Pod Insights The Watch Taylor Sheridan Is Leaving Paramount. What’s Next? Plus, ‘Nobody Wants This’ Season 2 and ‘The Chair Company’ Episode 3. About this episode Chris and Andy talk about the news that Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount for NBCUniversal and how this might affect the TV industry at large (2:39). Then they talk about the first three episodes of ‘Nobody Wants This’ Season 2 and the changes the show has made between its first and second seasons (42:20), before breaking down the third episode of ‘The Chair Company’ (52:12).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Video Producer: Jon Jones
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Transcript 11,181 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
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2:00 Speaker 04 I ain't sports to have to play with. Stand up and walk now.
2:06 Chris Ryan? Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me on the other line, there's a new mayor in Kingstown. It's Andy Greenwald.
2:20 Andy Greenwald? You're so excited. Hold on, let me get another sip of my restorative broth.
2:26 Chris Ryan? Andy, it's great to see you, man. Uh, this is the closest I've ever been, last night was the closest I've ever been to demanding an emergency podcast. And then I remembered that you were asleep because you're in England. It's great to see you today on The Watch Podcast. Two big pieces of news. Taylor Sheridan is leaving Paramount and going to Universal. And we're also going to talk a little bit about Paramount's efforts to buy Warner Brothers Discovery and how these two stories, how they come together, how they meet in the middle.
2:57 Andy Greenwald? Interesting.
2:58 Chris Ryan? We're also going to take a spin through a couple of comedies that are on TV right now, especially Nobody Wants This, season two on Netflix, and The Chair Company, which aired its third episode on HBO Max and HBO on Sunday. Andy, great sweater. How you doing?
3:14 Andy Greenwald? Oh, thanks. You know, um, bright red here is the Labor Party. So it's actually like a red wave.
3:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
3:22 Andy Greenwald? Just politically, in case you thought I was, I was wavering or just hedging my bets to make sure I can get through customs when I finally come home.
3:28 Chris Ryan? Make America Greenwald again?
3:30 Andy Greenwald? Sure. I mean, eventually it has to happen, right? It's hard to imagine, but it will.
3:36 Andy Greenwald? You know, it's interesting, like being in cryo sleep when you are awake and then vice versa, because when I woke up and I checked the trades, as I do, because, you know, man of the people, man of the industry, um, I saw the Taylor Sheridan news. And I actually foolishly thought, huh, I can't believe this happened while Chris was asleep. And then I opened my email and there was a document on Google from you that was like podcast run of show. And it was basically like this, like a, like a Martin Luther manifesto.
4:06 Chris Ryan? No.
4:08 Andy Greenwald? It had the strongest authorial voice. Voice of any notes doc I have ever seen.
4:13 Chris Ryan? You are so excited to talk about this. I'm glad that you respect my work ethic. You know, I mean, very few things get me fired up like this. There's the trading of an all NBA player. There is the firing of a Louisiana state coach. You know, kind of, I like coaching carousels. I like transactional news. I don't know why I prefer stability in my personal life, but I love watching the chaos of things happen. And last night I was just hanging out while I think I was watching Chair Company and Matt Bellany's newsletter, what I'm hearing just popped up in my email. And I was like, let me see what old Matt has cooking on a Sunday night. That devilish grin of his. And what do you know? He broke huge story. Taylor Sheridan is going to be leaving Paramount.
4:58 Chris Ryan? According to Matt Bellany in his newsletter, and I'm sure he and Lucas will be talking about this on the town. So I highly recommend people go listen to that for actual reporting and inside industry analysis. But Sheridan, after a long relationship with Paramount where it saw him become one of the most prolific and successful modern television creators and showrunners.
5:20 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
5:21 Chris Ryan? When his deal is up in 2028, he is going to be joining a universal NBC, Universal Comcast. He was basically wooed by Donna Langley. I can go through a couple of the sort of major narrative headline points of Matt's reporting, but this is a really, really big deal. It's a big deal because I think that if you had been reading a lot about David Ellison's acquisition of Paramount, David Ellison, obviously from Skydance and he recently purchased Paramount and that that deal went through. He has talked ad nauseam about Taylor Sheridan. He has mentioned multiple times their close relationship, that he is a creator unlike any other, that he will do, he's going to move heaven and earth to like, make sure
6:03 Chris Ryan? that Taylor Sheridan is making TV at Paramount for the, as long as he can. And now he's not. Before David Ellison really has time to measure for drapes in offices at Paramount, Taylor Sheridan, like basically the crown jewel of the television side of Paramount is going over to Universal. Before I get into details, any initial reactions to this?
6:27 Andy Greenwald? Well, I think it is important, and you did say this, the timing of this is not as dramatic as the headlines might lead you to believe. As you said, he is going to move his television business, his new television business over in essentially two years, right? That's quite a long time. It also means that all of his existing shows, and you can recite them better than I can, but
6:55 Chris Ryan? I will.
6:56 Andy Greenwald? Mayor, do it.
6:58 Chris Ryan? Taylor's curtain shows include Mayor of Kingstown, season four is airing currently, Tulsa Kings, which is in its third season, and then coming soon, there's Dutton Ranch. I'm getting to it.
7:11 Andy Greenwald? Okay, okay.
7:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah, coming soon, we've got Dutton Ranch, which is the Annette Bening and Ed Harris show with Cole Hauser and Kelly Riley. That's the Yellowstone spinoff. There's Why: Marshals, which is Luke Grimes from Yellowstone's spinoff.
7:27 Andy Greenwald? Wait, is it a question?
7:29 Chris Ryan? No, it's like, why? I think it's supposed to be like Yellowstone.
7:32 Andy Greenwald? Oh, it's like, why Marshals? And then Timothy Olyphant shows up and it's just like, because I have a beach house. That's why Marshals.
7:41 Chris Ryan? Lion is season three was just renewed after closing the Nicole Kidman deal. Nola King is an upcoming show with Sam Jackson and The Maddisons with Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, Patrick J. Adams, which is also a Yellowstone show, I believe. And of course, Landman, season two coming in November.
8:00 Andy Greenwald? So all of those remain, both for the upcoming seasons and any potential future seasons, those are locked in to Paramount.
8:11 Andy Greenwald? It's about new business and we saw something similar happen when Ryan Murphy left FX for an enormous blockbuster deal that was kind of an industry rattling move that showed that Netflix was changing its business paradigm and was going to put out these mega deals for showrunners and auteurs. But at the same time, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, all of these longer running Ryan Murphy anthology series remain on FX and continue to be on FX. So the earthquake of this is more industry facing at the moment than I think it is audience facing, but it is very notable.
8:54 Andy Greenwald? So before we get into the paramount of it, I think I could speak to the universal of it, which is less reported because of all of the tumult at literally every other studio in town. Donna Langley, who is very widely respected as the film boss at Universal, her consolidation of power at Universal, taking over the TV side as well, has been relatively underreported and unremarked upon. Anytime anyone can be associated with the term consolidates power, there are going to be some major moves. And what is interesting about this is that it is a, at the very worst, it is a floor
9:35 Andy Greenwald? setter or floor resetter for Universal's streaming strategy. And in a way, it kind of echoes, I think, what NBC has become, which is basically the Dick Wolf Network. When you get in business with Taylor Sheridan, you are in business with a lot of things, including branded steak houses. But you are also in business with one of, if not the most prolific creators, who can generate an enormous quantity of TV at a relatively consistent quality and can attract stars.
10:05 Chris Ryan? I can't believe you were able to get through that last part.
10:09 Andy Greenwald? I was just staring into your eye. I miss you.
10:10 Chris Ryan? Taylor Sheridan in the room with you right now.
10:14 Andy Greenwald? I guess I just miss America. I don't know. There aren't very many landmen here.
10:17 Chris Ryan? That's why you got the red sweater on.
10:19 Andy Greenwald? But I guess so. And it, you know, it, it solves a lot of problems for you if you are trying to both program at volume to expand your business. And there was a lot of reporting this week about just how much, how much NBC Comcast Universal is betting on the NBA and how much it's going to need to, you know, massively, massively, massively scale subscribers in order to pay for that deal. This is another huge expenditure, but it is another play to shore up the base, basically, and guarantee a baseline of subscribers. The downside, and I'd like to hear you speak about this. You were mentioning you do like sports analogies. I don't know if you ever read a website called Grantland that combines pop culture and sports, but-
11:04 Chris Ryan? Just so does The Ringer, yeah.
11:05 Andy Greenwald? There is, that's true. Is there a version of this, that this is Albert Pujols to the Angels?
11:12 Chris Ryan? It's a really good question, man. It's like-
11:14 Andy Greenwald? And for those who don't watch baseball-
11:15 Chris Ryan? And Matt mentioned this. Matt mentioned this in his piece where it's like, there could be, despite all the public facing, like, we just love Taylor. We just want to be in the Taylor business forever.
11:24 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
11:25 Chris Ryan? That perhaps the Ellison's and Cindy Holland and the folks at Paramount felt like they had seen the best days of Taylor Sheridan. Yellowstone was a very expensive show that ended very poorly, you know? A lot of these shows that he has on the air right now, you could make the argument are on their way to being finished or should be finished. So I think that within the realm of the reality of the TV show, or the reality that the TV show Lioness has created, I think you could do one or two more seasons of Zoe Saldana trying to decide whether or not she wants to stay at home with Dave Anvil or go out
12:07 Chris Ryan? into the world and seduce women into becoming lionesses and attacking terrorists. Like, there's, like, you could do that show for as long as you wanted, but like-
12:18 Andy Greenwald? I felt your thumb on the scale there as to what you would prefer, but please continue. You do not even pretend to be-
12:23 Chris Ryan? Kingstown's in season four. Obviously Jeremy Renner, I guess, could just keep doing that show for as long as he wants, but with of what I've seen of the fourth season, I think that's another one where maybe creatively it's kind of reaching an end. Also, it's worth noting that a lot of the stuff that maybe you're thinking is Taylor Sheridan is no longer Taylor Sheridan. He's not really writing on Mayor of Kingstown. He doesn't work on Tulsa King. Some of the Yellowstone spinoffs have different showrunners attached, and Taylor Sheridan's not writing any of the scripts. Now, he wrote all of Landman season two, so he is heavily involved in a bunch of stuff. But from the Paramount side, I guess I could see them saying like, we feel like we've got, we've seen his best
13:04 Chris Ryan? days, and he is expensive. And his shows, as Matt reported, between 15 and 20 million dollars per episode for some of these shows. They're massively expensive. He shoots on his own property, you know, so there's a lot of like, kickback action going there. But that's my description of it, not Matt's. But I can make the argument otherwise. So I can make a pretty strong argument for the future for him, too.
13:28 Andy Greenwald? It's not, and it's worth noting, it's not just Taylor. It's his longtime producing partner, David Glasser, who's 101 Studios, is branded on every one of these programs. I think that that last point is interesting, and it's certainly something that I bet deep background, or maybe even not even that deep background Paramount shows will start spinning, which is, it already had become a, you know, that they are in business with Taylor Sheridan. Taylor Sheridan in no way works for them. They are basically partners with him and his enterprises, which means accepting episodic budgets that are, I mean, the numbers you're quoting, those are the numbers that HBO spends on House of the Dragon, right? Like, those are the highest level of episodic numbers that we usually get. And,
14:10 Andy Greenwald? you know, it's, there aren't, I mean, I haven't seen a lot of the Yellowstone spinoffs, but I don't think there are a lot of dragons in them. I know there are a lot of like-
14:17 Chris Ryan? No, but I mean, I can see why 1883 and 1923 cost a lot of money, but I think that they're referring more to things like lioness, where- He's got like a lot of gunships flying over.
14:28 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. And the other thing is, he doesn't. You know, I was about to couch this as if it's, we don't really know. I think I feel definitive in saying he doesn't take a lot of notes. And I can't imagine any, any longstanding relationship structures that he felt the need to respect or, you know, grudgingly accept a note here or there from. Those aren't going to exist in his new operation. It is basically a fiefdom within the larger Comcast Universal properties. So it's, it's massive. And it definitely is going to be framed as a, did Ellison take his eye off the ball by, pursuing the Duffer brothers and promising them, you know, their follow up to Stranger Things and cinematic releases?
15:12 Andy Greenwald? And did he feel slighted by that? Is it going to be a David Benioff and DB Weiss situation where Netflix swoops in, pays them untold millions to make the follow up to Game of Thrones, spends untold millions on it, and you end up with two seasons of a, you know, I still think kind of intriguing, but I don't think the general marketplace feels like, like it was a particularly successful show.
15:39 Andy Greenwald? Chris, we're, we're doing the head. I want you to do the heart. What does your heart say about this?
15:44 Chris Ryan? Well, as always, I find him fascinating.
15:47 Andy Greenwald? And for, yeah.
15:47 Chris Ryan? I find him fascinating. I find this decision fascinating. I think as far as creators in the current TV landscape goes, he, he strikes me as relatively unique because not only is he so prolific, he's essentially his own studio. Right?
16:03 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
16:04 Chris Ryan? Like, he's got, obviously has sway with some pretty big names. Jon Hamm, Nicole Kidman, Billy Bob Thornton, you know, Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, like all of these people who are circling or are attached to his projects. I'm very curious to see what happens, by the way, with how those people feel about their shows now that Taylor Sheridan may or may not be heavily involved in them. You know, I assume he is going to see out the, the contracted work that he has, but like, there's a big difference between Taylor Sheridan writing 10 hours of your show and writing the pilot, you know? So I'll be curious to watch that. But I find it fascinating how he has also, aside from all these stars, like a kind of
16:46 Chris Ryan? stock company that he works with a lot. There are a lot of faces that pop up in a bunch of his shows. He essentially has his own means of production by shooting on his own land in Texas and I think is kind of a self-sufficient creator in that way. So all of that stuff, I've always found fascinating, as is the really wild swings and mood swings of his shows themselves, which I don't think are as easy to pin down as people who maybe only take a casual look at them might think. Outside of that, I find the destination, this is a little bit more head than heart, I find the destination pretty amusing, where he's going pretty amusing. Because one of the things that drove people a little bit nuts
17:30 Chris Ryan? in the sort of emergence of Yellowstone and the emergence of Sheridan is the fact that Yellowstone was still streaming on Peacock. Peacock had made a deal in an earlier iteration and an earlier Paramount administration. They were like, well, we need money. So we'll be arms dealers as well as a studio. And they sold off the streaming rights to Paramount, I'm sorry, to Yellowstone, to Peacock. So while Peacock has been airing, you can only watch Yellowstone streaming on Peacock despite the fact that it was basically the flagship show of Paramount Plus. You know, if you understand what I mean. So all of the spinoffs, all of that stuff, it airs on the Paramount Network. But when you want to watch it on
18:15 Chris Ryan? two days after it's been aired, you go to Peacock to do it. So now he is in a weird way coming home. I am very interested to see whether or not this changes the kind of stuff he does. And also, whether or not he actually takes a step away from the amount of TV he's been making and goes back to features. Because I've long been very interested in his TV work, but I think his features are Absolutely, inarguably better. Hell or High Water, Wind River, Sicario. He is an incredibly talented feature scriptwriter.
18:56 Chris Ryan? And if Don Langley came in and said, let's do a bunch of different stuff together here. Why don't we make some movies? That would be actually creatively, like, probably the most exciting thing for me. You know, in Matt's reporting, he mentioned that one of the things that happened that sort of sent this sideways was apparently, according to Matt, Paramount trying to get involved in the streaming rights to a movie that Taylor had going at Warner Brothers. And Paramount was like, well, we'll distribute it. And he was not a fan of that. And then according also to Matt, he was not a fan of the fact that he found out secondhand that Nicole Kidman had signed up to do another Paramount show outside of Lioness.
19:37 Chris Ryan? So it just goes to show you that these things are all very delicate, no matter how rich and how powerful people are, like, there are still egos and there are still, there are still little, like, comedies of manners taking place in the biggest, with the biggest stakes.
19:55 Andy Greenwald? Can I give you the best-case scenario here in my mind for Peacock? Which is plucky, like, no pun intended, like, has reasons to watch it, has reasons to keep subscribing to it. What I find interesting about it is that for as long as I've been writing about TV and we've been talking about it on the podcast, I think we often go back to this idea that unlike a lot of the streaming services, certainly all of them when they launched, NBC has always had a pretty strong brand identity. And what was challenging about the early days of Peacock is that they didn't seem to track one-to-one. I would argue that we are starting to see that shape take hold a little bit more in
20:37 Andy Greenwald? a way that I think is smart and potentially sustainable. And I say that without Matt's expertise of any of the actual financial stuff that gets things done these days. So I have no idea. I keep referring to it, but like, the financial numbers of the NBA deal are like terrifying, even if you don't fully understand what they mean. But- What I mean is you are starting to see the contours of a streaming service that does a little bit of everything and feels a little bit like comfortable TV. It has all the Bravo reality shows and the traitors, which are good business and Andy Cohen and all that stuff. It has the comedy legacy. So it has streaming Parks and Rec, streaming The Office, and they've doubled down on that or at least accentuated it by The Paper, which I think is really good and fits right into the people who are like, oh, what's your next watch?
21:21 Andy Greenwald? It has the Dick Wolf universe of all those Chicago shows, all the Law and Order shows, and it has NBA basketball, it has football, and now you add Taylor Sheridan, Plank, which is a, or could or should be, a dependable type of show with a dependable type of viewer. And if you squint, you see it, especially because in the background of all this, and maybe it's better served in the background, the original programming department has a bunch of kind of wild swings coming up. There's The Miniature Wife, which is a very strange sounding comedy with Elizabeth Banks and Matthew McFadden. There's a, again, what sounds like a very creative spy show called Ponies coming with Amelia Clark. If you look at their original slate, it is not playing it safe.
22:06 Andy Greenwald? And it's interesting to see the kind of like stabilizing guardrails of all this other stuff go up around it. Is that a strategy to survive in this consolidating insane economy? I don't know, but I'm interested.
22:18 Chris Ryan? What do you think, if you're, obviously for our listeners who don't know about the vagaries of overall deals and development deals and things like that. Okay, so it's late 2025 now. Taylor Sheridan has a bunch of shows either hitting the airwaves, about to hit the airwaves, or scheduled to hit the airwaves next year. Presumably Landman will retain its audience, let's just say, and there will be desire for a third season of that.
22:46 Andy Greenwald? Sure.
22:47 Chris Ryan? Realistically, does Taylor Sheridan start handing off duties to some of these shows to a nonexistent coaching tree? Because unlike lots of showrunners, I would say I can't really identify a ton of people who have come out from under Taylor Sheridan to have their own thing, you know? This is not Chris Carter to Vince Gilligan to the Breaking Bad mafia. This is a guy who writes his shit.
23:13 Andy Greenwald? The reason why the baseball analogy doesn't work is because when Albert Pujols signed with the Angels, he didn't continue to provide batting services to the Cardinals for the next two years. Do you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't work like that.
23:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:25 Andy Greenwald? The way contracts work generally is you are contracted, you're still connected and you are still producing the shows that predate your new deal. Hearing about, for example, Francesca Sloan leaving Mr. and Mrs. Smith Season 2 at Amazon, and presumably an overall deal that she may have had to go work on Big Little Lies Season 3 at HBO, isn't as common as I think you often would think. Like, in so doing, she left immediately and she is no longer involved in Mr. and Mrs. Smith Season 2.
24:00 Andy Greenwald? The two-year window, I don't know if there's gonna be like negotiations or wiggle room, but he loves Landman and America loves Landman and Chris Ryan loves Landman. So I don't know if, I just think he would make it.
24:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
24:12 Andy Greenwald? I'd be eager to hear experts who listen to our podcast tell me why I'm wrong.
24:15 Chris Ryan? Well, I was also gonna ask you, like, does he start working on things for Peacock now? And when the calendar flips to 2028, he's like, I have five shows?
24:28 Andy Greenwald? Okay, so for what it's worth, the streamers are already scheduling for 2028. That's already happening. I know it feels far away for us, interminable if you read political news, but that is where these people are. So the question is, do they want something from him on the air in 2028? And I imagine they do. And I truly do not know contractually what services he can provide to what. Because I think the goal would be to have stuff on the air as soon as possible to maximize what is no doubt an enormous spend.
24:59 Andy Greenwald? But I think it's, I think it's a two-track thing.
25:05 Andy Greenwald? Pitching things or developing things or slow-walking things or redirecting things.
25:09 Chris Ryan? A lot of pitching going on.
25:10 Andy Greenwald? Exactly. Telling them what he's going to be doing would probably make sense right now, yeah.
25:17 Chris Ryan? Okay, I'm curious, yeah, because that would be the... It's almost like, you know, it's not like pencils up when 2028 rolls around. I'm sure there are going to be things in, in the flow. But like you mentioned, Ryan Murphy has stuff still airing on FX, you know, and on, on Disney properties, you know, even though he's at Netflix. So I, well, we'll see what happens with that. One of the interesting things about the destination, about Taylor Sheridan's destination is how it affects Comcast's standing in the last network standing sweepstakes because the long discussed talk of consolidation and contraction seems to finally be upon us.
26:01 Chris Ryan? Andy and I, I made a joke about this last week, but then forgot to actually talk about with you, talk to you about it on the Thursday show. But last Tuesday, David Zaslove came out and said, you know, because Paramount has made two bids for us, I think upwards of 25. It was a two or three. It was a lot. I think they're anticipating a third bid. David Zaslove said, I am, we should look into selling some or all of this company, whatever is best for the shareholders, et cetera. And had suggested, it's been reported by, by Matt Bellini and others, that there are other bidders kicking the tires outside of Paramount.
26:44 Chris Ryan? Now, they may not be anywhere close to the consistently like throwing down money like the way Paramount is and saying, how about $25 a share or whatever it is. But there are rumored to be offers incoming or being considered from Amazon MGM, from even, even Netflix, even though the Netflix COO Greg Peters has been kind of been like, mergers don't really work. Um, you know, and then we, we like to build things rather than buy things. And, uh, Apple and of course Comcast Universal. Now, I think everybody took it as a fait accompli that, that Paramount was going to do this because they were the ones who seemed to be showing up at the table with a bag of money.
27:28 Chris Ryan? But as Matt pointed out, and as anybody who read the story about Taylor Sheridan can figure out, you don't do this if you think you're going to be.
27:38 Chris Ryan? Closing up shop or sixth place or some small, small fry streaming network. You don't go out and get Taylor Sheridan in the NBA and then say, oh, man. Well, David Ellison is here, so I guess I just have to like be happy showing Below Deck reruns. You know, like this feels like a significant power up move by Comcast Universal. The reason why I bring all of this up, you know, just I want to get your impression of, of, of the Warner Brothers sale in general, although I know it's a difficult or complicated conversation to have, given some of your.
28:10 Andy Greenwald? I'll speak about that. Yeah.
28:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah. But, um, but yeah, like I think two weeks ago, I was like, this is going to be like when Ellison bought Paramount where we pretend like it may or may not happen, but it's always going to happen. It was always going to happen. And one of the reasons why I think it's the most likely to happen is just because he seems to have the quickest pathway to yes from the White House right now. So that would be very helpful, but we'll see. I mean, I'm very curious to know what you think about this.
28:41 Andy Greenwald? Well, a couple of things like I, I don't know how often I should be or should not be doing this, but like the caveat or the disclosures is like I, I work for some of these companies. And currently I'm working for more than one of them and I'm in England right now, working for Warner Brothers Discovery. I have a project at Universal. I have worked for most of these companies that never Paramount at times. And all I can say is, you know, I feel like my track record of being honest, sometimes painfully so, is pretty consistent. And that's all like, that's pretty much all I'm capable of doing or wired to do. I, so I'll continue to do that and just speak as freely as I feel that I'm capable
29:25 Andy Greenwald? of speaking. So I think there are multiple ways into the Warner Brothers sale. I think one of them is with, we were doing head versus heart stuff. The heart version of it is, this is absolutely devastating and it sucks. And it sucks for emotional and cultural reasons, not because the Warner Brothers themselves were like famously great guys, or they have an unparalleled 100 year track record of success, or like the time AOL bought them. But it is a legacy studio with a legacy footprint in an industry town that is feeling the ground fallout from under it. And.
30:06 Andy Greenwald? Particularly in a year when HBO has continued to produce phenomenal shows, Tess just ended a week ago, in a year in which the heads of Warner Brothers films,
30:18 Andy Greenwald? Pamela Abdi.
30:19 Chris Ryan? Pamela Abdi and Mike Deluca, and they're on all time heater.
30:22 Andy Greenwald? Are on an all time heater in a way that has felt really inspiring even to people who don't have any stake in Warner Brothers movies because it felt like at the top of the year, the rumblings were that David Zaslove was going to replace them. And then every movie they've put into theaters, for the most part, has been a success.
30:36 Chris Ryan? And they arguably laid out a blueprint for how to do it, where you mix.
30:40 Andy Greenwald? And how to market, yeah.
30:41 Chris Ryan? Like very crowd pleasing IP, like with originals, with big directors getting like a huge check to try and create some new IP of their own. So you get Sinners, you get Weapons, you get one bad off another.
30:57 Andy Greenwald? And all this happening despite, you know, the studio being, you know, it's unluckily in the hands of someone who basically used the system very well to do something that is insane, which is to buy a successful media company with debt, which is what David Zaslove did, and then burdening this company with all this debt. And despite that, you know, it still seems to be somehow staying afloat. So there have been like, you know, people, smart people in the industry have said, oh, well, the only move going forward, this is even before the Discovery deal, will be Paramount and Warner Brothers somehow, only because they are legacy studios that can't really scale up without someone else.
31:41 Chris Ryan? That's an important point that maybe we should just make to people who are not living in Los Angeles. And, you know, I think that the biggest thing for me is like what it would mean for the city and what it would mean for people who work in this industry. But beyond that, you know, what you have to understand is the reason, what's animating all of this is that these studios are falling behind Netflix at like a pretty alarming pace, you know, in terms of their subscriber bases.
32:06 Andy Greenwald? And they can't compete with Apple. They can't compete with Amazon, just, you know, financially, and they don't have the legacy characters and IP and theme parks and cruises that Disney does. So they're always, always at a disadvantage from, that people saw coming from, you know, years back.
32:24 Andy Greenwald? I think it'll be interesting, like, there's already been some rumblings that the WGA or the Producers Guild, that SAG, like, the unions might start flexing whatever muscles they feel they still have to disrupt this or stop this. I think that there's real concern that, okay, let's say Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and we don't know how real that interest is, but if Netflix buys Warner Brothers, is that the end of theatrical? Like, is that just, is that it? If Apple buys them, is that the end of theatrical? Because they make, you know, they make little slights towards putting movies in theaters sometimes, but that's just not their business, and they've increasingly stopped pretending that it is. The Paramount thing that is also really freaking people out is the politics of it.
33:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:08 Andy Greenwald? And I think that should be freaking people out. If Paramount feels emboldened to do a deal that would normally draw the ire of regulators, as it should, but feels confident doing it because they are, you know, they have special status from a deeply corrupt administration, that fucking sucks for everyone. That fucking sucks for capitalism, it sucks for citizens of this country, it sucks for everyone. And that's not even getting into, like, give Barry Weiss the keys to CNN. Like, that is just, it is so fundamentally crooked if the whisper is, "Clear the room", because no one's gonna get approval except Trump's buddy Larry. Like, that's just, that's banana republic shit.
33:52 Andy Greenwald? And I know we're already there, but this is the topic we're talking about, and so this is the one that is making me pissed off today.
33:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I agree with you. I think that it would be very troubling. I think it would also be troubling if Universal were shut out of this because they have MSNBC. You know what I mean? Or because Trump doesn't like Brian Roberts, or whatever it is, like...
34:13 Andy Greenwald? And what's weird is how quickly it's all happening, because NBC Universal has already announced, versus that they're spinning off their news business. MSNBC is becoming like, what is it? Like, they're changing their name completely to, like, MS Now or something.
34:26 Chris Ryan? Oh, I didn't know that.
34:27 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, they're already divesting these other networks. And Zaslav was spinning off Warner Brothers Discovery.
34:35 Chris Ryan? Right. That was the plan, is that Warner Brothers Discovery was gonna split the streaming and studio side away from the linear cable television.
34:42 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, and stick the linear stuff with the debt, with the hope that the other company would be sexier or more successful, and now maybe it's like, "No, maybe I won't do that at all, maybe I'll just sell."
34:51 Andy Greenwald? You know, it this is it's all a pretty sad indictment of where we are, not that these institutions made good decisions, it should be propped up by goodwill. But what is this business? What is it for? Who is it for? Who gets to be involved in it? It's all it's pretty existential stuff.
35:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I you know, I've tried to, over the last couple of weeks, get my head around, you know, especially actually, I think one of the reasons why I've been hesitant to talk about this is because I don't really know what I want. Like, I don't know whether or not it hasn't the I mean, I know I don't want necessarily Paramount to buy Warner Brothers, but I don't know what I want when I sit down and I turn on a smart TV. How do I want it to work?
35:36 Chris Ryan? What do I want given to me?
35:38 Andy Greenwald? Podcasts, you want podcasts.
35:41 Chris Ryan? But I think that, you know, it's like, it's weird for me as a 48 year old person to be like, here's, we got to get back to having three channels.
35:52 Andy Greenwald? It's so sweet. You're not even 48 yet, but you did that for solidarity, didn't you?
35:56 Chris Ryan? Eventually I'll be 48. But like, it's like, I do you want to go back to having four channels? Do you want to go back to cable? Do you want to go back to or do you want to break it all apart? Where everybody is always watching everything on demand on their phones or whatever it is like, I'm trying to be open minded about the realities of the way people watch television and the way people process culture now to the extent that these two conversations are kind of separate. Like, ultimately, like, this is of real importance to us because I think we have sentimental attachment to certain like iconic companies and iconic studios. And we want HBO to keep making really good television. And I want Paul Thomas Anderson to get to make something with the same
36:40 Chris Ryan? scope as One Battle After Another. And it seems like Pam Abdi and Mike DeLuca will would at least try to make that happen. But when it comes to like, the consolidation and the contraction, sometimes I am of the mind of we need to go through the dark time to get to some kind of like, Equilibrium. And I mean, obviously, there is not enough money in the world to keep these companies functional unless they have a billionaire parent like Larry Ellison or a sovereign wealth fund or something like Disney did the same thing here with Fox where they are saddled with debt and nothing is good enough for Disney and that's why people are getting squeezed at the parks like
37:25 Chris Ryan? as ATM machines because they're trying to like make this company profitable any way they can.
37:32 Andy Greenwald? I'll say though, this is just a small thing. Everything you're saying, I agree with and I think is factually true. I think what is missing in any of these conversations is any consideration of the human element. And because I am currently working for Warner Brothers and HBO, I won't even use them as an example, although I do think that what we are sentimental for is the fact that there is still some version of the HBO that we love in play because we had task last week and we have the chair company right now. You know what I mean? Like, that's awesome.
38:04 Chris Ryan? And we'll have dairy and we'll have industry and we'll have like our stuff. Yeah.
38:07 Andy Greenwald? The example I'll use that is a good example is when Disney bought Fox, there was an enormous amount of speculation as to what would happen with FX. Would it either be shuttered? Would it be marginalized? Would it be exploited? Meaning would John Landgraf and the other executives be plucked out of the company and culture they've built and put in charge of something bigger because bigger's always better. And I hope to one day read like an interesting behind the scenes article about this, or maybe there was no drama at all. So it wouldn't be a particularly good read. But FX has thrived. And I'm sure that some aspects of the culture has changed. But for whatever reason, Bob Iger didn't think the Soderbergh Adam Driver Star Wars movie was a good idea.
38:50 Chris Ryan? But he thought Shogun was cool. Yeah.
38:52 Andy Greenwald? Did think Shogun was cool and did understand that what FX has built, and we talk about it a lot, like it's this, it's the consistency of the leadership structure. It's the consistency of taste. It's how they engage and deal with creators that keep people coming back. And it's, and it results in a consistency of quality and of interest and of noticeable things that do move some needles in an impossible environment. And then every so often, it also gives you a Shogun. And like, The conversation about that, like nurturing something, I mean, the conversation's over because there are very few places, when I places, I mean, like buyers, streamers, networks, that have any kind of consistency anymore, that aren't just like, like those fucking
39:35 Andy Greenwald? wind puppets in front of car dealerships, just desperately hoping to pick up some breeze.
39:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
39:42 Andy Greenwald? And that's really what, like, you're never, I'm not, we're not fans of corporations.
39:47 Chris Ryan? No.
39:48 Andy Greenwald? But I am fans of consistency and quality and culture when we get it. And I think that we're worried that we're just going to lose all that to an algorithm.
39:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And the biggest worry that I have is that if these decisions are getting made for these purely financial reasons, which I'm sure they always have been, but there is romantic nostalgia about an era when the people running the companies at least had a passing interest in the culture of movie making or television.
40:16 Andy Greenwald? Or the product that they make, yeah, the audience that they're attempting to engage with.
40:19 Chris Ryan? Yeah. But that we start getting less and less stuff to talk about. Now, maybe we're, now we have too much to talk about and we wind up missing a bunch of stuff or getting overwhelmed by choice or whatever. But I do, that's, that's my primary concern. But we'll see where it goes. I mean, it seems like this, this, these two stories to me do feel tied together, that, you know, you can think something is going to go one way and then out of nowhere, you know, one of the main, one of the main characters of this decides to go to a different company and that, that can change, change the balance of power in some ways. Or maybe I'm overrating Taylor Sheridan's importance. I don't know.
41:00 Andy Greenwald? Well, I, again, it's, we don't know because we don't know what the priorities are. For whatever it's worth, like as much as we want to pigeonhole the Ellison's and Paramount as one thing, hiring Cindy Holland, late of Netflix, does not jive with this idea that it is just like a right wing Heartland takeover of a legacy brand. Like, that's not what she is known for. That's not who she is. And that's not the type of programming that she has historically made. And I don't mean to like, look down on like Heartland programming. I just mean, it is never as simple as a slanted headline might have you believe. And we don't know what she's going to be privileging. We just know that their checkbooks are open, but not open enough for the, what's the name of his ranch?
41:39 Chris Ryan? Uh, the Four Sixes.
41:41 Andy Greenwald? The Four Sixes? That's confusing. Yeah. Pick one. Four.
41:45 Chris Ryan? Let's take a quick break and then we'll get into some, some laughs.
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44:02 Chris Ryan? All right, Andy, we're back. You know, before we laugh, I just was gonna mention Welcome to Derry, which premiered last night.
44:07 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I wanna know what you think.
44:08 Chris Ryan? I thought it very brave pilot. The episode was called The Pilot. Andy Machete directed it. This is obviously a prequel to It, the Stephen King blockbuster novel, and then the pair of movies that came out recently. Plus, there was a mini-series, a beloved mini-series years before that. This is dialing-
44:28 Andy Greenwald? I love that mini-series.
44:30 Chris Ryan? -back to almost a Stand By Me era for the story. And it kind of talks a little bit about, you know what? I would say it's not even really like an origin story necessarily. Like, it's kind of its own thing. And one of the things I liked about it was that
44:49 Chris Ryan? it has created a reality within the television show where anything can happen. So without spoiling it for you or anybody who hasn't seen it, I would say go into this show and don't have any expectations because they will take left turns and right turns all over your body. It was really interesting.
45:08 Andy Greenwald? Ultimately, does it go straight then?
45:10 Chris Ryan? I can't tell.
45:11 Andy Greenwald? Cause it turns left and then it turns right?
45:13 Chris Ryan? Uh, well, after it's run you over. And your expectations are just spread out all over the highway. No, I mean, I, there were parts of it that I thought were like kind of stale retreads and feeling like you're starting from the beginning with a group of kids. And there's like this one, and then there's that one, and there's this one. And they all have a trauma, and they're trying to figure it out. And there's a mystery, and it turns out that the mystery is actually an unspeakable evil living in the sewers. Like, I've done this carousel before, but there was ways that they executed it. And there were parts of it that I felt like kinda had earlier Stephen King gonzo, like, almost like Maximum Overdrive vibes of like, oh, what the fuck?
45:54 Andy Greenwald? That's interesting.
45:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah, so I'll be curious to see where it goes over the next couple of weeks. But I am, mark me down as like intrigued, if not blown away.
46:07 Andy Greenwald? Can I give you a quick, a quick this or that for it? Since I probably, you know, I think people can guess this, probably won't be watching it just because of the genre and the vibe. Is this more Penguin or Dune prophecy?
46:21 Chris Ryan? I gotta be honest, I didn't watch Dune Prophecy.
46:24 Andy Greenwald? Well, I think you understand the role that the example plays in the question.
46:29 Chris Ryan? Penguin, I guess, then.
46:30 Andy Greenwald? That's positive.
46:31 Chris Ryan? Okay. You want to talk about Nobody Wants This?
46:35 Andy Greenwald? I do.
46:36 Chris Ryan? As always with the Netflix shows, it's a little complicated because you don't know how much people have watched over that opening weekend. This is the number one show on Netflix, so I am safely assuming that if you're interested in Nobody Wants This, you've watched a lot of it. And also, there's not a ton to spoil about the show. It's really more about analyzing
46:56 Chris Ryan? how they have adjusted it for the second season. So, starting with that, Andy, what did you see in the second season? I don't know how many you've watched, that differs from the first.
47:05 Andy Greenwald? So I've only watched a couple. I've watched, I think, three or four. And I have, I mean, I have a lot of positive things to say, and I have some questionable things to say. On the positive side of the ledger, everything that I liked from season one is still there, and that is the cast. It's Adam Brody, it's Kristen Bell, it's their chemistry, it's our buddy Tim Simons, it's Justine Lupe. It's a wonderful cast and a wonderful ensemble. What I, and also sometimes they film like three blocks from my house, which is nice to see. But also, I would like one of their houses. So, you know, so it's a little bit...
47:43 Chris Ryan? You're working through some stuff on this podcast.
47:44 Andy Greenwald? I'm working through some stuff. Like, I was like, looking at this house, I'm like, god damn, we should podcast in a house like that, that one of us should own, but we can't afford. The big picture positive, and if anyone who's really deep in this read the Hollywood Reporter cover story on the show last week, which is an incredibly polite version of what sounds like a pretty messy process for season one, with a first-time television creator, and Aaron Foster, and a bunch of very veteran television creators like Steve Levitan, juggling over who's controlling the show and what the show even is, and actors showing up and not really even knowing what their character is meant to be doing that day, and suddenly it's a huge hit.
48:26 Andy Greenwald? What I felt regardless, like I think this would have been evident even to people who didn't read that article, which is that steady hands are at the controls this season. Jenny Connor, late of Girls and Single Drunk Female and a bunch of other television shows, and Bruce Eric Kaplan, who worked with her on on Girls, took over as I guess technically their co-show runners were there in Foster, but they are the ones whose hands are on the rudder in terms of getting things done and making things run on time. And instantly in the season premiere, it's like, oh, okay, it's a TV comedy. It's a TV comedy that has an enormous wealth of talent. And what you do in successful TV comedies is you lean
49:09 Andy Greenwald? on your talent and you put them in positions to succeed. And there's a moment in the premiere that for me was everything that made me feel much more confident about the show, which is there was a very weird are they, will they or won't they with Tim's character of Sasha and Justine's character of Morgan, even though Tim is married to a character played by Jackie Tone, who's a great actress who was on Glow and a bunch of other things. And it kind of didn't make sense.
49:34 Chris Ryan? Her character's name is Esther.
49:35 Andy Greenwald? Yes. And it didn't make sense because both Esther was super written as like a kind of nightmare borderline antisemitic shrew, which is a theme that runs through the show, which I have to be honest about. Suddenly, in the beginning of season two, Morgan, Sasha, and Esther are in a bedroom and they run right at the tension and the confusion of the first season. And it's an incredibly funny and charismatic scene played by three actors who are enjoying themselves and know how to do this. And I relaxed into the show in a way that I never did in the first season. So I really appreciate that competence, especially for something with so many eyes on it.
50:11 Chris Ryan? Uh huh. You know, I felt very similarly. I felt like the first season, I don't really know if I can describe what it was that I think caught so many people by surprise, but also captured their kind of hearts and minds, which was obviously the chemistry between Brody and Belle was a huge thing. But there was also like.
50:37 Chris Ryan? I don't, I don't even know. There was, was there a little bit of like mumblecore kind of like real life in that first season where they're like hanging out on a sidewalk and it's an awkward first day? I think that I'm calling it mumblecore because I just, it felt very approachable in the first season. So
50:55 Andy Greenwald? Also, did it feel like they were making it up as they went along?
50:58 Chris Ryan? Maybe, and maybe that sometimes leads to a feeling of, hey, we don't know what we're doing. So we're just kind of finding it as we go, you know? This season felt like everybody had a very fixed job and a very fixed role. And I think I've noticed that most with Brody in the episodes that I've watched. It's sort of weird to talk about like sitcoms with like, with this kind of like forensic tone, but I don't know how to be like, and then I like this part and I like this part. But I do feel like Brody is like, I have to be 75% is charming because there has got to be a chance that we as a couple might not go forward. And if I'm 100% Adam Brody, there's nobody in the world
51:39 Chris Ryan? who can resist it. Right? Like so, you know, he's kind of holding back a little bit.
51:46 Andy Greenwald? Sorry to run all over you. It's just that essentially this show is impossible. And it's a reason why, we've talked about this before. You cannot really do rom-coms on TV because at a certain point, they're just together. And if you break them up, it doesn't make sense for the characters, for the show, for the audience. You're the worst is the best LA example of a rom-com that found a way to broaden its appeal, deepen its story and run for a long time. But that show's whole conceit was that these people do not belong together. And yet, here we are. This show was wonderful because everyone immediately wanted them together. And now what? And so it's as much, it's as compelling to me for the problem solving as it is for the romance in season two, and I don't mind
52:31 Andy Greenwald? that. So your point about Adam Brody, like bringing in Alex Karpovski, and then later in the season, from what I understand, Seth Rogen as like rival rabbis. Great decision. Lean on your Rolodex. Lean on Netflix.
52:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah, Ari and Moia plays a character on this season is incredible.
52:47 Andy Greenwald? Ari and Moia from Succession, fucking awesome. Shows up and you're like, oh, great. I want to watch him. And it's, it's a, these are problem solvers. What did people always say in the sports podcast? They're multipliers.
53:00 Chris Ryan? My impression of the way that they did this second season.
53:05 Chris Ryan? What happens over the course of the season with Sasha, with Morgan, with Esther, with and their obvious ability to sort of like spin the rolodex and bring in people for the show is that they are kind of future-proofing it so that they don't have to nearly break up the central couple every two episodes. And yes, like Joanne can still be uncomfortable with her conversion and nervous about commitment. And Noah can be like, I can't do this unless she converts. And I am also nervous about commitment. There can be tension. But I don't think you can kind of, you can only have like, meet me at the at the Empire State Building kind of moments so many times.
53:47 Andy Greenwald? What would the equivalent be the Capitol Records building? What's the, what's the?
53:50 Chris Ryan? Or just like I chase she, I'm gonna chase after you and you're, I'm gonna be like, it's always been you, you know, that kind of thing.
53:55 Andy Greenwald? Meet me at the abandoned husk of the ArcLight.
53:58 Chris Ryan? Meet me in the bathroom of the abandoned husk. Yeah. So anyway, I feel like the way that they're constructing the show is like this could run for several seasons because it doesn't always have to be about whether Noah and Joanne are gonna get married.
54:15 Andy Greenwald? No, and the truth is.
54:16 Chris Ryan? Jews in love.
54:18 Andy Greenwald? The more one Jew in love with a non-Jew. The other thing.
54:21 Chris Ryan? She could convert though.
54:23 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, it's kind of like this podcast, really, if you think about it, Squint. I think
54:30 Andy Greenwald? people, it's, it's an interesting thing, like game planning sitcoms in this era because you have to think about everything in terms of like, character dynamics and story and tension and stakes and season versus season and where we're going. But also, you don't overthink it. Like, there's a moment in episode two, I think of the season or three, when Sasha and Esther are just hanging out. And instantly, it does something that didn't happen in the first season, which is you understand why these people married each other. And it's just a fun hang. And sometimes, when you have high quality actors in cute situations, like, that's enough. That's fine. And anything above that is, is, is bonus, is extra. I do think that there's one of the.
55:15 Andy Greenwald? Critiques that I have seen, and I want to get your sense about this. I think I want to give it attention, but also I think it's kind of nonsense, which is all of these people are 10 years too old to play these characters. I but I think it's probably fine for that reason, because they are.
55:29 Chris Ryan? I haven't seen this criticism, so I like. It's like people in their 40s should be like, should know better by then. And they're pretending to be people who are like 33.
55:39 Andy Greenwald? These, yes, these characters are emotionally and professionally early 30s, but they're all played by people in their mid to approaching late 40s. And I wonder if it matters, because in LA, everybody looks like they're 34. Not us, but we've only recently been forced to go on video. No, give me, give me a minute. I've got a lot of work done and you're gonna see. But does so that doesn't bother you at all?
56:02 Chris Ryan? No, that was, that's not one of the top 10 things that ever jump out at me is like, oh, like when I'm watching television, it's pretty rare unless somebody is like, I'm Jim Carrey and I'm playing a high schooler, even though I'm like 35. Like it does, it rarely am I like Kristen Bell has no business playing someone who's single like.
56:21 Andy Greenwald? She should be more mature than that.
56:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it doesn't bother me. It's TV. Let me hit you up about Chair Company really quick before we go.
56:29 Andy Greenwald? All right.
56:33 Chris Ryan? This was, the third episode was like a little bit of like, we're at like kind of CR's limit, you know?
56:41 Andy Greenwald? Oh, oh, really? Okay.
56:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah, a little bit like I, I laughed a couple of times. There was some funny stuff, but I was like, what the fuck is this show about? And how many more like guys are going to be hiding in closets? It's funny, but it was like, you know how sometimes when I have this experience? I'm sure you have this experience with me where you're like, oh, yeah, I watched Chair Company. And somebody's just like, isn't it the funniest thing you've ever seen in your life? And I'm like, I, I guess like, not really. And I'm sure I do that to you where I'm like, isn't Landman the most amazing thing you've ever seen? And you're like, it's okay.
57:17 Andy Greenwald? You do that.
57:18 Chris Ryan? Tim Robinson, not the same thing. And I do really like Tim Robinson. I really, I really, I think this was more of like about the mystery and I was like. This mystery is not grabbing, it's not grabbing me, really.
57:30 Andy Greenwald? I think, well, okay, so a couple of things. This is the second show in as many weeks that made me feel, not like there could ever be another David Lynch, but that his lessons are being received. Like, we talked last week about how much we like the lowdown, and there are just elements of it. There's just flavor sometimes of Twin Peaks in the show in a way that feels respectful.
57:51 Chris Ryan? Very self-consciously, with the Agent Cooper stuff.
57:54 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, but it, but it didn't feel like pastiche or homage. Just felt like, yeah, I like that. And that's a flavor that I feel comfortable cooking with now. And similarly, the little guy in the closet, and just the way he looks at him, which is both terrifying and also deeply funny, reminded me that Twin Peaks was also horrifying and funny. And David Lynch found lots of it funny. You know what I mean? It's just, it's playing with things that I really respond to, but pivoting them in a different way. I also think that, I know last week I was talking about how I feel like Tim Robinson and PTA have a lot in common. That was before I even noticed that SNL legend Jim Downey, who was one of the Christmas adventurers in One Battle After Another.
58:34 Chris Ryan? He's in the office here, yeah.
58:36 Andy Greenwald? Plays the dude at Ron Trossper's office who invites people to a making mistakes party. There's a lot of overlap there, but also, I really, I can hold, with this show, I love it so much because I'm holding two ideas very, very comfortably in my hands. One of which is, I think that this show is an incredibly insightful and disturbing investigation into everything that's wrong with America. If I could quote Ron Trossper from this episode, when he's drinking at the bar while on hold for the fifth hour with, what's the name of the company? Like Red Ball Holdings or something?
59:11 Chris Ryan? Management Solutions, yeah.
59:13 Andy Greenwald? So that song is playing over and over. He's been on hold for five hours and he says, and I quote, "That's the problem with the world today. People make garbage and you can't talk to anybody. I want to scream at them." Yeah, that's it, man. That's America.
59:27 Chris Ryan? I'm not saying it's not insightful or perceptive. I'm talking about the actual experience of watching it.
59:31 Andy Greenwald? But I'm saying that is one red ball that I'm holding in my left hand. And the other red ball is that, Chris, this is the funniest fucking thing in the world to me. And so I just have them both and I'm like, he's cooking. He's cooking with gas right now.
59:43 Chris Ryan? Can I ask you a question? Because you watched a bunch. So
59:48 Andy Greenwald? No, I'm caught up now. I've not watched past.
59:50 Chris Ryan? Oh, so you would watch three. Okay. Because I was wondering if maybe you were like, it gets so good. So it kind of makes the previous episode.
59:57 Andy Greenwald? Huh? It could all fall apart, brother. It could be a teka chair.
1:00:00 Chris Ryan? I'm not trying to yuck your yum. I was just kind of like, maybe, maybe it was also just like long day, lot of stuff. And then I'm like, let me tuck into a, a couple of laughs from my guy Tim Robinson. And I was like, dude, I'm not really in the mood for this right now.
1:00:16 Andy Greenwald? You're not in the mood for someone saying you have to go home and take a shower because I could smell you?
1:00:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it was, that was funny. It was funny. Yeah, it's funny. By the way, I liked earlier, you were like, I'm sure that I've said that Landman is really good. And you were like, okay, Chris, that was nine episodes of the Watch Podcast. I'm happy to be, I'm here with you every episode of the Chair Company, brother. I'm watching it every week.
1:00:40 Andy Greenwald? Thank you. I appreciate that.
1:00:42 Chris Ryan? Um, okay. Well, we can wrap it up there. It's great to see you. I want to let you go get some, some soft broccoli or whatever you gotta go eat.
1:00:49 Andy Greenwald? Broccoli doesn't have to be soft. I like soup for many meals. I also enjoy broccoli. Texture wise, we can have a whole other conversation about it. But you are right. It is dinner time and I'm running on fumes.
1:00:59 Chris Ryan? Okay. Uh, thanks to Andy. Thanks to Kaia and Kai. We will be back on Thursday. Lowdown, Slow Horses finale, and maybe some Down Cemetery Road.
1:01:08 Andy Greenwald? Look forward to it.
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Previous Catching Up on ‘Slow Horses,’ ‘The Lowdown,’ and ‘The Chair Company.’ Plus, the ‘Black Rabbit’ Creators! Next ‘Slow Horses’ S5 Finale, ‘Down Cemetery Road’ Premiere, and ‘The Lowdown’ E7 Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated