‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Trailers, ‘The Pitt’ S2E11, and ‘The Madison’ Series Premiere. Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 2.

Chris and Andy talk about the exciting trailers for ‘Dune: Part Three’ (6:44) and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (15:10) before reacting to the ongoing story behind the now-canceled ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ reboot (27:25). Then they break down ‘The Pitt’ Season 2, Episode 11 and the much-discussed ICE story line (39:59). Later, they recap the three-episode series premiere of ‘The Madison,’ Taylor Sheridan’s new show starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell (0:00), and quickly check in on ‘Top Chef’ (0:00). ‘Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man’ on Netflix March 20. Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:05Chris Ryan?

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 0:08Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:11Chris 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, ecstatic at a kinder, gentler portrayal of The Punisher, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 0:26Andy Greenwald?

  That's really reading the room by Marvel.

• 0:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I mean, we have to soften the edges sometimes and who better to do it than Burnthall. Andy, it's great to see you. We're here on a Thursday today on The Watch. We're going to talk about the Dune 3 trailer. We're going to talk about the Spider-Man brand-new Day trailer. We're going to talk about the fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not coming back.

• 0:48Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 0:48Chris Ryan?

  On Hulu at least, and a little bit about that story. And then we have The Pit, we have The Madison, and we have Top Chef, Episode 2 for The Watch. Maybe not After Dark, maybe we should call it The Watch Cooking on the Line, or something like that, you know? No reservations, The Watch.

• 1:05Andy Greenwald?

  That's nice.

• 1:06Chris Ryan?

  Something like for foodies to stick around.

• 1:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's a long show, man. How are you feeling?

• 1:11Chris Ryan?

  What, do you want to leave?

• 1:12Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 1:12Chris Ryan?

  Did you have something else to do today?

• 1:13Andy Greenwald?

  This is my whole day. I just want to make sure that, did you have a good breakfast? Are you feeling?

• 1:17Chris Ryan?

  I did. I had the same breakfast I have every day.

• 1:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. You're a creature of habit.

• 1:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And you, not you.

• 1:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just forage what's local and fresh.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  While you can?

• 1:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's right. Before God's furious sun boils all the nutrients out of Los Angeles.

• 1:33Chris Ryan?

  I actually went back and watched a couple of Paradise episodes and took notes.

• 1:36Andy Greenwald?

  To prepare?

• 1:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Just like, be like, where would be, like, we got an email actually in our inbox. Hello, everybody. You can write us at thewatchatspotify.com and you can follow us at thewatchpod underscore on Instagram and watch us on YouTube at ringer-tv.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Chris Ryan?

  And listen to us on Spotify and watch us on Spotify. We got an email from a listener who asked what, like, attraction or monument we would want to be at when the missiles fell.

• 2:03Andy Greenwald?

  That's a sick question.

• 2:04Chris Ryan?

  You know, because in Paradise, they're at Graceland.

• 2:08Chris Ryan?

  I was having a hard time picking this.

• 2:09Andy Greenwald?

  Also, no missiles. EMP stop the missiles.

• 2:11Chris Ryan?

  Right, sorry. The EMP pulse that stops the missiles, yeah. Did you just?

• 2:16Andy Greenwald?

  We get things right.

• 2:16Chris Ryan?

  You gotta, you gotta stop mugging, dude. You gotta stop mugging.

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  Why?

• 2:20Chris Ryan?

  Because it's like, some people just listen, you know, and-

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but they wouldn't have known. It's like a little treat. You know what I mean? For the people who just pour obsessively over the visual contours of our relationship.

• 2:31Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 2:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's a gift. You're welcome. Please go on. Are we talking about Paradise today too?

• 2:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, would you want to be at the-

• 2:38Andy Greenwald?

  Throw it on the fire.

• 2:38Chris Ryan?

  Franklin Institute? Like, where do you think you-

• 2:40Andy Greenwald?

  Inside the giant heart at the Franklin Institute?

• 2:42Chris Ryan?

  Well, it would be metaphorical, but I also think you'd run out of food there. Like, I don't know if the Franklin Institute has a really good cafeteria.

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, respect to Aramark. They keep things running in our nation's concession stands, okay?

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  I honestly, if, if I have to eat Aramark for the rest of my life, just go ahead and EMP me.

• 3:01Andy Greenwald?

  There's a, there's a, there's a subtle- There's a thing that, you know, I feel like most podcasts are too afraid to talk about, including ours, because we don't like to work in this direction. But the one through line of this season's sort of exploration of people surviving the day on Paradise-

• 3:17Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:17Andy Greenwald?

  Is that the most crucial, crucial aspect to survival is unlimited access to econo-sized cans of beans.

• 3:24Chris Ryan?

  And Sterno.

• 3:25Andy Greenwald?

  Sterno and beans.

• 3:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Andy Greenwald?

  And yet, everyone is looking like their skincare regime is uninterrupted. They're looking amazing. This is like 10 people in a closed space eating beans for three weeks. I don't need to spell it out for you. That, we're adults. I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just asking the questions here.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's talk a little bit about some developments in the world of popular culture this week.

• 3:47Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you don't want to address the other elephant in the room?

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  What's that?

• 3:49Andy Greenwald?

  Which was last, on Monday, we just completely botched Soundwave versus Shockwave to Decepticons of our youth.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  I, I just don't care.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's a strong-

• 4:03Chris Ryan?

  I understand. So what we have to do is now make Andy is the watcher on the wall of comments. And you bring me what you think is-

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, we found out Kaya is the watcher on the wall. She only makes sure our super good ones get through to my eyes, which, thank you. Two, I actually just wanted to point out that I think we're doing pretty well for older gentlemen on a diet of just beans-

• 4:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Andy Greenwald?

  And locked in the studio talking TV till the end of time. Also, I don't believe it. I think that we were right, that Soundwave is the tape player Decepticon, and Shockwave is Mandela Effect. That didn't exist when we were kids in our dimension. That's what I think.

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, I watched Mask more than Transformers, so I was kinda going- Dude, Mask was so sick! Mask was fucking incredible, bro.

• 4:46Andy Greenwald?

  And by the way, to be clear, Chris is talking about this incredible cartoon toy line-

• 4:51Chris Ryan?

  Not the Eric Stoltz movie.

• 4:52Andy Greenwald?

  Not the Eric Stoltz movie.

• 4:53Chris Ryan?

  Which I also watched, but it wasn't like a go-to rewatchable for me.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I watched when I came home from school every day. I had the Mask toys, I had the share action figure that was like-

• 5:02Chris Ryan?

  You just loved Cher.

• 5:03Andy Greenwald?

  My son, my son! It's a collectible.

• 5:08Chris Ryan?

  You're good today.

• 5:09Andy Greenwald?

  But Mask is a forgotten, I about say it's a forgotten piece of IP-

• 5:13Chris Ryan?

  It's like a Transformers dupe, yeah, right?

• 5:15Andy Greenwald?

  That said, I'm sure someone has been working on drafts after draft of the reboot of it, but all the guy, like, it was guys-

• 5:22Chris Ryan?

  What did Mask stand for? Machines?

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  Automated serving kisses? I don't remember, but like, all the dudes had mustaches and then they put on these masks. Not like Eyes Wide Shut, but like, then they could control their vehicles, right? Which turned into other vehicles. Not the way Transformers did. Like, you'd be flying a plane and then the plane would turn into a helicopter. Cause the wings would fall off, right? That was so fun.

• 5:49Chris Ryan?

  It was sick! It was, I honestly, I think I prefer the toys to actual Transformers, which I often broke-

• 5:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 5:55Chris Ryan?

  In frustration at like, fitting all the pieces together, like, you know, getting them to like, you know.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  What do you have to say about child with diseases? Nothing.

• 6:05Chris Ryan?

  What is that? A share? Is that?

• 6:06Andy Greenwald?

  That's a back to Mask, the film.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay. I honestly don't remember much about it, except for like the major thing about it.

• 6:13Andy Greenwald?

  That wasn't the sixth choice for CR month?

• 6:17Chris Ryan?

  You guys will never know. Uh, let's talk about Dune 3.

• 6:20Andy Greenwald?

  Mask stands for Mobile Armored Strike Command with a K.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  I mean, that is literally like Pete Hegseth is like, can we fucking bring those guys back into the rotation?

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  Pete Hegseth is also like, a lot of great groups have K's in their name. Like, really good way to spell words differently is with a K. That's just like, that's just tracks with his thinking.

• 6:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 6:41Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 6:42Chris Ryan?

  We're dead.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  We're fine.

• 6:44Chris Ryan?

  Dune 3.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  We're starting with Dune 3, okay.

• 6:47Chris Ryan?

  I'd like to start with Dune 3 because here's what happens sometimes, especially this year. I loved a bunch of the movies. In fact, I think I had time for at least all of the movies that were nominated for Best Picture. There wasn't a single movie that I was like, get this shit out of here. Even Hamlet, which I know that you-

• 7:03Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not relitigating Hamlet with you.

• 7:05Chris Ryan?

  Completely ignored.

• 7:06Andy Greenwald?

  Captain Lockjaw, the Dead Kid Brigade over here.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  But sometimes like you get to the end of the award season and you're just like, ah, I need a palate cleanser. I want, I want something to feel like we have turned the page of the calendar and I'm now into the new year. And the Dune 3 trailer did that. First, your boy Timmy put up his character poster like 10 hours, 12 hours after the Oscars. He posted that and people were like, oh shit.

• 7:32Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, he had a long night, so he had plenty of time.

• 7:35Chris Ryan?

  He's good, man. Don't worry about him.

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  I am not worried. I'm just saying he probably had some thoughts.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  And then, uh, I believe yesterday, the Dune 3 trailer dropped.

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  And listener,

• 7:49Chris Ryan?

  consider me fucking seated. Like, I am really blown away by this. Uh, they switched DPs. So Greg Fraser shot the first two, Linus Sangren, I think. Sangren?

• 8:00Andy Greenwald?

  Sangren, yeah.

• 8:01Chris Ryan?

  Uh, is shooting the third one. Anya Taylor-Joy, uh, has a bigger role. She appeared in the end of Dune 2. She is playing Paul's sister, obviously.

• 8:10Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Denis Villanova, which by the way is the greatest?

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  That's Bill, yeah.

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  That's fantastic. I want to use that from now on. Do you think he saw Jay Kelly last year and was like, this is the, this is the lighting that I need for my return, my return to, um-

• 8:25Chris Ryan?

  I didn't love the way J. Kelly looked.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, but that's line of sangren.

• 8:28Chris Ryan?

  I know, I'm just, but he's doing what the director tells him to, you know, it's like, generally, or like he's in working in collaboration with filmmakers.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  I liked the way it looked.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  I thought, that's what makes this podcast so electric.

• 8:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's crackling, it's crackling today.

• 8:43Chris Ryan?

  One of us knows what mask stands for.

• 8:47Andy Greenwald?

  You know what the K in J. Kelly stands for?

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  Not command.

• 8:52Chris Ryan?

  What did you think of the trailer?

• 8:54Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's incredibly sick. The score is wild. Every actor wanting to be a part of it is also pretty interesting.

• 9:02Chris Ryan?

  Pattinson looks so good.

• 9:03Andy Greenwald?

  Pattinson, and then I, this-

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  Pete Hegseth thinks Pattinson looks good, too.

• 9:07Andy Greenwald?

  He looks like just the kind of soldier that he needs in his mobile armored strike command.

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  Any movie that gives Isaac de Bencolay his own poster is cool with me.

• 9:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Andy Greenwald?

  Jim Jarmusch legend. I think it looks really wild. I think generally I was-

• 9:25Chris Ryan?

  Are you, do you know what happens in this, in this movie? Do you, are you, did you ever read Dune? Are you aware of the story?

• 9:30Andy Greenwald?

  No. It seems like everything works out good, you know, for Paul, like-

• 9:35Chris Ryan?

  This is gonna be complicated because I think the first two movies largely adapted-

• 9:41Andy Greenwald?

  The first book?

• 9:42Chris Ryan?

  The first book.

• 9:43Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe.

• 9:43Chris Ryan?

  Ish.

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Chris Ryan?

  I would say that this is, how can I put this? From what I understand about Dune. This is like if Empire Strikes Back was Return of the Jedi.

• 9:57Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, in that it ends as a massive bummer?

• 10:00Chris Ryan?

  I don't know how they're gonna end it. I mean, I know how it ends. I know how the story progresses, but like-

• 10:04Andy Greenwald?

  I'm trying to unpack this, so that the little pig guys who froze Khan are actually Ewoks?

• 10:13Andy Greenwald?

  Lando stays bad? What's the, what's the analogy here?

• 10:17Chris Ryan?

  The vibe is darker. You know, now, I would say Dune is not a necessarily uplifting movie. If you're watching Dune 2 and you're like, this doesn't seem like it's going great, you know?

• 10:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and Timmy looks like Stellan Skarsgård in the poster, like he's going a little bit-

• 10:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he goes through a bit of a transformation.

• 10:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I I I'm here for it. I think it's incredible.

• 10:35Chris Ryan?

  I think that's incredible stuff. I'm so I'm so excited to see basically the best and the brightest of the current movie industry that are also in the Odyssey.

• 10:45Andy Greenwald?

  Some are.

• 10:46Chris Ryan?

  And some are, uh, making a blockbuster on this canvas, like with the, like, dealing with this kind of material.

• 10:53Andy Greenwald?

  And all these people just showing up for just for a couple of reps, maybe even a couple of scenes. I think Rebecca Ferguson has is on the record saying she's in one scene in this film.

• 11:00Chris Ryan?

  And she's not actually, I mean, I think they just brought her in because I don't think her character's in this book that they're adapting.

• 11:06Andy Greenwald?

  What I read was that that that Denny Villanova was like, I have three scenes for you. And she was like, cool. And then she showed up and he's like, actually, it's one scene. But what she did was write the other two scenes on her face so that they would always be represented in the film.

• 11:17Chris Ryan?

  She's a really, I like her.

• 11:19Andy Greenwald?

  I know you do. She's on she's she's she's on your wall.

• 11:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  I love her. Um, I was especially excited.

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  You make it sound like it's like a picture of Rebecca Ferguson is on my wall like Cathy Ireland was in sixth grade. It's not like that.

• 11:32Andy Greenwald?

  Where is the picture?

• 11:33Chris Ryan?

  Well, you just referred to like an ancient watch meme of like the wall of fame or the wall that we have for people that we like. And I don't know if some of our newer listeners know about it.

• 11:43Andy Greenwald?

  You were worried that you instead that that you had a bikini photo of actress.

• 11:46Chris Ryan?

  It's like 48 year old man is not putting pictures of Rebecca Ferguson on his wall. Yeah.

• 11:50Andy Greenwald?

  Not in the main house.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  That's what the garage is for. Don't come in, honey. Just working on the car.

• 12:00Andy Greenwald?

  The screenplay credit on this is our guy Brian K. Vaughan.

• 12:03Chris Ryan?

  It's, I don't know him, but.

• 12:05Andy Greenwald?

  You don't know this man?

• 12:06Chris Ryan?

  Do you know him personally?

• 12:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I think he's been on the podcast.

• 12:09Chris Ryan?

  That's awesome.

• 12:10Andy Greenwald?

  Brian K. Vaughan, one of the great comic book writers of our time, um, most recently celebrated, as he should be, for this incredible sci fi space epic comic called Saga.

• 12:20Chris Ryan?

  I love Saga.

• 12:20Andy Greenwald?

  But other comics that he's written that have been, um, adapted include, uh, Why the Last Man? And, um, Paper Girls, which didn't really get a fair shake at Amazon, IMO.

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  And Why the Last Man was on FX?

• 12:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 12:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Andy Greenwald?

  And Saga, which I think we both highly recommend, one of the most incredible things about this, if you're interested in what comics can do. Brian wrote this comic because he had been frustrated. I mean, he's worked as a screenwriter. He worked a little bit on Lost. He worked a little bit on, I think, on Under the Dome a few years ago. But frustrated by adaptations. So he intentionally made a sprawling sci-fi space epic that was like, let's see you try to adapt this.

• 12:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like Star Wars, but unfilmable.

• 13:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Romeo and Juliet and Star Wars, but completely unfilmable with like TV robot, robot aliens with TVs for heads and sex and animals and stuff. I make it sound great. I'm really selling it. The point is, suddenly out of, to me, anywhere, nowhere, Dune 3, Dune Part 3, written by Denis Villeneuve and Brian K. Vaughan.

• 13:19Chris Ryan?

  And Denis Villeneuve.

• 13:21Andy Greenwald?

  And all three of them.

• 13:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's really, that's pretty exciting for me, just as a fan of his writing and his vision for these sort of big, big stakes things. The other reaction I had, obviously, we're in the tank for this, so this isn't really like a hot take or a zag, but I was genuinely shocked at the turnaround. Now, this movie's not coming out till December and is currently parked on the same release date as Avengers: Doomsday, which is batshit and probably won't stay.

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  I think Sean and Amanda talked about this, but I think Avengers should be more nervous about this than Dune should be nervous about this, honestly.

• 13:54Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's a smart take.

• 13:57Chris Ryan?

  I think Avengers: Doomsday has a little bit more to prove than Dune 3 does.

• 14:00Andy Greenwald?

  Also, Dune, my point is that it's been two years, right?

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Andy Greenwald?

  That's really, really fast turnaround. And I think Denis has said that he planned to make another movie, but then it was like, oh, fuck it, we gotta get the band back together and do this quickly because he got to experience the reaction to Part 2 as opposed to Part 1 going straight to HBO Max at the time.

• 14:21Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:23Andy Greenwald?

  So I found it pretty exciting. Like, generally, we have become, certainly in TV, let alone in movies, we've been conditioned to wait longer for these things. And these series take up also a lot of... Just years, just time equity in the careers of filmmakers and actors. And I actually was excited both to see the conclusion, thrilling conclusion of this trilogy, and also for everybody involved to work on something else.

• 14:48Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Yeah, I did not wear out its welcome.

• 14:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Chris Ryan?

  Um, and I don't think was really, Dune Prophecy did not detract from my, I mean, I, to the extent that I, I watched an episode of Dune Prophecy and didn't care for it, but like, it's not like it was like sapped the way maybe Marvel kind of lost the plot a little bit with its streaming exercises and stuff like that.

• 15:09Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 15:09Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of Marvel and speaking of, uh, long waits, Spider-Man: Brand New Day dropped a trailer. Uh, this is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who takes over for John Watts. Tom Holland's obviously back, Zendaya back, Michael Mando is in this movie.

• 15:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but you didn't remember that he was in Homecoming.

• 15:28Chris Ryan?

  Didn't, and that's a, uh, it's indicative of the break that we've had since, uh, No Way Home, was that the third, the sec, the third one?

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  It goes Homecoming.

• 15:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Andy Greenwald?

  Far From Home.

• 15:39Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 15:40Andy Greenwald?

  Because they're in Europe and, uh,

• 15:45Andy Greenwald?

  failing Europe.

• 15:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh, and then No Way Home.

• 15:48Chris Ryan?

  Jalen Hall as.

• 15:49Andy Greenwald?

  Mysterio.

• 15:49Chris Ryan?

  Mysterio, yeah.

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. And then, uh, No Way Home was the, the third one.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  Yes, which came out kind of was one of the big, we're back from COVID movies and, uh, this movie kinda, this will be an interesting, and, uh, look, Spider-Man is gonna make a boatload of money. I don't think anybody's trying to crowd Spider-Man out of IMAX screens and.

• 16:12Andy Greenwald?

  This is already like the most watched trailer.

• 16:14Chris Ryan?

  It's the most watched trailer. I.

• 16:15Andy Greenwald?

  Most watched trailer in my car on the way to school by my children.

• 16:18Chris Ryan?

  Do you, uh, are you excited for this?

• 16:21Andy Greenwald?

  Broadly speaking, yes, because I am a fan of Tom Holland Spider-Man movies.

• 16:25Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Um, would you like to, would, shall we do pros and then reservations or context setting reservations first?

• 16:33Chris Ryan?

  Ooh, context setting reservations first.

• 16:35Andy Greenwald?

  The context setting reservation is. Those first three movies are a very, very successful trilogy and a play as such that kind of bring a lot of things to a resting place. A resting place that some might say set Spider-Man up for whatever inclusion they wanted to have for him in the multiversal wrap-up storylines of the next Avengers movies. But all those movies got derailed and put back together again. So a Spider-Man movie, a new Spider-Man movie is coming first. The other thing about this is I believe that with the conclusion of No Way Home, that was also the conclusion of Tom Holland's initial contract with Sony and Disney and Marvel to make these movies. So anything else was going to require a pretty big, like Albert Pujols to the angels kind of deal.

• 17:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and also some, I would imagine, a larger creative input.

• 17:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I think the other way that we see that manifested is in a clear desire for, by many of the creative stakeholders involved, to age up the character a little bit. To make him a little more brooding, to make him have a little more darkness. I am on the record, I, we have plenty of dark and brooding superheroes. The magic trick of Spider-Man that makes him perpetually popular is that he is not that. And so that gave me slight pause in the trailer when it's a lot about, you know, not just his regrets and his missing his friends and his not being known.

• 17:58Chris Ryan?

  He's going through spider puberty in this.

• 17:59Andy Greenwald?

  This is the other thing that gives me enormous pause. Now, the beauty of Spider-Man is that it is a very, very, very basic, beautiful idea, maybe the most perfect superhero idea, and it has lasted forever and it has allowed all these different Spider-Men to bloom across the spider verse. And always kind of the same origin story, same essential personality, and that's fun and awesome. The nature of comic books is, you gotta keep, it's like podcasts, really. You gotta keep grinding. You know, even if the moment has moved on, you gotta keep showing up and doing the work. And to the genuine, I give a lot of genuine credit to the writers over the years of Spider-Man who are always just trying to see what, how can we stretch this thing?

• 18:42Chris Ryan?

  Spider-Man the comic you're talking about.

• 18:44Andy Greenwald?

  The comic book and the character. You know, and a lot of the ideas that we see on screen start in crystallous form, if you will, in the comics. The one area that has always left me completely cold, and this is a storyline, a type of story that I think started with the writer, Babylon 5 writer, J. Michael Straczynski, when he took over Spider-Man like 25 years ago.

• 19:01Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 19:02Andy Greenwald?

  And it's had different expressions, is the idea that Spider-Man isn't just like, oh, this smart kid got bitten by a spider. It's that somehow he is the inheritor of some like quasi supernatural spiritual spider avatar and thus is part of a continuum of spider.

• 19:17Chris Ryan?

  Like kind of Aztec action going in?

• 19:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's a, if you saw Madame Web.

• 19:20Chris Ryan?

  I did.

• 19:21Andy Greenwald?

  And I know you did, because I sat with you and Damon Lindelof watching the whole thing. There was some of that in that movie. These storylines, where there are these characters who are like spider people and want to reclaim Peter and spider, he becomes more spider than man. And there was a storyline 20 years ago called The Other, that they seem to be adapting for this.

• 19:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 19:41Andy Greenwald?

  Where.

• 19:41Chris Ryan?

  But that was controversial.

• 19:42Andy Greenwald?

  It was controversial at the time. Um, and that he, yeah, he sort of has blackouts and dizzy spells and he goes through this like transformation that leads to organic web shooters, which was controversial when Tobey Maguire had it.

• 19:55Chris Ryan?

  They seem to indicate in the trailer that, that he hits that.

• 19:58Andy Greenwald?

  That it's happening.

• 19:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And he didn't have to go into his garage with his posters of Kathy Ireland to achieve it. You know what I mean? So this is, and then Keith David being like, perhaps playing a character named Ezekiel, being like, uh, the spider adolescence is upon us.

• 20:13Chris Ryan?

  Do we just hear his voice though?

• 20:13Andy Greenwald?

  We just hear his voice.

• 20:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, all this could be kind of corny. Now, is it a place to push the character and to, you know, they've, the people, the stewards of this iteration of the franchise have done a good job folding in things that might not have worked in other contexts and making them work for this character, because at the end of the day, you have Tom Holland and Zendaya and you're gonna win. But it's a little bit of, little bit of concern trolling.

• 20:36Chris Ryan?

  I'll tell you what my, what'd you call them? Controversial concerns or?

• 20:41Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, context setting reservations?

• 20:44Chris Ryan?

  Context setting reservations.

• 20:45Andy Greenwald?

  Is that the name of our new segment?

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  Is that?

• 20:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's a good one.

• 20:47Chris Ryan?

  In the time that it's been since old Doctor Strange went poof and made everybody forget Pete?

• 20:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. You know who did that in the comics? Your boy Mephisto did that in the comics.

• 21:01Chris Ryan?

  Did he?

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Chris Ryan?

  Why are they fucking, why are they keeping him on the bench?

• 21:06Andy Greenwald?

  He's not on the bench, he's in Ironheart.

• 21:08Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, that's right. He's Sacha Baron Cohen. I completely forgot that.

• 21:11Andy Greenwald?

  Mafisto is here.

• 21:12Chris Ryan?

  In the intervening years, since the last Spider-Man has come out, I would just say that my expectations and my, my standards have been raised in terms of what I expect from blockbuster filmmaking.

• 21:24Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 21:25Chris Ryan?

  I think, I think that across the board, people are maybe falling out of love with the like insane amount of VFX and

• 21:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 21:35Chris Ryan?

  like the very comicy kind of style of the action in Marvel movies. And without getting deeply into like the plot of it at all, I went, I got a chance to see Project Tail Mary earlier this week.

• 21:48Andy Greenwald?

  I'm jealous.

• 21:48Chris Ryan?

  I have mixed feelings about the movie. I generally really, really liked it.

• 21:51Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Chris Ryan?

  One thing I will say about it, it has got several breathtaking sequences that I will remember for the rest of the year at least.

• 21:57Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 21:58Chris Ryan?

  You know, like moments where you're like, holy shit, this is a really great movie going experience.

• 22:03Andy Greenwald?

  Set piece, see it in the theater.

• 22:04Chris Ryan?

  And I'm going to remember the moment where this happened for a while. And I just don't feel that way about Marvel movies. And I really like Destin Daniel Cretton. I really like Wonder Man.

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  Directing.

• 22:16Chris Ryan?

  He's directing. I, you know, generally really like his filmmaking.

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of stuff online about like, these VFX shots don't look as good as like Spider-Man 2. You know what I mean? Like that Sam Raimi made or something like, it's, it's like, why is this stuff starting to look worse? There's also like, does it just look bad when you look at it on social media or does it, maybe those VFX shots aren't done yet?

• 22:39Andy Greenwald?

  Finished, yeah.

• 22:40Chris Ryan?

  Um, but there was something kind of flat, like when I watched the little interaction, the little mini fight that he has with the Punisher in the trailer. I was like, I think I'm kind of like, I'm all good on, on these like really expensive fake fights that have no, they have no staying power.

• 22:57Andy Greenwald?

  When they have no stakes, because it's like, there's a rhythm to these movies that's been established and they have to have like a fight, something gets crashed, something, whatever. There's very little, in, in a lot of the recent Marvel work, there's not a lot of like visual wit or playfulness or connection to the storytelling.

• 23:12Chris Ryan?

  Funny when Burnth almost says motherfucker, but he throws the web on his mouth. Like, it's not like without its charm. I'm just saying like, I don't need every movie to be the same. I just think that there is a style of like,

• 23:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Chris Ryan?

  like weirdly muted color palette and like all fake action and all this stuff that I'm like, I'm definitely gonna see this movie, but I was just like,

• 23:33Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of muted.

• 23:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Andy Greenwald?

  They're hiding Sadie Sink.

• 23:37Chris Ryan?

  They are hiding Sadie Sink. You want to say the words? Say the name.

• 23:41Andy Greenwald?

  There's a rumor.

• 23:42Chris Ryan?

  Say the name.

• 23:43Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just, I can't be the one to report this. There's just a big rumor.

• 23:46Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to say that the watch is pushing out our boat? That she is Jean Grey? And that if she is not Jean Grey, we will stop podcasting?

• 23:54Andy Greenwald?

  So we'll find out this summer and then we could probably have August off.

• 23:57Chris Ryan?

  Well, we would have it off in the sense that we no longer podcasted.

• 24:00Andy Greenwald?

  With each other. I'm just saying, there's,

• 24:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I'm not quitting watchables.

• 24:06Chris Ryan?

  That's the bell cow, dog. I'm just here for fun.

• 24:11Andy Greenwald?

  This is late work for a professional.

• 24:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:14Andy Greenwald?

  I continue to think that some days that I'm like, it's really nice that you guys showed up. These cameras don't work. These mics don't work. Just like,

• 24:20Chris Ryan?

  But like we've been here before, right? I was like, Krasinski is around the corner. He is Reed Richards.

• 24:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Chris Ryan?

  They took him away from us.

• 24:26Andy Greenwald?

  They took him away from you. No one cared more.

• 24:28Chris Ryan?

  Multiple times being like, where is he? Let, let the devil, let, let him out of the box. And they didn't let him out of the box until Ironheart.

• 24:37Andy Greenwald?

  That was my favorite song in Sinners, by the way.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Let the devil out of the box?

• 24:40Andy Greenwald?

  I think that Sadie Sink, I, I don't know why you cast.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  Who else would she be?

• 24:45Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not knowing that I, and the only other person with canonically red hair in these comics is Mary Jane.

• 24:51Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 24:52Andy Greenwald?

  So is she playing a multiversal Mary Jane?

• 24:54Chris Ryan?

  There's a shot of a person in this trailer with like a bag on their head doing some crazy stuff. Who do you think that is?

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds fun. Is it like a disgruntled?

• 25:03Chris Ryan?

  There's like a little scarecrow person. Like, what's that thing?

• 25:05Andy Greenwald?

  It's a disgruntled Saints fan from the early 2000s. Isn't that what they used to do? Before Sean Payton came in.

• 25:10Chris Ryan?

  You're in the zone.

• 25:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Chris Ryan?

  But you're not helping me. You're, you're ducking the smoke. Do you think it's Jean Grey?

• 25:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 25:16Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Will you, will you put any, any fucking sweat equity into this?

• 25:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I will let you out of your obligation to watch a Miyazaki film if I'm wrong about this.

• 25:27Chris Ryan?

  Great. Great. I'll quit.

• 25:30Andy Greenwald?

  And I can watch my cartoons all day, all by myself.

• 25:33Chris Ryan?

  That pod would actually do well if you just did solo Miyazaki podding.

• 25:36Andy Greenwald?

  You think that would do numbers?

• 25:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Andy Greenwald?

  From the, from the sound wave or the shock wave?

• 25:40Chris Ryan?

  I think you'd miss me, though.

• 25:41Andy Greenwald?

  I miss you all the time. I text you constantly.

• 25:45Chris Ryan?

  Sadie saying Jon Bernthal is the Punisher, Michael Mando is back.

• 25:48Andy Greenwald?

  Tramel Tillman.

• 25:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Tramel Tillman.

• 25:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's fun. Mark Ruffalo as Professor Banner.

• 25:52Chris Ryan?

  But who does not know anything about Spider-Man?

• 25:55Andy Greenwald?

  They all got wiped.

• 25:56Chris Ryan?

  Does Doctor Strange know about Spider-Man?

• 25:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think he's busy.

• 25:59Chris Ryan?

  Did he wipe himself, though? Like, did he wipe his own memory in the process of wiping all everybody's memories?

• 26:06Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds very complicated, to wipe everyone and wipe yourself at the same time.

• 26:10Chris Ryan?

  No, but you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? You don't want to answer the hard questions I'm asking you about the MCU, but you're the only one who knows the answers. You've read all these.

• 26:19Andy Greenwald?

  This is not based on, like I said, Mephisto did it in the comics, and he wasn't about to wipe himself. He's the devil. He wants to take pleasure in this, you know?

• 26:28Chris Ryan?

  It's more nefarious in the comics.

• 26:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, in the comics...

• 26:33Chris Ryan?

  It's Faustian.

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, good, yeah.

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:36Andy Greenwald?

  It's Faustian.

• 26:36Chris Ryan?

  See, this is what, like, this is if Dennis Villanova was directing Spider-Man...

• 26:41Andy Greenwald?

  It would be Doctor Faust.

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Andy Greenwald?

  It would be, yeah. Don't tempt me with good things. That sounds amazing.

• 26:48Chris Ryan?

  God damn it.

• 26:49Andy Greenwald?

  I just think that, like, we're spending too much time ultimately arguing about a movie that has a leg up on all of the other Marvel movies, because it has two of the most compelling young leads.

• 26:59Chris Ryan?

  I guess we didn't say any pros. All these people are charming.

• 27:03Andy Greenwald?

  And Tom and his lady wife, Zendaya.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's what we're here for.

• 27:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Andy Greenwald?

  And I will note that, unlike a lot of the other long-running comic book series, Chris McKenna, who worked on Community and has written or co-written all of these Spider-Man movies, is back for number four, along with Eric Summers. I'm ready.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  One more thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is honestly the most fascinating story of this week to me.

• 27:29Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 27:30Chris Ryan?

  Which is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot story. A while back, it was announced that, after many attempts to get Sarah Michelle Gellar to return as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in some form or another, she had finally agreed to do so because she believed so deeply in a pitch she heard from Chloe Zhao about how to resurrect the character.

• 27:50Chris Ryan?

  Chloe Zhao, obviously, director of Hamlet, No Man Land, The Eternals. And a very idiosyncratic filmmaker that would not necessarily translate. The first thing you think of would not necessarily be like episodic television. Turns out, at least according to some, that that wound up being a problem with the pilot. So the reason why I'm so interested in this story is the two sides of the story. Earlier this week, I think it was Monday. It was last Friday, actually.

• 28:21Andy Greenwald?

  They received, apparently Hulu made the decision to not move forward.

• 28:25Chris Ryan?

  After doing the pilot.

• 28:26Andy Greenwald?

  At 6:00 PM on Friday.

• 28:27Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And so Chloe Zhao, on Oscars weekend, and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Austin, presenting Ready or Not 2, found out that this was happening, or not happening. Sarah Michelle Gellar, I believe, Monday, released a statement that was pretty boilerplate, and it's like, I just want to thank the fans and I wanted you to hear it from me. But unique in the sense that it said, it specified a unnamed but specific Hulu executive for never getting the project, being bragging about how he like never watched Buffy, and being a roadblock in this entire process. And that's unusual. You know, it's definitely a burn the boats kind of of statement when it comes to this.

• 29:10Chris Ryan?

  I know, you know, because Fox still owns the IP, as we'll get to in a second. Then, Variety ran a story that seemed, I would say, you can safely assume was sourced from within Hulu or close to the production, that they were disappointed with the pilot, and that Chloe Zhao did not shoot enough coverage, which means there was not a lot of options for them to like fix things, given what footage she shot. That her sense of how to like construct a television episode was not what they wanted. And that Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy character did not show up until the last moments of the pilot. And you know, this is like a real, like, focus groups tell us that if it's called Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, they want her in the...

• 29:53Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 29:54Chris Ryan?

  Now, this is supposed to be focusing on a new generation, a new Slayer, played by Ryan Care Armstrong, who we liked a lot in the Lowdown.

• 30:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yep. Like the fox's daughter on the Lowdown.

• 30:02Chris Ryan?

  How do you parse this story?

• 30:04Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's fascinating, and it's fascinatingly messy. Do you have a, where are you with Buffy?

• 30:10Chris Ryan?

  I like it a lot.

• 30:11Andy Greenwald?

  You were a fan, you watched it?

• 30:12Chris Ryan?

  I did.

• 30:13Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't mean that in like a judgmental way. Apparently it's amazing. That is a blind spot for me. So I was not one way or another about the potential reboot.

• 30:22Chris Ryan?

  And it's interesting that this and Firefly are both, people are attempting to sort of iterate on Joss Whedon IP without Joss Whedon.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and the Firefly thing seems to be, but they're also trying to crowdfund a home for it or something?

• 30:38Chris Ryan?

  I think they're just trying to get fan interest to a point where somebody is like, yeah, let's make this. Because they've already got like kind of showrunners and the entire cast has signed on and yeah.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  I, I thought this was an interesting, I mean, everything moved so quickly that I was actually prepared to come in here and like be like, well, the voice of industry reason here. But that has now bubbled up as well. Because the take coming from Sarah Michelle Geller, who was obviously stunned and heartbroken, was one that I think very much echoes the voice of the fandom, who have been, for a very good reason, trained at this point to expect getting exactly what they want all the time. More of everything, more of everything.

• 31:19Andy Greenwald?

  The idea that this was like maliciously or nefariously plug pulled and like they had the rug pulled out from under them is a very clickbaity kind of take. And naming an executive who is, you know, potentially either Craig or which who makes the programming decisions for Hulu generally, or Jordan Hellman, who's an executive who's been there for a long time. That gives, if not the face, since she didn't name either of them, but like sort of a chalk outline of a punching bag to blame.

• 31:47Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 31:47Andy Greenwald?

  I feel pretty confident saying that when you have a piece of IP that is high profile and that has been curated for a number of years because you want to get it right, the margins for making this decision are not really that thin. Like, you have to get it right, and if it's... Only a little bit right, they'll keep throwing money at it. If it's really wrong is when they make this decision. And I think that by all late breaking or more recently breaking accounts, this didn't work, which is not an indictment on the creatives involved. It's really hard to reboot things and it's especially hard to reboot things that try to serve when you try to do it both ways, not just like a whole new version,

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  but a handholding, the old Buffy is here and there's a new Buffy as well. And one will have a relationship with the other.

• 32:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:37Andy Greenwald?

  So it's not out of the ordinary. The Lila and Nora Zuckerman are the sisters who TV veterans, very talented writers.

• 32:45Chris Ryan?

  Worked on Poker Face.

• 32:46Andy Greenwald?

  Most recently on Poker Face. They were the showrunners, they wrote the script, they shot a pilot last year. People are now reporting about their experiences, you know, that they had while making the pilot. Cause there are a couple of interesting actors who maybe, maybe it's cameos or not, but like, Chase Sweetwonders was in the pilot, the comedian Alison Becker was in the pilot. Allegra Edwards, who is on my show and is starring in a new CBS sitcom coming soon, I think is, is also in it and they are all like, oh, it was a great experience. It seemed like really positive vibes.

• 33:12Chris Ryan?

  People generally come out of closed out productions feeling very warmly towards.

• 33:16Andy Greenwald?

  Because of the Rihanna playing all the time.

• 33:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, I just think because it's like,

• 33:21Chris Ryan?

  I, I just like my, like everything you read about people who work with her are that if they connect with her, they connect quite deeply with her.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  I think that this obviously like, for whatever reasons Geller was like opposed to doing this, probably for like very smart reasons because she was a custodian of that character.

• 33:37Andy Greenwald?

  And the fan.

• 33:38Chris Ryan?

  And didn't want it to go the way that, you know, it's not Melrose Place. She didn't want it to just be like, you can just reboot this constantly without, you know.

• 33:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 33:46Chris Ryan?

  Paying tribute to what it actually meant to people. And that's the thing about this show is that it meant a lot to a lot of people. I mean, Mal and Joe have been doing a rewatch and.

• 33:53Andy Greenwald?

  But do people want something new or do they not?

• 33:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't know.

• 33:56Andy Greenwald?

  And I can fall on both sides of it. I think, I think it's not a clean cut story with, with villains. It seems like they shot a pilot in which Sarah Michelle Geller appears almost like a cameo at the end to suggest involvement in the future that they would figure out in series. I'm sure they had a format pitch document of where it was going to go or else she wouldn't have been involved. And whether they tested that and it didn't work or whatever, it seems like they went a little. A little bit further down the road of rewrites to bring her more into the script proper. But ultimately, it does seem like they were undone by a pilot that just missed the mark. Not necessarily script wise, but because, and this goes back to the original point. Just because you have a passionate fan in something and that Khloe says that she grew up watching Buffy, adores it.

• 34:38Andy Greenwald?

  I don't see much Buffy in her filmed work to date, which doesn't, I'm not saying she's faking it. I'm not saying there should be more meta textual laughs in Nomadland. I'm just saying it's hard to draw that connection.

• 34:52Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 34:53Andy Greenwald?

  And if she brought the things that make her an A-list award nominated and winning Hollywood director to this pilot. That doesn't sound like the right fit to me.

• 35:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Andy Greenwald?

  And I will also say, you know, from experience that when you have feature directors stepping into TV without a lot of episodic work. In a feature, they're like, I run this show, I run this ship, what I film is the show. I don't need to do more. I don't need to get it from the other angle because why would you use it? I don't want that angle. That's not how TV, that's not how TV works, but it's especially not how tone setting pilots work. And if you don't have the footage, you might not have the show.

• 35:28Chris Ryan?

  We have a course correction going on where now I think that a lot of feature directors have backed out of doing television. Especially like I'm directing every episode of TV. I mean, Steve Conrad's directing all the DTFs, but is an experienced television showrunner in that regard. I think we probably, what I would have suggested is weird. I think probably what would have been a great execution of this is that for the sake of the pilot and getting the show on its feet. You basically invert what happened and have some very capable, safe pair of hands start the process and shoot the pilot. You get it going and then as a special kind of reverie, maybe mid-season or whatever.

• 36:10Chris Ryan?

  Khloe Zhao directs two episodes of Buffy. That's like her rendition of it. And I think that this would be actually like a much more successful version of. Kind of a tourist directors wanting to dabble in TV would be if you did Tarantino coming in for late period CSI or ER episodes. It's like, yeah, like it's already established how this works. Everybody on set knows how this goes. I'm not creating the visual language for this show. It's pretty rare that shows can break from that visual language. I mean, they do. I think industry is like, obviously like deviated from the initial verite version of what Lena Dunham shot.

• 36:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. But that's the creators taking the reins.

• 36:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. But I think that that probably, maybe that would have been a successful way of doing this.

• 36:56Andy Greenwald?

  We were joking before about Transformers and Mask toys and how we enjoyed playing with them.

• 37:00Chris Ryan?

  I wasn't joking.

• 37:01Andy Greenwald?

  Fair. I meant the Mask toys I was joking about, Eric Stolz with the prosthetics. I think that it is time to move past, broadly speaking, 100,000 foot view. I think we need to move past the development phase of television where it is like us playing with Transformers and G.I. Joes at the same time. Just because you have one to four things that might work and that people like, doesn't mean it's somehow a value add when you jam them all together.

• 37:29Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 37:30Andy Greenwald?

  Hulu developing a show with Chloe Zhao, great. Hulu developing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, great. It doesn't exponentially increase the value of the property to jam them together if it's not a natural fit for the show that they're going to program on their service.

• 37:44Chris Ryan?

  I would imagine that there's another issue here, which is like, holds on actors who are probably expiring and a decision had to be made here at some point.

• 37:52Andy Greenwald?

  The other thing, like Ryan Kier Armstrong is a really strong young actor. Like, we thought she was great in The Lowdown. And then some of the other feedback that has leaked to the press was that with her as the central lead, she's 15 when they shot it, it played younger than what they wanted.

• 38:08Chris Ryan?

  That's all from Variety.

• 38:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but that speaks to another problem with a lot of this stuff, which is, are we making this entertainment for a new generation of fans really? Or are we making it just to sort of handhold? The nostalgia crowd.

• 38:24Chris Ryan?

  I'd like to see it. I would have liked to have seen the pilot, but like, I understand why it perhaps didn't work.

• 38:29Andy Greenwald?

  You'd like to see it.

• 38:30Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I'm kind of like, release the pilots. That's my, I, I think it would, you know, we've had, Amazon used to do that.

• 38:38Andy Greenwald?

  That was, that is under remembered as such a fascinating.

• 38:41Chris Ryan?

  Amazon would basically have a, they had a season, pilot season where they would put up pilots and where, can you vote? Or like, would they just use viewer data?

• 38:50Andy Greenwald?

  I think they would use viewer data.

• 38:51Chris Ryan?

  And I thought that was cool.

• 38:53Andy Greenwald?

  So we saw the Whit Stillman pilot, for example, that otherwise would have been buried forever.

• 38:57Chris Ryan?

  With Adam Brody, right?

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I wish that show got made.

• 39:01Andy Greenwald?

  Me too.

• 39:02Chris Ryan?

  This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Peaky Blinders is hands down, one of the most iconic series of all time. And the gangsters are back in Netflix's new film, Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man. Tommy Shelby, played by the Academy Award winning Killian Murphy, of course, must face his own demons and choose whether to confront his legacy or burn it to the ground. I watched the movie and let me tell you, it's just fascinating to watch Killian on the other side of the Oppenheimer journey that he's been on, becoming one of our great actors. And he already was one of our great actors, but to become one of the major movie stars in Hollywood. This is perhaps his signature role, his iconic role. He brings like an even more haunted, weathered quality to it.

• 39:46Chris Ryan?

  And he's paired off with Barry Keoghan, who's just extraordinary in this and brings this youthful vigor and energy that the, the story greatly benefits from. Watch Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man, now on Netflix, rated R. Let's talk about The Pit.

• 40:01Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 40:01Chris Ryan?

  A show that did get made.

• 40:02Andy Greenwald?

  Sure did.

• 40:02Chris Ryan?

  And it just keeps getting made. And you sounded one small lonely bell of alarm last week. You said it was the weakest episode of the season.

• 40:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  So I start with you, also because you're fucking cooking today.

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  I might need a protein bar or something.

• 40:17Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no. I'm gonna ride you. You're, you're my, we're going back to like, you're like a 1930s pitcher. I'm pitching you fucking four days in a row. Do you remember Eight Men Out? Mr. Theron's character is like on his ninth straight start.

• 40:29Andy Greenwald?

  He's just the pitcher. That's his job.

• 40:32Chris Ryan?

  But he throws like 48 miles per hour.

• 40:34Andy Greenwald?

  Which is still more than I could do.

• 40:35Chris Ryan?

  I could have been an incredible baseball player back then.

• 40:37Andy Greenwald?

  You could have been an incredible baseball player for the first four pitches of every game. You poured your whole heart, soul, mind and body into your fast pitch.

• 40:46Chris Ryan?

  I could have hit 48 miles per hour.

• 40:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 40:49Chris Ryan?

  If that's how fast he was running.

• 40:50Andy Greenwald?

  You were cooking, you were getting up to like 65. You were touching 65 on the outside corner.

• 40:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but once it started breaking, I was out.

• 40:56Andy Greenwald?

  As a hitter.

• 40:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Andy Greenwald?

  I'm saying when you would go.

• 40:58Chris Ryan?

  The first time I saw a slider, I saw my future and it was dark. It was non-existent. It was like Doctor Strange came and wiped away my baseball dreams.

• 41:07Andy Greenwald?

  And Fisto too. I, I, this will surprise no one that like generally 20 years ago, I would imagine it's still the same. Maybe it's not the same thing because you know, we have a different, you have a different weightlifting regimen now. But like, we would arrive at Citizens Bank Park and we would immediately just like part towards our happy places. I would get in the line of Tony Luke's so I could procure the roast pork Italian sandwich early. And you would go straight to fast pitch to attempt to remove your rotator cuff.

• 41:34Chris Ryan?

  To find out what, what the MPH was at. Now, I was not a pitcher and when I did pitch, I was way more concerned with control than I was with velocity. So it was more of a Greg Madd.

• 41:42Andy Greenwald?

  Greg Maddox up here. Yeah. I get it. You strike people out with your mind.

• 41:46Chris Ryan?

  I wonder if this is Kaya's least favorite episode we've ever done. So far, we've talked about very competing Transformers cartoons.

• 41:55Andy Greenwald?

  And toys.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  Eric Stolson shares mask.

• 41:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Chris Ryan?

  We spent a long time talking about Dune and Spider-Man and now we're talking about 1990's pitchers.

• 42:03Andy Greenwald?

  Where are you with us these days?

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  I'm just glad you guys are having fun.

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  See? This is all just for me.

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  But I, I love Dune. I love Dune. I'm a Dune head.

• 42:12Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 42:13Chris Ryan?

  Now, have you read the books? No. Okay.

• 42:16Andy Greenwald?

  Kai goes to parties. She's not us. She's fine.

• 42:20Chris Ryan?

  You sounded some alarm about the pit.

• 42:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Chris Ryan?

  How did you feel about 5pm?

• 42:26Andy Greenwald?

  This was a very, very exciting and jam-packed hour. I think that my concern last week was more, concern is too strong a word. I'm interested to see how they attempt to experiment with and iterate the form that they have created for themselves, the box that they have made for the show, which is the action takes place in real time in the, more or less in this room or these rooms, and that's the extent of it. And the thing that I was flagging last week was the, the attempt to make a, not to bottle off an episode, but it was an episode about mothers and relationships with motherhood. And it felt like, as was this, by the way. And I felt like it, I felt the heavier

• 43:05Andy Greenwald?

  hand of the writer's room in the episode for that. This, this week was a really strong episode. I did notice that there were a couple of things that you just have to buy into and accept as part of watching the show and believing in it. One is the law and order-ness of introducing new patients, where in my, thankfully, I'll knock on the table, limited experience in emergency rooms, when people come to check on me or the people that I'm there with, rarely do the patients say, "You know what, doc? I love baseball. Roberto Clemente is a legend here." You know, in the same way that like, if the police ever came up to me at my job, I wouldn't, like, if the police ever approached me at Borders Books and Music in Rosemont in 1996, I wouldn't have been like,

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  "Sorry, I gotta keep, I gotta keep filing these Soul Asylum CDs while I talk to you."

• 43:54Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 43:54Andy Greenwald?

  Like, "Whatever you need, sir."

• 43:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:57Andy Greenwald?

  So there's that, that's just part of it. Like, we gotta keep it moving, and the first introduction to a character in an ER is going to have to deliver a lot of expositional character stuff. The other thing is, in order to expand the palette beyond the workday, Inevitably, everyone from outside of these characters' work lives, despite what Robbie says to Mohan, is gonna have to show up as a patient at one point or another. And it was Mel's sister, so we could have that scene.

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's the day that Robbie is going off on this existential vision bike quest. His biker buddy comes in, potentially with a tumor.

• 44:31Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:31Andy Greenwald?

  That day. You know, you have to buy into that, and I do. But I was just noting it, and I was feeling the construction more these past two weeks.

• 44:40Chris Ryan?

  I have not re-watched the first season of The Pit, so I may live to regret this statement. I'm finding this season more stressful. And I think it's because the characters are deteriorating in a really well-written way. They are being put under this kind of, almost like institutional and practical pressure, rather than the existential adrenaline hit of the mass casualty event.

• 45:07Andy Greenwald?

  Of an event, yes.

• 45:08Chris Ryan?

  And so, watching them kind of have to go through this painstaking process of working in with analog charting, the mistakes that are being made because of, whether it's exhaustion or the gaps in between, like, knowing what's wrong with somebody because you're waiting for x-rays.

• 45:25Andy Greenwald?

  The fact that most of them have side hustles and jobs when they're not on.

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:29Andy Greenwald?

  Including the Night Charge nurse, who is also a death doula, and Abbott, who is also Superman.

• 45:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and I think a lot of their personal lives are starting to really seep into their work in a way that's detrimental to both, obviously. Like, Mel has had this tough time at the deposition, and then, like, feeling like her sister's probably got more of a life than she does. Dana's running a shrinking staff of nurses or employees who are scared of the presence of the ICE agents, which we're gonna talk about in a second. The Mohan and Robbie stuff, I think, is like... Not heartbreaking, but it's like so sad to watch and like they're doing a very good job of showing like Robbie be like

• 46:10Chris Ryan?

  nice to other people, you know, and and not Mohan and like it's they're like I I I think that they're they're making it like a different kind of season this season where the characters are not angels and not you know undefeated, completely flawless people who only really, you know, take it out on themselves like they're taking it out on each other.

• 46:33Andy Greenwald?

  I think the genius of the show in a way is that central conceit that it's just going to be each one is going to be a day, but baked into that is the hope and now the reality that they're we're going to have many days. And what the show can accomplish by doing that is proving it's not that anybody can be heroic once. It's that pretty much every shift and certainly every day that they choose to make a season of this television show will present just absolutely superhuman levels of stress, of demand, of challenge, of difficulty, and that that's really the

• 47:11Andy Greenwald?

  you know, the the grindstone that they are under.

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  You know, and we also we lovingly knock the pit for its expository dialogue sometimes and people turning to the camera and being like, you know, this actually affects older men much more than you'd think. But I thought some of the unsaid stuff in this episode was extraordinary. They did not show Roxy's death.

• 47:35Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was grateful for that.

• 47:36Chris Ryan?

  And there is a world where they could have just been like the the Hawaiian prayer over the old man last year blew everybody away. That's where I sort of fell in love with the show. It's clearly like letting go and loss is something that Robbie is conversant in. And it would be a great moment. We put McKay and Robbie in there as the final beeps go. Nope, it's just not only did it happen off screen, but McKay missed it.

• 48:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 48:08Chris Ryan?

  And the moment that you do get with Roxy, which is Robbie looking at Javadi and seeing like her welling up. And just kind of like a quiet acknowledgement of like, this is really fucking hard.

• 48:19Andy Greenwald?

  I see you, yeah.

• 48:20Chris Ryan?

  I thought that was a great way to show a different side of it, play it differently. And if a show's gonna go on for multiple seasons, as I expect the pit to, they're gonna have to think of new ways to peel the onion, you know, like, and it still has the same effect.

• 48:36Andy Greenwald?

  I also appreciate the way that it is giving, you know, one of the thing, one of the great things about ongoing television is that you can respond relatively quickly to things that work. And the Mel Dana scene out in the bay, and there was a couple of location shots in this episode. When I say location, I mean, they do go to Pittsburgh, I think, once, and they shoot a bunch of scenes

• 49:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:00Andy Greenwald?

  from different episodes in that ambulance bay in the park across the street to make it feel like, like they're in the place. I thought that was a very good scene, you know, it's, I think maybe this was on the stairs, this one wasn't outside. But Mel says, you know, I've seen Elf 164 times, and, which is 163 more times than my kids are ever gonna see it. Hated it.

• 49:19Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 49:19Andy Greenwald?

  Hated it.

• 49:22Andy Greenwald?

  Not me, I think it's funny.

• 49:24Chris Ryan?

  It's okay.

• 49:25Andy Greenwald?

  I'm brave.

• 49:25Chris Ryan?

  You can have your own opinions.

• 49:26Andy Greenwald?

  Well, here I can, not at home.

• 49:31Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, that, that was, that was for the Emmy voters, that scene.

• 49:34Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yeah.

• 49:34Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and that's okay. That's cynical. It's giving these good actors a chance to cook with each other in a way that is isolated.

• 49:42Chris Ryan?

  A couple of people have written in about the unlikelihood that Mel would have a deposition on July 4th,

• 49:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:48Chris Ryan?

  while she is on shift. The Mel plotline, the fact that every other doctor is being like, where the fuck have you been?

• 49:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Chris Ryan?

  Like, what are you doing? Pick up more patients, move faster, keep charting. And that Mel is kind of free to interact with her sister,

• 50:03Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:04Chris Ryan?

  wander around, kind of, kind of beaten up by the day, getting very upset.

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you think that that is like a plotline that feels very written? And or do you think it's a plotline that exists within the real like? Would they just be steering clear and letting Mel have like a bad day?

• 50:22Andy Greenwald?

  Look, I waltz in here at 11:02 and everyone's waiting and nobody says anything. So maybe this isn't normal for workplaces that there's always one, you know, who can just kind of get away with it. But I, no, I mean, I, I think that, again, I feel bad that I started with what in the, in the framing it as if it's a criticism like I, I really watch the show.

• 50:42Chris Ryan?

  I hope you like walk into the Harry Potter room like five minutes like what ho? Any magicianery going on?

• 50:48Andy Greenwald?

  I do that voice. But I get there incredibly early.

• 50:54Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 50:55Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I really, really respect the workplace and my coworkers, you know? And I don't want to discredit them. This is, this is just for fun, like you said.

• 51:02Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 51:03Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, thanks, everybody. Working behind the scenes here.

• 51:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, they get paid whether it's us or the press box. You know what I mean? Like it, it doesn't have to be us.

• 51:12Andy Greenwald?

  That's amazing. Let's, okay, let's, let's see Brian and Shoemaker talk about Shockwave and so, oh, they're exactly the same age as us. They could do it.

• 51:20Chris Ryan?

  Do you guys wearing glasses?

• 51:22Andy Greenwald?

  Notes. I, I feel bad that I, I framed it as a criticism because I genuinely enjoy the show simultaneously on two completely different levels. It is the only show that I watch without any threat of distraction or second screening, or I just lock in, I can't wait to watch it.

• 51:37Chris Ryan?

  It's the most gripped I am in my life, honestly. Like it's the most present I feel.

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Chris Ryan?

  All week.

• 51:44Andy Greenwald?

  In the main house, not the garage.

• 51:45Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 51:47Andy Greenwald?

  But second, I really.

• 51:48Chris Ryan?

  When I do Zane Lowe too, I feel like I achieve like.

• 51:51Andy Greenwald?

  This is.

• 51:51Chris Ryan?

  It's like Miles Davis doing kind of Blue, you know?

• 51:53Andy Greenwald?

  Let's do this. I, I want to, I want to visit this. I, I have some, I have some questions, I have some thoughts. The second way that I watch the show, I think, is like, I just really am fascinated by and inspired by and impressed by the writerly things that you can see, the way that they are crafting this and the things that they get away with, they don't get away with, but the intention behind it. And one of those things, to, to bring it back to what you were observing is. They looked at what they did in the first season. They knew what they had with Taylor Dearden and they were like, well, how can we make a different run at this character? And what, how can we differentiate her arc this season?

• 52:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because she's pretty resilient in the first season.

• 52:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and so what can we do differently? And then I'm sure that they're already having the conversations about what they will do in the third season. And that's exciting. That's the way you should build this with the added challenge of fitting it into this very, very specific box of driving story forward. Before we get to the big, big elephant story in the room, was interested to see Al Hashimi really having a lot more. As you said last week, she doesn't really get her hands dirty that often.

• 52:57Chris Ryan?

  She hadn't.

• 52:58Andy Greenwald?

  She hadn't, she did last week.

• 52:59Chris Ryan?

  Then she pulls off like the coolest move in the history of emergency medicine.

• 53:03Andy Greenwald?

  Dr. Al Hashimi was a problem. A scalpel in her hand.

• 53:09Andy Greenwald?

  But this week, she's back to being even more so like the one who is communicating and teaching not just the residents, but the, the family members that come in, including then being so on the ball that she follows the kind of dissociating young mother out into the street and saves her life.

• 53:27Chris Ryan?

  Right, because Joy, well, Joy had her pegged first, yeah.

• 53:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the, the, the, I'm happy we're steering away from the residents just being like, you're fat, what's that like? That's a big mistake you've made. You're a bad parent to now complicating it slightly more.

• 53:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Ogilvy fucks up. I think Ogilvy's like being called out on his like lack of sensitivity.

• 53:51Andy Greenwald?

  And it happened to the one patient he was sensitive with.

• 53:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Andy Greenwald?

  The one who he gave a, he gave a paperback to.

• 53:56Chris Ryan?

  Okay, let's do, let's do ice.

• 53:59Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. All right, Mark Wayne, let's do ice. What are your thoughts? I'll be Rand Paul.

• 54:06Andy Greenwald?

  And let's really.

• 54:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, those guys came, come in. There's two masked ice agents or one's masked and the other one eventually puts his mask on.

• 54:14Andy Greenwald?

  Can I just say, before we even get into specifics? We don't, because it's not really our purview, but we rarely complement the direction of this show, even though it is so, so challenging and so specific.

• 54:26Chris Ryan?

  The Bryce White, the Bryce White directed this one.

• 54:28Andy Greenwald?

  Veteran director.

• 54:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Andy Greenwald?

  The way that we, the audience and the cameras, see the looming masked agent for the first time was brilliant.

• 54:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Andy Greenwald?

  That was like some Silent Hill shit, because it was just a figure.

• 54:41Chris Ryan?

  He's 6'5" or something, it's crazy.

• 54:43Andy Greenwald?

  And it's not relevant to the scene we're in at first.

• 54:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:47Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was just really expertly done.

• 54:48Chris Ryan?

  We realize it as Robbie realizes it, and then I will say that the ability to get every single fucking person in this show, including Javadi's mom, on the same page of like how agitated and fucked up this is, and also terrifying because there are two masked armed men in the emergency room not respecting the processes of medicine. I thought it was really well done. Now, this has been a pre or like an already kind of documented and preordained controversial moment for the show.

• 55:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 55:26Chris Ryan?

  Can you tell me a little bit about why that is?

• 55:27Andy Greenwald?

  There were rumors, like industry rumors, that the show, and this wouldn't be actually, this could go be both a rumor and also a pretty safe prediction, that a show that is so tethered to the moment and committed to exploring the realities of healthcare in this country, that there would be an ICE storyline this season. There were rumors that the storyline had been controversial or had been rejected on some level by the powers that be, not at HBO or HBO Max, but at the larger Warner Brothers Discovery Network. And those rumors were kind of confirmed in a surprising way by John Wells, who's the executive producer and one of the co-creators of the show.

• 56:11Andy Greenwald?

  Direct quote from The Daily Beast, saying, "I don't want to be in a situation where it's a surprise." Basically, because he went to... And he says their response was, and he says their response, I think, being WBD writ large. I don't know whether that's the legal side of it, or if it's Zaslav himself. Good story, just make sure it's balanced and we're not just treating the situation as if it doesn't have other points of view. This is episode filmed in December, shortly after the Netflix deal was announced, or was about to be announced. Thus, Wells felt it necessary to consult the parent company. Wells added, when we first pitched it, I thought, uh-oh, you know, I can say that all of us are approaching what's going on in this country right now with a certain trepidation, and also awareness that there

• 56:56Andy Greenwald?

  are possible risks to telling certain kinds of stories. Now, what we saw on the screen was, I thought, very true to two different strands, not of oppositional thinking, but two different strands of reality in this country. One, good, decent people doing their jobs are horrified by the presence of, you know, masked vigilante police force ripping people away without due process, or allowing them to get proper medical care, and disrupting everyone's lives in the pursuit of some nebulous goal.

• 57:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:25Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I think that Robbie's point of view was consistent with what he's been advocating for all season, which is, we can't heal the world, we have to take care of the patients, and we have to take care of our workplace and the people we work with. So, he was cautioning McKay and others not to upset anyone, not to try to push it, or be extra legal with anything that they do, which was consistent with the prisoner, who was the patient earlier in the season as well, when Dr. Alashimi was suggesting that they do X, Y, or Z thing.

• 57:53Chris Ryan?

  And Dana then kind of buys him a little bit more time.

• 57:57Andy Greenwald?

  Put her thumb on the scale on that one. And this obviously reaches a breaking point when they attempt to put a sling on the woman who's the patient, and our guy, Nurse Jesse, intervenes and ends up in handcuffs himself.

• 58:08Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know how you felt about this, we haven't talked about this. It did feel abrupt.

• 58:16Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if that's me filling in the blank, thinking that there was more story there. Because some of the other rumors that are out there, and I do not want to give them extra credence necessarily by blasting them on a podcast as if I have in I don't have secret knowledge, I don't know if this is true. But the rumors wasn't just that that they consulted as they were filming to tweak it and get it right, so as not to upset anyone. The rumors were that they had been told to change something or to dial something down. So the idea was, I probably did watch this episode looking for the missing pieces.

• 58:46Chris Ryan?

  If I didn't know that, or if I had never heard those rumors, which I don't think I had, actually, that part. I had only read that the they they were asked to make it a balanced portrayal. I thought that the balance, just being a viewer of the show and not reporting on like the production of it, was from the plotline earlier in the year where there was, I believe,

• 59:08Chris Ryan?

  a young boy with his sister.

• 59:10Andy Greenwald?

  His parents had been deported.

• 59:11Chris Ryan?

  Deported back to Haiti. And the social worker, the psychiatrist, the social worker is kind of like, yeah, like, like, we can only do so much, and there is like a legal process for this. And if there was not the the kind of like,

• 59:32Chris Ryan?

  outrage or like fight that like maybe you would associate with a left-leaning television show.

• 59:39Andy Greenwald?

  That's a really good observation, and I will also.

• 59:41Chris Ryan?

  So I thought that was gonna be the balance part. I actually didn't know the ICE agents were coming into the urgent. I thought that was their depiction of, well, immigration's a complicated story and like, there's multiple sides of it and all that. And, you know, that then it was like, when these guys showed up, I was like, holy shit, I wonder how far this is gonna go. Especially given, I imagine this was probably shot before Rene Good.

• 1:00:04Andy Greenwald?

  It says December, yeah.

• 1:00:06Chris Ryan?

  So it's before Minneapolis.

• 1:00:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I think, first of all, I just think it's a very healthy and constructive lane for the show to be in, story-wise, to have our characters who can be so, say it again, super heroic, minute to minute, patient to patient, feel the limits of their godlike ability to fix things as the world entrenches on them. And with that said, it's interesting to consider Robbie's comments to Mohan, which also sounded a little bit like physician, heal thyself, when he's like, there needs to be a force field around these walls and nothing outside can get into it.

• 1:00:40Chris Ryan?

  Everything Robbie is like.

• 1:00:43Chris Ryan?

  I thought I thought this is the episode that confirms like I don't I don't know if anything so dramatic as a attempt on his own life is gonna happen, but Robbie's coming apart.

• 1:00:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I but I also think that speech about you keep everything out there that it you keep everything out there. That's the key. That's the difference between the best doctors and the ones who don't make it. That speech is more interesting when you think about ICE coming in than when you think about Mohan being stressed out about her mother.

• 1:01:07Chris Ryan?

  Sure, but like he's also like probably also talking about it from the regards of like you can't stop it from coming in.

• 1:01:12Andy Greenwald?

  No, exactly.

• 1:01:13Chris Ryan?

  Because Duke, you brought Duke in. You're you're

• 1:01:15Andy Greenwald?

  He is not he'll he's not listening to his own medicine.

• 1:01:20Chris Ryan?

  He Jake came in and you know, like was

• 1:01:24Andy Greenwald?

  And his mentor came in during COVID and didn't survive. I also thought that first that that initial plotline a few weeks ago with the family, when that because I was primed to that they were going to do something, I thought that was it.

• 1:01:38Chris Ryan?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:01:39Andy Greenwald?

  That was the they had taken something out and put that in. I felt the same way. I want to be really careful here because I'm not ascribing malign actions, not just to like the Warner Brothers Discovery team and David Zaslav with his $900 million payout can eat shit, but everything else. People are trying to make a good show here. And I don't think that the people who make the show would sell themselves out and sell out their creative whatever to appease powers that be for mergers. I think it's interesting to your point that the balance that maybe they sought was how much can we do here?

• 1:02:15Chris Ryan?

  True.

• 1:02:16Andy Greenwald?

  Their balance was what good does it do to sacrifice our workers and our nurses to save one woman when this is an avalanche of injustice?

• 1:02:23Chris Ryan?

  Well, they're also losing nurses and employees. They're running like they're people leaving the emergency room.

• 1:02:28Andy Greenwald?

  It was Dr. Shamsi who says like that we have people who are

• 1:02:30Chris Ryan?

  Like I'm down five.

• 1:02:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, because they have TPS status, temporary protective status, and they're not comfortable. And people leave the people leave the waiting room, triage. I think that was really important because, you know, I don't it doesn't take two guys on microphones to be like there there actually isn't both sides to like a homemade Gestapo force running wild to the country.

• 1:02:51Chris Ryan?

  I agree.

• 1:02:51Andy Greenwald?

  Fucking nightmare shit. So but I did I do wonder in the fullness of the season, what we will think of this moment and where and how far the tendrils go.

• 1:03:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:06Andy Greenwald?

  If there was more to be said, if this is it. I think it's not just me wondering if-

• 1:03:11Chris Ryan?

  I don't think it's it because they took Jesse. And I don't think it's it because like, this is still a minute to minute show.

• 1:03:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but they also said that the lawyers, the hospital lawyers are tied up with the cyber attack, and so that might be the end of Jesse for the season.

• 1:03:24Chris Ryan?

  It might be, yeah. You know, it's a weird one because they keep talking-

• 1:03:27Andy Greenwald?

  He's the Dr. Collins of the season.

• 1:03:29Chris Ryan?

  Multiple doctors in the show have been talking about how I only have two hours left, but they have five hours left on this season.

• 1:03:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that, they're starting to address that with like Dana telling her night charger place in his name, I forget, "I'll stay until we get someone else." Alashimi saying, "Does Robbie stick around after his shift?" And then he's saying he'll wait for the CAT scan of Duke's.

• 1:03:50Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:50Andy Greenwald?

  So they're starting to line that up, but-

• 1:03:52Chris Ryan?

  I mean, but it doesn't look like Robbie's gonna make it five more hours, you know?

• 1:03:55Andy Greenwald?

  At this rate.

• 1:03:57Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about one more big moment from this episode, which was the Langdon-Santos confrontation, finally. This had been brewing. I thought it was great to see Isabella Briones get more to do than kind of be a smart ass and, not that I feel like that's a limited, no, I don't think that's a failure of the writing. I just think she's been given what she's been given so far. There was the brief moment earlier in the season where we're shown her cutting scars, like as she's, like, you know, very quickly. And so there's obviously like, and she has often had very emotional reactions to certain cases in the first two

• 1:04:39Chris Ryan?

  seasons, but has been kind of like dead to the world this year because of this charting situation, because of, you know, being underwater with like her second year stuff. And I thought that the way that this played out was wonderful because they've certainly put Langdon in the kind of preferred status lane of like, boy, isn't this guy just an awesome dude who's like really recovered and for the most part, people are accepting of him with the exception of Robbie and Santos.

• 1:05:11Andy Greenwald?

  As Santos says, "You're still the golden boy."

• 1:05:12Chris Ryan?

  And she kind of, he kind of is. And I thought that was really a great moment when she is like, "You don't fucking deserve to be here." That's like, like, "What do you want from me? Like, you stole drugs from the hospital. You should be disbarred and be in prison." And he- Does what lots of people do, which is like, I feel like I've suffered.

• 1:05:32Andy Greenwald?

  I almost lost my wife. I almost lost my kids. I almost, almost. She's like, that's what happened to me.

• 1:05:36Chris Ryan?

  So, Alashimi hears this, or overhears part of this conversation. I didn't remember one way or the other. So, it was, are we aware that it was suppressed that he was stealing from the hospital?

• 1:05:48Andy Greenwald?

  That was, that may be, uh, that may not be news to people who closely or recently watched the first season. I-

• 1:05:57Chris Ryan?

  I don't remember whether I, I don't really remember how that played out. I remember Robbie being like apoplectic, but we didn't see how his, whatever happened with like Langdon's-

• 1:06:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, so is he, is he back because he copped to having addiction issues?

• 1:06:16Chris Ryan?

  And went to rehab.

• 1:06:17Andy Greenwald?

  And they don't know about his-

• 1:06:18Chris Ryan?

  And is now in a Doctors with Drug Problems program, but only Robbie Santos and Dana?

• 1:06:26Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know.

• 1:06:27Chris Ryan?

  Know that he was stealing benzos from the dispensary.

• 1:06:31Andy Greenwald?

  Are you starting to, just side note on this, are you starting to worry that the pit is starting to feel a little bit dunder Mifflin? In which like Toby or Angela is always in the background being like, huh? Like, the timing is remarkable.

• 1:06:43Chris Ryan?

  I, I, I get it. Um, there have been also a couple of moments where I'm like, how come everybody is not seeing this as, you know, like-

• 1:06:51Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:06:52Chris Ryan?

  And, and I think-

• 1:06:53Andy Greenwald?

  Everyone heard when the show, you know, put paid to the idea that all television characters can just have their joints, their elbows, whatever, shoulders put back into socket like they're fucking Murdaugh in Lethal Weapon.

• 1:07:05Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 1:07:06Andy Greenwald?

  Or Xavier on Paradise.

• 1:07:07Chris Ryan?

  It's Riggs in Lethal Weapon, actually.

• 1:07:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sorry. Murdaugh, oh right, Murdaugh's too old for this shit.

• 1:07:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Riggs does it himself, too.

• 1:07:13Andy Greenwald?

  Constantly. To swim for freedom. Yeah, I, I'm with you on Issa Bionis, who is, I think is a really strong performer, actually having some, uh, ground to stand on and, you know, and not just be complaining. I thought that was a strong scene. And then we end with, uh-

• 1:07:29Chris Ryan?

  Cliffy.

• 1:07:30Andy Greenwald?

  Another example of potential assault on nurses.

• 1:07:33Chris Ryan?

  Sure, we'll hear all about it next week.

• 1:07:35Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to speak up for the golf community in any way to defend that guy's actions?

• 1:07:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I wonder what drug that guy's on.

• 1:07:42Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's not just White Claws, you know, like, he's definitely.

• 1:07:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's also, it's like 100 degrees.

• 1:07:48Chris Ryan?

  That doesn't give you like psychotic episodes, does it?

• 1:07:51Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, we should go through who you golf with. I think it's possible that there are a couple of people. One last pit question for you before we move on. And I'm not making light of a news situation, but I'm curious how pit-pilled you are. Because news broke just as we were sitting down that Pistons guard Cade Cunningham suffered a collapsed lung.

• 1:08:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 1:08:07Andy Greenwald?

  Pneumothorax.

• 1:08:10Andy Greenwald?

  Because I, I, I am not trying to, I was at this point.

• 1:08:13Chris Ryan?

  So you are pit-pilled?

• 1:08:13Andy Greenwald?

  I'm pit-pilled.

• 1:08:14Chris Ryan?

  I think Cade's gonna be okay. It sounds like it's a minor collapsed lung.

• 1:08:17Andy Greenwald?

  That, those words sound crazy together.

• 1:08:19Chris Ryan?

  But we're not, he's not gonna hit, he, there's worry now that he might not hit the minimum out of games, which means like the MVP, I guess he'll probably be shaved, but it'll, you know.

• 1:08:26Andy Greenwald?

  Do I have a benchmark like that to be considered for podcasting awards?

• 1:08:29Chris Ryan?

  I think you hit it. We do like 100 shows a year here.

• 1:08:32Andy Greenwald?

  We do a lot of shows.

• 1:08:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, two a week for 52 weeks.

• 1:08:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Chris Ryan?

  What's that come out to?

• 1:08:39Andy Greenwald?

  104?

• 1:08:40Chris Ryan?

  That's right. So it's 100 shows, 104 shows.

• 1:08:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, about.

• 1:08:43Andy Greenwald?

  Good for us.

• 1:08:45Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about The Madison. This is going to be a limited engagement, I think, for two seasons. They've already shot two seasons of this six-episode-per-season show.

• 1:08:54Andy Greenwald?

  I read that the cast and crew are hopeful for a third.

• 1:08:57Chris Ryan?

  This is the kindest, gentlest, most romantic Taylor Sheridan show to date. I think it looks like a billion dollars. It, it is a gorgeous piece of TV. These are all positives.

• 1:09:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Chris Ryan?

  I also find it to be pretty well-written.

• 1:09:17Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:09:17Chris Ryan?

  And.

• 1:09:18Andy Greenwald?

  When you say how good it looks, should we shout out Christina Alexandra Vorus, who directed all six episodes?

• 1:09:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:09:23Andy Greenwald?

  We should.

• 1:09:24Chris Ryan?

  We should.

• 1:09:25Andy Greenwald?

  Shouting out the female director of a Taylor Sheridan show because I'm an ally. But go on, talk about how well-written it is.

• 1:09:33Andy Greenwald?

  Go on.

• 1:09:35Chris Ryan?

  It's so well-written that it made me think about all the movies we don't get from Taylor Sheridan. Sean brought this up on the Sicario re-watchables, just talking about how like this dude is a feature writer. And the TV thing has obviously proved out to be quite lucrative, but all of his great shows, I think would make dynamite features. Now, you could say like, what would the world lose if they didn't have season three of Yellowstone? But a lot of these are conceived in a way that feel very featurey. You know, a lot of these shows. And I think that there is a time, probably like 20 years ago, when a movie version of The Madison would have done quite well.

• 1:10:12Andy Greenwald?

  It's actually written into the text of the show. In the pilot episode, the characters gather to watch a favorite film and it's a river runs through it. And it has a more, it has such an emotional impact on the characters, much more than I think anyone watching a Taylor Sheridan television show would have. And I'm not saying that that's not my first hit. That one doesn't count. That's just, I'm just praising Robert Redford.

• 1:10:31Chris Ryan?

  Your first hit was when I said it was well-written and you went, hmm.

• 1:10:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, I something my teeth.

• 1:10:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay. So you engaged with this piece of work?

• 1:10:39Andy Greenwald?

  I did. I watched the first episode. And I gotta be honest with you. I, I thought Kurt Russell and Matthew Fox are so charming and so delightful. I turned it off after 11 minutes because I was like, I don't need to watch six episodes of these guys larking about.

• 1:10:55Chris Ryan?

  So you, you've suggested something that would be a spoiler.

• 1:10:57Andy Greenwald?

  Here come the spoilers.

• 1:10:58Chris Ryan?

  Here come the spoilers. So if you have not watched the first episode of The Madison.

• 1:11:03Andy Greenwald?

  If you have not watched a Taylor Sheridan show, Taylor Sheridan shows follow this format.

• 1:11:06Chris Ryan?

  This one was a pretty big one for a Taylor Sheridan show even.

• 1:11:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just saying, when they announce shows as two-handers and you're like, whoa, the second hand seems awfully busy to be doing this show, you should trust your instincts, you know?

• 1:11:19Chris Ryan?

  I have to say though, I would much prefer to watch Kurt Russell on a show like this than Monarch Legacy of Monsters.

• 1:11:25Andy Greenwald?

  We're doing the positive stuff. Show looks beautiful. Montana, not even a bit a place I was recently and I loved is just stunningly beautiful. I'm not even trying to be that guy. Have I been to the Bozeman Airport? Yeah, I was there.

• 1:11:38Chris Ryan?

  Oh, when they, because they get off, yeah.

• 1:11:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and the kids are like, what is this place? And I was like, that tracks. That's realistic. That's also what my children said. Just stunningly beautiful. And what I really did enjoy about the opening idol in which Kurt Russell, who plays a, we don't actually know yet through the first episode, why he's so rich, but a rich New York City businessman of some.

• 1:12:01Chris Ryan?

  I'm guessing real estate, but maybe I'm wrong.

• 1:12:03Andy Greenwald?

  Is in his happy place with his younger brother, played by Matthew Fox.

• 1:12:08Chris Ryan?

  Paul.

• 1:12:08Andy Greenwald?

  Who we've not seen on television quite some time.

• 1:12:10Chris Ryan?

  Kurt Russell plays Preston.

• 1:12:12Andy Greenwald?

  They are, they're, they're fly fishing. They're roughing it in a place without plumbing. And I'm just, there's plumbing. There's just no toilet, as Michelle Pfeiffer mentions repeatedly. They elevate the material. The setting elevates the material. They elevate the material. There's a moment early on when Matthew Fox's Paul says to his brother, you could put your bags in the plane and we could, you could go home or we could fish at this incredibly rare fishing spot tomorrow that I've arranged for you for your birthday.

• 1:12:38Chris Ryan?

  That usually you have to camp to, yeah, to get to.

• 1:12:39Andy Greenwald?

  And Kurt Russell, 75 years young, playing 65, that's the dream, is so excited that he does like a little eager beaver dance around. And I'm like, fucking movie stars, man. They can make you feel anything.

• 1:12:52Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:12:52Andy Greenwald?

  I was genuinely delighted by their rapport and their relationship.

• 1:12:55Chris Ryan?

  It's fantastic. And it ends tragically when they die in a plane crash 10 minutes later.

• 1:13:01Andy Greenwald?

  Should we stop the pod? Cliffhanger.

• 1:13:03Chris Ryan?

  I really got hosed on this one. I saw, I saw these guys doing press and talking about how great it was. And I, I really.

• 1:13:11Andy Greenwald?

  You got Kingstown?

• 1:13:11Chris Ryan?

  I didn't get Kingstown. Well, I mean, that was, that was the biggest one. But I was like, boy, this is a really tender, thoughtful scene between these two brothers. I, it feels like they're arriving at the end of a, a lifetime spent somewhat alienated by becoming much closer. And I wonder if Preston's like, I'm not going to come back. You have to come out here to his New York family.

• 1:13:32Andy Greenwald?

  I want to be really clear with you about something. Television has taught me many things, but chief among them is, I will never have a conversation with you about how I want to spend my final years. I will never say to you, when we reach a place that makes us happy, like Lincoln Financial Field, I hope I never leave here.

• 1:13:47Chris Ryan?

  We don't ever go to football games. What are you talking about?

• 1:13:49Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just thinking about, wait, but they never went to that fishing spot? Also, football's kind of better on TV. My point is.

• 1:13:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:55Andy Greenwald?

  They, this is the McBainiest fucking McBane.

• 1:13:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I know.

• 1:13:59Andy Greenwald?

  That has ever McBane.

• 1:13:59Chris Ryan?

  In retrospect, shame on me, okay? Fool me twice, Taylor Sheridan.

• 1:14:04Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:14:04Chris Ryan?

  But, you know, they have an incredibly thoughtful conversation about like, what's a life worth? You know, if you spend all of it working to get to old age? And then your body is too broken down to really enjoy it, you know? And Matthew Fox's character Paul is like, I enjoy every day, every day I make a memory. Now, he's also a monk, it seems like. He doesn't have a dog or a lover. Not in that.

• 1:14:29Andy Greenwald?

  Sounded weird, but okay.

• 1:14:30Chris Ryan?

  In that order. That's what he says. He's like, get a girlfriend. He's like, no, I just, all I do is fish. Work on my house. And then they, they die.

• 1:14:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's true. Matthew, by the way, Matthew Fox, still a great television leading man. If he ever wants to work again, he should. But two, what a no brainer.

• 1:14:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:48Andy Greenwald?

  Fly to fucking Montana.

• 1:14:49Chris Ryan?

  Two weeks with Kurt Russell in Montana and then you're out. Yeah, or however long it took to shoot.

• 1:14:53Andy Greenwald?

  Although it does, it does suggest, the way the pilot's built suggests that there will be flashbacks.

• 1:14:57Chris Ryan?

  And I've watched the first three and Kurt Russell appears in basically memory or as like kind of the narrator of these journals that he leaves behind for Michelle Pfeiffer to read. Not for her to read.

• 1:15:09Andy Greenwald?

  It's like James Marsden in paradise.

• 1:15:11Chris Ryan?

  The main storyline of this show is about Michelle Pfeiffer's Stacy character. She's a New York City social aide and, and, and mother of three, I believe.

• 1:15:21Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's just the daughters. I think it's two.

• 1:15:23Chris Ryan?

  Two, two daughters, but then like the extended family is there or whatever. No, there's three daughters, isn't there?

• 1:15:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, as far as I can tell, there's two daughters that travel with her. One daughter is divorced.

• 1:15:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:15:32Andy Greenwald?

  Played by Bo Garrett. She has two young daughters of her own.

• 1:15:35Chris Ryan?

  And then Ella Chapman is married to Patrick J. Adams, who has come along as a son-in-law.

• 1:15:39Andy Greenwald?

  Longtime watch nemesis, Patrick J. Adams.

• 1:15:41Chris Ryan?

  I, I consider him a close, close member of the Alliance of Watch.

• 1:15:45Andy Greenwald?

  Soundwave, Shockwave.

• 1:15:46Chris Ryan?

  Okay. And then it's just, it's a story about grief, kinda. It's like, you know, Michelle Pfeiffer, it's a little bit of city mouse, country mouse stuff going on. Like, oh, like there's a snake over here or something. But like, so far, I'm kind of shocked by like the lack of an opposing force other than the force of loss, right? Like, there's not evil ranchers who want to take over the land or developers who want to put a condo on it like in Yellowstone. It's kinda just this woman going through a midlife crisis that leads to a midlife reinvention.

• 1:16:15Andy Greenwald?

  I want to go back to what you said and what you were talking to Sean about. Like, this could have been. This should have been a movie and I think would have been a movie in a different era.

• 1:16:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Where you could focus, you could tell the story you want to tell and you could tell the reinvention in a way of one woman's journey. You could tell it in two hours without having to then, I mean, without predicting what happens. There are at least, what, 11 more hours of the show that I haven't watched across two seasons because they've already filmed the second.

• 1:16:44Chris Ryan?

  Well, the second season has come out, yeah.

• 1:16:45Andy Greenwald?

  So there's going to be stuff thrown crossways to generate plot and friction.

• 1:16:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure you're right.

• 1:16:50Andy Greenwald?

  That's what happens.

• 1:16:51Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:16:51Andy Greenwald?

  So Michelle Pfeiffer, luminous, one of our great stars. So exciting to have her back in our lives as a working actor. And there was a good profile of her in The Times where she, and this wasn't a secret, but she was just like, no, I'm trying to give credit.

• 1:17:04Chris Ryan?

  Such a Times reader.

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  Sometimes they do good stuff, whether they're profiling Michelle Pfeiffer or reporting out, you know, Cesar Chavez. They can still get it right.

• 1:17:11Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 1:17:12Andy Greenwald?

  Just stay away from the opinions page.

• 1:17:13Chris Ryan?

  I just, you are, you are entering that zone where you're just like, oh, have you saw this incredibly searing takeout in The Times?

• 1:17:22Andy Greenwald?

  Whenever, if I ever call you, I'm like, got 'em.

• 1:17:25Chris Ryan?

  But what happens when you text me, got 'em?

• 1:17:28Andy Greenwald?

  It's different.

• 1:17:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Andy Greenwald?

  Also, got 'em was Cesar Chavez.

• 1:17:30Chris Ryan?

  No, I know.

• 1:17:30Andy Greenwald?

  It wasn't like we got.

• 1:17:31Chris Ryan?

  Got 'em. They really got to the bottom of Michelle Pfeiffer's.

• 1:17:34Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just trying to say, I was just trying to, look, journalism is a struggling field right now, okay?

• 1:17:38Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:17:39Andy Greenwald?

  And I align with the reporters and the hard workers.

• 1:17:41Chris Ryan?

  And the, and the female directors, we know. You're doing great today.

• 1:17:44Andy Greenwald?

  I am signaling everywhere what I'm all about. She was like, I took a lot of time off to raise my family. Like that, I just pointing out that now she is working more regularly.

• 1:17:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she's on, Margot's Got Many Problems.

• 1:17:56Andy Greenwald?

  She's still great. It's good that the show moves the way it moves because anything Montana-based was at least beautiful and kind of fun or compelling despite the, despite the drive-by on my alma mater.

• 1:18:05Chris Ryan?

  On Brown, yeah.

• 1:18:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, that said, it does track that like, I definitely could probably cook the meat, but starting fires and avoiding snakes and wasps' nests was not in my, I mean, it's a very open curriculum.

• 1:18:17Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:18:17Andy Greenwald?

  You know, you don't have to take anything, but I didn't really learn about that stuff.

• 1:18:20Chris Ryan?

  But don't your daughters mostly do camping trips for school?

• 1:18:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Chris Ryan?

  So like, you're probably familiar enough with the great outdoors at this point.

• 1:18:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I signed the permission slip. What are you talking about? I don't, I don't go. Anyway. The New York stuff was so putrid.

• 1:18:32Chris Ryan?

  I guess I kind of forgot about that.

• 1:18:34Andy Greenwald?

  There's a film.

• 1:18:35Chris Ryan?

  Mostly focusing on the river.

• 1:18:36Andy Greenwald?

  There's a filmmaker whose view of contemporary New York City seems mostly informed by Curtis Lee Wa campaign literature, like a city in which a young blonde woman walking down the street is viciously assaulted and robbed and everyone else just moves on because that's the way cities just move on.

• 1:18:53Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:18:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's not my experience with the city. Thank you, Zoran. I think things have gotten a lot better.

• 1:18:58Chris Ryan?

  You don't live there.

• 1:19:00Andy Greenwald?

  Here are the things that I'm a part of. Feminist movement.

• 1:19:05Andy Greenwald?

  New York City. The loyal cadre of New York Times readers who support journalism, even as democracy dies.

• 1:19:12Chris Ryan?

  I know, it's just like you care so much about who's the mayor of New York City. We live in fucking Los Angeles.

• 1:19:17Andy Greenwald?

  Because we live in fucking Los Angeles. It's nice to see a city working itself out, you know? Look, you can, you can, you stand in for Karen? You want to talk about local politics?

• 1:19:26Chris Ryan?

  No, I don't. I really don't.

• 1:19:28Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, I don't understand, other than the fact that Taylor enjoys his life, as he should, why he's so interested in the travails of the incredibly, incredibly rich. And maybe that's just who he knows now that he, you know.

• 1:19:43Chris Ryan?

  We don't have a lot of working class television, man. I mean, like.

• 1:19:46Andy Greenwald?

  No, but shows about.

• 1:19:47Chris Ryan?

  And his shows, honestly.

• 1:19:50Chris Ryan?

  The Dutton family is rich. I guess the ladies in Lioness have pretty nice houses.

• 1:19:57Andy Greenwald?

  Tommy is, Tommy is rich and Monty is richer.

• 1:20:00Chris Ryan?

  But it's not real money. It could go away in a second. You know, Landman, season three with oil prices like this?

• 1:20:07Andy Greenwald?

  I can't wait. Actually, now, you just said, now I'm interested.

• 1:20:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Andy Greenwald?

  Now I'm interested. When Taylor's two major interests, warmongering and oil profiteering, collide, which side of the Strait of Hormuz will he be on?

• 1:20:19Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 1:20:19Andy Greenwald?

  Fascinating to see. I can't wait. He's an incredibly talented writer and generator of material and incredibly unique in his, the volume and the way that he works. And it's also frustrating because he is long past the point where anybody is suggesting anything or editing anything. So he's, he's constantly at the mercy of his own worst instincts.

• 1:20:41Chris Ryan?

  All right. Do you want to do a little bit of Top Chef episode two?

• 1:20:44Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 1:20:45Chris Ryan?

  This is now after dark. This season rocks.

• 1:20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 1:20:49Chris Ryan?

  I actually like the Talenti quickfire.

• 1:20:51Andy Greenwald?

  Did you have a moment where you had, were you worried?

• 1:20:54Chris Ryan?

  Damn it. Yes. Yeah, we're back in the studio and we're back with sponsored products and all that stuff, which is like, everybody's got to pay bills. I get it. But I was just like, historically, I have not loved the Talenti challenge in my mind. And I was like, holy shit, you know, like this is, they're really like cooking at a very high level for a quickfire. And I thought that the challenge itself was interesting. And then you have something like the peppers, which could go just sort of like comically wrong. And I think it's a testament to the quality of the chefs this year that even though Tom and Kristen were, Gail sweating to the oldies there,

• 1:21:37Chris Ryan?

  getting through those peppers, like it seemed like they were really blown away by the food.

• 1:21:42Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think that it probably does a disservice to the show to not point, not lead with the fact that the caliber of the cooking is really high. And that must be such a saving grace for all their plans. But I genuinely think that something either changed or they had a different mandate, or they just really buckled down in their editorial meetings about how they wanted to shape the season because they're not, they just seem completely reactivated. You're having a Talenti challenge. It felt like, like you said, it felt like it was just going to be sort of sponsored twaddle. But the idea is like, we're going to have an ingredient basket that inspired the flavors. So we're going to be cooking savory dishes, made it more and more interesting.

• 1:22:21Chris Ryan?

  Even the, and even like the idea that like, and hey, just so you know, we're going to take a bite of sorbet at the end of the meal. So it has to like interlock taste wise with what you made. Yeah.

• 1:22:30Andy Greenwald?

  And then the pepper thing was just a wildly like.

• 1:22:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's such a, it's such a risk and I was watching them, maybe this is just being older now, but like walking into that, watching the judges walk into that dinner being like, is, are any of them going to be running out screaming?

• 1:22:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Andy Greenwald?

  With intestinal distress, or is this going to be like Hot Ones and it's going to be a gimmick? It was really bold.

• 1:22:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:22:52Andy Greenwald?

  On, on the part of the show, on the part of the contestants and on the part of the judges to get through it. And it was very impressive and also riveting in a way that I think early episodes often aren't due to the volume of chefs.

• 1:23:04Chris Ryan?

  Yes, because you're just like, I mean, first of all, I found the quality of the cooking to be evidently so high that I'm finding it easier to like identify chefs and even some of their, like the way that, the way that they're going. Like Rhoda obviously is like a badass and like calmly and coolly like commanded her team in the elimination challenge, even though I believe she had immunity, right?

• 1:23:30Andy Greenwald?

  She had immunity and it never came up again.

• 1:23:33Chris Ryan?

  I thought that this was a really interesting challenge because spice tolerance is not something that people can like really, I mean, you just have what you have, right? Like I really like Szechuan spice. I don't really like Carolina shit.

• 1:23:46Andy Greenwald?

  No, nor do I like, I mean, it's fine to watch it on Hot Ones, but I mean, like the competitive extreme, like let's see how far we can blow out our taste buds thing is not very pleasant.

• 1:23:56Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:23:56Andy Greenwald?

  For me, and I don't have a lot of interest in it as a fan of either cooking or of reality. Like I don't need to see people compete that way.

• 1:24:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:24:05Andy Greenwald?

  So the fact that they were able to steer out of that and that they're, and, and actually make something worth eating was remarkable.

• 1:24:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I thought, and I would imagine if we talked to the producers and maybe we will at the end of the season again, they must have, it must have been presented to them being like, this is actually a slightly rogue challenge to have because it'll be really good TV if one of them makes Tom ill.

• 1:24:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Andy Greenwald?

  You know, but you, so you have to be willing to, to take that risk. And I don't know whether they were willing to take that risk because it's season 23 and we got to try something, or if they were willing to take the risk because they already trusted that ability level, like the core competency of the contestants.

• 1:24:41Chris Ryan?

  I thought.

• 1:24:44Chris Ryan?

  There so the the last the eliminated chef is Jassy, right? Um, who made a vindaloo. Can't remember which pepper you used, but he was the hottest. He was supposed to be the hottest in the progression.

• 1:24:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:24:57Chris Ryan?

  And he is voted off instead of Nana, who had had a pretty tough first episode. And then served a couple of pieces of undercooked fish in her judge's presentation. But not every judge had an undercooked piece of fish.

• 1:25:15Andy Greenwald?

  Maylin loved her fish.

• 1:25:17Chris Ryan?

  Tom and one of, oh, I think Ed were like, my fish is raw. And there seemed to be some debate kind of of like, well, this is two for two now where Nana did something wrong. The age old question of is it the cumulative cooking that this person has done or mistakes that they have made versus one bad or one good cook? What did you think of the elimination?

• 1:25:38Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, it was it was interesting and the fact that the that, um, what's her name? Rhoda, I might mix it up. Her dish was so good that it completely made everyone forget about, I think, Lawrence's eggplant dish, which like up to that point, they were like, this is the greatest thing we've had on the show. And then it never got mentioned again.

• 1:25:52Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:25:53Andy Greenwald?

  I think that they're being, I don't think that they're, it's unfortunate that Nana was the person involved in both of these mini debates. Um, because I think that the Tom thing in the ring mold is one argument. But the decision in this episode was pretty consistent with, I think, the way the show has always been judged, which is that she had some cooking issues, which happened even to the great champions, but that the underlying idea of the dish and the way the dish met the challenge, which was the spice level in the progression worked. Whereas Jassy took on the hardest one, which was like, let's make the spiciest dish. Failed at that. Um, and then cooked a protein wrong so that it was bad for everybody.

• 1:26:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Andy Greenwald?

  As Tom says, with something like that, you need to braise it. You can't roast it because there's, it's just not going to break down that way. It made sense. Also, a weird flex to be like, I don't like spicy food. Despite cultural prejudices about Indian cuisine, I can't handle it and I'm a two on a scale of whatever.

• 1:26:48Chris Ryan?

  That, he should have just gone earlier.

• 1:26:50Andy Greenwald?

  He should have gone earlier, because then he made a dish and everyone was like, this is not spicy. And they're sitting around like shaking hot sauce.

• 1:26:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they're throwing ghost peppers into it to try and get it back to up to a level.

• 1:26:58Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, Pepper X, I think, appears in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

• 1:27:01Chris Ryan?

  That's good to know. I'm glad he's finally coming off the page. Yeah, so far, nothing, nothing but great things to say about this.

• 1:27:08Andy Greenwald?

  How would you have fared in any of this?

• 1:27:10Chris Ryan?

  Like I said, I think the spice thing is like a real... I think it's like, like, what can you handle and what do you like? Like, I, I really love the tingly, like, sashawan stuff. I find like, I'm probably a pretty novice baby when it comes to Mexican spice, like Mexican cuisine spice. And certainly, like, I don't really even know what I would do with the ghost pepper Reaper stuff.

• 1:27:40Andy Greenwald?

  Like, when your ears are ringing and you like leave your body, I don't...

• 1:27:44Chris Ryan?

  Doesn't...

• 1:27:44Andy Greenwald?

  That doesn't sound fun for me.

• 1:27:46Chris Ryan?

  Now, if you have somebody who's like balancing stuff really, really well, like, I'd entertain it. Like, I'd love to have tried Rhoda's and Lawrence's dishes.

• 1:27:55Andy Greenwald?

  I want to see the real edit of the judging, because then, at the end, Tom's like also was 100 degrees in that like...

• 1:28:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they're doing a lot of outdoor summer eating in the Carolinas.

• 1:28:05Andy Greenwald?

  I just wanted it like, they definitely, all the judges are executive producers of the show. So they definitely were able to say like, you can't use that one shot of me begging for a glass of milk while weeping. You can't do it.

• 1:28:17Chris Ryan?

  They were like chugging the yogurt drink that got made.

• 1:28:20Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you, sir. That's what Lawrence brought them rice, right? Like, that was the kindest thing you could do.

• 1:28:24Chris Ryan?

  We can wrap up there.

• 1:28:25Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 1:28:25Chris Ryan?

  Long show. We'll be back on Monday. I don't know what we're gonna do.

• 1:28:29Andy Greenwald?

  You don't know.

• 1:28:30Chris Ryan?

  Maybe you'll see Project Tail Mary. We can talk about that.

• 1:28:32Andy Greenwald?

  I'd love to see that movie.

• 1:28:33Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kai, Kaia, and Sarah. We will be back on Monday and you guys have a great weekend.