Pod Insights The Watch ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 4, ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ Casting News, and ‘The Eastern Gate’ Finale About this episode Chris and Andy talk about some recent industry headlines, including the rumored casting of Nicolas Cage in ‘True Detective’ Season 5, Matthew McConaughey reuniting with Nic Pizzolatto (3:19), and ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ adding Amy Adams and Aaron Pierre (13:09). Then, they react to the first trailer for the upcoming FX show from Sterlin Harjo, ‘The Lowdown’ starring Ethan Hawke (19:01), before discussing the fourth episode of ‘Alien: Earth’ (20:58). Later, they break down the final two episodes of ‘The Eastern Gate’ and why they enjoyed it so much (39:16).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Video Producer: Jon Jones
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Transcript 11,231 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:03 Andy Greenwald? Stand up and walk now.
2:06 Chris 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, thank God he speaks fluent xenomorph, it's Andy Greenwald.
2:22 Andy Greenwald? It's a beautiful thing to have you back.
2:23 Chris Ryan? I am back in Los Angeles. What is going on?
2:27 Andy Greenwald? Did you like the way I laid out all those orange traffic cones for you on the way into the studio?
2:30 Chris Ryan? That was cool. That was cool. Uh, Greenwald, it's great to see you, man. Uh, great to be back in the studio. Just want to say thank you to everybody who reached out on various platforms to offer their condolences to me. That was really, really cool. Um, I'm gonna try and get back to everybody, but very, very, very sweet of people to reach out through our email address, which is the watch at spotify.com and on Instagram and various other ways.
2:53 Andy Greenwald? People love you. It was beautiful.
2:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it was really cool. Honestly, very moving stuff.
2:57 Andy Greenwald? Can you handle it or can you not handle it?
2:59 Chris Ryan? Uh, I have to put up a wall of irony, you know, to deal with any real human emotions, but thankfully, uh, I've got you.
3:06 Andy Greenwald? I am literally that for you. I will cover you in an emotion fight.
3:11 Chris Ryan? Uh, today on The Watch, we're doing a little bit of news. We had some True Detecting going on, uh, that we want to talk about.
3:18 Andy Greenwald? Weirdly, this news happened when you were absent and it didn't really like-
3:22 Chris Ryan? Somehow the Andy version of The Watch didn't do that.
3:24 Andy Greenwald? Didn't ping our little like radars.
3:26 Chris Ryan? Um, I also want to talk a little bit about the Taylor Sheridan universe, which is connected to True Detective now in a funny way. And we want to talk a little bit about the Lowdown, which is the new Ethan Hawke series from Sterling Harjo that's coming on FX next month. We will be breaking down the fourth episode of Alien.
3:43 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
3:43 Chris Ryan? Uh, and-
3:44 Andy Greenwald? We could do the fourth.
3:45 Chris Ryan? And we're also going to talk about the last few episodes of Eastern Gate.
3:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
3:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
3:49 Andy Greenwald? Save ourselves. A treat for us.
3:51 Chris Ryan? Andy's got a hard out at 11:30, but I need 10 solid minutes to talk about Eva's various looks in the final two episodes.
3:58 Andy Greenwald? You're gonna need 10 years to unpack what this did to you.
4:01 Chris Ryan? Um-
4:01 Andy Greenwald? Also, I want to star fight a little bit.
4:03 Chris Ryan? Did you want to do any TSITP? Are you guys still behind at the house?
4:06 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, still behind. Still behind.
4:08 Chris Ryan? Incredible shot play called by, uh, by Conrad.
4:11 Andy Greenwald? You think?
4:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he went deep. Yeah.
4:14 Andy Greenwald? Did it work out for him?
4:15 Chris Ryan? Uh, I mean, I think ultimately it will, but uh, he fucked up that wedding. He, he ruined it.
4:22 Andy Greenwald? Oh, he did?
4:23 Chris Ryan? And it didn't happen.
4:24 Andy Greenwald? Wow.
4:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:25 Andy Greenwald? Spoiler at the top. Do you, I'm realizing now that when I tell you things like, my daughter is behind, but it quote, doesn't matter because she's read the book, that you must be like, oh my God, they've invented cloning.
4:37 Chris Ryan? Well.
4:38 Andy Greenwald? He's recreated himself in aggregate.
4:40 Chris Ryan? That's right. Um, they're at the edge of Canada now. This is now, we're going to be, we're going to be in like a uncharted territory, I think.
4:47 Andy Greenwald? Oh.
4:48 Chris Ryan? Well, we'll see. I think that there's some parts of the book that don't address this. This is all coming from, you know, sources that I have, not, not from my own experience.
4:56 Andy Greenwald? I really think that in year 13, 14 of the podcast, we should just go completely into Miss Info. Like we cover things we don't watch.
5:04 Chris Ryan? Minya or Miss Info like?
5:05 Andy Greenwald? We should, we should become Mr.'s.
5:07 Chris Ryan? Mr.'s Info, yeah.
5:09 Andy Greenwald? We should only cover things we don't watch or hear about, or have a vibe about.
5:13 Chris Ryan? Yes. I've, I watch the show every week. This has now become.
5:17 Andy Greenwald? Well, you're like talking about what's in the book. You don't know.
5:19 Chris Ryan? Oh yeah, it's true. Um, good. Well, let's start with, uh, the True Detective news that came out while I was away.
5:24 Andy Greenwald? Just again, I'm looking at the camera. Chris is back and we love him. And because he's back, we are going to cover three week old True Detective rumored casting over the roll camera on the new Star Wars.
5:37 Chris Ryan? Come on, we're old hands at this. When it gets this far down that we're talking about who he would be playing and where it would be set, it's fucking happening, right?
5:46 Andy Greenwald? Sure. No, I'm not saying it's not happening.
5:49 Chris Ryan? The news is that Nicolas Cage is going to star in True Detective season five from Issa Lopez.
5:53 Andy Greenwald? Is he playing both roles?
5:55 Chris Ryan? Is there, what?
5:56 Andy Greenwald? Well, isn't traditionally True Detective, remember the fan casting was always this person and this person? It was like two great tastes that go great together.
6:01 Chris Ryan? They didn't really do that with the Jodie Foster season though, did they?
6:03 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, it was her and, and. And what's her name? Sorry.
6:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
6:07 Andy Greenwald? No disrespect.
6:07 Chris Ryan? Uh, they, but they like, it wasn't like, I think you're, you're on to something. I don't know who the, who the second.
6:13 Andy Greenwald? I think they're doing it like adaptation.
6:17 Andy Greenwald? Are you in?
6:17 Chris Ryan? Are you in? That's the question. Uh, it would be set in New York City in Queens and, and Cage would play a New York City police detective, I think. Uh, based on what I've read. Um, this is great casting. I just want to say even better location. Bring it home and do not shoot this in Toronto. Do not shoot this in, in Charlotte and pretend like you're in Queens. Please.
6:38 Andy Greenwald? Right.
6:38 Chris Ryan? Go get the handhelds. Go out to the food stalls. Queens.
6:43 Andy Greenwald? Vote for Zorron.
6:44 Chris Ryan? It's like, be in the streets when you do this. And I think it would be awesome. Uh, Cage. This feels like a real like, welcome back. If he does this, best actor Emmy, like nailed on.
6:57 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. Uh, do you though, I'm going to be, I mean, I'm not going to take it easy on you because it's your first day back.
7:02 Chris Ryan? Okay.
7:03 Andy Greenwald? Like, is your enthusiasm for this? Because in some part of your muscle memory, you are like Nicolas Cage, Pizzolato, let's go. Like, does the franchise still carry that weight for you? Or did anything about what Issa Lopez did with the franchise, the direction she pivoted it into? What we were left with, with season four, is that?
7:24 Chris Ryan? The franchise is, is just really, fun is a weird word to use when describing True Detective.
7:29 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
7:29 Chris Ryan? The first season of True Detective is among the greatest seasons of television ever made. I still stand by that.
7:34 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
7:34 Chris Ryan? The subsequent seasons are just highly entertaining to me for either the ridiculousness of two. Uh, I think the depth and, and beauty of three.
7:44 Andy Greenwald? There was a richness to three that I appreciated.
7:46 Chris Ryan? Each one of those seasons, including Night Country, when Issa took over, Issa Lopez took over, is still got the like, ooh, like, is that a clue? Is this a thing? Is this like?
7:55 Andy Greenwald? And fundamentally, we want people to be investing in like, okay, we're doing big names, big locations, mystery show.
8:01 Chris Ryan? I can't do this with every show. Like, I can't do it with like Severance and this.
8:05 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, we're getting older.
8:06 Chris Ryan? This is the show that I'm like, I would like to screenshot, like that bulletin board behind her and see what she's got up on there. And I, I did, I went, I went off the deep end with three. I had some real theories about that. I don't know where you were for that.
8:18 Andy Greenwald? Uh, you don't think I was here?
8:19 Chris Ryan? I think me and Concepcion did that.
8:21 Andy Greenwald? You did a secret, separate.
8:22 Chris Ryan? Well, it wasn't secret. It was published.
8:24 Andy Greenwald? I wasn't aware of it. I didn't, I didn't, I was kind of in a media blackout.
8:29 Chris Ryan? We're here for that?
8:30 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
8:32 Chris Ryan? Speaking of Nick Pizzolato, he is apparently reuniting with Matthew McConaughey.
8:35 Andy Greenwald? So is this hashtag your true detective? You know what I mean? Like, do you feel like this is a line in the sand?
8:41 Chris Ryan? But there's some, some interesting wrinkles. First of all, it's Nick Pizzolato reuniting with McConaughey for Netflix after a, at least reported bidding war between Amazon, Apple and, and, you know, the big guns. And the show is going to co-star Cole Hauser. Put a pin on that because I have more to tell you about that. And it's, I think it's like Untitled or Nick Pizzolato Brothers Show. So I assume McConaughey and Hauser will play brothers. And it is produced by or being brought to market by Skydance Sports, which is leading people to think this is probably a sports show of some kind.
9:17 Andy Greenwald? Weird.
9:18 Chris Ryan? Which would be interesting because just, I just don't laugh a lot when I watch Nick Pizzolato shows. I mean, there are funny parts of True Detective, season one. There are funny parts of the Magnificent Seven, you know, script that he at least took a pass at or wrote. But, you know, if, I think when you think sports, you think sports comedy.
9:39 Andy Greenwald? Right.
9:40 Chris Ryan? And so it would be interesting to see Nick Pizzolato try his hand at Slap Shot, you know, or, or, or whatever.
9:45 Andy Greenwald? Blades of Glory.
9:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
9:49 Andy Greenwald? Interesting to note, McConaughey just finished shooting. I think they did get back together and finish the show.
9:55 Chris Ryan? The Apple show.
9:55 Andy Greenwald? An Apple show with Woody Harrelson called, I believe, Brothers.
9:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah. No, is that, was that what it is?
10:00 Andy Greenwald? They play brothers.
10:00 Chris Ryan? Okay, so then this isn't that. I must have gotten my, my wires crossed.
10:04 Andy Greenwald? Potentially they are playing brothers again in this.
10:06 Chris Ryan? I mean, his characters are allowed to have brothers in every show.
10:08 Andy Greenwald? Just because we don't, doesn't mean others can't.
10:14 Andy Greenwald? Can you update me though? Because you're a little bit more of a textologist than I am, but like, I kind of thought McConaughey was not acting so much anymore because he was legitimately going to. Run for governor of Texas.
10:25 Chris Ryan? I mean, do they have elections in Texas?
10:29 Andy Greenwald? Currently, currently, oh, you're right. He's playing a long game, which is to say.
10:35 Chris Ryan? Oops. Should I be king of Texas? No, I think I'd heard the same thing, which was that he has political ambitions and that maybe he was going to dial it back. But he's got, you know, the Apple show, he's got the Paul Greengrass movie about.
10:48 Andy Greenwald? Oh, yeah.
10:48 Chris Ryan? Forest fires and then he's, he was rumored to be joining the Yellowstone spinoff show.
10:55 Andy Greenwald? That's been rumored for a while.
10:56 Chris Ryan? But then what happened was that seemed to go away. He's now doing this Pizzalotto show. Taylor Sheridan is starting a show called The Dutton Ranch, which picks up with Kelly Riley and Cole Hauser's characters, Rip and Beth.
11:12 Andy Greenwald? Oh, Cole Hauser's doing double duty.
11:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And guess who's doing that show?
11:17 Andy Greenwald? Tell me.
11:17 Chris Ryan? Annette Bening.
11:19 Andy Greenwald? This is incredible.
11:20 Chris Ryan? Do you think weirdly, though, there is another show called The Madison. Why am I yelling?
11:25 Andy Greenwald? Because you really care about this. It's good to feel again, isn't it?
11:30 Andy Greenwald? Listen, passion comes out in different ways.
11:32 Chris Ryan? Which is Michelle Pfeiffer and Patrick J. Adams, and they play like New Yorkers who have to move to Montana and become ranchers, I think.
11:39 Andy Greenwald? But is that Sheridan?
11:40 Chris Ryan? I don't know. I mean, there's Montana.
11:42 Andy Greenwald? Wait, is that show a Sheridan show?
11:43 Chris Ryan? Yes.
11:44 Andy Greenwald? Is Patrick J. Adams the suit who likes us?
11:47 Chris Ryan? He's a man. He's an actor and he's a father. Yeah.
11:50 Andy Greenwald? So you think all actors who are men and fathers like our show?
11:52 Chris Ryan? No, I'm saying like I'm giving him more humanity than just a suit.
11:56 Andy Greenwald? No, on the show suits.
11:57 Chris Ryan? I know, I know.
11:57 Andy Greenwald? But isn't he the guy on the show suits?
11:59 Chris Ryan? I believe so.
12:00 Andy Greenwald? Who once did a thing with us on Instagram.
12:01 Chris Ryan? Well, I think what happened was is that you said something kind of snide about suits and he filmed himself being like, oh, man.
12:10 Andy Greenwald? I'm glad I brought it up again.
12:11 Chris Ryan? Or maybe I said something snide. I like suits, so it's not, it's not a big deal.
12:14 Andy Greenwald? Look at, look at you covering the bases. So Pat Adams, look at this, Pat Adams just. God, I'm sure he's a great guy.
12:21 Chris Ryan? Not sure if Dutton Ranch. I don't know if Dutton Ranch and the Madison take place in like the same timeline or area. You know, obviously, Taylor Sheridan moves around with the decades of the Duttons a lot, but.
12:33 Andy Greenwald? Would you like me, as someone who's been in Montana recently, to weigh in on these shows?
12:36 Chris Ryan? Yeah, is there enough Montana for both of them?
12:38 Andy Greenwald? Yes, it's very big.
12:39 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
12:40 Andy Greenwald? That's my take.
12:41 Chris Ryan? Do you think?
12:41 Andy Greenwald? It's a beautiful state.
12:42 Chris Ryan? Michelle Pfeiffer's character leaving New York, first day in Montana, Dave Sushi?
12:48 Andy Greenwald? You said it, not me. I do.
12:49 Chris Ryan? Uh.
12:50 Andy Greenwald? I do. It's a nice, like, port of call. And boy, do our listeners know a lot about Dave Sushi in Montana. It is remarkable. I appreciate their thoroughness on that topic.
12:59 Chris Ryan? Sheridan also has Landman, season two.
13:01 Andy Greenwald? Can I make a comment about this?
13:02 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
13:03 Andy Greenwald? Um, you know, you and I are, you know, quote unquote, in the industry. We, we make our bones here and sometimes we look in the trades for material to talk about on our podcast. And so I am struck every time that I go to The Hollywood Reporter that on the, if I ever make it to the bottom of the page, it's like top stories. The number one story on The Hollywood Reporter for the last six to eight weeks has been Landman, season two premiere date announced. That is the number one story in Hollywood.
13:32 Chris Ryan? I pour myself a giant bowl of Weenies. I have a cup of black coffee and I hit refresh on that story 3,000 times.
13:41 Andy Greenwald? Just tears.
13:43 Chris Ryan? Tears of oil coming out of my eyes.
13:45 Andy Greenwald? Coarsing down your face.
13:45 Chris Ryan? Uh, Sam Elliott's on it this year, season.
13:49 Andy Greenwald? Okay, what's he gonna do? Let me guess, we know what he's gonna do. That's cool.
13:53 Chris Ryan? What if Sam Elliott was like a pencil pusher from Backy's?
13:56 Andy Greenwald? What if he's some wind power cuck?
14:00 Andy Greenwald? Who, who Billy Bob Thornton dresses down for his commitment to alternative energy?
14:04 Chris Ryan? He's like a dude from Vermont.
14:05 Andy Greenwald? You think the sun is free?
14:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:08 Andy Greenwald? Oh, no, that was Sam Elliott being on the good guy's side.
14:10 Chris Ryan? And presumably Andy Garcia will be in it more this season. He shows up at the end of the first season.
14:15 Andy Greenwald? I think it's gonna be, I really hope, you know how when, um, when doing their for your consideration stuff, the, the, the team behind the pit is just like, rest assured that we will be covering the effects of the big, beautiful bill on healthcare.
14:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:30 Andy Greenwald? I hope that season two of Landman really embraces the fact that the. EPA is now trying to find a way to put more forever chemicals into things.
14:36 Chris Ryan? That Tommy is in charge of the EPA.
14:38 Andy Greenwald? Well, what if the whole season is just happiness? What if like all the problems are gone because they won?
14:44 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:45 Andy Greenwald? And it was just an incredible victory.
14:46 Chris Ryan? Well, no, because he needs the, he needs oil to be at a very steady price. Cause remember the speech he gives the lawyer about like oil needs to be at seventy-eight dollars a barrel.
14:56 Andy Greenwald? Right.
14:57 Chris Ryan? Because that's like, otherwise people go too crazy. But if it gets too low, it's a bust and everybody has to sell their trucks. Sorry about that. Getting used to my surroundings.
15:06 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. Well, I can't wait for him to have some more speeches this season.
15:09 Chris Ryan? Good.
15:09 Andy Greenwald? Can, can we talk about the Starfighter stuff?
15:13 Chris Ryan? Sure. Yeah. Deal this out to me. Come on.
15:15 Andy Greenwald? Okay. Well, I just like, production has begun.
15:18 Chris Ryan? Uh huh.
15:18 Andy Greenwald? I know you were excited about this.
15:19 Chris Ryan? On Sean Levy's Star Wars colon Starfighter.
15:22 Andy Greenwald? Yes. It has, uh, the cast has expanded with, um, your number one, Amy Adams joining the cast. Aaron Pierre, who is just tech avail, despite apparently being the future face of the DC Universe. Cause he's in Morning Show, he's in this now.
15:37 Andy Greenwald? Previously announced Gosling as the star, Mia Goth, Matt Smith as the villain.
15:41 Chris Ryan? Yep.
15:42 Andy Greenwald? Great. Um, here's the thing that I wanted to just.
15:45 Chris Ryan? Who wrote this?
15:46 Andy Greenwald? Jonathan Tropper.
15:47 Chris Ryan? Okay.
15:48 Andy Greenwald? Your friends and neighbors, Banshee, um, et cetera. Here's what we know about the movie. These scripts penned by Tropper and which is, I'm just reading now from the place you go to for Landman News, Hollywood Reporter. Uh, is of course being kept under wraps, is said to see Gosling's character, who I can only assume is the titular Starfighter. Protecting a young charge from evildoers in a galaxy spanning adventure. And they were thrilled to announce that they cast a kid named Flynn Gray, a young Irish lad as said, charge.
16:23 Chris Ryan? Yep.
16:24 Andy Greenwald? So once again, it's Mando time. Once again, one of these movies is about.
16:30 Chris Ryan? And Obi-Wan time. This is the same plot as Obi-Wan, right?
16:33 Andy Greenwald? It's the same plot of all of these stories of we, even to a degree Logan did this of like, we must protect the youth. And that is my job.
16:42 Chris Ryan? Yep.
16:42 Andy Greenwald? It is a lone wolf and cub one more time.
16:47 Andy Greenwald? I think we have to stop this. Now, I wanna, I wanna like, admit my complicity. I'm a part of the parenting industrial complex.
16:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's your fault.
16:54 Andy Greenwald? And it is fair, hold, okay. Okay, okay.
16:58 Chris Ryan? Everybody being like, this is the most profound experience is to take care of a child. That's why we get, to get this, to get here in Star Wars.
17:05 Andy Greenwald? Let me just say, that this is the first podcast in a few, that not only you're here, but that my children aren't there making goofy ass faces at me. And let me say, nothing would get me to the multiplexes faster than a story about Ryan Gosling being cool as fuck with a blaster, driving around space in his space plane.
17:26 Chris Ryan? Literally, just make space drive. Like, have this dude be a fucking Jedi getaway driver. Have Cliff Martinez do the score.
17:35 Andy Greenwald? Oh, god.
17:36 Chris Ryan? Have all the spaceship lights be fucking neon. Have Carey Mulligan stare at him one more time for us, stare at him. And then that's your best Star Wars movie made other than, and/or an Empire Strikes Back.
17:49 Andy Greenwald? And Albert Brooks is a hut. But, how do you have access to these fucking good ideas still?
17:55 Chris Ryan? Because I know what I like, I know what I like.
17:57 Andy Greenwald? Oh, it's so pure, it's so pure. The point, the thing is that people don't understand, it's weird because there is an intense nostalgia of our generation, that we argue about and get annoyed about all the time, where it's not enough to have loved Amblin movies and Star Wars movies when we were kids, because they were all about adventure. Like, the world is bigger than what we think it might be, and maybe we'll get to go there someday. And then all of these movies, these, our generation got the, got the keys, and they were like, "Let's just make them again, let's just do Super 8." It's that, the flip side of that is when now they are making Star Wars movies, they're making Star Wars movies about validating their own choices not to be space adventurers.
18:35 Chris Ryan? But what I don't understand is like... Even the first Star Wars movie, not, not the prequels, but like when you fall in love with a new hope.
18:43 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
18:44 Chris Ryan? And you're a kid and you're watching that, you're like, I want to be a teenager or a young man going out into the world and doing this. I don't want to be like taken care of.
18:52 Andy Greenwald? No.
18:53 Chris Ryan? Indefinitely by a space knight.
18:55 Andy Greenwald? You also don't want to be Luke. You're like, one day I could be Han.
18:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:59 Andy Greenwald? I don't think anybody watched that movie and was like, I could be Luke. We were all embarrassed by our Luke-ness. And then we were like, this is crazy.
19:05 Chris Ryan? One day I could be the dude running the pleasure barge, you know?
19:08 Andy Greenwald? There you go. There you go. That's the spirit, young man. Dream bigger. Like, what about a hero who's child free by choice?
19:18 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
19:18 Andy Greenwald? And cool with it? Why is that hard to do? Give us something to aspire to.
19:24 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
19:25 Andy Greenwald? Can you tell my kids aren't in school yet? This is so crazy to me that they are doing that thing again, which has, I don't think that's what people are checking for. I don't understand the four quadrant algorithmic information they have that suggests that we need a movie that we should bring children to because children want to see children on screen. I don't think that's true either.
19:47 Chris Ryan? I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't know how to answer it. Like, I don't know what it is, what information they get where they're like, this is just the only viable story we can tell.
19:56 Andy Greenwald? I, I think there's a deeper and.
19:58 Chris Ryan? It just strikes me as being, it's, it's fear. You know what I mean? It's fear to.
20:04 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
20:04 Chris Ryan? This is the safest way for them to go out there. Sean Levy is a very reliable director. Ryan Gosling is a reliable movie star. By the time this comes out, Project Hail Mary will have come out. I'm sure that will be fairly successful. It just seems like kind of like a layup to do all this and it's going to be like winky and like nice and sweet. And it'll, it'll just be a saccharine Star Wars movie, I bet.
20:25 Andy Greenwald? It's just the difference, I mean, one of the most profound differences between the entertainment that we were raised on and the entertainment that my kids or even younger kids now are raised on is that our, we saw stuff that was about adults. And we were like, okay, we'll find our way into that or it's something to look forward to. And everything now is for kids or to keep people feeling like kids or to have you looking backwards instead of forwards.
20:49 Chris Ryan? Right.
20:50 Andy Greenwald? That's what they've done to us.
20:52 Chris Ryan? Landman's nod.
20:54 Andy Greenwald? Do you think Landman is aspirational adulthood for adults?
20:58 Chris Ryan? It's about...
20:59 Andy Greenwald? Kinda is.
21:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Are you excited about the lowdown coming next month on FX?
21:04 Andy Greenwald? Yes, I really am.
21:05 Chris Ryan? We'll be talking about this show ad nauseam, but it dropped its first trailer.
21:10 Chris Ryan? If you had to describe the vibe, this is basically Ethan Hawke's character is based on, I think, a real Oklahoma kind of character who is a journalist, conspiracy theorist, like, kind of...
21:22 Andy Greenwald? A truth-storian.
21:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, and Ethan Hawke, it looks a lot like The Long Goodbye. It looks a lot like, you know, Big Lebowski. It looks a little bit like, you know, it has kind of a, what if there was a really cool private detective mystery, but we set it in Tulsa and surrounded it with this incredible gallery of characters. It's Hawke, Tim Blake Nelson, Keith David,
21:46 Chris Ryan? I think Ryan Kira Armstrong, who's gonna be the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in it.
21:50 Andy Greenwald? Gene Triplehorn back?
21:51 Chris Ryan? Gene Triplehorn, yeah.
21:53 Andy Greenwald? Tracy Letts.
21:54 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah, Tracy Letts is in this.
21:55 Andy Greenwald? You ever heard of him? Killer Mike?
21:56 Chris Ryan? Yes.
21:57 Andy Greenwald? Macon Blair, like, this is, Dinklage shows up, like, this is a pretty sick cast. I can't be impartial about this because we, I, we love Sterling, we love Reservation Dogs, big Hawke guys here, but I also have to say, like, the way you are passionate about the overall Sheridan project of promoting big oil in the guise of entertaining television shows, I am completely invested in the idea that a funny, smart filmmaker could be like, "I like Altman, and I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna bring you a vibe that has historically not always worked in the streaming era, and I'm just gonna go all in."
22:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
22:34 Andy Greenwald? And everything about this trailer is designed for me to be excited about it, from Kyle McLaughlin being in it to just the entire, just the tenor of it, and the idea that he had enough juice within FX to be like, "I'm gonna cast the most interesting people and have the most possible fun with it." I think the trailer looks so sick, I'm very excited about the show. But I also want shows like this.
22:56 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
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25:17 Chris Ryan? Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Well, let's talk about what FX has on the air right now, which is Alien Earth.
25:25 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
25:25 Chris Ryan? Observation, co-written by Noah Hawley with Bobak Esfarghani, and it was directed by Uglah Hawksdottor, who I think gets another credit later in the series. Yeah, the sixth episode.
25:38 Andy Greenwald? That's such a cool, that name, I believe, means "daughter of the hawk."
25:41 Chris Ryan? I did an awesome job on this, I thought. I thought this synthesized the dreamy, fading in and out, like dissolving visual style that they've adopted to distance themselves from the Scott Cameron Fincher style that we reassociate with Alien. And yet, I felt like this was the most TV of all the episodes that they've done so far. Where like-
26:08 Andy Greenwald? It definitely was.
26:08 Chris Ryan? Everybody kind of gets a five to seven minute scene, kind of get an update on where everybody's head is at. There's some alarming business going on all across the board. And the moments and beats, especially between a couple of the characters, I actually felt, even if they were synthetic or hybrids or cyborgs talking, kind of like started to click a little bit more for me here. I still have reservations about some of this stuff. What did you think of this episode?
26:36 Andy Greenwald? I want to pick up on what you're saying, because there's no question this is the most quote-unquote "TV" episode thus far. It is also the tax you pay on the ticket for, you know, an adventure action movie being brought to the small screen. The first three episodes were smartly an Alien movie with this Lost Boys synthetic hybrid plot glommed onto it. And inevitably, this was going to be a step back in terms of pacing and tone. I can look at this, again, from a design perspective and be like, "That is very smartly done. This is the appropriate place for this. If we are going to be spending time with these characters over the course of a season and potentially multiple seasons, we need to get to know them better when they are not being menaced by facehuggers or etc."
27:20 Andy Greenwald? The issue I had with the episode was that I don't particularly like spending time with any of these people, now that we are spending time with them. And that's a TV problem, you know, in the sense that instead of, I can appreciate what's being shown to me on the whiteboard-
27:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah, of course.
27:38 Andy Greenwald? -of ideas and, but that little, the secret sauce that we were talking about with something, you know, obviously more intentionally throwback like The Pit is missing. I'm not saying they should be the same show. I don't want to be misconstrued here. But when the, are they both named Sylvia, the two doctors who are married?
27:57 Chris Ryan? Uh, they're the, yeah, it's Dame and Arthur Sylvia's.
28:00 Andy Greenwald? So when they had their, you know, other than a brief moment in the pilot, I think this was kind of their first them talking without anyone else-
28:06 Chris Ryan? Their hard launch, yeah.
28:07 Andy Greenwald? Hard launch as a couple.
28:08 Chris Ryan? Your science teacher and your psychologist are getting married.
28:11 Andy Greenwald? That's very sweet. Or they already are married.
28:13 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
28:14 Andy Greenwald? But it did feel, I understood again in the whiteboard placement of it, why they had their, are we really sure we should be ethically doing what we're doing here moment? But it did feel a little rote to me because I don't have a deep sense of their personalities. I don't feel particularly invested in them yet as people. There's time to do it. I'm not off the fence, but I felt the grinding gears of that conversation more than I was able to relax into the cascading waterfalls of narrative story.
28:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Uh, if this show was led by and featured in almost every scene, either Timothy Oliphant or Bobby C. Say, what would you be saying about it?
28:53 Andy Greenwald? Top 10 of the year.
28:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
28:55 Andy Greenwald? This, this is such a great way to frame it. There are still these things that I'm-
28:59 Chris Ryan? Every time Oliphant's on screen, I'm like this, this, he's, he's so good as this character. You know, that like bitchy, icy, but still like, I mean, it's capturing some of the charms of like Ian Holm or Lance Henriksen and like that kind of like, you're a human, but there's something missing. And the hair that, you know, like everything, every choice that he has made and is making. Now, sometimes you're like, that was a little bit Rayland Givens or that seemed a little bit like sassy for a robot, but- I am finding like his curiosity, his like watching of people to be as effective as anything he's saying. And then Sisay, who's playing Moro, the one who's essentially
29:39 Chris Ryan? been trapped talking to Slightly for two episodes now, is still like the most compelling thing on the screen.
29:46 Andy Greenwald? Let's just take a moment to praise him as an actor because he is just doing one-sided monologues in various settings. And I find him so magnetic.
29:57 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
29:57 Andy Greenwald? And I find him so charismatic and compelling. And he's able to do a very difficult acting trick, I think, where it's not just that he's selling us on the essentially the monologues he's giving us. But I feel myself being psychologically manipulated by the character in that we are all slightly when he's talking. And I'm like, well, he makes some pretty good points about who owns what.
30:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
30:17 Andy Greenwald? You know, I think he's so fantastic. And in a, it's hard not to, you can, you can accept an ensemble show, and we can, you know, accept where it's going. But, or that there's room for people to pop out or whatever. But there's something that I do feel is missing where I kind of wish it was ultimately, I can't believe I'm saying this, the cyborg versus the synthetic versus the hybrid. Maybe that's where we're going.
30:45 Chris Ryan? I think.
30:45 Andy Greenwald? But those three characters have the most, what's the word I'm not allowed to say? Riz?
30:53 Chris Ryan? I think that, that's a really good point because you don't actually see the three of them, or even very many combos of two. Like, it's been a minute, I think, even since Kersh and Wendy have interacted that much. And that is essentially the triangle that I'm most interested in as well.
31:11 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
31:12 Chris Ryan? The sort of, the three different kinds of these next step of evolution. I forgive me for not remembering the name of the character, but the bald guy who follows Boy Cavalier around and says, are you sure you should be doing that, sir? What did you think of the philosophical conversation that he had with Hermit, the Alex Lothar character, where it's like,
31:34 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
31:34 Chris Ryan? Is that my sister? And he's like, well, that's what we want to keep you around for, is to figure that out. I think.
31:44 Chris Ryan? Broadly, like whatever they've done with Wendy is pretty remarkable, but they seem to have like, I don't know whether that was like a lie that he was telling hermit, or that if it is actually is important to them that humans need to not be able to distinguish whether or not this, the hybrid is or isn't their relative friend, whoever.
32:03 Andy Greenwald? Let me turn this back to a question for you.
32:04 Chris Ryan? Okay.
32:04 Andy Greenwald? How do you feel generally about a show that is at its core, and I respect it, about these terrifying aliens eating people's, ripping them to pieces and coming out of their bodies, that is kind of, at least through four episodes, lightly flirting with bigger thematic questions? For example, are corporations people?
32:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
32:25 Andy Greenwald? Do governments work?
32:26 Chris Ryan? Right.
32:26 Andy Greenwald? What makes a human, human?
32:30 Andy Greenwald? All of these things are present in the text.
32:32 Chris Ryan? If we could just talk to aliens, would we be like, what's up? What's on your mind? Yeah.
32:36 Andy Greenwald? We do subway takes with them.
32:39 Chris Ryan? What's your take?
32:42 Chris Ryan? Swing choppers coming.
32:43 Andy Greenwald? 100% disagree. 100% disagree.
32:50 Andy Greenwald? I currently am still getting my arms around, because Noah's a smart guy and he wants to play with these things and he's pushing them in the middle of the table. And I think it's again, in the spirit of Trojan Horse Prestige TV, this is a very smart way to do it. Because at the end of, at the end of every episode, there is a xenomorph, basically. But how do you feel about these questions kind of being sprinkled in? Like, do you feel compelled by the question of, is this your sister? I do not yet feel necessarily compelled by the thematic stuff that's going on.
33:17 Chris Ryan? I guess I don't necessarily, but
33:23 Chris Ryan? I do find it interesting that like all of the, even of our, a lot of our contemporary tech bros are interested in transhumanism. And like, what is the next step of evolution? And much as I'm like, we have plenty to solve right here in this moment, clearly that's where they are, what they're interested in is the future. And so it's interesting to watch Holly negotiate some of the moral and philosophical and ethical and also just like,
33:54 Chris Ryan? Uh visceral emotional reactions because you have to imagine certain things like that. And you have to imagine what would happen if the memories of somebody and their personality traits at a fixed age were downloaded into someone who would at once physically never get older, but I guess what we're seeing with Nibs and everybody's sort of like pubescent, you know, different like sort of like what happens with, you know, if you have somebody like Nibs who has PTSD and is going through, I guess, a mental health crisis, even though she's a robot.
34:27 Andy Greenwald? Or she's been implanted with an eyeball monster.
34:29 Chris Ryan? Or she's been implanted with an eyeball monster. What happened on that tower and in those fights that those synthetics had, hybrids had with the aliens that we're not seeing and we don't know yet?
34:40 Andy Greenwald? I, I do, I'm finding the, for budgetary reasons, for tribute to the original franchise reasons, the show, for such a big show, it does have a quite a narrow focus.
34:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
34:53 Andy Greenwald? There really are eight people locked in this building together, which seems to be, you know, again, a nod to the franchise's origins, something's gonna get loose within this building now and you know.
35:02 Chris Ryan? Well, they've got a baked in excuse. It's like, nobody can get out because we can't have anyone knowing about this, although a spaceship did crash into a skyscraper, so.
35:12 Andy Greenwald? Fake news.
35:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
35:13 Andy Greenwald? Fake news, buddy, come on. They, all of that, all of that is, I get it, and I think it's a smart fix, again, for the canonical timeline problems that this would create by saying, this is all one story, but no one ever knew about this event. But I think within the, the people, the participants of the show in the tower, I guess what I'm looking for also is a little bit more of a variety of perspective. The boy cavalier character has felt pretty frustratingly stunted through four episodes because he's just annoyed that he's smarter than everyone.
35:46 Chris Ryan? I am Peter Pan.
35:47 Andy Greenwald? And he's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do these things that are very, very, very Noah Hawley script things because that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna read you Peter Pan book, I'm gonna walk around barefoot, I'm gonna see an eyeball monster take, take the, take Ryan Gosling drive a sheep.
36:03 Andy Greenwald? And be like, this is fascinating. And I'm like, what science do you do?
36:07 Chris Ryan? The only reason I like that scene was that he was getting annoyed that the sheep seemed to be looking at Kersh instead of him.
36:13 Andy Greenwald? I like that.
36:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah, like, I like that he gets jealous of the, you know, of Kersh and the concept of anyone being smarter than him.
36:20 Andy Greenwald? Also, I'm not gonna shit on how cool that scene was. Like, that was really, really creepy.
36:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
36:25 Andy Greenwald? It was very disturbing. It was cool and made cooler by the idea that we are POV of the eyeball alien. And that it is, what does Kersh say? Highly intelligent.
36:35 Chris Ryan? Yes. It was tracking them. It was watching them. Yeah.
36:39 Andy Greenwald? But there's just, what do you think? Cause you, you've been more patient with the show. You like the franchise more. You watched that previous episode more than one time. Do you think, as a longtime viewer of television and critic of me, what you, what do you think I'm slightly bumping on? And what is your solve for it?
36:59 Andy Greenwald? It's not, it's cause I'm not disliking it. I haven't given my heart to it yet.
37:01 Chris Ryan? If I, I mean, if I may, I think you often, and I do as well, have issues where the POV character, we either lack one or the POV character is marginalized so that we don't really get to live experientially or like vicariously through, like Hermit should be the star of the show, like in a different version of this show. Hermit should be like, what is going on here? Why is my sister like this? I'm trapped here now. Like, he should be the person who's kind of leading this investigation. I think when we go and flip between what's Kersh doing, what's Moro doing, what's Boy Cavalier doing? What are the Sylvia's doing? It kind of messes with the idea of like, who knows what? And it messes with like, what is important about the show and what is the show trying to say?
37:44 Chris Ryan? I think it's throwing a lot of ideas at the wall, but right now I think, well, I wonder whether or not if this was, this guy has been marooned in this strange new world and is learning about it every episode. Not in a mystery way, but just in a way of.
38:00 Chris Ryan? I think I find myself getting distracted by things like, did Moro go to India to find uh, Slightly's family?
38:07 Andy Greenwald? Right.
38:08 Chris Ryan? Is Moro in a Thai or Siam cafe?
38:12 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
38:13 Chris Ryan? And outside and does anybody know that that a spaceship crashed into the earth? That would be pretty big news.
38:20 Andy Greenwald? Side note, I love the, I love the exterior location.
38:22 Chris Ryan? I mean, they're so, it's so good.
38:24 Andy Greenwald? Did you like, do you like when the Silvias were at the Lotus?
38:26 Chris Ryan? I'm just vibing out. I think I'm just vibing out with this and I did not expect to because they're in the first two, I was like, this is not my alien. This is not how it works. And I don't really find it like mind blowing to watch uh, Wendy sing to an alien and pet it like a cat, but I hadn't seen that before, really.
38:44 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
38:45 Chris Ryan? You know, I mean, I guess there's a little bit of that in Resurrection, but it's really interesting, like even the idea of like, well, of course these things have to communicate somehow, right? Like.
38:54 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
38:54 Chris Ryan? Um.
38:55 Andy Greenwald? I think you're right about the point of view, perspective characters. I think that when you build out a world like this, that is.
39:03 Chris Ryan? Like Ripley's such a great POV character. Like she is like, I am capable, but what the fuck is going on?
39:08 Andy Greenwald? And you get her humanity and it's a shorthand and you're off to the races and you don't have to think about it anymore.
39:13 Chris Ryan? Yes.
39:13 Andy Greenwald? To his credit, I think Noah, Noah's solve for that is um, Hermit and Wendy's childhood bond and love of Ice Age or whatever. That's not clicking for me.
39:24 Chris Ryan? Me too.
39:25 Andy Greenwald? So because of that, I feel a little bit at sea where I am entertained. I'm intrigued. There are moments when I'm like, this is really working, but I, I'm still looking over my shoulder a little bit.
39:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
39:36 Andy Greenwald? About where, to, to make all of this, to even be fainting in the direction of all of this, these headier concepts. I mean, I don't think it's unintentional that there was a lot of talk about transitioning and you were this and now you are this and how do we know where the line is? Like, to his credit, as an artist, he's running towards some pretty big concepts.
39:55 Chris Ryan? Yes.
39:56 Andy Greenwald? But in those moments, I do find myself super normcore, basic criticism. I'm like, okay, just ground me in what humanity isn't this time and in this world.
40:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's interesting that we're getting annoyed about like wider world building. Where I, I think the wider world building he's doing is like production design, but not like, oh yeah, like there, the kids talk about the five corporations that took over the world. Or the four or whatever.
40:22 Andy Greenwald? Five.
40:24 Chris Ryan? I mean, maybe it's just, we're just like old men who want to hear a little bit more about that. I don't know.
40:29 Andy Greenwald? It's partly that, but I do think it, and this will be interesting to watch as well, is that like, like Noah's very earned and deserved success in TV has come from dropping Mike Big Statement seasons. He hasn't had to do since his, I mean Legion did three seasons, but, but like not since The Unusuals with Jeremy Renner on ABC, has he had to build a show that potentially could go multiple years with people that you become more and more invested in. And I, I wonder if what I'm either looking for or picking up on, like Wendy's hearing, is the potential friction between I'm going to drop the mic with my statement about this world
41:09 Andy Greenwald? versus corporate factors and amortizing investments requiring this to continue to evolve beyond this.
41:16 Chris Ryan? I haven't watched ahead, but the next episode is called In Space No One Ellipsis, and it's written and directed by Noah Hawley. So I'm very curious to see what that one serves up.
41:28 Andy Greenwald? Can I ask you one thing? Is it a me problem or is it slightly intentional that the end of this episode, where the baby xenomorph jumps out of hermit's lung? Not really strong security glass, I would say, in that lung chamber.
41:45 Chris Ryan? This is a big thing that I have, I have about, but I want to know why. Obviously Kersh knows what's going on with Slightly.
41:54 Andy Greenwald? He knows that, and he, and he's watching this happen, so he was curious.
41:56 Chris Ryan? And he watched this happen, and what is the experiment that we're doing here?
42:00 Andy Greenwald? Exactly.
42:01 Chris Ryan? But then when it gets into like, Nib's doing that to Dame Sylvia? When she like leaps across and like grabs her, I'm like, is there an off switch here? Like, what, like, what is like, for the, for the, like theoretically, I would imagine there would be more like controls over that, but maybe that is also part of the experiment? Like these, like what triggers them? What?
42:23 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, the layers of glass between the aliens and the people and the hybrids and the larger world and larger city is an interesting framing. Because it's, some of it is intentionally porous, because exactly, where's the experiment? Who's standing outside of it? The question I wanted to ask you about my own damaged brain was, did the end, when it jumps out, immediately make you think of the scene in Spaceballs? That was my reference, like there was an element of it when it came out and it's on the table, and it was looking at her and she was looking at it, that I really thought I was going to start going, hello, my baby. And I would have respected the hell out of it. Also, do you know that I was this week years old when I realized that that was John Hurt again? Because I saw Spaceballs in the theater with no knowledge of the Alien film and didn't remember or know.
43:07 Chris Ryan? Oh my god, is he in Spaceballs? I haven't seen Spaceballs in forever.
43:10 Andy Greenwald? That's the thing. I hadn't really seen it since in the theater thirty, almost forty years ago, forty years ago. And that was my introduction to a movie about aliens jumping out of people's chests. But in the movie, there, in Spaceballs, they're at a diner.
43:25 Chris Ryan? Oh, and John Hurt, yeah, okay.
43:26 Andy Greenwald? It's John Hurt, and he goes, "Not again." Shout out John Hurt.
43:31 Chris Ryan? That's good.
43:31 Andy Greenwald? Incredible.
43:34 Chris Ryan? All right, well, we continue to watch intently, and we'll talk about it next week.
43:41 Chris Ryan? Let's chat a little bit about the last couple of episodes of Eastern Gate. Now, this is probably, like, we brought this show up a couple of weeks ago. We were like, this show is insane. It's so good. I think when we first spoke about it, this is a Polish spy drama on HBO Max. It's six episodes. If you haven't watched it, stop listening to us and watch it. It's sick.
44:02 Andy Greenwald? Stop listening to us. Go to your HBO Max controls. Change the language to original Polish. Put the, close captions on, enjoy it. And then, when you fire up And Just Like That later, and Carrie speaking in Polish, it makes more sense.
44:19 Chris Ryan? So, when we first talked about this show, I think that I threw out a couple of comparisons, like twenty-four.
44:27 Andy Greenwald? You did. You were on that.
44:28 Chris Ryan? And you were like, "Oh, okay, that's what you think this is like?" And, you know, maybe you were thinking, "This is more Lacaree. This is more, you know, kind of like the dense, the lies we tell each other kind of personality espionage, like individual espionage." And I was like, "No, I feel like this, like, she's beating people's asses every twenty minutes." Like, I feel like this is an action show, and I think that we were both right.
44:52 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
44:54 Chris Ryan? But the final two episodes, which are awesome and so stylish and so cool.
45:02 Chris Ryan? And very, very, very, so everything in these three countries is happening in the same two-block radius involving all of the characters from the show.
45:10 Andy Greenwald? It's amazing.
45:11 Chris Ryan? It's very 24, but it's like 24 if Alan Pakula directed it.
45:15 Andy Greenwald? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I definitely was a little suspicious of your comparison until I realized what you're saying, that it is a hero's journey show, that like the fact that everything is falling on Eva's shoulders and all of the determinants of peace in our time are also connected to her personal relationships or personal failings.
45:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
45:39 Andy Greenwald? I don't think I appreciated that in the first few episodes to the degree that that is what the show is setting out to do, but I also, that made me, when I finished the season, I was so, so, so impressed by the artistry involved to make it feel so earned, right, that she is the avatar for all of this cross-border suffering.
46:00 Chris Ryan? Yes.
46:00 Andy Greenwald? And that the show absolutely works as both. It is a kick-ass, star-driven, and this is a star performance by Lena Gora, but that it is incredibly dense. We're gonna get to that. Just hold your horses. Drink some, drink some water.
46:16 Chris Ryan? Come out.
46:18 Andy Greenwald? That it is, that it is also an incredibly rich and rewarding and complex spy story.
46:24 Chris Ryan? And also is like a perfect one-and-done season, but they set up for multiple seasons.
46:29 Andy Greenwald? And it's renewed.
46:30 Chris Ryan? And it is renewed.
46:30 Andy Greenwald? It's coming back.
46:32 Chris Ryan? All right, so this will further conversation about Easternia will spoil the rest of the...
46:36 Andy Greenwald? Before we spoil it?
46:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
46:37 Andy Greenwald? If you're still listening, this show's making our top fucking 10s. This show rules.
46:42 Chris Ryan? It's knocking on top 5 for me.
46:44 Andy Greenwald? I, this show is so good. This went from when we brought it up being like, well, here go, here go your fun uncles again, talking about a Polish spy show, to being like, you guys should watch this show if you're interested in good television and also the type of television that should be a benchmark for what gets made in many countries.
47:00 Chris Ryan? Spoilers going forward for the first season.
47:02 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
47:03 Chris Ryan? She shot her man in the head, dude. She is just like, she is really, really, really him.
47:14 Andy Greenwald? Do you remember, um, uh, like, it was like pre YouTube, but like the, the rumored footage of like Stephon Marbury playing basketball at Coney Island.
47:24 Chris Ryan? Uh huh.
47:24 Andy Greenwald? And everyone was like, "The game will change." That is you crushing tape on Eva.
47:31 Chris Ryan? Uh, there's a scene in the final episode, I believe. Um, it's like early in the episode where she is, uh, interrogating.
47:40 Andy Greenwald? This is so key. You're like, "I don't know, maybe it's the final episode. I don't have it open on my desktop right now."
47:44 Chris Ryan? I have taken 30 screenshots of her torturing a Russian nuclear scientist. No, she's just like, uh, standing around in this interrogate, well, she's actually beating the shit out of this woman, but it's her and...
47:58 Andy Greenwald? She's not beating the shit out of her. It's not that shit.
47:59 Chris Ryan? She throws her on the ground and puts a gun to her head.
48:01 Andy Greenwald? She comes at her.
48:01 Chris Ryan? And says, "Do you want me to kill you like I killed your son?"
48:04 Andy Greenwald? Look, fog of war. Things get said.
48:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
48:07 Andy Greenwald? It's the same as in a podcast.
48:08 Chris Ryan? It's just trash talk.
48:08 Andy Greenwald? She un... That's exactly right.
48:10 Chris Ryan? It's just banter.
48:11 Andy Greenwald? I mean, Kevin Garnett was mic'd up.
48:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
48:14 Andy Greenwald? How would we feel about him? Probably the same. No, she's like, "I will take off your handcuffs if you behave." And she's like, "Take them off." And then she comes at her and she's like, "I had to teach you something."
48:23 Chris Ryan? Yes.
48:23 Andy Greenwald? "I had to teach you a lesson."
48:24 Chris Ryan? And then that, that woman, Tamara, who's the dirty bomb scientist, she's like, "Well, you got me. So here's, here's all the information."
48:30 Andy Greenwald? Here's everything.
48:31 Chris Ryan? Um, this is a very complicated, uh, plot of Belarusian, Russian, Poland, NATO, the East, the West, if, internessen fights between various intelligence services within countries and outside of countries, but essentially boils down to a long hatched and planned plot between two brothers who grew up in an orphanage and are trying to essentially exact revenge against the West.
49:01 Andy Greenwald? Mm-hmm.
49:02 Chris Ryan? Um, and it turns out one of the brothers is Skinner, who is Eva's partner in the Polish intelligence service, but also her lover. Um, and that is a tough beat for a variety of people, including Eva and her nephew, Kai.
49:19 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, it's bad for him.
49:20 Chris Ryan? Who's now an orphan.
49:21 Andy Greenwald? And...
49:22 Chris Ryan? And...
49:23 Andy Greenwald? Kind of Russian right now.
49:24 Chris Ryan? And now indoctrinated to be... Hey, you know what, man? You're kind of Russian right now.
49:31 Andy Greenwald? No offense.
49:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah, no offense.
49:34 Andy Greenwald? What do you, I'm just picturing like Side Talk in Collingrad. Just like super pro Russian dudes.
49:40 Chris Ryan? Ayo.
49:41 Andy Greenwald? Just screaming. Waving flags.
49:44 Chris Ryan? Oh my god.
49:46 Andy Greenwald? Among, because here's the thing about the show.
49:48 Chris Ryan? Pushkin's birthday.
49:49 Andy Greenwald? I'm saying, we all know it by heart.
49:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah, yeah.
49:52 Andy Greenwald? Here's the thing about the show that is so compelling and why we like it because Jan Motyczynski, who directed it, I guess show ran it. It's in the blood. You know what I'm saying?
50:01 Chris Ryan? She's just got to kill boss out for that one.
50:03 Andy Greenwald? There's just a little, you know, little, you could take the boy out of Eastern Europe.
50:08 Chris Ryan? Take him off the steps, but.
50:09 Andy Greenwald? The boy's family could be expelled from Eastern Europe, whatever. But you carry a little bit of it with you.
50:15 Andy Greenwald? He wrote and directed like a masterclass in how to do espionage on television from a character forward.
50:22 Chris Ryan? Yes.
50:23 Andy Greenwald? Way and, and we are going to talk about that and we love that. But I also find this show to be just incredibly fascinating, illuminating and deeply disturbing treatise on how war works in a post-truth, false flag universe.
50:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
50:40 Andy Greenwald? That what we are seeing, and we talked about this when we first mentioned the show, that like immediately the show is compelling because it is a show set on the edge.
50:49 Chris Ryan? Yes.
50:50 Andy Greenwald? Of whatever east-west conflict we are headed towards.
50:52 Chris Ryan? It's almost a period piece for the current era that we're in.
50:54 Andy Greenwald? That's right.
50:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
50:55 Andy Greenwald? But that everything.
50:56 Chris Ryan? Set in 2021, right?
50:57 Andy Greenwald? The ways that it is, it's set in the, and we talked about this before, but it's set at a moment when it was clear Russia was going to do something to advance its agenda or to expand its footprint. And in one universe, ours, it's Ukraine, in this universe, it is potentially more aggressively going to be Poland. And both can be true, which is a fun thing to think about.
51:17 Chris Ryan? Right.
51:18 Andy Greenwald? But, um, but the idea that the aggression and the threat of Russia is both. Deeply baked into a history that we are just, you know, bopping around with our labubus, completely ignorant about for the most part, but that also the danger comes from the filthiness of the fight, that all of the energy that Russia is using in this fictionalized story to take over parts of Poland, to rattle and potentially break NATO, none of it involves people in Russian uniforms actively causing aggression. It involves tricking Polish officials to be in the wrong place when cell phones are out.
51:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:58 Andy Greenwald? When they flooded the zone intentionally with migrants to inflame tensions and then have Russians dressed as Polish. Like, it's very complicated.
52:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:07 Andy Greenwald? And it's very terrifying because what are you supposed to do? Once in the series, the minister is like, "Gotcha. You aren't playing fair. We see who's there." And the guy's like, "Okay, well, you got me." And then they do a bigger version of it.
52:19 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:19 Andy Greenwald? And it works. Because how often, and I wish there was some analogy to contemporary political parties that I could pull from, but how effective is it to be like, "Well, that's just a distraction."
52:29 Chris Ryan? Right. And then within the world of espionage, there's like London rules and Moscow rules.
52:33 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
52:33 Chris Ryan? And there's various, like, there's understandings that you do do this and you don't do that. And-
52:38 Andy Greenwald? The tidiness of the Lacare Cold War.
52:39 Chris Ryan? I think that there, what Eastern Gate is trying to wrap its arms around is like a world in which, like, it doesn't really matter what happens, it matters what people believe happened.
52:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. That's where we're at.
52:50 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:52 Andy Greenwald? The, it's fun to think about-
52:55 Chris Ryan? And it doesn't even matter. I'm reading this book called Shadow Intelligence, which is this Oliver Harris, not like spy novel that's set, well, right now it's largely set in Kazakhstan, and the point I am in the book. But it's about a lot of the same stuff. And even in this novel, there's like discussion of like, with this kind of information warfare, even when people don't think what they're reading is true or seeing is true, the sentiment or the kernel of truth of it still activates something in terms of like how they feel about an issue. So even if you're watching something or reading something and you're like, "Well, I kind of know this is bullshit, but also it confirms something that I think."
53:32 Andy Greenwald? Yes. Well, that's the story of the 2024 election about the economy, right? Like, "Oh, all the baseline indicators of the stock market is roaring back, but people are like, 'This shit's too expensive.'"
53:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:42 Andy Greenwald? That's actually true. And now we all have to live in the fallout from it. I also just want to point out that like- I do think it's an impressive trick of well-made art that there's a way to look at the show and be like, so just one guy is a master swordsman and like has manipulated all of Polish intelligence by sleeping with women?
54:03 Chris Ryan? Yes.
54:04 Andy Greenwald? And filming it, and then here we are with dirty bombs, but...
54:07 Chris Ryan? But he in fact was like also a blackmailed...
54:09 Andy Greenwald? He was a victim of it.
54:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
54:11 Andy Greenwald? But even, I just, I tip my cap to shows that effectively hide the ball. Like, yes, this is a soap opera, but it's a soap opera between seven people. Like we were saying in the beginning, is a good thing. You can look at it and be like, that's implausible, but it's done so well. And we are so, maybe this hearkens back to the alien conversation, we are in the hearts and minds of those seven people to a degree that they serve as an effective proxy for the larger conflict.
54:39 Chris Ryan? Also, if you have high style, you can get away with a lot of convenient stuff. So it seems like basically everything from a refugee camp to a, where they're preparing the dirty bomb, to also where Russian and Polish forces are going to have a shootout, and also a orphanage that used to house the two brothers at the center of this vast conspiracy, is at the same building.
55:07 Andy Greenwald? Well, for what it's worth, I did Google driving directions from Warsaw to Minsk, and it is a trim six hours.
55:16 Chris Ryan? Yeah, there's a lot of like, we need you back in Warsaw right now. And I'm like, okay, like, let me get a...
55:21 Andy Greenwald? It reminds me of when we would...
55:22 Chris Ryan? Get my stuff.
55:23 Andy Greenwald? When you and I would drive 95 from Providence to Philadelphia, and you'd be like, seems like clear sailing.
55:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
55:29 Andy Greenwald? Let me just grab some Cinnabon.
55:30 Chris Ryan? Just shoot the Solalki Gap, we'll be there in no time.
55:33 Andy Greenwald? The Kosciusko Bridge, the Solalki Gap, it's all one thing. I have to ask you this. I know you're just returned to LA, and you're happily reunited with your wife and, you know, back in the bosom of your friends and family.
55:45 Chris Ryan? My rock, yeah.
55:48 Andy Greenwald? Speaking of rocks, I just want you to talk about a text you sent to me last night where you said that you were, quote, "at dinner explaining Eva to my wife."
55:57 Chris Ryan? And I actually brought it up really randomly in a very strange way.
56:00 Andy Greenwald? This is, talk about risk it all.
56:03 Chris Ryan? I just was like...
56:04 Andy Greenwald? How did you talk your way through this and how did it go?
56:06 Chris Ryan? We were like ordering starters, and I was like, by the way.
56:11 Andy Greenwald? I have found my soulmates.
56:13 Chris Ryan? I'm pretty into this Polish woman.
56:16 Andy Greenwald? Did she spit out the bread?
56:17 Chris Ryan? No, I think she was like taken aback and then I my point was more that like maybe when you see her, you'll get it, you know, but her.
56:28 Andy Greenwald? Did you like, babe, babe, look, look what she's doing here. Look how she's holding the knife.
56:32 Chris Ryan? I was at Houston's last night.
56:34 Andy Greenwald? Great restaurant.
56:35 Chris Ryan? And I needed it, you know, at the table sort of adjacent to us was a woman and a man. The man was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles golf shirt.
56:48 Andy Greenwald? Oh, combining a lot of your interests.
56:50 Chris Ryan? Were on their phones with their headphones in, looking at, she was looking at TikTok. I bet he was looking at like all 22 tape, given like the way what he was wearing. And they were seamlessly watching their phones and listening to their shit and sharing a meal. And I was like, there's a kind of beauty here. There's a kind of, there's something, there's something special going on between these two.
57:14 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, the middle part of Wally. Like, Jesus Christ, that sucks. Also, an artful way to change the subject from introducing your second wife, future wife, to your current wife.
57:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I just had to, I wanted to be honest.
57:29 Andy Greenwald? Was she bemused?
57:30 Chris Ryan? Yes.
57:31 Andy Greenwald? Right.
57:31 Chris Ryan? Someone like, like, explain it to me. And I was like, well, there's parts where like she like puts a bag on a, on a Russian woman's head.
57:41 Chris Ryan? And kicks her, you know?
57:43 Andy Greenwald? I mean, it is an incredible Venn diagram of like your, your passion projects, that it is essentially Lady Edith from Downton Abbey, but who can do Kramagah.
57:52 Chris Ryan? And smokes.
57:52 Andy Greenwald? And smokes. There it is. Bing, bing, bing. There she is. She, she is a great, a great TV heroine. I'm very glad the show is coming back.
58:01 Chris Ryan? I can't wait to see season two.
58:03 Andy Greenwald? Also, dude, six episodes. Just way to do it.
58:06 Chris Ryan? I know.
58:06 Andy Greenwald? Yon. It is compact. It is awesome.
58:08 Chris Ryan? We are going to be off on Monday because of Labor Day.
58:11 Andy Greenwald? Oh, yeah.
58:11 Chris Ryan? Um, and then we'll be back next Thursday to talk about Alien and the paper, I believe.
58:16 Andy Greenwald? And then we'll be then three days away from the task premiere. Do you have a countdown clock running?
58:22 Chris Ryan? I mean, September 7th, it goes Eagles, Cowboys, then Ruffalo.
58:26 Andy Greenwald? Oh, we'll be recording the morning of Eagles, Cowboys.
58:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
58:30 Andy Greenwald? How are we gonna, how are we gonna be?
58:31 Chris Ryan? Should we have Sheil on?
58:32 Andy Greenwald? Yes, yes, to just do the show that we want to do? This one's for us, guys.
58:37 Chris Ryan? Thanks to Kai, thanks to John, uh, thanks again to everybody who's written to say, uh, to send their condolences. It really, really means a lot. And we will be back next week.
58:47 Andy Greenwald? Have a great long weekend, Brian and Skies.
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Previous ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 3, ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Premiere, and Netflix Theme Parks Next ‘The Paper’ Restores the (Sitcom) Feeling. Plus, ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 5 and a Busy September for TV. Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated