‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ Creator Explains Everything You Want to Know About Her Netflix Hit. Plus, ‘The Pitt’ S2E13 and Prime-Time TV Grids With Joanna Robinson.

Chris is first joined by Joanna Robinson to discuss ‘The Pitt’ Season 2, Episode 13 and react to the news that Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Mohan, is leaving the show (1:49). Then they look around at the current landscape of TV and create their own prime-time TV grids (35:01). Later, Chris is joined by ‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ series creator Haley Z. Boston to talk about the finale, how she constructs long-form horror, Nicky and Rachel’s endgame, her reaction to reaching no. 1 on Netflix, and more (01:02:15). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Haley Z. Boston and Joanna Robinson Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jacob Cornett and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:05Chris Ryan?

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:11Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me in the studio, it's the night shift.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:21Chris Ryan?

  Joanna Robinson is here.

• 0:23Speaker 02

  Oh my god, what a compliment.

• 0:24Chris Ryan?

  I am so happy that you're here. Thank you for joining me today. Doing a double shift on The Pit today.

• 0:28Speaker 02

  It's true, it's true.

• 0:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, no Andy today, but I do have Joanna and I do have Haley Boston, the creator and, and, and writer of, uh, of Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, which is now the number one show on Netflix.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Tearing up the charts.

• 0:41Chris Ryan?

  And I talked about it on Monday. We'll chat a little bit about that. We're gonna chat about The Pit, the most recent episode of The Pit, which is 7pm.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 0:48Chris Ryan?

  I did my research this time. I have really lost count of episodes and time in this hospital.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  You know, episode titles are great for a reason, you know?

• 0:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was like, they should go back and like, come up with a cute title for every one of them.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:01Chris Ryan?

  Like, deep rating or whatever.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:03Chris Ryan?

  And so we're gonna talk about The Pit, we're gonna talk about, and then we're gonna bring back a watch staple, which is the primetime grid, which is something that, I can't tell if anybody really likes or understands, except for me, but if you were gonna have a 1988 or 1994 night of watching TV and you started at 8 and you finished at like 11:30, 11:45, like a normal person, what would you watch?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  It's a great question. I used to have those grids memorized.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, come on. It was like Thursday night, you know?

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's on NBC, you know? What's going on over on ABC?

• 1:32Chris Ryan?

  Do you think you ever watched, like, I mean, I now know we professionally are obligated to do so, but did you think you were much of an 8 to 11 person when you were a teen?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  I think when ER was on, when it was like musty TV into ER.

• 1:46Chris Ryan?

  Locked in.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  That's locked in three hours every Thursday.

• 1:48Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about The Pit first, because we also have some Pit news.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Breaking.

• 1:53Chris Ryan?

  Which is, I thought, very interesting that this came out today. So Supriya Ganesh plays Dr. Mohan on the show, is going to be leaving the series, and Dr. Ellis, played by Aisha Harris, is upgraded to main cast. This is interesting on a couple of different levels for pit heads. One, uh, seems like they're getting out in front of obviously like Mohan's departure, which I don't know if you feel like it deflates the drama of it, or is her arc so obviously pointed towards an exit?

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I was, I would be surprised, like, I kept waiting for the Samira storyline to turn around this season because they love to do that, a reversal, like, that's what happened to her last season, right? Everyone's like, you're so slow, you're so slow. And then she just really came through in the mass casualty. You got the Ogilvy redemption, you've got some like joy, you know, like, we're always turning on a character, but Samira just keeps going down and down and down and down. And in this episode, 7pm, she's like wilted completely.

• 2:48Chris Ryan?

  She's just like given toed in the OR.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  I know. So I, I guess, I don't even, like, you know, Variety reported this first, Hollywood Reporter picked it up. Um, there's no quotes or statements really, uh, of significance. To me, it's like a, a little bit deflating because I think you'd want to have that moment dramatically, but I wonder whether or not that moment doesn't even occur dramatically on screen. Like, maybe this is an off-screen departure. Uh, not unlike Dr. Collins's.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, yeah.

• 3:19Chris Ryan?

  Departure last season, which was, I'm going home, getting in the bath and turning my phone on, do not disturb, and I missed news of a mass casualty event in Pittsburgh.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Right. And then we get just sort of like a side recap of where she's been and what she's up to. So we'll get a little like Dr. Mohan update next season. But this is the nature of the world they set up, right? If we're doing one 24-hour shift every however many months, the nature of a teaching hospital ED is that people are rotating in and out. So I think they're gonna have to bend a little, you know, they had to bend a little to get, Whitaker is still here, he went from med student, you know, so like, in terms of the org chart, you can't keep everyone there because they're meant to be going on to like specialties or all these other things. And so I'm, like, having only one cast member turnover, I'm surprised by, I would expect maybe even more.

• 4:09Chris Ryan?

  So this was my next question, which is, gets into this episode specifically, which is the, this episode has got a lot going on, but one of the, I think, most delightful things is the, the appearance of the night shift.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:22Chris Ryan?

  So Dr. Shen, Dr. Ellis, Mateo, Dr. Abbott. And I know that they're well, well, Dr. Abbott's not well rested. He's been catching power naps in the backs of ambulances in between SWAT raids.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Dr. Ellis also gave her deposition today and barely got a nap in, so.

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  Look, it's fan casting and it's, it's not probably going to happen. But it, if, if I told you season three was night shift.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I'm in and all, but even better than night shift. What if they gave us two pit seasons a year?

• 4:55Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get greedy and say, what if we get the January day shift? And then the September night shift? Don't we deserve that, Chris? We work so hard.

• 5:02Chris Ryan?

  It's for pit heads, it would be amazing. I, I was curious whether or not there was, what percentage of your brain is entertaining? The idea that the next season is like five minutes later? And that it's this.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Or five hours later, rather.

• 5:17Chris Ryan?

  It's this shift, the night shift in the midst of their.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  I mean, how often can they bend over backwards to get Abbott in? You know, they really want Sean Hattie in there, I think as much as possible. Dr. Abbott is so popular. Dr. Ellis and Dr. Shen are two of my faves. The introduction of Dr. Cruz Henderson in this episode, uh, great, great.

• 5:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, great addition.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  So I would love, I don't think they're gonna do a full night shift season. We could sort of entertain this. You and I had talked off pod about this idea of is Noah Wiley taking a season off? Given that he's like EPing and writing and directing episodes? And, you know, everywhere on every single interview, getting his Hollywood Walk of Fame star. Is, is Noah Wiley gonna take a slight backseat from leading man territory? And give us a night shift season? Not that Dr. Robbie doesn't make it out of the season alive. I don't think there's any version of the pit.

• 6:07Chris Ryan?

  I don't think that that's the case either.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Noah Wiley in it for the foreseeable future. But if it's more night shift oriented and we get like a few hours of day shift instead. I thought that would be maybe interesting or half and half, as you say.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this is such a fascinating show and I kinda wanted to talk a little bit on a macro level about like what I think this season is doing so successfully is because obviously they could have played the hits and had a explosion at a fireworks factory, you know, and.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I thought that's what they were gonna do.

• 6:34Chris Ryan?

  Had 150 people coming in while a cyber attack was happening.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  And instead. An incident at the water park. I was like, oh, this is it. This is our mass casualty event for the 4th of July, but it was like three people, so.

• 6:45Chris Ryan?

  But this is a much more. I think considered character study and the cases are interesting and like Orlando and all these people who are kind of recurring and Digby's been there for most of this this season.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  I'm really proud of Charles Baker getting paid for the full season. I love that for him.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  Maybe he can just become like a janitor at the at the hospital and just stick around. Um, but it it's it's really cool to see a show that. The thing about procedurals is you'd want it to play the same notes every week and.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Comforting.

• 7:14Chris Ryan?

  Um, they're they're like, I think, looking at the long game here, um, and they want to make five, five seasons at least of the show, which in our. Time is like the equivalent of having a 12 season show back in the 90s. And I think that like to sustain that, you have to like, kind of play, you know, you have to know when to push and know when to pull.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think having um, the Mash Casualty shooter event in season one and the cyber attack in season two, you know, I think they don't want to push their luck in terms of. How many big events can we get away with that makes sense? Uh, you don't want to just give us the same formula again. I think it's been really interesting the last couple of episodes to sort of track who's clocking out. We're just gonna slowly see people clocking out.

• 7:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Like, that's that's an interesting way to end the season. Uh, I don't think it's gonna be everyone gathered in the park having beers again, you know, so what are we gonna get?

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  Maybe the the next season is actually Santos never clocking out. She's just working on charts.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Forever shredding.

• 8:10Chris Ryan?

  They set up a special room for Santos to chart and she's just stuck there the entire time.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  So Supriya's not coming back next season. Is there anyone else where you're like, I could see them sort of moving on?

• 8:21Chris Ryan?

  I I mean, I think the the Robbie thing, so this episode obviously ends with, they have been very manipulative with cliffhangers this season where it's like. Uh, you know, Emma in a headlock.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:33Chris Ryan?

  And you're like, cool, I have to wait six days for this now.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Dr. Alashimi zoning out and we still don't know exactly what happened.

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think one, I I like your idea of Noah not being front and center. I do wonder whether. Cause, okay, so he is EPing, directing an episode, writing an episode. He is the voice and face of the show on every panel talk and in every interview. He's playing with puppies on Instagram to promote the show. And then on top of that is probably gonna be up for awards for the next couple of years, you know, for this show. And I think that's a grind. I mean, when Andy and I talked to him, they, he was in between coming from the writers' room. And then I think the globes were like the next week.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  Which, you know, it's not working at a factory, but that's a long hours and a hard work.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  And it's more, you know, like when you think about ER in its heyday, the, the sort of like starring job was spread out against, across a couple of different people. Even like with Clooney at his height, there were still just like a couple of people who were the face of ER. And Clooney was never like EPing, writing and directing and all the other things. And so I, I just don't want No Wile E to burn out.

• 9:45Chris Ryan?

  I don't either. But like when people are like, is Robbie leaving the show?

• 9:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm like, no, Wile E has been kind of like waiting for, I think, is it fair to say like, has been waiting for this to happen for a while?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  He's like, I'm not going back to the library and you can't make me.

• 9:59Chris Ryan?

  Exactly. So I think that there's a possibility, look, he leaves this episode being like, what if I don't come back at all? I think there's a overtone of, is he having suicidal ideation? But I think maybe it's like more like Dr. Heal thyself, like you're saying that Mohan is burning out, you're saying like this person's burning out. Maybe you're the one who's really burning out. And then the other person who I think is kind of like, you know, Javadi, I think you could say maybe found herself in that OR doing brain surgery with Mary McCormick, but also is obviously like a little bit screwed up from this day and from losing a patient. And I, you know, I'm trying to think of who else I think is on the line there.

• 10:42Chris Ryan?

  Well, you know, I don't think Al Hashimi and Robbie are going to be working in the same ER next year.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, I'm curious how that all resolves itself, but the idea of her floating the idea of why don't we have two attendings is, you know, that she did in a previous episode. A lot of people have been wondering, does that mean we could get Abbott and Robbie on the same?

• 11:01Chris Ryan?

  Could we handle that?

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Shift. I don't think so. But like the night shift is interesting because Dr. John Shen and Dr. Abbott are both attending. So they've got two attendings on the night shift. Why not the day shift? I don't know, something to think about. But I, I think that Dr. Al Hashimi, I don't think she's coming back next season.

• 11:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Which I'm really curious to see how that wraps up. I, I don't know that I'm like absolutely in love with. What this arc has been for her, like, woman comes in, man thinks she's not fit for the job, and then she's not fit for the job is like, not my fave.

• 11:30Chris Ryan?

  It's funny, I saw a clip of Noah Wiley and Catherine Lanasa talking about the show that people are watching versus the show that people are make, that they're making.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:42Chris Ryan?

  And I think this is a pretty rampant condition in modern TV watching, which is like, people kind of having these parasocial relationships with fictional characters and starting to personify them as if like, they're like,

• 11:59Speaker 02

  People.

• 11:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and be like, I can't believe Kendall did that, kind of, rather than Jesse Armstrong is writing a Greek tragedy and Jeremy Strong is bringing that to life.

• 12:10Chris Ryan?

  But they were talking about, like, in, in very polite way, but I wonder whether a lot, there was a little bit of an edge to like, yeah, like, people watch this show and they're like, Robbie should be brought up on charges for snapping at Dr. Mohan, and it's like, well, it's a tense workplace, and also, like, I think they're trying to say, this guy is, is on the line, like, this guy's gone from like, let's all have a, you know, moment of silence for a dead patient to, like, is this about your mother? Give me a fucking break.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Totally, and I, I think that's, like, there are two ways in which I think people are, I don't like to say people are watching TV incorrectly, but like, the mystery boxing of this show, that people are treating like, heat stroke mom, like, it's a, it's a mystery we have to solve, rather than the show presenting us with a woman where we're asking questions, what happened with her kid, but it's not, gotcha, like, you know, that kind of thing. And then also, there's Dr. Robbie's point of view, and there's the show's point of view, and I think it's really easy to get confused between the two, to see Robbie as a leader of this environment, and to say, okay, if Robbie disapproves, it's wrong, and if Robbie approves, it's right, but what the show is challenging us to see is that sometimes he's right and sometimes he's wrong, and that's really hard. I think, I know a lot of people are watching this show thinking,

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Robbie's, I look to Robbie to see if I'm supposed to interpret this, especially when like the medical jargon is over your head.

• 13:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  You're like looking to him to like guide you through morally and emotionally what's going on. And I don't think that's what the show is trying to do, but like, we'll see.

• 13:41Chris Ryan?

  I don't think so either. I think that we bring baggage to it from watching Noah Wiley for decades.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:47Chris Ryan?

  And then I think that we are told, or I think there is an inherent like understanding that when you're watching the protagonist of a TV show,

• 13:57Chris Ryan?

  you're not thinking, oh, like this person's out of line. Or this person, like you said, has made a mistake in the ER and made a mistake in the way that they're dealing with them. And that's an interesting commentary on where this character is. You're like, this is making me mad because I'm here for this guy to save the day.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:15Chris Ryan?

  And instead he's like screwing up.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Really flawed, yeah.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  And bumping Duke up the line in CT scans, you know, and maybe that's inappropriate.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:23Chris Ryan?

  That's not the most inappropriate.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  And Elvin from The Cosby Show has to show up and be like, no, man. You don't get to do that.

• 14:29Chris Ryan?

  Please just keep bringing TV people and random.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  TV doctors, like just bring, bring us all these TV doctors, right? Like Mary McCormick, an ER vet, Jeffrey Owens, who was a doctor on The Cosby Show way back in the day.

• 14:42Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I love that. Like, keep doing that.

• 14:44Chris Ryan?

  Um, okay. So then I wanted to talk a little bit about Whitaker's scene with Ogilvy, I think is, it's kind of so funny to, I don't like doing the ER to pit comparisons overly because I'm sure that the people making the pit are like legally, that is not true.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Uh, if Michael Crichton's estate is listening, that is definitely not what this is.

• 15:04Chris Ryan?

  Not ER. Whitaker is definitely becoming Carter, you know? Like where it's sort of like this doe eyed.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:12Chris Ryan?

  Cares too much, but now is sort of like able to take Ogilvy into the ambulance bay and kind of give you the thesis of like, I think, emergency medicine, which is you have to accept that this is the worst day of this person's life. And it might actually be that. And we might not save everybody.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  I literally wrote my notes this week, underlined it, this is the thesis of the show, right? And sometimes the, sometimes the pit in ways that I don't like just says the thing rather than, you know, showing it to us.

• 15:39Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  They often do that. And so there are times when I really bump on that. But this one really worked for me just because it felt like an authentic character moment for Whitaker. Yeah, just saying like. I like being there for people on the worst day of their lives. And I'm like, OK, that's, that's the theme of the show.

• 15:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  But, but the Ogilvy arc this season and the, you know, people were calling him like sort of evil Whittaker, evil, you know, Huckleberry, whatever you want to call him. So for Whittaker to be able to help him the way that Robbie and other people helped him in the first season, that's what you want to see.

• 16:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  So this is like one instance where I didn't mind the pit just saying the thing, you know?

• 16:20Chris Ryan?

  Kind of, and I do think that his relationship to Farmer Amy, is that her name?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Sure is. Farm benefits.

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  Is, is like, do you, do you take it beyond the, the hospital? Like, is, does he care so much that he is like? And, and that, you know, McKay got dinged for that earlier in the season when she was treating the trank addict in the park where it's just like, you guys can't, I need you here for this crucial moment in the ED. I can't have like your big hearts going out into the wider Pittsburgh on shift.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  This is why I'm, I'm, the, the mystery that I'm really trying to unravel is what is it that sets Robbie off when he comes down too harshly on people? Because in this episode, Dana calls him out for being too harsh on McKay and Mohan. And I was like, why are those two doctors really the one? You know, whereas he's like very gentle with Whittaker and like a couple of other.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  And Ogilvy.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  And Ogilvy, right? So like, is it a gendered thing?

• 17:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Could be. Uh, I think that's certainly in the mix, but I was wondering if it's something to do with like Samira always goes above and beyond, McKay always goes above and beyond. So if it's that sort of like, I recognize myself in this and I don't like it. I get too emotionally involved in this when he gives Samira the whole and McKay the whole speech about sort of like, you know, you leave this hospital, that's it, end of your day.

• 17:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  But like Robbie's like, I can't even leave the hospital.

• 17:37Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I just live here. This is where my heart and my brain resides.

• 17:40Chris Ryan?

  He is kind of Whittaker living in the hospital, but just emotionally.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. So I don't know, that's, that's something I'm really fascinated by this season.

• 17:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let's talk about Robbie and Dana. So there's two conversations in this episode that have basically happened in other episodes.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:56Chris Ryan?

  And one, I think with Robbie and Dana is one where like, it's great because like, they've had the volcanic blowout, they've tried to have a quiet moment. And those two and their dynamic is one that feels the most organically television to me in a great way because they are writing into. I think an obvious palpable chemistry and star power to, for lack of a better term, that Catherine Lanasa has now brought to this character. And she's an award winning actress now and they're like, let's give her stuff to do. And let's, let's put her in opposition of some stuff and let's put her in lots of crucial moments. And it's great because that's actually how fights work is they do not end.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  I know, I loved that.

• 18:40Chris Ryan?

  And somebody walks out and like, they're not like, and now we've resolved it.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  And scene, right?

• 18:44Chris Ryan?

  No, it's like, you know what? Fuck you, I'm still thinking about that.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Right, especially in the premise of the show where we're with them every hour of the day. So things should not wrap, you know, cases don't wrap up tightly in an hour. We have people extend over the course of the season or several episodes. So that's, you know, there are disadvantages to like, let's do an entire character arc in, in one shift at the ED. That's that, you know, they really stretch and pull to make this show, but there are advantages where it's like, let's make this a more natural, several hour long conflict.

• 19:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  You know, between two people and that, and you know, to go back to this idea of like Robbie's POV and the show's POV, I think having Dana as an op, a strong opposition to him is a really good way to sort of challenge viewers and, and ask them to question Robbie's POV. If Dana's questioning him.

• 19:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  You know, we're with Dana too. This is mom and dad of the, of the ED. And so if mom and dad are fighting, whose side are we on? And, and the answer, similar to sort of like the Santos Langdon conflict earlier this season is they're both right and they're both wrong.

• 19:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, which is like what real life is.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  That's when the pit is its best.

• 19:50Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's like if for every moment, I don't know if you, I'm sure you've seen the, the, the video, the Instagram video of the, the person doing pit characters being like, did you know violence happens to nurses 5% more than anybody else? And then looks at the camera and goes like, like, that is, that is probably the pit at its most pedantic, but then like.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  We call it living out with a pit.

• 20:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Over on the Press TV podcast.

• 20:13Chris Ryan?

  It's, but it's like, the pit is at its best when it can be like, how does time and pressure affect character?

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, the one that I was like. I thought we did this conversation was the Whitaker Santos, uh, housing arrangement. Where last episode, they had a very cute, kind of like, oh, you just want, you, you actually like being my roommate? And you want me to stay? And if you say it, I will stay. And I thought that that scene was wonderful. And obviously ended with a note of like, yeah, he's just gonna go check on Robbie's plants like, three times a week and pick up his mail.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:49Chris Ryan?

  And now it's like, we've reopened that like an hour later and that one, it didn't feel sloppy per se, but I was like, I don't really understand. I thought we kind of handled this last week.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Maybe it was that Santos like couldn't say it and he, you know, he's her main safe space in this place. And if he's just sort of like, even if you can't say it, I'm just gonna do it.

• 21:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna be here for you. And I liked their little sort of like non look looks and stuff like that. And what I love about, you know, to your point earlier about people getting a really emotionally invested in this show and maybe watching it in a different way than the creators mean. The constant shipping of various characters that is happening in the fandom is fun in some regards. But then you constantly have the actors coming out and saying like, actually, for Frank Langdon and Mel King, this is like a mentor mentee. We believe in platonic.

• 21:35Chris Ryan?

  Is a lesbian.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  So like for Santos and like those kinds of relationships, they give you, they give each other these sort of like shy looks, but it's about their friendship, them being roommates. And I, I did really like that. The one that really I thought was sloppy writing in this episode was when, um, the new intern on the night shift, Nozali, when she was like, there's a new guy in that bed that wasn't there before. It's just like, okay.

• 22:03Chris Ryan?

  It's not dark, man.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Got a haircut. It's okay.

• 22:06Chris Ryan?

  Um, I liked her though.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I liked her.

• 22:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, she was cool. Um, yeah, the, the night shift appearance. I, you know, the idea of these people being their, their shift is done and we're probably not gonna get a cold beer in the park.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, to end the season. And it's actually probably gonna end in maybe a grimy way where, you know, whether it's like Robbie basically like storming out and we don't know when he's coming back or, you know, maybe. One of the things I've dug is that for as effective as the Hawaiian prayer, for instance, of last season was,

• 22:40Chris Ryan?

  people have tried to make their cases, you know, they've tried to make their big speeches and like. I don't know that like Duke is gonna be able to convince Robbie that like he's gonna be okay. He's gonna go for treatment and it or or that Robbie is gonna be able to convince Duke or that. Um, obviously with Mohan, like it's not gonna end in a place where Mohan is like, I've realized that emergency medicine is my passion. You know, she probably is gonna be like, I got a weird phone call from my mom and I do have to go to New Jersey or something.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Or like, I am gonna try geriatrics or something like that. I mean, that's a really interesting because again, that's more like real life because we're watching. Mohan is a character. I really like Supriya as an actress and I really love that character. And I'm trained as a television watcher to be like, okay, she's struggling and then she's going to figure it out or someone's gonna say something to her. You know, so many people, uh, Mel to Langdon inside of this episode, Whitaker to Ogilvy, so many people have. Given grace to someone who's struggling today.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  And Samira is not getting it. And sometimes that's just true, you know, sometimes. You don't get the advice you need or the support you need to make it and sometimes you.

• 23:45Chris Ryan?

  Or how could you if you were at the end of a shift like that?

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. So, you know, as much as I want, because I'm rooting for Samira for her to figure it out, maybe she will be happier. Somewhere else.

• 23:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And also if there's a natural kind of like you, you cycle out of this job. Um, unless you decide that this is your passion and this is what you want to do all the time. Like, that's gonna have to be something that us as watchers and fans of the show accept.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:11Chris Ryan?

  To the extent to which, so you bring up Langdon and I would put him in my maybe not coming back zone. Um, I think that Mel does a good job of cheering him up a little.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 24:24Chris Ryan?

  But I don't think he's gonna get closure with Robbie. Uh, and I don't think he's gonna get closure with Santos.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  There's a couple of hours left of the shift, so who knows what's gonna happen. But yeah, it's possible. And like, it's also from the sort of, uh. Meadow watching these actors kind of way, like I could see Patrick Ball, who'd like loves to do theater and stuff like that, you know, being kind of. Busy and interested in doing.

• 24:44Chris Ryan?

  Doing Hamlet at the Geffen or whatever. Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  I know. Did you hear about that production of Hamlet? Someone described it to me. Apparently they were like, and then we do this major twist and it's something else. And I was like, or you could just do Hamlet, I promise. But he's in a show on Broadway right now, you know, so there's, you know, or Issa Bionis, like, there's a lot of these actors. The pit, like, old school television is a huge time commitment, a huge platform, but a huge time commitment, too. And so, you know, how many of them are gonna Clooney out of here, you know, and how many of them are gonna stick around?

• 25:12Chris Ryan?

  And doing the Clooney is a lot more accepted now.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:15Chris Ryan?

  Right? Like, and it's like, people do do multiple shows. This is sort of like a reality of the way that Hollywood has changed the way they make television.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:23Chris Ryan?

  Is that in the same way that writers are having a hard time, like, scraping together, like, okay, I did two episodes of this show, and then I did an episode of this show, and I'm trying to pitch my show. Like, these actors, like, yeah, The Pit's like a really steady paycheck, but I bet that they're like, I need to also have, like, a stable other thing going, too, you know?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. You don't want to do the full, like, sort of, rigage on page, like, I don't need you, Bridgerton, and then, oops, I'm in Love and Tuscan, or whatever that's called. Yeah. So, did you see that, did you see that he and Nicola Coughlin were sort of in the first episode of SNL UK? And everyone's like, are you coming back, like, are you coming back to Bridgerton? And there's this sort of, like, look on his face, like, I made a huge mistake in my Bridgerton moves. But, you know?

• 26:07Chris Ryan?

  He was really good in Black Bag.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  He was really good in Black Bag. And the D and D movie, actually. I thought he was good in that, too.

• 26:13Chris Ryan?

  Uh, who else did I want to talk to you about on this episode? We talked a little bit about Aleshimi, but, like, Robbie being like, I have identified this from across the room, that she paused during her Arigone speech. I thought it was eagle-eyed, but that'll be a good test of what we're talking about. It was like, Robbie might be right, but he might not be nice, you know? And I think they have obviously laid some foundation for Aleshimi to be like, here's what happened to me in my life, like, why this might be happening to me. So whether it's a neurological problem, like, it's sort of been suggested because she's calling her doctor's office at one point, or whether it's PTSD, I don't know. But, yeah, there's a lot, actually, now that I think about it, that they're gonna

• 26:58Chris Ryan?

  have to address unless they want to drive people nuts for the nine months that it's not on.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Right. You need a Dr. Aleshimi, uh, sort of, diagnosis, or information, or something like that. Something for Langdon, you know, uh, I think we need another Langdon and Robbie scene, whether or not that is like a closure scene or something else. I doubt it. Robbie does not seem like he's in a place to give grace, any kind of grace to Langdon at all.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I saw, this is like, people may or may not want to know this because in some ways, it's indicative of what might happen, but I, I heard a Noah Wiley interview where he was like, going through like the themes of the seasons.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:36Chris Ryan?

  I can't remember how he actually like described it, but it was like, um.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Doctors make bad patients.

• 27:42Chris Ryan?

  Doctors, and he's like, and he's like, doctor, but the third season is about doctors healing.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, doctors making good patients.

• 27:49Chris Ryan?

  Making good patients or whatever. And that might suggest a much different kind of season.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  I was thinking, yeah, therapy, are we doing in treatment? You know, everyone goes up to see the therapist over the course of the shift or something like that.

• 28:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they've been pretty, it's, it's really interesting. They gave themselves a lot of rules and obviously like they've built this set in Burbank where they have this full 360.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:11Chris Ryan?

  You can be in the ED and like, there are times where they're like, it feels like we are actually doing it. But they, with the exception of a remarkably bright outside Pittsburgh for 7pm, rarely go outside the walls, only to the ambulance bay or to the internment room where Louis was kept for a while.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  The part, so like there's, they went to the park.

• 28:33Chris Ryan?

  And the roof.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  There's Robbie's motorcycle ride in where you get a little bit. There's Mel last season picked up her sister. I think that's as far as we've gone.

• 28:40Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Then there's the roof and then Whitaker's.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  But like, we never got to go to admin to hear about the cyber attack or whatever.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Right, or we're not following like Howard, a patient we really invested in. We don't go up to surgery with him and stuff like that. So will we go in a meaningful way to another floor in this hospital?

• 28:56Chris Ryan?

  Should we fantasy cast Robbie's therapist?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  It shouldn't be his pal who's like, hey man, get some therapy.

• 29:02Chris Ryan?

  Should it be Eric LaSalle?

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Yes, actually, yes. Where are you on the season versus season one?

• 29:08Chris Ryan?

  There were more memorable, like, enshrine that in some sort of TV Hall of Fame moment, like wing in the first season, but the second season in a way is better. Like, the second season to me is like. Riskier, braver, like more interesting and as a drama. Whereas the first season had moments where I was like, I forgot to breathe for five minutes. Um, that hasn't happened as much this season. Like, I think my relationship to some of the cases and patients have been, like, they haven't lost that many people, like, on screen. Like, a lot of it has been like, oh, Ogilvy's patient got, like, they lost him upstairs.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:47Chris Ryan?

  But there hasn't been the, like, guard of honor for dead child stuff.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Right, a little girl drowned, or a young man is brain dead.

• 29:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like Roxy happened off screen.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:58Chris Ryan?

  So like, there's a lot of it has been, I think, a little bit more about.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Louis, Louis.

• 30:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, Louis, that's right. And that, and that, that was really beautiful, but like, I think that so much of it has been about the doctors and their, like, internal crises.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting because when something explodes out of its first season, the way that The Pit did, I'm always so nervous about the second season because how much of it is novelty? How much of it is just sort of like, oh, they're doing a, a full shift, or, oh, my god, procedural television is back in a prestige kind of way, or Noah Wiley, we missed you.

• 30:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Or whatever the case may be, I think a lot, there's a lot of great examples of that. Empire is the first one that always comes to mind, where people were just obsessed with the first season of Empire, and then it just sort of, the second season comes back and that momentum of the newness isn't there. And so I think The Pit did something really smart in what you're saying, which is just sort of, hey, come spend time with these characters you're invested in.

• 30:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Not, we're gonna shock and awe you, but, you know, yes, there's cyber attacks, yes, Emma's in a headlock, like, we do have these moments, but like, it's about you hanging out with people who, over the course of a day, are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

• 31:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I, I mean, like, even the big moments from the season, like Jesse being arrested by ICE, it just seems like Jesse is gonna be in prison for the weekend, so I doubt, I don't think we're gonna get, like, Robbie riding his motorcycle with a helmet to the courthouse to save Jesse.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Hashtag free Jesse.

• 31:17Chris Ryan?

  Hashtag wear helmet. Um, let's talk a little bit about what else is on. The easiest way to do it is kind of like this primetime grid. Um, but before we do, because I have this interview with Haley and I, I don't, I don't know if something very bad is going to happen is on your primetime grid. But I wanted to just see if you had gotten a chance to check it out and what you thought.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  I did because of you, Mr. Ryan. What an, what an influencer you are. Uh, no, I had heard like some negative things about it and then you were like, I'm really digging it. And you said it, you doubled down on that. And so, um, I checked it out. I really loved the, I, I watched the whole thing. I really, really loved the first couple of episodes. I think the cast is incredible. The, the leading actress who I, uh, thought was one of the best parts of Daisy Jones and the Six, which I thought was like a mixed bag, but I thought she was a real standout. I think she's like Sarah Pidgeon in Love Story level of just really watchable. Just I want to see everything that she does. I think she's really like, this is just a huge, I think,

• 32:18Speaker 02

  hopefully boost up for this actress who I think is incredible. But I think all of the performances are really great. And you know, this is an interesting experiment for like the sort of like produced by Deffer Brothers uh, era of Netflix, right? Stranger Things is over, but they have all of these other projects that they've touched. And this is one of them, right? And so, and it's a hit, which is not always the case with these big Netflix deals.

• 32:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, they have The Burrows coming next, which is their kind of, their EPing, which is like a kind of like, it sounds like Cocoon.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:49Chris Ryan?

  Um, it's like at a senior home or assist, not assisted living, but like a, a senior citizens, like elder care place. And it sounds like there's aliens or something happening, but it's got like fucking crazy cat, like Alfred Woodard is in that.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's the animated Stranger Things.

• 33:05Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:06Chris Ryan?

  Do you, are you, are you like, I need a little bit more Stranger Things? I want to.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  I'm pretty good, but I'll watch it. Pretty good. I'm obsessed with how they styled this character. Um, who carries the show, uh, as like a live Tyler and Empire Records, like nine, in the craft, like nineties sort of.

• 33:24Chris Ryan?

  I mean Haley was just here. I, I think she styled on Haley. It just feels very like reflective of her personal style.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  I mean, just great stuff. I'm a huge fan.

• 33:32Chris Ryan?

  Um, it's, here's the thing I would say for anybody listening. I, you know, your mileage may vary on horror and your mileage may vary on like, if you want to be in that headspace for that long. I found it like, the second half of the season is actually quite funny and I wouldn't say daffy in places, but like it's a different vibe than the first few episodes. Uh, it's different and like I've been kind of waiting for something to come along this season. I was gonna ask you like if you had had any like leaders for like this is my favorite thing so far of the year. Um, but like what this did was like I I had seen a fair amount of stuff that even if it was good or or fine, I was like, okay, I feel like it's still like

• 34:16Chris Ryan?

  throwing the same pitch that I've been watching for a while and this felt very different, you

• 34:21Speaker 02

  know? I think for, you know, this primetime grid assignment that you set me, I was checking out some things that I was a little behind on and stuff like that. And it did all feel very like samey, especially since, you know, there's like this massive Bill Lawrence spread across, you know, you've got, you know, the Taylor Sheridan, you know, there's just like a lot of things that feel like they're the same show reiterated by one creator.

• 34:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  So I think in that way, this like fresh new voice, I'm excited to check out that interview is is really exciting. And then I think for me, my leader would be a Night of the Seven Kingdoms. That's very much, you know, my my shit in general. But I do think it was like Thrones, but a different

• 34:58Chris Ryan?

  Very much so.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  tone, you know?

• 35:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  So I would give it that, yeah.

• 35:02Chris Ryan?

  All right, let's do our grids.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so I usually style this in a traditional fashion, but you can take the assignment anywhere you want. Now, here's the funny thing about the way we used to do TV.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 35:14Chris Ryan?

  Is I realized that like in my normal everyday watching, I do the reverse of this. So it used to be that they would lead with the comedies from eight until 10.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  10, yeah.

• 35:26Chris Ryan?

  And then they would do a drama at 10 and then you would go to bed or you'd watch late night.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:31Chris Ryan?

  I watch the hard stuff first now and then try to do a come down from that sitcom or comedy show after.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:40Chris Ryan?

  Um, but I'm doing the grid as if it was like Thursday night.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't think I intentionally stacked shows that way. That's interesting.

• 35:47Chris Ryan?

  Oh, so you don't ever like, you're not like, that was a lot, like you don't watch an episode of Industry and you're like, if I'm gonna watch something else, it can't be like an hour long intense drama?

• 35:55Speaker 02

  No, mostly, I don't know, just mostly because we're doing it for work. It feels a little different, but I think that, um, I'm thinking about the way that HBO, even HBO Sunday Night, used to be two comedies into a drama.

• 36:08Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Sort of thing. Um, no, I don't think I do like, I shouldn't do that for my mental health. I should do decompression television. What a great idea.

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  There is sometimes like I, I can't, my wife and I watch horror a lot, like on Friday or Saturdays. And it's just like really weird dreams. Like when you watch like, you know.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  I had really weird, I watched a lot of Something Very Bad Is Gonna Happen.

• 36:32Chris Ryan?

  Like late at night.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Yesterday and I had some weird dreams last night. Very weird.

• 36:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay, uh, walk me through your grid.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Okay, so I get two comedies, two dramas, or, right?

• 36:43Chris Ryan?

  It's however you want to do it. Like I have, I tried to do this of shows that I, we either haven't really talked about or haven't talked about in a while.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:53Chris Ryan?

  But it can be whatever you want, as long as it's the, the sort of eight to 10, or eight to 11. And then the bonus is like, are you watching any like late night variety, whatever?

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Or whatever you're watching on YouTube.

• 37:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:06Chris Ryan?

  Or 90 minutes of Survivor that drove me crazy last night.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  I mean, Survivor is absolutely rotting my brain right now, but.

• 37:14Chris Ryan?

  Also fucking shout out Trump being like, I'm preempting Survivor to just read my, my Truth Social posts and not actually do anything.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  You love to shout out Trump on this podcast.

• 37:24Chris Ryan?

  Fucking shout out, brother.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Shout out Trump.

• 37:25Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, thanks, thanks for that.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  So I'll start with a comedy and I'll say, uh, The Comeback.

• 37:33Chris Ryan?

  I have not checked out yet.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Season three of this show that has been, you know, sort of come and gone a couple of times and, um, it's, I think, three episodes into the season, maybe two or three episodes into the season. And, um, this has never been my favorite, favorite, you know, HBO show or Lisa Kudrow vehicle or anything like that. So I don't have a long-term investment in it. But what they're doing with this season, and there's a lot of shows right now that are very like Hollywood looking inward. That's what The Comeback has always been, but there's a lot of shows like that right now. Um, but how it's engaging with basically, you know, uh, the, the SAG after a WGA strike, COVID, which all seems like very ancient history, but like,

• 38:18Speaker 02

  it's a very piercingly funny show. And I think in contrast to sort of the Bill Lawrence spread, which you're getting with like Shrinking Scrubs and Rooster all being on at the same time, which is very like. Kind, gentle comedy, something more incisive and cutting like the comeback is really uh welcome to me.

• 38:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I was reticent to jump in because I was like kind of neither here nor there about its earlier iterations, but I'll definitely check it out.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think you need to be at all. And I think that the strike and the COVID of it all is the very beginning. But what happens because of, you know, the state of the industry that we find this character, Valerie Cherry, in is she gets talked into doing a sitcom that's written by AI. So Andrew Scott is here this season as like a horrible exec, Abby Jacobson and John Early, who are her like comedian stalwarts are here as the head writers of a show that's being written by AI. And it's just like a great, a great premise. Like, it's really good. They're all keeping it secret that it's written by AI. But like, you know, there's all these jokes about it. It's very good. So that would be my first comedy. Do you want to like ping pong or do you like?

• 39:25Chris Ryan?

  Sure, we can ping pong. My first one is one that Andy and I discussed a little bit about, maybe actually a while ago, because it debuted on Peacock and then did the like, and seven weeks from now, we'll start airing this now. But it's The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 39:40Chris Ryan?

  Which is the Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe vehicle from Robert Karlock and the Tina Fey industrial complex.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:47Chris Ryan?

  And is incredible 30 Rock methadone for people who are still looking for can you fit nine jokes onto a page?

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:54Chris Ryan?

  Triple like visual sight gags in the, in this frame. I, I see with great excitement that the Daniel Radcliffe, Megan Thee Stallion relationship on this show has started to take flight on the internet. And listener, this is really special stuff.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  His like obsession with her?

• 40:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And her like relating to him being like, okay, talk to you later is like amazing. They have a tryst in the back of a mail van, I believe, and he becomes smitten. But yeah, this show, in case you don't know, is about a disgraced ex athlete, Tracy Morgan's Reggie Dinkins' character, who was trying to make a comeback after being kicked out of the NFL for gambling. And Daniel Radcliffe's character is a failed documentarian who is making his comeback as well, trying to make a doc about Reggie Dinkins' life. And the cast is stacked. Everybody is hilarious. There are some like up episodes better than others, but it is really, really, really good. Like, like, solid sitcom making.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  I think it's offering you something you already know you love, which is Tracy Morgan just doing the only character.

• 41:06Chris Ryan?

  Tracy Morgan with a head, a head statue of himself, yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Um, and then Dan Radcliffe, like, if you didn't see, uh, you know, his TBS sitcom, like, this is, this is the, this is what Dan Radcliffe, in addition to winning Tonys for musicals and whatever, um, this is what he loves doing, and he's very good at it. So, like, you know, there's something familiar, and then if you aren't, uh, I love Dan Radcliffe in this mode, like, and I think he's a great fit for this universe, and I love that this is a project that, I love all of his choices that he's made in the last couple of years.

• 41:36Chris Ryan?

  What's your, uh, what's your second show?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Uh, my second show, even though I just talked shit on the Bill Lawrence spread, is, I will say, I don't mind Rooster, like, it is the exact same show that he's making. Uh, I saw Bill Lawrence making fun of himself about this, because someone tweeted out, sort of like, Bill Lawrence just make the same show over and over again, and then he quote tweeted with like, nah, Bad Monkey was totally different, you know?

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  This is the problem, you can't really say anything about the Lawrence shows, because he will, he'll quote tweet it.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Talk about that familiarity, like, I was thinking about the fact that we have, like, Noah Wiley, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Carell, Tracy Morgan, you know, like, all the, you know, Ted Mcginnley, Krista Miller, like, they're all back here on our televisions, but, like, Steve Carell back as a lead of a sitcom is far preferable to Steve Carell on the morning show or anything else than he has wanted to do, uh, recently, so.

• 42:23Chris Ryan?

  Or Steve Carell, wrestling coach.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  I'm a big fan of the, yeah, wow, uh, we'd love to come back to Fox Catcher. Um, Daniel, Daniel Dedwiler is kind of, uh, wasted here, I think, but Phil Dunster, who I was like my favorite partner of Ted Lasso, is, is like, a great pompous character, who, we have Robbie Hoffman, who was such a great breakout on the last season of Hacks, and is a comedian I really like, is just here to make fun of his character, that's a delicious dynamic.

• 42:49Chris Ryan?

  Okay, I'm gonna dip back into this, the, uh, honestly, like, I think my lasting takeaway was like, I need, I need more for Daniel Dedwiler. After the first episode, like, just bring me The X-Files immediately.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Exactly, oh my god, I'm so excited.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but yeah, like, I, I, I don't think I am a Bill Lawrence sitcom guy, like, I, I, I don't know if Bad Monkey 2 will be, work better for me, but like, for some reason, I just need a little bit more of an edge, I think, in this, in, in my stuff.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Bad Monkey was like, a really great half season, and then it just kept going, and just sort of got lost, I think, but yeah, I, I agree, I- I'm a little frustrated with how prevalent the Bill Lawrence effect has been in the last couple of years, but I think Rooster is something I could hang with a bit.

• 43:37Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so my second, my second comedy kind of thing is something that I didn't really think was a real show until I made sure to check it out, and that's Last One Laughing.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh no, that's my late night one.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Oh, awesome.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Okay, but like, let's talk about it.

• 43:52Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so I saw the premise for this show, that Jimmy Carr was hosting what is essentially Big Brother for some of the funniest people in comedy in England.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:04Chris Ryan?

  That they're trapped essentially in a room together and they are all trying to make each other laugh, and you know, if you laugh, you're out, or whatever. I was like, yeah, like, I could watch that for like, five minutes, but like, I think this is incredible.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:17Chris Ryan?

  I think this is unbelievable because it's never just people trying to tell like, a crazy joke that will get a laugh. It is full on like, characters and bits and long stories and performance pieces by these, you'll definitely recognize some of the people when you watch it, but it's on Amazon, and it is so delightful to check this out. So my favorite person on this, David Mitchell's incredible on it, Bob Mortimer is really, really funny.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Bob Mortimer is an icon.

• 44:45Chris Ryan?

  But Diane Morgan is so funny on this show. There's a couple, I don't want to ruin any of the gags, but you're also a fan of this.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is the second season of the, so my understanding is that it's, it's sort of an international hit, they've done versions of this around the world, and UK finally like, hopped on, I'll be curious to see if there's an American version that we wind up doing. But I had watched the first season, so this is the second season, Bob Mortimer, spoilers, Bob Mortimer won the first season, so they brought him back for, for season two. And, yeah, and these are my faves, like, I love British comedy, I watch, as I've talked to you about before, I love, I watch British panel shows all the time. So this is such an interesting experiment because it's quite cringey to watch these, these like, comedy assassins who are the peak of their game, and are so, you know,

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Alan Carr is here, like, all, you know, Rama Nathan's here, like, they're all here, and they're doing their best, and nobody's laughing, except for like... Jimmy Carr in another room.

• 45:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  And so you're like, kind of dying inside while you're watching it. But you're right, that in that sort of Big Brother reality show kind of way, once you sort of settle into the social experiment of it, it's really absorbing.

• 46:00Chris Ryan?

  The funniest thing on the show by far is the faces people make in an effort not to laugh.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 46:05Chris Ryan?

  Like, what they have to do.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Mel Gadreich is like, non-laugh face.

• 46:09Chris Ryan?

  Basically, like, they're, they, they look like they're all having heart attacks.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:12Chris Ryan?

  Like, it's unbelievable, but honestly, like, these episodes are like 30 minutes.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Easy breezy. It's six episodes a season.

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  I could definitely see this actually being a better, like, late-night hit.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:23Chris Ryan?

  But what's your, what's your next one? So this would be 9:00 PM.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  9:00 PM. Um, I, I think I'll do Something Very Bad Is Gonna Happen. Like, I think I would put that on, on my grid. I think if you watch The Comeback and Rooster, and then you get, like, weird creepy horror drama with Jennifer Jason-Leigh, like, I think that's a, that's a good mix. Maybe the opposite is true, uh, given your prescription of watch a drama and then come down with a comedy.

• 46:47Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Um, but I think, I couldn't think of another, I'm not watching, I mean, if we're not gonna do The Pit, which we could do.

• 46:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, The Pit would be a really logical one, yeah.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  You know, really easy. Um, I'm not down with DTF on HBO. So I don't think there's a lot of great options in the dra, in the hour-long drama space right now. What did you dig up?

• 47:09Chris Ryan?

  It's not really a drama. It's not really comedy.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  And I don't even know if it's that good.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:16Chris Ryan?

  But Kiki Palmer's really good on The Burbs.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Oh. Okay. I haven't watched it, but like, I do go to The Grove sometimes. And if you've gone to The Grove in the last couple of months, it's just sort of like.

• 47:25Chris Ryan?

  It's really burped out.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  It's everywhere. It's all, it's burped up, baby.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  It's on Peacock.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think the whole season's up, and I'll be completely honest with you about how this is working out.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:34Chris Ryan?

  This is the show that, like, I put on, like, as I'm falling asleep.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:38Chris Ryan?

  I thought I was on episode seven. It turns out I'm on episode two. It feels a little longer than it needs to.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Okay, alright.

• 47:44Chris Ryan?

  It is that kind of very last three, four years phenomenon of a basically murder mystery with comedy. Like, there's definitely, like, they're trying to do only murders. They're trying to do

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 47:58Chris Ryan?

  Like, a lot of, like, twists, a lot of red herrings. Jack Whitehall plays Kiki Palmer's newly, like, newlywed and also new parents, and they've moved back to his hometown, and then they are interacting with all, like, the neighbors. The two neighbors who are, like, unreali-, like, they're just so good on this is Paula Pell and, um, Mark Prosh from, uh, from What We Do in the Shadows. And he's riding a recumbent bike, and I guess much like DTF, but, like, they are trying to solve, like, multiple mysteries. Justin Kirk is in it.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  That's, I was gonna ask how, how my guy Justin Kirk was.

• 48:37Chris Ryan?

  So far-

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Unrecognizable on the poster.

• 48:39Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was episode six.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  Just in the three episodes, we mostly see him as the creepy neighbor that nobody understands across the street. Um-

• 48:47Speaker 02

  He's rattling it up, uh, our guy Justin Kirk.

• 48:50Chris Ryan?

  Kiki Palmer's like one of the best comic actresses that we have right now.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  No argument.

• 48:54Chris Ryan?

  And this is about as close to, like, let's give her, like, a classic Diane Keaton role and let her just interact with all these people and do her thing, but also be very, very funny. And it's like a little, like, normie, but it is really, really, like, she, she is worth watching at least one.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Is it connected to the, the film, The Burbs?

• 49:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, it is based on characters created by the person who wrote The Burbs.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 49:19Chris Ryan?

  I did not re-watch The Burbs.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  It, it feels like it's, like, our, our suburban nightmare is, like, the premise, but maybe there will be more of a connection to-

• 49:30Speaker 02

  This is like a few blocks over in the same neighborhood. Here's what's happening here.

• 49:32Chris Ryan?

  I think it's just, like, IP they had lying around. It's like, what if we turn this into a comic mystery?

• 49:37Speaker 02

  What if we picked up the Burbs IP? Something everyone's been clamoring for. Sounds great.

• 49:41Chris Ryan?

  Okay, what's your, what's your drama at 10?

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Oh, well, that's where I put something very bad is gonna happen. Um, so I, so since you took Last One Laughing UK, which I love, uh, for both of us, um, I'll do SNL UK. Uh, you know, two, two episodes in, I think, right? Tina Fey hosted, Jamie Dornan hosted, um, a bunch of, like, other British comedians I like, but much newer on the scene, British comedians, and I, you know- You and I are both fond of English culture and it might be confusing to people who don't know who like Kier Sauer is or like whatever the case may be.

• 50:15Chris Ryan?

  Very long David Attenborough.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yes. But like the Prince Andrew sketch I thought was really, really good. So there's just like some real gems there and I, and they've got a good, uh, some good Weekend Update hosts. So I'm just like curious to see if this very American property can translate over to the UK.

• 50:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, it seems like it's doing well over there. I think the thing that's been interesting is that the, on the English side of like the media and also the commentary around it is the emphasis on like the money that was spent to make it.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 50:47Chris Ryan?

  But more as an example of just people don't make a ton, like salaries are different there. Uh, and like, I think people are like, wow, like this isn't just a set where like four people sit at a table and go through the news and make quips.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 51:03Chris Ryan?

  They actually like spend a ton of money and like Saturday Night Live is a fucking expensive show to make. So even, even the, like the UK version, I don't know if they do as much stuff as, as the US version, but they are, you know, everybody is like, wow, like this is like an American style production here.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  That's, that reminds me of like what they did with like the last couple of seasons of Doctor Who where they got this sort of like Disney plus money into the Doctor Who budget and all of a sudden it looked, looked better, but it looked wrong because Doctor Who should look kind of janky and, and under budgeted. So, uh, yeah, that's interesting. Alternatively, if, if you don't want to do a UK, uh, show, though that's available on, on Peacock, right? Um, have I got news for you? Speaking of sort of like news panel shows, the American version of a UK panel show, um, Michael Ian Black, uh, Roy Wood Jr., it's a, it's a really, really fun sort of like news panel show.

• 51:57Chris Ryan?

  I haven't watched this one yet. I'll check this out.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's on CNN. Yeah, it's really good.

• 52:00Chris Ryan?

  Okay. So that's like your 10 PM kind of, or is that?

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm gonna, well, no, I'm gonna say, so I've got two comedies, a drama, and then that's my like late night, I guess, is what I would say.

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  So I have Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, Last One Laughing, The Burbs, a show that Andy and I are gonna talk about on Monday that, uh, we had gotten some emails for encouraging us to check out is a Netflix spy series called Unfamiliar.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:25Chris Ryan?

  You guys got me.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, uh, this is

• 52:27Speaker 02

  CR Catnip.

• 52:28Chris Ryan?

  Basically Eastern Gate meets The Americans.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and it's fucking good. It's a Berlin set spy drama about a married couple who are running basically a safe house business for, uh, spies on the run while also running a lovely farm to table restaurant in Berlin. Uh, and they get pulled back into an old case that they were involved in in Belarus. And Andy and I discussed this a little bit on text. Has anything good ever happened in Belarus?

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Not one thing.

• 52:59Chris Ryan?

  Is anybody ever like, I had an incredible honeymoon in Belarus. It's just always like some really fucked up stuff happened in Belarus.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:06Chris Ryan?

  Um, watched two episodes of this last night. I'm hooked. It's, uh, interestingly written by a British author, British writer, TV writer, and I assume unless he's also fluent in German, translated into German to be made as a German TV show. So the international co-pro.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:28Chris Ryan?

  This is Gomont, who I believe also did Le Bureau, but does a lot of, I think Gomont did 000. They do a lot of international vibes.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  You're sub not dub, right?

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  I'm sub not dub.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  That's the way.

• 53:39Chris Ryan?

  Um, I'm trying not to, I'm trying to get off subs all.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  For English language?

• 53:46Chris Ryan?

  Like I.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Can't pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

• 53:49Chris Ryan?

  I was watching, what was I watching the other day where I was like, I can't be this stupid. I can, oh, Survivor. I was like, I don't think I need subs for Survivor.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  That's fair, but I think for like, especially when we cover it for work, like I don't want to, you know, miss a key word that I misinterpreted or something like that.

• 54:05Chris Ryan?

  The thing that was driving me nuts was industry because I wanted subs for like the off-screen banter. And I also needed subs for the elaborate financial jargon.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:15Chris Ryan?

  But found myself reading blocks of text at the bottom of the screen rather than looking at Marisa Bella's face, you know?

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Uh, a crime against, uh, humanity. No, I, I think that, um, the thing that disturbs me is when I go to movies now and I'm like, where are my subs?

• 54:30Chris Ryan?

  I know. I was, you know what?

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Where's my progress bar?

• 54:32Chris Ryan?

  Project Hail Mary. I was like. I wonder how much longer this is, not in a bad way, but I was like, I'm not used to not being able to like.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  I'm disoriented. I can't like wiggle the the mouse and find out how much longer I have. Yeah.

• 54:42Chris Ryan?

  Um, so yeah, unfamiliar, we'll be talking about this on Monday. There's a couple of pretty cool. International crime shows out. There's Privileges on HBO, which I'm going to check out this weekend. Yeah.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  There's a, I mean, this isn't, you asked, you you gave me this prompt at an interesting time because we have a lot. Coming, you know, like hacks and euphoria beef, like all these sort of like very muscular shows are are coming back. And so. I'm really excited to see what happens in.

• 55:10Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna be busy.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm also really looking forward to Widows Bay.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, the Matthew Reese show.

• 55:15Chris Ryan?

  I'm I'm.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Though I'm curious, did you see, oh, God, what was it called? The Apple do law show? That was sort of about like an isolated island community.

• 55:25Chris Ryan?

  That was.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Wasn't that Apple?

• 55:27Chris Ryan?

  HBO.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  That was HBO.

• 55:28Chris Ryan?

  That was HBO and I can't remember, but that was a classic, like me and Andy watched the first one and we were like, is this show the goat? Like, this is the best thing ever.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  And then like.

• 55:37Chris Ryan?

  And then it like is okay. Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  That's.

• 55:39Chris Ryan?

  But I can't remember the name of it.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  I can't remember it either. The third day. For some reason, that's such a covid era show to me, like.

• 55:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and that was also a time when like they were like Jude Law is happy to like call in from his garden if you could make the time.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  They were like do one episode lot, you know, like there was like a weird gimmicky thing about it, but like. For some reason, the trailer, like they they released a little teaser for this and I was like, oh, I'm all the way in. It felt very. Twixie, like really excited about Widows Bay. And then they they like dropped a trailer. And I watched it and it gave me third day vibes in a way that I was like, I watched that whole show for nothing. Please don't do this to me again. But if Matthew Reese is in it, I'm gonna watch it. Can I just stump for one other British thing? Uh, and this is very me coded, the other Bennett sister, which is, uh, you know. Burning it up over in the UK right now and then it's gonna hit BritBox, I think at the beginning of May. But this is like, I'm very snobby and picky about my Jane Austen adaptations and this is pride and prejudice.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  A bit of pride and prejudice than after told from the point of view of Mary Bennett, who's like. The sister nobody likes and it's really, really, really, really good. It's so.

• 56:45Chris Ryan?

  Where is it?

• 56:46Speaker 02

  It's gonna be on BritBox. I think May 6th is when it starts.

• 56:49Chris Ryan?

  Box, yeah, you guys, always delivering. Um, do you want to do like two minutes on Survivor? Did you watch last night?

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:55Chris Ryan?

  I am always wondering whether or not, I think the reason. One of the reasons why I don't think I was a huge Survivor person from its inception. Aside from whatever reasons, is that like I always just kind of found like the alliances to be unbreakable. Like in my experience watching it earlier seasons where it would just be like, we have seven, they have five, we're just gonna pick them off. And then Matt's on our side. And so it was fascinating last night. They're articulating like Suri and a couple of other people are really articulating well like there is an old school block of players here. That wanna play, I got your back, brother. Style Survivor.

• 57:37Chris Ryan?

  And last night, you know, Colby goes, Genevieve goes.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  And Camilla.

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  And Camilla goes. Got kind of like a mix of both sides of that game.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, two new schoolers and an old school, and like the old schooler in Kobe.

• 57:49Chris Ryan?

  My biggest takeaway was just like, that was an interesting gambit to make it like Blood Moon, nothing is safe, but then it's like, yeah, but this person has an idol. This person has immunity, so it's only one of two people and I just, regardless of like whether I wanna like hang out with her, Genevieve's just a really good Survivor player. And so I was bummed that she got voted out.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Camilla too. Camilla's a really good player. Um, it's tough because the dynamic of the Blood Moon episode. Jeff taking like literally five minutes. To just basically say triple elimination, that or the Applebee's promo, is that your question?

• 58:23Chris Ryan?

  Was it the bacon burger or the Blood Moon that got more time?

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Why didn't they have like a Blood Moon Bloody Mary available from Applebee's? Where was the synergy there? The Applebee's logo has a red apple, you could have just turned it into a red moon, then you've got like Blood Moon branding.

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  Working for Mark Burnett, this is your destiny.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  Horrifying. Um, but I, uh, yeah, this is a real luck of the draw episode. It's just like they drew rocks for these five person team. And if you were, as Genevieve was, just sort of like the odds are completely stacked against you. There's, there was no maneuvering for her. It was like a real. There's, so there's no social game to it inside of this episode. It's just a real luck and then we'll see what happens in the merge. But yeah, I love this old school, what they're trying to do on this season of Survivor, and I'm not gonna tell you anything you don't already know, is try to do this like. Avengers Endgame, almost like referendum on the whole franchise. These years you've spent with this show matters. We're trying to give you as many flashbacks as we can

• 59:22Speaker 02

  to make you really feel the like passage of time. We're showing you that like Colby's foot hurts and Ozzy's back hurts and all this other stuff like that. But Dee is crying at Tribal because she has to send Colby home and Colby, you know, is a player that inspired her to get into the game in the first place. So there's this like big tapestry of history they're trying to present, but also this, yeah, old school, new school. Is Sarie gonna be successful because she's an old schooler who can be more fluid and adaptable?

• 59:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Is-

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  Well, Chrissy was. You know, Chrissy was able to do tearful, like, I get it, it's not personal. And then immediately went and was like, we can't do me. Like, what do we have to do to not to be me?

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Call an ambulance, but not for me. Like, real moment from Chrissy. But I think that like,

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  another thing about a returning season, and I was on Tyson's podcast earlier this week, talking about is like all the pre-gaming alliances that have happened, you know, which is like, no shame in the game. Like, what are you gonna do? Like, not pre-game when you go into a returning season, but the Colby coach, Stephanie, Jonathan, like, that whole sort of thing is a pre-game-

• 1:00:33Chris Ryan?

  Coach has given me a nickname.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Joe is part of that, right? Like, the Zoom Alliance, right?

• 1:00:38Chris Ryan?

  Yakuza of Survivor.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're cut from the same cloth, as Chrissy said.

• 1:00:42Chris Ryan?

  Did I miss what the inciting incident was between Aubrey and Genevieve? Because-

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  It was, so Mallory and I are in a Survivor pool, and we put Aubrey on, high on our list to go all the way because we thought that Aubrey Genevieve, they did an Aubrey Genevieve scene in the first episode. That was so weird and out of nowhere in the edit, where it was just Genevieve walking up to Aubrey and being like, hey, do you want to play with me? And Aubrey's like, not sure, which is a really weird thing to do on day one of Survivor. The- The common thinking is that you always say yes, no matter if you plan to or not. Like first day of Survivor, you're just like, yeah, I'd love to work with you.

• 1:01:20Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  That's what you've got to do. Aubrey, for some reason, I think it's just like, they're too similar. Smart girl, smart girl.

• 1:01:27Chris Ryan?

  Not going to be like challenge camp lord, but like, we have to play our social game.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Chris Ryan?

  And that's going to involve.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  You're too much like me and I don't, I don't want you here.

• 1:01:35Chris Ryan?

  Cause I thought that their like blood feud was like, I was like, you guys really could have helped each other. Like in this.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  In this game and also neither of you, both of you play pretty fluid games. So it wouldn't be like, hey, like I can't do anything about it. I'm in an alliance. Like Genevieve, I think like, I don't know what it is, or she's like really, really good at Survivor. But like clearly like everybody's like, we gotta get Genevieve out. Like when she was talking to Christian, I was like.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  That was a great argument.

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, you're just too good.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  It was, it was really smart argument.

• 1:02:04Chris Ryan?

  Even Christian was like, she's very convincing and that's why she has to go.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:09Chris Ryan?

  Um, all right. Well, it's a good season so far.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  I'm excited.

• 1:02:11Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thank you so much for joining me.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:02:13Chris Ryan?

  Thanks for pulling double duty on the pit. And let's get into my interview with Haley Boston, who is the creator and writer of Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, which is on Netflix. This conversation is full spoilers. So if you have not finished the show, I recommend you do so before listening to this interview. And I recommend you do so anyway, because it's a great show. So let's get into my interview with Haley. Thanks to Kaya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to everyone here at Sycamore for producing today. Andy and I will be back on Monday. We'll probably be talking Unfamiliar, maybe some Privileges. Maybe we'll dabble with the new season of Your Friends and Neighbors. We'll see how much time Greenwald has. Uh, and I can't wait to do it. Thanks so much for joining me, Joe.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  Haley, thank you so much for joining me on the watch. Uh, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is, uh, I think it's like one of my favorite shows of the year for sure. I wanted to talk to you, obviously like about some granular plot stuff, but if we could start with a conversation topic that Andy and I kind of brought up on the show on Monday when we were first discussing it, is like the challenges of sustaining horror over like a multi-episode kind of track.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  Cause obviously there's like the things that you can do in a two-hour feature that you're building up to certain crescendo and then like exploding it. But this is like, okay, how do I keep tension? Throughout an eight-hour kind of run. And I have like theories about how you did that. But I was curious if you could tell me a little bit about your approach.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, I am surprised that people think the show is so scary.

• 1:03:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Because it's hard to be objective about that. You know, it's been living with me for so long that I getting that response, I was like, oh, good. It's effective. But I think that, I mean, what we talked about a lot was like changing the genre a bit as, as the season goes on. So the first episode has a lot of jump scares. It is a lot of that dread and tension. And I don't think you can do that for eight episodes. You know, you've got to change it up.

• 1:04:19Chris Ryan?

  We actually, I was like, I, I think we had talked about it. I'd seen two and Andy had seen one. And I was like, I don't know if like you, if people could handle it.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  If it's the first episode for eight hours.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think like David Lynch can do that.

• 1:04:33Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  And has, but honestly, I had a lot of trouble finishing.

• 1:04:38Chris Ryan?

  The Return.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  The Return.

• 1:04:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Because of the like four episodes of Dougie wandering around. It's like, I, I don't know.

• 1:04:45Chris Ryan?

  I like respect it, but I don't ever want to watch it again.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  So the first two episodes have a lot of that like dread and tension. And it sort of turns into a home invasion thriller in episode three. And then we've got the found footage in episode four. And then, you know, the whole season shifts into the supernatural. And I was inspired by Servant. The first season of Servant, I thought was, was brilliant, the way that it shifted the genre.

• 1:05:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  And you, the audience doesn't know, by the end of the pilot, you're like, is he crazy? Is she crazy? Is, is this supernatural?

• 1:05:22Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  What's going on? And I think you kind of need to do that in order to sustain the horror in, in a series. And, and in Something Very Bad, it's like, then there's a bit of body horror. I would say, obviously, the last episode, the horror's, I think, quite poetic.

• 1:05:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  It doesn't, it's not as scary in the second half.

• 1:05:45Chris Ryan?

  It's like yellow, it's like there's so much red that you're like, this is kind of beautiful, yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, but it was really about approaching it within those subgenres and talking to each director about, you know, then we have the seance in episode six, that trying to get that kind of talk to me energy in there. And then a lot of it was figured out in the edit and in the mix.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  You say that you are pleasantly surprised to find out people find it scary. Did you have a hope for what people would find it, like, in your most sort of, kind of like, okay, like, keeping all this stuff grounded, like, how did you want people to receive it, you think?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  I want people to react to the emotional story, and that was so important to me when we were figuring out the curse and what that would look like.

• 1:06:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  I really did, I wrote out Rachel's emotional arc and, you know, took away the genre. And then, once I figured that out and figured out that she is someone who has a lot of doubt and then needs to believe by the end, that's where the idea that the curse, the antidote to the curse is belief.

• 1:07:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  That's where that came from. And so, I knew I wanted everyone to bleed to death, but it was a matter of figuring out how to make that work in the supernatural logic. But it all came from emotion. And so, that's what I hope people, who aren't horror fans even, like, relate to the emotional story.

• 1:07:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's something like, kind of beautiful about how, at the end, we can get into like, sort of unpacking what happens at the end in a second, but like, there is that idea that, like, the characters who survive are the ones who are, like, living honestly.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:39Chris Ryan?

  In some ways. Like, and even if their honesty is like... The way Jules and Nell are kind of brutal with each other.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:45Chris Ryan?

  It's still like a truthfulness that other people don't touch on.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Chris Ryan?

  Because they live like these lies. I wanted to talk a little bit about the way you constructed the show a little bit more because I was thinking about how if the show had begun with the two of them pulling up the driveway. To Nikki's parents' place. It feels much differently if Portia and Jules like arrive are in like the second scene. And he's like, okay, my family's weird, by the way. And then they walk in. That whole first episode, it's so important to the rest of the season, but it's also like a fair amount of like red herrings or stuff that's just like really cool, but you don't a hundred percent need to know about the end.

• 1:08:26Chris Ryan?

  So like when you're writing that first episode and you're, you're kind of like, yeah, like Larry, you know, Blackpool and the Barbie shoe and the dead foxes, like they're, they're important, but they're not like central to what happens to Rachel.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39Chris Ryan?

  Is that hard to convince anyone that it has to start this way?

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  I mean, the first version of the pilot that I sold, they don't meet the family at all.

• 1:08:50Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Really, all the road trip got to the house at the end.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  And it was quite different, but um, yes, it's a, it's a bit of a prologue and that's challenging in, in TV. Uh, and then it sort of like slowly turned into a little, being a little more traditional in that you're meeting the whole family. But I wanted to really capture what it's like to be Rachel and she is like living in a horror movie as a person.

• 1:09:21Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  And I wanted to make sure you're getting a bit of their relationship before it gets kind of disrupted by this family. There isn't actually that much time in the show that Rachel and Nikki spent together.

• 1:09:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Um, and that was something I was worried about, uh, in the writer's room, just, you know, oh God, are people going to root for them? Are they going to care about them? But yeah, I mean, it was, that was important to me. And then there is a lot of thematic. Um groundwork that were laying in the in the pilot. I mean, the foxes become this sort of motif for what Rachel's going through. Larry Poole as a red herring. I I've read some internet comments are not satisfied with with Larry Poole not being a thing. But that podcast episode that they listened to, I I mean, Victoria Prodrati recorded that.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  That's an Easter egg as well.

• 1:10:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was, as it was happening, I was like, is she the baby? But like, yes.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  So it's it's sort of it's and there's this pregnant woman who gets murdered or almost murdered by Larry Poole. And then they find the baby like it. Yes, plot wise, it doesn't matter, but it's meant to be this sort of like Rachel has a has this premonitory dread.

• 1:10:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  And these things she's encountering, listening to, being thrust into these situations. It's just meant to highlight all the things she's going through and and will be going through.

• 1:10:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, even like the diner conversation is obviously like this hugely crucial thing to understanding like how she came into the world. Uh, and I I liked it a lot because like you're also watching them and you're like, are these guys in love? Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're kind of even in the first pass of it, which is funny is like a horror fan. I think you're just like always waiting, right? Like, I personally like really love the setup almost as much as the scare because if it's a good setup, the scare doesn't even have to be that spectacular. It can just be something kind of like, I mean, Leatherface is extraordinary, but like I watched Texas to watch them in the van.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:11:31Chris Ryan?

  See how weird it is. So in some ways, that road trip is the van at the beginning of Texas. And you're just like, OK, I care about what happens to these people.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there's the the conversation they have in the diner is also sort of, you know, it's a brief moment where Rachel talks about this girl Cathy, who could see her past life.

• 1:11:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  And Nikki's like, or she had a great imagination. And it just really immediately sets up the fact that he doesn't believe he doesn't believe in this stuff. And you should have seen it coming.

• 1:12:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  You know? So I wanted to really look at everything they were going through and and make sure it felt, you know, telegraphed to to the end of the.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12:16Chris Ryan?

  Sure. I want to talk to you a little bit about the mechanics sort of behind the scenes because I think typically I think of horror as like a director's genre or as a director's medium kind of and tell me a little bit about your relationship with the filmmakers and the directors working on the show because I imagine there's collaboration, but there's also like, I need, I do need you to do X, Y, and Z on this block, right? So yeah, like Veronica obviously comes in and it's got like this incredible sensibility. But can you tell me a little bit about working with those folks?

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, Veronica's really incredibly talented and, and so great with perspective. And that was the thing that drew me to her after watching Baby Reindeer.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  And I really felt like she nailed being in Rachel's head.

• 1:13:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  So when we were talking about the horror of the first two episodes especially, it's like very much about Rachel's subjective experience. And she, you know, shot everything

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  also in Rachel's POV and that was so

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  helpful in the edit to, to be able to have all these characters like that dress fitting scene in episode two, circling her and looking almost directly into the camera.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  And so that was a huge piece of it. And then in, in talking about the scares, we really just looked at how to technically kind of achieve, you know, the, the the fox in the bathroom was inspired by a scene in Scream.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  When Sydney's in the bathroom.

• 1:14:03Chris Ryan?

  And you got the stab shirt on today. Thank you.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. Big Scream fan. Talking about the tension, the, you know, impending dread and having all these long shots and

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  it was something that she and I just understood. Together. The found footage stuff, I mean Axel, who directed that episode, is a big horror person. I mean, she's done a bunch of Mike Flanagan stuff.

• 1:14:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  And I thought that sequence was so well done.

• 1:14:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  And Victoria and Logan performed it very well. And we got away with having 15 minutes of story that had nothing to do with, I mean, not nothing to do with, but we cut away from our main characters. And that was something that was challenging at the script stage.

• 1:14:55Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was originally written to be intercut with Rachel watching the tape.

• 1:15:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  And then in the edit, it was just like, how much can you really cut back to her watching?

• 1:15:08Chris Ryan?

  No, but then when you do cut back, it's fucking like, oh, my God, she's been watching this.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, putting her, I mean, I love the moment where her mother says, hi, Rachel. And like, you know, you realize you're on the same journey, basically, as the pilot. And I think, I think, you know, tying up some of the threads from the pilot in episode four,

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  I feel like having the opportunity to do that kind of helps with some of the questions.

• 1:15:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  You know, you're left with in the pilot, you're seeing, oh, Rachel had stopped at all these same places as her mother. And it's almost like they're kind of on the same.

• 1:15:53Chris Ryan?

  It also helps if there's like the voice in the back of your head, it's like, because she could just leave. Like, why doesn't she just get in the truck and drive away? Like, these people are really weird. This isn't working. Like, go, go, go.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Chris Ryan?

  Which is the thing that's always happening when you're watching horrors. You're like, get out of the basement. But she can't leave if she can't leave, like, because she's always supposed to have been there, you know?

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:16:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some, there is sort of like a faded aspect to this place.

• 1:16:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  And familiarity, I mean, she, her remembering the Coldies logo is impossible. So she was technically there.

• 1:16:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Inside of her mother. And there was a character description of Rachel that was in the pitch, where it was like, she believes that she and her mother share the same body.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  And, and I think it was like, and if she ever got pregnant, she would birth herself and the world would end. Like, that's a, that's a Rachel anxiety. And so I think some of that stuff just stayed within the story, even though it's never explicitly mentioned.

• 1:17:02Chris Ryan?

  Camilla, I was curious, like, to what extent the character morphed at all once you decided to go with her? Because even watching her watch her mother die, first of all, like, that scene kind of reminded me of Red Worms. Did you?

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  I love that movie.

• 1:17:17Chris Ryan?

  It's fucking, it's amazing. And, but it's like, I was like, damn, like, she has one of like, she's got a top five watching something face.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Yes, very, she's so good.

• 1:17:27Chris Ryan?

  And so I was curious, like, how much, once you cast her, did you start writing into her and her, like, specific skills?

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  I would say no.

• 1:17:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's, yeah.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  But, uh, the character as originally written was more sarcastic and dry.

• 1:17:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  And Cammy brought a lot of warmth and humanity to her, um, just by being who she is. And that, I, I always, I saw Rachel as being sort of the more like, even, like, sort of Aubrey Plaza energy. And Nikki being more like, um, golden retriever. And Adam is a little more subdued and Camilla is a little more energetic.

• 1:18:12Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  So it ended up kind of still having the balance that I had initially conceived of, but in an opposite way.

• 1:18:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, inverted a little bit, yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  So watching them together, I didn't change any of the, the writing, but it made sense still. And, and I think there were some lines in the, in the script that could have come off as unlikable. Everyone's worried about an unlikable. Female lead especially.

• 1:18:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  There was a line that we cut where she says in the car, "I don't see old people as people." I got a lot of like, um, maybe don't.

• 1:18:50Chris Ryan?

  Lots of people over sixty-five.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Kami brought a lot of charm and warmth to the character that I think is fantastic and I think makes Rachel even more relatable. And she's just so great. Her expressions are so delicious.

• 1:19:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  It was so fun being in the edit, just watching all of her takes and going, "Oh, yes, let's put that reaction in there."

• 1:19:13Chris Ryan?

  Like, one of my favorite passages of the series is her retelling their origin story like ten times increasingly like, I was actually wondering like, are you like, okay, you're on Champagne Six now?

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:26Chris Ryan?

  So like, do this, you know?

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah. It was, it had, the only way for that episode to work was for it to feel like a whirlwind.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  And actually, when I wrote that episode, after I wrote it, it happened to me.

• 1:19:42Chris Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  I was, I wrote the episode and then I was flying to my brother's wedding, just like Nikki.

• 1:19:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  And at the airport, someone told me they were afraid something bad was going to happen.

• 1:19:56Chris Ryan?

  Come on, had you already named the show this?

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Yes, I was writing episode five.

• 1:20:00Chris Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  I had turned in like Netflix draft one of episode five and I was doing a rewrite. This is why I always say that I'm actually Nikki and not Rachel. And this person was really scared because the, we were flying out of the Burbank Airport.

• 1:20:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, well, to be fair.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  And it was really hot.

• 1:20:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  And that's, I think, has one of the shortest runways of any airport.

• 1:20:23Chris Ryan?

  Very much so, yeah.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  So the plane had to stop in Ontario to refuel and then fly to Oregon.

• 1:20:28Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  And this girl was just like really scared, had tears in her eyes, and asked me if I was getting on the plane.

• 1:20:34Chris Ryan?

  Might have been my wife, but go ahead.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  She was like, asked me if I was getting on the plane. And I was like, yes, I have a thing, because I'm afraid of flying too, a little bit. But I have a thing where if I have like passively envisioned something happening in the future, that means I'm not gonna die and it's going to happen. Like I've envisioned myself at my brother's wedding, which means we're not gonna crash.

• 1:21:01Chris Ryan?

  That's definitely a more healthy coping mechanism than either someone famous is on this plane, and I don't think this is how they die, which is one of the ones I used to use. Or babies, yeah.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but none of that, none of that means anything.

• 1:21:17Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, neither does my defense.

• 1:21:20Chris Ryan?

  It's a passive plan.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  But I told her that, and I was also like, you know, Sarah Paulson always talks to the pilot before getting on a plane.

• 1:21:26Chris Ryan?

  Does she?

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  I read that somewhere.

• 1:21:28Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Um, who knows, I could be spreading a rumor. But, so I was like, and she was like, I'm gonna wait and decide. And I, I was so, I really just wanted to follow the plot and see what happens.

• 1:21:42Chris Ryan?

  See if she wanted to drive to Portland.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  I was like, I can't miss my brother's wedding. I said, all right, well, I'll see you on the other side, which I shouldn't have said. And then I went through security, she did too. And she asked if I would sit with her on the plane.

• 1:21:56Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  And so I did.

• 1:21:58Chris Ryan?

  Were you like actually in an aisle? So it's kind of like where I was sitting.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  I actually had a like business class seat.

• 1:22:03Chris Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  But I went back to sit with her and she bought me a drink. But it was funny because I told her on the plane, I was like, just so you know, I'm writing this show. I've, when you see it in two years, like I've already written this storyline. It's very strange to me that this is happening. It's not based on, on you because it already has been written. And then she was like, what's the name of the show? And I was like, I'm not gonna tell you until we land.

• 1:22:32Chris Ryan?

  It almost made me out of you were like, plane crash is the name of the show.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  She asked, does the plane crash in the show? And I was like, no, the plane doesn't crash.

• 1:22:40Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, that's too much. Nick is, I wanted to talk to you about Nick, because that's interesting that you're like, I see myself, I see more of myself in Nikki. Like, I have.

• 1:22:50Chris Ryan?

  I've actually like, you know, often it's like a mixed bag when you're looking online for reactions to stuff, especially in like message boards or whatever, but like I found like people's different interpretations of Nicky to be kind of fascinating.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  I haven't read anything.

• 1:23:04Chris Ryan?

  Well, just sort of like, is he like a simp? Or is he like an actual, like, is he a romantic? Or is he just destroyed by his parents in the same way that Rachel was kind of destroyed, but in a different way? And, you know, I, I think Adam does like this really interesting thing as him where I'm like, I like him.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Chris Ryan?

  You know, but I don't love him the way I do Rachel.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:27Chris Ryan?

  Can you talk a little bit about where you have to put a character like that to make the rest of the story work? Versus like also wanting to give him like a definitive like arc?

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's tricky and that was a really big challenge because there's, you know, the horror trope of the husband who doesn't believe the wife.

• 1:23:47Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  And, and also I, I wanted people to root for them. So I didn't want you to be like yelling at your TV, just dump him. And I've seen that before in a lot of horror.

• 1:24:04Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  So I'm sure some people did have that reaction, but, but I was trying to make him sympathetic and loving. And, and I think you do feel that Rachel really loves him and that's obviously why she has this dilemma. It's like, well, he's great. I'm not gonna, am I really gonna leave because of this guy who told me about this curse?

• 1:24:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  So, and you know, the, the emotional version of that is like, I love this person. Maybe they're not the right person for me, but there is a lot of good and how do you wrestle with that? I'm a Nicky apologist, like. I think he is just, he's trying to do the right thing. I think it is romantic what he does at the altar. He just should have done it.

• 1:24:53Chris Ryan?

  The first time.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  The first time. But him realizing like, what he says, you know, you're doing this for me. I pushed you here. You'd never wanted this. That is a loving thing to do.

• 1:25:06Chris Ryan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  It's just that he doesn't see her fully. And then, of course, betrays her. But I think Nikki is someone who needs other people to model behavior for him. So he's looking at his parents' marriage as like, well, if I just do what they did, then I'm good. And then, of course, that is shattered for him, which is, is based on my own, like, I remember in the writers' room, someone asking me, uh, cause we figured out we wanted Nikki to say no pretty early. But then it was like, how do we get there? And, and one of the writers asked me, well, what would make you question everything? And I was like, if I found out my parents' marriage is not what I thought.

• 1:25:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  It would completely change my understanding of, of love. And so for someone who puts so much stake in that, it, it shatters his world. And then after that happens, he's looking at everyone else for, okay, what do I do now? And his mom being like, just go get married again. And then his brother saying, I know what we can do. And he's just, he doesn't, he's not mature enough to have his own, like, backbone. And, and Rachel clearly is.

• 1:26:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  So I was always looking for ways to make their relationship feel like it's not quite balanced. And that they're not quite seeing each other without making the audience, you know, too aware of that, that they are not rooting for them. So it was a real balance.

• 1:26:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, do you consider him doomed at the end?

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:26:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  I mean, he, he hopefully learned something from that.

• 1:26:54Chris Ryan?

  I think he learned a lot.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  But the, the other thing, when we were sort of figuring out the ending, I, I wanted to have the drag me to hell ending.

• 1:27:06Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Um, which I find so satisfying because, you know, you're watching Rachel do everything, right? And, um, and then it's sort of like Nikki is a forgotten. You forget that this wedding is two people and that he's off having his own arc.

• 1:27:27Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  Um, and you know, it would be interesting to see the, the Nikki version of this show, what, all the emotions he was going through that we don't see.

• 1:27:37Chris Ryan?

  The Nikki cut.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  The Nikki cut.

• 1:27:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. What does he think on his drive, on his aborted drive back to get the dress?

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, what is he doing on that drive? Yeah.

• 1:27:47Chris Ryan?

  Is he just like re-listening to the Larry Poole podcast?

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  He's just vibing.

• 1:27:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  He's like, everything's great. My family's wonderful.

• 1:27:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh, that actually does bring up something I wanted to ask you about is like, I'm sure, like you going back through the pages of the script, but also if you, when watching the finished product are like, there actually is a Wicker Man show and there is like a fucked up Mulholland Drive show in this show.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:11Chris Ryan?

  You know, before, especially before you get to the second half, and then the second half is obviously like, brings in like the idea of like this supernatural, like decade spanning curse. Is there a clubhouse favorite of like, ah, I kinda, I kinda wanna go back and do this version of the show?

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  You know, the sorry man.

• 1:28:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Every time I watch the pilot and you hear Portia's story of the sorry man, I'm like, man, I wish we saw that guy.

• 1:28:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Like, that's fucking cool. I've always been interested in the idea of someone being turned inside out. And that's, um, what Portia, how Portia describes it.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would have been cool. I, I definitely didn't want to do any visions or nightmares. Um, cause at one point I was like, should we, should we show the sorry man? But then it's like, whose perspective are we in?

• 1:29:02Chris Ryan?

  Also, like the, most of what Rachel experiences at the house feels like a nightmare anyway.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:09Chris Ryan?

  So it's like how, if you break it and you start having nightmares, then it's like, well.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Chris Ryan?

  Then what's real and what's not real.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  I know, it becomes confusing and yeah.

• 1:29:18Chris Ryan?

  The mechanics of the curse.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:29:21Chris Ryan?

  Um, was that fun to like diagram or were you like, fuck?

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  It was honestly. Oh, man, you should talk to my writer's assistant because he, poor Isaac.

• 1:29:32Chris Ryan?

  Did he become the keeper of the curse?

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Well, when I, when, you know, the, the WGA has this like new rule where you have to have a writer come to set.

• 1:29:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Um, my show predated that.

• 1:29:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  So they were like, no, none for you.

• 1:29:49Chris Ryan?

  Wait, so like they're just on set trying to like, be like, so this curse is like, what?

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Well, I had, I, I didn't have anyone.

• 1:29:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  So I was like, we figured out the curse in the writer's room and it was very challenging. Cause it was like, how do we make this all make sense? And also like try not to, to dump exposition, um, with the witness at the bar. I think that scene is, is really fun. Looking back in Zlatko is so weird and, and cool.

• 1:30:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Um, but, but yeah, I mean, it was challenging and I actually did end up changing the mythology during prep.

• 1:30:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  It was, originally the curse just spread, not to Nikki's bloodline. It just spread.

• 1:30:33Chris Ryan?

  Like a virus out?

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Um, and I think it was Veronica's idea to, to put it on Nikki's bloodline.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  To give it more, you know, personal consequence for Rachel. Um, so it's, it's about really like, do I sacrifice myself or do I sacrifice him?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Um, and so that came into the picture a little later.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  But yeah, trying to get it to all make sense. And then of course, Rachel becoming the new witness and, and figuring out, okay, at, at one point it was, you know, is this something that she does in the finale where she like makes a deal with death in order to live?

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  But it just felt like too much happening in the finale. Uh, and I, I just, I wanted it to, to be the kind of like surprising but inevitable ending where I actually told you how the whole curse works in episode four.

• 1:31:34Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  So at this point you. Should be able to, to, you know, logic out why she becomes the new witness.

• 1:31:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  And maybe even the moment that Nikki says no, you're already kind of telegraphing it. But all of it, again, was in service of the emotional story. So, you know, it's ultimately a breakup story. And it's Rachel choosing herself and realizing Nikki doesn't see me, I'm better off on my own. And when you get out of a relationship, it's like a death of the self.

• 1:32:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  And a rebirth.

• 1:32:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  And so she's free from that and drives away with this like little relief that she now can go find the right person.

• 1:32:24Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like there's more Rachel to talk to, like a more Rachel story to tell now that like if you, if you introduce her as a witness, like?

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  In theory.

• 1:32:33Chris Ryan?

  In theory.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  I think that, I think Rachel would be a much better witness than.

• 1:32:39Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I'd much rather hang out with her.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  Zlatko's witness, because, I mean, he's 200 years old and he's over it at this point. I think she would really try to prevent people from, you know, bleeding to death.

• 1:32:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  There was a version of the show where it did have more of a like leftovers vibe to it, where there was no explanation and it was just a global phenomenon.

• 1:33:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  And Rachel, this was like season two, back when, before the curse and before I figured all that stuff out. This doesn't work anymore, but Rachel's like a couple therapist.

• 1:33:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:33:18Chris Ryan?

  For this like new dead world.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, this world of like, if you marry the wrong person, one of you will bleed to death at the altar. And like, no one knows why. So it was about trying to figure out why and what makes people right for each other. So that was something that, that like wasn't defined in season one originally. But then it, it became, you know, clear to me that that would be.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  Dissatisfying.

• 1:33:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I like, I like a show like this that ends on that note where it's like, if she becomes, God, what was that show, The Hitchhiker? Where it's just like, he's just driving around, like, there is a version of this where she's just like going from wedding to wedding, but I also thought it's such a complete like statement, you know?

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:04Chris Ryan?

  It sounds like a very compressed and like quick turnaround for a show, but like, are you kind of like through processing that like this is out?

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:34:11Chris Ryan?

  And number one on Netflix and that people are freaking out about it?

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Not at all. We finished the show on Monday after it came out.

• 1:34:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  I mean, the, I, I finished the final mix of eight, two weeks before the show came out.

• 1:34:24Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  So I haven't even recovered from finishing the show.

• 1:34:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's almost, I'm almost like, what do you mean you've already watched it? People obviously watched the whole thing the day it came out.

• 1:34:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Which is crazy to be like, I spent two years making this.

• 1:34:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  And you're done? And, and DMing me on Instagram being like, season two? I'm like, I haven't even slept.

• 1:34:50Chris Ryan?

  It's weird, it's fun though, like, I love when this happens on like the, especially if this happens with like new Netflix shows where like you can kind of see it kind of like, oh, it's like people are starting to check it out, starting to check it out. And then obviously it just goes into some sort of

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Chris Ryan?

  like slipstream of like, oh my God, now everybody's watching it. That's cool. Thank you so much for joining me today.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:35:11Chris Ryan?

  And good luck with everything in the future.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. It's great to be here.