‘The Bear’ Clocks Out. Plus, ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 2 and ‘Star City’ Episode 6.

Chris and Andy talk about ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 2 (8:19). Then they break down the rest of ‘The Bear’ Season 5 and share their feelings on the series as a whole (34:38). Later, they discuss ‘Star City’ Episode 6 (01:07:41). 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: Jason Arreola The Ringer is committed to responsible trading. Please visit⁠ https://fanduel.com/predicts⁠ to learn more about the resources and helpline. 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

  For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremfya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tremfyradio.com.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected, powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 1:35Speaker 02

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

• 1:41Chris 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, ready to celebrate 250 more, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:55Andy Greenwald?

  250 more episodes of The Bear, season five?

• 1:58Chris Ryan?

  It's great to see you. I am excited for this dialogue that we're going to have today on The Watch Podcast, which you can email at [email protected]. You can follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod underscore and you can watch us on YouTube at Ringer Daily. Mash TV where we share space with the Prestige TV podcast and you can also watch us on Spotify where I hope you listen to us.

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  We don't share space, we hold space.

• 2:17Chris Ryan?

  We hold space for Joe and Rob. Uh, it's great to see you. It's really great to see you. It's great to have Kaia back. We have a full house today and a full show.

• 2:24Andy Greenwald?

  You have a lot of expectations for today, I think.

• 2:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, here's the laundry list.

• 2:27Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  The to-do list.

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 2:29Chris Ryan?

  Um, opening banter.

• 2:32Andy Greenwald?

  So far, crushing it.

• 2:33Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we may do Dragon. I mean, we, Dragon.

• 2:37Andy Greenwald?

  We should discuss a little bit. I have some questions.

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Dragon, Bear, and Star City. How about that?

• 2:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, those are the things I watched.

• 2:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, you also watched some other stuff. You had a robust cultural weekend.

• 2:46Andy Greenwald?

  I did. There was a lot. I mean, I, that was a lot of television, man. I still, I still got it, you know?

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  And you know what? Can I tell you something?

• 2:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Um, the industry is, it's not the industry, the agency, straight bangers and mash. Just tucking into it, dude.

• 3:02Andy Greenwald?

  How far, how far did you go?

• 3:03Chris Ryan?

  I'm at four now.

• 3:05Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 3:05Chris Ryan?

  It's just good as shit, man. The Bureau, that was a good story.

• 3:09Andy Greenwald?

  I know. They really knew what they were doing.

• 3:10Chris Ryan?

  Now they just say it in English. It's awesome.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  So much easier. Uh, can I give you just a little glimpse into my headspace before we get started?

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  I'd like nothing more. In fact, this podcast is essentially built around that.

• 3:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well, so I don't know if this has ever happened to you and I don't know what this means specifically, but I was, you know, I was lining stuff. I mean, really this morning was devoted to a very important task, which is collating our various songs for our much anticipated annual barbecue playlist, which definitely will now soundtrack one of the weirdest barbecues of all time. So that's not out yet. We will release that via our Instagram.

• 3:42Chris Ryan?

  Because of the music or because, uh, because of the nature of the country?

• 3:46Andy Greenwald?

  No, because of the, because of the interesting collision between where our personal muses have led us recently.

• 3:51Chris Ryan?

  I can only do so much, Andy. I mean, last year I had a lot of aggressive music and you said that I would have ruined anyone's barbecue. So I tried to make it soft and NPR friendly for you.

• 4:00Andy Greenwald?

  Ruined is not the word. Also, soft does usually not involve Ice Age and Salem.

• 4:09Andy Greenwald?

  But, okay, to each his own. That's not my issue. My issue was I spent, you know, my head was really in that game this morning and I was trying to collate my thoughts about all the various television we were gonna discuss today. Was really excited to just kinda check out the AQI down here in Los Angeles.

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, right.

• 4:23Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh...

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it's actually raining, or is this God crying on the bottom of the city?

• 4:28Andy Greenwald?

  Or did they shoot the hoses so high that it's only now?

• 4:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  Um, so all of those things were happening and, you know, also it's Monday morning. I was boiling up some eggs. You know, and then was distracted briefly by some London communication on the WhatsApp app. And I was like, hmm, should probably lift the toaster because it seems like I'm really overdoing these English muffins. Shout out to Nooks and Crannies, our former sponsor.

• 4:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:55Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh...

• 4:56Chris Ryan?

  So you're scrambling some eggs?

• 4:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was boiling, like hard boiling some eggs.

• 4:59Chris Ryan?

  Boiling eggs with an English muffin, okay.

• 5:01Andy Greenwald?

  Well, here's the thing, Chris. There was no English muffin. It was actually a kitchen towel that was fully aflame in my... I had set fire to a kitchen towel.

• 5:11Chris Ryan?

  Like by putting it on the toaster?

• 5:13Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, the toaster wasn't involved. That's... You're with... You with me?

• 5:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Andy Greenwald?

  I had lifted the lid of the pot with a kitchen towel, because it was hot, placed it what I believed to be a reasonable distance from the pot.

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  I see.

• 5:27Andy Greenwald?

  And then just fired up some messaging. And then just was kinda like vibing with the smell of Los Angeles inside of my kitchen. Maybe that was... Maybe the real issue is we are so desensitized.

• 5:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it is. It is probably at this point, you could just like, all I do in my, in my house now is burn foam just to feel...

• 5:43Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 5:44Chris Ryan?

  Just to feel something.

• 5:44Andy Greenwald?

  So I immediately took an N95 mask and put it on the cat and then drove in to see you.

• 5:50Chris Ryan?

  So I... Are you sure that is... Are we okay at your house? Like, the embers are out?

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  You know me very well. I doused that towel so intensely in the sink, there was no more flame.

• 6:02Chris Ryan?

  Good.

• 6:03Andy Greenwald?

  And before I left, I then disposed of the towel. And yet, just now on the five freeway, sorry, no free ads, on a freeway.

• 6:12Andy Greenwald?

  I, uh...

• 6:13Chris Ryan?

  That's like the World Cup stadium.

• 6:15Andy Greenwald?

  On Los Angeles.

• 6:16Chris Ryan?

  On Los Angeles. Los Angeles Road.

• 6:19Andy Greenwald?

  I was on Los Angeles Freeway and, uh, my thoughts are so... I am not this creative in my script writing as I am when anxious and driving to work. Because I imagine that one little smoldering ember was still inside of the towel and was now spreading to whatever, no doubt, highly flammable substance was in my trash can.

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, your Calabria and Chili's, what have you.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  No, those are where they belong. I said, "It's coming home, Chris," when it comes to the Chili's. So that's where I am today.

• 6:50Chris Ryan?

  You are worried that your house is engulfed in flames.

• 6:53Andy Greenwald?

  Or maybe it's a fresh start.

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  Okay, uh, where would you like to start today? I mean, would you like to start with one of the three shows? Do you want to tell me a little bit about your cultural weekend? Would you like to save that for After Dark?

• 7:05Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, also, you know, we didn't... Maybe we were waiting for Kaya, or maybe now we're afraid to do it in front of Kaya. But we didn't do After Dark last Thursday, where we were going to discuss the wedding of the century.

• 7:16Chris Ryan?

  Of New York City with socialism or... Oh, Taylor, right, because we did talk about DSA last week. Uh, I don't want to lead with Taylor.

• 7:23Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't either. I'm saying, so that's probably our After Dark sorted.

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  Yes, well, I mean, this is why we don't have a show on Thursday. We have somewhere to be.

• 7:30Andy Greenwald?

  You're just telling people now? Wow, okay.

• 7:34Chris Ryan?

  Let's start with House of the Dragon.

• 7:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Chris Ryan?

  You know what, just say it at the beginning. You went and saw The Invite. It's only in seven theaters.

• 7:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, we want to say this at the beginning?

• 7:43Chris Ryan?

  Sure, because it's only in seven theaters and I think it's worth... Andy's movie corner is always a delight, so you give it a shout out.

• 7:50Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, what a great movie.

• 7:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it will be rolling out, I think, over the next two weeks.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  I had a very unexpectedly spontaneous Los Angeles experience where I didn't know the movie was out. I then saw that it was... It's playing only in theaters that can play it in the 35mm projection film format. So it's here at the Vista and it's probably in a couple other cities. And I just... There I was, just a young... Nope, just a man, uh, without a calling. And I went into the theater, I saw a movie I knew very little about. I think it's phenomenal.

• 8:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:25Andy Greenwald?

  I loved it. And then Hollywood, baby, as soon as it was over, Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen appear to be interviewed by someone who's coming for your crown, Sanaa Lathan.

• 8:36Chris Ryan?

  Letter. I would, I would love nothing more than to, to, to do battle with Sanaa Lathan from America's Host.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to talk about the movie, but, and I do, I think she's a wonderful actor and I really like her. But I, I did feel a little bit like you don't see us auditioning for Love and Basketball. You know what I mean? Like, there is a reason why it's generally you or Sean on a director's chair at the front of these things. You know what I mean? Because you usually don't begin your Q and A's by being like, man, whoa, am I right? Wow.

• 9:06Chris Ryan?

  Maybe we should.

• 9:08Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, that would probably translate better. Anyway, I, I just couldn't believe that we can still make funny, engaging, emotional, adult movies.

• 9:17Chris Ryan?

  I think it's a phenomenal movie.

• 9:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's a grown movie.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  I recommend anybody listening to this should see it. Uh, there's a big picture episode in the can, uh, coming soon. I don't know exactly when. Sean's playing a little flat, fast and loose with the schedule right now, but, uh, we did a, did a pod about it and I, I loved that movie.

• 9:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's why you're saving your takes. Look at you.

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  It's not really saving my takes. It's just like 150 people got to see the movie. I don't want to spoil it.

• 9:38Andy Greenwald?

  It's just us here. You can.

• 9:39Chris Ryan?

  Just us gals.

• 9:40Andy Greenwald?

  You can leak a little something. Sean's not listening. Sean can't hurt you here.

• 9:44Chris Ryan?

  He does listen.

• 9:45Andy Greenwald?

  I know.

• 9:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then he stops when we start talking about TV shows, which we're gonna do now.

• 9:49Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 9:49Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's talk about House of the Dragon. Uh, I, uh, thought that one way to look at this episode.

• 9:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  Which I talked about with Mal and Joe in depth, and I'm happy to answer any questions because now I am the lore master on this show.

• 10:03Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. How's Mal doing?

• 10:06Chris Ryan?

  Fine.

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  Good.

• 10:07Chris Ryan?

  Oh, because of anything in particular from this episode? So spoilers for the.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  You said you could answer questions.

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, she's doing great.

• 10:12Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 10:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh, spoilers for the second episode of House of the Dragon, season three, uh, which.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  In some kind of calculus could be viewed as the actual season finale for season two. So I saw much debate about this online about whether or not like the first episode would serve as a better finale or the second episode. I think that in a, in a way, we arrive at a very good stopping point for a certain story in that Rhaenyra is now back on the Iron Throne. But just in general, like I wanted to do a little gut check for you because I have given, I have created a permission structure for you.

• 10:48Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you.

• 10:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that we don't have to talk about this every week and that you don't, you shouldn't feel like you're in a George R R Martin memorial state penitentiary with me. What do you, what did you think of the episode?

• 11:01Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I watched too much television this weekend because my first reaction was it was a hideous end to the chief designer. Like I know that what's going on with the Soviet space program is a little, they're playing a little fast and loose with security protocols.

• 11:13Chris Ryan?

  Can we get Reese for two days? Cause Reese Evans is currently one of the stars of Star City.

• 11:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he's free for future seasons of Star City. Let's put it that way. He's not going to be called back to Westeros anytime soon.

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  I have to say that the Otto Hightower ending.

• 11:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:29Chris Ryan?

  On this episode where he was two times, we had to basically, Rhaenyra had to take two swings at the.

• 11:37Andy Greenwald?

  I believe.

• 11:37Chris Ryan?

  Pinata.

• 11:38Andy Greenwald?

  He's called a two pump chump. I believe that's what that means.

• 11:42Andy Greenwald?

  No?

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  Wouldn't she be the two, two pump chump in this case?

• 11:46Andy Greenwald?

  I wouldn't comment.

• 11:46Chris Ryan?

  That would be like one of my, that's a new fear unlocked is that I was going to be beheaded, but the first one missed.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  You've never had this fear before?

• 11:54Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 11:55Andy Greenwald?

  You haven't, clearly we had different, uh, middle and high school reading lists. Because I do remember quite a lot of, uh, historical, uh, textbooks discussing how the guillotine and wasn't always the model of efficiency that we believe it to be.

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  Works 50% of the time.

• 12:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's rough stuff.

• 12:18Chris Ryan?

  So that was, that was terrifying, but I thought. I thought a useful way to look at this show increasingly, and maybe this is, you could say this is cope, you could say this is like me trying to create like a language to talk about the show.

• 12:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  But I, I, I think the more you look at it as this kind of like maximal, maxim- maximalist opera, it kind of works better.

• 12:39Andy Greenwald?

  Talk to me, explain.

• 12:40Chris Ryan?

  Well, because you know, the people talking in rooms, uh, broken characters trying to put together a broken world of Game of Thrones, the humor of Night of the Seven Kingdoms, like I think those are more approachable. Um, and Game of Thrones, the reason why it was such a huge gateway for so many people was that those characters were not altogether different than ones you would see on Sopranos or, you know, like other television at the time, they were wearing capes, they had shields, but they were fathers and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters even, you know?

• 13:12Andy Greenwald?

  And dragons, eventually.

• 13:14Chris Ryan?

  Eventually, but I think that they backloaded all that stuff. And they backloaded a lot of like the hard, hard fantasy stuff that is in that text and led with.

• 13:24Andy Greenwald?

  Of course, yeah.

• 13:25Chris Ryan?

  Family. And, uh, you know, I think House of the Dragon, every show probably is served well by this, where you can kind of figure out like, what's the way to watch this and how should I be? Which way should I lean when I'm like leaning it, you know? Like if I'm, if I'm, if I'm enjoying the show, what is the best way to sort of like interpret it? And I do think seeing this as an almost like heightened, kind of over, over dramatic in a good way, show helps my enjoyment of it.

• 13:56Andy Greenwald?

  I, I find that interesting and I find that, I find that compelling. I think when you were, you were saying that you were monitoring the debate about like where the season, season two ought to have ended or could have ended. Is it generally understood, like what is the, in terms of the people who are really invested in the show, which clearly I am, I am not, but like, is there a feeling of disappointment about what the second season was?

• 14:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Is there, okay, yes, all right.

• 14:24Chris Ryan?

  Almost universal.

• 14:25Andy Greenwald?

  Fair.

• 14:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Andy Greenwald?

  I-

• 14:28Chris Ryan?

  This, this America can agree on.

• 14:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's really nice. That's really nice.

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  That was an abrupt season finale.

• 14:35Andy Greenwald?

  It sure was. And, look, I think there's, there's the type of criticism that we can do that, you know, when we talk about shows that we're struggling with, or that we're having mixed reactions to, that can be categorized as constructive. There's a type of criticism that we do that is ultimately kind of a dead end, which is the things that we wish it could be. Um, I don't really have a lot of that for this show, because it is so just committed to, A, not being for me, which is fine, but I really do feel that it is entirely for people who are already within the coalition, let's say.

• 15:09Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:09Andy Greenwald?

  So, like, Mal and Joanna, who I adore, and when I hear you guys talk about the show, or I hear them talk about the show, I'm always more interested in their perspective on it than I am on my own, or even on the show itself, because, for example, when on the pod you did with them, Joanna was talking about the arrival of the Northmen.

• 15:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the Storks.

• 15:31Andy Greenwald?

  And she was talking about who these people were, who they, what they represented within the world at this time, how exciting it was to see this on screen, how you could read so much into Damon's reaction, because he knows the history of them. And I thought, well, that, how nice for them. Like, when you drive past a quinceañera in downtown Pasadena, do you know what I mean? I'm like, this looks like a beautiful day.

• 15:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'm gonna continue driving now, I was not invited. That's pretty much how I feel about the show at this point.

• 15:59Chris Ryan?

  Outside looking in.

• 16:00Andy Greenwald?

  Outside looking in. So, that said, there are threads here that I do find compelling, even within this episode. Like, if you were to think about it in terms of the larger Westerosi project, kind of like the Heritage Foundation, you know, it's been, they're finally getting what they want. Um, Rhaenyra-

• 16:21Andy Greenwald?

  Claiming the throne with tears and snot running down her face after this nightmare of a day.

• 16:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 16:30Andy Greenwald?

  Is in a vac-- that's interesting, that's compelling, that's different than what we've seen. But my biggest, I mean, the biggest note that I took was the scene when, prior to Flying to King's Landing, and I'm gonna need your help explaining why they couldn't have just done this at any point, or are they just afraid of the one really big dragon?

• 16:49Chris Ryan?

  Vigor, yeah.

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  But she has, again, not unreasonably taken to her bed because her son is dead, and Daemon comes over and starts just riffing. I mean, he just starts talking, he basically starts talking to her about prophecies the way we would talk about spy novels and bars in the early 2000s.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Andy Greenwald?

  You know, like, no, you don't know what Len Dighton did in the third trilogy. And he's talking about the Song of Ice and Fire and the prophecy, and he's basically saying, if all of this is true, that there's going to be someone who we know is Daenerys, who takes over the world eventually, then you gotta get up, you gotta get back up, and you gotta get on your dragon and fly because of the story we have to fulfill. And I'm sitting here being like, this must be how the people locked in a room in Watford feel when they're writing this show. They're like, we gotta make the fucking story donuts because this is all fate, there is no emotional reason to do it. He's saying, go do all this so Daenerys can happen.

• 17:52Andy Greenwald?

  Now, not only did we know Daenerys happened because we watched Game of Thrones, we also watched the last season of Game of Thrones, and it didn't work out great.

• 17:59Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:00Andy Greenwald?

  So I wish that there was a, I wish in that moment of low emotion, or real emotion, that the reason for doing things was more tangible than, there's a really good story I heard that many people enjoyed on HBO.

• 18:16Chris Ryan?

  I think if you connect what he's saying, that it's a very wise way of looking at things, and I think it presents a storytelling problem, but not a character problem. And I think one of the things it's been-- Cool about this. First of all, I think Emma Darcy is doing a wonderful job this season.

• 18:32Andy Greenwald?

  I agree with that. Very, in a very different.

• 18:35Chris Ryan?

  And that's like a very, that was what I was talking about, the operatic part. Like her sitting down and the reflection, Claire Kilner directed this episode. I think she does a wonderful job with the show. And the reflection in the blood of her taking the throne, her kind of looking both like a child, but also a broken man like her father, like in the, in the throne, I thought was great. Alicent showing up, you know, it's very like, it's like Verdi. It's like, you know, like the person comes and sees their father killed right at the last second. But I think that the interesting moral problem, or not even moral, but like the problem solving problem that it presented that character is,

• 19:18Chris Ryan?

  you are incredibly important, both as a warfighter, like, because you have a dragon.

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 19:25Chris Ryan?

  But also you are essential as a figurehead.

• 19:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 19:29Chris Ryan?

  So if you are the, if you are the thing that this guy saw in his vision.

• 19:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 19:34Chris Ryan?

  You actually can't do shit because we have to wrap you in bubble wrap.

• 19:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  And that's why she can't go fight Aemond. This is my interpretation of it.

• 19:42Andy Greenwald?

  This is also why Joelle and Bede can't do back to backs.

• 19:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, the princess, the princess who was promised, you know, like it was, it was like the idea that the reason why Jace, while a bit dumb, was right, was that she probably would have caught some harpoons out there in the first episode of the season.

• 20:00Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 20:00Chris Ryan?

  And if she goes down, this whole thing goes down.

• 20:03Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  Because this isn't based on a political coalition or an alliance of families of like, you know what? This guy really has a lot of good ideas about how to run Westeros. This is, a bunch of people have agreed on a myth or an idea or a dream or whatever.

• 20:17Andy Greenwald?

  And a figurehead.

• 20:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And so she's got, it's gotta be her.

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  They've gotten really good at doing the action stuff. They've gotten really good at making the dragons look good. But I, but again, I think the thing that I just find unsatisfying and makes me think that ultimately this show is the Westerosi version of, I mean, I think you, you, you fed me this. I think you're right. Of like a Rings of Power type show, which is like, or a Star Trek, whatever the current show is on Paramount. Where it's like, if you love this stuff, you're going to find a lot to like here and it might be a different storytelling. But for me. All of the interesting emotional storytelling is in parentheses between what is now endless scenes of overpowered video game heroes slicing through red shirts. There's just so much, oh, here we are, let me stab eight people through the throat.

• 21:03Andy Greenwald?

  There's only, Chris, I know you could, you were surprised by what happened to Otto, but in my experience, there are limited ways to open up arterial veins.

• 21:11Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 21:12Andy Greenwald?

  There's, aren't so many. You know what I mean? Maybe there's some-

• 21:15Chris Ryan?

  Should we do a top five throat slashings in TV history right now? I mean, Box Cutter's gotta be number one from Breaking Bad.

• 21:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 21:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, first of all, they're all good. You know, we live in a golden age. But, but you know what I mean? And the reason I was thinking of that was when you were talking about the important, the bubble wrap nature of Rhaenyra, but it's also just weird to me, but necessary for storytelling, that Rhaenyra and Daemon, who are ostensibly the soon to be incestuous king and queen of this reunited realm, they're like riding, they're riding to King's Landing on the back of their nuclear bombs like Doctor's strange love. And then they get off the bombs and they're like, no, we'll just stab, do a little bit of stabbing. Oops, we got cornered. That seemed foolish until it all worked out.

• 21:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Joe pointed out something similar, so I was glad to know that that wasn't just like our casual eye being like, why did they do that? But I guess ultimately that's why Alison had sort of gotten the gold cloaks, you know, Daemon's old crew on side.

• 22:13Andy Greenwald?

  His homies.

• 22:14Chris Ryan?

  I think a good, a good illustration of what you're talking about in that, I think it's a well-done, well-acted scene, but there is a scene in between Daemon leaving his army and getting back to Rhaenyra, where he meets Alice Rivers, who is the witch who-

• 22:30Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, is that, is that Gail Rankin?

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  And that's Gail Rankin, and that's the witch who-

• 22:34Andy Greenwald?

  I'm glad, I like this part.

• 22:35Chris Ryan?

  -shotgun with him through the, with the weirwood tree.

• 22:38Andy Greenwald?

  It was him and the tree and her. It was a weird frumble.

• 22:40Chris Ryan?

  And that was like, probably the most emblematic of like, did you guys miss schedule this shoot? Like, how, how did this wind up that you have the most, one of the most dynamic characters on this show is kind of in isolation?

• 22:52Andy Greenwald?

  Were you talking about the tree?

• 22:53Chris Ryan?

  No, Matt Smith. And so Matt Smith and Gail Rankin are wonderful performers, and here's Alice, a mysterious woman with deep ties to Harrenhal in some way.

• 23:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Chris Ryan?

  And- Damon, who is, you know, dedicated to Rhaenyra.

• 23:13Andy Greenwald?

  He is.

• 23:14Chris Ryan?

  But she may not be endgame for him. She may not be his one and only.

• 23:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you think he has some other nieces?

• 23:19Chris Ryan?

  No, I just mean like he's married before, you know, like he, he obviously has a thing or connection with Alice.

• 23:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Chris Ryan?

  That's a very, I think, significant scene.

• 23:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Chris Ryan?

  In the larger narrative tapestry of this show. I think that will be a turning point. Did you read it as such? Or were you like, this is another like room tone? Two people talking about what they did and what they're going to do kind of moment.

• 23:46Andy Greenwald?

  I feel the way I felt from the beginning with the show, which is why probably listening to me is diminishing returns. I cannot for the life of me see where the story is coming from. And but what I mean by that is like looking at the fuel reserves of what we have to tell. Where what's powering another season and a half, right? I think they said that it was going to be four seasons of story here.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  Partly because giant ass dragons aside, the relative randomness to the casual of when they can and can't do things. Like everyone was so paralyzed for so many episodes of the show last season. And then they just flew in and took the throne and now she's there.

• 24:27Chris Ryan?

  Once Aemond was rured out to go to Harrenhal, yeah.

• 24:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I that the amount.

• 24:33Chris Ryan?

  He finds a new GF.

• 24:34Andy Greenwald?

  But in order, oh, that's right. You think he's gonna be okay?

• 24:38Chris Ryan?

  Aemond? Fine, but he's got.

• 24:39Andy Greenwald?

  He's got a little.

• 24:40Chris Ryan?

  But he has a new, new, new agent in Alice.

• 24:43Andy Greenwald?

  He got stuck a little bit in the back there.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  I think he'll, he'll make it.

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  I was glad to see a Targaryen actually get stabbed.

• 24:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Andy Greenwald?

  I can't believe I just said that. Well, you got me just when I think I'm out, but I thought that was nice. I just mean that like, we began at the, we began, remember, remember when the, remember when the battlefield on the show was the womb? We began with them as children just to get to a point where one of their children was distracted so they could go back. Like that is a, that is a lot of television made out of what feels like not a lot of real estate.

• 25:13Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes I think it's, it feels and plays a little bit like the way it feels to read nonfiction. Where you're like, you're reading, like I was reading like the Rick Atkinson Invasion trilogy. It's like Africa, Italy and D-Day. And like, I love them, but there's 15 pages of, and then the men packed the socks. And then the men packed 80,000 cans of tuna and the men packed underwear and the men.

• 25:41Andy Greenwald?

  This is the part I'd like.

• 25:43Chris Ryan?

  But that's a lot like you're, and you're kind of like, ah, yes, a storyteller might be like, everything they needed, they packed away.

• 25:50Andy Greenwald?

  Right. It's a history, not a.

• 25:51Chris Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And I think there is a dedication, perhaps in over the, in the beginning, ironically enough, since George R. Martin and Ryan Connell had this sort of schism. There was in the beginning, maybe an over deference to showing every step of the way.

• 26:05Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 26:06Chris Ryan?

  And, and no more so, nor never more so than when they did a four-episode preamble of these girls as teens.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Because, well, for whatever reason, but they obviously didn't want to just be like, here's grown up Alison and grown up Rhaenyra and their last moment of peace. And now they're going to split.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I think it's, it, look, it, it is interesting from a perspective of someone who is a fan of the industry and a, a, I mean, we watch it, like to see a show. No, I'm serious. Like.

• 26:40Chris Ryan?

  LinkedIn.

• 26:40Andy Greenwald?

  Fan of the industry.

• 26:41Chris Ryan?

  Fan of the industry, man.

• 26:43Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's because I'm just, that's just glazing Mickey and Conrad again. Can't help it. Um, I, no, but that like.

• 26:51Chris Ryan?

  Who are some of your favorite guys in the industry right now?

• 26:54Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, my God.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  Josh Demaro, like.

• 26:55Andy Greenwald?

  Josh Demaro is killing it right now. What about, what about, uh, Gunner? You know, no one talks about Gunner anymore now that Paramount's buying, uh, Warner Brothers. But for a minute Gunner was king. He was going to have his own little fiefdom of networks. Then Ellison came over the top. I don't think we've heard the last of him. He's going to take Heron Hall. I think, um, I do find it interesting when shows because of their, whether it's because their actual like quantitative success or the, you know, the, the necessity of the project for the bottom line of the corporation or whatever, to keep going as it fixes itself and, and rewrites itself and redirects itself. And I think that you couldn't get anyone on the record to say this, but if you.

• 27:38Andy Greenwald?

  It would be fascinating at some point to read a postmortem of the show with Ryan Condal or with George Martin, or both of them ideally, or with other people in the room, talking about how they, how the goals changed and what mistakes they feel were made to get to this point. I, I, I don't mean to be like walking back or being overly negative about what I said last week, which was in episode like the Battle of the Gullet episode is in many ways, I think the best case scenario for what this show is. I'm not trying to wish it to be something else.

• 28:07Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 28:07Andy Greenwald?

  But to bring it full circle to answer your question, I enjoyed the scene you're talking about because I think that Gail Rankin's slight playful smirk on her witchy face is the closest this dead ass solemn show has come to any sense of humor.

• 28:23Chris Ryan?

  That and Laris and Aegon.

• 28:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, that's right. I do enjoy that. So I enjoy Matt Smith and Gail Rankin sharing the screen. At no point was I like, aha, this is a door opening into what the show is going to be, because I do not understand what the show is going to be unless I've signed up for a History of Westeros class.

• 28:41Chris Ryan?

  You may have.

• 28:42Andy Greenwald?

  Apparently I have.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  You may have.

• 28:44Andy Greenwald?

  You, and I've been truant and you're not allowing it.

• 28:46Chris Ryan?

  I thought Laris and Aegon were a, a, like a kind of breath of fresh air, even though obviously both deformed men, one whose skin is still burning off apparently.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So you think it smelled like my kitchen this morning a little bit?

• 29:01Chris Ryan?

  They are also completely on the same page in how they're acting. So that there is just like a much more of like a, like naturalistic style going on between those two.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  Most of this show is like, I have walked into a chamber and I am like, my queen, you know?

• 29:18Andy Greenwald?

  Which, by the way, is also The Bear, season five, but I can't wait to talk about that.

• 29:22Chris Ryan?

  We could actually.

• 29:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's just people walking into rooms going, hey, can I ask you a question?

• 29:27Andy Greenwald?

  What a golden age of people walking into rooms to talk to someone else in the room.

• 29:30Chris Ryan?

  Oh, because television's got so many other ideas than walking into rooms.

• 29:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, we always come back to the classics. You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

• 29:39Chris Ryan?

  Anything else you wanted to hit from H O T D before we move on?

• 29:45Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just, can you explain? Reyna's the one who, who, who ghost rode the dragon and now is like, screwed up?

• 29:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and she went to the veil, she went back to the veil where she was, she was basically on an extended babysitting gig with some of other Rhaenyra's kids. And like was just trying to get them out of harms way. And because she hadn't claimed a dragon yet, she was given this sort of belittling task. She goes out there, it's the veil.

• 30:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Chris Ryan?

  She finds Sheepstealer, who's

• 30:18Andy Greenwald?

  And we've all agreed, that's his name.

• 30:19Chris Ryan?

  Feral.

• 30:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, trains him.

• 30:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Chris Ryan?

  And so much as she claims him, but can't get him to do anything she wants. Half of what she wants, but then the other half is kind of like, well, whatever is down there is getting lit up.

• 30:33Andy Greenwald?

  She does the thing, he does the thing that she wants. He just does it across the board.

• 30:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Andy Greenwald?

  But he both sides it.

• 30:40Chris Ryan?

  She flies him back to the veil.

• 30:42Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 30:42Chris Ryan?

  Says to Jane.

• 30:43Andy Greenwald?

  What's up?

• 30:44Chris Ryan?

  Can I get some refuge here? Jane's like, nah.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 30:47Chris Ryan?

  And she's like, well, I have a dragon. I'll protect the veil. And she's like, I just won't look for you.

• 30:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Chris Ryan?

  So you can, you can have that hill that we're gonna pretend isn't there. Is that what you were asking?

• 30:58Andy Greenwald?

  What if someone did that for us in like Somerset? Like you don't, I'm not gonna go over here where this cottage is. You could just hang out.

• 31:05Chris Ryan?

  You want a rough sleep out in a meadow somewhere?

• 31:06Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I'm gonna turn your Charlie Rose bit back on you for one second. And Reyna, I know you from where?

• 31:14Chris Ryan?

  She's one of the kids.

• 31:15Andy Greenwald?

  Who's kids?

• 31:16Chris Ryan?

  She's Bela's sister.

• 31:18Andy Greenwald?

  Right, oh, Bela.

• 31:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And Bela is Corlys's granddaughter. I mean, it's all mixed up. You gotta look at the family tree. You can do the work. You can get the map of Westeros out. You can get the family tree out. You know, if you want, you can Google, Google your ass off.

• 31:32Andy Greenwald?

  Chris.

• 31:33Chris Ryan?

  And find out what happens.

• 31:35Andy Greenwald?

  Man, I'm 49 years old. Like, you know?

• 31:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay, Google.

• 31:39Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I'd still ask Jeeves. I'm going backwards. I'm not Googling. It's just, I'm not doing their AI nonsense. It's not even a good search engine anymore.

• 31:49Chris Ryan?

  You don't Google?

• 31:51Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  What do you use?

• 31:53Andy Greenwald?

  I use my brain computer. I just have a certainty about things. It's like what we used to do. We would just be like, do you remember how free it was to like be at a bar and to start talking about some cartoon we misremembered from the 80s?

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but you know what the problem was?

• 32:07Andy Greenwald?

  And being like, no, I'm pretty sure that was real.

• 32:08Chris Ryan?

  Was that we were young, our brains were

• 32:12Andy Greenwald?

  Sharp.

• 32:12Chris Ryan?

  Fresh and often superpowered. And we were like, I have complete recall for all of this shit.

• 32:21Andy Greenwald?

  And all of space and time.

• 32:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And now I'll be like, do you remember that thing you said yesterday? And then I will sundown and not be able to remember

• 32:29Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 32:29Chris Ryan?

  A, what was said yesterday, but B, why I brought it up in the first place.

• 32:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. It's true. We did have a beautiful moment last week, though. This is a positive spin on this. Where I texted you something that I just remembered you had said on the pod and I thought was so charming. And you said, who's this? No, you knew it was me.

• 32:45Chris Ryan?

  I have no recollection of saying that.

• 32:46Andy Greenwald?

  No memory.

• 32:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. This is what happens when you are on microphone five days a week is, I just can't remember.

• 32:52Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that you-

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  And honestly, that would be good. Like, I hope I do, like, I would love to be brought in front of Congress and I can just say, honestly, I don't, I don't know.

• 33:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but-

• 33:02Chris Ryan?

  I do not recall.

• 33:03Andy Greenwald?

  But Kai and Kaya have an archive. Like, you're gonna get undone. Senator Cassidy's gonna-

• 33:12Chris Ryan?

  That certainly looks like me, but I just don't remember saying it.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just picturing like Sheldon Whitehouse and like Blumenthal being like, and so you characterize the events of January 6th as what?

• 33:23Chris Ryan?

  Are either of those guys still senators? They are, yeah. They are.

• 33:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I thought you meant like, I thought you were like dissing them.

• 33:28Chris Ryan?

  No. I was just, I couldn't remember if Sheldon was still rocking it.

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Sheldon's, he's still, he's still, you know what else?

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  The great state of Rhode Island.

• 33:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Chris Ryan?

  Who are not participating in the fair of fairs in Washington, all the states.

• 33:39Andy Greenwald?

  Rhode Island is not?

• 33:40Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  Anyone else not?

• 33:42Chris Ryan?

  The commie corridor is not participating, pretty much.

• 33:44Andy Greenwald?

  That's sick.

• 33:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Andy Greenwald?

  So that's New England?

• 33:47Chris Ryan?

  Pretty much. And Pennsylvania.

• 33:49Andy Greenwald?

  Has A.J. Brown weighed in on that?

• 33:52Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just trying to like unite the streams here. You know, you know what? You know what I'm wondering though? There is a remarkable archive of you now and your, your takes. And, you know, piece by piece, your personal history, even our shared history.

• 34:08Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 34:09Andy Greenwald?

  They're gonna Simone your ass.

• 34:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, make me like make an AI bot out of me?

• 34:14Andy Greenwald?

  There's gonna be, I, don't you think? It might be a decent to good hang.

• 34:21Chris Ryan?

  Just AI Chris?

• 34:23Andy Greenwald?

  Am I wrong? Like, I feel like, has this whole thing?

• 34:27Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Anthropic could win back the federal government if they were like, the new guy, the new agent is Chrissy? And he just, this guy loves Lioness.

• 34:36Andy Greenwald?

  Just you laughing?

• 34:37Chris Ryan?

  If every time you're like, Chrissy, what's this rash? And it's just like, you know what? In Lioness, season two, episode four, Joe, played by Zoe Saldana, asked the same thing.

• 34:47Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, listeners know that there was a period in 2004, five and six, when you watched so many episodes of House MD, I would ask you medical advice.

• 34:56Chris Ryan?

  True.

• 34:56Andy Greenwald?

  And you pretty much told me if it was or wasn't lupus. And you were a hundred percent right. It was never lupus. Have I just blown the lid off this thing?

• 35:06Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure, I'm sure, like, I don't think we're the first people to be in danger of getting completely digitized and then obviated.

• 35:14Andy Greenwald?

  Not me. This is all an act. This isn't even me. You guys don't even know my real name.

• 35:19Chris Ryan?

  So you actually love House of the Dragon?

• 35:21Andy Greenwald?

  You don't know what I like. That's why I constantly zag to defeat the machines.

• 35:27Chris Ryan?

  This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Predicts. You can predict the summer soccer showcase action all the way to the final match with FanDuel Predicts. All you have to do is sign up to get your $25 bonus. From the opening game to the final whistle, stay locked in with every pass, every goal, and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion. Sign up now for your $25 bonus on FanDuel Predicts. Go to FanDuel.com/predicts to sign up. That's FanDuel.com/predicts to get your $25 bonus disclaimer. Offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 and over. Restrictions apply. See terms at FanDuel.com/predicts/bonus-offer/terms.

• 36:08Chris Ryan?

  So we had initially talked about doing The Bear in chunks, like doing three, three, two. We're not doing a show on Thursday. We've both finished the series.

• 36:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  Due to the nature of which they released the show, obviously a binge, but also in, you know, the first seven episodes were made available to the press and then the final episode went up on Friday, Thursday, right? Thursday night.

• 36:33Andy Greenwald?

  They, I mean, all the episodes went up concurrently. So the first time-

• 36:36Chris Ryan?

  So that was when, and then I watched it on Friday.

• 36:39Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 36:39Chris Ryan?

  And I think that as we sort of saw on our previous conversation about the first few episodes, where you, very Catholic of you, were like, you said we were gonna do three, I did three. And then I was like, I watched all seven and I have a completely different opinion. Let's just finish it.

• 36:55Andy Greenwald?

  That's what happens when AI hallucinates. Just doesn't even listen to the prompt.

• 37:00Chris Ryan?

  I'm sorry, I just need your social security number before we finish this.

• 37:04Andy Greenwald?

  That does sound challenging. Have you ever considered murder?

• 37:09Chris Ryan?

  So let's talk about the rest of the season of The Bear. This is season five of The Bear, so spoilers for the entirety of it, spoilers for all of The Bear, just fair warning.

• 37:17Andy Greenwald?

  It does seem anecdotally that, especially with an eight-episode runtime this season, which is the first eight-episode season, I believe since the first, it had done 10 for the past few seasons. It does seem like people just binge the show.

• 37:30Chris Ryan?

  It does.

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I mean, I can't speak for everyone, but I don't know many people who savor it, especially this season, which was so-

• 37:36Chris Ryan?

  It was not crea- I do not, I will go to my grave, people at FX, even Christopher Storick could tell us, like, no, no, no, it's episodic. Like, I want people to, like, watch it and take it some time. No.

• 37:47Andy Greenwald?

  Not this year.

• 37:48Chris Ryan?

  This was a tasting menu of a season. You were supposed to sit there for the whole thing. That's what it's about, one day, well, then with a coda. And I think that you, it's meant to be enjoyed as much together as possible. So with that being said-

• 38:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  After watching the first three episodes and being like, I'm as close as I ever have been to sending this back to the chef.

• 38:10Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:10Chris Ryan?

  How do you feel about it after watching the complete, after enjoying the complete meal?

• 38:15Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that episodes seven and eight were compelling and lovely and a nice coda to a series that now I feel confident saying should have ended two or three years ago.

• 38:28Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that the show kicked into action when the cooking actually started.

• 38:36Chris Ryan?

  So that's episode five, really, right?

• 38:38Andy Greenwald?

  Five or six, I believe.

• 38:40Chris Ryan?

  So five is when they start, they open, but nobody has shown up, right?

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  The moment that the season suddenly had a pulse, to me, was when Karmie cooks the lamb and pours a little

• 38:53Chris Ryan?

  Tonato.

• 38:54Andy Greenwald?

  Tonato on top of it.

• 38:57Chris Ryan?

  But it's Chekhov's Tonato.

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  It was Chekhov's Tonato, that tuna. I mean, and to that point, I appreciated the moment when it all suddenly seemingly goes wrong in Seven, because breaking plates is a lot better than spinning plates, which is really what the show had been doing for upwards of 20-plus episodes.

• 39:20Chris Ryan?

  Or did you just come up with it?

• 39:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I wrote that one down. I wrote that one down. You're right. Did you see my eyes?

• 39:24Chris Ryan?

  No, but I was like, that's really good if you're just, if you're just dealing.

• 39:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, every so often, in my Notes app, there's like a line where I was like, put me back in, coach. Cracks knuckles, get that granolin column going.

• 39:37Chris Ryan?

  I can tell. I can tell sometimes.

• 39:39Andy Greenwald?

  No, I mean, honestly, this is one of those times only because the

• 39:43Chris Ryan?

  You wish you had like 2,000 words.

• 39:44Andy Greenwald?

  Because the totality of it is deserving of it, and the relationship to the show is complicated enough that I think no matter what we talk about now, it's not really going to capture the full extent of it. Because I think there's very little way to express the nuance necessary to say that it is, I think it is impossible now, maybe in a few weeks or months with some hindsight, that might change, but I think it is impossible now for me to think of this series as a success, separate and apart from the fact that the first two seasons are two of the best seasons of TV of this century. Is that enough? Honestly, probably. And it was certainly enough to give me some pleasure at the end of this season.

• 40:28Andy Greenwald?

  But the sheer amount of time spent

• 40:32Andy Greenwald?

  With characters, as we were joking about before, I don't know if everyone listens to each segment, but with House of the Dragon, the majority of this season, up to the moment when it kicks into action, is people, one character walking into a room, saying, "Hey, can I ask you a question?" And they talk about something that happened in the previous episode. There is no momentum from scene to scene. There is no build. There is no individual story, other than Oliver Platt and fucking Brian Koppelmann driving around Chicago yelling at people about air rights, a story that also goes nowhere, just to kind of get out of the claustrophobia of the restaurant. I thought it was extremely frustrating. And I think you could, you could capture all of that. And I do want to talk about the positive things of those two episodes. I don't want to get too far off the path

• 41:13Andy Greenwald?

  with that. But the arrested, paralyzed nature of the show is captured best in the absolute petrification of its main character, from, I believe, midway through season three, until he puts on a tie in episode 508. Jeremy Allen White is a bizarrely stoic Easter Island statue of himself, standing in the background of this season of TV. Now, is that a story worth telling? Where Sidney takes over, and everyone else steps up, and he learns that he actually has a team behind him to catch him if he falls, or trust falls? That's a meaningful story. Did he have to be on the show to prove it? Did it have to take this long to get there? I genuinely don't know. And that's when we start to go into the place

• 41:58Andy Greenwald?

  where I don't necessarily want to get into, which is, who asked for this? And what argument did they make to do it? Because it's, it was such a struggle to get to a place that I think was deserving.

• 42:10Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so I'll try and hit some of your points, and we can just make this into more of a back and forth, rather than like, and allow me to retort, kind of thing. I'll say that beyond, you called it compelling, I found seven to be deeply moving. You know, like, both because I think, this is what I alluded to last Thursday, there's-

• 42:33Chris Ryan?

  An authenticity, I think, to the characters and the performances, whether or not they are always being put in a position of maximal entertainment value or interesting storytelling is completely up for debate and your mileage may vary with that. But the behaviors and the emotional states of a lot of these people ring true to me. And some of their experiences ring very true to me. And to watch them get some kind of catharsis, but also honestly, to watch them actually in action again, finally, for the first time in a long time, to see them kind of like be

• 43:17Chris Ryan?

  together and moving around and helping one another and hurting one another and yelling at one another, but also like improvising and finding solutions and fixes. I found it really, really effective and honestly, the Carmy stuff was like secondary to me. I found myself just really, really blown away by Eben Moss' backstory this season.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  That's where we land.

• 43:40Chris Ryan?

  And the Richie character, I think you could make an argument that this show is more about Richie and Sid than it is about Carmy.

• 43:46Andy Greenwald?

  In terms of journey, in terms of transformation, absolutely.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Yes, now we can, here's the magic trick. Richie goes from a guy screaming about incels and, you know, Blade Runner and can't control himself and is essentially like keeping the place alive, dealing coke in the alley.

• 44:08Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  To a six-week stage experience at Ever where he, is that how long he's there?

• 44:15Andy Greenwald?

  He's shorter.

• 44:16Chris Ryan?

  Shorter, however long, but not very long, he's at Ever. And he comes out the other side with a completely different worldview and a completely different set of priorities. We can debate whether or not that's realistic or not.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  It's realistic, it's the Chris Ryan story.

• 44:28Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 44:28Andy Greenwald?

  Look at him.

• 44:31Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, Bill Simmons finishing school.

• 44:33Chris Ryan?

  That's right. It only took 14 years. I always thought that his character this season expressed himself through action, even if that action was doing the like shirt table.

• 44:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:46Chris Ryan?

  The, the.

• 44:47Andy Greenwald?

  EMDR kind of therapy.

• 44:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that kind of like, I heard this on a podcast, I think I'm supposed to do this, kind of, coping mechanisms. And his conclusion of going to Japan and getting to see the Ninja Museum and going with Jess, but also like, even that moment with him and Carmi in the freezer where he's just like, I've never been on a plane.

• 45:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 45:08Chris Ryan?

  And, and that, that was like, that felt earned. I felt like I'd been on the road trip and we finally got to the Woodrow Wilson rest stop together.

• 45:18Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, what was the other one? Joyce?

• 45:23Chris Ryan?

  Joyce something.

• 45:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but Joyce was a man, we found out. Did you know that?

• 45:27Chris Ryan?

  I did not know that. We're talking about New Jersey Turnpike.

• 45:29Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, I'm just abstracting. Evan Moss-Bacherak's performance absolutely is the beating heart of the show. The transformation of Richie is, is a beautiful thing to watch and it's also something that I don't want to take for granted. One thing that happens when you have a show in your life with the consistency of The Bear is that you begin to blur the lines between actor and character and you just begin to assume that they show up and are just, you know, it's, it's second nature to them. You almost forget about the magic trick of acting. And watching not just where he started that character and where he ended that character and realizing that he was holding something consistently the whole time.

• 46:10Andy Greenwald?

  And then you see an interview with him or you see a video clip of him talking to someone and he's a distinctive looking guy and he looks different when he is not being Richie. I mean, he is, he is completely subsumed into this character and understands him on a cellular level. And the wins of the show, I mean, to be clear, like I've never really had a, had a problem with the, the pathos of The Bear. Like it is a big sloppy. Bloody rare steak in terms of its emotions.

• 46:39Chris Ryan?

  It's got an open heart, yeah.

• 46:40Andy Greenwald?

  And him excelling and making things happen for people. And the recurring mantra in Seven of I got you. And how you kind of fake it till you make it when you speak to people you care about. That you keep repeating it and then they do have each other? That they do dig deeper and find something? Well, it was meaningful. I mean, and it was effective. And I really, really enjoyed that. I think I had trouble with the, how long it took to get to a place that was already, we were already on the precipice of it, if that makes sense. But I did think that there were some smart decisions, looking at the show through his lens. Like, there was more, there were more, there were more places for him to go.

• 47:25Andy Greenwald?

  Whereas I did feel other characters were kind of just playing the hits.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:29Andy Greenwald?

  Whether that's the opportunity they were given on screen or the performer themselves, I'm not sure. One thing that I didn't love in the season, for example, was like Lionel Boyce, who plays Marcus, who I really like. The journey of this season, the journey of the character overall, which was becoming more and more morose and serious and dramatic. And then culminates in him basically having a personality transplant for Six and Seven. Now, I understand it's because his father's coming and he's feeling pressure. But I also just felt the heavy hand of we need some friction to occur in this just absolute love fest that is The Bear.

• 48:02Chris Ryan?

  I think between him and Luca specifically, but I think it was also like, you can't, there's no jeopardy if all these people are essentially like, deep down.

• 48:11Andy Greenwald?

  Geniuses who all get along?

• 48:13Chris Ryan?

  Geniuses, but also like, you know, Marcus's whole problem in the kitchen has been how deliberate he is. Like, they've always wanted him to go faster. They've always wanted, and what this last service, or the last service of The Bear shows is like, this is the maximum amount of nothing goes right. But when nothing goes right, like, the creativity is actually sparked. So that's where. You know, Carmy thinks because he's dropped this lamb, the last lamb, that the entire night is ruined. But it's actually like unlocks him, once they get his back, to create brioche out of nothing.

• 48:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:49Chris Ryan?

  And finish off Marcus's last dish so that the Michelin star guy who's just a guy.

• 48:55Andy Greenwald?

  Just a guy.

• 48:56Chris Ryan?

  Can have like the dessert of a lifetime. And everybody gets to basically be the best versions of themselves during that dinner. It's like the idea of having a cigarette and beer soaked outdoor party patio next to a Michelin starred tasting menu is, would that work? Does, is there a place like that? I don't know, but that sounds pretty cool.

• 49:20Andy Greenwald?

  If it, and if there is, it would be in Chicago.

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  And it allows the facts to be the facts. You know what I mean? Instead of asking us to be like, all these guys turned into like maître d's from heaven. Like they are like, no, I'm the guy who like, when everything's kind of going wrong, I'm like, dude, let's go out and smoke a cigarette, you know? Like, that's kind of fun. And I thought that the reason why the season worked for me, even if it felt repetitive to you, like where you're like, it's just people walking into rooms and asking each other how they're doing, or like, what did they think of what just happened five minutes ago? First of all, that's basically what offices are like. Like, they are very repetitive of like, just going like, hey, like, did you see that thing? And what are you going to do about this thing? Maybe that's not great television, but it did, it wasn't crazy to me that it was happening. But where the third and fourth season, especially the third, if I'm remembering correctly,

• 50:08Chris Ryan?

  had a lot of like really intense closeups isolation. Can't really tell if this person is.

• 50:16Andy Greenwald?

  In the same room?

• 50:17Chris Ryan?

  Not on the, in the morning show level, but like, it's about like, almost trying to get interiority by boring into people with the camera. This season got into interiority by putting like people on like a stage base together. I mean, the restaurant is shot completely differently. It looks like a soundstage to me.

• 50:38Chris Ryan?

  And I thought I thought that they got where people were at in their lives by doing rather than saying, for me.

• 50:48Andy Greenwald?

  To your point about Michelin star dining, like, I think that one of the interesting moments of tension in Seven was the images of people going into the dining room and then we see their perspective and we see people enjoying themselves and celebrating. And then that's that's countered with or juxtaposed with Richie being like, get the fuck up, get the fuck up, which is a feeling that actually doesn't really engender a nice experience in a restaurant when you're being rushed out and the idea that like 10 minutes per course, 90 minutes. I don't know if people would walk away being like, that was really a special celebration. But that tension was interesting even to.

• 51:23Chris Ryan?

  They might have, they were like, and now do you want to go outside and smoke a blunt?

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  Blow rails with some hams.

• 51:31Andy Greenwald?

  I thought, look, to use, the show itself is so drenched in food culture and that I think it actually is appropriate to use metaphors in this case. And I don't know if you've read or anyone listening has read some of the recent reviews of the French Laundry. Now, the French Laundry is is an ur text of this show.

• 51:51Chris Ryan?

  Did Richie say the god TK?

• 51:52Andy Greenwald?

  The god TK. Thomas Keller, who helped Carmy trust a chicken.

• 51:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Andy Greenwald?

  And a flashback that was reused liberally in the season as well. The thing about the French Laundry when it opened was that it was so quietly confident and revolutionary and every dish felt like it came from the mind of a genius and it was an incredibly special experience because you traveled for it. You know, you were up in in the Napa Valley and you, part of mid-course meal, you walk through the garden or you go to the kitchen. And a lot of what people in America think of as the finest of fine dining or destination dining comes from that. He then became, Thomas Keller, became a celebrity and people would, you know, spend enormous amount of money to eat there. And then he kind of franchised the bakery thing and he opened Per Se in New York, which tried to give you the French Laundry experience at a mall in Columbus Circle.

• 52:38Andy Greenwald?

  And recently, both Per Se and the French Laundry have been rereviewed by New York Times critics and by San Francisco Chronicle critics. And they've been pretty rough, basically being like, the salmon cornetto is a brilliant idea, but it's also like someone showing up at, you know, Freeze London and I'm like, I've painted a titian. Someone already did that. Like, this is part of our culture now and we're responding to it. And there's a freshness issue here. So I think you were right to point out that when the show's magic was when people, these beautiful actors and these beautiful characters and the sensitive emotional camera

• 53:18Andy Greenwald?

  was digging something out of the raw ingredients that we were given on the screen. And then the show kept going back, hoping to get a similar flavor pop from those same scenes, and it was diminishing returns. I would, I would, I would point out the scene, Robert Townsend, who's given one of the best performances in the history of The Bear, in his like four or five appearances as Sidney's father. The scene where he, where the two of them are at the diner in the finale, is a beautiful scene. It's completely successful and it's pure bear because it is so naturalistic and so emotional and clever and lovely and lived in. And you're like, was there a script? Or are they just, are they just having a good time? And you could feel it work and it still works sometimes.

• 54:02Andy Greenwald?

  And then there's a scene where like Marcus and Carmy are talking and Marcus is just, in order to explain himself, is basically saying, what I can only imagine is Chris Stor or one of his writers experienced turning on the Criterion Channel, watch it live the night before. Like Marcus is suddenly trying to explain himself through the prism of some dark foreign movie he saw the night before. And I'm like, this feels phony to me. This feels staged and artificial and is trying to mine something out of very little. Everything you're saying, I appreciate and speaks to the love that I have had for the show, but I, I feel frustrated.

• 54:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just a little bit sappier or maybe, you know, like Sid saying, "Fire Brussels to Tina" really like-

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  That got you?

• 54:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, man.

• 54:51Chris Ryan?

  I, I think that like, there are different examples in pop culture of things that will hit you. And I know, for instance, that like, you're very like susceptible to examples of fathers and daughters, for instance.

• 55:06Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know why.

• 55:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Andy Greenwald?

  I just mentioned Robert Townsend and Iowa Debré scene.

• 55:11Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about the conclusion of the show, a little bit.

• 55:14Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. One major thing from the conclusion of the show?

• 55:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Andy Greenwald?

  I really respect Sydney packs internationally the way I pack.

• 55:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Andy Greenwald?

  We have the same opinions about one of every over the counter drug. Easily reachable.

• 55:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:30Andy Greenwald?

  Just for confidence. And more than that, half a Xanax is really all you need. She's right. You know?

• 55:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 55:37Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was a really good point for travel.

• 55:38Chris Ryan?

  That was good, too. I felt bad for, for, that's a long flight for Richie to be in, in, in coach at the window.

• 55:44Andy Greenwald?

  He's in coach, but he's at the window and he's got a lovely companion by his side.

• 55:48Chris Ryan?

  Jess in middle. Although I maybe, I couldn't tell if it was out of three seater or two seater.

• 55:51Andy Greenwald?

  Run the tape. Let's go back.

• 55:54Chris Ryan?

  Guys, an economy plus or what are we doing? Comfort plus?

• 55:56Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think Pellegrino could, here, here's the way I thought. I bet Pellegrino could have flown him comfort plus. And there is a direct flight, Chicago to Tokyo. But did they also invite Jess? Did he get comfort? And then he said, you know what? Instead, give me two economy seats.

• 56:08Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 56:09Andy Greenwald?

  And in fact, one full bar of Xanax to split.

• 56:11Chris Ryan?

  Like, we're just, we're totally down to work with you on however you want to do this.

• 56:15Andy Greenwald?

  Whatever you need.

• 56:16Chris Ryan?

  The conclusion is that Carmy goes, follows through with his decision to leave the bear.

• 56:21Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 56:23Chris Ryan?

  Sid and Richie and the gang are going to continue to do the restaurant.

• 56:30Chris Ryan?

  Ibra's idea to franchise the beef has come through. There is a very lovely moment where he calls the character that was played by Rob Reiner and says, as you wish.

• 56:40Andy Greenwald?

  I'm glad you caught that, too.

• 56:41Chris Ryan?

  Call back to Princess Bride.

• 56:43Andy Greenwald?

  That was a beautiful moment.

• 56:44Chris Ryan?

  Lots of little like eggs, Easter eggs in there. The go fast mojito boats or go fast boats mojitos.

• 56:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but there's all.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  Is the wifi password.

• 56:51Andy Greenwald?

  There was also some cute little nods, like when Dee Dee asks if, no, it's not Dee Dee. Who asks if, if Sid and Carmy are in a relationship?

• 57:02Chris Ryan?

  Somebody asked Pete that and he's like, there are theories.

• 57:04Andy Greenwald?

  There are theories out there. I mean, there, there was a little self-awareness.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  And I think even their hug at the end was like, is this fucking happening? And I was just like, no, these guys just like.

• 57:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's good.

• 57:15Chris Ryan?

  So the bear, the conclusion of the bear as a restaurant, I think that there is like a real obvious feel-good aspect to that. I want to talk to you about Carmy's fate.

• 57:26Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, I have one other question about the restaurant. The moment when we find out, the fact that it wasn't, Starman wasn't Starman, that it was the guy that we all thought it was from, God knows, season three, season four, I don't remember, the snow night?

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  I believe it's four.

• 57:43Andy Greenwald?

  Middle of season four. I thought that was well done. I like that. I think that really tracked with the heart of the show, that there's something beautiful about restaurants, but something that is also very temporary and fleeting, and you can't create magic. You can just move on to the next night and try it again. And so this beautiful night was not the one that will be memorialized in the review. But did you feel there was any kind of, I'll say the word, cowardice in the, no, you didn't get a star, you got two? Did you feel like that was?

• 58:20Chris Ryan?

  Cowardice?

• 58:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because it's just like, everybody, it's look under your seat. Everybody gets car keys. Did you feel any of that? Or were you just in your bag about the Brussels sprout still, and you were feeling it?

• 58:31Chris Ryan?

  Like, what do you want to have happen to these people?

• 58:33Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I kind of wanted them to be like, no star, but it's like a promising review, and now you can go build this into the next one.

• 58:40Chris Ryan?

  I think that...

• 58:42Andy Greenwald?

  I'm being intentionally provocative.

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  You probably need to have some sort of validation in that they've made the star the thing that's going to keep this place open.

• 58:52Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 58:53Chris Ryan?

  Right? Like, their price point is probably too high.

• 58:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 58:56Chris Ryan?

  I thought that by the end of it, culinarily, like, they arrived at a place that was like the middle ground between the beef and Carmy's kind of like overworked stuff.

• 59:05Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 59:06Chris Ryan?

  So doing coke ribs and...

• 59:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's the French Montana tape that I was telling you about.

• 59:13Chris Ryan?

  Doing, like, Cindy's mother's ribs. Um, Tina's Brussels sprouts, you know, the banana foster bananas, the sundae that Marcus is making, like the things that these guys are all making are to, to grab a phrase from the Top Chef judges, they're cooking their food, they're telling their story, you know?

• 59:32Andy Greenwald?

  They're putting their heart on a plate.

• 59:33Chris Ryan?

  They are. And so I did not mind that the end of a series had a happy ending. You, like, I don't know.

• 59:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I wanted the rain to be-

• 59:45Chris Ryan?

  Did you want Carmy to be like, "We got two stars, but uh, I'm staying now. And I'm still the boss."

• 59:50Andy Greenwald?

  No, this is what you wanted to ask about.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  So, I mean, this has been probably among, among people talking about the Bears, like, ending it on seven or in halfway through eight is an enormously satisfying thing. The birthday cake for Richie's daughter, like, the whole cast gathering, Hartnett fucking zooming in, you know, like-

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  Bob Odenkirk showing up.

• 1:00:10Chris Ryan?

  Odenkirk. I thought that that was really nice.

• 1:00:12Andy Greenwald?

  Claire Bear.

• 1:00:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, and I, I really liked that they did not make Claire the like, "I gotta go see about a girl", you know? Like, I know it was referenced of like, "Did you call her yet?" And he was like, "I'll call her tomorrow."

• 1:00:23Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, for as much as I am ragging on the show for its fast sprint towards emotion at all times, I thought the restraint shown in the end was very, very lovely. I really thought that that was a nice gesture towards-

• 1:00:43Chris Ryan?

  And I'm glad Carmy didn't wake up the next day and turn into fucking comic relief Robin Williams. Like, I'm glad that, like, he's still haunted and still, like, not a great hang and, and has his issues, you know?

• 1:00:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I, I thought that-

• 1:00:56Chris Ryan?

  Maybe to, maybe almost to a point of like, it's detriment where it was like, I kinda wanted a personality transplant for this character by the end, and he's going into, what is ostensibly a job interview at the end, and talking about like, his trauma again.

• 1:01:11Andy Greenwald?

  I want to talk about that, and I also want to discuss, I mean, we're not people to say it, but who is the bigger Chicago legend, weatherman Tom Skilling or Bonnie Hunt? TBD, we can't decide that.

• 1:01:21Chris Ryan?

  Mulaney's coming from that crown, man. He's playing Wrigley.

• 1:01:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. That is true. I don't want to leave, like the cooks, I don't want to leave a bad taste in people's mouth here. Like, at its best, this show was such a brilliant and beautiful exploration of therapy, but with drama and with professionalism and work and the realities of living in a city and being alive right now, that I thought that the place where it ended, which was a really deep sense of the things that matter, go on. Whether it's Marcus saying goodbye to Luca, and you understand that people sometimes move in different directions, but they have a bond and they will be happy to see each other again. Whether it's Claire and fucking the, you know,

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  the store players minus Brie Larson just showing up for a day and the celebration being-

• 1:02:09Chris Ryan?

  What was her name? Was that Fanny? Francine?

• 1:02:11Andy Greenwald?

  Francine. And that it being a celebration for Richie's daughter that brings everyone out because ultimately getting together for family and lifting each other up is something-

• 1:02:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, if you find a physical space to make everybody feel special, like it's like that's the goal of the restaurant.

• 1:02:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Chris Ryan?

  Not all restaurants, but that restaurant.

• 1:02:30Andy Greenwald?

  But of life, and you get the sense that the restaurant itself could go away, you get a sense that people could come and go and leave, and Carmy could leave, but they have built something that is lasting if it is tended to. And I think that that was a beautiful summation of what the show always was. And as someone who briefly had a podcast about TV shows ending, like that needs to be celebrated.

• 1:02:46Chris Ryan?

  Don't sell yourself short, man. If architecture school doesn't work out, you can always come back to podcasting.

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  So all of that was wonderful. Did you, specifically Carmy leaving or not leaving? I think there was some confusion of the fact that he is interviewing for an internship and monologuing about his feelings, and then it is intercut with the birthday party and scenes with him back at the restaurant. So is the implication that he is back because this is still a family business and his friends are there?

• 1:03:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:17Andy Greenwald?

  But he himself is no longer chopping onions.

• 1:03:19Chris Ryan?

  I did not think that he was like, that interview went poorly, I'm back at the restaurant.

• 1:03:24Andy Greenwald?

  Did you think as management that the interview went well?

• 1:03:27Chris Ryan?

  I don't think that, I don't think Mulaney set him up to succeed, that the Mulaney character being like, just share your shit, that's what's hot right now. I was like, I didn't, I don't know if that's the case.

• 1:03:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, in 2026, I don't know if that's the best way to get a fast track internship.

• 1:03:42Chris Ryan?

  But I thought that the idea of this guy who wants to-

• 1:03:48Chris Ryan?

  Express himself through art or express him, he wants to find a new ally for his creative spirit. I don't know anything about architecture or what kind of apprenticeship you have to go through, or if Carmen's been to college, I didn't.

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  It didn't, I don't think he did.

• 1:04:04Chris Ryan?

  I don't.

• 1:04:04Andy Greenwald?

  He's had quite an education.

• 1:04:05Chris Ryan?

  I don't know like what you can do if you've not been.

• 1:04:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, what do they say to him? What does Sidney say? What skills do you have? And he says none.

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  None, yeah.

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  Not true. He is a pretty good cook.

• 1:04:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think he could always like.

• 1:04:16Andy Greenwald?

  Cook?

• 1:04:17Chris Ryan?

  Sling burgers, you know, like.

• 1:04:18Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that in the year 2026, franchising a sandwich shop for Ghost Kitchens is a mind blowing idea? When they were all like, holy shit, oh my God. Did you think that was so? You didn't?

• 1:04:34Chris Ryan?

  I thought that the two, I thought that the cheese computer, Uncle Jimmy.

• 1:04:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Chris Ryan?

  Was it necessary, like get out of the, get out of the restaurant, do some, we gotta have something else aside from like only shots at the restaurant? I, I thought that the scene where they go to get, to get the air rights from that lady and like there's Ray is somewhere, they're like, fuck you, Ray. That was kind of funny, but like also like, ultimately it was like, can you imagine they, they got to the end of the show and they were like, that's a bad idea to Ibran.

• 1:05:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And they were like, and you got no stars and the restaurant's closed.

• 1:05:12Chris Ryan?

  I guess we wanted different.

• 1:05:13Andy Greenwald?

  Birthdays are canceled. No, no. Last, the last thing I'll say, and then I do want, I want to make a bigger point about it is, um, uh, I hated the music. I think that was the other thing that took me out. I hated the Tron-esque music.

• 1:05:26Chris Ryan?

  I liked it.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  I think it needed to relax.

• 1:05:29Chris Ryan?

  I, I thought we, I thought they overdid the needle drops in three and four. And I thought, I am in general, pretty deaf to like cool needle drop. It has nothing to do with what's happening, you know, like.

• 1:05:44Andy Greenwald?

  You're gonna love Supergirl from what I understand.

• 1:05:45Chris Ryan?

  But my point, like, I just think that they've got, we've gotten away from like building out emotional textures of stories.

• 1:05:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:52Chris Ryan?

  With original music because people are like so drunk on like, and did you see the playlist that I made? You know, it's like, um, the bearers, the official bear playlist on, on Spotify is awesome. I listen to it all the time. It's a great collection of music. I thought they relied too heavily on three and four. And I thought getting out of the way and having a. Albeit reminiscent of Social Network, or Manhunter, or Thief, or whatever, was cool. It got out of the way of the characters and let them do the storytelling.

• 1:06:25Andy Greenwald?

  I think that overall, this is one of the most significant shows of our professional covering TV existence. I think that at its peak, it was the most electric experience you could hope for.

• 1:06:38Chris Ryan?

  Transcendent, yeah.

• 1:06:38Andy Greenwald?

  It was, it was fresh, it was bold, it was thrilling, it was so ambitious. And also, I think in terms of just the uniqueness, I was dinging it for this last week, but I do think that the spirit of the show, I mean, this, shows always take on the characteristics and the character of the people in charge of the shows. That is something that you can honestly say after working behind the scenes of some things, for good or for ill. And the spirit of the show being one of found family and inclusiveness, being celebrated by Chris and his colleagues, including like his real life partner, Gillian Jacobs, who's on the show, and good friends and people who've become close friends, is a beautiful

• 1:07:21Andy Greenwald?

  thing, especially in this fallen, soon to be AI apocalypse that we all live in. But I do think that in many ways, the legacy of the show is the other side of the praise that we'd given it for a long time, which is, when premiered, and we were like, wow, this came out of nowhere, has been in our life consistent, will be consistent in our life every year, hit its deadlines, show up, make stars out of actors, not the other way around, and kind of go on too long and frustrate. That's a legacy, that's a classic television legacy that one can be proud of, honestly, and one that we don't get enough of. We don't get a lot of these days. We, when things arrive now, everything is so

• 1:08:05Andy Greenwald?

  bespoke and crafted and labored over, and then years in between. That we rarely just have this specific experience where you get something, it is wonderful, and then there's some bumps on the way.

• 1:08:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Andy Greenwald?

  But it stays true to itself.

• 1:08:21Chris Ryan?

  It's pretty rare. I mean, like, it was more common probably when we started doing this podcast, you know, where we were like, damn, Homeland, season five.

• 1:08:29Andy Greenwald?

  That was the Showtime model of like, wow.

• 1:08:34Chris Ryan?

  But I, this is one where I don't really have an intellectual argument against you. I'm just like, meant a lot to me, made me feel things.

• 1:08:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Chris Ryan?

  I don't think that the last couple of seasons were on the level of the first two seasons, but I thought in some, there were large stretches of three where I thought the filmmaking was breathtaking. I thought the filmmaking generally and across the board was top of its class.

• 1:08:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Chris Ryan?

  And that the conclusion of it really was like very cathartic for me in a way that I did not expect for it to happen. So it is.

• 1:09:06Andy Greenwald?

  Forty-seven episodes they made, which is shocking.

• 1:09:09Chris Ryan?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:09:09Andy Greenwald?

  Since 2022.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand with unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected, powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month, or get the premium Visible Plus Pro plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 1:09:40Speaker 05

  If high interest credit card debt is keeping you up at night, you're not alone. Interest rates as high as 21% APR can do that to you. Rocket Mortgage can help. A home equity loan from Rocket Mortgage could cut your interest rate by more than half, so you could wipe out your high interest credit card debt without touching your current mortgage rate. See how much you could save at rocketmortgage.com. Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states. NMLS, consumeraccess.org, number 3030. Call 8004-ROCKET for full program details.

• 1:10:11Speaker 06

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade, hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 1:10:40Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to talk briefly about Star City before we get out of here?

• 1:10:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, if you have the time.

• 1:10:45Chris Ryan?

  I just want to say one thing that's sort of an odd thing to lead with with this show. And I hate to say it.

• 1:10:51Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:10:51Chris Ryan?

  Because I want, I want to bring Hollywood back, whoever the mayor is.

• 1:10:55Andy Greenwald?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:10:56Chris Ryan?

  And whoever in this room supports whichever mayor or candidate, we don't know.

• 1:10:59Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know. We don't know who still might be writing in, some of the people who we thought were falling off the ballot.

• 1:11:05Chris Ryan?

  Where'd they shoot this?

• 1:11:06Andy Greenwald?

  Vilnius, Lithuania.

• 1:11:08Chris Ryan?

  Got some really good extras in Lithuania.

• 1:11:11Andy Greenwald?

  Do you ever lose the narrative thread thinking about how every extra on screen, most of them don't understand what's being said in the scene because they don't speak English?

• 1:11:19Chris Ryan?

  When Irina, Arena is following the American agent to the buses.

• 1:11:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, a lot of faces.

• 1:11:25Chris Ryan?

  And they're walking all through what's supposed to be Moscow, a little bit confused about how far Star City is from Moscow because it seems like people are making multiple trips per day.

• 1:11:33Andy Greenwald?

  It's kind of like where I live to the Sycamore Studios, you know? Like, I complain about it, but I can get there.

• 1:11:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but you don't have to like, get cleared at security in multiple places.

• 1:11:42Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, LAPD is stopping me.

• 1:11:45Chris Ryan?

  When she's following the American agent through Moscow and then through the bus station and onto the bus and different buses.

• 1:11:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Chris Ryan?

  There's a vibrancy and a life to that that I was like, what, did we forget how to make shit like this? Like, I understand that those people may have gotten paid like two rubles and I don't want to...

• 1:12:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, not the currency of Lithuania, but I think I take your point.

• 1:12:09Chris Ryan?

  For now. Not funny, not funny. I just think that that's the kind of thing where I would be like, that's a pretty normal, people shadowing one another in spy stories, like we see that all the time, popped off the screen, as did obviously the last 15 minutes, which were extraordinary.

• 1:12:29Andy Greenwald?

  To your point.

• 1:12:30Chris Ryan?

  Spoilers for episode five?

• 1:12:32Andy Greenwald?

  Six? Five, six?

• 1:12:34Chris Ryan?

  Six.

• 1:12:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, to your point. Um...

• 1:12:38Andy Greenwald?

  What we appreciate in filmmaking, wherever it is shot, is anything that takes advantage of, maximizes, celebrates where it's being shot. Location shooting is a crucial part of compelling filmmaking. That's like 101, like it's a super basic comment. But we don't have as much of it as we would like because it is incredibly expensive. You know, when you are in a, making a TV production, one of the first things they say are, what are your standing sets? What can we reuse? What can we amortize from season to season should the show get renewed? And then maybe if you've made sure you're going to use these sets for your five or six days, maybe you get two days on location. And so you're limited from the beginning. And then you're even more limited if budgetarily you are in a more expensive place.

• 1:13:22Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:13:23Andy Greenwald?

  Where you have, you know, the ruble doesn't go as far as it does.

• 1:13:26Chris Ryan?

  There are unions, labor.

• 1:13:28Andy Greenwald?

  Which are good.

• 1:13:29Chris Ryan?

  Unions traditionally very big in that part of the world, though.

• 1:13:32Andy Greenwald?

  Very good point. Should we delve into that? How many cans of tuna did you pack for that conversation? I don't think it is a blow against Minister John Voight's campaign to bring filming back to Los Angeles to say that it looks really good.

• 1:13:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I would rather just not be shot in North Hollywood. It looks, looks really good where it is.

• 1:13:50Andy Greenwald?

  So that is incredible. And I think that the texture adds so much in every scene and not just on location, but the production design. Because there are moments, even, I am not, I am loving this show. But like there, sometimes when like Roskova and Chief Designer are having the same argument, I'm like, oh, that's a different color taupe in the background. It's electrifying. And if I pause and re-watch it and they're just saying the same things, maybe it wouldn't be as rich of an experience.

• 1:14:17Chris Ryan?

  The other thing that I hit my head against on this episode that I, I think is worth a longer conversation and maybe with the creators.

• 1:14:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:14:26Chris Ryan?

  When Anna Maxwell Martin in this episode does her thing.

• 1:14:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is what I, yeah, I think we want to say the same thing.

• 1:14:32Chris Ryan?

  At one point she goes, "Sort it out!"

• 1:14:35Andy Greenwald?

  Very good.

• 1:14:36Chris Ryan?

  And I'm like, "That's a British lady."

• 1:14:40Andy Greenwald?

  Did you just figure that out?

• 1:14:41Chris Ryan?

  No, but it felt culturally British.

• 1:14:45Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:14:45Chris Ryan?

  And, and I, I have, I wonder whether or not

• 1:14:51Chris Ryan?

  there are, there are any, there are people out there who feel like there's something lacking from like a quintessentially Russian

• 1:14:59Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:15:00Chris Ryan?

  soul here. Like it, there is something

• 1:15:02Andy Greenwald?

  Well.

• 1:15:03Chris Ryan?

  almost like we are writing in the idiom or

• 1:15:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:15:06Chris Ryan?

  and the voice of, of like a certain kind of British.

• 1:15:10Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I think you're getting confused because that is also what I shouted at the sports bar on Sunday, on Saturday, when England couldn't put it in the back of the net against Panama in the first half.

• 1:15:18Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 1:15:19Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe that's

• 1:15:20Chris Ryan?

  You hate a low block.

• 1:15:20Andy Greenwald?

  That's partly confusing. Um, I think that I, I look forward to, if we do get the chance to talk to those guys who made the show, there is both an appreciation for the detail of the Soviet block, but also there is a very convenient monster. I mean, Chief Designer calls her a monster in the sense that like, I am no scholar of the Soviet space program, but the degree to which this one woman is empowered to end the lives and the billion ruble investment in a mission to Venus because of what it may mean for the security apparatus in her career is wild.

• 1:15:57Chris Ryan?

  It's wild, but like

• 1:15:58Andy Greenwald?

  It is excellent for the story because every episode pushes all, everything into the center of the table in a way that I admire.

• 1:16:03Chris Ryan?

  Every decision that gets made by a character on this show immediately winds up affecting the next decision somebody makes.

• 1:16:10Andy Greenwald?

  Immediately. No handholding.

• 1:16:13Chris Ryan?

  Being like, this is a secret mission, so it's not going to be on TV and nobody's going to know we did it. And her being like, hence why I can fucking kill these people.

• 1:16:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:16:20Chris Ryan?

  And we can just be like, they died in a training accident in Siberia. Like, there is consequences to every action and that's why it's such compelling television and I don't mind that it's an hour and five minutes. Like, I'm like, oh my God, and now like he told Anastasia, she knows. Like, it's like, everything kind of like is building towards this tension that I think is masterfully woven together. I don't remember For All Mankind feeling like this, but maybe I'm wrong.

• 1:16:43Andy Greenwald?

  And I do wonder where the specter of the For All Mankind storytelling will kick in. One of the things that might be giving us all this Pleasure in terms of like, wow, I can't believe how fast they're moving, however, they're running right at every problem. Might be because Star City season two, which I think is not an impossibility, will pick up in the late seventies.

• 1:17:01Chris Ryan?

  Possibly.

• 1:17:02Andy Greenwald?

  This might be our, it may do time jumps in the same way.

• 1:17:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  Which we may have mixed feelings about because they have found so much fertile soil here. Or is the fact that we're responding to it to this degree because they are not letting the grass grow beneath their feet, as they say.

• 1:17:16Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:17:17Andy Greenwald?

  Possibly in Russia. I really couldn't tell you, but I, the, the end was, the end of this episode is nuts. I mean, it is, it is, I don't know if anyone listening this deep into the podcast, even into this, deep into this segment, are still on the fence about Star City, but if I were to tell you that the sixth episode of the first season of a show ends with a KGB security official demanding the pressure be cut on a manned space mission to Venus. That is so metal.

• 1:17:46Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, I didn't even know you could do that from the ground.

• 1:17:49Andy Greenwald?

  Here's my real question. Is there really no tape delay?

• 1:17:53Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 1:17:55Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean? Like.

• 1:17:56Chris Ryan?

  They've got some strong radios.

• 1:17:57Andy Greenwald?

  I want to be clear about something and I'm sorry to make this personal for a moment, but you know, thanks to our, our good friend and colleague Sarah here, we were able to livestream on a private YouTube link, my daughter's bat mitzvah to my parents back in Philadelphia. This is 2026. This is the YouTube Google Corporation. And that took, there was a two and a half minute delay.

• 1:18:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Andy Greenwald?

  Because my daughter was swearing a lot.

• 1:18:18Chris Ryan?

  The idea is that the Kremlin is invested in the space program. I gotta wrap it up there.

• 1:18:22Andy Greenwald?

  So you don't, okay, because I do think it would be a much longer watch if they were like, open the hatch.

• 1:18:27Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:18:27Andy Greenwald?

  And then a day and a half passed.

• 1:18:29Chris Ryan?

  They have like crystal clear, like next tell chirp with these guys. Thanks to Kai and Kai. We'll be back next Monday. Everybody enjoy your fourth. There will be an Andy Greenwald will publicize.

• 1:18:40Andy Greenwald?

  You might as well. You've given me some songs. I'm adding my songs. We make our annual playlist.

• 1:18:45Chris Ryan?

  Things that take place on other people's Spotify profiles. That's, that like I, I have my own. No, I'm just kidding. Of course I'm going to do that. We have our annual barbecue playlist, which I only found out last year was to be played at a barbecue. So I just thought it was cool songs. But apparently it's not, you don't, nobody wants to listen to post-hardcore while grilling.

• 1:19:06Andy Greenwald?

  You do. This can be, this is like a window into your experience.

• 1:19:10Chris Ryan?

  But I sent you some, some real cool dad rock.

• 1:19:13Andy Greenwald?

  I will say, there has never been-

• 1:19:15Chris Ryan?

  Nice age.

• 1:19:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, what?

• 1:19:19Andy Greenwald?

  It will be so clear who contributed which songs. And I think people will have a good time with that.

• 1:19:22Chris Ryan?

  We'll, we'll send that out on our various social feeds, including the WatchPod underscore at Instagram. Everybody have a great weekend.

• 1:19:28Andy Greenwald?

  We did it, America. We did it.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Say hello to smooth, sugar-like sweetness with Truvia Alulose Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monkfruit Sweetener. This blend delivers balanced sweetness that minimizes aftertaste with zero calories per serving. Designed to fit everyday moments, Truvia Alulose Blend measures cup for cup like sugar, making it effortless to swap into beverages, baking, and even savory dishes. Find Truvia Alulose Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monkfruit Sweetener online and nationwide at Kroger, Target, and your favorite local grocery retailer.

• 1:20:09Speaker 07

  Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 Jeep Cherokee, a Carnival Cruise vacation, gift cards from DoorDash, and Best Buy. You'll then play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag! No purchase necessary. 50 U.S. and D.C. Age 18+. See playatmcd.com for rules and playatmcd.com/amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chance card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro.