You Should Watch ‘The Eternaut.’ Plus, Netflix Goes on a Cancellation Spree.

Chris and Andy talk about Oasis kicking off their reunion tour over the weekend (0:22) and a slew of shows Netflix has cancelled recently, including ‘Pulse’ and ‘The Residence’ (14:47). Then they make their pitch for why you should be watching ‘The Eternaut,’ an Argentine sci-fi show (19:32), on Netflix, before talking about the first episode of the new Apple TV+ show ‘Smoke’ (45:02). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:44Speaker 00

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• 0:51Andy Greenwald?

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

• 0:56Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. Joining me in the studio, crying into a bucket hat that he didn't spend July 4th in Cardiff, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:12Andy Greenwald?

  How do you think we would have fared if we had been at the Oasis reunion concert this weekend?

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  Andy, among other things, that's what I wanted to talk to you about today. So we have the Oasis reunion concerts. They've kicked off. I think it's gonna be like an 18-month tour. Not, maybe not that long, but it's a long tour that they're on.

• 1:28Andy Greenwald?

  They're coming here.

• 1:29Chris Ryan?

  They are coming here in September. We're gonna talk about that. As promised, we're gonna talk about the first few episodes of The Eternate on Netflix and Smoke on Apple, just the first episode there, because that was an hour and change.

• 1:42Andy Greenwald?

  Also, The Eternate, I feel like we should divide our, I want to get people hype and then we can tell them to skip. You know what I mean?

• 1:49Chris Ryan?

  What do you mean?

• 1:49Andy Greenwald?

  Like, we're gonna tell you. Which camera am I in? We're gonna tell you why you should watch this show.

• 1:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54Andy Greenwald?

  Like we used to in the old days.

• 1:55Chris Ryan?

  We can make that the headline of the podcast.

• 1:57Andy Greenwald?

  You should watch this. And then we'll maybe we can spoil a little bit, but okay.

• 2:01Chris Ryan?

  Um, what's up bud? Uh, just a couple of housekeeping things.

• 2:05Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 2:06Chris Ryan?

  You can email us at the watch at spotify.com and god damn it, if you're not emailing us. I apparently had some pretty restrictive spam stuff on.

• 2:13Andy Greenwald?

  Talk to the people about this.

• 2:14Chris Ryan?

  And there's like 250 emails I have to get through, but I have been, I have been sorting through them and there have been some, uh, we've tapped a rich vein of, of back and forth.

• 2:24Andy Greenwald?

  What were, Kaya had this too. What were some of the filters? Like no compliments are allowed in?

• 2:28Chris Ryan?

  I really don't know, honestly.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  We had a no, we had a pretty strenuous, uh, pro Andy filter on.

• 2:34Chris Ryan?

  That one broke.

• 2:36Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, that's not usually a problem in most inboxes.

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  Um, so please email us, keep emailing us. We actually have an email from a listener in Argentina that we're gonna share today.

• 2:46Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking of far flung places, we got some emails about my Dave sushi journey in Bozeman. I love that.

• 2:52Chris Ryan?

  Both sides of the issue.

• 2:53Andy Greenwald?

  True, true.

• 2:55Chris Ryan?

  Pro and anti Dave.

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  We're here to listen.

• 2:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, you can follow us on Instagram, the watch pod underscore. You can watch us on YouTube, the ringer dash TV, uh, YouTube channel. Plus you can watch us on Spotify where I hope you're listening to us. And, um, you know, July 4th, long weekend.

• 3:13Andy Greenwald?

  We, we saw each other. That was nice.

• 3:14Chris Ryan?

  We did, uh, but the big culture story, the big culture headline, I think for, for aging white men.

• 3:21Andy Greenwald?

  Jurassic Park?

• 3:22Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I saw it. I, I really, I, I enjoyed myself. I was in.

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  That made so much money.

• 3:27Chris Ryan?

  It did. Yes. Well, I mean, people are looking at dinosaurs generally. Uh, but Oasis played, speaking of dinosaurs.

• 3:33Andy Greenwald?

  Fake. Nice.

• 3:35Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Oasis kicked off their reunion tour. It's been a decade.

• 3:40Andy Greenwald?

  15 years since they, the brothers last played together.

• 3:43Chris Ryan?

  That's right. And I saw them in, I wanna say like oh eight, oh nine at MSG. Um, but I actually had gone for the opening act.

• 3:54Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that is, okay.

• 3:55Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 3:56Andy Greenwald?

  That is, that, that is.

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  You wanna double, double idiot me? It was Ryan Adams. I was going to see Ryan Adams in the cardinal.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  Did you leave?

• 4:05Chris Ryan?

  It was away. What do you want from me? And, uh...

• 4:08Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 4:08Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so, but Oasis were fine. I thought, you know, like, they were playing later period Oasis stuff and then rewarding the crowd with like the hits at the second half of the set.

• 4:19Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:20Chris Ryan?

  I remember it was just like a lot of heathen chemistry, but I actually like heathen chemistry.

• 4:23Andy Greenwald?

  You are zagging all over this podcast.

• 4:26Chris Ryan?

  Um, and they did not make the same mistake with their reunion shows. Obviously, if you've looked at Twitter or Instagram, like, it's, and you're, and you're, you've got my algorithm. Uh, it's all over that. And, uh, I just wanted, I wanted to know if you watched it and if you had a FOMO.

• 4:44Andy Greenwald?

  My algorithm is all Oasis clips and that one Italian chef who's like, "The tomatoes", and he gets like real in your face, and he's like, "Mm, mm, mm, mm."

• 4:51Chris Ryan?

  Is that that guy, Federico, that I sent you?

• 4:53Andy Greenwald?

  He's the, he's like white haired dude, and he's just like sensuously eating everything up against the camera?

• 4:57Chris Ryan?

  This is a guy who has like a New York City apartment, and he makes like a beautiful fish and veg every night, and then his wife's like, "Meh, too much lemon."

• 5:05Andy Greenwald?

  Boy, that is facts. That had to cut me to the bone.

• 5:09Chris Ryan?

  What did you think of the clips that you saw? And did you have FOMO that you wish you had gotten on a jet plane?

• 5:13Andy Greenwald?

  Well, here's, okay, so there's, there's a lot to unpack here, because when I saw that they opened their first show in 15 years at the stadium with Hello into Aquiesce, into...

• 5:25Chris Ryan?

  Morning Glory into Some Might Say.

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  Come on, get the fuck out.

• 5:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  That is real, real wild.

• 5:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Andy Greenwald?

  That is, god, man, you never read books, I know you do, where they're like, heroin in the 70s was better? That's what I think this is like.

• 5:39Chris Ryan?

  You never read books that say that?

• 5:41Andy Greenwald?

  That's the only books that I read. That's, that's, that's my genre.

• 5:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Andy Greenwald?

  Um, that is so wild and so good. And then you're reading, but then you kind of keep reading, and our buddy John Caramanica at The Times went to the show and was reviewing it. And there's a couple-

• 5:56Chris Ryan?

  Great review by John.

• 5:58Andy Greenwald?

  I thought so too. And I thought that-

• 6:01Chris Ryan?

  Capture the poetry of the moment.

• 6:03Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I want to talk to you about because they played those songs and they sound fucking amazing and those songs are undeniable and you look at the setlist and it's incredible and also you want to discuss, you also already diagrammed the entire plan for the evening because there is a little Noel High Flying Bird solo set there.

• 6:17Chris Ryan?

  That's when you get nine Carlsberg.

• 6:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's when you just go to the, you go to the loo, you come back, it's actually respectful of the crowd.

• 6:25Chris Ryan?

  But the ones I was watching. Actually, I really liked Talk Tonight, I just don't know if it plays to 62,000 people.

• 6:30Andy Greenwald?

  It's also, you got it, you got it, at our age and frankly at their age, you gotta balance things out, you gotta be, you gotta be reasonable. My thing with it is, um, those songs sounded amazing and the songs are amazing and the majesty of the vibe of those songs is amazing. I will say that they have not spent the 15 years working up some bands. They are still the same live band that they were when I saw them, I was just Googling the date, I was like, yeah, I probably saw them around the same time. I saw them in June of 2001 at Radio City Music Hall.

• 7:00Chris Ryan?

  We were so innocent.

• 7:01Andy Greenwald?

  Different time.

• 7:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Radio City.

• 7:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that was for, uh.

• 7:05Chris Ryan?

  Standing on the shoulders.

• 7:06Andy Greenwald?

  Shoulder, shoulder.

• 7:07Chris Ryan?

  Shoulder of giants, yeah.

• 7:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. And they were awful, like they're, they're not a traditionally good live band, they sit there and they like shout the songs.

• 7:16Chris Ryan?

  The entire thing is basically What Mood Is Liam in. If I remember, like when I saw them in 09, it was just like his voice, I would say was going a little bit, like so he was sawing off the end of all the lines and like backing away from the microphone.

• 7:29Andy Greenwald?

  That's what he does now, that's still, he, he puts his arms behind his back as if he's having some sort of GI distress and then he leans forward for the lyrics and he steps back after every lyric, like he's just finished and then he goes back in again.

• 7:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Andy Greenwald?

  And they don't speak and then they just sort of plow through the hits and then it, all these articles are like, "And then, in the 99th minute, Liam touched Noel's shoulder in a brotherly way" and they're like, "Oh my god." So, my question for you is, and this was the first show, that it's gonna be, who knows what'll happen in, in, when they actually get to like Wembley and also.

• 8:02Chris Ryan?

  They're playing Manchester tonight.

• 8:04Andy Greenwald?

  Noel, for what it's worth.

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  I think.

• 8:06Andy Greenwald?

  This is so sad to say that Noel is the more emo one of the two. But in the clips that I saw, he does seem to be a little bit like, holy shit.

• 8:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:13Andy Greenwald?

  About.

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  He gets very emotional, like especially during like Slide Away.

• 8:17Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I get emotional during Slide Away.

• 8:19Chris Ryan?

  And during Don't Look Back at Anger. I think the crowd singing back to him gets him real pumped up.

• 8:25Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the question, and maybe this is, maybe I'm answering it myself. When you're playing the hits in stadiums, which are not famous for their fidelity or audio fidelity or the intimacy of the experience.

• 8:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Andy Greenwald?

  Is this maybe the best form to see Oasis? Because what you're doing is you're investing in the vibes and the memories and the experience. Like, is this the best version of Oasis? Or do you think you'd go to these concerts and be like, I'm a little disappointed in the performance? Like, do you like the, do you actually like what's coming from the stage other than the songs?

• 8:56Chris Ryan?

  You know?

• 8:56Andy Greenwald?

  With, with your mates?

• 8:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it would be about me and the boys.

• 9:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Chris Ryan?

  Going out.

• 9:01Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 9:01Chris Ryan?

  You know, and, and, and really like connecting.

• 9:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  Through chemicals and through like.

• 9:07Andy Greenwald?

  Me, Sick Boy.

• 9:09Chris Ryan?

  Begbie.

• 9:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Chris Ryan?

  Begbie was definitely at that concert.

• 9:12Andy Greenwald?

  Begbie was glassing people left and right.

• 9:14Chris Ryan?

  I agree with you that they are, you know, the thing I wanted to ask you about really was more how wild it is now that you have high definition, basically pro shot video in almost real time, if not real time, coming out of these concerts to the point where you're like, eh, kind of feel like I saw it. Kind of, kind of feel like I might save the Five Hundo when they come to Rose Bowl. I, I mean, I obviously would love to go see them at the Rose Bowl. Because that seems amazing.

• 9:42Andy Greenwald?

  It is the, that's, that's the same.

• 9:45Chris Ryan?

  But this is the same thing that kind of happened to pro sports where it's like, good TVs kill bleacher seats to some extent. Because yeah, you can go for the vibe and you can go to hang out in the sun and drink some beers.

• 9:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's.

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  But.

• 9:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's more than that. It's like, remember when Bill was saying, it's like five years ago, he's like, my son Ben doesn't watch the games, he watches the recap clips.

• 10:02Chris Ryan?

  No, this is, this is all Ben Simmons's fault.

• 10:05Andy Greenwald?

  With both Ben Simmons.

• 10:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Andy Greenwald?

  If your name is Ben Simmons, you're on the wall.

• 10:09Chris Ryan?

  But you know what I mean? Like, it's like you would... Why would you go to a nosebleed seat?

• 10:14Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think-

• 10:14Chris Ryan?

  Unless it was like a really important game, when you can see it and listen to Doris Burke describe the action.

• 10:20Andy Greenwald?

  Because, first of all, would you like to... Would you like to just riff on Doris Burke at Cardiff-

• 10:25Chris Ryan?

  The DB, yeah.

• 10:26Andy Greenwald?

  Doing the Oasis show? Um, I feel like you could, especially with the brotherly aspect of it. I feel like there's a little Doris-

• 10:32Chris Ryan?

  We see you, Noel!

• 10:34Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's more like, "We see you, bonehead."

• 10:39Chris Ryan?

  "We see you, Joey Waringer."

• 10:41Andy Greenwald?

  The lone American waving the Stars and Stripes. I think that this is... Live music, the festivalization of live music continues apace, right? Like, people are going to these shows, and this is the perfect moment for them to reunite, because the live experience, and the reason why I think live music still is doing well, is because there's an expectation now. It is a whole day's worth, it is an event, you're going with people, you're dressing a certain way, you're behaving a certain way, you're surrounded by people who are similarly minded. You're not, you know, not doing friendship bracelets like at a Swifty show. Perhaps you are, um, Downing Pint? What is the equivalent?

• 11:20Chris Ryan?

  Friendship eightballs? I don't know.

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  Everyone's old now, though.

• 11:23Chris Ryan?

  Friendship straws?

• 11:24Andy Greenwald?

  You should be careful about that, too. Did anyone do any-

• 11:26Chris Ryan?

  I don't think... Nothing in... Nothing deters English people.

• 11:29Andy Greenwald?

  From getting after it?

• 11:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, that... We both have experienced that recently.

• 11:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Andy Greenwald?

  And, and I've tapped out. Pretty quick! Um, has there been a lot of exit polling from Cardiff? In terms of just like the demographics of that show? Like, are there people-

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  I mean, Yasi was there. I mean, I think, I think it's attracting, it's a huge tent.

• 11:47Andy Greenwald?

  Are there people in their twenties being like, "I can't believe I missed them, but this band is everything for me"?

• 11:51Chris Ryan?

  Well, this is the thing, they're such a durable band. Those, those songs sound the same to me today that they did then. They have not really aged that much.

• 11:57Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 11:58Chris Ryan?

  It's like a kind of, uh, perfect example of, like, where, where the future stopped, you know? Like, the, the kind of, the slow cancellation of the future, like, we don't iterate off this stuff.

• 12:09Andy Greenwald?

  The Francis Fukuyama, "End of History"? Is that where you're going?

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  No, Mark Fisher.

• 12:14Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 12:14Chris Ryan?

  Anyway, it doesn't matter, we can get into the slow cancellation of the future later. But, I was just, my last question for you.

• 12:21Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  What would you do-

• 12:23Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  If you had seen the guy who's gone viral, who was Shazamming "Bittersweet Symphony" at the concert when Richard Ashcroft was singing it?

• 12:31Andy Greenwald?

  I have not seen this, is that real? So wait, so Richard Ashcroft opened the show solo.

• 12:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Andy Greenwald?

  And was performing the hits of The Verve.

• 12:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Andy Greenwald?

  And he sang their biggest hit.

• 12:41Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 12:42Andy Greenwald?

  And there was a guy shazaming it.

• 12:44Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  Did, did it come up as a Rolling Stones song?

• 12:48Chris Ryan?

  That's a good question.

• 12:49Andy Greenwald?

  Just because of the legal parameters of that?

• 12:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Andy Greenwald?

  So what was your question?

• 12:54Chris Ryan?

  Would you have slapped the phone out of his hand? Would you have been like, "It's Bittersweet Zippity, it's off Urban Hymns."

• 12:59Andy Greenwald?

  I probably would have been sitting there with my copy of The End of History, just nodding smugly.

• 13:04Andy Greenwald?

  But wait, no, but I, I actually, I don't think that's a bad thing. If someone's like, "Oh, this is, this is a tune, innit."

• 13:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I guess maybe you would be a little bit nervous to turn to a balding lad and just be like, "What's this song?"

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  So it was a young person doing it?

• 13:19Chris Ryan?

  I, I couldn't tell his age, you know how English people look, you know, like...

• 13:22Andy Greenwald?

  They look 15 until they're 55.

• 13:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Andy Greenwald?

  It's a quick, quick cliff.

• 13:28Chris Ryan?

  Did you look at the setlist thoroughly?

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  Did, did Ashcroft do a lot of songs from Alone With Everybody?

• 13:34Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I didn't see his setlist. I mean Oasis is, because the last question I had was, is there anything that they didn't play that you wish they had?

• 13:41Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't think...

• 13:43Chris Ryan?

  Columbia, My Big Mouth.

• 13:46Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, you clearly have some, why don't you get, why don't you get these takes off, King?

• 13:49Chris Ryan?

  As I said, with the Heathen, I think it's Heathen Chemistry, is Lila and Mucky Fingers on that?

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, Lila's good. Gas Panic?

• 13:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Andy Greenwald?

  Off of Shoulder, Standing Shoulder Giant?

• 14:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Andy Greenwald?

  Giant Shoulder. I honestly wish they had done a thing that other legacy artists have done, where if either, any of the members have made songs that are really canonically belong to the band, they just kind of push them into the official setlist.

• 14:15Chris Ryan?

  Is there any High Flying Bird material that you think deserves Oasis?

• 14:18Andy Greenwald?

  Liam's Wall of Glass, which is the greatest Oasis song of the last 15 years.

• 14:22Chris Ryan?

  Wall of Glass, huh?

• 14:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. I'm checking to make sure I get that right before the emailers come after me.

• 14:27Chris Ryan?

  Liam to get really mad about this.

• 14:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Wall of Glass, great song.

• 14:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay, see you, see you at the Rose Bowl in September.

• 14:32Andy Greenwald?

  Are we gonna go?

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, why not? From in town?

• 14:34Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I could think of 100 reasons why not, but I think that would be awesome.

• 14:38Chris Ryan?

  I don't...

• 14:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:39Chris Ryan?

  This doesn't matter, but like, I find the Rose Bowl needlessly complicated to get into.

• 14:44Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure.

• 14:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's why.

• 14:46Chris Ryan?

  It's awesome, and it's beautiful.

• 14:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Chris Ryan?

  But there's like, one road.

• 14:51Andy Greenwald?

  So your plan to fix Los Angeles is more roads? This is, this is.

• 14:57Chris Ryan?

  You know what? Honestly, we do need more roads.

• 14:59Andy Greenwald?

  This is your Robert Caro fix?

• 15:00Chris Ryan?

  We need a monorail.

• 15:01Andy Greenwald?

  Not Robert Caro, um, what's his name?

• 15:03Chris Ryan?

  Robert Moses.

• 15:03Andy Greenwald?

  Moses. Caro wrote about him. We do need a monorail.

• 15:06Chris Ryan?

  One other quick piece of news.

• 15:08Andy Greenwald?

  Is Rock back, though? Is that the takeaway?

• 15:10Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 15:11Andy Greenwald?

  Sad. Here's the question. Ready? Kaia, are you gonna go see Oasis this fall?

• 15:15Chris Ryan?

  Kaia, did you blackout for five minutes while we talked about Oasis?

• 15:18Andy Greenwald?

  Kaia, be honest. What's on your screen right now while we've been talking about Oasis? Also, is it lunchtime? How long have you been talking?

• 15:25Speaker 03

  No, I, I probably won't be. I'm gonna go see, um, Heim in the fall. That's my.

• 15:29Chris Ryan?

  Oh, did you hear Oasis?

• 15:30Andy Greenwald?

  Did you get tickets?

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I did.

• 15:31Chris Ryan?

  Also familial, you know?

• 15:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but they get along.

• 15:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, sisters. It's different. It's a different vibe.

• 15:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Did you know that Netflix has got an itchy trigger finger? And it's started canceling shows a little bit more frequently. Actually, I don't know if it's more frequently, but these three shows, Pulse, uh, which was the Miami hospital show, which had the misfortune of going up against the pit. No Good Deed, the Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano show, has been put on hiatus and may come back with a different cast. Like, I guess it would turn into more of an anthology.

• 15:59Andy Greenwald?

  A, a comp that our listeners might be familiar with for that is Stick the Landing. The podcast.

• 16:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, and The Residents, which was a comic who done it, set at the White House.

• 16:09Andy Greenwald?

  From Shonda, though.

• 16:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and starring, uh, Uzo Aduba. Uh, she, that got canceled after one season despite being, uh, critically well-liked.

• 16:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I was surprised by that.

• 16:17Chris Ryan?

  Um, what's up with this?

• 16:19Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I'll be honest with you. It's hard to tell. They're so opaque with things. It's generally hard to tell what they do, what they're doing and why they do it.

• 16:28Chris Ryan?

  Do you, do you think it would just be a matter of, of the data? Like, whether it was the cost versus the?

• 16:33Andy Greenwald?

  Ultimately, it's the data and the breakthrough. I do think that they are not as numbers-bound as they would like you to believe. I think that if things break through in a meaningful cultural way, or an awards way, or with a certain tastemaker set, certainly not aging podcasters, but otherwise, I think they are responsive to that.

• 16:48Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  I think you can't look at these three things and draw a giant conclusion. I think the biggest one about Pulse is what you said. Netflix was super hype on the show. Even when we have off the record conversations with people, they're like, that's the thing they were checking for.

• 17:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and we were like, I think I even was in my mind, like, these two, this is sort of the Chicago Hope of ER. And it was like, it was a little bit more soapy and sillier than I, not silly like tonally, but like, I was like, this is a silly show. It's about like a hurricane hitting a school bus and stuff, you know?

• 17:22Andy Greenwald?

  But it was interesting. So Pulse was their attempt to, they've eaten up everything else of the industry. Now they're going to eat up broadcast TV.

• 17:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Andy Greenwald?

  And it felt like with all of the weight of Netflix and all the intention of Netflix saying, this is what we're doing. It felt almost inevitable. If you compare it to The Pit, The Pit was, not only did they take the people who were responsible for the things that people loved in the 90s. It didn't iterate the idea to the extreme degree that I think skeptics might have believed that they would. Even when it started, I think you and I were like, oh, so this is going to be ER, sorry lawyers, but, you know, gorier. Or turn to 11. It was not that. Pulse seemed like it had more in common with what broadcast TV has been doing this century.

• 18:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Andy Greenwald?

  Like 911 or even Empire of like, let's just push everything, everything up and make it as, make it as noisy as humanly possible. Which is not what traditional TV fans wanted. Or it's what they've already gotten. It didn't really fill the need.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Andy Greenwald?

  So I'm not, and also it just didn't make a sound in the wake of The Pit. The Residence is the one that surprises me the most because it did seem, A, to be kind of buzzy. I mean, I don't have access to their numbers, but I was definitely aware of it existing and people being fans of it. It also seemed repeatable, like they were going to go to different residences. And it's Shonda. And I kind of just thought that because of her pedigree and the relationship with Netflix, that Netflix would be like, if it's on the fence, if it's on the bubble, they would give it a second go around.

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  I would love to like, look at, aside from the YA leaning stuff, how much of their quote unquote prestige drama gets more than three seasons?

• 19:11Chris Ryan?

  It really does seem like they've kind of changed the paradigm to where like shows kind of wrap up after.

• 19:17Andy Greenwald?

  Sure, but like this didn't even get a second season.

• 19:19Chris Ryan?

  I know, I'm just saying like they they are quick to pull like they they'll pull the ripcord if they don't like what what the numbers are showing them.

• 19:26Andy Greenwald?

  Also, it's certainly not.

• 19:28Chris Ryan?

  Whereas Apple seems to be like, sure, here here's a fifth season.

• 19:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's also but with Netflix, it's not a resource like it's not like they don't have other things. It's not like their service will be lacking or someone will be like, oh, nothing new this week. That's never going to be an issue for them. So the benefit of the doubt like maybe goes away a little bit. It's also worth having the conversation in the light of the other story that Hollywood Reporter ran over the weekend. Net headline, Netflix says 50% of global users now watch anime reveals expanded slate that their viewership of anime has tripled over five years. And so they I mean, they are.

• 20:00Andy Greenwald?

  It's unlike with FX or something where they're like, oh, we've got a bunch going in our drama development pipeline. We're ready to say goodbye to a bubble show or something like that. Netflix is it's it's shopping in all the aisles of the supermarket. So it's not like it cancels the residence because it has other dramas. It cancels the residence because people are watching something else completely different.

• 20:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:20Andy Greenwald?

  And they can put resources in that direction.

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• 22:10Chris Ryan?

  While we concern troll or ask questions of Netflix, we should also throw some flowers their way because the Eternot-

• 22:17Andy Greenwald?

  Are we doing it?

• 22:18Chris Ryan?

  Is like a perfect example of um their, their great contribution to television, which I think is making, one of them, one of their contributions is making international television widely, widely available to audiences over here that maybe ordinarily wouldn't check it out. Now, a couple of years ago, Andy and I fell in love with a German sci-fi show called Dark that we spent a lot of time talking about and me and Jason Gallagher recapped the last two seasons, I think, maybe because you were doing your show. I, I think.

• 22:49Andy Greenwald?

  I, I'm always happy to throw Jason Gallagher some work.

• 22:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, but, and that was on this pod, but the Eternaut like uh, reminds me of Dark in that sensation of like, this is familiar. Like there's stuff, this is a post-apocalyptic drama. There's sci-fi, there's environmental crisis. Uh, there is, are we our greatest, our, our own worst enemy? Kind of thematic stuff going on, but God, this is um.

• 23:18Chris Ryan?

  Escapism slash tourism for for for audiences who don't get to go to Argentina or have never been to Argentina. You can feel the, and this is an Argentinian show, you can feel the infrastructure of Buenos Aires, the textures, the architecture, the rhythms, the customs, the culinary, like even like little bits of like where people get food of like different markets and drugstores and it is, all comes to life even though it's a show set in a period when everything is dying.

• 23:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let's talk a little bit about this.

• 23:49Andy Greenwald?

  But it's not just, first of all, I fucking love this show. I think it's so sick. I'm so excited about it.

• 23:56Chris Ryan?

  Came out in May, yeah.

• 23:57Andy Greenwald?

  But I think it's worth noting, so we're gonna talk about it broadly. We're gonna try to get people to watch it and maybe we can run a little alert signal Chernobyl music and say like, we're gonna spoil a little bit.

• 24:07Chris Ryan?

  I think after the last of a season two, we're not allowed to use Chernobyl music anymore.

• 24:11Andy Greenwald?

  We're gonna do the first half, we each watch three of the six episodes, I believe. I think it's important to say it's not just location tourism, which I am a sucker for and I love. There is a real cultural personality and fingerprint on the story itself, how the story is told. What is significant in the story that makes it feel specific and compelling in a way that is markedly tactile different than if this was just another Hollywood or American television production. I would compare it to Dark or the experience of falling in love with it to watching Dark, but also Le Revenant, the French

• 24:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Andy Greenwald?

  show about supernatural events. It's pretty cool to experience what we often maybe in with our limited thinking, consider to be like Hollywood genre storytelling, refracted through the cultural prisms of another country and another perspective.

• 25:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Andy Greenwald?

  So when we say The Eternate is a comic book adaptation, it's worth noting that this is an Argentine cult comic from the late 50s.

• 25:14Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  This is A different type of graphic storytelling brought to the screen. I wish I could stunt here and say I'm as familiar with this as I am with Riri Williams, the titular Ironheart. I am not.

• 25:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Andy Greenwald?

  I think Fantographics, the great independent comic publisher, produced a translated version of this about a decade ago. I don't even know if it's still in print. Hopefully, it's coming back into print if it's not, but was completely unfamiliar with it.

• 25:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  But it's the kind of thing that when you see like just the one still image from the comic, you're like, oh, that's pretty cool.

• 25:44Chris Ryan?

  I mentioned that we got a really cool email about this show from a listener in Argentina, so I thought I would just read that.

• 25:50Andy Greenwald?

  Please.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  Because it gives a lot of background and context.

• 25:52Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I'd love it.

• 25:53Chris Ryan?

  Hi, Chris and Andy. Greetings from Argentina.

• 25:55Andy Greenwald?

  Here you go.

• 25:56Chris Ryan?

  I'm a longtime listener of the pod and got really excited to hear that you guys will be covering El Eternaut next week. El Eternaut is a very important IP here in Argentina and means a huge deal to us. Everyone has read or at least heard of the original 1950s comic book, and the main character is an iconic figure full of symbolic value. The story's author, Hector G. Osterheld, was sadly tortured and murdered by the dictatorial military regime during the 70s. They hated him and his political views and understood that the ideas from the comic book were too subversive for people to read. In addition, his four daughters were kidnapped and disappeared. Three of his sons-in-law also disappeared. Two of his daughters were pregnant at the time of their kidnapping and are believed to have given birth in captivity.

• 26:37Chris Ryan?

  These horrors from dark times that took place in our country are strongly linked to interpretations of the story. It's impossible to read the comic or watch the TV show and not see the thing that happens in the show, or the killing snow, as a metaphor for something else. This is a story that took a long time to get adapted to the screen, and I think the show really nails it. Truly pays homage to the original material while also allowing for some changes. It's a product that makes us Argentinians really proud, as we rarely get to see local productions with this scope, especially not sci-fi action shows like this one. And then this person goes on to take issue with the fact that I like Boca instead of River Plate.

• 27:15Andy Greenwald?

  This is great.

• 27:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Andy Greenwald?

  I like this guy. Can I read the rest of the email later?

• 27:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure. Thank you for the email, Andy.

• 27:22Andy Greenwald?

  I love this. And I also just, again, best-case scenario for Netflix, particularly with their international expansion, is building up their business in...

• 27:34Andy Greenwald?

  Cultural hubs around the world. And I'm sure it can be a nightmare in development everywhere. But like, one of the things about Dark that we loved was that it seemed like whether it rose to the top immediately, or whether it was a, you know, a more challenging development situation. Either way, the product was like, this is kind of like best case scenario.

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Andy Greenwald?

  For a big budget streamer saying, what have you got? How can we help you make it? Bruno Stagnaro is the creator of this, directed a lot of the episodes, adapted a lot of the episodes. And not familiar with the comic, what I loved about it was how completely confident it is, both in its storytelling, in its introduction to a world and a crazy event that we're going to talk about. But also how true it is to its aesthetic and point of view.

• 28:21Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 28:21Andy Greenwald?

  So that even when things get amplified, they are done with such artistry and restraint and consistency. Right? So that the world that we enter in the beginning, when it's just Buenos Aires, feels consistent, even when things have gone completely to shit. So should we talk about the, the stuff that happens?

• 28:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure. So I guess if you don't want to know anything about this show.

• 28:46Andy Greenwald?

  Well, you gotta know one thing, which is crazy shit happens and it's kind of a dystopian end of the world show. But it doesn't feel like an American one. Okay, before we talk about the plot, let me just say one last thing about it. If this had been an Ameri- there's, this feels like something that I'm sure Hollywood people have attempted to get the rights to and adapt many times. I just, I just assume that.

• 29:07Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 29:07Andy Greenwald?

  Because it's a huge, big story.

• 29:12Andy Greenwald?

  There's something that feels so.

• 29:13Chris Ryan?

  It's also not unlike something like, say, The Mist, like the, you know, like the Frank Darabont adaptation of Stephen King. Yeah.

• 29:21Andy Greenwald?

  And, I mean, it feels like, and this is another reason why I really loved it. It's a zombie story without zombies, in the sense of like a sudden survival story. But, and the enemies, of course, are ourselves, but not, they're also not trying to turn into mushrooms and eat our organs.

• 29:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:36Andy Greenwald?

  At least not yet, through three.

• 29:37Chris Ryan?

  So the story opens.

• 29:39Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to say last thing. If this had been workshopped in a Hollywood development process,

• 29:44Chris Ryan?

  Oh yeah.

• 29:45Andy Greenwald?

  the first thing that would have been thrown away was, would be the cast of characters as inherited from the television, from the comic book. Because the main character, and again, I don't know how old he is in the comics, in order to cast the legendary Argentine actor Ricardo Durin, he's almost 70.

• 30:02Andy Greenwald?

  It's a bunch of like, middle-aged, shout out to the Oasis crowds, it's a bunch of middle-aged dudes playing cards.

• 30:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, late middle-aged guys who get together to play cards in one of their buddy's basements one night.

• 30:12Andy Greenwald?

  There is not a lot of, and I say this as someone who is quite liberal, there's not a lot of like, token diversity in the swath of Buenos Aires that they show us. And I appreciate that.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Nah, seven three.

• 30:25Andy Greenwald?

  Sure, I'm saying it is a diverse, living metropolis. And even like, Ingo's a character that's created for the TV show is not Argentinian, and is of a different social strata and everything. I'm not saying, I want to be very clear, I'm not saying the show is good because it's not woke. I'm saying that it is a very, very specific vision of what would happen to these people in this one pocket of one place.

• 30:46Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 30:47Andy Greenwald?

  And it's not that randomly on this one night, there was, you know, there was some sort of like, club meeting with representatives from every corner of the city, of all age groups, also with one super sexy lady, which I feel like would be the Hollywood version. Like, it's just, you just feel that so much. Everyone is, in American stuff, even when they try not to, everyone's teeth are perfect and they're kind of young. Like, that's just the default setting. And I love that it's not that.

• 31:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so it opens up with, you know, not unlike, say, Lost, some other sci-fi leaning shows, there will be these little cold opens for the episodes that might introduce you to different characters right before everything changes in Argentina and beyond. And for the first episode, we meet Juan, as mentioned by Andy, a few of his friends, they get together to play cards, there have been these power outages in Buenos Aires over the course of the summer. Everybody's sort of pissing and moaning about the government, the infrastructure, how things are going.

• 31:49Andy Greenwald?

  Is the country failing on some level?

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and-

• 31:53Andy Greenwald?

  It could never be us.

• 31:54Chris Ryan?

  Eventually, there is a full blackout, and then, snow starts to fall.

• 31:58Andy Greenwald?

  It's the middle of summer.

• 31:59Chris Ryan?

  Unseasonably, yeah. And-

• 32:02Chris Ryan?

  At first, they think it's a electrical fire or a fire in an electric station and that there's asbestos in the air. And it, they quickly realize that beyond it being whether it's asbestos or not, people, if you inhale the snowflakes, if you inhale the atmosphere.

• 32:18Andy Greenwald?

  If you're outside.

• 32:19Chris Ryan?

  You die almost instantaneously. Um, and it's, you know, creates this incredible puzzle plot of, okay, they happen to be playing cards at this very toolsy kind of fixer-upper DIY guy's house. He has one gas mask. How are they gonna get out, get supplies, get information?

• 32:39Andy Greenwald?

  Sidebar, how many do you have?

• 32:41Chris Ryan?

  Um, you know what? I think I do have a gas mask in Philadelphia, but not for any reasons that I'm interested in talking about.

• 32:49Andy Greenwald?

  The Laramie Tunsil? Is that, was that you?

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  I love you. You have never watched that guy play it down in football, but you know it's-

• 32:59Andy Greenwald?

  Is he still in the league?

• 33:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he is actually. Um, anyway, he's on the commanders. We're gonna have to see him twice this year.

• 33:06Andy Greenwald?

  Not worried.

• 33:07Chris Ryan?

  Okay. Uh, anyway, so the snow is falling, something is wrong, power's out, and immediately, everybody's personalities, uh, I like, I love this. A lot of the times, like, in these apocalyptic sort of survival stories, you know, you get a pretty clear idea even before the events of like, who's who. And I, I like how people change in this show. I like how people, um, react to crisis and, you know, some are very like, uh, creative and they're like, oh, I can do this and we can do that. But some are, um, setting all these rules and, and making all these sort of declarations of how things are gonna be. Others are needlessly rebellious.

