazine's Vulture. And lived in Brooklyn. At one point, I lived quite literally across the street from Lena Dunham.

• 1:09:12Andy Greenwald?

  Perfect.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  She lived in a much nicer apartment than I did, and she deserves that, because she's very accomplished and she had a successful show. But I, I was, I'm a few years older, but I was in Brooklyn, working at New York Magazine, and then, and here in Lena, as she came and went.

• 1:09:28Andy Greenwald?

  So it not only was reflecting the culture that was covering the culture, it also, in a really unique and sometimes confounding way, reacted to the culture in real time. It is maybe the most online show of all time, not because of necessarily its subject matter, but because you can feel The tweets piling up and then the show pivoting or responding or shrugging them off or taking insult or ignoring it felt in dialogue.

• 1:09:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:09:57Andy Greenwald?

  In a way that is interesting, but I want to go back a little bit and talk about, kind of try to set the tone for what came after. So the show premieres in 2012. Lena Dunham had made Tiny Furniture, which had gotten some acclaim on the award circuit, an indie film, and then got this television show.

• 1:10:15Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:16Andy Greenwald?

  And before it premiered and before Nepo Baby became part of our national discourse, the show was already a punching bag for those reasons.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  Right. And I think some of it had to do with it before it premiered, it got Lena Dunham was on the cover of New York Magazine.

• 1:10:32Andy Greenwald?

  Emily Nussbaum's profile.

• 1:10:33Speaker 05

  Yes, a glowing profile from Emily Nussbaum, who was at the time, like one of the, like the great TV critic.

• 1:10:41Andy Greenwald?

  Absolutely.

• 1:10:42Speaker 05

  It's funny to say that we were like more online then with regards to TV because all like this is one of many TV podcasts that you and I like participated.

• 1:10:54Andy Greenwald?

  There's really only two as far as I know, but yes.

• 1:10:56Speaker 05

  Sure. So there is like a larger volume of TV discussion now, but there was something very heated and focused about the way that people were, there were like fewer recaps. And so everyone was just in one place, kind of talking about it, or the people who were anyway.

• 1:11:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:11:17Speaker 05

  Anyway. And so it had a huge amount of attention before you could even engage with the thing and people threw some elbows.

• 1:11:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And I almost, I had forgotten two things in my rewatch of the pilot that I was reminded of. One was the pilot is a masterful pilot.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Andy Greenwald?

  It is absolutely jaw droppingly great. And I think it's only gotten greater because I've now had 11 years of watching other pilots and did not appreciate how good it was. It is. Sharp, it is, it is so funny. It is so brightly and broadly drawn. I was blown away by this as a pilot. The other thing I'd forgotten is that from the beginning, she steered into the skid and has Shoshana, like moments after being introduced, saying which Sex and the City character she is.

• 1:12:07Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  Knowing that this was, that there hadn't been an HBO Sunday Night Show about four women since Sex and the City.

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:15Andy Greenwald?

  And it was, all the coverage was already going to name that. So she, she hung a lantern on it.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:12:22Andy Greenwald?

  As we say in the TV business, right from jump.

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  She also, that has the, the famous line, "I'm gonna be the voice of my generation," or at least "our" voice of our generation. Which, you know, is very funny and also fueled a lot of the coverage because, I mean, millennials, I am a millennial, so I've existed for almost 40 years now sadly. But this was like, when millennials had graduated, this was like the beginning of the millennial media boom.

• 1:12:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Speaker 05

  If you will.

• 1:12:51Andy Greenwald?

  And let me tell you.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  And so she was a very early phase.

• 1:12:53Andy Greenwald?

  I loved it.

• 1:12:54Speaker 05

  Thanks so much.

• 1:12:55Andy Greenwald?

  From my position high on the shore, watching the beach at Normandy, I thought it was going great.

• 1:12:58Speaker 05

  Right. But so she became like the poster child for all of the old people yelling about avocado toast.

• 1:13:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. She sure did. And, and though I think she mentioned this throughout the run of the show, everyone quoted that line and she made peace with people quoting that line, but they never mentioned that the character is high on opium tea, which she delivers it.

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 1:13:22Andy Greenwald?

  So you gotta give credit where credit is due. She was in on, in on the joke.

• 1:13:26Speaker 05

  Well, that became kind of a larger question, and I'm curious to hear what you think now about the show, which is, how much was it in on the joke? And how much, how self-aware was it? And how much was it parroting these people versus?

• 1:13:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And how good is it to be in on the joke? Because then you just seem defensive and open to anything as opposed to rising above it. And that's a constant push-pull of. Internet life and of just social life in general. Watching the pilot now, I can say it again, I cannot believe how funny it was. But but also, the fact that so much about the pilot is about these characters all blithely saying that their parents support them, or in the case of Adam Driver's character saying that his grand, he would never take money from his parents, but his grandmother sends him $800 a month. That like, I didn't remember that aspect of it.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Andy Greenwald?

  So he could continue his life as an actor slash woodworker. That's what the show was satirizing and highlighting. And and again and again, the thing that the show was holding up for you to consider was taken and used as a weapon against it.

• 1:14:29Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:14:30Andy Greenwald?

  The show was at no point, the show was always aware that it was about people who were in between childhood and adulthood, hence the name, and the people taking money or not being able to afford New York. That was baked in.

• 1:14:42Speaker 05

  Yes. Though, that brings up an interesting point throughout the show, and especially the last season, which is, what are you to do with the sincerity that is also a part of the show? And these, these people are ridiculous, and the show is aware of that and is making fun of them, but also has you rooting for them, and especially the Hannah character, who goes on a trajectory through each season, but really through the show as a whole, and winds up at an interesting place in the finale. And are we, how am I, how am I supposed to receive the, the final season and the message and what this character does and how this character feels about it?

• 1:15:25Andy Greenwald?

  Well, let's start with how you felt at the beginning, because I'm curious.

• 1:15:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Andy Greenwald?

  As, as someone who, as you said, was potentially the target audience for the show. How did you receive it? And how did you experience the first season or two of the show?

• 1:15:37Speaker 05

  There's always this thing when you see art that is so closely aligned with your experience, that it can feel like an attack as well as a representation.

• 1:15:52Speaker 05

  And it's, you know, it's not that, it's not that common for me, but for example, when I went to see Barbie this summer, you know, I think the, the depression Barbie and the starbursts and the, you know, not texting your friend back because of something on Instagram, that hit home with a lot of us, you know? And it's funny, but you're also like, oh no. And so, um, everyone else noticed that, everyone else does that too. And everyone noticed that. And so I think being in my late twenties in Brooklyn, I was just like, this is amazing. And also, oh no. And also, am I like that too? And is this, do I, like, do I need to clean up my own act so I don't get like looped in with this?

• 1:16:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  So I watched it with a mix of admiration and like very personal revulsion, but mostly admiration. I loved it. I, I thought it was like very funny and it is also so well made.

• 1:16:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:51Speaker 05

  But I think even at the time I could recognize like, oh, this is, this is smart. This is actually good.

• 1:16:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I think, and, and going back and looking at some of the coverage of it and also the ratings, which were consistent. I mean, HBO and ratings, especially then was, they were a little bit more opaque about things, but it was absolutely a success for them.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that one thing, I mean, I, I don't want to throw, throw out hyperbole, but it's hard to think of other shows that have been more defined by people's backwards perception of it than Girls. Actually rewatching some of the early episodes was a reminder that when the show was on the air, particularly the first two seasons, this was a Sunday night prestige show that people were excited about and talking about and engaged in. Not, um, not with that extra level of, you know, one eyebrow raised or what's she going to do now? Or how dare she? Or it did not feel like a provocation in a way that I think that it may have later in its, in its run. When, when did the Donald Glover character appear?

• 1:17:46Speaker 05

  That's season two.

• 1:17:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's season two.

• 1:17:48Speaker 05

  I know. Which to your point of this show being so aware and so. Like up its own, you know, digestive tract.

• 1:17:59Andy Greenwald?

  Um.

• 1:18:00Speaker 05

  And it happens so fast because at the sometime during the season one, there was, you know, rightful observation that this was a very white, very specific and very non-representative slice of specifically Brooklyn life. Uh, and so, and you know, they don't have any black friends. They don't have any like, it's just people without being supported by their parents, like whining. And this was also, I guess we take it for granted now that, I mean, Brooklyn is not totally genderified, but Brooklyn, like the idea of Brooklyn has been exported to the world via its artisanal, you know, wood boards or whatever. And this, that was still in process and people were still digesting their feelings about that.

• 1:18:45Speaker 05

  So it was fraught and they responded by immediately like having Hannah, the Lena Dunham character dating Donald Glover, like within six months.

• 1:18:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's the season two premiere.

• 1:18:58Speaker 05

  It is. And then he like disappears.

• 1:19:00Andy Greenwald?

  He disappears, but also he's a black Republican.

• 1:19:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02Andy Greenwald?

  And it's, it's not a natural fit on any level. And it, it, that also speaks to something that the show willingly engaged with and it was impossible for it to, uh, avoid. But like, what do we want out of our art? Right? Like it was interesting that in the frame, in the phrase you just used, which I think was very accurate, you were saying that it was a very specific slice of Brooklyn life. Sign me up. Like when I want, when I watch things, I want them to be specific.

• 1:19:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:19:26Andy Greenwald?

  I want them to feel true to the experiences of the creator.

• 1:19:29Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:19:29Andy Greenwald?

  I also want art that expands my mind and like see people who are curious and, and questing outside of their own little boxes. But the show was accurate to Lena Dunham's experience and to her friend group and her experiences there.

• 1:19:44Speaker 05

  You mentioned Sex and the City earlier because this is obviously in, in the lineage of.

• 1:19:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, there was sex and there was also the same city.

• 1:19:52Speaker 05

  Sure. Um, and, and for women and also for white women who are, live very privileged lives in a very small slice of York. And Sex and the City recently has had two seasons of a reboot. Called, uh, and

• 1:20:07Andy Greenwald?

  And just like that.

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  That, which I have seen every episode of. And I would like to go on record saying that I will watch every episode that they ever make of that show.

• 1:20:16Andy Greenwald?

  David Zaslove thanks you.

• 1:20:17Speaker 05

  Just until all of us die, you know? It's like one by

• 1:20:21Andy Greenwald?

  Them or us?

• 1:20:22Speaker 05

  I was just gonna say, one by one, they can pick them off.

• 1:20:24Andy Greenwald?

  And just like that, there were two people on the show.

• 1:20:27Speaker 05

  And, um, and it's not good. And there are a number of reasons for that, but it has been, the show, to its credit, it wants to deal with the very limited worldview of the first series. And so they've added a lot of characters of color. They've added queer characters. They are trying to like, explore the larger world. I, I think that, um, instinct is admirable. And I think the execution has not been at the level that you would want. But it's, you know, it's another way of saying these shows are built for, to do a very small thing.

• 1:21:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Speaker 05

  And when they add the Donald Glover character, you know, it's like

• 1:21:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, are you grading the show or the intention?

• 1:21:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:09Andy Greenwald?

  And, and honestly, it's another reason why I struggle separating my perception and my experience with girls from my perception of an experience with the internet or with Twitter.

• 1:21:18Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:21:19Andy Greenwald?

  And it bridges this era where, um, you know, Lena Dunham came from a pre-social media, into the beginning of social media, uh, era of the internet where like, confessional was everything.

• 1:21:30Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:31Andy Greenwald?

  Finally, an opportunity for everyone to, to tell their truths and to like, live their own Nemo song. And like, I'm gonna make my movie, I'm gonna do my live journal, I'm gonna share myself.

• 1:21:40Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:21:40Andy Greenwald?

  And there is an innate artistry in that. And for some people, that was true. She then sort of straddled this decade where everyone continued to try to be like, well, I'm here in good faith, representing myself. We are now in an era, and I think the show ending in 2017, which is a pretty momentous time in culture in America and in internet culture discourse, um, where it became, being actually like, your honest self was no longer really the goal, right? It is to have this curated, correct on everything, presentation of yourself.

• 1:22:11Speaker 05

  2016, 2017 is kind of the transitional

• 1:22:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I think, yeah.

• 1:22:15Speaker 05

  Moment, yeah. And it, I guess it ends Sort of when it should. I mean, maybe it could have ended a little sooner.

• 1:22:21Andy Greenwald?

  The show.

• 1:22:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, just but just generationally and in terms of social media and the idea, like the ideal way to put yourself out in the world and and also this idea of that you're just being raw and honest and it's just like me out there was still somewhat novel in 2012 and then was like way overexposed in 2017.

• 1:22:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but also the idea that like if I enter into this arena on good terms and good faith, I will be treated that way. My intentions will be received that way. You know, there's an element to some of the conversation within happening within the show and I want to talk about the show as a show too.

• 1:23:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Andy Greenwald?

  But I feel like it's impossible to separate them.

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:23:07Andy Greenwald?

  That reminds me of watching people like public intellectuals or writers or politicians who I admire bravely strapping on the pith helmet and going on to Twitter every day.

• 1:23:16Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:23:17Andy Greenwald?

  And responding to everyone.

• 1:23:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:23:18Andy Greenwald?

  Being like, aha, you've missed my key point here.

• 1:23:20Speaker 05

  A little posting disease.

• 1:23:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:23:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Andy Greenwald?

  Like I will, I will tweet through it.

• 1:23:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:25Andy Greenwald?

  And I will be judged victorious, you know?

• 1:23:28Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:23:28Andy Greenwald?

  And I say that honestly with empathy as someone who went through a period of that too.

• 1:23:33Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:23:34Andy Greenwald?

  And then was just like, wait, all of this is toxic. The show's attempts to have it both ways and have its good heart win out. I have more empathy for it when doing some of this rewatch and some of these explorations and an appreciation that the show is just a funny show.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 1:23:48Andy Greenwald?

  Week to week in spite of this.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  And when you're doing a rewatch, you, we are no longer living in the internet of 2014 and 2017. We're living in an internet that is in many ways much worse.

• 1:23:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I'm sorry. I jumped in. Yes.

• 1:24:01Speaker 05

  And also you and I, I think, have like finally grown up enough to be like, well, we're just not going to participate.

• 1:24:06Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not participating.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  We're not participating in it. But it's kind of like now when a show does COVID, you know, or when a show was doing COVID and it was still somewhat COVID and I was like, I do not want to live in this. But we have enough time now that it's more of a time capsule than having to like be watching it as not being a part of that ongoing conversation.

• 1:24:34Andy Greenwald?

  So I guess in the spirit of the show itself, building up over the six seasons to the finale, it's sort of interesting to consider, well, there's two things. One, the beauty of the pilot and of the first season is inextricably linked to watching a young creator figuring things out in real time on the fly with a great budget in front of our eyes. And so part of the charm of the show, I think, is the kind of cobbled together nature of it. Like, oh, we're going to take a flyer on this and we're going to center it on these people. But wait, we forgot, oh, but that's not working. Maybe we should add, because when you then jump into seasons five or six and you're like, well, the only person Lena Dunham seems to want to do scenes with is Andrew Rannells.

• 1:25:15Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:16Andy Greenwald?

  But like-

• 1:25:16Speaker 05

  Who is very funny.

• 1:25:17Andy Greenwald?

  Who's amazing and popped in the way that like other shows would prioritize people. Yes, Urkel took over Family Matters, for example. That's not fair to Jaleel White or Andrew Rannells. But that wasn't, that's not something that she wasn't thinking at the beginning. That we were joking about Shoshana being like, this is my fiancee you've never seen. I hate you all. You could kind of see that coming in season two or three, where the reason for her being there was really increasingly fuzzy.

• 1:25:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:44Andy Greenwald?

  What did, when you were watching or even rewatching those first few seasons, what did you think the quote unquote project of the show was, if it had one, other than episode to episode, season to season entertaining us? Was there a larger story that you felt keyed in on early?

• 1:26:00Speaker 05

  I think you're right that it's finding itself a little bit. And it's, in season one, it's not like I will now tell the story of Hannah trying to find herself in the world. I mean, I guess it is a tiny bit, but what it thinks the story of Hannah is, and it contained one season as like a 23 year old who just graduated college and is like getting HPV and has a bad boyfriend, as we all did once upon a time. It is contained and it's a little bit that classic- You have one perfect season that works on its own. And then at some point, if you're gonna keep making TV shows, then the momentum and

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

  the character building and the project changes just because you gotta keep, it's like a yes and, yes and, yes and situation. So I think it's idea of what Hannah could be, as opposed to season one just being a snapshot of like, a kind of a mess girl, sort of trying to figure it out and not really figuring it out, to will this kind of a mess girl figure it out and be a writer? And will she actually be the voice of her generation? And it starts to take that line more seriously than it does in the pilot, which is, as you said, a joke with her, like, on opioids.

• 1:27:29Andy Greenwald?

  And separate the finale totally from this, which is weird for the podcast that we're doing.

• 1:27:34Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:27:35Andy Greenwald?

  But one thing that I think is really, was radical then and remains radical, is how unsympathetic Lena Dunham is to her own protagonist. And like, the tendency towards, on shows, on long-running shows, is a softening. And of a, we love them, we love writing these characters and love playing them as much as you love watching them, and the edges get sanded off. And there are moments when you feel that happening, when people pair off, or people get happy endings, but you can then almost feel like someone, like, trying to keep themselves awake in a movie theater, not like me during Killers of the Flower Moon, by the way, just anyone.

• 1:28:09Speaker 05

  7:30, it was just like, that was wild.

• 1:28:10Andy Greenwald?

  I've made a terrible mistake. You could feel like, oh, no, we have to sharpen this up again. And there's a toughness to it. And like, I did not, I remembered, for example, from the pilot, I remembered Hannah coming to her parents and basically on drugs, saying she's, you know, a genius and begging them for more money. I did not remember her waking up, trying to order room service, finding out that the room's been closed, seeing two envelopes on the table, one marked Hannah, one marked housekeeping, both containing $20 bills, and her taking both.

• 1:28:37Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:28:38Andy Greenwald?

  I did not remember that.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, that is a prickliness and a, and a quote unquote, this is the worst word ever in cultural criticism, potential unlikability.

• 1:28:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Andy Greenwald?

  That is very rare.

• 1:28:49Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:28:50Andy Greenwald?

  Then, now, at any time in TV history.

• 1:28:53Speaker 05

  You know what I had forgotten, and this is not, this has nothing to do with prickliness, but um, it's radical, which is the degree of nudity on this show.

• 1:29:04Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 1:29:04Speaker 05

  And I, I mean, I remember at the time, this whole thing about, you know, Lena Dunham, who doesn't have a, a typical supermodel build, um, making a big deal out of like being very naked and having the type of body that you didn't normally see on screen, and frankly, you still do not, just like out and almost like putting it in your face.

• 1:29:26Andy Greenwald?

  All the time.

• 1:29:27Speaker 05

  A bit, um, which upon rewatch, yeah, it was just like they are, like, they're all naked and they're all, you know, doing a, having a lot of wild sex. I'd forgotten just how much sex there is in this.

• 1:29:36Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, one runner throughout six seasons of the show.

• 1:29:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:38Andy Greenwald?

  Is that Alison Williams is never naked and it's in the pilot.

• 1:29:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Andy Greenwald?

  When she's like, are you gonna wear a bath, are you gonna keep wearing a towel? And she says, yes. And she says, I should be seeing your breasts right now. And then in the finale, it comes up again.

• 1:29:49Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:29:50Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 1:29:51Speaker 05

  Though it's, I mean, she is never like 100% naked, but it, there's a lot of undress, you know, I would say. It's not like she's wearing full clothes all the time.

• 1:30:00Andy Greenwald?

  No, especially later.

• 1:30:01Speaker 05

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:30:02Andy Greenwald?

  With TV's favorite Eben Moss background.

• 1:30:04Speaker 05

  Yes. Um, I mean, just, he's very special. I, I forgot all about Desi.

• 1:30:08Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I forgot about Charlie. I mean, there's a lot of characters.

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  I, yeah. But, so I, I had forgotten that it's a conscious decision, the amount of nudity and also what she is doing with Hannah and how Hannah feels about her body. And the, and it's a, it's a running theme in the dialogue as well, which I thought was a very insightful and honest, you know, we're all of the nineties, like, supermodel, uh, Kate Moss era, like, we're, like, by we, I mean, women my age, like, we're all warped, you know? So, like, it's, for, she was talking about it and making it a part of the character, both physically and in the writing in a way that I thought, um, was really memorable. And also, it's not that it was like hard, it's, that's a hard thing

• 1:30:56Speaker 05

  to do. That's a hard thing to do. And that's a, another ask of the character, because she's just like always naked.

• 1:31:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:31:02Speaker 05

  You know, you're like, okay. So it is flaunting the expectations of a main character in an HBO show, HBO show or any other show about women.

• 1:31:12Andy Greenwald?

  The choices that the show made in terms of that performance, but also just the emotional places that it went to or the extremity of the emotions that it went to. And I feel like when we talk about extremity on television, we're talking about like how many people get beheaded on House of the Dragon or whatever.

• 1:31:29Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:31:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is not that. This is, and it is not, this didn't start a revolution in this type of storytelling or show. There's, I'm trying to think of anything that's comparable. I mean, you could say maybe like the television made by Michaela Cole, but she's made two limited run television shows.

• 1:31:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:31:48Andy Greenwald?

  She did not commit to, and I don't mean to say that one is better than the other. Looking at interviews with Lena Dunham around the end of the show, she keeps talking about how much better the British model is.

• 1:31:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:57Andy Greenwald?

  She was clearly stymied by the expectations from year to year stuff. During the course of the show's run, as we're leading up to talking about Latching specifically, did you feel like there were moments when it ought to have ended, when you felt like you really wished it had ended?

• 1:32:13Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny, I think in the moment, we all did. I think as the TV machinery became more obvious, you know, Adam and Jessa getting together was a real like eighth season of Friends. Let's, you know, throw this together and like see what's going on.

• 1:32:32Andy Greenwald?

  Shake it up and see.

• 1:32:33Speaker 05

  Right. Though then, of course, they had like amazing chemistry and that does bring something interesting out of the Hannah thing. But once you could feel the plot.

• 1:32:42Andy Greenwald?

  Or Marnie and Ray too, right? Like that's another one.

• 1:32:44Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, that like went on forever. I mean, like Marnie, like suddenly becoming like a member of Edward Sharp or whatever. I rewatched the wedding episode and I forgot that there are multiple references to like an Edward Sharp video that she specifically designed her wedding run, which is very funny. I mean, and also like that's not a name I had thought of in what, 10 years?

• 1:33:04Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 1:33:05Speaker 05

  But once, yeah, once she has like a singing career and then, and that's how Desi comes to the show and he's great, but and like. Adam is on Broadway and Jessa is like gonna be a therapist and just kind of like, and like Shoshana's in Japan.

• 1:33:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, that was a whole thing.

• 1:33:25Speaker 05

  I, you know, you just feel them scrounging for things to fill this time.

• 1:33:30Andy Greenwald?

  There was also, and I think there's a, there's a, you can look at it through a different lens, like the whole season or half season when Hannah is in Iowa at the writer's workshop. I mean, that was interesting to Lena Dunham, you know what I mean? Like, I think she, one way to look at Girls is if Girls had never happened, what are the four movies that, you know, that mumblecore tiny furniture Lena Dunham would have made during these years of her life? And I think you could probably pick out the strands of what were, was interesting to her. And one of them may have been exactly that, like being a bohemian academic in the middle of the country.

• 1:34:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:34:02Andy Greenwald?

  And who do you run into and what the politics of that are.

• 1:34:04Speaker 05

  Right, but even structurally, the, I believe it's season three ends with Hannah is going to go to Iowa and she and Adam are done, or maybe it's season four, I don't remember, but there's a season finale.

• 1:34:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:34:19Speaker 05

  And you're like, oh, that could be the end of the show.

• 1:34:21Andy Greenwald?

  That's the end of it.

• 1:34:22Speaker 05

  Right, because this was a story about you in New York and a young person trying to figure it out, and then like you kind of figured it out. And season six like almost resets it. So to your point about the ending mirroring the beginning and there is intentionality in what they're doing, I, I don't mean to dismiss season six or the finale in that way, they're, they're very good at what they do. But it did feel like a, just kind of like, oh, let's do it again, you know?

• 1:34:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and what, what was interesting to see is in the middle of this, one of the things that marked the show, first of all, like, again, this is modern language, I feel like, when we're looking back and we're being like, we expect a, a level of consistency across 60 plus episodes, that's just, nobody can do that. And what's remarkable to me about looking at the breadth of the show is not just the episodes everyone points to, like the, um, Another Man's Trash episode is that the essentially it is a bottle episode where she has this weekend in a townhouse with Patrick Wilson.

• 1:35:19Speaker 05

  Incredible episode. I rewatched it. Patrick Wilson, what a start. Then I spent like 20 minutes watching YouTube videos of Patrick Wilson on Broadway. Did you know he was curly in Oklahoma?

• 1:35:27Andy Greenwald?

  I sure did. He's super theater.

• 1:35:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's super theater. I'm happy for him.

• 1:35:32Andy Greenwald?

  Super theater slash Aquaman.

• 1:35:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34Andy Greenwald?

  What a, what a journey for Pat.

• 1:35:35Speaker 05

  Listen, I hope he has a townhouse of his own now.

• 1:35:38Andy Greenwald?

  That's why you do the Aquaman.

• 1:35:39Speaker 05

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:35:40Andy Greenwald?

  Um, another studio's trash. Um, but that the, the Matthew Reeves episode, American Bit is also really notable that these are, these are slice of life, short films, again, kind of.

• 1:35:52Speaker 05

  Panic in Central Park, which was the Charlie and Marnie episode.

• 1:35:55Andy Greenwald?

  I loved that episode.

• 1:35:56Speaker 05

  I remember you and Chris Ryan podcasting about that the first time around. And another thing that was funny is that at some point I do the, like the watch episodes about these episodes still ring in my head.

• 1:36:07Andy Greenwald?

  But not mine. So I'd love to talk to you. We said, we should have done that before we sat down. But, um, but the other thing that I think the show didn't get enough credit for was also rebounding in conventional ways. And one of the episodes I rewatched was, um, Sit In, which is episode four. This is the episode where, uh, at the end of the previous one, um, Hannah has returned from Iowa and walked in to her apartment where Adam is living with.

• 1:36:35Speaker 05

  Mimi Rose.

• 1:36:36Andy Greenwald?

  Mimi Rose Howard, which is not a name. It is a woman's name and a man's name with a flower in between, played by the great Gillian Jacobs.

• 1:36:43Speaker 05

  Can I also just say, this show was so good on details because already in, what is that, 2015, the Mimi Rose Howard character, who's only there for three episodes, is one of the, is like, an artist who has also done a TED Talk to a women's college that was filmed. And it, and it's just about making space for yourself. And we all know that joke now and we all know those personalities in the world, but that's pretty, that's pretty early to just.

• 1:37:15Andy Greenwald?

  When Hannah walks in and there's all this tension, she says she's gonna go out to get a cold pressed juice.

• 1:37:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's really.

• 1:37:20Andy Greenwald?

  The details and, and so, but while the details were zeitgeisty in all the right ways, the thing that I think really buttressed the show was, um, then it falls back on this TV language that really. It could, it could do. And what I mean by that is in that episode Hannah takes shelter in what used to be her bedroom and then all of the other characters take turns visiting with her. I mean, it's like a play, the way that it's set up, but it's crafted so perfectly that every character is entirely themselves in a way that feels comforting and also exciting because once you realize that Shoshana's been first and she's behaving this way, you're like, oh, Jess is going to come.

• 1:37:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:37:56Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, and then Marnie's going to come and what's that going to be? And then what's the wild card? Oh, it's Gabby Hoffman and John Glazer as Laird and what's, I forget Adam's sister's name, but, but they're there.

• 1:38:07Speaker 05

  Caroline.

• 1:38:07Andy Greenwald?

  Making her tea and he's creaming her feet and, you know, it's like Richard Shepherd, who's a great director, directed a lot of episodes. His, his, his partner is Jenny Connor, who was Lena Dunham's creative partner. And, and I think, I think the influence of Judd Apatow is overstated, but I.

• 1:38:24Speaker 05

  Well, not on the sixth season.

• 1:38:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, we have to talk about that.

• 1:38:27Speaker 05

  So, we'll get there.

• 1:38:28Andy Greenwald?

  But, but yes, so there was this like, there was this TV backbone that it could fall, that it could, that it could turn to and make like a really entertaining, well-observed show. One of my favorite things about that episode is that when Jessa comes for her turn, she's just so entirely a character that she has been from the beginning. You lose sight of the fact that these actors, and Jemima Kirk is amazing on the show, to a degree I didn't appreciate, from the minute she arrives.

• 1:38:51Speaker 05

  It's unbelievable.

• 1:38:53Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, and just talking about who's on drugs and who isn't in the bathroom with Marnie, in this episode where she's just casually saying that she, she connected Mimi Rose and Adam because what were they supposed to do? It was a TV show.

• 1:39:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Andy Greenwald?

  It was a TV show. It, it wasn't a tweet. It wasn't, it wasn't a Medium post. It wasn't a TED Talk or a thesis statement. Week to week, it was a TV show. So in January, January 5th of 2016, Variety broke the news, Girls is ending after season six. And one thing I didn't remember was that there was a little two-step after every season, probably after the second or third, where there was Lena Dunham would make a quote being like, oh, it's very hard to do this and we're not sure. And then the implication was HBO was like, we would certainly appreciate more episodes.

• 1:39:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:39:32Andy Greenwald?

  If you're a successful television show, but that it was also, they came to an agreement that they would make this season and end it.

• 1:39:40Andy Greenwald?

  Lena said she thinks America has a tendency to push shows past their due dates. I like the British model. She also said, we've spent a lot of time talking about where these girls will end up. We definitely have a distinct idea of where we want to see them. I even sometimes focus on this final image I see, but between now and then, anything can happen. So this was a quote given before season six was written and broken and shot. But clearly, she had some idea of what the ending of the show would be. Going into that final season, did you feel like there were questions that needed to be answered, other than that existential question of like, what does Lena Dunham think is the ending point for this character?

• 1:40:18Speaker 05

  So the last episode of season five is the one where, once again, just really ahead of the curve.

• 1:40:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:40:28Speaker 05

  Hannah is auditioning to be on The Moth.

• 1:40:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:40:30Speaker 05

  Which, and then this is like in 2016, you know, so I mean, it was obviously a thing, and there are plenty of people trying to be on The Moth, and it's, but you know, there's great jokes about it. It's like a direct line to Ira Glass. And you're just like, okay, here we are, are all now, doing what we're doing, right here, you and me.

• 1:40:47Andy Greenwald?

  We were doing it.

• 1:40:48Speaker 05

  And it's also sort of the closure of her reaction to Jessa and Adam. And the story that she's telling is the thing about leaving a fruit basket, and it's about jealousy, and she's performing, and it's, it could be a finale. So I guess I had questions, but also no, because they did write almost every season finale.

• 1:41:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:41:16Speaker 05

  In a way that it, it could be the end.

• 1:41:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I would say, in doing some research for this podcast, I was rereading a lot of coverage of it at the end. And our former colleague at The Ringer, Lindsay Zoladz, wrote a really excellent piece for The Ringer in the finale. And her argument in the end was that, for her, the show ought to have ended exactly where you're saying.

• 1:41:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:34Andy Greenwald?

  In season five, because it's not just that she reaches some sort of creative and personal closure that are, that are united. She, she expresses them in a way that is very Hannah, which is that she finds inner peace through a public.

• 1:41:44Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:41:45Andy Greenwald?

  Performance of that piece, but that then she breaks into a run on the Brooklyn Bridge, and then there's a freeze frame.

• 1:41:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:41:52Andy Greenwald?

  And, and what Lindsay wrote was, she, she references something that, that Hannah says in the One Man's Trash or Another Man's Trash episode, where she says, She realized that she wants all of the things, that she's not, you know, some oppositional punk. She wants nice things. She wants everything. And this is the end of Lindsay's piece from The Ringer was long before she got all the things, or even some of the things, the flourishing career, the professorship, the baby. But she was frozen in the exact moment she oriented her body in their direction. And like that that's the place for a show about becoming, not about having become.

• 1:42:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:42:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's where a show like that ought to have ended. And then we got the sixth season. I don't know if I entirely agree with that, but I think that's well observed.

• 1:42:31Speaker 05

  I completely, I agree with it. And it also just does, that moment of suspension, it's not like the totally saccharine, earnest stuff of season six. That feels, despite all the structural similarities, pretty different from the first five seasons, right? Like even her finding some sort of moment of peace in the season five finale is her just telling her like a very vulgar story about her ex-boyfriend and best friend having sex.

• 1:43:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:43:09Speaker 05

  And her like kind of getting to an okay place with it in public.

• 1:43:14Andy Greenwald?

  To be fair, Marnie is her best friend. She wins at the end, she says. But I, but I know what you mean. And it's also, look, there's a lot of, there was a lot of contrivance in season six. Again, it's a TV show. That's part of what's baked into it.

• 1:43:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:43:28Andy Greenwald?

  But that season five ending suggests that maybe there didn't need to be. Because the entire idea for getting this professorship handed to her.

• 1:43:36Speaker 05

  Well, okay, before we get into that.

• 1:43:38Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I'm just rolling up my sleeves.

• 1:43:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is, there's a lot of contrivance in season five as well. Because season four ends with this really heartbreaking scene in the hospital. Because Adam, Jessa, and Hannah are all helping with the birth of Caroline and Laird's baby.

• 1:43:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:43:59Speaker 05

  And she's trying a home birth, which again, all of that stuff was really funny. And. Then they wind up in the hospital, the baby's okay. And Adam and Hannah are literally standing over a baby. And he's like, take me back, I miss you. Well, it's this thing again. And it's, they're so good together. And the Adam Driver and Lena Dunham's chemistry and that those characters work so well that it is very moving, even though it's like reheating the same, should we be together? Should we not thing that they have been doing for like three seasons at this point? So you could say that season five was sort of a contrivance in a lot of ways. And maybe even season four, to your point, after Iowa.

• 1:44:41Speaker 05

  So, and, and that's, as you said, what happens when you make TV, right?

• 1:44:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's also what happens when you make TV, when you create a character to be the archetype for bad post-college boyfriends. But you accidentally cast the actor of his generation. And then you end up with these scenarios, like in season four, when Adam is now so entwined in the plot, he has to call Desi on the phone to find Marnie. And he, he's never had a cellphone and he also doesn't know these people.

• 1:45:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:45:06Andy Greenwald?

  Because he's on a different show and on a different planet as an actor, but we're rooting for him.

• 1:45:10Speaker 05

  And also at this point, I think he's starting to balk for Last Jedi.

• 1:45:15Andy Greenwald?

  He is Kylo Ren in that episode, basically. His hair is long, his body is huge.

• 1:45:19Speaker 05

  By the end, he is like fully Kylo Ren.

• 1:45:21Andy Greenwald?

  I gasped when I watched the pilot, just because physically he's such a weird dork.

• 1:45:26Speaker 05

  And he's so young. I mean, yeah, time is, time is during.

• 1:45:29Andy Greenwald?

  Time the Ravager.

• 1:45:30Speaker 05

  All right. So season six. You mentioned the professorship falling out of thin air. We have to talk about the baby first.

• 1:45:38Andy Greenwald?

  Let's talk about all of it.

• 1:45:39Speaker 05

  Because that comes.

• 1:45:40Andy Greenwald?

  At the beginning, the season premiere of season six is the Riz Ahmed episode, right?

• 1:45:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:45:46Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:45:46Speaker 05

  Where Hannah is now a successful internet journalist. She blogs.

• 1:45:52Andy Greenwald?

  That is a career with legs, let me just say. Just I could have left it there.

• 1:45:57Speaker 05

  But she's doing like the very classic, I think the moth helped her.

• 1:46:02Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, to be clear, Hannah would be co-hosting Jam Session with you.

• 1:46:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:46:05Andy Greenwald?

  In reality.

• 1:46:07Speaker 05

  But she kind of, she had the classic late, I guess it's still happening now, but classic last decade job of I'm gonna go do this stunt thing and write about it for like a women's internet magazine.

• 1:46:24Speaker 05

  It was not a cruise ship sponsored by celebrity. In this case, it was surf camp in Montauk. And so then she doesn't know how to surf and you know, a lot of antics or whatever. And then she starts a relationship with the surf instructor or you know, has a weekend long stand with a surf instructor.

• 1:46:42Andy Greenwald?

  Another hyphenated name, if I remember correctly.

• 1:46:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:46:44Andy Greenwald?

  I don't remember it exactly.

• 1:46:45Speaker 05

  Paul Louis.

• 1:46:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, but Paul Louis and she was like, that's two names, right? And then he, it doesn't work out. And so she, you know, goes on with her life. And then four episodes later, or three episodes later, she has a UTI because she's still Hannah and finally goes to the emergency room. Did you remember this? I had forgotten.

• 1:47:10Andy Greenwald?

  Who the doctor is.

• 1:47:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, and she goes to the emergency room.

• 1:47:12Andy Greenwald?

  I do remember.

• 1:47:13Speaker 05

  And I had forgotten that the doctor is Patrick Wilson.

• 1:47:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:47:16Speaker 05

  From the One Man's Trash episode, which again, you know, TV is full of contrivances.

• 1:47:21Andy Greenwald?

  Let's do it.

• 1:47:21Speaker 05

  But there was something still so surprising about it. He hasn't shown up since. And he prescribes, you know, whatever, and then mentions almost in passing that she's pregnant and she did not know that she was pregnant. And he tries to console her, is like, I can, she doesn't have insurance, so he's working, he tries to work out some of the abortion details and is like, I will be out of pocket, but I can take you to her friend. And she says, who says I want an abortion? And runs out of the hospital. And then as far as I can tell, whether or not she's gonna keep the baby is never discussed again.

• 1:47:56Andy Greenwald?

  The decision to keep the baby.

• 1:47:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, the decision to keep the baby is never discussed again.

• 1:48:01Speaker 05

  Respectfully what? Like respectfully what in the world of reality? Respectfully what in the world of this show? Which is where people are very neurotic and talk endlessly about every decision they make, have very complicated relationships to their bodies, are, whether or not they actually are, you know, self progress, like they are annoyingly vocal about what they believe to be progressive women's rights.

• 1:48:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:48:32Speaker 05

  And as an ideal, an idea of what it means to be a progressive woman. I'm not endorsing any version of it. It just, it's never even mentioned. And then you know that Jada Arpaeta was involved in the show and you think about Knocked Up. And it just kind of, it doesn't, it, that never made sense to me.

• 1:48:51Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they, it, it's also undermined by the fact that she agonizes 100 times more over taking a cushy job or moving out of the city than she does over having a baby. And you could say, you know, that's part of the story and the character that she is, she, she, she focuses on the wrong things or she overinflates some and minimizes others without considering the long-term stakes of any of it. But I, I think there's two pieces here. One, I think the Jada Arpaeta thing is a, is a smart point to bring up because his movies, again and again, express emotional journeys and comedy through remarkably traditionalist,

• 1:49:34Andy Greenwald?

  if not outright conservative expressions of love and family.

• 1:49:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:49:39Andy Greenwald?

  That's just, that's.

• 1:49:40Speaker 05

  And family, it all, it just all leads back to.

• 1:49:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's his trick.

• 1:49:43Speaker 05

  The family.

• 1:49:43Andy Greenwald?

  That it is better to have, and, and that has been true in his life and I'm not questioning his truth and it's made some good movies, but it is worth pointing out and feels sometimes, feels like an odd fit for the show. I would argue that the, to me, the odder thing about it that jars the most is that unlike the sort of haphazard, we'll figure it out, we'll elevate and diminish characters as we see fit and throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks spirit of five seasons of the show, the sixth season is the first time where they're, she's clearly writing towards an ending that she wanted to do, that the, the arrow notched, no metaphor intended in the first episode with Paul Louie, is aiming at a target that she wanted to get to no matter what.

• 1:50:23Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:50:23Andy Greenwald?

  And so, everything else is an exercise in making the best possible version of something that might not feel right until she got to where she wanted to go. And it's just a different type of storytelling. And it's, I agree with you, though, it's, it's quite jarring. It's as if it became a fundamentally different show for its last season.

• 1:50:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I, I say this as very happy mother of a son also, and like, as a person who always wanted to have a kid. So it's not like the end result being motherhood is, to me, like, a problem or a thing that ideal that shouldn't be held up. It's, I think motherhood's great. Two thumbs up for me. But it was just so out of keeping with the rest of the show. And, and so, out of keeping, not even out of keeping with the character, but just was never explained. And it was kind of like, I think your observation

• 1:51:19Speaker 05

  that they were writing towards something makes a lot of sense and explains why it just feels different than the other five seasons.

• 1:51:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I also think when you look back on the show and then you also look at what Lena Dunham's career has been in her life, and she continues to share all sorts of aspects of her life. And, and, and I think it's fair to discuss because not only does she talk about her life, but her life and her art so frequently interact with each other, that it does seem like, from an artistic perspective, I'm not talking about in terms of her decision to be like, I'm writing towards something, but just what the show was ultimately for her, which I believe was a vehicle for her to work out her shit that she wanted, that she was interested in.

• 1:51:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. And she has been really, like, really vocal. Like, you can read many essays in illustrious magazines about, and I think around this time, her personal health struggles, how they affected her decisions or ability to have kids or not have kids. She's written about her IVF. Like, she, it is- A rich and fraught topic for her and you're right.

• 1:52:21Andy Greenwald?

  And she wrote about having a hysterectomy, I believe, as well.

• 1:52:23Speaker 05

  Yes, as a part of endometriosis, she has endometriosis, which I learned about from Lena Dunham. She's really been out there and has also been out there about the emotional fallout of all of it. I have found the real life version of her work, you know, like her personal essays to, in Hannah Horvath tradition, to be more affecting than season six. Though it does make season six like kind of sad because if she is working through some stuff.

• 1:52:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:59Speaker 05

  You know, I mean, it's complicated for sure and interesting.

• 1:53:03Andy Greenwald?

  There's so much that's complicated and I think richly emotional and significant for her as a creator. It was also easily ripped at, gobbled up, digested by the media that was already in place to do that with her, such as the fact that the baby that she has is a baby of color. The father of the baby is Reza Ahmed. It's fraught and she goes right at it. And whether it was the right choice or not right choice, I don't feel like I'm in a position to say. But it made the whole conclusion of the show very noisy, I would say culturally.

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Andy Greenwald?

  Which, you know, I guess in a different model, maybe that's what you want. You want people talking about your art, but I feel like our experience of this show, as was building up to these last few episodes of the season in early 2017, was charged.

• 1:53:57Speaker 05

  It's funny, I told you I remembered the watch episodes, but I don't, I remember you and Chris saying, even at the time, well, like that episode nine was really the finale, you know? And that was the closure of the TV show that we all watched together for six seasons. And the women yelling at each other in the bathroom was, you know, was kind of it. And what's funny is that I remembered the details of latching, the actual finale.

• 1:54:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:26Speaker 05

  And I remembered the episode where they're all yelling at each other in the bathroom, but I didn't remember when that happened. But I was like, in my head, I have two finales at once. And I, you know, I was like, OK, but that's the actual ending. And that's, that is what felt like the closure of the show. And I had just, I had forgotten that it was so close to the actual finale.

• 1:54:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and, and I was really impressed with, uh, episode nine in a way that I, that I, I, I think I probably was at the time, but I had, I had forgotten about that. There's a beautiful, there's the big fight in the bathroom, but then there's this beautiful crosscutting of all four of them in a way individually dancing, which is, which is a callback to what I still think is the series highlight, which is the Dancing on My Own sequence at the end of episode three of season one.

• 1:55:15Speaker 05

  All adventurous women do. One of the great episodes, yeah.

• 1:55:19Andy Greenwald?

  This time they're dancing to a song by Banks and it's, but it's intercut with the crowded party and then Hannah moving out and moving in and spinning on the dance floor and then spinning in a chair open to the possibility of her new life. It's kind of like we were saying at the end of season five. So we got that sense that there's something new. So let's talk about Latching. The finale was written by Lena, Jenny Connor, and Judd Apatow, receives a writing credit. He had received writing credits on various episodes throughout the year. But this, I thought that was interesting, that the, the creative triumvirate that brought the show, that birthed the show, if you will, uh, came back together for this. Jenny directed the finale.

• 1:55:55Andy Greenwald?

  It was just, the description on the little box was Hannah embarks on a new chapter.

• 1:55:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, so after, after a cold open where Hannah's still pregnant and Marnie shows up and gives the speech that you referenced earlier where she says, you know, I win.

• 1:56:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm your friend.

• 1:56:09Speaker 05

  I'm your friend. Let me help you take care of the baby. And she is essentially, she's giving the same speech that Adam gives two episodes previously. So there is a, you know, a nice symmetry to that. And that fits into the theme of, you know, your friends are the real loves of your life, not to be too Sex and the City about it. That, that's a thing that happens in Sex and the City, Andy.

• 1:56:30Andy Greenwald?

  I'll get to it.

• 1:56:31Speaker 05

  Then they cut to like five months later? Is that how long it is?

• 1:56:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's five months later.

• 1:56:36Speaker 05

  And the baby, Grover, is here. And it's Hannah and Marnie taking care of Grover in this idyllic.

• 1:56:49Speaker 05

  House upstate that is, by the way, just instantly furnished.

• 1:56:52Andy Greenwald?

  Beautiful house.

• 1:56:53Speaker 05

  Fully.

• 1:56:54Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible.

• 1:56:54Speaker 05

  Amazing views. They're very close to Tivoli, where there's a wine and cheese night. So I will just let you know, that's a lovely part of upstate New York. We have to assume she's teaching at Bard?

• 1:57:04Andy Greenwald?

  I feel, I, this was, so I, I assumed that they set the episode there because it was near where you got married. Right? It's a beautiful part of the state.

• 1:57:12Speaker 05

  That's, it's a little more.

• 1:57:14Andy Greenwald?

  I've lost my geography.

• 1:57:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a little more, hold on, east, east. We, we got married very close to Pennsylvania.

• 1:57:21Andy Greenwald?

  As a tribute?

• 1:57:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:22Andy Greenwald?

  To your husband?

• 1:57:23Speaker 05

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 1:57:24Andy Greenwald?

  I was, I appreciate that.

• 1:57:25Speaker 05

  Sure, no problem. Um, and they are just raising a, a baby. And the main, like, stressor of the episode is that Grover, the baby, will not, will no longer breastfeed.

• 1:57:38Andy Greenwald?

  He will not, he did at the beginning of his existence?

• 1:57:40Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:57:41Andy Greenwald?

  And now he will no longer latch?

• 1:57:42Speaker 05

  Yes, he will.

• 1:57:43Andy Greenwald?

  Giving the episode its title.

• 1:57:44Speaker 05

  Accept the bottle.

• 1:57:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:57:47Speaker 05

  Um, but he will not latch. And then it becomes an exploration of early motherhood. And what you want to give to your child and what you give to the people in your life that you love. But really mostly what it means to be a mom. And at some point Hannah's mom shows up in order to kind of make it all, uh, work out. And then at the very end, after Marnie has decided that it's time for her to move on with her life, Hannah, well, I guess Hannah encounters a teen.

• 1:58:24Andy Greenwald?

  So Hannah's having a tantrum. Obviously she's sleep deprived. She's under a lot of stress, but she has.

• 1:58:29Speaker 05

  Is she? She's sleeping till 11 all the time.

• 1:58:31Andy Greenwald?

  She seems, she's fine. But, but who can say? I, it is not my place to, to judge, uh, a new mother. But she does, she's exhibiting very Hannah-esque behavior in the sense that something is not going her way. She's faced with a challenge and she seems dead set on throwing up her hands and giving up, uh, and saying, he hates me.

• 1:58:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:58:55Andy Greenwald?

  He's much happier, you know, and Marnie's doing the, Marnie is the living embodiment of, um, mommy blogs.

• 1:59:01Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:59:02Andy Greenwald?

  Saying that, you know, you're supposed to do it this way. This is special. It's better if you do this.

• 1:59:05Speaker 05

  I mean, she gives the whole breastfeeding, like breast milk statistics.

• 1:59:09Andy Greenwald?

  Golden liquid.

• 1:59:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, liquid gold, which, which I have some thoughts on, um, for later, but right. Hannah's given up. He hates me. I like can't do this. She like runs, she goes on a walk.

• 1:59:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, so Marnie then in a panic calls Lorene, who's just Becky Ann Baker, just unsung. One of the MVPs of the series. Amazing, tough, surprising, fun performance throughout. Low key, best part of episode, season finale of season five is Becky Ann Baker and Andrew Rannells sharing 40s on the street.

• 1:59:45Speaker 05

  Oh, great stuff.

• 1:59:46Andy Greenwald?

  Getting drunk and he's like, three more beers, I'm gonna try to fuck you. And she's like, you're my, turns out you're my type. Anyway, she comes in and gives a little tough love and Hannah is just says some wild shit back to her mother and storms out, goes for a walk.

• 2:00:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:00:00Andy Greenwald?

  Gives up.

• 2:00:01Speaker 05

  Encounters a teen who seems to be in distress. So Hannah off and doesn't have any pants or shoes on. So Hannah offers her her pants and shoes, one last, taking the clothes off, which I, which I respect. And is trying to help the teen thinks she's, you know, thinks she's like running away from a boyfriend or something. And then it just turns out that the teen has run away to escape during her homework. And Hannah like finds her light, basically, and gives a speech about what in defense of the mom who was making her do her homework. And what does it mean to be a mom? And your mom's this and she kinda, you see her clicking in in real time to, to what it is to be a mom and that there is a mom inside her.

• 2:00:45Speaker 05

  Even if she doesn't totally consciously realize it. And then there are some more antics about her getting home. She gets home, Grover wakes up, she's like, I got it. She goes in and after an episode of him not latching, he latches. And the last shot is her looking, a beautiful piece of acting by Lena Dunham, her looking contented as this baby finally latches. And I think you're meant to understand that she's, she's gonna, once again, she's gonna be okay. She's in a place where she figured it out and she can do this.

• 2:01:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. She's accept, she's accepted the challenge and met the challenge.

• 2:01:21Speaker 05

  And, and the baby has latched.

• 2:01:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And then she sings Fast Car. It's interesting. It's tough. And we should say that as this episode aired, and I think immediately, there was a flood of vitriol, it's not the right word, but this was a conversation starter.

• 2:01:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:01:38Andy Greenwald?

  This was not a wow, they stuck the landing. This was a delightful, perfect end to the series. This was a wait, what? Reading the reviews of it the next day, I'm actually continuing to be really impressed. Like, the TV critics of that era, some of whom are still working as TV critics, were like, truly like the ER surgeons, in that they like, instantly kind of captured a mixed feeling correctly, I feel like. Jim Poniewozik in The Times wrote a really strong review. Emily Nussbaum, who kind of-

• 2:02:09Speaker 05

  Has championed the series.

• 2:02:10Andy Greenwald?

  Championed the series, wrote that first piece, wrote a really strong mixed piece for The New Yorker. And her point, because I think we can get, we can get right into it, was about the speeches in the episode, more than anything else. I mean, she's like, it was funny, it was surprising, these are all good things when you're talking about a series finale. I'm gonna quote her here from her piece from April 2017, about those speeches. "I know many people found them refreshing, as people frequently find it refreshing whenever the girls' characters call each other narcissistic assholes. My own feelings were more mixed. It's been striking to me, as the seasons have passed, that with increasing regularity, the speeches the characters on Girls give have begun to echo the diatribes that are made toward Girls. It's the familiar music of Twitter trolls, 'grow up, snowflake',

• 2:02:55Andy Greenwald?

  'put on your big girl pants', 'fuck your feelings'. The secret ingredient is contempt."

• 2:02:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, that is very perceptive. That is not at all my problem with the episode, though I think it's right. I think it definitely explains kind of where the writers, the filmmakers are coming from, or theorizes, anyway.

• 2:03:20Speaker 05

  I just don't like that this is the end. I mean, I have problems with this as an ending.

• 2:03:25Andy Greenwald?

  So let me, I'd like to hear them, if you remember feeling in 2017 versus what you thought on this rewatch.

• 2:03:30Speaker 05

  Sure. I remember in 2017 being like, what? And I think it was a mixture of this doesn't make sense. And this character, and this character has not really made sense to me as a character, as the character Hannah that we've been watching since the just total running headfirst into motherhood without any sort of support. And the job falling from the sky at a really good college and then suddenly moving upstate. And, you know, I was just like, this doesn't make sense. Plus, is the takeaway that I'm supposed to take away from six seasons of Girls is like, oh, but it's,

• 2:04:14Speaker 05

  you know, the most important thing is breastfeeding your child. It's a very traditional, small c conservative moral. Or, you know, it has that appetit, like family is like the most important thing. And, you know, does that line up with the show? Does that line up with my like own values of what I want a young woman of my generation to be thinking? Like, I think at the time I was kind of like, I don't, I don't really get this. And I think now I mostly feel the same way.

• 2:04:48Speaker 05

  And I say that as someone who since 2017 has become a mother and who did breastfeed. So it's, I'm not against any of those things. I'm very against the mommy blogging that Marnie parrots. And they do a mostly good job of presenting that as the, you know, the hogwash. The baby finally gets formula at the, at the end and God bless formula.

• 2:05:10Andy Greenwald?

  And he seems fine.

• 2:05:11Speaker 05

  And he likes it, as they say. So.

• 2:05:16Speaker 05

  So that's like mostly okay. And they're they are identifying even there a little bit, like the tensions and the politics like within that thing, which like maybe no one cares about, but I lived it for like a year because you really breastfeeding takes a long time. You also just like it just it literally it's like a job. It takes so much time all the time. You know this, but I think that there is something interesting going on there with the idea of like Hannah and her body and the way that like the that body has been a character in the show and what a body can do do and what it can't do and how to feel at peace about it and how your body like connects to another person and what you use

• 2:05:59Speaker 05

  it for that is like interesting and maybe there's like a glimmer of hope there or something. But otherwise, it just kind of bums me out. I mean, I'm glad he latched, but you know, that's that's good if that's what you want. Like the bottle was also doing fine, but I'm like, this is ultimately what I'm supposed to take away that you just completely dropped this entire life that I spent a lot of time investing in and that, you know, even if I was judging it simultaneously because it was part parody, but that it suddenly became so sincere and none of the rest of that mattered. And this is what matters was just confusing.

• 2:06:40Andy Greenwald?

  I I hear you, and I think I agree with you. I don't remember what I said about the show on the podcast at the time. I don't think I was super positive, but I think I was open to the possibility of it. And I appreciated the the artistic swing. Like there was a vision that she wanted to do, and she did it and she they aligned the season to suit that. And anytime a finale tries something different, I'm interested, you know, I think that that's there's something to be said for that, that there's still life in it, even at the very end.

• 2:07:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:07Andy Greenwald?

  All of that said, rewatching it, it fell much flatter to me. It felt like It felt like someone trying on clothes that just didn't fit. It didn't feel in the same spirit of the show. And it also felt like the push pull of the argument within Lena Dunham as a person and as a creator that fueled the show, which is embodied in that One Man's Trash thing where she's like, I behave this way, but I want all of these things.

• 2:07:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:07:33Andy Greenwald?

  The push pull between being an outsider, but also wanting comfort, wanting to be an insider, wanting, you know, all of it. At the end, it felt like she was sort of taking that argument and just sort of pushing it onto the table and throwing up her hands in a way. I don't know that the show ultimately needed to give us this level of resolution, which is not something that one often says about a long running TV show.

• 2:07:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, we already had the resolution in the Adam episode where, you know, they, for one day, they, and it mirrors One Man's Trash in a lot of ways, they make believe that Adam is going to help her raise the baby and they run around Brooklyn and they, you know, and it's, they make plans and they go baby shopping and they have this incredibly moving moment at a diner, I think shortly after they've discussed doing shifts at the Co-op, the Park Slope Food Co-op. And where they both realize like this is, we're living in a dream, we're living in something that is like never going to happen. This doesn't make any sense.

• 2:08:40Speaker 05

  And that is the moment of waking up and, and for this, this baby dream, but also their relationship, you know? And I think it's really moving. And then they have the next episode, which is all the friends and the, we hate each other and Hannah's on her way somewhere else and she's trying to say goodbye and the goodbye is yelling in a bathroom and then dancing, which feels right. And you can even do that with her going off to then have a kid and have a new job and have a new life. That all feels like resolution. That's why earlier when I was saying. That it feels almost tacked on in some ways, they just because there was like a whole

• 2:09:22Speaker 05

  other world that was interest that Lena Dunham wanted to explore.

• 2:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:27Speaker 05

  And apparently only had like one episode for it.

• 2:09:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's odd because if ever there was a show that could have earned the graduate ending, which is one of my all time favorite endings, and Michael Clayton does this too, where it's like you get the big thing and then you linger and the camera still rolls and you get the sense that people's lives go on and actual real life is not necessarily capped off by traditional celebrations or markings of time. Life just keeps going on.

• 2:09:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:09:52Andy Greenwald?

  You have to sit with it and live with it. And that's a show called Girls that's baked into the premise that there's just a lot of uncertainty to go. Also, thinking about the show over six seasons, what are the stakes of it? The level of peril is low. Emotional turmoil, yes.

• 2:10:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:07Andy Greenwald?

  But in terms of her general safety, and I'm saying this, this is fine. But what I mean by that is leaving her in a place of professional or personal turmoil does not communicate that she's doomed. Because this is the show. She's fine. Her floor is relatively high. So this sort of ending is, it remains confounding. And it remains confounding too, considering the three people who wrote it. Whereas you have Judd Apatow, who is an older, very successful man for whom having children and making movies about people pairing off and having children has been enormously successful. No notes. The reason for everything. Jenny Connor's perspective on it, I'm fascinated by because she's older than Lena by at least 10 years and has, has children and has made certain choices in her life and feels a certain

• 2:10:49Andy Greenwald?

  way about them. And then Lena, who's the youngest of them, had not faced these decisions necessarily yet or was thinking about them.

• 2:10:55Speaker 05

  Right. And was not sure what they were going to be in her own life, or whether they were going to align with what she wanted, which she has, she has been pretty open about.

• 2:11:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And I, I think that there is also.

• 2:11:06Speaker 05

  Which I admire, by the way.

• 2:11:07Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 2:11:08Speaker 05

  These are super hard things to talk about.

• 2:11:09Andy Greenwald?

  I, I want to be clear that we're not judging anyone's personal decision making or the artist's decision making, but purely in terms of like what it means for these characters in the artistic life of the show. Like one thing that you and I can say from very different perspectives, but I think shared nonetheless, is that you can tell yourself that being a parent won't change you, or won't affect your professional or whatever goals you have. But it fucking does. It fundamentally changes so much of you.

• 2:11:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, though I, I do think.

• 2:11:35Andy Greenwald?

  And not necessarily negatively, but it changes things.

• 2:11:37Speaker 05

  No, no. But I do think my ultimate. Like my instinctive ultimate rejection of the finale is the implication, you know, this is a show called Girls. And then, so the last moment, the last shot would theoretically, one way to read it is like, this is the moment that you are no longer a girl, you are a woman. And so this idea that it like, only when you're like physically giving your body to another person, like that, that this, this act of motherhood is the differentiation between girl and woman. I like really, I reject that. And I reject that as someone who has like become a, you know, a mother and understands how it does change you. I think it's not the only thing.

• 2:12:18Speaker 05

  Now, maybe I can say that because I've had the experience and you, if, you know, this is written, as I understand it, from a place where Lena Dunham is still deciding if she wants to do all of it. And so it's imagining another option. You know, I don't know. I just, it bums me out. I mean, it bums me out. It's like, not a big deal because it felt, because we got all the other finales, you know?

• 2:12:43Andy Greenwald?

  Within, we are, we got them.

• 2:12:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, we got them.

• 2:12:45Andy Greenwald?

  It didn't ignore, it didn't ignore them. We were not poorly serviced by them.

• 2:12:47Speaker 05

  We got all of the other resolutions. And I really admire Emily Nussbaum as a critic. The speeches didn't bother me as much as, like, I guess I like it sometimes when people say this thing that is supposed to be said, I'm also an Aaron Sorkin fan, you know? So like, it's, we just, we had to be very honest. So the, when she's yelling at the teenager, I had forgotten it and I was kind of, I was like slightly moved by it.

• 2:13:16Andy Greenwald?

  Sometimes the best work comes from friction. And I think some of the best work of Girls came from the friction between a very young independent filmmaker who made art like she was blogging and industry vets. People who are like, why are you saying all these other things that are half things? Say the one thing. Do it in 20 minutes, not two hours. I mean, that, that friction fueled some of, absolute the best of the show and is why it was successful. And sometimes some people won and they made a conventional episode, like the one where all the, the one called Boys, where they all go to, was it Staten Island or something? And it's just like, that is, that is TV 101. Like, what haven't we done? Who hasn't, haven't we gotten together? And it also fueled great things like the standalone bottle episodes we're talking about, where all prior TV industry writing advice was ignored and she made something that just

• 2:14:01Andy Greenwald?

  felt like straight from her heart to the laptop to the screen. That's fascinating and I think good, but. To stay within the realm of TV industry jargon, she broke up, the show ended when she broke up with the dominant relationship that she had on the show, which is New York. She broke up with New York. She moved away.

• 2:14:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:14:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's a hat on a hat for her to then also, also get the other final thing and also find emotional, that all of these things felt additional.

• 2:14:30Speaker 05

  And you really gotta watch the Sex and the City finale.

• 2:14:33Andy Greenwald?

  Let's, you'll come back for it. We'll do it for this podcast.

• 2:14:35Speaker 05

  I just, spoiler alert, Carrie tries to break up with New York.

• 2:14:38Andy Greenwald?

  It's perfect.

• 2:14:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:14:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think the other thing that we should note, and we should begin to wrap up here, but it's, it's interesting to consider because you can't separate the art from the artist really with the show, because it was Lena Dunham from the beginning and it was Lena Dunham at the end. The years that this show spanned are pretty interesting years in anyone's life. I mean, from early twenties to the cusp of 30, basically. And what's interesting about the finale that is so definitive in so many ways that we've been criticizing throughout, there's a ambiguity and a struggle that you sense on the margins with her own role in a larger conversation with girls younger than her and women older than her. There's a, there's just like a drive by in episode, there's the, there's the girl who's

• 2:15:31Andy Greenwald?

  mad at her mom in the finale. There's the people who are moving into the neighborhood, who are like the new generation version of Hannah and Marnie in episode nine of, of season six. I think it's ultimately a good thing that this was never, as an artist, she was never settled. Like she, it's still like freaking out about stuff. It is still so, it is not jaded in any way. It is desperately trying to be good and interesting and, and dealing with everything, getting its arms around so much. And that's the spirit of the show. And I think one of the things we're bumping on is that that last image is the antithesis of that. And maybe she was just seeking peace because it does seem like this was a challenge to make the show.

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  I have, I have two positive things to say.

• 2:16:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I'd like to hear them.

• 2:16:12Speaker 05

  So one is that- And I've been thinking about the title of this podcast, does it stick the landing? And in the sense that it is a show that we're, it is an episode that we're still arguing about and arguing with, however, many years later, which was in a lot of ways, the girl's experience.

• 2:16:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, it was.

• 2:16:29Speaker 05

  It does stick that. And then there is something about, one of my nitpicks with the show was, in rewatching it, was just like the complete absurdity of their parenting setup in, I mean, there's just no one there and raising, raising a child at all times is really hard, but those first few months, it's like all hands on deck, you know, and no one's sleeping till 11 and-

• 2:16:56Andy Greenwald?

  No one's sleeping.

• 2:16:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, especially she's pumping all the time. Like again, so I was just like, where are the people? Like, what's going on here? This is absurd, but, and like, these, these two girls don't know how to do anything.

• 2:17:08Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 2:17:09Speaker 05

  But that means that the episode does take on like a one man's trash, panic in Central Park, like almost bottle episode, almost dreamlike, is this really like happening quality? And I don't know that that changes the way that I still interpret the last image, but it does make me question whether I'm interpreting it the right way. And maybe there's different intention and maybe there is some sort of, I know that like this isn't realistic, maybe there's longing in it. I'm not, I'm not totally sure. So I could be getting it wrong, is I guess, the other way that I'm saying it.

• 2:17:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's a good way to sort of wrap things up because I think you can look back to the show and there are so many gifts that it gave us in terms of like incredible performances and careers and surprises. But in a way, I felt, it's interesting, I know I just said I felt more critical of the finale, but overall, I feel so much more warmly towards the show.

• 2:18:06Speaker 05

  Amazing, amazing show.

• 2:18:09Andy Greenwald?

  And not just amazing for what it is week to week. And I think people should, like, honestly, if you're listening to this, this far, and you haven't done this recently, rewatch the pilot. It is so much better than I remembered. It is excellent. But it also felt like just the, the nature of our conversation, which is this deeply personal, polarizing, weird thing that could be one type of show, one week and a completely different experience the next week, that season to season could take such wild stylistic and swings in, in style and swings in, in quality. A show that could end with one person who is living and breathing and performing the burden of this show on set, but also in the press for six years, being like, this is what I want to do, that feels far away.

• 2:18:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:53Andy Greenwald?

  It feels far away in TV. People don't get these chances anymore necessarily, and they don't take them and run with them to the degree that she did. Too often, we're sitting here praising, you know, if Chris and I are in the same studio talking about Andor, we're not talking about like, whoa, that was a wild swing.

• 2:19:13Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:19:13Andy Greenwald?

  We're being like, Tony Gilroy is a god, and everything is precise, and this is, he has delivered a Star Wars product that is perfect for me.

• 2:19:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:19:21Andy Greenwald?

  This show was perfect to no one at all times, but sometimes perfect for everyone. And I think that's a pretty interesting, non-profitable

• 2:19:31Speaker 05

  It's true.

• 2:19:31Andy Greenwald?

  way to consider something in the streaming era.

• 2:19:34Speaker 05

  It was really fun.

• 2:19:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:35Speaker 05

  It was really, I know that we're painting this time as like, the hellscape of the internet and of conversation.

• 2:19:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, we're the hellscape now.

• 2:19:44Speaker 05

  I mean, it's, you know, we're all growing and evolving the hellscape together, but it's still, it was a little bit monoculture, at least like HBO monoculture, and it was fun and engaging, and it engaged a lot of people, whether, you know, in bad faith or good faith, or in anger, or in celebration, or in provocation. And that was cool, and it doesn't feel like, people were still yelling at each other instead of yelling next to each other, if that makes any sense.

• 2:20:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, both yelling, yes, exactly.

• 2:20:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we were still thinking, I think there was still some, the level of cynicism was not the way it is now. There was still a sense that you could change someone's mind.

• 2:20:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:22Andy Greenwald?

  Or that you could show them your true self and have them recognize the value of that in an online forum. I don't think that's true anymore.

• 2:20:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:29Andy Greenwald?

  And I also think that, and this is a perfect segue for Watch Big Picture crossover stuff, and we've even touched on it before, like, there really is no indie film of TV. Everything goes through the larger machinery, which you, I understand. The other thing, though, that there isn't a lot of in TV, and this is not indie TV, this is HBO, but young people, like, if you switch to the music industry, often like, people can make their own recordings, they release independent records, they find their voice, and then the major labels come in when they feel they're ready, or when they're ready to go widescreen or make bigger music or whatever. This is a show made by a 24-year-old.

• 2:21:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:04Andy Greenwald?

  Who is empowered to do all of it as a 24-year-old, with great help and a great crew and all of that. That's pretty unique. You know, I think primarily shows about youth are made by people who've experienced it and come out the other side. And so every decision that we see, if this if this show was made by Lena Dunham in her late 30s.

• 2:21:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:21:24Andy Greenwald?

  Every decision that we see Hannah and Jessa and Marnie and Shoshana make would be predetermined with that backwards looking sense of scale and what it meant and how some things were actually important. Even if it was done with the spirit of Girls, I feel like that thumb would be on the scale, right?

• 2:21:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:21:40Andy Greenwald?

  This is just a, this is just a, she's, I've said it before, just tweeting through it.

• 2:21:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:45Andy Greenwald?

  Things felt absolutely existential because that's how things feel when you're that age, right?

• 2:21:51Speaker 05

  It was, it was, it is a very special show. That's the other thing. It's still really funny and really well made. You know, whether or not they got everything right, I just, I enjoyed rewatching it.

• 2:22:04Andy Greenwald?

  So there's, there are, there are finales that, you know, that negatively impact one's impression of the entire show. There's, there's finales that, you know, you know, back, I reference these things a lot, but like when, when New Heart ended with, it was like, oh, it was all a dream. No one was like, I can never watch season three of New Heart again knowing it was a dream. Also, they were like, I could never watch season three of New Heart again because I didn't tape it on my VCR.

• 2:22:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:22:29Andy Greenwald?

  But, so the categories that, that when, when Bill and I were talking about this podcast, that he gave me, that maybe we'll sort of always go through at the end of these shows, he, he was like, there's five types of finales. The five finales you meet in heaven or hell, depending.

• 2:22:42Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 2:22:42Andy Greenwald?

  One, they landed the plane. Everyone's happy. Great job. Two, they took a big swing and it was super fucking polarizing. Three, they fucked it up.

• 2:22:50Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:22:51Andy Greenwald?

  Four, they limped to the finish line and it just kind of dribbled away. Five, it didn't seem like the plane was landed, but in retrospect, oh my God, everyone's safely on the ground.

• 2:23:01Speaker 05

  I think this is, they took a big swing and it was polarizing.

• 2:23:06Andy Greenwald?

  I agree.

• 2:23:06Speaker 05

  Which seems like, I'm, I'm really curious now.

• 2:23:11Speaker 05

  What other finales are gonna go? I mean, that's why I'm gonna listen to this podcast. Great job. Great idea for a podcast.

• 2:23:16Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, thanks.

• 2:23:17Speaker 05

  But I think a lot of finales are too, actually. And to go back to the point that you started with, which is how this TV, this show bridges like a lot of TV eras. I think when it started, there were fewer take a big swing and it was polarizing finales. And by the end, it was kind of like what you had to do as a prestige show. So they, you could also argue that they both landed the plane and fucked it up. Because they gave you the two episodes before where they landed the plane perfectly. And then they fucked it up. But I think that counts as big swing.

• 2:23:55Andy Greenwald?

  I think the thing that's gonna remain confounding and maybe make the girls finale be unique is that this show, I think the audience was primed for a polarizing swing. This show polarized.

• 2:24:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:24:06Andy Greenwald?

  From the second it premiered, it polarized. And one of the things that was remarkable about it is that even though, you know, I've been talking about like reactionary defensiveness or talking back to the internet stuff throughout the show, fundamentally, to your point, Lena Dunham kept taking her clothes off metaphorically.

• 2:24:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23Andy Greenwald?

  And literally throughout the show. And it was, you know, I always caveat the word brave when talking about making a TV show for HBO. But yeah, there was a boldness, let's say, in the storytelling, episode to episode, season to season. So a polarizing finale makes sense for girls. What I think people had trouble articulating is polarizing like this?

• 2:24:45Andy Greenwald?

  This is not the turn.

• 2:24:46Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:24:47Andy Greenwald?

  That we were ready to even argue over.

• 2:24:49Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:24:49Andy Greenwald?

  Like there just hadn't been this, such a wide swing towards, as you said, small c conservative, uh, family values.

• 2:24:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:24:58Andy Greenwald?

  That, the show didn't even, I mean, the way, the way that Elijah talks about New York in relation to the rest of the world, just like, this show lives in New York where we don't do those things. And as soon as she leaves New York, she's just consumed with being a mother in quote unquote, "the right way." That still rankles. It still surprises.

• 2:25:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. I don't know. I know in a way it works perfectly for this show.

• 2:25:21Andy Greenwald?

  It does.

• 2:25:21Speaker 05

  But for this show only.

• 2:25:23Andy Greenwald?

  Because what is the show if not us arguing about it?

• 2:25:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:25:26Andy Greenwald?

  Or people like us.

• 2:25:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:25:28Andy Greenwald?

  So it, it died as it lived.

• 2:25:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:25:32Andy Greenwald?

  Right? So maybe it did stick the landing. This is interesting. I don't, I, in the spirit with which it launched, that's the thing. Yeah. If it's a chaos plane, from the minute it leaves, what do you think? There's gonna be a, like, this isn't gonna be a landing where everyone in 33C applauds. That's very true. So I think, I think you've created a new category. Okay. Which is, was this even a plane? What were we doing for six years? My God, I can't believe we're back on the ground. Yeah. But it was consistent. It was, yeah. Inconsistency.

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