Pod Insights The Watch Is ‘Alien: Earth’ Stuck in Place? Plus, Emmy Predictions and ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 3 News. About this episode Chris and Andy talk about the news that 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' Season 2 will be delayed indefinitely now that cocreator Francesca Sloane has been tapped to write on 'Big Little Lies' Season 3 (1:46). Then, they preview the Emmys by predicting which shows (and actors) could win, will win, and should win the major categories (18:52). Later, they break down the sixth episode of ‘Alien: Earth’ and discuss their complicated feelings about the FX series (36:40).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Video Producer: Jon Jones
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Transcript 11,929 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:00 Speaker 04 I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.
2:06 Chris Ryan? Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me in the studio, it's like asking an onion, how do I take care of a star? It's Andy Greenwald.
2:21 Andy Greenwald? I know you're referencing a good line from the Alien episode that we're gonna talk about today.
2:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah, one of them.
2:26 Andy Greenwald? I definitely misheard it, and I thought he said it's like asking an onion to take care of a shop. And I was like, does the shop sell onions? Again, it's implausible.
2:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Andy, we are gonna talk about the sixth episode of Alien Earth. We are going to talk about some Emmy stuff.
2:45 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
2:46 Chris Ryan? I feel bad because I was like a little bit dismissive of the Creative Arts Emmys. It was not in any way...
2:50 Andy Greenwald? You were like, everybody gets an Emmy these days.
2:52 Chris Ryan? I was just in, you know, there was a wide swath of categories, and I was like, it seems like we're doing participation trophies here.
2:59 Andy Greenwald? It does track with your feelings about winning and losing in the Snowflake Society. It does track.
3:04 Chris Ryan? Uh, what else are we doing today? Oh, we're gonna talk a little bit of news at the top, and it's news gathered by the Dan Rather of this podcast, Andy Greenwald.
3:13 Andy Greenwald? Who's Kai? What are you talking about?
3:14 Chris Ryan? No, but you have like a bunch of stuff you wanted to go through this morning.
3:17 Andy Greenwald? Oh, some of it's non-news.
3:18 Chris Ryan? Okay.
3:18 Andy Greenwald? So, okay, so I have, uh, we have one bit of news. We have, uh, one small digression, and then I had like three task talking points.
3:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
3:28 Andy Greenwald? Tasking points, if you will, that we could do.
3:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah, task points.
3:30 Andy Greenwald? That was a courtesy laugh from Kai, as you've been on vacation. That, pre-vacation Kai wouldn't have laughed at that.
3:35 Chris Ryan? I think that we can make this like a Running Thursday bit. It's just like, after the task.
3:40 Andy Greenwald? Comes the after-task?
3:41 Chris Ryan? The talk.
3:43 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
3:45 Andy Greenwald? All right. Well, the first bit of news, which I did think was interesting, is that Francesca Sloan, a friend of the pod, I think, she came on here to talk about her excellent Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
3:53 Chris Ryan? Is she from Philly?
3:54 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I think there's, yes, she is. Yeah, so she probably likes task. That's cool. So is everything gonna be task-adjacent now?
4:03 Chris Ryan? Which is, no matter who comes on the pod for the rest of this...
4:05 Andy Greenwald? You ever been to Philly?
4:06 Chris Ryan? Do you like task, bro? Do you even know? You ever jumped into a quarry?
4:11 Andy Greenwald? Not us. Couldn't be us. She has signed an overall deal at HBO, seemingly tied to her penning Big Little Lies, Season 3, which is kind of a big deal. There is a secondary recoil to this story, which is Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Season 2, which was cast with Yellowjacket's Sophie Thatcher and the dude from Nora, who should have a name, Mark Eidelstein.
4:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:42 Andy Greenwald? Stein. They were going to be Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They got a California tax credit, which is not a small thing these days.
4:48 Chris Ryan? Oh, wow.
4:48 Andy Greenwald? And now it's delayed, paused. Will this ever happen? What's the reason for it? We don't know.
4:54 Chris Ryan? Do you think that's number one on Gavin Newsom's to-do list today is to find out what happened to the tax credit for Mr. and Mrs. Smith?
5:00 Andy Greenwald? Do you think that he will find out in his Dozy Don voice? Because if so, we may never know. Anyways, I thought that was interesting.
5:09 Chris Ryan? What is the red line? What is the you shall not cross line of? Because this is now the second show that HBO has taken, not taken from anyone. You know, I'm sure David E. Kelley is going to be involved, maybe as an executive producer on Big Little Lies, Season 3 or whatever. Season 3?
5:27 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
5:29 Chris Ryan? What's the line where they're like, this belongs to the creator versus this is something that we would like to see if it's got legs? Like, would they bring back True Blood? Would they bring back True Blood if somebody had a take on it? Would they bring back?
5:44 Andy Greenwald? It's a really good question. I think that there, you know those org charts that people do where it's like, here's the question. Yes, then they do one thing. So I think the thing is, was this show created by a man named David? If so, they will not be rebooting it.
5:57 Chris Ryan? That's what I was wondering.
5:58 Andy Greenwald? If the show is created by anyone other than a man named David?
6:01 Chris Ryan? And it could be David in first name, last name.
6:03 Andy Greenwald? Oh, not David Kelley. Oh, so I've totally bought it. Okay. Kai, what's an org chart? Can you Google that for me?
6:11 Chris Ryan? Okay. Don't treat her like Jamie on the Rogan.
6:15 Andy Greenwald? We're just like, he Googled something last week.
6:18 Chris Ryan? Kai, Kai, bring up Big Little Lies. What happens on that show?
6:21 Andy Greenwald? What were you referencing? Is that a podcast? I've never listened to it, but I guess that's where you get your snowflake takes. So what are you really telling on yourself this week, pal?
6:30 Chris Ryan? There's some amazing task recaps on Rogan these days.
6:32 Andy Greenwald? Are there?
6:34 Chris Ryan? Where's my camera? I wouldn't know.
6:37 Andy Greenwald? Look at my camera and say it if you really believe it. I think what you're hinting at is part of the larger industry shift of the big things will continue to get made and the things that don't quite hit or don't quite hit the Venn diagram of what breaks through these days might not. And I think that, again, I don't know Amazon's business, but they are experiencing legitimately, I think, even in the opaque world of streaming, legitimately big success with Summer I Turned Pretty, with Terminalist's Extended Universe.
7:10 Chris Ryan? Dark Wolf.
7:11 Andy Greenwald? Dark Wolf. Remember when I used to call you that? It was like, early 2000s. So the vanity project, like Donald Glover, big overall deal, here's some IP that we want to develop, making a show that I loved, that was well-regarded, that got Emmy nominations, but I don't know if it was, I don't know if it ran with the Dark Wolves in terms of its impact. The casting on the season two was exciting and intriguing, but these are not stars. This is not necessarily household names that are driving clicks in the way that Amazon wants their shows to. So maybe it just is kind of going away.
7:45 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
7:46 Andy Greenwald? For that reason. And thus, Francesca Sloan, who's very talented, washes up on the shores of big IP, bigger IP, let's say, which is Big Little Lies.
7:53 Chris Ryan? Do you think we should pitch Casey Boyes and Francesca Orsi on our spin on industry, even though industry is still going, about two guys who don't know how to log into E-Trade?
8:03 Andy Greenwald? Go on. Tell me more. Two guys who listen to Guess the Lines every week but still don't understand what the numbers mean?
8:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
8:10 Andy Greenwald? That's me.
8:11 Chris Ryan? Plus or minus, who knows?
8:12 Andy Greenwald? I was with my younger daughter at a mall the other day, this story's great, and there was a GameStop there. And she's like, "That store looks cool, can we go in?" And I was like, "Oh yeah, I loved that store when I was a kid because I like video games." And she's like, "I like video games." I'm like, "This is a beautiful moment." And we walk in, and it's all just like Princess Zelda Toadstool Backpack merch. They don't sell games anymore because you can just download them.
8:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah, you just get them from server.
8:36 Andy Greenwald? And I found myself, I was like, "What else can I tell her about this?" And I was like, "You know, one time Chris had the guys who created industry on to explain meme stocks." But then I realized- First of all, I didn't actually do that. But also, I don't even understand the premise of what you had the guys on for that day.
8:53 Chris Ryan? Of GameStop stuff?
8:55 Andy Greenwald? I don't understand any of that.
8:56 Chris Ryan? It's too elaborate to get into. I will mention, just in terms of your comment about,
9:01 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
9:02 Chris Ryan? It's time to really, if we want us to invest, it's gonna be in something that we have a really good feeling about working.
9:07 Andy Greenwald? Uh huh.
9:08 Chris Ryan? Is, I noted with interest that Phoebe Waller-Bridge finally got off the IR and was like, "Okay, here's the Tomb Raider script and I'm all in on it." And we cast Sophie Turner as Lara Croft.
9:20 Andy Greenwald? Which had been rumored for a long time.
9:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah, but it's like, I mean, I wasn't suggesting that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was somehow like slow-rolling the people at Amazon or anything like that. I believe she's pregnant, like, I'm sure she's got other things going on in her life. But, I was saying-
9:35 Andy Greenwald? Did you just drop the news? Did you break the news?
9:36 Chris Ryan? Wasn't there a picture of Phoebe Waller-Bridge walking around pregnant?
9:39 Andy Greenwald? Oh, so it's a problem when I ask Kaya for help?
9:42 Chris Ryan? Also, why did I ask Kaya? I can Google it. No, I mean, you're right. Is she pregnant? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it's been like-
9:48 Andy Greenwald? Ask the woman in the room, come on.
9:50 Chris Ryan? She didn't announce it. She, she has not announced it, but she kind of went the Saoirse Ronan route where she just got- Started walking around, yeah. Walking around pregnant.
9:59 Andy Greenwald? Do you wanna weigh in on that?
10:00 Chris Ryan? Nope.
10:01 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
10:05 Andy Greenwald? There are no confirmed reports of Phoebe Waller-Bridge being pregnant.
10:08 Chris Ryan? I'm sure-
10:09 Andy Greenwald? Until the Watch podcast broke the news.
10:11 Chris Ryan? I'm sure she was just getting the Tomb Raider script dialed. In any case, my point was that her, honestly, her first significant, like, "I'm writing this" post-Killing Eve, season one, thing, right?
10:27 Andy Greenwald? That's solely hers. I mean, she-
10:29 Chris Ryan? She worked on Run, she worked on Indiana Jones, like, I'm not saying that, but like, yeah, like, this is her, my return to television is Tomb Raider.
10:37 Andy Greenwald? So, are you bringing this up also because you're suggesting that Phoebe Waller-Bridge is now fated to take over Big Little Lies, season four? Is that the arc?
10:45 Chris Ryan? Maybe, I don't know.
10:47 Andy Greenwald? Okay, I got a couple of other things for you.
10:48 Chris Ryan? Please hit me.
10:50 Andy Greenwald? One was, I do just want to shout out our friend, our colleague, Sean Fantasy, because for the people who listen to this podcast or the big picture, who subscribe to the great Criterion channel.
11:01 Chris Ryan? Or bi-physical media, like myself.
11:03 Andy Greenwald? Or like you, or Tracy Letts. No, but Sean did the intro for the, they have a special on Altman this month for his 100th birthday. And first of all, the little doc they did, 20-minute thing, is excellent. Sean is great in it, and I really recommend it for people who aren't familiar with Altman or for people who love Altman but have, maybe haven't thought about him in a while or want to get excited about watching his movies.
11:23 Chris Ryan? Is that you? Which one are you?
11:25 Andy Greenwald? I am quite familiar. But I thought Sean was really, really persuasive in his argument that he's pretty good.
11:30 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
11:30 Andy Greenwald? He's pretty good at making movies.
11:33 Andy Greenwald? But I also thought it would, just, I mean, I think people should check it out. I thought Sean made a really good point about how like his mischievous sensibility is very much missing in our media these days.
11:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
11:43 Andy Greenwald? But particularly, Long Goodbye, one of my favorite Altman movies, one of my favorite movies of the 70s. I was re-watching it and realizing it's a great time to do it because we are about to be blessed with Sterling Harjo's follow-up to Reservation Dogs, which is the lowdown on FX. And he has said, he has said point-blank, he said it to me and to others, that movie is his North Star for the show.
12:05 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I think we could probably have a lot of fun putting together a lowdown syllabus.
12:09 Andy Greenwald? Oh, yeah, good idea.
12:09 Chris Ryan? Of just, you know, rumpled detectives working in far-flung places or big cities and making their way through a quagmire of a case. You know, when we revisit some of our favorite detective novels, if you wanted to.
12:24 Andy Greenwald? We love doing that.
12:25 Chris Ryan? We do love it.
12:26 Andy Greenwald? Do you have a favorite Altman that's up there? Do you, I don't want to put you on the spot because it's not like there's a bad answer.
12:36 Chris Ryan? I think that I my my Altman choices are a little bit chalky like they're like it's like Nashville and Mash and McCabe so and and Long Goodbye is probably my favorite but I I tend to veer towards like the pop Altman I mean pop like agreed upon cinematic masterpieces Altman rather than
12:55 Andy Greenwald? Secret Honor and Mrs. T and the women
12:56 Chris Ryan? Yeah like honestly and I think for some of those I'm like I have some blank spots
13:00 Andy Greenwald? Yeah
13:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah um but the player is is huge for me
13:05 Andy Greenwald? Gosford Park
13:06 Chris Ryan? Gosford Park fucked me up
13:08 Andy Greenwald? That movie's so good
13:11 Andy Greenwald? What was the first Altman you saw?
13:13 Chris Ryan? In the theater or just
13:14 Andy Greenwald? No like in your life
13:15 Chris Ryan? Mash my parents used to watch Mash a lot
13:17 Andy Greenwald? Did they really?
13:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah they loved Mash
13:19 Andy Greenwald? That's pretty cool
13:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah
13:20 Andy Greenwald? That's a good like formative memory
13:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah I mean I was that I think that that was maybe my introduction to
13:29 Andy Greenwald? Swearing?
13:31 Chris Ryan? Oh no it was just a lot of the actors in that that movie I'm just thinking about like is that my first Elliot Gold movie like I was
13:37 Andy Greenwald? I think so
13:37 Chris Ryan? Probably yeah
13:38 Andy Greenwald? My my answer isn't as cool my answer is Popeye because it was on Prism the Philadelphia Cable Movie Network a lot when I was like home from school and I was like yeah it's like the cartoon and that's Mork
13:48 Chris Ryan? Um I think that people should also check out Sean's video that he made where he goes through a lot of the Altman's that are available on physical media and it's really cool he has a bunch of different editions and a bunch of biographies about Altman is really like a like a total all media kind of survey of the available stuff on Altman it's really great
14:07 Andy Greenwald? Good job by Sean who would have thought that that's the same guy who threw you out of his apartment for rooting for the Patriots over the Jets once
14:13 Chris Ryan? He didn't he just said I'm going to kick you out if you don't stop talking about Tom Brady
14:19 Andy Greenwald? To be clear you should this is this is task adjacent you were not you're not a Patriots fan
14:23 Chris Ryan? No
14:23 Andy Greenwald? You were just like we said last week you just pick a team
14:26 Chris Ryan? Well okay so here's the thing I am not a Patriots fan
14:29 Andy Greenwald? No
14:29 Chris Ryan? When the Eagles beat the Patriots in 2007 19
14:33 Andy Greenwald? It was early 18
14:34 Chris Ryan? Early 18 I celebrated As if it was like victory in Europe Day
14:39 Andy Greenwald? There's video on the internet
14:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah that being said
14:42 Andy Greenwald? It's incredible that I'm not like N'Kobe Dean right now that my kneecap didn't detach
14:45 Chris Ryan? Some people are ball knowers I'm ball appreciator And I appreciated Tom Brady to Randy Moss. And when we were, I was at Sean's house. Sean's a Jets fan.
14:54 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
14:55 Chris Ryan? We were watching Jets Patriots. And I think Tom Brady threw like an 80 yard touchdown to Randy Moss. And I, I celebrated. I celebrated beauty.
15:03 Andy Greenwald? It was greatness.
15:04 Chris Ryan? It's just like me at the Ufizi. If I see something I like, it's touchdown hands.
15:09 Andy Greenwald? What do the, what do the Carabinieri think of that? They big fans of how you behave in public spaces?
15:14 Chris Ryan? I was just, I was just, I got out of hand and Sean was like, you can either be quiet or leave.
15:20 Andy Greenwald? I respect it. Also, this is very, very bro coded in that we were like, say, let's say nice things about Sean for five minutes. And then let's remind him of how Tom Brady dog walked in every Sunday for 10 years. Anyway, okay, last thing before we get into today's business, we're going to talk Emmys a little bit and Alien.
15:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
15:37 Andy Greenwald? Okay. Um, three, three small task notes that I just wanted to address.
15:43 Chris Ryan? Okay.
15:43 Andy Greenwald? One, uh, we repeatedly, and some might say aggressively mispronounced the name of the director last week. Um, Jeremiah Zagar.
15:53 Chris Ryan? Zagar.
15:54 Andy Greenwald? I apologize.
15:55 Chris Ryan? It was a coin flip and I'm sorry. I, I did think about that.
15:57 Andy Greenwald? There were two tells that I should have caught. One is the appetizing emporium on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is not called Zabar's.
16:05 Chris Ryan? Right.
16:05 Andy Greenwald? Zabar's. So I figured that would have been a nice one. But the other thing is that Jeremiah's father is Isaiah Zagar, who is a very famous muralist in Philadelphia, whose work we've grown up seeing our whole life.
16:15 Chris Ryan? It's my bad.
16:16 Andy Greenwald? So.
16:16 Chris Ryan? I think I led the way and you followed me.
16:18 Andy Greenwald? I mean, I trust you generally, not in Italian art museums, but otherwise. Um, okay, that was one. Two, one of my favorite, you know, I, I don't, I know you're a little bit above it, but like, I like to get into the scrum, like when people are talking about stuff and response and stuff. And one of my favorite things that I saw over the last few days.
16:37 Chris Ryan? You love online discourse.
16:38 Andy Greenwald? I do. I find it to be very, especially about sparkling water. I found, uh, this to be very, very, uh, compelling, which was that there was a, a conspiracy theory that we intentionally didn't say the name Martha Plimpton.
16:52 Chris Ryan? Why?
16:53 Andy Greenwald? I, I, I, I'm not sure. You, you were committed to saying her name.
16:57 Chris Ryan? I guarantee whoever wrote that comment, I like Martha Plimpton more than you.
17:00 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I think that's true.
17:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:01 Andy Greenwald? I think that's true. I wanted to see who could say Martha Plimpton more in this podcast. Because in, in these people's defense, and then I will switch to offense. You did seem committed to like calling her McGinty.
17:12 Chris Ryan? Well, she's in one scene.
17:13 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
17:13 Chris Ryan? And she sends him on a, on a task. So.
17:16 Andy Greenwald? It's right there in the title.
17:17 Chris Ryan? I, I just, I thought she was very good, but I just didn't feel like that needed to have like an elaborate breakdown.
17:23 Andy Greenwald? I think that's fair.
17:24 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:24 Andy Greenwald? I think the, on the flip side of the argument, everybody should touch grass and log off. That's kind of what I think.
17:30 Chris Ryan? Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
17:31 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I just, I want, Martha knows how you feel about her.
17:35 Chris Ryan? I don't know.
17:36 Andy Greenwald? She does now. Uh, last thing was, and I, again, I'm not, I don't want to put you on the spot. You could come back to me on, on Monday with this. But one of the best things for us as Philadelphia natives in the premiere episode of Task was that out the gate, Ruffalo just hits a triple.
17:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:53 Andy Greenwald? Right? He, he, in one piece of dialogue, he says, uh, he says Scrapple, he says Acme, the supermarket of our youth. And he says.
18:03 Chris Ryan? Ritas, yeah.
18:04 Andy Greenwald? Ritas water ice.
18:04 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:06 Andy Greenwald? Do you think, A, Brad Inglesby, in order to like keep them, keep, keep the same energy, will give a character another holy trinity at the top of this episode? And what do you think it might be? I, I have some options.
18:17 Chris Ryan? Okay.
18:18 Andy Greenwald? Do you think that Robbie might say, in light of the events of the premiere, and we won't spoil them, that it's probably time to hit the Mac machine down Center City before heading to the shore?
18:29 Andy Greenwald? Do you think that, or do you think it's time to like?
18:31 Chris Ryan? I think hitting the Mac machine means something different to Robbie than it does to most people. Yeah.
18:35 Andy Greenwald? Let me, this is not Googling. Kai, do you know what a Mac machine is? Does that?
18:39 Chris Ryan? No. It's an ATM. Money Access Center is what they used to be called.
18:43 Andy Greenwald? What I understand, and I definitely, like, my parents still call it that.
18:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:47 Andy Greenwald? That the first ATMs were in Philadelphia and called Max?
18:50 Chris Ryan? I didn't know that, but I do remember it being like really early on and there was a lot of like anxiety about the, the Mac machine taking your card.
18:59 Andy Greenwald? Oh my God, everyone was so freaked out. It was gonna take your card.
19:01 Chris Ryan? And not give it back. Cause like there were times where it's like the fucking Mac ate my card.
19:05 Andy Greenwald? Yes, the Mac ate my card. Did it ever eat your card?
19:07 Chris Ryan? I didn't have a card. I was a child.
19:09 Andy Greenwald? Oh.
19:09 Chris Ryan? My parents would just say, here's $10, make it last.
19:14 Andy Greenwald? We gotta watch MASH again. Go play in the street.
19:19 Andy Greenwald? Made you who you are today.
19:20 Chris Ryan? That's right.
19:21 Andy Greenwald? I was like Ricky Schroder in Silver Spoons, just riding around on my little train set by myself.
19:26 Chris Ryan? Going to the Mac machine.
19:27 Andy Greenwald? Just going to the Mac machine.
19:29 Chris Ryan? They took the card again.
19:30 Andy Greenwald? Re-upping my subscription to Prism to watch Popeye and be like, what a great director. Surely this is his best film and this in no ways informing my personal taste in aesthetic for the rest of my life. Okay, other option for the trifecta would be buying some pork roll at the Wawa before the Eagles game.
19:45 Chris Ryan? Uh huh.
19:46 Andy Greenwald? The third one, this is a little more, this is a little more niche, but if you go to get a sundae on Sunday and get Jimmy's on it.
19:56 Andy Greenwald? Do you know Jimmy's archive?
19:57 Chris Ryan? Sprinkles, right?
19:58 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
19:59 Chris Ryan? I would say.
20:01 Andy Greenwald? Also, no hoagie talk. There could be some hoagies.
20:04 Chris Ryan? That much, I would imagine, I would imagine. You know what? I'm not gonna pretend like I don't know, because I've watched the second episode.
20:12 Andy Greenwald? Wow, this is how I find out?
20:13 Chris Ryan? Well, you're the one who's like, I wait till Sunday at 6:00 PM. You know, it's like, I like to start thinking about these things. You know, I like to start getting the wheels turning. It takes a little, you know, it looks like it's effortless, but it takes a lot to get this ready in the morning.
20:25 Andy Greenwald? Must be nice. Must be nice. I watch with the people.
20:28 Chris Ryan? That's right.
20:29 Andy Greenwald? Me and Martha Pluton.
20:30 Chris Ryan? Everybody says you, you're down there in the trenches. I would say that it's more finely integrated, but incredibly notable for people like us, for people from Philadelphia.
20:41 Andy Greenwald? Okay, that's exciting.
20:42 Chris Ryan? Blend it in though. Blend it in. But there's a couple of, whoa, did I just hear that?
20:47 Andy Greenwald? I'm very excited for that. Well, tune in on Monday. Thanks for today's show, everyone.
20:52 Chris Ryan? Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about the Emmys. I did a little bit of, I would say not extensive, but moderate historical research because I was like, you know what?
21:01 Andy Greenwald? Did you really?
21:01 Chris Ryan? I've always been such a dick about the Emmys, or at least very dismissive of their importance, and I often think to myself.
21:07 Andy Greenwald? I don't think you've said that before.
21:08 Chris Ryan? I just think, you know what the delta between what wins and what people or what I or my, you know, people I talk to about television.
21:15 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
21:16 Chris Ryan? Talk about as great television.
21:19 Andy Greenwald? Right.
21:19 Chris Ryan? Versus what won a lot at Emmys is just so huge.
21:23 Andy Greenwald? It's a wide.
21:24 Chris Ryan? That I find myself often like being very kind of like, who gives a shit who wins an Emmy or doesn't? I know who gives a shit, the people who are nominated for Emmys.
21:31 Andy Greenwald? For sure.
21:32 Chris Ryan? Uh, one thing that I think is tough with the Emmys is that when you look back and you're like, ooh, I would love for X to win. Or I love, wouldn't it be amazing if Y was recognized for its accomplishments? Just never really happens. In fact, the surprises with the Emmys, especially over like, I would say maybe like the time that we've been doing this podcast. Is generally like, there is something that is really good, universally acknowledged as such. And everybody is like, now it's truly Jonathan Banks's time and he doesn't win. You know, like something else, the surprises.
22:06 Andy Greenwald? Racy Horn last year.
22:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's like the surprise goes against. Uh, let's just say critical conventional wisdom, if not conventional wisdom.
22:14 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
22:14 Chris Ryan? So I wouldn't get my hopes up that, uh, if you're out there and you're like, maybe, maybe Andor will like. Shock the world and win outstanding drama, which isn't the only outcome that I will allow. I mean, of course, like I love a lot of these shows that are nominated for outstanding drama.
22:31 Andy Greenwald? But you're saying people should reset their expectations, recalibrate.
22:34 Chris Ryan? Not even that, I think I was just talking to myself. I think as I was trying to like, kind of look for precedence of, was there ever a time when like, like, am I wrong? Or did Mad Men come out of nowhere and win? Uh, it hasn't really happened that much. There are things where you're like, oh, okay, like maybe the first time.
22:54 Chris Ryan? I don't even know, like maybe the first time the Crown won, maybe people were like, oh, okay. So you guys really like the Crown? And then it was like, the Crown just wins three times in a row.
23:01 Andy Greenwald? I think that's exactly right. There was a time, you know, when, when the Golden Globes, uh, in their previous obscure, shadowy cabal iteration, would to get headlines to differentiate themselves, be early anointers. Um, the example I always use is Homeland winning best drama series when I think the first season hadn't even finished airing.
23:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:22 Andy Greenwald? And then, and, and they would always, the Golden Globes, I think prided itself on being a little bit more radical, a little bit more conversation driving. The thing that the. tend to do is clarify what is mainstream in a way that is increasingly difficult in this super fractured media, but television especially, ecosystem. So when Hacks won the first time, I think there was a lot of excitement and celebration, both because Lucci and Paul and Jen are very talented people and very likeable people, and the show is really good. But I think it was also like, oh, a little Joe Pesci, you guys were serious about that. You're all watching this and you like this?
23:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
24:00 Andy Greenwald? What the Emmys then does is, you know, dust off its hands and just spam the button and only vote for the same thing again and again after that, once you've crashed the party. That said, I think there are going to be some first time, pretty prominent first time winners this year, but for a show like Andor, which is obviously critically adored, adored by this podcast, but there's no chance of-
24:21 Chris Ryan? Very similar to The Wire, where it's like, the ball knowers know, but I think it's a difficult show to, if you haven't watched all of it and you aren't like, fully versed with it, I think people are probably like, eh, yeah, but it's Star Wars. And instead, it's like, and I also think Outstanding Drama just has so many heavy hitters in it.
24:42 Andy Greenwald? But also try and remember, in this case, similar to The Wire, created by David, I should say. The Wire existed at a time when HBO was pot committed at that point, and they were going to finish the show. Andor is finished, so the Emmys could burnish its long-term reputation, or maybe draw a few extra eyeballs to it, although to your point, like, these are very, very texturally dense shows. The nomination for a show like Andor, I do think, I mean, I would love for it to win, but I think the nomination is the victory lap on what was already a triumph. Some other shows, the needle could be moved in their survival if they do triumph.
25:19 Chris Ryan? I was just gonna say that with the exception for Outstanding Drama, and I thought maybe we could do should win, will win here.
25:25 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
25:26 Chris Ryan? And let's start with drama instead of comedy, because comedy is like a separate conversation about what is a comedy, I think.
25:33 Andy Greenwald? We're the ones to have that conversation.
25:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I mean, that's the debate I think we've embraced the most. For drama, I think you could make an argument for every nominee, except for probably Slow Horses, and I like, I love Slow Horses, but that it could or should win. With maybe the exception of Paradise, you know what I mean? Like, aside from our incredible affection for one episode of Paradise, I don't necessarily think it's an accomplishment on this level, although I would argue that Paradise and The Diplomat of these nominees might be, and Last of Us, I guess, might be like the most watched. I have no idea, like, honestly, but like...
26:12 Andy Greenwald? Paradise makes sense for me in the same way that Dan Fogelman, the creator's previous show, This Is Us, is constant nominations made sense in that like this isn't, you know, it's hanging on, but it is still an industry town, and people who work on TV and work regularly on TV and get to vote do like to celebrate something that feels more meat and potatoes, like, we used to make things in America. Like, this is a TV show that takes wild swings, goes for it, is not aimed at the ivory tower, and is gonna be back in 11 to 12 months. Like, that matters, so I understand why it's there.
26:50 Chris Ryan? So I'll just say that the outstanding drama nominees are Andor, The Diplomat, The Last of Us, Paradise, The Pit, Severance, Slow Horses, and, joining us in a regular drama series, I believe it had two seasons of being a limited series, right?
27:07 Andy Greenwald? I think it had jumped for this last season, but I could be wrong.
27:10 Chris Ryan? Okay, The White Lotus.
27:13 Andy Greenwald? First of all, pretty solid.
27:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
27:15 Andy Greenwald? Pretty solid list. I think the outlier is Last of Us, because it...
27:24 Andy Greenwald? I don't know. I am not, despite my Sunday night viewing habits, I'm not a reliable voice of the people on this, but like, did not seem like it matched the audience approval level of the first season, but more than anything else.
27:38 Chris Ryan? Very hard to tell because of the gamer community, with all due respect. Like, their outrage at like, the lack of fidelity to the video game, I think is tough. Yeah.
27:46 Andy Greenwald? I also think that it was barely a season. It was, truly though, like, it was very short. It peaked early, and it demands the second half in order to tell a fuller story. That feels more like entropy to me. Like, well, the first season was an accomplishment in ratings, and so, here we are.
28:08 Chris Ryan? You know what? That was a very, like, astute summary of, I think, where that season ended up, even though I think I liked it more than you.
28:16 Andy Greenwald? It's weird, though, because 10, even 10 years ago, this category was, when you voted for best show, but it was like, what's the analogy? Is it like MVP season of an ongoing career? The sense was that a lot of these contenders would be back in the arena next year, and this year, West Wing got the best of-
28:40 Chris Ryan? We don't need to do LeBron this year because he's gonna be up for MVP for the next 10 years.
28:46 Andy Greenwald? But now we are in a sort of a strange mix of shows that we are celebrating because of their reliability and their consistency. In this case, it would be Slow Horses, The Pit, and I would imagine Paradise, and then shows that are kind of sort of still in the wrong category, but it's okay, like Andor and White Lotus. And then there's Last of Us, which is on a two-to-three-year cycle. And Diplomat sounds kind of an offside. Diplomat is more traditional in its entertainment goals than its reach, but it has kind of, it's had kind of a herky-jerky release schedule, too, if I'm not mistaken.
29:19 Chris Ryan? The first season's about to come out.
29:21 Andy Greenwald? So that it caught up, so maybe that was strike effect, but the second season was shorter than the first season. Anyway, we don't need to, but Severance also is another example of it. It's like, when it pops up, it's going to be continued here.
29:31 Chris Ryan? See you in 28, brother. What do you think should win here?
29:37 Andy Greenwald? This is
29:38 Chris Ryan? And this can be different than what do you think the best show in this category is?
29:41 Andy Greenwald? I mean, I think that of these shows, the best season of television, the best across the board is Andor. But I'm gonna say should win, will win is The Pit.
29:52 Chris Ryan? Me too.
29:53 Andy Greenwald? Because
29:54 Chris Ryan? But I'm saying, I don't think winning outstanding drama is not bringing Andor back.
30:00 Andy Greenwald? That's right.
30:01 Chris Ryan? Andor is perfect. Andor will probably be my favorite show of the year.
30:06 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
30:07 Chris Ryan? I just think that I want the most amount of people possible to watch The Pit.
30:11 Andy Greenwald? I think we're on our way.
30:12 Chris Ryan? And The Pit is coming back in January. And it's like, let's keep it rolling, you know?
30:16 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
30:16 Chris Ryan? So maybe that's, yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying. It's not about, it's not a aesthetic kind of like critical judgment on what the best show is. I just think it would be great if The Pit won best drama.
30:26 Andy Greenwald? Well, I think this is also an example of one of those like tweak categories that we sometimes come up with when we're suggesting how they could do it differently. It's like a, I don't know if it's like a record of the year versus album of the year. If it's, is it achievement in television, which would be best show of the year, you know, which would combine things from across categories into one, one category of excellence. Andor is the best achievement. But I think that again, it's like, this season was absolutely jaw dropping. But it's hard not to think of it as one whole across two seasons.
30:58 Chris Ryan? And we can go through the other categories a little bit quicker, but it's outstanding comedy is Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Nobody Wants This, Only Murders in the Building, Shrinking, The Studio, and What We Do in the Shadows.
31:13 Chris Ryan? Should, should win, will win.
31:17 Chris Ryan? I think The Studio will win.
31:19 Andy Greenwald? The Studio is going to win.
31:21 Chris Ryan? And I think
31:26 Chris Ryan? I think The Studio Should win.
31:29 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, it's my guy. You know, we are consensus builders.
31:32 Chris Ryan? Do you want to know why?
31:33 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
31:33 Chris Ryan? I'm tired of having the Hacks the Bear fight.
31:35 Andy Greenwald? That's exactly right.
31:36 Chris Ryan? If you guys can't figure it out between the two of you.
31:38 Andy Greenwald? Work it out.
31:39 Chris Ryan? He's gonna get it.
31:40 Andy Greenwald? I think that's right, first of all. You'd be a great dad. That's exactly right.
31:47 Andy Greenwald? I agree.
31:48 Chris Ryan? You gotta have a third kid to see if that works, though. I don't know.
31:51 Andy Greenwald? Oh, great, great point. Right now, I just take the conch shell from Lord of the Flies and just give it to one and then give it to the other. They love it. I tell them about meme stocks. We have a good time.
32:03 Andy Greenwald? I agree. I also think that we need fresh blood in this category. But again, I don't know. Maybe it's circling back to your point about how seriously we take the Emmys. I would be fine with Nobody Wants This winning because it was new, it was popular, and it changes.
32:20 Chris Ryan? Pretty fun, yeah.
32:21 Andy Greenwald? It's fun to watch. That's fine to me. What we do in the shadows of these shows is probably the funniest on a consistent joke-to-joke basis. But the studio, if there was that best show category, I think would be in that category, just in terms of the achievement. And the filmmaking, and the style, and the personality, and the vibes, and in addition to the performance and the comedy. So I think it's really impressive. I think the Creative Arts Emmys last week made it clear that this town loves shows about this town, and the studio's gonna win.
32:54 Chris Ryan? Outstanding limited, to wrap things up, Adolescence, Black Mirror, Dying for Sex, Monsters, The Lyle, and Eric Menendez Story, or The Penguin?
33:01 Andy Greenwald? Mm-hmm. I can't believe how chalk we are here.
33:04 Chris Ryan? Should, could, should, will, is Adolescence, I think.
33:07 Andy Greenwald? Adolescence should. It's no disrespect to the other shows in this category. It's not even a conversation.
33:13 Chris Ryan? Do you think that The Penguin's gonna win?
33:15 Andy Greenwald? The Penguin has a chance to win this, yeah. There, we don't.
33:20 Chris Ryan? I could actually see Adolescence, Dying for Sex, or The Penguin winning.
33:25 Andy Greenwald? I don't.
33:26 Chris Ryan? People love Dying for Sex.
33:28 Andy Greenwald? Talk about these people. Who are you talking to?
33:30 Chris Ryan? People who have watched Dying for Sex are like, this is a very important story to me. I did not engage with it, but I'm just saying.
33:38 Andy Greenwald? I think that that is a similar argument you can make for Adolescence, and I think this will be the test of.
33:44 Andy Greenwald? How many people, like, the, I won't watch Adolescence because I have a feeling it's gonna fuck me up.
33:50 Chris Ryan? Upset me.
33:50 Andy Greenwald? Upset me. We don't know how big that voting block is.
33:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:53 Andy Greenwald? But it's not insignificant, and that would be the impediment to it winning. And I think it's similar to Dying for Sex, where people are like, this also kind of seems like a bummer if it's more the first word than the last word.
34:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
34:04 Andy Greenwald? Which would clear a lane for The Penguin, which...
34:06 Chris Ryan? Can you imagine you giving notes like, what, can we get more?
34:11 Andy Greenwald? Can we choose one of the other?
34:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
34:13 Andy Greenwald? That's, that's fine.
34:14 Chris Ryan? Guys, guys.
34:15 Andy Greenwald? That's the note I gave to Twisters. I'm very happy to give that note again. It is really interesting, the way The Penguin, which costs upwards, you know, $200 million or whatever a major, major show costs these days on a top-tier streaming service, has become weirdly like an underdog in the way that it is discussed and championed. That's a testament, I guess, to the, to the job that was done to make the show what it was.
34:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
34:42 Andy Greenwald? Again, we didn't respond to it.
34:44 Chris Ryan? I think because it was, it, it has all the hallmarks of what would be a kind of classic HBO crime show that just happens to take place in Gotham with a guy wearing a prosthetic suit.
34:57 Andy Greenwald? And Colin.
34:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah, right.
34:59 Andy Greenwald? But great. I just really hope, and I think this might be too much to ask, I would really like to see new winners. Like, no disrespect to Jean Smart, who is no less good in season four of Hacks than she was in seasons one, two, and three. It would be nice to see someone else win. I think that would just make for a better broadcast, but also would be a healthier sign of an industry, you know? I think, we didn't touch on it, but like, we both think The Pit should win and will win. It's competition of severance, which I think would also be fresh blood and would tell, but it would, I think it would tell a different story about the industry right now. And I'll say that, like, this isn't breaking any news, but on the other side of the glass, the show everyone is chasing now is The Pit.
35:42 Chris Ryan? Sure.
35:43 Andy Greenwald? Like, industry-wise, that's the show people want to be making, and I, just top of your head... They're probably, the answer is they're probably both bad, but would you rather see a B minus knockoff of The Pit or B minus knockoff of Severance? It's really hard to say, those are completely different flavors and they are both unique in the ways they are successful. The answer honestly is we're probably going to get a lot of both. But I don't know if one is easier or better to watch or more preferable.
36:13 Chris Ryan? I, I guess probably I would say The Pit because the breath of fresh air that it is to see a kind of like a story grounded in reality, even if it's a heightened reality or even if it's a compressed reality is so cool and refreshing. And it's like, I think even for the, how harrowing adolescence is, like seeing something approximating real life depicted on screen has been like such a boost for me that I don't really need another allegory for what life is like. I'd kind of like to see a little bit more of what life, but that's just where my taste is.
36:53 Andy Greenwald? It's a good segue to alien talk honestly, because I'm feeling that. The only other thing I'll say is the funniest outcome to look for on Sunday night would be in the supporting actor, supporting categories in drama. In supporting actor and drama series, we have one, two, three nominees from Severance, one, two, three nominees from White Lotus and James Marsden from Paradise. All these dudes cancel each other out and Marsden victorious.
37:19 Chris Ryan? Marsden walks away as the prez.
37:20 Andy Greenwald? Same thing could happen.
37:21 Chris Ryan? The Wildcat.
37:22 Andy Greenwald? Just you remember, Wildcat Cal, President Cal. Also, it would be amazing for a guy to win an award for a role in which he dies in the first episode. That is not a spoiler, I don't think. He, he's in the whole season.
37:34 Chris Ryan? I think that's in the commercial, but I don't know if that's true. So there you go.
37:40 Andy Greenwald? Kai, do you want to just beep that? I think that would be fun for people. He blanks in the first episode. Just to say that could happen.
37:46 Chris Ryan? What would the alternative be?
37:47 Andy Greenwald? It's either dying or sex. The whole world, baby. Two doors. What are you choosing? Don't start looking at Rogan to give you advice for that, too.
38:00 Chris Ryan? Joe, what do we do?
38:01 Andy Greenwald? Supporting actress in a drama series. It could go the same way. We've got Patty Arquette, Severance. We've got Carrie Coon White Lotus, Parker Posey White Lotus, Natasha Rothwell White Lotus, Amy Lou Wood White Lotus, the queen Catherine Lanasa for the pit. But what if Julianne Nicholson just emerges from the wreckage? Much like her character, what's her name? Jasbo, what is it?
38:23 Chris Ryan? Coltrane.
38:24 Andy Greenwald? Coltrane. Okay, sure.
38:25 Chris Ryan? Isn't it?
38:25 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. She could win. She won last week for guest appearance. So what if it's?
38:30 Chris Ryan? Guest appearance on?
38:31 Andy Greenwald? Hacks. Guess in a comedy.
38:33 Chris Ryan? Wow. But doesn't that bode well for Hacks's acting chances?
38:37 Andy Greenwald? Hacks could win comedy again. People love voting for Hacks.
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41:08 Chris Ryan? Let's talk about Alien Earth, episode six, The Fly, written by Noah Hawley, directed by Uglah Hawks daughter.
41:17 Andy Greenwald? Icelandic, written by Noah and a co-writer.
41:19 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah, and Lisa Long, sorry. I'm going to give you three choices. Spoilers for this episode.
41:23 Andy Greenwald? Okay. Also spoilers for the first season of Paradise, just sprinkled in ways that you can never possibly.
41:29 Chris Ryan? And apparently dying for sex.
41:30 Andy Greenwald? It's in the title.
41:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
41:32 Andy Greenwald? You think that had a happy ending? Sex sometimes does.
41:36 Chris Ryan? Sometimes.
41:37 Andy Greenwald? Not always.
41:40 Chris Ryan? Everything that we just saw over this last episode was one of three things.
41:45 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
41:46 Chris Ryan? It's either Noah Hawley as the writer, creator of this show, having very little interest in.
41:58 Chris Ryan? Proper lab techniques, workplace safety.
42:00 Andy Greenwald? It's true.
42:03 Chris Ryan? The monitoring and oversight of multi-billion dollar investments. In terms of these synthetic kids or hybrid kids that are now like super soldiers, but also super scientists, but also.
42:15 Andy Greenwald? Also trauma survivors.
42:15 Chris Ryan? Just kids, you know? So it's either he's like, don't worry about it so much dorks. Like it's fine. This is cool to watch a fly spray acid in a robot's face. That's door one. Door two is, uh,
42:33 Chris Ryan? this is all being orchestrated by the character Kersh.
42:36 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
42:38 Chris Ryan? The Timothy Olyphant character who is observing much of what we see.
42:42 Andy Greenwald? He is.
42:43 Chris Ryan? Over the entire season, really.
42:44 Andy Greenwald? He's second screening this whole show.
42:45 Chris Ryan? Second screening this whole show and is a, you know, one of the most delightful creations, I will say in the alien universe, non xenomorph category. And it's unclear as to whether or not he is just, uh, taking this all in as a synthetic and watching humanity and its creations at its worst. Or if he is perhaps a double agent working for Yutani, or maybe is working on behalf of like something even greater. Um, unclear. And then I guess door three would be Noel Holly thinks everything he's doing makes total sense and it just doesn't. Because this was an episode that I found, I think some people were like, I hated watching
43:30 Chris Ryan? the fifth episode because people were so dumb. And I was like, I guess I can make some excuses of like, what kind of level of scientist decides to spend the rest of their lives on a spaceship? Or perhaps these are kind of like the, you know, not the best and the brightest, like we talked about and like there's something kind of interesting about watching people being overwhelmed by their circumstances in this incredibly extreme environment. But this was just kind of like. Too loosey goosey for my taste to the point where I don't think that the season fell apart. I'm very engaged with like what happens. I'm so into Morrow, I'm so into Kersh, like it's really exciting. That stuff is really fascinating to me. And there's still some really great, cool filmmaking and vibes going on.
44:16 Chris Ryan? But it's, I really don't want to turn into a lifeguard being like no one would ever do that in real life. But there's just some gaps and jumps here that get made where it's like, how does Wendy know that Nibbs was saying to people that she was pregnant since Nibbs basically only tells the therapist and then gets put into a battery recharger, you know, like it's, there are certain things that I think were just done out of convenience or maybe out of like stitching things together.
44:42 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
44:42 Chris Ryan? And then just, you know, do only four people work at this place? Like what's going on like?
44:48 Andy Greenwald? Well, God, there's a lot to unpack there. I think that.
44:51 Chris Ryan? What do you think, which door do you want to walk through?
44:54 Andy Greenwald? I think we might need to reno the whole house because I think that it's clear that Kersh is up to something and there are other cards left to be turned in the rest of the season, which I'm curious about as you are.
45:10 Andy Greenwald? I think that the,
45:14 Andy Greenwald? it's no fun to sit around and like pick logical knits throughout all of this. But that's kind of where we are because increasingly the show seems determined to tell us what it's about. And the showing feels a lot more rote, like, well, this is happening because this has to happen to get us to that. Now, biggest caveat of all, we touched on this at other points in our conversation about the season. I'm not a horror movie guy, but I feel like I get, I get the gist enough to understand that part of the magic trick, and it is a magic trick in a way of getting people back to the theater again and again for horror movies is. Obscuring the fact that it's a bad decision to go into the basement where the lights go off.
46:00 Chris Ryan? Yes, but those people tend to not be.
46:03 Andy Greenwald? The best and the brightest billionaires.
46:04 Chris Ryan? No, assembled from the like, a large language model, a computer and like indestructible, like bio-skeletons.
46:15 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
46:15 Chris Ryan? Like, those people tend to be teenagers or idiots who are like, I guess I gotta go down this hallway.
46:20 Andy Greenwald? I think a marginally compelling bit of water carrying for how the season has gone to me. Like, I'm willing to hear out this argument, is the idea that, and this ties into the Laugh More Dorks reading of it.
46:35 Chris Ryan? Right.
46:35 Andy Greenwald? Is that in some ways, this is all a satire of.
46:43 Chris Ryan? Our current technological overlords and stuff like that.
46:46 Andy Greenwald? Tech lord capitalism stuff, where you can have trillions of dollars, but no common sense, or no actual connection to humanity, and thus, we are always going to end up as chum for something smarter, or savvier, or more vicious. Okay, that's fine. I think the problem that I had with this episode was the cascading decisions just don't add up. And so even when you have a scene that is.
47:19 Andy Greenwald? So use the example of Nibs.
47:23 Andy Greenwald? Nibs is powered down.
47:26 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
47:26 Andy Greenwald? They're doing the old Super Nintendo trick of unplugging, plugging back in, seeing if it works.
47:31 Chris Ryan? That's how I used to get Mortal Kombat to work.
47:32 Andy Greenwald? And it did, for a time. And it costs the Silvias their marriage, and then also, one of the Silvias, his life. These ruptures over what they're going to do about this.
47:44 Chris Ryan? That he would have gotten got anyway.
47:46 Andy Greenwald? He seemed.
47:47 Chris Ryan? Doesn't seem like there's a lot of boats off that island.
47:49 Andy Greenwald? Fair point.
47:50 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
47:51 Andy Greenwald? What was so bizarre about it to me was, like, we are going to do this radical thing, and ostensibly in the service of protecting this child who is in this body. And then, the second she awakes, we will make sure to have someone next to her going, "Remember all that sick shit that happened last week? That was so crazy when the eye touched your eye."
48:11 Chris Ryan? And you were like, "I'm pregnant."
48:12 Andy Greenwald? You were pregnant. That just seems like poor personnel management. And that is a thing, again and again, where it's like, it is a plot point. That every one of these hybrids is being monitored at all times externally and internally. That the
48:27 Chris Ryan? Or that even their that their literal like vision and
48:30 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
48:31 Chris Ryan? And hearing is like being reflected back to the to the yeah.
48:34 Andy Greenwald? Now, the first time we picked that nit, it was revealed that well, Kersh is is watching and he's allowing this to happen.
48:41 Chris Ryan? Yes.
48:41 Andy Greenwald? Okay, that's fine. But when, what's his name? Tweet Tweedles? Tweetbot?
48:47 Chris Ryan? I think it's Tweedles.
48:48 Andy Greenwald? Something like that, but he changes his name.
48:50 Chris Ryan? To Isaac.
48:51 Andy Greenwald? Isaac, but yeah, rest in rest in pieces. My metal king.
49:00 Andy Greenwald? He is wildly off script and then extremely offline for what seems to be more than enough time for someone in a multi trillion dollar armored.
49:12 Chris Ryan? I think Kersh orchestrated that.
49:14 Andy Greenwald? So you think he turned off some cameras?
49:16 Chris Ryan? I don't. I mean, I don't know, but I think Kersh instructed him to do that with being and he's been watching that sheep for a long time and being like, this guy can follow.
49:27 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
49:27 Chris Ryan? He's tracking people. He is doing stuff. Something weird is gonna happen here. And I think he also knew, obviously, that the other kid.
49:36 Andy Greenwald? Slightly?
49:37 Chris Ryan? Slightly was going to make a run because he's he's clearly like can hear everything he's saying.
49:44 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I'm with you on the Isaac was set up to to die there.
49:50 Chris Ryan? Because he's like, is Curly there? And he's like, uh, no. And he's like, good, go.
49:53 Andy Greenwald? But there are but there are a lot of things like there's just like a lot of domino falling coincidences and misfortune that has to happen to these people that can only happen in a completely empty building. And I think that the shows, maybe maybe a better way to frame it is the show's interest in the largest possible metaphors and arguments, I find compelling and admirable and noteworthy. The problem with that for me in terms of how it's executed on screen is that when you have a cavalier with his feet up at the table and Yutani at the other end of the table, and they have like a kind of a mid collision where they're tossing around billion dollar figures.
50:38 Andy Greenwald? I don't have much of a dog in this fight. I don't feel any sense of humanity. I don't feel any, I'm not really compelled as to why anyone wants these murderous monsters, other than the fact that they will be useful for the future alien movies. The metaphor, which is being drummed into our head quite explicitly in the text about like, what is humanity?
51:02 Chris Ryan? Right.
51:02 Andy Greenwald? What is consent? Who are the real monsters? It feels a little bit, it's not uninteresting, it's not uncompelling, it's not poorly executed. It just feels untethered, I think, from a more human story. Especially because the things that I find jarring as a viewer interested in the human emotional stuff is the like, the sense that no matter what, we are going to get scenes where Cavalier is reading Peter Pan to us, and that there's going to be something analogous happening. Or the fact that the characters are going to keep referring to each other as the boy genius and Dame Sylvia, which feels very affected.
51:38 Chris Ryan? Sure.
51:38 Andy Greenwald? And very much like, no, no, you will watch what I want you to watch here, and not particularly organic.
51:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I mean, I think honestly, it's a place where without Babu Sisay and Timothy Olyphant, I think I probably would be on the border of being like, I can't watch this.
51:54 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. Should we talk about that scene?
51:57 Chris Ryan? But they are so good, and their characters are so interesting that I almost feel like it gives me hope for like, future seasons of the show.
52:07 Andy Greenwald? We should have started there. The scene with them in the elevator was maybe the best scene of the season so far.
52:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:13 Andy Greenwald? Everything about that scene was wonderful.
52:15 Chris Ryan? Also, I mean, I also love the Olyphant, Alex Lothar scene. Where he's just like.
52:21 Andy Greenwald? The onion and the star. Yeah, I love those actors. It was a good scene, but, but the idea that, is this my sister, is it not? Will I play, will I get to take her home? Like, that feels established to me.
52:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:34 Andy Greenwald? The thing, because that's all in the realm of the theoretical, and in the past, and also potentially in the future, beyond the season. The thing that feels extremely present is the tension between the full machine and the half machine, who are on opposite sides, maybe, or maybe not.
52:48 Chris Ryan? Or maybe not.
52:48 Andy Greenwald? Of some sort of like, end stage capitalism world war. That's super sick.
52:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:54 Andy Greenwald? The dialogue was sick, where he says, what does he say? I'll see you soon, old toy?
52:59 Andy Greenwald? Hell yeah. That was awesome.
53:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:02 Andy Greenwald? And it's hard to go from, from the highs of that to everything else. But look, this is the nature of contemporary TV where you were referring to it. And I think you're right to like, how much is table setting? We don't know. We don't know the health of the show. We don't know the long-term prospects of the show. We don't know where this is going. I do find myself yearning for more of what's going on right now.
53:27 Andy Greenwald? Speaking of things that are going on right now with the show, as the resident alienologist, I have to get your read on the Tina Morph, I want to call it. The sort of baby Groot.
53:39 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah. That Wendy is.
53:42 Andy Greenwald? Wendy likes.
53:42 Chris Ryan? Sweet singing to.
53:43 Andy Greenwald? Clicking and chattering to.
53:46 Chris Ryan? Just click.
53:48 Andy Greenwald? Look, no one in this room understands how quickly kids grow up more than I do.
53:54 Andy Greenwald? It does seem.
53:54 Chris Ryan? They grow real fast.
53:55 Andy Greenwald? It seems really fast.
53:57 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:58 Andy Greenwald? Is that canonical?
53:59 Chris Ryan? We have now either moved way past my grasp of alien types.
54:05 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
54:06 Chris Ryan? And what they are capable of. And I didn't know they talked, you know? Like, I didn't know there was a fly.
54:12 Andy Greenwald? You didn't know they talked?
54:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
54:13 Andy Greenwald? What'd you think they did?
54:15 Chris Ryan? Fucking slam their chompers into people's head pieces and then cocoon them and make babies out of them.
54:21 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
54:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
54:22 Andy Greenwald? But what do they do when they get tired of that?
54:24 Chris Ryan? I don't know. It seems like they're in eggs until dipshits find them like all the time. Like, it never occurred to me that these things were like, like, I like.
54:32 Andy Greenwald? You don't think they like to like stream Netflix at the end of a long day?
54:35 Chris Ryan? Kind of off-brand Altman, like, kind of really tough-to-find Altman movies. So, uh, it's, we're beyond my expertise here, you know?
54:45 Andy Greenwald? It's funny because, again, this is the, I find the show really fascinating also because of what it says about what we are making and what we are capable of making and what the limits of it on television. The ideas, and, and look, the way, the way a lot of jobs go, like Noah is a very established, Emmy award-winning, proven track record creator. He doesn't need to like pitch for things or be in a bake-off, right? He does what he wants to do and he has a good relationship with FX that allows him to do it. But. A lot of the way the industry works now is, you know, they have a, the studios or the streamers have a project or a property or an old movie or an IP or something, a book, and they hear takes. And it is very much about the power and the stickiness of the idea and the takes that
55:29 Andy Greenwald? you deliver in that initial meeting. And although the actual work is stitching together those takes and big ideas into something that flows and entertains and inspires or whatever, one, two, five years down the road, a lot of the initial enthusiasm and the green lights and all the money flowing comes from that very first burst of ideas. And we were not there for that. We cannot, we can't actually know what that was like in terms of Noah talking to the bosses at FX and the rights holders. But his ideas are really great.
56:00 Chris Ryan? Hmm.
56:02 Andy Greenwald? You know about this kind of artificial person? There's going to be a third kind of artificial person. You've heard of Waylon Yutani. There are four other corporations. The earth is run that way. You think there's one kind of alien? There's also the absolute sickest shit pulled from the nightmares you wish you'd never have.
56:17 Chris Ryan? Sure.
56:17 Andy Greenwald? And I'm going to put that on screen. Each one is going to be delivered like in a, like a-
56:21 Chris Ryan? You know what's creepy? The way lambs look at you. You know, like, let's get those guys on screen.
56:26 Andy Greenwald? Weirdly, maybe this is just my TV brain collapsing, but there's a moment in the fourth episode of The Paper where Esmeralda tells Ned that he has goat eyes. And he spends the rest of the episode with a non eyeball alien, but like with, with a goat's face on his screen, comparing it to his own face. Like, I don't want to underrate the stickiness and effectiveness of those big touchstone beats that are in the series.
56:53 Chris Ryan? I think even like, honestly, like, you know, I can complain about the quote unquote stupidity or like the lack of logic in certain decisions, or even just like, I just don't think even in the most move fast break things company, only one person would be watching.
57:08 Chris Ryan? The shit, you know, but in the first Alien film, it's Ash and the second Alien film, it's Burke, but these characters who are like, A, working with different instructions than everybody else and B, you know, essentially like, um, uh, like undoing the work that the other characters are doing to make sure that the aliens are kept and brought back for study and for exploitation. What if you had a show full of those people? Like, what if everybody was essentially, you know, off in some way or had their own agenda? And it's just, that's a really good idea. There's not a ton. I mean, even, I would go as far
57:49 Chris Ryan? as say is that Hermit is the least interesting character and he's probably the most like the heroes of past Alien movies.
57:56 Andy Greenwald? Yes, it's, but again, you can feel the pivot and the strength of the zag in the initial pitches about what the show is going to be. You are used to, you being the audience, certain archetypes being in these stories and in these films. I'm going to focus on children in robot bodies. Now, in practice, when it's already way too far down the road to undo it, it seems, at least as far as I think we're both concerned, that that's the weakest part of the show, which is frustrating, honestly. But it's a passion project, clearly.
58:27 Chris Ryan? I will say this, Noel Holly has not traditionally shown a ton of interest in doing the same thing twice. And I do wonder whether or not, as this show moves forward, whether it takes any kind of time jump or what, if certain characters go by the wayside. Don't know, I haven't watched it ahead. I'm just saying, like, think about Fargo and think about where he's like, yeah, there's connective tissue and there's maybe things from...
58:48 Andy Greenwald? But I'm interested in something else.
58:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah, now I want to move on.
58:50 Andy Greenwald? I respect that. Can I make one small, like fantasy baseball type pitch for the show, which is, it doesn't work like this. But I kind of wish that all of the boy cavalier, boy genius scenes had been outsourced to Jesse Armstrong. Like, I think there was, I wish there was a little more Mountain Head in my Alien Earth.
59:13 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:15 Andy Greenwald? Because the character is...
59:18 Andy Greenwald? To my, it's not working this many episodes in and it could just be a real estate problem because there are a lot of characters and there's a lot going on and so far what he does is just sort of giggle about how smart he is and let chaos unfold and think it's going to work out for him. I have not watched it. I feel fairly confident it's not going to work out for him in some pretty horrific ways.
59:36 Chris Ryan? The alien timeline suggests that's the case.
59:38 Andy Greenwald? Exactly. That said, I would like more to that character who is, you know, the driver of a lot of the story and that he's like created these children, robot, baby people who are also trillion dollar investments in interstellar travel. And is also like orchestrated the ship crashing and is being very fast and loose with the creations. I would like more to it than I just want someone smart enough to have a conversation with me. And I put my feet on the table. I would, I just, there's-
1:00:06 Chris Ryan? I completely agree with you. The feet is a thing that you could be like, if they just had him always be barefoot, but acting like, sitting like a normal person. You would be like, that's an interesting thing that he never wears shoes. I noticed that. And instead he's like, by the way, I don't wear shoes, you know, and it's like, it's always-
1:00:25 Andy Greenwald? And everyone in the room is like, please.
1:00:27 Chris Ryan? Ooh, yeah.
1:00:28 Andy Greenwald? Or, wow, that guy really-
1:00:30 Chris Ryan? What an iconoclast.
1:00:33 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, it's, look, it's fun to talk about the show and it's engaging to even, even the-
1:00:40 Chris Ryan? It's got something to it.
1:00:41 Andy Greenwald? Even critiquing it. It just strikes me as an example of something that has remarkably good ideas. And good-
1:00:51 Chris Ryan? I can tell when I'm dragging you to, you know, like we gotta keep doing this and I know that you're not doing that with this, so.
1:00:58 Andy Greenwald? No.
1:00:59 Chris Ryan? Deep down, you're just a little lamb with a third eye.
1:01:03 Andy Greenwald? No, it's a second eye.
1:01:04 Chris Ryan? The second eye, but it's the third one he got, yeah.
1:01:06 Andy Greenwald? What, a lot of eye talk. Kersh and Morrow are like, oh, no pain, like even when your eye explodes, like that'll be more fun.
1:01:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:01:15 Andy Greenwald? You know, once you're just, again, we can wrap up, but I, you, you, you, you wear a lot of hats, literally, on the podcast, but also here at Ringer Spotify HQ. You're more of an office guy, you know, than I am.
1:01:29 Chris Ryan? Being in the office?
1:01:29 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, so just generally, what do you think of the office vibe at the Boy Genius's-
1:01:35 Chris Ryan? At Prodigy?
1:01:36 Andy Greenwald? Prodigy Retreat, like- There are a lot of cameras.
1:01:39 Chris Ryan? Yes.
1:01:41 Andy Greenwald? So not a lot of privacy. That said, people do seem to be able to make their own hours. And you have access to everything, you know? Like, there's no sense that like, like, I don't know if you could walk into Bill's studio next door as easily as all the characters walk into the secure lab.
1:01:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I just think that, I think that there are things that they're doing on this show to like, just facilitate plot happening, rather than be like, wouldn't there just be more security, you know?
1:02:10 Andy Greenwald? I mean, I-
1:02:11 Chris Ryan? I guess the idea is that they're all preparing for an attack by Yutani.
1:02:15 Andy Greenwald? From the outside.
1:02:16 Chris Ryan? So that's why it's so empty in there, but pretty frequently, I find that like, it's a room with just Arthur in it, you know?
1:02:23 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I mean-
1:02:24 Chris Ryan? And so I wouldn't fire him.
1:02:25 Andy Greenwald? For, for, no, exactly.
1:02:26 Chris Ryan? It's like 50% of the staff.
1:02:28 Andy Greenwald? And for personal, just to bring my own personal, you know, experience to it, like, I only got a badge today.
1:02:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:02:33 Andy Greenwald? To get in here.
1:02:34 Chris Ryan? Don't get too comfortable.
1:02:35 Andy Greenwald? I'm, I couldn't be less comfortable. This is, this is year 13 and a half of the podcast, you know? So, just saying.
1:02:43 Chris Ryan? Well, break there. We'll be back.
1:02:46 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
1:02:46 Chris Ryan? Thank you to Kaya, thank you to Kai, thank you to John, thank you to everybody. We are gonna come back on Monday and do Task and Emmys.
1:02:53 Andy Greenwald? It's gonna be a good day for us. You're gonna have to sit through a night of Napragazi and be delighted.
1:02:58 Chris Ryan? Is he hosting the Emmys?
1:03:00 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
1:03:00 Chris Ryan? Sorry, I don't, I'm not following him on social media, so I didn't know that.
1:03:04 Andy Greenwald? But I assumed you followed CBS Sunday Mornings, which has been running their little takeout piece on him for- Let me send it to you?
1:03:11 Chris Ryan? Yes, please. Thanks to everybody, we'll talk to you guys on Monday.
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Previous ‘Task’ Is Everything We Want It to Be. Plus, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Next The Emmys Mostly Got It Right and ‘Task’ Episode 2 Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated