Pod Insights The Watch Is ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Dead on Arrival? Plus, ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 5. About this episode Chris and Andy talk about the ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ trailer (3:49), the news that Ryan Coogler’s ‘The X-Files’ reboot could premiere in movie theaters (14:49), and the end of Netflix’s biannual viewership reports (18:49). Then they discuss ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 5 (33:33) and the release of ‘The Prisoner,’ the 1967 British cult classic on the Criterion Channel (51:10). Later, they react to the rumors that Rachel Cusk’s next novel is about Natalie Portman (01:03:21).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Studio Production: Sarah Reddy
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Transcript 14,236 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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1:00 Speaker 01 The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.
1:26 Speaker 01 Shop Folgers K-Cup Pods and more at your nearest retailer.
1:35 Chris Ryan? I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, somehow Gambit has returned, it's Andy Greenwald.
1:54 Andy Greenwald? What a big show for us today.
1:56 Chris Ryan? It's a rich tapestry. Life's rich tapestry.
1:59 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
1:59 Chris Ryan? This rich pageant.
2:00 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
2:00 Chris Ryan? That's R E M. That's Andy Greenwald. I'm Chris Ryan. You can hit us up at thewatch at spotify.com.
2:05 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
2:06 Chris Ryan? We are going to be doing a mailbag. Not this week. I guess the following week. I'm trying to like plot out like, because I'm going to go away for a little chunk. But we're going to, we're going to have some stuff for you. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to do a special, I think, on Anthony Bourdain coming up.
2:20 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
2:21 Chris Ryan? And in honor of the movie Tony. TheWatch at spotify.com, thewatchpod underscore on Instagram, ringer-tv on YouTube, where we share. Share a little shingle with Prestige TV, who have been covering Cape Fear.
2:34 Andy Greenwald? It's like our own little Heron Hall. Who owns it?
2:38 Chris Ryan? Joanna is the Alice Rivers, I think. And yeah, that's what we do. We cover pop culture and mostly TV on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm Chris Ryan. Have I mentioned that?
2:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
2:48 Chris Ryan? I've been podcasting pretty much nonstop for an entire month, so it's starting to get a little gamey here.
2:53 Andy Greenwald? We're gonna get you through it. I want to thank you, and Nation thanks you, for dressing in the colors of lettuce to celebrate what we've lost as a country.
3:01 Chris Ryan? Not me. I was at Taco Bell all weekend. Stay in line.
3:06 Andy Greenwald? Stay in line. They have to let you eat. Just like the Jordan Peele meme of like one trickle of sweat.
3:12 Chris Ryan? Today on the show, Andy and I are gonna talk about the following: the doomsday trailer, the X-Files possibly being a movie as well as a TV show. We're gonna talk a little bit about some Netflix numbers that popped out to me, and we're also gonna talk about the release of the classic, cult classic television show, The Prisoner, on the Criterion Channel.
3:31 Andy Greenwald? That sounds like a healthy lineup.
3:33 Chris Ryan? It is.
3:33 Andy Greenwald? I look forward to talking about it with you.
3:36 Chris Ryan? Perhaps the most important thing that's happened to this podcast since Donald Trump's reelection. Apparently Rachel Cusk is writing a novel about Natalie Portman.
3:44 Andy Greenwald? Yours, okay. For years.
3:47 Chris Ryan? For years, why?
3:48 Andy Greenwald? I start with shit like that, and you're like, why don't we save that for the special segment at the end?
3:52 Chris Ryan? I can't even say that that could feasibly go into After Dark. That would be like a crime.
3:57 Andy Greenwald? This is all I want to talk about.
3:59 Chris Ryan? And you know what? I've always said.
4:01 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
4:02 Chris Ryan? When it comes to the two Rachels, I'm a Kushner. That's just how it is.
4:06 Andy Greenwald? It's true. There are two tribes. There's also a Miss Rachel, I believe.
4:10 Chris Ryan? Yes, yeah.
4:11 Andy Greenwald? And she's on the Netflix top 10.
4:12 Chris Ryan? God bless her. And, but you're a Cusk guy. And I really need your comments on this.
4:18 Andy Greenwald? You know, I have dabbled on both sides of the aisle.
4:22 Chris Ryan? Yeah, but I feel like you're not, you don't have a house at Creation League, if you know what I'm saying.
4:27 Andy Greenwald? No, I got, I did do a time share there, and I got a host, because that book was real boring. No, it's not.
4:34 Chris Ryan? That book's cool.
4:35 Andy Greenwald? It's not good. By the way, the best part about this podcast, just I feel like in real time. There's breaking news. Judge granted a temporary restraining order to pause the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. But let's talk about Rachel Cusk instead.
4:48 Chris Ryan? Well, no, but like, what do you want me to say to that?
4:49 Andy Greenwald? Nothing.
4:50 Chris Ryan? Cause like, we live, we're just like.
4:52 Andy Greenwald? I'm on the front foot. This is great.
4:55 Chris Ryan? Do you, what judge? Judge Roy Bean? Who did that?
4:58 Andy Greenwald? What judge? Who appointed this judge? Meta people. Okay, so let's do a little backstory here. I feel like Kaya's gonna appreciate this as well.
5:05 Chris Ryan? Are we leading with this? Cause I was gonna say, you want a doomsday, then we can do.
5:09 Andy Greenwald? Okay, doomsday, then we can do Rachel Cusk. Doomsday for Natalie Portman, AKA Jane Foster, formerly Thor. How about that? There we go. Okay, okay. Let's do doomsday, but I do want to talk about the other thing.
5:20 Chris Ryan? They dropped the doomsday trailer, uh, this morning.
5:22 Andy Greenwald? Day.
5:23 Chris Ryan? Uh, and I will say, they have got some fucking cheek putting this out the Monday after Odyssey. I'm trying to think of what this would be like.
5:32 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
5:34 Chris Ryan? This would almost be like, um, you have like the crazy amazing weekend with your stepdad who just buys you all the stuff for your birthday. And then like alcoholic dad shows up on Monday and is like, hey, I got a bobblehead at the Dodgers game that I snuck into. Like, is really struggle meal hours over there at Disney. No offense, guys. But.
5:55 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
5:56 Chris Ryan? I don't think you can keep selling us the same shit.
5:59 Andy Greenwald? Look, uh,
6:02 Andy Greenwald? the concern level has gone up considerably.
6:04 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
6:05 Andy Greenwald? I'm gonna be seeing this movie. I look forward to talking about all the buildup and all the nonsense. But I, I, I saw, thanks to our friend Mina Kimes, that the ice bucket challenge is back. I would like to suggest a new challenge. Marvel put real people in an actual room challenge. The fact that after all of these years, and after all of this money, and after all of this hype, we're back in the purple halls of nowhere, dog.
6:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
6:31 Andy Greenwald? It's just negative space that's super, super dark.
6:35 Chris Ryan? And you can tell, like, as there has been reporting to, to sort of at least suggest this, these guys don't know what they're saying. They don't know what scene this is. They don't know when this scene is happening and what two movies stretch that they're in this like indefinite servitude in Atlanta to shoot. Like, they have no idea.
6:54 Andy Greenwald? And it's funny because it does. No one will be more happy than I would be if secretly the bones of this movie were strong and good.
7:03 Chris Ryan? We love, the stuff that this movie is gonna be about is like a generationally good comic run.
7:09 Andy Greenwald? The Jonathan Hickman stuff.
7:11 Chris Ryan? Yes.
7:12 Andy Greenwald? Okay, but here's my feeling watching this trailer.
7:17 Andy Greenwald? Cause I have been relatively, I think bullish on this movie.
7:22 Andy Greenwald? This weekend, I was with my, my children. We were walking in a lovely neighborhood in the northeast of Los Angeles. And across the street, we saw some branding for a place that caught my eye. It was like bright, eye catching. It had a little cartoon iconography and I was like, oh, is that a new, is that a chain? Is that something I'm supposed to know? Is that something the kids might like? And I got closer and it looked like a Japanese eatery of some kind. And you know me, I love the foods of the far east.
7:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
7:46 Andy Greenwald? And I was like, this seems exciting. And I got closer and it had like a cute name and the image of like a cat eating something that looked like sashimi. And I was like, what could be more interesting than this? You have my attention. You have me. Then I got closer and I saw that it seemed to be an entire store dedicated to selling slices of raw fish inside of cooked tofu skin.
8:09 Chris Ryan? Okay.
8:09 Andy Greenwald? Now, who among us doesn't love Yuba? You know I do.
8:14 Chris Ryan? I feel like that was.
8:15 Andy Greenwald? But my thing.
8:15 Chris Ryan? A little.
8:16 Andy Greenwald? Hold on.
8:17 Chris Ryan? It was a little unfair. You set that up so that you could show.
8:20 Andy Greenwald? No.
8:20 Chris Ryan? That you knew what Yuba was.
8:22 Andy Greenwald? Do you think anyone who's listened to this podcast for 10 years thought I didn't know the name of tofu skin?
8:26 Chris Ryan? Go ahead.
8:27 Andy Greenwald? Come on.
8:27 Chris Ryan? Go ahead.
8:28 Andy Greenwald? My point was, I don't think people want this as much as the store's optimism thinks that it does.
8:35 Chris Ryan? Yes.
8:35 Andy Greenwald? And that is how I felt being like carried along the hype winds for a few months. And then the reality of Gambit versus Shang-Chi in a dark room.
8:46 Chris Ryan? So I would have said.
8:47 Andy Greenwald? That's what I want.
8:49 Chris Ryan? Originally, with all due respect to all the characters featured in this, in this trailer.
8:56 Chris Ryan? My initial reaction was like, oh, they're doing, this is the trailer for like, like, the newer characters, the, you, you're, uh, what was the Florence P. movie? That was-
9:06 Andy Greenwald? Thunderbolts.
9:06 Chris Ryan? Thunderbolts, Asterix.
9:07 Andy Greenwald? Did you ever see Thunderbolts?
9:08 Chris Ryan? Yes, yeah. Wasn't that like your favorite movie of the year?
9:11 Andy Greenwald? I thought it was the most emotionally engaged, it was the most, yeah, it was the truest emotional movie of 2025.
9:16 Chris Ryan? Didn't you send like a weird emo text where I was like, I had real feelings and tears watching that?
9:21 Andy Greenwald? I did not say tears.
9:22 Chris Ryan? That was about people working through their trauma and pain, my favorite subject?
9:27 Andy Greenwald? That sounds like me. That does sound like me. I didn't say tears.
9:30 Chris Ryan? I thought it was fine. Um, but you see a bunch of people like Namor and Shuri and, uh, Ant-Man and Yelena and all these people. And you're like, okay, like, this is actually when you kind of think about what's happened to this cinematic universe, like, these are the, these are the guys I sort of expected. And there's a brief Cyclops, which I assume is Marsden, right?
9:51 Andy Greenwald? It's Marsden.
9:53 Chris Ryan? And get Gambit. You get, you get these glimpses of people. But I was like, oh, I bet they're gonna save the homies for like the next trailer, right? Like, they have to, they have to have-
10:04 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
10:04 Chris Ryan? Like Thor and Hulk and all the guys and the next, whatever the-
10:08 Andy Greenwald? Gone.
10:08 Chris Ryan? And they had to give away the like, Steve's back moment.
10:13 Andy Greenwald? Because they had nothing. And Thor, I mean, Thor is the star of the trailer, because he's the only remaining star of the movies that were popular.
10:19 Chris Ryan? Right.
10:19 Andy Greenwald? And, uh, the corny, the corniest thing is that it's not just that your man Steve's back. It's that they just redid the beat that made everyone scream on YouTube that he's worthy.
10:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
10:36 Andy Greenwald? They just did it again.
10:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Now, it has been, has it been 10 years?
10:40 Andy Greenwald? No.
10:41 Chris Ryan? How long is that?
10:42 Andy Greenwald? Well, seven calendar years, but COVID, so really it's only been about three or four years.
10:46 Chris Ryan? Okay.
10:47 Andy Greenwald? By my math.
10:47 Chris Ryan? Okay. Um, I just-
10:51 Chris Ryan? Ben Bradley and all the president's Ben voice. They haven't got it. Like whatever, it's a really good story. It's a really hard story to tell. The secret wars thing that they're probably trying to do here. I, I, I wonder whether or not I'm reacting to like, maybe, maybe the thing they're gonna show me is Doom. Maybe, maybe Doom will save this whole thing ironically.
11:12 Andy Greenwald? Cause they showed you the thing.
11:13 Chris Ryan? What?
11:14 Andy Greenwald? The thing.
11:14 Chris Ryan? Doom?
11:15 Andy Greenwald? No, Ben Grimm, the thing.
11:17 Chris Ryan? Yes, they showed me the thing, but maybe Doom is-
11:20 Andy Greenwald? Sorry, that's a little Marvel wordplay.
11:22 Chris Ryan? Maybe Doom is what's gonna sell this whole project and-
11:25 Andy Greenwald? Maybe.
11:26 Chris Ryan? Do you like his accent?
11:28 Andy Greenwald? Uh, no. Did you? I mean, I don't know. Do you like his accent?
11:33 Chris Ryan? I didn't know if you had any-
11:35 Andy Greenwald? Me watching the studio shows on the World Cup. Yeah, sure, I like that one, less that one.
11:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
11:40 Andy Greenwald? Uh, look, I mean, they have, they're in an interesting bind where they have, they, they have not been shy about telling us that like, one of the planks of this movie is the Thunderbolts. One of the planks of this movie is the 2000s Fox X-Men. And one of the planks of this movie is the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four. And they're like, that's, that's the big tent that we envisioned for this party. And, uh, I, to your point, I don't know if it's enough. Now, they've also done the same thing. They've tried to be cute in the same way they were with Infinity War and Endgame where they're like, Spider-Man's not in this one, but it'll be in that one, you know? And I think that they have tried to suggest that this will tee up true craziness with everyone back in the next one.
12:25 Andy Greenwald? But so far, they can't give away, you said Hulk and the gang. Like, I think the, the story is that Hulk, Spider-Man, um, these characters are not Deadpool. I imagine Deadpool will be in this movie. And I imagine that this true sign of desperation will be signaling that in the next four or six weeks.
12:45 Chris Ryan? Or like an excessive amount of Deadpool voiceover, you know?
12:48 Andy Greenwald? Or the Deadpool cut of this trailer.
12:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah, although I don't, I mean, like, I don't know where Brian Reynolds stands right now. They're putting that like, that weird May Day movie with him and Kenneth Branagh, they're just like-
12:59 Andy Greenwald? Do you know what they should do?
12:59 Chris Ryan? Dumping that on Apple TV.
13:01 Andy Greenwald? You know what the real power move would be? They put Deadpool in the movie and you know, it's multiversal, whatever. And Deadpool pulls off his mask at one point and it's Justin Baldoni.
13:10 Chris Ryan? That would be a curve ball.
13:12 Andy Greenwald? That would be, wouldn't that be so sick? Would you be so engaged with that content?
13:16 Chris Ryan? That would really.
13:17 Andy Greenwald? You would love that.
13:18 Chris Ryan? Make me really excited to see it.
13:20 Andy Greenwald? And then Lady Deadpool would be his, Mrs. Baldoni, I don't know her name. Last comment, because I think this is something we should be tracking between now and December when this movie is released.
13:31 Andy Greenwald? You have been, you have been bold, you have been brave, you have put the Russo brothers on fraud watch years ago.
13:39 Chris Ryan? Yes, ever since they ruined my beloved novel Cherry.
13:43 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
13:44 Chris Ryan? That I liked so much when they, when I was like, these guys, again, they don't have it.
13:48 Andy Greenwald? So they, they came back.
13:51 Chris Ryan? They sure did.
13:51 Andy Greenwald? And looks like they spent a lot of money in some dark sound stages in London.
13:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah, yeah.
13:56 Andy Greenwald? Look, who among us wouldn't want to spend time doing that, but okay.
14:00 Chris Ryan? They, they, it's interesting to think that this will become more of a like, expiring your contract, that these two movies that are supposed to save the MCU will become more of a like, how do we get off the doomsday thing? You know what I mean?
14:16 Andy Greenwald? That's so crushing.
14:17 Chris Ryan? So that you can get to X-Men, because that's what this is all about. It's like, if, if X-Men, if they cast X-Men right and they do it right, that will give this whole thing another 10, 15 years.
14:27 Andy Greenwald? Maybe.
14:27 Chris Ryan? Of oxygen. But if they don't, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know how much longer Disney's in this weird spot. Like, I'm not predicting that they're gonna ramp down the MCU and put it into hibernation for 10 years or something. But they've got to start making things that people actually love again. And they have not done that in a long time.
14:48 Andy Greenwald? Well, that's just not, that's not just Marvel, that's their cartoons, that's everything.
14:52 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:52 Andy Greenwald? The Moana thing is an abomination.
14:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:55 Andy Greenwald? That was ridiculous.
14:56 Chris Ryan? But Star Wars is in the mud, Moana.
14:58 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
14:59 Chris Ryan? You know, like these live action adaptations of cartoons, like Josh Demaro, come on, man, give me a call, I'll help you out.
15:06 Andy Greenwald? Do you, I believe, the, well, the rumor is that at Comic Con, the X-Men cast will be announced.
15:11 Chris Ryan? So I got hoodwinked by a tweet this weekend where I didn't retweet it.
15:16 Andy Greenwald? Hoodwinked by a tweet, my life in media.
15:18 Chris Ryan? But it was like breaking down who's like who in the X-Men, like they, here's the rumored casting and it was like Cooper Hoffman is Cyclops, Sadie Sink is Jean Grey and it kept going, keeps going and then it's like Erica Kirk is Emma Frost. I was like, damn. And I was like, wait.
15:36 Andy Greenwald? You leaned in, though. It's definitely a way to engage. Right?
15:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
15:42 Andy Greenwald? J D Vance's new baby. Somebody?
15:44 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
15:47 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in, there's a lot of smoke around some of the names that I imagine that they are not inaccurate, at least in terms of people having been engaged in like, my guy Charles Melton, apparently, joining the cast. Odessa Zion as Beast.
16:02 Chris Ryan? Oh.
16:02 Andy Greenwald? Odessa Zion as Rogue.
16:04 Chris Ryan? Oh, I'd seen Kaylee Spania as Rogue. Interesting. We're in different algorithms.
16:09 Andy Greenwald? Was that also the Turning Point USA cast list?
16:14 Andy Greenwald? That you seem to be. Okay. It's fine, you know?
16:20 Chris Ryan? I just wanted to mention that X-Files, the rebooted X-Files.
16:24 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
16:25 Chris Ryan? Which is coming from Ryan Coogler, is, it got announced over like the last couple of days that he's shooting the pilot on 65mm film. And that it's going to be a two-hour pilot that might hit theaters. And I wanted to ask you about whether or not, in your experiences, you know, obviously working as a writer and talking to people, do people seriously think through and think about the theatrical slash TV hybrid model? Because this is something that is legendarily not really worked, right? Like, people like a certain story because of the way it's told.
17:01 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
17:01 Chris Ryan? In a certain medium, there's a real like logic to X-Files shows. Now, their movies, I happen to really like the X-Files movies.
17:09 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
17:10 Chris Ryan? But they, I wouldn't say that they gave X-Files like a whole new birth, you know, like of life.
17:16 Andy Greenwald? I think it's a good question. I, no one thinks or talks about that in terms of like actually a hybrid strategy.
17:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, because every once in a while, like, somebody comes along and they're like, I'm gonna do Dark Tower and it's gonna be five seasons and two movies.
17:28 Andy Greenwald? That, that doesn't work. But what does work, I think, and this, I'm sure they've talked about it, this would be a good topic for the big picture too, is there has been a blurring of lines and maybe, I don't mean of standards, but of like.
17:43 Andy Greenwald? Putting things in theaters as a way of getting enthusiasm, of building excitement, of signifying something important or major, works and has worked increasingly, I think, as the movie theater, to the degree that it is surviving, is surviving as a place for true unbridled hype and communal experience. So Stranger Things finale, I think, premiered in theaters, or at least it was a theater opportunity experience that weekend. I think you were away when I talked about this, but a Netflix, formerly YouTube, then Netflix show that my daughters loved called The Amazing Digital Circus premiered its final episode in theaters a week before it went on Netflix.
18:22 Chris Ryan? And it did like 25 million, right?
18:24 Andy Greenwald? Yes. And some of those millions were mine. No, some of those dollars that added up to the millions are mine. I am not a Stubbs member, so I had to pay full boat. And that works. So I think in this case, which is a reboot of a property with real cultural legs and memory, from a filmmaker, one of the few filmmakers who can open movies.
18:46 Chris Ryan? Sure.
18:47 Andy Greenwald? I think it's incredibly smart way to get people watching the TV show, especially if, as you said, they're filming it anyway, and it's gonna look amazing on people's nice televisions, why not?
18:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I have no, I mean, I wanna see him, Esh Patel and Daniel Dedweiler.
19:02 Andy Greenwald? It's such a good cast.
19:03 Chris Ryan? Find aliens. Like, that can happen in any way. Part of the sort of thrill of watching and even going back to watch X-Files is the variance from episode to episode, because they were still operating in that 20 per year, 20 per season model.
19:18 Andy Greenwald? They sure were.
19:19 Chris Ryan? And there are some duds, there are some funny ones, there are some good Monsters of the Week, there are some great serialized stories, and, you know, I don't know whether this will be like an eight-episode kind of prestige-y feel, or whether they'll try to recapture some of that original energy. I would have to imagine if Kugler was like spending time with it, it's because he likes the totality of X-Files and not just like.
19:40 Andy Greenwald? I hope so.
19:41 Chris Ryan? Fox Mulder's sister got disappeared, you know?
19:43 Andy Greenwald? She did.
19:44 Chris Ryan? She did.
19:45 Andy Greenwald? She did. You know who else's sister disappeared was John Sugar from the television show Sugar.
19:50 Chris Ryan? Honestly, the tie-in is right there.
19:52 Andy Greenwald? It's obvi-
19:54 Andy Greenwald? I just got chills.
19:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Sugar files.
19:57 Andy Greenwald? If the X, no, but the thing is, the new X-Files get the case. And we're like, oh, my God, Detective John Sugar is going to be outed as an alien by the X-Files. But actually, the case is, who the fuck greenlit this? Where he's an alien. And so the investigation is coming for, is a Hollywood story. I like that. Yeah, good.
20:16 Chris Ryan? Good.
20:16 Andy Greenwald? Good.
20:17 Chris Ryan? Okay.
20:17 Andy Greenwald? X-Files, great.
20:19 Chris Ryan? Netflix releases its last biannual what we watched report. Moment of silence for that.
20:25 Andy Greenwald? Explain this to me, it's the last.
20:26 Chris Ryan? They had been releasing biannual reports about what, you know, they're, for the sake of transparency, they're, some of their data on, on.
20:35 Andy Greenwald? Right.
20:36 Chris Ryan? What shows were being watched, what capacity, where, all that stuff. And I think that the idea was that that was supposed to be a nod to, not only transparency to customers, but to creators and also to investors in Netflix. It's like, check out the incredible number we had on Stranger Things.
20:54 Andy Greenwald? Yes. And particularly if it's things like the ones you just mentioned, which are properties they own.
20:59 Chris Ryan? Yes. And now they have announced that they're going to go to an annual model. I think the reason this jumped out when I read about it in Deadline was because I know that Trump had sort of been like, why are we doing quarterly financial reports anymore? Which seems like that would benefit somebody like Trump, but not.
21:18 Andy Greenwald? Well, isn't he, isn't he too busy selling early market moving tweets to Twitter social?
21:23 Chris Ryan? So I, you know, I'm not saying that Netflix is trying to manipulate the market. And as much as I know, I, I think this, this became of note because we're in this weird moment with Netflix where for our purposes.
21:36 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
21:37 Chris Ryan? We have not gone to it as much, you know, like.
21:39 Andy Greenwald? For what we cover.
21:40 Chris Ryan? Yes, like, there is still entertaining content on the service and they're, they're obviously putting themselves a little bit more in the center of the live television experience by doing all these wrestling and comedy and, you know, they've got NFL games, they have NBA games.
21:56 Andy Greenwald? They had the home run derby.
21:57 Chris Ryan? Yeah, they had the home run derby. So they're in the mix now and that is a bigger deal to them than Ripley, right?
22:03 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, sure.
22:04 Chris Ryan? But I, I found it very interesting that, you know, not only some of the highlights over the last four years, which Deadline accumulated.
22:14 Chris Ryan? Some stats from like basically the era that they were doing biannual reporting. And you know, there were some interesting things like among the top 20 shows over the last four years, Eric Bana's Forest Ranger show Untamed, which nary a person, I think other than me, watched.
22:31 Andy Greenwald? Say more about that.
22:32 Chris Ryan? Well, I like mountains and I like national parks.
22:35 Andy Greenwald? I like Eric Bana.
22:36 Chris Ryan? I like Eric Bana.
22:37 Andy Greenwald? Is it a scripted series or does he just go to mountains?
22:39 Chris Ryan? Honestly, it probably would have been better if it was the latter, but it is a scripted series. And while I enjoyed it, it is, it gets, it's a real like this should have been a three episode show or a two hour movie, but instead now we have four or five episodes that are about like your complicated relationship with your daughter.
22:55 Andy Greenwald? Now, hold on. Now I'm interested.
23:00 Chris Ryan? I think also, given the fact that we kind of dropped off Squid Game after season one.
23:05 Andy Greenwald? We did.
23:06 Chris Ryan? And I could never really tell how popular it was. It is insanely popular and is the, I believe, the most recent. There's, there's two seasons of Squid Game in the top three shows of the last four years. Adolescence is number two and it speaks to like what a phenomenon that was. And I would be shocked knowing that if they didn't figure out a way, if not to like bring back that specific character group to do something anthology around it.
23:36 Andy Greenwald? I believe it's happened.
23:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I mean, like it just is like you, this was lightning in a bottle.
23:41 Andy Greenwald? There were rumors that our friend of our pod, dear friend, Kate Winslet was circling a role in a second season of Adolescence.
23:47 Chris Ryan? Really?
23:48 Andy Greenwald? I don't know. I don't know that it's based on anything. I mean, I believe I got that from Turning Point, as I say, as well, but.
23:55 Chris Ryan? So those are some of the, you know, Adolescence, The Gentleman did very well over the last four years. Basically all of Stranger Things is in the top 20 for the last four years. From this year and from January to June, this is their top 10.
24:07 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
24:08 Chris Ryan? His and hers.
24:08 Andy Greenwald? Which, by the way, I'm shocked by.
24:11 Chris Ryan? Me too.
24:11 Andy Greenwald? Not, you know, not because we're not stakeholders in Bernthal Holdings Limited.
24:15 Chris Ryan? I'm, I'm legitimately like, I had no idea that this was a essentially a blockbuster. It's above Bridgerton.
24:21 Andy Greenwald? And it was not well received, I would say by critically, but clearly audiences.
24:26 Chris Ryan? That's the Tessa Thompson John Bernthal thriller. Bridgerton, I Will Find You, which I think is one of the Harlan Coben shows. Stranger Things, season five, the last season, which I guess. Technically came out in 25, right?
24:38 Andy Greenwald? I would hope so, because otherwise Stranger Things, season five, getting half the numbers of his and hers would be catastrophic.
24:44 Chris Ryan? Well, I don't know if it's half the numbers, or is it like a decimal point below? But I'm just reading-
24:48 Andy Greenwald? Or is it that most people were so excited about that show, they watched it the minute it came out?
24:52 Chris Ryan? Yes, and I also like Netflix's way of calculating its popularity could have to do more with, I mean, they say it had 56 million, I think, views.
25:03 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
25:04 Chris Ryan? I don't, I think there's another 50 million who watched it the day it, you know, it came out. And season five also was broken down, it's such like a long stretch out. Runaway, I don't know what that is. Teach You A Lesson, I don't know what that is. One Piece, you know what that is.
25:20 Andy Greenwald? Well played.
25:22 Chris Ryan? Man on Fire, which to my great regret, we did not discuss, was number eight. Miss Rachel, number nine, and The Night Agent, season three, number 10.
25:31 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
25:32 Chris Ryan? Do you look at that and divine any great learnings?
25:37 Andy Greenwald? Not particularly. I mean, I think that everything that we recognize on here, I think, tracks to us as what works on Netflix. And certainly, we know, one of the reasons we know that is because they make a lot of shows that feel like these shows, that fit into certain boxes. Things that will work better on their service. I think the bigger conversation here is more about what you were saying in terms of how they are evolving their service and the future that they see for it. The A-side to this B-side story about how they're going to change their reporting is they missed their earnings again, and their stock tumbled considerably this week. It was, their stock dropped 9.5%.
26:21 Andy Greenwald? It's the second straight miss that they've had, and the financial reporting, of which I'm responsible for none, and I don't fully understand, said that it was mostly to do with a reassessment of what the company's strengths and plans are after the failed Warner Brothers bid, which I think perplexed investors, and sort of mixed-
26:45 Andy Greenwald? Results for what they care about in terms of the expansion. That's why the other story this week that was bubbling was people were asking Netflix, when are you going to launch a fast service? When are you going to launch an ad-supported service? When are you going to?
26:58 Chris Ryan? They have some ad tiers and now they've talked about having some always-on channels on Netflix.
27:02 Andy Greenwald? Right, so what seemed, there's two ways to look at it. One way to look at it is Netflix is a juggernaut and can experiment with almost anything. And it is still kind of de facto streaming TV for most households. And that's an advantage that the other companies can never reach or a gulf they can never reach. The other version of looking at it is they're trying anything. They are trying anything to try to get some purchase, like get their boots on the ground of something sustainable. Because the go-go-go, we will just keep spending to show growth, to get investor confidence. That inevitably hits some sort of a ceiling.
27:42 Andy Greenwald? And again, this is not me concerned trolling Netflix, but it is interesting in terms of its identity. And the way we always approach it, from what we do here, is what is the scripted television? Like, what is, what are their calling cards? What is their business in that? And I wonder if internally, what the ratio of... What's the Venn diagram of Netflix's value and growth areas when you're actually in the boardrooms? Is it, how do we expand into live programming and sports to become the de facto hub? Is it, do we do a commercial tier? How loud are the voices saying, no, no, more Stranger Things original shows on Broadway?
28:25 Chris Ryan? Right.
28:25 Andy Greenwald? Literally, though, like in terms of like merch and K-pop Demon Hunters and becoming a brand in that sense. I don't know, but it's an interesting moment to see a company that is absolutely dominant. Struggling, and I'm putting that in quotes. It is not struggling, but in terms of its identity.
28:39 Chris Ryan? It's cash positive now. It's just one of those, if I remember the most recent thing I read, it was like Netflix is actually making money. It's just that it's stock price and it's
28:47 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, and
28:48 Chris Ryan? It's like perception to the town and to Wall Street is a little bit rusty right now.
28:53 Andy Greenwald? And when you become, when you return to opacity, when you get less transparent, let's say, with your data, which is what they're doing by going from twice a year to one a year, that will make people skittish.
29:07 Chris Ryan? I think my big learning from this is there is now a Netflix genre. And that it's not quite CBS, but bingeable. And it's not quite like Apple, but a little bit faster and dirtier and, you know, I, there's something about this, the sort of like, there's a lot of grabby thrillers.
29:32 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
29:32 Chris Ryan? There's a lot of genre stuff, but genre stuff that isn't like, I don't find particularly like what I go to for genre.
29:40 Andy Greenwald? Like the Coben industry.
29:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah, or maybe even Night Agent, which I think like I watched a little bit of the first season and thought it was fine. And that was, but the idea that it's a juggernaut show is kind of surprising to me. But it's interesting because you and I spend so much time talking about these HBO shows and talking about these Apple shows and, you know, other streamers. And this is really, obviously like dwarfs a lot of what we talk about in terms of how many people are watching this. But I don't really find many shows there to talk about in order to really like interrogate. And maybe that's my failing as a commentator, you know. But there maybe is like a transition here where you're seeing the end of the Peter Friedlander era, who was there when they were putting up Ripley and maybe some of their international purchases were more interesting.
30:25 Andy Greenwald? He was there for a beginning.
30:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And he was there for a very long time. Now he's at Amazon. And
30:31 Chris Ryan? I don't think they really care about whether or not they win best drama at the Emmys. I mean, like, I think Adolescence is really nice for them. I think Baby Ranger is really nice for them. Baby Ranger has done historically well for them over the last four or five years. But I don't really see a ton of stuff on here where they're like, ooh, wish we could be competing with White Lotus this year, you know?
30:48 Andy Greenwald? Well, the other thing that they've abandoned, for the most part, is third seasons. And increasingly, like, two seasons is starting to seem like a lot.
30:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
30:55 Andy Greenwald? And that is because they are so cutthroat about the data, and they're like, the numbers go down.
30:59 Chris Ryan? Well, they're abandoning those for the shows that we might watch. They're not abandoning it for, like, Ransom Canyon and Virgin River.
31:05 Andy Greenwald? No, but those shows don't get seven years.
31:09 Chris Ryan? Uh, there's a couple that do.
31:11 Andy Greenwald? Well, like, Lincoln Lawyer, I think, just got cut down after five, and that's a huge show for them.
31:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah, but they have, like, a kind of weird, like, middle-aged CW kind of show, where it's like, a guy who has a general store.
31:22 Andy Greenwald? Do you know what the CW stands for? Conventional Wisdom.
31:24 Chris Ryan? Yeah. They have, like, those shows where it's like, she's a divorced mom and he bridles horses.
31:31 Andy Greenwald? First of all, Minka Kelly deserves paychecks.
31:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
31:34 Andy Greenwald? So I think that's awesome.
31:36 Chris Ryan? Sure.
31:36 Andy Greenwald? Two, inside baseball on this. Years ago, when Netflix was getting into scripted, I remember there would be interviews with Tina Fey, and they'd be like, oh, Tina, you've only made shows for NBC, and now you're making, this case it was Kimmy Schmidt.
31:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
31:51 Andy Greenwald? And they were like, what are you learning? You know, what insights are you getting? And she's like, they tell us nothing. We know nothing about who's watching our show or what they think about it. We just deliver it, and we don't have to do 21 minutes anymore. We can go longer.
32:04 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
32:05 Andy Greenwald? I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. But I recently was having a conversation with the head of a studio who works with Netflix, and his point was, they remain incredibly opaque about algorithmic data, about like, who, what, when. The thing that drives every decision they make is next, next, next. That is their note. And you can tell by the shows that they make, is will you end on a beat so undeniable that people will start watching?
32:36 Chris Ryan? People are gonna have to watch the next thing.
32:36 Andy Greenwald? The next one.
32:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
32:37 Andy Greenwald? And it's interesting to, I would put this out to our audience, too. If you're watching a show on a different service, maybe even one that drops shows weekly, but you start to feel that cadence, look in the trades and see who is bidding on it. Because there are examples out there of shows that were expressly developed for Netflix or for that model that have ended up on other services.
33:01 Chris Ryan? On Apple or whatever, yeah.
33:02 Andy Greenwald? That don't do it.
33:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:03 Andy Greenwald? And I wonder if that changes your interaction with that show.
33:05 Chris Ryan? And on the flip side of that, I will say Tina Fey, her most recent creation for Netflix is The Four Seasons. Oddly has lots of like grabby, kind of like, are they gonna break up moments? Where like, most of the show is like, people making kind of like affectionate mid funny jokes about Thanksgiving dinner. And then at the end, it's like, but whose baby is this? You know, like.
33:28 Andy Greenwald? Did you watch the second season?
33:29 Chris Ryan? I did, yeah.
33:30 Andy Greenwald? We don't talk about this stuff.
33:31 Chris Ryan? Well, because there's like a kind of television watching experience that I have with my wife, where we watch half hour comedies as a kind of.
33:39 Andy Greenwald? A come down.
33:40 Chris Ryan? Like a bedtime routine, yeah. Like it's like a.
33:42 Andy Greenwald? Oh, I, it was weird. In retrospect, it was weird when you invited me over that time. Sort of like, let's settle.
33:49 Chris Ryan? Just right, right in the middle.
33:50 Andy Greenwald? Guys?
33:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:51 Andy Greenwald? What's on tonight? I mean, I.
33:53 Chris Ryan? That's the invite, that's what the invite's about.
33:55 Andy Greenwald? Truly, I have watched into season two of Four Seasons, but I, like you, I'm like, I don't really have anything insightful to say.
34:04 Chris Ryan? You're different than me in that I don't think that you want to watch television to feel completely brain dead. Like, I think you're always like, is this good? And I'm like, I don't really care. You know, like, there is a kind of television that I will watch that is essentially like watching paint dry.
34:21 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
34:23 Chris Ryan? And sometimes I just need to turn it off, man. It's on a lot.
34:26 Andy Greenwald? The brain.
34:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
34:27 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I'm trying to think if I, uh, no, not really. I mean, I think that the equivalent for that for me is like, ending the night with, like, my younger daughter's really, really obsessed with like, treasure hunting the last 10 years of The Simpsons. We've talked about this, so she'll be like, there's a funny one in episode, in season 34.
34:45 Chris Ryan? I'm like that with SVU. Yeah.
34:47 Andy Greenwald? Are you?
34:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I'm like, there's a cult in this one. Let's go.
34:50 Andy Greenwald? It's nice, though. We, I feel like that there's some servicy elements we could be exploiting in this, but maybe not.
34:56 Chris Ryan? How to watch SVU.
34:58 Andy Greenwald? Simpsons victim unit.
35:00 Chris Ryan? A deplorable person.
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38:04 Chris Ryan? Let's talk about House of the Dragon. I was very curious to know how you would feel. I don't even... Did we talk about the last one together? Or was I gone?
38:11 Andy Greenwald? I think I referred to it in passing.
38:13 Chris Ryan? You were gone and then I was... I think I was...
38:16 Andy Greenwald? You talked to Joe about it.
38:17 Chris Ryan? Yes.
38:17 Andy Greenwald? And I believe I used the words fucking interminable.
38:21 Chris Ryan? How did you feel about this one?
38:22 Andy Greenwald? Even longer.
38:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
38:24 Andy Greenwald? It is a absolute struggle for me. And I don't get a lot of pleasure out of it. However, I do have three points of light, because I do like to be positive. Is there anything about this episode that you would like to highlight or shout out? Because the feeling that I dislike most, that the show services mostly now, is this inexorable churn towards plot points. And I feel the weight of characters interacting just to get to the next plot point, with very little room for brightness or light, or even a feeling of... Obviously, nothing about the show is improvised, but any kind of spark, as opposed to churning towards the gloom and doom that we are headed towards.
39:08 Andy Greenwald? And I find that just... That is a television experience that I do not enjoy.
39:12 Chris Ryan? I wouldn't get your hopes up about this being an upbeat show. So I mean, like, obviously, there's gonna be probably a degree to which the storytelling and the tone of the show mirrors what its eventual conclusion is.
39:26 Chris Ryan? I will say that the reason why I've been a little bit more forgiving or into these last couple of episodes than you is that I am far more interested in this particular set of characters that have been kind of introduced over the... maybe this season especially.
39:43 Chris Ryan? I wish they were the original lineup. Like, I wish this had been three seasons with these people rather than three episodes as they've kind of broken out of the Targaryen Valyrian.
39:53 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
39:53 Chris Ryan? Uh, camp and started to bring in Starks and different people coming to petition Rhaenyra. And like, I'm like, that guy's interesting. This person's interesting. What's? I kind of now wish that this entire show had been
40:07 Chris Ryan? a little bit more outside the walls of King's Landing.
40:10 Andy Greenwald? Listen.
40:11 Chris Ryan? And, um, I can see what they're trying to do. I think the Rhaenyra, like, I, in some ways, I think what they're doing with Rhaenyra is more sure-handed than what they did with Daenerys.
40:23 Chris Ryan? I don't know if this is a controversial statement, but
40:24 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, absolutely.
40:25 Chris Ryan? in terms of depicting how someone starts to become undone.
40:28 Andy Greenwald? Absolutely. And, you know, that is, in a positive note, because she has reclaimed the throne and has had not just a number of episodes, but that one episode in particular that was the real season standout.
40:40 Chris Ryan? Yes.
40:41 Andy Greenwald? We, there's room to maneuver a performance towards something. And, and not indicate, you know, I think one of the nice things about, um, my God, Emma Darcy.
40:51 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
40:52 Andy Greenwald? Performance is that, um, it's not telegraphing. It is quite present. Um, almost to the point of like, you kind of feel like Damon being like, you're still hung up on that.
41:02 Chris Ryan? Well, she's being suffocated by like, the fact that every, every conversation she has opens up a trap door of another problem.
41:09 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
41:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
41:10 Andy Greenwald? But yeah, I think that's a very smart observation about something that this show does, is, is able to take more interest in.
41:16 Chris Ryan? Like Ormond and Darren, the Stark Wolves, Kristen Cole and Gwain specifically being like guerrilla army. Even like random scenes where it's like Jane of Erin, you know, Jane Erin of the Vale or whatever that her name is, like, she's, she's like, kind of got something.
41:35 Andy Greenwald? She's got spark.
41:36 Chris Ryan? But I think it would be cool, there's probably not enough plot to have done, what's the Vale been doing the entire time this show is going on?
41:44 Andy Greenwald? Well- Exactly in what you said, there's not enough textual plot. Like, a creative enterprise that was differently enabled and empowered could come up with a good story.
41:56 Chris Ryan? Sure.
41:56 Andy Greenwald? You know, to set there in the backdrop of something, but that's not the show.
41:59 Chris Ryan? It's an adaptation. I mean, what are you gonna do, right?
42:02 Andy Greenwald? Well, there's some things you could do.
42:04 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
42:04 Andy Greenwald? But that is not the remit of the show, and I'm not gonna sit here for the third straight year.
42:09 Chris Ryan? Sunshine and Graham crackers. What's going on? What is your love?
42:13 Andy Greenwald? I, because, let me do, let me do just one more like kidney punch before we get started. Just that, I'm watching the show week to week, and there are moments where I'm like, man, they're hanging some of these actors out to dry. And like, the dude who plays Eamonn, and like, when he got his script, you know, he's sitting in his trailer and he's putting on his wig, or they're brushing out his long locks.
42:38 Chris Ryan? I think it's a wig.
42:39 Andy Greenwald? And it's like, we don't know.
42:41 Chris Ryan? I mean, I would imagine it's a wig.
42:42 Andy Greenwald? It's probably a wig.
42:43 Chris Ryan? Really damage your hair bleaching it like that.
42:45 Andy Greenwald? And people do things for their art, Chris, you know?
42:50 Andy Greenwald? And he's like, okay, what am I gonna do today? And it's just like, Eamonn wakes up half nude screaming about dragons in hell in a haunted bed. And he's like, yeah, I can see that. Or, he's like, all right, go. And he's like, no, mother! Can we get a little more on the no? It's like, dude.
43:10 Chris Ryan? He's Eamonn Targaryen. He's not gonna be managing a fantasy Premier League team. Like, I don't know what you want him to be doing.
43:15 Andy Greenwald? It's not what I want him to be doing. It's just like, first of all, we are fucking back in the haunted house again with the trees.
43:20 Chris Ryan? I am not a hair and hog guy.
43:21 Andy Greenwald? It's so boring. But second, it's just like-
43:23 Chris Ryan? I like Grace Rankin and Alice, and she's interesting.
43:25 Andy Greenwald? Gil Rankin is here on my list.
43:26 Chris Ryan? Sorry, Gil Rankin.
43:27 Andy Greenwald? But it's just like, there are incredible performers elevating almost every scene. And I think that if you just look at the bones of it, some of these scenes are pretty thankless in terms of the opportunities for actors to do what they do best and to enliven something. So I wanted to shout out three performers on this show who I look forward to seeing every time they're on the screen. And one, I have to highlight because it is a zero to hero arc. Which is our guy Fabian Frankel. That's Kristen Cole. I'm not, you know, you know, if nothing else, I'm accountable. And-
44:01 Chris Ryan? How much of this is Detective Grosso?
44:04 Andy Greenwald? 50%.
44:05 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
44:07 Chris Ryan? The key for House of the Dragon characters is for them to appear on episodes of Task.
44:12 Andy Greenwald? The key for House of the Dragon characters is for me to have seen them be good in other things and then look forward to seeing if they're able to just like flash like a signs of life, like come rescue me kind of thing. Kristen Cole is a thankless part, I felt, for the first two years, and because of that, I don't think we thought much of the actor playing him, which was unfair, as it turns out.
44:33 Chris Ryan? Speak for yourself.
44:33 Andy Greenwald? You were, you were a little bit with me until you heard him talk like he was from fucking Upper Brumal.
44:38 Chris Ryan? I thought he was cool.
44:40 Andy Greenwald? You thought he was cool?
44:41 Chris Ryan? I thought he was interesting and cool, yeah.
44:43 Andy Greenwald? What was, what was the coolest thing about Sir Kristen Cole? I'll wait. Just like, just riff a little bit.
44:50 Chris Ryan? Pretty loyal. Loyal guy.
44:53 Andy Greenwald? He does work above his, like, his duties. You know what I mean? Like, he's willing to-
44:59 Chris Ryan? He goes, he goes the extra 10%.
45:00 Andy Greenwald? He does.
45:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
45:01 Andy Greenwald? This season, putting, taking him out of the claustrophobic court and making him be a, a warrior in a Tim O'Brien novel, basically, works for him. I'm absolutely watching him through the eyes of seeing what he was capable of doing as another deeply misguided soldier in Task.
45:23 Chris Ryan? Sure.
45:24 Andy Greenwald? But I thought this episode in particular, like, when, when his arc is make, kill, kill your horse, help your friends with his leeches, and then convince everyone to go on a suicide run, that's something an actor can work with.
45:40 Chris Ryan? Sure.
45:40 Andy Greenwald? And I thought that he has, like, his, what I mistook for, like, lack of charisma in this episode, you realize, is kind of a steady, slow burn, and I thought he's great. I enjoy, and I enjoyed the scenes with Quain because we love Freddie Fox.
45:51 Chris Ryan? Absolutely. They have the best, some of, I think, among the best chemistry, like, those two and then Laris and Aegon.
45:57 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I agree. And, and it is a constant reminder, and, and again, I don't want to sit here, as I do, for weeks and years and seasons of these shows, being like, oh, we know better because we see something.
46:07 Chris Ryan? Well, you're obviously, like, I, I have, I have, just for the, the crew, I have stipulated that we do not need to do this.
46:14 Andy Greenwald? No, I'm interested in-
46:14 Chris Ryan? And so, like, I think you're interested in the project and how they-
46:17 Andy Greenwald? And, and what I mean is, I, I've decided to-
46:21 Andy Greenwald? Truly, I know I don't always sound like it, but I'm trying to look for the helpers. Look to the helpers. And like, when you see good, interesting actors with chemistry paired off, or so much of the season devoted to them, that is not a fluke. I think that the people making the show are empowered to do that because they are also interested in seeing what the people who can deliver can do. So I really like those scenes. Big Tom Glenn Carney guy, who plays Aegon, like, he is just, even, even with only one ear and one kind of stumpy ear hole, one of the more charismatic actors on the show.
46:56 Chris Ryan? Have had season tickets since Rogue Heroes.
46:58 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, and I've, I've talked about this. I saw him in All My Sons, on the West End, and he had a very, very brief appearance. He is the smallest part, and when he comes on, he just, he's just a lefty reliever coming in, throwing gas.
47:13 Chris Ryan? Just West End big time to me. That's okay.
47:16 Andy Greenwald? Well, I love theater. And you like action shows, but that's, we make it work. What's your take on the Aegon storyline?
47:22 Chris Ryan? It's hard to talk about because I, I've read ahead. So I like it. I like that they are pairing him with another person who is now deformed and is like, kind of like, this is the way the world sees you, and this is the way you can still get ahead.
47:41 Chris Ryan? Each one of these plotlines, each one of these planks of, of the show, at any given moment, does not have enough going on for a full episode.
47:49 Andy Greenwald? It's true.
47:50 Chris Ryan? And the way that they've chosen to do it, which is cross-cutting across, you know, these, say, five storylines that they've got going, I think it's probably the way they can get to eight episodes of television, and eight, you know, eight hours and 40 minutes, or nine hours, however long the runtime winds up being. But to your point about, who are you saying that, oh, maybe it was Aemond, where you're just like, what am I doing today? It's like, they don't really do much different from episode to episode. I mean, for as much as I love the Rhaenyra episode, two episodes ago, she is pretty much in the same exact space.
48:28 Andy Greenwald? It was a different way of looking at that.
48:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And I like it. It's okay, you know, but there is not a-
48:36 Chris Ryan? There is neither a propulsion because it's such a breakneck show.
48:39 Andy Greenwald? Right.
48:41 Chris Ryan? Nor is there a concept of what it needs to be to be episodic. To keep this thing kind of feeling light. And I am, I'm committed to this and I like it and I kind of just want to see how they execute some of the stuff that I think is coming, or some of the stuff I know is coming. But it's really weird. It's a very specific kind of writing that I don't know if it would, if it would work if there wasn't this sort of like carrot being dangled of like, there's some big battles coming.
49:08 Andy Greenwald? And this, and I do think my feelings about, I mean, the, the assignment of the show was always going to be challenging because it was the inverse of Game of Thrones. And the challenge of the show is what are you going to do when the dragons aren't the main characters of an episode?
49:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
49:22 Andy Greenwald? And I think that-
49:24 Chris Ryan? I prefer it, though.
49:25 Andy Greenwald? I prefer that generally, but I think the show has struggled to answer that question successfully, week to week, over the seasons.
49:30 Chris Ryan? So you would rather have people be like, "Ah, Syrax, my beautiful beast," you know, like-
49:35 Andy Greenwald? You go ahead. I would, I would pay to watch you do that longer. No, I'm not arguing four more dragons. I'm saying that House of the Dragon, season three, despite being functionally better than season two in many, many ways, and much more professionalized and capable of higher highs, and honestly, a higher floor as well, I think, week to week. I think that it is suffering post Night of the Seven Kingdoms, because-
49:58 Chris Ryan? Oh, this is like dropping Doomsday after The Odyssey.
50:00 Andy Greenwald? It's exact, thank you. It's just more that like, Night of the Seven Kingdoms almost casually introduced us to different archetypes, different arcs, and different emotions that we heretofore did not know were possible in Westeros. And House of the Dragon is still saddled with storylines like, "I will teach the child to stab an innocent man in the heart. That will show him the way of the world." And I feel like that is a lesson that we have all learned repeatedly over the last 15 years on television and otherwise. And so, but that is what the show is. I mean, that is the world that they're existing in, and I think it's trying to iterate, honestly.
50:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
50:39 Andy Greenwald? And in good faith. The last performance you mentioned is Gail Rankin, who is a really good actor from Perry Mason and from Glow, and she's playing Alice, the witch queen of Harrenhal.
50:49 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
50:50 Andy Greenwald? And- Again, this might be like prior fandom. I just think she's a cool performer, but I, she has a little bit of twinkle in her eye. Like she does have some wit when all these people keep coming to attack her.
51:03 Chris Ryan? Yes.
51:04 Andy Greenwald? And she's lying to them. That suggests some life.
51:07 Chris Ryan? Right, like I think she.
51:08 Andy Greenwald? Or some plan.
51:09 Chris Ryan? When the last group of raiders come, I think she kind of lets herself get taken captive to like, entice Aemond to regain his spirit, you know? Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I don't know what to say about this. And then you jump in and I'm like, that's right.
51:24 Andy Greenwald? Because I say, I like to save my friend. It's like that human, was it the human giant sketch about like the, the most successful moving company in New York? Where like to move the piano, they put a child underneath it. And then the mother shows up and goes, my child! And lifts the piano. Because there's no strength greater than a child in peril.
51:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:42 Andy Greenwald? That's what's going on here. Just real quick, that's a Lannister that shows up with Aegon?
51:47 Chris Ryan? Yes.
51:48 Andy Greenwald? And that's the Lannister who was on the boat?
51:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's, uh, Thailand or Jason, I can't remember which one. One got their head cut off, so he's definitively dead. We are getting into a dangerous period with this show where if they don't show you the body, it probably means the guy's still alive and they've done that twice this season.
52:05 Andy Greenwald? Correlated with a.
52:06 Chris Ryan? Correlated once with this guy, yeah. Yeah.
52:09 Andy Greenwald? You want habeas corpus.
52:11 Chris Ryan? I'm, I'm just saying like, this is why the Stannis freaks from Game of Thrones still are among us. Where they're just like, we never saw it, brother.
52:17 Andy Greenwald? So this is actually, this came up. This came up the other week. We were texting this.
52:25 Andy Greenwald? The Stannis Melisandre stuff is so interesting in retrospect. Because we, and I say we, like the audience of Game of Thrones, spent so much time with those characters. And in the new parlance of television, which is really about return on investment, it's like, well, what was that for? What was the point? And it's such an interesting and more contemporary framing that just invalidates 40, 50 years of television.
52:55 Chris Ryan? True.
52:57 Andy Greenwald? Now you could make the case, I don't actually know this, but like. I think that the Stannis story was already ended in the books when they were telling it on the screen.
53:07 Chris Ryan? So people were like, oh, I can't wait to see like how.
53:09 Andy Greenwald? That we know that he's not a real contender.
53:12 Chris Ryan? Version of what I've been, yes.
53:13 Andy Greenwald? So, but we also still enjoy the, the, the time spent on it.
53:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah, just like Red Wedding and a bunch of stuff.
53:18 Andy Greenwald? And Stephen Delane was really good in that part, but like the Melisandre thing was still questionable and then she shows up later.
53:23 Chris Ryan? Well, it's like, is she, there, cause there's like the woman that never popped up in the show that was supposed to be maybe Caitlin Stark. I know.
53:29 Andy Greenwald? Oh, Lady Stoneheart?
53:30 Chris Ryan? Yeah, yeah. That's not Melisandre though.
53:32 Andy Greenwald? Can I say though, like in retrospect, my favorite thing of our, we had a real rich Thrones adventure. We were on television. We were talking about it and still every time Jason or Mallory would be like, well, you know, they're not doing Lady Stoneheart. I'd be like, can you just talk me through that again? And they're like, remember?
53:48 Chris Ryan? It's not Lady Stoneheart level, but Nettles is supposed to be, you know, is, is in Fire and Blood.
53:53 Andy Greenwald? Did you say, you know, I do not, sir? Who is Nettles?
53:57 Chris Ryan? Nettles is basically being folded into Reina's storyline, I believe.
54:02 Andy Greenwald? But who is?
54:03 Chris Ryan? It's just another character who's like a dragon rider.
54:05 Andy Greenwald? Greg Nettles?
54:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
54:06 Andy Greenwald? Is he a pitcher?
54:07 Chris Ryan? Craig.
54:07 Andy Greenwald? Craig.
54:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
54:08 Andy Greenwald? Craig Nettles.
54:08 Chris Ryan? And I think he was a utility infielder.
54:11 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
54:12 Chris Ryan? Like a kind of Jose Oquendo type.
54:14 Andy Greenwald? I think we both closed our computers. No way of knowing, but um, no, but like the Lady Stoneheart thing where I'd be like, oh my God, I'm still shaken up by the Red Wedding. Like that was one of the most intense things ever on television. It was so surprising.
54:24 Chris Ryan? Actually, well, they're not doing Stoneheart.
54:26 Andy Greenwald? And they're like, well, you know, Caitlin comes back. I'm like, maybe it's good to do an adaptation and cherry pick a little bit. But, but anyway, my, you get what I'm saying in terms of our conversation about House of the Dragon. Because it is a history, quote unquote, because it is um, being made now, there isn't room for these little narrative, I don't even call them flights of fancy, but it's like little exploratory runs. You know, what do they say when we're watching the World Cup? They're like, oh, a lovely little questioning run on the left line.
54:57 Chris Ryan? I think that's why the Aegon and Lyra storyline is so um, pleasant to watch because it has so many Thrones echoes, because it feels like Brienne on the road with Jaime or whatever, you know?
55:08 Andy Greenwald? But it also feels, again, I could be very much mistaken about this and please you won't spoil it, I know, but like, it does not feel connected in a way that it feels like it is moving in some, towards something unexpected or new. That's probably not the case, but I do, just generally, that's probably one of the causes of my lingering allergy to the show is that I just, you just don't feel that spark of like people discovering something as writers or performers or whatever. It's more claustrophobic.
55:35 Chris Ryan? So we got three more.
55:36 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
55:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Which is, which is, it feels like it's, it's really a rich vein for us. Do you want to talk about The Prisoner?
55:43 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. Set this, I, I love it. I love it when a 4pm text comes with some good, good ideas.
55:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah. So The Prisoner is a show from 1967 and 1968 from England that has been a little bit of like a cult classic in the TV world for decades. It's popped up here and there on physical media. There's some, like a UK DVD, there's a Blu-ray, there was a box set. I think Arrow might have done it. It's just one of those shows that if, if we were a proper country, we would probably be able to create a Criterion Channel for television. And maybe that's a project you and I can do on some late summer dead week is like, what would we put in like our first 10 or 15 or 20 shows? And it's not always the best, but
56:31 Chris Ryan? it, you know, these, Criterion does these physical media releases for films and obviously gives the films like a kind of unified aesthetic in terms of their graphic design. And now it's become this kind of, almost like this label or brand that people are like, I blind buy the thing on Criterion because it means film excellence. It means like true exploration of like what's great about the cinematic arts. And we don't really have that for television. And a lot of that is because television has largely been a function of selling advertising over the years. And there's all these complicated rights issues and it's like a studio made it, but sold it to a network that then offloaded it to this other network or streamer. And this is why we wait around decades for Homicide to show up on streaming or My So-Called Life still isn't on streaming, right?
57:16 Andy Greenwald? It's music rights.
57:17 Chris Ryan? Right. It's music rights. So the show The Prisoner is a little bit different than say Homicide or My So-Called Life. It's more of a, I would say, Acquired Taste is also a cult classic, you know? And it is hugely influential. It's a 17-episode run, I believe of two seasons, two series. It was created by Patrick.
57:37 Andy Greenwald? One series.
57:38 Chris Ryan? One series. So 17 episodes, one series. Patrick McGoon, who's the creator, is also the star, and he worked with David Markstein, who I believe directed a lot of it. And it is essentially a sci-fi spy show. It's the easiest way I can describe it and has been credited for having a huge influence on X-Files, on Twin Peaks, on The Truman Show, on Inception, and on The Matrix.
58:05 Andy Greenwald? I would throw another one in there after watching it last night.
58:07 Chris Ryan? Which is?
58:07 Andy Greenwald? It's a good place.
58:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
58:09 Andy Greenwald? Like intensely so.
58:10 Chris Ryan? Intensely so. And I think it's like just a really cool thing for people to check out. It was very funny. Last night I was watching a couple of episodes and I had initially sort of been like, do you, to my wife, I was like, do you want to watch this, this show, The Prisoner with me? And she was like, what's it about? And I told her and she was like, no, no, thanks.
58:28 Andy Greenwald? She was like, why don't you invite Andy over to wind down with that one?
58:31 Chris Ryan? She heard it in the other room and she was like, is this old timey? And I was like, no, it's old?
58:38 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
58:38 Chris Ryan? And she was like, I thought it was new and they were doing old timey. And I was like, no, I mean, it's just the late 60s. Is that old timey now, I guess?
58:47 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
58:48 Chris Ryan? But the cutting style, the art direction, the music, it's very much of its time.
58:54 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
58:54 Chris Ryan? But it's also, I mean, you can see Nolan editing patterns in The Prisoner. So it stands to reason that Nolan has twice gotten pretty close to remaking it as a film, as has Ridley Scott. So this is a really interesting show. The entire series is up on the Criterion Channel if you have it. But I just thought we could talk a little bit about this as like a touchstone in modern television.
59:20 Andy Greenwald? It's also worth noting, the show was remade in 2009.
59:23 Chris Ryan? Yes.
59:23 Andy Greenwald? For AMC.
59:24 Chris Ryan? Ian McKellen, Jim Caviezel.
59:25 Andy Greenwald? Jim Caviezel was not particularly well regarded, certainly not in the shadow of its predecessor.
59:32 Chris Ryan? Right.
59:33 Andy Greenwald? I was really thrilled to do this because as someone who grew up reading TV Guide for the articles, this was a reference that dominated.
59:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:44 Andy Greenwald? I don't, I don't think it's possible to overstate how influential, not even the show itself, because it was hard to watch for a number of decades, but how influential the idea of the show was.
59:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:55 Andy Greenwald? That it was a hallmark of any even half-assed article, name checking when The Times TV has been bold or interesting. And so when Twin Peaks came out at the end of the eighties and early nineties, and I was obsessed with it, The Prisoner was back in the conversation.
1:00:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah, because Mark Frost was like, there's no Twin Peaks without The Prisoner, basically.
1:00:13 Andy Greenwald? But what's interesting, and I think that I'd seen clips maybe, or had sought something out, or maybe it was on PBS, but I definitely have never been able to sit down and watch it, like I just did yesterday. And kudos to Criterion, because it is on Criterion, it looks amazing.
1:00:26 Chris Ryan? It looks fantastic.
1:00:27 Andy Greenwald? So that's really exciting, too, to see it in the way that it, even better probably than it's ever been seen before. But it was very interesting to see something that is so deeply influential to artistically-minded and aesthetically-minded art and television in particular, but it is not a one-to-one in any sense. There is nothing, like, because the Twin Peaks thing is, it's David Lynch on television. But then, the idea that there was even a small, safe space on television for something that didn't feel right, you know, that felt off.
1:00:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:00:59 Andy Greenwald? That felt confusing, that didn't hold your hand, you owe that to The Prisoner, I think, above, above anything else.
1:01:06 Chris Ryan? And the setup for the show is very, very straightforward, in a brilliant pre-title sequence.
1:01:12 Andy Greenwald? Which they replay.
1:01:13 Chris Ryan? Which is wordless. They, a spy resigns from MI6 or whatever, and drives home to his place in Westminster.
1:01:23 Andy Greenwald? In a very normal car.
1:01:24 Chris Ryan? In a very spy car, and he goes into his flat and-
1:01:28 Andy Greenwald? He's packing, right?
1:01:29 Chris Ryan? Is gassed and falls asleep, and when he wakes up, he is in a seaside village, place unknown, side of the Iron Curtain unknown, side of reality unknown. And in this village, everything is accounted for, it's a very good place, like Andy mentioned, like, you know, you go to the labor exchange, and you get a job, and you go do these things, and there's like a kind of political class, and there is, senior citizens are taken care of there.
1:01:53 Andy Greenwald? There's a little cafe, and beaches.
1:01:55 Chris Ryan? Everybody's wearing these sort of, uh- Brightly colored, like, kind of, very geometric, patterned capes and cloaks and frocks. But, you know, obviously, this rough-and-tumble spy is like, where am I? What's going on? Who's in charge here? How do I get out of here? And I'll just say, in the first episode, you are introduced to the idea that not only is there a constant surveillance and a lot of subterfuge going on in this village, but a blobby white balloon floats over the village and is capable of sucking people into it and killing them.
1:02:34 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that was the part that engaged my nine-year-old the most.
1:02:37 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
1:02:37 Andy Greenwald? The horror balloon.
1:02:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:02:39 Andy Greenwald? And grown men running from balloons.
1:02:41 Chris Ryan? Yes.
1:02:42 Andy Greenwald? I think she liked that.
1:02:44 Chris Ryan? But, you know, there's parts of it that are cut and feel like, I don't know, like, late 60s mod culture films, you know?
1:02:52 Andy Greenwald? The other thing that I would say that you should watch, just for reference, is Austin Powers.
1:02:56 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:02:57 Andy Greenwald? Because there's something of that, too.
1:02:59 Chris Ryan? Very, very, very, very influenced, I think, probably by this.
1:03:01 Andy Greenwald? Patrick McGoood's performance, especially in the first one, too, where he just, like, just yells at everyone.
1:03:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:03:07 Andy Greenwald? And so the other interesting thing about it is, you know, it is intentionally surreal, and the surreality is both aesthetic and cultural, like, for the, like, mad Carnaby Street vibes, but also very much about, like, surveillance and who do you work for and who sent you and what is truth and what do I owe? And things that happen in the first few episodes that probably don't register as much to us in, like, a post-Google Translate society.
1:03:31 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:03:32 Andy Greenwald? But, like, someone speaks French and then someone responds in German. And it's like, where do your allegiances lie? Who is responsible for this? Which is much more Cold War-coded. But the other thing that I found really interesting is, there is no, this is when it gets into, like, James Joyce territory. Did you know that there is no agreed-upon order to watch this series? So, the second episode, the one that aired second, the one that Criterion calls, Episode Two, it's called The Chimes of Big Ben, was the fifth-produced episode. And instantly, when you watch it, you are, once again... Um, discomfited and like unclear about what's going on for reasons that are intentional. Like, that's the vibe of the show. And one of the conceits of the show is that our main
1:04:16 Andy Greenwald? character, number six, is being bossed around and surveilled by the person who is nominally in charge, number two.
1:04:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:04:24 Andy Greenwald? There is no number one. Number two just says, like, you could make this all go away if you told me why you resigned. But in all 17 episodes, number two is played by a different guest star.
1:04:34 Chris Ryan? Yes.
1:04:34 Andy Greenwald? So number two is always different. So you would, you can be forgiven if you're like, a little bit confused. But then you keep watching episode two, and Patrick McGoohan's number six has a completely different personality than he did in the first episode. He's much funnier, and he's much more charming, and he's much more willing to sort of play along. Honestly, more like a spy.
1:04:54 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
1:04:55 Andy Greenwald? And it makes it a more pleasant watch. But it's also like, is this the fifth episode of the second?
1:05:00 Chris Ryan? Right.
1:05:00 Andy Greenwald? What is time? And is that on purpose? So there's a rabbit hole inside the rabbit hole.
1:05:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah, and I think it's a different era of making television where they maybe, maybe they got a note that was like, this guy needs to be nicer, you know, like, this guy needs to be funny.
1:05:15 Andy Greenwald? And not just a note, it's of an era when BBC or whoever put it, I think it was, BBC broadcast it, because I don't think there were any other channels.
1:05:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:05:24 Andy Greenwald? Was like, we're gonna put this one on next.
1:05:26 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:05:27 Andy Greenwald? Because that's what we're gonna do.
1:05:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:05:28 Andy Greenwald? But it is, here's the thing that I really liked the most about it, and I wish that there, I wish that you could take this piece and inject it into contemporary television.
1:05:43 Andy Greenwald? I have no idea, I've not done the deep research, I've not watched the whole series. I have no idea if Patrick McGoohan and his collaborators launched the series knowing, quote unquote, "the answers."
1:05:53 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
1:05:53 Andy Greenwald? If they had a plan, you know, like, just like, the vocabulary that sprung up around Lost. What I do know is that there is such a swinging sense of fun and discovery and gamesmanship in a playful way, not like in an aggressive, "I'm gonna frustrate Reddit" way, that is so welcome.
1:06:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:06:10 Andy Greenwald? And one of the reasons I think that exists is because of the way that it's shot and scored, because contemporary television is so dependent on, in the same way movies are, I think as well, of like, having the way that you film it, cut it, and most importantly, score it, indicate heavy importance.
1:06:29 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:06:30 Andy Greenwald? Like, this is ominous now.
1:06:32 Chris Ryan? Well, there's also like a real emphasis in television, I think, on coverage and making sure, like, you got that shot, that shot, that shot. And that way, also, if they want to meddle with it, or if there's a supervising producer or whatever, they can go in and do their cut of the show. Whereas there, especially in this first episode, like, I can't imagine there was that much coverage because everything is this, like, high angled shot through, like...
1:06:57 Andy Greenwald? Of a Welsh village where they shot the exteriors.
1:06:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's just very, it's a very disorienting and pleasantly disorienting show.
1:07:02 Andy Greenwald? Apologies to our friends in England. It was not BBC, it was ITV.
1:07:05 Chris Ryan? Oh, I didn't know they were around in the late 60s.
1:07:07 Andy Greenwald? A little bit independent.
1:07:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:07:08 Andy Greenwald? But the, but do you know what I mean, though? This sense that, like, one of the things that contemporary shows do, and there's a reason why you do it, is like, you want to give people enough rope to keep climbing. So you want them to know that they have a plan, that there's something to be revealed. But there's a playfulness, this, this does actually segue from our House of the Dragon conversation, that there is a playfulness possible in Discovery. That, that, for all the things the show does, and I'm not saying it's for everyone, and I'm not saying it's like linear or like a good hang all the time, but there is a sense of playfulness that is kind of infectious if you can get into it.
1:07:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:07:41 Andy Greenwald? Like, you don't need to be doing your homework necessarily. You just kind of have to go with it, and that's not a bad feeling to have with TV. It is not so common anymore.
1:07:51 Chris Ryan? Before we get out of here.
1:07:52 Andy Greenwald? Can we do it? Can we talk about it?
1:07:54 Chris Ryan? So, let's talk about Rachel Cusk.
1:07:56 Andy Greenwald? Kai has been waiting for an hour of this nonsense.
1:07:58 Chris Ryan? Did you, did you know that we were gonna talk about this today?
1:08:00 Speaker 04 No, but I'm thrilled.
1:08:01 Chris Ryan? This is a cool story, anyway.
1:08:03 Andy Greenwald? So great.
1:08:04 Chris Ryan? Okay, so, there is a new Rachel Cusk book. What's it called? Portrait of M?
1:08:09 Andy Greenwald? Life of M.
1:08:10 Chris Ryan? Life of M.
1:08:11 Andy Greenwald? Should we, can I, can I, can we set up Rachel Cusk a little bit?
1:08:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I think we better.
1:08:15 Andy Greenwald? Should we? Rachel Cusk is a very culty British novelist. Kai, have you read these books? Did we talk about this?
1:08:20 Speaker 04 I have not, no.
1:08:21 Andy Greenwald? Okay, I feel like we've asked you this before, I apologize. She's kind of known...
1:08:25 Chris Ryan? Have you read any Rachel Kushner? I love Rachel Cusner. That's why she's still here.
1:08:30 Andy Greenwald? You know what?
1:08:31 Chris Ryan? That's why she sticks around is because she and I know Mars Room for Life.
1:08:34 Andy Greenwald? Kai and Sarah are a real big-
1:08:36 Chris Ryan? Mars Room was too dark for me.
1:08:36 Andy Greenwald? Kai and Sarah are a big outline trilogy. They just don't want to talk about it.
1:08:42 Andy Greenwald? She, she has sort of risen to a certain kind of prominence for her incredibly chilly, reported autofiction books.
1:08:50 Chris Ryan? Yes.
1:08:52 Andy Greenwald? Her books are a vibe. Her books are an experience. Her, this trilogy that starts with Outline basically follow her just like going to literary conferences and just sort of talking to people who like Greek men who take her out on their boats to tell them about their failed sons. You know, and she's just like, then she talks about her, what a shithead her ex-husband is. You're like, more, more. So I know I'm selling it, but they are so, they're such a vibe. Like, there's an entire book that I read about how she and her then-husband took their kids out of schools, like, live in Italy for a year. And then they go to like a bunch of, like, they go to look at Frescos and Abys and she's like, everything sucks. It's great. Can't sell it enough.
1:09:36 Chris Ryan? Where have I heard that kind of attitude before?
1:09:38 Andy Greenwald? I can't imagine why. But what's incredible then is this is the, this was reported this week is that her, she has a, she has many fans, you know.
1:09:46 Chris Ryan? Including Natalie Portman.
1:09:47 Andy Greenwald? Including Natalie Portman, who part of her, Natalie Portman's public-facing brand is like lifting up novelists.
1:09:53 Chris Ryan? Sure.
1:09:54 Andy Greenwald? And she likes books and who among us, you, Jeselnik, all the greats do it? And the implication here is that Natalie Portman was like, let's hang out or like, write about me?
1:10:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I can't really get, so the reason why this is a little bit murky is because apparently there are galleys of this book. Which is a, according to one, one article in a, on a site called Unheard. And then aggregated by the usual trades, is an unflattering portrait of Natalie Portman.
1:10:25 Andy Greenwald? Who could have guessed?
1:10:26 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And there are galleys of this book and there is an embargo on the reviews, I suppose. So it's like a very strange, like, social media discourse about it where people are like, I see like, this site decided to break the embargo, but I will save my opinions for when like, the real time comes.
1:10:45 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
1:10:46 Chris Ryan? But I'm unclear as to whether Natalie Portman basically was like- Yes, you can embed with me, or if this is just about their on again, off again relationship.
1:10:57 Andy Greenwald? Because they both live in Paris now.
1:10:58 Chris Ryan? And they both have this sort of mutual appreciation for each other, or did until Rachel Cusk wrote what is apparently an unflattering novel about her. But I gotta say something, man.
1:11:08 Andy Greenwald? Say it.
1:11:08 Chris Ryan? Shout out to Natalie Portman.
1:11:10 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
1:11:10 Chris Ryan? Because this is why they don't fucking talk to us anymore. This is why stars are like, sure, I'll make a pizza, but you can't spend more than 12 minutes with me, you know? Because they don't want to be observed. They don't want their weird shit broadcast out into the world. So they want to get asked what their Letterboxd four favorites are, and then they keep it moving, you know? And like, and, and, and when you see any life in them, and everybody's just like, wow, an iguana, you know? Like, this is like how they get treated. So for her to be like, hmm, what, what, where can we go here with this relationship? Why don't I have this like, absolutely scalpel sharp, mean writer, hang out with me and then write a novel about me? Is fucking cool.
1:11:55 Chris Ryan? Like, it may not work out well for her, but I admire her, her doing this.
1:12:00 Andy Greenwald? What's incredible is the analogy.
1:12:01 Chris Ryan? And it's very French that she did this.
1:12:03 Andy Greenwald? It's very French. The analogy that I was thinking is like, if I was a big fan of like, in cooking, like Wusthof knives, I'm like, I love cooking with these knives. I really enjoy them. It's a good product that does what it's supposed to do, and they're a part of my life every day. That step from that to being like, I wonder what it would be like to cut myself with these knives?
1:12:22 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:12:23 Andy Greenwald? Is a bridge too far?
1:12:24 Chris Ryan? Well, it would also just be like, any, anything that we like, and you watch, I like watching Lioness. I, I don't want anything that happens in that show to happen to me.
1:12:36 Andy Greenwald? I know. You know? I, I will say, apropos of the early, the jokes you were making, like, when you texted me this, my brain autocorrected Kushner. I thought it was Rachel Kushner, and then I was shocked because Rachel, Rachel Kushner from all of her public, I mean, her books are quite, you know, intellectual and, and can be tough, but like. Every interview, she's just like, Kim Gordon and I went to get tacos in Echo Park and it was sick.
1:13:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:13:04 Andy Greenwald? I feel like she would be a really cool hang.
1:13:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Rachel Cusker is welcome, write a book about me.
1:13:10 Andy Greenwald? I think it would be dope. I think it would be great. Do you think, which mode would she use? The women in prison mode? Or the like spy woman going to investigate caves in Bordeaux mode? Like which, which are you?
1:13:22 Chris Ryan? Can't possibly comment at this time.
1:13:25 Chris Ryan? This is just an exciting development. We'll be tracking it as, as, uh, as maybe more official reviews come out. I am really hoping it doesn't turn out that it's like, this was misinterpreted and it's not actually about Natalie Portman, whatever. It's about.
1:13:38 Andy Greenwald? I just think of all the writers in the world.
1:13:40 Chris Ryan? Monica Bellucci and, you know, we just didn't know.
1:13:43 Andy Greenwald? Of all the writers on earth, there is no writer alive that I would trust more to turn directly to camera and say, no, it's about that bitch. Than Rachel Cusk. Like that is the one that you want. Also, let me just say, kudos to us because I do get a sense sometimes that there is like within our family of podcasts. Like we do tend to cover some similar things. Like I imagine the doomsday trailer will filter its way through Midnight Boys and Big Pick and, you know.
1:14:10 Chris Ryan? House of R, everybody, yeah.
1:14:12 Andy Greenwald? This is where you come for the discourse about Rachel Cusk, about E.L.
1:14:16 Chris Ryan? Julian and Amanda may disagree.
1:14:19 Andy Greenwald? They are well-read literary figures, but I feel like, I, I just feel like we are carving out a very specific lane for ourselves to enjoy. And sometimes Kaia, where we can really comment on these things.
1:14:32 Chris Ryan? This activated and animated in such a long time.
1:14:34 Andy Greenwald? This is the most interesting story of the week.
1:14:36 Chris Ryan? This is your House of the Dragons.
1:14:36 Andy Greenwald? This is the most interesting story of the week.
1:14:38 Chris Ryan? Um, thank you to Kaia, Kai and Sarah for producing us today. We'll be back on Thursday.
1:14:43 Andy Greenwald? We gotta get to the agency and it's really just more about finishing it.
1:14:45 Chris Ryan? I, I'm sorry, I was.
1:14:47 Andy Greenwald? No, me too.
1:14:47 Chris Ryan? I had third place matches to watch, you know, it just came, it just came up. I want it to be done for today, but, but I think we did a good show either way.
1:14:54 Andy Greenwald? I think we did a good show and also we did a, we did a good World Cup. So I think it's okay.
1:14:59 Chris Ryan? See you guys on Thursday.
1:15:08 Speaker 07 Streaming October 30 on Paramount+.
1:15:11 Speaker 06 I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you.
1:15:16 Speaker 07 You're having a midlife crisis.
1:15:17 Speaker 06 I'm not ready for this.
1:15:19 Speaker 07 He's back.
1:15:20 Speaker 06 I'm older. I'm wiser.
1:15:24 Speaker 07 And sharper than ever.
1:15:25 Speaker 06 Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.
1:15:32 Speaker 07 Dexter Resurrection. New season October 30 on the Paramount+ Premium Plan.
1:15:39 Speaker 06 What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple. Like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive. Or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to simple.
Previous The Best Shows of the Year (So Far) Next ‘The Odyssey’ Is the Film Event of the Year. Plus, ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Clayface’ Trailers. Page updated October 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated