‘Black Doves’ Season 2 and ‘The Lowdown’ S2E5. Plus, How the Midterms Will Impact Your Favorite Shows.

Chris and Andy talk about the midterm election results and its potential impact on popular culture (2:16). Later, they discuss the Season 2 premiere of ‘Black Doves’ (27:07) and ‘The Lowdown’ Season 2, Episode 5 (39:46). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Chris Thomas 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

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

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Discover the new Myself Odie Toilet Intense. A masculine and long lasting fragrance for every day. A bold scent with sensual musk and woody notes. Myself, leave some alone.

• 1:19Chris Ryan?

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me on the other line, impoverished from all his betting losses on election night, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:40Andy Greenwald?

  What's funny is I was prepared to start with that too. Like my Kelsey profile is in shambles. You know what I mean?

• 1:46Chris Ryan?

  You bet the house on Darlene. You can't do that.

• 1:49Andy Greenwald?

  Dude, the red wall was supposed to hold. And now, now look at me.

• 1:55Chris Ryan?

  What's up, brother? Good to see you.

• 1:57Andy Greenwald?

  How you feeling? This is our first podcast in the woke 3.0 era. Are you feeling good? Do you want to do a land acknowledgement? Where are you at?

• 2:04Chris Ryan?

  I'm feeling great. You know, I was driving down Santa Monica Boulevard today, much like, much like the Tom Petty song of old, and a bus went past me and I saw a big billboard on the bus, a big advertisement on the bus, rather, for a show called 911 Nashville. And it stars Chris O'Donnell and Chris O'Donnell, half his face in this ad is covered in bees. And Ryan Phillippe is the co-star and half his face is covered in snakes. And I never want to know the answer to why it happened, much like election night. You just gotta let things roll out sometimes. I'm so happy to see you and I'm so happy to be doing the pod today.

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta say, like, we have had a great week surfing the blue tsunami. I'm sorry to be that guy, but you know, Tom Petty was Ventura Boulevard, you know, because it was, she was a good girl. She loves her mom. She's crazy about Elvis, but she lives in the valley.

• 2:59Chris Ryan?

  I could have sworn he had Santa Monica in that song.

• 3:02Andy Greenwald?

  She's not living in Nithia's LA the way we are. Do you understand what I mean? She was more like on the outskirts of it. She couldn't imagine a future like this for herself.

• 3:11Chris Ryan?

  Should we just start the pod over then?

• 3:13Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, we should just wind it back to year zero of the pod. Like, we should start over. We should start covering Downton Abbey. We have a lot to talk about. We have television shows to talk about today, which might make a stunning change of form for us.

• 3:25Chris Ryan?

  And we got the, the return of Black Doves, which comes back today on Netflix.

• 3:29Andy Greenwald?

  But I genuinely would like to hear any thoughts you have on election night in America, because it was an engagement. We don't need to talk to politics, but like, although I'd like to, but we could just talk about like, did you, you engaged with television that night in a way that maybe only our parents do, in the sense that we had cable news on.

• 3:46Chris Ryan?

  Brother, I went, I went full send. You know, I was talking with some people who were like, I'm going to go to the movies or I'm going to go out to dinner and just put my phone away and I'll check later. The last two election nights, I have been traveling. So Andy and I legendarily for Trump's reelection. Legendarily, because it's legendary, because I flew to England where you were living at the time. We, I fell asleep at a relatively normal time that night and was awoken at 3:00 AM by a phone call that broke through on my wife's phone to announce Trump's reelection. And

• 4:26Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool. Was it from Suzie Wiles? Like, who was it?

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  It was like, what's up bitch? Wake up. Yeah. It's Suzie Wiles. Yeah, I wonder if she's going to stick around, but the next day you and I recorded one of our worst podcasts ever, where I think we actually were like

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  Definitely.

• 4:44Chris Ryan?

  trying to talk about some fucking show and it was just a disaster class in, in modern broadcasting.

• 4:51Andy Greenwald?

  That said, one thing that has always meant a lot to me is that that night we went to, you know, I don't care about free ads. There's a great pub called The George that does a really nice fish and chips. And we went there that night. And I think canonically, your wife believes that I was like calm and wise and that in some way I helped set her mind at ease, but really it might've been like four pints that we all had and like plans to be like, well, at least we're not in that sinkhole of a country. I don't really remember.

• 5:16Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 5:17Andy Greenwald?

  I love that there's a version of me in which I am calming and non-reactive, that someone carries that illusory incarnation of myself. I love that.

• 5:26Chris Ryan?

  My thing on, on Tuesday night was like, I'm here and I just flipped on, I opened up the X everything app and I, I like can rocky rock on the big screen. I don't think I really changed the channel much. So yeah, it was like, it was like a pretty intense night of mass media.

• 5:46Andy Greenwald?

  I was flying, I'm back in New York and I was, you know, I think it's safe to say that I was living out. You know what I mean? Like, I definitely was like, take all of the Avengers end game edits, but it's the southern states flying through wormholes, like inject those into my veins. Like, that's great. This is, it was a fun night back on the internet for one second, although watching TV was surprising because I kind of forget that for all the time, and I know that we have a TV podcast, so I apologize for everyone out there who is shaking their head right now. But like, because of the nature of what TV is now and our ability to just sort of à la carte it, as opposed to the omakase, if you will, of decades past.

• 6:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh my God.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  To turn on, to turn on just like television news and then within, I would say 120 seconds of the Senate being called for the Democrats, Savannah Guthrie was scratching her chin and worried about overreach. I'm like, damn, they still have the playbook. You know what I mean?

• 6:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  I thought this shit was outdated, like apparently the McVeigh offenses, but nope, nope, that shit still works.

• 6:53Chris Ryan?

  I do wonder whether or not, like, I wonder, in watching that, that watching the, like the NBC broadcast that night, it was really funny because, you know, most of the time when I'm watching stuff on television, television, it's either live sports or like a live reality show like Survivor or something like that for the finale. And it reminded me a little bit of watching the NBA draft or the NFL draft where they're on the, on the networks are being so careful and so descriptive, like, well, it's just, it's just too close to call here in, in Michigan or whatever. And meanwhile, like all of the prediction sites are like 99 to one. Everybody on Twitter is like doing fucking end zone dances and like planting the flag

• 7:37Chris Ryan?

  on the star.

• 7:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's not just that. It's like, it's like if it was the NFL draft and then a full five minutes before the Indianapolis Colts pick, Adam Schefter tweets, you all have to trans now. They were so far ahead of it.

• 7:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Andy Greenwald?

  It was bizarre. There was this completely asymmetrical information thing where like I was, you know, just soberly just learning that it looked likely that Talarico was going to be the next senator from the great state of Texas. And you guys on the group chat were being like, and we're on to Iowa, and we're on to Mississippi. You were really big picture.

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  I was like recount Guam, we're seeing some rumblings.

• 8:17Andy Greenwald?

  You did say that. You did say that.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  I can't remember if we did this in 2024, but I think it's only fair to have, to do it again in 26 year, which is, you know, I, did we do some sort of like, what does Trump's reelection mean for popular culture? And, or were we just so

• 8:38Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sure.

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  shell shocked and jet lagged and everything that we didn't, didn't even bother?

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  The only, I mean, we've done now a number of sad post-game podcasts, both sports and politics, and I'm just still frankly dining out on the, the last Tribe Called Quest album being the first piece of great art in the Trump era take. I just feel like that one has aged like wine from 2016.

• 9:03Chris Ryan?

  Holy shit. Do you ever just get haunted by your own old tapes?

• 9:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, they're all, they're all dynamite. What are you talking about?

• 9:12Chris Ryan?

  We could approach this from a couple of different ways. I'm most concerned with what this means for Landman season three. I do think we're going to get a lot more Rebecca, you know, bolstered by, by this blue wave. I think Rebecca Landman is going to have maybe some monologues of her own to give.

• 9:29Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'd like to extend some grace to the other side.

• 9:32Chris Ryan?

  Oh, of course, brother.

• 9:33Andy Greenwald?

  Some side that is, that is unclear. I feel like, you know, Taylor is not afraid of a, a, a strong woman. I feel like Governor Hinojosa might, you know, you could work with her. You know what I mean? I feel like we could, we could build bridges.

• 9:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the new lioness. Yeah.

• 9:48Andy Greenwald?

  Or do you think, or do you think that, that Rebecca's monologue, like what do you think is going to be the content of Rebecca's season three monologues in this drastically changed Texas?

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  Well, I just think that she's going to need to do some follow-up conversations with Billy Bob about the petroleum industry and maybe the sort of cloud of liberal delusion that most of us live under. I actually, I don't, I don't think that this is going to impact Taylor Sheridan's work much at all.

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Not at all. Although it would be incredible if he, if he just was, you know, a palm tree just bending in the wind and like, much like Jerry Jones was the big surprise cameo in season one, if the season three cameo was Beto O'Rourke, you know, just being like, listen, I've been down a few times.

• 10:28Chris Ryan?

  Also in a hospital bed or no?

• 10:32Andy Greenwald?

  No, he's been redeemed.

• 10:33Chris Ryan?

  Uh, no, because it was like, you know, Ham is in the hospital and when Jerry Jones comes in.

• 10:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, I know, but I'm saying. The man has flowers.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  There were a couple of really great posts on Tuesday night about, uh, we're going back to hell or high water, Taylor Sheridan. Uh, there was also like the only election coverage I like, and it was Nicole Kidman and Martin Donovan from, from Lion City in front of their computers. Um, I would love to know.

• 10:59Andy Greenwald?

  What do you think that breakfast was like for them?

• 11:01Chris Ryan?

  Well, he was probably like.

• 11:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yesterday morning.

• 11:03Chris Ryan?

  Let me tell you what I'm actually afraid of.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  Or do you think he was tweeting like Clay Travis the whole night? Like secretly, he has a burner account being like Houston, looking good.

• 11:12Chris Ryan?

  I do think that.

• 11:13Andy Greenwald?

  A deep delusion.

• 11:14Chris Ryan?

  There's probably like a degree of enthusiasm, uh, on the part of a lot of people. And I would imagine some people who are listening to this podcast outside of like the global state of things, which remains pretty precarious. Um, there's also like, I think some pretty dark clouds on the horizon for the entertainment industry in the world that we generally generally cover. And I don't think that Rob Sand getting elected governor changes that. Like, I don't think, I don't think David Ellison is going to be like, no, everybody, you guys can keep your jobs now.

• 11:42Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, don't besmirch my fellow Brown graduate, you know? I just feel like.

• 11:45Chris Ryan?

  I didn't think like Rob had a great time in Providence. I saw an interview with him and he was, they were like, did you, did you like live your time in Providence? And he was like, ah, you know, it made me appreciate Iowa more.

• 11:56Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see that?

• 11:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Andy Greenwald?

  I know. I just felt like, I, do you think, were they going to like, like besmirch the East Coast? You know, Sodom and Gomorrah that is Providence? Like, I, I, I feel like that is, it's not like he said that he spent a wild summer in Bushwick. You know what I mean? Like he was studying in Providence, but he did, he didn't even say like, uh, I did like the coffee milk. Like he didn't like try to like pass briefly as a local. He was just like, in order to appreciate heaven, you have to leave it briefly?

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 12:25Chris Ryan?

  Do you have, do you have fond memories of Providence as a city to live in?

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, don't you? I mean, you, you lived there, you felt like you were a part timer.

• 12:32Chris Ryan?

  I dipped down on the Amtrak, yeah, for sure.

• 12:36Andy Greenwald?

  You were around. The question that, that is interesting to me is I think that as our recently reelected Attorney General in California, Rob Bonta proved the Skydance takeover of Warner Brothers was going to go through with some measure of bipartisan, uh, I don't know if it's support, but acquiescence one way or another. And I, it does strike me that David Ellison, remember his, his op ed in the Times? Like, I do think that in the public facing moves that he has made, he has seemingly either gotten the memo, or this is actually just true to his character, reached out across the aisle a little bit and seemed to be preparing his company to exist in whatever the next version of the American government may be.

• 13:20Andy Greenwald?

  All of that though, is kind of held in check by the fact that right before the election, he took an enormous, he, like all Republican super PACs, took an enormous amount of money from Elon Musk.

• 13:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:33Andy Greenwald?

  And I do wonder how that is going to sit. He bought this company with an enormous amount of debt. So if someone is offering him billions, I would imagine that the brave boys in his business affairs department are going to say, take it. But I do think that the, the, you know, I do think that the, the, the winds have changed a little bit in terms of how, how cool people are with that.

• 13:56Chris Ryan?

  As much as there's a, uh, a perception that there are changing socio-political headwinds and, and I, this isn't like woke is, is probably not coming back in the way that people are joking about. I do think that if there is some sort of, um, market correction on the way that the AI tech stocks have fueled the economy over the last couple of years.

• 14:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Chris Ryan?

  In so much as they, the, the market almost feels divorced from lived experience and reality for 95% of the people in the country.

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  That if there is some sort of like collapse or recession, or at least kind of breaking of a fever in terms of what these companies are worth, what they're allowed to build in terms of data centers, all these things that are now kind of back on the table. Um, that that could affect some of these companies that are intertwined with that business. And that is most of these companies. A lot of these, a lot of our, our favorite streamers, um, have really like kind of handcuffed themselves to these companies and their stock price is tied to them. So if that comes down, if there is some sort of, um, sobriety here, uh, then, then I think that that could affect maybe the amount of stuff that's getting made, the amount of money

• 15:18Chris Ryan?

  that's getting spent on the stuff that is getting made, et cetera, et cetera.

• 15:22Andy Greenwald?

  Did you see, before we move out of the world of Skydance, that, this didn't even occur to me, although I think smarter people or more observant people probably predicted this to some degree of accuracy, that as part of the reorg, some higher profile Paramount Plus original shows in the pipeline may get upstreamed to HBO or HBO Max.

• 15:44Chris Ryan?

  So that would be like.

• 15:45Andy Greenwald?

  HBO or Max originals.

• 15:46Chris Ryan?

  The Nicole Kidman, uh, legal thriller, some, some stuff like that.

• 15:51Andy Greenwald?

  The Nicole Kidman thriller has been specifically mentioned enough for there to be enough smoke for there to be fire, that like, that's an example of a show that in Casey Boyz's reassessment of these now complimentary services, that that would make more sense on his side of the fence than on the fence, side of the fence that it came up on.

• 16:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it would make sense just because the reporting suggested that Cindy Holland had dozens of things like at various states of motion. So you can't scrap it all. You can't just do the, it'll be on Showtime, don't worry about it. Like that, some of that stuff gets, gets upstreamed, I imagine.

• 16:29Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that's really smart. I mean, I think that's one thing that a lot of these services have, have struggled with, which is brand identity and a clarity of vision and a consistency of vision. Certainly even within, I, I think the, the idea was that Cindy Holland and her brief tenure, which to your point, we never really, we've yet to see all the fruits of, because she was in the role for such a relatively brief amount of time. But prior to her arrival, that was one of the main sources of confusion of the Paramount Plus network. It was the Taylor Sheridan box. There was the CBS stuff that existed. There was the Star Trek stuff. Um, and then there was the Showtime stuff. And when I say Showtime stuff, I mean, shows that were made for Showtime when it existed as an, as a distinct entity, including Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone's The Curse and Agency

• 17:14Andy Greenwald?

  Show We Like. But then just sometimes other stuff like, I, I mean, I guess the, the example would be the, this Nicole Kidman show of being like this, I, I imagined this was bid on by Apple and maybe even HBO was in on it early, but it just ended up in this place that also shows,

• 17:32Andy Greenwald?

  Ultimate Fighting Championship. So it's just, I, so I think it is a smart opening play to say, actually this belongs, but just sorting it out, like this belongs with us, that belongs with you. And now, and now people can begin to understand what our vision for having all of this may be, it may look like.

• 17:47Chris Ryan?

  Any other, the watch podcast centric observations from the way things might be different on Thursday than they were on Tuesday morning?

• 17:57Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'm glad we don't have to change the color of our logo. I think that we have stayed true.

• 18:03Chris Ryan?

  That's exactly why it's blue. Yeah.

• 18:05Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's, I mean, I've always assumed that.

• 18:07Chris Ryan?

  We were just waiting for a hero.

• 18:08Andy Greenwald?

  Talked about it.

• 18:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:10Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, we never talked about it out loud. No, man. I mean, just, you know, I don't want, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a sore winner.

• 18:17Chris Ryan?

  We do have a new mayor in Los Angeles. Uh, there, there will be like, Nithya Rama will be taking over as mayor of Los Angeles. There's a lot of, uh, news about a, not only federal tax credits for basically reshoring film and television production, but also making California the home for that again. I think that's in a very like, kind of like it could go one way or another pretty soon. There's a lot of building going on in California. I mean, like there's a, there's a new soundstage complex on Santa Monica that they're almost done building. I don't know who's moving into that. I don't know if there's any action at a lot of these places, but you know, as of now, yeah, there, there are still really only like, they're handing out like, what 12 credits

• 19:02Chris Ryan?

  a year to shoot in LA and.

• 19:04Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we also have a new governor, which, which is interesting because the way, the weird way in Becerra and the weird way that the, um, the, the California jungle primary worked out, one of the things about Becerra is that he's a relatively blank slate and that like, he wasn't propped up by any one industry over the other, uh, in terms of donations or in terms of like back scratching or promises. So I, so there's, it's kind of a blank slate, I think, in terms of his priorities and vis a vis production. And I say this, we talk about this often more bloodlessly, but like, I'm talking to you from New York. This is my third straight fall, working in this industry away from my own home and children, which I'm fortunate to be doing, but it is indicative of a larger trend that they're just, now, I, I want to be clear.

• 19:49Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think there was ever even a proposal to, uh, shoot Hogwarts on the back lot, uh, in Burbank. But generally speaking, my experience is indicative for people up and down the line. And that like, we all moved there to work in this industry and the end of work isn't there. So I'm very hopeful that it will come back.

• 20:11Chris Ryan?

  Not a lot of other TV news worth like getting too worked up over. I did notice that Sky TV over in England is mounting and has now announced the cast for a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series that comes from the production company that was behind The Crown. It's directed entirely, the reason I noted this was it's being directed by Rinaldo Marcus Green, who did We Own the City and King Richard.

• 20:40Andy Greenwald?

  And say it, say the name of The Punisher one shot.

• 20:44Chris Ryan?

  You said it.

• 20:45Andy Greenwald?

  He did The Punisher one shot.

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  It's not called one shot.

• 20:47Andy Greenwald?

  With your man. No, there were many shots.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  David Oyelowo and Viola Predajan play Lisbeth and Michael or Mikel, who are the sort of the two main protagonists, Jonathan Price, Lena Olin, James Darcy and Camille Cottin from Call Your Agent.

• 21:07Andy Greenwald?

  Did you watch the movie?

• 21:09Chris Ryan?

  I didn't.

• 21:09Andy Greenwald?

  The Call Your Agent movie? Not yet, maybe we should watch it.

• 21:12Chris Ryan?

  Are you a Scandi noir guy?

• 21:14Andy Greenwald?

  I am a big, big fan of international noir. Like if we ever do a special show, I could, you know, between the two of us, we could account for probably most countries in and outside of NATO in terms of like at least a couple of series or writers. But I, for whatever reason, I never really got into the Scandi books. I never fell in love with them. So I don't have a real sense, other than what we know from the various TV adaptations that we've checked out over time.

• 21:37Chris Ryan?

  I am a appreciator and observer, but I never caught the bug. Like I never did. All I do is watch a guy overlooking like a frozen field and try to figure out the generational violence that has been visited on a small town in Finland. Like I know.

• 21:59Andy Greenwald?

  Hold on, that sounds interesting.

• 22:00Chris Ryan?

  But I know people who are like, that's all I watch is the Scandi section of Netflix. And I've done a couple, but like, you know, so you need to mix up the palate sometimes.

• 22:11Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, like, one of our favorite shows that's coming back is Department Q, and that is based on a Scandi noir. And so I think there's elements of those types of stories that we really like. But to your point, as someone like you who reads for tourism as much as anything else, like the relentless chilly bleakness of those books hasn't always been the thing that I most want at the end of the day. I like, I like a little, like, I saw you were digging back into our guy Izzo, who is like the great crime writer of Marseille. And the thing about those books are they are incredibly dark and bleak, but then every other chapter, he's like, I seasoned the white fish with mint and oregano, the flavors of home. I'm like, goddamn.

• 22:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Andy Greenwald?

  Can't be that bad.

• 22:53Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of reading and tourism, I'm about to engage in some tourism since I'm going away.

• 22:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, jealous.

• 22:58Chris Ryan?

  So I'll be kind of here and there on the pod for the next couple of episodes because I'm going on vacation. But I am leaving tonight and I'm like, okay, flying to London, do I bring the book I am currently reading, which is Troubles by J.G. Farrell, which is very good, but I, I have hit like, I hit like a kind of like, I'm going to pick this up after the Sixers, when the Sixers lose their second game, I will go back to this impressionistic novel about 1920s Ireland. Do I bring the book I'm reading? Do I bring a guaranteed entertainer thriller with me? Or do I bring no books at all, knowing?

• 23:43Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 23:43Chris Ryan?

  That.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no.

• 23:44Chris Ryan?

  That the big dog will eat when he gets to Foils and Dawn and everything else.

• 23:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay. So this is smart. So you, thank you, this is a very important question. I've been, I've been living inside of this question as I've been going back and forth from the coasts even of like what, and also like, what is actually useful for me to have? Because I have a lot of, as we all do, aspirational books that are on my bedside table. And I'm realizing with the busyness of the job that I'm doing now and everything else, like this might not really be the time to, to, to crack, you know, War and Peace or whatever else it might be at this particular moment. Dude, I found, wake up babe, a new Effingers just dropped. I found a book called The Oppenheims. No, I'm not even kidding you, bro. I'm so, so serious right now. I went to McNally Jackson and they're publishing, they're doing their own, like, here's some,

• 24:33Andy Greenwald?

  like New York Review of Books.

• 24:35Chris Ryan?

  Oh, NYRB style.

• 24:36Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, these are out of print. And I just picked up some, and one of them is just like, this searing novel written in real time as, as the Nazis slowly took over Germany, tells the story of a German Jewish family. I'm like, again and again, let's go.

• 24:51Chris Ryan?

  You're like Joe Button hitting, hitting the gunshot sound effect.

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  For real though. But okay, but so here's what I've started to do, and I don't know if this, this, this would work for you, but one thing that I have discovered is that when traveling, first of all, I think, take the aspirational type book or the book you're reading out of it.

• 25:09Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:09Andy Greenwald?

  You are going to do some book shopping there. And if you, if the, if the great literary bug strikes you, you can fill it with whatever you buy at Foils or Dawn or wherever else you go on your, your trip.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  And just for context, last time I went, I think I brought, I don't even remember what book I brought that I was like, I was like, oh, this is quite gripping. I'm going to be reading this while I'm in London. Immediately in London, found a spy novel where it was basically like a guy chasing a Russian spy through a, like a chalet in the Alps. And I was like, this is all I care about.

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  I am generally a old media, like I love to have a book in my hand kind of guy. But I gotta say, the Kindle during travel, but only for very specific things, because it's not just, it take, it lightens your load of your carry on, but also you can read in bed with the light off and then just go to sleep. You don't need to actually like.

• 25:58Chris Ryan?

  You don't think the light doesn't bother you?

• 26:00Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's a very warm, soft light. But so, but not all books for me are Kindle books. The Kindle books for me are either things like, you know, a brand new, I talked about it on the pod, like the book about the making of Paul Simon's Graceland, which you can read in either, you could read in one night, basically, if you're feeling insomniac. But the other thing that I like to keep loaded on there is like, there's always a secret Elmore Leonard that I haven't read. And now the new guy in rotation for that is that's where I'm reading S.A. Cosby. Who's one of the great thriller writers of our time. And, but, but, but I, and every time I go to a bookstore, much like you, I'm like, I pick up the thing that I feel like I should read. And then I'm just like, that book's called Razorblade Tears, to the two redneck dads killing the people who killed their sons.

• 26:44Andy Greenwald?

  But generally, because it's in public, I'm like, I should probably get the more aspirational book now. But now I'm like, Joe, Ike and Billy are really running, they're ratchet in Richmond right now.

• 26:56Chris Ryan?

  I was like, the thrillers have killed me. I, I was, I read Rabbit Run, the first Updike Engstrom book.

• 27:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Chris Ryan?

  And like, it's, it's beautifully written. It's, it's probably a little bit anachronistic at this point or out of, out of style.

• 27:13Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think?

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  A bit.

• 27:14Andy Greenwald?

  Why, because of Tuesday's election results?

• 27:17Chris Ryan?

  No, just like in general, we got past 1987 and I think things changed a little, but.

• 27:23Andy Greenwald?

  Run Rabbit, but run for Congress.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  Every time, like, I'm like, oh, is this, is this building up to a massive shootout outside of the, the general store? Like, no, this guy is just going to notice like his old basketball coach and see his future and start crying and leave his wife.

• 27:39Andy Greenwald?

  And then, and then I'm sent to sleep with the basketball coach's wife.

• 27:42Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 27:43Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, I just, just to put a, put this down for you, I did break my own rule on this last cross-country trip, and I did pack Declare by Tim Powers, which I am reading. And that is a brick.

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  How do you feel about that?

• 27:55Andy Greenwald?

  Recently. I'm digging it. I mean, it's making, I mean, I'm also very nostalgic because you are going to London and this will be the first year out of the last three that we haven't been there at the same time. And I feel very sad about that. So, so reading about a young orphan boy being poorly parented by a stern spymaster in 1930s, 40s and 50s London is hitting different, you know what I mean?

• 28:16Chris Ryan?

  You're thinking about your own orphan over there. What else, what else, what else? I guess we can just get into the shows. You want to talk about, let's do Doves first, because I think that's a bigger deal for, for our purposes in terms of like, if you like Lowdown, we're going to talk about Lowdown. But in case you're just like, I need something to watch this week. Joe Barton's comic thriller, action flavored espionage show. Joe Barton, for people who don't know, is the creator, writer of Gary Haji, which was on Netflix a few years ago, and The Lazarus Project, and then has worked in movies.

• 28:54Andy Greenwald?

  And Amadeus.

• 28:55Chris Ryan?

  And, and Amadeus, which came out earlier this year. So Barton pulling double duty. And the first season of Black Doves was 24, I want to say, 24.

• 29:07Andy Greenwald?

  We probably talked about it during our, our, our post-Trump podcast, we just don't remember.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  It stars Keira Knightley as Helen, who is essentially the first lady of, of, of England at the point of the second season. She also moonlights as an assassin in a secretive cabal of.

• 29:27Andy Greenwald?

  And spy.

• 29:27Chris Ryan?

  Killers known as the Black Doves. Her friend and fellow assassin is played by Ben Whishaw as Sam. And Sarah Lancashire, who people know and love from Happy Valley, sort of plays the shadowy spymaster.

• 29:43Andy Greenwald?

  Handler.

• 29:44Chris Ryan?

  Reed. New additions to the cast this season includes Sam Riley, Bobby Cissé and Amika Maad, who's wonderful in This Is Going to Hurt, who is also with Ben Whishaw on that show. And we talked about that a couple of years ago. And it goes up entirely like all Netflix series is tonight. So Andy and I are only going to speak about things broadly here, and we'll get into more detail the next time we chat. Did you get a chance to check out the first episode of the second season?

• 30:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'm so happy the show is back. And I don't know if you saw that, that clearly Netflix is happy too, that they had not just a lavish premiere, but a lavish premiere that involved an unprecedented drone display over the Thames.

• 30:26Chris Ryan?

  That's nice.

• 30:26Andy Greenwald?

  Spelling out things like, we're back darling.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think people thought this was like a viral Andy Burnham, I've made the train slightly cheaper stunt? Like, what do you think the average person in London thought was going on?

• 30:41Chris Ryan?

  I don't know, man. Honestly, I'm just pretty nervous about drones in general.

• 30:46Andy Greenwald?

  I know. It's like, oh, cool drones. Give me more of that. No. So, look, we, we love, we love Joe. We love the way that he writes. And particularly what is so wonderful about this show to me, and we talked about this a lot when we covered the first season, is that it inverts the priority pyramid for an action show or a drama show in 2026, meaning there are plenty of headshots delivered from beautiful handguns with silencers on them. Last season featured a bunch of rocket launchers. I mean, there is a lot of full-on

• 31:24Chris Ryan?

  Shane Black style action.

• 31:26Andy Greenwald?

  Violence.

• 31:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Meets John Wick in terms of the ballet.

• 31:29Andy Greenwald?

  But the priority is always the characters. And the almost yearning, deep platonic friendship love that Kira's Helen and Ben Whishaw's Sam have for each other is the beating heart of the show and is where the blood comes from when it's not exploding from people's heads. So I find that so engaging because those are two of, I mean, I think Ben Whishaw is one of the best actors alive. And I think Keira Knightley has, I don't know if she's ever been better in this later stage of her career. She still gets tons of burn in my household due to her period dramas of the early part of the century. I also just want, and here's what I want to bring you in on it, is I love the joyful creative freedom

• 32:11Andy Greenwald?

  of a show where it's just decided that some things just don't matter. And by that, I mean the rules don't apply. So much of our contemporary entertainment is hamstrung by the fact that, well, actually, you couldn't do that anymore because there's flock cameras everywhere and everybody has a cell phone and facial recognition. And Black Doves doesn't give a shit about that. Black Doves posits a world in which the sitting first lady of the UK can just go for a private jog and have a spy meeting, can just slip out of a party and get in a gunfight. Like, if you just agree, which the show Blanket does, that these things are happening in this reality and we're not going to look

• 32:51Andy Greenwald?

  too far down into them, because that's what's the point of that. It's not emotionally true. It's just going to be factually true. There's a freedom in that. And I love that in that freedom, Joe tells a great story about characters with great humor and heart and fun. And that ultimately is more important to me than, you know, being like, actually, the UK has some of the most stringent gun laws on the planet in this.

• 33:12Chris Ryan?

  Not in this show.

• 33:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, not in this show.

• 33:17Chris Ryan?

  There's a degree to which this second season reminds me a little bit of the second season of Industry. I think one of the thrills of Black Dove's first season, much like one of the thrills of Industry's first season, was, did anybody check on this? Like, do you guys know what's going on on this? Like, you know, it's not that it's unfinished or that it was, but it felt punk to me. You know, it felt like, they're like, like, I know that you guys all follow the rule of like, if it's funny, then it has to be funny all the way through. Or if it's dramatic, it has to be dramatic all the way through. But there was something about the first season of Black Doves that's felt so alive in its irreverence and in its spitting in the face of convention, even if it's a very

• 34:00Chris Ryan?

  conventional show about like, super assassins, like, living in a kind of high-band society of London life. Or, you know, in case of Sam, not, not, but Keira Knightley's character certainly is, you know, this idea of like, the princess and the toad who are also assassins or whatever. The second season almost instantaneously locks into, this is Black Doves, and you know it, and we know it, and everybody likes it. It's real good, you know? And I completely agree with you. There's something liberating. And people might think, well, you don't apply this to every show. And I don't know what it is about some stories and some shows and

• 34:41Chris Ryan?

  the worlds that they create that create a permission structure for you to be like, fuck it, man. I don't really, you know, like, because you and I will spend plenty of time being like, why did he do that?

• 34:52Andy Greenwald?

  I can speak to that. Yeah. I can speak to that because specifically, the thing that I hate most in anything is cynicism. And I hate shows that, or movies, or whatever it may be, where, where quote unquote, nothing matters. And so, we can have these crazy things happen. We can fixate on the violence. We can have people just, you know, ping pong from extremity to extremity in terms of their personal life or their public behavior, or whatever the case may be. The reason I started by saying that the, what grounds the show is the emotional connection between these two old friends who find themselves in different stations in life and different moments in life and different relationships

• 35:32Andy Greenwald?

  to their life and their work. Just, it's a, it's a blanket for me. Like, that's what the show is. And building from that, these are people who are clever, who take pride in their work, and the work is an expression of their psyche. It's not just, you know, it's not just bullets for bullets sake, although sometimes I begin to wonder if it is. But the show is essentially about the relationship between these people and the people that they know in their particular workplace. And because it is grounded as something, the more irreverent decisions have a less existential impact on me, I think. And this is even before we got into like, you know, the supporting cast, like Ella Lilly Highland as Williams

• 36:11Andy Greenwald?

  and, and Ambika Ma who shows up and is hilarious and striking. And, and I, I think that, to your anarchy point, you know, Joe has said, and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to him, that like, this didn't come together the way most shows come together. I think it came together from him being like, I'm thinking about writing a spy series. And Netflix being like, cool, Keira Knightley wants to do a spy series. And they were in production within months. And he is a very fast writer. So I think that the feeling that we enjoyed so much in season one of him discovering it as he went along, we enjoy that anarchy, and that is similar to Industry. And what I've noticed so far in season two is, it began from a place of, okay, by the end of season one, we know what the show is, and

• 36:52Andy Greenwald?

  now we're going to write that show. And so, it does feel a little more boundaried and grounded, even though it is still quite high-flying.

• 36:59Chris Ryan?

  And Andy and I are talking mostly in terms of like, you know, a writing philosophy and like, a kind of stylishness to the, to the show and how it's, how it's kind of locked in on its, it's what it's good at. We haven't said a single thing really about what the second season is about, because I think it would be kind of complicated to explain. And thus far, after only watching one episode, because I didn't want to get too far ahead of it, I don't really totally understand. You know, obviously, there are like Russian nesting dolls of levels of like, the Black Doves organization, and who's working for who, and, you know, all this different stuff. And are the Black Doves all turning on each

• 37:39Chris Ryan?

  other? That's, that seems to be a plotline. And obviously, also, Helen's new perch within Downing Street has kind of opened up a whole new world of possibilities. But it kind of is besides the point to get too deep into like, this season is about X.

• 37:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because, I mean, I think even as you were introducing it, I love the first season. And then when I started watching the second, I was like, what are Black Doves? Like, I almost don't care. But I, but it is asking you to just say, okay.

• 38:10Chris Ryan?

  It was also two years ago. Yeah.

• 38:12Andy Greenwald?

  It was two years ago. But, but even so, the idea that there is a somehow private consortium of highly, highly paid, highly talented, highly infiltrated spies that is separate from MI5 or MI6, and that Helen is one of them, and who has been put into a relationship that has now allowed her to socially climb to the very top of British power structure, but also kind of loves her husband and definitely loves her two children with him. Whereas Sam is no longer, I believe, a Black Dove, and is more just a champagne swilling, sad sack freelance assassin, but is now being hired to hunt Black Doves. That's pretty much what's going on. But I don't think you need to, it's just one of those

• 38:57Andy Greenwald?

  things where you just have to.

• 38:58Chris Ryan?

  Political reality that you need to understand. Yeah.

• 39:01Andy Greenwald?

  One of the things that I think is so essential and so underrated and often hard to articulate challenges of the showrunning is deciding, deciding on the content of and controlling the flow of information to audiences. And the thing about like, there is a secret spy organization that exists, is, to my mind, telling us that, reminding us of that, and then we're on our way. Because the more time you spend digging into, why does this exist? Who does, how does it work? I think the less successful the show's going to be and the less fun we're going to have, having it. And the show, the swagger and the delight that the show discovered as it got bigger and funnier as the first season went on

• 39:42Andy Greenwald?

  is more fully formed here at the start of season two. I mean, if you remember the beginning of the show, like, meaning the, the series premiere, was kind of about Helen having an affair with the handsome dude, I believe, from Gary Haji. And it was, it was, it was a little bit of melodrama to that, in terms of like, is she going to run away from her life? And I don't think that that, that flavor doesn't really live here anymore. And I think it's better. I think the flavor of the show is Ben Whishaw with a gun in his hand, sipping champagne alone at Christmas time. That's the vibe. And that's a pretty winning vibe.

• 40:14Chris Ryan?

  I look forward to talking to Joe about this, and I hope people check it out. I mean, obviously, like, I think this does pretty friggin' well for Netflix. It's kind of, if not a four quadrant show, it's definitely like, if there's, there's stuff in it for everybody. There is like a kind of hound dog, hound dog adorability of Wishaw. I think Keira Knightley is like a pretty big draw within this, within the realm of the show. And then it's got like, a ton of really good action. So, it's a, it's a very cool show. And we'll be talking about it a little bit more over the next couple of weeks.

• 40:47Andy Greenwald?

  Were you happy to see Babu Sissi out of Wayland Uthani?

• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  I was just hoping he was going to still have the cool arm, though.

• 40:55Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know that he doesn't.

• 40:56Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 40:56Andy Greenwald?

  He's wearing a bespoke suit.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  It's very big.

• 40:58Andy Greenwald?

  We don't know.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Breaking news out of the North Pole. Santa and his elves are swamped with requests for vehicle floor liners. And although elves are terrific toy makers, their little hammers and chisels don't come close to the laser measured fit of a WeatherTech floor liner, cargo liner, or truck bed impact

• 41:44Speaker 00

  liner. Even Santa uses them. Cookie crumbs, glitter, a reindeer hitching a ride home? He just hoses them off. Visit weatherTech.com for all your holiday shopping today. It's all Santa approved.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at Carvana.com.

• 42:29Speaker 06

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 42:59Chris Ryan?

  Should we do Lowdown before we get out of here?

• 43:00Andy Greenwald?

  Let's do it.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  So, uh, I just wanted to say this about this most recent episode. A Dog with Two Tails is just directed by Rafael Casal, who plays Johnny on the show, who's Lee's ex, her new husband. This is the one, this episode, which I thought was really lovely. It was kind of like the peak of its powers for this series, I think, because you had three or four different storylines that I don't think any of them were dragging. I don't think any of them needed to be picked up by the other. This is the one that made me feel like it was most like reading a crime novel.

• 43:38Chris Ryan?

  Both in terms of the depth and bench of characters, the sort of mid-season, ah, there is a villain behind the villain that we need to meet. The clarity of what this season's about and also like the twist at the end. And, you know, I don't know if we're ever going to get more Lowdown. I feel like sometimes you and I are speaking to each other.

• 44:02Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 44:03Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I mean, do you?

• 44:06Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know, but I don't think anything has changed. I don't, I haven't spoken to Sterling, I haven't spoken to anyone at FX. The fact that it got a second season makes me think that there is a working model for FX to continue to support the show. That there is a, there is a plan for how much it costs to make it, the way that they make it, the schedule that he's able to keep it on that makes it doable for them. I'm not saying it's getting renewed, but I think that, but I think that it, much like Reservation Dogs, which was probably a cheaper show with fewer stars and kids and half an hour, I just think that if, if they weren't committed to making this, they would have stopped making it after one season. That's my hope, but that, but I don't know.

• 44:48Chris Ryan?

  I mean, Dogs had three seasons. I would love to see three seasons of the, of the Lowdown. And, you know, if you can get Tommy Lee Jones and Betty Gilpin, John Hawks now to join your series for a season for a run, I think that there's enough people. I, I, I just felt like I, I've had two conversations in the last two weeks where I mentioned, where somebody asked what I was watching and I was like, well, you can't listen to a podcast about that, but no big deal. And I was like, oh, the Lowdown is my favorite show that's on right now. And they were like, oh yeah, I've been meaning to watch that. I'm like, fucking Tommy Lee Jones is on it. And they're like, Tommy Lee Jones is on that show? And I'm like, God, I guess, I guess it's just really hard to break through, man. I guess it's really hard to get that across.

• 45:29Andy Greenwald?

  Then we're doing the Lord's work and we're going to talk about every episode because this is my favorite show that's on right now. This is, you know, as you've known since January, this is one of the six shows in my top three. And I, I, I love it even more than I loved it last year.

• 45:44Chris Ryan?

  This year, the best of TV year, uh, episode, you should just do a top three.

• 45:49Andy Greenwald?

  I will, but there's going to be 11 shows in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it. I understand the assignment and I'm ready to, to meet them, meet it.

• 45:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's interesting to hear your response to this episode because I also found it, not an outlier, but like for me, thus far, I thought this was in some ways the weakest episode, but I don't even mean that as necessarily harsh criticism. One of the things that the show has done so well and that has impressed me so much across both seasons is that it has really run at a very challenging problem for mystery shows on television, which is urgency.

• 46:29Andy Greenwald?

  If a crime needs to be solved or if someone is in peril, then obviously the only thing to do is solve the crime or rescue the person who's in peril. But that framework doesn't give you a lot of breathing room or moments to focus on the archaeological dig, or as this episode does, Francis's bowling birthday party that, you know, starts to build an uneasy truce between father and son and Tommy Lee Jones and Ethan Hawke. You just don't have room for that stuff.

• 46:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Andy Greenwald?

  The Lowdown is our favorite kind of crime novel because really the crime is to the side. The novel is that stuff. Like, that's actually what we're chasing and what we love. So I thought that this was an episode that found its moment to indulge a little bit, but it did feel sort of temperamentally different than the other episodes. Totally fine with it. Beautiful moments. And, and what it, what it really pointed out to me was that we can, we can tell people in our job as podcast hosts, trying to get people to watch good stuff, that this is one of the best detective shows, honestly, ever on television, I would say already with two years in, or one of the best hour longs that is currently airing, however you want to frame it.

• 47:41Andy Greenwald?

  But maybe the way to draw a wider audience in is to tell them that this is an elite hang show. In the sense that usually when we think of a hang show, what I mean is, do you want to spend time with these people in this world? And more often than not, those are sitcoms because that's just the nature of what their shows always were. Like, yeah, I want to go to Cheers every week. Everybody knows my name, sweet. I just like being with these people. The situation changes, but the comedy stays the same. But the best, best, best dramas of the last 20 years know that they too have to be elite hang shows. And so a lot of Mad Men was that. Like, what are these, what are these guys up to? Or like the episodes where they would go to Pete's house in the countryside and it's like now Don's fixing a sink and somehow I'm riveted?

• 48:21Andy Greenwald?

  Or The Wire, not thought of that way, but like the whole fuzzy Dunlap stuff, like just the hijinks of these people in between the moments when they are trying to address the drug crisis in America.

• 48:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:34Andy Greenwald?

  Made the show elite. The Pit, you know, how much do we talk about the cases or how much do we talk about what they're chatting about at the nurse's station? This episode of The Lowdown where, you know, it, it was, it was a real Diane U moment where it's like, we already have Tommy Lee Jones and now we have Kyle McLaughlin back for an episode and we have Michael Hitchcock and Keith David. And last season we had Tracy Letts and Scott Shepard and just an entirely underappreciated upper middle class of actor just getting to eat and the eating is good.

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and also like actors that we-

• 49:04Andy Greenwald?

  John Hawks added to it.

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  Haven't seen, like Austin Emilio, who plays Lonnie on this show and is in Everybody Wants Some and is in The Weight with Ethan Hawke this fall in theaters. I think it's already on streaming and is an awesome movie people should check out. He's fantastic. And like they, he's obviously, I almost feel like they're like, this guy's so good, we need to kind of, there's a scene in this most recent episode where it seems to actually branch out and McCann and Lonnie, who are this sort of, um, Coen Brothers-esque, like marks in this show because they're being run by people like in more power than them. But they are given their own little, like, we have to dig up a body subplot and-

• 49:48Andy Greenwald?

  Paul Snyder's body.

• 49:48Chris Ryan?

  Delightful, delightful. Yeah, they have to dig up chili. There's also something really cool going on where I don't know that the show is necessarily, I would, I'd be really curious to know if Sterling has a rule for this. I've talked before about my interest in mystery shows that keep the audience in the same place of the mystery, the same progression of the mystery as the detective. And mystery shows that go ahead of the detective and wait for the detective to catch up. And for the most part, The Lowdown has kept it with Lee's progress, but I think that Ginger is the true detective of this show.

• 50:27Chris Ryan?

  You know, she's the one who's taking it personally. She's the one who is haunted by what is happening. She's the one who can't abide by the idea that somebody has come to her for help and been killed twice and that the man that she loved might be a murderer, you know? And she's the one, I thought it was such a lovely, awesome curve ball to have her be like, I need to be left alone to Lee at the end of the night. And you're like, okay, that's the end of the episode. Because Lee's POV is our POV. So when somebody says goodbye, that means it's over. And instead we go to a gas station with her where she has like a nervous cigarette and she finds out from, uh, from, from her, her prison snitch.

• 51:08Andy Greenwald?

  Well, she calls McLovin.

• 51:09Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Who's, who's in jail because he got to suck her feet and went to jail for her to go find out information about Miko. And he's like, yeah, everybody here is like talking about how Miko killed a kid. And then, so now we have flipped this into this guy I'm trying to exonerate is also this guy I'm trying to maybe track down. And then of course, cliffhanger, she gets kidnapped by Lonnie and McCann. I just thought that was such a great wrinkle that while Lee's life is almost attaining some semblance of like balance, uh, Ginger's is spinning out of control.

• 51:45Andy Greenwald?

  And that the great curve ball of the show is the shifting nature and always surprising nature of relationships. Like that if Lee is imprisoned and Martha Plimpton, I don't even know if we've talked about the Plimpton sons, like she's, she's just another banger for her. She's just like having the best time of her life at this character actor stage of her career is imprisoned by her. And then he gets a phone call and his phone call is to Kyle McLaughlin, who is now the governor of Oklahoma, who shows up to get him out of prison. And this is, you know, probably due to scheduling and the other factor, like, I don't know if we're going to get more Kyle this season. But the fact that they cleared out a lane for him to have an episode and to play with

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  the surprising dynamics of this relationship, that Lee is a gadfly, but everyone can kind of tolerate him until they can't.

• 52:36Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 52:37Andy Greenwald?

  And that because he's so undeniable is, or relentless, depending, is such a, it's such a winning choice on the part of the show. That like, if he was constantly speaking truth to power and nipping at power's heels and then getting kicked by power, it would be one thing, but he is kind of charming. And everything else is also just kicked down a level, which I think is also part of Sterling's larger cultural project, which is that like, if this was a New York noir or New York detective show, like, like so many are, I don't think Lee would have Kathy Hochul's phone number, you know?

• 53:13Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 53:14Andy Greenwald?

  But, but there's something about this place that is so specific and he knows it so well.

• 53:20Chris Ryan?

  That an alt weekly journalist might know the governor. Yeah.

• 53:24Andy Greenwald?

  And then they might both be weirdly discomfited or intimidated by a, you know, law and order touting rogue judge.

• 53:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like a Judge Roy Bean out there who's like, I think we should bring the noose back.

• 53:38Andy Greenwald?

  And, and for it to be John Hawks is so perfect because like, we should probably at some point, maybe in the off season of this show, assuming we get a new season, talk about all the actors who clearly are meant to be on, on the low down, but haven't yet. Like, of course John Hawks is on the show, but because my brain is so low down coded when he showed up, it's A, not a very John Hawks role recently. Like, he doesn't usually play someone with that much like.

• 54:02Chris Ryan?

  Heavy.

• 54:02Andy Greenwald?

  Charisma or power.

• 54:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Andy Greenwald?

  He usually doesn't play heavy. So my first thought was, yeah, of course they got Lyle Lovett. Oh, wait, no, that's John Hawks. But my brain is now like correcting for people who ought to be on the low down.

• 54:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. What Austin City Limits musician is also going to be on.

• 54:19Andy Greenwald?

  What's Yocum doing?

• 54:21Chris Ryan?

  A delight. And yeah, I think that, I thought that it was nice to get everybody together in the bowling scene, even though to your point about if this is a New York noir, I don't think that Lee could wake up in a prison in one county, go on a day long horseback riding, PSA film watching, Budweiser drinking adventure with a judge and a governor and still make it to his daughter's birthday party?

• 54:51Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. I made it from JFK to downtown Brooklyn in 27 minutes the other day.

• 54:56Chris Ryan?

  Dude, don't get too cocky about that. You're going to have one of, one of your trips, you're going to be sitting in two hours of it.

• 55:01Andy Greenwald?

  Every other trip. I'm just saying, it's possible for the, for everything to line up. Yeah, I just, we're going to say this now, and I'm going to say it again in a few weeks, that like, what are we doing this for in terms of this massive, massive television industrial complex in which content is created, packaged, beamed to us at all price points with all different packaging methods and intentions and write offs. And it's also opaque. Like Disney should be able to make this show because the one thing that would make me question it is if Sterling hadn't come back to them with an incredible season two. A season two that I think sharpens and elevates the whole argument for the show in a way that season one only began to do.

• 55:44Andy Greenwald?

  So if that's the case, come on. Like, we still ought to be able to do this in America and we got, if we can't, we got to figure it out.

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  Sounds like you're running for office.

• 55:55Andy Greenwald?

  Honestly, this was my year.

• 55:59Andy Greenwald?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, never, but I probably could have snuck in under the gun this year.

• 56:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you probably could have.

• 56:06Andy Greenwald?

  How hard was it really? Like Montana just voted blue. Like, I just think that if there was ever a moment, this might have been it.

• 56:12Chris Ryan?

  Would you do some sort of like, I just moved here two years ago to get, get in on like a, a certain district or a certain, certain senate seat?

• 56:20Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, right.

• 56:21Chris Ryan?

  Like, where would you go?

• 56:22Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know. There was that dude who ran for Congress in Virginia, lost, and then moved to rural North Carolina and just took out a member of Republican leadership.

• 56:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, hey, right?

• 56:30Andy Greenwald?

  Are you, are you ready for the NIL era of Congress?

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Do you think we'll ever?

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  Where like, people just.

• 56:36Chris Ryan?

  We remember growing up and it was just like, our parents did not talk about who the, the congresspeople were from Texas or North Carolina. Like, I would know.

• 56:46Andy Greenwald?

  Because we didn't have to know.

• 56:47Chris Ryan?

  I knew who Jesse Helms was, but like, other than that, like, uh, just because like.

• 56:52Andy Greenwald?

  Because you had a lot of merch or why?

• 56:54Chris Ryan?

  Oh, because he was such a legendary fucker that like, his name rang out. But like, I don't think I knew who the, yeah, now in retrospect, I did know a lot of these, but like, I'm trying to think of like, I, I was just, I was going to say like, the senator from Iowa, and I was like, that was Tom Harkin.

• 57:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, exactly. Or like Alan Simpson from Wyoming.

• 57:13Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that dude, yeah.

• 57:14Andy Greenwald?

  They just do loom large in the, but, but also like, like the, the level of fury that Senator Alan Simpson created in my father in like 1993. And I'm like, that dude would be a member of DSA today. Do you know what I mean?

• 57:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, like that was the villain? Come on.

• 57:34Chris Ryan?

  But yeah, do you think we'll ever go back to a point where we don't know that, like, which way the railroad commissioner of Texas went?

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure there are a lot of people listening who are like, I don't know that dude. You got to chill out.

• 57:45Andy Greenwald?

  I would like to know a lot less. I think that, I think that bring ignorance back.

• 57:50Chris Ryan?

  You want to get dumb.

• 57:51Andy Greenwald?

  In 2027 is my platform. Oh my God, I would like to get so much dumber. Yes, yes.

• 57:56Chris Ryan?

  It was great to see you today. Thank you for spending some time with me.

• 57:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's what I do. It's my great pleasure. I'm just jealous of your trip.

• 58:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, coming up, I think it's an AG special on Monday. Is that the, is that your plan?

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  We, we got some irons in the fire. I haven't, I haven't read you into them yet, but I've got some, I've got some feelers out to the community.

• 58:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 58:16Andy Greenwald?

  And we're going to take care of it. We're going to take care.

• 58:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 58:18Andy Greenwald?

  We're going to put a little show together for you.

• 58:19Chris Ryan?

  And then I'm going to try and jump on for some of, if not all of Thursday's show next week. We not sure about the following Monday, and then we'll be back the, the Thursday, the 19th, full force, Avengers style. Thank you so much to Andy. Thank you so much to Kaia Kaia and everybody, hold it down while I'm on vacation.

• 58:37Andy Greenwald?

  Safe travels. We have the watch now, brother. America's in safe hands.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. See terms.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Carhartt's holiday gift guides were built in collaboration with the greatest gift giver of all time, Santa Claus himself. Old Saint Nick counts on Carhartt's durable gear to have its back through rain, sleet, and snow on the biggest night of the year. Because when everyone's counting on you to do your job, what else would you wear to work? Tap the banner to grab a gift for every hardworking person on your holiday shopping list or head to carhartt.com.