The ‘White Lotus’ Season 3 Trailer, ‘Severance’ S2E2, and the ‘Agency’ Season Finale

Chris and Andy react to the trailer for ‘White Lotus’ Season 3 and make some predictions for what this next season will be about (1:00). Then they discuss the most recent episode of ‘Severance’ and how the show has really begun to level up in its second season (21:43) before talking about the Season 1 finale of ‘The Agency’ and why this show feels as though it could run for many more seasons (51:00). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production: Chris Thomas and 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s. Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s, preferably on Spotify.

• 0:36Speaker 01

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• 3:09Speaker 05

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk, now!

• 3:14Chris 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, but on his way to New Orleans, it's Andy Riewold! We're going to the Super Bowl, baby! Again! Again! What's up, man? It never gets old, though, does it? Good to see you! Great to see you. We had a nice time yesterday, didn't we? Yeah, man. We spent a little bit of time watching football. And it really, it was a satisfying experience. It was very satisfying. And, okay, a couple of questions. We are gonna talk about, we should tell people... White Lotus trailer, Severance, Episode 2, Season 2, and the end of The Agency, Season 1. So kind of Season 1 wrap-up.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  So I had the fellas over. Thanks for coming. Yeah. I think the most important question is how to...

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  I do, not as host, but like psychologically.

• 4:08Chris Ryan?

  That's the most important question.

• 4:09Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's the question on everyone's mind.

• 4:11Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:12Andy Greenwald?

  How do you can be.

• 4:13Chris Ryan?

  You were fine. You I mean, I thought you did well.

• 4:16Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks.

• 4:16Chris Ryan?

  We dominated, I thought, for the most part, so I don't know what would have happened. I mean, like, it seemed. It's I don't know what would have happened if it had been. Are the Eagles and the commanders played the Bills Chiefs game?

• 4:28Andy Greenwald?

  Had it been that.

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like you're like watching like Jalen Hurts needs to go 80 yards to win this game. I don't know how you would have been, but you were good. There was a couple of moments where you were standing a lot, you know?

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I gotta get the jitters out.

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  And you were very like, can I get anyone some chips? Can I get anyone a beverage?

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's just me.

• 4:44Chris Ryan?

  That's you're just a great host.

• 4:47Chris Ryan?

  But yeah, I think everybody processes victory and defeat in different ways and and I thought you were great.

• 4:52Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that, thank you, first of all, I it's a steadying effect to have you there. I did think it was. It was interesting that there was a moment like in the middle of the game when I think we were feeling pretty good, but it still was not. A totally foregone conclusion.

• 5:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Andy Greenwald?

  I went to use the restroom and because I'd given myself a lot to drink as well because I'm a generous host to myself. That's first and foremost, that's important.

• 5:15Chris Ryan?

  Happy host, happy home.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  And when I came out, I was trying to be like involved with the group talk, but also I was really laser focused on my guy Tom Brady's just keen analysis of the situation. And I couldn't help but pick up ambiently that like you were just talking about Trump 2.0 and just like how you were feeling about the confirmation hearings. And I was like, if you had asked Siri or Apple Intelligence to come up with a nightmare scenario for me.

• 5:43Chris Ryan?

  Tom Brady be like, Jaden Daniels is so poised.

• 5:46Andy Greenwald?

  Look at him thread the needle. It's unbelievable. You you and Tim, you were just you were just talking it up, talking strategies, how you're approaching this, you know, the New York Times live updates.

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we're just doing long toss with like where we're at. Yeah.

• 6:00Andy Greenwald?

  That was psychotic behavior, but it it seemed fine.

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't look up and see the sky falling in either category, I hope. But then I thought the most interesting thing, and I do think this is relevant to our podcast because. I'm constantly fascinated by the times we do have different reactions to things because often we do agree, but maybe we get there in different, differently emotive ways.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Your road is, my road's bumpier and your road is more efficient, I think. When the game was in hand, when the route was on, you and Zach stood up in behavior that I can only relate to the way my children have described the pride behaving in Mufasa, The Lion King 2, stood in a very like dominant pose. I captured this. I put this on Instagram.

• 6:45Chris Ryan?

  You did.

• 6:46Andy Greenwald?

  And without your permission, sorry. And then the torrent of abuse started towards the other team. Then the confidence was up. What was, because when the game was in hand, I just lay back awash with endorphins of positivity, of happiness.

• 7:01Chris Ryan?

  That was very cute. You were like, you were just like, it's, it's so wonderful.

• 7:05Andy Greenwald?

  My team, my friends are winning.

• 7:07Chris Ryan?

  Me and Zach were like, how many of these guys can we injure on our way out?

• 7:11Andy Greenwald?

  You were the end of a Mortal Kombat game at the arcade in 1991. You wanted, you wanted to see Spines.

• 7:17Chris Ryan?

  I was like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

• 7:20Andy Greenwald?

  It was amazing. The beast came out.

• 7:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, I can't, I'm from Philadelphia. Like it gets, it gets me riled up. Also, this was a week where I just felt like we crowned Jaden Daniels and we were like, really like the commanders. This incredible turnaround, the culture, Jaden in top five QB.

• 7:38Andy Greenwald?

  DQ, a culture setter.

• 7:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I get it. We've been there. Like I understand. It's, it's a sexy story, but I just didn't feel like very respected and maybe I let that out.

• 7:47Andy Greenwald?

  Cause we have the best team, which is great.

• 7:50Chris Ryan?

  I don't know that we have the best team, but we're going to find out in this.

• 7:52Andy Greenwald?

  We have the best players on our team, one through 52, I think.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 7:57Andy Greenwald?

  You don't think so?

• 7:58Chris Ryan?

  I think that we have a hole at quarterback and we have a deficiency.

• 8:02Andy Greenwald?

  So this was, this was the drum you were beating yesterday when all of the, as you know, the games are.

• 8:08Chris Ryan?

  I promise we'll talk about TV.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  The games are, the games are eh to me. What I really live for is reading 65 year old ball scribes, write long observation pieces afterwards where they're like, the.

• 8:19Chris Ryan?

  Ultimate team win for the ultimate team. And I'm just like, feels good, man. Tell me more about my friends. Like, I would be happier if I only engaged with sports via the Philadelphia Eagles social media content where they make videos of playing like riddles in the locker room with the guys. You sound like you have amnesia. I'm insane. Yeah. No. Like, like, literally last summer, we were just like, can we hire Bobby Slowik? No, we're fools. Yeah. And we're insane. But my point being, I don't remember where Star Wars going with this. I was saying, I like this, I like sports. Mm hmm. I was saying, wait, where were we going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so all the coverage now is just like, he answered all questions, silenced all doubters,

• 9:04Chris Ryan?

  except superfan CR. No, I didn't say that. I just like, like, I watched four quarterbacks yesterday. Very few of them ran backwards a lot.

• 9:14Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Yeah. Well, maybe, you know, they're different paths. Sure. You know? He goes, he goes the long way around. Can I, can I just say one last thing about this situation? You know, I, I think I've made peace with the fact that, that it, it's not gendered. It's just purely their personality, that my daughters could not care less about sports, my sporting interest, my fandom at all, like an absolute zero. Yeah, you tried. You were like, do you want to watch the game because daddy cares about it? To a degree that is like, like, like the way a black hole is to all light. They are to my interest in this. My older daughter, just to add a little extra to it, after I said, you know, they're going to the Super Bowl though, oh, it's nice. She was like, there's a long pause and she went, what sport is that?

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  Did you tell her that they were playing against Taylor Swift? So, so that was the last domino to fall when they found that out? And she was like, I'm cheering for the Chiefs? Yeah, and I was like, you don't understand, America will be rooting for my team this time. They were like, why? Taylor Swift's rooting for the other team. Everyone loves her. And I was like, okay, respectfully. Yeah. Respectfully. She abuses her private plane privileges. Let me think about that. Yeah, I should try that. Yeah. Uncle Chris says, anyway, we're gonna be insufferable for two weeks. There are a lot of advertisements during the football games yesterday. I would say with interest that the Superman commercial. Yeah. Was, I thought, better than the trailer. Cause it was less dog. You don't like the dog. Less dog, more music and kissing. Well.

• 10:42Chris Ryan?

  Did you see they kissed? Did I see it? I, you all got mad at me when I paused the TV. You're like, it's so simple. It's what happens. This is what twisters could have had. Uh, Alien Earth had like a quick teaser. Yeah. Which was essentially just like a kind of, uh, like aliens scramble down a spaceship hallway. And they're. And when he looks out the window, what does he see? Tell me. The. Superdome, the Caesar Superdome. That's what I see when I look out the window. What? That would be an incredible, incredible twist for Alien Earth is that it starts with you and me like high fiving on Bourbon Street. We did it. Can we have some beads? Show us your chest. And then a chestburster comes out. Yeah. Is that what they're called? Show us your chest.

• 11:27Chris Ryan?

  That's what they do in, in New Orleans. So they're like, yay, girls gone, what? Isn't that right? I don't know. Show us your, show us your upper torso. Well, I was thinking it was us and I was like, we don't have a lot to show. Don't get me in more trouble. You're saying that like, what, like people are throwing beads at us and like. Well, what can we, what can we show them? Tell us how you really feel about Severance, you know, whatever. How many beads could I get? That I wanted to talk to you about that came out yesterday was White Lotus. Wait. Why? I had an alien thing to say. Oh, okay, sure. Just that they're going real hard on this. Why? Cause they advertised during the NFC Championship? Not just that, but like then they, they have a whole run of advertising for it. There's already billboards up even before the game for a show that's coming out this summer. Yeah.

• 12:10Chris Ryan?

  We often, and I think reasonably laud FX for their marketing efforts. Like I don't remember the last time they blanketed the zone like this. And also because they don't often have such a recognizable or established franchise to play with. So it's just, it's just interesting and smart.

• 12:24Andy Greenwald?

  That we laud them often for being like, you guys are so good at communicating something we're not familiar with to a mass audience, whether it's the bear or English teacher, snowfall, original properties that they communicate well and have an audience, build an audience in anticipation.

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  Let me ask you this.

• 12:39Andy Greenwald?

  But this, they are not like, from the creator of Legion and Fargo, they are like, you guys remember aliens? What if they came here? Which is the smart play.

• 12:50Chris Ryan?

  That's what I was gonna ask you is, do you think that you would do this advertising campaign? And be like, but in fact, you won't see a xenomorph until the finale of the first season where it kind of wiggles across the background? Or do you think like, bang, it's coming out of somebody's chest in the first episode?

• 13:09Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I cannot predict, but I do think it's an interesting question. We sort of covered this a little bit a few weeks ago, but like, the bet that FX made a few years ago was that we will FX, we do our thing.

• 13:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Andy Greenwald?

  And when we play with the big toys from upstairs, whether it was the fox.

• 13:26Chris Ryan?

  You sound like Tom Brady right now. KB, what FX did is they say, we do our thing and they're doing their thing, KB.

• 13:33Andy Greenwald?

  I can't wait to see that guy Kendrick KB, that was my favorite. I mean, also, that's what I sound like. Like, it's gonna be a great halftime show with SZA.

• 13:41Chris Ryan?

  It's like, we're not Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy over here.

• 13:44Andy Greenwald?

  Here's my chest.

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  Three fucking corny guys.

• 13:48Andy Greenwald?

  Three fucking corny guys with fake teeth. It's awesome. We're all the same in the end.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like, when I worked on Legion, it was definitely like, the advertising and the spirit in the building wasn't like, we are going to build on the legacy of Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman's movies. It was like, we'll play with it in our FX way. The FX brand will be louder.

• 14:08Chris Ryan?

  You think that this is a little bit more?

• 14:11Andy Greenwald?

  We have no idea. I just think it's, the smarter advertising play is to say.

• 14:13Chris Ryan?

  But in the advertising for Legion, they weren't like, here's Wolverine.

• 14:17Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  In this, they're like, the alien is the first thing we have seen from this show.

• 14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I think that's smart marketing, but I cannot, I don't even think it's worth guessing what that means for the show itself. I think the show will be surprising. Or else Noah wouldn't be doing it. So, but I don't know if it'll be intentionally coy, like hiding the aliens.

• 14:34Chris Ryan?

  That's coming this summer, I believe.

• 14:35Andy Greenwald?

  That's coming this summer. And I know you want to get to White Lotus, but there's one other ad that was everywhere, which you, you think.

• 14:42Chris Ryan?

  I wasn't paying attention, but I was only not paying attention when you were talking about Tulsi getting a fair hearing. That's when I, that's when I tuned out. What I, what I did hear you say was at the sixth Captain America Brave New World trailer, you were like, looks pretty good. I've seen that trailer multiple times because I went and saw Wolfman and Flight Risk this weekend, so I've watched the. Did you do a bang bang or did you go home in between? I went home in between, but I did Big Picture and we talked about those movies. This trailer's good. Yeah. It's just too bad. It's the sixth trailer after the eighth total redo of this movie. Or? Or they got it. What if they got it right? But I am actually just at this point, like, I, I feel like most of the film is in this trailer. Well, most of which version of the film? There are many. And.

• 15:27Chris Ryan?

  They really are like every single time that this trailer plays, somebody in earshot says, the Hulk's red. That's what they want. They want that curiosity. They want, that's, yes. See, it's working. KB, they made them red, KB. I, I can't get them off of Romo. Yeah. Do Romo, finding out that's a red Hulk. I'm, I'm interested in hearing that. Um. It's pretty red, pretty red, Jim. For our purposes, the most important commercial. You're not, well, you won't let me get, you, you, you don't want to let me be great about Captain America. Go ahead. Talk about Captain America Brave New World. The trades are like, this is going to make a ton of money. And I feel like that is a counter narrative to the story of this movie's development for three plus years. Marvel is back. Are you ready to say it? Are you ready to say it? Play the music.

• 16:13Chris Ryan?

  Which music? Alan Silvestri's stirring. The music is Tom Brady listening to Kendrick Lamar.

• 16:22Chris Ryan?

  That's the theme song. I, I, I think that's, I think it does seem like they were like, okay, really here? What if it's just a political thriller with a red Hulk punching stuff? And they were like, that's probably a recipe for success. But why was that so hard to arrive at? And how is that that different? Like, I, I kind of have, I have Captain America Brave New World blindness now because I don't really remember. But I, I feel like we've been seeing trailers for this for 18 months now. Yeah, we, I think that we saw footage of this movie before they either announced or did the reshoots that put Giancarlo Esposito into the movie. Oh, he wasn't in the original film? No, there was a whole, like, the villains were. The Serpent Society. There was a whole Oh, is that to get spine that they removed from I don't Invasion out of it?

• 17:05Chris Ryan?

  Who knows? Joanna might know. We could talk to Joanna when the movie comes out because she's more plugged into that stuff than we are. But I the pitch does seem to be no aliens, no multiverses, just like big old shields and Harrison Ford and punching and that seems fine. And a little bit of Three Days of the Condor-esque. But a lot more February. You know what I mean? Like, what else are you gonna do? Yeah. It's cold. Yeah, I'm seeing it. You're seeing it. Okay, now we can get to business. The White Lotus, season three, which is coming in just a few weeks. Uh, February 16th, 17th, something like that. You looking at me? Yeah. I don't know. I think it's coming around that time. We'll obviously be covering this show. We love it. It's set in Thailand this season. Natasha Rothwell is back. And they put out Andy.

• 17:50Chris Ryan?

  February 16th. I'll say it's a two minute and 55 second trailer. Now, there is a trailer for the trailer within that two minute and 55 seconds. So let's call it 246? 247, 248. That is a lot. It was a long trailer. It was a very long trailer. A show that I think has a ton of buy-in already, obviously is a very successful, critically acclaimed series. Um, so yeah, like I said, Natasha Rothwell is back. It's set in Thailand. Parker Posey is in it. She has a southern accent. She seems to be married and on vacation with her husband, Jason Isaacs, who also has a southern accent, but also seems to be going through some sort of financial crisis. Some money troubles. Uh, Michelle Monahan, Carrie Coon, and Leslie Bibb, the real big three. That is elite. Bosch, Wade, and LeBron.

• 18:34Chris Ryan?

  That is what Daryl Morey's been dreaming of assembling. That is the three star theory. They seem to be childhood friends on a girl's trip. And they're beefing with each other, but also enjoying life. Goggins is there. And he plays a character named like Rich Dickhead, basically, like Rick Hatchet. Yeah, Rick Hatchet. You got it. You got it. Uh, and he seems to be alpha mailing with Jason Isaac. And the two quotes that I pulled out of this one, not entirely, uh, W H Auden, but at the end of this week, you will be an entirely different person. File that one away. And the secret to life is knowing when to stop. Hmm. That's not true for television executives, but I don't mean it in this case because this looks this looks great. Yeah.

• 19:20Chris Ryan?

  It's, the thing I was gonna say about the length of the trailer. Was like. You made the sale. You had me. Stop selling. Um, I guess the, the, the argument is that nobody remembers anything anymore. And this has been off the air for a little bit of time. Yeah, but. I, I know. This isn't Severance. Like, I don't, there's not pieces of, I, maybe, maybe it will be. It's also not just, it's not just that it's not Severance. It's that Mike White absolutely knows how to do this. Like, I don't think there was any doubt that he would deliver on all the fundamentals. Yeah. Of a season of White Lotus. That said, it looks terrific. It is often just based on the ingredients and I think the casting alone is fantastic. And it's a good sign when I'm like, here are actors who I like. And I see what, how he's using them and I'm more excited.

• 20:05Chris Ryan?

  The idea of putting this up in February, all these sun dappled stars. Hmm. Just such a good idea of counter programming the season. It is. You know, it's like this and Brave New World are what's going to get us through this winter. Well, is your implication there that the Hulk has sunburned himself? Is that, is that what, is that what CR would look like after a vacation on the beaches of Thailand? Yeah, I'm just going straight Panama Jack. You'd be strong, you'd be ripped. I'm gonna get the last, like, foil thing where you're just like, ah. Make me, make me look like President. Are there? President Thunder. Careful. Ross, President Ross, right? Thunderbolt. Yeah, Thunderbolt Ross. We should get back to having presidents with cool nicknames, don't you think? Sure. You ready for that?

• 20:49Chris Ryan?

  Do people still go to the beach and put, like, cooking oil on themselves? Like, are, are, is, are there, there must be a cohort. I bet like in, uh, I bet there are some, like, what do they call them? Mediterranean, like, green zones where people just have one glass of wine. Oh, the blue zones where like, where people live forever? And then they just eat, eat olive oil and they just live forever. Those guys probably. You think those people tan themselves to the point of obliteration? I think that they probably aren't like, I think I gotta get my sunscreen on. Oh, no, no, but those are two different things. I, I, I agree that those people aren't probably like. Having retinol shipped to the ninth island off of Crete. Be like, I must live more forever. I don't think that's happening. But what I'm saying is that there used to be.

• 21:33Chris Ryan?

  I want to live forever, but I want to look like Leslie Bim. How do I make those two? The Venn diagram of those things happening. No, I just feel like there used to be people who would actively go the other direction and be like, I am trying to bronze myself. Thus I will put on something that cooks me. Yeah. As opposed to. Yes, I used to do that when I was a child. Because I really liked the way it smelled. What smelled? The Crisco, what are you putting on yourself? Some base, there's some kind that they used to have like in. This is so far outside of our. Hawaiian tropic was the shit. But this isn't sunscreen, this is sun oil. Yeah, but I think it had like one SPF. Then this isn't what I'm talking about. Okay. Kaya, do you want to jump in here? Kaya is a child of safety. She was born after they stopped letting you smoke.

• 22:18Andy Greenwald?

  When I, when I was in high school, I was known to slather myself in coconut oil. And then go lay in the sun.

• 22:25Chris Ryan?

  Thank you, Kaya.

• 22:26Andy Greenwald?

  Because I had heard once somewhere that coconut oil has natural SPF in it. So I figured that was fine.

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  You heard? And this is like pre Instagram, right?

• 22:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and I didn't feel the need to investigate further because that seemed pretty good.

• 22:40Chris Ryan?

  Kaya could have typed that question into Google in high school. We would have to ask someone at the pool. Which is just not a good plan. Try that, that was our deep seek.

• 22:53Chris Ryan?

  This is okay, am I gonna get sunburned? Were you doing that because in your role as a lifeguard, you felt like you had to have a certain appearance to be trusted? Like, or to be out in the sun? Like, did you feel like? I don't even remember putting any sun, anything on until I was like 24. Did you have the white nose? Did you like, you know, the, you just cake it on your nose? Like a villain in an 80s beach movie? I can't remember, I think I just wore like a hat in aviators. You're so cool, man. Effortless, effortless, cool. All right, well, I can't wait for White Lotus season three. Glad we did that discourse about sundae lotion. I think that we should embrace being like a 360 lifestyle pop. Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah, if you want real television talk. Oh, sure, that too. We'll have some of it, yeah.

• 23:39Chris Ryan?

  I just feel like, also for the advertisers, we could really expand. That's true. Don't you think? Well, I don't know, does this make us more or less attractive to big skincare?

• 23:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, like I did see. Recently that the guy, this guy Gabe Suporta, you remember him? He was in the band Midtown and Cobra Starship. I do. He now has a skincare line for bros that wanna like, keep looking younger into their 40s and 50s. Do you wanna look like Leslie Bibb? Do you wanna look like Leslie Bibb for as long as possible? Bibb's married to Sam Rockwell, you know that? I do know that. Yeah. What a couple. He was in the MCU.

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• 25:44Speaker 02

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• 26:13Chris Ryan?

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• 26:57Chris Ryan?

  Let's get into this conversation about Severance. Very, very interested to hear what you thought about the second episode. Because I thought you were fair and balanced about the first episode. Your constituency of one. And one of the things you said was just you were far more interested in their Audi lives than their Indy lives. I'm, I'm right on the edge of not being able to say Audi and Indy, seriously. I know, and they've. And I don't mean that to be a dick. I'm just like, it feels weird to say it. Yeah, and they've committed to it on the show. And in like all of the like sort of public discourse about it, it's like Indy Audi. And like, we did it, like, we're part of it, like, I get it. But I kind of want to be like outside Mark and inside Mark. I think that's cool for us. KB, inside Mark.

• 27:40Chris Ryan?

  He's got such poise down there, KB. And I know that when I get on my computer and look up all the benefits of strawberries. When I asked Jeeves about deadly night.

• 27:50Andy Greenwald?

  Shades. Go on.

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, so this was an episode that was almost entirely dedicated to the outside lives of our main characters. I have a broader conversation topic I would like to have with you. Conversation about the show and where it's at, but let's get into a little bit of the nitty gritty of the episode, right?

• 28:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, sure.

• 28:11Chris Ryan?

  I have a couple of like observations and takes. We can jump off of those. Do you want to give me your, your broad review of it?

• 28:16Andy Greenwald?

  Well, just one like I, I it's always dicey and tricky and potentially ill advised considering how often it goes for me to make broad assumptions for a season based on a single episode, but when the single episode is the first hour of something in three years, it's hard not to over index it.

• 28:33Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 28:34Andy Greenwald?

  All of this is a way of apologizing to say that like.

• 28:36Chris Ryan?

  Greta Gerwig, you were right. Barbie was good.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but the trailer wasn't good.

• 28:42Andy Greenwald?

  You know? So I'm not trying to get cute.

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  I was very glad that this was an entirely, dare I say, outside. Episode. It was, I think it was, it was both a better episode to me. I enjoyed this episode more, but I also thought it was a really necessary corrective. And it was kind of interesting. It did feel like, I know why they didn't do it. I don't know better than Apple in terms of its marketing strategy. But it felt like the kind of thing that a different streaming service would have dropped both episodes.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 29:13Andy Greenwald?

  Because the episodes are two sides of a coin.

• 29:15Chris Ryan?

  A series that did not already have so much momentum and that you wanted to like.

• 29:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Remind people, here's the stakes.

• 29:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Andy Greenwald?

  In retrospect, it was wrong. It was wrong to assume that they weren't going to address what happened on the other side of that moment. But I don't think, that's the least I can do. I'm feeling very magnanimous now that I'm go, I'm personally going to the Super Bowl.

• 29:34Chris Ryan?

  One, you would have been like.

• 29:35Andy Greenwald?

  I would have burned the show to the ground.

• 29:37Chris Ryan?

  Lotus.

• 29:38Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 29:39Chris Ryan?

  I'm never watching TV again.

• 29:40Andy Greenwald?

  All of this is valid, but we'll never know.

• 29:44Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't think I was wrong to say that this part of the story was necessary, but clearly everyone thought so. I don't, I'm not special. I, I enjoyed this episode a lot more and it was a nice reminder that I, other people's mileage may vary. My favorite thing about the show, I think, is Adam Scott's performance as outside.

• 30:04Chris Ryan?

  Mark Scout.

• 30:04Andy Greenwald?

  Mark Scout.

• 30:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Andy Greenwald?

  And it was great to have that performance back as a kind of humanist anchor on a show that continues to, even in the outside world, and we'll talk to it. Risk, run the risk of sort of floating away into whimsy. That was my take, but I enjoyed this. Episode, much more. I can't wait to talk to you about the door scene. The door factory.

• 30:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 30:25Andy Greenwald?

  You give you give me your framing and we'll get into it.

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  I thought that this was an excellent episode. I think I want to just say I agree with you.

• 30:33Andy Greenwald?

  What?

• 30:33Chris Ryan?

  Like the when you get these two episodes, you know, obviously, as we go forward, there'll probably be like more cross cutting between the two worlds. They're not going to bifurcate this entire thing, but we get a peek into these isolated, mostly lonely, financially strained. Lives. And in the case of Helena, like, set her up as maybe the antagonist, you know, or at least like this kind of this chess piece that can go either way on either side of the board.

• 31:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yep, the most interesting variable.

• 31:04Chris Ryan?

  And I thought I thought it was just so moody and excellent. And

• 31:12Chris Ryan?

  if if one of your hurdles to getting into this show or to fully loving the show was why would these people do this? This was the episode where I think you'd be like, I can understand why. I can understand why, whether it's for financial reasons, whether it's for broken heart reasons, whether it's because they there's an itch that they feel that they can't scratch. Why Mark, Irv and Dylan would want to go back in to Lumen and go back.

• 31:40Andy Greenwald?

  And go back in after the events of the of the first season.

• 31:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Andy Greenwald?

  I I agree with you, and I think that, you know, one of the more compelling things about the show in its beginnings was that were those Mark taking out the trash, running into Mrs. Helvig, just like how miserable it was. And why wouldn't you, even if you weren't fully aware of what was happening below, go want to go to a brighter, lighter place that was unburdened? I continue to think, and I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get ahead of myself here. I have every assumption that we will get this. So I'm not acting like this is necessarily a criticism of the show writ large. But I want more still. I want more. My interest in the show remains what you just said. Why would people do this? What compels them to do this?

• 32:28Andy Greenwald?

  And sometimes I think, how many we're now 11 episodes into the show total? That it is still playing a little too cute and coy with everything. Now, maybe for good reason. Maybe if we meet Dylan's wife or go into his house or see his situation, it will tip something about the state of the world that they're hiding or about what Lumen does.

• 32:48Chris Ryan?

  Or anything and I'm curious what that might be. But if that's not the case, giving him more like emotional anchor and weight is a. I can't imagine a world where that's not a good thing. We get it. We get it. We get it on his face. It's fantastic. But I want, but I kind of want, I still want more of it and, and I want more of it. To the point where I want his struggles and who he is as a person outside to be more of a deterrent to. Succeeding without severance than the apparent social stigma of being a severed person. Which is still kind of the thing that I'm not buying, but. Any emotional weight on top of it, any sense of, you know, the, whoa, that was fucked up. Let's go eat at a diner. Yeah.

• 33:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Feed me that. Give me that and, and try and do your best, guys. I'm talking to the people who have already made and completed a season of television, so I don't need to cheer them on, but like. Integrate that shit. Yeah. Sever the other parts, but give me that.

• 33:48Chris Ryan?

  Did you grasp with just watching? The sort of, um, where this episode's action would fall on the timeline of like, so the first episode of the season.

• 34:02Chris Ryan?

  Mark has kind of come back to work. Yes. There's this new team there. Then in the second episode, it's basically everything that has happened since outside Mark takes back over inside Mark's. Presence on the outside world. Yes. Through the Italian guy and, and Leah Shockak coming and then. Back through the return of the original team. Yep. So like this episode kind of takes place in the middle of the first episode, essentially. More or less, yeah. But that, did that kind of? But I think. Did you find that disorienting? No, because I think there was a, it seems like, again, we don't know. It's a show of mysteries, but it seems like Milchick was lying about. Time elapsed. Yes, about the five months. Five months, because I think for Mark it had been a weekend. Yeah.

• 34:47Chris Ryan?

  Um, so 48 hours and the sense I get is that it could not have been more than a week. To 10 days until the rest of the team is, is brought back. Right. Um, only because of both their willingness to come back again and they, they, they haven't. Haven't wandered too far off the reservation in terms of finding other jobs or bottoming out or whatever the case may be. So I think that was probably the confusion.

• 35:10Chris Ryan?

  The confusion for me and not bad confusion, but just like, please explain this to me through, through story is why is. Mark special like that is something that is still a little bit unclear. And and I and the reason I say he's special is not just that. For whatever reason, this company has resurrected or stolen his wife and kept her from him. But Mrs. Kobel has moved in next to him to monitor him for quite a long time. Then they're willing to bend to all of his demands in order for him to continue his work. And they didn't fire him. Right. Everyone else is instantly fired when the person who I think represents the biggest threat to them, both because of everything that happened in the first season with PD and the revolt that really came from his leadership, right?

• 35:55Chris Ryan?

  Up to the point where they have to assume that there was some cross with or awareness of his wife. That would be the most dangerous dangling thread, right? For them to clean up, it wouldn't necessarily be. Well, I don't know because. Went to find. This kind of leads to my. My relationship to the show now is kind of like kind of stuck between stations where I am doing a fair amount of reading about the show, but I find that the reading has now kind of almost complicated the show needlessly for me. Yeah. And it's become like, I'm almost like not watching the show free. Cause I'm always looking for clues or looking for breadcrumbs, you know, you. You gotta get on the stationary, buddy. I think it's just, I need to get into a rhythm where I'm like watching the episode

• 36:38Chris Ryan?

  just clean and enjoying it and making notes or whatever. And then I can read about it a couple of days later, but like the the sort of constant barrage of notice this, notice that, notice this, this, remember this happened in episode one, four. And I'm like, that's not where I'm at with this show. And I also think the TV show needs to succeed as a TV show beyond it being something that is getting explained, although there is a lot of pleasure in that. It's just this, I, I want to kind of have a clean take on this. The thing that on that clean take that jumps out is there is something weird about the outside world too. Very much so. I don't know whether that weirdness is just high style and that it's just there like we're shooting in this particular place.

• 37:21Chris Ryan?

  We've decided that it's going to have a bit of a Coen Brothers meets like Lynchian feel out there where everything is kind of heightened, but recognizable. But we're going to make these aesthetic choices like all the cars being from the eighties and nineties. Everything's hyper stylized. Yeah. So is the hyper stylized just a style choice or is it about something? Is it suggesting that the outside world is a snow globe too? You know, and that we're gonna keep that there is another layer? Because if you could layer their outside into inside lives, why couldn't you then layer another outside into inside life? Yeah, I Does that make sense? Like, do you know what I'm saying? Well, I completely, I completely agree with you.

• 38:06Chris Ryan?

  And we haven't seen enough of either really to get a handle on it. And there's a case to be made for consistent aesthetic directorial vision. And boy, are they having fun with that. I mean, the downstairs is so brightly, harshly lit, intentionally so with, with bright whites and primary colors. And then you go to like Mark's apartment. And then you just do anything outside and you're veering into the HBO screener on my old TV in Brooklyn levels of, I'm sorry, what's going on? Oh, I think it looks incredible. It, it does. I'm saying in terms of the relentless darkness. I have a better TV now. Don't worry. And these aren't screeners. We're like, it, it is absolutely gorgeously lit and framed,

• 38:49Chris Ryan?

  but it is so aggressive in its stylistic choices. That's the show. So I'm not here to, to, to litigate those decisions that have been made and been made well. Like the, the, you know, the, the, even the, um, the diner that Mark goes to with his sister, just the framing of the building and where they have the sign off center and everything is just a little bit of skew. Why, like, it just always feels like there's only one or two other people around. Yeah. But I do sometimes struggle getting my footing in that. You know, because both levels of this world are absurdist. They are both highly stylized. They're both full of sometimes overly aggressive whimsy. Like the Ricken character is amusing in a vacuum,

• 39:35Chris Ryan?

  but is a, any character for me. The fact that he's out there You mean he's an inside character because of his self-help book? Because Not just because he play, his self-help book played down there, but Michael Chernus' performance and what he brings to the show is so broad and honestly disruptive at times to whatever emotional clarity

• 39:59Chris Ryan?

  Or rigor we're seeing performed with Mark and his sister. Like Mark's sister being the person who's just like, Yeah, Devon. Devon, sorry, I care about you. I worry about you. I love you. I am still your tether to a world in which you once had happiness. And then he's like, ah, my dear, a fine motorcycle helmet.

• 40:19Chris Ryan?

  That is funny, but I'm also like, why is she married to this guy?

• 40:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, why would she be with this guy? It doesn't.

• 40:24Chris Ryan?

  Aside from having, you know, like. It's these little, little paper cut sized tests of are you buying this or not? Yeah. That sometimes, sometimes I fail. Other times, like when Dylan had the job interview at the door factory, I was like, fucking, I'm lucky to have this show right now. Well, it was interesting when they have one of those meetings where it's Helena, the guy who seems to be the head of security with frolic tattooed on his hand. I love this guy. This is Olafur Dari Olafsson, Icelandic actor. I just thrilled he's on the show now. I like him looming in the other. Yeah, he was a true detective. He's, he's, he's great. I like him looming in the booth. And I think they're talking to Milchick, but they're just basically going through all of the outside characters and where they're at and

• 41:08Chris Ryan?

  somebody describes. He was in your show, Somebody Somewhere, too. Oh, yeah. Somebody describes Mark's sister as uppity. Right. And I was like, well, sure, that's a weird word, though, because that's the word you would use about someone inside causing problems. Mm hmm. The outside world, it's like, well, what? It just, it just, to me, it shows like Lumen's like outside world ambitions or perhaps control. Right. And it's also like, again, this is intentional. So I'm curious about how it plays out. But when Milchick is, I, I loved his, he, he was dressing and behaving like, um, like, uh, Willem Dafoe in Grand Budapest Hotel on the motorcycle. Yeah.

• 41:53Chris Ryan?

  He, he is, he remains, though, a very.

• 41:57Andy Greenwald?

  Very broad stylized character. Like, it almost would be, it would be interesting, not saying it's better, but it'd be interesting if he was a normal boss or HR guy from work when he walks into these houses instead of behaving like a, like a, um.

• 42:13Chris Ryan?

  Like a self-help guru?

• 42:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, like, like a brainwashed culty guy who, like, there's no version of, there's no version of that scene where he sits in the middle of the night after this weird event with Devon and Rick and Mark, where his behavior would cause Devon to be like, yeah, maybe Mark should go back to work.

• 42:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Andy Greenwald?

  But this is the show.

• 42:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  So, so we have to see, we have to see to what end. I, I guess all this is a way to say that, that part of my reaction to the show, it's not just that you can toggle on or off your interest in the redditing theories of it. It's that the theories are baked into every aspect of the show. It's not just what are they doing on the computers, it's why does everyone behave like this?

• 42:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:55Andy Greenwald?

  And it will be interesting to see as.

• 42:58Chris Ryan?

  If there's an explanation for that, or it's because that's the style we chose.

• 43:01Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly.

• 43:01Chris Ryan?

  Yes, because like you watch Hud Sucker Proxy, for instance, like a Coen Brothers movie, and everybody talks in a certain way.

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, they're all doing whiz-bang, bringing up baby language.

• 43:10Chris Ryan?

  And that style is sustainable for two hours. But if you were to make that into a 10, 12, 20-hour TV show, you would after a while be like, oh, how, why are they talking like this? Like, why, you know, and, and what is happening outside of this building? To that end, Dylan's interview with the door factory is a really needed and refreshing glimpse at how other people perceive Lumen and the whole act of being severed. But also, it was weird because it is another, another act of doubling in the show.

• 43:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, I love that.

• 43:47Chris Ryan?

  Where Dylan and this guy look basically alike.

• 43:50Andy Greenwald?

  That's my favorite shot. They've done like I just love.

• 43:53Chris Ryan?

  And I will note that we've already got the double of like all of these characters where they're inside and outside lives. You've got some speculation on there of like, what's going on with Ms. Wang, the, the younger woman who's sort of was in charge of the Mark, Bob Balaban, Aliyah Shaw cat team for a while.

• 44:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 44:13Chris Ryan?

  Her resemblance to Gemma. Mark's wife.

• 44:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:18Chris Ryan?

  So there's just like speculation out there about like these, but even on the outside, you could make the argument, yeah, Dylan's looking at this guy and he sees like a life 30, 40 years from now, where he's just busting his, a younger version of his balls about what you want to do at the door factory.

• 44:34Chris Ryan?

  It's a great scene.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  It's a great scene and, and kudos, Sam Donovan is the director of this episode. Obviously the vision created and established by Stiller, but I thought like he, he, that was great. It was just beautifully shot. The reveal that they're just mirrors of each other was really well timed and delivered. Also, that was, that was funny. You know, I, I genuinely mean it that like, I feel, I do feel grateful. I know I used that word once before, but like anytime the show uses its standing and its anticipation and its budget to be silly, to be goofy, to be funny. It's not just a needed corrective when there's a lot of the, a lot of the opposite of goofy in the show as well in terms of the heaviness, but

• 45:16Andy Greenwald?

  there's just a, the show kind of snaps into a cooler way of being. It's why like, I don't know. I, as we have talked about this more week to week, I think we'll have opportunities to compare and contrast things that worked. And I, I am remembering that my own, my own journey with the show in season one was not a straight line and often surprising. Where like I, I, when I think back to the first season, there are things that I think I would have maybe been rubbed the wrong way by, like the jazz freak out scene. But actually I think I kind of liked. So being kept on one's toes is not a bad thing. And I think, speaking of being kept on one's toes, the, the Helena,

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  the Britlauer performance, great, but also the, I think we touched on this a little bit last week, but.

• 46:01Chris Ryan?

  Placing the ambiguity and the variables and like, what actually is going to happen here? On the shoulders of a character that we know and care about, even if we only really know Helly of the two within that body, is such a win for the story and for drawing people closer instead of pushing them further away. You know, like, just as what she was going to do weighed on her. Yeah. As, as you watched her watch a version of herself kiss a guy she doesn't really know. Yeah, but it's like, great, because it's like, is she just being tantalized? Does she want to like, experience, like, I, you know, all these sort of question marks that surround what that character, and Britt Lauer's performance of it is essentially like, you could go a couple of different ways.

• 46:46Chris Ryan?

  Like, she could think, I like torturing this guy. She could think, this is actually real love that I won't get to experience as my, my, being a fetid muppet up here. Yeah, I, I did say, again, as you've noted, I'm really fun to watch TV with, but as the father approached her, and took a very long time, I was just, I did say aloud, hug or slap, hug or slap, hug or slap, because the show was setting us up to be surprised by that. Yeah. And I thought fetid muppet fell under slap. Yeah.

• 47:16Chris Ryan?

  Also, just on a very specific level, for a show that, you know, it is, and one of the reasons why they made it in the first place, was like, oh, that's a banger of a conceit. Watching the one character who has omniscience when she's outside, she can watch herself. Yes, right. She's aware of who she is in there and what it's doing to her and everything. Us, seeing that she knows that, and thus knowing that as audience members, that imbued her arrival with the, what's the guy's name? Hey, Jake, hey, whatever the security guard is. When they're all, Judd, hey, Judd, the hey, Judd scene, that was a lot heavier. Yeah, it's a lot more ominous, because she's pretending, she's pretending, there's like a third layer to her performance, you know?

• 47:57Chris Ryan?

  And she's just about to give up her body for a blackout eight hours. I don't think she's blacking out. You think she's not being severed when she goes down? No. That's interesting. Is that what they say on Reddit? I, I think it's widely speculated that Helly, Helly in the first season is Helly, but the Helena is now. See, this is why, this is great. This is happening live on air. Yeah. I don't read the theories. News from the front. Hey, we don't really see her in the elevator, do we? Yeah. Okay, well, that's also cool, because I was watching it. Being like, this lady is like me in New Orleans in two weeks. Yeah. Just signing up for a blackout. You know, like I guess I'll watch it on tape later. Okay, that's probably better.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  I had a conversation with Joanna Robinson, who's doing great work with Rob Mahoney on the Prestige TV podcast, covering Severance episode to episode. And I asked her if she could remember a time when a mystery box show took the leap in its second season, rather than taking a fall. Because, yes, there's an example of, say, like going back to Lost, where it obviously gains momentum as people get teased and cliffhanged over and over again with hatches and polar bears and everything else. For the most part, dark, yellow jackets, outer range, Westworld, silo, Russian doll,

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  all to varying degrees have this drop off, maybe not in commercial, like, maybe their audience maintains, but definitely there seems to be a weariness with, oh, so the mystery is just going to be what the show is about, is just like teasing things, holding us off from finding anything out, or just way too complex. I mean, I love dark, but dark is, you know, at a certain point, you need like a theoretical physics degree to understand it. It became graduate school, but I don't think it fell off, but go on. Sure. Severance seems to have exploded this year. You know, I mean, I think that there's just a legitimate, like, this is the biggest show on TV vibe to it. That's a strong, it's a strong argument. I like that.

• 50:03Chris Ryan?

  And I was asking Jo about it, and she had some really great examples of like, well, social media, the three-year wait. All these things contribute. She was really smart about it. But I was curious whether you, what you thought of that? What you thought of this idea of a mystery show seemingly getting a new, an even, an even greater hold on the audience in its second season. I think it's an incredibly smart observation and one worth tracking as we move on, because I think the,

• 50:35Andy Greenwald?

  The pressure of mystery box shows always is going to be in terms of, you know, the balancing act between mystery and revelation. And how you parse them out, if you parse them out, if you're, if you're too stingy with them, people get angry. But if you answer questions and they're not satisfying, people get angrier. So that is a very, very challenging balancing act. I will say, I will switch hats, not literally, because we both have Eagles hats. But I will switch hats to say that one of the things in Severance's favor may be the thing that I also sometimes chafe against, which is the incredibly tight, sometimes almost claustrophobic aesthetic sensibility and control evinced by Ben Stiller.

• 51:20Andy Greenwald?

  Like, I think that if you, if you talk about Lost, and we have talked about Lost, and we've talked about Lost with, with Damon Lindelof on podcasts and off of podcasts. Lost had so many cooks in the kitchen. And some of the cooks are, are very specific to the time and place. Like, it was an ABC broadcast television show where the idea of ending it or resolving things was anathema. Like, let's just do 10 years of this and it'll always be this good. But also you had to service a lot of, a large cast and a lot of, you know, different creative voices and things.

• 51:53Andy Greenwald?

  Dark worked because it was so fucking, it was so tightly wound, right? And just very German and everything must connect.

• 52:03Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I think that Severance is getting by, not getting by, I, it's exploded and people really love it. And seen as, as a whole, I think these two episodes were incredibly strong salvo into expanding the world and expanding the story. But I do think that having that very, very tight and recognizable aesthetic helps, both in terms of consistency, but also maybe papering over things that might otherwise cause people to wonder. You know, like if there was a second episode dip or if the direction wasn't up to

• 52:38Chris Ryan?

  Or a guest star wasn't on the level of John Turturro and Christopher Walken. I think people might start questioning it. That's not meant to be a backhanded insult in any way. Yeah. Because they're using the budget, they're using all of it. And so far, I think they're using it well. I think it's worth revisiting.

• 52:59Chris Ryan?

  When we get closer to episode six, seven, eight, or even the finale. Because people, I mean, I say this with visceral memory of it. The second season, second season premiere of Twin Peaks was one of the most anticipated TV premieres ever. And that premiere was incredible.

• 53:19Chris Ryan?

  Introduced the giant and it is happening again and all this stuff. It did not resolve who killed Laura Palmer. And once people realized that, there was a slow but definite attrition. Kind of like the Jalen Hurts bandwagon until once again, as with Twin Peaks 30 years ago, I was the only one on. That's right.

• 53:40Chris Ryan?

  Jalen Hurts, the return. When he's 44 years old is gonna be mind blowing. The last scene of your life is you and Jalen Hurts driving. Standing in front of someone's house, being like, what year is it? Very light spoiler, sorry.

• 53:54Chris Ryan?

  But do you know what I mean? Like I, when you talk about a mystery box show. The more successful it is in getting people on board, the higher the stakes are. Yeah, I, we don't have to belabor this point at the same time every week. I just want to say that. I don't think we did. No, no, no, I think that.

• 54:10Chris Ryan?

  It was interesting that we opened this podcast mostly talking about the Eagles. And then we talked about White Lotus. And in White Lotus, you essentially have this mystery that keeps people coming back every week. Because you like speculating over the course of two months. Who's in the coffin, who's in the body bag? And they're doing it again. There's a gun, there's a body. There's a gun and there's a body and everything. But what you're really doing is watching these characters transform over the course of this vacation. And then you're learning something about them and possibly yourself and life and whatever. I think Severance obviously has that kind of potential baked in. Because it is a lightly sci fi version of reality about these people who can't. Cannot longer compartmentalize whatever the grief or sadness or loneliness in their life is.

• 54:54Chris Ryan?

  And they decided to throw themselves into their work so much. That it maybe will alleviate some of those feelings on the outside, or they at least get to spend part of their day without that shit. And what that is and what that means to characters and how they change over the course of the series, I guess, versus like, why is the painting like this? What does frolic on this guy's tattoo mean when it's also a pick poster in the break room? All this different stuff of like, what are the Egan teachings and what is Lumen doing? And what is Cold Harbor? I'm interested in both, but I hope they don't leave behind the first thing entirely. Look at you. That's my argument. I'm diagramming. I appreciate that. I'm diagramming a play, just like Kellen Moore. You look like Trump dancing to the Village People right now. What you should do is run backwards for nine yards.

• 55:38Chris Ryan?

  You're like, I'm diagramming, but you're also kind of like, I'm not even gonna say. We're on video, I can't say. Okay, uh, let's finish up the agency, which we haven't talked about in a couple of weeks. I saw you just try to launder Kellen Moore's reputation on this pod. Yeah, I was going to, honestly. We could save this for like a bonus Eagles pod if you want to. He called a good game. I'm waiting for Sheil to call us. You know that. I'm sure he would have us anytime. I have a very busy schedule. Maybe you and I should go on Philly special to do like a, just a Greenwald check-in. Maybe. It's the only thing I want to do. I keep showing up for this podcast twice a week in hopes of an invitation. Um, let's talk a little bit about the season finale and the first season of The Agency. I believe it's been renewed for a second season. It has been renewed.

• 56:21Chris Ryan?

  I'm just gonna power rank my shit from The Agency. This is the stuff that I liked in this show. Okay. In order of that was rad to... That's awesome. I have some questions. Okay. Okay. Obviously broadly speaking, just really satisfying television, um, for me. Yeah. And Andy. Also, more or less note for note, Le Bureau's first season. More or less. I have a lot of geopolitical things. You insulted him a little bit. You adapted him a little bit. Okay, they adapted a little bit, but for the most part, there is a corresponding moment in Le Bureau, season one, from, from Agency, season one. Right. Right? Um, here are the things that I loved. Okay.

• 57:04Chris Ryan?

  All the Operation Felix Valhalla shit. You're talking about the finale. Or across the season? Uh, I would say across the season, although I did find it, it took me a long time to grasp what like Felix and all these things were, cause I think they were really down in the mixing board compared to Samia and Martian, which we'll get to, but the moments from the end of the penultimate episode through the finale of Gear, Magaro and Jeffrey Wright and at times Catherine Waterston and, and Michael Fassbender just being like, here's the deal, let's break it down in the conference room, let's see if it squeaks. Yeah.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  Awesome. And they obviously substituted, um, Ukraine, Russia, Africa for what, like Algeria, Syria, Russia in the Bureau. I mean, Russia was still playing, but yes. Russia's always in the mix, man. Can count on those guys. Yeah. Across time. Like special teams. They're always a part of the game. That's right. Maybe not the headlines, but. And I just really loved all the Call of Duty stuff at the end, honestly, of the, of the finale that was. Can we just clear out a little space? Yeah. This finale ripped. Yeah. It was so good and it was so good in the best, noisiest American way possible. Okay. Let's hear it.

• 58:23Chris Ryan?

  The action shit was elite. I loved it. I loved the way Felix ran into our coyote rescue, which ran into, which led, leads to Magaro being like, we have been overtaken, it appears we have been overtaken by events. Yeah, that was cool. It gave us a big quote unquote happy ending, kind of, but that felt great. I don't know whether, is this the optimist in me where I'm like, I'm glad that the American show went noisier and bigger and louder. Yeah. Um, I'm not gonna. I think it's also probably feels appropriate for the countries that it's about, right?

• 59:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I think so. I also just think like, you know, I, I hope people listening to this who watch the agency will also check out La Bureau, but I think that it's not really spoiling to say, I don't remember a helicopter, a grenade exploding a helicopter happening, but broadly speaking, these storylines did kind of wrap up in similar fashion, but they went for it in a way that felt different and they integrated those external storylines with the, um, in this case, London Station storylines, I thought incredibly well. I thought, I just thought as a finale.

• 59:38Andy Greenwald?

  For a show, it was elite.

• 59:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:41Andy Greenwald?

  And honestly, what it made me feel like in watching this was I kind of missed old Showtime. I was like, Showtime's back. It's gone forever.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Andy Greenwald?

  But in the sense, I was like, good for those guys. They caught one. You know, they caught a heater here. And I was like, yeah, this really could, because the Showtime method was always, we'll take some bigger, we'll take some swings because we have to.

• 1:00:03Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:00:03Andy Greenwald?

  Twin Peaks The Return being the biggest one. Good Lord Bird being one that we talked about a lot as well. But generally, even if they caught lightning in a bottle like they did with Homeland, they kind of were networky in the sense that they were like, great.

• 1:00:17Chris Ryan?

  They would find prestige dramas, or dramedies, or whatever, procedural dramas that they could then run for five, six, seven seasons.

• 1:00:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and often to the, you know, to the detriment maybe of the original idea, and now they are just a content farm where it's like, and now Young Dexter and Billions, but Millions, or whatever.

• 1:00:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Andy Greenwald?

  That the fact that whoever even was left in the room to greenlight this is like a beautiful, like the way the light from the stars is from millions of years ago, but we're only seeing it now. I was like, we, I just want to say, I see you, former Showtime executives.

• 1:00:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Andy Greenwald?

  You had a banger here.

• 1:00:52Chris Ryan?

  I wonder if this will even be a Showtime with Paramount Plus show next season, or if it's just gonna be a P+ show.

• 1:00:59Andy Greenwald?

  And I'm sure there are people who listen to us, or their parents who are overhearing because they're in the car with their children who are like, I watched this on Showtime. What are you talking about? But that's not really the way it fits into the larger ecosystem. And so I gotta say, I just, I loved the way that the changes, the Butterworths, and I imagine Joe Wright and whoever else was, Clooney and Heslov, the changes that they made. And there's some that I didn't love, and we'll talk about as you get back into your list, but like, the changes that they did make really felt in the spirit of, let's fucking go. Let's make more seasons of this. And I welcomed it.

• 1:01:33Chris Ryan?

  I mean, so I was, I was listening to Joe and Rob talking about this show on my way into work today, and Joe was remarking upon how she was like, oh, it's the ninth episode and Danny is only just getting to Tehran. Like, what's happening?

• 1:01:47Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's.

• 1:01:48Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, well, that's, that's liberal.

• 1:01:49Andy Greenwald?

  That's the story.

• 1:01:50Chris Ryan?

  I love the Danny arc this season. I that that is.

• 1:01:54Andy Greenwald?

  She's great.

• 1:01:55Chris Ryan?

  Marie Wazo from that was like her character in the first in the in the original show. I that was the one that I was like, man, it's gonna be hard to top this and. And they did a really good job with it.

• 1:02:06Andy Greenwald?

  They really did a good job.

• 1:02:07Chris Ryan?

  I don't. I feel like my memory of Le Bureau is that the way that they rendered. Tehran was a little bit more. Un soundstagey.

• 1:02:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, or not just on soundstage and then walk in front of a palm tree once, but also I do believe her fate. Is unclear at the end of season one. And and then is and then Tehran is more of a second season thing.

• 1:02:29Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:29Andy Greenwald?

  So that may have been a budgetary thing as well as a creative decision. I think on the margins, the sort of things that I was bumping on or not bumping on, but noting, even though my my memory of the of Le Bureau is not in any way perfect.

• 1:02:43Andy Greenwald?

  That certain things like there's a few episodes ago, there's the thing where, you know, first she gets out of. She eliminates one rival for Tehran.

• 1:02:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:52Andy Greenwald?

  By calling her.

• 1:02:54Chris Ryan?

  Boyfriend.

• 1:02:54Andy Greenwald?

  Boyfriend, who's also reporting on her for the CIA to put get that guy off the board and that tracks. The second one where she uses knowledge of her coworker and friend to manipulate her and take advantage of the situation with a family member. I'm not again, when I say these comments, I'm just pointing out differences because this show was doing something different and prioritizing different aspects of its story and its real estate. And pushing certain things more to the fore. And I can't argue, having seen the finale, that they were wrong to do it. In my memory. The friendship with the coworker was more of a slow burn. So the betrayal felt really morally shocking as opposed to introducing it and resolving it in a single episode.

• 1:03:39Andy Greenwald?

  Again, it's a question of of real estate. There there was another one in the finale. I sort of have this memory and maybe listeners will say I'm wrong about this. That Malatru, the the French Martian. When he does the. Meeting with the other side, but he's really auditioning himself for another team. In the French version, it's the Americans and the American version, it's the British.

• 1:04:02Chris Ryan?

  British.

• 1:04:03Andy Greenwald?

  That he. That we know that he knows. This is a obviously bugged place.

• 1:04:09Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:10Andy Greenwald?

  Beforehand.

• 1:04:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  So we're like, ah, this is clever. Cutting to Hugo. Bonneville, Hugh Bonneville, sorry. Looking at an iPad being like, hmm. Robbed a little bit of that for me, but these are just. These are just flavor profiles, flavor preferences.

• 1:04:25Chris Ryan?

  You, uh, you did lead into one of my favorite things about this series, which is Bonneville and Elena Sorel, who plays Robin Shaw, being kind of Aggy, MI6, you know, back on their bullshit.

• 1:04:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Chris Ryan?

  Feeling not, not trying to be little cousins anymore.

• 1:04:41Andy Greenwald?

  No, no more special relationship.

• 1:04:42Chris Ryan?

  And, uh, you know, putting Martian in a, in a hospital.

• 1:04:46Andy Greenwald?

  That seemed, that seemed a high risk play.

• 1:04:48Chris Ryan?

  Well, I would say.

• 1:04:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Chris Ryan?

  I was surprised by that. That is a KGB move. Based on spy novels that I've read is the, the car hit is, is a big KGB move. Now, not usually to then turn someone, usually it's, it's to kill people.

• 1:05:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:05:02Chris Ryan?

  The car flying down the street and knocking and killing people is a Charles McCary KGB move.

• 1:05:07Andy Greenwald?

  Don't you think that Lacare would have a field day with just, and I know he did it in his own way over many decades, but like the most like emotional profound truth at the heart of the agency is how hard it is to ever get someone alone? Like the lengths you have to go to get someone plausibly alone.

• 1:05:23Chris Ryan?

  Even him just like being like trying to get gear to get out of the SAC and then, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's great.

• 1:05:28Andy Greenwald?

  He did it the way we would try to get Kaya out of it. We were, what, second. But, but like that, that is, that was wild, but they absolutely, I feel like. I, maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like there are ways maybe to nudge someone with a car that doesn't involve high velocity impact of them on a motorcycle because what, what's the game? What's, what's the gain here? If he's in a wheelchair for the rest of his life or whatever, is he really their field agent anymore?

• 1:05:56Chris Ryan?

  Well, yes, I had questions about that, but like Fassbender or like Martian says, he's like, if I don't agree to do this, I just never made it out of surgery.

• 1:06:04Andy Greenwald?

  So they were just taking him off the board anyway. Did you feel seen in your, we talked last week about how.

• 1:06:09Chris Ryan?

  Your medical knowledge is really like memories of how circa 2005. Like, how did you feel about the, um, the way, um? The National Institute of Health? NHS? NHS, the way they, yeah, the National Health Service. Their approach towards post-surgery recovery, which appears to be smelling salts and bringing your seat up. I think if you're in a MI6 hospital, that's what happens, yeah. I, I will say that it was also my experience often in my cross-transatlantic flights. When it's time to land, I feel like they bring a similar sort of. Abrasive lights on kind of thing? Here we go. Uh, last thing I want to talk about is my, my one. It's not a fatal flaw. Okay.

• 1:06:53Chris Ryan?

  But it is a thing that I thought about a lot, watching these last few episodes. Which is that I think it's really cool and Michael Fassbender rides a motorcycle. But I do not find him a convincing, uh, friend, parent, patriot, like. Colleague? Colleague dude. Boyfriend? Yeah, dad, like, like it's just watching him kind of like. Interact with the more quotidian parts of a character's life where John McGaro and Catherine Watersteins. It's a Waterston seems so relatable and. Yes, there is an unknowability or a perfection. Or a kind of independence to the way Martian and Maladru does, does what they do. But.

• 1:07:40Chris Ryan?

  I don't know, Bonneville was like hanging off the rim, looking down at Fassbender. And I know that's what is supposed to be happening. Yeah. But in scene after scene, I felt like Fassbender was in his own conception of the show. Yes. And everybody else is in a different version of it. I completely agree. It's a really fascinating slice of modern TV making. The show doesn't exist. With that Michael Fassbender being like, I'll be in practically every scene. On every level, it doesn't exist and, and his charisma, I am sure. Has drawn people to it and kept people engaged when they have been confused or overtaken by events. The show does not handhold. Neither did the, did Le Bureau.

• 1:08:21Chris Ryan?

  But there is an argument to be made. To be clear, I don't think either of us are making it. But I do think.

• 1:08:27Andy Greenwald?

  There is an argument to be made that he's the weakest link in the show. Because everything else is fucking humming. And if the, I would even be willing to accept some of the, he's taking enormous risks. He's, um, he's clearly not resolved in terms of his like, identity. Even his like, just absolute computer brain ability to explain over the phone while racing a motorcycle. How to move the kill zone of a military operation happening 15 clicks away from another, you know. I could buy all that if he wasn't the Terminator.

• 1:09:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Andy Greenwald?

  It's one thing too far, honestly, but he, he looks great in those dark suits. And he really cuts a figure in the room and you, you do kind of understand the charisma of why everyone's just letting him get away with it.

• 1:09:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Andy Greenwald?

  Because one of the things, we probably said this before, but one of the things that never quite makes sense with Libero. Is this guy was in the field for six years, which is insane. Kind of just recruiting college professors.

• 1:09:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Andy Greenwald?

  And then is called back up not just to work at the DGS.

• 1:09:34Chris Ryan?

  It's like half run it.

• 1:09:35Andy Greenwald?

  To basically have carte blanche to run every op.

• 1:09:38Chris Ryan?

  I think it's supposed to be the previous to his.

• 1:09:41Andy Greenwald?

  His deployment.

• 1:09:42Chris Ryan?

  His deployment, he was like a rising star there, you know, like that.

• 1:09:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Chris Ryan?

  He's, he's like also like regarded very well within the agency. The fast burner moment that really broke me was at the end of episode nine, which is a really good episode. And he's like running through the plan of the Felix Valhalla operation. And keeps bringing cast members into the, to the room to hear it. And in the background and then also kind of reflected onto his face is, there's an American flag on the TV screen. That is reflected into the glass of the, uh, conference room.

• 1:10:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Chris Ryan?

  And it's reflecting on his face. And I'm like, this just doesn't.

• 1:10:23Chris Ryan?

  I, there's something like, I, I truly don't give a shit, but it doesn't feel like he's a guy who's like, I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you know, like.

• 1:10:30Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, Martian is a well chosen code name.

• 1:10:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think, I think maybe the best way to do going forward, and I'm so happy it's coming back. I cannot wait. This show has, I know, I know we were a little bit like lukewarm in the beginning, or let's see.

• 1:10:42Chris Ryan?

  I think we were just like, oh, this is like a really good cover version of a song or an album we love.

• 1:10:47Andy Greenwald?

  I'm all the way in. I love a lot of it for what it is.

• 1:10:49Chris Ryan?

  I love your passion.

• 1:10:50Andy Greenwald?

  But, but I also want to say.

• 1:10:52Chris Ryan?

  Had the commanders won yesterday, I would have just been burying the show. My god, she would have been so terrible today. Insufferable. I would have had to take a couple of plays off. No, that we've been talking since the show was announced, like, how would it steer into the Americanness? Because the bureau is so interesting because it is about a world-class Five Eyes global partner NATO security service that is also France. We love, listen, we love France in this studio. But the show is very smart about France's kind of hinge point relationship with the larger world. Close with the biggest boys, but also enemies of others and not necessarily strong enough to change regimes or slightly less than that on its own. Yeah.

• 1:11:35Chris Ryan?

  America is the other, is the elephant that's also in the room. And I thought that it was smart, not just aesthetically, as I was saying a few moments ago about how there was just a big explosion battle and the good guys won, but the literal might of American forces getting back one of their own when they choose to, which is when just like 18 dudes in ghillie suits walk out of the forest and massacre an armed contingent without any issue, no hesitation. Right. That was, I'm not saying like, that's sick. I'm like, that does seem to be what- If you were like, that's sick, I'd be like, you should really keep watching Lion. Great point. I, what I'm saying is I think the show, it is both sick, because it is also on Paramount+

• 1:12:15Chris Ryan?

  and like, it's actiony, but I think that the show's larger project, I think they are canny when they're like, this is what is on the other end of some of those phone calls. Yeah. Should they choose to do it? Yes. So when they do or don't is telling. And I find that interesting and complex and more than enough to warrant my continued engagement in the agency project. I cannot wait for the second season. Andy, thank you so much for joining me today here. It wasn't an option. I mean, come on. Thank you to Kaya for producing us and thank you to CT for shooting this. You can find us on the Ringer-TV YouTube channel to watch us on, on video. You can email us at thewatchatspotify.com. You're getting some nice emails, you said. Yeah, a lot of medical professionals reaching out about the pit. You can also- And about your temporary blindness.

• 1:13:00Chris Ryan?

  You can also follow us on Instagram at the watch pod underscore. Should we say that we're doing this- Charity event or is that ship? Yeah, you know, I we are doing a charity event on the third. Monday, a week from today. A week from today with Mina Kimes. You're in L.A. You can find information about if you're in Los Angeles and you want to come that benefits the Red Cross to aid with wildfire relief and it's a great event. We're so excited to be doing it with Mina, Greg Rosenthal, some other folks, Jordan Riis doing it. So I'm really excited to be doing it. If you're in, I'm not sure if it's sold out yet. I think tickets are available. MinaPodLive.com. There you go. Is the way to grab your tickets. It's for a good cause.

• 1:13:40Chris Ryan?

  And Andy's gonna shit all over Severance in front of 1,000 people. 1,000%. No, it was we were either gonna talk about the Eagles if they win, but if they didn't win, Mina said we were talking about. Silo season two. So thank you, Saquon Barkley. Thank you, Kellen Moore. We'll talk to you guys on Thursday.

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