The Best TV Episode of 2024

Chris and Andy talk about some of their runners-up for best TV episode of the year (1:00), and why they ultimately chose 'Shogun' Episode 9, "Crimson Sky," as the winner (26:06). Then, they are joined by show creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, writer Caillin Puente, and lead actress Anna Sawai to talk about how making this episode was less about planning and more about immersing themselves in the story as they made the season (34:37) and how this episode became a showcase for Mariko's quiet power (56:14). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Rachel Kondo, Caillin Puente, Anna Sawai, and Justin Marks Producer: Kaya McMullen 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on The Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellini. I'm a founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. With my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow The Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late night, half-price appetizers are here at Applebee's. Saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings, crispy, cheesy mozzarella sticks, creamy spinach and artichoke dip. Your favorite app's half-price, available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more. Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright 2026 Applebee's Restaurant, LLC. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Breaking news out of the North Pole. Santa and his elves are swamped with requests for vehicle floor liners. And although elves are terrific toy makers, their little hammers and chisels don't come close to the laser-measured

• 1:25Speaker 01

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• 1:46Speaker 02

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Stand up and walk now.

• 1:51Chris 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, he wants to cut to the feeling, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 2:05Andy Greenwald?

  One of the great pleasures of a long friendship, you never know what the day will bring. You know, we're here to talk about the episode of the year in television and yet just yesterday, you texted me and you were like, hey, Carly Rae Jepsen, P good.

• 2:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let me give you a little background on that.

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  Please, give our listeners.

• 2:24Chris Ryan?

  There is a very good, very sweet movie on HBO, on Max right now called Sweethearts.

• 2:30Andy Greenwald?

  Look at you tying this into what we cover on the podcast.

• 2:33Chris Ryan?

  And I am, uh, I am documenting the Kiran Shipp-gossance. Cause she's been in a bunch of movies this year, Long Legs, Twisters.

• 2:40Andy Greenwald?

  You're Pro Kiki.

• 2:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And so she stars in this film, Sweethearts. I watched it with my wife the other night. It was very, very sweet. Um, and it ends with Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen, which I was like.

• 2:52Andy Greenwald?

  One of, one of the great songs.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  Gotta be honest, I don't know if I've ever heard this before.

• 2:55Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  And here's the thing, Carly Rae Jepsen's two bangers make all other Carly Rae Jepsen, like less good. Like, cause her two great songs are like, holy shit, this song is so good. So that when you hit me back with like 14 Carly Rae Jepsen.

• 3:11Andy Greenwald?

  It was four or five and it was instant.

• 3:13Chris Ryan?

  I was like, no, man, these aren't, these aren't reaching these levels. Okay? Just so you know.

• 3:18Andy Greenwald?

  I would like to use this conversation as a way to pivot to what my 11 year old daughter said to me when I showed her that we were on YouTube, which was, quote, why would anyone want to watch this?

• 3:27Chris Ryan?

  It's okay. You can watch us.

• 3:29Andy Greenwald?

  She said, she said, why would anyone want to watch two 40 year olds talk about stuff? And my answer is, cause sometimes we talk about Carly Rae Jepsen.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 3:37Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, you gotta, you gotta stay tuned.

• 3:39Chris Ryan?

  Andy, they can watch us on, uh, The Ringer TV YouTube channel. They can watch us a little bit on the Instagram account run by Kaia McMullin called The Watch Podcast.

• 3:49Andy Greenwald?

  One of the Instagram accounts run by Kaia McMullin. We won't name the others.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  At the watch pod underscore.

• 3:54Chris Ryan?

  At the watch pod underscore.

• 3:55Andy Greenwald?

  You're never gonna get this right.

• 3:56Chris Ryan?

  I'm just doing up for this at this point. Um, and here we are talking about the best episode of TV in 2024. This is a new tradition of ours. We did it last year with Kristor from The Bear and Eben Moss Backrack. And this year we have, uh, a great group of guests. Why don't you tell everybody who we got?

• 4:14Andy Greenwald?

  Well. The episode of the year, for the episode of the year episode, was Crimson Sky, the penultimate episode of Shogun season one. And joining us again on the pod are the show's showrunners, co-creators, executive producers, husband and wife team, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, as well as Kylan Puente, the co-writer of the episode, along with Rachel Kondo, and the star of the episode, Anna Soi.

• 4:38Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  Emmy award winner for her role as Mariko on Shogun. So we had all of them joining us from across multiple time zones.

• 4:46Chris Ryan?

  It was quite, it was quite the feat to get everybody involved.

• 4:48Andy Greenwald?

  Shout out to Lana from FX for wrangling everyone. We were across, yeah, across three time zones, three cities, Australia, Hawaii, and Los Angeles.

• 4:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  And it was a great conversation with them, which we will get into in a bit.

• 5:00Chris Ryan?

  In a bit, yeah, with no rush, right?

• 5:02Andy Greenwald?

  Why rush? I think people will enjoy spending time with this current iteration of my voice before hearing me on the Shogun portion, recorded a few days ago, when I was in, I was more Hale and Hardy at the time.

• 5:14Chris Ryan?

  What would you like to talk about? I have a couple of topics. Number one would be Black Bag, the trailer for the new Steven Soderbergh movie, which is coming out in March, which I think ordinarily, you know, I would leave to big picture and the movie guys, movie pods of The Ringer, but I do think that when Michael Fassbender plays a spy, we take notice.

• 5:32Andy Greenwald?

  It's important for us.

• 5:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, clearly like drawing from some of our favorite spy characters in English literature, like Len Diten's Harry, Harry Palmer character, and George Miley from John McCurry's novels. But it was, it was a very slick, very haywire looking trailer. I thought that looked incredible.

• 5:50Andy Greenwald?

  This looks like the best movie ever. What are you talking about? This movie is literally made for us, and you're like, oh, I thought this looked tasteful.

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  No, you know, it was just that you, you had a very muted reaction when you watched the trailer. You're like, cool.

• 6:01Andy Greenwald?

  So why did you, then you modulated because you didn't want to embarrass me? This is Steven Soderbergh directing a sleek European spy thriller, starring two of the best actors alive, and also Pierce Brosnan, and also Marisa Bella from Industry, our number one show, sorry, number two show of the year. This is for us, not by us. This is just food. It's just foo.

• 6:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  I love it.

• 6:27Chris Ryan?

  Is it concerning that Michael Fassbender only plays one character now?

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  It is wild.

• 6:32Chris Ryan?

  It is between the killer, the agency, and this. He has just been like in that outfit, killing people.

• 6:39Andy Greenwald?

  Not raising his heart rate at all.

• 6:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Andy Greenwald?

  What's interesting about this is this. Usually when actors settle into the one thing that they do, those actors are Richard Kind.

• 6:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? They're like, hey, get Rick Kind to do that thing when he shouts. It's rarely someone who, within a decade ago, was tipped as the next leading man.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, he was and he wasn't, right? Because like, I think he did a couple of big blockbusters, like Assassin's Creed.

• 7:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it didn't go great.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  And maybe needed to be more in this world where his inherent kind of, I wouldn't, I would say cool, but also coldness and stillness was emphasized, yeah.

• 7:20Andy Greenwald?

  He also, correct me if I'm wrong, this might be more of a big picture take, but like, didn't he just sort of not act for a while because he was racing cars?

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  He was racing cars and I think raising a family.

• 7:29Andy Greenwald?

  But so now is he, so how does that work for him? Does he like put the car in neutral and he's like, you got me for 18 months, but I'm not going to change character? You can put different clothes on me?

• 7:37Chris Ryan?

  Turn the car off. It's not like.

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  I would not, see, I have an electric car. I don't know if I've mentioned that. And so really, it's always kind of on?

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  Well, you think we'll ever have like an electric car Grand Prix? Like an electric car Le Mans?

• 7:53Andy Greenwald?

  Like that?

• 7:54Chris Ryan?

  The way your car.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  Sounds like Mario Kart? Is that what it would be like?

• 7:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Andy Greenwald?

  It wouldn't be cool.

• 8:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Andy Greenwald?

  I can guarantee you that. So the answer is no. No, we won't.

• 8:03Chris Ryan?

  Uh, speaking of electric cars, I just wanted to bring up.

• 8:07Andy Greenwald?

  Eyes spinning.

• 8:08Chris Ryan?

  Bring up Landman briefly.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  There it is. You're good at this.

• 8:11Chris Ryan?

  You haven't watched the most recent episode, have you?

• 8:12Andy Greenwald?

  No, because I, full disclosure, I didn't know we were going to be able to do an in-person.

• 8:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, no, I know. I decided to stay in LA because it's too cold in Philadelphia.

• 8:20Andy Greenwald?

  Again, because you miss me.

• 8:21Chris Ryan?

  Landman's still pretty, pretty incredible. This episode was, uh, we could save it to talk about next week if you'd like to.

• 8:29Andy Greenwald?

  Because two things, one, I am interested. Do, you know, maybe my politics are shifting along with the countries.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe I'm, maybe I'm more open to this, this sort of thing. But also, you have now said repeatedly that, quote, "I come alive only when talking about Landman."

• 8:46Chris Ryan?

  It's just like when we talk about something that we both really love.

• 8:49Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  But it's like, this is serious business. We have to really like, talk about like,

• 8:55Chris Ryan?

  how they've unearthed different themes.

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  Or like, say nothing.

• 8:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And it's like, okay, like, it's like, we're a little bit more muted.

• 9:00Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that we should release the after-hours Say Nothing tapes?

• 9:05Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think it's time for like, our other takes on that show?

• 9:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Say Nothing, but with like, nine pints of stout before we talk about it.

• 9:13Andy Greenwald?

  I, I hear you. So I'm, I'm with you on this journey.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to watch out because Bill's on your corner now.

• 9:19Andy Greenwald?

  Wait, you mean Bill's covering something that we cover?

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  Doesn't happen. What are you talking about?

• 9:25Chris Ryan?

  He's on, he's on Landman corner. Or should I say Landman patch? Yeah.

• 9:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's, he's out on the fields.

• 9:30Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:31Andy Greenwald?

  The Permian Basin.

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  I'm just saying. Watch out.

• 9:34Andy Greenwald?

  You, you, this is, this is your way of saying you went on the Bill Simmons podcast to talk about Landman.

• 9:39Chris Ryan?

  Oh, should I talk about some of my other podcast appearances?

• 9:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, have you done any? How are they going? How are they going?

• 9:43Chris Ryan?

  I was on, I was, I talked about, about Landman with Bill. It was, but it wasn't the same.

• 9:48Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it was different. That's okay. What do you want to say about Landman now?

• 9:51Chris Ryan?

  I want to say that, actually. I was just going to say that this is a remarkable episode because it's 43 minutes.

• 9:56Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sick.

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  I would say it's about 16 minutes long in terms of an episode. A lot of it is two music videos, essentially. Some long shots of Jon Hamm's character's art collection. And a lot of drone shots of Allie Larter and Billy Bob Thornton driving back and forth between Fort Worth and Midland.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds great. Can I ask you a question about the show, just broadly? I did a, for, for a friend, I, I went to her office, the marketing thing and, uh, marketing company and spoke about entertainment, streaming stuff we talk about on the podcast. And they actually had a lot of questions about how marketing is effective, how marketing can be effective in this like, splintered cultural ecosystem.

• 10:38Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:40Andy Greenwald?

  And they wondered what marketing has been effective for me, you know, over the last few, like, marketing campaigns that I've noticed or responded to, or wasn't threatened or annoyed by. And I was like, I gotta be honest with you. The single most effective marketing that I've experienced in the last calendar year is Michelob Ultra on Landman. Because I, I mean this sincerely.

• 11:00Chris Ryan?

  Did you actually, have you drank a Michelob Ultra since Landman started?

• 11:04Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 11:05Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  As, as you may hear, I've been a little, a little froggy. Yeah, so it didn't seem like the best thing. But when I, we first, when I watched the first episode and I was like, this is the most blatant product placement I've ever seen.

• 11:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Andy Greenwald?

  And then as the episodes, you know, continue to stack up, and people who, this'll, people resonate, this will resonate with people, whether you've watched it or not. It has become a plot point where Billy Bob Thornton walks into bars and they're like, would you like an alcoholic beverage, sir? And he's like, no, I am an alcoholic. I would like a bottle of your finest Michelob Ultra. And then everyone stops and says, but sir, sir, that is still a, a beer. And he says, is it? Basically. And then he drinks seven of them and then drives to Dallas.

• 11:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's probably really mixed messaging on the product. Because it's essentially like, this is weak sauce for babies who can't hold their booze.

• 11:55Andy Greenwald?

  Also.

• 11:56Chris Ryan?

  You can also drive a pickup truck while you've had seven of them.

• 11:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I think that this is interesting to me because I, I'm just gonna throw this out there, I said this, I, I feel tested this yesterday, so I'm gonna put it on the pod. I feel like maybe we are in the mask off era of corporate marketing. Where it's just like, yeah, this kinda sucks.

• 12:16Chris Ryan?

  Let's keep talking about this.

• 12:17Andy Greenwald?

  But you know what I mean?

• 12:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, this kinda sucks, but, you know, it is what it is. Someone smartly pointed this out, I can't, I would give her credit, I'm sorry, I didn't get her name yesterday, where she was like, isn't this like Cinnabon in Better Call Saul?

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  Was this person at like Albertson's or something?

• 12:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no, this was at the marketing company, where I was, where I was a guest yesterday. And, uh, no, no, it was like, when Better Call Saul was like, we are going to script a scenario where the once great Saul Goodman is reduced to the most pathetic circumstances imaginable, working at a mall in Nebraska.

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, at a Cinnabon.

• 12:50Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe it should be Cinnabon. Hey, Cinnabon, are you cool with us saying this about you? And they were like, please.

• 12:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Andy Greenwald?

  Say more.

• 12:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:56Andy Greenwald?

  And in a way, I was like, isn't this kind of like Sony being like, what's your, they're like, what's your response to Craven the Hunter? And they were like, we did an oopsie. Guess it was a bad idea making a shit movie for no reason.

• 13:07Chris Ryan?

  Well, you haven't seen Craving the Hunter. You don't know.

• 13:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 13:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 13:10Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's J C Chander. It could be like an incredible film.

• 13:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Well, the thing I know about J C Chander is from jump. He's like, I am passionate about making a movie about a Russian underworld figure who has the blood of a lion. And also Christopher Abbott and Russell Crowe. Anyway, do you get my point?

• 13:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I do.

• 13:27Andy Greenwald?

  About marketing and do you agree?

• 13:28Chris Ryan?

  I'm trying to think of a, a marketing that has effectively said, like, let's be honest. And then I've been like, yes, let's be honest. I think cereal should do this. We had a long conversation about this on the rewatchables this week, me and Bill talking about the 2000.

• 13:44Andy Greenwald?

  Is that another pod you were on this week?

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  14 film, The Gambler, starring Mark Wahlberg.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I saw that on a plane. Yeah.

• 13:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Mark Wahlberg's character mostly eats cereal in this movie. So we were talking about our relationship to cereal. And cereal really got like, I think legislated out of society in, in my world, you know, like where it was like. Everybody was like a cereal head and then it was just like, you shouldn't eat it. This is just a really bad way to start your day.

• 14:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, this is in your Huberman bubble, but yes.

• 14:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, would your kids eat cereal?

• 14:12Andy Greenwald?

  Great point. Kinda they don't.

• 14:14Chris Ryan?

  Is that because you indoctrinated them into savory breakfast and having like a bowl of rice with an egg and like some salmon or whatever?

• 14:20Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, it was this morning, it was salmon eggs. Actually, we're like, can we have, can we have salmon roe over rice?

• 14:28Chris Ryan?

  Salmon roe?

• 14:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I was like, you are not, you are not fit for the world. I've done nothing. Yeah. That really happened.

• 14:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 14:37Andy Greenwald?

  I took them to the fish store yesterday. I was like, let's get something for dinner. And the only thing they wanted in the store was salmon roe for breakfast tomorrow.

• 14:45Chris Ryan?

  Well, this is your fault.

• 14:46Andy Greenwald?

  But anyway, yeah, it's all my fault. Anyway, I'm the villain of Landman. But to your point about cereal.

• 14:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, no, I was just saying that like, if cereal came back and was just basically like cigarettes, it's like, it's really bad for you, but what a, what an amazing product.

• 14:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's really smart.

• 14:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:00Andy Greenwald?

  But wait, so you.

• 15:03Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like cereal kinda got too gassed up in the 90s. It was Seinfeld era, but also for a long time for us, cereal was a delivery system, a fraudulent delivery system for mixed health messages.

• 15:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because you would have Frosted Mini Wheats and they would be like, this is your daily burst of vitamin F, you know?

• 15:23Andy Greenwald?

  This is a huge thing for-

• 15:25Chris Ryan?

  Vitamin Frosted.

• 15:26Andy Greenwald?

  Vitamin fraudulent. This is a huge thing for our generation, sorry, Kaya. But like, in the early 90s, there was a cereal called Cracklin' Oat Bran.

• 15:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Andy Greenwald?

  And the messaging of Cracklin' Oat Bran was, this will lower your cholesterol. Now, cholesterol was basically the ISIS of the late 80s, where it's like, how long have you guys known about this? It's lying in wait to kill us?

• 15:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  And so, we were just clinging to anything to save us from this scourge of cholesterol, this newly invented problem.

• 15:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Andy Greenwald?

  And apparently Cracklin' Oat Bran was the key, and people were buying boxes and just having bowl after bowl to get them numbers down. And then, someone, I'd like to say, a doctor, was like, hey, just FYI, this is cookies?

• 16:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, these have like 87 grams of sugar.

• 16:13Andy Greenwald?

  Like, do you in the morning, but just so you know.

• 16:16Chris Ryan?

  This has recently happened to me because I was listening to Josh Brolin on Maron, and he tells this very long story about Zin, which I have like, I'm very passionate about it, but it's also like, I have another nicotine delivery system that I prefer, which is these like little lozenges, these little mints.

• 16:33Andy Greenwald?

  And a secondary one called cigarettes.

• 16:35Chris Ryan?

  And he was like, those are sugar? Like, that's just pure sugar? And I was like, have I just been having like 40 extra grams of sugar a day, eating nicotine lozenges? But I don't know if Josh Brolin got his numbers right there.

• 16:51Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 16:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, I did my own research.

• 16:53Andy Greenwald?

  You're gonna do your own research?

• 16:55Chris Ryan?

  Um, this has really gone in a bunch of different directions I didn't expect it.

• 16:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, cigarettes are bad for you? I'm just gonna buy this tube of cotton candy flavored smoke? And just suck on it for nine hours a day?

• 17:08Chris Ryan?

  Well, no, nobody's under any illusions that that is insanely bad. Bad for you to do to vape.

• 17:13Andy Greenwald?

  But I do think people are like, well, at least it's not cigarettes.

• 17:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:17Andy Greenwald?

  Cigarettes are limited series, right? Whereas vapes are the gray's anatomy of lung poisoning.

• 17:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you're lighting a USB stick on fire.

• 17:25Andy Greenwald?

  For unlimited amounts of time.

• 17:27Chris Ryan?

  No, you have to refill the juice inside of it.

• 17:29Andy Greenwald?

  You have to refill the juice.

• 17:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you have to get like new fluid for your vape.

• 17:33Andy Greenwald?

  Get new fluid. This podcast rules. I thought your cereal point, if I could come back to it, was a smart one.

• 17:40Chris Ryan?

  I would love it if like the Ringer business team came back to me and was just like, God, we're getting a lot of interest from Michelob and big vape juice.

• 17:47Andy Greenwald?

  No, and fucking Kellogg's.

• 17:51Andy Greenwald?

  Like, let us run the cereal account. I, I agree. I think cereal got too in front of its skis and then, then went too low, when in fact, people enjoy sweet crunchy taste drowned in milk. It's fine.

• 18:04Chris Ryan?

  It's one of the great things we've ever invented.

• 18:06Andy Greenwald?

  It's fine. Did you ever, sorry, last thing.

• 18:09Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 18:10Andy Greenwald?

  When you were a kid, I'm sure, because I feel like there was one or two of these kids in every classroom who was allergic to dairy. Now everyone is, but at the time, it was kind of a unique circumstance.

• 18:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Andy Greenwald?

  And I just remember racking my tiny first grade brain being like, but then how does he have Cheerios? Like, what does he do? Like, because that was what one did in the morning, was have cereal.

• 18:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:32Andy Greenwald?

  So what, it never occurred to me that he could have other options.

• 18:36Chris Ryan?

  I don't think we had other options when we were kids.

• 18:38Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, like maybe you could have a, a Thomas's English muffin, for example.

• 18:42Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, you had, there was alternatives, salmon roe.

• 18:44Andy Greenwald?

  I remember like, it's just some fine Russian salmon caviar.

• 18:49Chris Ryan?

  By the way, you're not allowed to complain.

• 18:52Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not complaining about anything. That was an insane, I didn't realize what I had done.

• 18:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Andy Greenwald?

  I just remember forty years ago, calming myself and going to sleep thinking, well, he probably pours orange juice on his cereal.

• 19:08Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, that's probably a plausible outcome.

• 19:09Chris Ryan?

  That's Quaker education, baby.

• 19:12Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just, I'm just, I don't know any facts, but I'm looking for the light within.

• 19:16Chris Ryan?

  Should we talk a little bit about what makes a great episode of television?

• 19:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, can I also just do one other bit of admin?

• 19:23Chris Ryan?

  You killed my segues. Go ahead.

• 19:25Andy Greenwald?

  It was a good segue.

• 19:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to say that like, no matter how many times now we do our year end podcasts.

• 19:33Andy Greenwald?

  And no matter how many times we talk about our friend Sam Esmeil.

• 19:36Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 19:37Andy Greenwald?

  People are consumed with the idea that there's some sort of beef.

• 19:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Andy Greenwald?

  That we're fighting, that he's not.

• 19:43Chris Ryan?

  There's feedback about this.

• 19:44Andy Greenwald?

  Welcome back on this podcast, that something has gone wrong. Even though I keep casually referring to the fact that we hung out with Sam in London, where he is in pre-production on his movie last month. So let me just say now, Sam Esmeil, you're dead to us. No, it's fine. He didn't want to do this anymore because he's not watching a lot of TV and he's in pre-production on his movie.

• 20:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, I.

• 20:07Andy Greenwald?

  It's not an issue.

• 20:08Chris Ryan?

  I want to keep it ambiguous.

• 20:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so let me speak for me. My relationship with Sam is fine.

• 20:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Andy Greenwald?

  The pause is intentional.

• 20:17Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about best episodes of the year.

• 20:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 20:20Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so we have obviously this great conversation coming up with the team from Shogun. But I wanted to ask you a little bit about what you think makes a great episode. We talked a little bit about this last year, but I think it's always useful to kind of talk about the criteria we use. It's not scientific, but it's also, I think, has some logic to it.

• 20:40Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 20:40Chris Ryan?

  It's important to just like, sort of separate moments in episodes. I think that's one thing, you know, Rob and Joe talked a little bit about their favorite TV moments of the year. And those can pop up anywhere, those can be small, they can be big, but I think that what we were looking for when we were talking about what our favorite episode of TV of the year was something that really honored getting the most out of the runtime of the episode, whether that was a 22-minute episode of something, or an hour and six-minute episode of something. And often, you know, I have a list of things here. The number one example I could come up with for this was the first episode of The Sympathizer, which was phenomenal. It's called Death Wish. And it's a show that didn't wind up really getting discussed much after the first two

• 21:22Chris Ryan?

  episodes by us, and I think fell off of a lot of people's sort of radar after a while, but was directed by Park Chan Wook and was just like. This absolutely dazzling, assured, stylish, kinetic, well-written, well-acted piece of filmmaking for this and introduced this world of the sympathizer with such panache. And you know, the show itself like kind of like struggled, I think, to keep up that energy. But that's a good example. That was on my shortlist of things to consider for best episode of the year. Do you think anything that would be considered as the best episode of the year has to be part of the best show of the year? One of the best shows?

• 22:03Andy Greenwald?

  No. I think that maybe in the years to come, that could be a separate, those could diverge more fully than they have, for sure. That said, I do think one of my criteria, not as high, probably not as important of one as the, some of the categories, some of the things that you've already said and that we're going to continue to reiterate. But one of the criterias that I would consider would be making something exceptional within the flow of something larger.

• 22:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:30Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I think that what, I love getting the chance to do this every year now because I do think that there's a very particular alchemy to a good television episode. Despite how often we talk about the writer or the showrunner, or we big up an actor, or we talk about a director, as you just mentioned with Park Chan Wook, what makes TV TV is the kind of sublimation of all of these different individual talents into one harmonic whole. And you have something that had equal contributions from the actors, from the writers, from production and all the different categories that fall under production, you know, whether it's costumes or the editor, everyone, that's post-production, but you get my point. And everybody working in service of something that feels seamless, that speaks or shouts

• 23:15Andy Greenwald?

  with one voice. And so part of that for me is that those voices shouting in chorus within the episode and then in the larger context of the series. But. But that's kind of how I think about it. And I don't think we were at a loss for a lot of choices this year.

• 23:30Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, just obviously, a lot of people listening to this and industry fans would probably say White Mischief would have been the episode of the year. And it certainly has a strong case. That was the Rishi episode of industry. I also had Judgment Day by Three Body, the Three Body Problem.

• 23:46Andy Greenwald?

  Hell, yeah.

• 23:46Chris Ryan?

  Episode, just because that was kind of the jaw dropping moment for me of the year of all like kind of blockbuster television, even though that show itself maybe has its critics.

• 23:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, and you had the feeling that like this matters too. Like you had the feeling that within the writer's room, this episode was circled on the whiteboard of like, this is the prove it episode.

• 24:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Evil Little Maniacs, the Say Nothing episode that features the sisters going to London.

• 24:08Andy Greenwald?

  And I would have said on top of that, I would have said that or the Hunger Strike episode, which was not a fun watch, but was dazzling. And in a way, the strength of those two episodes as a one-two punch almost diluted the case for either as the single episode of the year. But they're absolutely worthy of the honor.

• 24:24Chris Ryan?

  Did you have any other runner ups?

• 24:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I would say that I know the bear, in terms of its placement on our top 10 list, is sort of in limbo dependent on how season four turns out. But I would say the Ice Chips episode was absolutely a contender again this year. That was the Abby Elliott, Jamie Lee Curtis, essentially two-hander. Beautiful, incredible standout episode. And Napkins as well.

• 24:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Andy Greenwald?

  Would be on my list for best episodes of the year. I would say the Therapy episode of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 24:52Andy Greenwald?

  Between Sarah Paulson.

• 24:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Andy Greenwald?

  Was sort of a masterclass in what that show does well. And I think that's another way to look at this category or this award that we're giving out every year, which is like so often you and I are asked like, oh, what do you recommend? What should we watch? And the way we consume TV now, it's basically like, well, there's 10 episodes of something that I think you'll have to check out.

• 25:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 25:11Andy Greenwald?

  It's kind of nice to be able to say, now, I don't think anyone would ever do this, but to say, if you want to know what we think is great about this show, watch episode eight. Now, that's sort of cheating and maybe you'd be lost, but at the same time, it's not a bottle episode, but it is an encapsulation of what we love about something.

• 25:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's hard when the signature part of a season of television takes place, like five, six episodes in, and you're like, oh, you gotta watch the show, but make sure you stick around till episode five.

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  I hate that.

• 25:40Chris Ryan?

