‘The Pitt’ E12 Reaches New Heights and ‘Adolescence’ Is The Best Show of the Year | The Watch

Chris and Andy break down the most recent episode of ‘The Pitt’ and how the show has continued to get better and better as the season has progressed (12:20). Then they cover all episodes of ‘Adolescence,’ the breakout sensation from Netflix, and why it is the rare show that serves a public good (36:34). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production: Chris Thomas Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez 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.

• 0:00Chris Ryan?

  This episode of The Watch is brought to you by Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee. So when they heard the new season of HBO's original series, The White Lotus, was set in Thailand, they were inspired to brew up two new flavored creamers, Thai Ice Coffee and Pina Colada flavored creamers. They're available for a short time only, so for the love of coffee, go try them now.

• 0:24Andy Greenwald?

  I need support staff to clear the room.

• 0:27Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:29Chris 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 is social realism, it's Andy Greenwald. There's like not a single funny thing to say about Adolescence or The Pit, which is what we're talking about today. Greenwald, it's great to see you.

• 0:49Andy Greenwald?

  You could have said something about like how I used to wear a wig and dance. It's

• 0:53Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, and dance to Aha. Yeah. It's awesome to be here on a Wednesday, recording for a Thursday.

• 0:59Andy Greenwald?

  A little early.

• 0:59Chris Ryan?

  This episode's gonna go out after the most recent episode of The Pit. I think we're just gonna, we're gonna wait on Severance till next week. We'll do that with White Lotus. I know we promised the Streets a Philly TV podcast. I think you've watched Deli Boys, I've watched Deli Boys. I checked out Dope Thief. We have plenty of stuff to say about him. We're just gonna save it for a little bit later because honestly, man,

• 1:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:21Chris Ryan?

  Adolescence demands a deeper dive.

• 1:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and we are recording a day early because of some travel, so we couldn't give Severance or Top Chef the proper

• 1:30Chris Ryan?

  I think Top Chef will be fine. I'll keep an eye on it, you know? I'll keep an eye on it. And it's been a very busy time for me.

• 1:39Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:39Chris Ryan?

  Because, first of all, let me do a little bit of housekeeping.

• 1:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, do it.

• 1:43Chris Ryan?

  We can watch us on the Ringer YouTube or on Spotify on The Watch feed. You can follow us on Instagram at the Watch Pod underscore on Instagram. A lot of the times, some of the fun stuff you see on that feed, it's done by Kaya McMullen, who I wanted to shout out, worked on Good Hang with Amy Poehler.

• 2:01Andy Greenwald?

  I'm so jealous.

• 2:02Chris Ryan?

  First two episodes dropped, Martin Short and Tina Fey, they were excellent. Kya, Juliette, Mal, I think Aleah worked on it. Over from the Ringer team, so I just want to shout out everybody from our squad who worked on that with the Amy Poehler crew. And it's a really fun pod. You should subscribe and check it out. Yeah, I just wanted to say shout out to Kai. You can email us at [email protected] if you want to ask us about

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya.

• 2:25Chris Ryan?

  gauze and bracelets and stuff and Kaya. I was a little bit busy yesterday. I was watching a lot of stuff.

• 2:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 2:34Chris Ryan?

  And then the JFK papers dropped.

• 2:36Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I was wondering how you felt about this.

• 2:39Chris Ryan?

  It's a little bit overwhelming because it's like, as I was texting with Klosterman and Bill, no big deal.

• 2:45Andy Greenwald?

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:47Chris Ryan?

  And it's

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  The Conspiracy Boys!

• 2:49Chris Ryan?

  A lot longer than the Warren Report. I'm reading a pretty cool interview right now between a former, between like the, you know, the Justice Department or whoever's doing this interview and a former CIA agent. And this is taking place in the 70s and he seems to have his fingers in a lot of pots. So enjoying like random, like I'm going on Reddit. Reddit's like, this, this one's good, this one's good, this one's good. So

• 3:15Andy Greenwald?

  Is your, so I think I just want to make this make sense for people listening who might not

• 3:20Chris Ryan?

  Trump released all the JFK papers. That's the headline. Yeah.

• 3:22Andy Greenwald?

  I know. And so

• 3:23Chris Ryan?

  And I'm not like

• 3:24Andy Greenwald?

  So you're, you're getting good return on your vote. So congratulations on that.

• 3:28Chris Ryan?

  If he's gonna fucking send us straight into the mountainside, I am getting my JFK papers out of it.

• 3:35Andy Greenwald?

  I just was curious. I, I, I knew what was happening in the news. Not really, but you'd let me know.

• 3:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Andy Greenwald?

  The major

• 3:41Chris Ryan?

  Just now.

• 3:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Oh, fascinating. Is this like, because you're like, oh, this is a lot longer than the Warren Report. This is, this reminds me

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  I haven't read the Warren Report.

• 3:50Andy Greenwald?

  This reminds, I know you'll read the much longer unredacted files. This reminds me of when you were caping up for the Ridley Scott edit of Kingdom of Heaven.

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  I'm not done caping. The cape's still on.

• 4:00Andy Greenwald?

  Right. I'm saying

• 4:00Chris Ryan?

  It's invisible, but it's here right now.

• 4:02Andy Greenwald?

  I could watch this reasonable length edited film, or I could just watch

• 4:06Chris Ryan?

  The director's cut is way better.

• 4:08Andy Greenwald?

  I know. And so what you're saying in this version, Earl Warren is like the Harvey Scissorhands of truth telling.

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And the deep state is Ridley Scott.

• 4:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 4:18Chris Ryan?

  And they were like, we have so much more to tell you.

• 4:20Andy Greenwald?

  We have so much more to share.

• 4:22Chris Ryan?

  It's my, it's one of my passions. You know, I'm just really curious about what happened there.

• 4:26Andy Greenwald?

  Now I'm trying to figure out a version of this where Earl Warren is asking Julia Stiles to dance on a table to distract people from the CIA implication. But I've gotten a little galaxy brain here.

• 4:35Chris Ryan?

  But there's a ton of really good TV on right now and

• 4:38Andy Greenwald?

  Good facts. So you've got nothing new to share? You've just been going in this?

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  It would be speculation at this point.

• 4:45Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, well, a podcast is certainly not the right venue for idle speculation.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  There's like, you know what's cool about it is looking at all the PDFs and seeing all of the different like, just sort of tactile, even though you can't touch it on a PDF, like the the very tactile feeling of uh, the written reports of this guy came into a consulate and said that, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald is doing this in a, you know, or whatever. And it's like, all the stuff, the interconnected nature of all these offices and, you know, it being like this note that's on the bottom of a guy's pile that might have changed the world. It's like,

• 5:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's cool.

• 5:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I just like it as like, and also, I mean, just if you're just like wanting to read about espionage, um, for better or for worse, and just are curious about that kind of thing. It's in there.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  This is, this might be one of the, you know, we're generally aligned and I know that we've been told by the higher ups that um, agreeing on everything is podcast gold.

• 5:37Chris Ryan?

  Do you disagree that the assassination of Kennedy was important?

• 5:40Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, I, from everything I've been told by you about the news that it is important, but no, but I, I, I don't, I do not share your curiosity and passion.

• 5:49Chris Ryan?

  What are you, what are you curious about these days?

• 5:54Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I was explaining to Kaya how I'm newly curious about Sephora.

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Andy Greenwald?

  And navigating its aisles in pursuit of skincare greatness for my, my, you know, suddenly, um, activated daughter.

• 6:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  Very interested in those things.

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, in, on the topic of,

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  I fuck with a Sephora. I go in there, grab a little drunken elephant.

• 6:12Andy Greenwald?

  Do you?

• 6:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Gotta, how do you think I look? Look like I'm 42, don't I?

• 6:17Andy Greenwald?

  You look so young. You look great. Oh, I was, I was saying to Kaya that like, and, and to my daughters, that like, there are two places that affect me the way like a Faraday cage affects. Our phones?

• 6:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  Those are Sephora and the Container Store. I walk into those places and I cannot.

• 6:34Chris Ryan?

  Sephora is truly a language of its own. I, the aisles are narrow. Uh, the, the stuff seems to be laid out completely randomly. Um, and then the line for Sephora, now that it is so big with like pre-teens and the TikTok generation, everybody. And we're going to talk about TikTok generation.

• 6:54Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh, they, they, I'm just like, where do you guys, how is this now like a 60 person line that starts over in the like the left-hand? Like Augustus Bader section, like I don't.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  Listen to you. You just have a secret life. I love it. How do you still have layers to unpeel like an onion? All I was gonna say about the Kennedy assassination was for me, like Charles McCary's great novel, Tears of Autumn, that you introduced me to as well. That's my JFK assassination.

• 7:21Chris Ryan?

  You think that's how, that's how it went down?

• 7:22Andy Greenwald?

  No, I actually have no opinion how it went down. I enjoy the fictional narrative that seems reasonable.

• 7:28Chris Ryan?

  That's where this comes from.

• 7:30Andy Greenwald?

  That's good enough.

• 7:31Chris Ryan?

  Libra, American tabloid, Tears of Autumn, those are the three big ones for me. Um, and then obviously also Oliver Stone's JFK. But then I just really, you know, all the different like kind of tentacles that come out of it. All that's like the spider web of like the 1960s and early 70s and the CIA and the government and I don't know.

• 7:50Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's your spider verse.

• 7:53Chris Ryan?

  That's right. That's right.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  You go to Sephora to, how do you find the time?

• 7:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, I don't go to Sephora if we're walking by a Sephora. And my wife is like, I need to stop into Sephora. I'm like, I'll go, I don't care.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to go with my older daughter? Cause I think she needs the help.

• 8:09Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if I have the answers for her. So today we're going to talk about the pit and adolescence. Um, I was curious on a broad level.

• 8:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  How it feels for you to be watching shows of this level of intensity. Uh, I think I fancy myself as something of an adrenaline junkie when it comes to my filmed content. But I was curious for you. Denzian of the midnight diner that you are, you know?

• 8:34Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 8:34Chris Ryan?

  Um, just kind of like, I just like it's low and slow. Just people talking, it's okay.

• 8:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I like my entertainment.

• 8:41Chris Ryan?

  I don't need extra gunshot wounds.

• 8:43Andy Greenwald?

  I like my entertainment the way I like my brisket.

• 8:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, how are you feeling? And, and also, I think as we've been in Severance country for the last two months, basically, and, um, talked about Daredevil, talked about a bunch of different things. These are very realistic shows. These are very like of the moment shows.

• 9:02Andy Greenwald?

  Well, first of all, let me say that I, like any, hopefully, like any person in life, apparently I can change. And it's not just because, thanks to my, uh, almost 12-year-old daughter's suggestion of some toner and some moisturizer, it's not just because I now smell like matcha. My upper face area. Um, you forget that not, like what, not even five weeks ago, I was sitting in this chair saying, well, I really did just watch six hours of American Primeval.

• 9:35Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 9:36Andy Greenwald?

  Like, there is something shifting within me. And I-

• 9:40Chris Ryan?

  I got some amazing PDFs for you when you're ready to jump in the deep.

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, isn't it nice to never, never settle? You know, like, maybe I like something different. I, I, I, I think both of these shows are, are, I, I think, I, I think I, I, I over-indexed in one direction, okay? Like, I definitely think that on description, both of these shows, I expected to have issues with or to struggle with, and it's been absolutely the reverse.

• 10:09Andy Greenwald?

  We can parse the details as to why that might be, but I have found, like, this experience, we, we're getting to talk about, we're talking about adolescence entirely in its entirety, because I watched the whole thing since we last recorded, uh, 36 hours ago, or whatever that was. And we are talking about tonight, and if, if this goes up Thursday's episode of, of The Pit. So we are going to be talking about two of not just the most intense episodes of the year.

• 10:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 10:37Andy Greenwald?

  But two of the very best episodes of the year that I imagine we'll be talking about, um, in December. So it's not just that it's the adrenaline, it is the absolute-

• 10:45Chris Ryan?

  Craftsmanship.

• 10:46Andy Greenwald?

  Craftsmanship and the absolute sterling quality of them.

• 10:52Andy Greenwald?

  Also, let me just say that you know this, like I had a really busy, had a long day yesterday, pulled in a lot of directions and the last thing on my, on my list to tick off was The Pit. And I had to watch it in a way that I do not recommend watching the show, which is after putting one's children to bed, uh, when one is already feeling a little bit sleepy.

• 11:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Andy Greenwald?

  This was the antidote to that. Like to what, to know that what I was going to watch was going to be so viscerally thrilling and engaging.

• 11:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Andy Greenwald?

  That there would be no, not only no threat of sleep, no threat of second screen, no threat of distraction, like to be dialed in is, I mean, in the dumbest possible way, a cheat code for the glut of television opportunities and, and television choices that we have right now. The cheat code might be make really, really riveting shit.

• 11:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Andy Greenwald?

  And we'll pay attention. Now, that can result in some bad work.

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  For sure. Yeah.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's not a bad zag considering how ponderous a lot of the other prestige television these days can be.

• 11:51Chris Ryan?

  I have enjoyed, I mean, to, to the relative to the world of The Pit, the mundane episodes of The Pit, the episodes of The Pit that are just kind of like, we're kind of trying to get through this hour, or here's some interpersonal dynamics between the doctors. This was obviously the beginning of an.

• 12:08Andy Greenwald?

  Can I stop you quickly?

• 12:09Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 12:09Andy Greenwald?

  Only because I'm sorry. I was just picturing some of our listeners, like that meme where the guy is sweating with his finger hovering over two buttons, because we have not officially declared which show we're talking about first.

• 12:20Chris Ryan?

  I think we're going to talk about The Pit first.

• 12:21Andy Greenwald?

  We're going to talk about The Pit first.

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  And then we'll talk about the entirety of Adolescence. So there's spoilers now going forward for the most recent episode of The Pit that's coming out on Thursday night. If you don't, if you haven't watched The Pit yet, or if you haven't watched this episode yet, feel free to skip to our spoilers conversation about Adolescence, which we will talk about how it seems like most people have watched because it has become a huge sensation.

• 12:44Andy Greenwald?

  I also, this is part of my efforts to change to not only become someone who is, has more bloodlust in his television viewing, but I also have decided that the lane for me in this podcast going forward, because you're the crowd favorite, is that I can be just the servicy guy.

• 12:57Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah, you're just gonna set me up.

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just gonna, just, yes. I'm the other guy.

• 13:02Chris Ryan?

  You're Bobby Hurley, just bounce pass.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  I'm the other guy on the beach volleyball team.

• 13:06Chris Ryan?

  Uh, well, you know, honestly, I think we could probably diagram a bunch of sequences or moments in the pit from this episode. As close watchers of the show would know, Pit Fest has loomed in the background. It felt like they kept mentioning this. They kept mentioning, oh, Pit Fest chicks, go to Pit Fest. Are you going to Pit Fest? Pit Fest is today. And, um, look, I mean, if you've been around the block a couple of times with television, they don't throw out I, details and color and slice of life notes more than once unless it's gonna matter. And so I think that there are two major sort of things coming to ahead here.

• 13:47Chris Ryan?

  One is they have a mass casualty event. Um, this is a, you know, putting the emergency room to the absolute test. And I think also when you watch this episode, bringing out the absolute best in these people and you kind of see why they are, um, these people who do this in real life are truly like guardians of a, of a, of society and are most like crippling moments. Like these people are here to try and keep us alive. And also, you know, perhaps this show at its best where all of the, you know, the, the kinetic energy that comes along with being in that emergency room actually has a event that puts that energy to the test. And one of the things that I think is interesting to hear you note, oh, I watched this right before bed

• 14:31Chris Ryan?

  is because this show is so, um, I don't know, confrontational about what it is about. It is saying like, this is what happens when this person comes in. These are, this is how long these people have to wait in the waiting rooms. This is, these doctors learning on the job. When something truly, um, adrenalizing comes, comes along, like a mass casualty event, I actually felt.

• 14:55Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely riveted, but not, not, I was calm. You know what I mean? I was calm watching the show. I was calm watching them zip around to different hospital beds. And I, I couldn't quite put my finger on why. It went by in a blink of an eye. This is a 40 minute episode. I think the next episode will probably be something of a part B to it.

• 15:13Andy Greenwald?

  An excruciating, uh, cut to black.

• 15:16Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:18Andy Greenwald?

  The kind we are not really used to anymore in the streaming era.

• 15:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Andy Greenwald?

  Like, there was no ending point. The episode just stopped and there's more to come.

• 15:25Chris Ryan?

  Very well directed by Amanda Marcellus, I was just gonna point out, and kind of, um, if you spent the first, gosh, I guess, what is it, 12 episodes? What are we on, episode 13 now?

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  About that.

• 15:40Chris Ryan?

  Kind of living in these people's insecurities and anxieties and frustrations.

• 15:47Chris Ryan?

  Really, iron sharpens iron in this episode with these characters where Dr. Robbie, the Sean Hattasy character who comes back from the first, that's Dr.

• 15:58Andy Greenwald?

  Just Googled. Apparently it's Hattosy.

• 16:00Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Hattosy, I'm sorry. Uh, Dr. Abbott comes back. We'd seen him in the morning. Uh, he's sort of running, he and, he and Dr. Robbie are running the emergency room as casualties come in from this mass shooting event. And give me, give me just sort of like the 10,000 foot view of what you thought of the episode.

• 16:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I'll start where we left off last week, which is the, the overall Jenga tower construction of this season is just stunning. And I said this last week, I'll say it again. There is a level of confidence in building something that can achieve this height. In, in the sense that they were building it from scratch. Now, the legal teams of Michael Crichton's estate and Warner Brothers suggested they're building it on some very well-established foundations. But regardless.

• 16:48Andy Greenwald?

  When you put the character, like Sean Hatosi's character, in the opening moments of the first episode, you are doing what they did in a many more subtle ways throughout the course of the season. You're laying down a marker for something that it's going to be meaningful, that it's going to be significant, that we're going to remember this face, that this person is going to matter, that when he shows up, we are going, when he shows up 12 hours later, essentially, we are going to feel the same sense of welcome and relief that

• 17:18Chris Ryan?

  Robbie does.

• 17:18Andy Greenwald?

  Robbie feels in that moment. That's very hard to do. That's a confidence game. That's betting on yourselves as creators and betting on the machinery that you've built to construct a show like this, and it's betting on the audience's engagement. To feel it pay off in real time is wild. It's also truly insane.

• 17:33Chris Ryan?

  It's also kind of, it's really good casting, because Sean Hatosi is the first person we see really in this show, right?

• 17:39Andy Greenwald?

  Well, and he's a recognizable enough.

• 17:41Chris Ryan?

  And he's a recognizable face, and when he comes back in, you're like, it's him!

• 17:45Andy Greenwald?

  But what about the fact that this show then brings in a couple other people who are like, oh, from the night shift, or you're going to be doing triage? And I'm like, yeah, hi, I love you. I'm like, I am like a puppy at an adoption event as people walk through. I'm just so, so excited for the world to get bigger and to meet new people that I can trust and come to rely on. The other thing is that, that is so wild about this is, as I was alluding to before, the, the, the logline, the pitch, the, for this series was, it's going to be intense, right? And so, over the course of the first 10 hours, you mentioned it, there have been quieter moments, softer moments, you know, funny moments, human moments, but it has been a really relentless, high-tempo drumbeat of intense medical stuff.

• 18:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's never a break for them.

• 18:30Andy Greenwald?

  What is wild is to learn that all of that was essentially batting cages compared to what is possible in terms of a, an event, in terms of the type of medicine that they can and are sometimes forced to do. This is a very, very, like, probably inappropriate analogy, but there was a feeling, again, not in terms of the humanity of what's on screen, but like, remember all the days and weeks and months we've lost to playing Tetris, like, on Nintendo 64, where you're like, this game starts slow, but give me an hour?

• 19:08Chris Ryan?

  Nintendo 64, must be nice.

• 19:10Andy Greenwald?

  I want a day to, oh, here. See, no, that doesn't, that's not how would I do.

• 19:16Andy Greenwald?

  Do I do that to you? No.

• 19:18Chris Ryan?

  I just think it's funny.

• 19:19Andy Greenwald?

  I think I get it. I think I'm a little more subtle. You're like, I had dinner at 7:00 PM. His Majesty dines in darkness. Must be nice. All right, no, we'll find it. Anyway, and then it gets really, really fast and you're like, somehow I'm still playing the same game, but it's incredibly, it's that much harder. That was the rhythm, that was what the tempo had, that was the tempo shift in this episode.

• 19:43Andy Greenwald?

  It was...

• 19:46Andy Greenwald?

  I was so in it that it feels almost like churlish to be like, and then I was trying to watch the way the machinery was working. But you do think about how much, this is a teaching hospital, as they often say. Think about how much teaching happened even within the 40 minutes of this episode to get all of us on board.

• 20:03Chris Ryan?

  And it's teaching the audience as well.

• 20:04Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I mean, like, the prep, the like, hey, everyone, this is about to happen. Here's how we're going to do it. Here's what we're going to have to be. And you feel the tension and you see the varying reactions from Dr. King being quite concerned and quite nervous to my guy, my guy Johnny Triage, who's just enjoying his Dunkaccino.

• 20:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Andy Greenwald?

  And asking for Thanksgiving off. People process trauma in different ways. But we're being, all that is being explained to us. And then, you know, it is anticipating our audience questions and concerns and confusion in a way that never feels manipulated, like, wait, this is an emergency room. And we've spent 10 episodes being like, wow, they're understaffed and what's going on in the waiting room? Not only do we get the administrator, Gloria, suddenly, we see a different side of her.

• 20:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Which is great for the actor as well, because that was pretty thankless. But we also have the scenes of like, okay, the entire waiting room has to clear out now.

• 20:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Andy Greenwald?

  And the guy's like, this is an emergency room. Where do we go? There has to be somewhere else for them to go. The amount of thinking and planning, and I would imagine the email box that only you have access to is full of other, you know, full of medical professionals.

• 21:09Chris Ryan?

  We do here.

• 21:11Andy Greenwald?

  Must be nice. People saying, again...

• 21:14Chris Ryan?

  Everybody's very complimentary towards you in the emails.

• 21:16Andy Greenwald?

  I'm sure, only emails.

• 21:19Andy Greenwald?

  That's my cousin on the boards. He don't like you very much.

• 21:23Chris Ryan?

  I think you're great.

• 21:26Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway. It ticked off every question we might have in anticipation of asking it before the deluge.

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes. The, everything that happens in this episode is very much like it's the showing, not telling. They've done a lot of telling on this episode, in the season of television. I think if you were going to make any critiques of the pit, there will be moments where they're like, well, did you know that violence against medical practitioners is X percentage higher than, you know, and you're like, yes, that's an incredibly important thing to know and it's plain spoken and told directly to me, but it also feels like a pop up video bubble sometimes. This time it's all happening within the action, so,

• 22:10Chris Ryan?

  you know, you have, I, when I watched this, I was like, I'm watching heroism. I'm watching superheroes, basically. These are people who are fashioning tubes and medical equipment out of, basically like leftover pieces of other medical equipment. They're running short on blood, so Mel donates blood, you know, like they are doing things at a level of self sacrifice and diligence and.

• 22:37Andy Greenwald?

  They are using the same device that I used to play Wordle to discover a bruised liver bleed.

• 22:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Yeah, and while all this is happening, there's some TV stuff happening. First of all, as everybody will be excited to see or shocked to see, Langdon comes back just hours after being dismissed by Robbie after being discovered to have been stealing drugs from the pharmacy.

• 22:59Andy Greenwald?

  Can I make one small note?

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Andy Greenwald?

  This is, this is, this is a little, little bit of a petty nitpick, but I know that he did spend those hours frantically calling the desk and calling Robbie directly. I assume begging to have his job back or explain himself.

• 23:12Chris Ryan?

  Explain himself.

• 23:13Andy Greenwald?

  It does appear that he also spent some of that time getting a haircut.

• 23:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I think he was calling Robbie from the barber's chair.

• 23:19Chris Ryan?

  Do you think it was like, when Robbie fires him, he's like, "This is actually good for me, because I can get in a 415."

• 23:24Andy Greenwald?

  He's like, "Claudio said he had a 415, and I can't." He did get a little bit, a little bit higher fade.

• 23:30Chris Ryan?

  His return, I think, is supposed to speak to the absolutely catastrophic nature of what's happening.

• 23:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Chris Ryan?

  That they would allow, that Robbie wouldn't be like, "I can't even have, you know, I can't have you in this emergency room, no matter what."

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  But everything that Robbie does speaks to, everything is complimentary, in terms of what his point of view is, in terms of what his needs are, and how he is organizing things. Because when he says to Dr. King, "In a moment like this, we do not have time to do blood screenings and tests for HIV or whatever, like, we need to get blood in people."

• 24:02Chris Ryan?

  The risk, and the reward outweighs the risk.

• 24:04Andy Greenwald?

  And so that is, I assume there is some relational.

• 24:07Chris Ryan?

  It is. I was surprised to see Langdon, I guess it's a very interesting character trait, but like, you know, at first starts out, and he's just like, "I'm just here to work bodies," but then starts throwing around the cat, the classic Langdon, like, "What are you doing? Hey."

• 24:20Andy Greenwald?

  Or he's like, "You kids are doing great."

• 24:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, after, at first, I think Santos thinks he's gonna come over and throw a fastball, like, you know, and he's like, "No, no, no, you guys are doing great."

• 24:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have any sense, or do we have any sense, are we meant to have any sense of the lineup for Pitfest 2025?

• 24:37Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 24:37Andy Greenwald?

  Like, what sort of festival it is? I did Google it. I will show you that the only Pitfest that I'm aware of happens in the Netherlands, and features Cradle of Filth and Tribulation. So I don't think Misery Index played.

• 24:49Chris Ryan?

  I wasn't, I wasn't getting a Cradle of Filth.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Vibe. Is Jell playing Pitfest?

• 24:54Andy Greenwald?

  Jell is playing Pitfest.

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  But this isn't in Pittsburgh, is it?

• 24:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, this is in the Netherlands.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, because I like Jell.

• 25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Well, maybe you should go and get back to us. There also is a Ramones tribute band. Anyway, I-

• 25:07Chris Ryan?

  I got the feeling it was like a Chainsmokers-y, kind of like fun, dance pop kind of thing.

• 25:11Andy Greenwald?

  I also had the sense that it was the biggest event in Pittsburgh because it did have a wide swath of attendees, both in terms of age and background.

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  So the other TV thing that's happening here, not even a TV thing, but it is, it is something that they have seeded throughout this season, is this idea that David, the disaffected incel teenager,

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Chris Ryan?

  who is, had originally been in the hospital with his mother, his mother had forced herself to get sick so that David would come in and perhaps she could get him some psychiatric help or whatever. He has disappeared earlier in the season, ran off. Uh, Dr. McKay, um, has long been sort of banging the drum that they should get some cops

• 25:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Chris Ryan?

  to pick him up because he has thrown up a list of people that it would appear that he is, is looking to kill. Um, they have now indicated that his cellphone had been pinged near the pit fest. There is something about the way this is kind of all culminating. I still wonder whether or not, like, there's another shoe to drop or something where it's like, it's gonna zag. But maybe I'm wrong and maybe David is the shooter and this is like a terrible tragedy and is gonna define Robbie going forward on this show.

• 26:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Chris Ryan?

  That he was like, I don't want to ruin this kid's life by calling the police in.

• 26:29Andy Greenwald?

  This show has won my trust so completely.

• 26:33Chris Ryan?

  That either way.

• 26:34Andy Greenwald?

  That I, I'm here. And I'm, I'm waiting to see. I, if I were to turn off that part of my brain briefly, I would say that I, I hope that it's not. Um, it does feel a little, you know, the, the basis for shows like this are that NER, in this case, this ER, is the, is a window into and a perfect functioning microcosm of society. And everyone passes through its doors and everything happens here today, literally on the show, on one day, that is of significance to the world, to the society, to the city and for the viewing audience. This, the sense that Robbie's worst day would spiral to this level, that

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  he can't fix everything, I get that on a character and thematic and a whiteboard in August when you're sitting down to set out a season goals. That makes sense to me. I think it's, it's almost too Tiny Town for the purposes of, um, belief. But again, everything else about the show has been, as we've been told, incredibly accurate. So I'm willing to accept. I'm willing to accept some dramatic swings for the purposes of furthering the story and furthering the development of these characters. It also does, they're so savvy about so many things, just on a, like on a meat and potatoes level, that a misdirect feels equally likely. I mean, maybe it's Doug. Maybe Doug punched Dana and then got angry.

• 27:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:59Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I mean, that it could still be related to the emergency room, but not necessarily the kid. I think it has been established and reinforced this episode that the hospital is also near Pitt Fest.

• 28:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:10Andy Greenwald?

  So pinging near it, who knows how accurate that might be.

• 28:13Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 28:14Andy Greenwald?

  But I could be wrong. It could have been, we called it on episode two, and it has not taken away from our enjoyment of the show.

• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  Not at all. I mean, I would also say that one of the things that was interesting about this episode, where essentially every frame of the 40 minutes is made up of bleeding bodies, you know, is that the rest of the season, the previous 10 episodes or however many, trained me to be ready for this. Because there was, I mean, also, I guess through the sheer speed through which they're moving through this, but I felt like I was gripped by it, whereas there have been a couple of procedures this year where I'm like, okay, didn't need to see that, didn't need to see debrading, debriding.

• 28:56Andy Greenwald?

  Keep going.

• 28:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, well, you're not gonna help.

• 28:59Andy Greenwald?

  As a girl dad, braiding is something that's often in my.

• 29:01Chris Ryan?

  No, but what happened, there was like a skin thing earlier in the year, and I was like, I'm not into this.

• 29:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the lady on the subway tracks.

• 29:05Chris Ryan?

  That's right. Oh, right, that was, she was batter up first. So that was really my takeaways. You know, I did not think the cliffhanger, to the extent that it is one, was manipulative. I'm very excited, obviously, to find out where this is all going.

• 29:20Andy Greenwald?

  And the fate of Jake.

• 29:21Chris Ryan?

  I wonder how long Collins is gonna operate in a total media blackout at her house.

• 29:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I mean, in my experience, which is completely different.

• 29:32Chris Ryan?

  You didn't even know about the Kennedy files until I told you.

• 29:35Andy Greenwald?

  Just, in a way, I've just been turning my phone off and taking a bath for months now. No, in my, in my completely different experience, whenever someone has been like, you know what, take it easy, I have 100% never done that.

• 29:47Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 29:48Andy Greenwald?

  You know, so I also.

• 29:50Chris Ryan?

  That's when you open up your Facebook newsfeed.

• 29:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's when I'm like, ooh, just hook it up. Just, just pull out my arm and do the reverse Dr. King.

• 29:59Chris Ryan?

  What's going on, comicbookmovies.net?

• 30:03Andy Greenwald?

  They have some pretty wild theories for Avengers Doomsday that I have not really read you in on yet.

• 30:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Andy Greenwald?

  But I'm across them. I'm across these theories. Did you feel, in terms of like finding a moment to pause and focus on other storylines, I thought that the Chad crutching his way into the ER was actually pretty effective.

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz it's like, I think that's the first time he's ever really seen his wife do what she does.

• 30:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and also-

• 30:32Chris Ryan?

  And he's like, damn, this is, she is a boss.

• 30:34Andy Greenwald?

  You know, again, like, the one, the one tiny nitpick area where the show sometimes has gotten its, its dials a little bit off, has been, I think, like, sometimes patients come in and they have to be at a certain setting to communicate what their function on the show is in the brief amount of time.

• 30:53Chris Ryan?

  Like, Irna?

• 30:53Andy Greenwald?

  So Chad was like-

• 30:54Chris Ryan?

  Or Chad, yeah.

• 30:54Andy Greenwald?

  Chad was like, "I'm a dickhead all the time. That's what I do." You know what I mean? And so, when he was crutching his way-

• 31:01Chris Ryan?

  He's not though, he's like-

• 31:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, but like, you know, but, but, but, he kinda was. He kinda was.

• 31:07Chris Ryan?

  And, and when he was like, I, I mean-

• 31:09Andy Greenwald?

  Not last night.

• 31:10Chris Ryan?

  It seems like he's a good dad.

• 31:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, what, I'm trying to help your man Chad. By the way, justice for Chad. You're like the guy in the hardware store in episode four of Adolescence. Jeez. You're on the wrong side of history, pal. Anyway, all I wanna say is, that scene, because of how aggro he was in his previous iterations on the show, I did think that the show was going to just divert resources and attention to have him be like, "Come on, son, come on, Harrison."

• 31:39Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and then it's like a panic about where's Harrison?

• 31:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, I'm taking you out if you're in the middle of this.

• 31:43Chris Ryan?

  That would've been a little bit too much.

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  For him to be humbled and stunned and just sit down to watch a movie, because that's really all he needed to do at that moment.

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  He still hasn't picked a movie. The kid's been sitting in there for a while.

• 31:54Andy Greenwald?

  I thought the one line that they maybe, they left in the cutting room floor was, "Should we watch a movie?" And the kid's like, "Yeah." And Chad would've said, "Something scary." You see what I mean? Cuz it's like-

• 32:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Andy Greenwald?

  Inside of Harrison, there are two wolves.

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  Dr. McKay and Chad.

• 32:07Andy Greenwald?

  Dr. McKay and this dickhead.

• 32:09Chris Ryan?

  I would definitely be more like Chad. I would be like, "First of all, we're watching Blair Witch, so let's turn the lights out."

• 32:15Andy Greenwald?

  No, you'd be like, "You got contagion on that bad boy? Let's fire it up. Fire it up, ready to go." When you watch movies on the iPad, you do Obama imitation. Did you know that?

• 32:26Chris Ryan?

  "Are you fired up?"

• 32:28Andy Greenwald?

  Barry didn't release those files.

• 32:30Chris Ryan?

  He didn't. He didn't.

• 32:32Andy Greenwald?

  You got so serious.

• 32:33Chris Ryan?

  But there was also like, I think there was like a time and Trump fucking tried to release him once and he was like, actually, it's all redacted.

• 32:39Andy Greenwald?

  No, the deep state stopped him.

• 32:40Chris Ryan?

  No, I think he stopped himself. I think he's an idiot.

• 32:43Andy Greenwald?

  You think, whoa, first of all, whoa, how dare you, sir, make this political? You think that his better angels took hold? What are you saying right now?

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  That's not what I said. I think he promises stuff and he's like, well, you're gonna see on Friday, I do this. And then he's like, no.

• 32:59Andy Greenwald?

  That was like when you said you would watch a Miyazaki movie?

• 33:02Chris Ryan?

  But I watched Porco Rosso.

• 33:04Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, you glanced at it over a three-year-old shoulder.

• 33:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm trying to get you to watch the one that's about dudes who love two things in this broken life, airplanes and smoking darts.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  But isn't that what Porco Rosso is about?

• 33:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's what they're all about. But there's one specifically that doesn't have any talking animals, Wind Rises, and just about a guy who loves a lady with tuberculosis, but also loves smoking.

• 33:28Chris Ryan?

  Does she like smoking? Because that's bad for TV.

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's a, it's a tough map, but now you're seeing the, you see the contours of the story.

• 33:34Chris Ryan?

  All right. I guess I know what I'm watching sometime.

• 33:38Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I'm watching? Next week's episode of The Pit on the Warner Brothers screener site. Moving on.

• 33:45Chris Ryan?

  We can move on because obviously, like, I, we've been talking about this show. I, I've, I've sometimes wondered whether or not it warrants a week-to-week kind of conversation, but I just keep wanting to tip my cap to it. We've only got, uh, I think, three episodes left, four episodes left?

• 34:01Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't want, I mean, we should tip our caps to it. It has been interesting to cover on a weekly basis because it's longer and because, as we said, some episodes, they're, they're, they're scratching an itch. They haven't necessarily all been bravura tours of, tours of, tours de force.

• 34:16Chris Ryan?

  Tours of forces.

• 34:16Andy Greenwald?

  Like.

• 34:17Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 34:18Andy Greenwald?

  Attorneys general, doesn't matter. Uh, we, this, this machine, this podcast machine really was built to be like. For the next 10 weeks, we're gonna have 10 distinct, interesting things to say.

• 34:29Chris Ryan?

  About one show.

• 34:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Chris Ryan?

  I will say though, it's been a pleasure talking with you about this because...

• 34:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's been a pleasure talking to you.

• 34:36Chris Ryan?

  I feel like it's like, we do a lot of starting. I watch a lot of first episodes now.

• 34:40Andy Greenwald?

  There's so many.

• 34:41Chris Ryan?

  It's really nice to be like, in the flow with a bunch of shows right now.

• 34:45Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I agree. And particularly this kind of show, I just, I just love it. And I think that, I don't think it's just a, "We do this for a living" kind of, not jadedness, but like, that affects our, we are enjoying the, uh, the delivery method and the style of the show as much as the show itself. But I do, I don't think that's just a podcaster problem. I do, just from, uh, doing my Thomas Friedman back of the cab reporting with people, I think that this-

• 35:14Chris Ryan?

  That's the second time you've mentioned Thomas Friedman in at least like, maybe three episodes.

• 35:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's why.

• 35:17Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 35:17Andy Greenwald?

  He's the new Doug from Tidal, in the sense of like-

• 35:20Chris Ryan?

  Thomas Friedman back of the cab reporting?

• 35:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 35:23Andy Greenwald?

  You, why would you explain this? You know this.

• 35:25Chris Ryan?

  I know, I know, it's just like, he's, that is such a specific-

• 35:29Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I'm sorry, is this no longer a safe space for specific references that only we get? We've been getting paychecks for dropping them for over a decade, sir.

• 35:39Chris Ryan?

  You get paid for this?

• 35:41Andy Greenwald?

  That's how, do you know how many people in my life have asked me that?

• 35:43Chris Ryan?

  I get paid to be on Rewatchables, this is-

• 35:45Andy Greenwald?

  This is Make-A-Wish Foundation shit for me.

• 35:48Chris Ryan?

  This doesn't even get published.

• 35:50Andy Greenwald?

  Wouldn't surprise me. Um, okay.

• 35:54Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm sorry, I was just trying to bust you up.

• 35:57Andy Greenwald?

  For those who haven't been reading The Gray Lady for as long as we have, uh, Thomas Friedman would write these columns where he'd be like, "In the back of a taxi in Bangalore, I spoke to my driver about globalization."

• 36:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's kind of what I do here.

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  This diner in Trump country.

• 36:10Andy Greenwald?

  In an Uber.

• 36:11Chris Ryan?

  They're having second thoughts.

• 36:12Andy Greenwald?

  I'm like, I'm on the way to-

• 36:12Chris Ryan?

  But at least they got the JFK files.

• 36:14Andy Greenwald?

  They're just pouring over them in the diner. They don't even order pancakes anymore.

• 36:19Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the pit and the style of show that it is really is resonating. I think it's resonating in the industry too, in the sense that like even talking to people, executives like, well, we're, what are you watching or what are you excited about? This is the show that people are talking about.

• 36:35Chris Ryan?

  The other show that people are talking about is Adolescence.

• 36:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, that's fair.

• 36:37Chris Ryan?

  So I was listening to Joe and Rob talk about it today on the Prestige, yesterday on the Prestige TV podcast, I think today. I can't remember when it went up. Joe and Rob are doing incredible Herculean work right now because they're doing Severance, White Lotus theories, and then they dropped an Adolescence episode. We talked about it on Monday's pod and specifically about the first episode, but broadly. I wanted to just throw out that in the beginning of Joe's pod, she was talking, Joe and Rob's pod, she was talking about talking to a friend who had referred to this as the next Baby Reindeer in terms of its sensation. And Joe rightly said, like, I think Adolescence is better than Baby Reindeer. And in some ways, it's not insulting to Baby Reindeer, but I think I'm inferring that

• 37:22Chris Ryan?

  that's what I think.

• 37:24Andy Greenwald?

  Insulting to-

• 37:24Chris Ryan?

  Insulting to Adolescence to be like, it's the new Baby Reindeer. It did something like 24 and a half million views over its first week of release or first weekend of release. It was just behind The Electric State on Netflix's-

• 37:38Andy Greenwald?

  You put a bullet in that one.

• 37:40Chris Ryan?

  Well, I, it is kind of crazy that that is like the extremes you can swing on Netflix. It's like the $320 million turkey and this very special piece of television that I'm going to think about for years to come. Yeah, I have had in recent months, like kind of this experience where like, I think because of the volume of stuff that I work on, I'm like, I sometimes just forget like character names or I forget like, oh, and then that happened. And I feel like this show is like seared into my mind, you know? And it's, it's really cool.

• 38:16Chris Ryan?

  To see it take off like this, because I think, I'll just share a conversation I had with Van Lathan yesterday, who called me after he'd finished it and was just kind of shaken up, but also really wanted to talk about it. And he mentioned that one of the only ways, you know, he, he and I agreed that you can kind of hope for a better world. One of the ways you kind of can strive to have a better world, or cure some of the things that, that are making us collectively as a society sick, is to like, translate that through art. That art is a great way. And like, I think some people might hear that and think, oh, you

• 38:54Chris Ryan?

  mean like, um, it's, it's not simply about casting. It's not simply about like, it's about the stories you choose to tell and the way you choose to tell them and how we're navigating a very, very dark time for everybody through art. And it's been really cool to see people respond to this, to be like, I need to know more about these things that adolescence is about, but also be able to just relate to it as, what an astonishing story told in an astonishing way with so much dignity and so much respect for the material.

• 39:31Andy Greenwald?

  There is nothing wrong with escapism, particularly in a very, very dark, very uncertain, very scary time. And it is not our place or anyone's place to judge the choices that people make when they actually get time for themselves in a broken world. Rite large, though, I do think it's possible to make the argument that the, that escapism as the goal of mass market entertainment has gone a little far and is over, has overcorrected in that direction. That the, what we look for, or what corporations feel is worthy

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  of $300 million, let's say, are increasingly hermetically sealed escape pods, in which to lose yourself for a few hours, or to be pumped full of hopium and, you know, slowcore covers of 80s songs. Or that following-

• 40:30Andy Greenwald?

  Passions, whether they're aesthetic or emotional, down personal rabbit holes is always the most important thing to be doing. What I find so striking and what I find particularly jarring, like shaking in a good way about a moment where we were talking about the pit and particularly about adolescence, is that adolescence is, in particular, is absolutely a work of very high art in terms of its writing, in terms of its acting, its filmmaking, its dedication to craft, but it is entirely unafraid of engaging with the world as it is. It is entirely open-minded and curious, and it is a show made by people and performers

• 41:11Andy Greenwald?

  who are, who are listeners, first and foremost, and not talkers, you know? You can tell. And this, we can talk about the whole series, I devoured it after, after, ever having watched the first episode, and, you know, I feel even just two days later, a little bit silly about some of the feelings that I expressed about the first episode, only because I still didn't fully understand the project. I didn't know how much time would pass between episodes, or where the camera would choose to spend its hour for the four hours that it had.

• 41:42Chris Ryan?

  Well, you could watch the first episode and be like, oh, it's gonna be like this, it's gonna be-

• 41:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's Law and Order.

• 41:47Chris Ryan?

  The detectives, the lawyers, the kid, the parents, you know, it's gonna maybe even be set at the station, you know?

• 41:53Andy Greenwald?

  It's so much more empathetic, it's so much more curious, it's so much more ambitious in a lot of ways than, than I, than I anticipated. And I do wanna talk specifically about some moments in the episodes, I wanna talk specifically about how the third episode, we should probably do our episode of the year episode now, because I can't imagine anything topping that.

• 42:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Andy Greenwald?

  But the moment that I do wanna hit briefly is to like, why I think this is just- On a different tier than most of the stuff we engage with is what I was joking about at the start, which is there's a, there's a van ride in the fourth episode where we've already had some pretty strong emotions, blood running hot.

• 42:37Chris Ryan?

  We can do spoilers. So like the family, the remaining family of Jamie's family. So his father is, his mother and his sister.

• 42:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's Eddie's 50th birthday.

• 42:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Andy Greenwald?

  And the day has started promisingly and then been radically redirected with some insulting graffiti that appears to be permanently sprayed on his van. They cannot get rid of the stain. The metaphor is quite strong. And he, instead of having the, the full English breakfast slash heart attack that his wife is lovingly preparing for him, he makes everyone get in the van with him to drive essentially to Home Depot to get something to wash the van. And Stephen, I mean, Stephen Graham's performance.

• 43:17Chris Ryan?

  Wainwrights.

• 43:17Andy Greenwald?

  Wainwrights. Related to Adam, I imagine. His family business.

• 43:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Opened a series of hardware stores in downtown Yorkshire.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  He did. Yadier Molina was like, what are you doing? To his battery mate. And he's like, no.

• 43:34Chris Ryan?

  That is a great cut.

• 43:35Andy Greenwald?

  I'm seeing, I'm seeing the vision.

• 43:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Andy Greenwald?

  This is, these people need to get their paints. Anyway, the van ride, because the show is a oner, like we go the whole way with them. And I presumably, like he's driving the van. His performance is one for the ages.

• 43:49Chris Ryan?

  That was apparently the hardest one they shot was the, that was the one that would produce the most technical complications.

• 43:55Andy Greenwald?

  Because of the driving.

• 43:56Chris Ryan?

  Because I think it was like, we can only do this so many times and, you know.

• 44:00Andy Greenwald?

  Because they had to shut down multiple places to have it.

• 44:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I imagine. Yeah.

• 44:03Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, in that van, you see, I mean, God, what a performance. You see him.

• 44:10Chris Ryan?

  Their life, life stories are told there.

• 44:12Andy Greenwald?

  And you see, but you also see him doing what everyone has to do at some point in their lives, often a lot, which is grab the wheel of yourself and really try and turn it, you know, against fate and circumstance and emotion and just try. And he's trying to be present. He's saying like, let's just do something. Let's climb a hill. Let's go ice skating. Then they go to the pictures and then all of a sudden they're talking about high school dance and they're laughing and they're in love. And, and the daughter's performance, I'll call up these people's names so we can call them out, is so beautiful and present because she's radiating absolute.

• 44:45Andy Greenwald?

  Embarrassment, but also love that she's just in the midst of. The show finds time for that. The show considers life, the show in its four hours considers the totality of life more than many shows do in multiple seasons. And I found that so moving and so riveting to watch. It was just the absolute best expression, like on a microscopic level of the, it's a casual thing, the anecdote that we talk about when we've talked about The Leftovers, or I probably wrote about back in the day. But the Damon Lindelof said when he was on the podcast years ago, that the difference between season one of The Leftovers and season two is that he remembered people laugh at funerals.

• 45:28Andy Greenwald?

  And it unlocks, this isn't a show about death, this is a show about life. And life can sometimes be fucking awful in ways that, you know, I think many of the viewers aren't even prepared to understand or accept. But the show contains all of it and I can't get over it.

• 45:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a moment in that, I keep thinking about how they must have made this show, obviously a lot of it probably derived from really intense research. I saw an interview with Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, who wrote the series, where they were talking about how Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie, would help them with the dialogue because he would say, it's not exactly how like a teenager now would say it. And they would be like, then tell us, like, you're a teen, you know? If this isn't his first job, it's one of his first jobs. I was astonished to find out that the third episode was the first one that they shot. So that that is essentially like Owen Cooper coming in and that's his rookie season right there. But the sophistication of the writing is something I wanted to hit on with you a little

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  bit because I think that there are ideas that are echoed throughout the series very subtly and never at the expense of, never at the expense of what is actually on screen distracting and being like, okay, we're gonna take a detour so that we can have, if anything, maybe the second episode does a little bit of this, but does a little bit of that. But for the most part, one of the ideas that I really kept coming back to was something that Faye Marseille's detective character, Misha, says in the second episode where she said.

• 46:57Chris Ryan?

  She said, all kids really need is one thing that makes them feel good about themselves. And she's talking about a teacher that she had that was really important to her and kind of saved her when she was in a school much like the one that Jamie was in. And, you know, you think about in the fourth episode, I hope you don't mind if we just jump around.

• 47:17Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think we should.

• 47:18Chris Ryan?

  We need to do episode by episode breakdowns, but in the fourth episode, when Amanda and Eddie, the parents are kind of reckoning with whether they could have done anything differently and why Jamie turned out the way he did.

• 47:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 47:33Chris Ryan?

  And they're kind of going through this list of things that Jamie wasn't good at.

• 47:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yep. The different phases, the different versions of himself.

• 47:43Chris Ryan?

  Soccer, boxing, kind of picked up drawing.

• 47:45Andy Greenwald?

  And he was good at that.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  And he was good at that, but then the thing that he was good at or the thing where he found himself was what is apparently the worst possible place for a kid that age to be, which is the internet, you know, and he got a computer and he holed up in there. And the description that she has of walking by his room at 1 a.m. and hearing or seeing the computer light still on.

• 48:08Andy Greenwald?

  And let's say Christine Tramarko.

• 48:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Andy Greenwald?

  And her performance in four is, I mean, Erin Doherty and Stephen Graham, they're going to get the headlines, but I think her performance in four is up there.

• 48:17Chris Ryan?

  And I was really interested, Graham and Tramarko have known each other and grew up in Liverpool, like they're coupled them in this show, kind of mirrors their biography. Although Hannah Walters is actually Stephen Graham's partner and she appears briefly in two as the counselor.

• 48:32Andy Greenwald?

  With Jade.

• 48:33Chris Ryan?

  Talking to Jade and she can also be seen in A Thousand Blows and she was part of the creative team behind A Thousand Blows.

• 48:38Andy Greenwald?

  So I didn't want to, I didn't want to cut you off. You were talking about that moment when the mother talks about going by the room with the light off.

• 48:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and just, and the idea, and just the idea that.

• 48:48Chris Ryan?

  I think this show does a really good job of being like, you know, life is is a kind of a roulette wheel and that you need to be, you need to have like one person recognize your your goodness and also your kind of like purpose and your value and give you dignity and give you a a sense of like, okay, I can do something on this planet.

• 49:11Andy Greenwald?

  There's so much in that. There is, the show holds space, if you'll excuse the modern parlance, for a lot of possibilities. And the fourth episode really brings a lot of that home. Lisa is the daughter's name and and Emily Pease is the actress. She's amazing in it, I think, in a very subtle way. There is a strong implication that Lisa is just okay, that she has turned out okay with many of the same circumstances.

• 49:39Chris Ryan?

  She's in college, she has a boyfriend, I think, yeah.

• 49:41Andy Greenwald?

  But that, you know, and there's a very crucial line near the end of the episode where he said, what did we do differently to make that? And we didn't do anything differently. So I do think that what the show does, again, it's holding two things in its mind or in its creative brain at the same time. That nature and nurture are sometimes ineffable and unknowable and untrackable and you can't overcorrect for anything. That said, the nurture part becomes crucial because you were saying that he found maybe the thing that he was good at. I would argue that the that the communication there is that he was doing things and then he quit because the computer or social media or phones is the illusion of doing things. You know, it's the illusion of value. It's the illusion of connection. It's the illusion of purpose and it eats people out from the inside.

• 50:25Chris Ryan?

  I mean, there's, there's so much stuff there to even, even that conversation where he, in the fourth episode where Eddie is talking about, he's like, my father used to beat the shit out of me. And I was never gonna be like that to him. And I don't think he's like, what I needed to do was be harder and hit Eddie or hit Jamie, but you can see him kind of grappling with the idea that

• 50:49Chris Ryan?

  Maybe the, whether it was being permissive, or whether it was the fact that they were busy with their own lives and trying to make a living, to try and keep the household running, that they thought he was safe because he was home.

• 51:01Andy Greenwald?

  That is a bedrock thing here, but there's also a really, and I think this is so hard to do and not many shows do it, even shows that have the best intentions or have the creators who have done the most therapy. But like, all of us are just collections of our pasts, our traumas, our histories, and our best intentions. And that scene in the bedroom is so crucial and not a moment too long. It's beautifully played because the takeaway is, he did do his best, considering, not only considering where he came from, but what he tried to do, what he attempted to connect over.

• 51:34Andy Greenwald?

  And one of the most searing things that I won't forget from the show is, and this is true, I think, in our lives too, nobody, every moment is important to everyone. The sense that, oh, I didn't even realize that this person in my life was upset at X moment, or that that would have sent them spiraling. If you're present and you're paying attention, you know. And so when Jamie's meltdown in Three, which really just comes down to the most searing thing, anyone can ask anyone, let alone a child, an adult, which is like, do you like me? That the moment that he shared, even after saying he didn't want to talk about his father, was that he'll never forget his father turning his face away.

• 52:13Chris Ryan?

  Which his father then tells the same story. He was like, I was ashamed of him. I turned, like, I turned away from him.

• 52:17Andy Greenwald?

  They both would never forget that moment, but neither would talk about it. And that breakdown of communication is as essential as the breakdown in communication between the genders in a junior high. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was a significant moment, but we, men, people, anyone, don't talk about that stuff.

• 52:37Chris Ryan?

  One of the things I thought was fascinating was every character, with the exception of Jamie, and his little shit friends, every character, with the exception of like, some of those kids, is essentially asking the same question, which is, why would somebody do this? And that was the motivating factor for Stephen Graham to get involved with this project in the first place. He had read about a series of knife crimes in England and was just like, why is this happening? Why are kids this young, turning to such extreme violence? And I think Jack Thorne also brought the element of toxic online discourse and...

• 53:16Chris Ryan?

  The Manosphere and Andrew Tate and all that stuff. But all these characters are asking why and they're asking why in different ways. And they're asking why for different reasons. So in two, there are detectives who are searching for a reason why we have kind of like, they've found themselves looking in a school for a young, for the reasons for a young child murdering another child.

• 53:42Andy Greenwald?

  And looking for the weapon.

• 53:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and looking for the weapon and, and kind of getting a little bit more versed in what the internet commentary, the, the social media commentary.

• 53:51Andy Greenwald?

  What emojis mean.

• 53:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then you get to three. And Erin Doherty, Doherty's Brienne character is asking why to some extent. But her responsibility is to ultimately for the justice system and for the legal, like the process, his legal process. And she makes that clear to him multiple times, but especially explicitly and perhaps heartbreakingly in the very end of the episode where she just turns off. You know, like, she heard, she heard what she heard and I think it breaks her heart. But she is like, this was our last session. I hope you, I, I hope you take advantage of the mental health services.

• 54:30Andy Greenwald?

  Everyone's there as, as, as the detective says, the DI says in the first episode, everyone's just trying to do their best here.

• 54:36Chris Ryan?

  And then you get to the fourth episode and it's the parents who are trying to figure out why. You know, why did, what did we do that led to this? Um, I want to talk to you a little bit about three. You, you talked to this, you talked about it being likely the best episode, but did you want to?

• 54:49Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I do want to talk about three. Um, and I want to talk about it in terms of just broadly, this is everything that I want in TV. This is like built on also such an incredible tradition, I think, especially in the UK of theater, of kitchen sink drama, of actors being prepared to show up and do the work.

• 55:08Chris Ryan?

  Also television made with the, an eye towards being for the public good, that it does a service to tell stories like this and to kind of show real life.

• 55:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Andy Greenwald?

  That said, there are level, there's levels of specificity and craftsmanship in the theme that I do want to call out before we get into some of the more, the other specifics of episode three, but it was in three that I really noticed it. And I, I also want to caveat this by saying it is rich for two men of a certain age, talking about a show created by essentially three men of a certain age. But I do want to, I, I, from my limited perspective, I was fascinated and really compelled by what the show did subtly about gender, in the way that roles are rejected or assumed, or played with throughout. I think that for as, as absolutely devastating as Erin Doherty's performance is and the way that episode is shaped, I think that the, the presence of the security guard in

• 56:04Andy Greenwald?

  that episode is as important as everything else. I, you know, I texted you the guy's name and I feel bad that I don't have it in front of me.

• 56:11Chris Ryan?

  Is it Douglas Roberts?

• 56:12Andy Greenwald?

  Douglas Roberts, yeah, plays, plays a guy named Victor who sort of helps her in and is there like, I'm watching, I'm always watching. And it could be a nothing part, but there are no nothing parts in theater or in a show like this. And he is sort of an affable Scotsman who is just maybe a little too friendly and maybe just a little, stands a little too closely and comes up a little too near when he, she's looking at his screen and shares a little too much.

• 56:36Chris Ryan?

  There's so much in, in their brief relationship. I was, I mean, I was thinking about how, at some point while he's kind of talking to her about, in, in one of her moments outside of the interview room, he's talking to her about, you know, she says, I love my job.

• 56:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Chris Ryan?

  And he's like, I fucking hate mine.

• 56:57Andy Greenwald?

  And, and in, and in TV.

• 56:59Chris Ryan?

  And it was the idea that like, she chose to be a child therapist. This was probably the job he could get.

• 57:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 57:06Chris Ryan?

  And he's been stuck in it for, you know.

• 57:08Andy Greenwald?

  And he's interested, but he's also resentful and there's some of, there's a little flavor of toxicity to it.

• 57:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, when he's talking about the body language book that he's been reading and he's standing a little too close to her, yeah.

• 57:18Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, you know, and some of that has echoed when Jamie is like, you're posh. And he talks about her body. And she is basically, she is under the barrage of that all the time, we understand, but also particularly in her workplace. And she has to put on different faces that only cracks, that only crack at the end. There are different.

• 57:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think that TV generally, when we talk about what is built episode to episode or cumulatively, it's often in terms of plot. Like, ah, this storyline or this scene was an important piece of plot armor or building block for where the season was going. On a show like this, or in theater, nothing is wasted, right? Everything has to be significant. That's why, I mean, it's a cliche now, but that's why we say, talk about Chekhov's gun. And I think that every moment of the show, every even minor interaction, is significant for understanding the psychological world that the show exists in, which is essentially our world. And so, I was thinking about Victor and Briani's presence and their scene when we got a rare

• 58:21Andy Greenwald?

  moment of only women on the screen in episode four, when Manda, who's Jamie's mother, is with Lisa, and she's asking about her boyfriend, and she's asking if she's fine, and her mother says, you know, is he taking care of you? Yeah. And she means that from her generation's perspective in a, I think, loving way. And her daughter is like, I don't need to be taken care of. It's the same look on Jamie's face when Briani says, does your dad have any women friends? He's like, no, he has mates. No, first she says, no, he loves my mom. Yeah. It's just not what? And there's a lurking second question that Briani doesn't ask in three that haunts me, when he's asking, she's asking him, what would you do if you went on a date? Or what would you? Oh, yeah.

• 59:06Andy Greenwald?

  And there's suddenly, there's this emptiness there where you realize that whether it's his age, whether it's generational, whether it's because of the fucking internet, the thought that he would take any emotional interest, or personal interest, or just like, let's have fun and be friends interest in a woman or a girl, is impossible to conceive of. He was like, this is a means to an end. And the end, then she gets into in very anatomical details of what that end would be, and he lies about it. Yeah. You know, there is... The heavy curtain thrown over everything of the gendered relationships, even in the cops, when he's like, do you want children? That's not something you ask a coworker.

• 59:45Chris Ryan?

  I think she says, you've never asked me that before.

• 59:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. People aren't talking, people aren't asking, people aren't expressing themselves, and we just see the ripples.

• 59:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:54Andy Greenwald?

  And they're not all knife attacks. You know, I think the totality of that, I'm still grappling with just how thoughtful every single detail in the show is.

• 1:00:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's also, I mean, there are shades of a traditional cop show in this. You know, I think maybe even some hesitation you might have had coming out of one was, are we looking at like kind of a Broadchurch situation where maybe that's not him on the video?

• 1:00:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:00:22Chris Ryan?

  Or like this is a miscarriage of justice?

• 1:00:24Andy Greenwald?

  Is the lawyer a main character now?

• 1:00:25Chris Ryan?

  Is the lawyer a main character now? And I thought that was the most fascinating thing about three. Two, the episode three as well for me was, this was not, I mean, there's parts of that episode that remind me of Silence of the Lambs. You know, like there's parts of it that are like Clarice interviewing Hannibal. And I don't mean that to say that like a character like Jamie is the same thing as as this sort of supernaturally villainous, you know, person. But uncovering where people's responsibilities start and end.

• 1:01:09Chris Ryan?

  And her sort of being like, well, you know, maybe your father modeled poor life skills.

• 1:01:15Andy Greenwald?

  Masculinity.

• 1:01:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, masculinity to you. And then when she gets him to the point where he obviously is having a complete dissonance between what he actually did and what he thinks he's in trouble for.

• 1:01:26Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:01:27Chris Ryan?

  Which is essentially like where she turns off the. Turns off the like, the machine for herself. Cause he's saying, I could have done all this other stuff.

• 1:01:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Chris Ryan?

  But I only.

• 1:01:39Andy Greenwald?

  Killed her.

• 1:01:39Chris Ryan?

  Killed her. And she's like, do you understand what death is? And I think everybody on the show, all the adults on this series are horrified by the idea that there may be a generation of people who, because they are interacting with certain levels of information before their brains are fully formed. Might not understand certain things like, that person's never coming back. You're going to jail for the rest of your life for what you did.

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Chris Ryan?

  And he's in the beginning, he's like, I'm in this madhouse. These kids are screaming during Coronation Street, like you have to get me out of here.

• 1:02:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I don't, I don't belong here.

• 1:02:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Andy Greenwald?

  I don't belong here because I know these things, but not these other things.

• 1:02:18Chris Ryan?

  But he's essentially having blackout rage moments every 10 minutes in that third episode.

• 1:02:23Andy Greenwald?

  The, when he asks for another hot chocolate, you're like, this is, this is a child. And something, again, like, there's, there's such a tendency in, I mean, especially American things, to be honest, but maybe it's just where we are with most art, but like, to make things feel okay, or make things feel a little bit better, or to take the sting out of it. I mean, you were, it's, it's not, it's not a one to one, but it's the thing I think you articulated really well on the big picture when you were talking about the Chewbacca problem. Being serious, like it, it's a slightly different version of that. But the show holds space for the possibility that something is broken in Jamie.

• 1:03:08Andy Greenwald?

  Not just broken in society, which it definitely suggests.

• 1:03:14Andy Greenwald?

  It, it, it doesn't run away from the ambiguity of not really ever knowing and that people are just going to be left weeping. Unable to get their arms around any sense of truth or understanding.

• 1:03:28Andy Greenwald?

  We're talking about it, I'm just more and more little choices and details are uncovering in like the two different teachers we encounter in episode two. There's the guy who's

• 1:03:39Chris Ryan?

  Mr. Malik.

• 1:03:40Andy Greenwald?

  Mr. Malik is just like, this is, I'm a zookeeper essentially, and what do you want from me? And then the other guy who's Adam's teacher, who is, has the demeanor of a drill sergeant.

• 1:03:51Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:53Andy Greenwald?

  These are extremes, but these are also, in some ways, you know, understandable reactions to impossible situations.

• 1:04:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's also just like, you know, you watch like those kids interact and you're just like, please tell me this is an exaggeration. When the kid is like throwing Adam up against the wall and is like, give me a pound 20. And then the teacher's like, leave him alone. And he's like, you give me a pound 20 then? Like, I'm like, holy shit.

• 1:04:20Andy Greenwald?

  What can you get with a pound 20 these days?

• 1:04:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 1:04:22Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, in my experience, not very much.

• 1:04:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Andy Greenwald?

  What does Stephen Graham say? Can't even buy a pint with a fiver anymore.

• 1:04:28Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 1:04:29Andy Greenwald?

  That is true.

• 1:04:30Chris Ryan?

  Talk to you a little bit about the, you know, we could go on and on. I wanted to talk to you just briefly about the filmmaking, because I think that some people are like, well, does it need to be this way? You know, and I resoundingly answer yes.

• 1:04:47Andy Greenwald?

  I do too.

• 1:04:48Chris Ryan?

  Even if I can't always make a case for, this is why they needed to do this, I think there are some things that are just really cool, like going through the window, you know, in the chase.

• 1:04:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Chris Ryan?

  Or, you know, the drone shot.

• 1:05:00Andy Greenwald?

  That lifts up out of school and then

• 1:05:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Andy Greenwald?

  lands at the flowers.

• 1:05:03Chris Ryan?

  There's some just amazing flexes. I think that my, I just think a lot about where director Philip Barantino wants you to look. And sometimes it's his choice, as in three, where there will be long times where he's on Jamie.

• 1:05:23Andy Greenwald?

  But he's always pushing. He's always

• 1:05:25Chris Ryan?

  Pushing and pulling, and then there will be points where Brene's talking, but we're watching Jamie listen, or Jamie's talking, we're watching Brene listen, which is usually the reverse of what you would do in a, you know, coverage. Then there are times, like the fourth episode. Of what is essentially like a 15 minute scene of them in the front of the van as they drive to the Home Depot or the Wainwrights, where you're forced to look at all of the people in the scene at once. It's like essentially a master. Not only are you, it's like, it's not a fun driving scene where you're like, oh, I can see all the stuff in the back. You're, you're right on their windshield. And it's like, these two people are basically telling their daughter the story of their lives. The daughter is just like, I'm on my phone. I don't want to do this.

• 1:06:09Andy Greenwald?

  But also this is giving me life.

• 1:06:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then they reach this sort of ecstasy of playing aha, reliving their own teenage years, their, their love.

• 1:06:20Andy Greenwald?

  Thinking about the takeaway they're gonna, not takeaway, they're gonna go to a Chinese.

• 1:06:23Chris Ryan?

  They walk into the store.

• 1:06:25Andy Greenwald?

  It crashes.

• 1:06:25Chris Ryan?

  It crashes. But I think following everything gives you this sense of continuity that I think is very important to the show.

• 1:06:36Andy Greenwald?

  It, it speaks to, I agree completely. It speaks to, I hope, what I was trying to articulate before about life contains all of it. You cannot.

• 1:06:46Chris Ryan?

  It's life's boring sometimes.

• 1:06:47Andy Greenwald?

  Life is boring. Life is driving between places. Life is putting on a happy face. Life is smiling to your neighbor, but actually calling her.

• 1:06:53Chris Ryan?

  A cow.

• 1:06:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, like life is going as Eddie's birthday goes from like trying to have a quick one with your wife before your daughter wakes up and enjoying breakfast to getting a card from your incarcerated child.

• 1:07:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Andy Greenwald?

  Like it, it just keeps happening. And the fact that it is an aesthetic and bold directorial choice, as well as a deeply, deeply story-based compelling narrative choice is really special. I think it's really unique. I think that when people who work in the industry talk about how it's a miracle anything ever gets made, let alone anything good, it's because A, they're aware of all the things that can go wrong and all the bumps along the way. But they're also aware of the fact that getting, so many people work on a production. Getting all of them to more or less row in the same direction from beginning to end is borderline impossible.

• 1:07:51Andy Greenwald?

  And sometimes those disconnects happen early when like an executive buys something that is just fundamentally different than what the writer wants to write, or it's a casting decision, the actor doesn't agree. This was a uniquely collaborative process because Stephen Graham is the star. He's also the co-creator, co-writer with Jack Thorne. You were saying like the actors were allowed to bring parts of themselves to it.

• 1:08:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it was also obviously like Graham's worked with Doherty earlier.

• 1:08:13Andy Greenwald?

  And Beratini, it is an intimate company that knew each other. Again, that reminds me of more of a theater troupe than a production. But, but the fact that every single creative person involved was rowing in the same direction from the beginning and that everything was in service of everything else. So that the camera is, um, the camera is playing the long game, like running the same marathon that the actors are running. It is not sprinting a lot to, to show off or to get noticed or to mug for the cameras in the same way that like the actors, the camera's on them for so long, they can't hide.

• 1:08:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing about them can hide. I mean, I don't think we're, we don't, it's not just that we don't have the time. I don't think we have the, the qualifications to really sit here and talk about what makes Aaron Doherty's performance or Stephen Graham's performance as absolutely transcendent as they are, other than the fact that that is what, if you Google acting, like being present moment to moment in the given circumstances, what it, acting ought to be and what it can be and what we rarely see it be for these sustained bursts of time on TV.

• 1:09:16Chris Ryan?

  Well, also it's like, think about, I had a, I had one last thing I wanted to ask you about, but think about going back through these episodes and watching things happen, knowing what you know, right? Like, so that first episode, I did not read about this show before I watched it. I just knew that it was like really taking on a lot of momentum. So I watched that in complete sympathy with Jamie. I watched it being like, oh my God, like this poor child crying in this van and obviously the police officers seem to have a bit of sympathy for him as well. And like, everybody's like, I hate adolescent, I hate juvenile cases. And I was like, oh, right. So what, maybe what this show is going to be is like, how could this have gone so wrong?

• 1:09:58Andy Greenwald?

  Well, and you're anticipating the twist, which is what TV has taught us to do. He's in the right, the wrong place at the wrong time and the story is much more.

• 1:10:05Chris Ryan?

  It was actually Ryan who did it. Yeah, right.

• 1:10:07Andy Greenwald?

  Or it was really Eddie who did it, covering for his kid or.

• 1:10:10Chris Ryan?

  And that's what Broadchurch is, right? Like, I mean, like that's what these other shows have taught us.

• 1:10:14Andy Greenwald?

  Presumed Innocent is.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then. The same thing for the third episode is when you realize what Erin Doherty's character is essentially there to ascertain or to to sort of identify, which is to what level does this kid understand what he did? And when she finds out in all the wrong ways, he does and all the, you know, like, you go back and watch her approach and the intensity with which she's going up in the elevator. Again, really little moment, but the guy in the elevator being like, how do you work here? Like, you know, kind of like always being flirted with. And it's just like, it actually is a durable rewatch in that way. I mean, obviously not a fun one, but it is, it is very durable.

• 1:10:59Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you about one moment that I think I'll remember for a long time, if not the rest of my life, which is Jamie calling his dad in the car on his birthday and telling him that he's changing his confession to guilty.

• 1:11:15Andy Greenwald?

  His plea.

• 1:11:16Chris Ryan?

  His plea. And that there's just that moment again, that goes back to picking his dad as his his adult for the interviews, but he's, he's obviously alarmed that his mother and sister were also on the phone call. He finds out that they're all in the car. This is another example of like this one take not cutting is we never see Jamie's face again after we leave from episode three. And what did you think of that last moment? Those last moments?

• 1:11:43Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's excruciating. It does speak to the, the, the point we were discussing before about like gendered spaces. He says this to his father. We don't, again, like talk about a rewatch, we don't know verbatim why. He's asked a few times why he's chosen his father to be this. Stephen Graham wrestles with why Eddie wrestles with why he was chosen, whether he's up for it. But, and it's particularly because it goes from a feeling of my father understands me and doesn't judge me to the revelation that his father, that the searing humiliation of Jamie's life is his father judging and rejecting him. So it does suggest that he is almost daring his father to keep loving him.

• 1:12:26Andy Greenwald?

  You know, that there's an element of escalation.

• 1:12:29Chris Ryan?

  It seems like he's also sticking to this idea that it wasn't, that he didn't do it in various ways over the course of the 13 months. Of the of the process, right?

• 1:12:37Andy Greenwald?

  And is it because he can't accept it, as you said, cognitively, that what has happened here? Or is it that he can't accept that his father knows that he did that? Like, it's layers on layers, right? But the, I would also say, and this was a question that I had. I didn't Google this. I don't feel like it was baked within baked into the show. I didn't understand the consequences for his, the rest of his life, if he changed the plea.

• 1:13:02Chris Ryan?

  I don't either.

• 1:13:03Andy Greenwald?

  He's a, he's a, he's a juvenile when he's arrested. Is he essentially, is he tried as an adult? Is he?

• 1:13:09Chris Ryan?

  The kid in the Wainwright seems to suggest that this case has become like kind of a true crime sensation on the internet and that like.

• 1:13:14Andy Greenwald?

  And a cause celebre for menswear.

• 1:13:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:13:18Andy Greenwald?

  So the sense is that if he fought it, he could, you know, win the headlines.

• 1:13:22Chris Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 1:13:23Andy Greenwald?

  But does this, does this give him peace and closure? Does it shorten his sentence? We don't actually know. And I, so I think that the beauty of it is that we don't know. That what, what the.

• 1:13:34Chris Ryan?

  You'd like to think what he was doing is giving peace and closure to his family.

• 1:13:38Andy Greenwald?

  And what the show does for us is it gives us that information purely as an emotional chit, not in any way as like gamesmanship for the legal drama that it never became. And it is so devastating, right? That Eddie stops speaking and his wife and his, so Jamie's mother and sister fill in the silence, which upsets.

• 1:14:00Chris Ryan?

  Oh, is the food OK?

• 1:14:01Andy Greenwald?

  Upsets Jamie. They can never really talk about the things anymore. And there are moments when losing yourself within this world in terms of the small things, like he's still a kid. He should get his cornflakes. He should get his hot chocolate. Feels like humane.

• 1:14:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Andy Greenwald?

  As opposed to, do you understand what death is? Both exist at the same time. What aspect of that moment haunts you the most? Is it the effect that the words have on Eddie? Or the effect that the words have on his, at that moment, you know, honestly traumatized mother and sister, who have just had this moment seeing their father have a rage, throw the bicycle, splatter the paint?

• 1:14:39Chris Ryan?

  I think I, I brought it up more as like an example of why I think the filmmaking choice is the right for the story. And that in each episode, we're very much with the POV of, of one or two characters. I think in two, it's mostly either Detective Bascom or his son. Adam, I think, gets a few moments of, of his own, but it's more or less following one of the two of them. In episode three, it's entirely Briony. In episode four, it's entirely Eddie and Amanda. So like, it's a very like, limited POV. And I think that that forces you to live in information as it's processed by characters, rather than the way it's processed by the audience.

• 1:15:22Chris Ryan?

  And I, I thought that that was really, really beautiful, in some ways, just to, to, to experience that.

• 1:15:28Andy Greenwald?

  There's a sense, right, that like, you said at the beginning of our conversation last week, something that I, that I loved hearing, that I agree with, which is that Jack Thorne, the writer and creator, describes TV as an empathy box, right? It's just, it allows us multiple perspectives. It's in our home, it's very intimate. The camera is the tool of, of, of that box. That's, I'm losing my analogy, but the, the camera isn't, in my opinion, what's beautiful about it in filmmaking is that it is, it is our window into another world. It is what connects the, um, the artists with the audience. And it is a gift to show people what to look at, right? And to help them through a story or a world.

• 1:16:09Andy Greenwald?

  There's a flip side of that, and I don't begrudge it, because people should be challenged technically or artistically, where the camera is like a performance tool. It's like a, you know, it's like a, a new pair of HOKAs or whatever. It's like, I'm going to use this to show the, the, the limits, or blow past the limits of what you perceive my abilities to be.

• 1:16:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Andy Greenwald?

  I am going to bend this story to my camera and show you what I was able to do technically. And I am generally allergic to that, because I am always more interested in the characters and the stories than I am in

• 1:16:40Chris Ryan?

  The style.

• 1:16:41Andy Greenwald?

  The style or the technical specs. It was, for me, thrilling to see, again, everyone rowing in the same direction here, where Philip Barandini's opinion of why it's a wonder and what, what the camera can be used for, was in line with aesthetically and emotionally with what you were saying, Stephen Graham. Why Stephen Graham wanted to tell this story? I want to know why. Well, OK, so Stephen Graham's-

• 1:17:05Chris Ryan?

  How is this happening? Why is this happening?

• 1:17:07Andy Greenwald?

  And what does it look like? What could it feel like? And Stephen Graham's curiosity led him to both write, co-write this, but also to give all of himself in an absolutely soul-searing performance.

• 1:17:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, the last shot is-

• 1:17:18Andy Greenwald?

  Philip Ferrandini is like, "I'm also curious. What are my tools to tell this story?" And it's awesome. I mean, there are- Everything is a different brush in the-

• 1:17:34Chris Ryan?

  Different paint in the palette, maybe?

• 1:17:35Andy Greenwald?

  Different-

• 1:17:36Chris Ryan?

  Arrow in the-

• 1:17:36Andy Greenwald?

  Arrow in the paintbrush in the quiver.

• 1:17:38Chris Ryan?

  Different tool in the toolbox, brother.

• 1:17:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, man. It's just awesome. I think also, you know, we're recording on Wednesday. There's a piece on Deadline. Jack Thorne gave an interview talking about like, "British television needs to fund shows like this and make shows like this." And making the point that like, "Thank God Netflix picked this up because it wasn't cheap." But that, you know, it's going around all over, that there is a turn away from- I mean, this is elite, but an even attempt to do stories like this without Trojan horsing it inside of a larger mystery box or genre or whatever. The fact that the show is as good as it is and as, apparently, as successful as it is, gives me some hope.

• 1:18:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I've kind of lost my capacity to be scandalized anymore by the news necessarily, but there was something about this show that stopped me in my tracks. And it's not about any particular one issue or another. It's more broadly like thinking about being connected to people.

• 1:18:39Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's trying. That's also- I mean, this is the most emo part of the show. But we're not saying that four hours on Netflix are combating or taking down the manosphere or the problems in society, but these people involved were curious and they are trying to do something. And in a, honestly, in a very empty world of signifying and reposting, like, that effort and that integrity-

• 1:19:04Chris Ryan?

  Of the people making the show.

• 1:19:05Andy Greenwald?

  Of the people making the show stands out and it matters. And it should be a call to action, honestly, for a creative community to engage with the world as it is.

• 1:19:14Chris Ryan?

  I'm the one reading the papers, man.

• 1:19:16Andy Greenwald?

  So you tell me what other shows are referencing the news, because I don't know.

• 1:19:21Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, great to see you. We'll be back on Monday.

• 1:19:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, we will. There'll be a Severance finale.

• 1:19:26Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 1:19:27Andy Greenwald?

  Um, there'll be a White Lotus episode six.

• 1:19:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I'd like to hit some of these Philly shows.

• 1:19:32Andy Greenwald?

  I want to hit the Philly shows too, but thank you.

• 1:19:33Chris Ryan?

  Deli Boy is quite funny, quite, quite engaging. And I actually, I love, I really enjoyed Dope Thief so far. So I'm really, I can't wait to talk about it.

• 1:19:40Andy Greenwald?

  Look at the little breadcrumbs you drop at the end.

• 1:19:42Chris Ryan?

  Dope Thief wasn't what I was expecting, but in a good way.

• 1:19:45Andy Greenwald?

  I'm getting on a plane and I'm gonna download Dope Thief.

• 1:19:47Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:19:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay?

• 1:19:49Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of on brand to fly to Philly and listen to Dope, watch Dope Thief.

• 1:19:53Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's gonna really make me feel at home.

• 1:19:55Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks to Kaya, thanks to everybody. We'll be back on Monday.