Is ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Dead on Arrival? Plus, ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 5.

Chris and Andy talk about the ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ trailer (3:49), the news that Ryan Coogler’s ‘The X-Files’ reboot could premiere in movie theaters (14:49), and the end of Netflix’s biannual viewership reports (18:49). Then they discuss ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 5 (33:33) and the release of ‘The Prisoner,’ the 1967 British cult classic on the Criterion Channel (51:10). Later, they react to the rumors that Rachel Cusk’s next novel is about Natalie Portman (01:03:21). 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 Studio Production: Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 01

  The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Shop Folgers K-Cup Pods and more at your nearest retailer.

• 1:35Chris Ryan?

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, somehow Gambit has returned, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:54Andy Greenwald?

  What a big show for us today.

• 1:56Chris Ryan?

  It's a rich tapestry. Life's rich tapestry.

• 1:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:59Chris Ryan?

  This rich pageant.

• 2:00Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 2:00Chris Ryan?

  That's R E M. That's Andy Greenwald. I'm Chris Ryan. You can hit us up at thewatch at spotify.com.

• 2:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:06Chris Ryan?

  We are going to be doing a mailbag. Not this week. I guess the following week. I'm trying to like plot out like, because I'm going to go away for a little chunk. But we're going to, we're going to have some stuff for you. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to do a special, I think, on Anthony Bourdain coming up.

• 2:20Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 2:21Chris Ryan?

  And in honor of the movie Tony. TheWatch at spotify.com, thewatchpod underscore on Instagram, ringer-tv on YouTube, where we share. Share a little shingle with Prestige TV, who have been covering Cape Fear.

• 2:34Andy Greenwald?

  It's like our own little Heron Hall. Who owns it?

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Joanna is the Alice Rivers, I think. And yeah, that's what we do. We cover pop culture and mostly TV on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm Chris Ryan. Have I mentioned that?

• 2:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  I've been podcasting pretty much nonstop for an entire month, so it's starting to get a little gamey here.

• 2:53Andy Greenwald?

  We're gonna get you through it. I want to thank you, and Nation thanks you, for dressing in the colors of lettuce to celebrate what we've lost as a country.

• 3:01Chris Ryan?

  Not me. I was at Taco Bell all weekend. Stay in line.

• 3:06Andy Greenwald?

  Stay in line. They have to let you eat. Just like the Jordan Peele meme of like one trickle of sweat.

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  Today on the show, Andy and I are gonna talk about the following: the doomsday trailer, the X-Files possibly being a movie as well as a TV show. We're gonna talk a little bit about some Netflix numbers that popped out to me, and we're also gonna talk about the release of the classic, cult classic television show, The Prisoner, on the Criterion Channel.

• 3:31Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds like a healthy lineup.

• 3:33Chris Ryan?

  It is.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  I look forward to talking about it with you.

• 3:36Chris Ryan?

  Perhaps the most important thing that's happened to this podcast since Donald Trump's reelection. Apparently Rachel Cusk is writing a novel about Natalie Portman.

• 3:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yours, okay. For years.

• 3:47Chris Ryan?

  For years, why?

• 3:48Andy Greenwald?

  I start with shit like that, and you're like, why don't we save that for the special segment at the end?

• 3:52Chris Ryan?

  I can't even say that that could feasibly go into After Dark. That would be like a crime.

• 3:57Andy Greenwald?

  This is all I want to talk about.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  And you know what? I've always said.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:02Chris Ryan?

  When it comes to the two Rachels, I'm a Kushner. That's just how it is.

• 4:06Andy Greenwald?

  It's true. There are two tribes. There's also a Miss Rachel, I believe.

• 4:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 4:11Andy Greenwald?

  And she's on the Netflix top 10.

• 4:12Chris Ryan?

  God bless her. And, but you're a Cusk guy. And I really need your comments on this.

• 4:18Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I have dabbled on both sides of the aisle.

• 4:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but I feel like you're not, you don't have a house at Creation League, if you know what I'm saying.

• 4:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, I got, I did do a time share there, and I got a host, because that book was real boring. No, it's not.

• 4:34Chris Ryan?

  That book's cool.

• 4:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's not good. By the way, the best part about this podcast, just I feel like in real time. There's breaking news. Judge granted a temporary restraining order to pause the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. But let's talk about Rachel Cusk instead.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  Well, no, but like, what do you want me to say to that?

• 4:49Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing.

• 4:50Chris Ryan?

  Cause like, we live, we're just like.

• 4:52Andy Greenwald?

  I'm on the front foot. This is great.

• 4:55Chris Ryan?

  Do you, what judge? Judge Roy Bean? Who did that?

• 4:58Andy Greenwald?

  What judge? Who appointed this judge? Meta people. Okay, so let's do a little backstory here. I feel like Kaya's gonna appreciate this as well.

• 5:05Chris Ryan?

  Are we leading with this? Cause I was gonna say, you want a doomsday, then we can do.

• 5:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, doomsday, then we can do Rachel Cusk. Doomsday for Natalie Portman, AKA Jane Foster, formerly Thor. How about that? There we go. Okay, okay. Let's do doomsday, but I do want to talk about the other thing.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  They dropped the doomsday trailer, uh, this morning.

• 5:22Andy Greenwald?

  Day.

• 5:23Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and I will say, they have got some fucking cheek putting this out the Monday after Odyssey. I'm trying to think of what this would be like.

• 5:32Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 5:34Chris Ryan?

  This would almost be like, um, you have like the crazy amazing weekend with your stepdad who just buys you all the stuff for your birthday. And then like alcoholic dad shows up on Monday and is like, hey, I got a bobblehead at the Dodgers game that I snuck into. Like, is really struggle meal hours over there at Disney. No offense, guys. But.

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Chris Ryan?

  I don't think you can keep selling us the same shit.

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  Look, uh,

• 6:02Andy Greenwald?

  the concern level has gone up considerably.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna be seeing this movie. I look forward to talking about all the buildup and all the nonsense. But I, I, I saw, thanks to our friend Mina Kimes, that the ice bucket challenge is back. I would like to suggest a new challenge. Marvel put real people in an actual room challenge. The fact that after all of these years, and after all of this money, and after all of this hype, we're back in the purple halls of nowhere, dog.

• 6:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's just negative space that's super, super dark.

• 6:35Chris Ryan?

  And you can tell, like, as there has been reporting to, to sort of at least suggest this, these guys don't know what they're saying. They don't know what scene this is. They don't know when this scene is happening and what two movies stretch that they're in this like indefinite servitude in Atlanta to shoot. Like, they have no idea.

• 6:54Andy Greenwald?

  And it's funny because it does. No one will be more happy than I would be if secretly the bones of this movie were strong and good.

• 7:03Chris Ryan?

  We love, the stuff that this movie is gonna be about is like a generationally good comic run.

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  The Jonathan Hickman stuff.

• 7:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 7:12Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, but here's my feeling watching this trailer.

• 7:17Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I have been relatively, I think bullish on this movie.

• 7:22Andy Greenwald?

  This weekend, I was with my, my children. We were walking in a lovely neighborhood in the northeast of Los Angeles. And across the street, we saw some branding for a place that caught my eye. It was like bright, eye catching. It had a little cartoon iconography and I was like, oh, is that a new, is that a chain? Is that something I'm supposed to know? Is that something the kids might like? And I got closer and it looked like a Japanese eatery of some kind. And you know me, I love the foods of the far east.

• 7:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, this seems exciting. And I got closer and it had like a cute name and the image of like a cat eating something that looked like sashimi. And I was like, what could be more interesting than this? You have my attention. You have me. Then I got closer and I saw that it seemed to be an entire store dedicated to selling slices of raw fish inside of cooked tofu skin.

• 8:09Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  Now, who among us doesn't love Yuba? You know I do.

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  I feel like that was.

• 8:15Andy Greenwald?

  But my thing.

• 8:15Chris Ryan?

  A little.

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Hold on.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  It was a little unfair. You set that up so that you could show.

• 8:20Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  That you knew what Yuba was.

• 8:22Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think anyone who's listened to this podcast for 10 years thought I didn't know the name of tofu skin?

• 8:26Chris Ryan?

  Go ahead.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  Come on.

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  Go ahead.

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  My point was, I don't think people want this as much as the store's optimism thinks that it does.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  And that is how I felt being like carried along the hype winds for a few months. And then the reality of Gambit versus Shang-Chi in a dark room.

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  So I would have said.

• 8:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I want.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  Originally, with all due respect to all the characters featured in this, in this trailer.

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  My initial reaction was like, oh, they're doing, this is the trailer for like, like, the newer characters, the, you, you're, uh, what was the Florence P. movie? That was-

• 9:06Andy Greenwald?

  Thunderbolts.

• 9:06Chris Ryan?

  Thunderbolts, Asterix.

• 9:07Andy Greenwald?

  Did you ever see Thunderbolts?

• 9:08Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah. Wasn't that like your favorite movie of the year?

• 9:11Andy Greenwald?

  I thought it was the most emotionally engaged, it was the most, yeah, it was the truest emotional movie of 2025.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Didn't you send like a weird emo text where I was like, I had real feelings and tears watching that?

• 9:21Andy Greenwald?

  I did not say tears.

• 9:22Chris Ryan?

  That was about people working through their trauma and pain, my favorite subject?

• 9:27Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds like me. That does sound like me. I didn't say tears.

• 9:30Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was fine. Um, but you see a bunch of people like Namor and Shuri and, uh, Ant-Man and Yelena and all these people. And you're like, okay, like, this is actually when you kind of think about what's happened to this cinematic universe, like, these are the, these are the guys I sort of expected. And there's a brief Cyclops, which I assume is Marsden, right?

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  It's Marsden.

• 9:53Chris Ryan?

  And get Gambit. You get, you get these glimpses of people. But I was like, oh, I bet they're gonna save the homies for like the next trailer, right? Like, they have to, they have to have-

• 10:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 10:04Chris Ryan?

  Like Thor and Hulk and all the guys and the next, whatever the-

• 10:08Andy Greenwald?

  Gone.

• 10:08Chris Ryan?

  And they had to give away the like, Steve's back moment.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Because they had nothing. And Thor, I mean, Thor is the star of the trailer, because he's the only remaining star of the movies that were popular.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 10:19Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh, the corny, the corniest thing is that it's not just that your man Steve's back. It's that they just redid the beat that made everyone scream on YouTube that he's worthy.

• 10:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Andy Greenwald?

  They just did it again.

• 10:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Now, it has been, has it been 10 years?

• 10:40Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 10:41Chris Ryan?

  How long is that?

• 10:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, seven calendar years, but COVID, so really it's only been about three or four years.

• 10:46Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:47Andy Greenwald?

  By my math.

• 10:47Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Um, I just-

• 10:51Chris Ryan?

  Ben Bradley and all the president's Ben voice. They haven't got it. Like whatever, it's a really good story. It's a really hard story to tell. The secret wars thing that they're probably trying to do here. I, I, I wonder whether or not I'm reacting to like, maybe, maybe the thing they're gonna show me is Doom. Maybe, maybe Doom will save this whole thing ironically.

• 11:12Andy Greenwald?

  Cause they showed you the thing.

• 11:13Chris Ryan?

  What?

• 11:14Andy Greenwald?

  The thing.

• 11:14Chris Ryan?

  Doom?

• 11:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, Ben Grimm, the thing.

• 11:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes, they showed me the thing, but maybe Doom is-

• 11:20Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, that's a little Marvel wordplay.

• 11:22Chris Ryan?

  Maybe Doom is what's gonna sell this whole project and-

• 11:25Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe.

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  Do you like his accent?

• 11:28Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, no. Did you? I mean, I don't know. Do you like his accent?

• 11:33Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know if you had any-

• 11:35Andy Greenwald?

  Me watching the studio shows on the World Cup. Yeah, sure, I like that one, less that one.

• 11:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, look, I mean, they have, they're in an interesting bind where they have, they, they have not been shy about telling us that like, one of the planks of this movie is the Thunderbolts. One of the planks of this movie is the 2000s Fox X-Men. And one of the planks of this movie is the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four. And they're like, that's, that's the big tent that we envisioned for this party. And, uh, I, to your point, I don't know if it's enough. Now, they've also done the same thing. They've tried to be cute in the same way they were with Infinity War and Endgame where they're like, Spider-Man's not in this one, but it'll be in that one, you know? And I think that they have tried to suggest that this will tee up true craziness with everyone back in the next one.

• 12:25Andy Greenwald?

  But so far, they can't give away, you said Hulk and the gang. Like, I think the, the story is that Hulk, Spider-Man, um, these characters are not Deadpool. I imagine Deadpool will be in this movie. And I imagine that this true sign of desperation will be signaling that in the next four or six weeks.

• 12:45Chris Ryan?

  Or like an excessive amount of Deadpool voiceover, you know?

• 12:48Andy Greenwald?

  Or the Deadpool cut of this trailer.

• 12:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, although I don't, I mean, like, I don't know where Brian Reynolds stands right now. They're putting that like, that weird May Day movie with him and Kenneth Branagh, they're just like-

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what they should do?

• 12:59Chris Ryan?

  Dumping that on Apple TV.

• 13:01Andy Greenwald?

  You know what the real power move would be? They put Deadpool in the movie and you know, it's multiversal, whatever. And Deadpool pulls off his mask at one point and it's Justin Baldoni.

• 13:10Chris Ryan?

  That would be a curve ball.

• 13:12Andy Greenwald?

  That would be, wouldn't that be so sick? Would you be so engaged with that content?

• 13:16Chris Ryan?

  That would really.

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  You would love that.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  Make me really excited to see it.

• 13:20Andy Greenwald?

  And then Lady Deadpool would be his, Mrs. Baldoni, I don't know her name. Last comment, because I think this is something we should be tracking between now and December when this movie is released.

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  You have been, you have been bold, you have been brave, you have put the Russo brothers on fraud watch years ago.

• 13:39Chris Ryan?

  Yes, ever since they ruined my beloved novel Cherry.

• 13:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Chris Ryan?

  That I liked so much when they, when I was like, these guys, again, they don't have it.

• 13:48Andy Greenwald?

  So they, they came back.

• 13:51Chris Ryan?

  They sure did.

• 13:51Andy Greenwald?

  And looks like they spent a lot of money in some dark sound stages in London.

• 13:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:56Andy Greenwald?

  Look, who among us wouldn't want to spend time doing that, but okay.

• 14:00Chris Ryan?

  They, they, it's interesting to think that this will become more of a like, expiring your contract, that these two movies that are supposed to save the MCU will become more of a like, how do we get off the doomsday thing? You know what I mean?

• 14:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's so crushing.

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  So that you can get to X-Men, because that's what this is all about. It's like, if, if X-Men, if they cast X-Men right and they do it right, that will give this whole thing another 10, 15 years.

• 14:27Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe.

• 14:27Chris Ryan?

  Of oxygen. But if they don't, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know how much longer Disney's in this weird spot. Like, I'm not predicting that they're gonna ramp down the MCU and put it into hibernation for 10 years or something. But they've got to start making things that people actually love again. And they have not done that in a long time.

• 14:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's just not, that's not just Marvel, that's their cartoons, that's everything.

• 14:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  The Moana thing is an abomination.

• 14:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Andy Greenwald?

  That was ridiculous.

• 14:56Chris Ryan?

  But Star Wars is in the mud, Moana.

• 14:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Chris Ryan?

  You know, like these live action adaptations of cartoons, like Josh Demaro, come on, man, give me a call, I'll help you out.

• 15:06Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, I believe, the, well, the rumor is that at Comic Con, the X-Men cast will be announced.

• 15:11Chris Ryan?

  So I got hoodwinked by a tweet this weekend where I didn't retweet it.

• 15:16Andy Greenwald?

  Hoodwinked by a tweet, my life in media.

• 15:18Chris Ryan?

  But it was like breaking down who's like who in the X-Men, like they, here's the rumored casting and it was like Cooper Hoffman is Cyclops, Sadie Sink is Jean Grey and it kept going, keeps going and then it's like Erica Kirk is Emma Frost. I was like, damn. And I was like, wait.

• 15:36Andy Greenwald?

  You leaned in, though. It's definitely a way to engage. Right?

• 15:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Andy Greenwald?

  J D Vance's new baby. Somebody?

• 15:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in, there's a lot of smoke around some of the names that I imagine that they are not inaccurate, at least in terms of people having been engaged in like, my guy Charles Melton, apparently, joining the cast. Odessa Zion as Beast.

• 16:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 16:02Andy Greenwald?

  Odessa Zion as Rogue.

• 16:04Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I'd seen Kaylee Spania as Rogue. Interesting. We're in different algorithms.

• 16:09Andy Greenwald?

  Was that also the Turning Point USA cast list?

• 16:14Andy Greenwald?

  That you seem to be. Okay. It's fine, you know?

• 16:20Chris Ryan?

  I just wanted to mention that X-Files, the rebooted X-Files.

• 16:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Chris Ryan?

  Which is coming from Ryan Coogler, is, it got announced over like the last couple of days that he's shooting the pilot on 65mm film. And that it's going to be a two-hour pilot that might hit theaters. And I wanted to ask you about whether or not, in your experiences, you know, obviously working as a writer and talking to people, do people seriously think through and think about the theatrical slash TV hybrid model? Because this is something that is legendarily not really worked, right? Like, people like a certain story because of the way it's told.

• 17:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  In a certain medium, there's a real like logic to X-Files shows. Now, their movies, I happen to really like the X-Files movies.

• 17:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Chris Ryan?

  But they, I wouldn't say that they gave X-Files like a whole new birth, you know, like of life.

• 17:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's a good question. I, no one thinks or talks about that in terms of like actually a hybrid strategy.

• 17:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because every once in a while, like, somebody comes along and they're like, I'm gonna do Dark Tower and it's gonna be five seasons and two movies.

• 17:28Andy Greenwald?

  That, that doesn't work. But what does work, I think, and this, I'm sure they've talked about it, this would be a good topic for the big picture too, is there has been a blurring of lines and maybe, I don't mean of standards, but of like.

• 17:43Andy Greenwald?

  Putting things in theaters as a way of getting enthusiasm, of building excitement, of signifying something important or major, works and has worked increasingly, I think, as the movie theater, to the degree that it is surviving, is surviving as a place for true unbridled hype and communal experience. So Stranger Things finale, I think, premiered in theaters, or at least it was a theater opportunity experience that weekend. I think you were away when I talked about this, but a Netflix, formerly YouTube, then Netflix show that my daughters loved called The Amazing Digital Circus premiered its final episode in theaters a week before it went on Netflix.

• 18:22Chris Ryan?

  And it did like 25 million, right?

• 18:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And some of those millions were mine. No, some of those dollars that added up to the millions are mine. I am not a Stubbs member, so I had to pay full boat. And that works. So I think in this case, which is a reboot of a property with real cultural legs and memory, from a filmmaker, one of the few filmmakers who can open movies.

• 18:46Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 18:47Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's incredibly smart way to get people watching the TV show, especially if, as you said, they're filming it anyway, and it's gonna look amazing on people's nice televisions, why not?

• 18:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I have no, I mean, I wanna see him, Esh Patel and Daniel Dedweiler.

• 19:02Andy Greenwald?

  It's such a good cast.

• 19:03Chris Ryan?

  Find aliens. Like, that can happen in any way. Part of the sort of thrill of watching and even going back to watch X-Files is the variance from episode to episode, because they were still operating in that 20 per year, 20 per season model.

• 19:18Andy Greenwald?

  They sure were.

• 19:19Chris Ryan?

  And there are some duds, there are some funny ones, there are some good Monsters of the Week, there are some great serialized stories, and, you know, I don't know whether this will be like an eight-episode kind of prestige-y feel, or whether they'll try to recapture some of that original energy. I would have to imagine if Kugler was like spending time with it, it's because he likes the totality of X-Files and not just like.

• 19:40Andy Greenwald?

  I hope so.

• 19:41Chris Ryan?

  Fox Mulder's sister got disappeared, you know?

• 19:43Andy Greenwald?

  She did.

• 19:44Chris Ryan?

  She did.

• 19:45Andy Greenwald?

  She did. You know who else's sister disappeared was John Sugar from the television show Sugar.

• 19:50Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, the tie-in is right there.

• 19:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's obvi-

• 19:54Andy Greenwald?

  I just got chills.

• 19:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Sugar files.

• 19:57Andy Greenwald?

  If the X, no, but the thing is, the new X-Files get the case. And we're like, oh, my God, Detective John Sugar is going to be outed as an alien by the X-Files. But actually, the case is, who the fuck greenlit this? Where he's an alien. And so the investigation is coming for, is a Hollywood story. I like that. Yeah, good.

• 20:16Chris Ryan?

  Good.

• 20:16Andy Greenwald?

  Good.

• 20:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 20:17Andy Greenwald?

  X-Files, great.

• 20:19Chris Ryan?

  Netflix releases its last biannual what we watched report. Moment of silence for that.

• 20:25Andy Greenwald?

  Explain this to me, it's the last.

• 20:26Chris Ryan?

  They had been releasing biannual reports about what, you know, they're, for the sake of transparency, they're, some of their data on, on.

• 20:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 20:36Chris Ryan?

  What shows were being watched, what capacity, where, all that stuff. And I think that the idea was that that was supposed to be a nod to, not only transparency to customers, but to creators and also to investors in Netflix. It's like, check out the incredible number we had on Stranger Things.

• 20:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And particularly if it's things like the ones you just mentioned, which are properties they own.

• 20:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And now they have announced that they're going to go to an annual model. I think the reason this jumped out when I read about it in Deadline was because I know that Trump had sort of been like, why are we doing quarterly financial reports anymore? Which seems like that would benefit somebody like Trump, but not.

• 21:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, isn't he, isn't he too busy selling early market moving tweets to Twitter social?

• 21:23Chris Ryan?

  So I, you know, I'm not saying that Netflix is trying to manipulate the market. And as much as I know, I, I think this, this became of note because we're in this weird moment with Netflix where for our purposes.

• 21:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  We have not gone to it as much, you know, like.

• 21:39Andy Greenwald?

  For what we cover.

• 21:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes, like, there is still entertaining content on the service and they're, they're obviously putting themselves a little bit more in the center of the live television experience by doing all these wrestling and comedy and, you know, they've got NFL games, they have NBA games.

• 21:56Andy Greenwald?

  They had the home run derby.

• 21:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they had the home run derby. So they're in the mix now and that is a bigger deal to them than Ripley, right?

• 22:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, sure.

• 22:04Chris Ryan?

  But I, I found it very interesting that, you know, not only some of the highlights over the last four years, which Deadline accumulated.

• 22:14Chris Ryan?

  Some stats from like basically the era that they were doing biannual reporting. And you know, there were some interesting things like among the top 20 shows over the last four years, Eric Bana's Forest Ranger show Untamed, which nary a person, I think other than me, watched.

• 22:31Andy Greenwald?

  Say more about that.

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, I like mountains and I like national parks.

• 22:35Andy Greenwald?

  I like Eric Bana.

• 22:36Chris Ryan?

  I like Eric Bana.

• 22:37Andy Greenwald?

  Is it a scripted series or does he just go to mountains?

• 22:39Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, it probably would have been better if it was the latter, but it is a scripted series. And while I enjoyed it, it is, it gets, it's a real like this should have been a three episode show or a two hour movie, but instead now we have four or five episodes that are about like your complicated relationship with your daughter.

• 22:55Andy Greenwald?

  Now, hold on. Now I'm interested.

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  I think also, given the fact that we kind of dropped off Squid Game after season one.

• 23:05Andy Greenwald?

  We did.

• 23:06Chris Ryan?

  And I could never really tell how popular it was. It is insanely popular and is the, I believe, the most recent. There's, there's two seasons of Squid Game in the top three shows of the last four years. Adolescence is number two and it speaks to like what a phenomenon that was. And I would be shocked knowing that if they didn't figure out a way, if not to like bring back that specific character group to do something anthology around it.

• 23:36Andy Greenwald?

  I believe it's happened.

• 23:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, like it just is like you, this was lightning in a bottle.

• 23:41Andy Greenwald?

  There were rumors that our friend of our pod, dear friend, Kate Winslet was circling a role in a second season of Adolescence.

• 23:47Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 23:48Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. I don't know that it's based on anything. I mean, I believe I got that from Turning Point, as I say, as well, but.

• 23:55Chris Ryan?

  So those are some of the, you know, Adolescence, The Gentleman did very well over the last four years. Basically all of Stranger Things is in the top 20 for the last four years. From this year and from January to June, this is their top 10.

• 24:07Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 24:08Chris Ryan?

  His and hers.

• 24:08Andy Greenwald?

  Which, by the way, I'm shocked by.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  Me too.

• 24:11Andy Greenwald?

  Not, you know, not because we're not stakeholders in Bernthal Holdings Limited.

• 24:15Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm legitimately like, I had no idea that this was a essentially a blockbuster. It's above Bridgerton.

• 24:21Andy Greenwald?

  And it was not well received, I would say by critically, but clearly audiences.

• 24:26Chris Ryan?

  That's the Tessa Thompson John Bernthal thriller. Bridgerton, I Will Find You, which I think is one of the Harlan Coben shows. Stranger Things, season five, the last season, which I guess. Technically came out in 25, right?

• 24:38Andy Greenwald?

  I would hope so, because otherwise Stranger Things, season five, getting half the numbers of his and hers would be catastrophic.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't know if it's half the numbers, or is it like a decimal point below? But I'm just reading-

• 24:48Andy Greenwald?

  Or is it that most people were so excited about that show, they watched it the minute it came out?

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and I also like Netflix's way of calculating its popularity could have to do more with, I mean, they say it had 56 million, I think, views.

• 25:03Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 25:04Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I think there's another 50 million who watched it the day it, you know, it came out. And season five also was broken down, it's such like a long stretch out. Runaway, I don't know what that is. Teach You A Lesson, I don't know what that is. One Piece, you know what that is.

• 25:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well played.

• 25:22Chris Ryan?

  Man on Fire, which to my great regret, we did not discuss, was number eight. Miss Rachel, number nine, and The Night Agent, season three, number 10.

• 25:31Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 25:32Chris Ryan?

  Do you look at that and divine any great learnings?

• 25:37Andy Greenwald?

  Not particularly. I mean, I think that everything that we recognize on here, I think, tracks to us as what works on Netflix. And certainly, we know, one of the reasons we know that is because they make a lot of shows that feel like these shows, that fit into certain boxes. Things that will work better on their service. I think the bigger conversation here is more about what you were saying in terms of how they are evolving their service and the future that they see for it. The A-side to this B-side story about how they're going to change their reporting is they missed their earnings again, and their stock tumbled considerably this week. It was, their stock dropped 9.5%.

• 26:21Andy Greenwald?

  It's the second straight miss that they've had, and the financial reporting, of which I'm responsible for none, and I don't fully understand, said that it was mostly to do with a reassessment of what the company's strengths and plans are after the failed Warner Brothers bid, which I think perplexed investors, and sort of mixed-

• 26:45Andy Greenwald?

  Results for what they care about in terms of the expansion. That's why the other story this week that was bubbling was people were asking Netflix, when are you going to launch a fast service? When are you going to launch an ad-supported service? When are you going to?

• 26:58Chris Ryan?

  They have some ad tiers and now they've talked about having some always-on channels on Netflix.

• 27:02Andy Greenwald?

  Right, so what seemed, there's two ways to look at it. One way to look at it is Netflix is a juggernaut and can experiment with almost anything. And it is still kind of de facto streaming TV for most households. And that's an advantage that the other companies can never reach or a gulf they can never reach. The other version of looking at it is they're trying anything. They are trying anything to try to get some purchase, like get their boots on the ground of something sustainable. Because the go-go-go, we will just keep spending to show growth, to get investor confidence. That inevitably hits some sort of a ceiling.

• 27:42Andy Greenwald?

  And again, this is not me concerned trolling Netflix, but it is interesting in terms of its identity. And the way we always approach it, from what we do here, is what is the scripted television? Like, what is, what are their calling cards? What is their business in that? And I wonder if internally, what the ratio of... What's the Venn diagram of Netflix's value and growth areas when you're actually in the boardrooms? Is it, how do we expand into live programming and sports to become the de facto hub? Is it, do we do a commercial tier? How loud are the voices saying, no, no, more Stranger Things original shows on Broadway?

• 28:25Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 28:25Andy Greenwald?

  Literally, though, like in terms of like merch and K-pop Demon Hunters and becoming a brand in that sense. I don't know, but it's an interesting moment to see a company that is absolutely dominant. Struggling, and I'm putting that in quotes. It is not struggling, but in terms of its identity.

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  It's cash positive now. It's just one of those, if I remember the most recent thing I read, it was like Netflix is actually making money. It's just that it's stock price and it's

• 28:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and

• 28:48Chris Ryan?

  It's like perception to the town and to Wall Street is a little bit rusty right now.

• 28:53Andy Greenwald?

  And when you become, when you return to opacity, when you get less transparent, let's say, with your data, which is what they're doing by going from twice a year to one a year, that will make people skittish.

• 29:07Chris Ryan?

  I think my big learning from this is there is now a Netflix genre. And that it's not quite CBS, but bingeable. And it's not quite like Apple, but a little bit faster and dirtier and, you know, I, there's something about this, the sort of like, there's a lot of grabby thrillers.

• 29:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of genre stuff, but genre stuff that isn't like, I don't find particularly like what I go to for genre.

• 29:40Andy Greenwald?

  Like the Coben industry.

• 29:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, or maybe even Night Agent, which I think like I watched a little bit of the first season and thought it was fine. And that was, but the idea that it's a juggernaut show is kind of surprising to me. But it's interesting because you and I spend so much time talking about these HBO shows and talking about these Apple shows and, you know, other streamers. And this is really, obviously like dwarfs a lot of what we talk about in terms of how many people are watching this. But I don't really find many shows there to talk about in order to really like interrogate. And maybe that's my failing as a commentator, you know. But there maybe is like a transition here where you're seeing the end of the Peter Friedlander era, who was there when they were putting up Ripley and maybe some of their international purchases were more interesting.

• 30:25Andy Greenwald?

  He was there for a beginning.

• 30:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And he was there for a very long time. Now he's at Amazon. And

• 30:31Chris Ryan?

  I don't think they really care about whether or not they win best drama at the Emmys. I mean, like, I think Adolescence is really nice for them. I think Baby Ranger is really nice for them. Baby Ranger has done historically well for them over the last four or five years. But I don't really see a ton of stuff on here where they're like, ooh, wish we could be competing with White Lotus this year, you know?

• 30:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the other thing that they've abandoned, for the most part, is third seasons. And increasingly, like, two seasons is starting to seem like a lot.

• 30:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Andy Greenwald?

  And that is because they are so cutthroat about the data, and they're like, the numbers go down.

• 30:59Chris Ryan?

  Well, they're abandoning those for the shows that we might watch. They're not abandoning it for, like, Ransom Canyon and Virgin River.

• 31:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, but those shows don't get seven years.

• 31:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, there's a couple that do.

• 31:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, like, Lincoln Lawyer, I think, just got cut down after five, and that's a huge show for them.

• 31:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but they have, like, a kind of weird, like, middle-aged CW kind of show, where it's like, a guy who has a general store.

• 31:22Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what the CW stands for? Conventional Wisdom.

• 31:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. They have, like, those shows where it's like, she's a divorced mom and he bridles horses.

• 31:31Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, Minka Kelly deserves paychecks.

• 31:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Andy Greenwald?

  So I think that's awesome.

• 31:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 31:36Andy Greenwald?

  Two, inside baseball on this. Years ago, when Netflix was getting into scripted, I remember there would be interviews with Tina Fey, and they'd be like, oh, Tina, you've only made shows for NBC, and now you're making, this case it was Kimmy Schmidt.

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Andy Greenwald?

  And they were like, what are you learning? You know, what insights are you getting? And she's like, they tell us nothing. We know nothing about who's watching our show or what they think about it. We just deliver it, and we don't have to do 21 minutes anymore. We can go longer.

• 32:04Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:05Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. But I recently was having a conversation with the head of a studio who works with Netflix, and his point was, they remain incredibly opaque about algorithmic data, about like, who, what, when. The thing that drives every decision they make is next, next, next. That is their note. And you can tell by the shows that they make, is will you end on a beat so undeniable that people will start watching?

• 32:36Chris Ryan?

  People are gonna have to watch the next thing.

• 32:36Andy Greenwald?

  The next one.

• 32:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:37Andy Greenwald?

  And it's interesting to, I would put this out to our audience, too. If you're watching a show on a different service, maybe even one that drops shows weekly, but you start to feel that cadence, look in the trades and see who is bidding on it. Because there are examples out there of shows that were expressly developed for Netflix or for that model that have ended up on other services.

• 33:01Chris Ryan?

  On Apple or whatever, yeah.

• 33:02Andy Greenwald?

  That don't do it.

• 33:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Andy Greenwald?

  And I wonder if that changes your interaction with that show.

• 33:05Chris Ryan?

  And on the flip side of that, I will say Tina Fey, her most recent creation for Netflix is The Four Seasons. Oddly has lots of like grabby, kind of like, are they gonna break up moments? Where like, most of the show is like, people making kind of like affectionate mid funny jokes about Thanksgiving dinner. And then at the end, it's like, but whose baby is this? You know, like.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Did you watch the second season?

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  I did, yeah.

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  We don't talk about this stuff.

• 33:31Chris Ryan?

  Well, because there's like a kind of television watching experience that I have with my wife, where we watch half hour comedies as a kind of.

• 33:39Andy Greenwald?

  A come down.

• 33:40Chris Ryan?

  Like a bedtime routine, yeah. Like it's like a.

• 33:42Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I, it was weird. In retrospect, it was weird when you invited me over that time. Sort of like, let's settle.

• 33:49Chris Ryan?

  Just right, right in the middle.

• 33:50Andy Greenwald?

  Guys?

• 33:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Andy Greenwald?

  What's on tonight? I mean, I.

• 33:53Chris Ryan?

  That's the invite, that's what the invite's about.

• 33:55Andy Greenwald?

  Truly, I have watched into season two of Four Seasons, but I, like you, I'm like, I don't really have anything insightful to say.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  You're different than me in that I don't think that you want to watch television to feel completely brain dead. Like, I think you're always like, is this good? And I'm like, I don't really care. You know, like, there is a kind of television that I will watch that is essentially like watching paint dry.

• 34:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Chris Ryan?

  And sometimes I just need to turn it off, man. It's on a lot.

• 34:26Andy Greenwald?

  The brain.

• 34:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm trying to think if I, uh, no, not really. I mean, I think that the equivalent for that for me is like, ending the night with, like, my younger daughter's really, really obsessed with like, treasure hunting the last 10 years of The Simpsons. We've talked about this, so she'll be like, there's a funny one in episode, in season 34.

• 34:45Chris Ryan?

  I'm like that with SVU. Yeah.

• 34:47Andy Greenwald?

  Are you?

• 34:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm like, there's a cult in this one. Let's go.

• 34:50Andy Greenwald?

  It's nice, though. We, I feel like that there's some servicy elements we could be exploiting in this, but maybe not.

• 34:56Chris Ryan?

  How to watch SVU.

• 34:58Andy Greenwald?

  Simpsons victim unit.

• 35:00Chris Ryan?

  A deplorable person.

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• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about House of the Dragon. I was very curious to know how you would feel. I don't even... Did we talk about the last one together? Or was I gone?

• 38:11Andy Greenwald?

  I think I referred to it in passing.

• 38:13Chris Ryan?

  You were gone and then I was... I think I was...

• 38:16Andy Greenwald?

  You talked to Joe about it.

• 38:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 38:17Andy Greenwald?

  And I believe I used the words fucking interminable.

• 38:21Chris Ryan?

  How did you feel about this one?

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  Even longer.

• 38:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  It is a absolute struggle for me. And I don't get a lot of pleasure out of it. However, I do have three points of light, because I do like to be positive. Is there anything about this episode that you would like to highlight or shout out? Because the feeling that I dislike most, that the show services mostly now, is this inexorable churn towards plot points. And I feel the weight of characters interacting just to get to the next plot point, with very little room for brightness or light, or even a feeling of... Obviously, nothing about the show is improvised, but any kind of spark, as opposed to churning towards the gloom and doom that we are headed towards.

• 39:08Andy Greenwald?

  And I find that just... That is a television experience that I do not enjoy.

• 39:12Chris Ryan?

  I wouldn't get your hopes up about this being an upbeat show. So I mean, like, obviously, there's gonna be probably a degree to which the storytelling and the tone of the show mirrors what its eventual conclusion is.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  I will say that the reason why I've been a little bit more forgiving or into these last couple of episodes than you is that I am far more interested in this particular set of characters that have been kind of introduced over the... maybe this season especially.

• 39:43Chris Ryan?

  I wish they were the original lineup. Like, I wish this had been three seasons with these people rather than three episodes as they've kind of broken out of the Targaryen Valyrian.

• 39:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Chris Ryan?

  Uh, camp and started to bring in Starks and different people coming to petition Rhaenyra. And like, I'm like, that guy's interesting. This person's interesting. What's? I kind of now wish that this entire show had been

• 40:07Chris Ryan?

  a little bit more outside the walls of King's Landing.

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  Listen.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  And, um, I can see what they're trying to do. I think the Rhaenyra, like, I, in some ways, I think what they're doing with Rhaenyra is more sure-handed than what they did with Daenerys.

• 40:23Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if this is a controversial statement, but

• 40:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 40:25Chris Ryan?

  in terms of depicting how someone starts to become undone.

• 40:28Andy Greenwald?

  Absolutely. And, you know, that is, in a positive note, because she has reclaimed the throne and has had not just a number of episodes, but that one episode in particular that was the real season standout.

• 40:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 40:41Andy Greenwald?

  We, there's room to maneuver a performance towards something. And, and not indicate, you know, I think one of the nice things about, um, my God, Emma Darcy.

• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:52Andy Greenwald?

  Performance is that, um, it's not telegraphing. It is quite present. Um, almost to the point of like, you kind of feel like Damon being like, you're still hung up on that.

• 41:02Chris Ryan?

  Well, she's being suffocated by like, the fact that every, every conversation she has opens up a trap door of another problem.

• 41:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 41:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Andy Greenwald?

  But yeah, I think that's a very smart observation about something that this show does, is, is able to take more interest in.

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  Like Ormond and Darren, the Stark Wolves, Kristen Cole and Gwain specifically being like guerrilla army. Even like random scenes where it's like Jane of Erin, you know, Jane Erin of the Vale or whatever that her name is, like, she's, she's like, kind of got something.

• 41:35Andy Greenwald?

  She's got spark.

• 41:36Chris Ryan?

  But I think it would be cool, there's probably not enough plot to have done, what's the Vale been doing the entire time this show is going on?

• 41:44Andy Greenwald?

  Well- Exactly in what you said, there's not enough textual plot. Like, a creative enterprise that was differently enabled and empowered could come up with a good story.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 41:56Andy Greenwald?

  You know, to set there in the backdrop of something, but that's not the show.

• 41:59Chris Ryan?

  It's an adaptation. I mean, what are you gonna do, right?

• 42:02Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there's some things you could do.

• 42:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Andy Greenwald?

  But that is not the remit of the show, and I'm not gonna sit here for the third straight year.

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  Sunshine and Graham crackers. What's going on? What is your love?

• 42:13Andy Greenwald?

  I, because, let me do, let me do just one more like kidney punch before we get started. Just that, I'm watching the show week to week, and there are moments where I'm like, man, they're hanging some of these actors out to dry. And like, the dude who plays Eamonn, and like, when he got his script, you know, he's sitting in his trailer and he's putting on his wig, or they're brushing out his long locks.

• 42:38Chris Ryan?

  I think it's a wig.

• 42:39Andy Greenwald?

  And it's like, we don't know.

• 42:41Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I would imagine it's a wig.

• 42:42Andy Greenwald?

  It's probably a wig.

• 42:43Chris Ryan?

  Really damage your hair bleaching it like that.

• 42:45Andy Greenwald?

  And people do things for their art, Chris, you know?

• 42:50Andy Greenwald?

  And he's like, okay, what am I gonna do today? And it's just like, Eamonn wakes up half nude screaming about dragons in hell in a haunted bed. And he's like, yeah, I can see that. Or, he's like, all right, go. And he's like, no, mother! Can we get a little more on the no? It's like, dude.

• 43:10Chris Ryan?

  He's Eamonn Targaryen. He's not gonna be managing a fantasy Premier League team. Like, I don't know what you want him to be doing.

• 43:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's not what I want him to be doing. It's just like, first of all, we are fucking back in the haunted house again with the trees.

• 43:20Chris Ryan?

  I am not a hair and hog guy.

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  It's so boring. But second, it's just like-

• 43:23Chris Ryan?

  I like Grace Rankin and Alice, and she's interesting.

• 43:25Andy Greenwald?

  Gil Rankin is here on my list.

• 43:26Chris Ryan?

  Sorry, Gil Rankin.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  But it's just like, there are incredible performers elevating almost every scene. And I think that if you just look at the bones of it, some of these scenes are pretty thankless in terms of the opportunities for actors to do what they do best and to enliven something. So I wanted to shout out three performers on this show who I look forward to seeing every time they're on the screen. And one, I have to highlight because it is a zero to hero arc. Which is our guy Fabian Frankel. That's Kristen Cole. I'm not, you know, you know, if nothing else, I'm accountable. And-

• 44:01Chris Ryan?

  How much of this is Detective Grosso?

• 44:04Andy Greenwald?

  50%.

• 44:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Chris Ryan?

  The key for House of the Dragon characters is for them to appear on episodes of Task.

• 44:12Andy Greenwald?

  The key for House of the Dragon characters is for me to have seen them be good in other things and then look forward to seeing if they're able to just like flash like a signs of life, like come rescue me kind of thing. Kristen Cole is a thankless part, I felt, for the first two years, and because of that, I don't think we thought much of the actor playing him, which was unfair, as it turns out.

• 44:33Chris Ryan?

  Speak for yourself.

• 44:33Andy Greenwald?

  You were, you were a little bit with me until you heard him talk like he was from fucking Upper Brumal.

• 44:38Chris Ryan?

  I thought he was cool.

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  You thought he was cool?

• 44:41Chris Ryan?

  I thought he was interesting and cool, yeah.

• 44:43Andy Greenwald?

  What was, what was the coolest thing about Sir Kristen Cole? I'll wait. Just like, just riff a little bit.

• 44:50Chris Ryan?

  Pretty loyal. Loyal guy.

• 44:53Andy Greenwald?

  He does work above his, like, his duties. You know what I mean? Like, he's willing to-

• 44:59Chris Ryan?

  He goes, he goes the extra 10%.

• 45:00Andy Greenwald?

  He does.

• 45:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Andy Greenwald?

  This season, putting, taking him out of the claustrophobic court and making him be a, a warrior in a Tim O'Brien novel, basically, works for him. I'm absolutely watching him through the eyes of seeing what he was capable of doing as another deeply misguided soldier in Task.

• 45:23Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 45:24Andy Greenwald?

  But I thought this episode in particular, like, when, when his arc is make, kill, kill your horse, help your friends with his leeches, and then convince everyone to go on a suicide run, that's something an actor can work with.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 45:40Andy Greenwald?

  And I thought that he has, like, his, what I mistook for, like, lack of charisma in this episode, you realize, is kind of a steady, slow burn, and I thought he's great. I enjoy, and I enjoyed the scenes with Quain because we love Freddie Fox.

• 45:51Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely. They have the best, some of, I think, among the best chemistry, like, those two and then Laris and Aegon.

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I agree. And, and it is a constant reminder, and, and again, I don't want to sit here, as I do, for weeks and years and seasons of these shows, being like, oh, we know better because we see something.

• 46:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, you're obviously, like, I, I have, I have, just for the, the crew, I have stipulated that we do not need to do this.

• 46:14Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm interested in-

• 46:14Chris Ryan?

  And so, like, I think you're interested in the project and how they-

• 46:17Andy Greenwald?

  And, and what I mean is, I, I've decided to-

• 46:21Andy Greenwald?

  Truly, I know I don't always sound like it, but I'm trying to look for the helpers. Look to the helpers. And like, when you see good, interesting actors with chemistry paired off, or so much of the season devoted to them, that is not a fluke. I think that the people making the show are empowered to do that because they are also interested in seeing what the people who can deliver can do. So I really like those scenes. Big Tom Glenn Carney guy, who plays Aegon, like, he is just, even, even with only one ear and one kind of stumpy ear hole, one of the more charismatic actors on the show.

• 46:56Chris Ryan?

  Have had season tickets since Rogue Heroes.

• 46:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I've, I've talked about this. I saw him in All My Sons, on the West End, and he had a very, very brief appearance. He is the smallest part, and when he comes on, he just, he's just a lefty reliever coming in, throwing gas.

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  Just West End big time to me. That's okay.

• 47:16Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I love theater. And you like action shows, but that's, we make it work. What's your take on the Aegon storyline?

• 47:22Chris Ryan?

  It's hard to talk about because I, I've read ahead. So I like it. I like that they are pairing him with another person who is now deformed and is like, kind of like, this is the way the world sees you, and this is the way you can still get ahead.

• 47:41Chris Ryan?

  Each one of these plotlines, each one of these planks of, of the show, at any given moment, does not have enough going on for a full episode.

• 47:49Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 47:50Chris Ryan?

  And the way that they've chosen to do it, which is cross-cutting across, you know, these, say, five storylines that they've got going, I think it's probably the way they can get to eight episodes of television, and eight, you know, eight hours and 40 minutes, or nine hours, however long the runtime winds up being. But to your point about, who are you saying that, oh, maybe it was Aemond, where you're just like, what am I doing today? It's like, they don't really do much different from episode to episode. I mean, for as much as I love the Rhaenyra episode, two episodes ago, she is pretty much in the same exact space.

• 48:28Andy Greenwald?

  It was a different way of looking at that.

• 48:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I like it. It's okay, you know, but there is not a-

• 48:36Chris Ryan?

  There is neither a propulsion because it's such a breakneck show.

• 48:39Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  Nor is there a concept of what it needs to be to be episodic. To keep this thing kind of feeling light. And I am, I'm committed to this and I like it and I kind of just want to see how they execute some of the stuff that I think is coming, or some of the stuff I know is coming. But it's really weird. It's a very specific kind of writing that I don't know if it would, if it would work if there wasn't this sort of like carrot being dangled of like, there's some big battles coming.

• 49:08Andy Greenwald?

  And this, and I do think my feelings about, I mean, the, the assignment of the show was always going to be challenging because it was the inverse of Game of Thrones. And the challenge of the show is what are you going to do when the dragons aren't the main characters of an episode?

• 49:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that-

• 49:24Chris Ryan?

  I prefer it, though.

• 49:25Andy Greenwald?

  I prefer that generally, but I think the show has struggled to answer that question successfully, week to week, over the seasons.

• 49:30Chris Ryan?

  So you would rather have people be like, "Ah, Syrax, my beautiful beast," you know, like-

• 49:35Andy Greenwald?

  You go ahead. I would, I would pay to watch you do that longer. No, I'm not arguing four more dragons. I'm saying that House of the Dragon, season three, despite being functionally better than season two in many, many ways, and much more professionalized and capable of higher highs, and honestly, a higher floor as well, I think, week to week. I think that it is suffering post Night of the Seven Kingdoms, because-

• 49:58Chris Ryan?

  Oh, this is like dropping Doomsday after The Odyssey.

• 50:00Andy Greenwald?

  It's exact, thank you. It's just more that like, Night of the Seven Kingdoms almost casually introduced us to different archetypes, different arcs, and different emotions that we heretofore did not know were possible in Westeros. And House of the Dragon is still saddled with storylines like, "I will teach the child to stab an innocent man in the heart. That will show him the way of the world." And I feel like that is a lesson that we have all learned repeatedly over the last 15 years on television and otherwise. And so, but that is what the show is. I mean, that is the world that they're existing in, and I think it's trying to iterate, honestly.

• 50:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Andy Greenwald?

  And in good faith. The last performance you mentioned is Gail Rankin, who is a really good actor from Perry Mason and from Glow, and she's playing Alice, the witch queen of Harrenhal.

• 50:49Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:50Andy Greenwald?

  And- Again, this might be like prior fandom. I just think she's a cool performer, but I, she has a little bit of twinkle in her eye. Like she does have some wit when all these people keep coming to attack her.

• 51:03Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  And she's lying to them. That suggests some life.

• 51:07Chris Ryan?

  Right, like I think she.

• 51:08Andy Greenwald?

  Or some plan.

• 51:09Chris Ryan?

  When the last group of raiders come, I think she kind of lets herself get taken captive to like, entice Aemond to regain his spirit, you know? Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I don't know what to say about this. And then you jump in and I'm like, that's right.

• 51:24Andy Greenwald?

  Because I say, I like to save my friend. It's like that human, was it the human giant sketch about like the, the most successful moving company in New York? Where like to move the piano, they put a child underneath it. And then the mother shows up and goes, my child! And lifts the piano. Because there's no strength greater than a child in peril.

• 51:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's what's going on here. Just real quick, that's a Lannister that shows up with Aegon?

• 51:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 51:48Andy Greenwald?

  And that's the Lannister who was on the boat?

• 51:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's, uh, Thailand or Jason, I can't remember which one. One got their head cut off, so he's definitively dead. We are getting into a dangerous period with this show where if they don't show you the body, it probably means the guy's still alive and they've done that twice this season.

• 52:05Andy Greenwald?

  Correlated with a.

• 52:06Chris Ryan?

  Correlated once with this guy, yeah. Yeah.

• 52:09Andy Greenwald?

  You want habeas corpus.

• 52:11Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm just saying like, this is why the Stannis freaks from Game of Thrones still are among us. Where they're just like, we never saw it, brother.

• 52:17Andy Greenwald?

  So this is actually, this came up. This came up the other week. We were texting this.

• 52:25Andy Greenwald?

  The Stannis Melisandre stuff is so interesting in retrospect. Because we, and I say we, like the audience of Game of Thrones, spent so much time with those characters. And in the new parlance of television, which is really about return on investment, it's like, well, what was that for? What was the point? And it's such an interesting and more contemporary framing that just invalidates 40, 50 years of television.

• 52:55Chris Ryan?

  True.

• 52:57Andy Greenwald?

  Now you could make the case, I don't actually know this, but like. I think that the Stannis story was already ended in the books when they were telling it on the screen.

• 53:07Chris Ryan?

  So people were like, oh, I can't wait to see like how.

• 53:09Andy Greenwald?

  That we know that he's not a real contender.

• 53:12Chris Ryan?

  Version of what I've been, yes.

• 53:13Andy Greenwald?

  So, but we also still enjoy the, the, the time spent on it.

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just like Red Wedding and a bunch of stuff.

• 53:18Andy Greenwald?

  And Stephen Delane was really good in that part, but like the Melisandre thing was still questionable and then she shows up later.

• 53:23Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's like, is she, there, cause there's like the woman that never popped up in the show that was supposed to be maybe Caitlin Stark. I know.

• 53:29Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, Lady Stoneheart?

• 53:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. That's not Melisandre though.

• 53:32Andy Greenwald?

  Can I say though, like in retrospect, my favorite thing of our, we had a real rich Thrones adventure. We were on television. We were talking about it and still every time Jason or Mallory would be like, well, you know, they're not doing Lady Stoneheart. I'd be like, can you just talk me through that again? And they're like, remember?

• 53:48Chris Ryan?

  It's not Lady Stoneheart level, but Nettles is supposed to be, you know, is, is in Fire and Blood.

• 53:53Andy Greenwald?

  Did you say, you know, I do not, sir? Who is Nettles?

• 53:57Chris Ryan?

  Nettles is basically being folded into Reina's storyline, I believe.

• 54:02Andy Greenwald?

  But who is?

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  It's just another character who's like a dragon rider.

• 54:05Andy Greenwald?

  Greg Nettles?

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:06Andy Greenwald?

  Is he a pitcher?

• 54:07Chris Ryan?

  Craig.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  Craig.

• 54:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Andy Greenwald?

  Craig Nettles.

• 54:08Chris Ryan?

  And I think he was a utility infielder.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Chris Ryan?

  Like a kind of Jose Oquendo type.

• 54:14Andy Greenwald?

  I think we both closed our computers. No way of knowing, but um, no, but like the Lady Stoneheart thing where I'd be like, oh my God, I'm still shaken up by the Red Wedding. Like that was one of the most intense things ever on television. It was so surprising.

• 54:24Chris Ryan?

  Actually, well, they're not doing Stoneheart.

• 54:26Andy Greenwald?

  And they're like, well, you know, Caitlin comes back. I'm like, maybe it's good to do an adaptation and cherry pick a little bit. But, but anyway, my, you get what I'm saying in terms of our conversation about House of the Dragon. Because it is a history, quote unquote, because it is um, being made now, there isn't room for these little narrative, I don't even call them flights of fancy, but it's like little exploratory runs. You know, what do they say when we're watching the World Cup? They're like, oh, a lovely little questioning run on the left line.

• 54:57Chris Ryan?

  I think that's why the Aegon and Lyra storyline is so um, pleasant to watch because it has so many Thrones echoes, because it feels like Brienne on the road with Jaime or whatever, you know?

• 55:08Andy Greenwald?

  But it also feels, again, I could be very much mistaken about this and please you won't spoil it, I know, but like, it does not feel connected in a way that it feels like it is moving in some, towards something unexpected or new. That's probably not the case, but I do, just generally, that's probably one of the causes of my lingering allergy to the show is that I just, you just don't feel that spark of like people discovering something as writers or performers or whatever. It's more claustrophobic.

• 55:35Chris Ryan?

  So we got three more.

• 55:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Which is, which is, it feels like it's, it's really a rich vein for us. Do you want to talk about The Prisoner?

• 55:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Set this, I, I love it. I love it when a 4pm text comes with some good, good ideas.

• 55:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. So The Prisoner is a show from 1967 and 1968 from England that has been a little bit of like a cult classic in the TV world for decades. It's popped up here and there on physical media. There's some, like a UK DVD, there's a Blu-ray, there was a box set. I think Arrow might have done it. It's just one of those shows that if, if we were a proper country, we would probably be able to create a Criterion Channel for television. And maybe that's a project you and I can do on some late summer dead week is like, what would we put in like our first 10 or 15 or 20 shows? And it's not always the best, but

• 56:31Chris Ryan?

  it, you know, these, Criterion does these physical media releases for films and obviously gives the films like a kind of unified aesthetic in terms of their graphic design. And now it's become this kind of, almost like this label or brand that people are like, I blind buy the thing on Criterion because it means film excellence. It means like true exploration of like what's great about the cinematic arts. And we don't really have that for television. And a lot of that is because television has largely been a function of selling advertising over the years. And there's all these complicated rights issues and it's like a studio made it, but sold it to a network that then offloaded it to this other network or streamer. And this is why we wait around decades for Homicide to show up on streaming or My So-Called Life still isn't on streaming, right?

• 57:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's music rights.

• 57:17Chris Ryan?

  Right. It's music rights. So the show The Prisoner is a little bit different than say Homicide or My So-Called Life. It's more of a, I would say, Acquired Taste is also a cult classic, you know? And it is hugely influential. It's a 17-episode run, I believe of two seasons, two series. It was created by Patrick.

• 57:37Andy Greenwald?

  One series.

• 57:38Chris Ryan?

  One series. So 17 episodes, one series. Patrick McGoon, who's the creator, is also the star, and he worked with David Markstein, who I believe directed a lot of it. And it is essentially a sci-fi spy show. It's the easiest way I can describe it and has been credited for having a huge influence on X-Files, on Twin Peaks, on The Truman Show, on Inception, and on The Matrix.

• 58:05Andy Greenwald?

  I would throw another one in there after watching it last night.

• 58:07Chris Ryan?

  Which is?

• 58:07Andy Greenwald?

  It's a good place.

• 58:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  Like intensely so.

• 58:10Chris Ryan?

  Intensely so. And I think it's like just a really cool thing for people to check out. It was very funny. Last night I was watching a couple of episodes and I had initially sort of been like, do you, to my wife, I was like, do you want to watch this, this show, The Prisoner with me? And she was like, what's it about? And I told her and she was like, no, no, thanks.

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  She was like, why don't you invite Andy over to wind down with that one?

• 58:31Chris Ryan?

  She heard it in the other room and she was like, is this old timey? And I was like, no, it's old?

• 58:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:38Chris Ryan?

  And she was like, I thought it was new and they were doing old timey. And I was like, no, I mean, it's just the late 60s. Is that old timey now, I guess?

• 58:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Chris Ryan?

  But the cutting style, the art direction, the music, it's very much of its time.

• 58:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 58:54Chris Ryan?

  But it's also, I mean, you can see Nolan editing patterns in The Prisoner. So it stands to reason that Nolan has twice gotten pretty close to remaking it as a film, as has Ridley Scott. So this is a really interesting show. The entire series is up on the Criterion Channel if you have it. But I just thought we could talk a little bit about this as like a touchstone in modern television.

• 59:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's also worth noting, the show was remade in 2009.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 59:23Andy Greenwald?

  For AMC.

• 59:24Chris Ryan?

  Ian McKellen, Jim Caviezel.

• 59:25Andy Greenwald?

  Jim Caviezel was not particularly well regarded, certainly not in the shadow of its predecessor.

• 59:32Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 59:33Andy Greenwald?

  I was really thrilled to do this because as someone who grew up reading TV Guide for the articles, this was a reference that dominated.

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:44Andy Greenwald?

  I don't, I don't think it's possible to overstate how influential, not even the show itself, because it was hard to watch for a number of decades, but how influential the idea of the show was.

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:55Andy Greenwald?

  That it was a hallmark of any even half-assed article, name checking when The Times TV has been bold or interesting. And so when Twin Peaks came out at the end of the eighties and early nineties, and I was obsessed with it, The Prisoner was back in the conversation.

• 1:00:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because Mark Frost was like, there's no Twin Peaks without The Prisoner, basically.

• 1:00:13Andy Greenwald?

  But what's interesting, and I think that I'd seen clips maybe, or had sought something out, or maybe it was on PBS, but I definitely have never been able to sit down and watch it, like I just did yesterday. And kudos to Criterion, because it is on Criterion, it looks amazing.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  It looks fantastic.

• 1:00:27Andy Greenwald?

  So that's really exciting, too, to see it in the way that it, even better probably than it's ever been seen before. But it was very interesting to see something that is so deeply influential to artistically-minded and aesthetically-minded art and television in particular, but it is not a one-to-one in any sense. There is nothing, like, because the Twin Peaks thing is, it's David Lynch on television. But then, the idea that there was even a small, safe space on television for something that didn't feel right, you know, that felt off.

• 1:00:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Andy Greenwald?

  That felt confusing, that didn't hold your hand, you owe that to The Prisoner, I think, above, above anything else.

• 1:01:06Chris Ryan?

  And the setup for the show is very, very straightforward, in a brilliant pre-title sequence.

• 1:01:12Andy Greenwald?

  Which they replay.

• 1:01:13Chris Ryan?

  Which is wordless. They, a spy resigns from MI6 or whatever, and drives home to his place in Westminster.

• 1:01:23Andy Greenwald?

  In a very normal car.

• 1:01:24Chris Ryan?

  In a very spy car, and he goes into his flat and-

• 1:01:28Andy Greenwald?

  He's packing, right?

• 1:01:29Chris Ryan?

  Is gassed and falls asleep, and when he wakes up, he is in a seaside village, place unknown, side of the Iron Curtain unknown, side of reality unknown. And in this village, everything is accounted for, it's a very good place, like Andy mentioned, like, you know, you go to the labor exchange, and you get a job, and you go do these things, and there's like a kind of political class, and there is, senior citizens are taken care of there.

• 1:01:53Andy Greenwald?

  There's a little cafe, and beaches.

• 1:01:55Chris Ryan?

  Everybody's wearing these sort of, uh- Brightly colored, like, kind of, very geometric, patterned capes and cloaks and frocks. But, you know, obviously, this rough-and-tumble spy is like, where am I? What's going on? Who's in charge here? How do I get out of here? And I'll just say, in the first episode, you are introduced to the idea that not only is there a constant surveillance and a lot of subterfuge going on in this village, but a blobby white balloon floats over the village and is capable of sucking people into it and killing them.

• 1:02:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was the part that engaged my nine-year-old the most.

• 1:02:37Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:37Andy Greenwald?

  The horror balloon.

• 1:02:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Andy Greenwald?

  And grown men running from balloons.

• 1:02:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:42Andy Greenwald?

  I think she liked that.

• 1:02:44Chris Ryan?

  But, you know, there's parts of it that are cut and feel like, I don't know, like, late 60s mod culture films, you know?

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  The other thing that I would say that you should watch, just for reference, is Austin Powers.

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:02:57Andy Greenwald?

  Because there's something of that, too.

• 1:02:59Chris Ryan?

  Very, very, very, very influenced, I think, probably by this.

• 1:03:01Andy Greenwald?

  Patrick McGoood's performance, especially in the first one, too, where he just, like, just yells at everyone.

• 1:03:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Andy Greenwald?

  And so the other interesting thing about it is, you know, it is intentionally surreal, and the surreality is both aesthetic and cultural, like, for the, like, mad Carnaby Street vibes, but also very much about, like, surveillance and who do you work for and who sent you and what is truth and what do I owe? And things that happen in the first few episodes that probably don't register as much to us in, like, a post-Google Translate society.

• 1:03:31Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:03:32Andy Greenwald?

  But, like, someone speaks French and then someone responds in German. And it's like, where do your allegiances lie? Who is responsible for this? Which is much more Cold War-coded. But the other thing that I found really interesting is, there is no, this is when it gets into, like, James Joyce territory. Did you know that there is no agreed-upon order to watch this series? So, the second episode, the one that aired second, the one that Criterion calls, Episode Two, it's called The Chimes of Big Ben, was the fifth-produced episode. And instantly, when you watch it, you are, once again... Um, discomfited and like unclear about what's going on for reasons that are intentional. Like, that's the vibe of the show. And one of the conceits of the show is that our main

• 1:04:16Andy Greenwald?

  character, number six, is being bossed around and surveilled by the person who is nominally in charge, number two.

• 1:04:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Andy Greenwald?

  There is no number one. Number two just says, like, you could make this all go away if you told me why you resigned. But in all 17 episodes, number two is played by a different guest star.

• 1:04:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:34Andy Greenwald?

  So number two is always different. So you would, you can be forgiven if you're like, a little bit confused. But then you keep watching episode two, and Patrick McGoohan's number six has a completely different personality than he did in the first episode. He's much funnier, and he's much more charming, and he's much more willing to sort of play along. Honestly, more like a spy.

• 1:04:54Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  And it makes it a more pleasant watch. But it's also like, is this the fifth episode of the second?

• 1:05:00Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:05:00Andy Greenwald?

  What is time? And is that on purpose? So there's a rabbit hole inside the rabbit hole.

• 1:05:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I think it's a different era of making television where they maybe, maybe they got a note that was like, this guy needs to be nicer, you know, like, this guy needs to be funny.

• 1:05:15Andy Greenwald?

  And not just a note, it's of an era when BBC or whoever put it, I think it was, BBC broadcast it, because I don't think there were any other channels.

• 1:05:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Andy Greenwald?

  Was like, we're gonna put this one on next.

• 1:05:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:05:27Andy Greenwald?

  Because that's what we're gonna do.

• 1:05:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Andy Greenwald?

  But it is, here's the thing that I really liked the most about it, and I wish that there, I wish that you could take this piece and inject it into contemporary television.

• 1:05:43Andy Greenwald?

  I have no idea, I've not done the deep research, I've not watched the whole series. I have no idea if Patrick McGoohan and his collaborators launched the series knowing, quote unquote, "the answers."

• 1:05:53Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:53Andy Greenwald?

  If they had a plan, you know, like, just like, the vocabulary that sprung up around Lost. What I do know is that there is such a swinging sense of fun and discovery and gamesmanship in a playful way, not like in an aggressive, "I'm gonna frustrate Reddit" way, that is so welcome.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Andy Greenwald?

  And one of the reasons I think that exists is because of the way that it's shot and scored, because contemporary television is so dependent on, in the same way movies are, I think as well, of like, having the way that you film it, cut it, and most importantly, score it, indicate heavy importance.

• 1:06:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:06:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, this is ominous now.

• 1:06:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, there's also like a real emphasis in television, I think, on coverage and making sure, like, you got that shot, that shot, that shot. And that way, also, if they want to meddle with it, or if there's a supervising producer or whatever, they can go in and do their cut of the show. Whereas there, especially in this first episode, like, I can't imagine there was that much coverage because everything is this, like, high angled shot through, like...

• 1:06:57Andy Greenwald?

  Of a Welsh village where they shot the exteriors.

• 1:06:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's just very, it's a very disorienting and pleasantly disorienting show.

• 1:07:02Andy Greenwald?

  Apologies to our friends in England. It was not BBC, it was ITV.

• 1:07:05Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I didn't know they were around in the late 60s.

• 1:07:07Andy Greenwald?

  A little bit independent.

• 1:07:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Andy Greenwald?

  But the, but do you know what I mean, though? This sense that, like, one of the things that contemporary shows do, and there's a reason why you do it, is like, you want to give people enough rope to keep climbing. So you want them to know that they have a plan, that there's something to be revealed. But there's a playfulness, this, this does actually segue from our House of the Dragon conversation, that there is a playfulness possible in Discovery. That, that, for all the things the show does, and I'm not saying it's for everyone, and I'm not saying it's like linear or like a good hang all the time, but there is a sense of playfulness that is kind of infectious if you can get into it.

• 1:07:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:41Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you don't need to be doing your homework necessarily. You just kind of have to go with it, and that's not a bad feeling to have with TV. It is not so common anymore.

• 1:07:51Chris Ryan?

  Before we get out of here.

• 1:07:52Andy Greenwald?

  Can we do it? Can we talk about it?

• 1:07:54Chris Ryan?

  So, let's talk about Rachel Cusk.

• 1:07:56Andy Greenwald?

  Kai has been waiting for an hour of this nonsense.

• 1:07:58Chris Ryan?

  Did you, did you know that we were gonna talk about this today?

• 1:08:00Speaker 04

  No, but I'm thrilled.

• 1:08:01Chris Ryan?

  This is a cool story, anyway.

• 1:08:03Andy Greenwald?

  So great.

• 1:08:04Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so, there is a new Rachel Cusk book. What's it called? Portrait of M?

• 1:08:09Andy Greenwald?

  Life of M.

• 1:08:10Chris Ryan?

  Life of M.

• 1:08:11Andy Greenwald?

  Should we, can I, can I, can we set up Rachel Cusk a little bit?

• 1:08:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think we better.

• 1:08:15Andy Greenwald?

  Should we? Rachel Cusk is a very culty British novelist. Kai, have you read these books? Did we talk about this?

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  I have not, no.

• 1:08:21Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, I feel like we've asked you this before, I apologize. She's kind of known...

• 1:08:25Chris Ryan?

  Have you read any Rachel Kushner? I love Rachel Cusner. That's why she's still here.

• 1:08:30Andy Greenwald?

  You know what?

• 1:08:31Chris Ryan?

  That's why she sticks around is because she and I know Mars Room for Life.

• 1:08:34Andy Greenwald?

  Kai and Sarah are a real big-

• 1:08:36Chris Ryan?

  Mars Room was too dark for me.

• 1:08:36Andy Greenwald?

  Kai and Sarah are a big outline trilogy. They just don't want to talk about it.

• 1:08:42Andy Greenwald?

  She, she has sort of risen to a certain kind of prominence for her incredibly chilly, reported autofiction books.

• 1:08:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:08:52Andy Greenwald?

  Her books are a vibe. Her books are an experience. Her, this trilogy that starts with Outline basically follow her just like going to literary conferences and just sort of talking to people who like Greek men who take her out on their boats to tell them about their failed sons. You know, and she's just like, then she talks about her, what a shithead her ex-husband is. You're like, more, more. So I know I'm selling it, but they are so, they're such a vibe. Like, there's an entire book that I read about how she and her then-husband took their kids out of schools, like, live in Italy for a year. And then they go to like a bunch of, like, they go to look at Frescos and Abys and she's like, everything sucks. It's great. Can't sell it enough.

• 1:09:36Chris Ryan?

  Where have I heard that kind of attitude before?

• 1:09:38Andy Greenwald?

  I can't imagine why. But what's incredible then is this is the, this was reported this week is that her, she has a, she has many fans, you know.

• 1:09:46Chris Ryan?

  Including Natalie Portman.

• 1:09:47Andy Greenwald?

  Including Natalie Portman, who part of her, Natalie Portman's public-facing brand is like lifting up novelists.

• 1:09:53Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:09:54Andy Greenwald?

  And she likes books and who among us, you, Jeselnik, all the greats do it? And the implication here is that Natalie Portman was like, let's hang out or like, write about me?

• 1:10:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I can't really get, so the reason why this is a little bit murky is because apparently there are galleys of this book. Which is a, according to one, one article in a, on a site called Unheard. And then aggregated by the usual trades, is an unflattering portrait of Natalie Portman.

• 1:10:25Andy Greenwald?

  Who could have guessed?

• 1:10:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And there are galleys of this book and there is an embargo on the reviews, I suppose. So it's like a very strange, like, social media discourse about it where people are like, I see like, this site decided to break the embargo, but I will save my opinions for when like, the real time comes.

• 1:10:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:10:46Chris Ryan?

  But I'm unclear as to whether Natalie Portman basically was like- Yes, you can embed with me, or if this is just about their on again, off again relationship.

• 1:10:57Andy Greenwald?

  Because they both live in Paris now.

• 1:10:58Chris Ryan?

  And they both have this sort of mutual appreciation for each other, or did until Rachel Cusk wrote what is apparently an unflattering novel about her. But I gotta say something, man.

• 1:11:08Andy Greenwald?

  Say it.

• 1:11:08Chris Ryan?

  Shout out to Natalie Portman.

• 1:11:10Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:11:10Chris Ryan?

  Because this is why they don't fucking talk to us anymore. This is why stars are like, sure, I'll make a pizza, but you can't spend more than 12 minutes with me, you know? Because they don't want to be observed. They don't want their weird shit broadcast out into the world. So they want to get asked what their Letterboxd four favorites are, and then they keep it moving, you know? And like, and, and, and when you see any life in them, and everybody's just like, wow, an iguana, you know? Like, this is like how they get treated. So for her to be like, hmm, what, what, where can we go here with this relationship? Why don't I have this like, absolutely scalpel sharp, mean writer, hang out with me and then write a novel about me? Is fucking cool.

• 1:11:55Chris Ryan?

  Like, it may not work out well for her, but I admire her, her doing this.

• 1:12:00Andy Greenwald?

  What's incredible is the analogy.

• 1:12:01Chris Ryan?

  And it's very French that she did this.

• 1:12:03Andy Greenwald?

  It's very French. The analogy that I was thinking is like, if I was a big fan of like, in cooking, like Wusthof knives, I'm like, I love cooking with these knives. I really enjoy them. It's a good product that does what it's supposed to do, and they're a part of my life every day. That step from that to being like, I wonder what it would be like to cut myself with these knives?

• 1:12:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Andy Greenwald?

  Is a bridge too far?

• 1:12:24Chris Ryan?

  Well, it would also just be like, any, anything that we like, and you watch, I like watching Lioness. I, I don't want anything that happens in that show to happen to me.

• 1:12:36Andy Greenwald?

  I know. You know? I, I will say, apropos of the early, the jokes you were making, like, when you texted me this, my brain autocorrected Kushner. I thought it was Rachel Kushner, and then I was shocked because Rachel, Rachel Kushner from all of her public, I mean, her books are quite, you know, intellectual and, and can be tough, but like. Every interview, she's just like, Kim Gordon and I went to get tacos in Echo Park and it was sick.

• 1:13:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like she would be a really cool hang.

• 1:13:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Rachel Cusker is welcome, write a book about me.

• 1:13:10Andy Greenwald?

  I think it would be dope. I think it would be great. Do you think, which mode would she use? The women in prison mode? Or the like spy woman going to investigate caves in Bordeaux mode? Like which, which are you?

• 1:13:22Chris Ryan?

  Can't possibly comment at this time.

• 1:13:25Chris Ryan?

  This is just an exciting development. We'll be tracking it as, as, uh, as maybe more official reviews come out. I am really hoping it doesn't turn out that it's like, this was misinterpreted and it's not actually about Natalie Portman, whatever. It's about.

• 1:13:38Andy Greenwald?

  I just think of all the writers in the world.

• 1:13:40Chris Ryan?

  Monica Bellucci and, you know, we just didn't know.

• 1:13:43Andy Greenwald?

  Of all the writers on earth, there is no writer alive that I would trust more to turn directly to camera and say, no, it's about that bitch. Than Rachel Cusk. Like that is the one that you want. Also, let me just say, kudos to us because I do get a sense sometimes that there is like within our family of podcasts. Like we do tend to cover some similar things. Like I imagine the doomsday trailer will filter its way through Midnight Boys and Big Pick and, you know.

• 1:14:10Chris Ryan?

  House of R, everybody, yeah.

• 1:14:12Andy Greenwald?

  This is where you come for the discourse about Rachel Cusk, about E.L.

• 1:14:16Chris Ryan?

  Julian and Amanda may disagree.

• 1:14:19Andy Greenwald?

  They are well-read literary figures, but I feel like, I, I just feel like we are carving out a very specific lane for ourselves to enjoy. And sometimes Kaia, where we can really comment on these things.

• 1:14:32Chris Ryan?

  This activated and animated in such a long time.

• 1:14:34Andy Greenwald?

  This is the most interesting story of the week.

• 1:14:36Chris Ryan?

  This is your House of the Dragons.

• 1:14:36Andy Greenwald?

  This is the most interesting story of the week.

• 1:14:38Chris Ryan?

  Um, thank you to Kaia, Kai and Sarah for producing us today. We'll be back on Thursday.

• 1:14:43Andy Greenwald?

  We gotta get to the agency and it's really just more about finishing it.

• 1:14:45Chris Ryan?

  I, I'm sorry, I was.

• 1:14:47Andy Greenwald?

  No, me too.

• 1:14:47Chris Ryan?

  I had third place matches to watch, you know, it just came, it just came up. I want it to be done for today, but, but I think we did a good show either way.

• 1:14:54Andy Greenwald?

  I think we did a good show and also we did a, we did a good World Cup. So I think it's okay.

• 1:14:59Chris Ryan?

  See you guys on Thursday.

• 1:15:08Speaker 07

  Streaming October 30 on Paramount+.

• 1:15:11Speaker 06

  I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you.

• 1:15:16Speaker 07

  You're having a midlife crisis.

• 1:15:17Speaker 06

  I'm not ready for this.

• 1:15:19Speaker 07

  He's back.

• 1:15:20Speaker 06

  I'm older. I'm wiser.

• 1:15:24Speaker 07

  And sharper than ever.

• 1:15:25Speaker 06

  Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.

• 1:15:32Speaker 07

  Dexter Resurrection. New season October 30 on the Paramount+ Premium Plan.

• 1:15:39Speaker 06

  What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple. Like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive. Or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to simple.