Pod Insights The Watch ‘The Pitt’ S2E6. Plus, Apple Takes ‘Severance’ in-House and the ‘Spider-Noir’ Trailer. About this episode Chris and Andy talk about the news this week that Apple has taken the production of ‘Severance’ in-house and what that means for future episodes of the show (8:27). Then they talk about the trailer for ‘Spider-Noir’ that was released this week (17:21), before breaking down Season 2, Episode 6 of ‘The Pitt’ (28:34). Later, they close with The Watch: After Dark (48:58).
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Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Additional Video Supervision: Jamie Yukich, Donald LoBianco, and Sarah Reddy
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Transcript 12,083 words · 9 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Speaker 01 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
0:37 Speaker 02 I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.
0:57 Speaker 01 Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
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2:04 Speaker 03 I need sports staff to clear the room.
2:07 Speaker 00 Stand up and walk now.
2:10 Chris 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 on a permanent hiatus from competitive hot dog eating, it's Andy Greenwald.
2:23 Andy Greenwald? How you doing, buddy?
2:24 Chris Ryan? The engine needs a little bit of work. We need a little bit of oil poured in there.
2:28 Andy Greenwald? You?
2:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
2:29 Andy Greenwald? What's going on?
2:30 Chris Ryan? I'm tired, man.
2:31 Andy Greenwald? Talk about it.
2:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah, did the live show last night for Bill.
2:35 Andy Greenwald? Let's be clear. You didn't perform a solo live show for Bill?
2:39 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
2:40 Andy Greenwald? Where he was like, "Dance monkey, do Wayne Jenkins."
2:44 Chris Ryan? Honestly, it was pretty close to that. I did a lot of Al Pacino last night.
2:48 Andy Greenwald? You were live onstage in front of hundreds of people?
2:50 Chris Ryan? Yes, at the Wiltern Theater, we did the Bill Simmons live show. We did heat quotes to explain the NBA season thus far.
2:57 Andy Greenwald? I mean, what else would one do? That's great.
2:59 Chris Ryan? And it was me and Rob and Van and Bill. And it was a lot of fun, but I am feeling it a little bit today. Because I only had like honey roasted almonds and a banana for dinner.
3:09 Andy Greenwald? What are we doing?
3:09 Chris Ryan? Well, I don't like going into any kind of live performance with like a belly full of food.
3:14 Andy Greenwald? That's fair. What about afterwards? You go get some...
3:16 Chris Ryan? Well, then it was like 10:30 because we were up there for a long time. It's like fish, you know? Just like Anastasio, just noodling, you know? And so I was like, I gotta go home. And then I had to go home. And if you really want the God's honest truth, Andy, I'll give it to you right now. We do have some news and we're going to talk about the pit. And you can hit us up at TheWatch at Spotify.com and you can follow us on Instagram at TheWatchPod underscore. And you can watch us on YouTube at The Ringer dash TV. And you should watch us on Spotify where you're also listening to us. But I got home 10:40, 10:50 PM. Usually you're way in bed.
3:45 Andy Greenwald? I'm big bed. I'm big in bed.
3:47 Chris Ryan? That's when the Ryan Riley household fired up Tell Me Lies, dog. Tell Me Lies Island. It's not even an island anymore. It's an asylum. It's an asylum. These people all belong in Arkham. For people who don't know, Tell Me Lies is about a bunch of young folks at a bard. Is it Bard College?
4:10 Andy Greenwald? Bard is a college in reality.
4:12 Chris Ryan? They go to Baird.
4:14 Andy Greenwald? Oh, I see what you did there.
4:15 Chris Ryan? And what they do is occasionally they pursue hobbies like photography and
4:22 Chris Ryan? like kind of new journalism. But for the most part, they terrorize each other emotionally and sexually. And last week, I'll just say it out loud, I watched the main character listening to a threatening voicemail message from her ex. And she just, she still has this threatening voicemail message where he's just like, nobody likes you, you're a piece of shit. And she masturbated to it.
4:47 Andy Greenwald? Wow.
4:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah. So I was like, already like,
4:50 Andy Greenwald? Wow.
4:51 Chris Ryan? We're already in the red.
4:52 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
4:52 Chris Ryan? And then this week, you know, they made the mistake of finding two characters with souls and putting them together briefly.
4:59 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
4:59 Chris Ryan? And then we watched them get destroyed. So.
5:01 Andy Greenwald? Can you, I'm sorry, I'm hung up on something. Could you do the threatening masturbatory voicemail as Al Pacino? But Al Pacino, like 95, 96?
5:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah, right. Instead of woman, blind masturbating to a voicemail for my ex.
5:17 Andy Greenwald? It's auditory. It's good.
5:18 Chris Ryan? Yeah. So it's just been an amazing experience watching this show. And also watching it, to use a Greenwaldism, break contain. Because Bill Simmons making IG reels about it.
5:29 Andy Greenwald? Oh.
5:30 Chris Ryan? It's just, it's just caught on, I think. It's the number one show on Hulu. This is its final season and its finale is next week.
5:35 Andy Greenwald? Is it the final season in the sense of like Some Right Turn Pretty, where they're gonna do a movie to wrap it all up?
5:40 Chris Ryan? It's a really good question. I was looking at some stuff about that today. They say that this is the end of the story and that they, you know, could consider future ideas. So like, the way it's set up is this college stuff is told basically in flashback from a wedding that is taking place in 2000, I want to say 15, but I might be wrong. I could be remembering that wrong. And so theoretically, I could imagine a show called Tell Me Lies about, I guess, this six.
6:10 Andy Greenwald? The Wedding Night.
6:11 Chris Ryan? These doomed people. No, The Wedding Night is a major storyline.
6:14 Andy Greenwald? But I'm saying, what else happens at the wedding? And you'd go 2025 and they're like, here's some stuff you didn't know about the wedding.
6:19 Chris Ryan? Dude, what if you just, the funniest thing in the world is if you became the showrunner of the Tell Me Lies spinoff.
6:25 Andy Greenwald? Tell Me More Lies.
6:28 Chris Ryan? Tell me truths.
6:29 Andy Greenwald? No, no, nobody wants that.
6:30 Chris Ryan? No, I know. You have no interest in a, in a young person's erotic soap, do you?
6:35 Andy Greenwald? As a hashtag girl dad, I do not. Thank you.
6:38 Chris Ryan? Yo, you feel good about that for about two more years.
6:41 Andy Greenwald? Best, let me.
6:42 Chris Ryan? When she's firing that up, when she's doing the, the third spin through Tell Me Lies.
6:47 Andy Greenwald? Let me enjoy that she is just rereading the Little House on the Prairie books right now. Okay, let me just have this. In terms of.
6:55 Chris Ryan? What if it's the Little House on the Prairie book cover, but on the inside it's the novel Tell Me Lies?
7:00 Andy Greenwald? I respect it.
7:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
7:02 Andy Greenwald? Do you feel like there are any larger takeaways for those of us who are not going to engage in the show? Like the depravity of the show, is it saying something about our culture? Like, because I do think it was like, this is unrelated, but I think.
7:14 Chris Ryan? I think it's a good, really good depiction of some of the, uh, toxic codependencies that can emerge out of long-term partnerships.
7:25 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
7:26 Chris Ryan? Between people who are creatively handcuffed to one another.
7:30 Andy Greenwald? And who went to a wedding in 2015.
7:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah. To me, when I watch it, I'm like, this has all the bones of a primetime soap from the aughts, maybe even the nineties, where you've got like a group of people who are like slowly going through every permutation of coupledom.
7:44 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
7:45 Chris Ryan? But it takes advantage of all the like, you know, guardrails that have been removed because now there are streamers, now it's on streaming.
7:52 Andy Greenwald? Right.
7:53 Chris Ryan? So it doesn't look that different than an ABC show, but it feels like you're watching a sedated version of Euphoria. I find it to be actually like incredibly watchable, um, but one of the problems is, is that because I expect everybody in here to have their, uh, very beings like atomized by each other. When they have something in the, like the, the episode recap, like before you start the new episode and they're like, last week on Tell Me Lies, and it's like a random little line from three weeks ago. And you're like, oh, okay. So. They're gonna make Chris' mom an alcoholic again.
8:28 Andy Greenwald? They're gonna be like, someone's gonna masturbate to that. What a tell.
8:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah, so it's just like, I assume the worst and I'm usually rewarded for my assumptions in this show, which I don't know, is a special kind of pleasure.
8:38 Andy Greenwald? That's the same feeling I had watching my own Tell Me Lies, Pam Bondi's appearance before Congress yesterday. Kai, where are you with this show? Cause I feel like you have been watching.
8:49 Speaker 06 Uh, I'm mid-season two.
8:51 Andy Greenwald? Out of, sorry, which season are we on?
8:53 Chris Ryan? Three.
8:53 Speaker 06 Three. So I'm getting there. I'm kind of, I'm at a summer I turned pretty pace where I'm not on track to unfortunately catch up before the season finale airs. And Chris is really worried about spoiling me, but I guess that was the only plot detail you were worried about spoiling for me.
9:08 Chris Ryan? The masturbating?
9:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
9:09 Chris Ryan? No, I just didn't, there's the thing about the couple that I like. I just don't want to give it away because they handle it really well. It emerges over the course of season three. You're like, look at these two kids. They just, they just want to make it honest, you know?
9:21 Andy Greenwald? Are there multiple nice couples that emerge in season three?
9:24 Chris Ryan? There's only one. Okay, there's only one.
9:24 Andy Greenwald? You've essentially spoiled it.
9:25 Chris Ryan? There's two. I would say there's 1.5.
9:28 Andy Greenwald? What, talk me through then, before we move on, like just psychologically, look, doing a live show,
9:35 Andy Greenwald? you know, your nerves are firing, you're fired up.
9:37 Chris Ryan? The adrenaline, yeah.
9:37 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, and then you, and also you, your body is in full ketosis, having not eaten. And you choose to fill the gnawing hole in yourself with this program.
9:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
9:51 Andy Greenwald? Did you enjoy it more? Did you enjoy it less? Did you feel sated at the end of watching it?
9:57 Andy Greenwald? Cause if we were in New York, you would have stopped for a slice or something.
9:59 Chris Ryan? Sure, I would have had a whole night in front of me, you know, we would have gone out, we would have chased the, chased the dawn. I feel, I felt like I want to still be the guy who stays up until 12:15 on a weeknight.
10:12 Andy Greenwald? Good for you, man.
10:13 Chris Ryan? You know?
10:13 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
10:14 Chris Ryan? I have nobody, nobody's gonna wake me up in the morning and say, dad, where's breakfast?
10:17 Andy Greenwald? It'd be super weird if they did.
10:20 Chris Ryan? But I was just, I was just saying, it's okay for me to stay up late on a weeknight, even if I have to get up and come in and talk about Apple buying the IP rights for its own show back from a production company.
10:32 Andy Greenwald? I thought this was interesting.
10:33 Chris Ryan? Uh, this is the first headline I want to throw at you now. I, you know, I like to go to you for this behind the scenes, business level stuff.
10:39 Andy Greenwald? Totally.
10:39 Chris Ryan? Uh, comrade Tim Cook seizing the means of production for Severance, uh, going in and paying a reported $70 million to buy the, basically the IP, uh, the rights.
10:51 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
10:51 Chris Ryan? Um, the, the, the, he bought Severance from fifth season, which was the original production company who stay on as executive producers. I don't know how ceremonial that is, or whether or not they're instrumental going forward in, in doing the third season of Severance, the reported fourth season of Severance, the hint that there could be more seasons of Severance.
11:11 Andy Greenwald? Or.
11:11 Chris Ryan? The hint that there could be spinoffs of Severance.
11:13 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
11:14 Chris Ryan? And additionally, although I never really would have thought this was an export, an international version of Severance, different countries. So like the way that The Office popped up in a couple of different countries, obviously. Let's start with the business side of things.
11:27 Andy Greenwald? Look, when you're on a tear like Tim Cook is on, from attending the Melania premiere to this, he's crushing it. No. So I, it's an interesting.
11:37 Chris Ryan? For, for folks who don't understand, it's not uncommon where a different studio, a different production company is selling the show to the streamer that is, that is distributing it.
11:46 Andy Greenwald? I mean, there are some places that generate most of their content in-house. There's some places that have their own robust studio business, but then also are buyers. Um, and Apple, you know, starting from a, from zero, uh, one of the things that the guys in charge of Apple Television from the beginning, uh, have been very plain about is that they, they were coming from, they were the heads of Sony.
12:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Which is a buyer.
12:11 Andy Greenwald? Which is a, no, which is a seller.
12:12 Chris Ryan? Seller, yes.
12:13 Andy Greenwald? Complete seller. They don't buy. That they wanted to have an in-house studio and they built that up over time. So I think now roughly half of Apple's shows are.
12:20 Chris Ryan? And I think they have bought. Ted Lasso in Silo, if I remember correctly.
12:23 Andy Greenwald? Silo is the example that I know of something that they that started as an external show and they bought and brought in-house for its second season. So that there's precedent for what they're doing with Severance. If you read, I thought the article about this was pretty, if you read between the lines, it was pretty.
12:39 Chris Ryan? This is in Deadline.
12:40 Andy Greenwald? In Deadline. It was pretty honest in a way that some of these stories aren't. Like, obviously, it paid lip service to things that are factually true about the growth potential for the series, the importance of the series to Apple's overall strategy in terms of awards, in terms of having its own franchises to build, you know, larger IP on. I don't, it's not, I don't quite see the growth in terms of like merchandising unless like they're looking forward to selling a lunchbox that comes out every three years and opens weird.
13:07 Chris Ryan? They could sell like a, they could definitely sell like a Severance board game or a Severance video game.
13:14 Andy Greenwald? Sure, or a desk.
13:15 Chris Ryan? Sure, they could sell desks.
13:16 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, they could sell desks, is what I'm saying, hallways. All of that makes sense, but if you read between the lines further, what you get is some of the stuff.
13:23 Chris Ryan? Some of the escape rooms, I can see. Maybe I should be working.
13:25 Andy Greenwald? Why don't you go off on this for a minute? Why don't you just, no bad ideas in a brainstorm. This is the most animated you've been today.
13:32 Chris Ryan? It's the ways in which Apple can get some new revenue going.
13:36 Andy Greenwald? Well, you've got all this like capital, right? You're up till midnight, like what are you gonna do?
13:41 Chris Ryan? Dear Ted, some thoughts after watching Tell Me Lie, after watching this girl masturbate?
13:46 Andy Greenwald? Why don't you do it as a voice memo for him? See what he does with it?
13:52 Andy Greenwald? Gotcha.
13:52 Chris Ryan? Yeah, you did.
13:53 Andy Greenwald? Gotcha.
13:55 Andy Greenwald? If you read between the lines of the article, there's a lot of the stuff there that is sort of generally understood but not fully reported or sourced, which is, this has been a bear of a show to produce, that I think there's a passing reference to season two starting production at the end of 22 and finishing in 24.
14:13 Chris Ryan? Right. Strikes, et cetera.
14:15 Andy Greenwald? Strikes, et cetera, but also, I believe it's referred to as Ben Stiller's feature background and exacting vision, ballooning costs and all the other things that went along with making the show, writer's room turmoil.
14:29 Andy Greenwald? There's a sense within the article that the show, or the demands of the show, or now the expectations of the show have far outstretched Fifth Seasons' ability to fund it on its own.
14:40 Chris Ryan? They were essentially being asked to float the production for many, several years in between seasons as things went up and went down. And Apple obviously has the pockets to do so.
14:48 Andy Greenwald? Apple can pay for this. And Apple clearly is invested in paying for it. And I think it's interesting. It definitely guarantees the stability of the show, or the chance for them to see it all the way through, wherever it is that it's going.
15:01 Chris Ryan? I find Apple building, regardless of my relationship to any of these shows, some of which I like and some of which I've kind of maybe enjoyed and then moved on from, I find their relationship to their flagship shows very interesting. Because one thing that I admire and appreciate about Apple is their commitment to multi-season runs. And if they feel like something's working, they're just going to keep doing it. And that's been great for Slow Horses. It's obviously been great for Shrinking in terms of that fanbase. The people who really love Shrinking, I'm sure are very appreciative that it's not like, is Shrinking coming back every nine months? And it kind of is getting close to replicating what a television network used to feel like, where every year, my show comes back.
15:43 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
15:44 Chris Ryan? I know with interest that Shrinking is a Warner Brothers show, I believe.
15:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, Bill Lawrence.
15:50 Chris Ryan? Comes through Bill Lawrence's Warner deal. But yeah, like, they continue to, like, amass this sort of war chest of things. And it's like, you know what, honestly, in three or four years, they could do The Morning Show without Aniston and Witherspoon. They could come up with a different pairing of people who are working in, you know, morning shows in the 70s. You could do The Morning Show in the 70s, you know? All the President's Men style.
16:13 Andy Greenwald? What else could you do, Chris? What's another list of things that they could do at The Morning Show?
16:17 Chris Ryan? I'm just throwing free game to Tim Cook.
16:19 Andy Greenwald? They could make a show about your morning, where no one wakes you up. And it's just a very peaceful 15 minutes.
16:27 Chris Ryan? I wake up every morning, and I open up The Hollywood Reporter at my table, and I say, what are we going to talk about on the watch? And I'm just tired of being mocked for my choices, you know?
16:35 Andy Greenwald? I appreciate that commitment.
16:36 Chris Ryan? You had kids, I run this show.
16:40 Andy Greenwald? Honestly, it's a division of labor I'm very, very comfortable with. The, the one thing, just to note that I, we were talking about studios sell things, sell things to other streamers, et cetera, et cetera. I, I do find it interesting to note, like, the way some of these decisions are connected. So Bill Lawrence has had a, I mean, he's, when, when the books are written, maybe Alan Sepin will write this book someday about like the most successful creators in the history of TV. Bill Lawrence is without question among them, even though he has a lower profile, maybe because he's in comedy, but he's had a hit show in every decade for the last four decades.
17:11 Chris Ryan? Yes, he has also done something that I thought would never happen, which is merge the kind of sensibilities of multiple eras.
17:19 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
17:19 Chris Ryan? Often to, and I mean this as a, as a compliment to his benefit in so much as he is doing a streaming show at the clip that he would do Scrubs, but with like a lower episode order.
17:30 Andy Greenwald? And now he's doing Scrubs again.
17:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:31 Andy Greenwald? But so Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Bad Monkey, I think comes from him as well. These are all shows that have found varying levels of success, propping up Apple's brand. And he's done all this through his longtime home at Warner Brothers. And the upcoming, in the next few weeks, Steve Carell Comedy Rooster is both a Bill Lawrence show for HBO, but also does to me feel a little bit like some kind of internal, wait, why are we letting this guy leave the building?
17:59 Chris Ryan? Yes.
17:59 Andy Greenwald? Like, we need to develop our in-house talent and we need to have one of his shows that are successful elsewhere here.
18:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:07 Andy Greenwald? And I haven't not watched enough of that show to, to, to determine like if, oh, this actually is an HBO version of a Bill Lawrence show. I've watched one and it's enjoyable, but it's very Bill Lawrence enjoyable. And it's interesting to see like, is that just, does that brand more, more important at this point than HBO's esteemed comedy brand? Not that it's belittling it.
18:25 Chris Ryan? No.
18:25 Andy Greenwald? It's just that it is something that has worked elsewhere, brought into in-house.
18:29 Chris Ryan? I think they like a couple of years ago, when they were doing like Flight Attendant, which the first season of Flight Attendant, I liked very much. And it was a Max show and Max was going to be this kind of like TNT version of, of HBO or something. And now I feel like between Heat and Rivalry, maybe The Rooster, like you're talking about, like a couple of other things that are. The Pit, obviously, a Max show.
18:52 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, but Rooster's HBO.
18:53 Chris Ryan? Yes, you're right. I'm saying HBO has loosened up what is HBO a little bit.
18:57 Andy Greenwald? Well, or they're trying to. Yes, they've done that, and they've also tried to redefine what Max is. Did you see that the trilogy of shows? They have the medical show, The Pit, which we're gonna talk about in a moment. We talked about like, what is it, like Rhapsody in Blue starring Milo Ventimiglia as a cop named Milk?
19:11 Chris Ryan? And the Greg Berlanti family show, right?
19:13 Andy Greenwald? Which announced its patriarch in Ray Romano.
19:16 Chris Ryan? How about that?
19:17 Andy Greenwald? Who I think is a really good actor, actually.
19:19 Chris Ryan? There you go.
19:19 Andy Greenwald? I enjoy him as an actor these days.
19:20 Chris Ryan? Spider Noir got its first trailer. This is the Amazon series from Lord Miller, broadly speaking, but has obviously a different showrunners. Nick Cage, he plays a guy named Ben Riley.
19:34 Andy Greenwald? Want me to talk about that? I don't know if we have time.
19:36 Chris Ryan? He's a kind of private investigator in New York in the 30s, and he is a Spider-Man.
19:42 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
19:42 Chris Ryan? Go ahead. Just tell me, because I'm just gonna walk into a wall if I try to explain this.
19:47 Andy Greenwald? Well, for those of us who have watched and loved the Spider-verse movies,
19:54 Andy Greenwald? Nick Cage voices Spider-Man Noir in those movies. And those movies call together, bring together like all the alternate Spider-Men that have existed in the comics in various forms. And a noir version of Spider-Man has a comic book, relatively recent, but comic book history.
20:10 Chris Ryan? Is it good?
20:11 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I mean, I like both of those things, and they taste real good together. This show comes from a deal that Amazon made with Lord Miller off of the success of, and Sony, off of the success of Spider-verse, to bring to the small screen Spider alts.
20:30 Chris Ryan? Spider tent, spider content.
20:33 Andy Greenwald? The big tent of Spider-Man politics. And it has been a bumpy development road. There, I think the first announced one was a series based on a Korean-American spider girl that has gone through multiple showrunners, and I don't even know the current status of it. This one, I, full disclosure, met on this one, so I like, I'm aware of how long of a process this has been. This has been multiple years of building up some development and then starting from scratch.
21:03 Chris Ryan? Do you think it's weird, and this is also full disclosure, that I have not yet heard back about my pitch for Spider-Maga? About a guy who refuses to get vaccinated, and that gives him spider powers?
21:13 Andy Greenwald? I think because it's a bidding war. I think everybody wants that right now. And so I think right now they're just quibbling over a dollar figure for you.
21:24 Chris Ryan? Thanks. Let me know.
21:26 Andy Greenwald? You're always, this is what you do though, you zag, because last week Kai cut us up for the internet. So it looks like we're super, you know, we're like resistance libs. And now.
21:36 Chris Ryan? I don't really want to.
21:39 Andy Greenwald? You like keep people guessing.
21:42 Andy Greenwald? You're like what Michael Jordan said about sneakers, you know?
21:44 Chris Ryan? Yes, that's true.
21:45 Andy Greenwald? Everybody buys them.
21:47 Chris Ryan? That's sort of what he said.
21:48 Andy Greenwald? That's sort of what he said. It's tricky to take something that is an idea and works in a cartoon or works in a comic book and make a live action version of it. And when I was, when I was aware of the conversations, it was meant to be like an inspiration or origin story or alternate version of the character that Nicolas Cage voiced in the cartoon. I don't know what point, long after I was done talking with them, someone was like, you know, Nick could do this.
22:12 Chris Ryan? Sure.
22:12 Andy Greenwald? It definitely raises the interest and the surreality of it, I think, to see actually Nick Cage playing a freak.
22:20 Chris Ryan? The rest of the cast is rounded out by a fantastic group of performers. Lauren Morris from Fargo and New Girl, Lee Jun Lee, who I thought was so great in Sinners, Karen Rodriguez from Hunting Wives, Abraham Papula from Slow Horses for a couple of seasons there, Jack Houston and Brendan Gleeson. So that's a dynamite cast for this. And interestingly enough, this is, it comes from Ora Newseal, who did Lost City and Steve Lightfoot, who does The Punisher, and they're co-showrunners. Interestingly enough, I believe this show will be released in both black and white and color versions. I think I will choose to watch it in black and white if I watch it, assuming I watch it.
23:02 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I think that was, they fight, people fight behind the scenes to get that happen. Like, I still can't believe that, that Garrett Bash and his producing team got Ripley released in black and white.
23:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:16 Andy Greenwald? So I think that's really cool. I also think we should mention Harry Bradbeer, who directed on Fleabag and I think on Killing Eve as well. Seems to have brought a really cool visual style to it. I don't know, it, it looks.
23:31 Andy Greenwald? It looks pretty fun, honestly. Like, it seems to understand the brief that like, what would make it more interesting and more unique at this point in time is less a Spider-Man or superhero show and more of like a let's really play with noir convention.
23:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it'll be interesting to kind of see what a year from now, assuming Spider-Maga isn't a go project and I'm not writing and directing every episode. I mean, fingers crossed.
23:57 Andy Greenwald? Of course.
23:57 Chris Ryan? Where Amazon is a year from now, because as we noted in previous episodes, Peter Freeland, who is the longtime executive and had in charge of scripted at Netflix, is now at Amazon. I saw that they had made some new pickups, international titles that they had picked up, which I always thought Netflix had pretty, pretty good taste in international TV, especially the crime department. So for a while there, I've been kind of like,
24:26 Chris Ryan? not dubious, but a little just nonplussed about some of the Prime Video stuff where it's like major IP blockbuster attempts at kind of grappling with the Game of Thrones reality of television, whether it's Fallout or the Lord of the Rings show. And a lot of like, pretty good to unwatchable, guy with a gun, whether it's Reacher, Terminal List, Bosch until it was actually then kicked down to Freevee and whatever it is now. So I mean, I'm just to see the direction that, that Amazon goes. Obviously, this goes back to previous administrations, but I'm curious.
25:06 Andy Greenwald? So you're saying previous administrations could have released the files?
25:10 Chris Ryan? They could, yeah.
25:10 Andy Greenwald? Who do you think the villains are? And by the way, everything you just said, great. I wasn't thinking about who Spider-Maga's villain is. My sense is that it's-
25:20 Chris Ryan? It's obviously-
25:22 Andy Greenwald? I think it's measles. Do you know what I mean?
25:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
25:25 Andy Greenwald? Like, he's dominant.
25:26 Chris Ryan? Yeah, Dr. Measles.
25:27 Andy Greenwald? In everything. And he's really strong because he only eats meat and ferments.
25:33 Andy Greenwald? But.
25:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
25:34 Andy Greenwald? But, oh measles, oh no, the webs do nothing. Then he dies and then there's six more episodes, which is black screen.
25:42 Chris Ryan? That's cool.
25:43 Andy Greenwald? Not black and white, just black screen. It's pretty visionary.
25:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I was heavily influenced by David Lynch.
25:51 Andy Greenwald? Heavily.
25:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
25:52 Andy Greenwald? I don't think, I don't think this is as chaotic. I don't, I think we actually have enough actual things to talk about today. So that we don't, I don't need to fill you in on the background of Ben Riley in the Spider-Man universe.
26:04 Chris Ryan? It's your, I mean, it's your dime and you can tell me whatever you want. And here it's just us.
26:11 Andy Greenwald? It's beautiful. Is that what Bill told you last night when we're doing Pacino for the 19th time? No, it's just, Peter Parker can't be in these shows because Peter Parker's rights are controlled for, you know, by Sony, like all this stuff is micro sliced into so many different, like, it's kind of like the NFL package.
26:30 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
26:31 Andy Greenwald? Who gets to run what when? Ben Riley is a infamous name among Spider fans because there was a, pretty controversial plotline, I believe it was 90s into the 2000s where,
26:46 Andy Greenwald? a guy, basically it was suggested that Spider-Man, Peter Parker, was who we've been, who readers had enjoyed for 20 years, had actually for 20 years been a clone.
26:55 Chris Ryan? Oh.
26:56 Andy Greenwald? And that the real Spider-Man was a guy named Ben Riley. And, and then that guy took over the suit and became the Scarlet Spider. And everyone was like, and I believe I can sort of paraphrase comic book fans, whose reaction to this was, what the fuck?
27:10 Chris Ryan? Do you participate in online discourse about comic books or are you just like?
27:15 Andy Greenwald? Not under my real name.
27:16 Chris Ryan? Right.
27:17 Andy Greenwald? But I have a number of spirited.
27:19 Chris Ryan? As Spider-Mega?
27:20 Andy Greenwald? Clone accounts where I actually.
27:23 Andy Greenwald? Scarlet Spiderman.
27:24 Chris Ryan? I was wondering whether or not, because you know, there's some, there's some art forms or some, you know, popular culture things that you're like, you and I will both be like, what are people saying about this new, this record or this new this movie? But then there are things where I'm like, I actually don't care what people think. I like to read spy novels.
27:40 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
27:40 Chris Ryan? Like, I literally don't care what any literary critic would ever say about Oliver Harris, for instance.
27:46 Andy Greenwald? Oh, sure.
27:46 Chris Ryan? It's just like, that's mine. I dig it.
27:48 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
27:48 Chris Ryan? That guy just wants to stand in a hotel in Kazakhstan for 15 books. I will read it.
27:53 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, I feel the same way.
27:54 Chris Ryan? But do you go, like, when you're reading comic books, are you like, I'm curious whether or not this is playing with the crowd?
28:00 Andy Greenwald? Well, first I brush the Dorito dust from my fingers.
28:02 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
28:03 Andy Greenwald? Get dressed.
28:07 Chris Ryan? Play, play a couple of voicemails.
28:08 Andy Greenwald? No, because my involvement, my, my, you never know. My involvement with comic books at this point in my life is not.
28:14 Chris Ryan? It's Scarlet Spiderman.
28:17 Andy Greenwald? Your opinions about me are terrible. I am driven by market forces. I am not a, you know, I'd like to think that sometimes, like, within television or industries that we are more active in, we're like, aha, we have found the diamond in the rough and let us drive culture on this.
28:29 Chris Ryan? Sure.
28:30 Andy Greenwald? With comic books, like, like, you know, the other week, we were talking about what DC was doing with these absolute versions of their characters. I know about that because it percolated long enough to cross over into the mainstream. I was not in these comic book streets being like, oh, this guy's really, I'm not in, no.
28:47 Chris Ryan? Would you say that the arena where you find most of this discourse is Facebook?
28:52 Andy Greenwald? No, Facebook is just mostly sending me, like, I clicked on one, thanks for the opportunity to update everyone. And we didn't want to talk about this with, you know, not joking, but like, I did click on a story about James Vanderbeek who passed away. And then this morning, when I, when I did run out of things to look at and I looked at Facebook, it was all really, really personal memories of people's loved ones dying, written by people I don't know. So that was really cool, that it found my interest and my passion.
29:25 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that was, that was great.
29:26 Chris Ryan? Why are you on Facebook again? Is it just an addiction at this point? Is there something in there that's like, oh, I gotta, I gotta share this with my, like, high school class or something, or?
29:35 Andy Greenwald? Oh, I don't share.
29:37 Chris Ryan? Okay.
29:37 Andy Greenwald? No, no, no. I just told you.
29:39 Chris Ryan? You just lurk on Facebook.
29:40 Andy Greenwald? It's purely because I ran out of stuff to look at to avoid starting my day.
29:44 Chris Ryan? You know what? Anytime you're like, I don't want to go to Facebook, but I've run out of things to look at on the internet, hit me up.
29:50 Andy Greenwald? How? You gonna show me some stuff? What do you mean? This is like-
29:52 Chris Ryan? Text me and I'll send you some links. Yeah.
29:54 Andy Greenwald? Okay, on the dark web?
29:56 Chris Ryan? No, just stuff that's out there that I'm reading.
29:58 Andy Greenwald? Like, for example? What would you have sent me?
30:02 Chris Ryan? Um, I, I've been reading some cool Substacks. There's one called The Hunt for Tom Clancy that I've been really enjoying.
30:08 Andy Greenwald? This seems useful. Why don't you share this stuff with me?
30:10 Chris Ryan? I will. I will.
30:12 Andy Greenwald? I mean, like, I, I thought the, the Michael Pollan interview about existence and perception was interesting, but I didn't send it to you. So I feel like you're good on perception. You don't have kids. Like, I eat when I'm hungry and I go to sleep when I'm tired. I don't need to know about how I'm experiencing reality. Everything's great.
30:26 Chris Ryan? That's not how it goes, man.
30:28 Andy Greenwald? I'm like, please, please, let me, are there other worlds out there?
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32:37 Chris Ryan? Not to be too meta about it, but sometimes I feel like the pit is getting short shrift from this podcast, at least in the first five or six episodes. Is that where we're at?
32:47 Andy Greenwald? This was six.
32:48 Chris Ryan? So it's noon, right?
32:50 Andy Greenwald? It was noon.
32:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
32:51 Andy Greenwald? Noon or 1:00 PM, actually. I think we started at-
32:53 Chris Ryan? And this episode is directed by Noah Wiley and we'll get into a-
32:56 Andy Greenwald? What can't that guy do?
32:57 Chris Ryan? I know, man. Young citizen Noah.
32:58 Andy Greenwald? He's the king of television, man.
33:00 Chris Ryan? And I feel like sometimes I like move it down the rundown a little bit. Like there are some shows where I'm like, immediately, let's get into this. And let's start breaking down this amazing TV show. And it's really no testament, has nothing to do with how I feel about the pit or its quality. It's really more like, I think that a week or two ago, I became at peace with the idea that I was like, this is the first movement of this season, you know, like they-
33:26 Andy Greenwald? You're talking about the old lady?
33:28 Chris Ryan? No.
33:29 Andy Greenwald? Oh, a different kind of movement.
33:30 Chris Ryan? You're really scatological with your humor today.
33:32 Andy Greenwald? I think because it kind of gets you.
33:34 Chris Ryan? I don't like it.
33:35 Andy Greenwald? I know. And I think part of keeping our partnership spicy.
33:39 Chris Ryan? Okay.
33:40 Andy Greenwald? Is I'm just making you a little uncomfortable.
33:41 Chris Ryan? Um, and I think that I just downshifted the amount that we talk about the show just because even in to its high standards, which I think is still meeting, there just wasn't a lot to note. You know, we've talked about Aleshimi, the new character, the new attending physician at the emergency department. We've talked about Langdon. I can go through the patients that we have. There are some that are incredibly affecting, some that are pretty gross, some that are seemingly there as springboards to talk about larger social issues, which the hit, the pit has often dove headfirst into.
34:17 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
34:19 Chris Ryan? But the way that this episode ends, I thought signaled a start your engines moment for the, for the season.
34:32 Andy Greenwald? Okay.
34:33 Chris Ryan? So we get probably the first big wallop emotional beat at the end of this episode with, with Louis passing at the beginning of the episode and a lot of time spent with Dana as she prepares his body.
34:47 Andy Greenwald? Yes.
34:48 Chris Ryan? And.
34:48 Andy Greenwald? And teaches.
34:49 Chris Ryan? And teaches this first day on the job new nurse, what it, what, what that entails. I thought that was quite moving, quite beautiful. Catherine Lanasa has a lot more to do this season.
35:00 Andy Greenwald? Yep.
35:01 Chris Ryan? Quite obviously, and for good reason. And I thought she was incredible in this episode. And I thought, I thought that last scene was great. You know, they're saying goodbye to Louis and, and the fact that Robbie was the only one who knew a sort of personal biography for this character and why there would be nobody coming to claim his body or spend time with him. But it, it did it. You know what I mean? Like, I think that there have been parts of this first season, or this second season where I've been like. I don't really know if the chemistry is the same level that it was in the first season, or that the internal drama of the department is clicking for me the way it did in the first season, but it is now.
35:40 Andy Greenwald? I've never wavered.
35:41 Chris Ryan? Yes.
35:42 Andy Greenwald? Uh, I, well, that's not true. I was a little like, oh, we're doing this again in the first few minutes or first three quarters of the first episode. But since then, I've just been so happy to be watching the show. I'm so dialed in to its rhythms and it's just not unique, but it's almost old fashioned, just satisfaction ratio. I thought this episode was incredible. And one of the reasons why I liked it so much is it's not just that the pit is executing classic television at the highest possible level. I do think that they are challenging themselves to honor the traditions of why we've always loved TV within its own challenging framework. Meaning, this is, this is real time, like 24, we're
36:26 Andy Greenwald? getting, you know, everything is cumulative, everything is building. And yet somehow within that, they've been able to carve out space for Robbie to be one of the most compelling lead characters, star performances on television. And beyond that, what I thought was really impressive about this episode, and maybe this links to the larger conversation about when it's going to quote unquote, get going, is in a way, this was the pits version of a bottle episode. The framing of Louis from his final moments at the beginning to the moments of respect at the end, served as a spine for the episode that really was about dignity and the parts of the life experience that we, who are lucky enough to be floating
37:10 Andy Greenwald? above it for as long as we can, don't think about and don't worry about. And there were moments in it that I found, and this is, this is really remarkable for a show that, let's just say, governs and pros to the degree that this show does, if not governs fully in like, press releases written by the American Nurses Association.
37:27 Chris Ryan? Very declarative. Yeah.
37:28 Andy Greenwald? It never misses an opportunity to educate.
37:30 Chris Ryan? In the issues part of that. I think that it's done. It's it's doing better in terms of having some ambiguity and some mystery to the characters.
37:39 Andy Greenwald? But but there is still, it doesn't miss an opportunity to educate, like, you know, most penicillin allergies aren't real. Oh, OK, good to know. But even in the even in the midst of that, like, there were moments that were borderline poetic to me. The ritualistic cleaning of the body, while Dana is explaining it, felt like something totemic, like something like it made me think about how, and I think they make a reference to this, or Robbie does at some point, that like, other cultures throughout history have treated death differently than we do in America.
38:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
38:11 Andy Greenwald? Certainly in terms of honoring or respecting or having ritual that that end a life as well as rituals that begin a life. And even just the, within that context, even the small bits of like factoids of like, well, if no one claims the ashes, it gets thrown into a mass grave, like, that, that was heavy stuff.
38:30 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
38:30 Andy Greenwald? And I thought that it was remarkably remarkably done for a show that can be heavy handed, even when, even in ways that I think are educational or important, like, I thought that it had a relatively artistic touch for this episode that kept me. I'm always entertained, but I found myself moved.
38:47 Chris Ryan? I was moved as well. I also thought that the juxtaposition of Louis with, and sometimes at the pit that you're just dealing with like up to 20 characters. So forgive me for not remembering the name of the the prisoner who's in the hospital currently.
39:02 Andy Greenwald? Is it Gus?
39:03 Chris Ryan? It might be, and the debate that's sort of going on between Alashimi and Robbie about whether or not they can really afford to keep him in the hospital simply to feed him better than he is being fed at the at the prison. And whether or not, I think Robbie is taking the long view that like, that's just a drop in the ocean. Like, that's a bed that somebody else could be using, and we're not really in the business of making sure a guy has enough protein and nutrients. We're here to like save lives, and it's like, this is a triage area, not not a rehabilitation area. And Alashimi is just like, I believe that like you just, the way you change the world is to do good at every moment you can. And
39:47 Chris Ryan? You know, I don't think that Robbie is being intentionally inhumane about anything, but it was really interesting to see the kindness and obviously the like, sort of the soul come out of him when it was talking about Louis, who has also been coming into the hospital basically for maintenance. You know what I mean at this point?
40:06 Andy Greenwald? They were, they were his emergency contact.
40:08 Chris Ryan? Exactly. And that's like, sort of his like weird second family, or the extent to the he has one. And he was asking Langdon about his kids and he seems to know everybody. And it's like, he knows the procedures as well as the attendings do. So I just thought it was like a really thoughtful and uncommented upon within the show. Like, it's not like anybody goes up to Robbie after he gives this Louis eulogy and says, you know, you should think about then. If, if that's how you feel about Louis, think about all the other people out in the city.
40:35 Andy Greenwald? It, it, it, there's a trickle down effect of the emotion. Like, the fact that a lot of, like, the Louis's passing landed hard on Perla, who's a character who we don't often linger on, was a really beautiful opportunity that the show took to be like, well, she has a history and she has an inner life. The other story that I thought you were going to mention that, that, that dovetailed nicely with it is the terminal cancer patient who doesn't want to go home.
40:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
41:00 Andy Greenwald? You know, because she doesn't want, she is in a different place with the objective reality of her death as opposed to the subjective emotional experience that her adoring husband is fully engaged in. And again, that, that's like, and the, the presence of the other, the night charge nurse as the death doula, it was, it was, it was heavy. I mean, I, there's a, there's a scene in a show that we didn't really cover, Dying for Sex, where Paula Pell plays the comedian from SNL and from Girls 5 Ever. She plays a death doula similarly. And there's a, and it's like a long, quite powerful scene where she's like, do you want to know what happens? And it is a relatively uncelebrated opportunity that TV has to educate
41:45 Andy Greenwald? in that way.
41:46 Chris Ryan? Sure.
41:47 Andy Greenwald? And play it across multiple storylines.
41:48 Chris Ryan? I don't know if that's a universal experience for people, but yes, I agree with you.
41:52 Andy Greenwald? Which?
41:53 Chris Ryan? The explanations.
41:54 Andy Greenwald? No, for sure, but I'm saying there are things that we don't like to think about in our daily life, and there are things that we don't like to think about in our entertainment, and there are things that people who make entertainment don't really want to spend time with either.
42:05 Chris Ryan? Yes.
42:06 Andy Greenwald? But there are certain shows and certain stories and certain scaffolded story structures that allow for that in ways that I think are pretty fascinating and commendable. I did wonder, to your point about The Prisoner, do you think that Robbie has any kind of like metaversal awareness about what happened when David Krumholz stabbed him and Kelly back in ER and thus he doesn't want potentially violent criminals in the emergency room? Like, the show is aware of our pre-existing relationship with Dr. Noah Wiley, so I do wonder if that, if that ever comes into it.
42:42 Chris Ryan? Well, it's a, that certainly informs the way I watch him interact with Langdon.
42:47 Andy Greenwald? Because it's like the past-
42:48 Chris Ryan? Because Carter had such a, you know, pronounced drug problem in ER.
42:52 Andy Greenwald? No, he didn't, did he?
42:53 Chris Ryan? Didn't he?
42:54 Andy Greenwald? Well, maybe he did, I don't remember.
42:55 Chris Ryan? He was addicted to fentanyl.
42:57 Andy Greenwald? Goddamn, ahead of his time. What season was that?
42:59 Chris Ryan? And he had chronic pain following the death of Lucy, following her death.
43:04 Andy Greenwald? Wow, I have blocked that out.
43:05 Chris Ryan? So that would go into season seven.
43:08 Andy Greenwald? I was probably going to parties then with my fellow comic book fans. They were called conventions, honestly, but in my mind, they were fun as parties, so.
43:18 Chris Ryan? It's very rare that I'm like, I, I got this piece of TV history and you don't.
43:21 Andy Greenwald? I know, because you were probably doing travel baseball then, and yet, no, but you-
43:25 Chris Ryan? Season seven ER, I was partying.
43:26 Andy Greenwald? We've also established that at the end of All Along-
43:28 Chris Ryan? When was season seven?
43:30 Andy Greenwald? Uh, like, 2000, 2001?
43:32 Chris Ryan? You couldn't keep me off the streets since 2000.
43:34 Andy Greenwald? I know, we tried.
43:35 Chris Ryan? Pre-9/11?
43:36 Andy Greenwald? But the city was yours.
43:40 Andy Greenwald? It was the hour before the 25th hour for you.
43:43 Chris Ryan? It was the 24th hour.
43:44 Andy Greenwald? So to speak, yeah, uh, but we've already, already established in this podcast that there's nothing you like more after a, you know, a long performative- Draining experience than to like fire up the idiot box.
43:57 Chris Ryan? You know, it's also funny that you're mentioning the sort of meta textual relationship we have to actors and their other roles because the terminal cancer patient's husband.
44:06 Andy Greenwald? I was hoping.
44:07 Chris Ryan? Is played by Taylor Hanley, who plays Kyle and mayor of Kingstown.
44:10 Andy Greenwald? Oh, wait, but wasn't he also cousin Oliver on on the OC?
44:13 Chris Ryan? Oh, I don't know. In my mind, I'm like, that guy's really seen some shit. He was taken prisoner.
44:18 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, he's Oliver from the OC.
44:19 Chris Ryan? Okay.
44:20 Andy Greenwald? This is like two wolves, but one is kind of a puppy.
44:23 Chris Ryan? One's mayor of Kingstown. And the other like, it's the OC, bitch.
44:28 Andy Greenwald? It's like, actually, Ben Riley was the Scarlet Spider.
44:30 Chris Ryan? Um.
44:31 Andy Greenwald? That's cool.
44:32 Chris Ryan? Let's talk about some other storylines going on in the pit right now. I wanted to ask you, we were talking about Robbie just now, so I'll mention this. How can his cavalier attitude about helmet safety on a motorcycle really manifest itself?
44:45 Andy Greenwald? Yeah. So I was one, I wanted to talk about this.
44:47 Chris Ryan? Because they've now made this a big thing.
44:49 Andy Greenwald? Not only have they made it a big thing, it now seems six episodes into season two of The Pit, it appears that all of the characters on The Pit are watching season two of The Pit. They know that we know that Robbie is a little cavalier about this. Thus, one third of the patients are motorcycle related this year, and everyone keeps looking at him like, you moron.
45:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
45:09 Andy Greenwald? You absolute fool. So I don't know how this shakes out unless they are building. I mean, there's a number of ways it could shake out. One of the ways it could shake out is the season could end and he could ride off and then we linger on the night nurse.
45:22 Chris Ryan? A little goofy.
45:22 Andy Greenwald? Guess who's coming back in?
45:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
45:24 Andy Greenwald? This time as a patient. I mean, that's, that's on, that's in play for them.
45:29 Andy Greenwald? I guess I appreciate the fact, again, with the sense of like firm hand on the wheel or on the handlebars in this case, that they are running towards it, that they're not trying to hide the fact that that's.
45:40 Chris Ryan? I also think it's pretty, it's pretty realistically human to have somebody who's like 98% safe. But the 2% are pretty, is pretty bad.
45:48 Andy Greenwald? Pretty wild. Yeah.
45:49 Chris Ryan? You know, because the 2% is just, is like, if it goes wrong, it's over.
45:53 Andy Greenwald? What do you think about, one of the other things that I just admire structurally on the show is the way that it takes the quieter moments within each episode, if not the quieter moments in the season, to just subtly address things that were lingering. Last week, it was what happened to Dr. Collins. This week, Langdon asked Dana about the guy who punched her.
46:10 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
46:10 Andy Greenwald? If there was any resolution there. And he talks about the, what is it? How many months to be alone? 10 months that he was basically on the shelf alone with his thoughts to make us remember the amount of time that has passed for them.
46:22 Andy Greenwald? And then the other thing that they're doing just expertly, I think, is bringing up the, you know, on the, on the big mixing board of life, just pushing up slowly on the supporting characters to give them a little bit more. The biggest example of that this week is nurse, no longer nurse, nurse practitioner, Donnie.
46:42 Chris Ryan? Yes, who is, who is given a moment to show like his extreme level of expertise when it comes suturing, but is also put in a position where he's like, I think Mohan or somebody comes over, I can't remember who grabs a patient from him. It's like, I got this. And he was just like, I'm an MP now. So like, I can handle that. Yeah.
47:01 Andy Greenwald? I also think this is another example of them being smart about the cast that they have. So Brandon Mendez Homer is the actor, Juilliard vet.
47:09 Chris Ryan? Nice.
47:10 Andy Greenwald? And if you, when you cast like really talented stage actors, they can probably do more than just like, you know, push crash carts in the background.
47:17 Chris Ryan? For sure. Hot Dog Guy was pretty gross. Didn't need to really see him barf multiple times. The Deaf Lady, I'm curious where that's going.
47:25 Andy Greenwald? Can I ask a question?
47:26 Chris Ryan? I think that that is also like being used as an example of like Santos's kind of like.
47:33 Andy Greenwald? She's not.
47:33 Chris Ryan? She's just not, not on the ball when it comes to patient relations.
47:37 Andy Greenwald? Detail oriented.
47:38 Chris Ryan? Yes, but she is still a badass in the, in the room though.
47:41 Andy Greenwald? And is dating the surgeon.
47:43 Chris Ryan? Yes.
47:43 Andy Greenwald? They're having, or at least they have a situation ship.
47:45 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
47:47 Andy Greenwald? Can I ask maybe a dumb question?
47:50 Chris Ryan? There's no dumb questions.
47:52 Andy Greenwald? Well, I don't want to be insensitive, but I, couldn't the deaf patient write?
47:56 Chris Ryan? I, I had this conversation with my wife while watching this. I do feel like they're making it a little hard. I'm sure it would be painstaking to be like, here, I'm going to write it down. But if she could just write down like, can you tell me how you were feeling in your head, stomach, everywhere? And then the deaf patient wrote it down.
48:10 Andy Greenwald? Not even, because, because Princess was like. How are you feeling? You know, and she was like, great, I'll tell you.
48:16 Chris Ryan? She's like, I only know, but they, it speaks to the amount of detail that they need.
48:19 Andy Greenwald? For sure.
48:19 Chris Ryan? And the princess is like, she may have said stomach, or she may have said.
48:22 Andy Greenwald? She's been waiting for five hours. Give her a whiteboard. She could write the great American novel.
48:27 Chris Ryan? Right.
48:27 Andy Greenwald? About how she's feeling.
48:28 Chris Ryan? Right.
48:28 Andy Greenwald? That's just me.
48:29 Chris Ryan? I, I thought that was strange too, but I think it's also like the, the procedures that they're supposed to go through at the hospital. And they had this situation at the beginning of last season with the woman who, I can't remember. She, she was maybe from Nepal.
48:41 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, they, they couldn't figure out the line.
48:42 Chris Ryan? And they couldn't even find out like what kind of interpreter they needed. Um, until they use Google. So sometimes maybe the most obvious answer is right there.
48:50 Andy Greenwald? Um, can I, can I recite a line of dialogue from this episode of television?
48:55 Chris Ryan? Mm hmm.
48:56 Andy Greenwald? As I mentioned to Dr. Santos, generative AI is not perfect.
49:01 Chris Ryan? We speak on it.
49:02 Andy Greenwald? We got it, we got it, we gotta switch things up with this character.
49:05 Chris Ryan? Yes. Dr. Alashimi has been brought in to be a, she is now, right now, just a character foil. And she is a tweet. Um, and I, and I, I like the performer and I think that there's potential here for the character. But I don't know what we're doing with, with this character.
49:23 Andy Greenwald? We are entering this part of the season now. I, everything can change and you know, it's the beauty of the show is that people can surprise you as they emerge over time. Like, like two weeks ago, we were like, what's up with Joy? And then two weeks later, we're like, oh, we understand a little bit more. She doesn't even want to be a emergency doctor.
49:39 Chris Ryan? She wants to be a pathologist. But she's good at figuring out what might be wrong with people.
49:43 Andy Greenwald? Which is the kind of doctor you've liked since the days of House.
49:45 Chris Ryan? Yes.
49:46 Andy Greenwald? Um, we are at the point where I think it's fair, since we have a twice weekly podcast to say, this character is not working yet. And we can praise the performer all we want, but like, it could potentially be a case of a mismatch. Because I, it, she's now actively dragging the show down. I would say the character.
50:04 Chris Ryan? It also doesn't reflect great on Robbie though, because clearly other people are starting to gravitate towards her a little bit. Santos might be a little bit annoyed that she's like, make sure you're up on your charting. But for the most part, everybody seems to be like, okay, like I'll, I'll go along with what your ideas are. The generative AI stuff aside.
50:21 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
50:23 Chris Ryan? Much like the show itself, I think we need to give her the back nine of the season.
50:27 Andy Greenwald? I think that's fair.
50:28 Chris Ryan? To see where she's at.
50:30 Andy Greenwald? Do you relate to, I think you don't because we've already discussed your feelings about scatology. But I thought that was a remarkable rebound for Ogilvy, who 90 minutes ago was being.
50:42 Chris Ryan? Sprayed with shit.
50:43 Andy Greenwald? And then he's like, I was born to do this.
50:45 Chris Ryan? Yes. I thought for a second he might not have been born to do it.
50:48 Andy Greenwald? I feel like that would have, I feel like that would have wavered almost any confident young man. You know what I mean? Like at least given you like, wait till the second day before you decide you were born to do this.
50:58 Chris Ryan? That better be the first thing they tell you at med school. It's like, you guys signed up for this, but just so you know.
51:03 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
51:03 Chris Ryan? You can get just sprayed down with all sorts of fluids.
51:06 Andy Greenwald? I honestly appreciated the honesty of the show most when the hot dog guy was bazooka barfing because it did. You kind of like, if you are ill, for example.
51:18 Andy Greenwald? You want the professionals around you to be, you know, to be professional at all times. Like they've seen worse. This is part of it. They support you. I appreciated in terms of like real pull back the curtain honesty that Langdon was super grossed out. And couldn't hide it. You know what I mean? Like that he wasn't like, ah, I see. I'm sorry. This has happened to you, sir.
51:36 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:37 Andy Greenwald? He was like, that's gnarly. I will never eat that again.
51:39 Chris Ryan? Put a pin in it there. I guess it'd be like Baby Jane Doe.
51:43 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, do it.
51:43 Chris Ryan? That's become a thing.
51:44 Andy Greenwald? I haven't really been following the story, but people have been praising, as they should, the great Catherine Lanasa.
51:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:49 Andy Greenwald? But then didn't she say that she was like studying mayor of Easttown? But it's like, they're in Pittsburgh.
51:54 Chris Ryan? I don't know what Dana's, well, she made fun of Philadelphia in that. Like remember last season, wasn't there like a whole like crowd scene and she's just like, what do you think? We're in Philadelphia or something?
52:02 Andy Greenwald? And she allows the prisoner to stay because he used to work at a bar where she had her first kiss. She is.
52:09 Chris Ryan? Pittsburgh.
52:09 Andy Greenwald? A yinzer, as they say.
52:11 Chris Ryan? But you don't think she's doing a Pittsburgh accent?
52:13 Andy Greenwald? I don't know that she is, but I thought that was a little, Baby Jane Doe sounds super Philly to me.
52:17 Chris Ryan? I gotta say, I've never spent any time in Pittsburgh, so I don't know the accent.
52:20 Andy Greenwald? You haven't? Anytime?
52:21 Chris Ryan? No.
52:22 Andy Greenwald? Really great city.
52:23 Chris Ryan? Okay.
52:23 Andy Greenwald? I'm not saying this just to like appeal to the.
52:27 Andy Greenwald? You know, the crew.
52:28 Chris Ryan? I know, but you have a more of like a wider swath of Pennsylvania under your resume. I don't, I'm just like a Philly guy.
52:35 Andy Greenwald? You're kind of a coastal guy.
52:36 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:36 Andy Greenwald? You know, you gotta get out in the streets and like see the real, the real deal of America.
52:40 Chris Ryan? Like Western Massachusetts?
52:41 Andy Greenwald? That's a little far.
52:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah, but like I, I did that, you know?
52:44 Andy Greenwald? What'd you think?
52:45 Chris Ryan? It was awesome. It's beautiful out there.
52:47 Andy Greenwald? Did you see any people or just like?
52:48 Chris Ryan? I saw some people.
52:49 Andy Greenwald? Did you?
52:50 Chris Ryan? You know I did.
52:50 Andy Greenwald? The dark hearts?
52:51 Chris Ryan? No, man. When I was in college.
52:54 Andy Greenwald? But what'd you do in Western Massa- you're alluding to?
52:56 Chris Ryan? Dating a girl.
52:57 Andy Greenwald? In Western Massachusetts?
52:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:01 Andy Greenwald? Is this the after dark segment? I don't know.
53:02 Chris Ryan? Let's go into after dark. I dated a girl at, at Schwan's Mount Holyoke.
53:07 Andy Greenwald? I don't remember this at all.
53:08 Chris Ryan? Well, maybe you and I weren't cool yet. Maybe this is pre us.
53:11 Andy Greenwald? Well, no, so I'm glad we're talking about this because was this like circa like 97?
53:17 Chris Ryan? 96, 95, no, 95, 96.
53:20 Andy Greenwald? This is a thing.
53:21 Chris Ryan? This is pre us. So it's like, it's weird.
53:22 Andy Greenwald? Because I was thinking about.
53:23 Chris Ryan? I can tell you anything right now.
53:24 Andy Greenwald? I was thinking about how in summer of 97, I went, I did like the, oh, I'm going to, going to Europe with a Eurail pass and like went to some cities.
53:32 Chris Ryan? Hmm.
53:33 Andy Greenwald? And I was like, hey, why didn't we, why didn't we do that trip? That would have been fun. Cause I probably couldn't hang. Cause you're like this.
53:39 Chris Ryan? No, 97, I was still pretty PG 13.
53:42 Andy Greenwald? But the question is, what's shocking considering the, the complete like web of interconnected life that we now share.
53:49 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:51 Andy Greenwald? I probably didn't call you. Like, I feel like what was our, what was our, you, you didn't figure into that trip in a way that was surprising to me.
53:57 Chris Ryan? I moved to Boston in 96.
54:01 Andy Greenwald? Yeah.
54:01 Chris Ryan? Summer, so 96, fall.
54:03 Andy Greenwald? And you were driving out to, to Holyoke.
54:05 Chris Ryan? No.
54:06 Andy Greenwald? Up in Northampton.
54:06 Chris Ryan? I was driving up to Holyoke when I was still living in Philadelphia.
54:09 Andy Greenwald? Oh, well, that's a whole.
54:09 Chris Ryan? But when I moved to Boston in 96, I was already, we, we talked on the phone.
54:14 Andy Greenwald? We talked on the phone, but then was I like, some news, friend. I will be leaving the continental United States for a period of three weeks.
54:20 Chris Ryan? I don't remember you going anywhere. And was that in the summer?
54:22 Andy Greenwald? Summer, yeah. What were you doing in summer 97?
54:24 Chris Ryan? I was like, I was hanging out by then.
54:25 Andy Greenwald? Hell, yeah.
54:26 Chris Ryan? I think that was my first Boston summer. That was pretty cool.
54:29 Andy Greenwald? How would you define a Boston summer?
54:30 Chris Ryan? Just smoking cigs and, and working at the record store.
54:34 Andy Greenwald? Oh.
54:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And going to see bands.
54:36 Andy Greenwald? You did that in Boston winters too. That's kind of an.
54:38 Chris Ryan? But I, I didn't have school, you know? I didn't have to worry about school.
54:41 Andy Greenwald? Were you worried about school a lot?
54:42 Chris Ryan? Not much. Not enough. Yeah.
54:45 Andy Greenwald? Look at you now.
54:48 Chris Ryan? Anything else you wanted to get off your chest?
54:49 Andy Greenwald? I felt like you had a couple of cultural takes you wanted to fire off.
54:52 Chris Ryan? I just wanted to say that there's a record coming out in nine hours. Cold to the Touch, the new album by Angel Dust comes out.
54:59 Andy Greenwald? Tell me.
55:00 Chris Ryan? I saw Angel Dust in Boston last two weekends ago at the Something in the Way Fest. And it's one of the best live shows you can spend money to see. And it's kind of a, definitely hardcore rooted band because Justice, the singer for Angel Dust, was also in Trapped Under Ice. But I would also say that if you are a fan of like, honestly, for me, it gives me the same feeling, if not sonically the same thing as like the punk garage aggression of Hot Snakes. But it's also very tuneful and it's got like some like hyper aggressive power pop moves in it too. So it's, it's just a great band.
55:38 Andy Greenwald? You want to cut and paste that onto the Substack recs you're gonna text me?
55:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah, sure, sure.
55:42 Andy Greenwald? I wouldn't mind that.
55:43 Chris Ryan? But that's, that's my big rec for Friday when it drops.
55:46 Andy Greenwald? That's a good rec.
55:46 Chris Ryan? In a couple of hours. And then, that's it.
55:51 Andy Greenwald? That's it?
55:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah, reading wise, like I think True Detective, season two, I think I told you this is sending me back to Elroy. And I haven't read James Elroy sincerely, probably since American Tabloid, Cold 6000. So I went back and started reading Big Nowhere and it's fucking good. He, in, in, in the LA books, he was really, really in his bag. But I feel like it's, that's a little aggro for you.
56:16 Andy Greenwald? No, no, I've, I've, you, you heard me on last week's podcast, I'm much more politicized than I used to be.
56:21 Chris Ryan? Not politicized, but did you read like LA Confidential and Big Nowhere and?
56:25 Andy Greenwald? Blushing the whole time?
56:26 Chris Ryan? White Jazz, yeah.
56:27 Andy Greenwald? No, I, I think it's good to revisit books if you're not, like the worst thing that has, it can't happen and it's happened to me, is you're like, that was one of the most important books I've ever read. I love that book.
56:38 Chris Ryan? And then you go back and you're like, yeah.
56:39 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, that's, these types of writers have usually.
56:42 Chris Ryan? You know what's also a tough feeling is if you pick up an old Elmore Leonard or James Elroy book and you're like, boy, this is like reading it the first time. I don't remember any of this. And then you get 180 pages in and you're like, shit, I remember everything that's about to happen. Like you, basically it hits you, like your brain unlocks.
56:58 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, but then isn't it just a glide path all the way to the end then? Because you're not worried about?
57:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah, kind of, it is, it is.
57:03 Andy Greenwald? Plot or story.
57:03 Chris Ryan? And you can actually be like, oh, I remember what happens here and I can just give my head five pages if you want to.
57:10 Chris Ryan? That's it. That's all I got. You got anything? Music?
57:12 Andy Greenwald? Uh, new Rap Boyz record is really good. You like them? Chicago band?
57:16 Chris Ryan? I do.
57:17 Andy Greenwald? Really enjoyable.
57:17 Chris Ryan? I've spent a ton of time on them.
57:19 Andy Greenwald? Singing to an empty chair, really strong album. And then I'm also like, I'm really, I'm really spending too much time maybe for my, uh, uh, age range in my demo with like Fake Mink and SD Kid and all these British rappers.
57:33 Chris Ryan? Oh, wow. Really?
57:34 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, a lot, a lot. I'm really, really.
57:37 Chris Ryan? You driving around to it? You listening to it while you write? What are you doing?
57:40 Andy Greenwald? So as you know, the NFL season is over. Thus, I have nothing to listen to anymore. Also, like, I guess Sheil, God bless him, is sick, so there's no Philly special this week.
57:49 Chris Ryan? This is the best time of the year because everybody's competitive again. It's like now you can start talking about Clint Kubiak and his vision for the Raiders.
57:55 Andy Greenwald? Yeah, but, but I'm saying like the podcasts have.
57:57 Chris Ryan? They're active.
57:58 Andy Greenwald? No, but, but like.
58:00 Chris Ryan? Yes, I know what you mean. I know what you mean.
58:01 Andy Greenwald? So I'm listening. Yeah, there's the new Fake Mink record, The Boy Who Cried Terrified. It's really good. There's a burial sample in the last track you might enjoy. Going back to this SD Kid record from last year. You're gonna enjoy that.
58:10 Chris Ryan? He played or is playing LA this week?
58:13 Andy Greenwald? Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm going with the homies. I just didn't know if you wanted in on that.
58:18 Chris Ryan? SD Kid is a rapper from Liverpool.
58:20 Andy Greenwald? That some people thought was Timothy Chalamet.
58:22 Chris Ryan? Yes. And Chalamet's in town.
58:23 Andy Greenwald? And Chalamet dropped bars on the For Raw's remix. I don't know if you spent time with that?
58:28 Chris Ryan? I didn't.
58:28 Andy Greenwald? It's very enjoyable.
58:29 Chris Ryan? Okay, I'll go check this stuff out.
58:30 Andy Greenwald? That's really good. But also, you know what other record I love that my kids really don't love? You put me onto this is, um, uh, Bass Victim.
58:38 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
58:39 Andy Greenwald? I love that album.
58:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
58:40 Andy Greenwald? And that.
58:42 Chris Ryan? That record's really good.
58:43 Andy Greenwald? That there, the record's called Bass Punk 2. And, uh, I have had that playing more than twice while picking up my children from school.
58:54 Chris Ryan? Turn this off.
58:55 Andy Greenwald? Instantly.
58:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
58:56 Andy Greenwald? Instantly. They really like.
58:59 Chris Ryan? Do you think you're the only guy in line to pick up kids at that school listening to Bass Victim?
59:03 Andy Greenwald? I want to be very clear about something. Every single electric vehicle in line to pick up children from the progressive Los Angeles school is the fucking SD Kid of his own life.
59:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:15 Andy Greenwald? Inside of those, that climate controlled box.
59:18 Chris Ryan? Dad hat and a guy listening to.
59:21 Andy Greenwald? So everyone's wearing a open button down shirt.
59:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:23 Andy Greenwald? And New Balance sneakers being like, they don't know how cool I am.
59:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:27 Andy Greenwald? Like that one gift the guy at the party, and then everyone at the party's like, we're actually at a party. Go back to the comic book store, you fucking dork. But for those beautiful last few moments of solitude, I'm like, still got it. I could get a Eurail Pass.
59:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:42 Andy Greenwald? I could go.
59:43 Chris Ryan? See ya.
59:44 Andy Greenwald? You're really too eager for that.
59:46 Chris Ryan? Thanks to Kai, I think so Kai will be back on Monday, President's Day. Salute.
59:51 Andy Greenwald? Uh, we won't be celebrating that this year.
59:53 Chris Ryan? But we will be talking about Night of the Seven Kingdoms and industry on Monday. And who knows, maybe there's some other stuff out there in culture that will hit.
1:00:00 Andy Greenwald? Luckily, my kids have a four day weekend, so we can really, really drill down into what's wrong with their music taste.
1:00:06 Chris Ryan? Talk to you guys on Monday.
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Previous Super Bowl Trailers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Plus, ‘Industry’ S4E5 and ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 4. Next ‘Industry’s’ Book of Revelations. Plus, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ E5 and a New Chapter in the Warner Bros. Bidding War. Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated