Apple TV’s Glossy Programming, ‘The Pitt’ S2E5, and How ‘True Detective’ S2 Explains the World

Chris and Andy talk about Disney’s new CEO (3:32) and a slew of new Apple TV show announcements, including ‘Lucky,’ starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and the TV adaptation of ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ (7:40). Then they discuss Season 2, Episode 5 of ‘The Pitt’ (29:08), before checking in on ‘Steal,’ the Prime Video crime thriller series starring Sophie Turner (51:45). Later, Chris reveals his thoughts after a recent ‘True Detective’ S2 rewatch (01:01:16). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jamie Yukich, Donald LoBianco, and Sarah Reddy 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

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:30Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football-watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer-up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head and London broil roast beef, American white cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boar's Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus and dips, condiments and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit Boar'sHead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905.

• 2:19Speaker 04

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

• 2:24Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio woefully behind on his charting, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:37Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, never related to anything in the medical profession, Warren.

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  Let's go. We're gonna talk about the pit today. We are gonna talk about the Muppets. We are gonna talk-

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  The disdain in your voice.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  About, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about steel. We're gonna talk about some Apple shows that are coming in the spring and summer. And I'm embarked on a project that I want to discuss with you.

• 2:59Andy Greenwald?

  Phoebe needs to come home.

• 3:00Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I re- I'm re-watching, I'm almost done my re-watch of True Detective, Season Two.

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  This is psychopath behavior.

• 3:08Chris Ryan?

  Because I think it was a canary in the coal mine. I'm really excited because you have blanked me every time I've mentioned this to you. You're just like, I like the idea.

• 3:14Andy Greenwald?

  No, because I keep saying, like, I'm trying, look, should we pull back the curtain a little bit? You guys don't like it when we do that, you in the room, but I think the listeners and watchers do.

• 3:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 3:23Andy Greenwald?

  You were presenting to me an idea for something you wanted to talk about, and I generally am supportive of you and your work.

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you're not committal, but you are supportive.

• 3:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I was, I continually did ask, is there anything actionable here? You know what I mean? I'm like, is there something that you would like?

• 3:38Chris Ryan?

  Read the notes. It's all actionable.

• 3:40Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't send me the notes. You were like, not really.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  No, I was trying, I didn't want to add to your, your heavy load.

• 3:46Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I appreciate that.

• 3:47Chris Ryan?

  We are load managing you.

• 3:48Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, that's working out for Joel Embiid. Question.

• 3:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I was just gonna do some housekeeping. Is this gonna take us into a different part of the pod?

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  It is, so why don't you do the housekeeping?

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thewatchatspotify.com. Email us. To watch us, you can do it in two ways that I know of. You can go to YouTube.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  It's disturbing.

• 4:05Chris Ryan?

  There might, I used to watch soccer on a website called arrackgolds.net. So we might be there too. I don't know. I haven't gone to that website in a long time.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  Your computer is riddled with viruses.

• 4:17Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you can watch us, you can go to YouTube, and you go to ringer-tv, or you can just search The Watch.

• 4:22Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 4:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, or search Ringer TV. I think it'd come up. There's lots of keywords. Uh, that's where we are to watch on YouTube. You can also watch us on Spotify, where I hope you listen to us, but I imagine we're available on lots of different audio platforms. Uh, and does there anything else? Oh, thewatchpod underscore on Instagram.

• 4:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  And after that, it's really up to you guys. The discourse about this podcast about Andy, it happens all over the place, you know?

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  About me?

• 4:52Chris Ryan?

  About me? Nobody talks about me.

• 4:54Andy Greenwald?

  No, people find you fascinating, but they're generally supportive.

• 4:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I hope so.

• 4:58Andy Greenwald?

  That's the difference.

• 4:59Chris Ryan?

  I hope so.

• 5:01Andy Greenwald?

  I wonder if the CR heads will comment on, first of all, you look great today.

• 5:04Chris Ryan?

  Thanks.

• 5:05Andy Greenwald?

  I already complimented this.

• 5:05Chris Ryan?

  This is kind of a...

• 5:06Andy Greenwald?

  This is a great shirt.

• 5:07Chris Ryan?

  A quasi-Canadian tuxedo?

• 5:10Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, but I don't think they can see our bottom halves on the, unless you pay for YouTube Premium.

• 5:15Chris Ryan?

  A rack gold.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  Then the camera is just fixated. It's just, yeah.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  That shot in IMAX.

• 5:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, James Cameron's vision.

• 5:24Chris Ryan?

  Hoy manoida mo is just like...

• 5:25Andy Greenwald?

  Just brought to life.

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:27Andy Greenwald?

  But I did want to say, you are wearing red, white, and blue, and I wonder if that could be interpreted as just like a sign of patriotism, of a quiet resistance, or of full-throated support.

• 5:38Chris Ryan?

  I hadn't really thought about that. You know, I just got dressed today.

• 5:42Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 5:43Chris Ryan?

  But sometimes the colors find you in the moment, you know?

• 5:45Andy Greenwald?

  And they don't run.

• 5:46Chris Ryan?

  You know, there wasn't any like big entertainment industry news per se, obviously. Disney changed, or announced the successor to Bob Iger after...

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:55Chris Ryan?

  And that always works out, so I think this will be going, well, Parks head Josh Demaro?

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Chris Ryan?

  Is taking over Dana Walden's like portfolio expands at Disney. I don't really have a ton of interesting things to say about that, other than...

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  It will be interesting to see in the coming, I don't know, 18 months,

• 6:14Chris Ryan?

  what happens with some of their big franchises, because I saw a note in one of the trades where Bob Iger was like, we're done buying IP.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  Which is fine by me, but where are they gonna go in a post-secret wars doomsday, which now sounds like it might be three movies? And what's gonna happen with Star Wars After Mandalorian with Filoni verse? So...

• 6:37Andy Greenwald?

  Did, my first question about this is, did you have a dog in this fight? Were you...

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  Dana or Josh?

• 6:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, were you on the poly markets? Did you support in like an outsider candidate? Did you think that this was fait accompli?

• 6:49Chris Ryan?

  I think that, I think, I guess I was pulling for Dana Walden. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other about Josh Demaro. I do note with interest that like... I think the parks business has been very successful for them.

• 7:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  Even in the face of everybody being like, you are literally bleeding every cent I have in my life out of me when I go to these things.

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 7:10Chris Ryan?

  And like, you have to pay to get to the front of the line to get a turkey leg and stuff. But, you know, that's, that's America.

• 7:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's the, sure is. That is the take. I mean, that is the takeaway. The takeaway is that it is a recognition, I think, by the board that the live experiences and the parks is the most consistent and potentially, um, still the most expansive part of their business.

• 7:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  Um, it is a, it is a more of a bet, I think, on the Avengers Doomsday IR experience in Florida that they are inevitably building than it is on what Kevin Feige is going to pull out of his hat in three or four years.

• 7:48Chris Ryan?

  Just give me the X-Men. You know what I mean?

• 7:50Andy Greenwald?

  They're being so coy with that.

• 7:52Chris Ryan?

  I know. I'm sure that they will pop up in the Doomsday movies or the...

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we know they are.

• 7:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like, not the old ones, the, like, a new version of them, right?

• 8:00Andy Greenwald?

  Why, this campaign against Kelsey Grammer is just bizarre to me.

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  You just can't, I mean, McKellen has just only got so many innings left.

• 8:06Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see him on Colbert yesterday?

• 8:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's gonna be in the Comfort Gollum.

• 8:10Andy Greenwald?

  He, I mean, he's just, just standing up and reciting Shakespeare. He's incredible. And also, I think we got him with that.

• 8:18Chris Ryan?

  What game?

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  You know how, like, you know?

• 8:19Chris Ryan?

  Oh, because he was doing, like, Richard, what did he do, Richard III?

• 8:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, he did Thomas More about, like, protecting immigrants. And he, he did the stage and Colbert, like, hugged him. And in the words of our parents, after watching Chris Hayes in April 2025.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  Got him.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  Got him. Think we really got him.

• 8:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  No, he, he, that was incredible. I think people should check that out.

• 8:42Chris Ryan?

  So there was that.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and, and I, and I think the other thing about it is just the, the imagineered optics of it. Like, they definitely wanted to avoid a Chapek situation. And there was a lot of, well, obviously, this is a unanimous decision and everything's fine. And though he, of course, considered a woman for the top job, we wouldn't actually give it to her.

• 9:00Chris Ryan?

  And considered co-CEOs, apparently.

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  But they wanted, they wanted everything to be as tidy as possible. So, we'll see.

• 9:07Chris Ryan?

  They dragged my boy Ted Sarandos up in front of the Senate. Ted Cruz asked him some, some hard hitting questions.

• 9:13Andy Greenwald?

  Ted on Ted, Ted Talks.

• 9:14Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that was about the merger, et cetera. Um, Josh Hawley was like.

• 9:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, go on.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  I don't even know. I, you know, they, they were just being dicks, you know, like the Senate.

• 9:24Andy Greenwald?

  That's what they do now. That's, that's their brand. They pivoted to that. Remember when it was like the most like august body of deliberations in the world?

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Andy Greenwald?

  That was, so they said.

• 9:35Chris Ryan?

  My days when Jesse Holmes was just cooking as the most august body.

• 9:41Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, did you see your guy, David Ellison in London being like, "The monopolization of media spearheaded by the evil Netflix corporation shall not stand." That guy's a freedom fighter.

• 9:53Chris Ryan?

  Um, and then that's it for news, except for a bunch of Apple shows, because Apple did one of their, I think it's their first ever Apple TV press day.

• 10:01Andy Greenwald?

  Were you there?

• 10:01Chris Ryan?

  No, but, uh, you know, not a ton of news came out of a bunch of teasers.

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  I only ask since we have the kimono open already. Apple loves sharing its shows with you and every time there's a new show, you're like, oh, you should check this out. It's interesting. And then I have to email a variety, a changing.

• 10:18Chris Ryan?

  Have you ever once said it would be great in your press dealings? Have you been like, you can just add me automatically?

• 10:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they used to.

• 10:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 10:24Andy Greenwald?

  And then, you know, respectfully, they didn't, but now I just, every time I have to email a different woman named Kate to request access to something that you've already watched.

• 10:33Chris Ryan?

  I, I don't know.

• 10:33Andy Greenwald?

  The struggle is real.

• 10:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, go on.

• 10:36Chris Ryan?

  Everybody in, in America.

• 10:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 10:38Chris Ryan?

  Sympathizes with you.

• 10:39Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's a top five issue. I'm not saying it's number one front of mind, but I do think it's top. Can I, sorry, can I just state something for the record? Yeah, Kaya, please. Um, I've been kicked off my parents HBO Max account. Whoa.

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 10:51Andy Greenwald?

  Why didn't we leave with this?

• 10:52Chris Ryan?

  Just now?

• 10:53Andy Greenwald?

  Um, just this week. By your parents? No, by HBO. Okay, first of all, Casey listens. Casey, hook up Kaya, please.

• 11:00Chris Ryan?

  But can you do it? You can't have like a family password. So you can't do that. They're just like IP addresses.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, what location are you watching in? Would you like a travel pass? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:10Chris Ryan?

  Travel pass.

• 11:11Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's over for me. I went to go and watch Industry. They're like, what is your location?

• 11:15Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, really?

• 11:16Andy Greenwald?

  Really. Well, I know someone at HBO named Kate who could hook you up with the, with the. I have, I have industry screeners. Um, they don't let you screen, Mere.

• 11:25Chris Ryan?

  So I had to watch it on my laptop. You can get an app for that.

• 11:30Andy Greenwald?

  So I think.

• 11:31Chris Ryan?

  I don't want an app. I just want to be able to mooch off my bear.

• 11:36Andy Greenwald?

  I think this is top seven concerns.

• 11:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Time's a tough. Iraqgoals.net. All hot to look into. The big piece of news that I saw come out of there was a variation on what Vince Gilligan, the creator of Pluribus, basically said to us, which is, we are working, working real hard on season two.

• 11:57Chris Ryan?

  Don't hold your breath. So it wasn't like in a very bad way, but I feel like we gave Severance a lot of grief about taking a long time to come back. He's like, we're moving as quickly as we can, but this is not X-Files where we can just bang out like a bunch of adventures of the week and then come back to the main story and all that stuff.

• 12:17Andy Greenwald?

