‘Widow’s Bay’ Season 1 Finale With Creator Katie Dippold and Director Hiro Murai. Plus, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Trailer.

Chris and Andy talk about the ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ trailer (2:10), before diving into the ‘Widow’s Bay' finale (15:47). Then they are joined by series creator Katie Dippold and multi-episode director Hiro Murai to discuss the ‘Widow’s Bay’ finale, the origin of the script, marrying comedy with horror, deepening the island’s lore, and so much more (31:20). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Katie Dippold and Hiro Murai Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Jacob Cornett 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.

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• 1:35Speaker 01

  I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 1:41Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, he was bitten by an animal and then he became the animal. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's the best line in the finale of the best show of the year.

• 1:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Widows Bay, which we are going to be talking about the finale today on The Watch podcast. We are also joined by Hiro Murai and Katie Dippold, the director and creator of Widows Bay, which, as Andy mentioned, is his favorite show of the year. I'm open for business.

• 2:12Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 2:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13Andy Greenwald?

  You are like those judges who will say that Joe Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

• 2:19Chris Ryan?

  I believe he won the election.

• 2:20Andy Greenwald?

  Cool, under pressure.

• 2:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, we are gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Spider-Man trailer. I have a couple of questions for the Keeper of the War across from me.

• 2:29Andy Greenwald?

  I have some questions.

• 2:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, maybe a couple of other things. Just some programming reminders. Uh, Sunday night is, uh, House of the Dragon, season three premiere. I'll be doing Talk the Thrones with Mal and Joe, but Andy and I will be discussing it on Monday from our, our usual just sort of left field askew viewpoint. Um, we'll keep hitting Star City, uh, as we're able. And then next week, next Thursday, the Bear, uh, season

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  Five?

• 2:57Chris Ryan?

  Five drops. And, uh, Andy and I are gonna be discussing it in our usual three, three, two way. I think we'll do three episodes at a, you know, and so we can kind of like live in it a little bit, even though I know everybody who's, who's rocking with the bear will probably watch it that weekend.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  Before we get into it, can we address the elephant in the room for people who watch us on video? Which is that we are doing the Michael Keaton, Batman, Vicky Vale table scene?

• 3:19Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:21Chris Ryan?

  This is kinda, uh, yeah. It's like Ned Beatty in, in Network.

• 3:25Andy Greenwald?

  I kind of, cause-

• 3:26Chris Ryan?

  We had a table, we have a larger table here today because we had two guests. Hero and Katie were so lovely to come by and talk to us, uh, about the finale. Do you wanna do, let's just do a little bit of like the kind of the light work.

• 3:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, house, entertainment, house cleaning.

• 3:40Chris Ryan?

  I actually do wanna talk about the Spider-Man Brand New Day.

• 3:43Andy Greenwald?

  Me too.

• 3:44Chris Ryan?

  Um, trailer which dropped about 25 hours ago.

• 3:48Andy Greenwald?

  How have you spent the last 25 hours?

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  Well, here's what I've been really interested in. Our buddy Zach Baron wrote a fantastic piece about the making of The Odyssey. Um, and he interviewed, uh-

• 3:57Andy Greenwald?

  Homer.

• 3:58Chris Ryan?

  Uh, he interviewed Homer, he interviewed Norm Mailer, um, I believe he talked to David Letterman about it. No, I mean, he talked to, uh, Matt Damon, he talked to Robert Pattinson, he talked to Tom, uh, Tom Holland. And Tom Holland was the one who jumped out at me in this piece because this was clearly like a life-changing experience for him to work on The Odyssey. And so much so that he says it had a profound impact on the making of Brand New Day, which was not only like did the production of it have to be adjusted so that Holland could essentially star in The Odyssey, I think, or co-star in The Odyssey, but it, learning how Christopher Nolan makes movies and learning how his storytelling works and learning about a lot of his in-camera

• 4:42Chris Ryan?

  stuff that he does to like make everything feel real. Um-

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  Led Holland to work with Destin Daniel Cretton, who's directing this this new Spider-Man movie, to change the film. So knowing that.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 4:57Chris Ryan?

  I was curious whether you watched the trailer and felt anything different about the movie, felt anything different coming off the screen that looked like not Christopher Nolan had an impact on this, but like that this was somehow tended to and cared for in a way that maybe other Marvel works aren't.

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think one of the main things that's going to be different, no matter what, and I think it does, it does look and feel slightly different, certainly from the previous Spider-Man trilogy. But one of the things that is absolutely fact is that in order to get Tom Holland to come back to do a fourth movie, Sony and Marvel gave Tom Holland an enormous amount of creative control over the film. He was only coming back for a movie that he wanted to make in the tone and style that he thought would be interesting for Peter Parker and Spider-Man to be in. So that seems pretty clear in the final product. So I think that even predates going to IMAX camp with Chris and Hoyt. You know, I think that that that he definitely only wanted to come back. It was going to be different. I think there's

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  been already been pre pre release press saying that he wanted it to be more grounded or whatever.

• 6:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 6:06Andy Greenwald?

  As a longtime Spider fan.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  I mean, you're the you're the number one Spider-Man fan in my life.

• 6:13Andy Greenwald?

  That is praise.

• 6:15Chris Ryan?

  You and fantasy, I think both.

• 6:16Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay. So now we're suddenly walking back.

• 6:19Chris Ryan?

  No, I just think I'm like, I like, I have other interests.

• 6:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's like when we ask you who your best friend is. It's the same answer. It's you. Sean, you know, Sean is more of a symbiote guy. Sean likes Venom and Carnage and all that stuff. You know, I'm kind of a purist. I have said on this podcast, like, I like the character best when the character is street level and grounded and not wearing an Iron Man suit and flying into space.

• 6:43Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  It is a real tribute to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee that that character can do those things. But I think the character works best when the stakes are smaller and more relatable.

• 6:51Chris Ryan?

  Do you need him to be a teenager?

• 6:53Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, now he's a young, he's a young man.

• 6:54Chris Ryan?

  I know. Tom Holland's 30. And he said, I don't want to be playing Spider-Man when I'm 30. But I think he, that's another reason why I think he was like, give me the keys and I'll drive the car one more time around the block.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I, um, until the secret worst comes out, right? One, at least one more time, probably. So I think all that is, is, is good. And I was very happy to see that, at least in this trailer, he has the most important things to me in a Spider-Man story, which is, um, personal life anguish and, um, a suit that is not made out of adamantium with a talking AI system embedded in it. That's cool. And also, there's a very, like, long tradition of the, of Spider-Man being the, the gateway character who, like, swings down to the West Village to chat with Doctor Strange, which was the last movie, and now up to Columbia, and Doctor Banner, can you help me with something? And Punisher is in this movie. So all that, super cool. That said, I'm gonna turn it back to you and say, Chris, Spider-Man, brand new day

• 7:49Andy Greenwald?

  trailer, what is this movie about? Challenge. Uh. This is now the third, I think, glimpse of it that we've gotten, and I have no idea what the plot of this movie is.

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  Not unlike House of the Dragon. I feel like I need to refresh my memory about what is going on in this world.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  Do you?

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  So like, as far as I can remember,

• 8:09Chris Ryan?

  both in Doctor Strange in the Mountain of Madness.

• 8:14Andy Greenwald?

  No, but go on.

• 8:15Chris Ryan?

  Mouth Madness.

• 8:17Andy Greenwald?

  Multiverse.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  Multiverse of madness.

• 8:19Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:20Chris Ryan?

  There's like, Spider-Man gets Strange to wipe everybody's memory in the world because he doesn't want to be Spider, known as Spider-Man.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  This was No Way Home. This was.

• 8:28Chris Ryan?

  No Way Home.

• 8:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Chris Ryan?

  And then what happens at the end of Doctor Strange?

• 8:32Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I believe.

• 8:33Chris Ryan?

  Oh, the ramifications of that start to go wrong, right?

• 8:36Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's, it's, the Doctor Strange movie's not relevant. The Doctor Strange, No Way Home was essentially also a Doctor Strange movie.

• 8:43Chris Ryan?

  But Doctor Strange did that, right?

• 8:44Andy Greenwald?

  Doctor Strange did that. This is like, when they're like, who fixed the potholes in New York?

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  Sherlock Holmes made Zendaya. Forget that man. And then she married him.

• 8:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 8:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, I don't really remember what's, like, at stake or what's happening here.

• 9:00Andy Greenwald?

  He felt that the knowledge, because Aunt May, spoiler, died, the, knowing his secret identity was too dangerous, so his best friends, Ned and MJ, had their minds wiped, and they went off to MIT while he remained alone in New York to, to protect the streets.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  I think that they're probably still hiding a bunch of the stuff that is. Like that is going to happen to him in this movie for a variety of reasons. Obviously, you and I've had some fun trying to guess who Sadie Sink is playing.

• 9:28Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think we tried to guess. I think we named names.

• 9:30Chris Ryan?

  Yes, we did say that it's.

• 9:31Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, Van. I'm not afraid. Yeah.

• 9:34Chris Ryan?

  It's Jean Grey. Yeah. Yeah, which would be exciting. Um, it seems like this movie is going to be about The Punisher.

• 9:42Andy Greenwald?

  So this is the truth. This is what I was waiting for. You're acting like I'm not sure if I'm interested.

• 9:46Chris Ryan?

  I didn't say that.

• 9:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's all Bernthal.

• 9:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Andy Greenwald?

  This is Peter Parker, Wayne Jenkins fanfic.

• 9:52Chris Ryan?

  But are they sports washing this dude? Didn't he just kill like 87 people in his special? Like, and now he's just like, I'm here for PG 13 banter with my guy Spidey?

• 10:02Andy Greenwald?

  Let me introduce you to something called comic books. The Punisher that hangs out with Spider-Man is not the same Punisher that Garth Ennis wrote.

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Andy Greenwald?

  Where, yeah, where he like personally executes people after removing their limbs.

• 10:15Chris Ryan?

  Spider-Man Punisher voted for Mumdani?

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Punisher is a Sliwa guy, born and bred.

• 10:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Like, the way we get these rats out of the city, feral cats.

• 10:25Andy Greenwald?

  The only, no, the only thing Punisher doesn't like about Curtis Sliwa is he's soft on cats.

• 10:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, he does not give a shit. You know what? I think that Peter Parker used rank choice correctly. You know, I think he probably, I think Brad Lander may have been his number one.

• 10:38Chris Ryan?

  Ooh.

• 10:39Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but he put Mumdani too, once they endorsed each other, and he's happy with how it. Now, four years ago, I think he voted for Catherine Garcia, who was the sanitation.

• 10:46Chris Ryan?

  No, I remember her. Yeah.

• 10:48Andy Greenwald?

  That's, let's go four years before that. How much time do we have before our Widows Pay interview? Uh, yeah, I mean, I like the fact, I've said this, I think, before, that like, I like when the movies echo that aspect of comic books, that there are PG 13 versions of the characters who do team ups. And then sometimes when they're in their own respective genre stories, it can get a little bit gnarlier. I like that. My thing is, this movie has been presented to us as I primarily, okay, I don't even know primarily. So there's the storyline where he is mutating into some sort of human spider hybrid.

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  Right, because he doesn't need like the.

• 11:21Andy Greenwald?

  He's shooting it out of his wrist like Tobey Maguire again. Uh, there is the version of the movie where he is fighting the hand, the comic book.

• 11:32Andy Greenwald?

  A global ninja crime organization that Frank Miller created in the pages of Daredevil forty years ago.

• 11:37Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 11:38Andy Greenwald?

  I do not know why he's doing that, other than I guess if a global ninja criminal enterprise attacked your city, you would fight them.

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  But sometimes they have like those like, here's gonna be this big villain, but it's like wrapped up in the first fifteen minutes.

• 11:48Andy Greenwald?

  There's, I guess what I'm saying is I cannot, maybe this is gonna be genius. Maybe this is gonna be like Frozen Two, and there is no antagonist, other than what's inside of us. But it is odd that a tentpole movie is not telling you what the story is, other than, boy, Peter's really going through it. That said, all the tracking suggests that this is gonna be the biggest movie of the last three years.

• 12:10Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 12:11Andy Greenwald?

  So maybe it doesn't really matter. But it is interesting that it's going to be a Punisher team-up movie, a Hulk team-up movie, a boy is shooting fluid out of himself in surprising ways movie, and also with a ninja global cabal, and introduce mutants into the Marvel Universe. That's a lot.

• 12:24Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of a boy shooting things out of his body.

• 12:26Andy Greenwald?

  Can't wait.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Did you know that Justin Korytsky has a screenwriting credit on this? And apparently did a full rewrite?

• 12:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 12:32Chris Ryan?

  Challengers, Call Me By Your Name?

• 12:35Andy Greenwald?

  I believe so.

• 12:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So, the original, the, not the original, but Chris McKenna.

• 12:43Chris Ryan?

  Challengers and queer, my bad.

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Chris McKenna and Eric Summer, I think, who had, who had the credit on the, the first three Tom Holland movies, and were praised for the comedic stuff, like they, they brought in a, I guess, a, at least on the page, a more serious, more dramatic screenwriter. How do you feel about that?

• 13:01Chris Ryan?

  I think it's exciting. I think it's cool. I think his like, he obviously knows his way around like some of the psychosexual kind of, like, I'm changing kind of stuff, you know? Uh, I think that, that this is interesting that, you know, he wrote Challengers, and Deas, and obviously in this film, I wonder if there was any like, hey, this guy's really good, we should work with him.

• 13:22Andy Greenwald?

  It's psychosexual transformations?

• 13:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Andy Greenwald?

  What, Chris, what do you want in a Spider-Man movie? You're playing, you're doing the classic.

• 13:28Chris Ryan?

  He's not my guy. I, I'm cheering for everybody. It's like watching two countries I don't care about in the World Cup. I'm just like, I'd like to see some goals, you know? Like, uh.

• 13:38Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, but is it like, you don't care about them like Uzbekistan is playing? Or are you like, oh, Cape Verde, that's cute?

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  Uh, it's more like Cape Verde, that's cute.

• 13:47Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 13:47Chris Ryan?

  Cool story.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I just feel like you're doing your typical, like, you know, DNC sponsored, like, you're going to Iowa kind of thing where you're like, "How great that we have spiders and men." And then you're also, you're like, "Do we have room for Punisher in this? Do we have room for psychosexual transformations? Pick your freak."

• 14:03Chris Ryan?

  I'm a craftsman. I care about a craft, you know? And if, I wanna see, you know, what lessons he learned by making The Odyssey reflected in this movie. I wanna also see-

• 14:13Andy Greenwald?

  I see.

• 14:14Chris Ryan?

  If these superhero movies can change with the changing nature of Hollywood and the changing expectations of audiences.

• 14:21Andy Greenwald?

  Look how reasonable he is. I would, I, you just won my vote back.

• 14:24Chris Ryan?

  I'm, I don't thi, in no way, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is gonna make a gazillion dollars.

• 14:28Andy Greenwald?

  It is.

• 14:28Chris Ryan?

  Like, I'm not concerned trolling it at all. What I am interested in is, I think that there is a whiff of, like, Hollywood realizing that, like, you can put the crap here.

• 14:37Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 14:38Chris Ryan?

  But like, if you're gonna go for, like, the big audiences and you're gonna, you wanna make something a sensation and something that people have a relationship to, like, we have to get back to deepening people's relationships with this, instead of just having it be, "Did you see in the post-credit stinger Charlize Theron's character showed up?" Like, you have to have it mean something more and you have to have it have a little bit more depth. So I'm actually going into this movie with, like, a little bit of a magnifying glass.

• 15:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm really glad I needled you unkindly, because that was a very, very smart summation of where this is, and I think it's a very optimistic take.

• 15:12Chris Ryan?

  And I honestly do think, like, for all the shit we've talked about Avengers, like, they actually have, like, to say nothing of the fact that those are probably gonna be the most expensive movies ever made, once they finally finish shooting them, or writing them, or whatever they're doing. If it's a lot of guys standing in front of green screen, not knowing what scene they're in, or which movie they're in, I think it's gonna, you're gonna be able to tell.

• 15:30Andy Greenwald?

  And not just, not just that, but on top of it, saying, "The only emotion that we were able to, like, wring out of this old piece of laundry is from a previous movie, or from a previous generation's relationship to a non, a no longer, uh, to a mooted franchise."

• 15:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 15:50Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I think that No Way Home, I mean, as you said, Doomsday and Secret Wars will be the test of this, but No Way Home was, I loved it, I thought it was a phenomenal movie emotionally and in terms of spectacle, but it wrung the emotion primarily out of giving Andrew Garfield a send-off for the trilogy he wasn't permitted to finish by Hollywood. That's- That's diminishing returns. So maybe I need to put on my CR glasses as opposed to these glasses.

• 16:17Chris Ryan?

  The AG glasses.

• 16:18Andy Greenwald?

  And say the fact that there is not a clear antagonist with larger ties to Sokovia is potentially a good thing.

• 16:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I mean-

• 16:29Andy Greenwald?

  We got there.

• 16:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Ken Burns's Sokovia coming in 2028.

• 16:33Andy Greenwald?

  Oh my god. Why has no one done that? Wait, why has no one done Ken Burns's Marvel Civil War? Why are we only thinking about this in minute 18 of a-

• 16:43Chris Ryan?

  Can we do the Shokin farewell letter but for a guy who got Sokovia dropped on him?

• 16:49Andy Greenwald?

  The entire-

• 16:49Chris Ryan?

  My dearest Abigail.

• 16:51Andy Greenwald?

  No, then they cut, they're like, "And then there was Quicksilver." And then it cuts to Elizabeth Olsen wiping away a tear and sepia tone.

• 16:58Chris Ryan?

  Where's she? Where's Wanda?

• 17:00Andy Greenwald?

  Where's Wanda?

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  She's in jail now, right?

• 17:03Andy Greenwald?

  The character?

• 17:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Andy Greenwald?

  No, I think the character's in jail. I think Elizabeth Olsen pulled the Scarlett Johansson ripcord, which is just like, "Fuck y'all, I'm done."

• 17:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, she's not gonna be in these new ones?

• 17:13Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, everybody has a price, man.

• 17:17Chris Ryan?

  We'll put a pin in Spider-Man. I want to talk to you about the finale of Widows Bay before we bring Hero and Katie on.

• 17:21Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 17:21Chris Ryan?

  We wrap up with Greenwald's agenda fully proven correct.

• 17:25Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you. I doubted my own prognostication.

• 17:28Chris Ryan?

  Raiders of the Widows Bay Reddit, Andy Greenwald is the Indiana Jones of that, and he figured out that Evan was not in the clear. That he was still gonna be part of the lineage of-

• 17:40Andy Greenwald?

  No, I never said that.

• 17:41Chris Ryan?

  You didn't?

• 17:42Andy Greenwald?

  No, I said, after, first of all, thank you for my hero's journey.

• 17:47Chris Ryan?

  I thought you texted me and were like, "I was right."

• 17:49Andy Greenwald?

  I was right, but I stopped believing I was right, which is a sign of a good show. Like, I had laid out the evidence coming from the flashback episode that the inevitable last descendant of this curse, inheritor of the curse, would be Evan. And then there was the misdirect towards-

• 18:09Chris Ryan?

  Ruth.

• 18:10Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you.

• 18:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, go to that saying that this is spoilers for Widows Bay and the finale, I guess we could put that-

• 18:14Andy Greenwald?

  But thank you for beginning where all these things should begin, which is me proving myself right.

• 18:18Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this. First of all, did you ever expect when you were watching, say, episode four or episode five of this show, that you would find yourself in such an excruciating, dramatically tense moment as Tom trying to decide whether or not to kill Ruth, his kindly, if absent-minded assistant, who apparently has incredibly rich life outside of the office?

• 18:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:47Chris Ryan?

  Because he thinks that she is the last line of the descendant of the colonial era or pilgrim era.

• 18:55Andy Greenwald?

  We have to, I mean, I think one thing, and people hopefully will stick around and listen to our interview with Hero and Katie, it is kind of sometimes a check on us because I was prepared to come in here today and talk about, and I will talk about the brilliance of the show, but I also love to celebrate the moments of what feel like very, very clever, very, very thoughtful foresight, that you build a character like Ruth into the margins of the show as comedic relief, as texture, as someone you're happy to see, as a joke you're happy to return to, but in no way are you expecting that the actor who plays her will carry one half of one of the most dramatic sequences on television this year.

• 19:40Andy Greenwald?

  Talking to Hero and Katie, one gets the sense that they are of the Vince Gilligan school, Katie especially of like, whoops, we painted ourselves into a hell of a corner here, how are we going to pull it off? There's probably a TED Talk to be given about how genius can come from crises like that, but to answer your question more directly, no. And the fact that the show can at once bear the weight of such intense moral, such an intense moral dilemma and decision-making and have you feel it, and have it also have these other strands that are so central to the show, like how we misplace, how we confuse work for family and how we take advantage of both in all the wrong ways, and then sometimes we all end up being family.

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  And then there's life lessons from a haunted island about how life's always kind of hard and you just got to do your best and help a woman down off of the porch and then back up again every day. This is maybe good for a wailing town, but I just think the best TV shows are load-bearing vessels. And the fact that this series expanded its potential for this episode blew me away.

• 20:48Chris Ryan?

  So that's a really good segue into the other element of this episode that I thought was fascinating, which is obviously it was Jeff Hiller's character Dale coming across this film strip, which suggests a underground society slash cult slash, we will find out in season two, the show has been renewed to nobody's surprise, of ritual sacrifice of an almost like practical kind of relationship with the demonic forces of the island and that there's this relationship between the church bells and how many people need to be sacrificed for whatever is living in the sub-sub-basement of the town hall building.

• 21:30Andy Greenwald?

  Just off of the electric chair.

• 21:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And first of all, like this is, you know, if you've been watching television for a long time, this is like finding the hatch. This is like a move you can pull late in a season to be like, there's another level to the game, you know? I thought that that was really well handled. I was curious whether or not the show's deviating somewhat, or like the late period, the late season of the show deviated very fully from monster of the week and in fact, started to do a dalliance with we are the actual monsters, because what if you put us all in a storm shelter and, you know, what if you ask us if we're choosing to choose to solve the trolley question that Tom is talking about?

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  It's a classic writers' room conversation that just went into the show.

• 22:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I thought that was brilliant. I'm so excited for season two because of this, but there-

• 22:28Chris Ryan?

  There is this funny thing where like, when this season was in mid-flight and it was like, this week it's a Seahag coming out of the fog, next week it is a self-help book that is actually a book of spells. There was just like this like delight of like never knowing where it was going. I don't really want to answer any questions about this show.

• 22:51Andy Greenwald?

  That's how I feel. I think I, even though there was more lore in this final episode than I would have expected, I remain delighted and honestly unmoved by a lot of it. Not unmoved in like, it's not working for me, in that that's just not how I'm watching the show.

• 23:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Andy Greenwald?

  And the more things they tell me, the more excited I am about it. I think, again, there's just some, however modest Katie is about the planning and execution of the show, there was a deep level of thinking that went into some decisions that could just really bedevil a long-running series. And they range from, you know, cellphones don't work. Okay, we took care of that. To what is the actual population here versus how many people are visiting and what is the relationship to the outside world and how can we keep this going? And one of the smartest things was this idea that was suggested in the pilot and then brought back in the finale, which is that the island goes through these moods, or these cycles. And during these cycles,

• 23:50Andy Greenwald?

  crazy things happen. That gives them such credibility, because if these things were happening 24/7, no one would live there.

• 23:59Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 23:59Andy Greenwald?

  No one would visit. There wouldn't even be the chance to make the argument that people should live there. So it also, though, buys them time. It buys them time to retrench, think about what's going to happen next, the characters react to it, and then dive back in and have things start to wake up again. And potentially, they wake up again with other delightful and funny horror movie tropes haunting them for an episode or not.

• 24:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Andy Greenwald?

  But I think the other template that the season gave us that is so smart is that every one of those tropes and every one of those hauntings is going to be inexorably tied to a character's emotional life or their history. And so we have a way to continue to be interested in it without it feeling like a stunt.

• 24:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's also like so much room for expansion on this show. And I don't know whether or not... The core audience is going to be happy to hear that, but like you could obviously have new boatloads of people arriving during calmer times. You could have a real estate developer who comes and decides this is great oceanfront property. You could have somebody wants to build a golf course, what have you. You know, that worked very well for Yellowstone.

• 25:03Andy Greenwald?

  And the first part of what you're saying reminded me of like the second season of Your Friends and Neighbors where James Marsden shows up and moves in next door.

• 25:12Chris Ryan?

  Well, this is the thing is that I think I have sometimes a little bit of a, I was talking yesterday with, with a couple of people about Breaking Bad and I was like, there's, there was really like at least three different shows. You know, it's like the-

• 25:21Andy Greenwald?

  At the same time or over the course of its run?

• 25:23Chris Ryan?

  No, over the course of this series where it starts out and it's this black comedy about a guy who's got the worst news of his life and decides to become a master criminal. Then there is a fish out of water show of like this guy who's never been part of a criminal underworld slowly becoming more and more adept at it. And then there is the crime epic that is basically on like godfather level that concludes the show. I'll be curious to see whether Widows Bay in three years, we look back and remember, and we're like, remember first version of Widows Bay that was like monster of the week?

• 25:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Chris Ryan?

  And now it's, but now it's about this or that or the other thing.

• 25:58Andy Greenwald?

  I think that what's promising, I mean, there's a lot of things that are promising. One is, and you, you guys will hear this in the interview, I don't think, I think Katie wants to keep making the show, obviously, but I don't think she feels any great burden to like stretch this out, you know, that she has a story to tell and will have as much fun as possible doing it, but it won't necessarily move through eras in that way. I think the other thing is that it, there's a lot of room for it to be about a community, not just one man. And even if it is, if it, even if the focus ultimately does land on, on Matthew Reese's character, on Tom Loftus, it is about his relationship with his son. His son who is now the inheritor of a great and ancient satanic evil living underneath the island.

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  Did you get the impression that he knew that at the end of the episode in the final shot?

• 26:47Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I don't get, it's a good question. I didn't get the impression that he knew, but I did get the impression that he was now suddenly- More than aware of.

• 26:56Chris Ryan?

  He wasn't like, when can we go to the Red Sox?

• 26:58Andy Greenwald?

  There's something here that I have now witnessed, that I am now connected to, even though I don't understand that it is a part of me. I'm so excited about this show. It is such a joy. It was such a gift. And it is such, it's such a, when we talk about this in our interview, but the specificity of it, you know, to be able, not just to have a exciting new show to look forward to when it, when it returns in a year, a year and a half, but this show in this place with these actors and whatever is lurking around the corner, be it a monster of the week or a character actor that Alison Jones has drug out of the, dug out of the most perfect obscurity and brought back in front of us.

• 27:37Chris Ryan?

  I was talking with Sean yesterday about the-

• 27:40Andy Greenwald?

  Your Spider-Man friend?

• 27:41Chris Ryan?

  No, it was about his addition of projections. It just went up today. And we were talking a little bit about like where movies are at and what are some of the new, you know, rules of movie, of movie making and movie going in the movie industry. And I definitely think I have a little bit of, I'm always thinking about the relationship between television and movies. For, those things can be very fluid, but like right now, I obviously think that between obsession and Backroom, Spider-Man, Odyssey, the way people are talking about the movies, the way people are going to films, that there's a centrality of it in the culture, like that-

• 28:15Andy Greenwald?

  Disclosure Day.

• 28:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Disclosure Day, big hit, but also very divisive, you know, and in a way that I've really enjoyed some of the conversations I've ever heard about it.

• 28:24Chris Ryan?

  And I, I think it's led me to wonder about like what TV can be and what TV should be in that, in that world and that reality. I think you and I have lived through some really like plum days of like, even if only X amount of million people are watching Succession, it feels like all of them want to talk about Succession all the time. And as TV has tried to become bigger and bigger and bigger and consume more and more and more of our time, I wonder sometimes whether like we've lost certain, just known knowns of like how to make it and what people like about it.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 28:59Chris Ryan?

  And hearing Katie and Hero talk about it, where it was like, it wasn't like, what we were trying to do was make hereditary meets this, or you know, like this very kind of like- Almost a antiseptic or scientific way of like, it's a pitch. It was like, no, the script was something that she had lived with for a really long time. She'd obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this world. And then she and Hero were like, let's make a place that people want to come back to for two and a half months? That's like, that's all you gotta do. Like, and it's way easier said than done, but if you want to know like what TV should be or what TV can be, it's not necessarily like, what do we not get out of presumed innocent the first time? It's like, let's make a fucking world that people want to hang out in for three months.

• 29:41Andy Greenwald?

  Which is really hard.

• 29:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Andy Greenwald?

  But you have to give people creative space and oxygen to, to give them a chance to accomplish that. And it's such an important point that you're making, and it's such a necessary point at this moment, when the, the companies who own all of the, the purse strings are algorithmically inclined, whether because they are essentially tech companies who have taken on this other piece of business to monetize and exploit, or because every, even the traditional studios that remain are now tethered to this streaming model where they have almost too much data to pour over as if it contains some sort of clue like goose entrails in the year 1200 B.C. That's not how stuff happens. In film and in TV, good stuff never comes from trying to predict the future or predict

• 30:28Andy Greenwald?

  the weather. But I also have to take a moment, I think people who listen to the interview will hear this as well, to call myself out on it, because I think that, as, as I did a moment ago with like, the planning for Ruth, like, I, I take comfort, in the same way like I like a really accurate weather forecast, in the idea that, well, because Katie is so good at what she does and had such a vision, and Hero is such a genius at making high, high level television, that they walked into every meeting confident and walked out confident, and everyone understood because they always knew what they were doing. No writer, and I would imagine, well, no, some directors think they always know what they're doing, but very few creative people have that kind of confidence day to day.

• 31:09Andy Greenwald?

  But more importantly, that kind of confidence is kind of antiseptic and anti-art because it disallows other people's ability to contribute. So the writers that Katie assembled saying, "Well, actually, I think, as she says, Bashir should come in and kill or shoot Ruth, and what's that gonna do for our story?" Or Hiro talks about the set deck team and what they did in Ruth's house, which is so memorable, even in its one episode that it appears in. You have to have that uncertainty. What we take as confident, authorial, artistic voice is often the product of that weird alchemy of complete anxiety and terror and creative inspiration when you need it most.

• 31:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good place for us to segue into our interview with Katie Dippold, the creator of What Does Bay and Hiro Murai, who directed four of the episodes for the first season. Andy and I will be back on Monday to talk about House of the Dragon and Star City and whatever else happens over the weekend. Hope everybody enjoys USMNT Soccer Ruse tomorrow. Me and Adam Freedland will be going on after the game.

• 32:16Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you're gonna go on, you're gonna react?

• 32:17Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if we're gonna go live-live, but, you know.

• 32:20Andy Greenwald?

  How is your Australian accent? That is a hard one to do. Do you think you can?

• 32:25Chris Ryan?

  Do you know what? I don't even know if it's gonna come up, honestly.

• 32:29Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, because you think we won't even be talking about the Soccer Ruse? Don't provoke them.

• 32:33Chris Ryan?

  No, no, no, no, I did not mean it that way. I just mean, like, you know, what Adam and I are doing kind of-

• 32:37Andy Greenwald?

  Transcends-

• 32:38Chris Ryan?

  ...exists in a world beyond impersonation.

• 32:40Andy Greenwald?

  Look at me trying to drag you back down to earth.

• 32:44Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kaia and Kai for producing. We will be back on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend.

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• 33:49Chris Ryan?

  Katie and Hero, thank you so much for joining us on The Watch. We've loved the first season of Widows Bay, obviously, as we've talked about it incessantly. And we can't wait to talk to you about making it and what's the future for the show. Andy, I think you're going to lead us off.

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  I am, but I also want to say that I'm especially excited that we're getting you, Katie, here with the energy of having just come from the Jersey Shore and drinking what might be your first coffee in years.

• 34:11Speaker 06

  It is my first coffee in a very long time, and we're going to see how it goes.

• 34:15Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's going to be great.

• 34:16Speaker 06

  How I sound right now is going to be very different in 30 minutes.

• 34:20Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like we should just let you cook for a second, marinate, and then... Okay, so we have many questions about the brilliant finale and the brilliant first season, but I feel like we need from you, Katie, the definitive origin story of this script, because there are... I think you've talked about it a little bit, but the sense was that this was generated years ago. Maybe even this was a script in some form that got you hired on Parks and Rec. Is that true? Can you confirm or deny?

• 34:42Speaker 06

  Okay, so yes, I was 28, and I wrote it as a sample for Parks and Recreation. But it was different then. It was much more comedic, much more joke, joke, joke, and I think it gave Mike Schur an idea of my humor, so it got me that job. But it was quite different than what you see now.

• 35:00Andy Greenwald?

  I think that for many of us, the scariest thing imaginable isn't necessarily...

• 35:03Chris Ryan?

  Sarah Lee, a sea hag, it's looking at creative writing we did over a decade ago. So can you just talk a little bit about why you continued to return to this idea? And how did your professional experiences since the Parks and Rec job shape what it became?

• 35:16Speaker 06

  That's actually a great point, because I don't like looking back at old stuff either. It's actually a horrible experience. I don't even like looking back at stuff that's been made. I have a hard time. You know what I mean?

• 35:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 06

  But I just kept tooling away at this, so it's like something that never fully went away. Because I have to always thinking about it. And I don't know.

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  Like it was always a draft in progress, kind of?

• 35:38Speaker 06

  Exactly. It was my version. It was like my version of a novel.

• 35:41Chris Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 35:41Speaker 06

  You know?

• 35:42Chris Ryan?

  I got one of those too. Page 41.

• 35:47Speaker 06

  But so I would just always just bring notebooks. And especially when I was traveling east, I would just brainstorm what this place could be like and what kind of things could happen there and the different characters. And I just kept at it forever. I just never wanted to stop thinking about it.

• 36:02Chris Ryan?

  Had you thought about it in terms, in like the visual terms, with the rich way it was realized in this Apple TV version of the show? Had you started to think about it visually before you started talking to Hero about it? Had there been, like, was there a look for the show in your mind when you were even in those early days of creativity with it?

• 36:21Speaker 06

  So, okay, the very first version, there is a moment in time after a couple of years at Parks where I started shopping it around. And we almost, well, there was going to be an offer, but I put a pin in it because I just had this very bad feeling it was not the right time, that I had not thought about it enough, or what it would really feel like, and what it would look like, and what this world was going to be like. And so that's when I kept working on it. And I remember watching Atlanta, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. And I love just that cinematic half hour television. It's so special. And all the different swings they would take. And it was so rich and so much texture to it.

• 37:01Speaker 06

  And so as I kept working on it, I always thought Hero was the dream director for it. I never thought in a booing years I would get him to do it. That's also still hilarious to me. He said yes, because it just seems like a crazy move, honestly.

• 37:17Speaker 06

  But so I would, it was very inspiring to me. And TV just started changing. And so I wanted this to feel like a place that you would want to go to. And that would bring a certain kind of look. And I wanted it to feel grounded. And so I didn't know exactly what he was going to do. You know, he's a brilliant director that makes all sorts of surprising choices. But we talked a great deal about how we wanted it to feel.

• 37:42Chris Ryan?

  I think one of the first things you said was like, you know, obviously it's got the joke density and the world blinding, all that stuff. But you're just like, I just want to be in this place drinking a coffee in a diner. And the feeling of being there was like so specific. And you just, you knew what you wanted there, you know? And I think in a way for a TV show, the feel, how it feels to be in that world is kind of the most important part. And I'm like, it can be funny, but if it's not a place you want to return to, then you got nothing, you know? Is there a magic trick to doing that? Is there like a thing that you've done maybe over the course of a couple of series that you feel like there's a question I want to answer? Or there's like a, something I want to execute, whether it's something about the depth of

• 38:27Chris Ryan?

  production design and set dressing, or you know, whether it's location scouting. But I'm always curious about like, what's the thing that's repeatable? I think it just accumulates. I mean, I think big part of shooting in Massachusetts was that there's just the quality to that part of the country that we just couldn't get anywhere else. And like trying to fake it in Canada felt bad.

• 38:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:44Chris Ryan?

  You know, and then, and then I think the other part is just character dynamics and like what it feels like to sit in a room with these characters just felt like the leading thing for the show. And that part, I always felt like you had a really distinct idea of how it should feel.

• 39:01Speaker 06

  I feel like one time I always, there's one joke in the pilot that we talked about a lot because I think Hero always liked it. But it was also grappling with how does that fitness roll, which is the calendar joke. And in the original.

• 39:15Chris Ryan?

  In the pilot.

• 39:16Speaker 06

  Yes, because we really like thought long and hard about all these little choices. And, and so like the calendar joke originally was a wolf, he's flipping through and he's wolf, wolf, wolf. And then it shows a sexy fireman with his shirt off. And he looks at the top and it says wolves and firemen. So like that calendar was specifically made to be wolves and firemen, which I actually think is a funnier. Broader joke. Uh huh. It's a bigger joke. Um, and then, so I think you liked the swing, but we think, but like, what is, how does that fit in this scene? Like where this man is coming in and he has, you know, he's determined to do this thing and he's dealing with Patricia and he's doing all these things. But so then I changed it to just a random flipped over truck. That's not explained why that's an encounter.

• 40:00Speaker 06

  So it became a different kind of joke, but I think it felt better to us.

• 40:03Chris Ryan?

  And then my reaction was like.

• 40:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's, it's so interesting because here, your point is so well taken about how the nature, the intimate nature of TV means we want to spend time there as audience members. But specifically with a project like this, the characters also have to get coffee there and have to live there in between the action. And so much of this project, I would imagine, has been, was it like a relay race of, of communicating tone. Until you have the proof of concept and you've shot the pilot, no one can truly understand what it is. Right? So could you talk us through a little bit of those conversations before we get into the more specifics of the show? Like Katie, we heard about you talking to Hero and then once you two are together, what do you say to the production designer? What do you say to the executives at Apple? What do you say to Matthew Reese when he comes in to meet with you?

• 40:51Andy Greenwald?

  How do you communicate what at that moment only exists in your burgeoning shared consciousness to get them to buy in?

• 40:58Speaker 06

  You should talk, you have a very smart way of talking to the actors about treating it like a drama, you know?

• 41:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, I mean, it's all kind of a guess, to be totally honest. Right? Because we were just kind of building the plane as we're flying it.

• 41:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Chris Ryan?

  You know, and so I think there's a little bit of pretending like you know what it is. You know, so people listen to you.

• 41:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Chris Ryan?

  But I think the first thing we talked about is like, you know, when I read the pilot, it was like so funny. And it was, it was clear that it was a world that Katie's been thinking about for a really long time. You know? But, but I was just like, I wasn't quite sure how to kind of tackle it. And Katie was the one who was just like. I just wanted to feel like a real place. You know, so like the authenticity and like reality of these characters, as absurd as some of them are, was the most important thing, right? And so that made me go, okay, then let's just play it real, right? And so, you know, obviously there's things that are heightened or like anachronistic or a little strange, but like I think building the like internal logic and reality of this world became the most important thing.

• 42:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:01Chris Ryan?

  I think.

• 42:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, which is also hard because when you're grounded, because we wanted it to be grounded. So when you do have tension or something terrifying happen, you can't, you'll lose everything if you do a joke where someone's not taking it seriously.

• 42:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:17Speaker 06

  Like I was always wanting to avoid something terrifying happening and someone, a character being, well, that happened. But it's like you have to spend every moment like, oh no, what would they do? Like, how would they react to this? And it's also hard for the actors because I don't know what they're drawing on from life. You know? I hope not much. So it was, it was honestly, it was a, it was a tricky thing because I also think, um, and then in terms of the executives, it's a definitely a lot of projecting confidence. But I do think we were very confident about the feeling we wanted. It was just how to get there was constant question, like just constantly.

• 42:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 06

  Reflection and does this feel good? Does this feel bad? And just doing that the entire time.

• 43:02Chris Ryan?

  I, I do, you can feel the fact that especially in those early episodes, when there's still some like town hall office business going on, that, that none of the people in that, in those scenes think they're in like a sitcom. Like they're not like, I, this is my bit that I always do when I come into the office. Like it's, all the comedy is very much like a product of day to day interaction over like tasks that they have to solve. So you, you guys were telling the actors that pretend you're in a drama, but there is comic things happening, obviously. Like what was the sort of, like the way that you led that ensemble? I mean, some of it is just casting, like, you know, some.

• 43:39Andy Greenwald?

  Let's start casting.

• 43:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like the people we got for it are, is, is just like the Avengers of character actors. Like the, you know, these guys know how to play the absurd seriously. Like that's kind of their whole thing. And we were fortunate that like a lot of the people also have really good comedic timing, you know?

• 43:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:57Chris Ryan?

  And so even when they're playing it real.

• 43:59Speaker 06

  They know how to kind of like dodge and weave around the punchline or like play it up or play it down.

• 44:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 06

  And so, yeah, it was just kind of like getting them all in the pen together and seeing what happens a little bit. And I just saw an article of Stephen in the Rolling Stone where he's talking about how comedy you always play it straight. And I love that and that's what's so funny about him. But I think to give him more credit, he's also on top of being a great actor, playing it straight, he's also one of the funniest people in the entire world. Do you know what I mean? He's a comedic genius. So like having people who are great actors that will play it straight, they'll never sell, try to sell for a joke, they're not going to be hammy, but they are also all very naturally funny people.

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I was going to ask if the casting, like wishlist for Wick began with Stephen and ended with Oot. Like, could you ever have imagined anyone else in this part? Or did he just take it over and run with it?

• 44:51Speaker 06

  God, I mean, he's like the best person at toeing both lines. Like, he's, he just, he's so perfect for it. To be honest, I didn't have anyone, any one actor in mind for any of the parts, but when he said he was willing to do it, it was like, that is wonderful news.

• 45:09Chris Ryan?

  I know Colin Farrell was up for it, but he wanted to do the penguin suit. So, yeah. He's like, do I get to wear prosthetics?

• 45:16Andy Greenwald?

  One thing I think you guys have said that you've heard us talk about is like that some of the Parks and Rec DNA that may have existed in the show. And I always think about the way that Mike Schur, over Parks and Rec and in Good Place, really brought some of the propulsive, contemporary serialized storytelling into the half hour and comedic space. And you can actually say with a straight face that I, you can see that he is a big fan of The Wire when you watch Parks and Rec, even though I would say tonally they're slightly different. Katie, can you talk about how you learned that and then how you applied it here? Because I think that one of the genius things about this season is that you are telling a big story in a cinematic way, but you paste it so beautifully so that you can enjoy the

• 45:59Andy Greenwald?

  fun, you can enjoy it episodically along the way. There were two moments that really stuck out to me. The first is like the pilot, oh my God, we are going to be in hell for 10 episodes. And then the tourists come. And you kind of take a breath and you exhale. And then the other one was just the decision to split 103 and 104 into almost individual perspective episodes that allowed you to tell story happening concurrently that didn't sap from the overall momentum. Like, this is like, high-level breaking, like, room-breaking stuff, but I just thought it was so impressive.

• 46:29Speaker 06

  Oh, that's very nice to hear. Some of those decisions were, having not done it before, not realizing how hard it would be.

• 46:38Speaker 06

  So, like, for example, we had already broken episode three with the hag, and we, and then a writer had pitched that Patricia finds this health book. And we started going on about, you know, our emotional fears of rejection and status, and so what if she tries to throw this party? And then somehow in the room, it came, what if these are happening on the same day? Now, why we decided to add that complicated layer to it, I don't know, but it seemed fun at the time. But it was, it made a challenge.

• 47:09Andy Greenwald?

  That's what Vince Gillian says, that's how he plots, too. And then he just lives in regret.

• 47:14Andy Greenwald?

  But it's a good, it's a good exercise.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  But for the parks of it, you know, I, it's, it was such a great room there, and I always, the things I love the most about this show, or something that, I love a good throwaway joke that can come back later in a more meaningful way. And in this show, that can come back in a really terrifying way, you know, not even as a joke. I also loved the world-building in Parks and Rec, you know, I, so, all those are just in my bones now, and so that was, it was fun to take what I learned there and use it, whether it was for comedy or just lore intention.

• 47:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, I'm glad you mentioned lore, because that's, it's kind of become a catch term recently. I mean, I know that, like, I've had lots of conversations with people about backrooms and obsession regarding, like, whether or not, like, you know, are these stories that can be solved, essentially, and that, like, you're going through these puzzle pieces? And I was curious about, like, The or how it feels to like organically write something that also has a clear undergirding of like this is the actual history of the island. This is I know where this is going in a season or two or whatever the case may be versus also keeping it lively and playful and allowing you know moments for where someone can be like what if Patricia found a self-help book?

• 48:30Chris Ryan?

  I guess you can kind of divide those things into into two spaces like there's the everyday life stuff that happens and then there is the well, these are the planks of Widows Bay's history that we know we may reference at some point and the monsters that are out there. But how much did you guys talk about, you know, what has happened on this island and what what is coming for this island?

• 48:53Speaker 06

  I'd say the first four weeks, we spent time thinking about both things. We would think about what would be fun to do, like what would be a fun episode, like him going to, you know, an inn to prove it's not haunted seemed like a fun thing to do. But then also we equally spent time thinking about the history of the island and we really tried to come up with a history that felt very real. So because I think when the absurd moments pop out, it's even funnier more. A lot of the show is wait, what?

• 49:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 06

  You know? Which I think is also what Hero is so good at where it's never too much in your face or too it's it's just sort of like you can blink and miss it, you know, and you just sort of catch those moments. So we talked about both and then it was just sort of an organic process of, okay, what feels right now like, oh, I just want this to feel like a monster of the week episode. I just want this to be fun. And then like, okay, now we have to get a little bit more into the story and get a little emotional hair. I said that like I'm mad at it.

• 49:52Chris Ryan?

  We're dragging.

• 49:55Speaker 06

  But um, so and it's interesting like seeing the reactions because we are trying to do a couple of different things and I've seen people that. Have loved the Monster of the Week episodes. And then when it gets into more lore, they're like, no. The X-Files dilemma.

• 50:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think we all kind of like long for, I want 20 episodes of, of just like, what am I getting this week? Kind of.

• 50:16Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 50:17Chris Ryan?

  And, and that's, I think it's more of like a nostalgia for a kind of TV that you feel for three weeks when you're watching Widows Bay. And then you're like, okay, cool. Like now we have to figure out whether or not Ruth is Evan's grandmother or whatever. Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 06

  I really was hoping to do, get all of it if possible, because I really wanted, I, I, I'm a lunatic. So I'll go to sleep watching a horror movie. Like I will just put on like, you know, The Exorcist or something and fall asleep happily. But I like, um, I'm also a very anxious comedy writer, but, um, I feel like I wanted it to feel like someone can go to bed and be like, oh, I want to put on the in episode. So there's enough standalone. So you can just put something on and enjoy it for itself, you know? But still I know myself, I only, I want to watch a show where that's more serialized, that there's a bigger story and that we're answering questions. So that was why we tried to do both.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's something kind of like, like old TV about the way we built it that I think is really refreshing.

• 51:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  You know, one thing I wanted to say is a, as a, as like a side, side anecdote is that whenever I would go into Katie's production office when we were shooting, she'd be like, you know, very seriously typing on her computer. And then on the TV on the wall, there would be, I guess like a YouTube screensaver kind of thing of like a silhouette of a man standing in the woods with like spooky wind sounds. And I'm just like, what's happening in here?

• 51:42Speaker 06

  That's like one of the easier ones. That's, that's one of the lighter ones. There's one at Halloween. There's just these videos, background videos.

• 51:48Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I'm very familiar.

• 51:50Speaker 06

  Yes. I try and get them to make one for the show. Um, but, uh, there's one that it's just a house in Haddonfield. But, um, every now and then Michael Myers comes by just like carrying this dead body. And it's so upsetting when that happens. So sometimes someone would come in my office and I'm like, oh, I hope he doesn't come by because this would be an inappropriate thing to happen.

• 52:12Chris Ryan?

  It's weird enough that I'm watching Halloween vibes videos that are three hours long.

• 52:18Speaker 06

  Let's try to get this conversation under three minutes before I know he shows up.

• 52:21Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to delve into the psychological root of this, but I also want the coffee to peak. So I'm going to ask you a question while that cooks a little bit longer. The way you guys were just talking about like old fashioned TV comfort and new fashion TV ambition. I did want to talk about on the directorial side, like here, you know, that like there is a, there's been a move towards the auteur theory where like a director will direct a series like it is a movie. The thing that you guys pulled off this season that I was incredibly blown away by was four directors directed the season. There is no massive tonal shift or drop off in quality between any of them.

• 53:01Andy Greenwald?

  People brought their own sensibilities and points of view and quirks, no doubt, but like that is such a veteran move. Like we used to watch television and multiple people would direct it, but it would still feel like it was coming from a collective voice. How, how did you handle that? How did you manage to pull that off? I think it's just two parts of that. I think part of it is just in the writing. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think because I assume because so much of us lived it in your head for so long. There's like, I've never read a pilot and been like, oh, I know this is like this, I know this whole world. You know, a lot of times you read a pilot and you go, oh, it's just, they just wrote this hoping that somebody will tell them to go write a second one or a third one. This one just felt like a fully fleshed kind of world.

• 53:43Andy Greenwald?

  And so, you know, I, I think what's magical about that is that you, there's already boundaries. There's already kind of things to play with. And so even if you got someone who, you know, didn't direct the last block to come in, they're still kind of playing with like pieces that are speaking to each other and it has its own sort of rules that are a little more stable than, you know, you can't direct it off the rail, I don't think. Right. You know, I've been working with the same sort of DP and edit crew for a really long time. You know, all the guys who did Atlantic came back for this. Christian Springer. Yeah, Christian and our secondary DP Cody, Jake, was our, was our key gaffer when we first started. And so I think there's like an understanding and like a mutual language and obviously the directors come in. And then put their own vision to it, but there's also kind of this like, you know,

• 54:28Andy Greenwald?

  like a mutual understanding of taste among all the crew. And so I think that keeps it a little consistent. One of the directors is Andrew DeYoung, who did Friendship last year, which is one of my favorite movies. And there are elements that you could see, like the work that he does with Tim Robinson, which is incredibly funny and also kind of horrific at times. It's just like, it's almost like there's a fader and you could go in either direction. Katie, what is this connection that I have to be honest with you, I had never personally pursued or experienced between the hysterics of comedy and the hysteria of horror?

• 54:57Speaker 06

  I'm a weird one to ask because I find both very delightful. Like I'm not, you know what I mean?

• 55:03Andy Greenwald?

  You're the only one to ask.

• 55:06Speaker 06

  Now, don't ask me. I just think that I've always found horror very fun. Not, I mean, like, I mean, I love Hereditary. I wouldn't say that was a fun time. I felt like I just, you know.

• 55:17Andy Greenwald?

  I went to Wikipedia.

• 55:20Speaker 06

  But I mean, I loved that movie. It's masterful. But I really, it's just anticipation and, you know, building tension and then payoff. I find it to be very similar. Like I, you know, in the movies when, I love when something scary happens and people scream, someone screams and then everyone collectively laughs. There's a similar release that, that taps into, as an anxious person, it's being able to watch the other shoe drop, you know? But yeah, Andy, I do think, I love when people with backgrounds in comedy do horror. It's like the Jordan Peele thing or Zach Craig or, I think there's a reason it can

• 56:00Speaker 06

  work really well. And Andy's so funny. He's so lovely. I remember on set, I remember I went up to him with a note. I was just like, can you just, just, I said, can you, just so I could sleep at night? Do you think you could do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And he was like, it's just so you sleep at, you say that with every note. I didn't realize how often I've been using that, just so I can sleep at night.

• 56:23Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe that's a deeper issue.

• 56:26Speaker 06

  I was like, okay.

• 56:27Chris Ryan?

  I, I think that Your Baggage episode is a really good example, though, where it's made, obviously, from such a loving place of scenarios like that, of Slasher and, and, you know, like Halloween and Friday the 13th and. And it's really funny, but it's never like a satire of it. It's kind of, it's like right on this line of like, no, she's running in UG boots. And, you know, this is an apparition slash like, you know, undead, you know, demon following her. But it never feels like you're like doing scary movie or something like that. Or you're like lampooning the fact that like, oh, isn't it funny that like, sometimes like these things walk, but they always catch up to the, to the victim.

• 57:09Chris Ryan?

  And I was curious whether or not you guys spent much time talking about horror movie touchstones in terms of things that you wanted to reference, or whether it was kind of putting aside all of those references and trying to like live this stuff in a much more organic way.

• 57:24Speaker 06

  I mean, I think Andy just got it. Like, you know, he knew, we all love Halloween and all those slash movies, but especially Halloween. And so I think he just understood it. And so, you know, we would talk more about the character and, and I, we had a conversation about tone and, you know, not wanting the scary, to feel silly. But that, I would say, your baggage or old baggage, I should know the names of the episodes of the show.

• 57:53Chris Ryan?

  I don't either.

• 57:54Speaker 06

  But I feel like eight was the closest to kind of pushing it, like just in script. Like it was, I usually am like really strict about like this scary can never feel silly. And that one was toeing the line a little more, you know, that I would usually like, but it just felt like we weren't going to redo the genre that's been done. We weren't going to come up with this brand new horror element to that franchise. So we might as well have fun of it. And the fun is this 40 year old woman running around the neighborhood, trying to get people to see that this boogeyman is stalking her.

• 58:31Andy Greenwald?

  I want to ask about, about Matthew Reese as a collaborator. He is, as a former guest on this podcast, we can attest that he is one of the most delightful people we've ever met in person and is like a true Swiss Army knife of abilities because he can be the funniest person and he can be the most emotionally vulnerable actor alive. Going through the season with him, writing and directing. What was the collaboration like in terms of keeping him anchored to where Tom needed to be as both the protagonist, as both in many ways, like the audience surrogate of like, I don't think something bad is happening here.

• 59:04Andy Greenwald?

  What did he need to stay grounded in a character that that needed to play so many different notes throughout the course of the season?

• 59:12Speaker 06

  I mean, I don't think he needed a lot.

• 59:15Chris Ryan?

  He's just married so good.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  He's just really good at acting. He's a really good actor.

• 59:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, honestly, like, I feel like he had like a couple of questions, you know?

• 59:24Andy Greenwald?

  When's lunch?

• 59:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Could I ride a horse this season?

• 59:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, I feel like there was some discussion on his backstory and there was like a couple of like logic things he asked that I was like, god damn it, he's right, and then fixed, you know, but like, but other than that, I mean, he really is just a very good actor.

• 59:40Chris Ryan?

  He's just very good, and and I think he's also just a very naturally funny person, and maybe he hasn't had a chance to play with that as much. And so he was excited at the the prospect.

• 59:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 59:51Chris Ryan?

  And I think when we first started talking, we all kind of, you know, we zoomed together and I only known him as, you know, Perry Mason and and American, so I was expecting like a very deadly, serious, somber man. And he was just a joy, you know, as you as you met. And I think we just all kind of agreed that like, okay, the way to approach this is going to be find the real emotional kind of truth of it all. And then all the comedy and horror stuff can sit on top of it. And after that, he was just like, okay, I understand. And we just kind of got through a whole season.

• 1:00:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  I'm just putting him through all these crazy scenarios and him finding the reality inside of it.

• 1:00:32Speaker 06

  That was like, the cast was like the easiest part. Do you know what I mean? They're just, it was really not a lot of questions. They would just show up and do incredible work. I mean, I'm sure you're giving direction.

• 1:00:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, am I really?

• 1:00:47Speaker 06

  But just in terms of, I don't know, I just, there wasn't a lot of, I don't know, it was, that could have made this very hard.

• 1:00:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Speaker 06

  It was one of the easier parts. They were all delightful and just fantastic.

• 1:01:00Chris Ryan?

  I do remember when we shot the finale where he had like, you know, like 15. Pages of like just the most crazy dramatic scenes with Ruth. Yes. He pulled me aside and I was like, I signed up for a comedy and this is the most dramatic acting I've ever done. Well, that's like, that's a good way to get into the finale and to the sort of last run of episodes because, you know, Andy was asking you guys about breaking story and about, about playing by sitcom roles versus maybe playing by more newfound prestige TV roles, but I thought it was amazing how much you gave in the finale in terms of like, here's where this could go. Here's what else is happening. We've got the, the film

• 1:01:41Chris Ryan?

  strip that Jeff Miller is watching and obviously the whatever is in, in that basement, in that dungeon. Can you talk to me a little bit about where you wanted to end up in terms of, I want to give this season a satisfying conclusion versus I want to save stuff for future story that we're going to be telling.

• 1:01:59Speaker 06

  I'm a big fan of just giving as much as possible and then deciding what the next season is. I mean, just going as long as you have. I'm not trying to drag this out for, you know, 20 years. I mean, because I think there's more you could do in this world that is beyond the story, but anyways, I guess, I just wanted to give as much as possible, but I did, I knew there was going to be probably a season two. I mean, I didn't know it. We didn't know it till recently.

• 1:02:28Chris Ryan?

  And congratulations.

• 1:02:31Speaker 06

  So I don't know. I, I knew the, I knew going into the writers room, the final dilemma that Loftus was going to have presented to him. And I knew he was going to find out about his son and how exactly that was going to play out. That was discussed a lot in the room and it was really fun because I didn't know. It was interesting. I had people pegged wrong, like some writers that were like, oh, I would grab the gun and drive to her house and shoot her in the back of the head. Some people were like, nope, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. And I was completely wrong on who would do what. So it was a really fun time debating that. And so, yeah, it was just a lot of arguments. And then someone else had pitched the Bashir move. And so, once we knew that.

• 1:03:15Speaker 06

  That was gonna happen, then we started working backwards to try to make sure you can buy that as much as possible, that a man would be pushed to the brink like that.

• 1:03:24Andy Greenwald?

  And who in the writer's room pushed for the line, but he got bit by an animal and became that animal?

• 1:03:28Speaker 06

  Oh, God, I wish I could remember.

• 1:03:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think we should throw a parade for that person.

• 1:03:32Speaker 06

  I know. This is where my, this is my brain is mashed.

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  I paused and rewound four or five times. I called my daughter in from the other room, and I was like, this is everything to me. This is so perfect.

• 1:03:43Chris Ryan?

  But do this become like Chekhov's jokes or Chekhov's throwaways? Where you're like, I guess now we have to have a guy who got bit by an animal and became that animal.

• 1:03:50Speaker 06

  I mean, some of these, some of these, like, you could absolutely do an ep. I like that some of these things are meant to be thrown away and never revisited. And then some that you can be like, oh, no, there could be a whole episode about that, you know?

• 1:04:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 06

  So, I don't know, that's exciting to me.

• 1:04:04Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking about old school television, the thing that we have been delighted to observe and hear about and read in the news is that, like, it does sound like, for as much as we have any access to these opaque streaming metrics, that your show is a phenomenon in the sense that apparently it is just growing week to week to week, and the audience is finding it in a way that is exciting as a fan of the medium. Like, that's something that people used to happen, and now really only happens in The Bear and The Pit and maybe Widows Bay. What has this 10-week journey been like for you guys of having this weird thing that, especially for you, Katie, of this weird thing that has lived in your head for so long, and suddenly sharing it and finding that maybe other people also like weird things living in their heads?

• 1:04:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's really wild, you know? Because I remember just a couple of months ago, I would like look online to see if there's any chatter about it, and it would be absolutely nothing. It was just absolutely nothing. I'm like, well, okay. It's crazy to work so hard on something for so long, and then you have to be okay with no one seeing it or no one liking it. Like, if you're doing it... Just to try to make something that people absolutely like. That's, I think, how you end up with something more formulaic or expected. So I really had no idea. Even though I knew I was really proud of the work, I thought everyone just did such incredible jobs on this show.

• 1:05:26Speaker 06

  Like, it's just really like, I'm always blown away by the, what everyone brought, whether it's the directing, or the cast, or props, or the VFX, the score. But you just don't know. And I was, I honestly, up until the night before, reviews started coming out, I'm like, well, let's see what this is gonna feel like, because it could feel real bad. You just don't know. You just don't know.

• 1:05:47Andy Greenwald?

  Which, whose cosign meant the most to you? Because I think we have, like, Stephen King was tweeting about it. You got the rare Tim Cook tweet recently. Which I didn't know he knew he had a television studio, so that was very exciting.

• 1:05:58Chris Ryan?

  Guillermo del Toro.

• 1:05:59Andy Greenwald?

  Guillermo del Toro, yeah.

• 1:06:01Speaker 06

  The Guillermo del Toro one was really thrilling because, from a horror director.

• 1:06:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 06

  You know what I mean? Like, because I have, like, been in comedy for a long time, so a horror director to, like, say that about the horror in the show.

• 1:06:14Chris Ryan?

  And specifically call out the horror aspect, it was like, really exciting.

• 1:06:17Speaker 06

  That was shocking, but not, I mean, that's on, it was, I was delighted and surprised.

• 1:06:22Chris Ryan?

  I, I will say, like, to, to, you know, speak on Katie, like, I, I think as we were making it, like, every sort of craft person or department had, you know, kind of coming in, I could tell that they were invested in the world of the show that is, like, pretty rare, you know? And I think it just speaks to the world that Katie initially sort of crafted. Like, this is, you know, it's pretty rare, like, the set deck people were like, they had lists of what every worker at the town hall would have in their desk. You can tell. You know what I mean? Like, it was like, they're the... The specificity. And, and, and the dressing at Ruth's house.

• 1:07:02Chris Ryan?

  Was like, it was like a very personal to the set decks. Like, it was like, they were pulling from their own relationships to their moms and aunts and then, you know, just from that era. The point killed me. Like, I can't read that. I can't read that. I guess all that is to say, like, you know, who knows how shows hit in the world, but I could tell that people really liked investing themselves into that world, you know?

• 1:07:27Andy Greenwald?

  Why do you think, you've now been a part of two shows that have done this so successfully. You've done also other brilliant work. I'm not trying to shit on Patrick Somerville, for example, but in case he's listening. I know, I kind of want that. No, but specifically in the case of Atlanta and with Widows Bay, I just feel the evidence of something. It was the best advice I ever got, which is that a pilot script is a wonderful thing that opens a door and then you have to unlock it and let everyone else come into it and bring their enthusiasm. And that's, that's when things can elevate, when everybody is rowing in the same direction with that same spirit that brought you to your laptop, however many years ago it was.

• 1:08:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Andy Greenwald?

  Here, having worked with two creators who've been able to communicate that, what is the secret sauce?

• 1:08:08Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's sort of a crapshoot a little bit, but you know, I think it is, it does feel sometimes like a chemistry test, you know what I mean? Like, you're kind of like, I think good ideas have its own sort of like gravitational pull. And I think people are drawn to it and they want to make something inside of it.

• 1:08:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Chris Ryan?

  And so like, I think obviously you have to walk in with a good idea, but then if you let the right people in the room, I think a TV show starts to kind of take on its own life, you know? And I think it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. And I think I've watched that with Atlanta, I watched that with this. And I think it's, I don't know, it's magical every time, you know what I mean? Like, you watch an actor that you cast, sort of like, oh, that, you're that person now. Like, you're not, you know what I mean? You were someone on the page and now you're just this sort of full person that I like watching. And so that was a, you know, that was an experience of making this show in a lot of ways. Does the passion people have, obviously, you know, expressed for the show make, not writing season two more difficult, but like, do you think about things like,

• 1:09:09Chris Ryan?

  oh, I want to expand this and widen the palette of characters? Because one of my favorite parts about this season is, there's this You know, five some, six some of people who understand what's happening. And then everybody else is kind of like, well, am I gonna have any vacancies at my inn? Or like, how are we gonna make it through, through the summer season? Like, do you think that the interest in the show has changed the way you're approaching it creatively at all?

• 1:09:35Speaker 06

  Not really. I mean, it's helpful to know that I'm, I'm happy to know that people like the monster of the week episodes. And so, you know, I would love to keep that feel alive, even though we're gonna keep going deeper into the lore and exploring different character stories. But I'm basically gonna go back to the Jersey Shore next week. And I'm just gonna lock myself up in this little condo. And I'm gonna go to the, there's a, I found a new haunted house on another boardwalk.

• 1:10:03Chris Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:10:04Andy Greenwald?

  Amazing.

• 1:10:04Speaker 06

  This is that. I'm gonna get soft serve ice cream every day. I will come back a different person.

• 1:10:08Andy Greenwald?

  Any airbrush tees?

• 1:10:10Speaker 06

  Yes. And then, and then go into the writer's room. And this is like, the, this is the part that's fun, that, you know, you can just imagine anything. And then it's, and then it's hard. And then it's very hard.

• 1:10:25Andy Greenwald?

  I noted with interest that Damon Lindelof is a huge fan. And if you ever need advice about creating a show that has a mysterious island full of questions that becomes very, very popular very, very quickly, you could probably reach out to him. There is some precedent there, I think.

• 1:10:39Speaker 06

  He has offered that, which was very nice, actually, which is very nice.

• 1:10:43Andy Greenwald?

  He could do an instructional video and send it to you on reels. Last thing, since I have you, Katie, I feel like we were just talking about how wonderful two of the great pillars of modern television are Atlanta and now Widows Bay. In a different medium, Katie, there, by my estimation, there have only ever been two good tweets.

• 1:11:01Andy Greenwald?

  One is, was the grink there?

• 1:11:05Speaker 06

  Oh, I love that one. Yeah, that's a great one.

• 1:11:08Andy Greenwald?

  The other one was your Babadook Halloween party tweet. It is actually kind of amazing to watch people's face light up when I try to explain. Like, in the early days, I'm like, you have to watch Widows Bay, and I'm naming things associated with it. And I say, no, no, it's the, it's the woman who did the Babadook.

• 1:11:22Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:24Chris Ryan?

  That might actually be like great viral marketing.

• 1:11:26Andy Greenwald?

  It's kind of incredible. Could you, I don't want to send you even further back into the past, but could you just tell us a little bit about the life and afterlife of that tweet?

• 1:11:35Speaker 06

  You mean like how it came to be, how I came to be sitting there?

• 1:11:39Andy Greenwald?

  I don't, honestly, we could just close our laptops and just let the cameras run for an hour. Whatever you'd like to share.

• 1:11:47Speaker 06

  Oh, okay. Halloween I take very seriously.

• 1:11:52Andy Greenwald?

  Clearly.

• 1:11:54Speaker 06

  I think that's obvious. And so I wanted to be the Babadook, you know, as one would.

• 1:11:58Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 1:11:59Speaker 06

  I went to like a Salvation Army and got like the coat and the hat. I really looked, I struck out. I mean, I mean, what's the opposite of struck out?

• 1:12:07Andy Greenwald?

  Home run.

• 1:12:07Speaker 06

  Arm run.

• 1:12:08Chris Ryan?

  Knocked it out of the park.

• 1:12:09Speaker 06

  Knocked it out of the park. Thank you. And then I put a lot of the makeup on. I feel like I put the white makeup on more than needed to be, like, you know what I mean? Like, arms that weren't shown. And then first, my boyfriend was watching TV, and I stood outside that window and waited for him to notice me. And so I got a little scared there. I was excited about that.

• 1:12:31Andy Greenwald?

  He did notice?

• 1:12:32Speaker 06

  He did finally notice.

• 1:12:33Andy Greenwald?

  How long?

• 1:12:33Speaker 06

  It took a long time. It took a very long time. And then we drove to my friend's house who was having his party. And I, you know, I had a friend said that he was dressing up as a Sopranos character, but it was just wearing a tracksuit, so it doesn't count. And, yeah, no one was dressed up. And so also, I just, it looked worse than it even is in the photo, because when I smiled, my red wine teeth, it was terrifying looking. Like, I was talking to my friend, like Jessie, who took the photo, and I was trying to tell her a story, and she was like, "I'm sorry, I just can't talk to you right now." It just like wandered off of her drink.

• 1:13:10Speaker 06

  So that was that night. And then I didn't, I put the tweet up like, yeah, later that year. And, yeah, it was fun. I feel like it really seemed to resonate with people.

• 1:13:19Andy Greenwald?

  It was a throwback Thursday.

• 1:13:21Speaker 06

  It was, that dates it.

• 1:13:23Andy Greenwald?

  So, yeah, so I did have to explain that to my children. So again, it's teaching. It's a teaching moment.

• 1:13:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Andy Greenwald?

  But I do think, jokes aside, like, everything that we've just talked about in this beautiful show is kind of in that tweet.

• 1:13:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, I remember you didn't know that I was in that tweet until after we started working together. I remember you were like...

• 1:13:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I was so starstruck.

• 1:13:43Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, you're the BatBabagoo?

• 1:13:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible. I personally think Apple should have given you any overall you wanted for that tweet.

• 1:13:51Speaker 06

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:13:52Andy Greenwald?

  But if it took the show, then okay. I'll take that too. Congratulations to you both. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:57Speaker 06

  Thank you guys so much.

• 1:13:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's such a joy and hopefully we'll get to talk about it again in the future.

• 1:14:03Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:14:03Andy Greenwald?

  Thanks for having us.

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

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