  You know, and because it's so competitive now, it's not like Succession, where I think some people needed a few episodes to get the rhythm of it, for instance. And it was episode three when they sort of started to come around to the idea of the show. It's tough when you've got, you know, five hours of say nothing, or six hours of say nothing instantaneously. It's hard to make the case that people need to stick around for episode five, you know?

• 26:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. I think in that case, that show has enough momentum to get you there.

• 26:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Andy Greenwald?

  But it's absolutely true. I would say also the English teacher finale,

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  I thought was incredible, and I've rewatched it because I loved it so much. You're gonna get mad, but the earthquakes episode of Everybody's in L.A.

• 26:23Chris Ryan?

  I'm not mad. I just, all I was saying this for series is that I thought we were sticking with scripted, but I actually don't think I had a non-scripted show that I would throw in there.

• 26:31Andy Greenwald?

  The Letterman and Lunel Underneath the Blanket was worth 10 of many other shows, I would say, this year. And then I did allude to this on Monday's pod, but like, the sugar pilot was amazing.

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Andy Greenwald?

  I have no qualms about saying that. Colin Farrell, that episode has my favorite Colin Farrell performance of the year, where he's both incredibly charismatic and hot and stylish, but also bruised and sad and empathetic. And Fernando Morales, the great director, did a beautiful job with it, and I was really, really excited. It did, like The Sympathizer, it did everything it was supposed to do to set a series up for success.

• 27:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  And then it didn't.

• 27:10Chris Ryan?

  It's been interesting to do this last year and this year. Last year, I think we celebrated an episode that happens in the middle of the season, is about a supporting character.

• 27:19Andy Greenwald?

  This was Forks last year.

• 27:20Chris Ryan?

  From the bear. And I think comes almost out of left field in the flow of the season of television. You've kind of gone through fishes and the emotional catharsis of that and the chaos of it. And it's very much about Carmy's kind of like, what constituted and what... Were the foundations of his shattered psyche is this family. And then you get this beautiful story of redemption, even if one night of redemption at least. Uh, and this transformation of this Richie character. But this year we chose a show and we chose an episode that was kind of more classical in its successes. It is the penultimate episode of a prestigious television show that has been building and building and building.

• 28:02Chris Ryan?

  And typically, especially for shows like The Wire, maybe Mad Men, you know, we can count on that second to last episode as being the, the real make sure you're home for this. Episode and that the blast episode winds up being in a lot of ways a coda and a setup for the next, the next thing.

• 28:23Chris Ryan?

  Obviously Shogun, when it was presented to us, we thought it was going to be a limited series. We didn't think about like a coda for the next season of Shogun. But this felt like the culmination of everything Justin and Rachel had been working on. And obviously the arc of this character, Mariko.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that it's interesting to compare it to Forks because I actually do think there's some similarities in the sense that it is a masterful character study in miniature in the midst of something much larger. That the misdirect of this, and we talked to the creative team about this a lot, was that for the bulk of the season Crimson Sky is spoken about as Torinaga's master plan.

• 28:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Andy Greenwald?

  And the expectation, and certainly the expectation as a veteran prestige TV viewer is that this is going to be explosive. And I guess that this episode actually is explosive in the very end. But in the sense that it's going to be some sort of large scale battle that will determine control. When in fact, for the majority of the episode, it is a battle of interiority. Uh, it is a battle of intention, is a battle of signifying and presentation. Um, that is bloodless, but cuts incredibly deep.

• 29:28Chris Ryan?

  It felt like the crescendo of a symphony and it really did feel like they paid off and gave resolution to a lot of the questions and conversations they started about this Mariko character. Where she was this person who was existing.

• 29:47Chris Ryan?

  Kind of between homes, in between roles, in between languages, in between faiths, in between loyalties. She was kind of an orphan in some ways and had found a purpose and found almost a religion. And I mean, she did find, obviously, God, but she found something to believe in, in Toronaga. And the sacrifice that she feels she has to make and the way they dramatize it over the course of this episode is really just one of the most moving things you'll see on TV.

• 30:17Andy Greenwald?

  The entire episode, I think, is about confidence and performance. And forget the episode as a whole for a second. The sequence in which America attempts to leave to prove that she cannot, at the cost of some of her supporters' lives, is probably the most breathtaking sequence I saw on TV all year. And Anasoy is playing brilliantly a character who continues to put one foot in front of the other, even though she knows drastic things might come of it. And in a way, that's a microcosm of what Shogun did to me with this episode. It is, we said when we were talking about the show on our top 10 list on Monday, the show is an incredibly risky gambit. It was an enormous, enormous

• 31:00Andy Greenwald?

  expenditure over many years, all in the service of a question mark. Like, would the audiences in this very fractured moment come to a reimagining of an established but kind of dusty property that was reconceived with people who weren't necessarily famous? And the show is mostly in Japanese. And then on top of it, the season arc builds under a incorrect assumption on the part of the audience that we're going to get some sort of giant samurai battle. The Crimson Sky is going to be the end-all, be-all of Toronaga's brilliant, ruthless, and probably epically bloody attempt to retake the Shogunate of

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  Japan. And this episode is called Crimson Sky. And I think that Justin and Rachel and FX were kind of smart that there are people, we talk about this. There are people who sort of... Peep the titles, look ahead.

• 31:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Andy Greenwald?

  Wikipedia the series and wonder what, you know, and like, okay, here it comes. This is the big one.

• 32:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Andy Greenwald?

  And the incredible rope-a-dope of this actually being the big one in the sense that it encapsulates everything that is compelling about Shogun in terms of its execution, but also in terms of its thematic strengths. And it being about one woman's attempt to find purpose in her, it's not a marginalized life, but it is a challenging life.

• 32:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think she's been trying to give herself to something over the course of her life and she just can't, she either gets rejected, circumstances arise where she can't do it. I thought one of the most fascinating aspects of our upcoming conversation with the creative team behind the series and Anna was hearing them talk about happy accidents, things that needed to be revised, things that needed to be threaded and fixed and adjusted to create this episode of television, you know, like, I think that we look at the product and we often kind of assume this sort of authorial purpose and authorial vision that from the second this person wrote exterior this scene,

• 33:05Chris Ryan?

  this is the vision that that was gonna wind up on on our TV screens years later. And that's just really maybe 99% of the time, not what happens.

• 33:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Chris Ryan?

  You know, it's weather, it's casting, it's, did the camera work in the right way that day to look the way it was supposed to? Did something get alluded to earlier in the season that we needed to then go back and fix to make sure it made sense to the end of the season? And there's so much stuff in TV that isn't really linear and it's not really, it's not really planned. You have to fix it on the fly and you have to fix it in edit and you have to fix it, you know, with something, a piece of ADR. And it was really great hearing them be so candid about like what they had to do to make this episode.

• 33:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that if if we serve any purpose with this part, this episode of our podcast every year talking about an episode, it's sort of lift up the hood and give people some insight into how this TV sausage actually gets made. Because I don't just love the final product, I love. I don't love this business, but I do love this process. And the collision of, you know, light bulbs of inspiration and happy accidents. And the collaborations of people who we didn't really get to talk too much about, like Frederick Toy, who directed this episode beautifully, Atticus Ross did the score, which is crucial to this episode. Helen Jarvis is the production designer. And, you know, we joked about this on Monday, but like, there's not a moment watching this where I'm like, there are 50 people in Vancouver on screen right now.

• 34:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:32Andy Greenwald?

  That is not what this episode feels like. It is on an enormous, enormous scale. To smaller, subtler decisions that we get into, that Justin and Rachel talk about specifically, of how to, what to portray in Mariko's final moments and in the final moments of the episode. It was great to talk to them all again, both for the fact that they're like, not only were they in different places, but Rachel and Justin and Kalen are deep in the weeds on season two. And Anna is filming something in Australia and yet was just that day nominated for Golden Globe again. So this journey kind of never ends.

• 35:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she was kind of surprised to still be talking about Shogun, I think, but obviously it's something that really stuck with her. You can tell it's not a job of these folks. You know what I mean? Like, you can tell this was something that not only are they really proud of, but they're incredibly moved by the response to it. So I guess that's as good a place as any is to get into our conversation with the creative team and Abin Shogun, Justin Marks, Rachel Kondo, Callan Puente, and then also the star of this episode, Anna Sawai.

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• 37:27Chris Ryan?

  I just want to start by saying to everybody here from Shogun, congratulations on being the second ever awardee of our episode of the year episode. You know, this is pretty big, I think. We hope. We hope. Definitely means you now don't have to go to the Golden Globes. So don't sweat that anymore. You've gotten your big award, but this Crimson Sky is obviously, I went back and listened to the pod that Andy and I did about it at the time and we said what we said. We were like, this is, this is going to be hard to top and it didn't get topped. So congratulations to Anna, to Justin, to Colin, to, to Rachel. It was just such an incredible episode. I guess we can start, why don't we start with Rachel? Like for much of the season, Crimson Sky is presented as this inevitable, like sort

• 38:12Chris Ryan?

  of giant battle that's going to take place. And it winds up being a little bit of a rope a dope. An episode that's primarily about the bravery and the, and the sacrifice of this one woman. Tornog is not even in it. I was going back and trying to find all the mentions of Crimson Sky and it was difficult to sort of piece together where this sort of plan has its origin. But for the writers room and for the creators, like when did, when did Crimson Sky kind of come into your mind?

• 38:37Speaker 07

  Well, I'm so glad I'm going first.

• 38:42Speaker 07

  Is the preferred way. Um, well, I think what I'll start with is just personally speaking, I didn't. I don't think I understood that everything was going to funnel to this moment. Having read the book a couple of times, I don't know if Callan feels the same way, but e- even. I don't know, even when we're in it, I, I, I didn't really quite understand. It, it felt kind of inevitable, but I also wasn't, wasn't expecting it somehow. And I just think that the Crimson Sky genius was that it kept, there was kind of a chorus going over the course of the season so that you, you as the viewer, you as the reader, uh, I'm sorry, just viewer, I keep thinking scripts.

• 39:26Speaker 07

  You're building the war in your own mind, you're building that battle. And so you're expecting to see something. And that's when we undercut everything, literally undercut a lot of things, Anna. But, uh, and, and we send in a woman. So, yeah, there was no like moment where I thought Crimson Sky is actually going to be this one person and this one slate of hand.

• 39:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Callan, cause like I noticed that the, you know, even the, the scene, I believe it's the episode previous, the Toronaga and Mariko conversation is largely off camera. Like, we don't get to find out, are you ready to do your part and what that part is? So as writers, were you, were you charting something that's basically not on screen for us in terms of like what these characters are talking about throughout the, maybe the previous few episodes?

• 40:19Speaker 07

  I think a little bit, and it's really interesting thinking about like the Crimson Sky of it all, because for us, like originally that wasn't the title of the episode. Like that did come to us a bit later because it did feel so inevitable for like Mariko's character that it was going to like turn out this way. And then I think it was like working our way through the season that we realized like that was so wed with Toronaga's plotline and like what we needed to happen for the story overall. But yeah, I feel like we actually spent relatively little time.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  Talking about like what are Mariko and Tornaga plotting together like we never broke down what that conversation was because it was like it's like it's the emotions for her like we knew what her character was kind of getting into and like how this huge climactic thing was gonna happen for her and like that was the more important part than like stepping out the politics of it I think for us.

• 41:09Andy Greenwald?

  Was the original title of the episode the poetry competition?

• 41:15Speaker 05

  It was.

• 41:15Andy Greenwald?

  And that was the FX note.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  It was the line from her poem. Yeah, I think it was Leepless Ranch for like a good long time.

• 41:21Andy Greenwald?

  There there is a moment early in the episode when it's just like they they're so excited about the poetry competition and I was like this is such a flex. This is such a flex for the episode. Everyone is expecting a battle.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  Welcome to the poetry competition.

• 41:35Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. We're doing things differently here. And turning to you, you know, as as Chris was just saying, the episode ends up being about one woman and her journey. You play that woman and the first time that we talked to Justin and Rachel about the triumph that was Shogun season one. A question we asked was, what was it like writing this show and this character knowing that everything could be incredible? If they were able to find the person who could play this part, if only the right actor existed, as it turned out, and as the Emmy voters agreed, the right actor did exist to play the part and it was you. I wondered what your experience was and now we're jumping off of this episode a little bit, but just broadly speaking.

• 42:16Andy Greenwald?

  When you read Mariko on the page, what made you think that you were that right person? What was the moment that you connected to her and made you think that this might be the role for you?

• 42:27Chris Ryan?

  I want to start by saying I didn't realize how difficult it was for everyone to find someone to play Mariko. It was only after the fact that I found out. And so I'm glad that I didn't know because otherwise it would have been too much pressure. I

• 42:43Chris Ryan?

  I feel like for me, it was just reading her storyline. It was a struggle that I knew. It was pain that I knew. It was pain that I knew.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  From my mom, from my grandparents, from my grandma. Why am I crying?

• 43:01Speaker 05

  It's been a while since I talked about Shogun.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  I thought I was done crying in these press interviews. Um, apparently I'm not. Um, but it was a struggle that I understood. And so I felt like it was gonna be, it was gonna be challenging because it was my first period piece. But I knew that I could play her because I just understood it all. And for me going into episode nine, I think it was a relief because it was the episode where she's actually finally able to become vulnerable. And there was some sort of weight because it wasn't just my story. It belonged to every woman who has been through the pressure of society and men, um, and everything else.

• 43:49Speaker 05

  But it was, yeah, a, a story that belonged to the whole community. And so going in with that weight, I think really helped kind of play the stakes.

• 44:00Speaker 05

  And also to add to what Rachel and Callan were talking about. I don't even believe that Mariko knows that she is Crimson Sky. I think that she believes that she is a part of that vessel. She's a vessel, but she is not the one thing. I think that she believes that Crimson Sky is what Toranagasama's plan is as a whole. So she's just playing a small part in it.

• 44:28Andy Greenwald?

  Following up on that, I, I did want to ask what it was like for you. And then I'd like to turn it back to the writers to ask what it was like for them in terms of the construction. Um, often, you know, kind of if you get a role on a TV show, for example, you have a lot of open road in front of you and you don't exactly know where you're going and you can build it piece by piece. I imagine you knew going in that Mariko does not survive the season and would sacrifice herself in this way. So I wondered if her ultimate action was a part of every bit of your performance before it. If that makes sense, if that knowledge informed your performance and what you showed us in the preceding episodes. It definitely helps knowing what's gonna happen. I hate not knowing where we're going because it always just makes it harder.

• 45:10Andy Greenwald?

  But I don't know if I was thinking, oh, it's gonna end like this, so I'm gonna do it. Because the character, or us as human beings, we're only living in the moment. We don't know how things are gonna turn out. Um, but, um, it's so hard because I'm contradicting what I'm saying.

• 45:29Chris Ryan?

  But I think that having that image in my mind, but also just focusing on that scene is just the key. And we got to shoot it chronologically. So living with the characters, building the relationship with other actors, building the relationship with the directors, that all helped. Um, so it was just on the back of my mind. Justin, I was, oh, sorry, go ahead, Eddie.

• 45:54Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, just I just wanted to turn that to Rachel and Callan just because that line, you know, flowers are only flowers because they fall is, seems, seems relevant. It's a beautiful line and it does seem relevant to you guys crafting the character of Mariko over these episodes, knowing what is to come and sort of needing to earn it episode by episode, week to week.

• 46:12Speaker 07

  I feel like it was kind of the journey for Callan and myself, just in the writer's room too, just week by week, day by day, picking the story apart, trying to understand these characters, trying to understand trajectories and, and what their consequences would be. And, you know, we, uh, something that we kind of came up with on our own in the room was this friendship between Mariko and Ochiba. And this friendship is kind of, you, you could also argue that everything hinges on this friendship. You know, uh, if you go to a deeper level, if it weren't for this friendship, it would all be for moot. And so that, I think that that was something that was really lovely to,

• 46:57Speaker 07

  I don't, actually, I'm not even answering your question. I forget the question, but...

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I'm loving your answer more than I like my question, honestly, so.

• 47:04Speaker 07

  Um, I just realized I went down a dark alley. Um. Anyway, took a left turn, but the point, when I think back to that time, because mind you, this was many years ago that we wrote, we wrote this initially. When I think back to that time, those were the conversations I remember having was like, thinking about them as girls and what would that be like to have these powerful father figures, to have a tragedy basically define your every step in life, you know, all these, these big things that kind of what Anna was saying, as women, we just naturally, innately, unfortunately, continue to relate to.

• 47:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, and like, just going off of that and like Anna's answer as well, like, we, we kind of knew where we had to go with like the end of the episode and like politically what that means for the story, but this evolution of like, what it meant for her character in these relationships, like that came along kind of gradually as we worked through the season and like even into like prep and production, like what her friendship with Ochiba meant and her relationship with Blackhorn, how that changed, like those all shifted kind of as we were going. So that was like the really interesting thing to discover where it's like, of course, we know she's making this big political stand, but like, what does that mean for her as a character? And like, all of these really close relationships with her son, with her best friend, that is this a strange, beautiful relationship that was so important that we had to then go feed back into earlier episodes because

• 48:29Speaker 05

  we'd like, oh, we wanted to land this and I, but we don't have them meet. Like, we have to find an episode where we can explore that relationship for them as girls. And that was like really kind of amazing to like, have that evolve, even though we knew the endpoint, we just didn't know like all of the details of like how to get there yet.

• 48:46Speaker 07

  And now that we're talking about it, it, I think it was fully intentional. We did it exactly as well. We knew we were a friend and backfilled, so. I wish I could go through all of the things that they're saying, you know, all of which make this episode so great and to point out how many of these things were.

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  Found very late or on accident and you know, kind of reversing their way through it. I mean, there was a lot of that. I mean, the Ochiva, Mariko childhood relationship, you know, truly as an invention of, of Callan and Rachel's, you know, beyond what the book was. I mean, I, I'm, Callan, I'm, I'm struggling to remember what that implied relationship even was because, you know,

• 49:30Speaker 05

  There wasn't one.

• 49:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Ochiva was really just the late Corota's nephew, you know, kind of only a distant relation of his. So it wasn't a story of two daughters.

• 49:40Speaker 07

  They, in the, in the book, they didn't even know each other.

• 49:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. They, they meet at her birthday party, which is what we turned the poetry competition into.

• 49:47Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Everyone was going to Osaka for Ochiva's birthday.

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  The birthday party doesn't have the same impact as the poetry competition though. Yeah. Which then also was troubling because it couldn't be done in, in light of when we wanted Diaween to die in the season, because he would not have any parties so soon after the death of a major figure. So we, you know, kind of found our way through that through research. But even the title, you know, as, as they're both alluding to in Crimson Sky, I, I just want to say is like Crimson Sky in Clavel's book was never, at least to our, as readers, to our knowledge, the actual plan to send Mariko. It was just a, a total MacGuffin, red herring, sitting out there for other people to grab. You know, we only just, I think at the very end, had this moment of him saying, I sent a woman to do what an army never could.

• 50:34Chris Ryan?

  And then we were all there, out there. And then even in post, it was like, you know what? We shouldn't call it the, um, Leafless Branch. We should call it Crimson Sky. Cause I don't, anyone who looks ahead on chapters on, is gonna sit there and think, oh, here's where it comes. And then it's just really gonna piss off all the people I want to piss off and excite people who, who doesn't. So it's like, again, you say, you know, it's like listening to the characters and the material and just sort of accidentally coming to some good answers is really what a lot of their work was here.

• 51:02Andy Greenwald?

  And trolling the prestige TV fan.

• 51:04Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 51:04Andy Greenwald?

  That's very smart.

• 51:05Chris Ryan?

  And anybody on Hulu who looks ahead, you know, like. Justin, you just basically talked about the role chance and backlogging stuff, how that works when you're assembling a show. My question had been whether or not, what the kind of conversations went into having this happen in the penultimate episode rather than the last episode of the season? Because I personally love it when a series has a penultimate episode that feels like a finale unto itself, and maybe the finale is a little bit more of a coda. The Wire used to do that in a really brilliant way often. What kind of conversations went into where this was going to happen in the course of the season?

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you're right that it's very much like a classic HBO, prime HBO kind of convention, right? And it was something that we were definitely aware of in the plotting, but a lot of it was led by the book. There is just a lot in the book after Mariko's death. And I sometimes personally forget just how shocking the death feels because it doesn't come in what appears to be any triumph whatsoever, right? Now, we know, as people have lived in the book for as long as we have, oh, yeah, this is the great moment when she finally does this. But when you're reading it, and I guess when you're watching the show, it's just like, dies in taking a loss. Well, that, see, Toronaga

• 52:33Speaker 02

  showed them. I mean, it really doesn't feel like a win at all. It takes Toronaga to extract it, or to have it extracted out of him by, in the show's case, Yabushige on his knees, to really feel like something that feels like a win. So we knew we had to have an episode that could unpack it, and to have that space. And so I don't think, I mean, I'm trying to remember if we ever had, I know that there were times when we were considering splitting the exact moment of her death across episodes, but I think that was ultimately a real challenge, too. Are you guys hearing the kids?

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  This was the focus group that said, no, no, no, it's gotta be the penultimate.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it's just, there's...

• 53:19Speaker 02

  So much left to do. What was hard following Mariko's death at the end of nine was finding a way to keep Mariko in ten. Because we realized on early passes of the scripts and everything that she was just gone and our heart had been ripped out. And so it was a challenge to find ways to kind of keep her alive. One might say it's still a challenge. Uh, and something was still at our, uh, you know, on, on, always on, you know, the tip of our tongue because we, we, you know, it's, it's, it's important thing to acknowledge is the, the way the character holds at the center of the show.

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  Obviously, the, one of the centerpieces of the show, literally in the middle of the episode, is the jaw dropping nine minute sequence in which Mariko attempts to leave the castle. And it is brilliantly staged. We should shout out Frederick Toy, the director as well. Like it is dramatic, it is exciting, it is violent. It is also theatrical in a very beautiful way with the, with the, uh, audience up in the eaves watching this show unfold. A few questions about that scene, but I kind of wanted to start with Anna and ask you, what do you remember about that day or days, depending how long it take, took to actually film that sequence? You said you shot chronologically. I wondered how you felt, where you were with the journey. And again, what, what do you remember about that time?

• 54:35Speaker 02

  I think I was very excited. I know that people are like, oh my God, it must have been so tough, but it felt like I could just do whatever I wanted almost. I was really excited about doing the sword fight, of course, but it also just gave me so much power within mentally to be able to go to the guards and tell them to let me leave and make a statement because she never had the permission to really stand up and, you know, say everything that she said in that scene. I, I can't remember how many days we shot that scene, but I think it was maybe like three days, was it? Am I right? Two days?

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Three plus with other little elements, but I think it was three solid days of the actual you down there with, you know, the, the football game. Right. It was, I guess, three days. Um, we only had maybe like one big rehearsal because we were shooting. Um, so it was a lot, but I think that it would really helped being able to.

• 55:35Andy Greenwald?

  Form that scene for the first time in front of everyone as well because I was nervous doing it in front of everyone, but also kind of like, I'm gonna show you. So, um, to me, it was a very exciting one. There's two, um, aspects of your performance in this scene that just radiate power. One is, you know, your, your, your voice, the way you hold, you're holding your body, the way you're directing, uh, your, your, just your, your charisma at these people standing in your way. And the other is when you actually have a giant weapon and you're swinging at people. I wondered which of those acts made you feel more powerful? In which you enjoyed more within the context of the character? I think both. They both feed each other.

• 56:19Andy Greenwald?

  With Monica, I know that she, she knows that she's not gonna get hurt. Like, no one's actually gonna kill her there. Um, so she kind of has that freedom to just whip that sword. But also, that statement is kind of everything. So I think that they, without one another, it would have felt a little bit like something was lacking. So I would say both physically and verbally, both were great. To, to Rachel and Callan, like, especially on the re-watch, I really noted, because I definitely wasn't, and I think no one watching this episode has ever looked at their watches during this scene. But I did note the second time through that it was over nine minutes. And I feel like in television these days, like, you cannot get a nine-minute scene unless it is a giant samurai battle called Crimson Sky.

• 57:04Andy Greenwald?

  And this wasn't that. How did you go about crafting the scene, paring it down to what was necessary, and understanding what was necessary to give us what we got?

• 57:14Speaker 07

  Well, first of all, it's not, uh, nine minutes because of our stage directions, because that's how we write. It's just these lengthy paragraphs. I, I don't know how many pages in the book are devoted to this one scene, but I remember, I feel like you could measure the amount of pages, um, with a ruler. Uh, it's a very, very, very dense part of the book because it's, it is so momentous. Um, as far as breaking it down goes, Callan, this is kind of where...

• 57:53Speaker 07

  Um, yeah, we just, we tried to be super specific, which I think was really, really helpful.

• 57:58Speaker 05

  So because we had like, that was like a difficult stage of production where a lot of key members of the crew got COVID. Um, there was a lot of, um, a lot of people on Zoom, literally everybody was like on Zoom remotely. It was very difficult. So it was.

• 58:13Andy Greenwald?

  Did people on set start coughing and then turn to Justin and Rachel and say, it was an honor to serve you before they were taken away?

• 58:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was like poetic that it happened during such a like climactic thing of like, everyone wanted to be there for this moment. And then like so many people couldn't, which was really difficult, but like.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  So many iPads.

• 58:30Speaker 05

  So many iPads. Yeah. People just holding iPads up so other people could see.

• 58:34Speaker 07

  That's how, that's how we meet Anna with iPads.

• 58:39Speaker 05

  I feel like.

• 58:40Andy Greenwald?

  But also bubble wrapped her, so she didn't get COVID, right?

• 58:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 58:46Speaker 05

  I don't know. I feel like there were, it was actually like people had to be, like I remember we had to do a pass of like adding in more of the people watching because like initially like our focus is so much on her journey and like what we want, like her emotional state to be at what point and like what, she is just so aware of everyone who is dying on her behalf, like how this fight progresses is like, you just want to watch it on her face. It's not as much about like the action and everything. So then I remember like after our initial version being like, oh my God, we really do have to service Blackthorn's witnessing of this as well. Whereas like in the first, I think, initial version, it was like just what is she going through on the ground? That's like the only part that like we care about emotionally.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  So I think like it always had to grow from that side of it. But yeah, it didn't, after like the early versions, it didn't change very much. Like the amount of arrows that hit the ground were the same. The amount like the last guy who fell is always that like, it was always so specific and it stayed the same for like a really long time.

• 59:43Speaker 07

  The, the one thing that, uh, I, I remember when reading it and I'm so, I so wish we could have, um, included it was the bit after when she finds a corner.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:55Speaker 07

  Um, by herself and the way that you see it in her mind and the way that Anna, uh, uh, or what you would have seen with Anna is, is that the, the collapse, just the collapse of her, not only her body, but just the, the brokenness of, of years past.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  The weight of all of that, like, yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 07

  But always when no one's.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Which I think the only reason we didn't need it is the scream Anna that you give at the end of the fight is so incredible that. It's like, oh, that is, that is what she's feeling. Like, we didn't need that extra moment of seeing her by herself. And it was like, that scream always speaks to me like so much of like.

• 1:00:34Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my gosh. Is she never by herself in this episode? Do we never see her by herself?

• 1:00:39Speaker 05

  Very briefly, like.

• 1:00:41Speaker 07

  On one, she, she slips off to.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  In this episode.

• 1:00:44Speaker 07

  Oh, in this episode?

• 1:00:45Speaker 05

  In this episode, like, right before Blackbone comes to her after.

• 1:00:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  That's epic. She's very briefly alone. But yeah, she's almost always like surrounded.

• 1:00:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, we had a couple of scenes that we shot where she was alone or with her ji-jo, her ladies in waiting. But yeah, it was never used. I was about to ask why we didn't use that part where she does break down by herself, but that makes sense.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Thanks. Thanks, everyone, for giving Anna the chance to ask us while we cut that scene.

• 1:01:13Chris Ryan?

  Have you been waiting for that question? Take six of the scene was like, I thought really good. What's up with that?

• 1:01:20Speaker 07

  It, it was actually so beautiful because it started raining just in that moment.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Speaker 07

  So it was very beautiful. Yeah. But what I will say about what Callan mentioned, which is that the, kind of the guttural groans, we've all, we've been trying to describe what it was that Anna, her, or she was able to manage with her performance. But like, it was, I think somebody described it as her just coming to the very end of this specific journey, kind of the end of herself and throwing everything into it. And I initially, when I first started seeing cuts, I remember thinking, oh, that's too raw. You know, like, that's, that's so, that's intense.

• 1:02:03Speaker 07

  And I didn't realize this, but it's Aika who, I, I assumed they would, they would take it out. And I assumed they would, you know, quote unquote, soften it or do something. And I think it was Aika who, who said, our, our editor, who said, absolutely not, this has to be in there. And I think it's because that was Aika's way of connecting with that character so specifically. She had to, she had to keep it in there. And I, I think that was exactly the right choice. Because I also remember when we were shooting it, I think it was Hero who came to me and he was like, just try to keep it as in as possible because she probably wouldn't let her. Always crack like that. And I was really trying, but I guess with everything, I just couldn't hold it in.

• 1:02:47Speaker 07

  And so that's very interesting that she decided to keep it there.

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  I I'm interested in this idea of modulation too, Anna, because the character is so, uh, keeps everything so close to the vest throughout. And then yet in this episode, there are a number of moments that feel like breaking points. One we didn't mention is when she she sort of snaps back at Ishido in a way that is viscerally shocking, even though it's just words early on when she scolds him about his manners. Another moment is the one we're speaking of now. And then there is also, you know, an agonizing moment when she is about to end her own life and then has that opportunity to do so taken from her at the very last second. And there's another moment of release. As a performer riding the waves this episode, how did you consider the different

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  moments of buildup and release, you know, so that so that it builds throughout her own journey as opposed to feeling like the same beat over and over again, for example?

• 1:03:45Speaker 07

  I mean, I think that it wouldn't have, it would never have felt like the same beat because there's so different scenes and she's talking to very different people and she's making different statements in every single scene.

• 1:03:57Speaker 07

  I I don't know with the scene with Ishido, it's her first. It's the first display of what she's about to do. And then with the sepulchre scene, I think it's a much more quiet scene. I was thinking about the sun, leaving the sun because the sun was sitting right in front of her. And so it was a more somber kind of scene and the last, uh, the the sword fighting scene is aggression, a lot of aggression, but also kind of using her power, but coming together quietly. And then leaving. I can't really explain it well, but it felt like very different scenes to me.

• 1:04:38Speaker 07

  So, and I'm kind of like living in the moment as an actor. I feel like I try to analyze things, but I'm just like in it. So maybe Rachel or

• 1:04:47Chris Ryan?

  Well, I was gonna, I was gonna ask, you know, I rewatching this, I hadn't watched it since Andy and I first recapped it. I'm not sure if you, I don't know if you've all watched it as like viewers, right? Like, just like, oh, let's just watch Crimson Sky for a reason outside of making it.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Watch that door blow off and

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  in the character.

• 1:05:10Chris Ryan?

  That's right. But it was interesting to me how like structured it was in terms of the series of tests that this character faces, which obviously has this relationship to the first conversation she has with, with Father Martin, where it was just like this idea of, you know, he gives her this crucifix and it's for when you don't have the words and you need something to hold on to. And then her faith is essentially tested, what, five or six times throughout the episode, like politically, in terms of her as a mother, as a friend, as a lover, as a, you know, a woman. And I was wondering whether or not, when you're making a show, is it, oh, we got it. This is the A plot and this is the B plot and we have to make this work because then we have to go

• 1:05:53Chris Ryan?

  back and backfill this with narrative. Or are you having conversations about like, this will be a series of tests. This will be thematically how we want people to kind of feel after the end of the episode. I think that's a little bit of a wonky way of, of asking how much you change your opinion about something that you've written after you get to watch it as an audience.

• 1:06:11Speaker 07

  Wow. I was going one way in my mind.

• 1:06:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:06:16Speaker 07

  Um, well, I think after watching it, it felt very somehow separate from, from the time in which I read it on my own and then was in the writer's room and then wrote this with Callan. You know, it feels like every phase with this character was in and of itself, kind of, you know, speaking to a version of my own self, you know, as we went along. So it did deepen, but it was a very different thing seeing it all together because it felt like, it felt very intentional. But a lot of it was very creatively chaotic, I think.

• 1:07:00Speaker 07

  You know, this is, this is stuff that we were building and putting together as we were, you know, figuring, or Justin was figuring out how to do the show. So again, always back to process. It just came back to, and by the way, the show took so long, we changed over, over time. So I do think that we deepened as people, as writers, as performers. Because don't forget, I was in episode eight.

• 1:07:31Speaker 07

  You know what I mean? She was. All five years, we're going to be different people from beginning to end.

• 1:07:38Andy Greenwald?

  So I had a question about the, this is kind of a high concept question. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go slow. But basically, in the very end of the episode, the shinobi are at the door. They're about to blow, blow the whole thing up. And there is a moment when we see America know what she must do. And the decision is made and she obviously makes this decision herself. And Jen has no idea what's going on and no one else has any idea what's going on. That very specific moment, I'd like to ask the three, Callan and Rachel as the writers of the scene, Anna as the performer of the scene, and Justin, maybe you could take the overview of in the edit bay. I know Rachel was there as well, I'm sure.

• 1:08:19Andy Greenwald?

  But like, the question is, what did you guys want or need in that moment? So starting with Rachel and Callan, to get that specific moment of acknowledgement and knowledge that she experiences on the page and as you were imagining it, what did you feel like you needed to have there to earn, honestly, to earn the episode? It's really hard. I feel like it is such a mixed, a mixed bag because you do want, it is kind of a triumphant moment for her. Like she does achieve something so meaningful in her death. She gets to make this statement that she wants, but like throughout the episode, when she is saying all of these goodbyes and you see like facing death, even though it's been this like,

• 1:09:03Andy Greenwald?

  death has been a part of her life for so long and she's been wanting death for so long. It's never easy in like any of.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  The moments where it is a possibility, it's so difficult for her to face. So I feel like you wanna feel the weight of that. This isn't like a, it's not purely a good thing for her, obviously. Like, it's so tragic when she does go up against that door. But it is also, there is the inevitability and she is making it mean what she needs it to mean for herself. It's not like a political thing anymore. It is like just for her to win, but I'm pretty sure you could probably put it much more eloquently than that.

• 1:09:39Speaker 07

  Not really. Um, I think, I think you're right that, uh, the moment, I, I remember thinking this is right to kind of weirdly quiet things. Just to make sure that, that you feel that she is in her own atmosphere, uh, a world of her own making. And she is, um, finally existing the exact way that she wants to and taking, uh, this, this final step towards the door. And I don't know, I just wanted to, I wanted to personally feel how I felt when I read the book, which was this, this very quiet moment. Where she was her purest version of who she was. She wasn't the Mariko whose father was treacherous.

• 1:10:22Speaker 07

  She wasn't the Mariko who had this contentious relationship with her husband and, and on and on and on. She was just, just her.

• 1:10:30Andy Greenwald?

  And I know that you made that change where she says her, her, her birth name, not her, her married name.

• 1:10:34Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:10:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was really important. And like, I was actually, I did rewatch it last night as a viewer, which is weird. I usually don't like, and I feel like I've watched all the other episodes. Like, oh my God. It was actually the most I've cried for it because of all the separation. And also this, the season two of it all, it was very emotional, but like all the other episodes I've watched like a hundred times and nine, I could never watch as much. And watching it last night, I was like really struck in a way that like I hadn't thought about since we were on set. Of the reactions of the other characters, like even Yabushige is like so struck by this, like the space that they're giving her and the quiet that comes over. Kiri and like her lady in waiting and everybody except for like, obviously Blackhorn is like still in denial about the inevitability.

• 1:11:19Speaker 05

  But everyone else feels this incredible moment for her and gives her this respect. Like, kind of, and they're like.

• 1:11:26Speaker 07

  There's a couple like minutes of that like hanging in the air. It feels like a whole menace, even if it's not that long of everyone realizing what's gonna happen and just like being silent for her in this really kind of beautiful way.

• 1:11:37Andy Greenwald?

  Anna, what did you feel that you needed in that moment, both as the performer, but also as the caretaker of this incredible woman over the previous now eight and a half episodes? I feel like it's such a kind of strange way to end her life because it's a moment of a couple of seconds. And so I think there had to be a sense of clarity that she was choosing it for herself. And it needed to feel like she was okay, like she was sure of what she was doing. And so I think there was a brief moment of her looking back at the door and looking at Blackthorne and just kind of feeling, you know, like, oh, this, this is, is this gonna be the moment?

• 1:12:18Andy Greenwald?

  But when she does stand in front of the door, the resolution that she has on her face, it's, it's so clear. And I think that that's kind of what made it so powerful. And Justin, to you now, thinking about it, once you had the, the assembled footage and, and you're making it a show now, it's not just pages, it's not just the scene on the day.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, even a step before having the, the scene shot, I mean, that was a really hard scene to film for the crew, not just, I mean, obviously, it seemed like Anna had a bunch of hard things to do. So I'm, you know, it's, that's, that's important too. But there was, you know, we were, as Callan was saying, this was right around the schedule and we were just really gutted by COVID across the board. So we had to shoot this scene really over like three different days in small pieces because almost none of those cast members could be on the same space together. Each one got, you know, kind of pushed out or tested out or contacted out in one way or another, right? At some point in that process and.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  I think in the end, you know, movie gods really wanted it to be that way because there's a nature of that scene that is you've got two men who think they know what the scene is about, and two very strong-willed actors playing those men who also did. And I think that there was this character of Mariko who very much knew what the scene was about, and these two characters were going to spend the rest of their lives, one much shorter than the other, you know, thinking about what happened that night, in that moment. And when you have that, normally you're like all three on the same set together and it's like, you know, you can't help but sort of filter off each other and use each other. That's what's great about shooting and acting and everything else is that there's a chemistry.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  But sometimes the lack of, we weren't, you guys weren't afforded a chance to have any chemistry because everyone was just in different places. And it really worked because it felt like Cosmo was in one scene and Taranobu was in another scene, but Anna was in the real scene. And you feel it watching it, you took advantage of it, cutting it, where there's an energy that both of them are bringing in their manicness and they're sort of like, we gotta do this and what about this and why would I do this, I need to pull this thing across. And all that is just, you know, actors finding their way through the sets as they're trying to kind of logic their way into it. And at the end of the day, we got to shoot Anna in this kind of clean single on the other

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  side of the set, so just all on our own, just playing the emotional truth of it. And, and the, the cut of that was, was allowing that tension to sort of go back and forth. And then, you know, I don't know, the only other thing I'll say about the cut of that that I'm most proud of and, and finding, you know, what was found in the cut of it was the, that one shot we had, shot on a phantom of Anna and her hair blowing out in this sort of moment of the heat of the explosion. We always struggled with where to put it and we really wanted her speech to be interrupted and it to be just sudden death and there we are, which it is. But there were other options offered up at various points in the, in the shooting and cutting and we went with this version. That did it, but took that shot and put it out of sequence.

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Uh, so that you cut to her face after we've seen the door blow.

• 1:15:40Chris Ryan?

  That's so weird that you mentioned that. I kind of felt like there was something unique about that, watching that today.

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  And, and the only, the real goal of that was, was to sort of solidify that idea of these three different versions of the scene. That that was the first and only time we cut to Blackthorne's point of view in the scene. And it was his point of view from hindsight, his memory of that moment. That that's what will stick in his head for the rest of his life. And so we end hers in the way it deserves. And then we, we just hit that to sort of carry that idea over into credits. So that we'll, we'll, we'll remember that. Um, but it was, it was just a find and a, and sort of a gut. And it really, I really like it, uh, watching it. Everyone fought against it. Let me tell you, not in the crew, but on the other side. And, and I'm really glad that we have it. Um, yeah, it was, it was, it was a fun discovery.

• 1:16:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's beautifully said, and it works beautifully in the episode.

• 1:16:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it almost looks like a drawing that's fading like right in front of your eyes or something. So the idea that it's a memory is amazing.

• 1:16:40Speaker 07

  I, I can't tell you how many times people have said, did, she didn't, she just kind of got a concussion, right?

• 1:16:50Speaker 07

  Well, hate to break it to you.

• 1:16:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well, people also wanted that to be the case.

• 1:16:55Chris Ryan?

  Was Anna one of those people asking?

• 1:16:58Andy Greenwald?

  John Landgraf was saying that once he renewed the show. It's like, are we sure?

• 1:17:04Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking, speaking of that, like I, I just want to promise you guys, this episode is so beautifully structured and so well executed that it would probably, we'd be here talking about this if she did only get a concussion. It's not just because it is a surprise for people who hadn't read the book, uh, character death. With that acknowledged and with the passage of time, you filmed this quite some time ago and, and you've had some time to reflect and also to win a lot of well deserved awards for your work here. I would love it if you could each be honest with me and ask, and, and let me know who tried to blink first. At what point was someone like, do we have to kill her?

• 1:17:37Andy Greenwald?

  Like, was it in the writer's room? Was it brought up? Did Anna ever pull everyone aside when COVID was ravaging the set and say like, look, you just might need me. It's a numbers game at this point. Was there ever any wavering?

• 1:17:48Speaker 07

  Sadly.

• 1:17:51Speaker 05

  Everyone wanted me off.

• 1:17:54Speaker 07

  No, it was, I think it's just because it was too important.

• 1:17:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 07

  We don't have a story without it, you know?

• 1:18:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Andy Greenwald?

  Also, you guys were making a limited series, so.

• 1:18:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:04Andy Greenwald?

  Come on, it's fine, right?

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  Like, please let her out of this prison. Like, we gave her, you know, she was, she was liberated in, in, in what she did. And what torture would we want to concoct on this character?

• 1:18:18Speaker 07

  Drag her back in?

• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, who like triumphantly destroyed all these like systems and got to like say fuck you to everybody and then like achieve her. She had this ultimate goal. It's, I think, yeah, it was the right ending, but it was very difficult and it is only gotten harder. Like, I feel like originally, it just because it was part of the book and it was always part of the story, we had never strayed from it. It was just, this is the way it is and it's so tragic. And now with hindsight, it's like, oh my God, it's so difficult. I can't believe that we had to lose her, like. But it would be the same if it didn't happen and it wouldn't have this impact. So it's the way it should have been.

• 1:18:59Chris Ryan?

  I'm still personally pulling for some kind of Garrett Dillahun, Deadwood situation where you come back as a sec, a different character.

• 1:19:06Speaker 05

  The evil twin.

• 1:19:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  There's, there's just so much, and you know, obviously we don't like, we don't need to get into, to the part two of it all, but the, you know, there's, there are some things that I, I think, um, you know, television has a way of resurrecting characters and movies have a way of emulating television now and, and doing the same thing in a world where then there are no sakes. And, you know, I, I just feel like, one of the things that we're really working our way through, you know, Callan, Rachel, myself, the other writers in, in the room and sort of talking about, you know, the future is, is really, it's okay to want something and not get it. And, um, and, and really kind of processing some of those feelings. What's not okay in, in, in our opinions

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  is to pretend that we don't want it. And I see that sometimes in shows when you lose somebody you love, uh, they try to sort of pretend. Well, look at all those other kids. We're fine. We're fine. And it's like, no, what's, you know, honestly, and this spoils like nothing, zero. But if, if, you know, in some ways, the first part is all is a show about death in a lot of ways. We really see part two for us all as writers and for the characters on the show in terms of where they're at in unexpected ways. It's, you know, it's very much a show about grief. And I don't think we explore grief that much in the safe zone of television, because we have so many ways to get out of it. And the

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  medium itself tries to deny that we need to lose anybody or anything that we like. And, you know, I think we're better off for it if we can, if we can look at it honestly.

• 1:20:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's very well said. And I know that you found yourself emotional just a, you know, a few minutes ago when we were talking about it. Are you surprised to still be talking about Mariko this long after you filmed these, these long days on set, this long after the show aired?

• 1:21:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, I didn't expect this at all. I feel like when people started talking about awards, it was just like, oh, you know, in another world, like, that would be amazing. But I didn't really believe that would happen. And so now that this is happening and, you know, we're still being nominated and we get to talk about these scenes and episodes. It's just, I feel so lucky. I hope that I really stop crying when I talk about, because it's, people now will probably think that I'm crazy. But yeah, I'm very surprised.

• 1:21:34Andy Greenwald?

  Well, we really appreciate it. I also appreciate that when you meant, when you said awards, you didn't mean the Emmy that you won and the Golden Globe that you were all nominated for today. You meant this specific arbitrary podcast award that you probably heard about when your team emailed you. This is the sort of the icing on the cake.

• 1:21:49Chris Ryan?

  It's a dream come true. It's okay. We don't have to say it.

• 1:21:52Speaker 07

  We were waiting for this.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  You guys laughed, but this was, we were, Rachel and I were just on with John Langrath and the group going over some notes. And we said, we have to go, we have this podcast. And they quickly hastily at the end just said, oh, congratulations. Like we hadn't talked about going to the club. And I was like, thank you. I know. It's my favorite podcast.

• 1:22:14Speaker 07

  He's not joking, by the way.

• 1:22:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's very, very kind.

• 1:22:19Chris Ryan?

  I'm glad we could end it on us, you know?

• 1:22:23Andy Greenwald?

  Let's bring it home. But really, thank you to all of you for your time, for your being in, I think we're in three time zones and we still somehow made this work. Very, very generous of all of you. And most of all, thank you for the beautiful episode.

• 1:22:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, thank you so much.

• 1:22:38Andy Greenwald?

  One for the ages. And we loved it. And we love any chance we get to talk about it with you all.

• 1:22:42Speaker 07

  Thank you all. Thank you guys.

• 1:22:43Chris Ryan?

  Thanks, guys.