‘Widow’s Bay’ Sweeps the Emmys! Plus, ‘Lanterns’ Episode 5.

Chris and Andy talk about what worked (and what didn’t) from the Emmys broadcast (1:43). Then they react to the dominance of ‘Widow’s Bay,’ Rhea Seehorn’s surprising win, and more of the night’s biggest winners and losers (22:42). Later, they discuss ‘Lanterns’ Episode 5 (48:30). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Follow us on IG and TikTok! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Jamie Yukich 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.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:01Speaker 02

  I need sports staff to clear the room.

• 1:04Chris Ryan?

  Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio, the winner of outstanding anthology podcast host.

• 1:19Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:19Chris Ryan?

  It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:21Andy Greenwald?

  Weirdly, that was for Stick the Landing because it was in the eligibility window.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  Quite anthologized, quite limited.

• 1:26Andy Greenwald?

  Quite limited, surprisingly limited. I think Kaia's still surprised.

• 1:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Greenwald, great to see you. It is Tuesday, not our normal day, but we wanted to hit the Emmys from last night. Uh, so we are here, we're gonna do the Emmys and we are gonna do lanterns today. On Thursday, we will have some chatter about the first episode of the sixth season of Slow Horses, which I believe has been renewed for eight now.

• 1:50Andy Greenwald?

  Are you, what's your feeling on whether we'll be wearing the same clothes on Thursday?

• 1:53Chris Ryan?

  I brought a change because we are gonna batch record this.

• 1:57Andy Greenwald?

  You brought a change?

• 1:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we also have a special appearance.

• 2:01Andy Greenwald?

  Where's the memo? Yeah, go on.

• 2:02Chris Ryan?

  From, or special appearance, I will be joined, or I'll be joined by our good buddy Chuck Klosterman, who came on the pod on Thursday, or will be on the pod on Thursday to discuss his upcoming new book, Rock. Uh, awesome conversation with Chuck. It was very reminiscent of our music exists. Uh, another limited anthology podcast.

• 2:20Andy Greenwald?

  I feel sad I missed it. I wanted it to be reminiscent of 2002 at Hi-Fi.

• 2:25Chris Ryan?

  It was that, yeah, except, uh, no Rein Golds. Uh, it's great to see you and, uh, watch at spotify.com, watch pod, the watch pod underscore on Instagram, ringer-tv on YouTube and you can listen to us and watch us on Spotify. The Emmys, the Emmys, it's the, is it TV's biggest night, you think?

• 2:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yeah. What do you think is the TV's biggest night? I mean, NBC did those live musicals for a while.

• 2:49Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 2:49Andy Greenwald?

  When they did Grease.

• 2:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:50Andy Greenwald?

  That was pretty big.

• 2:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you know, I, I, I enjoyed myself until I didn't last night. Um, you know, they, they needed to fill out a three hour broadcast. I couldn't quite tell if at the end, McConaughey and, and Woody, won some dove, just think about it. McConaughey and Woody, if they were, uh, actually vamping to fill out the time.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  Or just vaping.

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  Or were, or were stoned and were like, this is a funny bit. What did you think of the broadcast itself? And then we will get into winners and losers.

• 3:19Andy Greenwald?

  I have very strong feelings about this and I've had strong feelings about the last few years.

• 3:24Chris Ryan?

  You're a guy who does not think about award shows 364 days that they aren't on. And then the day they are on, you are like the Gettysburg Address.

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yeah. I have to say, so my experience was, was unusual in the sense that the opening number, well, let's just take one further step back. Mariska Hargitay hosted the ceremony.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 3:43Andy Greenwald?

  And a untraditional choice, but certainly a friendly and familiar face to television watchers of the last 30 years.

• 3:49Chris Ryan?

  And, and essentially the queen of modern NBC.

• 3:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 3:53Chris Ryan?

  She has been on that network for 20 plus years.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  30 years and she was on ER before that.

• 3:58Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 3:59Andy Greenwald?

  Remember? Her, her Dr. Green.

• 4:00Chris Ryan?

  I forgot about that.

• 4:01Andy Greenwald?

  Had a little, uh, folie à deux, as we say in Chicago in the 90s. She, it was a roller coaster ride in the beginning because I will say, and I say this with respect and love, that the opening number was absolutely horrific.

• 4:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Andy Greenwald?

  Um, it was so deeply disturbing that I almost couldn't look away. It was like non-AI, just slop.

• 4:26Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:27Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but it was also spawn con because while she was singing about how much she loves watching television, she was wearing Marriott bathrobes. Um, so.

• 4:36Chris Ryan?

  I guess so.

• 4:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I mean, you're a Bonvoy guy, so you probably.

• 4:38Chris Ryan?

  I was just like, didn't notice a difference between what she was wearing and what I was wearing, honestly.

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's how you are at your most comfortable. I, on the other hand, you know, I'm a proud World of Hyatt.

• 4:47Chris Ryan?

  Hyatt homies, yeah.

• 4:48Andy Greenwald?

  No, my title, I believe is exploratist.

• 4:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:50Andy Greenwald?

  Which is not a word, but I earned those extra syllables or at least consonants. Anyway, it was so bad that I was concerned. The concern melted away because I have to say that I thought that in every other respect, the producers of this ceremony made a series of small, low key, but incredibly impactful decisions to make this, dare I say, one of the best Emmy awards nights in recent memory. And I'll talk you through the decisions. I, I took notes. I was really impressed.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  I want you to go for it because I gotta tell you, man, I mean, I, I, I'm on the record as sort of not caring about it. I'm also on the record as saying this, it would be an interesting opportunity for television to lead the way and, uh, double the awards. I mean, like their, F Y C season seems to last all year anyway. And to, I think the TV could actually hold the Emmys twice a year. Um, I know that that would.

• 5:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's a good take.

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, dilute maybe the power of winning them, but I think it would make for more interesting, uh, candidates, more interesting nominees and a wider variety of winners.

• 5:59Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Ice T would host the other ceremony?

• 6:01Chris Ryan?

  I would actually.

• 6:02Andy Greenwald?

  Would we keep it in the SVU family?

• 6:03Chris Ryan?

  I would have some of the Chicago family do it, you know, perhaps like an all star of, of Dick Wolf's Chicago verse.

• 6:10Andy Greenwald?

  Is there anything equivalent to the Dick Wolf Chicago verse in that it is massive, established and we are completely ignorant of it?

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Like, no. I mean, like, I think.

• 6:22Andy Greenwald?

  What's the equivalent of that?

• 6:22Chris Ryan?

  I, I wouldn't, there are often people who are in the like pop culture like moment. Like, I don't know anything about what is this, the Stella Lefty person.

• 6:31Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 6:32Chris Ryan?

  Is like, I have not heard her music. I don't know who her dad is. I can't tell if anyone likes her. I can tell that most people don't, but I think it's because of her dad.

• 6:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  And then she ripped off Noah Khan, who also was on the Emmys last night.

• 6:45Andy Greenwald?

  I think other people too. I think that, that, that the story is that like they're, they're doing a forensic scan of all of her songs.

• 6:51Chris Ryan?

  Are they?

• 6:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Chris Ryan?

  Who's they?

• 6:53Andy Greenwald?

  I was hoping you could tell me. Kaia, are you up on this?

• 6:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, I think the internet is, it's kind of like when you are a Groupon heiress and you first rip off Noah Khan and then the internet catches a hold of that and then they also go back and.

• 7:11Chris Ryan?

  Like if she played Madison Square Garden and one person showed up, I wouldn't be surprised if 60,000 people showed up. I, I wouldn't be surprised. I have no idea, but to your point, that's not really, that's not really.

• 7:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's how I feel about Love Island. I don't know what it is. I thought it was MILF Island from 30 Rock or Temptation Island, which was shorter lived. And I guess it's not the one where they get married because that's Love is Blind.

• 7:32Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I've watched, I watch that.

• 7:34Andy Greenwald?

  You watch that?

• 7:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. My wife watches Love is Blind and I will dip in for crucial moments of the season.

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  Like the moments when they are given their site back or what?

• 7:42Chris Ryan?

  I like watching them, uh, see their, their, their betrothed for the first time.

• 7:49Andy Greenwald?

  You do love it. I mean, this is the most glee I've seen on your face in a while.

• 7:53Chris Ryan?

  It's really funny when they're like, oh shit.

• 7:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh no, I've made a terrible mistake.

• 7:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and then I, I'll watch a little bit of their first dates.

• 8:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Chris Ryan?

  Um, I'll check out some of the pod action because I like to see what kind of questions they're asking each other. Um, but anyway, I, we digress.

• 8:10Andy Greenwald?

  I just.

• 8:10Chris Ryan?

  The Chicago verse, I've watched some of it in airports.

• 8:13Andy Greenwald?

  So specifically the thing about this Emmys, okay, I think that, let's go from the host. Once she got past the trying to be funny and put on a show parts and she was game to do anything and as is Jalen Brunson, apparently go off king, he deserves it.

• 8:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:27Andy Greenwald?

  Um, she settled into a much more, uh, maybe traditional, just sort of glamorous, slightly emo MC role.

• 8:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Andy Greenwald?

  And that was fine because her Q rating is very high. She has personal relationships with most of the people in the room. And I have to say, it allowed the funny presenters, like our own colleague Amy Poehler, who's the first one out of the gate, um, to kill, like without any competition. So she was awesome. Um.

• 8:54Chris Ryan?

  Mulaney.

• 8:54Andy Greenwald?

  Marcella Hernandez was, I thought, very funny and Mulaney was god tier. Mulaney was Godzilla V Tokyo six times in a row.

• 9:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Andy Greenwald?

  He was unbelievable. He was so funny.

• 9:06Chris Ryan?

  Do you think with this, the Mulaney hosting flirtation?

• 9:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:12Chris Ryan?

  Like, is this like, I can't even think of an analogy.

• 9:17Chris Ryan?

  Why doesn't he just host one of these big shows?

• 9:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think at this point, I mean, he's definitely asked for all of them.

• 9:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  I think he doesn't have to. The only thing that's particularly odd about it is that like, he does seem to have a spirited work ethic, let's say, because his Mr. Whatever tour is now like crossing the, he's basically like Phish at this point. He has been on tour for the better part of two years and is just now announcing like New Year's dates. So he does certainly like the challenge, but maybe he's keeping his powder dry for the Oscars when Conan lets it go like in a couple of years.

• 9:48Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 9:48Andy Greenwald?

  Because it's certainly less pressure to just show up and destroy and then.

• 9:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, not have to have two people be like, did he do a good job last night?

• 9:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like us. So I thought.

• 9:57Chris Ryan?

  Cause no matter what, I feel like there are overarching industrial pressures on the host that they have to do certain segments. Like I bet she wasn't like, what I really want to do. I mean, maybe she was like, I want to do a bunch of song and dance numbers, but.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  It seems like she did.

• 10:10Chris Ryan?

  It felt like they should have done more of the SVU digital shorts.

• 10:15Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they did one and it featured a very prominent guest star.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 10:19Andy Greenwald?

  Which, you know, again, we only can see things through the lens of our own experience. Any moment that brought my daughters into the room.

• 10:26Chris Ryan?

  Well, there was a Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift's cat were in the, were in the.

• 10:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and I can't actually parse which one caused them to squeal louder. Like that was the most exciting moment and they love Mulaney, so they were happy about that. But the Taylor Swift thing just had a hundred percent approval rating in my house if I was not in the house.

• 10:43Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 10:44Andy Greenwald?

  So that was fun for them. But what I, what I'm trying to say about what she did as a host was create this kind of convivial, warm atmosphere, which I think is the goal for award shows, but is often hard to do, especially in this kind of like post star era. And maybe even occasionally with the, with the Emmys, because there's such churn now in terms of like new shows being potentially overrepresented one year, then going off the air for three years.

• 11:04Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  So I thought that she was really good at kind of drawing together a sense of community. I thought that the producers did a brilliant, small thing in stacking the front of the arena with Golden Globes like tables to make it feel more intimate, which absolutely worked. And my main takeaway was, and again, you could, I want to hear your thoughts on this because maybe it is 20%, 30%, 40% because I thought the winners were deserved and cool and like a cast a wide net.

• 11:29Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 11:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I had a feeling last night that I don't know if the Emmys have ever given me and that the Oscars used to give me, which was, this is a kind of creative community that these people know each other, these people like each other, they work together, whether it's for years and years in the broadcast trenches or crossing each other in award shows, you know, year after year. And maybe it's also the, you know, the renewed dominance of Noah Wiley as a connective tissue to that era.

• 11:55Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:55Andy Greenwald?

  But him saying things like, this is the only job I ever wanted and I love this. I was kind of, moved is too strong a word, but you know, one of my benchmark criticisms of the Emmys going back decades is the Emmys used to apologize for themselves. The Emmys used to have an award show where they would slavishly rain award trophies down on movie stars, almost as if to thank them for being there.

• 12:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Andy Greenwald?

  And there would be a lot of segments like, here's why we like the movie, like, and now the Oscars do it. The Oscars do it now, which is like, don't we love rom coms?

• 12:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:27Andy Greenwald?

  The Emmys don't have to do that. These are popular, exciting shows and it communicated as such.

• 12:31Chris Ryan?

  Passionate defense for it. I mean, I didn't actually like have a, I mean, to me, it's always like TV is a technological advancement and not like an artistic medium. Like that's always the thing I'm trying to get my head around. And I think also the insurgence of all these different types of specifically stars, but all sorts of artists from directors to writers, from the film world into television over the last 10, 15 years has changed the makeup of like the kind of vibe that you get. Like it used to be, there was a very like, pretty demarcated line between the television and film industries. And now I think it's a lot more fluid. I think the way that TV is made has changed so drastically that, like you said, like

• 13:13Chris Ryan?

  we're going to have, Widows Bay probably will not be able to defend its crown next year.

• 13:18Andy Greenwald?

  Just by the nature.

• 13:19Chris Ryan?

  Just by the nature of the fact that it'll probably not be back on until 28 or at least, I would have to imagine 28. I know that they're going to start filming in the spring.

• 13:27Andy Greenwald?

  There's a chance it could be end of 27, I think, but your, your point is right that it will be, it will do everything in its.

• 13:33Chris Ryan?

  Clarissa certainly won't be back in 27.

• 13:35Andy Greenwald?

  But Apple will try to get both of them back for the 28 window.

• 13:38Chris Ryan?

  I imagine you're right. There's still something kind of odd about, and you know, the host made like a bunch of jokes about this, but there is just something so strange about the fact that this, this is about a box that is on your table.

• 13:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Chris Ryan?

  That I think these channels used to have like dominance over, and now it's all over the place with all these different technology companies essentially taking over the business. And those channels, those old networks, those old companies essentially merging with one another to keep any kind of foothold in, in, in the industry. So there's something kind of like sad and dark also behind the Emmys. But I appreciate what you're saying about the creative community and people seemingly like be like, you and I have done three shows together or like.

• 14:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, or like, or, or many people there are like, we know Katie Dippold when she worked on Parks and Rec, or she wrote the Ghostbusters movie, or, or Hero from Atlanta and these things and, or Matthew Reese from being in many, many shows over many years. Like people know them and to see them recognized and with the warmth in which they were received was really nice. But to your point about the darkness, I thought because of the gathering darkness that exists everywhere else, I thought that some of the winners were really, maybe we're just lucky with the winners in this case, but were really eloquent spokespeople for the idea of even caring about creative community in a time like this. Noah Wiley, you know, chief among them, but also Colbert, you know, breaking the John Oliver streak and doing it with, with joy, you know, and not making it about another

• 15:10Andy Greenwald?

  polemic for any, you know, about being canceled. It was just a very celebratory thing, which I appreciated. And although I, to be clear, I think I would probably be inclined to agree with any polemic that he, that he uncorked, but I liked the.

• 15:22Chris Ryan?

  I think his show was very polemical. Like I'm, I'm sure he feels like he has said his piece.

• 15:26Andy Greenwald?

  He's done it. And then especially Scott Gamble, who is the showrunner of the pit, you know, seemingly speaking off the cuff, though I'm sure he had time to think about it because he was definitely going to win that trophy.

• 15:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I, I think that there is a proud or sometimes shameful history of people getting up on stage with a trophy in their hand and talking about how what they do matters. And a bunch of people in America being like, excuse me, eggs cost $35. But the way that he said it, at the moment that he said it about why what they do matters more than ever resonated with me. I thought it was really nice and it felt like a genuine warmth in the room. And I wonder, I have no idea, but I do wonder if some of that warmth was a trickle down effect from having a host who was just happy to be there. You know, and not there to skewer the industry.

• 16:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it definitely was like a warm hearted show and it was a sentimental show. Like there is essentially like, I thought the tempo for the, the program was really good. Look.

• 16:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, a lot of, a lot of big hitters in the beginning.

• 16:23Chris Ryan?

  If you're going to offload a lot of the craft and below the line awards and also like plenty of like above the line awards to the creative arts Emmys that happened the weekend before. First of all, I just have to say like, I don't understand why you guys can't do this two weeks earlier before football starts. Like if you want people to be a captive audience, like.

• 16:44Andy Greenwald?

  It was odd.

• 16:45Chris Ryan?

  I was literally 10 days ago or two weeks ago, just sitting around being like, nothing is on, you know? And you're going up against my homes. It's, I just don't get it.

• 16:53Andy Greenwald?

  But also you were joking, or we were joking about whether the Emmys are TV's biggest night and TV's biggest night is whenever the NFL is on.

• 16:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 17:00Andy Greenwald?

  So they were actually in conflict.

• 17:01Chris Ryan?

  Coming out of a weekend where most people had probably watched some combination of college and pro football for like 70 hours.

• 17:09Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Why not try to like, avoid that? I don't know. But you know, I thought that the show had really good tempo. I personally feel like if you are going to excise all these other awards, I am not here to watch a bunch of like song and dance or tributes personally, you know? So I don't understand why not, you can't do it in two hours. And if you do it in two hours, I think most people would be like, very, very good award show. Then you get an extra hour though of stuff that I feel like they have to do and is good for the soul. It's good for the soul to see a Dolly Parton tribute. It's good for the soul to see a James Burrows tribute and a Rob Reiner tribute and a Michael J. Fox tribute. Like it is good for you, but I think it definitely has a television product slowed

• 17:54Chris Ryan?

  down in those places.

• 17:55Andy Greenwald?

  I agree with, with, with part of that. I would say that like the Dolly Parton one was where they lost me slightly, not because I don't revere Dolly Parton, but because TV star is not the first thing I think of.

• 18:06Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 18:07Andy Greenwald?

  But it was an opportunity.

• 18:08Chris Ryan?

  And it was a very pretty performance by Rima Makhtari.

• 18:10Andy Greenwald?

  Totally. What I, what I found really actually impressive was the way they structured the in memoriam segment. Now, look, if you are someone who produces in memoriam segments for award shows, you're eating good for the next couple of years. I'm sad to say, like, we are, we're just on like on a, on a hideous and mournful run right now, particularly for TV as we saw last night. But I, what I appreciated about the show was like, they did a bunch of things at the top that surprised me, like big actor awards at the beginning. And I have to say, I, part of me cynically thought that they were giving lead actress in a drama in the first 10 minutes because Zendaya was like, I'll come, but I gotta go.

• 18:48Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:48Andy Greenwald?

  And not the case.

• 18:50Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 18:50Andy Greenwald?

  She was there for Marcelo and Tom Holland was there and they were having a good time. And I think that also affected what I was saying about like, this is the room with the juice in it now, because the movie stars are there too.

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Andy Greenwald?

  But what I appreciated was by getting, front loading a lot of awards with good tempo. When you get to the in memoriam segment, you don't just hold on Catherine O'Hara to let Noah Kahan or whatever, Kane, how do you say his name?

• 19:12Andy Greenwald?

  Warble, not a fan. You clear out the lane. So Macaulay Culkin and Dan Levy and Annie, I'm forgetting her name, from Schitt's Creek can actually, actually talk about someone that they love and talk about someone who I think is more beloved internally in that room than maybe the popular imagination knows. Similarly, Rob Reiner. Like, that's the other thing that made it feel like a community to me because they were here to tell you about someone that you, the average viewer, always recognized, likes in the 80s, liked in the 2000s, enjoyed a year ago in the studio, but maybe you don't carry the flame of like, this is actually a loving, inspirational person to other people we like. And so I thought that was another bit of connective tissue that the show did very well.

• 19:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that your point is really well taken. You can see when somebody like Reiner, who's been a part of television from All in the Family through The Bear, is like a pretty significant, obviously is a pretty significant person. But like, I was really more just like talking about like the tempo of the show and the like emotional tenor of the show. And I don't think that they structure these shows to be one genre. You know, obviously, they're like a little bit of song and dance, some comedians bits, banter between the presenters. We're gonna have like some sad stuff and then we're gonna try and like surge at the end. I felt like the surge at the end did not like feel significant, but maybe that

• 20:42Chris Ryan?

  is because if you pay the least bit of attention to the Emmys, you're like, the Pitt and Woodhills Bay are gonna win everything because you've seen the momentum coming out of creative, the creative arts before.

• 20:54Andy Greenwald?

  Let's get into the awards. I do want to ask you one thing, though. I want to, you know, a little self, self-reflection. Like, you know, for as much as I like to, I like to get on here and talk some fire, I am like one of the most like predictable mainstream living out fellows around who like anytime there's a clip of like George W. Bush sharing a mint with Michelle Obama, I'm like, we used to be a decent society.

• 21:16Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 21:16Andy Greenwald?

  Is there an element of that in these award shows when because of politics and also because of shrinking margins and because of like the dark cloud that you're referring to, that when you see the late night host table and it's Oliver and Kimmel and Colbert, and they're so happy to be with each other and they're cheering for each other and it feels very legitimate, you know, is there an element of my old like, you know, guardrails of society?

• 21:40Chris Ryan?

  You know what? The thing is, is that I always just blame myself, you know, like we're seeing those guys, that's the end of, not only of a generation of late night hosts, but perhaps the actual job of being a late night host. And I can only look in the mirror because I don't watch those shows. And I don't think a lot of people do. And in the advent of having, you know, you can watch the 1999 Masters as you go to bed if you want on YouTube. Like, it's hard to be like, what I'm gonna do is watch a guy interview another guy, you know?

• 22:07Andy Greenwald?

  You just offered that. A random.

• 22:09Chris Ryan?

  As an example.

• 22:10Andy Greenwald?

  Well, yeah, it's a separate conversation, actually, and one I think we should have because I haven't found even a moment to bring it up.

• 22:15Chris Ryan?

  Do you like watching TV?

• 22:17Andy Greenwald?

  You know my answer.

• 22:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, that is the, that is what this podcast is about.

• 22:21Andy Greenwald?

  One thing that I love, this is not relevant to this conversation specifically, but like, I love Conan O'Brien's travel show. That is my, put on Love is Blind or whatever. Like, I've watched every episode of it. When we get the screeners, I have to like hold back from watching it because it is absolutely pleasant. It is funny, it is clever, it is like diverting. And it's proof that, you know, for as pilloried as he was for some of the things that happened over the last few years, or even at the beginning of his career, he got out early.

• 22:50Chris Ryan?

  Was he pilloried?

• 22:51Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I mean, when he first went on, everyone was like, this guy's terrible. And then when he took over The Tonight Show, there was a lot of like, this doesn't work, he doesn't fit into this box. And then he was just kind of on TBS in, you know, in exile for a bunch of years. And then a show became a half hour and then it kind of, then it just went away altogether.

• 23:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Andy Greenwald?

  He's actually ahead of the curve and gives me hope for Colbert in the sense that there is a long road of being an incredibly creative and funny person with the modern tools of media.

• 23:17Chris Ryan?

  Isn't Colbert rating a Hobbit movie?

• 23:19Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just gonna move past that and assume that once that's done.

• 23:21Chris Ryan?

  But I just mean like, he's okay.

• 23:22Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I'm not worried about it. I'm just saying, there's a conversation to be had about who can be the charming front man for our comedic generation that may be separate and apart from interviewing a dude at 11:30.

• 23:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Andy Greenwald?

  But that's not today's conversation because we gotta get into these specific awards.

• 23:38Chris Ryan?

  I'll just rattle off these winners. Widows Bay won for best comedy, Pitt won for outstanding drama.

• 23:44Andy Greenwald?

  If we just wrap up Widows Bay in one big bow and say like, we correctly predicted an absolutely unstoppable juggernaut tsunami that happened.

• 23:53Chris Ryan?

  I think that the precursor award show also predicted it.

• 23:56Andy Greenwald?

  And then we did a podcast saying, write your speeches. Seems like they did. They were all really prepared.

• 24:01Chris Ryan?

  They, they took away what was supposed to be like a hacks victory lap, I think.

• 24:06Andy Greenwald?

  We can talk about the hacks of it in a minute, but Widows Bay is sitting pretty at my, my number one show of the year. Completely organic, what?

• 24:15Chris Ryan?

  It's just always.

• 24:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's in the top three.

• 24:18Chris Ryan?

  You're, you're, you're definitely like, you invoked your top of the list a lot.

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  Because I'm proving to you, I'm modeling something for you, which is consistency. You have, I don't know how you are with object permanence. I'm bad. Fun fact. So I feel like it's good for, for you to hear someone just say confidently that things have stayed the same.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Okay. I'll remember that in December.

• 24:43Andy Greenwald?

  That the shows in my top three are the same five shows they've been since January.

• 24:47Chris Ryan?

  Yes. And you've watched seven shows.

• 24:51Andy Greenwald?

  No, I started a eighth one. And I believe I just mentioned Conan must go. So you're kind of telling on yourself here.

• 24:59Chris Ryan?

  Widows Bay won, Andy is right. It kicked ass. It won outstanding comedy series. Katie Dipold won for writing. Hira Marai won for directing. Matthew Rees won for acting. Kate O'Flin won for supporting actress.