• 33:51Chris Ryan?

  Like, there's a lot of like, sort of evolution to the characters, which makes it very interesting to watch beat by beat. And another thing I'll say about this is that there is a storytelling style and a pacing style to this show that can feel laconic at times. Like, you're just like, oh, this scene is going on for a while, or like, we're hanging out in this living room for a long time. And then, almost inevitably, every little bit, every detail winds up mattering. So it's incredibly expansive, but not inefficient storytelling.

• 34:23Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's well said. There's a collection of details that I love that I feel like when describing it, it will make the show sound conventional. But sometimes convention can be helpful guardrails. Like, the introduction of an antagonistic couple at an inopportune moment in the third episode is mostly memorable because, in the moment, it teaches us something about Juan, his ex-wife, Elena, and the troubles, the almost Herculean task they've set out, which is to find their teenage daughter.

• 34:53Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 34:54Andy Greenwald?

  Who we know, because of the opening flashback, is not anywhere where anyone would think she would be.

• 34:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 35:01Andy Greenwald?

  So in that moment, it's a very purposeful scene. It's teaching us about who they are morally. It's teaching them about the world that they are now existing in, only two days into this apocalypse. And that's that. What it also does is gives the filmmakers an opportunity to introduce, as Jack Donaghy would say, a third heat to this post-apocalyptic, or this apocalyptic storyline, by having people who are, the audience has already judged to be morally bad. And bad things happen to them, and we learn about a new bad.

• 35:34Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  Through them.

• 35:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:36Andy Greenwald?

  If that makes sense. I feel like that's kind of horror movie logic, but I don't watch a lot of horror movies. But in the sense that the show is communicating to us, to whom bad things can and should happen, before maybe they invert it later on.

• 35:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I also think that, like I mentioned, with each new challenge, it might change the way a character behaves. Like, that happens over the course of the first three episodes.

• 35:56Andy Greenwald?

  Totally.

• 35:56Chris Ryan?

  Where certain, you know, Juan might be kind of behaving in one way in the first two episodes, but as the prospect of finding his teenage daughter becomes apparent, or that becomes his mission, he becomes a lot more kind of cutthroat and direct about what he's gonna need to do. And this kind of culminates in an amazing second episode for the show. And I would say, if you watch the first one, and you're like, okay, okay, okay, I've seen this before, I feel like this is kind of along the lines of what I've kind of become familiar with, with this dystopian stuff. The second episode is largely set. In an apartment tower.

• 36:33Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:34Chris Ryan?

  And has just enough JG Ballard, like, how soon would it take before everything goes to shit? Kind of satire of society. It has a great cold open of a bunch of people, basically arguing about. Yeah, a co-op board argument. And what plays out in that second episode is like, that's the selling point. You guys gotta check that.

• 36:57Andy Greenwald?

  I had a co-op in New York and that shit is always on the razor's edge of violence.

• 37:00Chris Ryan?

  But you know what? You did, and it wasn't on the razor's edge of violence, but didn't you have like complications?

• 37:06Andy Greenwald?

  I'm saying, those are gonna be the first to tip in to dystopia, like gladly.

• 37:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  It, that whole thing builds so beautifully, but also it has such a smart sense of scale. Because everything hinges on a mask. Or how many bullets are in one handgun?

• 37:22Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 37:22Andy Greenwald?

  Or where you are in the building in relation to windows or what floor you're on. It is ground, ground, ground, ground level. And we have seen, and we've talked about, like, one of the things that was cool about the first season of The Walking Dead was much like with 28 Days Later. What the fuck just happened? We are not people who are equipped to know about this. We are not at the upper echelons of society. It's the inverse of something we were praising recently, the, the big seventh episode of Paradise, which is, which is narrating an end of the world scenario from the seat of power. This is bottom up storytelling. And it doesn't, it's in no, it seems anyway, through three, that it is in no hurry to let us know, to give us any glimpse of something bigger.

• 38:05Andy Greenwald?

  Outside of the experience of these characters in a moment to moment way. You're talking about how the characters changed, like another really great character is Tano, played by Cesar Troncoso, is an Uruguayan actor who's awesome, makes a really strong first impression. I love the fact that he is, at least through the first episode, for one and a half episodes, he is the guy that you are lucky to be around when the shit goes down.

• 38:28Chris Ryan?

  Cause he can fix a radio and fix a battery.

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  And figure stuff out. And also, as, as alluded to by other characters, he's kinda into this stuff. Like, he reads stories, he watches, presumably he's watched all the TV shows that have come out about end of the world scenarios. So he's, he's not a full on prepper, but he's a low key prepper.

• 38:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  As it turns out, being overly prepped may be a downside for your mental health and for your relationships.

• 38:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Andy Greenwald?

  Sidebar here, whenever we talk about dystopian shows, you proudly say.

• 38:58Andy Greenwald?

  That you would probably be pretty good at this. Did this show change your point of view in any way?

• 39:03Chris Ryan?

  Well, I mean, it kind of doesn't matter because the math problem it presents is not one that I would be able to solve in terms of, well, like, if we can't go outside, we can't go outside. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I think I would be do better in a slow-moving zombie situation than I would be in a, the atmosphere itself is poison. And now, of course, you know, we like, because the show needs to expand and move, like, we find a lot of gas masks. Like, we get to the fire station.

• 39:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Chris Ryan?

  We go and we do that. I don't know that that would have occurred to me, for instance.

• 39:34Andy Greenwald?

  To go to the place where there might be masks?

• 39:35Chris Ryan?

  Yes, like, I don't, I don't think I even thought about, like, oh, yeah, firefighters have to wear gas masks when they go into fires.

• 39:40Andy Greenwald?

  I also think that the show-

• 39:41Chris Ryan?

  Although, now I know that after watching Smoke.

• 39:43Andy Greenwald?

  There is a little conversation between these shows. There, uh, I, I was talking to my kids this morning and my older daughter was talking, we were talking about times they've gotten, this is a classic driving to camp conversation, times they've gotten sick on vacation.

• 39:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Andy Greenwald?

  And, uh, my older daughter was like, it actually was pretty okay to get COVID in Hawaii because I don't really want to go, I don't really want to do anything. And I was like, so we, we took you on a real nice vacation and you didn't want to do anything? She's like, no, hotels are nice. I don't want to go outside.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 40:13Andy Greenwald?

  So I was like, so-

• 40:14Chris Ryan?

  Everybody has that age, yeah.

• 40:15Andy Greenwald?

  Or that life. So I was like, in the world of the Eternaut, I think as long as, now, to be clear, would Roblox be down?

• 40:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 40:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, okay, so that might cause some-

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  No internet.

• 40:27Andy Greenwald?

  That might cause some problems.

• 40:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe, what about, like, first-gen iPads?

• 40:30Chris Ryan?

  How would you do with no eagles to follow?

• 40:33Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, if there was no eagle season?

• 40:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, how would I fall asleep at night? What would I, how would I calm myself down? It would be, it would be dire for me.

• 40:42Chris Ryan?

  I wonder who Saquon's golfing with now?

• 40:44Andy Greenwald?

  In heaven, because he was, he was on the back nine.

• 40:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I think the other thing that's worth noting, you don't need to have gotten a nice email like that or Googled the history of the show to understand that there was a- Actual reason politically, emotionally, culturally for this story to exist.

• 41:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 41:08Andy Greenwald?

  This, it's just granular and you cannot separate it from the experience of watching it. Everything feels intentional and meaningful. The sense of dislocation from your neighbors, the fear of being outside of your home, the threat of becoming strangers to ourselves is just so powerfully enmeshed in what the show is. It's not just, you know, it would be fucking sick.

• 41:31Chris Ryan?

  Killer snow.

• 41:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. It's, it's, I find it kind of profound and really, it's like resetting my cultural, my entertainment meter.

• 41:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Andy Greenwald?

  To be like, this is really, really compelling genre storytelling for a reason.

• 41:46Chris Ryan?

  It's a fantastic use of television as a storytelling format because I don't think in a film you could have all these sort of like side stories, side characters, give space and like concentrate on Omar, the guy who's sort of like the last invited to the card game and his brother's with a guy who's there, but like.

• 42:05Andy Greenwald?

  Who's an invented character as well.

• 42:07Chris Ryan?

  Oh, is he?

• 42:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. It's interesting to think what was added and what wasn't. I mean, when the story was written, there weren't, there weren't cell phones, there weren't cars with computers that were to be different from the cars that didn't have computers and thus worked.

• 42:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Andy Greenwald?

  So I think how they figured that out feels very natural to me, but again, I haven't read it. I really, how do you feel about watching this show post COVID? Because again, this is a 70 year old story, but it feels, especially from lived experience, very COVID coded of the idea of like, what can we do? How much do we have to secure things? What do we have to get? How do we wash? How do we exist?

• 42:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I'm not looking forward to ever going back to that, I guess. I, I have a, I would say that I have a really weird relationship to popular culture that somehow captures or documents the previous five years.

• 42:59Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  Like, I'm not super excited to like dig into that yet. And I don't feel like we're really post COVID in terms of like how it changed. Cities are how it changed the way people think or how it changed.

• 43:12Andy Greenwald?

  Empathy.

• 43:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so I'll let you know in a couple of years.

• 43:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's fair. I think the experience of watching it.

• 43:18Chris Ryan?

  If the snow hasn't fallen on us again.

• 43:19Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's, I think, I think it's successful because it is not in any way about that.

• 43:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Andy Greenwald?

  But it's hard not to bring our own experiences to it. Like similarly, I was thinking about the, how quick people turn, you know, to revealing themselves or becoming feudalist or violent even. And it does make me think that like, like I love Lost, but one of the powerful zags of Lost was that it wasn't Lord of the Flies.

• 43:48Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:49Andy Greenwald?

  That there was some aspirational, actually the best of humanity can emerge in these situations too. And that's something that, you know, permission to live out for a second. I think that I kind of.

• 44:01Chris Ryan?

  Well, you have to climb your way out of like, this show is thankfully not woke.

• 44:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's true. I've got a long way to go. But to watch this show and to live in America at this moment, it actually makes me think that Lord of the Flies is pretty prescient.

• 44:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh-huh.

• 44:19Andy Greenwald?

  You know, and I don't know if I believe in the better angels of people at the moment. And it echoes that. It is, but to your point, this isn't, the show is successful because it is what it is. And we're bouncing our own experiential context against it. Not because it was, oh, we've got a, we've got an arrow aimed at the heart of 2025 consciousness.

• 44:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Andy Greenwald?

  It is not that at all. It's just, also, I think it's kind of a, just a classy show. Not just because of the quality of the performances and the sort of veteran actors like Doreen, we mentioned, is so good. It's just, it uses its, I think, probably still by US standards, limited budget incredibly well. Like just the vistas of snow-covered cities with occasional corpses and things is very, very effective.

• 45:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Andy Greenwald?

  And you feel the scope of it. Like even though, how many locations have we been to in three episodes? Maybe six?

• 45:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Andy Greenwald?

  I feel a city.

• 45:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  I feel the scale of it. When the radio suddenly is talking about, there's one message from Uruguay or there's talk of southern Brazil, you're like, oh my God.

• 45:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Andy Greenwald?

  This is enormous and impossible to comprehend.

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  I, I do want to just hit that COVID bit one, one more time because I did think of. One of the things that was sort of interesting about going through that period of time was how six weeks into it, it was like, yeah, we have like Zoom calls with our friends and like this is how we buy groceries. And it was like the adaptability was very quick and that happens in this show as well. You know, like immediately they're like, we have to ration the water. This is, you know, people of like, kind of, you think in your mind, if snow fell in the summer and it became apparent that going outside would kill you, you would be like, well, I've lost my mind and I can't even understand reality anymore. But the human brain doesn't work that way. A lot of the times the human brain is like,

• 46:11Chris Ryan?

  how can I use this to my advantage? Or like, I have totally like now recalibrated myself.

• 46:16Andy Greenwald?

  It's the recalibration. We walk around with these antennas just trying to make things normal all the time.

• 46:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Andy Greenwald?

  Like, okay, well, I guess this is normal. Okay, but fine. This is the bottom now, right? This is normal. Um, did you see that video of the insane cloud? That hit the beach, I think it was in Portugal and it wasn't Nazaré. That like, apparently it's a thing, but not professionally meteorologists. It's like a roll cloud. Kai, did you see this?

• 46:40Andy Greenwald?

  It's basically, looks like a end of days, rolling black cloud just sort of came in off the ocean. And people were filming it and they were like, it was like Jaws. They were like, we have to get out of here. This is the end of everything. And it wasn't yet, or maybe it was. But that, how quickly it went from people like existentially, this is over and the impossible is possible to, oh, I bet this could go viral if I post this on TikTok is pretty quick.

• 47:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I think that, should we maybe try to finish it for Thursday?

• 47:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I, I just, I love the show and, and I think a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about show of the summer, like, I'm not saying this is the show of the summer, but I

• 47:20Chris Ryan?

  It could be for you.

• 47:20Andy Greenwald?

  But I do, thanks, man. I, my show of the summer is the 30 second clip of the Oasis reunion where they're doing acquiesce.

• 47:29Andy Greenwald?

  The The ability to surprise.

• 47:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:32Andy Greenwald?

  That, that.

• 47:33Chris Ryan?

  This is what I was talking about. Like, what, I want something to come out of nowhere and just like, kind of be like, I can't wait to go home and watch one tonight, you know?

• 47:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, let's talk about another show that came out in the summer.

• 47:43Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:43Chris Ryan?

  Which is Smoke on Apple TV. Uh, this is from, uh, Dennis Lehane, who Andy and I have a lot, a lot, lot of respect for. He wrote Mystic River, he wrote Gone Baby Gone. He wrote on the third season of The Wire. He, uh, recently did, or recently enough, did Blackbird for Apple TV and now is reunited with the star of Blackbird, Taron Egerton, to do this show, which is an adaptation of a podcast called Firebug, I believe. Um, this show is about an arson investigator played by Egerton, who's partnered with a police detective who's been kind of busted down to arson, uh, for reasons we'll get into. That's played by Journey Smollet. And, you know, basically, there are two serial arsonists terrorizing a Pacific Northwest town called

• 48:27Chris Ryan?

  umberland. I guess you could just say it's Vancouver. It has, uh, at least three episodes, I believe. Maybe the fourth one's come out already. I can't remember how Apple does it.

• 48:36Andy Greenwald?

  Um. Out of how many?

• 48:37Chris Ryan?

  Uh, nine. Nine episodes.

• 48:39Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 48:40Chris Ryan?

  Uh, reviews for this one have been kind of all over the place. I've seen some that are like, oh my god, please stick with this. I've seen, this is okay. I've seen, this is bad. Where did you net out on this one?

• 48:51Andy Greenwald?

  Just to be, they dropped two episodes and now it's, now it's on a weekly schedule.

• 48:55Chris Ryan?

  Gotcha. And so I watched the first one, which is an hour and 10 minutes, so I, I feel like I did a shift with it, but.

• 49:00Andy Greenwald?

  The other thing that I would say is the, the, some of the creative and executive brain trust behind the show is old HBO.

• 49:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Andy Greenwald?

  Karyon Thalas, who is president of Cinemax and greenlit a lot of the great crime programming they used to do, like Banshee and Quarry, is involved with the show as an EP and also as a writer on one episode. And Richard Plepler, who used to be the, I guess, CEO. He was the business half of the Michael Lombardo era and, and for

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  Do you not?

• 49:23Andy Greenwald?

  20-plus years.

• 49:25Chris Ryan?

  Ple- Plepler?

• 49:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Chris Ryan?

  He's the Don.

• 49:27Andy Greenwald?

  We talk about Plepler on here. We're Plepler people.

• 49:29Chris Ryan?

  But, and there was always, like, to me, like, there was, like, light rumors that he was gonna maybe run Apple TV, right? At the beginning of the.

• 49:36Andy Greenwald?

  That he was, because he was available around the same time.

• 49:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Andy Greenwald?

  But, you know, then they were looking at his CV and they were like, you greenlit after the Thrones?

• 49:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Andy Greenwald?

  We'll take a second meeting, but yeah, so I'm excited to talk to you about the show because here are the two things that I liked about it. I love Dennis Lehane. He's one of the great crime writers of our life. He's a lovely guy. He's been, we've talked to him on the podcast. I think it's so cool when crime writers who we admire so much on the page make a successful transition to the screen. Our, our, our friend and hero, George Pelikanos, they're friends. He's done it as well. Richard Price. Richard Price. I think it's awesome and I want to, I want him to keep working and having these opportunities. You know what else I like about this show? Greg fucking Kinnear. Okay.

• 50:20Andy Greenwald?

  Greg Kinnear plays the fire chief and he is such a breath of fresh air when he comes on the screen because he is an actor playing a character who has made specific choices. And it strikes me as someone who is alive in a world. Okay. That's the end of my praise. Okay. I, I hated the show. I hated the first episode. I hated the experience of watching it. Yeah. And we can go through the reasons, but I would say that my biggest, biggest, biggest reason was the direction. Okay. So this, this show was directed by Carrie Scoglan. Carrie Scoglan, who, who, who we have seen from her work on Falcon and Winter Soldier.

• 51:02Andy Greenwald?

  You said all the things that the show's about.

• 51:06Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think it's about any of those, at least through a pilot. The pilot is about Carrie Scoglan directing this episode. Okay. The camera does not chill the fuck out. If two people are talking in a scene, the camera's free floating, being like, I don't know who to trust in this scene, but I know that I'm moving. When a character walks down a hallway in one scene, the camera is above the ceiling, tracking the ceiling lights. Two people get in a car, camera's like, I'm gonna hang out outside the car. Two people are doing an investigation, camera's like, I'm gonna speed up and do this whole thing in triple time because this is about visual storytelling. I wish it wasn't about visual storytelling. A more boilerplate show about people investigating things with the time, space,

• 51:48Andy Greenwald?

  and breath to develop performances, let alone characters, would have made me feel a lot more comfortable sitting there.

• 51:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 51:55Andy Greenwald?

  Instead, I found the experience of watching this with its multiple layers of storytelling, because Egerton is a detective, he's an investigator, but he used to be a fireman, and he's also now writing a novel and narrating his, I think intentionally bad prose as the story goes on, narrating it in his fucking dime store Tom Holland vibes. I was just so, so deeply out that I'm shocked that you were in.

• 52:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I thought it was fine.

• 52:20Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like this is an Apple thing. I just, I don't understand.

• 52:23Chris Ryan?

  I think that, well, first of all, I would never dare to ask you to watch another episode, and I didn't watch the second one, but she does not direct the second episode.

• 52:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 52:32Chris Ryan?

  I thought that they were throwing a ton of stuff at the wall. It didn't strike me as overly busy, but I think one of the things that I enjoyed was that everything was kind of a cut above the kind of base average procedural. So especially the dialogue, I thought had some pepper to it. And even there's a scene where Egerton goes into a bar and the bartender, he's basically like trying to find out who was at a bar earlier. So he's talking to the bartender and the bartender's kind of giving him a hard time.

• 53:03Andy Greenwald?

  Then she goes, "Do you like vodka?"

• 53:05Chris Ryan?

  No, he goes, she goes, I think he's threatening to like call the like inspection service to check out their kitchen. And finally, she's like, "I like vodka." And he's like, "I too like vodka. I also like vodka." And there's just like a kind of cursive flair to the end of the sentence that I kind of like. And I feel like it comes up a bunch of times. I'm not saying it's reinventing the wheel or mind blowing or anything like that, but I thought you could recognize that Dennis Lehane was writing the dialogue for this show.

• 53:34Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 53:35Chris Ryan?

  Let me, let me keep going, Hillary.

• 53:37Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  All right, go ahead.

• 53:37Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, keep going.

• 53:39Chris Ryan?

  No, go ahead.

• 53:39Andy Greenwald?

  If you're about to praise Dennis Lehane, I'm here for that.

• 53:41Chris Ryan?

  Go ahead. What were you gonna say?

• 53:44Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think it's an Apple's mandate, or in however they think of themselves as a streamer, to let things just be, if letting them be means being the best possible version of themselves. Like, we, when we watch, like, a great British procedural, I don't remember the last one that we loved was, or if there's the last one that you loved, it often is relaxed, or character-based, or not a lot of frippery and frills and overly-directed cinematography or whatever, it's, just is what it is. You don't see, like, the opening of Smoke feels so expensive, and I feel like that's, in the Apple purview, that's a good thing.

• 54:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:25Andy Greenwald?

  Everything is extra mustard, everything is chefed up, to the point of, I think in this, just absolutely teetering incredulity. Like, it's not actually doing the best version of the story that it could be if it just chilled the fuck out. The show just couldn't chill out, because I think that, in its DNA, Apple is like, what we do is, everyone else makes gourmet hamburgers, we make the DB burger at Barbalud, where he puts, like, fucking foie gras in the beef, you know, and it costs $75, and there's a little gold leaf on top. Sometimes I don't want to eat that.

• 54:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Andy Greenwald?

  And I don't think this is the right vehicle for it. It is likely, and I think from people who have enjoyed more episodes, they're like, this is actually a compelling or psychologically rich in crime investigation story, which I generally like.

• 55:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Andy Greenwald?

  But, please continue.

• 55:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I was just gonna say that I also appreciated the fact that, at least in the first episode, the lead was not, like, traumatized by fire, you know? He just had, like, all we know is that he had a bad experience with a fire, but, like, more or less seems well-adjusted.

• 55:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's got a stepson and a wife.

• 55:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Uh, I, I guess, I guess this is more, I don't want to get meta, but I guess this is more of a, do you think you're capable of, like, thinking a show is just okay?

• 55:39Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:40Chris Ryan?

  When's the last time that happened?

• 55:42Andy Greenwald?

  Um, 2021?

• 55:45Andy Greenwald?

  No, I, I think that there's a, I mean this sincerely, I think that there is a, I sound like Joe Biden. You need to really listen to me here, folks. Let me be clear.

• 55:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:56Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, there is a version of this show that I think could be fine. I, I didn't go into this thinking this was going to be an A plus. I actually thought, given the, the people involved, the pedigree, exactly, that like, this might be a really nice B. And sometimes I like a B. And I think that like, artistically and aesthetically, and because of our fandom, like Department Q elevated. But I think Department Q at its heart is just a solid.

• 56:23Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:24Andy Greenwald?

  Crime story.

• 56:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  That did elevate with some directorial flourish and some great writing and performances, but I don't think that is aiming to be the next great show. And I think it succeeds because it has, it understands its goals and also understands its strengths. I think that there is a B version of this, but I found it so deeply aggravating to watch it.

• 56:43Chris Ryan?

  Visually.

• 56:44Andy Greenwald?

  Visually. And then also honestly, like I, I didn't watch Blackbird. I've heard people really liked it.

• 56:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:51Andy Greenwald?

  Paul Walker Hauser got many awards.

• 56:53Chris Ryan?

  Walter Hauser, yeah.

• 56:53Andy Greenwald?

  Sorry, Walter Hauser got many awards for it. Um, this is maybe outside of my children having the Sing movies on. This may be my first FaceTime with Taran Egerton.

• 57:04Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:05Andy Greenwald?

  And I found him deeply implausible.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Never saw a Kingsman movie?

• 57:08Andy Greenwald?

  Never saw a Kingsman movie. Is he the king's boy in it? Is he the prince man?

• 57:11Chris Ryan?

  He's the, the protege, yeah.

• 57:13Andy Greenwald?

  Is he good?

• 57:13Chris Ryan?

  He's fine.

• 57:14Andy Greenwald?

  Cause I think he's an entertainer.

• 57:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:16Andy Greenwald?

  But like, I immediately did not buy him as a grizzled investigator or anything. I found his affect like very boyish.

• 57:23Chris Ryan?

  He's played now multiple, I mean, obviously he was Elton John in Rocket Man, but he is even Carry On, which was the Netflix like big holiday action movie. In this, like, he has played like multiple versions of like a very anonymous character. Now, I think his character in this show has places to go.

• 57:42Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  But. Yeah, I guess I just was like, you know, I felt I I found myself responding to the music of the dialogue. And yeah, I completely agree with you. I think the scenes that really threw me were the ones between Journey Smollett and Ralph Spall, who seemed to be in a completely different show.

• 58:01Andy Greenwald?

  Totally different show.

• 58:01Chris Ryan?

  Like, they were in Long Day's Journey and a night in a hotel room. Whereas like the rest of it has like a kind of tongue in cheek.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 58:09Chris Ryan?

  Black comedy.

• 58:09Andy Greenwald?

  And I don't want to, again, I don't know Carrie Scoglin. She might be a great director and other things. And I don't want to put everything on her because also who knows who had final cut and took over things. But like Journey Smollett, who I like a lot as a performer, like I'm always happy to see her. I just, my impression of watching this pilot is that there wasn't any room for there to be a character. What was left was her wearing Ray-Bans, elbowing in on people and being like, where were you that night? Like as if she was pretending to be a police officer. There was no person there. And I think that that is, ultimately, that is a directorial decision, too. If the camera's set up this way and you're right, doing these scenes a certain way, where do you find the performance?

• 58:44Chris Ryan?

  You get so mad at directors.

• 58:45Andy Greenwald?

  Fucking directors need to chill out. Chill out, directors.

• 58:51Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, you know, I don't know if we ever talked about it. You talked about liking it. And then I don't think we ever talked about, that I checked it out, but the filmmaker.

• 58:57Chris Ryan?

  No, I said.

• 58:58Andy Greenwald?

  Not this, the filmmaker who made, um, uh, The North Road, um, the Australian filmmaker.

• 59:04Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Justin Kurtz.

• 59:05Andy Greenwald?

  Justin Kurtz. And you mentioned, oh, there's some movies that he's made that you really liked. And one of them was The Order.

• 59:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Andy Greenwald?

  And I, then I went and I watched The Order.

• 59:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 59:12Andy Greenwald?

  And I really liked it.

• 59:13Chris Ryan?

  She's in that, too, Journey Smollett.

• 59:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, and, um, but the comparison that I wanted to make in that is that in the movie The Order, which is a very, very American story, right?

• 59:25Chris Ryan?

  Full of British people.

• 59:26Andy Greenwald?

  Full of British people.

• 59:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Andy Greenwald?

  But starring as like a grizzled, uh, rural cop, basically your FBI agent, right? In the movie, uh, is Jude Law. And when I was watching it, I was like, it's really good for the movie and for Jude Law that he's older now? And that he's not like beautiful Dicky from, uh, Town to Mr. Ripley? Because I'm just, I'm just able to buy it.

• 59:52Andy Greenwald?

  Taran Egerton to play this part needs to get back to me in 10 years. You know what I mean?

• 59:55Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 59:56Andy Greenwald?

  That's like-

• 59:56Chris Ryan?

  That's a fair criticism.

• 59:57Andy Greenwald?

  Like that-

• 59:58Chris Ryan?

  And so is your Carrie Skogling, like, I mean, I don't mean to name her. But I, so is your over-directed thing. I think that there's, I knew you weren't gonna love this-

• 1:00:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Chris Ryan?

  The second they did a two weeks earlier flash-

• 1:00:11Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, and then, and then it's two weeks earlier and we're like POV of an arsonist and things are moving fast and the chip bags-

• 1:00:16Chris Ryan?

  You know what it kind of reminded me of? And I, this is, I don't mean, I don't mean like this, like to denigrate either filmmaker, but it kind of reminded me of sometimes when Danny Boyle-

• 1:00:27Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:28Chris Ryan?

  Is just trying to create-

• 1:00:30Andy Greenwald?

  Something.

• 1:00:30Chris Ryan?

  Mustard for mayonnaise. He's just like, I'm all over the place. Like, the camera's flying here, we're going back in time, there's like another little, like nesting doll of an idea here. Like, it was all over the place, but it was strange to watch it with that, that Apple TV sheen on it. Cause it didn't feel raw and fun. I, I still, I still would be curious to check out a couple more, but I, obviously you have-

• 1:00:52Andy Greenwald?

  But I, I appreciate, first of all, I, I appreciate the civil disagreement.

• 1:00:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Andy Greenwald?

  Um, I, but I, I do think that what, in the, in the harsh light of, of day and the smoking embers of the Hobby Lobby that we were allowed access to five minutes after it burned. I feel like what annoys me is about it was the, the chefing up was the extra, was the way that this, and I think it's an Apple thing ultimately, I do. Like, I, I don't, they can make, people's business models are their own, that's their own decision-making. But I think that it's just not in their brand to let something be good.

• 1:01:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Andy Greenwald?

  Or quiet.

• 1:01:37Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:01:38Andy Greenwald?

  Or chill. Everything has to be 211 and it just doesn't serve this, at least in terms of, I, I don't know if it serves in terms of the series. You're right, it could chill out. Often pilot directors leave a, leave a mark and then it's kind of slowly the dial goes down bit by bit over the course of series. Um, but- I think that the vehemence that I'm bringing to this podcast is just how turned off I was by the first episode.

• 1:02:00Chris Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:02:01Andy Greenwald?

  When I think the goal, honestly, of making something noisy is to turn people on and bring people in and get them watching more.

• 1:02:07Chris Ryan?

  I'll check out another one and let you know how it is, but we will probably wrap up this week's Thursday show. We'll probably wrap up Eternaut. Anything else you want to talk about today?

• 1:02:17Andy Greenwald?

  So it's like eternal, but not from the Greek Nautilus traveler.

• 1:02:21Chris Ryan?

  I think the problem is, is that I say eternal, eternal.

• 1:02:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Chris Ryan?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:02:26Andy Greenwald?

  But in Spanish, it's not E, it's A. Eternaut.

• 1:02:30Chris Ryan?

  Eternaut. Yeah. Well, I was gonna ask you this.

• 1:02:32Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:02:33Chris Ryan?

  Can you watch this Eternaut without subtitles?

• 1:02:39Andy Greenwald?

  No, because to me, Portuguese Spanish, the Spanish of Buenos Aires, is so fucking wild.

• 1:02:47Chris Ryan?

  So what Spanish do you feel most comfortable listening to?

• 1:02:49Andy Greenwald?

  All of my teachers, all of my teachers, all of my maestros, we call them. No, like all the teachers that I had, like in high school and as an adult, like they were all, they were generally Colombian, which if you ask a Colombian, they're like, we have the most beautiful Spanish. Actually, if you ask anyone, they all say that.

• 1:03:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:05Andy Greenwald?

  But, but Argentine Spanish, and particularly like from Buenos Aires, there's a lot of shh, shh, shh. They use vos, first of all, for you, which I never even learned how to conjugate. And then, like, instead of saying ayuda, like when she writes in Lipstick Help, they say a shuda.

• 1:03:21Chris Ryan?

  And they have...

• 1:03:22Andy Greenwald?

  Saborsha.

• 1:03:23Chris Ryan?

  There's also like such an interesting, because there's like a lot of Italian influence in Argentina, so I wonder, some of the diction reminded me of Italian.

• 1:03:31Andy Greenwald?

  It is a little Italian, and like, and that's, the Colombians hate that, too. Not to dwell into this world that is not mine. You know, I'm anti-diversity, apparently. Clip that, Kaya. I mean, literally, clip that from the podcast. But it's a great question. No, absolutely not. I was so... I couldn't follow this show at all.

• 1:03:48Chris Ryan?

  I was watching a show the other day where a character is reading Hunger Games in French. And because they know Hunger Games so well, they're hoping to like teach themselves French better.

• 1:04:01Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:04:02Chris Ryan?

  Because they already memorized the book. And I was like, I should do that with like Heat, you know, like watch Heat in Spanish. Teach myself Spanish by watching.

• 1:04:11Andy Greenwald?

  You should read like old Pelikanos novels, like Nick's Trip in any language. Yeah. Seeing if it.

• 1:04:17Chris Ryan?

  But I have to admit, I turned the dubs on on Eternod briefly.

• 1:04:21Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 1:04:21Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, this, this is not cool at all.

• 1:04:24Andy Greenwald?

  No, the, the, the, the sound of the language is really good.

• 1:04:27Chris Ryan?

  Juan, where are you going, man?

• 1:04:28Andy Greenwald?

  Hey, hey, my guy.

• 1:04:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Andy Greenwald?

  My, one thing, as, as children get more online, like my daughter has been using Duolingo.

• 1:04:37Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 1:04:38Andy Greenwald?

  But because she is a child, it's through my email account. So I get the most intense passive aggressive messages every day.

• 1:04:46Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, where it's like you've.

• 1:04:47Andy Greenwald?

  Also, she's doing three languages.

• 1:04:48Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 1:04:49Andy Greenwald?

  So I get.

• 1:04:50Chris Ryan?

  They say your brain's a sponge at that point, you know?

• 1:04:52Andy Greenwald?

  It is. And I get messages like, wow, seems like these messages aren't doing the trick. Seems like you don't really want to learn French after all. It's so mean.

• 1:05:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Andy Greenwald?

  It's so mean.

• 1:05:03Chris Ryan?

  Uh, thanks for listening. Thanks to Kaia.

• 1:05:06Andy Greenwald?

  Talking to me?

• 1:05:06Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to John. Thanks for giving it a shot, you know?

• 1:05:09Andy Greenwald?

  I love.

• 1:05:09Chris Ryan?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:05:10Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I found that really interesting from a, um.

• 1:05:15Chris Ryan?

  Our conversation or the show?

• 1:05:17Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, our conversation was, I thought was.

• 1:05:19Chris Ryan?

  You seemed to make you incredibly angry.

• 1:05:20Andy Greenwald?

  It was like a beat to show me.

• 1:05:21Chris Ryan?

  Be challenged.

• 1:05:22Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think it was?

• 1:05:23Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. I think sometimes you're like, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna fly free. I don't want to be brought down a little bit with my.

• 1:05:28Andy Greenwald?

  No, I was excited.

• 1:05:29Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:29Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, this is how only children we are, that like last night when you checked in with me and I was like, did you like it? And you were like, I thought it was cool. And I said, this is going to be a spicy podcast.

• 1:05:38Chris Ryan?

  No, you said it was to be our biggest fight in a decade, which I assume is going back to True Detective season one.

• 1:05:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, possibly. By the way, that's another thing. We're like, this show doesn't have to be True Detective. Like this, the, the visual language and like everything is deeper, like every, they're in fucking Vancouver. Why does it have to be Carcosa? You know what I mean? Chill fuck out. But I was like, that's good. And then I'm glad we're gonna have, I think it's, first of all, I, I watch a lot of vertical video pods now and, you know, debate is where it's at. And we're usually like, oh, that's a good point, buddy. My point is-

• 1:06:09Chris Ryan?

  We actually haven't been like that. I think I've been like more like forgiving of creative decisions than you have this year.

• 1:06:15Andy Greenwald?

  This year?

• 1:06:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Andy Greenwald?

  You're always more even keeled than I am.

• 1:06:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 1:06:20Andy Greenwald?

  But when I said, "Maybe we'll have a disagreement," when I saw you this morning and we ran into Sean, you were like, "We good?" Like, you thought maybe 27 years of friendship-

• 1:06:32Chris Ryan?

  I know. My wife's out of town again. It's hard to get the social cues.

• 1:06:35Andy Greenwald?

  29 years of friendship. Are you aware of that?

• 1:06:37Chris Ryan?

  We're coming up on 30.

• 1:06:38Andy Greenwald?

  How are we gonna mark that?

• 1:06:39Chris Ryan?

  Go to Oasis.

• 1:06:41Andy Greenwald?

  God, that was so fast.

• 1:06:42Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kaya, thanks to John, thanks to all the Watch listeners and viewers, and we'll be back on Thursday to do more sci-fi in What Is Ours?

• 1:06:52Andy Greenwald?

  It's very, it's kinda niche.

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