  This is 2027 is what we're saying.

• 12:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:19Andy Greenwald?

  And not early 2027.

• 12:20Chris Ryan?

  Not early 2027. When it, it came out in August of 25?

• 12:25Andy Greenwald?

  No, it was, it was later.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Later.

• 12:27Andy Greenwald?

  But, but they're just getting together now, it sounds like, so.

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 12:32Andy Greenwald?

  It's a bummer, but you know.

• 12:33Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 12:34Andy Greenwald?

  We're used, we're used to change, we're, we're used to different schedules.

• 12:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes, but turn about like if, since we have given a lot of shows a hard time for taking their time.

• 12:43Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:43Chris Ryan?

  I'm not giving Pluribus a hard time because I want it to be good.

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  And because they came on our podcast and it's a back scratching business.

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  It's true. So we had some teaser trailers from some shows coming out. Two of them come from Jonathan Tropper, who I would not go as far as to say is like house apple style, but I wouldn't say he's not. I think between him and Bill Lawrence, they are responsible for a healthy slice of the Apple TV pie. And in some ways are illustrative of like the aesthetic and the, the image that Apple TV wants to project to its viewership.

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:17Chris Ryan?

  However, many people there are watching those shows, we don't know.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  Unclear.

• 13:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so Friends and Neighbors, season two is coming back in June, I believe.

• 13:25Andy Greenwald?

  Already received season three renewal.

• 13:27Chris Ryan?

  And adds James Marsden to the cast. If you watch the teaser. It feels like kind of soft reset-y.

• 13:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Chris Ryan?

  To the extent that the first season ended in any kind of like resolution. This one seems to bring back the gang, add to the gang and put Jon Hamm squarely back robbing folks in his neighborhood for the thrill of it.

• 13:48Andy Greenwald?

  With a new square jawed neighbor.

• 13:50Chris Ryan?

  James Marsden.

• 13:50Andy Greenwald?

  Marsden's Sons continues.

• 13:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Andy Greenwald?

  There's your X-Men.

• 13:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Andy Greenwald?

  He plays Cyclops.

• 13:55Chris Ryan?

  I know. Any comments on Friends and Neighbors season two and the 50 seconds that we see of it?

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  Only to say that I have higher hopes for the second season than the first season.

• 14:05Chris Ryan?

  Okay. What makes you say that?

• 14:09Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the show found more of its voice as it went along. And I think that the people who are involved in the show are generally smart, good creatives. And so I feel like there's a, there's a chance. I'm not, I'm not staking my reputation on it, but I'm, I'm willing to give it a shot. I didn't love the way, I didn't love the first season.

• 14:30Chris Ryan?

  I'm going to make a bold.

• 14:32Andy Greenwald?

  But also I like Marsden and if the show can be the tone. I think the show is at its most successful when it is the kind of clubby glitzy tone of this trailer.

• 14:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:41Andy Greenwald?

  As opposed to like the deep, deep ruminations of incredibly rich people in a gated, siloed, rich community.

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  I noted with interest that Munn is walking the streets in this teaser.

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  I was surprised Munn was back.

• 14:52Chris Ryan?

  And I thought she had been arrested for murder.

• 14:56Chris Ryan?

  In the show. And it feels like a soft reset in the sense that like, we don't want to get rid of Olivia Munn. So let's figure out a way to have her on bail or whatever.

• 15:06Andy Greenwald?

  I would be concerned if you felt that like a white collar, rich criminal getting pardoned. And back on the streets was like, that's the deal breaker of reality for you.

• 15:16Chris Ryan?

  The other thing I was going to say is I, and I, I say this in front of you and God and our, and our listeners.

• 15:22Andy Greenwald?

  And Kaya.

• 15:22Chris Ryan?

  And Kaya. If this season starts with a flashback.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  You're out.

• 15:27Chris Ryan?

  I'm out.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  A hundred percent agree.

• 15:28Chris Ryan?

  If you start your second season.

• 15:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Chris Ryan?

  With a big event and then go six weeks earlier, I'm fucking out. And I don't care if it's like succession reunion. I'm out.

• 15:40Andy Greenwald?

  How did Shiv Roy move in next door to James Marsden? Six weeks earlier.

• 15:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, I love this.

• 15:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:47Andy Greenwald?

  I think it actually would help clear some of our viewing docket.

• 15:51Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 15:51Andy Greenwald?

  If we just made outrageous.

• 15:53Chris Ryan?

  We should do that.

• 15:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  The Watch commandments.

• 15:55Andy Greenwald?

  If the si- if Silo comes back and they're still in a fucking silo. Forget it. Done.

• 16:02Chris Ryan?

  I will be very interested to see if Paradise, how Paradise handles that now.

• 16:06Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 16:06Chris Ryan?

  Like all their flashforwards and flashbacks. Because a lot of that obviously was built around like these slow reveals. And it's like, well, I mean, how many reveals are we going to be doing on season two? Or is it just going to be more like Sterling K. Brown looking for the truth out there? You know?

• 16:21Andy Greenwald?

  I can't tell you.

• 16:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay. All right.

• 16:23Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like you're asking me for some inside information.

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  Another show.

• 16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want me to do the wind horse fingers about the fate of Sterling K. Brown's wife? I don't, I don't know.

• 16:31Chris Ryan?

  Another show coming from Trapper and Reese Witherspoon's Hello, Sunshine via Candle Media. One of my favorite media companies.

• 16:38Andy Greenwald?

  Absolutely.

• 16:39Chris Ryan?

  Is Lucky, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, ingenue Ellis Taylor, Timothy Olyphant, Drew Starkey. And this one is about a con artist on the run after a heist goes wrong. And they're, the con artist being played by Joy is pursued by the law and the lawless. And the crime boss played by Annette Bening, which I would not have guessed. That's her role. This looked slick and cool.

• 17:08Andy Greenwald?

  Great trailer, great teaser trailer.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Andy Greenwald?

  Very visually dynamic in a way that I, I'm not mad at that. Like, I think there's good ways to spend Apple's money. And the log line of the show is one thing, but then seeing the sort of visual razzle dazzle of the teaser made me, made it, made me more interested.

• 17:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I have a thing I wanted to ask you about.

• 17:31Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 17:31Chris Ryan?

  Anya Taylor-Joy.

• 17:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Chris Ryan?

  Odd career since Queen's Gambit.

• 17:35Andy Greenwald?

  Since being on this podcast. I think it's Anya, I think she's told us that.

• 17:38Chris Ryan?

  My bad.

• 17:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:40Chris Ryan?

  Anya Taylor-Joy. I apologize to you personally, and I also think that you've had like an interesting, strange career since you broke big with Queen's Gambit. So that was 2020, let's just take it from the pandemic, you know? Last night in Soho, well, first it was New Mutants, which lost to History in Time, but was supposed to be a thing, and she played Magic.

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm, Iliana Rasputin.

• 18:03Chris Ryan?

  Damn.

• 18:03Andy Greenwald?

  Sister of Colossus.

• 18:05Chris Ryan?

  You had her government name right in your

• 18:09Andy Greenwald?

  You only like like humans with brains. You only use 5% of me on this podcast. Anytime you want to dig deeper, I'm avail.

• 18:16Chris Ryan?

  Um, does she pop up in Powers of X?

• 18:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Chris Ryan?

  How so?

• 18:20Andy Greenwald?

  She does, dude. She's important.

• 18:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  Big old sword.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 18:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Chris Ryan?

  Yo, she's it. I've she's in a cool scene in that comic book.

• 18:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, she's an important character.

• 18:31Chris Ryan?

  Last night in Soho and Edgar Wright joint kind of came and went.

• 18:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Chris Ryan?

  Has its believers, has its detractors, but did not do well at the box office. Northman, she's incredible on that. The menu, she's great in that.

• 18:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that did well.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so we have those two right there. Amsterdam, David O. Russell, abomination. Dune Part Two, she's cool. She's in the end. Uh, spoiler.

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  And she'll be in Part Three.

• 18:54Chris Ryan?

  Furiosa, amazing. And then these last couple where she's like in the gorge and sacrifice and an Apple TV show. Which it's just, I guess that's just where we're at, you know?

• 19:06Andy Greenwald?

  The Super Mario Brothers erasure.

• 19:08Chris Ryan?

  Right, sorry. She also has been doing.

• 19:10Andy Greenwald?

  That was like a billion dollar movie.

• 19:12Chris Ryan?

  Okay, but like people do that where they're like Pratt still opens movies. And I'm like, nobody knows that's Chris Pratt. These people, most of the people have barely formed front cortices.

• 19:21Andy Greenwald?

  Chris.

• 19:23Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. First of all, I've been in the audience for these movies. I'm the one with the weakest frontal cortex in that theater. Everyone else's amygdalas are cooking.

• 19:32Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 19:32Andy Greenwald?

  Especially after the candy hits. Second, I will let you know that Chris Pratt isn't like, he's like Lorenzo music with like, you know, a voice actor without parallel.

• 19:44Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 19:44Andy Greenwald?

  He's just Chris Pratt.

• 19:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but nobody in the audience is like, it's Chris Pratt, right?

• 19:49Andy Greenwald?

  But everyone in the audience is like, oh, Mario sounds like Garfield, sounds like Starlord, sounds like Andy from Parks and Rec, sounds like the guy singing at the church up the street. It is not some dexterity. It is 100% Chris Pratt. Good or ill. All right. I'm glad we cleared that up. I, I, I think the thing that's interesting about that career, if I may, is that.

• 20:08Chris Ryan?

  About Chris Pratt's career or and you tell.

• 20:11Andy Greenwald?

  The only thing that interests me.

• 20:14Andy Greenwald?

  At least two of those movies were the kind of things that every person on her team probably fought tooth and nail to get her into, and the fact that they tanked disrupted everything. And that would be Last Night in Soho, which was a very hotly tipped movie. And Furiosa.

• 20:34Chris Ryan?

  Well, Furiosa, I mean, I think is actually underrated at this point.

• 20:37Andy Greenwald?

  Which is fine, but it was catastrophic at the box office. And nobody was like, and not only that, I think she got a lot of the blowback for it because what was memorable about the character was the performance. I haven't even seen the movie, but I'm saying that she did get it, take a hit for that.

• 20:54Chris Ryan?

  You would like Furiosa because your boy Tom, what's his name? He was in Black Bag.

• 20:59Andy Greenwald?

  Burke. Oh, yeah, he's good.

• 21:02Chris Ryan?

  He's awesome in Furiosa. You know what I was gonna say about Anya Taylor-Joy is like, I wonder if like, almost like Queen's Gambit is the outlier in terms of something that's like this mega huge success, and then the films, like she is now on a post-Queen's Gambit, like going slowly up the stairs of stardom again. I don't know.

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think she's, I think there's also a difference that is hard to parse and then hard to capitalize on, especially in this like, you know, very divided media landscape between interesting and charismatic. The fact that she might not be a movie star does not make her less interesting or less talented, but she's been positioned to be both. And that can be a tough place to be.

• 21:46Chris Ryan?

  Imperfect Women is also coming. I believe that's a little bit sooner than these other ones. That might be in March.

• 21:52Andy Greenwald?

  And then there's Margo's Got Money Trouble.

• 21:53Chris Ryan?

  And Margo's Got Money Trouble. Annie Weisman, who did Physical, created Imperfect Women with Elizabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, Kate Mara, also Joel Kineman, who hilariously was like, I accidentally bought a house in Malibu. He literally said this. He was like, I bought a house in Malibu and now I can't say no to things because I have to pay for it.

• 22:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's a...

• 22:14Chris Ryan?

  I don't like, I can't remember where I read that.

• 22:16Andy Greenwald?

  Good for him.

• 22:17Chris Ryan?

  But spiritually, it feels true.

• 22:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:20Chris Ryan?

  Because he's just like, I'm a veil, you know? Like, if you guys need me for a day, for a week, whatever.

• 22:25Andy Greenwald?

  Margo's Got Money Trouble, is what you're saying.

• 22:27Chris Ryan?

  And Corey Stoll and Leslie Odom are also in this.

• 22:31Andy Greenwald?

  I believe that's based on a book.

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  You're probably right. Devastating crime has an impact on decades-long friendship. That is the logline.

• 22:38Andy Greenwald?

  That is our fortune. That is our future.

• 22:43Chris Ryan?

  What's the crime gonna be?

• 22:44Andy Greenwald?

  I couldn't begin to say.

• 22:46Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna rug pull a meme stock. That's what my crime's gonna be.

• 22:49Andy Greenwald?

  That'd be so sick. I don't know any of that means.

• 22:51Chris Ryan?

  I mean, either. Margo's Got Money Problems comes from David E. Kelley, stars his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Elle Fanning, who-

• 22:59Andy Greenwald?

  And Nick Offerman. Like, it's a great cast.

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a great cast, and it's-

• 23:02Andy Greenwald?

  Also a book.

• 23:03Chris Ryan?

  Also a book, and that one is the one I think I'm most excited about.

• 23:06Andy Greenwald?

  I would say so too, but I will say what was remarkable about this, and as you said at the top, this was all, these were all rolled out concurrently as part of an Apple Press event, which maybe speaks a little bit to how similar they all feel, because they probably played very consistently in the room.

• 23:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Andy Greenwald?

  But it was, as a branding exercise, this is remarkable, because I absolutely can tell you, as I think anyone who watches these trailers can tell you, what an Apple TV show is now, in terms of its glossiness, in terms of the frenetic pace, often based on pre-existing, like, Beatrice-type material.

• 23:43Chris Ryan?

  Big names in the cast.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  Huge names, like, just spilling out into, like, the B-level and C-level of the cast, people just showing up. Incredibly slick, incredibly glossy, and I have to say, I don't, the takeaway from this event was a feeling of big tech inevitability.

• 24:03Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 24:04Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not commenting on the merits of each one of these shows, because they were each made by distinct creators, and actually, in the viewing, might prove themselves to be interesting or worthwhile, or arrhythmic to this larger-

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 24:15Andy Greenwald?

  -beat that they're trying to sell, but like, the feeling of, like, just flooding the market. Every one of these trailers was like, March, April, March again. Like, we are just going to have this shit available to you at a pace more frequent than Mac OS updates.

• 24:31Chris Ryan?

  Well, closer to Netflix than to HBO, I think.

• 24:34Andy Greenwald?

  Closer to Netflix, but also at a much higher price point, because I think Netflix floods the zone with stuff, but half the stuff, not half the stuff, but large tranches of it is international, or reality, or, you know, acquisitions. Apple is just like, we are selling, you know, the high-test Peruvian flake, and we are flooding the market with it. Just to pull an analogy from potentially an Apple show.

• 25:02Andy Greenwald?

  It felt, I felt, I felt beaten down by it, to be honest. And, and, and it, it did make me feel like here is a style of presentation of television that, that definitely creates space for, I don't know if it creates space financially, but it creates space aesthetically and culturally for the more slow food approach that we often resonate, that often resonates with us when it's coming from other networks. I'm not setting this up to say we hate these shows.

• 25:31Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 25:32Andy Greenwald?

  I think there's something, you know, we will judge each of them by the merits, but the, just the, the tsunami of this content was wild.

• 25:38Chris Ryan?

  I'm not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person. I agree with you. And I am not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person, but there is a certain kind of person who talks to me about Apple shows the way my mother-in-law talks to me about CBS shows.

• 25:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 25:49Chris Ryan?

  Where it's almost like that is, that is like their happy place. And it's like if Stick is on, shrinking is on, if Margo's Got Money Problems is on, that is just the show that is on right now. It's an easy interface.

• 26:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:03Chris Ryan?

  They, they advertise within the app very well. Like you turn it on and

• 26:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's smart.

• 26:07Chris Ryan?

  There's Idris Elba being like, ah, I've been hijacked again. You know, like

• 26:11Andy Greenwald?

  That's not the twist, but don't spoil it.

• 26:13Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of

• 26:15Chris Ryan?

  Have you kept up with hijack?

• 26:16Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was gonna say, I thought about it.

• 26:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 26:19Andy Greenwald?

  And then I, I, I'm gonna be very honest with you. The last thing I want to do at the end of a workday these days is descend down into the Berlin subway station in winter with Idris Elba. I, I, so maybe Apple's onto something with the sunny disposition, or at least the color palette of its other shows. Because I don't, Chris, I don't want to watch that show.

• 26:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 26:38Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 26:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this is, that's what we're all about, is being honest.

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  But, but that's

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  We don't sign contracts with the shows. We sign a contract with each other. It's written in blood 20 years ago.

• 26:48Andy Greenwald?

  Is that what that was?

• 26:51Andy Greenwald?

  Jesus Christ. Did you want to watch Hijack Season Two?

• 26:55Chris Ryan?

  I lost interest. Yeah, I think similarly, like, perhaps the visual, kind of, the overall atmosphere of it. Tell me about The Muppets.

• 27:04Andy Greenwald?

  You want me to?

• 27:04Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's better that you do this now before True Detective.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  I don't want you to think that this was reactionary. It wasn't like you started emailing, started texting me about True Detective and I was like, oh, boy. Here we go again. That fucking meme bullshit.

• 27:20Andy Greenwald?

  That, uh, that I was like, well, I need to counterbalance this with a take of The Muppet Show.

• 27:24Chris Ryan?

  You were like, I'd like to talk about The Muppets.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  But I, just a small, whether it's from Daddington Island or whether it's just nostalgia. Just the, they brought The Muppet Show back again, but weirdly, for the first time, maybe since the late 70s, early 80s, they brought it back just as The Muppet Show, as opposed to all of these weird permutations over the years, like the 90s version where it's like Muppet TV and they're running a whole suite of programming on a network. Or the, I think honestly, as memory hold as, what was the thing you just mentioned that's been totally memory hold? The New Mutants movie?

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:54Andy Greenwald?

  That briefly.

• 27:55Chris Ryan?

  The straight to Hulu New Mutants movie?

• 27:57Andy Greenwald?

  Briefly, there was a Muppet reboot that was a single camera mockumentary, uh, show that briefly was on, I believe, ABC, um, 10 years ago. So Seth Rogen, who is just really on one right now, is responsible for bringing the show back. And they brought it back as a variety show and it's very entertaining. My kids loved it.

• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  How's it being released? Is it like once a week?

• 28:22Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, no, they made one.

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 28:24Andy Greenwald?

  And hopefully they'll make more. I don't really understand if that's a vote of confidence these days, but.

• 28:29Chris Ryan?

  It's on Disney?

• 28:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's on Disney. It was on ABC. Uh, oh, no, it's, it's, yes, I think it aired on ABC this week, but it's been, it will then live on.

• 28:37Chris Ryan?

  Disney Plus.

• 28:37Andy Greenwald?

  Disney Plus platform. Um, Seth Rogen is on it. Sabrina Carpenter is the musical guest, which got immediate buy-in from my children. Uh, Maya Rudolph makes an appearance and. The thing that people, I don't know if many people, I don't know. Did you grow up on The Muppet Show? Did you watch it when you were a kid?

• 28:51Chris Ryan?

  You know what, I mean, I just think that what happens is if you don't have kids.

• 28:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Chris Ryan?

  The things from your childhood kind of start to recede in the rearview mirror.

• 29:00Andy Greenwald?

  But did it matter to you when you were like five or six?

• 29:02Chris Ryan?

  I liked animals in The Muppets.

• 29:05Andy Greenwald?

  This is amazing.

• 29:06Chris Ryan?

  He is in The Muppets.

• 29:07Andy Greenwald?

  He is a Muppet.

• 29:08Chris Ryan?

  He's the drummer, right?

• 29:10Andy Greenwald?

  The Muppets aren't a band. He's in Dr. Teeth's Electric Mayhem Band, he's the drummer.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he did drums, he's Animal, Statler and Waldorf. Like, I like them, but it's just like, I don't, I have never had a reason to go back to The Muppets.

• 29:23Andy Greenwald?

  They're great.

• 29:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:25Andy Greenwald?

  And if you watch the reruns, which now are all available streaming, it's deeply weird. And like, I remember watching the show when I was a kid and I was like, ah, this is, this is children's television. But it was just like incredibly delicately, specifically choreographed puppet performances of like 1930s Americana standards. And then Carol Burnett or John Cleese would wander into frame or do a solo. And the most specific late 70s, early 80s type of celebrity as well, which really burned its way into my retinas. And I think that what was really smart about this new version is they just, they're still doing the variety show and they still do very, very intricately choreographed performances of now contemporary songs.

• 30:04Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 30:05Andy Greenwald?

  Like, like Songs by the Weekends and stuff, but it's, it works because it never really made sense.

• 30:10Chris Ryan?

  Is it?

• 30:11Andy Greenwald?

  And everyone involved is very game. The only thing that I bump on, and this is a very tired and what are you gonna do about it argument, is that other than Gonzo, no one sounds right.

• 30:20Chris Ryan?

  Because Jim Henson is no longer with us.

• 30:22Andy Greenwald?

  And hasn't been for many years, but also the person who then kind of has been doing Kermit for 20, 30 years, who also wasn't Jim Henson, because no one could be, he was let go. And so there's a, I think he's the fourth Kermit.

• 30:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 30:34Andy Greenwald?

  And at this point, they're just like, just trust, trust that it's a frog.

• 30:36Chris Ryan?

  It's.

• 30:37Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you know, it's like.

• 30:39Chris Ryan?

  Kind of Kermit.

• 30:40Andy Greenwald?

  You just kind of have to accept it. But the spirit of it is really good and really true to what it was. And it was really fun to watch it with my kids who no longer, like, they definitely were raised on watching Muppet movies and The Muppet Show, but they were like, we actually like this. My almost 13 year old is like, that's actually good.

• 30:59Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 30:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 31:00Chris Ryan?

  Great.

• 31:00Andy Greenwald?

  She's inherited a little bit of her father's.

• 31:04Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 31:04Chris Ryan?

  Does, when that happens, are you secretly proud?

• 31:07Andy Greenwald?

  That she, that she liked it?

• 31:08Chris Ryan?

  Or that she's just like, that's actually good, like, you know?

• 31:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, then I, then I, then I, no, like, what have I done?

• 31:16Andy Greenwald?

  No, absolutely not. I don't want, you think I want to give this away?

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• 33:19Chris Ryan?

  Why don't we do the pit first and then I'll talk about Trudy at the end?

• 33:21Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. Oh, and what about steel? We gotta talk about steel?

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we can do pit and steel.

• 33:25Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 33:26Chris Ryan?

  I can summarize like the various patients and what's going on.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  But I want to cut to the, to the chase here.

• 33:31Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 33:32Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about Robbie. I have found this, this season totally cool and enjoyed it. And, and there are some thrilling moments and there are some clunky moments, but it's, it's a TV show that is giving me week to week, a lot of joy. The most interesting character on this show is now fully the main character. Because he's really the one, I think, where everybody else is pretty much explicitly saying how they're feeling and what's on their mind.

• 33:57Andy Greenwald?

  And, and the benefits of generative AI in the workplace.

• 34:00Chris Ryan?

  He's the only one who, who's kind of tall, dark, handsome and complicated.

• 34:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And, and with the, and we'll see what happens with Langdon. Robbie is the only one who is in a traditional TV type framing on the precipice of something.

• 34:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes. So he's on the precipice of leaving. As we've seen last year, he might be on the precipice of some sort of breakdown.

• 34:22Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 34:23Chris Ryan?

  He is obviously got like a kind of secret, but not so secret love affair going on with the woman who handles the insurance and the, like the patient sort of accounting side of, of things for the hospital. He is ping ponging around the ER. Kind of, I think, not happier, but like, feels a little like he's like, it's my last day, you know? Um, and if challenged, he will do something reckless and extraordinary at the same time. But for the most part is like getting through the day, kind of laughing. When they're trying to talk shit about Al Hashimi last week, he's just like, not like shutting it down, but also not engaging.

• 35:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Chris Ryan?

  It feels very much like we've got a couple more days before we're done. Yes. And then when it comes to Langdon, obviously is doing all of, everything that's happening is happening like behind a scrim of professionalism.

• 35:19Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 35:20Chris Ryan?

  But he is obviously not being very professional by the way he's punishing him in certain ways because he feels wrong by him.

• 35:24Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:25Chris Ryan?

  Um, and then he cuts that lady's leg to let the infection flow.

• 35:31Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 35:32Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the one who has MR, MRSA? Is that what they call it?

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, then they started saying neck fasciitis.

• 35:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's, there's a lot of terms.

• 35:38Andy Greenwald?

  Don't Google that. That doesn't get you what you want.

• 35:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but because surgery is like, oh, she needs another scan and another scan. And he's like, if we wait for the scan, she's gonna like lose her leg if not her life.

• 35:47Andy Greenwald?

  He doesn't just cut through her skin. He cuts through red tape.

• 35:52Andy Greenwald?

  Bureaucracy. The scalpel is sharp.

• 35:57Chris Ryan?

  And I, I, you know, maybe that moment will just be like a crazy Robbie moment where he like flips a guy's lung with his bare hands or whatever. But I thought it was indicative of a guy who's like, I'm not coming back to work tomorrow.

• 36:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 36:10Chris Ryan?

  So, you know, bring me up on charges or don't. But like, did you think that that, that cut, that doing that was like especially reckless on his part?

• 36:19Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it, it, it's not just reckless because I think that it's, it's been proven that he's a miracle worker.

• 36:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Andy Greenwald?

  He is the best of the best and is almost always right, which is baked into the show. I think that, um, what it, what it suggested was a complete lack of patience. You know, he's just, he's kind of done with the structures and regulations and the, and the naysayers and the haters and the losers who are keeping him from being great.

• 36:47Andy Greenwald?

  Look, I mean, the, the show is many things and we praise it week to week for its triumphs, but it is never particularly subtle. Nor do I think it needs to be considering the type of drama that it is. The show begins with Chekhov's motorcycle. You know, and, and what surprised me about, about that opening scene was that there was any conversation at all about it. Like, do you think that was intentional that Robbie's not wearing a helmet? It's like, he had no shit.

• 37:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Andy Greenwald?

  Like, the show is telling you everything you need to know about this character's mindset as you go into it. Now, does that mean he's going to be in a catastrophic wreck and become a patient before the season is over? Maybe, or it's just giving us a little bit of flashlight into where.

• 37:29Chris Ryan?

  Where he's at in terms of like how much he's caring about whether he.

• 37:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Andy Greenwald?

  And, and where he's going. So I, I enjoyed it and I also think that one of the things that they do so well is consider the big picture. So you're right that they are hyper focused on the, the main character as our tour guide through this day. But one thing that is slightly different, at least so far through five episodes.

• 37:51Chris Ryan?

  I believe so, yeah.

• 37:52Andy Greenwald?

  To the first third of the season is that thus far it feels less like we are on the edge of a catastrophic event like Pitfest, which we could feel coming and a lot of the tension of the first season was in our bones.

• 38:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, because once that kid was like, I'm going to Pitfest. Do you want to go to Pitfest?

• 38:10Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 38:10Chris Ryan?

  I can't make it to Pitfest, you know?

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  And that we were like, well, they chose this day. So what is going to happen? We kind of knew and that informed our viewing experience. This season feels like it is intentionally doing more of a frog in boiling water type of thing.

• 38:24Chris Ryan?

  That's the other hospital being, sending all their patients.

• 38:27Andy Greenwald?

  So there's just a constant twist of the dial. The temperature is going up, up, up in a different way. And that's just really smart, right? It's a, it's a different way to change the, the, the temperature of the show. And, and his, and it may be that it is a, an ideal way to showcase Dr. Robbie the Frog's reaction.

• 38:48Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 38:48Andy Greenwald?

  To suddenly being boiled alive.

• 38:49Chris Ryan?

  There's an interesting thing happening where in the course of a workday, it would not be strange for Robbie to have yet addressed his issues with Langdon. It's only been four or five hours or whatever it is. But it has been more than a month in our life.

• 39:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  And so his kind of neglecting the situation or avoiding the situation feels more pronounced. I wonder when they're writing certain storylines, how much they account for that.

• 39:18Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, for the disconnect between, right.

• 39:20Chris Ryan?

  Will watch this show week to week over the course of months. So for us.

• 39:26Andy Greenwald?

  I see what you mean.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  It's almost agonizing that Langdon has been standing around.

• 39:30Andy Greenwald?

  In triage.

• 39:30Chris Ryan?

  Five weeks being like, are you going to notice me? But it's only been four hours.

• 39:34Andy Greenwald?

  One of the, one of the correctives to that is Dr. Hashimi saying, I'm glad you're back and I'm going to be your boss.

• 39:41Chris Ryan?

  That was the other person I wanted to talk about.

• 39:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:43Chris Ryan?

  They got, they got, I hope we get like a looser version of this character as the day goes on. Not like I really have a problem with the performance, but it's too much of a direct foil to Robbie.

• 39:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 39:55Chris Ryan?

  Like, I don't really understand why everything she's doing is only in relationship to like what Robbie is doing.

• 40:02Andy Greenwald?

  I, I would say that one of the sophomore struggles that the show has encountered is it is.

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  No one is questioning the idea that they would need to add new ingredients to the pantry. But the nature of the show is such that like, we just fell in love with what you were cooking in season one.

• 40:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:23Andy Greenwald?

  And choosing what to add to the mix is very delicate, especially when everyone else is working in such a beautifully choreographed unit. So far, the new additions are not hitting the way that I think I would like.

• 40:36Chris Ryan?

  My exception would be Joy.

• 40:38Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Joy's interesting, and the way they slow play the reveal.

• 40:43Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was well done because I wrote in my notes, what's the deal with it? Like, why? Why Joy?

• 40:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Andy Greenwald?

  And then you see that she has some inner life. Her reactions are given a little bit more context in this episode that she's had her own struggles with the financial realities of the healthcare system.

• 40:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 40:58Andy Greenwald?

  Thus informing how she behaves and how she responds to all this stuff. I get that.

• 41:02Chris Ryan?

  There also just seems to be like, are, do you actually want to be a doctor? Or do you want to be a doctor because you don't want anyone to go through what you went through?

• 41:09Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 41:10Chris Ryan?

  Like, what is motivating your... Is there family pressure to become a doctor, you know?

• 41:15Andy Greenwald?

  The Al Shimi thing is just really tough so far. Because, again, it is not a criticism of the performer or even the performance. There's very little to work with, and so much of what it takes to be on the show is to be able to convey great oceans of inner life while you're saying things like, bring in a crash tray.

• 41:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Andy Greenwald?

  And the fact that she just continues to sort of be a looming administrative presence, ultimately not that different from Gloria last year in that, you know, she just sort of keeps popping up like Clippy on the old Microsoft Word being like, may I interest you in generative AI? Like, that's tough.

• 41:52Chris Ryan?

  Do you use Microsoft Word?

• 41:54Andy Greenwald?

  I do, but I've disabled Clippy.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 41:56Andy Greenwald?

  But I don't, yeah. I do, I'm old school.

• 41:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Andy Greenwald?

  You know, proudly old school.

• 42:01Chris Ryan?

  To write scripts or do you use Final Draft?

• 42:03Andy Greenwald?

  Final Draft.

• 42:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Andy Greenwald?

  What do you use?

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  For my scripts?

• 42:06Andy Greenwald?

  Google script generator?

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  True Detective, season two, part two.

• 42:10Andy Greenwald?

  Season 2.5. That's your shit.

• 42:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and then you have her like, she basically then has every so often, they sprinkle in a moment for her to express some humanity, and she talks about humanity the way Steve Carell talks about women's breasts in 40 Year Old Virgin, where she's like, "I would rather spend time with my son." You know, so that's, it's tough. It's tough to sort of bend human behavior into the tightly choreographed demands of the show. Because one of the other pleasures of watching it, even this episode, is as the, you know, the ambient noise of case after case is building up, there was a moment when I kind of stepped back in my brain and I was just watching the way they do handoffs. Two people walking out of one examination room and then someone else walking by, giving a look, and always aware, like the court awareness?

• 42:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:59Andy Greenwald?

  If you will?

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 43:00Andy Greenwald?

  Of the space.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  It's the all 22 of it.

• 43:02Andy Greenwald?

  It's elite.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Andy Greenwald?

  It's really remarkable, and easily something that, I'm not going to say, you know, normals will overlook, I'm overlooking when I'm trying to watch it. So I think that in and of itself is remarkable. But do you feel, just to put a bow on it, like, you're pointing out the Robbie journey, and some of the maybe unnatural feeling friction of some of the other characters, is this taking away from your enjoyment, or is this just, we're a third of the way through the ride and you're noting?

• 43:31Chris Ryan?

  I think more the latter. It's not really, I'm not down on the pit, I'm not selling any pit stock, I'm not, are we sure it's good-ing it? It's just like, okay, like, I think that this season is more about long-term sustainability of the project than it is about, like, every time this show starts, your heart's going to break and your brain's going to leak out of your ears because it's so intense. And I think I'm just basing that off of the last five episodes of the first season, rather than the totality of the experience of watching the pit. It's also like, really enjoyable to watch every week.

• 44:04Andy Greenwald?

  It's my favorite thing to watch.

• 44:05Chris Ryan?

  I haven't gotten super into a patient yet.

• 44:09Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. Unlike Ogilvy.

• 44:13Chris Ryan?

  No, there's just way too much flying shit on HBO right now.

• 44:17Andy Greenwald?

  I wanted to get you to this point.

• 44:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  You know, you have historically had a very kind of highbrow sensibility. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't go for the bathroom stuff.

• 44:28Chris Ryan?

  I just, it's not something I'm dying to watch on TV. Are you?

• 44:31Andy Greenwald?

  Um, yeah.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  Finally.

• 44:37Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta be honest with you.

• 44:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:38Andy Greenwald?

  I got into this business like, like Joy got into medicine for one reason only. And it's finally.

• 44:43Chris Ryan?

  To see big tall knights take dumps by trees.

• 44:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Or, or see big tall residents, you know, digitally extract.

• 44:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:52Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, excrement from an elderly woman's rear.

• 44:55Chris Ryan?

  Not my favorite, uh.

• 44:57Andy Greenwald?

  Did you know, I just want to throw this out there because this is something that I've known for a while. Did you know that 70% of doctors get exposed to TB?

• 45:04Chris Ryan?

  Um, you, you did say something to me off, off mic that I thought was interesting, which is he's like, they're not masking.

• 45:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I thought that was pretty, but, but also it's a television show with actors.

• 45:16Chris Ryan?

  That was sort of my initial reaction to that's why Robbie's not wearing a helmet is because I'm like, because that's the star of the show and it looks cool.

• 45:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Chris Ryan?

  But maybe, obviously they've brought it up multiple times as, as like Noel Wiley on talk shows has been like, take note of the fact that he is not wearing a helmet.

• 45:32Andy Greenwald?

  No, but like they are so, so, so dedicated to showing the real life hand skin trauma of being an ER doctor of just like, how many gloves and how much Purell they're using, but they're not masking because they are actors.

• 45:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:45Andy Greenwald?

  Pretty expressive faces, uh, except briefly when exposed to TB in one room once.

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know. I gotta be honest. Tuberculosis is one.

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  You cool with it?

• 45:56Chris Ryan?

  No, but that's like what Doc Holliday got, got him, right? Is that like consumption essentially? It's not the same thing probably, but.

• 46:04Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's a great question because listen, as the person on this podcast who has maybe read the most books where people die of consumption. It's a great question. Yeah, I thought it was more of a, a general like lung issue, like if you, if the pneumonia happened, like, yeah, I don't know.

• 46:18Chris Ryan?

  But why is it, so it's wildly contagious or?

• 46:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's bad.

• 46:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's bad. There was a book out recently called Everything is Tuberculosis.

• 46:26Chris Ryan?

  I didn't read that.

• 46:27Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 46:28Chris Ryan?

  Did you?

• 46:29Andy Greenwald?

  It's disappointing. I read about it.

• 46:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 46:31Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm telling you about it. In the world of the pit, even characters as dismissive of authority as Santos just has a little bag of stats, you know, that you could just reach into and just throw on the table to educate.

• 46:44Chris Ryan?

  Uh, the prisoner who is cuffed, who is basically a symbol of the dehumanizing impact of the carceral state on humans.

• 46:51Andy Greenwald?

  I want to talk about that.

• 46:52Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 46:54Andy Greenwald?

  You know what? Put me on, Kai, clip this if you need to. If you have to.

• 46:59Chris Ryan?

  I hate when you do the breadcrumbs.

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  It's not gonna be-

• 47:01Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, all it does is, it just means like, less representation for me on Instagram.

• 47:07Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I want you to be the face of this comment I'm gonna make.

• 47:10Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 47:12Andy Greenwald?

  I think generally, in the cases of violent criminals, I think you can keep the handcuffs on when they're around scalpels.

• 47:19Chris Ryan?

  Like, they don't know what he's in for.

• 47:21Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, call me anti-woke, okay? Call me old-fashioned. But I thought that the, the prison guard being like, "We keep him cuffed for a reason."

• 47:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  And, and meanwhile, Whitaker is like, "You know, you are not needed here. Hannibal? Hannibal, how are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?"

• 47:40Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying.

• 47:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:42Andy Greenwald?

  What's the harm? The man is, they've given him morphine, he's, he's, his, his senses are dulled.

• 47:48Chris Ryan?

  He's sedated, yeah.

• 47:49Andy Greenwald?

  But, when they were sewing him up-

• 47:51Chris Ryan?

  And he has the skin of an 80-year-old man.

• 47:52Andy Greenwald?

  Well, who among us? The LA son is unforgiving. But when he's out there, you know, they're, they're stitching him up. His fingers are like, I felt like they were reaching for the knives a little bit.

• 48:01Chris Ryan?

  I was wondering about that. I really hope that doesn't happen.

• 48:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, but I'm just saying-

• 48:06Chris Ryan?

  See, just because those are my homies in there, I don't want them to get scalped up, but like, it seems like that would have to be a classic pit zag.

• 48:14Andy Greenwald?

  But also, it's a little bit like the scorpion and the frog parable, you know, where the guy's just like, "I gotta be me. I gotta cut people up." Or, he is like, already, it's like a Wee Bay in the, in the Wire situation.

• 48:25Chris Ryan?

  Oh, he's just like, "I already got life in prison."

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  "I'm never leaving prison. I will now take credit for 16 other murders in exchange for a, a pit beef sandwich."

• 48:33Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 48:33Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm just saying, a lifetime of television shows and entertainment-

• 48:38Chris Ryan?

  What's the Pittsburgh sandwich? The Promanti Brothers one, the with the fries on it?

• 48:41Andy Greenwald?

  Fries in it.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Andy Greenwald?

  That's a great sandwich.

• 48:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Andy Greenwald?

  We haven't seen a lot of that. I think, my, my guess about that, and I'm sure our Pittsburgh-based fans and/or Aaron Rodgers could chime in about it. I feel like they haven't done it because the show is so respectful of Pittsburgh with like, with references and needle drops that we didn't get from apparently very important local bands. That it would be like a Philadelphia based show being like, ah, Gino's Cheese Steak for Lunch Again, the best thing to enjoy. Like, that might be a little too on the nose and there's probably more like regional specialties or more specific, you know, that they want to appreciate.

• 49:15Chris Ryan?

  We'll see. We'll see if they bring them in. The late-stage cancer patient with a loving husband and a death duel.

• 49:20Andy Greenwald?

  My note on that was a lot of McKay. Like, a lot of... The other thing I was noticing, this is not a brilliant observation, but I was appreciating and noting the way the show gives us information about its main characters with limited real estate with camera cutaways and lingering shots. So, that whole, "I'm caring for my wife in this terminal awful, pain-riddled state." Every time there was a moment of like, "Whatever you need, you know, I'm there for you," they would cut to McKay and she's just sort of taking it in.

• 49:52Chris Ryan?

  But I also thought it was Jevati's sort of alarm or shock at the death duel was notable. I don't know why.

• 49:59Andy Greenwald?

  That didn't, yeah, it's that...

• 50:01Chris Ryan?

  Did that...

• 50:01Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't think that's that outside of the realm of... I agree.

• 50:04Chris Ryan?

  But Jevati was like, "What?" Like, when they were like, kind of being very direct about this probably being the end of her life.

• 50:10Andy Greenwald?

  I think she was just really...

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  She's young.

• 50:12Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think she's, she realized she's missed an opportunity for going viral. Like, Dr. J could be like, "You know what's in."

• 50:19Chris Ryan?

  "What's up, gang?"

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  "Time to die."

• 50:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then Langdon. Let's talk briefly about him.

• 50:24Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 50:25Chris Ryan?

  Patrick Ball, uh, just, just punching the clock, waiting for Robbie to notice him. He had the MRSA patient and also the Dry Ice Brothers.

• 50:35Andy Greenwald?

  Side note on the MRSA patient. The other Robbie off the handle, off the rip was when he grabs the phone from her and is like, "I will..."

• 50:41Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:42Andy Greenwald?

  "She will sue you if you fire her."

• 50:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Andy Greenwald?

  Please continue.

• 50:45Chris Ryan?

  That's it. I mean, like, I anxiously await their showdown, their emotional showdown.

• 50:52Chris Ryan?

  D immersed patient, that's, that's just a tough beat.

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  That was scary.

• 50:55Chris Ryan?

  I don't even know how that happens. Like, what happens? You just have an infection?

• 50:59Andy Greenwald?

  The...

• 51:00Chris Ryan?

  I don't want to know.

• 51:00Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta say-

• 51:01Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, don't answer me. Like, I just want to live naively in, in this world.

• 51:05Andy Greenwald?

  It's better when you don't know a lot of things.

• 51:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, I know too much about certain things, so when it comes to infections, let's just let the dice roll.

• 51:12Andy Greenwald?

  I, I thought it was, I think it's a remarkable testament to the, uh, intensity and specificity of the show, that a red skin infection line going past an artificial blue marker was terrifying like jaws. Like, that was, that was-

• 51:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  Quite scary. And-

• 51:29Chris Ryan?

  And what's like the expanding, like, bruise that she's got?

• 51:33Andy Greenwald?

  Like, would you rather, this is a terrible would you rather, I'm gonna say this going in. Would you rather be brought into the ER with like a, "Oh, a refrigerator fell on me. That hurts, and the bones are broken and they're gonna fix it," or be brought in being like, "I've got a rash," and then over the next two hours have everyone slow motion freak out around you?

• 51:54Chris Ryan?

  That would really freak me out. I think I'd rather just be...

• 51:59Chris Ryan?

  I think I'd rather have my ACL blown out and everybody's just like, "You, it does seem like you'd blow your ACL out because you're so good at sports," you know?

• 52:06Andy Greenwald?

  And then be like, "Actually, I will continue to compete in the Olympics."

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, you gotta talk about Lindsay-

• 52:11Andy Greenwald?

  Can we talk about that?

• 52:12Chris Ryan?

  What's up? Doesn't she, she's like the Terminator. Like, isn't she, she's gotten into many accidents, correct? She's 41.

• 52:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 52:20Chris Ryan?

  She's the greatest downhill skier in women's American history, probably?

• 52:24Andy Greenwald?

  You're asking me?

• 52:26Chris Ryan?

  You're, I'm putting you on the spot. Do you not know about women's skiers?

• 52:28Andy Greenwald?

  I know about Illyana Rasputin's tortured history.

• 52:32Chris Ryan?

  Um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know about that. There are certain injuries-

• 52:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, yes.

• 52:37Chris Ryan?

  Where they're like, "You can't fuck it up more." I am always dubious about that, but like, in football, you will hear about like-

• 52:43Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I want to talk about.

• 52:44Chris Ryan?

  They send them back out because they're like, "We gave him the choice. He's not gonna hurt him, he can't break it more."

• 52:49Andy Greenwald?

  The best example we have is from our beloved Philadelphia Eagles. Lane Johnson, the Iron Man of the offensive line-

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, during the Super Bowl season that we lost, the Super Bowl a few years ago, right? Tore an adductor muscle-

• 53:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:05Andy Greenwald?

  Which, you know, as someone who's passionate about Pilates, I'm like really attuned to the core and the, what it does for me. But like, it, I can only imagine-

• 53:12Chris Ryan?

  It's really two Americas here.

• 53:13Andy Greenwald?

  I could imagine- What about Kaya just losing her parents' subscription?

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, three Americas.

• 53:18Andy Greenwald?

  We're on the same America. I can only imagine the absolute agony of this injury. But he was like, I can have surgery to stitch my muscle back together, or I can go back to my day job stopping 300-pound men from hitting Jalen Hurts. It's already written. As awful as that sounds, I can think my way through that.

• 53:38Chris Ryan?

  Jason Pierce used to do that, too, where they'd be like, his ankle has essentially been destroyed, but he won't pop his Achilles again. You know, so he's gonna go back out there.

• 53:47Andy Greenwald?

  Why didn't they try that with Achilles?

• 53:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Andy Greenwald?

  Like, maybe Christopher Nolan will answer that for us. My question about Lindsey Vonn is, I just didn't know you could opt out of an ACL injury. I didn't know you could be like, thank you.

• 53:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Andy Greenwald?

  I'm good. I will continue skiing down mountains.

• 54:02Chris Ryan?

  I think it hurts a lot.

• 54:04Andy Greenwald?

  But do you have the structural?

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I mean, honestly, also, once you get locked in on the skis, what else is there to do?

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up on them.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like-

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  The skis don't lift your body.

• 54:14Chris Ryan?

  But you're not moving, you have to step, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if about the, I don't know if about the human body.

• 54:20Andy Greenwald?

  There's four Americas. It's people who are used to downhill slaloming in Europe.

• 54:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Andy Greenwald?

  Anyone? Kaya? No? You ever ski, Kaya? You're from Northern California.

• 54:30Chris Ryan?

  I like to snowboard, yes. Do you think you could do a blown-out ACL? No. Or torn ACL? No, absolutely not. And this is actually a subject in one of my group texts right now, where my friend just tore her ACL while skiing. And she's like, how the-

• 54:43Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, is your friend Lindsey Vonn?

• 54:44Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 54:45Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 54:47Chris Ryan?

  She's like, how the fuck am, how the fuck is she doing this, basically? Jesus.

• 54:51Andy Greenwald?

  So, the symptoms include a loud pop at the time of injury.

• 54:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what everybody's always like, that's what freaks them out the most.

• 54:57Andy Greenwald?

  Immediate, significant pain and swelling.

• 54:59Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 55:00Andy Greenwald?

  Feeling like the knee is giving out or buckling.

• 55:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 55:02Andy Greenwald?

  Loss of range of motion, pain and discomfort when walking.

• 55:06Chris Ryan?

  I think my wife tore her M-?

• 55:09Andy Greenwald?

  The MCL.

• 55:11Chris Ryan?

  Once, and that was, she'd check all those boxes.

• 55:16Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know.

• 55:16Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 55:17Andy Greenwald?

  You've already won so many medals.

• 55:19Chris Ryan?

  Who?

• 55:19Andy Greenwald?

  Lindsay.

• 55:20Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I thought you said me.

• 55:21Andy Greenwald?

  Lindsay.

• 55:21Chris Ryan?

  I thought you were like, I did. I mean, I did win a lot. Swimming in Philadelphia.

• 55:27Chris Ryan?

  That's it. Ogilvy had to clear out that lady. There's tuberculosis. Um, okay. Any other broader notes on the pit aside from Aleshimi, Robbie?

• 55:36Andy Greenwald?

  I respect its willingness to let the the elder millennials or older make a MacGyver joke and then have the younger people not get it.

• 55:43Chris Ryan?

  Not get it, yeah. We are getting to that point. A lot of stuff from our youth. Like, we'll reference LA Law. Nobody's gonna know what we're talking about.

• 55:51Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you mean like the show?

• 55:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Andy Greenwald?

  Not like the breakdown? We are downtown.

• 55:56Chris Ryan?

  All right, brother. You want to talk about, well, let's talk about Steel briefly.

• 55:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, set it up.

• 56:00Chris Ryan?

  You join me. Uh, this is a show on Amazon Prime that I checked out last week, and you watched one and a half. I only watched the pilot, but I did enjoy it. And we had a a boisterous conversation about Sophie Turner, uh, in the process of discussing this, but I wanted to see what you thought of the first episode, which is like a stylish, cool little, I thought, like a really just well-done heist show.

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's very entertaining. We, I don't know if you have called up like the name of the the writer-director.

• 56:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes, uh, Satiris Nikias.

• 56:30Andy Greenwald?

  And it is like many.

• 56:33Chris Ryan?

  Directed, well, some of the episodes directed by Hedy MacDonald, who did, uh, Howard's End a couple of years ago that I liked a lot.

• 56:38Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, the one with Matthew MacFadden? That was, that was really good.

• 56:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:42Andy Greenwald?

  I see.

• 56:44Andy Greenwald?

  An incredibly entertaining show thus far about a wildly high-stakes robbery in full daylight uh, of a financial firm, the bank that manages.

• 56:55Chris Ryan?

  Pensions.

• 56:56Andy Greenwald?

  Pensions and, um, a number of reasons to like this. One, imagining that this is in the industry-shared universe and that somehow all of the Starks have just remade themselves.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Into Financial Crusaders, yeah.

• 57:09Andy Greenwald?

  Genuinely, the similarity with industry that is most compelling to me is like, it's really nice seeing these kids freed of chainmail.

• 57:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:18Andy Greenwald?

  Um, Sophie Turner is, seems, not unlike Kit Harington, just relaxed and relieved, not that the character. is relaxed in these high stakes circumstances, but she's a fun and charismatic performer.

• 57:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:29Andy Greenwald?

  In a way, not that she was bad on Game of Thrones, but that show doesn't allow a certain range of emotion.

• 57:33Chris Ryan?

  There, there, when you, when you say that, like, as soon as she comes on the screen, you're like, oh.

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  You're, you're a person.

• 57:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And she's like, I'm hungover. I'm showing somebody around. Like I am, I am the lens through which you're viewing the show. It's just really, I, I don't want to give too much away because I think part of the thrill of the pilot is the, uh, the unfolding of the heist. I will say, I thought pensions had some safeguards around them and that it wasn't as easy as being like, I have a gun to a guy's head and he's going to give me your pension.

• 58:02Andy Greenwald?

  Do you still believe in guardrails, buddy?

• 58:04Chris Ryan?

  The thing is, I don't really believe in pensions. So it's like, they're not there, are they?

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Uh, I also think that the show like-

• 58:14Chris Ryan?

  Nothing will make you think this country is cooked more than seeing your late parents pension payments.

• 58:20Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, like they had that old TIA craft when it hits?

• 58:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm just like, that, you just taught for a while, like a while, 30 years.

• 58:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:27Chris Ryan?

  And then they just keep paying you.

• 58:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:29Chris Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 58:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's so sick, right? Couldn't be us. But you don't think that like at some point, like, like you're going to get called to Sweden and they'll be like, Chris, in recognition of your many years of service.

• 58:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Andy Greenwald?

  To the podcasting industry, here is a sweatshirt with the logo on it.

• 58:47Andy Greenwald?

  Like many of these British shows that we have been covering and enjoying, like, there's just such a wild bench of performers. And I just want to shout out the lead robber is played by Jonathan Slinger, who's an actor that I saw on stage in London. And I was like, man, this guy's incredible.

• 59:00Chris Ryan?

  You dropped something.

• 59:01Andy Greenwald?

  And I think I can drop a Jonathan Slinger reference.

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  Just a great actor.

• 59:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:08Andy Greenwald?

  And compelling and charismatic and surprising. Uh, Gado with Ben Whishaw. Yeah, he was really good.

• 59:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:13Andy Greenwald?

  Did you not make it?

• 59:14Chris Ryan?

  No, I, I couldn't. I didn't see that. No.

• 59:16Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. That's too bad.

• 59:19Andy Greenwald?

  You know, the thing about the West End is, yes, the restaurants are good and, you know, the feeling, the energy on the streets is remarkable.

• 59:26Chris Ryan?

  I was too busy rewatching the Western Book of the Dead.

• 59:31Andy Greenwald?

  Fair. I'm enjoying Steel. I want to watch it. Six episodes. Seems fun. Great. A question I had for you that I think I actually have a preloaded answer for, but I'm curious about this is, we have been enjoying, and not just because we like to travel there or work there recently, but like, we have been enjoying a lot of very specifically London shows. And when we review things and talk about things like Steel, or years ago when we were talking about-

• 59:57Chris Ryan?

  Slow Horses, stuff like-

• 59:58Andy Greenwald?

  I may destroy you, but specifically Slow Horses comes to mind of like, they are very, very physically grounded in a place. Like, now they're by the Barbican, now they're on the 55 bus line. And like, we've been there and we understand it, but I think anyone watching these shows, whether they use their active mind to appreciate it or not, understands that these shows are elevated by location shooting-

• 1:00:20Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:00:21Andy Greenwald?

  -and being in a place. And particularly in Steel, there are a lot of drone shots of all the new towers in the city by the Bank Street Station that are like, well, this is a transformed landscape and we are going to play with-

• 1:00:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Andy Greenwald?

  -the scope and scale of it. And I was, that made me think, and I actually don't know if you have an answer for this, when the last time was that we had a American show that celebrated specificity of location of a city-

• 1:00:47Chris Ryan?

  It's a great question. August of 2015, True Detective, season two.

• 1:00:49Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, we're gonna get there.

• 1:00:50Chris Ryan?

  No, but I'm just saying, like, that was one of the things that leaped out at me. I was like, that's Broadway in downtown Los Angeles where they are standing.

• 1:00:57Andy Greenwald?

  This is a good segue then. I mean, we have noticed it in terms of like, Wonder Man filmed in Highland Park-

• 1:01:04Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:01:05Andy Greenwald?

  But that's not exactly what I mean. Like, Wonder Man is notable because it does, like, do establishing shots of Pacoima, which matters.

• 1:01:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Andy Greenwald?

  It's not just the volume, or not just Toronto or Atlanta.

• 1:01:15Chris Ryan?

  Most of the time what happens now is like, you will see drone shot and then a- Whatever the scene is, could have been shot anywhere in the world because they are usually in like shallow focus so that like the actors are in focus, nothing really in the background is happening. And so it could be shot in Vancouver, it can be shot wherever they're shooting it.

• 1:01:35Andy Greenwald?

  I think there are a few recent examples of productions using the New York City tax.

• 1:01:40Chris Ryan?

  Nobody wants this, takes advantage of Los Angeles, I think, to some extent.

• 1:01:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, a very specific sliver of it, but that's true.

• 1:01:45Chris Ryan?

  Like when they look for parking spaces.

• 1:01:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, or they walk from skylight to in front of the movie theater where the light is good.

• 1:01:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Andy Greenwald?

  It's a nice third of a block.

• 1:01:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Andy Greenwald?

  A few shows have used the New York City tax credits well, like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for example, a few years ago, or Black Rabbit was very much a sort of slick vision of New York that is legitimate. But these shows, like these shows that do the, I guess what I'm chasing is something that I think reveals one of the major infrastructure problems of the American industry, which is that because production has cratered in traditional production hubs, often shows have to be written to be so deeply genre, not genre, location nonspecific, that by the time you are told where you will be going to shoot, which, you know, over the course of a show's development, could move from Louisiana to Vancouver to Budapest,

• 1:02:41Andy Greenwald?

  you cannot make the place a character. And I think that the shows that we are making are suffering from it. And not just like the great, you know, HBO shows that we always lionize, but even like maybe the more marginal entertaining Apple shows or Peacock shows.

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  I think there's also something going on, like I've asked you about this and I've talked about this, there's something going on with like the use of extras and the use of background action where like even Law and Order and SVU now, when you watch it, it just feels a little bit more canned and it feels like the-

• 1:03:12Andy Greenwald?

  Like the way that people look?

• 1:03:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like whereas like if you watch early Law and Order, it seems like they're kind of running and gunning out on Central Park and that's probably just like really good ADs getting really good extras to look like people jogging through Central Park.

• 1:03:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's a really good question.

• 1:03:27Chris Ryan?

  But there's, I also don't know whether this is what happens to every human brain, where at a certain point they're just like, things just seemed more authentic 20 years ago?

• 1:03:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I do think that there was a more robust- Everything's budgets were bigger. Shooting days were longer or you had more of them. And you could let it let it rip a little bit, probably. Like you could take over a larger quarter of Central Park West.

• 1:03:53Chris Ryan?

  Max McHale and Cal Penn talked about how that opening scene of the two of them walking through London and industry. The people in that shot do not know they're on industry. So I don't know whether there's a different law about who has to be like, you have to go then go up to people and be like, you're going to be on an HBO show. I have to imagine you do. But I just feel like, you know, when I when I drive by in LA and they're shooting something, even if they're shooting something in LA. And, you know, the three blocks are blocked off. And they're shooting something outside The Friend in Silver Lake or Los Feliz or whatever. You know, it's not going to, it still feels like very canned and like safe.

• 1:04:29Andy Greenwald?

  Right. Do you think is that, were they shooting there because they're doing like documentary footage of your 40th birthday party? Like recreating recreating the night?

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  Which is, I think also, no, she went to Tenants of the Tree. So I was going to say Shirley XCX had her birthday there as well, but she was.

• 1:04:42Andy Greenwald?

  You did both have past cigarette towers, if I remember correctly.

• 1:04:47Andy Greenwald?

  My point isn't even so much the.

• 1:04:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's just that like, if if you're shooting, it would be nice to see things that are. If you're shooting in Atlanta, which people are not doing anymore, make it in Atlanta. One of the triumphs of the Vince Gilligan cinematic universe is the celebration of Albuquerque as the place, not Albuquerque, as something else.

• 1:05:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Andy Greenwald?

  And it's been notable that the English television shows of the moment, industry accepted, industry for for price point and budget reasons shoots in Wales. But just the fact that like some of these clearly spendier English shows are taking advantage of the city that they're filming in. And I miss, it's lacking in our American shows.

• 1:05:28Chris Ryan?

  This is a good enough segue to talk about True Detective. Just because of the, you know, I was talking about like, does your brain reset after a few years and think that just things that happened 10 years ago?

• 1:05:39Andy Greenwald?

  Or like the way like we are shedding skin so that we are ship of Theseus'sing ourself every seven years?

• 1:05:44Chris Ryan?

  That's a very big theme of True Detective, by the way, this season. I just was like, you know, as I kind of read about Epstein stuff over the last couple of days. Obviously.

• 1:05:57Chris Ryan?

  You know, I was almost like looking to pair it with something. I was like, what is like this feeling that I'm having that I think is a very shared feeling of like, am I losing my mind as I, as I read the news or as I go beyond the news into piecing things together? And like, I think that everybody has to like, kind of have their own limits as to how much of that that they can take on.

• 1:06:18Andy Greenwald?

  I think so.

• 1:06:18Chris Ryan?

  As a, a man with no children, whose wife is currently traveling, my limit might be a little higher. There might not be a limit.

• 1:06:27Andy Greenwald?

  In turn, like, scale of one to 10, one being a church mouse and 10 being Ray Velcoro. What was your

• 1:06:37Chris Ryan?

  I'll tell you

• 1:06:37Andy Greenwald?

  behavior yesterday alone in your home?

• 1:06:39Chris Ryan?

  I'll tell you this. I have received documents from websites from Jason Concepcion that require translation from Russian to English.

• 1:06:49Andy Greenwald?

  But those were just like consent forms to view Liverpool goals.

• 1:06:52Chris Ryan?

  Epstein basically was like a Russian agent for FSB. But, you know, and who knows?

• 1:06:57Andy Greenwald?

  Is Jason gatekeeping this stuff?

• 1:06:59Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, I'll, I'll share it with you. I don't know whether or not my computer's gonna explode in five minutes.

• 1:07:03Andy Greenwald?

  I'll just watch it on your screen.

• 1:07:04Chris Ryan?

  I was kind of thinking about things from the last 10, 15 years that had been either reflective or predictive of the moment that we're in. And one of the first things I was thinking of was like True Detective, season one in Carcosa. This idea that a show or a piece of art or anything could be solved in a community online. Um, you know, and I remember around that time of True Detective, I can't remember the exact time, but like the first time I ever really noticed this was after the Boston Marathon bombing and people like sleuthing online. Obviously this happened with cereal a lot, people like taking it upon themselves, piece things together. True Detective, I think, is very reflective of and predictive of, of like that kind of behavior is the idea that there's like always another layer, there's always another conspiracy to be found. Now, the reason I went to True Detective, season two,

• 1:07:49Chris Ryan?

  so I'm pretty familiar with one, and also two is about human trafficking, a cabal of sexually deviant demons living in and around, you know, Bohemian Grove. It's also about the environmental and financial rape of California. And when it came out, I think both of us, certainly you, but even I was like, pretty Out on it, you know, like if I remember correctly, like, I don't know if I was out, out, but I think I was like, this is humorless. This is a chore. Carrie Fukunaga obviously brought a different visual sensibility to it.

• 1:08:26Andy Greenwald?

  I think we were, my relationship with it was, I was frustrated with it because I liked the cast, particularly Colin Farrell.

• 1:08:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:36Andy Greenwald?

  And there were, in a way, it was like the, uh, non clown face version of Taylor, late period Taylor Sheridan, in that I was, I found it compelling and frustrating in equal measure.

• 1:08:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:48Andy Greenwald?

  Because there was a lot of good there, and then it was very, very seemingly insistent on walking itself off a cliff.

• 1:08:55Chris Ryan?

  So, in the first season of Trudy, Woody and McConaughey are doing their version of his words. And then Fukunaga is shooting it in such a way where the magical realism, there's like the tracking shots, there's the incredible compositions, it's very well shot.

• 1:09:13Andy Greenwald?

  The comparison I would make is Social Network, the film, in the sense that you had two people who are very, very, very, um, strong in their fields.

• 1:09:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of like, a noisy written style and a noisy camera style colliding and having it make something that is somehow, maybe, I think it's fair to say, greater than the sum of its parts.

• 1:09:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Andy Greenwald?

  Right? Like, I, I, I mean, I love Fincher generally, um, and Sorkin, I can often take or leave, but together, they should, it shouldn't work, but it worked.

• 1:09:47Chris Ryan?

  It certainly did.

• 1:09:48Andy Greenwald?

  And I, and I think that even as someone who is famously or infamously not a big fan of season one of True Detective, the alchemy of those two was the best work that either of them have done.

• 1:09:57Chris Ryan?

  The second season, even though Justin Lin directs the first two, I think, uh, Yanis Metz directs this third one, and then Jeremy Padazza directed the fourth one. I haven't watched the last few yet, because, you know, life. But, um, you can feel the authorial vision is coming from Pizzolato, because the primary-

• 1:10:20Chris Ryan?

  Directive seems to be like, say the words the way I want you to say them. And, and, and we're using all of the words.

• 1:10:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:10:26Chris Ryan?

  Scenes go on for much longer. Uh, there is less riffage, you know, there's less kind of like, it's maybe what he wrote, but I'm going to put like the McConaughey spin on it, or the Woody spin on it, or the whatever, you know?

• 1:10:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Chris Ryan?

  It's like four people who are being instructed to act like they're dead, like they're in purgatory.

• 1:10:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Chris Ryan?

  Like the Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch, uh, Rachel McAdams, who's awesome in this show.

• 1:10:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Chris Ryan?

  And Colin Farrell, who's fucking incredible in this show.

• 1:10:53Andy Greenwald?

  He is.

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  This show, honestly, four episodes, if this show came out this year, it'd be a top five show for me.

• 1:10:59Andy Greenwald?

  I love this for you.

• 1:11:00Chris Ryan?

  This is so fucking good. And I can't believe I didn't like see it at the time, but maybe you just need, I don't really re-watch a lot of television just because there's just simply too much new stuff to check out. But I kind of, I wonder now like how many seasons of TV are out there that I'd be like, man, that was actually insane. Now, part of what's good about this season is remembering broadly what happens, but not the details of it.

• 1:11:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Chris Ryan?

  So it's been really cool. Like you get to the part where Velcoro grabs, like beats the shit out of the bully's father in front of the bully.

• 1:11:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Chris Ryan?

  And he's like, you can't cry. Look at what you did to your dad. Look at the beating he's taking.

• 1:11:43Andy Greenwald?

  This is the happiest you've been on this podcast in months.

• 1:11:46Chris Ryan?

  And, um, thematically, I think it's just like a very resonant show right now.

• 1:11:53Andy Greenwald?

  But I, so my, so this is what's interesting to me is that when you were texting me and I was being non-committal, which is par for the course, because, you know, I sent you 19 things before you woke up and you were like, cool. So I felt like turn about is fair play.

• 1:12:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I thought you were saying that True Detective broadly, but specifically season two, was interestingly predictive of our current television moment. But you actually feel like it's predictive of our larger cultural moment.

• 1:12:18Chris Ryan?

  I, I think that it was.

• 1:12:22Chris Ryan?

  It's also, yeah, I think it's the former. The latter, I feel like in some ways it's just forgotten to time. And I don't think people make shows this absolutely devoid of redemption. You know, and like any of the qualities, like all of these characters are just absolutely incinerating themselves.

• 1:12:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  And they're so miserable. They're all, their vices are completely taking over their lives. Their repressed feelings are destroying them. In the case of Taylor Kitsch's cast, uh, character. It's so cynical about the world. It's so like the putrid, disgusting shit that comes out of the woman's leg and the pit when they cut it, you know? That's what this show is.

• 1:13:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Chris Ryan?

  But then if you look at a certain, if you look at the world now through a certain lens, you're like, it's way more right than it is wrong.

• 1:13:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's interesting because the idea of a cabal of disgusting, rich, you know, pedophilic monsters is a, it's a real chestnut of American entertainment.

• 1:13:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Andy Greenwald?

  Um, remember the, remember the, the guys in Squid Game?

• 1:13:35Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:13:36Andy Greenwald?

  Like it's almost cliched. Now, as we've learned, like the real black mirror of the last 10 years of American life is like, no, no, it's actually that stupid.

• 1:13:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Andy Greenwald?

  It's actually, the things we thought are just like too beyond the pale and basic, actually that's what's been going on. I think what's missing is the level of almost like dark cartoonish humor of the fact that like, it's not just that the conspiracy theories seemingly are, were dead on. It's that the people involved went on to 4chan and invented an even more cartoonish conspiracy theory to muddy the waters of conspiracy theories generally and to get people off the scent. Like that's the thing. That's the level of like malevolent, almost like Armando Iannucci scripting season 15 of Veep level of cynicism that something like True Detective, which ultimately is about Boy Scouts.

• 1:14:31Andy Greenwald?

  Finding out the world's broken.

• 1:14:33Chris Ryan?

  Maybe in the first season. The second season is not about that.

• 1:14:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they are no longer, they're hollowed out.

• 1:14:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Andy Greenwald?

  Because they had reasons for becoming civic leaders or cops or whatever, but reality like.

• 1:14:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes, even the Val Coro character in season two is like presented as like this beautiful kind of kind man whose life is destroyed when his wife is assaulted.

• 1:14:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, so I, I, I think that, I think that the missing, the third, the third heat that's missing for me is any kind of recognition of the dark humor of it. What's compelling about a lot of what Pizzolato writes is like the, his absolute or like target, micro-targeted fixation on like the swirling around the drain. But it's also that drain is located on his navel.

• 1:15:19Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:15:19Andy Greenwald?

  Because he cannot get out of his zone.

• 1:15:20Chris Ryan?

  He's definitely like, this is the, this is like Sirianni after the Super Bowl. Like he's getting to call his own, call his, call his own shots here.

• 1:15:28Andy Greenwald?

  Is season three Kevin Patullo's offense?

• 1:15:32Chris Ryan?

  No, I actually liked.

• 1:15:33Andy Greenwald?

  I liked season three.

• 1:15:35Chris Ryan?

  I will say that one of the, I forgot that one of the central kind of plot drivers of the second season is the corruption and financial malfeasance surrounding a California rail line that will connect the Central Valley, the north and the south. Still, we still haven't built that.

• 1:15:52Andy Greenwald?

  Well, maybe with redistricting, we'll finally get there. Like I, I, I think that it's an, first of all, I, I love the history lesson.

• 1:15:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:00Andy Greenwald?

  And I think it's fascinating to look at shows that were, you know, maybe misunderstood at the time. But I, I still think that in, in entertainment and like out at the bar, a guy sitting next to you being like, you actually don't understand how bad it is, is not that compelling to me. I need something else.

• 1:16:18Chris Ryan?

  I would almost be curious if you watched the first one.

• 1:16:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:22Chris Ryan?

  If you would be like, oh, actually this feels a little bit more quaint.

• 1:16:26Andy Greenwald?

  In retrospect?

• 1:16:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because pre-Trump, it's pre, like, it's, it, like, if you go through the last 10 years, like we have, and then you look back and you're like, oh, these were four, like, damaged but well-meaning people.

• 1:16:41Andy Greenwald?

  It's also, I think, one of the things, there's, you can look at it one of two ways. Like in those first three seasons, there are Hall of Fame level performances from McConaughey, Harrelson, Farrell, Herschel, Rachel McAdams, and like.

• 1:16:56Andy Greenwald?

  In the service of work, pieces that to some didn't hang together.

• 1:17:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Andy Greenwald?

  What's your feeling about that? You know, it doesn't discredit their work.

• 1:17:05Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:17:06Andy Greenwald?

  I wish, I definitely found myself more like, I wish that it was in the service of something broader and grander. But there's also talk about like, there was a feeling, particularly at that time, that because the doors had been blown open in the medium of television, that the work that was being made now in this golden into prestige era, or whatever you want to call it, would be not just interesting, compelling, entertaining, meaningful, but would be significant and lasting in a way that we look at cinema. And I think, maybe with a few exceptions, TV is still TV. Like, we keep shoveling. It doesn't, I don't say that to say that like Sopranos wasn't great,

• 1:17:47Andy Greenwald?

  but I do think that the way we talk about individual performances and shows still somehow is diluted because of the quantity. Because to say Sopranos is great versus saying, I don't know,

• 1:18:03Andy Greenwald?

  pick a, pick a great movie, I don't remember any.

• 1:18:05Chris Ryan?

  I mean, even something like, versus like Goodfellas, or I don't, yeah.

• 1:18:09Andy Greenwald?

  Right, is that it is, it is a different commitment and a different aperture of like how much you have to take in.

• 1:18:13Chris Ryan?

  Goodfellas is a long movie that would take two and a half episodes of Sopranos.

• 1:18:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Andy Greenwald?

  What, what will you, what will you do next, historian?

• 1:18:22Chris Ryan?

  I would be curious to see how you felt about the David Lynch-isms of season two on, on Second Pass.

• 1:18:29Andy Greenwald?

  I had a hard time with it in season one, because, you know, that's.

• 1:18:31Chris Ryan?

  Cause they got the, the city manager with his eyes burned out being driven up the coast with the bird head.

• 1:18:38Andy Greenwald?

  I remember that very well.

• 1:18:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Andy Greenwald?

  I.

• 1:18:41Chris Ryan?

  You were mad as fuck about that.

• 1:18:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because as, as this podcast's number one David Lynch gatekeeper, there's a reason why I was like, many have tried, but none have succeeded. Maybe with the exception of Tim Robinson on the chair company. Because David Lynch is funny as hell. And you just, you just cop the moves, you know, but not the spirit. It's, it's a very, very different thing.

• 1:19:03Chris Ryan?

  You were with me on Mulholland Drive when I was shooting in the gym.

• 1:19:06Andy Greenwald?

  What about, speaking of David Lynch, did you see that there has been some movement in terms of sharing his final work?

• 1:19:13Chris Ryan?

  His screenplay?

• 1:19:14Andy Greenwald?

  So there were-

• 1:19:15Chris Ryan?

  I know Toby Jones said that he was supposed to be the star of the last movie, right?

• 1:19:18Andy Greenwald?

  Is that what he said?

• 1:19:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:19Andy Greenwald?

  So, so-

• 1:19:20Chris Ryan?

  The lead.

• 1:19:20Andy Greenwald?

  There were a lot of rumors and then, more than rumors, there was more than just smoke, like that he was prepping a massive project for Netflix. It was under the working title of Wisteria. There are people that have talked about it publicly, there are people that I know that auditioned for it and were going in and there were, there was some information going around about it, but that broadly speaking, it was understood to be like a, like Twin Peaks The Return, like a massive movie that's gonna be chopped up.

• 1:19:45Chris Ryan?

  16 hours or whatever.

• 1:19:46Andy Greenwald?

  15, 16 hours. And then later it was revealed that it was, the actual title was Unrecorded Night. And then he was, and it seemed like Netflix was willing to do this with him, but his health precluded even getting it into production and then, and then, uh, um, strike and COVID and all the other things that delayed production generally. So it was never realized, but that his daughter Jennifer is saying that they're gonna publish the scripts.

• 1:20:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:08Andy Greenwald?

  Wild to think about.

• 1:20:09Chris Ryan?

  Do you wanna read those?

• 1:20:10Andy Greenwald?

  I desperately wanna read them, but it does, it's painful because it's not like, ah, you know, in the same way that like, um, you know, Lacare's sons are writing new smiley novels or like there's a Lost Chandler book that was finished by a contemporary crime writer. Like, no one can do what he did.

• 1:20:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I have a very strange relationship to the, the sort of legacy acts. Not even a legacy act, but like I was thinking about this because I was on the plane back from Boston, I was watching Now You See Me 3.

• 1:20:39Andy Greenwald?

  Are, are you a completist? Have you seen the first two?

• 1:20:40Chris Ryan?

  I, I have now. I've, I've seen all of them, like on planes.

• 1:20:44Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Do you like them? I don't know nothing about them.

• 1:20:45Chris Ryan?

  They're, they're fully entertaining, but like actually insane. Uh, Dominic Sessa's in the third one.

• 1:20:53Andy Greenwald?

  I, first of all, that, that Broke Containment, that trailer, which seemingly gives away the whole movie, played in front of every children's movie in theaters for a year.

• 1:21:02Chris Ryan?

  He's playing young Bourdain in the upcoming movie.

• 1:21:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm a big Sessa head.

• 1:21:07Chris Ryan?

  I, I like Dominic Sessa too.

• 1:21:09Andy Greenwald?

  I love the Holdovers.

• 1:21:09Chris Ryan?

  It's, it's just like, we are now like in, what are different ways to continue to put out Anthony Bourdain's stuff?

• 1:21:19Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:19Chris Ryan?

  In the absence of him.

• 1:21:20Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:22Chris Ryan?

  And I, I like, half of me is like, yeah, I'm gonna be there day one. I can't wait to see it.

• 1:21:27Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, this is a story about Bourdain. I thought you were gonna tell me about the magic movie.

• 1:21:30Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:21:31Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, sorry, go on.

• 1:21:32Chris Ryan?

  He is playing young Bourdain.

• 1:21:33Andy Greenwald?

  In a, in a, in a.

• 1:21:34Chris Ryan?

  Would you describe yourself as like, I can't wait to see that? Do you think that there's a similarity between like paging through a never to be filmed David Lynch?

• 1:21:41Andy Greenwald?

  This is a biopic.

• 1:21:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like.

• 1:21:43Andy Greenwald?

  Which is different than like Parts Unknown, season 15, hosted by Dominic Sessa with generative AI helping him.

• 1:21:50Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:21:52Andy Greenwald?

  But is the question like, do I feel like I'm done?

• 1:21:54Chris Ryan?

  It's just things that like, I don't know that the artist would have wanted. I don't know that David Lynch would be like, look at my un, unfilmed.

• 1:22:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because I'm a filmmaker.

• 1:22:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know that Anthony Bourdain would be like, I really want my young, my youth to be like.

• 1:22:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Chris Ryan?

  Biopic, you know, like.

• 1:22:11Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I don't know the answer. I think my interest level, my interest level varies. Like, I think that there is something, for the Lynch thing, there's something incredibly bittersweet about it. Because no one can do what he did. And, but in terms of my curiosity and interest in these people, that meant something to me.

• 1:22:28Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:22:29Andy Greenwald?

  These two examples, but I haven't read, no disrespect to Nick Harkaway, but like, I haven't read his new.

• 1:22:35Chris Ryan?

  The Lucari stuff.

• 1:22:36Andy Greenwald?

  His new Smiley book.

• 1:22:37Chris Ryan?

  The Silver, what was it?

• 1:22:38Andy Greenwald?

  No, that, that was the last Lucari that he finished. There's like a book called Smiley something that is credited to Nick Harkaway. It's just a new Smiley book. Do you, but is this how you feel about True Detective Night Country?

• 1:22:50Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:22:50Andy Greenwald?

  Continuing Nick Pizzolato's work without him?

• 1:22:52Chris Ryan?

  No, I, I had, I had a lot of time for Night Country. It's, I don't, I don't think, I, I think it was like, just, I, I would like to see that project continue. I think it's a really interesting and fun for me, uh, world to live in, is these sort of like occult investigations by, by broken detectives.

• 1:23:10Andy Greenwald?

  But I think the thing that the show, and look, I, my criticism of this franchise has been well criticized, and that's totally fair. But I think one of my recurring things about it is. Weirdly, True Detective didn't go further, far enough in either direction.

• 1:23:28Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 1:23:29Andy Greenwald?

  What you're saying is really compelling, that he was on to something, obviously, that he was feeling and was inspired to write about, and that does chime with the world, maybe even 10 years in advance. But it didn't go all the way there. Like, the show teased-

• 1:23:40Chris Ryan?

  None of the seasons did.

• 1:23:41Andy Greenwald?

  They teased this larger mystery.

• 1:23:43Chris Ryan?

  Except, actually, I think Three maybe touched it the most.

• 1:23:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, Three has an explicit moment of tying in the series, very brief, right, at the end?

• 1:23:52Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yes, but it's also like, it's where the character winds up is the most, I think is the most spiritually like, true thing that happens to any of the characters in this show, in this entire franchise, is the fate of the Mahershala character.

• 1:24:11Andy Greenwald?

  What's weird is, I'm almost arguing for a more conventional structure, in which like, a prestige network like HBO hires a, and I think it's fair to say, regardless of how you feel about the output, like, a prestige creator like Nick Pizzolato, who works in a certain manner and expects his words to be performed and said in a certain way. But it's macro-engineered like The X-Files, in the sense that like, Nick Pizzolato's broken men characters are perpetually lifting boulders up a mountain that they can't carry, but at the top of the mountain is the fucking cigarette-smoking man.

• 1:24:42Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:24:43Andy Greenwald?

  And he's always, you know, emailing people to get tickets to see Howard Stern or whatever, whatever the case may be. You know, like, it would almost be, and it's very indicative of something about TV that I like, so I want to be careful, I'm not, I don't want to argue against myself here, but the fact that it doesn't really stack up to something is okay. Like, not everything can be engineered, but it's almost interesting that, interesting purely in hindsight, that if there had been some like, macro story, that he was going to keep running at, from different vantage points in America, from different character vantage points, different casting, maybe even different eras, one thing that

• 1:25:22Andy Greenwald?

  you could explain, not just Carcosa and Flowers, like, some, and something a little bit more specific, and thus maybe more heavy-handed than the evil that lives within all men.

• 1:25:32Chris Ryan?

  I think if you were to go back and watch season two, you would be surprised by how much you like it, because it's- It is like a level of quality of television that I think is absent from like a lot today.

• 1:25:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's the way I feel about Miyazaki's very personal The Wind Rises.

• 1:25:46Chris Ryan?

  I can see where this is going.

• 1:25:47Andy Greenwald?

  In the sense that like, I do think there's something in there that you would respond to because it is a film about tuberculosis and smoking and airplanes.

• 1:25:54Chris Ryan?

  Where are we at? 11:45?

• 1:25:56Andy Greenwald?

  You gotta go.

• 1:25:57Chris Ryan?

  No, I was just thinking about whether we should do any, is this After Dark?

• 1:26:00Andy Greenwald?

  This has been After Dark ever since you brought out your notebook.

• 1:26:03Chris Ryan?

  Would you like to weigh in on Stout?

• 1:26:07Andy Greenwald?

  Like because of all the creamy puns of Guinness?

• 1:26:09Chris Ryan?

  Long time.

• 1:26:09Andy Greenwald?

  Other stout. I do follow a lot of Guinness content.

• 1:26:11Chris Ryan?

  Long time Eagles offensive line coach and run game coordinator.

• 1:26:14Andy Greenwald?

  People want this? I'm ready for it.

• 1:26:15Chris Ryan?

  I don't really care.

• 1:26:16Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, let's go.

• 1:26:16Chris Ryan?

  I wanna hear about it.

• 1:26:18Andy Greenwald?

  Sports corner.

• 1:26:19Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna paint a little portrait of Andy. Andy's a guy.

• 1:26:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:24Chris Ryan?

  Who doesn't just need sports, but he needs the sports that he cares about to, to work out in a certain way.

• 1:26:30Andy Greenwald?

  To reflect, yeah, to some sort of goodness.

• 1:26:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, to reflect like a certain chemistry, a certain togetherness.

• 1:26:37Andy Greenwald?

  Humanity.

• 1:26:37Chris Ryan?

  And yeah, like I think you're looking to sports to, to right some wrongs in the universe. Not you.

• 1:26:44Andy Greenwald?

  To be the best of us.

• 1:26:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And so when bad things happen or like, you know, locker room drama spills out about the Eagles, Andy's like the last to believe it.

• 1:26:53Andy Greenwald?

  Very upset. Yeah.

• 1:26:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. He's always just like, I trust Howie will, will take care of like all of this stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I, I love that about you.

• 1:27:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Chris Ryan?

  But this is one where a very like long-serving and beloved and perhaps best at his job in the world, offensive line coach.

• 1:27:12Andy Greenwald?

  13 years.

• 1:27:13Chris Ryan?

  Has chosen that he would rather not work for the Eagles anymore than work for the new offensive coordinator or Nick Sirianni anymore. He doesn't like how he was treated last year. Whatever the reports are. And this is the one that seems like it may have broken you a little bit.

• 1:27:28Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I did spend my drive in listening to our friend Sheil and our old friend Ben Solak talk about this in ways that did remind me of Vince Vaughn's attitude towards justice in True Detective, season two. I would not say it was a sunny thing.

• 1:27:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Andy Greenwald?

  In my, in my defense, shout out Vic Fangio.

• 1:27:49Andy Greenwald?

  I have noticed that there is an inversion that happens in season and out of season. Whereas during a football season, I am a reactive lunatic.

• 1:28:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:00Andy Greenwald?

  Where every single snap is catastrophic. And then when the season's over, I'm like, trust the process.

• 1:28:07Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:28:08Andy Greenwald?

  I like these moving pieces. It could work out. Whereas you and Zach, I think, are much more granular in your nervous systems during the offseason.

• 1:28:16Chris Ryan?

  I'm much more level-headed during games.

• 1:28:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:18Chris Ryan?

  Like, there's an element of it that's just beyond our control, you know?

• 1:28:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I'm more level-headed in the offseason because, you know, I trust the great man theory. I trust Jeffrey Lurie.

• 1:28:26Chris Ryan?

  Who's the great man?

• 1:28:28Andy Greenwald?

  TBD.

• 1:28:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Andy Greenwald?

  TBD. No, this is, this is, this is a bad one. This is a bad one, in the sense of like, if they can't actually make this work, what are we doing here?

• 1:28:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Doesn't feel good. How do you feel about Jared McCain getting traded?

• 1:28:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I'm mad. I mean, while we've been recording for quite some time now, while we have been doing so, there may have been like another trade that was coming.

• 1:28:50Andy Greenwald?

  Seems like it was just a tax dump.

• 1:28:51Chris Ryan?

  I did not like that. Yeah. I know we have to sign like some of our guys on two-way contracts, but like, I'm glad Eric Gordon has a warm seat on the bench for life for the Sixers for some reason.

• 1:29:01Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think if we go to the Comcast Infinity Shine Heart Wig Company Arena, they will have up in the rafters, they'll have like Dr. J's jersey, Iverson's jersey, and skirted the first tax apron 2026 jersey?

• 1:29:15Chris Ryan?

  I was thinking about bringing that sign to the game tonight because I'm gonna go see the Sixers play Lakers.

• 1:29:19Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, nice. Be like, proud of you guys. You're under the threshold.

• 1:29:22Chris Ryan?

  Um, Greenwald, it was, it's been amazing to deal with you today.

• 1:29:26Andy Greenwald?

  Deal with me?

• 1:29:27Chris Ryan?

  Not deal with you, deal with the world, deal with the files, deal with...

• 1:29:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to show people your work?

• 1:29:31Chris Ryan?

  I did. This is like, I've tried, I'm trying to be more present in my thought.

• 1:29:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:38Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and write out my thoughts longhand because when I'm on my computer, I'm just like all over the place. I'm just like, oh, let me listen to some shoegaze, you know?

• 1:29:45Andy Greenwald?

  Look at this. This is, I like this.

• 1:29:46Chris Ryan?

  Um, industry and Night of the Sixers go up on Friday. We're not gonna do a show until Monday, though. So, don't get your hopes up. And we'll talk about the Super Bowl, some ads, state of the world, state of the birds, state of Greenwald.

• 1:30:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm, I'm just putting all my eggs in the Sam Darnold basket.

• 1:30:04Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kai. Thanks for listening.

• 1:30:15Speaker 03

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