• 25:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Steven Root.

• 25:13Chris Ryan?

  And Steven Root.

• 25:14Andy Greenwald?

  Who's never won an Emmy. He was so delighted.

• 25:16Chris Ryan?

  Which is awesome. And there, that, the collective charm of that group of people, I thought was my highlight of the evening. It's, I am annoyed that it's not coming back next season.

• 25:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Chris Ryan?

  But I, or next year, and it won't be there to defend its crown in terms of, I think it's just good for television for shows to come back once a year. I think we have, the, the numbers are in, the data is in. If you're not making rings of power, I would really like you to try your best. And I put this on the studios because the studios should have more confidence in their work.

• 25:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 25:49Chris Ryan?

  And be like, you are renewed for two, for season two, or season three, or season four.

• 25:54Andy Greenwald?

  Get back after it.

• 25:54Chris Ryan?

  Get back after it. We believe in this project.

• 25:56Andy Greenwald?

  I also will say, and this is not an attempt to like be insidery about it, but one of the things that I love about Widows Bay is how completely genuinely unexpected any level of success was for those involved in it, let alone this absolute coming out party of, of award show dominance. Like, that when you make a show, when our, when our good friend, friend of the pod, Casey Bloys, greenlights Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which was nominated last night.

• 26:21Chris Ryan?

  That I make?

• 26:22Andy Greenwald?

  What's that?

• 26:22Chris Ryan?

  I thought you were like, you make a show like to me. And I was like, cool, what's the show about?

• 26:26Andy Greenwald?

  The 1999 Masters. Unexplored little, like little gems, little Easter eggs.

• 26:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Andy Greenwald?

  When Casey greenlights Night of the Seven Kingdoms, the calculus and the math and the economics of it really are built around a number of things that are very difficult to control for. One of them is Emmy nominations.

• 26:45Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 26:45Andy Greenwald?

  It is a huge success because it was both good and it got the attention and the ratings that you needed to. That is not the case when Apple greenlights Widows Bay. I'm sure they were, I'm sure there were executives there who believed in the show and championed it. But I'm, there's a writer on the show, writer producer named Mackenzie Dorr, who was up on stage last night. And I met her in London when she was working on a show last year. And we had a great conversation with mutual friend, talked about a bunch of projects she's worked on and is working on. A funny little comedy she made last summer with Apple didn't even come up. Like, not that she wasn't proud of it, but it wasn't leading conversations, which like if, you know, I think that if you or I had worked on Widows Bay or the 1999 Masters drama, we would have been telling everyone.

• 27:26Chris Ryan?

  It's called a tradition unlike any other. That's good.

• 27:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. That's good. We would be telling everyone about it.

• 27:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:33Andy Greenwald?

  And spreading the word and whether because we thought it was gonna be well received or because we were so worried that it wouldn't be. And it is just an exciting example of Apple has more money than anyone else to do this and take chances. But if you have that much money, please take chances.

• 27:47Chris Ryan?

  You know what? I was referring to it as like this, the 1999 Masters, as if that was like a really crystal clear memory for me.

• 27:53Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  That's the one that Jose Maria Ola Fable won. And Tiger came in 18th. So I think I was thinking of a different Masters.

• 28:02Andy Greenwald?

  No, that's the one I was most interested in.

• 28:04Chris Ryan?

  The Ola Fable.

• 28:05Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you know, I'm.

• 28:06Chris Ryan?

  Just so that lots of people could say Ola Fable.

• 28:09Andy Greenwald?

  I'm passionate about the, you know, the subtle beneath the surface conflicts between Castilian speakers and Catalan speakers.

• 28:15Chris Ryan?

  They're not that underneath the surface.

• 28:16Andy Greenwald?

  Well, in the world of golf, they often are. You know, I think, I think the fairway is known as like the, the place where peace is possible. It sounds better in Catalan.

• 28:25Chris Ryan?

  The fairway is where peace is possible. That's the logline.

• 28:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's good. Oh, okay. So a tradition like any other, the tradition, you think it's about golf, but what it really is, no, it's about divisions.

• 28:36Chris Ryan?

  Oh, and then.

• 28:37Andy Greenwald?

  But the fairway, and then Owen Wilson's Price, whatever the hell his name is from Stick shows up as a young man, de-aged, and he's just like.

• 28:46Chris Ryan?

  We Irishman Owen Wilson.

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  And he's like, amigos.

• 28:49Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:50Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Andy Greenwald?

  And then what about, can we get Will Ferrell's golf show in there as well?

• 28:54Chris Ryan?

  Hawk?

• 28:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you're fast with that.

• 28:57Chris Ryan?

  I was quick.

• 28:58Andy Greenwald?

  Again, super engaged.

• 29:00Chris Ryan?

  I suppose then a good segue here out of Widows Bay would be the only person who won bigger than Widows Bay last night was the star of Widows Bay. Matthew Rees, who I think for the first time in history, an actor won a lead.

• 29:14Andy Greenwald?

  Two lead trophies.

• 29:15Chris Ryan?

  Two lead trophies in, in one evening. Rees won for actor in a comedy and actor in a limited anthology or made for TV movie for Beast in Me, The Beast in Me. I was served almost immediately when looking at Instagram last night, a video from the Joe Rogan experience.

• 29:32Andy Greenwald?

  Couldn't be you. This must've been the first time.

• 29:34Chris Ryan?

  Of Bradley Cooper.

• 29:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:36Chris Ryan?

  Telling a story about when he met Matthew Rees on the set of Burnt. Because Matthew Rees was his nemesis, like his chef nemesis.

• 29:45Andy Greenwald?

  I watched that movie on a plane.

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  I watched the video without turning the sound on, so I was only going by the, the subtitles. But it sounded like Bradley Cooper almost died and that Matthew Rees saved him.

• 29:58Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds like the kind of story that Bradley Cooper has for every movie he's worked on.

• 30:02Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I bet like, he's also like Big Dom once, I almost died and Big Dom from the Eagles saved me.

• 30:08Andy Greenwald?

  A hundred percent. He just keeps almost dying. Well, I just want to say, because I'm assuming our inbox will be full, that Ola Fable, of course, is Basque.

• 30:18Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my bad.

• 30:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's the third heat, as Jack Donaghy once said, the beautiful nation of Spain.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Did you Google that while, while I was telling you that story?

• 30:27Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 30:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, I knew, I just knew that.

• 30:31Chris Ryan?

  Okay, okay.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just a little sleepy.

• 30:33Chris Ryan?

  I'm excited because, you know, Andonia Iriola, who's the coach of Liverpool is, is Basque.

• 30:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I know that too.

• 30:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. As is Mikel Arteta, the coach of Arsenal.

• 30:43Andy Greenwald?

  I think there are a lot of good things that are Basque, like Pinchos.

• 30:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Andy Greenwald?

  You could have them in small tapas bars.

• 30:47Chris Ryan?

  Reese, obviously, like, we just talked about the, the best actor on television right now. It's not really close. He also has the best taste.

• 30:55Andy Greenwald?

  And 100% approval rating from.

• 30:56Chris Ryan?

  And cool family. Gene Smart.

• 30:58Andy Greenwald?

  Can I, can I just, Reese was awesome. He's just so good. Those roles are so different. He was so happy and excited. It made for great TV. And also shout out to his wife, Keri Russell, who did not win, which was a surprise, and we'll get there. But just the two of them, again, this is my thing, like neither, neither of them, them together do not equal one Jack Nicholson. I'm not saying this is the 1993 Oscars, but they seem to be so beloved by everyone who works with them or sits near them at these things. And she was cheering so loudly and genuinely for everyone that that helped, that helped.

• 31:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Also two people who seem really happy to be on television.

• 31:38Andy Greenwald?

  Comfortable.

• 31:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, Gene Smart did win. It was Hacks's, Hacks's one major win of the evening.

• 31:45Andy Greenwald?

  From last night, yeah.

• 31:46Chris Ryan?

  She won for actor in a comedy, Noah Wiley.

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  I believe that means that she won every season of the show.

• 31:52Chris Ryan?

  Did she?

• 31:52Andy Greenwald?

  I believe so.

• 31:53Chris Ryan?

  Cool. She won five Emmys?

• 31:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. And she has many more from like guest starring on Frasier eight times.

• 32:00Chris Ryan?

  Did she ever win for like Designing Women?

• 32:02Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think, I mean, again, I don't Google during the show, so I wouldn't know.

• 32:06Chris Ryan?

  Right. Does she enjoy a San Sebastian, like a sort of frothy, light, white wine?

• 32:12Andy Greenwald?

  Google dot SP, because I'm only looking at Spanish Google.

• 32:16Chris Ryan?

  Basque results.

• 32:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the Basque results. Uh, look, we, we don't need to relitigate it. Like, I didn't even watch the last season of Hacks. My enjoyment, no.

• 32:27Chris Ryan?

  At all?

• 32:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, no, I watched the, I watched the premiere.

• 32:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 32:30Andy Greenwald?

  But my enjoyment level of that show kind of waned after the first three seasons. Lots of respect to them for making it, tons of respect for Gene Smart for delivering like a career capping performance.

• 32:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Andy Greenwald?

  And, you know, owning every minute of the character's transformation. I have no, I have no hate in my heart for Gene Smart. I was glad that she won. I thought it was really sweet the way she thanked Paul and Lucia and, and Jen Statsky, the showrunners. So directly because they, this was their baby and they couldn't have done it without each other. But I was happy Widows Bay won the other awards.

• 33:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Noah Wiley won best actor in a drama. That was pretty nailed on.

• 33:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 33:10Chris Ryan?

  For, for the pit.

• 33:11Andy Greenwald?

  But awesome.

• 33:12Chris Ryan?

  But awesome. Do you think he'll win that award every year the pit's on?

• 33:17Andy Greenwald?

  I think we are approaching, I would have said a Larriquette situation, but really it's a Gene Smart situation. Yeah.

• 33:23Chris Ryan?

  Ray Sehorn winning for actress in a drama, I think would probably be the biggest upset. I confidently predicted Zendaya. No, I said, I thought Zendaya should win.

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  And I thought Keri Russell would win.

• 33:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, she beat Keri Coon, Chase Infinity, Keri Russell and Zendaya.

• 33:42Andy Greenwald?

  It was a cool category.

• 33:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Andy Greenwald?

  I, that was, I guess it wasn't a shock if you were to look back and see that clearly the voters had a lot of time for Pluribus. Because Vince Gilligan also won.

• 33:52Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 33:53Andy Greenwald?

  It wasn't one of those things that got nominated, like it was like a be happier here.

• 33:59Chris Ryan?

  Have a small.

• 34:00Andy Greenwald?

  Trophy.

• 34:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:01Andy Greenwald?

  It's a remarkable turnaround and I guess also an enormous credit to, I don't, I don't think we're generally in the business of lauding publicity campaigns. And, but, and awards campaigns, but clearly Apple did something that AMC wasn't capable of doing.

• 34:14Chris Ryan?

  Well, in the comedy department, Apple is now.

• 34:17Andy Greenwald?

  Dominant.

• 34:17Chris Ryan?

  On a, on a, an undefeated run.

• 34:20Andy Greenwald?

  Because the studio, and they could alternate those shows for the next, oh, right, and they could alternate those shows for the next however many years. So they always have something. But, um, but yeah, but I, but, you know, Ray Sehorn should have been nominated many times. Probably should have won for Better Call Saul, didn't. And when you look at this category, I think only Zendaya

• 34:39Andy Greenwald?

  was existential to the show to the degree that that performance, like you don't make that season if Zendaya is not going to do those things. Similarly, Pluribus just can't exist without Ray Sehorn's performance.

• 34:49Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 34:49Andy Greenwald?

  And I thought she was charming and it was deserved. And also it was, again, I don't know if I'm emoting or like projecting. But I felt that the room agreed with the podcast community that this woman deserves something.

• 35:04Chris Ryan?

  Nominees in Outstanding Lead Actress seemed elated that Ray Sehorn won.

• 35:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I thought that was sweet. And sometimes the narratives that we push aren't necessarily ones that exist in, among the people doing these things. And it seemed like that was real. I thought it was awesome. And we, just to use this as an opportunity to say, I actually thought briefly, because, because a lot of the pit actors canceled each other out, allowing some surprise.

• 35:28Chris Ryan?

  What you think happened?

• 35:28Andy Greenwald?

  100 million percent for supporting actor and things like that.

• 35:31Chris Ryan?

  What's up, what's up with the amount of people who get nominated for supporting actor?

• 35:36Andy Greenwald?

  But, but because of that, I thought Pluribus had a shot to win best drama. I thought that, but clearly.

• 35:41Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 35:42Andy Greenwald?

  I did. So I went into that last moment thinking maybe it was going to snatch it.

• 35:45Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 35:46Andy Greenwald?

  Because clearly they loved it. Voters loved it. And also the pit's going to be back next year. So there could be a little bit of get you next time.

• 35:53Chris Ryan?

  I don't think people think like that.

• 35:54Andy Greenwald?

  They do not think like that. And it also just affirms my theory that the other nominees canceled each other out. Because anytime a, a pit person was alone or the show was alone, it won.

• 36:05Chris Ryan?

  Why are there so many people who get nominated for supporting?

• 36:08Andy Greenwald?

  How many, how many nominees?

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven people. Whereas in actor, it's one, two, three, four, five, seven to five.

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think when you build something, you know, you need more supporting columns to reach the top.

• 36:25Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I, that's not a stupid answer.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  A little bit stupid. No, I, I, I think, I do not know the answer to this. So, but that will not stop me as a white male podcaster from opining about it. That I believe that there may be a seven cap on all the categories.

• 36:39Chris Ryan?

  But you have to hit like a certain threshold?

• 36:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 36:41Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 36:42Andy Greenwald?

  Because I think there were seven nominees in the series categories.

• 36:46Chris Ryan?

  So Ray Sehorn was a bit of a, a surprise. And I gotta say, I was surprised by Sally Field.

• 36:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, go off on this.

• 36:53Chris Ryan?

  Now, I.

• 36:55Andy Greenwald?

  Get her, Chris.

• 36:56Chris Ryan?

  Believe I said.

• 36:57Andy Greenwald?

  Play the music.

• 36:58Chris Ryan?

  I thought this was category fraud and I didn't understand why.

• 37:01Andy Greenwald?

  You did.

• 37:02Chris Ryan?

  Remarkably Bright Creatures, which aired on Netflix with hundreds of other movies.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 37:08Chris Ryan?

  Was distinguished as a TV movie.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 37:11Chris Ryan?

  And I did not see Remarkably Bright Creatures, so I cannot speak to Sally Field's Tova Sullivan and her relationship to, I believe, octopuses and their.

• 37:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, octopuses and Dr. Octopus, because Alfred Molina is in the film as well.

• 37:25Chris Ryan?

  And your boy, your, your favorite young actor in the world, isn't it?

• 37:30Andy Greenwald?

  Louis Pullman.

• 37:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  You should check him out.

• 37:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Sally Field beat Claire Danes, Carey Mulligan, Sarah Pigeon and Sarah Snook. I thought maybe Sarah Pigeon would win.

• 37:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 37:41Chris Ryan?

  Just because that seemed like a breakout young star performance that the industry would like to lift up and say, we got another one. But I was wrong. It was more like a, maybe not a lifetime achievement award, but Sally Field seemed genuinely surprised and incredibly prepared to speak off the cuff about not only her career and her experience making Remarkably Bright Creatures, but one of the few explicit anti-merger statements, uh, which was from a night that I thought was pretty devoid of, of political commentary.

• 38:19Andy Greenwald?

  I want to be clear. Alfred Molina voices Marcellus, the giant octopus.

• 38:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  In the film, which is probably how I would have.

• 38:26Chris Ryan?

  And does that octopus pick World Cup winners?

• 38:28Andy Greenwald?

  This one doesn't. This one actually sort of.

• 38:31Chris Ryan?

  Just my guy, Paul.

• 38:32Andy Greenwald?

  How's he doing?

• 38:33Chris Ryan?

  I, I think Paul has moved on. Uh.

• 38:35Andy Greenwald?

  Is he the CEO of Kelsey now?

• 38:40Andy Greenwald?

  Making money. Smart. He's ahead of his time.

• 38:44Chris Ryan?

  Remarkably bright futures. Yeah. Um.

• 38:48Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I love your theory. I mean, it is odd. Like this used to be, in a different TV landscape, there were like the HBO movies. They would clean up these categories and weirdly be up against like, you know, the mini series that were on NBC. And that's just how it shook out. And invariably, the award would go to a movie star that took an HBO gig over a TV star who is in a 10-part mini series. This was odd because as you said. There was one of the nominees just stood out in the sense of like, this is a veteran legendary actress in what is 100% a movie.

• 39:22Chris Ryan?

  Which is part of the, it's part of the award, but I just don't understand really what distinguishes it between, then why, why not put Matt Damon from The Rip in actor?

• 39:33Andy Greenwald?

  This is, well, first of all, I don't remember him talking to an octopus in that film.

• 39:37Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 39:37Andy Greenwald?

  So he didn't deserve it. Also, he's a male actor, so he wouldn't have been nominated.

• 39:41Chris Ryan?

  The sort of eight, eight tentacled criminal justice system that he fights against and the corruption therein.

• 39:47Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. It's almost like ripping the tentacles off of the side of the tank, if you will. I think, I wondered, I kind of liked, I see now the, the, the, the shape of your, we're just asking the questions here on this one. This was the one moment where I was like, like, like, for example, with my children, when they're like, the MTV Awards are this weekend.

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  Taylor is going to perform. Oh, I hope she wins. And I don't have the heart, like, they know the truth.

• 40:14Chris Ryan?

  The fairy isn't real. The two things are inter, yeah.

• 40:17Andy Greenwald?

  You have, aha, you have found the truth. I, she was going to go up to eulogize her friend Dolly Parton. So she was already going to be there.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you think it's cooked?

• 40:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, I'm saying you said that. So I was just asking the question.

• 40:32Chris Ryan?

  I was just surprised. I thought Claire Danes, or Carey Mulligan, or Sarah Pidgeon, or Sarah Sutcliffe, like, all, if any of those people had won, I would have been like, oh, yeah. Um, anyway, just to kind of get back on track here. My, probably my favorite award of the night went to Tom Pelfrey. For Task, Pelfrey gave such a beautiful, vulnerable, sensitive performance.

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  Star, Star making, even though he had been recognized and done good work before.

• 40:57Chris Ryan?

  And had been a mank and stuff like that. But I think, yes, like Task is, is certainly like, I think a signature role for him. It was so cool to see the Task cast and Inglesby there.

• 41:11Chris Ryan?

  I thought his, like, I thought, I thought he seemed to be genuinely moved and have, like, really sincere things to say about being an actor, being a father, being sober. I thought, I thought it was cool.

• 41:24Andy Greenwald?

  And I just felt that because, you know, Task, I don't think it shifted categories, but was viewed as a limited, became an ongoing, and then submitted as an ongoing, and then wasn't nominated for Best Drama. I think there was some surprise that he won, considering it was hard to gauge what the voters' affection for that show was.

• 41:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it's, generally speaking, the Emmys tends to seem, seemingly vote in blocks.

• 41:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 41:48Chris Ryan?

  And they, they get behind a show and those shows tend to roll. So having one offs here and there, I think is really good for the Emmys, but it is not typical for the Emmys. Some other winners, Allison Janney for supporting drama, and drama for The Diplomat.

• 42:02Andy Greenwald?

  This is when they really spread the ball around in drama.

• 42:04Chris Ryan?

  Slow Horses and Widows Bay won for directing.

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  Can I say that the Slow Horses one really surprised me? Saul Metzstein won, had a good joke about looking like a Bond villain. But I was really surprised because, Slow Horses generally seems like a show that the voters really, really, really, really, really like, don't love enough to give any awards to, and just sort of tick a box. The fact that he won over certain, two nominees in particular.

• 42:30Chris Ryan?

  Well, he beat Sally Richardson Whitfield.

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  Twice.

• 42:33Chris Ryan?

  For Task, Vince Gilligan for Pluribus, Noah Wiley for The Pit.

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  That's, yes.

• 42:37Chris Ryan?

  And Hanel Colpepper for Paradise, and Sally Richardson Whitfield for Gilded Age.

• 42:42Andy Greenwald?

  Again, I think Sally probably deserved this, but probably split her own vote there. So that, but that was interesting. And again, the kind of thing where I'm like, it's kind of, I'm not saying it was cooked. I'm saying it was nice when the bounty of drama awards were spread out like this.

• 42:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And that's pretty much it. Colbert, obviously, won for Late Night and Traitors for Reality.

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  I got a couple others.

• 43:09Chris Ryan?

  Please hit me.

• 43:12Andy Greenwald?

  Okay. What are our thoughts on Emmy Award winner for Paradise Season Two, Shailene Woodley's fit?

• 43:21Andy Greenwald?

  Would you like to go on the record?

• 43:22Chris Ryan?

  Did she wear, like, jeans or something? Like, what do you, what was she wearing?

• 43:24Andy Greenwald?

  I am not gendering anything when I say Kaia had a reaction to the question, and I wondered if she wanted to weigh in at all.

• 43:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't.

• 43:30Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, you are also welcome to weigh in. It is not at all about asking the woman in the room with us.

• 43:37Speaker 05

  Horrendous.

• 43:38Andy Greenwald?

  It was, it was tough.

• 43:40Speaker 05

  There was, like, some gloves involved. It was.

• 43:43Andy Greenwald?

  Do you have any thoughts?

• 43:44Chris Ryan?

  I'm trying to find it. Sorry, I wasn't, I wasn't looking at the outfit. I was looking at the body of work.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Oh, she was wearing, like, leopard?

• 43:53Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Chris Ryan?

  And like a vest, but nothing underneath the vest. All right. She's had a tough week, you know? Aaron Rodgers aired her out a little bit. And,

• 44:06Chris Ryan?

  I think she, I think we, I think we should support people wearing what they want to wear.

• 44:09Andy Greenwald?

  I agree. Now, when you put it in the term, like, in the sense of, like, if anything Aaron Rodgers, like, publicly speaks up against, whether it's her or science, I'm generally on the other side of the issue. So I, I would like to retract my slander.

• 44:21Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 44:21Andy Greenwald?

  She can wear what she wants, even a mask.

• 44:26Andy Greenwald?

  Because I trust, I trust doctors. Vince Gilligan, we have met him in person now. We know this to be true, a lovely guy. His speech was also very.

• 44:33Chris Ryan?

  Hates AI.

• 44:34Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, good for him.

• 44:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Andy Greenwald?

  Another, yet another thing he and I have in common.

• 44:40Andy Greenwald?

  Last thing, Steve Conrad. We talk about him a lot.

• 44:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Andy Greenwald?

  He won for DTF St. Louis. Congratulations to that show. It missed us, like, in terms of our reaction to it, but clearly loved by both audiences and the voters. So congratulations. What an interesting vibe.

• 44:55Chris Ryan?

  Him?

• 44:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 44:56Chris Ryan?

  I think he walks the walk, man.

• 44:58Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I really respect it.

• 44:58Chris Ryan?

  It's nice to see, like, an authentically, like, offbeat dude.

• 45:01Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I'm saying. I, we talk about him like he's a major celebrity.

• 45:05Chris Ryan?

  See why his, the sort of protagonists of his shows are the way they are.

• 45:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 45:10Chris Ryan?

  Very, very, reminded me a lot of the lead of Patriot.

• 45:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yeah, or some of, like, Richard Jenkins.

• 45:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  In, in DTF. I, I thought that that was, I mean, we talk about him like he's a celebrity. We don't really engage with his work, but we are interested in it and we respect it. But I've never actually seen him. And there he was, like, and what a journey.

• 45:30Chris Ryan?

  I gotta say, Big What If is, is him doing Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

• 45:34Andy Greenwald?

  That's the one he was attached to, right?

• 45:35Chris Ryan?

  I believe so. Yeah. And I would love to see that script or, like, I don't think they shot a pilot, but I would love to see what work he did before they were like, what?

• 45:44Andy Greenwald?

  I do think that one of the great unexplored, like, texts in this, in this town is, like, could we really ever know what these other projects were? Like, what, like, the aborted versions of them?

• 45:57Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:57Andy Greenwald?

  Is, I do think there should be some sort of statute of limitations where networks and studios can bury projects for 10, even 20 years, but then they have to put them in public domain. I'm thinking of this because I've been reading, like, quite a few years late, but Jim Miller's HBO, massive HBO Oral History, Tinderbox. And there's just these incredible, like, little stray details about, like, when, Bill Carter from the New York Times wrote the book about Late Night, when it mattered, The Late Shift, I believe it was called. And they, Ivan Reitman came on to make the movie version for HBO, and the first call he made was to George Armitage, super weirdo filmmaker who did Miami Blues.

• 46:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:35Andy Greenwald?

  And he took eight months and wrote a script that begins with Jay Leno and Dave Letterman getting super drunk together at a bar. And they were like, these men don't do this, and Jay Leno famously doesn't drink.

• 46:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  And apparently, the movie turned out the way it did because Bill Carter got that script on a Saturday and was so worried about pretending to like it, that he just jotted down 40 pages of a different version of the script that then they bought on Monday.

• 46:58Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 46:59Andy Greenwald?

  But, give me more.

• 47:00Chris Ryan?

  I want to see that, yeah.

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  Give me the George Armitage version. Give me the Steve Conrad Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  We should do a special episode on lost projects. I know we've mentioned them before and we've gone back through the archives, but I would love, I would love to revisit that.

• 47:12Andy Greenwald?

  What's your, do you have a, I don't have anything in my brain right now. I don't know if you have, like, a white whale of these.

• 47:17Chris Ryan?

  If I remember correctly, there was an Altman show.

• 47:21Andy Greenwald?

  Probably.

• 47:21Chris Ryan?

  I think it was for,

• 47:24Chris Ryan?

  I want to say it was for IFC, or it was for some smaller network, but I believe it was about, like, a gun moving through society.

• 47:32Andy Greenwald?

  There was a show, well, that's interesting. There was a show with that premise.

• 47:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh-huh.

• 47:39Andy Greenwald?

  I don't know if Altman was connected to it. Altman did do Tanner 88 for HBO.

• 47:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:44Andy Greenwald?

  But, I don't, oh, well, there was going to be a Prete Porté series.

• 47:48Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 47:49Andy Greenwald?

  Also, it says that he had a show about Spanish golfers.

• 47:56Andy Greenwald?

  Wow. Telling on yourself.

• 48:00Andy Greenwald?

  But I guess you and the greats.

• 48:01Chris Ryan?

  You gotta rip, rip, rip off good sources.

• 48:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, of course.

• 48:05Chris Ryan?

  Emmys.

• 48:05Andy Greenwald?

  Good night.

• 48:06Chris Ryan?

  Way to go. Thumbs up. Let's talk about.

• 48:08Andy Greenwald?

  You didn't hit any parties?

• 48:10Chris Ryan?

  I did not, man. No. I've been on a run right now of watching mountain climbing disaster movies.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  But like.

• 48:19Chris Ryan?

  Why?

• 48:20Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I was trying to find a nicer way to say it. Like, are you, are you in pursuit of a larger project that you're going to unveil?

• 48:27Chris Ryan?

  What did we watch first?

• 48:28Andy Greenwald?

  It would be called Don't Stick the Landing.

• 48:31Chris Ryan?

  We watched a movie called K2.

• 48:33Andy Greenwald?

  Uh-huh.

• 48:34Chris Ryan?

  With Michael Biehn and, and Matt Craven.

• 48:36Andy Greenwald?

  I believe that movie has a subtitle called The Widowmaker. Is that right?

• 48:40Chris Ryan?

  No, that's, that's the submarine. That's K-19 or.

• 48:42Andy Greenwald?

  That's weird, because I feel like climbing K2 would also.

• 48:45Chris Ryan?

  It's also funny you should say that. Then we watched Everest, which is Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin on the John Krakauer into thin air trip. That was disaster.

• 48:56Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 48:56Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and tonight, well, we're seeing Resident Evil tonight, but then I think we're gonna, we're gonna watch,

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  I think it's called Terminal Void, or Terminal Distance, or something like that.

• 49:07Andy Greenwald?

  You have a thing you're doing.

• 49:07Chris Ryan?

  We just, we just like mountain climbing movies right now.

• 49:09Andy Greenwald?

  Before we get into lanterns, should we also shout out that, that Phoebe wrote a fantastic profile of the star of Resident Evil?

• 49:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Austin Abrams in, in British GQ.

• 49:16Andy Greenwald?

  For British GQ.

• 49:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Andy Greenwald?

  It's, but your household has been just.

• 49:19Chris Ryan?

  She also wrote one about Keon Ruffalo from Sterling Point.

• 49:21Andy Greenwald?

  Really?

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Andy Greenwald?

  I haven't seen that yet.

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  That's in New York Magazine.

• 49:24Andy Greenwald?

  She's busy.

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• 51:53Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk a little bit about lanterns. Well, let's talk a lot about it. I spoke about this episode at length on the Midnight Boys. I filled in for Charles. And that was really fun. If anything, just because of we engaged in a conversational, like a topic that I don't think we had really discussed, which is really more than like mechanics of like Manhunter. Like who is the man? Who, obviously, we know who the Manhunter is, but might there be more? Was there really just one? Could the Manhunter have learned how to spawn?

• 52:29Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the Manhunter does like sex. I mean, I'll just say. The Manhunter gets after it. Apparently, that's one of the hallmarks of man hunting.

• 52:38Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's, but maybe that's what they're hunting. A good time between the sheets.

• 52:42Andy Greenwald?

  They're hunting men.

• 52:43Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 52:45Andy Greenwald?

  Did you think about that on the other podcast? That's amazing.

• 52:48Chris Ryan?

  But I had not really considered until this episode. This pre, this episode was written by Justin Brick Gibson.

• 52:54Andy Greenwald?

  The most handsome mustache in Hollywood.

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  The young boy, who is the son of Carrie McDonald, Kelly McDonald, her Carrie character, and Jason Ritter's character, Willie. And he's got Billy, and he's got a little bit of, he slings it. He's visualizing.

• 53:15Andy Greenwald?

  Jon Stewart helps him sling it.

• 53:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I think also Zoe helps him sling it. A football.

• 53:21Andy Greenwald?

  Because Zoe slings it elsewhere.

• 53:24Chris Ryan?

  There's a very interesting scene in this, this episode where it seems very important that he is protected.

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:30Chris Ryan?

  You know, and that he is, takes with him the lessons that his grandmother has given him.

• 53:36Andy Greenwald?

  To be fair, a similar show about like a young Arch Manning would have the same tenor, right? Like this boy must be protected at all costs.

• 53:43Chris Ryan?

  Well, not anymore.

• 53:45Andy Greenwald?

  No, the gloves are off. The bubble, the bubble wraps off. But I'm saying like there, the football alone in this country makes me think that that's worth.

• 53:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, we talked at length about what college program this kid might show up to.

• 53:56Andy Greenwald?

  This is Van recruiting him for LSU?

• 54:01Chris Ryan?

  It just gave me an insight into like, oh, there are like, there are layers to this show that I hadn't considered. I wanted to know what you thought of this episode in any way.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, okay, I'll, I'll talk about it, but I, because I have not listened to that podcast yet, I kind of wanted to know where you were coming from with it because I, and I'm curious about the deeper thoughts. My relationship with the show, I find to be fairly unique in recent memory for big shows in that I still hold that the second episode was the high watermark for me. I thought that episode was just excellent and I loved it. I've had, you know, a great time and a great time talking about it and admired some of the choices and loved some of the aspects of it and the performances or the jokes or the just structural bravery that the show is attempting week to week. But for me, this episode was never dull.

• 54:50Andy Greenwald?

  Was never anything less than entertaining and often quite surprising. And that's not nothing. It did strike me as the kind of loud noise that is distracting from something in that a lot of shit happened and a lot of shit got resolved. And I still, now, please come at me with the most obvious rejoinder. There are three episodes to go. I don't really, I understand a Manhunter, so I thought. I don't understand Zoe. I didn't really understand why she did what she did at any point during the episode, why we were so afraid of her, other than the fact that she was willing to satellite laser people in the town.

• 55:31Andy Greenwald?

  But the narrative, she's a war criminal, was just so blanketly applied. And then everything sort of spun from that. I was having a hard time tracking, like, Macon seems like a very important character. Surely there's another card to turn. No, it's really just two scenes. There's the nude painting and then there's the heart carving scene with Paul Ben Victor, which was a sick scene. Really good. Jason Ritter, I assume, got cut out of a lot of these episodes?

• 56:01Chris Ryan?

  I think he's gonna have, I mean, in the scenes from next week, he seems to be showing up.

• 56:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Okay. So it clearly, because of the way the show plays the time, you kind of can't, it's a defense against this kind of like episodic interrogation. But I will say that because a lot of it is either being punted to the end, and a lot of the swings are so big, in the way that I think comic book swings are big, but don't necessarily always translate to TV, that it felt compelling, noisy, kind of flimsy at the bottom.

• 56:31Chris Ryan?

  Okay. I think that there, there is, okay, so my number one favorite thing about it was the placement of it within the season. To have something that felt so board resetting.

• 56:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. It kind of ended the first story.

• 56:47Chris Ryan?

  Ending this story of lanterns. I found the way that they've assembled the season to be quite creative, sometimes a bit maddening, because I think there have been maybe one or two too many red herrings. And I was nervous that we were entering a no one ever really dies, like wink, wink, like we're not gonna like, you know, obviously with Zoe, her fake death two weeks ago. But since the entire framing device of the series so far is who killed Hal Jordan, the idea that that's Hal Jordan's century, or that Hal Jordan has somehow, somehow Hal Jordan has survived, is a little bit frustrating to me.

• 57:31Chris Ryan?

  Because I want to believe that the consequences of people's actions have real reverberations, you know, like, like I don't want it to just be like, but he was zapped out at the last second by the Guardians and his consciousness is in an ice cube somewhere.

• 57:44Andy Greenwald?

  You're smartly running at, I think, the central crux of comic book entertainment, which is how would you successfully balance or marry cool spectacle with actual rich emotional storytelling? And I think this series has been a really fascinating, and again, incredibly well made and very engaging, like live stress test on trying, undoing it, on trying to accomplish it. You know, like the opening, there's all these little details that I'm definitely not picking up on in my first viewing, probably some of the Midnight Boys Manhunter stuff goes into that category. The last scene of last week's episode, when Hal crashes the car, reading about it later

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  and noting upon reflection that, yeah, the street light's pretty yellow and the stuff, you know, it's a color of fear and is Hal under the control of Sinestro? And so it's doing these big comic book things. But sometimes the comic book things mean the cold open of this episode, which is revealing that Kelly McDonald's character was on the run from Gotham and was a daughter of a snitch. And she was a snitch too, and she was gonna be killed.

• 58:51Chris Ryan?

  She's not a snitch, she just.

• 58:52Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, they said she.

• 58:53Chris Ryan?

  She would be.

• 58:54Andy Greenwald?

  The children of snitches also get stitches when they're, cut their own fingers off. And that Zoe steps in in a diner and is like, of all the people who have driven through this town, you're my guy, Blue. Like, you're the one, cut off your own finger, I'm gonna kill this guy, et cetera, et cetera. And that is one of those ones that like, your mileage may vary. Like, I thought it was incredibly cool conception. But I also felt very heavily the, this has to open this episode because we can't delay any longer her relationship with Zoe and what she knows.

• 59:24Chris Ryan?

  And I still don't think we know the full extent of it.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Fair, because we know she's alive 10 years in the future.

• 59:28Chris Ryan?

  And when she has that conversation with Hal where she's like, I have to shoot at you because she can see, but she can't hear. And Hal is like, why are you protecting her? I thought that Carrie's response to that went beyond just like, she saved my life in a diner once.

• 59:45Andy Greenwald?

  There's something else. Is it her son?

• 59:47Chris Ryan?

  I think it could be her son. Yeah. Right. And so that there is like a greater reason why she has to protect this specific town.

• 59:54Andy Greenwald?

  Are you tracking scene to scene, Hal's intentions and John's intentions? And where they are with their separate and now conflicting journeys?

• 1:00:04Chris Ryan?

  Hal and John, yes. I found, I was personally a little bit confused by the more extraterrestrial stuff of the Guardians, the Anton crew and Zoe, and like how that all had shaken out and what they each kind of had come to earth to do.

• 1:00:25Andy Greenwald?

  And, and, and the timing of when they were able to do it in that like, it seemed pretty clear to anyone who enters Rushville that something's up. But Anton was kind of hanging out in Glendale until John.

• 1:00:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:37Andy Greenwald?

  Told him that he would take care of him.

• 1:00:39Chris Ryan?

  And then, like, what do you, do you need somebody specifically to do something for you? Or can you just go in there and do it? And like, what are your alien capabilities if you're using machine guns? It doesn't really matter, but like.

• 1:00:50Andy Greenwald?

  But their alien capabilities, and what is your attitude about the fragility of life? Considering their main thing is suicide bombing themselves. At appropriate moments. And, you know, like, it, that's the line too, where I'm like, the Anton character is awesome. Casting that actor is exciting. And every scene that he was in was really, really compelling because of the combination of actor and tone and specifics of the moment. So you could say, man, they just ran right at it. They just blew him up. Like, he got his big scene, he cut out, he did the last of the Mohican surgery. And then he blew himself up in a tornado. And now it's like, wow, how relentless, how unsentimental this show is to just throw every one of its ideas in the middle.

• 1:01:34Andy Greenwald?

  But then there's also part of me, and maybe it's a more conservative part of me, that's like, can we slow down here? Like, I love you have a water tower full of darkness. That whole sequence was sick, but. What's he really feeling? Now, as I say it, it sounds lame as hell.

• 1:01:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Andy Greenwald?

  But there was something about the elevated pace.

• 1:01:50Chris Ryan?

  And I also, I think that the thing is, is that sometimes like the incredible set pieces in this episode got in the way of like legibility. Like, I didn't really understand why Zoe needed to sacrifice the entire town to get Hal's ring down to 10%.

• 1:02:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:02:06Chris Ryan?

  You know, like, it seems like there could have been, like, for all the things that she thought through, unless the whole point is, this is what Manhunters eventually do.

• 1:02:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:02:15Chris Ryan?

  You know, because she obviously had this past with Anton.

• 1:02:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Chris Ryan?

  That had heretofore not been mentioned.

• 1:02:21Andy Greenwald?

  Right. They, there was the long sequence that was, that was interesting, you know, about how they intentionally take the form of an outsider or someone of lower caste, or whatever you want to call it, in a society, because that's how you get full perspective on it, and then the romantic parts of it, and then you get the kind of very, like, fine, but aggressively like, oh, I thought you were heterosexual in the line about like, the pleasures of the universe.

• 1:02:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Andy Greenwald?

  But I also, yeah, but, but, but again, like, that's where, if the show is good enough, which it basically is, you don't think about the A to B to C nitpicks of it, but there were some of them that were more, more flagrant, that I guess either broke up my ability to just let go and enjoy it and not pick nits, or to appreciate some of the show's genuinely good faith and quite clever attempts at symmetry, whether it's the yellow light that I didn't appropriately notice, or that when we think John is taking the ring in the hotel room, it is an exact mirror of, and we haven't seen it, but of Hal's

• 1:03:24Chris Ryan?

  Officer.

• 1:03:25Andy Greenwald?

  origin story, where there's a dying lantern, and there's a Manhunter, and there's the new one.

• 1:03:30Chris Ryan?

  Right. John executing Zoe at the end, I wasn't sure why Zoe then, like, took a knee on fourth down there. I mean,

• 1:03:39Andy Greenwald?

  A coward's draw.

• 1:03:40Chris Ryan?

  She did seem to have a lot of, like, escapability.

• 1:03:46Andy Greenwald?

  What you're saying is she had the tools in her body. Shout out Howie Roseman, to get out of that.

• 1:03:49Chris Ryan?

  Well, I guess she didn't have her iPad, which seemed to be essential to, to executing.

• 1:03:54Andy Greenwald?

  Among the many things a Manhunter has in common with my nine-year-old. The dependence.

• 1:03:59Chris Ryan?

  The world-eating.

• 1:04:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I mean, like, the skill, the raw talent, but also ultimately the, the limiting dependence on it. Yeah, that's, that's a challenge. What about, you sent me something I thought was funny. We can wrap up on this, but someone did bring up the very clever idea of a Surf Dracula.

• 1:04:15Andy Greenwald?

  In that, I'd forgotten this. It is a really, really funny tweet. Shout out Twitter when it was funny, that the idea of, like, in the old days, if there was a show called Surf Dracula.

• 1:04:25Chris Ryan?

  Dracula surfed in the first episode.

• 1:04:27Andy Greenwald?

  Surfing in the first five minutes, and he'd just be shredding waves.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  All of modern television is essentially going away from, we had to get, we had to call it Surf Dracula to get this made, but what this is, is my, my Bertolucci film.

• 1:04:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, my Bertolucci film, in which a Transylvanian man, uh, who's afraid of the water and of bats, is both, becomes a vampire and is gifted his first surfboard at the end of the first season.

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:47Andy Greenwald?

  So, the, the argument here was, oh my God, is this the most clever, artfully disguised Surf Dracula of all time, because John still isn't Green Lantern?

• 1:04:55Chris Ryan?

  Well, I mean, he's not going to be, right? Guy Gardner is.

• 1:04:58Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I don't, I, that's gonna help answer a question. I don't understand, uh, I don't know.

• 1:05:04Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:05Andy Greenwald?

  What Jim Gunn has done here.

• 1:05:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Andy Greenwald?

  Because I believe that when he was making Superman, he's just like, I want to do the funny Green Lantern. Without giving a lot of thought to, we will have to unpack the canonical truths of the Guardians, which only one person from this sector can have the ring.

• 1:05:19Chris Ryan?

  I don't think this is gonna be the only season of Lanterns. It's very successful.

• 1:05:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's not.

• 1:05:22Chris Ryan?

  And I think that, uh, I think these next few episodes will be really fascinating to see to what extent we get Dracula on a surfboard, and to what extent we wind up being concerned with other things. I'll tell you, this is a nice, I, I'm off the hook here, because I don't really know anything about Green Lanterns, and I don't really, it's not a big deal to me if he doesn't get the ring.

• 1:05:44Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 1:05:45Chris Ryan?

  You know, I think it's an interesting character beat for him to be like, I've realized that this is empty, you know?

• 1:05:50Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think they're Trojan horsing a story about a guy with severe parent issues going back to art school? Like, is this actually a Dan Clowes graphic novel, not Green Lantern?

• 1:05:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:06:00Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible.

• 1:06:01Chris Ryan?

  Great to see you. We'll be back on Thursday. We'll talk a little bit about slow horses, and Chuck Klostermiller will be joining me to talk about his book, Rock. Thank you to Kai and Kaya for producing today, and, uh, we'll see you guys on Thursday.

• 1:06:13Andy Greenwald?

  The community of television awaits.

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